Two Month Soy Update

I looked back through my old blog posts and realized that I’ve been off soy for over 2 months and haven’t had any stomach trouble since I had a reaction to the strawberry cake I made for Bug’s birthday at the beginning of February.  I think I’ve figured out what that was all about.  There was no soy involved yes, but my stomach hadn’t healed from the damage I’d previously inflicted my body reacted to the butter.  Since then I haven’t had any issues with butter.  This means that maybe I can start making cookies again (provided the other ingredients are soy free) with butter rather than shortening!  Yay!  Happy Dance!  I’ll eventually (hopefully) blog about it, but I recently made homemade crescent rolls (from scratch) with a lot of butter and eaten quite a few of them without issue.  The recipe I used needs  little tweaking, but hopefully I’ll have it right before tomorrow night as I’m making several dozen to bring to Easter dinner at Darling Hubby’s Grandpa’s house on Sunday.

So, what have I been eating?  Well, I’m still making my own homemade breads.  I’ve learned to make 2 one pound loaves of white bread at a time using my bread machine for the dough and then baking it in my oven.  I freeze one and slice the other for immediate consumption.  It’s so good!  I generally have 2 slices for breakfast with a cup of Rooibos (African – pronounced roy boss) tea with honey, often topped with orange marmalade or kerrigold irish butter.  Yum!  Sometimes for lunch I’ll make a Fluffernutter sandwich (made with Peter Pan PB and the original marshmallow fluff) with banana and honey.  Yum!  I’ve been eating  a lot of fresh fruit – plums, nectarines, bananas, grapes, strawberries.  We always have a veggie with dinner.  I’ve also started finding new ways to cook potatoes and I’ve been making myself sweet potato fries, too.  I’ve found a brand of panko bread crumbs that are soy free – only one of about 7 different bread crumb brands on the shelf!), so I’ve been making my own breading for chicken and fish (yes, I’ve started buying fresh fish from the fish counter rather than the dried out or greasy soy laced battered things that come in a box.)

I’m still making my own taco seasoning and seasonings for chili and all my meats. And, just cause it’s less fat, I’ve been rinsing my browned ground beef before I add seasoning or put it in my other dishes.  It cuts down on the amount of fat that my family is ingesting.  We’re still eating a lot of pasta.  It’s yummy and everyone eats it, either with homemade spaghetti sauce or plain with just butter and sprinkle cheese.  I also make my own homemade pizza dough, topped with my own seasoned tomato sauce, turkey pepperoni and skim milk cheese.  I only use olive oil or corn oil, now, as well.

Oh, we’ve even been making our own homemade bagels.  Darling Hubby usually has a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast and since I’m soy free I can’t have the bagels from the grocery store.  I found a simple recipe in my bread machine book and we’ve made several batches.  It took a bit of time for us to really figure it all out, but now it’s easy, though time consuming, to make homemade bagels.  Darling Hubby enjoys Asiago cheese bagels, so that’s what we’ve been making as of late.

I’ve found a few treats for myself that are soy free.  I found some yummy sweet potato and beet chips (I think the brand was Terra) and even some kosher for Easter chocolate chips that have no unnecessary ingredients.   The grocery store decided to no longer carry my Equal Exchange organic chocolate bars, so I no longer have those to snack on.  They were delish!  Oh, and the No Pudge! brownie mix, made with only good stuff is yummy made with Stonyfield’ No Fat French Vanilla yogurt.  Oh, and we bought an air pop popcorn popper so we can make batches of fresh popcorn for snacks and always for movie night!  Both my kids can polish off an entire bowl of popcorn all on their own!  lol  They love their popcorn!

So, there you have it.  The things I’ve figured out while on a soy free diet.  It just takes a little consistency and several days of eating the same thing over and over til you find what works, but it can be done!

If anyone has any questions about going soy free or has anything to add to my growing (thankfully) list of foods to eat, please comment!  I want to help others who may be going through the same thing I am!  Now I’m off to make soy free tacos!  lol

Early Edition! Food for Friday! 3/26 – 4/8

I got a super early start on my grocery list/menu this week.  Mostly because I listened to the Coupon Lady on WGNA this morning on my way home from dropping Bug off at school.  I’m still looking for the .75 cents off any gallon of milk coupon she mentioned, though.  She pointed out that Price Chopper is now accepting competitors coupons (like from Target and Walmart) and I went on a search to find coupons for items that I could use this week.  I’m not sure if Price Chopper will allow one competitor’s store coupon and a manufacture’s coupon like they do with their own store coupons, but I’m trying to find out.  According to the Coupon Lady, they do accept both, but the policy written on their website indicated they do not.  I’ll update when I find out.  Update: They do not accept both.  😦  I was really hoping they did cause I’ve got some Target coupons and manufactures coupons for things I’d like to use together!  I’m really trying to stay well under budget this week.  I think so far I’ve got about $20 in coupons and e-coupons, plus whatever advantage savings I get from sale items.

I’m still continuing to make dinners without soy, which, I’m sure I’ve said before, makes my grocery bill higher.  It’s been nearly 2 months that I’ve been off soy and I haven’t had even the slightest twinge of my usual stomach pain and I’ve even found that I wake up in the morning without that queasy feeling I so often had.  There are still the occasional things that I’ll make for the boys or for Darling Hubby that contain soy, but I just avoid them.  I mostly do this since we still have the things in the pantry or the freezer and I want to use them up.

I’m trying some new recipes this time.  A few weeks ago, I made the Skinny Chicken Parm and it was delish!  Definitely a keeper recipe!  The Italian Chicken Bake, on the other hand, left a lot to be desired in my book.  It took longer than necessary to cook and just wasn’t what I was expecting…well, they can’t all be keepers.

This time around I’m trying (and modifying) a Cheesy Pot Pie recipe to be soy free and making it into a shepherd’s pie.  I’m going to make the Velveeta filling with the ground beef and instead of using the canned crescent rolls, I’m going to use mashed potatoes instead.

I’m also trying out a Pinterest recipe called Crescent Chicken which is chunks of chicken and cheese rolled up in a crescent roll.  I’m going to make my own crescent rolls (hopefully I’ll have the recipe down as I’m making several dozen to bring to Easter Dinner this weekend so I know I’ll be able to eat one thing at the family gathering.  lol) and I’ve found an organic cream of chicken soup that is soy free.  And, speaking of making my own bread, I’ve still got to make the homemade hamburger buns.  Fingers crossed they come out well!

Monday – Rotisserie Chicken with mashed potatoes and veggies
Tuesday – Chicken Ceasar Wraps
Wednesday – Spaghetti with homemade sauce
Thursday – Homemade hamburgers with homemade buns, tater tots (for the boys) and sweet potato fries for me and Darling Hubby.
Friday –  Crescent Roll Chicken (made with homemade crescent rolls)
Saturday – Homemade pancakes
Sunday – Steak and potatoes

Monday – Ham, mashed potatoes and veggies
Tuesday – Cheesy Shepherd’s Pie (modified from Cheesy Pot Pie)
Wednesday – Homemade macaroni and cheese with ham
Thursday – Game Night – Bacon and eggs
Friday – Chicken Curry, rice and veggie
Saturday – Fresh Fish (I’ll pick up some fresh when I go shopping this day)
Sunday – Cheeseburger Roll-up