"I don't know how to cook for you"--unfortunately, neither do I.

Ok, I need more guidelines -- why no pasta or pizza? Is all cheese off the table, or just fresher/softer ones?

JetFueledCar said:

At the moment, all cheese is off the table. So is cream and milk and &c. I'm hoping, desperately, that when I've gotten this under control I can test and will find out that I can eat this or that cheese, but for now I'm off all dairy. So right now as far as pasta sauces go I can eat some pestos and that's about it. (Some of them have tomato paste and such.)

I did see your recipes in the low-low-fat thread, and the lentil soup sounds like something I can eat and would enjoy if I can make it ahead of time. Problem is my family doesn't always plan our meals ahead of time and so we end up with "This is what's in the fridge so this is what I'm making." So the biggest priority is weeknight dinners for days no one has a plan.

Thanks!

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Okie -- I asked because in general, hard, aged cheeses have very little discernible lactose, but if you're just cutting everything, gotcha. There are plenty of alternative cheese, soy, rice, almond, etc., cheeses you might try if you want something like a pizza with cheese or pasta with cheese.

Pesto is awesome, but yeah, most do have parmesan (which has almost no lactose but until you know...).

However, if you're just not doing pasta because of sauces, that's not a thing, heh.

Simple, one-pot pasta:

Put water up to boil. While you're waiting, cut up broccoli into florets and chop up some asparagus.

When water is boiling, add pasta (I'm assuming some kind of dried -- if you use fresh, reverse this). When the pasta is about 2-3 minutes from done, throw the veggies in with it. Wait the extra 2-3 minutes, drain. Put aside in a collander.

Take the hot,now empty pot, put it back on the stove, back on the heat. Add a bunch of olive oil. Add a couple of good heaping spoons of chopped garlic. Sautee for a minute or so, just until the garlic cooks a TAD, not until it gets brown. Toss in some fresh spinach leaves. They'll wilt immediately. Toss the pasta and veggies from the collander into the garlicky oil. If you've got fresh basil leaves, roughly chop or tear them and toss them in. Toss it all together. Salt, lots of pepper, drizzle more oil, toss. Serve.

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Stuff like the soup is actually good because you make it once on a weekend afternoon and you've got a giant pot of soup -- get a bunch of cheapy tupperware things and you've got lunches, and dinner and etc. Same as other stuff. You don't plan now, but you can. It doesn't require planning daily meals so much as making a bunch of stuff at once and having THAT in the fridge.

If you like eggs, for instance, or egg salad, it's no more trouble to boil a dozen than it is to boil one. Take a larger pot, boil a dozen, put them back in the same container in the fridge, label it 'HARD BOILED' and grab some for a snack, or lunch, or peel a couple and toss them in a bowl and mash with a spoon of mayo, some salt, pepper, paprika, and have a sandwich. Get some bagged salad to have on hand and it's literally less than 10 minutes.

Same for potatoes. Get a bag and bake a half dozen. Have a potato bar, with some frozen veggies and fake cheese, or make them all, scoop the insides, mash, blend with some steamed veggies and spices, spoon back in the shells, stick in the fridge, and bake some night when you don't feel like it. It takes like a half hour of work on a weekend afternoon to do it -- most of the time is them baking on their own in the oven.

I'm not sure what you mean about stuffed veggies -- like stuffed peppers? Rice, veggies, spices?

Also, just btw, I don't like soda, never have, and have never had a problem getting a drink at a restaurant?

My son is GF/DF, but has no reflux issues. Our other constraint is that we have a very low food budget, so we don't typically buy substitute stuff like dairy-free cheeses or milks.

Let me run through what I typically feed him and you can see what will work for you or won't:

Breakfast:
Oatmeal with no milk added, sometimes garnished with fresh/dried fruit, seeds, or nuts
Pancakes/Waffles, topped with peanut butter, syrup, or jellies/jams
Fried eggs/meat

Lunch:
PB&J
Previous dinner's leftovers
Fresh vegetables and fruit, plain (no breadings or stuffings)
Snacky foods like popcorn
Baked (i.e. microwaved) potatoes with ketchup or seasoned mayonnaise for dipping (you can season mayonnaise to taste Ranch-like with dill, lemon juice, salt, and pepper)
Boiled eggs, eaten with salt

Dinner:
Lentils, often mixed with canned tuna, salt and pepper, and a crap-ton of caramelized onions for sweetness/creamy texture
Pasta mixed with vegetables and meat, or eaten plain/separately from vegetables/meat
Beans, often w/ fresh chopped tomatoes and avocado, corn, rice or seasonings of choice
Rice, mixed with veggies/meats sort of like fried rice, but more flexible ingredient-wise/not fried

When a lot of recipes didn't work for us anymore, I just stopped using recipes. I focus on having a carb of some kind, a protein of some kind (or mix of carbs to make a protein), and some kind of vegetable. Mix and match, experiment with different seasonings that you know work for you, or just eat plainly. It's tempting to want to put cheese on everything because it's better that way, but that doesn't mean it can't be at least relatively good without it.

I do miss "recipe" type food like lasagna or quiche, though. Or anything heavy on the dairy or bread, because that was how my mom liked to cook (and she was a good cook) so those are my comfort foods. Commiserating!

Just a couple of quick tips here: If you can eat meat, then maybe it's mostly an issue of side dishes. IMO baked (or microwaved) potatoes are surprisingly good with just salt. Or you can add some chopped raw green onions, too.

Another tip, imo chicken bouillon granules (they dissolve much easier than the cubes) jazz up just about any cooked vegetable (or rice).

They have neat freezer containers that are divided three ways for making easy frozen dinners. A meat, a starch and a vegetable will do it. You can make a double batch, some to eat and some to freeze. I'm a big fan of cooking double anyway. It's not much more work to cook for two nights at a time.

My special dietary requirements are just that I'm usually on a low calorie diet. I try to easily blend that with cooking for a family by changing only ONE thing and it works- For example, they might get the addition of dinner rolls or whatever. When I think of it like that, it gets done.

There's nothing wrong with just drinking water at restaurants. I find my focus is on the food anyway. Good luck!

For the quickie nights, I love those pre-cooked, hot rotisserie chickens that just about any grocery store has now. Add a couple of quick sides (a vegetable, salad, baked potato, prepared baked beans or mustard potato salad or slaw, applesauce etc) and you're done.

JetFueledCar said:

The stuffed veggies are mostly various squashes, zucchini and pattypan mostly. They get stuffed with sausage, cheese, spices, and breadcrumbs. That might be a bit specific to my family to rec alternatives too, I realize now. ^^'

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Try taking out the cheese, which I gather is the only problem, and substituting mushrooms and onions? Which does not do the creamy/binding job of cheese, but is tasty, and takes your mind off the loss of dairy.

And, regarding frozen dinners w/o dairy or tomato sauce - try Chinese or Indian frozen dinners (with the Indian, check for cheese ('paneer' is the word for cheese in a dish's name), but they have various green (I think spinach-based?) sauces. Chinese food is generally low on dairy, and if you're okay with the sticky-sweet plum sauces, might be an option. (Most frozen stuff is big on sauce, I gather to either protect from freezer-burn, or to provide moisture for the reheating process.)
Frozen individual things? Meat pies, samosas, (not spanakopita, it has feta cheese.) etc.

Two quick ideas, which may or may not help you but I was curious reading the first post:

First, have you tried making your own tomato sauce? It's very easy, and if fresh tomatoes with no additives are OK then perhaps basic pureed tomatoes will work? A lot of store-bought sauces are loaded with salt, spices, and other not-great stuff. I love tomato sauce on various things but try to make my own when I can. All you have to do is blend 3-4 tomatoes--you can buy these in cans or, if you want to be really sure, use fresh ones--and then add to a saucepan. Heat will thicken the puree over time as the liquid boils off. Simple chemical reaction. Adding oil, a bit of salt, basil/oregano is nice but non-essential.

Pizza can be had cheese-free, particularly if you manage to figure out a sauce recipe you can eat which is also flavourful enough. A trick with pizza is to add only one to two strong flavours, letting one dominate. Sometimes you get pizzas that have something like jalapeno pepper AND spicy meats on them and this is a.) overkill, and b.) often blunts the flavour into a mash. Crap pizza (and I have a very special place in my heart for crap pizzeria 'za) relies really heavily on the cheese. Good pizza is quite a bit more flexible. I'll rec a cookbook to you called "Revolutionary Pizza". I got it recently and love its crust recipe. It has a LOT of bizarre pies in it--some which cheese, some very much without. And some that'll work for brunch, too .

If you like Chinese but find the acid reflux a problem with it, try the same thing--making your own. It is, again, not as hard as it maybe seems. Good recipes exist on line, albeit with some trial and error required. (I primarily use a very old cookbook that I doubt is available anywhere anymore.) Sweet-and-sour sauce, for instance, is basically chicken broth and red wine vinegar in equal measures + brown sugar + corn starch. Admittedly the vinegar and soy might be a problem for you, but there are recipes without it (chow mein, various noodle dishes, some meat sauces). A lot of Asian cooking uses the meat as flavouring more than mass, so find one you can work with (white meats like chicken and fish might be better than red meats--healthier, too) and find a sauce that works. Add basic sauteed vegetables and rice and you can do a basic but passable meal of fried rice or such.

Hopefully that helps. I'm no expert but I do have some minor to moderate acid reflux (nothing as bad as you have, though) and I've found things can be a lot easier on my stomach when I cook from scratch than if I buy the same meal pre-packaged. Cheaper, too.

For lunches in the summer, I often eat chickpea or chickpea/couscous salad. Fresh tomatoes, carrot, celery, other veggies, whatever herbs you like, oil + lemon dressing. You can add spices--I sometimes use cumin, coriander, and turmeric--if you like. I make 3-4 servings at a time and eat it for several days in a row.

(For lunches the rest of the year, I eat soup...but most of the ones I make have canned crushed or diced tomatoes.)

JetFueledCar said:

This is true. I have been able to get iced tea for years. I actually have more trouble at my friends' house, where I basically have to bring my own drinks. So that was mistyping on my part.

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I occasionally have iced tea, but mostly water, home or out.

Pasta goes with just about everything. We stir-fry pasta with tons of veg and season it with soy sauce, lemon juice, and a drizzle of sesame oil. Or we cook it with Thai curry, or Japanese curry, or Indian curry. Or kimchi. I used to see it as "a specifically Italian thing", and limited my sauces to traditional Italian sauces, but once you see it as just a carb, you'll see that the options are endless and really easy. On our lazy days, that's what we do.

Have you ever thought of booking an appointment with a holistic practitioner? It could be that you are reacting to more than just dairy. In any case right now I'm planning things for a relative who is visiting who is allergic to dairy (no milk, no cheese, no yoghurt, no butter) and talking to her she's found various dairy free products that approximate their dairy counterparts. There is a nut cheese that she buys which is apparently very tasty and melts just like real cheese. She uses almond and soy milk products (a frozen banana whirled in a blender with some almond milk, a bit of vanilla and sugar makes a delicious "milk" shake). She buys sorbet instead of ice cream and makes dips with Helmans mayonnaise. You will have to become a label reader but there are lots products that don't have milk or milk products in them for you to eat.

See a physician. Chronic reflux can lead to chronic esophagitis and then esophageal cancer, very bad way to die.

GeorgeK said:

See a physician. Chronic reflux can lead to chronic esophagitis and then esophageal cancer, very bad way to die.

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Excellent point.

I, too, have acid reflux and my doctor recommended six weeks of over-the-counter omeprazole, which worked and my chronic morning sore throat is gone for now. However, she said that mainly I needed to change my habits, which I am doing abysmally at. I'm thinking about getting a reclining chair to sleep in. Maybe that would help. ?

Putputt said:

Pasta goes with just about everything. We stir-fry pasta with tons of veg and season it with soy sauce, lemon juice, and a drizzle of sesame oil. Or we cook it with Thai curry, or Japanese curry, or Indian curry. Or kimchi. I used to see it as "a specifically Italian thing", and limited my sauces to traditional Italian sauces, but once you see it as just a carb, you'll see that the options are endless and really easy. On our lazy days, that's what we do.

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I do sometimes do 'different' (less traditionally Italian-based, more Asian, fusion, or experimental flavours) stuff to wheat pasta, but mostly feel like rice noodles or udon or whatever are better for those, which is obviously just conditioning, but ... still! Heh.

Here's my go-to "don't have much food in the house, but want something warm and yummy" pasta recipe. No tomato or dairy needed, and I even learned it in Italy!

Pasta con Tonno (Pasta with tuna)

(The recipe make a single-portion serving, so multiply by number of people eating).

Ingredients:
- 1 can of Tuna (can also substitute other kinds of flaked fish if you have it handy. I've made this same basic recipe from everything from sardines to ladyfish with good success).
- 1 or 2 cloves fresh chopped Garlic (or the equivalent amount of garlic powder)
- Olive oil
- Salt and Pepper
- Pasta (traditionally prepared with spaghetti, but whatever you have is fine)

Step 1: Check your tuna, is it packed in oil or water?

Step 2: If it's packed in water, drain it, then dump into a small saucepan
If it's packed in oil, dump into saucepan without draining

Step 3: Add olive oil, if the tuna was already packed in oil, just add a little bit. If it was packed in water, add... ummm... maybe 3-4 tablespoons of oil? I don't usually measure it, just make sure there's enough to coat the pasta at the end of the process (some of it will be absorbed into the fish). If it looks dry, you can always add a bit more.

Step 4: Add water enough to cover tuna. (It doesn't matter if you add too much, it will just take longer to cook)

Step 5: Add garlic, salt, and pepper to taste

Step 6: Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and simmer for AT LEAST 15 minutes. The longer it simmers, the better. At the end of the cooking, nearly all the water should have boiled off, (not quite all, though. If the sauce changes from a bubbly sound to a sizzling sound, where the meat is frying in the oil, add a bit more water to keep it moist. No harm if it reaches that point, but the extra water helps it distribute better over the pasta, so you want it just shy of dry). Adjust water levels and cooking time toward this goal.

Step 7: Cook pasta according to directions on package. Approx. 1/4-1/3 package makes one serving (depending how hungry you are)

Step 8: Shock pasta under cold running water to stop cooking.

Step 9: Combine sauce and pasta in one pot. Return to stove and heat, stirring constantly, until steaming hot.

Step 10: Serve (I usually add parmesan at this point, but it's just as tasty without).

If you add peas or another vegetable to Tazlima's recipe, you'd have a complete meal.

ETA: And I think it would work with any meat, although you'd have to cook the meat if it wasn't canned. It seems your problem with pasta is just with the sauce. No tomato or dairy is limiting but pasta really doesn't need much to taste good. If your mother just left the sauce off your pasta, you could add something listed below instead and it would probably be tasty without being more work for her. Even microwaving some chicken bouillon granules in a little water would add some yummy flavor.

Fruitbat said:

If you add peas or another vegetable to Tazlima's recipe, you'd have a complete meal.

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Lol, yep. The original version isn't exactly the most well-rounded meal. I generally do a side of squash or something to go with.

Without tomato or dairy, I think I'd give up on the pizza. But if it's takeout, perhaps you could settle on a restaurant that has things like wings and salad and you could have that instead.

I agree that a little advance planning goes a long way.

Maybe a baked potato loaded with veggies. I sometimes add black beans too.

Check out http://www.refluxmd.com/acid-reflux-recipes/

There's 90 recipes, you should be able to find a few that will make everyone happy.