He Can’t Eat What, Now?

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Debora

A few weeks ago Luke was at the doctor getting a checkup and I asked them if he could be tested for food allergies. He doesn’t have any major symptoms, but he always seems to have dark circles under his eyes and a stuffy nose. So they did a blood test and the results came back positive for a ridiculous number of allergies. Wheat, corn, soy, peanuts, walnuts, sesame seeds, plums, scallops…clearly some massive dietary changes were in order. Toss in my dairy allergy and gluten intolerance and I was starting to wonder if we’d have to resort to cutting pictures of food out of cardboard and eating those.

In the summer it’s easier; we eat from the garden and orchard and life is good. But in the winter our diet tends to be grain-based, and we are running out of acceptable grains. Basically I need to organize a complete overhaul of our wintertime eating habits.

Not being able to eat bread is a fairly huge handicap. Over the past year I’ve gotten okay at making gluten-free bread, but I’m not crazy about it. It involves a lot of added starches and gums, which offends my whole-food inclinations, and it doesn’t keep well. I like my food to be simple, healthy and relatively undemanding. But man, do I miss bread. And pizza, and donuts.

One thing I don’t have to miss is pancakes and waffles, because I finally invented a GREAT recipe for those. Here’s something I’ve discovered about GF baking: the texture will be infinitely better if you add some kind of fresh fruit or vegetable to the batter/dough. The natural fibers are a surprisingly good substitute for gluten. If it’s not something you can add fruits or veggies to, try psyllium husks; similar effect with no noticeable flavor change. Here is my GF pancake/waffle recipe:

2 cups millet flour (sorghum flour would also work)
1 TBL psyllium husks
1 tsp aluminum-free baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 TBL oil (I use organic extra-virgin coconut oil)
1 banana, mashed
1 cup rice milk (any dairy or non-dairy milk would work)
1 TBL lemon juice
1 TBL sweetener (honey, agave nectar or maple syrup)
2 eggs, or 3 if you’re making waffles.

Yum!

But most of my baking is still a work in progress. Last October I was browsing through a catalogue and saw a mini-donut maker that works on the same principle as a waffle iron. “Wow, I’d love to have one of those!” I commented.

Luke and Elizabeth heard, and remembered, and mentioned it to my ex-laws, and there was a mini-donut maker under our tree this Christmas.

(Tangent: this is another one of those unexpected things that I’m not sure how to feel about. This is the first time since the divorce that I’ve received a “from the kids” gift financed by Steve or his parents. And it’s pretty much the first time I’ve EVER gotten a Christmas gift from Steve or his parents that was even remotely relevant to my interests. I love the donut maker. I appreciate the gesture, truly. It just feels…a little…baffling.)

Anyway, the nifty thing about the donut maker is that it seems to be able to bake any “quick bread” (ie, no yeast) batter perfectly. I’ve been experimenting with biscuits, mini-pizza crusts, etc, with good results. Sure, they’re all shaped like little donuts, but that’s fine.

The best part is how easy it is — the most time-consuming part is milling the flour. Whole organic millet is my current grain of choice; it makes a tasty, light, cakelike bread. In theory I like quinoa better, but for some reason it disagrees with my digestion. If you’re gluten-free but not milling your own flour, sorghum flour is also a very good choice.

Once the flour is milled, it’s just a matter of mixing the ingredients and pouring them a tablespoon at a time into the preheated donut receptacles. Each batch cooks in about three minutes. In no time at all you have a plateful of delicious donuts or biscuits or whatever the bread du jour is. And it doesn’t even matter that they’re only really good the first day, because tomorrow you can take a few minutes and make more! SWEET! It’s a great energy-saver, too. No heating up a big oven, no use of propane and only a few pennies’ worth of electricity.

So we’re still working on creating a new wintertime menu, but my new gadget has gotten us off to a great start. Bread is a wonderful tummy-filler, and now I can make it with only healthy, allergen-free ingredients! Yay for mini donut makers!

Of course, now I miss polenta. I don’t suppose there’s a corn-free substitute for that….

Categories: Christmas, Family, food, frugality, Gluten Free, Health, kids, Life, Nutrition | 4 Comments

Love, In Focus

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Debora

For a good part of this past year I’ve been grumbling that I need reading glasses, and not actually doing anything about it. It usually slips my mind until the kids’ bedtime, when I read a chapter aloud from the Bible and find myself holding the book at arm’s length to focus on the tiny words. Or when I’m trying to read the microscopic list of ingredients on some container. It’s typical middle-age presbyopia; there’s no problem unless I’m trying to read fine print. Anyway, for some reason I just kept whinging about needing the glasses and never got around to buying them.

Guess what I found in my stocking on Christmas morning?

Elizabeth bought them for me. With her own money.

And to appreciate the significance of that, you have to understand that my sweet girl is, let us say, Not A Financially Generous Person. To my knowledge she has never spent her own personal money on anyone but herself before. This is a kid who can spot a penny on the ground fifty feet away, and will stop what she’s doing to go and pick it up. A kid who loves the annual Christmas Gift Shop at her school because it offers lots of inexpensive shinies for her to buy — for herself. True story: last year both kids ended up getting a lot of cash for Christmas from various relatives. We went on a shopping trip and Elizabeth had soon frittered away all her money on useless shiny objects. Luke, who had received everything he’d asked for for Christmas, came home without spending a dime; he just hadn’t seen anything that he wanted. And within a few days Elizabeth had wheedled him into spending all of HIS Christmas money on stuff for HER via Amazon.com.

Another true story: last week when we went to Riverside, I was feeling very budget-conscious because of all the money I’d spent on Christmas, so I packed a lunch for us to eat at the park and I told everyone to eat a good breakfast because I didn’t want to end up having to buy any food in the pricey Mission Inn area. Apparently both kids were having an off morning, because Luke neglected to eat any breakfast at all and Elizabeth neglected to put our lunch into the car (the one task I’d assigned to her). I was pretty exasperated when I found out, and not just with them. I realized that I’d fallen into a pattern of picking up the slack in these kinds of situations, rescuing Luke and Elizabeth from the consequences of their carelessness, smoothing things over, so they’d had no motivation to improve. Even then my impulse was to say, “It’s okay, we can get lunch at that sandwich place near the Inn.” Which we could, but that place is freaking expensive like all the other places to get decent food near the Inn, and I really and truly could not afford to drop thirty dollars on lunch that day. So what I said was, “We can go to that sandwich place near the Inn, and anyone who wants to eat can pay for their own food.” They both had this year’s Christmas money, so I don’t think I was being unreasonable. I paid for my lunch, Luke paid for his lunch, and Elizabeth….

Well, Elizabeth bought herself a cookie, because she could not bear the thought of spending her precious dollars on anything as mundane and transitory as food. (She had the last laugh though, because Luke’s lunch was too big for him to finish. She helpfully polished it off for him.)

This is not a girl who is lavishly charitable with her money, is what I’m saying.

But she went into an actual grownup store and spent a fair chunk of her beloved lucre on a lovely pair of reading glasses for me, so that I would have something in my stocking on Christmas morning. (And probably also so she wouldn’t have to keep listening to me grumbling about needing them, but still.)

This is one of the things I like best about Christmas: the way it inspires people to show their love in ways they normally might not. The happy surprises.

Happy Love Thursday, All. Here’s to the moments that help us see our loved ones…a little more clearly.

Categories: Christmas, Family, frugality, Humor, kids, Life, Love, Love Thursday | 4 Comments

Wordless Wednesday: Dark Wings, Bright Lights And A Spigotcicle

Posted on January 5, 2011 by Debora

Categories: Animals, Christmas, environment, Horses, Life, Weather, Wildlife, Winter, Wordless Wednesday | Leave a comment

Tuesday Tales: Chains

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Debora

*****

Chains (Click the link to read this week’s chapter.)

“But first, our sweet girl has secrets. And I would know them.”

Categories: Austin After Dark, Fiction, Gaming, Humor, Role-Playing Games, Tuesday Tales | Leave a comment

Seriously, 2011? Seriously?

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Debora

Everywhere I look people are grumbling “Good riddance to 2010! What a crappy year!” Twitter, Facebook and most of my favorite bloggers seem to be in agreement about the epic suckitude of the past twelve months.

As usual I’m the oddball: I had a GREAT 2010. Truly a fantastic year for me and the kids.

2011 is, sadly, shaping up to be less than stellar. I know we’re only three days into it, but let’s take a look at what we’ve got so far:

On New Year’s Eve morning I woke up with the sort of head/chest cold and fever that erodes one’s will to live. And then it wouldn’t freaking go away. New’s Year’s Day I was still dragging around congested, feverish, coughing up smurfs and generally being a big whiner. Yesterday I finally kicked the fever and got my energy back, but all of the other symptoms are, as of today, still firmly entrenched in my respiratory system. This is what I get for bragging that I never get sick anymore since I started growing my own food.

This morning we woke up to about a half-inch of snow. My little car slipped and slid all the way to the bus stop. I suspect that I have the wrong vehicle for my location. Anyway, the bus was very late so I shut the car off while we waited, and than after it finally came and the kids left my car would not restart. It clicked like a bad starter, but the oil pressure and battery lights were both lit. I could have called AAA, but I was wearing my pajamas, a bathrobe, worn-out Uggs and a ratty Carhartt jacket, and was feeling less than presentable. I could have walked home, gotten dressed, called AAA and then walked back to the car, but it’s a about a mile along a paved road just to get to the driveway and see above regarding my stylish ensemble. So I gritted my teeth and called Steve. And he came and gave my battery a jump and my car started and I drove home. So before I get on with the grousing about how I probably need a new starter and I have no money and why did this have to happen right after Christmas, let me take a moment to marvel over the mindboggling fact that Steve has become one of the most dependably helpful people in my life lately. It is almost painful for me to admit that, and I would rather eat thumbtacks than take advantage of this inexplicable grace, but the fact remains that in the past year or two he has been there for me in moments when no one else was and I am deeply grateful.

And now: Probably need new starter, no money, why right after Christmas, etc. /grouse

So 2011 is getting off to a shaky start for me. I’m really hoping it’s just getting all the bad stuff out of its system right at the beginning, so the rest of the year can be drama-free. Yay optimism!

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In other news:

Luke has a passion for turn-of-the-century (as in 1900) machinery and steam-tech, especially in European settings, so the game Ticket To Ride: Europe was an easy pick for one of his Christmas presents. It’s a lot of fun to play, but the gameboard is basically a map of Europe and we don’t know how to pronounce some of the city names. Most of them we can figure out because we’re familiar with the English translation, like Bruxelles and København (Brussels and Copenhagen), but others we just have to guess at. Sure, we could Google the correct pronunciations, but because we are children we prefer to substitute our own words in place of the names. All of this is to explain the following exchange from a few nights ago:

Luke: “I’m claiming the route from Breast to Diaper.”

Me: “Ah, yes. Pretty short trip, as I recall. About twenty minutes, usually.”

Yes, I am twelve. And so is my ten-year-old son.

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Speaking of twelve-year-olds, I also got Luke two of the “Diary Of A Wimpy Kid” sequels, “The Last Straw” and “The Ugly Truth,” since he enjoyed the first book so much. He and Elizabeth have both spent the past week reading, rereading, laughing at and quoting their favorite bits from both of them. I haven’t read any of the series myself yet, but just going by how much my kids love these books I have to recommend them to anyone with kids in the 10- to 15-year-old age group. Luke doesn’t read a lot of fiction, he’s more into history, science and machinery, so for a kids’ book to grab his interest this hard it has to be exceptionally entertaining. If you have kids of middle school age or thereabouts, check this series out!

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And now I am off to eat a bowl of frozen pomegranate seeds, because they are magical and will restore me to full health. Any day now.

Categories: books, Family, Gaming, Health, Humor, kids, Life, Nutrition, Weather, Winter | Tags: , | 2 Comments

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