I'm learning to cook from scratch

I had a really rough day yesterday after writing part two of my birth story (here is part one). I spent the better part of the night upset and ended up falling asleep with tears rolling down my cheeks. So today I decided to write about another facet of our life, Vance's food allergies. I'll be writing about my physical and emotion recovery from the c-section in the next day or so...so stay tuned!


I'm not the most culinary gifted person out there. In fact, I'm no where close to it. I'm not sure if I had grand plans of becoming a stepford wife after I got married, but I swear almost every item we got for our wedding was kitchen related. I don't remember registering for that much kitchen stuff (although Matt did have fun with the little scanning gun), so I have to assume that everyone knew how horrible I was at cooking and for fear of my husband starving they all decided to give me a big hint and stock our cabinets with gadgets and recipes books.

I grew up on the good stuff with a wonderful grandmother and mother who cooked real food. I can cook a little -no boxed potatoes have ever been opened by my hands- but for the most part, I got left out when it came to the cooking gene. That all changed however when our son was diagnosed with food allergies.

As you know by now our 16 month old son, Vance, is allergic to eggs and life threateningly allergy to garlic. The eggs aren't horrible once you get used to it because everything in the U.S. must clearly state if it has eggs in it. I have also found that when going places I can ask for a vegan option or to see their allergy list and it clearly marks what has egg. Garlic is a whole other story. You might think, "Oh, it's not that hard to leave garlic out of food", but it goes so much further than simply tossing that bottle from my spice rack. I challenge you to go into your pantry and pick up any item in there and if you see the words "natural flavoring" or "spices" on a food label you have to throw it out. We must assume that those "ingredients" on the label means it contains garlic (and most of the time it will). I bet most people, and us not long ago, would have hardly anything left. This means we basically have to skip over the whole middle of the grocery store and make everything completely from scratch. Not throwing a few canned or boxed items together to make a meal, I mean totally, completely, from the ground to our pan.

I have scoured Pinterest, bought cookbooks from the 1970s (our library had a sale), and dove head first into making everything that goes into our mouth. Not only do I have to also adhere to the no garlic lifestyle because I am still breastfeeding, but we also want our home to be a safe one for Vance where we never have to tell him he can't eat something we are or cause accidental cross-contamination. Also, what better time to mess up a recipe than when he can't tell me it's awful.

So far I've started off simple by making our own tomato sauce, salsa, and cheese crackers.

(Recipe by: Tasty Kitchen)

Helpful hint on the cheese crackers: Don't mistake the "1 cup of flour" for 1 cup of water...you end up with some crazy runny dough and then panic where you add all the different cheeses in your refrigerator and run out of regular flour and have to substitute soy flour and by the time you get it to the right consistency and it's "fixed" you have about 2,000 cheese crackers. I didn't do that or anything...

I recently made out a two week menu and shopping list so that I can become better organized and stock up our pantry with the essentials that I'll need. Besides just making simple food from scratch, I also plan to make all our condiments. My next plan is to make pickles and ketchup (and read the recipe correctly). I'll post my menu and recipe list in the next couple of days. Maybe even provide you with another helpful cooking hint.