Fun with Dietary Restrictions

Back in September I mentioned Taylor was going to be starting a special diet to try and resolve some of his problems with his skin. He’s been on it for a week now, which means I’ve kind of been on it too- if I’m making food for everyone I don’t want to be making a bunch of different meals (of course, this didn’t stop me from asking Taylor to make me a grilled cheese sandwich when he was making eggplant and asparagus for himself, but in my defense I was sick).

the two people who liked my “I AM OFFENDED TBH” comment were Taylor and myself
The thing about this diet is that you pretty much can’t eat ANYTHING that you haven’t made yourself from scratch. Everything that comes in a package has corn or wheat or soy or nuts or SOMETHING he can’t have. He had to quit drinking coffee and switch to herbal tea, and the only one I can find that doesn’t have lemon or orange peel in it is mint. It’s really frustrating, and I wish again that we’d thought to do this in the summer, when all you want to eat is raw fruits and vegetables, not heavy, hearty filling comfort foods.

for the first new, Taylor-friendly dish I made spaghetti squash with homemade pasta sauce.

this is my plate, hence the parmesan cheese
I was hoping I could use the jarred sauce I already had, since it was all organic and fancy, but it had soy in it, so NOPE. I made the sauce myself with a bunch of fresh vegetables and a can of whole tomatoes, which was the GROSSEST THING EVER, they plopped out like a bunch of gelatinous fetuses and I had to squish them.

The spaghetti squash itself was okay, I was really anxious about it since I am the world’s pickiest eater, but in spite of smelling like horrible pumpkin guts when raw, it tasted like pretty much nothing once I’d cooked it. It was really filling too, neither of us finished our plates. The one downside was that when Taylor tried to take some leftovers to work they basically dissolved into liquid.

My next attempt was a bigger success: potato & leek soup.

This was my favourite thing I made, I actually really like potato & leek soup but most store bought ones I’ve tried have disappointed me. I made this in two pots- one I blended the cooked potatoes, leeks and vegetable stock to get a smooth consistency, in the other I drained the broth from the potatoes and leeks so I would have some solid pieces to add texture to the soup.

Of course, I couldn’t use any store bought stock and had to make my own from scratch! So making soup took about five hours, but on the upside the stock recipe made about 500 gallons so I now have all the stock I’ll ever need, frozen in ice cube form.

it was a very leek-centric broth experience

Thursday is usually our poutine night, and although I said I wasn’t going to have any without him, Taylor told me so many times I should still have some and he didn’t mind, that when the day came I really wanted some. So it’s his fault! While he was picking it up I made him some grilled asparagus and portobella mushrooms.

I initially only grilled one mushroom because he didn’t know if he would like them- he did, so he grilled two more himself, although he didn’t do as good of a job as I did. He had some leftover brown rice that he added to his meal, except I think he thinks he needs to suffer on this diet so he didn’t bother warming it up? idk.

Taylor himself made our dinner on Friday night, brown rice with carrots, celery and green peppers, topped with sunflower sprouts.

Originally he was just going to serve the rice with raw cut up vegetables, but I gave him one of these >____> until he broke down and cooked them.

So I guess so far it’s going alright? On the nights when we’re all eating together I’ve been able to find a pretty good balance between what Taylor CAN eat with what Sym and I WILL eat, and we’ve had some pretty good successes with trying new things. A lot of people have suggested I look at vegan or gluten-free cooking blogs to get ideas, but so many of the recipes on them have ingredients he can’t eat that it’s actually easier for me to just take regular recipes and modify them myself (for example, the soup recipe called for butter, but I just subbed in some olive oil instead). However, if any of you have any good recipe ideas that don’t contain any of the following ingredients, I’d love to hear them!

The full list of foods Taylor can’t have right now (it’s a little redundant in places):
• caffeine*
• refined sugar*
• refined grains*
• alcohol*
• spicy food*
• chocolate**
• white flour**
• fried food**
• processed food**
• animal products (meat, etc)
• dairy
• eggs
• coconut & coconut products/tree nuts/peanuts
• seeds
• hydrogenated vegetable oils
• wheat/gluten (it’s in EVERYTHING, I had to go to four different grocery stores to find wheat-free oatmeal, wth)
• corn & anything derived from corn
• soy in any form
• strawberries
• citrus fruit

*these foods he is supposed to cut out completely forever and ever
**these foods he is supposed to avoid as much as possible forever and ever