After I posted my menu plan on Monday it occurred to me that because I used the links this week instead of adding my recipes I didn’t show my substitutions for our diet. I will probably be using the links more often, especially for breakfast so I thought I would write up a post about how I make our diet dairy and soy free.

When I first started cooking this way I looked high and low for easy  recipes that my kids could and would eat. I had a very hard time. Typically when you cook without dairy you use soy as a substitute, mostly in the form of margarine, oils, etc…  When you are cooking without soy you use dairy as a substitute. So where did that leave me. My biggest difficulty was fats. I needed to use something but I found it difficult to substitute a liquid fat for a solid fat. I just didn’t like the way it was turning out. Then I found out a few things.

1. You can use bananas or applesauce measure for measure in place of a solid fat like butter or margarine.
2. Clarified Butter  or Ghee has no Casein (milk solids, what my kids can’t have) and can be used measure for measure in place of butter or margarine.
3. Rice milk can replace milk measure for measure
4. Many items packaged as “Heart Healthy” use canola or olive oil instead of vegetable oil.

These 4 things completely changed the way I cooked. Now for things like muffins and cakes and batter breads, I use a traditional recipe and just substitute unsweetened applesauce in place of the butter or margarine. When I make icing I use the clarified butter. It has made it so much easier to find recipes that the kids will eat without having to go out and buy hard to find and expensive ingredients.

For the few prepackaged items that I buy, things like spaghetti sauce, pancake mix, etc.., when it is packaged as “Heart Healthy” they typically use canola oil instead of vegetable. Vegetable oil almost always contains soybean oil.

There are still a few things that substitutions don’t work for. I have found that bread is one of those things that I needed to find a dairy and soy free recipe for. No matter how many recipes I tried, both with and without the bread machine using substitutions just didn’t work. The recipe that I finally settled on works great and doesn’t use a solid fat, so I can easily substitute canola oil for the vegetable oil that the recipe calls for.

There are also times that I can add something later after dishing up my kids plates. This usually is the case with cheese. When I make eggs for the whole family my husband and I like to have some cheddar cheese on our eggs, but I can’t put it on the kids eggs. In that case I make the eggs first and then after I dish up the kids food I sprinkle on the cheese and let it melt for my husband and I.

That is how I keep our diet dairy and soy free. Any time I post a link that uses dairy or soy in the recipe, now you know how I am able to use that recipe.

Jason is going to be away this week for three days on a business trip. I really don’t like cooking for one person. While I am not technically cooking for just one person, the kids hardly ever eat what I cook, unless Alex is being bribed with Candy. So the days that he is going to be away I decided to make things that I know they like. I know they will eat, and it will help the days until Daddy comes home easier. Tuesday is family night at our local Chick-Fil-A, so I decided to go there for dinner on Tuesday, instead of going out for dinner on Friday night like we usually do.

Hope everyone has a good week.

Week 4:  Breakfast Meal Plan
Meal 1:  Old-Fashioned Potato Pancakes
Meal 2: Apple Bars
Meal 3: Cinnamon & Honey Apple
Meal 4: Sautéed Cinnamon Apple Crisp
Meal 5: Cinnamon-Raisin Bread
Meal 6: Cereal with Fresh Fruit

Week 4:  Dinner Meal Plan
Day 1: Tacos, Refried Beans, Mexican Corn
Day 2: Hot Dogs, French Fries
Day 3:  Chicken Teriyaki over Rice, Grilled Pineapple Slices
Day 4:  Pancakes, Fresh Fruit
Day 5:  Pizza, Salad

Thanks to my wonderful husband I was able to get my chart up this week. Mondays are always leftover days since I go to the grocery store on Tuesdays. My week, at least for menu planning purposes starts on Tuesday.

I hope everybody has a great Easter Sunday. Enjoy the time with your family and take the time to remember what God has sacrificed for us.

Heather

This is my favorite time of year. Not only is winter finally over and hopefully the cold along with it, but we get to celebrate my favorite holiday, Easter. I just love celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. Nothing makes me happier than to know that because he died for me and rose again, I have been forgiven of all my sins. How can you top that.

What has got me thinking is the term easter. Last year and this year I have become increasingly aware of the controversy surrounding the word easter, and the pagen roots of easter. I have heard of more and more people who refuse to celebrate any holidays other than the Jewish holidays outlined in the bible. This is primarily the 7 feasts, as well as the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah) Now I have no problem celebrating those holidays. They are part of my heritage as a Christian. Jesus didn’t come to abolish the law, he came to complete it. Mt. 5:17. What I am still having trouble understanding is how you could not want to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus. That is the whole point. If Jesus had not risen again, where would we be, dead. The basis that Jesus does not command us to celebrate the major Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter is complete baloney. He doesn’t tell us in the bible to celebrate Hanukkah, yet this group of people do just that. Hanukkah is described in the book of Maccabees, which is not in any of my bibles. Yes Hanukkah is mentioned is the book of John, John tells us that Jesus celebrated the Feast of Dedication Jn 10:22. To say that we shouldn’t celebrate Christmas and Easter because Jesus never celebrated them is in my opinion wrong. How could he have celebrated them, we have them because of him. It just makes no sense to me.

I understand not wanting to associate The Resurrection with a pagan holiday. Instead of using the term easter, call it Resurrection Sunday. I know plenty of people who use that term rather than easter. You don’t want to have any of the commercialized trappings of easter than don’t. Alex and Lizzie have never even heard of the term easter bunny, let alone seen one or had their picture taken with one. Yes our children get baskets, but I try to put something in them besides candy. Something that helps them to understand the very abstract idea of The Resurrection.  One thing we use is Ressurection Eggs, along with the movie, Miss Pattycakes Egg Stravaganza This year I plan to put the Resurrection eggs in at least Alex’s basket, along with his candy.

As I said before I see nothing wrong with celebrating the feasts of the OT. In fact we celebrate Passover every year with my parents. The kids love it. This year I am thinking about having a mini Seder every night of passover.   I am also thinking about celebrating in some way the other feasts with the kids, especially as we homeschool. I think it is good for all of us to remember our roots. I just don’t think  we should forget about Jesus in the process of remembering our roots, He is our roots.

So I am trying something new this week. I made up a week long calendar for all our meals this week. I am still working off of the 12 week plan for breakfast and Lunch, I just put it all on a calendar that is on our fridge. I did this mostly so that I can see at a glance what I am making that day, in order to prepare through out the day. If I see in the morning that I am making hamburgers that night, I know I need to start the rolls in the bread machine in the morning. That type of thing. I haven’t figured out how to get my calendar on here yet. Maybe next week. I am still putting our breakfast and dinner plans down.

As usual if you want any of the recipes, just ask.

Week 3: Breakfast Meal Plan
Meal 1:  Banana Crumb Muffins
Meal 2:  Alphabet Pancakes
Meal 3: Waffles
Meal 4:  Biscuit Breakfast Sandwiches
Meal 5:  Hash Brown Sandwich
Meal 6: Cereal with Fresh Fruit

Week3: Dinner Meal Plan
Day 1: Blt’s, Curly Fries, Apple Slices
Day 2: Sliced Ham, Sweet Potatoes, Corn
Day 3: Hot Ham and Cheese Sandwiches, Chips
Day 4: Grilled Pork Tenderloin, Long Grain and Wild Rice,  Grilled Veggies
Day 5: Chili, Cornbread

Have a great week.