Dairy Free menu planning

[vonfirmath]

So we're starting to plan meals for all of us that are dairy free because my 15 month old we strongly suspect of having a dairy allergy of some sort. No doctor's say or anything -- but symptoms are pointing to that. So we want to cook that way -- and for all of us because she likes to eat whatever we are having.

 

(I suspect my husband has some sort of food issues as well. Mabe in the process of going dairy free we'll be able to pinpoint that more?)

 

I have purchased the go dairy free book. And there's the website. but we've been looking at Fresh 20. Anyone do that and just sub out dairy stuff? Is there another option?

 

I'm feeling overwhelmed and like everytime I turn around I find that something else in our staples list of food has dairy in it. It'd be nice to find some things that could be made ahead and then frozen for those nights that we don't feel like cooking/need something fast. too.

[PrairieSong]

Our daughter has been dairy free for a few years and has this book. I know she's made lots of things from it. She is now vegan. Any vegan books/web sites will have options for you, too.

 

Dd has her own place now, but when she was living here I subbed real milk and butter with soy milk and Smart Balance Light. (Only the SM Light is dairy free and says so on the label).

[Harriet Vane]

My son is lactose intolerant, so I have been cooking without milk for 12 years.

 

EarthBalance vegan is a great butter substitute.

 

When I want to make gravy, I either use the EarthBalance OR I use cornstarch. Whisk into cold water first, then add to broth and simmer at a low boil until the correct consistency.

 

I may be able to help you more specifically if you ask me about specific dishes.

[Dana]

:grouphug:

 

It IS overwhelming at first. Then you get used to it.

 

:grouphug:

 

Earth Balance is good margarine. They do make it in sticks as well as in tubs, but not all stores carry the sticks.

Enjoy Life makes dairy free chocolate chips and chocolate bars (phew!).

I haven't found a cheese substitute I'm happy with, so phooey there.

We use soy milk, although we've stopped with Silk since they've started the almond milk & we have to be nut free.

 

Some people with dairy allergies can handle cooked milk. Unfortunately, my son isn't one of those people.

 

Some of the cookbooks I use: What's to Eat? and its sequel. Also, The Milk-Free Kitchen.

Many of the recipes are basic, but I didn't cook much from scratch to begin with, so starting basic was good for me.

I like having recipes for cakes too :)

 

Happy to answer any questions. We've been dairy free for a decade now (although my husband & I still have dairy for us).

If you have to be COMPLETELY dairy free, bread gets tricky. We've got one brand that's safe, but our son doesn't like it, so he usually eats bagels instead.

 

It DOES get easier... but there's a process of grieving and intense frustration with making the changes. :grouphug:

[dbmamaz]

i quit dairy and gluten at the same time and the dairy is much easier than the gluten, but yeah, dont try any cheese subs until you go without cheese at LEAST 6 months . . . the dairy free cheese is pretty bad. The best are daiya and vegan gourmet but i find the cheddars are just awful.

 

as about specific things if you are stuck. I find most things really easy to sub out.

[YaelAldrich]

If you google "pareve" recipes on Jewish websites, you'll loads of dairy-free foods/desserts. There are lots of substitute possibilities.

[mom31257]

I avoid dairy, but don't have to read every single label. I like almond milk better than rice or soy. I have found that I can use goat's milk, but I have a friend who has goats. She also makes goat cheese for me, but you can't really make hard cheeses with it. I have found it rather easy to avoid it if I stay away from as much processed, packaged things or cream/soup based recipes. Here are a few suggestions.

 

Breakfast:

Eggs

Baked Oatmeal made with almond milk

Cereal with almond milk

 

Lunch:

Soups that are made from broth instead of cream (split pea and ham, chicken and rice, etc.)

Chili or stews

sandwiches (without cheese or dairy in the bread)

quesadillas or pizza on pita bread (I do like the daiya mozzarella. If you have a Mellow Mushroom near you, they serve it.)

 

Dinners:

Lean meats and veggies seasoned with herbs/onions/garlic, etc. instead of packaged seasonings

Rice or pasta

Spaghetti and meatballs (just no cheese on top)

Roast with potatoes, carrots, onions

Asian dishes

[tabrizia]

I know at least for the Fresh 20 Vegitarian menu that they tell you how to make the meal Vegan rather then Vegitarian. There are a few that it doesn't work for, but that is maybe one or two a month. Not sure about the other menu types, but generally you can substitute a dairy free substitute fairly easily for most meals (there is even meltable fake cheese for pizza, we make our own and make DD hers with her cheese one it).

[cjzimmer1]

My daughter had severe eczema from milk at that age. I was already used to cooking from scratch so the change ended up not being a very big deal. We switched to Almond Breeze unsweetened milk (in the refrigererated section) for anything that NEEDED milk in it. Most recipes could be subsitituted with water or broth. We used the Earth Balance butter. The Daiya cheese was okay but not great. DD didn't mind it so when the rest of us craved pizza, we ate regular stuff and just made a small separate one for her. Thankfully she is out growing it. She can tolerate regular butter, cheese and yogurt now. I can even use an occasional splash of regular milk without any problems.

 

When the doctor first suggested dairy allergy I was overwhelmed, but I found when I stopped drinking cow's milk (she was still nursing at the time), her symptoms improved dramatically. I probably wouldn't have had to change the other products because they just weren't having the affect on her that the cow's milk was but I did it just to be safe. SIince I bought so few products that actually had a label, I discovered label reading wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

[vonfirmath]

I'm looking at Go Dairy Free (bought that book) and some books from the library.

The scariest thing I think is I am realizing we are going to need to do more from scratch cooking. I know a lot of people already do... but our diet for a while has consisted of:

 

Cereal, oatmeal, or leftovers in the morning

Leftovers for lunch, or hot dogs or bologna

Pasta Roni, spaghettic, pizza, Cheese&bologna tortillas or peanut butter for dinner

 

OCCASIONALLY we do rice casserole (but that has cream of something soup in it)

 

Our Mashed potatoes came from flakes -- which have milk in it

Frozen vegetables still work at least

 

But, well. almost everything had cheese or milk in it. With meat as a flavoring, not the main deal (due to expense) but we can't go meat-free either because my husband and my son don't get filled up without meat.

 

For Thanksgiving, we made mashed potatoes from scratch from a dairy-free recipe. They were bland but DD ate them and the rest of us added butter and gravy and were fine.

 

The roasted brossels sprouts were GREAT but she barely touched the brussels sprouts. She did eat the turkey and the butterhorns (the latter was a msitake because it turned out to have too much milk in it)

 

We buy bread that doesn't have milk as a main ingredient (I'm not worrying about trace ingredients yet) and so far she seems fine with that. Or tortillas. We put peanut butter on that and she likes that.

 

She loves Chicken nuggets (we found some that don't seem to contain milk. We'll have to wait and see if I missed something on the ingredient list).

 

I think I need to find some bean dishes. She liked refried beans on tortillas the one time we did that. And I know our grandparents made refried beans from pinto beans when they were here last year; So I need to try that.

 

But I also want to find some dishes that we can make and freeze. since we are usually eating at the time I get home from work so being able to do it on the weekend ahead would help. (My husband is the one home from work that does most of the cooking. But he's burnt out on cooking right now so we're in "throw stuff together mode" -- I think some of this is just that SO much of our "staples" are not good options anymore. But he's my rock -- the one who can open the fridge door usually and figure out something to make based on what we have in the fridge! So having him burnt out makes it all harder! And besides, he's got a job starting the week after Christmas or so and we'll have to deal with cooking around BOTH of us working at that point anyway!)

[Harriet Vane]

I'm looking at Go Dairy Free (bought that book) and some books from the library.

The scariest thing I think is I am realizing we are going to need to do more from scratch cooking. I know a lot of people already do... but our diet for a while has consisted of:

 

Cereal, oatmeal, or leftovers in the morning You can have cereal with almond milk or rice milk. I find that rice milk doesn't do much for oatmeal, though the almond milk is tasty. The other option for oatmeal is to make it with water and throw in some frozen blueberries or raspberries. With a little brown sugar, you don't miss the addition of milk. Coconut milk is also an option.

Leftovers for lunch, or hot dogs or bologna

Some hot dogs are dairy-free. Read the labels. Beware of caseine as well as milk, yoghurt, cheese, etc. You can also switch to a lunch meat such as ham or chicken. My favorite by far is to bake a million chicken breasts, then slice and have those available for lunch meat.

Pasta Roni, spaghettic, pizza, Cheese&bologna tortillas or peanut butter for dinner

There are lots of red sauces that have some form of cheese added, but there are some out there that are dairy free. It's easy to fry up some ground beef with onion and throw into a red sauce for spaghetti. It's tastier with the addition of an Italian sausage or two that has been crumbled into the beef (not in the sausage casing). Pizza dough can be made or you can buy it pre-made--just check the ingredients. Put your jar marinara sauce on top and toppings with no cheese. A lot of fake cheeses still have milk products in them so you have to be VERY careful. I think fake cheese tastes really nasty, so we just skip it. My ds loves pizza. Without the cheese it's different, but still delicious. For a while we tried just picking the cheese off the pizza, but that still made my ds sick so I would not recommend it. Fortunately, we have a local pizzeria that makes milk-free crust and uses cheese-free red sauce, so we just order ds a baby pizza without cheese. Talk to the manager at your local pizza place and see if this is possible. I will warn you though--you will have to remind them of the allergy EVERY time you order.

 

OCCASIONALLY we do rice casserole (but that has cream of something soup in it)

Casseroles are really hard to do without milk. The best idea I have is to substitute gravy, making the gravy with EarthBalance vegan margarine or using cornstarch.

 

Our Mashed potatoes came from flakes -- which have milk in it There are some brands that do not have milk added. You could also boil up some potatoes, mash, and add EarthBalance. Sometimes we add chicken broth as well.

Frozen vegetables still work at least

 

But, well. almost everything had cheese or milk in it. With meat as a flavoring, not the main deal (due to expense) but we can't go meat-free either because my husband and my son don't get filled up without meat.

 

For Thanksgiving, we made mashed potatoes from scratch from a dairy-free recipe. They were bland but DD ate them and the rest of us added butter and gravy and were fine. You can add chives to add interest, as well as plenty of salt. Freshly ground pepper also helps. Also, try adding diced onion that has been cooked down until really soft and mushy.

 

The roasted brossels sprouts were GREAT but she barely touched the brussels sprouts. She did eat the turkey and the butterhorns (the latter was a msitake because it turned out to have too much milk in it)

Sometimes folks will try to have the lactose-intolerant person eat a little milk if they can tolerate it. I do not recommend doing so, as it represents an ongoing irritant to the system. Be vigilant about NO milk for at least six months. I would bet that if your dd has been having continued milk exposure on a small level, she has learned to live with a certain amount of discomfort as "normal." Once she has lived life entirely without it she may notice dramatic improvement at many levels.

 

We buy bread that doesn't have milk as a main ingredient (I'm not worrying about trace ingredients yet) and so far she seems fine with that. Or tortillas. We put peanut butter on that and she likes that.

 

She loves Chicken nuggets (we found some that don't seem to contain milk. We'll have to wait and see if I missed something on the ingredient list).

 

I think I need to find some bean dishes. She liked refried beans on tortillas the one time we did that. And I know our grandparents made refried beans from pinto beans when they were here last year; So I need to try that.

 

But I also want to find some dishes that we can make and freeze. since we are usually eating at the time I get home from work so being able to do it on the weekend ahead would help. (My husband is the one home from work that does most of the cooking. But he's burnt out on cooking right now so we're in "throw stuff together mode" -- I think some of this is just that SO much of our "staples" are not good options anymore. But he's my rock -- the one who can open the fridge door usually and figure out something to make based on what we have in the fridge! So having him burnt out makes it all harder! And besides, he's got a job starting the week after Christmas or so and we'll have to deal with cooking around BOTH of us working at that point anyway!)

 

 

For make-and-freeze options, spaghetti sauce as detailed above is a great staple. Another would be taco meat. You can spice it yourself or read labels to find one that is dairy-free (or order one from Penzey's). Soups and stews also freeze well, as does Italian roast for beef sandwiches.