Tasty Foods: Zucchini Hummus

I'm tempted to run upstairs and whip up a batch of zucchini hummus just so I can take some photos for this post, but I'm out of avocados and there are no grocery stores open after 10 PM in SOMA (don't get me started on the EBAY Now ads that make ZERO sense to me.  Who goes to the park, thinks they are starting to burn and orders sun screen for delivery in about an hour????? By the time your sun screen arrives you WILL have a sunburn, I'm sorry to say.). 

Rod and Judy were awesome enough to share the recipe they served for zucchini hummus when we went over for dinner at their place the first time. I have to say, I like it more than "standard" hummus, and I really like hummus. 

Zucchini hummus is amazingly light and doesn't have the same heaviness that a bean based hummus has (though I guess you may be okay with that fullness). It's raw, it's vegan and it's delicious.  

I made two batches for our wedding. Originally I was going to make a double batch using the recipe from ibreatheimhungry, which is pretty darn delicious on it's own. It was the morning before the wedding and I had a couple of avocados that needed to be used so I decided to throw them in the mix.  

Zucchini hummus + Avocados = AMAZING!  

The original recipe is as follows.  I made it the first few times using my Ninja and it took a while to really break everything down and get it smooth.  We got a BlendTec (of Will it Blend? fame) and it made short work of the hummus (about 45 seconds).  Play with what you've got to find out how awesome this recipe is.  

It's amazing as a dip but I've also discovered how rad it goes with just about everything. Top a steak with it. Top a chicken breast with it.  Breakfast sausage?  It's delicious. 

ORIGINAL LOW CARB HUMMUS (from ibreatheimhungry.com)

Ingredients:

4 cups peeled & chopped raw zucchini

3/4 cups tahini (sesame paste)

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup olive oil

4 cloves of garlic, peeled

2 teaspoons kosher salt (or to taste)

1 Tbl ground cumin

Combine all ingredients in a blender and puree until thick and smooth.  Taste and adjust seasonings to your preference.  Pour into a shallow bowl and garnish with parsley, paprika and a drizzle of olive oil if desired.  

My modified version of this recipe swaps out the 1/4 cup of olive oil for 2 avocados.  The remaining ingredients remain the same as do the instructions.  
 
This was one of the first non-AIP foods I tried eating and it appears I can tolerate seeds (sesame paste), which made me really happy.  Cumin is technically not AIP friendly, but I was going a bit nuts and just wanted "regular" food. I haven't had any sort of noticeable reaction to this recipe, so it's in regular rotation. 
 
Speaking of AIP, I think I need to get back to being super serious about it. For days now, my sinuses have been swollen (they feel like they "pop") and I've had terrible headaches. I'm not sure if it's the pressure changes due to the rain or what, but I'm pretty miserable. Loosening up made getting through the wedding a bit easier, but I really need to isolate foods to find out what is tolerable and what is not (the sunbutter cookies I came up with last week were amazing. Hopefully they weren't the issue). 

Waging a war.......... on YOU

I've been really terrible at updating the blog lately.

I've been busy with work, school, wedding prep and projects.

We finally got the invitations done and mailed out.  It was the perfect excuse for me to buy a craft cutter and now I just need to find enough time to work on .svg files for paper crafting as well as creating jewelry designs and finishing out the semester :)

I've noticed that weight loss/health has taken sort of an angry path these days.  Everyone is intent on getting ripped, demolishing fat, getting their asses kicked, etc. I'm not sure why every woman thinks they need to get below 20% body fat and needs six pack abs. I really don't want to "kill it", whatever "it" may be. I'm sick of the screaming commercials for some new ass kicking workout.

Does it really have to be that way?

Don't get me wrong. I don't think there is anything wrong with being strong.  I don't think there's anything wrong with being muscular. I've worked plenty of jobs in my life that required me to be strong.  But really, do we need to look like body builders (I've always been rather grossed out by them personally).

Is this necessary? Or attractive?

I'm not sure what people are into killing, but if killing it equals the above, I'll let it live.

I have to say if I've learned anything in the last 3 years its to be gentle with myself.  I didn't get that principle in all the years I did yoga. I pushed myself to be the most flexible in a class. I pushed myself as hard as I could. Which is totally NOT what yoga is about. I pushed my body by working out 3 hours a day, 7 days a week.

My shoulder injury has taught me to be gentle with myself. I have learned my limits. I may not like my limits all of the time, but I accept them.

I don't need to destroy fat. I don't need to punish myself for my food choices by spending an extra hour at the gym if I eat something "bad". Hell, my entire diet is "bad" by the standards of most of the diet industry. I eat fat. Lots of fat.  I eat protein, a pretty good amount of protein. I eat veggies, probably more than I ever did as a vegetarian in my youth.

As much as it pained me, I threw out everything I thought I new about health and fitness and I've changed my life for the better. Without supplements. Without shakes. Without punishing my body. Without punishing my spirit.

Take a second to think about it before you wage another war with yourself.  Take a second to think about being gentle and kind to yourself.  It might make all the difference in your life and in the world. Our lives are full of enough crap - everyone's a warrior, everything needs to be destroyed, killed, ripped, etc.

Think about the impact those words have. Affect a positive change in your mind and you will see positive changes in your body.

It's a Miracle

I know I had been frustrated with the whole elimination diet thing.  I wanted to give up more than a few times.

Well, I just have to say I'm glad I didn't.

I made it through today without sneezing more than a couple of times.  I made it through today only blowing my nose once or twice (not including my netti pot time, as my nasal passages feel so dry now that they are not running like a faucet).

In fact, after I started thinking about it, I've made it through the last few days without sneezing or a runny/stuffy nose.  After the effects of the miso soup faded (which took about 3 days), I've been pretty allergy symptom free for an entire weekend.

I know that sounds like a weird thing to be excited about, but considering the last 10 years of my life have been filled with nasal misery (at times going through 2-3 boxes of tissues a week and sneezing so uncontrollably that I would have to pull my car off the road), 3 days of minimal sneezing (maybe 3-5 times in a day) and a scant handful of nose blows (maybe 2-3) is a miracle.

I am going to wait a couple of weeks to see how long this lasts (or if it was just a fluke) before I attempt to start adding foods back into my diet.  There are somethings I find I don't really miss as much as I thought I would (nightshades) and others I can't wait to add back (eggs and nuts).

It will be a SLOW process trying to add things back in.  I plan to try a food and wait 72 hours to evaluate how I feel.  If all seems to be good, I will try that food item in small quantities for a week to see if that changes any sort of reaction.  If no reaction is present, I will wait an additional week to add the next food.

Let's use an egg as our example.

I try a single yolk (the least allergenic part of the egg) on 2/25.  I will observe how my body reacts until 2/27.  If all seems good, I will then eat a yolk a day until 3/6.  If that seems to be working for me, I will wait until 3/13 to add a new food while continuing to keep to 1 yolk a day.

It really seems like more work than I really want to do, but I have to say that not sneezing and not having a constantly runny/stuffy nose feels AWESOME!

I still have the feeling of some sinus pressure though and I would love to have my sinuses adjusted sometime in the near future.  I've taken some time away from the adjustment process to know if my diet is really helping my allergies or if the adjustments were a part of  the reduction as well.

What the SMELL?

I have to say that doing AIP doesn't seem to be eliminating whatever is causing my sneezing and nasal congestion.  Which is really disappointing.  I miss a LOT of foods.  But I'm sticking it out.  I started on January 6.  It is now January 31.  For the most part I've made it 25 days (I did have a couple slip ups Sushi and Manhattan Chowder).

My sneezing is less than it was when I started (this is a REALLY HARD thing to quantify), but with the deprivation I feel (it's all psychological - I don't like being told I can't have/do something) I had really hoped for better results.

On the up side, I was down close to 10 pounds the last time I weighed myself (almost 2 weeks ago, which was 2 weeks into it).  I pretty much only weigh myself when I go visit my mom, so I have no idea what my current weight is.  I can tell you my jeans are considerably looser than when I started this.

The other night all I could smell was the Dial hand soap from our bathroom after Justin had washed his hands.  There are a lot of smells that once they hit my nose, they don't go away.  I can taste them. Every breath I take is tainted by these smells.  They linger no matter how long it has been since I was exposed to them.  Dial soap happens to be one of them.  (I think the list could go on for days, but one of the worst offenders are the garbage sold by Victoria's Secret as fragrance)

An idea struck me as we were sitting on the couch.  Maybe I could replace that smell with another!?  I ran downstairs to my drawers of essential oils (for my witchery as Justin calls it), grabbed the peppermint oil and started sniffing it.  Never mind that I felt like a junior high kid sniffing markers or glue.  My nose had just started the sneeze tickle as I was in the process of doing this.  After a few strong inhalations, I felt the spasms  that I was on the verge of subside.  While I didn't have a lingering scent of peppermint stuck in my nose, I no longer had the Dial stuck there.

Is it possible to "reset" my sense of smell?   Really, scents have caused me to feel overloaded and overstimulated for years.  I despise most things scented (natural occurring scents tend to be okay in moderation) because the overwhelming smell and resulting taste are unbearable).

I've been testing this "reset" idea for the last few days.  When I can feel the "tickle" or spasms creeping up on me, I inhale a few times with the bottle of peppermint essential oil right below my nose.  It doesn't work 100% of the time, but it seems to cut down on the frequency and severity of my sneezing attacks.  Again, it's super hard to quantify unless I start counting the number of times I sneeze each day.

My next question to resolve in this "reset" idea is the scent itself.  Is there a specific scent that is going to work?  Is it just any scent that is more pure and not artificial?  I started Sunday night with peppermint (it was the first bottle in my drawer).  Would Tangerine work?  Thyme?  Cypress? Clove?

I plan to switch it up to and test other oils.

Another question is will I become dependent upon a scent in order to control my sneezing?  Will I have to "wean" myself off of this method?

Does this all mean that my sneezing is purely psychological in nature?  Perhaps it is a neurological dysfunction?

I don't know.  All I know is that I can't wait to add foods back into my diet.  I really miss eggs, nuts and chocolate.

Armpits aren't supposed to feel that much pain!

I've been looking for a massage therapist that does orthopedic massage for over a year now.

Getting a regular "relaxation" massage only exacerbates my shoulder issues.  I've had a Massage Envy membership for a while now and once the therapist I had been seeing in Folsom was unable to keep working, I hadn't used many of my prepaid massages.  In fact, I gifted most of them over the holidays and had planned to cancel.

I had called the Massage Envy near my place (at the Metreon) several times asking if they had anyone who did Orthopedic massage and was told no every time.

Well, Massage Envy didn't process my cancellation and charged me for another prepaid in December.  I really didn't want to get a massage that was going to increase my pain.  I scheduled a facial instead.  While I was waiting I took a look at their therapist bios.  Wouldn't you know, they had TWO therapists that do orthopedic massage.

I booked an appointment with Kim for the next evening when I saw that!   I figured I would give her a shot and cancel the next day if she didn't work out.

A thing to know about orthopedic massage: it is NOT pleasant. It is not a relaxing massage that relieves stress.  It is painful. VERY painful.

Kim poked and prodded and pushed and pulled.  In fact, most of my one hour session was spent on my left shoulder's inflamed connective tissues and scar tissue.  But I didn't mind.  I knew I was there for specific body work and Kim seemed very knowledgeable. It hurt like hell though.  After 13 years of physical therapy, surgery and discomfort, I knew it would be.  If you've never had anyone "poke" you in the armpit, the armpit is capable of feeling intense pain.  I don't recommend testing it out though.

She had a few recommendations for me diet-wise (most of which I have already adopted, she was impressed with my natural health knowledge).  One of which was to make a super strong ginger tea using about 1 inch to 1 1/2 inches of fresh ginger and 6 cups of water.  Let it boil to reduce it to about 2 cups of "tea" and drink that throughout the day.  I'm going to give that one a shot since I'm not taking any supplements during this phase of AIP, including turmeric.

I know that the amount of inflammation in my shoulder is less than usual, but I had hoped that AIP would possibly eliminate it.  On the plus side of AIP, I think my nasal allergy symptoms are improving.  They are not gone yet, but they are improving.  I was able to have a massage laying face down and not sneeze or have my nose run.  I was even able to mostly breathe through my nose during the entire session (the right side of my nose still gets "stuffed up" when I lay down. It is really bothersome, but it seems to drain faster when I change positions than it used to).

I did find a resource that would have helped immensely when I started on my AIP journey almost 3 weeks ago.  Paleo Plan is a fantastic website that helps make the paleo lifestyle easier and more convenient.  I've gone there for recipes and info over the last year.  What I didn't realize was how comprehensive their 21 Day Paleo Cleanse eBook was.  I purchased the Toadally Primal Wellness Bundle and the 21 Day Paleo Cleanse was included.  

I highly recommend checking it out.  The $25 price is a drop in the bucket when it comes to the ease with which you will be able to make the transition.  It has 3 weeks of menus, shopping lists and even tells you what days you need to do prep work for another meal.

Even if you don't think you have allergy or autoimmune issues, give it a shot.  I have to say I'm down 8 pounds since the 6th of January and almost down to my goal weight.

Weekend Cheat

I've made it through about 2 weeks of the AIP diet.  I've had a couple of set backs, but I won't let those deter me.

I made it through 12 days without any cheats.  Until I went shopping for my wedding dress.  I went back home to look for a dress with my mom (and found the perfect one at the first store!).  After looking for my dress, my mom and I were starving.  Old Town Grill was the first option (they used to have Emu burgers, which were awesome!), but I was feeling a bit burned out on bunless burgers.

I love sushi a lot, so my mom and I went to Amerikan Ichi.  I was going to go for sashimi to stick to the plan, but I couldn't really pass up all you can eat sushi!  Oh sweet saba! So I ate rice.  Quite a bit of rice.  It was super delicious.  I stuck to only nigiri, not that that makes a huge difference when I'm not supposed to be eating rice.

I was pretty phlegmy the next morning and sneezing more than I have in the last 2 weeks.  I was also achy, but I think that was more due to my spill down the stairs the day before. I was super sore.

We drove to the coast on Sunday to remember my brother.  I made a tasty breakfast of kale and GF sausage before we hit the road.  I stuck to it and had a couple of sausages as a snack, but was still starving.  We stopped in the tiny town of Bodega, where they have crab mac n' cheese.  Justin tried it (and it smelled delicious!).  There weren't a lot of options and I was hungrier than a small piece of smoked salmon would have taken care of.  The store had an amazing number of gluten free items (so surprising), even their chowders were gluten free.  They had several options.  I would have loved to have had a traditional chowder, but sort of figured that dairy and nightshades would have been worse than just the nightshades in the manhattan style.  It was super tasty!

But I've been sort of congested and runny nosed for the last 2 days.

I'm not giving up yet, though.  Several of the real food bloggers out there claim to have reversed food allergies by following an elimination diet.  Hoping it can happen!

On the up side of this diet, I'm down 8 pounds in 2 weeks.  I'm down 24 pounds since moving last August.  Even though I was making tasty treats throughout the fall, the weight was staying off.  I'm not having any treats at the moment though and my starch consumption is way down (no potatoes, which means no fries!).  I do walk more, so I think I'll bust out my pedometer and track it.  I know one or two days a week, I walk to the train and then walk from the train to work (about 2 miles).

Weight loss wasn't really the goal of doing AIP, but I'm almost down to my goal weight.

AIP - Intro/Day 3

Okay, so I found a blog I can't get enough of: The Paleo Mom.  I know I'm not a mom.  I'm not even entirely paleo most of the time.  But if you really want to get down the the how and why of paleo or AIP paleo, this is a good place to go.

I had been toying with the idea of the GAPs diet for a really long time, but couldn't commit.  I hadn't heard of  AIP (auto immune paleo protocol) until a couple of weeks ago.  I don't know why, but the idea of an elimination paleo diet seemed so much easier for me to commit to than GAPS.  I some how stumbled upon an auto immune paleo group on facebook, introducing me to the concept of AIP.

AIP eliminates the following from your diet:
Eggs
Nuts
Seeds
Nightshades
Alcohol
NSAIDS

These are in addition to the already eliminated gluten, grains and dairy.

So what's left you ask?  Good quality meat, fish, veggies, and healthy fats.  Oh and plenty of fermented foods such as sauerkraut and kombucha. Some of my normal seasonings are out (no peppers!) but I've made due so far.  (granted I'm only on day 3)

So to see if this actually works, none of the above for at least 30 days.  I'm also NOT taking my turmeric supplement to see if there is any improvement in the inflammation of my joints if I make additional dietary changes.  Also, no Nasal Specific Technique treatments.  No matter how terrible my sinuses feel during this time.  I need to see if changing my diet really helps.  My nasal allergies are the real reason behind this experiment.

I have to say after three days, my sense of smell seems more acute.  Not sure if the two are connected, but holy crap it seems like every smell is amplified.  I'm not exactly sure when children needed to start reeking of cheap perfume, but they do these days.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  Ask anyone who has had a cubicle, desk, office etc., near me in the last 10 years.  Ask my poor Justin.  My nasal allergies aren't just miserable for me, they are miserable for everyone around me.

Oh, I'm also starting a separate blog to share my art and other fun stuff, including 3D printing!!!!!!!

The need for cheese

I have to admit I succumbed to the power of the cheese.

Last night, feeling especially meh and whiney I gave in to the need for cheese.

We ordered a gluten free pizza from Goat Hill Pizza.

I wish I could say the pizza was all I had hoped for and totally worth it, but sadly it wasn't.

Don't get me wrong, the cheese divine.  It was the best part of the pizza.  I don't know if you've had a gluten free pizza (though I make a pretty mean almond flour crust pizza), but the cheese is the best part of a gluten free pizza.  No gluten and no dairy = no more pizza. EVER.

The aftermath of said pizza was a bit of extra nose running, a sinus headache this evening and considerably slower neti pot flow this evening.  Even at the height of my cold over the last 2 weeks (which got me using my neti pot daily), I did not have this much flow reduction.

Which leads me to conclude the no dairy experiment may be permanent.  That thought made the trip down the cheese aisle at Costco this evening terribly sad.  So many cheeses I may never get to know.

I'm not sure what touched my pizza (or if it's my monthly visitor) that caused my intense pain and burning in my left arm today.  It was so bad I WISHED I had ordered a sourdough crust and lived with the pain of eating gluten.

An observation I had made casually over the last few months was that the pain and burning in my left arm seems to increase in the days before my monthly visitor.  I'm going to start keeping notes on pain levels to see if there is any actual connection to the two, but I've noticed that even when I don't eat anything I am not supposed to, I still have an increase in pain symptoms around that time of the month.

Speaking of pain, last week I did not drink enough water after taking my turmeric supplement.  I've been taking turmeric as an anti-inflammatory for most of the year 2012 and it seems to help some and doesn't have the same side effects as Naprosen (which I have been on and off of for almost 15 years now).

Big mistake.  I was heading out the door to take the Pi for a walk and belched.  Unfortunately, the turmeric came back up.  Not just into my mouth, but in my sinuses and out my nose.  Holy crap. So bad.  I ran back in the house and nearly barfed.  After the gagging subsided, I was lucky to have enough time to rinse a large amount of the turmeric out of my sinuses.

Tip of the day: Make sure you take your supplements with at least a full glass of water, if not two.

I'm off to bed to mourn the further loss of cheese.

Still at it

Okay, I'm still at the no dairy thing.  I'm adjusting to it.  I don't have raging cravings for cheese like I thought I would, though there have been a few days that I REALLY wanted a gluten free pizza, but take the cheese away and it's just not worth it.

It has been 23 days since my last sinus adjustment, which was seemingly easier than ever before (I had been dairy free for about 3 weeks prior to that adjustment).  I don't think I'll be able to make it up for another adjustment for at least 2 more weeks though (going to Gunny's 90th (yes, I typed 90th) birthday party.

I hadn't really been using my netti pot with much regularity since I started getting my sinus adjustments (for the sake of science) just to make sure that the effects I was feeling were truly related to the adjustment.  I've used it here and there in the last 6 months (typically after working on a particularly dusty project) and noticed that the drainage was still slow even when I wasn't cruddy.

Well, I accidentally killed my Kombucha Mother (it caught the mold - first time ever in almost 10 years of brewing) so I was without my Kombucha for more than a week and caught whatever nastiness is going around the elementary schools right now.  I've been sickly for a little over a week (super congested, headache, cough, etc), which blew the plans for Thanksgiving crabbing.

Due to the amount of crud building up in my face, I decided to bust out the old netti pot.  Prior to sinus adjustments and dietary changes, it could take 10 minutes just to get the water moving through my sinuses (I know, it's gross) and even then, it was barely a trickle.  And no, that was NOT when I had a cold.  That was just daily, run of the mill netti usage.  Even after I started adjustments, it was still a bit slow going, like everything was swollen.

I have to tell you, even with all the crud built up, the water is flowing freely.  It's moving the crud quickly and easily, which has never been the case before.

As much as I had to admit it, I think my nasal swelling was largely related to dairy.  I still have a bit more "science" to do though.  Raw dairy has different effects on people than pasteurized, homogenized dairy from what I have read.  My next step will be to test to see if there is a difference between the two that I notice.

Pumpkin Custard? Finally!

I had the day off yesterday and even though I had a boat load of homework to do (it feels like ALL I ever do), I decided to finally start experimenting with a pumpkin custard as I have been saying I was going to do for weeks now.

I spent some time looking for a recipe to try (again it had to be gluten free and dairy free) and stumbled upon  this one.  I of course made a few changes to it though.  Here's what I did:

3/4 can of pureed pumpkin (unseasoned)
1/2 c. coconut milk (full fat)
1/2 c. grade b maple syrup
2 large eggs
2 tsp tapioca starch
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp celtic sea salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cloves

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix all ingredients until completely combined. Pour into glass or ceramic baking dishes (I REALLY had wanted to bake individual servings, but alas we have no ramekins).  Place the baking dishes of choice in a water bath (larger baking dish filled with water to about 1/2 way up the sides of the baking dish.  Bake 50-55 minutes.

This was pretty simple to make.  When it was baking, the house smelled like pumpkin pies and it was awesome.  So awesome it was hard to wait for Justin to come home from work to try it out.  We actually waited until after dinner (building the hype up even more!).  When we finally tasted it, it was fabulous. It had a smooth texture and had just enough spice (we all know how I feel about pumpkin goods being properly spiced!) I increased the amount of spice just slightly and swapped out the hemp milk for coconut milk from the original recipe. That being said, I think if I were to make this again, I may decrease the maple syrup from 1/2 cup to 1/4 cup.  It was just a hint too sweet for me, but for others, I think the sweetness would hit the spot.

Today I saw a recipe for a paleo pumpkin cheesecake.  I'm pretty sure that will be next on my list.

Cheesy Bacon Goodness

Well, I tested the dairy theory last night.  My mom made some most excellent grilled cheese sandwiches using Tillamook Habanero Jack cheese.

I couldn't pass up spicy cheesy goodness with BACON!  Granted  blowing my nose repeatedly and having it run like a faucet while being so inflamed I can barely move air through my sinus passages sucks, it's not enough to pass something that delicious up.  

Testing the dairy theory is much less awful than testing the gluten theory.  I learned the hard way last week not to eat anything that has been touched by gluten containing products.  We had a Halloween party at work, I was ravenous and decided to try to eat a mummy dog sans mummy wrap (pigs in a blanket with a cute name).  I peeled off that outer layer and ate half a hot dog that had been touched by crescent roll.  Well, with the amount of pain I was in for the next 4 days, I should have just eaten the damn crescent roll too!

I had an appointment with my chiropractor at Gold Country Chiropractic this morning for a sinus adjustment (the first one in 3 weeks!) and it was so much easier and less uncomfortable than any of my treatments before (even when i was going weekly and not letting much time go by between adjustments).  While I can't be entirely certain as yet, I think  that dairy was contributing the swelling of my nasal passages, which made the adjustments very resistant and very painful!  I did eat some dairy last night, so the swelling may have returned slightly, but it did not seem to be nearly as inflamed as usual. 

While my ooey gooey grilled cheese was delicious, I am going to go back to no dairy for another month and see how my next adjustment goes.  I managed to last 3 weeks this time between adjustments, so I'm aiming for 4 weeks for the next one.  

Considering I am often lamenting the lack of readily available treats for me, I tried something new today.  I bought a loaf of Glutino White Sandwich Bread so I could have some grilled cheese (so far the best of the gluten free breads I have tried).  Tonight I wanted something treat like, so I decided upon cinnamon toast.  In place of butter, I used Nutiva Organic Coconut Oil Extra-Virgin 29 oz. 218566 (Google Affiliate Ad), which gave it a slightly coconut-y flavor.  In all, it was a quick and easy treat.  I don't normally have any bread on hand (I mostly gave it up since going gluten free), but it hit the spot tonight.

I plan to test at least one pumpkin custard this week.  I'll share the results.  

The search is on!

For a pumpkin custard recipe that is dairy free AND doesn't suck.

When I was younger, I couldn't stand pumpkin pie.  It was soggy and gross.  I worked in a bakery and people LOVED our pumpkin pies.  I never understood it.

The years have passed and my feelings for pumpkin have changed.  I love everything about pumpkin now.  I love the spice and aroma of most things pumpkin. There is nothing better than a cool, crisp autumn day and something spicy, be it pumpkin bread, pumpkin latte, pumpkin pancakes.  You get the picture, I love pumpkin.

Sad to say it seems as though most things pumpkin spice these days are lacking in the spice department.  Take away my gluten and my dairy and it leaves me with spices to make me happy. I've tried a few pumpkin recipes so far this fall with the new lifestyle changes and all I can say is I have been UNDERWHELMED.

Perhaps it is assumed that when you find out you have food sensitivities or allergies, that your desire for good food is gone.  Maybe the people creating these recipes have diminished taste buds, I don't know.  Pretty much any recipe for anything pumpkin (and gluten free) is bland.

I made a GF pumpkin bread a couple of weeks ago.  Bland. (Though it made for some pretty delicious french toast the next day when I added more spices).

Before I started my no dairy experiment, I had a pumpkin spice latte (from two major chains).  Both tasted like overly sweet, slightly spiced milk.  The Bean Barn in Placerville has much better pumpkin spice lattes, but that is neither here nor there.

So I am setting out to perfect a dairy free pumpkin spice custard (since I haven't perfected a GF pie crust and nothing will ever compare to my mom's pie crusts).

It needs to have a smooth texture, have a balanced sweetness and a spiciness that reflects wonderful fall flavors.  I can't tell if all of a sudden I have intensified the memories of fall spices (last time I had a spiced cider, it too just seemed cloyingly sweet), or if people have just equated saturated in sugar with fall flavors now.