pearlsandcupcakes's Profile

Ha! This could have been posted by me: I'm a Sarah with a raw vegan father-in-law. This is a good starting place for general recipes: http://www.choosingraw.com/

For desserts, I've made a raw vegan fudge and it was delicious: http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2011/02/04/raw-chocolate-fudge-cake/ I've also made an avocado chocolate fudge similar to this recipe, which came out very well: http://www.theearthdiet.org/2/post/2012/11/raw-chocolate-avocado-mousse.html

I would imagine that as long as you kept the door open or removed the door the fire issue wouldn't be as much of a problem.

Honestly, as someone who works internationally, the notion that babies need or should be in a separate room is somewhat bizarre to me. My husband and I have space for a nursery but are planning on future babies spending their first year in a crib or co-sleeper in our (rather large) master, with the slide door closet set up as a changing area or possibly just adding another dresser with a changing pad next to a rocker by the side of our bed.

MMMMM I love injera! One of my closest friends in my current city is Ethiopian-American and she always makes Ethiopian food for her weeks in a rotating weekly dinner club some friends and I have. Her weeks are almost always my favorite! (Though tonight is Polish food at another friend's house, which I'm pretty excited for).

My husband and I (also on cheap grad student budgets) have been rocking the cast iron one from Ikea (can't recall the name) for several years and it hasn't let us down yet. I think we spent around $20 on it. Sometimes I do wish it had a lid for capturing heat, though. Usually we just steal the lid off of our Lodge oven and use that to cover the food, which tends to work pretty well.

Very timely! I'm about to head off to Kenya for a research project and have a 36 hour trip each way.

My essentials are:
- iPod with headphones
- glasses, because I can never get through a long flight without my contacts becoming painfully dry
- motion sickness prevention wristbands - I have to take a prescription to manage motion sickness enough to fly, and these help kick the last bit of nausea that the medicine doesn't quite get
- warm socks
- lip balm
- alcohol-based hand sanitizer (not Triclosan)
- scent-free lotion (thanks for the comment about scent sensitivities, Cambria!)

This trip I'm trying a water bottle with built in filter, as airport water always tastes icky to me. So far tests at home have resulted in water that tastes pretty much the same as the water from by Brita.

Mmmm, my fellow grad students and I are throwing a potluck, and together my boyfriend and I are bringing:
- the turkey (Pioneer Woman's brine, Alton Brown's cooking technique, with stuffing that is not homemade, sadly, and homemade gravy)
- homemade challah
- a spin on a Gujarati green beans with mustard seeds that is affectionately known in my family as beans and bugs
- cranberry pecan orange relish
- Pioneer Woman's maple cranberry sauce made with orange juice
- chocolate bourbon pecan pie

I'm very excited, especially as I just learned someone is making beer mac and cheese.

OP here, thanks for all the wonderful suggestions! I'm not all veg, but it's great to have more options that aren't grain or meat heavy.

I'm a Southern girl with a severe allergy to Red 40 and have been searching for years for a good red velvet recipe. I'd heard that the recipes that incorporate beets tend to have a beet-y taste. Last summer, I boiled down beets for several hours to make a natural dye, and doubled the amount called for in the recipe. The cupcakes came out reddish brown, but nowhere near as bright red as ones died with artificial colors. I'll be excited to see how this plays out.

I'm lactose intolerant, which is relatively, and easy to deal with as long as I avoid excessive cheese, milk and ice cream, except that I live in France and my boyfriend works in a gourmet ice cream shop. So, easy to deal with in general, kind of annoying in my personal situation.

I'm also sensitive to red food dye. It gives me migraines. I can pretty easily avoid it in my own cooking and while in Europe, but in the US it's pretty omnipresent. It's frustrating having to explain over and over again that I can't eat the cake that has raspberry filling because I don't know what's in it and having to ask restaurants if they use food dyes. I've only recently developed this allergy and have been shocked by the number of things unnecessarily dyed, like some brands of fruit yogurt, which should have enough color on its own.

Also, my brother has Asperger's and is sensitive to MSG, which makes his Asperger's more pronounced, and to dairy, which makes him go to sleep. The dairy is annoying because so many products have milk powder, etc, but it's the MSG that's the kicker. Many ingredients, such as malted barley and canned tomatoes, contain MSG, but MSG is not listed because it was added as a separate ingredient. My family pretty much had to completely overhaul our food consumption and start making everything from scratch, which was good health wise but difficult. However, it was totally worth it, because as a result of therapy and the change in diet, my brother no longer "tests" as having Asperger's.