I Don't Diet

You don't scare me.

That may change someday, but as of 3 months into my 33rd year, I have found that dieting is not for me.  I also don't like to work out.  That being said, I would much prefer working out to dieting.  I love to eat.  I especially love to eat sweets.


You're probably wondering where I'm going with this...


Desserts!  If there is one thing that is difficult to make when you have dairy allergies are desserts.  I could handle dinner and lunch but one thing I knew I would have a really hard time with was dessert.  Yes, I could eat things like Jello, Popsicles and fruit for dessert.  Booooring.  I demand baked goods!  I like to bake from scratch, but I the easiest way to start was to look into boxed baked goods and packaged cookies.  

My new best friend.  

Most of their boxed baked goods have no dairy in them.  

My favorites:

100% Whole Grain Wild Maine Blueberry Muffin Mix

Chewy Fudge Brownie Mix

Mmmmm dessert w/o the consequences.  

Check it, my favorite cookie gets recognition, as well!

Unfortunately, someone really messed this one up.  These are a no-no.

Thankfully there are a lot of manufacturers out there that are putting any allergy items at the bottom of their ingredients list like this:

Sugar, Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour (Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Vegetable Oil Shortening (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Propylene Glycol Mono- and Diesters Of Fats, Mono- and Diglycerides), Cocoa Powder Processed with Alkali, Dextrose, Leavening (Sodium Bicarbonate, Dicalcium Phosphate, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate). Contains 2% Or Less Of: Wheat Starch, Salt, Polyglycerol Esters Of Fatty Acids, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Cellulose Gum, Xanthan Gum.

Contains: Wheat

This makes it a lot easier to search for dairy free items in the grocery store.  I've spent 10 minutes in the cookie aisle before (yes, I know I have a problem).  I recently found that our local grocery store - Lowe's Foods has a lot of cookies in their store brand that are dairy free.  

Ingredient and names to stay away from:

caseinate

sodium caseinate

whey

non-dairy topping

non-dairy creamer

This baby is a no-no, as well.

As much as I love to cook, I haven't researched or tested with any fake-butter spreads for baking.  I don't have unlimited funds to try one recipe multiple times just to see which spread works best.  I'll leave things like that to blogs like this one.  Mostly I keep to the packaged dessert items to make things easy.  I find cooking dairy free meals for my husband and me much easier than baking dairy free.

When I'm cooking a meal, I'll use Olive Oil instead of butter and Soy Milk in place of regular Milk.  It doesn't always turn out amazing, but it works.  I haven't found a good substitution for cheddar cheese or ricotta yet but I'll keep working on that.  For now, I'll stick to semi-healthy food.  The grill is definitely a dairy free best friend. 

A favorite meal that doesn't include dairy:

Grilled London Broil to medium rare, sliced.

Red Potatoes tossed in olive oil, rosemary and salt and pepper.  Baked at 425 for 20-30 minutes or until crispy and browned on the outside.  These also cook up well in the grill.

Steamed broccoli seasoned with sea salt.