Ok ya’ll, It is so rare for me to find food that is actually good. As you know, I have a bajillion food allergies. I am always cooking. I’m a pinterest fiend. I’m also the girl who sits on the floor of the cookbook section of Barnes and Noble with a stack of paleo cookbooks. I’ve always been a food person, I love cooking, eating is yummy, baked good are de-lish... do to my love of food combined with food allergies I have been forced to become creative. So creative that I own a bunch of paleo/gluten free cookbooks, have 4 varying pinterest food boards, and follow a TON of foodie bloggers I follow.
The other day I was desperate for pound cake. So in pursuit of my desire I picked a random easy looking recipe on pinterest. Have you ever tasted furniture polish? Don’t try it, I’ve never opened a bottle of furniture polish and gone, YUM, and took a gulp. But this lemon pound cake I made, sure did taste like what I’d imagine furniture polish to taste like. The whole darn thing went straight into the trash. I was very disappointed and had wasted three cups of almond flour in the process.
I tried again the next day, this time with a recipe from one of my Against All Grain cookbooks. OH. MY. GOSH. Hahahaaaaa YUM. I could have sat there and eaten the ENTIRE THING! Even my family and friends who tried it thought it was delicious.
Now this isn’t me saying that everything you try on pinterest will be furniture polish quality.
But there is a difference.
Here are some things I’ve learned about happy recipe hunting.
1: Cookbooks have a test kitchen. If a book is published it has an editor. If a cookbook makes it to the shelf, what's in it has to be legit good right? Where online anyone can publish anything, and some people might enjoy what they made and share it and that’s ok! But that food hasn’t necessarily been tested. In other words, don’t get your hopes up about an online recipie. Try it, but have your brain and stomach in the right place before feeling disappointed.
2: MAKE SURE YOUR COOKBOOKS HAVE PICTURES IN THEM!!! I never ever trust a recipe without a picture. Without one you can’t compare what you made to what the food is supposed to look like. Also, I can tell if food looks good just by looking at it. Let the picture tell you whether it worth making or not. (This applies to pinterest as well.)
3: Be ready to be disappointed. Cooking with allergies is hard and nothing, really almost nothing, is going to taste like an entenmann's cake, or a Krispy Kreme donut or a real burger with melty cheese and a real bun. I’m so used to the paleo diet that fortunately I’ve forgotten what real cheese tastes like and the consistency of beef. Even eating refined sugar makes me sick. If you set your mind to a new expectation for food you will be less and less disappointed.
I am going to start to share all the things I cook and bake and grade them in my instagram @autoimmuneadventure. I’ll let you know where you can find the recipes as a reference and hopefully that will help. I’ve been happily eating sensitivity free for years now and i’m looking forward to sharing all the yumminess with you!
