Cooking Adventures

I did some baking this weekend, which is making the new diet less depressing. I have a few sweets in the house to lift my spirits now. Sugar cookies made with almond flavoring rather than vanilla and oatmeal cookies with maple sugar in place of vanilla.
I've been looking into ice cream recipes, since all of the store brands use vanilla in EVERY flavor I can find. I found a good recipe for sweet cream ice cream (I posted a link on the Basic Recipes page), but I don't have an ice cream maker to try it out. I'm hoping to remedy that soon. If I can make sweet cream ice cream, I can mix in fruit, nuts, and other safe toppings and not feel too left out this summer.
I also made my own mustard and BBQ sauce (links to those recipes are on the Basic Recipes page as well) on Saturday. The mustard came out a little spicier than I thought it would, but I like spicy mustard, so that's OK. I then used it to make BBQ sauce, which turned out well. The only change I'd make to the BBQ sauce is to add a little brown sugar to cut the spiciness. DH gave it a try on a beef sandwich yesterday and gave it his thumbs up. I'm thinking of baking or grilling some BBQ chicken breasts later this week.
I have plans to make my own ranch dressing and ketchup over the next few days. If I can get a good stock of basic ingredients that are BOP friendly, cooking dinner will be less of a chore.
I will say that, since my allergy isn't as strong as some others, I am not being extra cautious. I am not avoiding items that have beeswax (like honey) and I did not test positive to benzoates, so I'm not avoiding those either. If you use recipes I link to here, please keep that in mind. You may have to substitute more ingredients than I am. Also, I'm still new at this and I might make mistakes. If you notice me using ingredients that aren't BOP friendly, please let me know. If you are more experienced at managing a BOP allergy, all of us newbies would love to hear your advice! I am leaving the comments sections open and welcome the friendly exchange of information, especially since there is so little information and help out there.