We’re introducing a new blog category that could be fun (at least for the reader!) Up here at the HUG Resilient Living Campus, we are so fortunate to have a campus chef that creates and plans our lunches made directly from the bounty of our garden. Campus Chef Chris G. is a wizard when it comes to making something delicious out of thin air. So, we wanted to put this to the test. Can Chris make delicious food under strict restrictions? Think “Iron Chef” without the drama and all the yummy food. Without further ado, here’s the main man, himself!
Ok. So, I have been asked to create a meal using no nightshades. Nightshades are a common family of fruit and vegetables that includes tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, and all sorts of peppers. It isn’t a common food allergy, but you do run into it. Yet, there are a lot of nightshades in some of our favorite foods that we eat on a regular basis.
So what do we do? It is not fair just to never eat spaghetti just because of a silly allergy, right? So, I looked into making a few things that you would find nightshades in, but I found that it’s pretty easy to replace those little guys with something just as filling and delicious.
Here’s what I found:
Tater Tots & Ketchup
Tater tots, minus the taters can be just as tasty as the real deal…or even better!
This one is a little tricky and a harder to do because you’re not using tomatoes. However, if you take the time to do it, you won’t really miss it that much!
Spaghetti Bolognese
Everyone loves this, but it’s loaded with nightshades. If they don’t love you back, here is a tasty little trick to make a mean sauce without them. Sure to scratch that itch.
Taco Salad
Now this one is the worst! Nightshades are almost all there is in Mexican cooking and not having them makes it very hard! However, that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy this flavor when you want to.
As you can see, there are ways around an allergy if you get creative. If you have a suggestion to stump the campus chef, please let us know down below. I bet there’s some way we can. ‘Til then, nicely done, Chris.