Homemade Vegan Soy Free Mayonnaise

I'M SO EXCITED!!! I finally made mayonnaise that looks and tastes like the real thing! There are no eggs and no soy in this recipe, and it's very easy and cheap to make! Finally Megan can have mayonnaise again (she did not care for my previous incarnations). In fact, right now she's enjoying her first chicken salad for lunch in months. She even likes the mayo plain. I'm so excited that I even did a little victory dance in the kitchen. I was aiming for a flavor like Whole Food's 365 Canola Oil Mayonnaise (our favorite before we learned of Megan's egg allergy), and I came really darn close!

The recipe I really wanted to try was this one at Elana's Pantry, but I could not find Marcona Almonds anywhere. I also don't have a Vitamix and I was afraid the almonds would not grind to a paste in my food processor. So I settled for plain almond milk. I also tried using coconut milk and rice milk. All three versions worked great. The mayo is a creamy white and the thickness is just right!

Notes: I used a food processor to make this mayonnaise, but a blender would work just as well. I also used black pepper but substituting white pepper will take care of the little black specks in the mayo if you don't like them.

1 tsp. dry mustard
1/4 tsp. xanthan gum
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. white pepper

1 medium clove garlic
1/4 cup plain almond milk OR So Delicious Plain Coconut Milk OR plain unsweetened rice milk
generous 1 tbsp. lemon juice (OR vinegar, start with 1 tsp. and adjust to taste)
1 tsp. honey or agave nectar

1/2 cup canola oil

Mix the dry mustard through the pepper in a small bowl, set aside. Mince the garlic in the food processor. Add the almond milk, lemon juice honey and spice mixture and pulse to combine. The mixture should look slightly thickened at this point.

Scrape down the sides of the food processor. Turn the food processor back on and slowly add the canola oil in a thin stream. The mixture will immediately start to thicken. Turn off the food processor as soon as all of the canola oil is added, you don't want to over-mix the mayo. You may want to adjust the seasonings to your taste. Store in the refrigerator up to 4 days.

GFCF Skillet Sandwich Wrap

(Anna's hummus wrap looks thin, but I've stuffed wraps full of meat and veggies with no breakage!)

Summer is almost here. So far this spring has been mild, but it is getting warmer and one of these days summer will arrive in all its triple digit glory. Although our kitchen does not heat up as much or as fast as our old kitchen, it still gets hot in here. I've been thinking about ways to keep oven use minimal for the next few months, and then a friend threw out a challenge to make sandwich wraps in a skillet instead of in the oven. And you know how much I love a challenge!

These wraps are my favorite, but they are time-intensive, require an oven, don't make much at a time and are gone in no time flat, making them impractical for me to make often. These wraps by Living Without look really interesting, but they call for 3 eggs and require rolling out before cooking. What I was looking for was a vegan wrap that Megan could enjoy with the rest of the family, that didn't require rolling and that was fast enough to make multiple times per week.What I ended up doing was combining elements of two different recipes. What I ended up getting was a crepe-y wrap that is sturdy enough to stuff and eat with your hands, which is exactly what I wanted.

The first time I made them, my friend and I enjoyed them stuffed with leftover sliced lamb and sauteed spinach, onions and peppers. They were so good. I made the wraps again yesterday and stuffed them with leftover Cuban Black Beans for me, hummus and Galaxy Cheddar for Anna, and tomato sauce and Daiya Italian for Megan. The kids loved them! They had two apiece, and by the end of the day the wraps where gone. And that is fine, because I can whip up another batch really fast. They get eaten fast, I can make them fast - it's perfect!

There are couple of things to keep in mind when making these wraps. First, let the batter sit several minutes (at least 10) to thicken while the skillet is heating. Heat the skillet to medium-low - if the skillet is too hot, the wraps will burn on the outside and be wet on the inside. Cast iron works best for me, but a crepe skillet might work too. Also, these wraps are best when they are lukewarm or room temperature. I don't know how long they'll keep on the counter because they've been gone in one day, but I think two days on the counter will be fine. So far I've used chickpea flour for these wraps - the next time I make these I'll try a different flour and report back here.

One last note: rice milk works best in this recipe. Almond milk makes them too thick. I've had the same experience using almond milk in other baked goods (I think it's the carrageen) If you only have almond or coconut or another such milk, cut it by half with water.

Skillet Sandwich Wrap

2/3 cup chickpea flour
1/3 cup arrowroot flour
1 tbsp. flax seed meal
1/2 tsp. xanthan gum
generous 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. ground coriander
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

2 tbsp. honey or agave syrup
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 1/4 cup plain rice milk

In a medium bowl, sift together the chickpea flour through the cayenne pepper. Make a well in the center and set aside.

In a small bowl, combine the honey, olive oil and rice milk with a whisk. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth. Set batter aside and let sit several minutes to thicken slightly.

While the batter thickens, heat a skillet over medium-low heat. Add a teaspoon of olive oil to the skillet. Pour 1/4 cup of batter onto the skillet. With the back of a spoon, quickly spread the batter thinly into a circle. Cook until the top is dry and the bottom is light brown. Flip and cook until light brown on the other side. The whole process should take about 4 minutes. Remove the wrap to a plate to cool. Repeat with the remaining batter. Makes about 8 medium-sized wraps.

(They look like pancakes, but don't be fooled - these wraps are sturdy, flexible, and stand up to kids!)

About our New Home

Alright, inquiring minds need to know...what is our new home like? Well, here's the deal. We've been renting for nearly 6 years in one place. Not that renting is anything new, we've done that all 13 years DH and I have been married. We got married right out of college and rented a cute upstairs apartment in a house on an inlet...quaint and fabulous and tiny. Then we moved one state down so DH could attend grad school. We moved 3 times in 6 years (yes it took that long to get those three little letters after his name). Then we moved cross country so DH could do his postdoc...at that time, Anna was 13 months old and we decided I'd stay home and we'd do our best to make this single income thing work. On a postdoc's stipend. Anyone laughing with me??? We made it work, but only by the grace of God and the support of our completely fabulous family (and Anna's completely fabulous LD school). Because after we made that decision for me to stay home, we promptly got pregnant again and soon after Megan's birth life exploded with Anna's ASD diagnosis.

Hmmm, so, it's taken another 6 years for DH to complete his postdoctoral training. We've stayed in one place because not only could we not afford to move, but also because I didn't want to move and upset Anna's balance. There is something to be said for sucking it up and staying on track for the sake of your child's well-being, even if it means living in cramped quarters for years on end. Things were going well, so we stayed put. And then DH neared completion of his postdoc training. He looked all over the country for jobs, and frankly I was desperate to go home. I miss my family. I miss my best friend. We thought it'd happen, and then it didn't. And then an opportunity to stay right here came up, and we took it.

So as I'm writing this, I'm both grateful and sad for staying right where we are. I'm grateful because I really believe this is the best place for Anna to be, she's been getting great help and her school is more than fabulous. I love her school so much, and I'm really glad we can stay. And frankly, I'm tired of living in transition. I want to put roots down, and I'm glad we don't have to start all over someplace new. I have great friends here, the kind of friends that make great family. I love them, and I'm happy to stay here and keep them. But I miss my family deeply. More than I can say. So much it hurts.

There's a lot about life, in my experience, that is about drawing two opposites together. I'm here, but my family and BFF are away. My love for them will just have to bridge that divide.

That's not saying much about my new home, is it? I can't talk about my home without saying all of the above, and now that's off my chest, here's what's up with our new house.

We were tired of renting, but resigned to it for...forever, really. But then the housing market got friendly for folks like us, and interest rates dropped, and there was that big first time home buyer tax credit of a carrot dangling in front of our faces. So we went after that big old carrot and hung on for dear life. Yes, I feel deranged, but we ended up in our first home. I'll be looking for part-time work soon when Megan goes to kindergarten in the fall. But it will be worth it. The girls have an actual yard to play in (previously their play area was the driveway which the neighbors treated as their own personal speedway). They have their own rooms. I'd tell you they shared a room before, but their sleep patterns are so different, they kept each other up at night. So one of them has slept in the dining room for the past year. I wonder if they'll remember that when they grow up.

So our new house. It's actually an old house. It's cute and small, just our size, with a yard, close to the public school where Megan will be attending kindergarten. I'm actually having heart palpitations about that, you know that mom guilt! We've done so much for Anna because she's needed so much, and Megan gets punted to public school. Poor kid. But actually, we got this house specifically for her, to get her into the best possible school district locally. So if she asks us later what's up with the seeming disparity, we can honestly tell her we bought our first house for her. Truly.

Our cute small old house is also on a cul-de-sac, which is totally fabulous. No more self-important neighbors treating our driveway as their own personal playground! And the kitchen, well I saved that description for last. It's bigger than what I've been working in for the past 6 years, and it has an actual eat-in area where the girls can have meals while I cook. And there's room for more than one person to be in the kitchen at any one time, so now they can actually help me bake! And the very, very best part? There is a window over the kitchen sink that overlooks the yard. There is another window in the eat-in area that also overlooks the yard. So the girls can play outside while I am busy in the kitchen. Because let's face it, I'm in the kitchen most of the time. Previously, I'd have to go outside with the girls because I could not see them from inside, and there was no yard and no fence and those pesky neighbors were itching to run my kids over.

So there you have it. That's our new house with all the baggage I bring to it (in addition to all the boxes)! I'm happy. It's nice to settle down. The girls are happy. They are a good reason to buy a house. For them, it's worth it.