Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey.... stuff.

Life just moves on, even when the blogging has stopped. Life happens. And boy, life has indeed happened to us. I went from having over 100 safe recipes, printed and stored to having none. So I'm finding new ones. Very, very, very slowly finding new ones. I'm hoping to put them here, where I can easily find them if, 'verse forbid, life should ever happen quite like it did. ;-)

Updated allergy list is as follows:

Apples, Dairy, Eggs, Peanuts, Avocado, Gluten/Oats/Wheat, Sesame, Soy, All Nuts, Amaranth, Eggplant, Tomatoes, Bananas, Yeast, Chocolate, Corn. Avoiding shellfish due to fear of the unknown.

Chocolate and corn are new. So is yeast. Baking yest. I haven't tested nutritional yeast yet.  I'm special ordering yeast-free bread from Ener-G Foods. Luckily, she's young enough that the transition was pretty easy. No complaints about the new bread.

Chocolate and corn. Corn was her favorite food. She would have lived on it if I let her. That should have been a big red flag. I eventually figured it out. When she eats corn, yeast or chocolate, we have awful meltdowns. They're really bad. I'm struggling with the chocolate and corn still. I bought her cookie dough ice cream(coconut milk) and totally forgot that there's chocolate in it. Duh. I also can't find safe carob chips locally. Which STINKS! She keeps asking for chocolate chip cookies and I can't make them. I'm making her "chocolate" milk with carob powder and she loves it. And I have a carob cupcake recipe that is to-die-for! But they're not "chocolate" chip cookies. All the carob chips locally have barely malt or dairy in them. I can find safe ones online, but I can't afford to order them right now.

So, we're just going along, trying to figure things out again. She wakes up swollen in the mornings and has allergy shiners under her eyes. They look black at times. I'm pretty sure it's from x-contam(roommate has gluten/dairy/everything but peanuts in the house) from our kitchen, but at the moment I'm not in a position to do much about it other than try to keep her food as safe as I possibly can. Luckily she seems to have a fairly high allergen threshold and hasn't had an anaphylactic reaction to anything(knock on wood).


I think this means I'm back...

Carrot Date Muffins

These were supposed to be Carrot Ginger Date Muffins, but I didn't add enough ginger. Still delicious though! They're not a muffin texture like a normal, gluten filled muffin. They're dense, and sweet from the dates, and moist. Cupcake absolutely adores them, and she's gotten very picky.


Carrot Date Muffins

Dry
2c Gluten Free Flour  (I used 2/3c coconut flour, 1c tapioca flour, 1/3c+3T buckwheat flour)
1/3c flax seed, ground
2.5t baking powder
1t salt
2t cinnamon
1T ginger (I didn't use this much, I think I only put about a teaspoon in, but I really couldn't taste it at all)

Wet
2/3c coconut oil, melted
1/3c honey
1t vanilla extract
1-2 cups milk (I used closer to 2 cups of vanilla coconut milk since coconut flour absorbs so much. Make sure your milk is at least room temp or a little warm or else the coconut oil will get hard and be impossible to mix.)

Other
8 medjool dates, chopped.
3 medium-large organic carrots, finely grated.
1/3-1/2c hemp hearts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Measure and mix together flours, making sure there are no chunks or lumps(sift if you have a sifter). Ass the rest of the dry ingredients and combine well. Mix the coconut oil and honey and add to the dry ingredients. Mix a little then start adding your warm/room temp milk. Keep adding milk until you have a muffin batter consistency.

Fold in the carrots and dates. Fill muffin tin 2/3 of the way full. I used papers, you probably don't have to. Since I only have one muffin pan, and I'm impatient, I made 12 muffins and a 9x5in pan that I then cut into bars. Muffins bake for 20-30 minutes, and the bars went 40 minutes I think. They were a little under done but still delicious.

South of the Boarder S'mores

I'm running out the door to run errands, but I randomly wanted a quesodilla. So I went to make one. I only had one corn tortilla left(who does that?) and it was falling apart. So I threw it in the pan with some margarine(vegan, soy-free, of course). It didn't look like it would hold my vegan(and soy free!) cheeze very well. So I changed my game plan. I toasted it on one side, flipped it over, sprinkled it with cinnamon and sugar, and threw some marshmallows on it. It needs a couple of safe chocolate chips, but it's mighty tasty.

Allergy Update!

I haven't actually talked much about CupCake's allergies on here. She passed Sunflower, and now Sunbutter is a staple in her diet. She can eat soy oil and soy lecithin, and I'm not opposed to shared lines, but actually eating and drinking soy is out. We did a soy trial and it as going well for the most part. It isn't going to kill her if she eats it, however her eczema got BAD. Cracked, bleeding, oozing, painful eczema. Luckily only in a very small spot was it that bad. But it was enough for me to pull it again. She's nursing ~5 times in 24 hours now, so I still need to watch my diet. Now the unofficial, official allergy list is as follows:

Avocados (hives/swelling, tests - on SPT)

Dairy (tests + on SPT)

Peanuts (tests + on SPT, has been around it without issue, still peanut free house, no shared lines)

Eggs (tests + on SPT, doesn't react to occasional baked in egg in MY diet, but reacts if I eat scrambled eggs, so avoiding all egg)

Sesame (+ on RAST test, avoiding due to severe eczema flares)

Tomato (never been tested, severe and immediate eczema upon direct consumption, thank Ketchup)

Wheat (tests - on SPT, causes eczema if I eat it and nurse her)

Almonds (never tested, ate a marzipan cookie and had some NASTY rashes. No more)

She's avoiding all Tree Nuts and most Gluten. I let her have an occasional barley cookie from Newman's though. I can eat cashews and macadamia nuts w/o issue, but we're not giving them to her yet. I think that's it.

The Joys of Sleeping Children

Mine is passed out. In my arms. Typing is interesting. More often than not when I'm blogging, she's sleeping. On me. Life happens, and when you're sick, with a sick little one and a new house(did I mention I moved?! This house is AWESOME), life tends to get sticky. Currents are sticky. Natures gummy candy. I sound just like my dad.

Anyway, I made some corn cakes from ... I thought they were from fatfreevegan. But I can't find the recipe. In any case, I could never get them to cook up right. They stuck to the pan, weren't light and fluffy. Probably user error, since I hate following recipes. AND the last time I tried to make them I only had vanilla kifer, which I didn't realize until AFTER I had added it. The onions were already in. EW.

Today, I went to find corn bread recipes. I REALLY wanted corn bread with my split pea soup(that hasn't been made yet...).I found a recipe that looked promising. I didn't want something that I had to tweak too much because my kitchen isn't set up yet. In fact, we have no plates. Seriously, we have bowls, little tiny cereal bowls, and some pyrex measuring cups, and I dug out my metal measuring cups and a measuring spoon(1/2t in case you're wondering). I have my tea cup and mesh strainer so I can have tea in the morning. OH. And NO counter space. I mixed it on the stove. And the mail comes flying in through the front door. Except it's Sunday, so we shouldn't have mail. Maybe it's the gardeners coming back to clean up their mess from yesterday. If they wake the baby(who's not a baby anymore) I'll be Pissed. With a capital P.

I found this recipe from CupcakePunk. I knew immediately that I'd love it. Before I even saw the recipe. haha

I scaled it down a bit, and tweaked it a tiny bit(I can't help it!) and fried it up like pancakes! We have a gas stove/oven now and I couldn't figure out how to get the oven to work. The result was light, fluffy, crumbly, corn cakes. DELISH!

Vegan Gluten Free Corn Cakes

1 3/4c Coconut Milk Kifer PLAIN

1c corn meal

1c corn flour

2t baking powder

1/2t baking soda

1T sugar

1/2t salt

2T olive oil

Whisk together dry ingredients. Make a well and add in oil and ~1c of kifer. Stir to combine. Add the rest of kifer and mix well.

Lightly oil(you can use bacon grease if you're not vegan, or canola oil if you are. Or peanut oil if you're not allergic) a cast iron pan and preheat it(just like making pancakes). Add ~1/4c of batter to the pan. I cook 2 at a time. Watch carefully. After 2-3ish minutes check the bottom(my stove cooks hot) and if they look nice and golden, flip them. Give them another 2-3 minutes on the other side then move to a plate with a paper towel on it. Repeat. The ones at the end wont be as fluffy, and that's okay. They're still good. Really good. This made ~18 I think. But I can't remember how many I ate already, so I can't be sure.

I LIKE CELERY!

Actually, I hate the stuff. As a kid I would retch if you tried to feed me celery. I did actually vomit a few times from celery containing Tortilla soup. I remember it well. (Oh, that's nice. Opening a food blog post with stories of vomit. You're welcome.)

Well. NO MORE. I've been trying to eat more celery lately cause I know it's a diuretic(it makes you pee more, taking water out of your body). And as I keep eating tiny bits of gluten containing food(soy sauce...) I'm retaining LOTS of water. I may need to start being more careful with my diet. Today I made a spinach bean dip that is AMAZING. I get WIC for CupCake and they gave us a recipe book. It actually has a lot of great recipes in it. Some bad ones too. It's WIC after all.


Spinach Bean Dip

1T olive oil
4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 6oz bag spinach
1 15oz can White Kidney Beans
Lime juice from 1/2 a lime
1T balsamic vinegar
1/4t pepper
1T salt
1/2t paprika

Saute garlic in olive oil until fragrant(or, since I'm sick and can't smell, until it turns color a bit). Add spinach and wilt. Put every thing in a food processor and process until smooth. Serve with celery sticks, chips, or other veggies. Goes well with chicken taquitos too.

Next time I'll probably add another 3-6oz of wilted spinach and 2-4 more cloves of garlic. Mighty tasty.

Blueberry Morning

Yesterday I wanted to make blueberry muffins. Okay, great. I went to bed. I almost never wake up the next morning wanting to make the same thing. Except today I did. So I made them! I used an agave sweetened, gluten-free cupcake recipe and altered it a bit. It's WONDERFUL. Could have used more blueberries. Cupcake is trying to eat one now(the paper is still on them).

Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup unsweetened coconut milk drink
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup agave nectar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/4 cup +2 tablespoons tapioca flour
• 2 tablespoons flax seed meal
• 1/4 c corn meal
• 1/2 cup rice flour
• 1/2 cup quinoa flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/3 teaspoon salt

Fresh Blueberries

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Line muffin tin with 11 paper cups. Fill remaining cup with water 2/3 full.

Mix together coconut milk, agave, and oil. Mix in tapioca starch and flax meal. Mix WELL. I do it by hand with a whisk. I probably mix for 2-4 minutes, depending. It needs to look emulsified. Then add in the cinnamon and flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Mix another 3-4 minutes until all combined. Pour into prepared pan, filling liners 2/3 full. Lightly press in blueberries. After I filled 11 I had a little batter left over, and I drizzled it over the blueberries. Just a little. Maybe a teaspoon over each muffin. Bake at 350F for 20-24 minutes. They're done when a toothpick come out of the center clean.