Because of allergies, BBQ isn’t an option for me. I created this recipe so my family can still enjoy something we love.
A few years ago, I randomly developed an allergy to molasses. You might wonder, how in the world did you figure that out? It was easier than you might imagine. One of my wonderful yoga students made me molasses cookies as a gift. Which I had never had before, and they were pretty delicious. So I ate them, a lot of them. I started getting hives all over my mouth and down my neck. It looked horrid! I had eaten all of the cookies and hadn’t made the connection quite yet to the cookies and hives. I dosed myself up with Benadryl, and the hives slowly disappeared.
Shortly after the hives cleared up, my wife and I went out to dinner at a BBQ place. Within minutes of eating the BBQ, the hives around my mouth began appearing again. I googled the ingredients, and the common link between the cookies and the sauce was molasses!
I made an appointment with an allergist who told me it’s impossible to be allergic to molasses. Even though I showed him picture after picture that I had taken to document the hives and their development from my mouth to my neck, after much time spent on the internet researching this for myself, it’s rare, but you can, in fact, have a sulfite allergy. I’ve put myself to the test and tried eating bread, salad dressing, or desserts with molasses or brown sugar, and within minutes, the tiny bumps around my lips begin to form before turning into full-blown hives. So, regardless of what that doctor said, I’m taking this knowledge and simply avoiding all foods with molasses or brown sugar since that seems to be the ingredients that cause the hives.
Over the years, I’ve had to adjust my diet. I read labels religiously and ask what is in the dish when I am at restaurants or at friends’ houses. Molasses surprisingly pops up in a lot of foods that you would label as healthy. This tasty blackberry chicken crockpot recipe has a sweet and yet savory taste. My wife said it reminded her of traditional BBQ without having the BBQ ingredients that I’m allergic to (i.e., molasses).
Ingredients :
Two, 6-ounce containers of blackberries
4 chicken breasts
½ cup honey
½ cup low sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup sesame oil
2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons minced garlic
Black pepper to taste
Sesame seeds sprinkled on top after serving.
Place all ingredients in the crockpot and set to low heat for 8 hours. Halfway through cooking time, stir and try to break apart the chicken and smush the blackberries.
You can serve the chicken over Korean sticky white rice, made to package directions, or served in a bun or without a carb at all!
