It's Official...I can't have dairy...

I'm going to be "upping" my blog posts here, more of a personal journey of sorts. I'm fighting with the idea that I am allergic to milk...and of course milk products. On and off for the past 5 1/2 years I've had to eliminate Milk and Soy from my diet for nursing reasons, and after I stopped nursing my youngest I've never been able to handle milk again. My skin feels itchy, my face and body brakes out in hives, and I've had a red patch on my arm that gets better when I am very careful about what I eat...all this to say I keep testing it out to make sure it's not something else that makes me react. Well yesterday after having lunch with my oldest we stopped at a meat market and picked up some sausages...and of course a bag of fresh cheese curds...who can resist fresh cheese curds. I had a few...no more than 10 and almost instantly my face grew hot, and started to itch...today I have hives covering my face and look like a teenager going through puberty. So I'm back to dairy free...of course I'll have dairy tomorrow night when I eat dinner out with a friend. My goal in "upping" my posts is to be helpful to others who are facing the same issue I am and help with recipes out there that are dairy free or that I can aid people in modifying recipes to become dairy free. My house is not entirely dairy free...but I do mostly cook dairy free and then let those dairy eating people in my house add that cheese after.

 

Let me tell you some of my favorite products that I "live" off of. First off...I do a lot of my baking with rice milk and a milk free, soy free margarine...or I use a canola oil. Canola because when we had to go Soy Free, we couldn't have vegeatable oil...because of Soy Beans. I also have discovered certain brands that I can have…did you know that a lot of brands and products have soy in them…for example generic tomato soup has soy, yet Campbell’s ®Tomato Soup doesn’t.  Tostitos ® have soy yet Fritos ® don’t…even a packet of Taco Seasoning has soy…so I make my own…same with enchilada sauce, so if you don’t have a Soy Allergy some of my recipes you can just canned products. 

 

So tonight it’s left over chili…I season my chili with my own spices, I don’t add a packet of seasoning…I use chili powder, garlic, salt and pepper.