My Favourite Pizza Dough

I make this in my bread machine, and it’s delicious! As easy as it is to grab store bought pizza dough, it usually has dairy.

This recipe is from the bread machine cook book. I didn’t invent it.

1 Cup Warm Water

1 Tbsp Oil

1 Tbsp Dairy Free Milk (I used Almond)

1 tsp Salt

2 Tbsp Sugar

2 and 3/4 cups of flour

1 Tbsp Yeast (I use Bread Machine Yeast)

Combine all the ingredients in the bread machine. Use the Dough Cycle.

Remove the dough from the machine and press into an oiled pizza pan or baking tray. (I like to rub a little bit of oil onto my hands before I handle the dough. It can be a bit sticky). Cover the dough with a tea towel and allow to rise for at least 15 more minutes. (If your house is chilly, or you’re starving, set the pan on the top of the oven and turn the oven on. It rises faster on a warm surface).

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Add your favourite pizza toppings. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

*Note, when using the Daiya cheese, it doesn’t exactly brown/bubble like regular cheese. But it does get melty.

 

Pizza pizza pizza pizza

One of the things I was least looking forward to about having to cut out dairy was the lack of pizza in my life. Maybe it’s the years of working at Pizza Hut, or making pizza with my mom as a kid, but not a week goes by without a slice.

So how the heck can I have pizza without dairy? Pizza with no cheese seems like an open faced sandwich, just crust and toppings. Not my jam. Most store bought dough has dairy in it. I’ve never found a packaged dry dough that doesn’t taste like doughy cardboard. So what do I do? MAKE MY OWN!

Who has time to make pizza dough you say? Well, if you have a bread maker, it’s super easy! Dump in your ingredients, press start, and about an hour later, you’ve got perfect, dairy free dough!

Now, I know you’ve tried dairy free cheese. It’s a bit of an acquired taste. And you’ve got to be careful when it comes to “lactose free” versus “dairy free,” because sometimes sensitivity to dairy isn’t just to lactose, it’s to casein. Anyways, Daiya is my go to cheese like substance. I wouldn’t eat it by the handful, but it makes a decent grilled cheese, and is probably in its glory on pizza.

Lately, I’ve been making big portions of meat, like jerk chicken or pulled pork, and tossing the last little bits onto my weekend pizza. This week’s creation was pulled pork with a sweet & spicy BNB sauce, fresh pineapple, Jalapeno, bacon, cilantro and daiya. It was freaking delicious. What are you favorite pizza toppings?

Being Dairy-Free on a Holiday

Holidays are a tough time to have dietary restrictions. Comfort food that prominently features dairy is usually being offered left, right and centre. To be honest, I had a lot of anxiety about going to family dinners over Easter. The night before my husband’s family dinner, mountains of creamy mashed potatoes, vegetables smothered in cheese sauce, turkey swaddled in a coat of butter all haunted my dreams. In the afternoon, before heading to their house, we quickly whipped up a couple of dairy free versions of some side dishes (cauliflower “mashed potatoes,” and biscuits), so that I wouldn’t just be eating a plate full of ham.

When we arrived, my mother-in-law showed me little containers of each off the offered side dishes with nothing added. I was so excited! A dash of salt & pepper, and a smear of Earth Balance spread, and I had a delicious plate filled with ham, sweet potatoes, cauliflower, spaghetti squash & salad, all dairy-free. Sadly, we had to run off before dessert, because our little guy was having a rough night and we couldn’t settle him down, despite our best efforts.

Having missed the dessert course on Friday night, I had a hankering for a piece of pie, so on Saturday, I decided to bake a pie. I found a recipe for a coconut oil pie crust; having never made pastry before, I found it a bit challenging, but it turned out pretty good, though it was pretty crumbly to work with. Apparently, crumbly pie crust dough actually translates to delicious, flaky pie crust once you fill it up with blueberries & raspberries and pop it in the oven to wait for a torturous sixty plus minutes to get to eat it.

Sunday afternoon, we packed up again and went to visit my parents, where my dad had excitedly promised a delicious leg of lamb and lots of dairy free sides!

Another great dairy-free dinner! I was being anxious for nothing!

Sadly, I had to skip dessert again, although the homemade Lemon Meringue Pie that my mom prepared was awfully tempting!

It’s so wonderful to know that I have such supportive family that can easily adapt to a food allergy.

Happy Easter everyone!

 

Learning to speak up

As I sit here today, wearing my third shirt of the day (it’s not even lunch time), and smelling strongly of baby spit up, I realize that I need to learn how to speak up.

Last night, I went out to a restaurant for dinner. One that I haven’t been to since stopping dairy. I read their menu ahead of time to make sure there was something I could eat, and had a short list of items that I could order. I picked a pasta dish, that didn’t list any dairy items in the description. When I ordered, I asked for a salad with no cheese. I said I couldn’t have the garlic bread because of the butter. But I never actually told my server that I couldn’t have dairy.

When my meal arrived, I had a few bites. But something didn’t quite seem right to me. The sauce, which was supposed to be a cajun tomato sauce, was very creamy. Immediately, I thought cheese. Crap. I called the server over and asked. She said, oh no, no cheese in there. I said, what about any other dairy? She said, oh yes, it has sour cream in it. Double crap. I had it packed up to take home to my husband, and switched to one of my other options.

In the back of my mind, I thought, I only had a few bites, so it shouldn’t affect the baby too badly. Wrong. I’ve never seen so much vomit come out of such a tiny person.

My first reaction was to blame my server. When I said no cheese, no butter, she should have known, right? NO! It’s my responsibility to tell her that I can’t have it, not her responsibility to “know.” And then I thought about what I should have said. I have a DAIRY ALLERGY. Really, I don’t. My kid does. And that’s harder for people to understand. But I have to treat it as if it’s my allergy, because everything that I put into my body, goes to my baby.

I know people say that going out to eat is so much easier, but I think every other person or parent of a child with an allergy would agree, that it’s so much easier to cook at home, with safe ingredients.

Store Bought Products I Love

Since I’m still new to this, I’m still figuring out things that I can eat, that actually taste good! This page does not contain any affiliate links. They are just genuinely products that I like. Here’s a few of my favourites so far:

Blue Diamond Almond Breeze (Almond Milk)

https://www.bluediamond.com/?navid=33

It was a bit of an adjustment, but I switched my cow’s milk out for Blue Diamond Almond Milk. It tastes fantastic in a cappuccino, on cereal, and can easily be substituted in any recipe for whatever milk that is called for. I personally prefer the unsweetened, but the original isn’t too bad. I think the only thing that it took some adjusting to have it in was my tea. I often pour a little bit into a small mason jar to take with me if I’m going to my parents or my in-laws, or to a restaurant where I might drink coffee. If I’m going to somewhere that is nut free (like our local early years centre), I can go without.

Daiya Dairy Free Cheese

http://daiyafoods.com

I haven’t tried everything in the product line yet, mainly because there are only a few items available from their product line in our local store (small town problems). The mozzarella and cheddar style shreds are awesome on homemade pizza, on a sandwich, in an omelette, pretty much anywhere you would put cheese. The cream cheese style spread is fantastic on crackers, and I’m looking forward to seeing if I can make a cheesecake out of it.

Someday, I will make it to a bigger city grocery store and try some more of the products, but from what I have tried so far, it gets my stamp of approval.

Earth Balance Spread

http://earthbalancenatural.com

I like it on my toast, it works well as a butter substitute in recipes, and it’s available at my local store. For some reason I gravitated towards the Soy Free variety, and it’s the only one that I’ve tried. After visiting their website, I realize they have quite an extensive product line, but sadly, the only things I’ve seen locally are the spreads.

Depending on what I’m making, I sometimes use coconut oil instead of the earth balance. My favourite brand is Nutiva 

http://nutiva.com

I keep both the Virgin (has coconut flavour), and Refined (little or no coconut flavour) on hand. We can buy the Virgin in a huge container at Costco, which is great for us because of how much we go through. I use it in baking, for frying; my husband likes it in his coffee. Not to mention that I use it for massage and on my son’s bum due to its safety for use with cloth diapers.

I use the Refined Coconut Oil when I’m making something that I want to avoid the coconut flavour. It’s quite a bit more expensive, so I use it sparingly.

I also have used the Coconut Manna (aka Coconut Butter). I’m sure there are lots more uses for it, but so far, I’ve only used it to make Vegan Parmesan Cheese.

Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips

http://enjoylifefoods.com

Sometimes, a girl needs chocolate. And by sometimes, I mean pretty much every day. While dark chocolate is considered to be dairy-free, I’m just not a fan of the taste. Plus the whole “may contain milk” from other products prepared in the same factory is a bit of a deal breaker. Enter Enjoy Life chocolate chips. They are free of the top eight allergens. They taste like chocolate. You can bake with them, melt them, eat them by the handfuls. They rock. I prefer the Mini Chips for baking, because then there is tiny bits of chocolate deliciousness in every bite. I’ve tried baking with the Mega Chunks, but they are pretty big, and I like to have some chocolate taste in every bite. So these are better for eating.

I’ve also tried a few other Enjoy Life products, and I have to say, they might be my favourite allergy sensitive brand. The soft baked cookies are awesome, but they disappear really quickly; I keep a few of the Chewy Bars in my car, and in the diaper bag for quick snacks when I’m on the go. I have to say, I would be like a kid in a candy store if I found a place that carried their full product line.

 

Obviously, there will be many more items to add to this list as I discover new, delicious things, but the ones above are ones that I definitely reach for every single day.

 

Getting Started

Why am I doing this?

You might think it’s as easy as being able to eat a little less cheese, or have one less cappuccino in a day, but if dairy is an issue for you or someone who you are nourishing with your own body, it needs to go. Cold turkey.

I am a self-professed cheese addict. There is cheese on every single meal I prepare. If there isn’t, I probably ran out. I drink at least two cappuccinos a day. I eat cereal with milk. I cook with butter. There is dairy in just about every bite of food that goes in my mouth. At least there was.

When I realized that dairy was making my poor little boy react badly, I tried my best to cut out dairy, as soon as possible. I switched from cow’s milk to almond milk or coconut milk, butter became Earth Balance spread or coconut oil, regular cheese became dairy free cheese-like product.

I thought I was doing pretty well. Some days though, my son would spit up or vomit as much as if I ate an entire pizza. Things that I thought were ok, weren’t. I was reading labels, but I didn’t know what to look for. I assumed that if it was “lactose free,” that meant dairy free. Knowing that I had made a mistake somewhere, I went back and rechecked my labels. The culprit? A smoothie. I had an almond milk smoothie, lots of fruit and veggies and delicious things, plus a scoop of lactose free whey protein powder. Sure enough, somewhere below lactose-free, it said it bold lettering “contains milk.” I looked it up, and to my surprise learned that whey is made from milk. Crap!

So what I needed to do was learn the lingo. A good friend whose child has a milk allergy directed me to the Food Allergy Resource & Education website. They have this handy, dandy list of all the words that mean dairy. Find it here: http://www.foodallergy.org/allergens/milk-allergy?

So from then on, I did most of the shopping. I read every label of every product that went in my cart. If I asked my husband to pick anything up, it was something that I had already cleared as “safe.” Did grocery shopping become a huge chore? Yes, but it didn’t matter. I was up for the challenge. The majority of things I buy come from the grocery store perimeter or gluten free/organic sections. This isn’t the easiest thing in the world, living in a town with a population of under 3,000 people. Sometimes the bigger city visits were a must. Things that I use a lot of, come from Costco or a bulk food store. Specialty items, I find at a health food store. It’s a work in progress, and so far, it’s working.