"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow." ~Lin Yutang

Sunday, September 25, 2011

allergies anyone?

last night we had some new friends over for dinner.  it was another family, like us, that doesn't get invited over for dinner very often.  they don't have 5 kids, only 3, but between the three kids, here is a list of their allergies:  gluten, dairy, soy, everything in the lily family (ex./ garlic, onion, etc), peanuts, corn, nightshade plants (ex./ tomato, pepper, etc.) potatoes, eggplant, and paprika. 
the meal i thought up was grilled meat, grilled asparagus, and rice, with fruit salad. 
this was the response i got:  grilled meat is great!  Rice - let's, see, the rice that I know is corn-free is lundburg, and some of the rices from the asian store are ok also. Asparagus is part of the lilly family.  as far as Seasoning goes: anything grown in your garden. Real Salt is the only corn-free salt (cornstarch is added to most salt to keep it from clumping). Fruit salad is great - only fresh fruit, everything must be peeled (like apples), the bananas need to be organic (or don't serve them to *boy*, he gets a rash from them, I can bring those if desired).
wow, huh?!  seriously???  yep. 
so we had grilled hamburgers (some with buns. some wrapped in lettuce. some with fresh tomato, lettuce, and pickles, ketchup, and mustard.  some without.), fresh -and organic- fruit salad (apple, pear, nectarine, peach, plum, kiwi, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries), jasmine rice (from thailand), baked beans, and corn.  --those last two were leftovers we had in the fridge because i totally spaced the asparagus!
and did it work?  yes it did.  we didn't season anything, just put salt and pepper on the table.  the mom made this cashew dip (or spread) that is a good replacement for salt and pepper and/or cheese.  i'm going to get the recipe as it is pretty good.  adejay is allergic to nuts, so she can't have it, but she most likely wouldn't be interested in trying it anyway...  also, "real salt" is salt from the great salt lakes.  it's a brand, and she brought it for her family. 
the kids all pretty much loved the fruit salad.  since i did so many different fruits it didn't seem nearly as labor intensive as most fruit salads.  i think i'll start making FRESH fruit salad on the menu more often (now that fall is here).
we just recently got invited to pick fresh grapes and pears at a friend's house.  we need to meet someone with cherries, and peaches, and nectarines though...  my parents have blackberries and raspberries, although i haven't seen or smelled a dash of them this year.  :(  oh... and strawberries... i'd love to pick some big ripe strawberries. 
maybe we need to look for a fruit farm. 

today is family day.  we have a variety of options to try out, but most likely we'll just bunker down here and watch movies...  we have our home group tonight.  i'm looking forward to that.

Try to remember, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

bunker? or hunker?
I guess either one will work.
I love fruit salad. I could eat it everyday. Our blackberries didn't bear much this year (got hacked too much, I guess???)
Our raspberries (at the Denise house) got removed by the renters. Sad sad!!! They were a lot better than the berries here at this house. Our apples and peaches are just coming on and they are wonderful!!! I will need to can, dry, or freeze them to keep them from going to waste (along with the tomatoes.) I am planning to make some salsa with the next batch of tomatoes. lylyly