Recipe Time! Quinoa Salad, Home Canned Dill Pickles

    When I started turning into an insane, exhausted crazy woman late Saturday night, my husband suggested that I take a break from all the corn reading for a few days.  That was good advice, since you can get swallowed up by this whole thing, trying to learn all there is to know.  He reminded me that there is no way I can learn everything all at once and said to focus on what I know and just live life for a bit.  I was pretty darned near hysterics, because I had planned to can pickles after getting a bushel of pickling cucumbers at the farmers' market Saturday morning.  I was so tired that I took a nap that afternoon with the intention of sleeping for a few hours, only to wake up about 5 hours later.  I still had some errands to run so took Brittany with me to pick up canning salt and some other things.  By the time I was ready to start washing cucumbers and start the brine, it was around 11:00 p.m. and I was not a nice person to be around.  I'm glad I listened to my husband and let it rest.  We managed to fit all the cukes in the refrigerator so they wouldn't spoil--I was still bent out of shape about that because ideally you should pickle them the same day they are picked--and I decided that regardless of whether it would be too long of a wait or not, I would wait until Monday (today) to start canning.

    Kristy, from the Avoiding Corn forum on Delphi, shared an old-fashioned recipe for pickles that uses a different process. I am excited to try that one, once I get all the ingredients I need. I'll let you know how it turns out when I try it!  In the meantime, I started canning season with the pickle recipe I've been most happy with in the past.

I got in 6 beautiful quarts today and have enough cukes for about 11 more tomorrow, and I think they will be fine!

    Aren't they pretty?  The recipe I use is pretty simple, but it really does turn out great dill pickles.  Apple cider vinegar is a must, and I use Bragg's, which is guaranteed corn-free.  I love doing my own canning and knowing that the ingredients I use are good for my family.  Wednesday morning I am getting about a bushel of the really tiny pickling cucumbers so I can have baby dills.  Can't wait for those!  Here is my recipe; can't remember where I got it, so I can't give credit where it's due.

Home Canned Dill Pickles

8 lbs. pickling cucumbers (they work best because the skins are thinner than with slicing cucumbers)

4 c. apple cider vinegar (Bragg's)

12 c. water

2/3 c. pickling/canning salt

16 cloves garlic, peeled & halved

8 sprigs dill weed

8 heads dill weed

    Make sure your jars are thoroughly cleaned and sterilized.  I usually wash mine in the dishwasher and use the heat dry setting; this should be sufficient to sterilize.  If you hand wash, sterilize them in the oven.  I tip my jars upside down on a jelly roll pan and heat the oven to about 275 F and let the jars heat for about 20 minutes.  Then I turn the heat off and leave the jars in, taking them out as I fill them so the hot brine doesn't shock the glass.  Extreme opposites in temperatures can cause the glass to shatter.

    In large pot, pour the 12 c. water and 4 c. apple cider vinegar, along with the salt (make sure it is canning salt, and for sure do not use iodized salt.  This is a general rule of thumb, not just for corn avoiders).  Heat until boiling, then turn heat off.  This is your brine.

    Put about 1" water in small saucepan with canning lids.  Bring barely to a boil, then turn down to simmer.  This sterilizes the lids until you are ready to put them on the jars.

    While the brine is heating, wash cucumbers in cold water; I dump them in the kitchen sink and fill the sink with cold water, then take them out as I need them.  Put 1 sprig and head of dill weed in each jar, along with 2 cloves of garlic cut in half lengthwise.  Pack cucumbers into jarst as tightly as you can, leaving about 1/2" headspace from top of jar.  Pour the brine into jar (I use a canning funnel on the jar and a soup ladel for pouring the brine) to 1/2" headspace. Wipe tops of jars with a clean, wet cloth and apply lids and rings.

    Process in boiling water bath or steam canner, following directions of manufacturer.  I use a steam canner because it produces the same results as the bath but uses less water.

    Remove jars and set on counter.  Lids are sealed when you hear them pop and they stay down when you push them.  Wait at least 3 weeks to eat them, and store in a cool, dark place for best shelf life.  These should be good for 2 years--we are still eating pickles I made 2 years ago, and they taste great!

    Now, I have to talk about how dinner was tonight!  I was very happy with it.  We had grilled grass-fed sirloin steaks which come from a local supplier and which I verified through the store to be corn-free, sliced strawberries mixed with just a tiny bit of Stevia, and quinoa salad.  I am particularly proud of the quinoa salad, since I came up with my own recipe for this and it has been very successful.  I've taken it for a few potlucks and have gotten very positive responses every time I've done so.  The thing I loved about dinner tonight, besides it being safe to eat and very tasty, was that it was PRETTY.  I am a big fan of pretty meals lately, probably because coming up with satisfying, safe meals is such a challenge when you are dealing with multiple allergies.  The quinoa salad is very colorful and festive-looking.

Quinoa Salad, Heidi-Style

    Quinoa is one of my happiest discoveries of the past year.  It cooks up the same as white rice, with the same ratios of grain to water, and I love the taste and smell.  It is also extremely healthy, since it is a complete protein all by itself.  I never have the yucky, full feeling after eating it like I do after eating white rice (I use mostly brown rice now anyway).  I always feel fantastic and energized after a meal with quinoa.

2 c. cooked quinoa (1 c. quinoa, 1 c. water, salt to taste)

finely diced fresh vegetables of your choice.  I use:

1/2 yellow squash

1/2 zucchini

1/4-1/2 green bell pepper, same amount orange bell pepper

1 medium tomato

1 avocado

Cool quinoa in bowl, add cut-up vegetables, and add dressing, salt and pepper to taste.  This is the dressing I make; I don't pour all of it in the salad.  Add enough to moisten all ingredients and add enough flavor to salad:  (I mix my dressing in a dressing shaker)

1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil

1/2 c. balsamic vinegar

1 T. dried parsley flakes

1 T. dried basil

1 T. dried oregano

salt and pepper to taste

Shake dressing and let sit; repeat a few times before pouring on sald.  Mix all salad ingredients; chill salad for about an hour before serving.

    Tonight's salad, the one in the photo, has no avocado or orange bell pepper.  Since finding out that waxed produce is corny, I haven't been able to find unwaxed orange bell peppers and I didn't have an avocado on hand.  I did use something new I found at the farmer's market, called a chocolate bell pepper.  It has kind of a purplish color to it on the outside but is green on the inside.

    Can I just say that this salad is just about the only way I can get my husband to eat squash?

    I am hoping to find safe orange peppers soon; they look so pretty in this salad.  Last time I made this salad for company, one of the guests commented that it looked like colored confetti. :)

Why Baby Carrots are Bad

"Hey, what are these green things?"

    Brittany is coming out of a bad few weeks, the beginning of which I was totally baffled as to why she was doing so poorly.  Prior to that she had felt better than she had in years and even had some almost-pain-free days.

    It didn't make sense to me, because I read every freaking label on anything I buy and do most of my cooking from scratch.  Then I realized that the one thing different was that I had been purchasing store-bought spelt bread for about a month.  I was so excited when I found this; the ingredients list is short and basic.  Brittany is able to tolerate spelt well, fortunately, but I have not been able to get a yeast breast to turn out well in my baking.  Usually we end up doing flatbread, muffins, pancakes or waffles.  When I found this bread I was so excited at being able to just purchase it and at the idea that she could actually just make a sandwich.  That seemed to be the only thing different that could be contributing to her headaches being so bad, so I thought, "Maybe there is more I need to know about yeast," and also had the thought that I should learn more about vinegar because I had had a nagging feeling about that one.  We use balsamic and apple cider vinegar quite a bit, especially in homemade salad dressing.

    I got on the Delphi forum and asked about yeast and vinegar, and got more information than I ever dreamed I would glean in such a short period of time.  First, most commercial yeast is now grown on--you guessed it--CORN SYRUP.  The one exception is Red Star yeast, not in the jar but only in the packet strips of three, which is grown on molasses.  With vinegar, white distilled is always something to stay away from because it is made from corn.  Apple cider is best, but Heinz is not corn free.  Bragg's is guaranteed corn-free.  Some brands of balsamic are okay.

    The discussion grew from there and eventually the subject turned to another bad boy around here--citric acid.  I did not know that it is usually from corn, but I did know that it flattens both Brittany and my husband.  If you have ever tried to shop while avoiding citric acid, you can appreciate how that one is everywhere.  You can't buy canned fruit and many canned vegetables without it, and very little juice.  It is always in candy.  It is in all prepackaged foods.  Those convenient seasoning mixes?  The devil made them.  Who in America doesn't keep spaghetti sauce packets in their cupboard, or a jar of Prego?  Somewhere in this discussion someone brought up BABY CARROTS.  I was like, "Huh???"  I still think this is the news of the century that most people don't know about. . .baby carrots are washed in citric acid before they are packaged.

    That gave me another answer to why Brittany had been feeling so awful.  She had been downing baby carrots by the bagful.  Poor kid; when I told her she said, "That's what I've been doing my emotional eating with!"  How sad is that?  Speaking of which, how many people resort to CARROTS for comfort food?  At that point I knew it was going to be awhile before she was going to feel up to doing much.  It made me so angry to learn that as careful as I was trying to be, she still got zapped because she ate a stupid carrot.

    So I went to Good Earth and got organic, unwashed carrots.  And wow, we got the whole carrot.  Who here remembers long, green thingies on the tops of carrots?  I had almost forgotten what that looked like. ;)

    So. . .baby carrots.  Great idea?  I think not.  Take THAT, doc.

A Note About Allergy Testing

    I just want to post a quick note about what kind of allergy testing picked up the food sensitivities for us.

    When Brittany was in grade school, I suspected seasonal allergies and took her to an allergist, where they did the scratch test that most people associate with allergy testing.  It picked up a few minor things, including "maybe a slight reaction to dairy."

    Later, when I asked the doctor I referred to in my first post about food allergies, he said nothing to me about being able to do bloodwork to detect food allergies.  It was at least a year later that a doctor who oversaw a sleep study we had done answered my question about allergies by saying, "Oh yes, I can order the bloodwork for that."  I was FLOORED that blood testing was readily available and widely recognized by the medical community, but the doctor I asked about food allergies at the beginning of the migraine saga gave me a dirty look and didn't even offer blood testing as an available option.  I didn't ask for that specifically because I didn't know.  So, the sleep study doctor, of all people, ordered bloodwork.  At this time I was most uptight about wheat and was positive that the tests would come back screaming that wheat was bad for her.  When we got the "normal" results back, I was floored and chalked my intuition up to being a paranoid mother who was grasping at any possible explanation I could get.

    The DO who brought up food allergies practices in an office where they do electrodermal testing.  I had never heard of it before.  When we went into the office where the lady performed the tests, I had to sign a waiver stating that I understood that this type of testing is not recognized by the scientific community.  At this point I got a little nervous and asked her how this compared with scratch testing and bloodwork.  She told me that in the 15 years she had been doing this, her experience had been that it picked up what those tests did and more, because it detects not only allergies but SENSITIVITIES.

    She had Brittany hold a bar with a moistened piece of gauze on it, which was attached to a computerized program that measured the wavelengths in her body.  Then it compared it to a list of foods that were already entered in with their wavelengths to show what was incompatible.  I felt very vindicated when the machine went nuts on wheat and dairy, and surprised at the similar reaction to corn, which I never would have thought of.

    Some of the things it showed were things that I thought, "Seriously?"--like raspberries, for example.  After three weeks of eliminating everything and then reintroducing to see what effect the foods had on her (there is about a 15% error margin, and some food reactions might be minor enough that the person might not need to cut them out completely; just limit to a "once in a while" indulgence), we discovered that the results were right on.  Raspberries, for example--or anything in that family--give her an instant splitting headache.

    So, recognized by the scientific community or not, that is where we got our answers.  Alternative medicine is how she has started to feel better.  I'm a fan.

Why This Blog? Clues From My Freezer

    This morning I cleaned out my freezer.  I threw out all kinds of things--lunch meat, popsicles, a Weight Watchers microwave meal, ground beef, chicken in several forms, a Green Giant potato/green bean blend with sauce, tilapia, several kinds of buns and whole-wheat flatbread, white baby corn and a Mexi-corn mix with black beans, onions and peppers.  I looked at the huge, assorted pile before I stuffed it all in a bag and chucked it in the bin outside and as I did, thought about how funny it was that other than the fact that some of it had been in the freezer too long, every single thing I was throwing away had a common ingredient that would have made me chuck it all anyway.

    Really?  What does flatbread have in common with a popsicle, and what does that have in common with a box of chicken breasts?  The answer is in the last two things I listed.  Seriously????  Seriously.  Yup, it's corn.

    My nineteen-year-old daughter has been mysteriously, debilitatingly ill for the past 4 1/2 years.  It started in the spring of 2008 with severe, migraine-like headaches that we couldn't get effective treatment or relief for.  Her head always hurt.  Always.  Any medication we tried either didn't work, gave her an allergic reaction or she experienced the undesirable "possible but unlikely" side effects.

    Besides the head pain, she also experienced a variety of other symptoms that were baffling and frightening.  Every time we had any kind of test done, the results came back normal.  I got to where I actually felt angry when I got the call from the nurse saying, "Good news!  Her tests came out normal!" because several times I thought, "This is it!  We finally have answers!"

    Through all of this, Brittany showed incredible strength.  She has always had a very strong personality and a zest for life, and that has served her well through this trying time.  Even with the amount of pain she was experiencing, she would push through it a lot of the time to make it to school as much as possible, socialize with her friends, exercise, etc.  During the winter months in particular, school hours were the worst time of day for her and so she missed a lot of school because of how much pain she was in.  Often, when exercising, she would have to stop sooner than she wanted to because her head pain would increase.  I know it was very frustrating for her to not be able to do all the things she wanted to do.  Through it all I have been amazed at how often she has picked herself up, brushed herself off, and kept pushing ahead.  She has a great eye for photography and has become quite a camera bug--she loves experimenting with settings, angles and editing.  She is a very gifted writer and is very talented artistically, so she channeled a lot into writing and drawing.  She would also find ways to serve other people and do thoughtful things for them--one Christmas season she did The Twelve Days of Christmas anonymously for our elderly neighbor, putting little gifts on her porch on each of the twelve days leading up to Christmas.

    My searching finally led to an osteopathic doctor who, after a few visits, suggested that one of the things we might look into was food allergies.  I hadn't considered that food allergies could cause headaches; I always associated them with gastrointestinal problems, rashes, etc.  We had testing done in that office and that turned up a huge list of food allergies and sensitivities.  The ironic thing about this is that when all of this first started and I took her to the doctor after her first allergic reaction to medication, I had a feeling as I was going out of his office that she was allergic to wheat.  I turned around and said, "Do you mind if I ask you a question?"  He asked what I wanted and I said, "How do you go about determining if someone has a food allergy, like to wheat or something?"  I wish I had a camera shot of the look he gave me when I said that--like I was from Mars or something.  He shrugged his shoulders in a very offhand way and said, "Well, I guess you could take her off stuff and see what happens."  That's it.  That's all I got.  So I thought I must be the crazy one to bring that up and got the message loud and clear to keep my mouth shut on that subject.

    Isn't it funny that the testing at the DO's office confirmed that gut feeling about wheat, as well as one I had had about dairy?  Besides those two things the list also included all cheeses, barley, rye, corn, soy, peanuts, citrus fruits, raspberries, chocolate, caffeine, sucrose, fructose, aspartame and Splenda.  Pretty big list!  I had already had her off wheat and dairy for a month based on intuition before we had the testing done; man, I thought wheat was everywhere!  We eliminated everything on the list from her diet and saw dramatic improvements.

    Still, we would keep running into phases where she was feeling a lot better, able to be more active, etc. and then would get pummeled by head pain again.  Usually when this happens, it's a guaranteed 3 weeks or so before she's able to function during the day.  Every time this would happen, seemingly out of the blue, we could trace it to something different about her food.  I was very careful about ingredients but didn't know all the different names for corn.  Obviously I didn't feed her corn, and didn't buy anything with cornstarch or corn syrup listed, and didn't use these myself.  The first big one we found was xanthan gum, which I had been using in a gluten-free bread recipe.  I didn't know at the time that that was derived from corn.  Got rid of that, and 3 weeks later she was better.  Then we started making a connection between severe, shooting pain behind the eyes and citric acid.

    The really defining moment came one day this past March when I was getting a prescription refilled for her and I had a feeling to ask the pharmacist if there was cornstarch in the pills.  When I finally got the answer that there was, so many puzzle pieces started fitting together.  No WONDER none of the pain medicines had worked; she was taking this prescription every freaking day for two and a half years!  Not to mention the fact that most of the pain medications probably had cornstarch in them, as well.  I thought, "Could it really boil down to something as simple as a food allergy to corn?"  I have found, over and over since then that yes, it can and in her case it does.  Every instinct inside of me screamed to get that medication out of her body, NOW.  I immediately stopped the medication and two weeks later, after a lot of really terrible pain, she was at rest and day by day after that she seemed to wake up more and more.  Her manner and the bright-eyed personality I remembered from earlier years shone through and I thought, "Oh, THERE you are; I remember you!  I've missed you!"

    All this brings me to the single reason I have begun this blog.  I know I am just one in a huge sea of blogs out there, and by no means do I have all the answers.  I don't have zippy photos of fabulous recipes I have prepared, and I don't have enough technical know-how to have the most eye-catching blog out there.  But I have a story to tell, and I can't bear the thought of anyone living through the hell we have been living in for so many years when there are simple answers that will fix it.  If I had had the right doctor at the beginning who would take my question about food allergies seriously at the time, maybe my daughter would not have been robbed of enjoying her life in the ways that teenagers are supposed to be able to.  There are few things worse than seeing your child suffer and not being able to fix it.  There were several times over the past several years when I felt like I was watching her die.

    I am closing this entry by including a link that I found just over a week ago that lists traditional AND nontraditional corn allergy symptoms.  My daughter had all but about three symptoms on the list, including ones that mimicked bipolar symptoms.  If you or someone you love are experiencing any symptoms on this list, please look at a corn allergy before you accept any other diagnosis and take any prescriptions to the pharmacy.  http://www.cornallergens.com/symptoms/corn-allergy-symptoms.php  The site also mentions the Avoiding Corn Forum on Delphi Forums, which has been an absolute godsend: 
http://forums.delphiforums.com/n/main.asp?webtag=avoidingcorn&nav=start&prettyurl=%2Favoidingcorn%2F