New Restrictions & a New Recipe

So, C was doing much, much better with no dairy or soy.  The problem is, he's still very gassy; I don't know if he just happens to be a gassy baby or if he's allergic to something else, so I'm omitting more.  The pediatric GI suggested omitting corn, because he's seeing more and more corn allergies, and there's corn syrup in everything.  I did him one better; I'm cutting all 8 top allergens, plus corn.

So now I have to cook without dairy, soy, egg, wheat, peanut, tree nut, shellfish, fish, or corn.  The fish/shellfish is no problem; I don't eat fish anyway.  I was never huge on nuts in general, but lately pistachios have been my quick go-to snack, and now they're out.  I hardly ever eat eggs (unless they're cooked into something, like cake), so I didn't think that would be a problem, but like I said, they're in a lot of stuff.  Wheat is rough (bye, bye bread), and corn is really hard.  That means no more Slurpees, no Pepsi, no candy (first my chocolate, and now I can't even have Sour Punch!), most juices are out... there's a LOT of stuff with corn syrup in it.  My beloved junk food is now prohibido.  I'm hoping that C shows a lot of improvement, and in a week or so I'll start trying to reintroduce some foods to see if he has a reaction to them.

So what can I eat, you ask?  Basically: meat, fruit, veggies, rice.  So I'm trying to be creative and I make a huge batch of something so it lasts me 2-3 days before I have to try and come up with something new.  Here's a recipe that I tried that turned out really good (and it's for the Crock Pot, which is my best friend because I get nice, from-scratch, home-cooked meals without slaving away in the kitchen) and is super easy:

Chicken & Veggies Over Rice

Ingredients:

• 2 large chicken breasts
• 1 medium yellow onion, minced (I tossed it in our mini food processor)
• 1 tbsp garlic, minced (I used the kind out of a jar)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 medium potatoes, cubed
• 1 16-oz can chopped tomatoes (keep liquid)
• 2 handfuls baby carrots
• Chicken stock
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:

• Saute onion and garlic in olive oil to bring out flavor
• Put chicken at bottom of crock pot, veggies on top 
• I used chopped cucumber instead of carrots in mine, but it didn't turn out so well.  Next time I think it'll be much better with carrots, but you can use any veggies you want: zucchini, asparagus, turnip, etc.
• Put garlic and onion in
• Pour can of tomatoes (with liquid) over the top of everything
• Pour chicken stock until veggies are just covered
• Salt & Pepper
• Cook on low for 8 hours, or on high for 4 hours

We served it over brown rice, and it turned out delicious, and the chicken was amazingly tender.  This is going to definitely be one of my go-to recipes, and I'll try it with different veggies, or maybe even substitute beef and beef stock to make it almost like a roast.  Very easy, very versatile, very delicious.