Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Tasty Dairy Free Recipes

When Adeline was about a month old, we figured out she had a dairy protein intolerance.  Because I was breastfeeding her, this meant I couldn't eat dairy myself until her body could handle it.  So for the first six months of Adeline's life, I didn't eat any dairy at all.

Fast forward to this year, when Oliver was 5ish weeks old.  He became insanely gassy, waking up every hour during the night at one point because of gas, and was also sounding gurgly, like he had a bit of reflux going on.  Having gone through the dairy protein intolerance once before, I knew it could be one of the easiest fixes for his gassiness, and then read that caffeine consumption can cause reflux in breastfed babies.  I decided to cut out both dairy and caffeine this time.  His gassiness drastically decreased and the gurgles went away. 

So here I am again, avoiding dairy.  I miss cheese.  And ice cream.  Yogurt.  Hot chocolate.  The list goes on.

To get my mind off of missing dairy (which, let's face it, is never going to happen) I've been trying to find new tasty recipes to cook.  Here are some we've made recently that we really liked.


Lemon Butter Chicken - Better Homes and Gardens
https://www.bhg.com/recipe/poultry/lemon-butter-chicken-breasts/

Yes, there's "butter" in the title, but I substituted oil and it was still delicious.  The recipe calls for chicken breast but I used bone-in chicken thighs.  I like thigh meat so much more anyways.  This was very easy to make and had tons of flavor.  Don't worry if you don't have an actual lemon around.  It's still tasty with just the lemon pepper seasoning and bottled lemon juice.  We had it with salad and roasted potatoes.


Sriracha Pork Meatballs - Better Homes and Gardens
https://www.bhg.com/recipe/sriracha-pork-meatballs/

I've never been a huge fan of hot sauce.  Salsa?  Definitely.  I don't think you can grow up in Texas without loving salsa.  Hot sauce has never really been my thing though.  These meatballs changed my mind.  I left the sriracha out of the meatball mixture and sauce so it wouldn't be too spicy for Adeline.  Noah and I put it on our own servings and now we're hooked!  I made these meatballs with some pork shoulder Noah ground up himself.  The meatballs held together beautifully and were very flavorful.  We had them with sticky rice and veggies.


Pizza - Foodie With Family
https://www.foodiewithfamily.com/the-best-pan-pizza-how-why-and-what-to-put-on-it/

Yes, pizza can be delicious without cheese.  Especially if you use this recipe for the crust.  This pizza, which is cooked in a cast iron skillet, will blow your mind!  Fluffy, crispy, chewy, perfect.  You do need to think ahead and mix the dough together the day before, and make sure you don't handle it too much or you'll lose the fluffiness.  But it is so worth the time and effort.  I'm imagining this pizza with pesto, mushrooms, and sausage.  Mmmmm.


Cilantro Lime Chicken - Damn Delicious 

This is actually a freezer meal I prepped before Oliver was born and we were very pleased with how it turned out.  So simple to throw together.  I stirred the beans in at the end because I didn't want them to become really mushy while the chicken cooked.  You can either slice the chicken after it is cooked or use a stand mixer to shred it.  (Yes, that really does work!)  You can turn this meal into burritos, nachos, serve it over rice, turn it into a taco salad, add whatever extras you want (such as cheese), the possibilities are endless!

Now that Oliver is a little older, about three months, I've been able to have caffeine occasionally and it doesn't seem to give him reflux like it did before.  I'm going to wait a little longer to try dairy though since typically the earliest they can outgrow the dairy protein intolerance is around six months old.  Maybe I'll get to have ice cream again before the weather gets too cold!


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