Allergy friendly Restaurant Review: HuHot Mongolian Grill - San Antonio

We really like HuHot Mongolian Grill. We ate there last night, and I feel great today so I know that I wasn't exposed to any dairy. They have all of their allergy information online, and the cooks will clean the grill if you tell them that you have allergies to a food item. They will go and retrieve clean utensils and make sure that your food is kept separate from everyone else's. And the cooks had no problem doing this for me, they didn't seem to mind at all.

The only thing that I would beware of is the sauces are more than likely cross-contaminated, because people are not careful when putting the sauces on, and they spill sauce into other containers. I watched a guy not even try to keep from spilling sauce and he spilt a great deal of another sauce into the 'Not-so-Sweet & Sour' which is not supposed to have any allergens in it (the 'Kung Pao Yow' also does not have any allergens in it), until someone cross-contaminates it anyway. Supposedly you can ask for fresh containers directly out of the fridge, but they were quite busy so I didn't want to bother them with that. If you stick to the oils though you should be okay, as there are no allergens in any of the oils and the oils are away from the sauces.

This is one of the few restaurants in this area that I can eat at and feel safe doing so. And you can completely eat low-carb there!

We love HuHot!

Caramel Topping a.k.a Attemp #1 at Butter Cream Frosting

So, before I have to go to teach class this afternoon, I decided to try to make some Butter Cream Frosting out of peanut butter, almond milk and splenda.The mum-in-law thought that powdered erythritol would work better, and I'll try some of that next, but it is expensive. I did not come up with Butter Cream Frosting, but what I did come up with is something the consistency of Caramel topping! It doesn't really taste like peanut butter (or caramel) but has the consistency of caramel. I bet it would be good on top of dairy-free or vegan ice cream. Note that the mum-in-law did not think it was very sweet, but I thought it was, so YMMV.

Gluten-free/Dairy-free Caramel Topping

3 T. peanut butter
2 c. splenda
1/4 c. almond milk (vanilla flavor)
1/2 tsp vanilla

In a tall sided bowl, beat the peanut butter with a handheld mixer for thirty seconds. Slowly add the splenda until the mixture thickens. When it becomes very thick (probably about halfway through the first cup), start adding the almond milk a little bit at a time, alternating between the splenda and the almond milk. Add the 1/2 tsp vanilla. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula and beat for another thirty seconds.

Makes about 3/4 of a cup of topping.

We drizzled it over the yellow cake recipe that we had made up a couple of days ago.

Caramel Topping drizzled over Yellow Cake

Close up of Caramel Topping

Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Yellow Cake Recipe

This cake recipe is delicious and has the texture of a real yellow cake. I'm not kidding. I haven't worked out an icing for it yet, but I think I might do that this weekend. It will probably involve peanut butter. This recipe makes one 8" cake pan, so double it for a double layer cake.

You can use whatever sweetener you like. The cake is not very sweet, so if you like a really sweet cake, feel free to add a little more sweetener to it (between 1/3 and 1/2 cup). Also, the coconut oil would probably do okay if it's liquid, but I find it easier to blend with the sweetener if it's semi-solid.

I strongly suggest using the coconut and hazelnut flour and not attempting to substitute them for anything else. Both can be procured online or at your local health food store, or you can grind your own hazelnut flour. The coconut flour helps hold the cake together and the hazelnut flour helps give it a real cake-like texture.

Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Yellow Cake Recipe

2/3 c. coconut oil (semi-solid, if liquid put it in the fridge for a little bit)
1 1/3 c. sweetener (I use 1 c. splenda and 8 packets of stevia)
4 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 c. almond flour
2 T. coconut flour
7/8 c. hazelnut flour (basically just under a cup)
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 c. almond milk (I use vanilla flavored)

Grease one 8" cake pan with a little coconut oil. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, with a hand-held mixer, blend the coconut oil (which ought to be semi-solid) with the sweetener. Add eggs one at a time, blending well between, and then add vanilla and mix well.

Then add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl.  Mix on medium until well blended. The consistency will be the same as any cake batter.

Pour into the pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Cool 10 minutes and then remove from pan and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Hello World!

Hi! I recently figured out that I have a dairy allergy. It took forever to realize that dairy was giving me problems. We should have known to try to eliminate dairy from my diet years ago, as I was hospitalized as an infant with a severe casein allergy. Of course, in much the same way that people once knew that the earth was flat, we all believed that I had "outgrown" it, because, don't you know, many people outgrow their allergies, right? Wrong. No one outgrows an allergy if it is an auto-immune response. You get bigger, the offending item may become less of your diet, but your body is still in low-level inflammation immune-response to the offending food. And who knows what kind of damage that does over the long term? Then one day, two plus two equaled four, and we realized I ought to stop eating dairy.

Dairy made me feel crummy and irritable all the time. I completely gave it up just under a month ago, and I feel AMAZING. It's crazy.

So, I never realized just how much dairy is in everything. Add to that an avoidance of wheat and soy, and you have yourself a hard time finding anything to eat. Or maybe it just seems that way.

I'm starting this blog to share recipes with you. For example, most cakes, even the gluten-free ones have dairy, and more than that tend to be laden with sugar or carbs. And it seems just wrong not to have cake for your birthday. If you're looking for gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, AND low-carb/low-sugar recipes, this is the blog for you!