Christmas Cookies

 Decorating some gingerbread cookies that were surprisingly good and "normal"

 Bee was mostly only interested in the icing

 She got a little bit actually on her cookie.  We won't talk about her double dipping and licking of the knife.  Her cookies were placed in a special spot just for her.

 Tiger was very serious about his cookie decorating experience...He also ate all the chocolate chips when I wasn't looking

 On the cookie Bee!  Put it on the cookie!  Stop eating icing!

Who me??

 

Potato Soup

Prince Charming loves potato soup and he misses it dearly--especially my Green Chile Potato Chowder.  I miss it too.................
But we've come up with the next best thing--allergy-friendly potato soup.

4 large potatoes, cut into small cubes
chicken broth
2 or 3 bell peppers-I use a red, orange, and yellow one
1 large onion, diced
olive oil

Put the cubed potatoes into a large pot and just cover with chicken broth.  Cook until potatoes are tender.  Meanwhile, saute bell peppers and onion in another pot until soft.  Add enough chicken broth to cover and simmer.  Put the bell peppers and onion in food processor and process to desired consistency.  Add peppers and onion to the pot with potatoes.

2 T olive oil
2 T oat or rice flour
1 cup rice milk

Heat olive oil over medium heat in pot and whisk in oat flour.  Whisk for 2 minutes and then slowly add rice milk and stir until the sauce thickens into a roux.  Pour into pot with potatoes, peppers, and onion.

1 T honey
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cumin
salt and pepper

Add remaining ingredients and salt and pepper to taste.

It's not the creamy potato chowder that we miss, but it is a close second and is thick and creamy and disappears fast.

Reaction

So many times Bee has a reaction and I can figure out what she reacted to.  And then other times, I just have no idea and it can be so very frustrating.  The other day, the kids were cooking in the play kitchen and Bee put on her little apron.  Within minutes her entire chin and neck began to break out.  I was able to undress her, bathe her, and lotion her before the rash spread over her entire face.  About an hour later she had a secondary reaction and one side of her face broke out.  I felt like I was fighting a losing battle.

Usually she's safe at our house, but not this time.  We've tried to determine what happened and the only thought we have is that her reaction had something to do with the number of kids and parents we had over at our house for Curly and Tiger's birthday party.  The kids were all touching the toys and many of them played in the play kitchen and with the aprons.  If one of them had something on their hands from breakfast and brought it into the house, then it could have caused Bee's reaction. 

I think I'm going to have to institute a new policy-if you come over to our house you must wash your hands when you first come in.  While I'm not sure that this was the cause of Bee's reaction it's my best guess.  How am I going to ask everyone to wash their hands when they walk in the door?  They are going to think I am such a fanatic.......not only do I not allow anyone to bring in outside food but now you have to wash your hands when you come over.  Maybe next I'll just give everyone sterile gowns to don over their clothes, then I'd know they didn't bring any food particles in the house....

Tortillas

One thing I have missed since going gluten free is flour tortillas.  Now that Bee can eat some corn, we can have corn tortillas which has opened the door for some creative Mexican food recipes.  Unfortunately, no one in our house is very fond of corn tortillas....

Enter the rice flour tortilla.........I've been wanting to try to find a recipe for a GF tortilla that I can make myself although I have never made a tortilla before-regular or otherwise.

Hubby had the idea and asked me to try it, so we did.  And we were surprisingly successful!

GF Tortillas
4 cups rice flour
1 1/3 cup potato starch
2/3 cup tapioca flour

Combine flours in large bag and mix thoroughly.

2 cups flour mix
1 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup warm water

Combine the dry ingredients and mix.  Add the water and mix with hands until the dough holds together.  Separate the dough into 8 pieces (or 16 if you want smaller more kid-friendly tortillas) and roll into balls.  Place the balls of dough in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Take out one ball at a time as you are ready to work with it.  Flour your surface well and then roll out each tortilla.  The trick to rolling out your tortillas is to turn the dough a quarter turn after each time you roll it.  This helps keep the tortilla round.  Roll out as thin as possible without causing the dough to tear or have holes.  Place on a hot griddle that was warmed on medium high heat.  Cook a couple minutes on each side until the tortilla puffs up and becomes slightly browned.  Place the cooked tortillas between slightly damp, warmed towels.

 Perfect tortillas

Note that this tortilla is rolled without any cracking or breaking...if you've ever bought some store-bought frozen rice tortillas you understand the importance of being able to fold a tortilla.

These tortillas can be rolled up!

These made for some amazing fajitas!  Hubby thought they tasted nearly normal and I was so excited I think I ate 4 or maybe 5...........

Omega-3

We aren't sure if Bee has a fish allergy or not but we want to make sure she receives enough of the Omega-3s and other supplements, such as DHA.  It is hard to find supplements that are not from fish sources but the Pure One supplement is from plant-based sources and is safe for Bee.  I cut open a capsule and pour it in one of her drinks during the day to boost her Omega-3 intake. 

Other days I add some Salba Seed Oil to her drinks to give her a different source of Omega-3s.  They also have the milled salba seeds which can act as an egg-replacer when mixed with water for some recipes or can be added to smoothies or hot cereals.

Flour Blend

Jules Flour Blend is one I have used in the past with great gluten-free results.  Their site even has recipes and some are free of other allergens or would be easy to make substitutions.  She has a new cookbook out called Free For All Cooking and it is the most recent addition to my cookbook collection.  After the holidays, I'm going to get it out and get started.  In the meantime though, I think I need to try to the ginger snaps...

Doctor Appointment

Bee enjoyed watching the fish as we waited for our pager to buzz for our appointment.
After our pager went off, we were whisked behind the purple door-all the door are color coded- and taken to one of the back rooms.  This time we were in an infusion suite which is where other kids are given immunoglobulin infusions among other things.

Our first visitor was one of our doctors.  I brought out my list and we went through all of our questions and experiences for the past six months as I brought her up to date.

Next up, the nurse came to get us to weigh and measure Bee.  She has gained 3.5 pounds since our last visit and is now steadily tracking up the 25th percentile growth curve.  This is a huge blessing since she had completely fallen off any of the growth charts at one point.

Back to the room to wait for the other doctor and in comes the nutritionist.  We go through some of our typical meals and go through several days of a typical breakfast, lunch, and dinner at our house.  We talk about supplements and some of our options.  She decides that olive oil is still probably the safest and best cooking oil for us right now and that Bee should alternate between rice milk and hemp milk.  Bee should take a multivitamin, a vitamin D supplement, and calcium.  We discussed types of flour and grains and she felt we had a good variety with buckwheat, brown rice, tapioca flour, potato starch, millet, and sorghum.  She mentioned quinoa but we've tried that in the past and Bee reacted to it.  We'll wait on that one.  A new one to try might be teff flour which is higher in protein. 

Finally, our other doctor made her appearance.  We went back through my list.  She agreed to retest Bee's IgE levels to certain foods and we made a list of which foods to test.
She felt we should up our lotion to twice a day for the winter to keep Bee's skin hydrated and eczema free.
The doctor said we should avoid any food that causes a slight skin rash even if Bee does not develop hives as she is obviously, at the very least, sensitive to this food and could still have an anaphylactic reaction to these foods.  That means that oatmeal will be out for a while again...
We discussed the holidays and other group get togethers which always have food.  She encouraged me that we do have to be very vigilant with Bee as she is so severely allergic and can have a reaction even if certain foods are in the air.  Her response, "Sometimes you have to be the mean parent who keeps other children away from yours or who has to leave the event.  No one will understand and most people will view you as the crazy parent.  But I understand and the severity of Bee's allergies warrants that type of caution."  Well, it's not fun to hear that we'll never to normal but it is nice to know that she understands, knows I'm not crazy, and encourages the obsessive behavior.  Hey!  I have the doctor's orders to be paranoid and obsessive!
We talked about the new baby, how to handle those potential allergies, and how to determine if the baby will even have allergies.  She decided that we would meet again before the baby was ready to try solids to discuss which foods we should start with and which foods we should hold off for a while.
She felt fairly confident that Bee would outgrow her wheat and egg white allergy but was not as confident that she would outgrow her dairy allergy given how sensitive she is to dairy.  The doctor believed the peanut and tree nut allergy might be here to stay.  She also cautioned us to avoid fish until after Bee was 3 even though we were hoping we could try some fish sooner than that.

There are several things I appreciate about our doctors.
1-They always encourage me and are so supportive of our dietary changes, and they try to stay so positive.  I feel like they are actually compassionate and understanding of how difficult and life-changing it is for us to continue a somewhat normal life.
2-They never treat my questions as crazy and are never condescending.  They actually listen to my questions and concerns and believe what I say regarding our previous experiences and reactions.
3-Sometimes their answer is, "I don't know."  They acknowledge that they don't know everything and that predicting and determining food allergies is not an exact science.  So, sometimes there is not an exact answer, a definite, or a rule.  They treat parents and children as individuals and know that each child and reaction is different. 

After our lengthy visit, we were sent to the lab and then finally headed back home for our 1 1/2 hour drive.  That was one long day!!!