General Information

Navigating the Grocery Store

Navigating the Grocery Store

May 14-18 is Food Allergy Awareness Week. On social media I asked my followers what they would like me to write about food allergies. In the next few weeks I will be writing several posts to answer the great questions I received. I also have two awesome guests that will be posting on food allergies as well so be sure to come on back in the coming weeks. Here is the first in the series.

One of my followers on Instagram last week what I do to help my girls when they feel sad about foods they can’t have. This post is dedicated to answer this great question. Keep in mind that this is what I have done with my girls, it may or may not work for you. I hope it is helpful since this can be a very difficult issue to deal with for sure.

1. One of the most important things we can teach our kids is that life isn’t always fair. Life just isn’t fair, no matter how much we want it to be. There will always be difficult situations to navigate in life. My husband and I have worked really hard to instill this in our girls in many different situations. We have three girls and we simply can’t make everything fair and equal all the time. That will never be reality for them once they leave our home either, so we want to prepare our girls for the realities that they will face later in life. This is no different with their food intolerances and allergies. It doesn’t seem fair that they can’t eat the same foods as other people, but it is their reality. We give them the freedom to feel sad and talk about how hard it is to have food allergies. It is important for them to be able to voice their feelings. Since life isn’t fair for anyone, in our case with food intolerances and allergies, we help them to see beyond it.

2. We teach our kids thankfulness as a response to difficult situations. Let me be clear again though that we absolutely let our kids feel sad and talk about the challenges they face having food allergies and intolerances. The fact is that we can’t change that our girls (both my husband and I as well) have food allergies and intolerances. If we can’t change that, it is up to us to determine how we let them affect our lives. We can mope around in our sadness and discouragement, or we can choose to be thankful for what we CAN eat. Yes, our list of “can’t haves” is very long, I call it a scroll. You know what though? There are SO MANY foods we CAN eat. Having food intolerances and allergies has pushed all of us to be adventurous with new foods that we might not have ever tried. Our family has become so close knit having food allergies and intolerances because we can’t eat out very much we spend almost every meal together. Most of us also have a very strong desire to be creative, so we have taken our creativity into the kitchen.

3. I am typically very determined in many areas of life. This has done our family well having food allergies and intolerances. I have been determined to not let food allergies and intolerances get the best of us or keep us from enjoying life. If I find a “normal” recipe that looks good, I am determined to figure out how to make it work for my family’s long list of can’t haves. There are very few foods that I haven’t been able to re-create to fit my family’s needs. My family has to endure eating all of my experiments until I get them right, which they are very gracious to do. This has greatly helped my girls to not feel left out. If they are going to a party or event, I always ask the parent what they will be providing for food. I make the same food that will be served at the party so my girls feel included, but with safe food for them. My freezer is full of desserts all the time so the girls have many options to choose from when they have an event to attend. This has helped them to always feel included which is one of the toughest things for kids with food allergies and intolerances to deal with.

4. When we are in a grocery store and see foods that my girls would like to eat, but can’t have we do two things. We find a similar product that is safe for them. The area that we live in has a plethora of natural food stores that have huge selections that fit our needs. If we can’t find it in our local stores, we look online where we can find almost anything we need. It doesn’t satisfy the urgent “want” while we are at the store, but it’s good for them to learn to be patient. 🙂 The other thing we do in this situation is figure out how we can make it ourselves. See #3 for this. My girls are at ages that I can reason with them about what they can and can’t have. If your kids are too young to reason with, I would suggest bringing a safe snack for them to eat while you are at the grocery store so they aren’t thinking about all the food they are passing by.

5. From the time our girls could talk we taught them about their food allergies and intolerances, their reactions, and the consequences of eating those foods would be for them. We wanted them to know clearly why they couldn’t eat certain foods. Education is so important with our kids in this area. I often use the example that we teach our kids the ABC’s from the time they are born knowing they don’t understand them at the time. We repeatedly teach the ABC’S because we know that one day they will know their ABC’s for themselves. I see it no differently with food allergies and intolerances or teaching kids not to touch a hot stove. It is our job to repeatedly teach our kids about their food allergies and intolerances until they know and understand them clearly for themselves. This year I have gone into our two older girls classrooms to talk about food allergies as well to educate their friends. The more we can educate our own kids, their friends, and our families, the easier it will be on our kids.

Please let me know if you have any other questions that I can answer. I hope this was helpful!

Cuisinart Food Processor Review

Cuisinart Food Processor Review

I recently posted a video on social media that shows how quickly sweet potatoes can be turned into sweet potato fries in seconds. Several people had no idea that it was even possible and were amazed at how quickly and easily my Cuisinart food processor chopped my sweet potatoes. For almost two years, sweet potatoes were one of my best food friends. I ate them almost every day for lunch and loved them dearly. They got bumped only because I now love plantains too, but sweet potatoes will always be at the top of my list.

Originally when I started eating sweet potatoes, I was making chips out of them. See the sweet potato chip recipe here. I also made these with my food processor using my 4mm slicing blade. This is where my love for sweet potatoes began. I mean, who doesn’t love chips of any and all kinds?! Prior to this, I greatly disliked sweet potatoes. Gasp, I know! I never got into the candied yams at Thanksgiving or anything like that. It’s probably because my family never ate them and because I don’t like any mushy food at all. I have a quick gag reflex for anything mushy, so baked sweet potatoes were out. Enter sweet potato chips and I was SOLD! This way they were a tad bit crunchy, just like I like food. 🙂 While I loved my sweet potato chips, they were a bit high maintenance, needing to be flipped every 5 minutes towards the end of their baking. I just couldn’t give them that much attention. Making sweet potato fries changed all of that since I can flip large spatulas full all at the same time. Voila, I was eating sweet potato fries daily and loving it.

I figured there had to be a way to make french fry shapes with my food processor and sure enough, this french fry disc (affiliate link) is what I found and purchased. This attachment makes shoestring size fries. Several of the reviews I read about this attachment in particular was that it can get clogged and not work well. I do find this to be true, but it’s a real simple fix. All you need to do is open the lid and pull the pieces out of the attachment that are stuck and move along on your merry way. That’s all, no big deal!

Over the many years that I have had my food processor, I have used it for many things. I use it to chop vegetables like celery, carrots, cucumber, zucchini, etc. so that all of my pieces are uniform in size. It works great and super fast. The cucumber on the left, below, is with the 2mm slicing blade. The cucumber on the right is using the 4mm slicing blade.

I also use the grating attachment to grate carrots, cheese, and anything else you would like to be shredded.

My food processor also does a great job with “blender” muffins, date balls, pesto, sun butter, crackers, and more. It is such a versatile kitchen gadget, it’s a main staple in my kitchen. I really love my food processor and use it often. I have owned this 11 cup Pro Custom Cuisinart Food Processor and I currently own this 11 cup Prep Plus Cuisinart Food Processor (both affiliate links). The first one I got at some point after we were married, but I’m not sure when. I used it for years and then decided I needed a more powerful motor for all the use I was giving mine. They both were great, I have no complaints about either one. They are dishwasher safe with BPA plastic which are both pluses for me. All in all, I highly recommend getting a good food processor if you do a lot of meal prep, chopping vegetables, blending thicker or chunky foods, and like one unit that is great for many of uses. The two food processors in the links above come with a bowl, the lid, a blade attachment, two slicing blades that are different thicknesses (2mm and 4mm), and a grating blade. I had to purchase the french fry attachment separately. They are a bit of an investment, but so worth it if you think you will use it a lot. As always, let me know if you have any questions, I’m happy to answer any you may have.

Scoops!

Scoops!

You want the scoop on my scoops?! 🙂 I absolutely love everything about a set of * scoops These are almost a part of my daily baking, they are that helpful. If you plan on doing a lot of baking or cooking, I highly suggest finding yourself a set of ice cream/cookie scoops. I have found them called both, but I call them ice cream scoops in my recipes. I use these in so many different ways, I will post several pictures below that I used scoops for. The possibilities are endless really.

Here are several of the reasons that I love using scoops:
1. They are quick and easy to use
2. They are dishwasher friendly (can I get an amen to that since a lot of my kitchen tools can’t be?)
3. It is a great way to get even amounts of things. This way my girls can’t grumble that someone else’s food is bigger 😉
4. They are so versatile in the kitchen. See below for all the ways I use them.

Now for pictures 🙂

I make muffins by the 4 dozen. No joke, I do this every 10 days or so. My family eats muffins for breakfast every day, so scooping makes my life a whole lot easier and faster. The largest scoop is the perfect muffin size.

Ok, fine, you are going to begin to see that I make most things in bulk. I make tortillas in HUGE stacks and freeze them. By huge stacks, I mean 8 cups of dough, big. Again, the scoops make my life so much faster and easier here. I use the largest scoop for these as well.

No picture here, but I use my smallest scoop to make melon balls because my youngest insists that I do. In all honesty, I don’t prefer to do this, but for her? Anything! This takes longer than cutting, but it works well none the less.

We love a good healthy snack/dessert around here so we make date balls often. My second from the smallest scoop is the perfect size for these.

I do actually use my scoops for ice cream. 🙂 The largest scoop, of course!

Several other things that I use scoops for are frango chocolates, cupcakes, dinner rolls, small brownie bites, pie filling for small pies, cookies, bread sticks, buns, and more. Hopefully you find this helpful. Scoops forever changed my life in the kitchen, I hope they do for you too. 🙂

* This is an affiliate link for your convenience and to help keep my site running. I will always give my honest opinion, for me, there’s no other way to be. Also, I am a frugal shopper and I like to pass that on to my readers as well. 🙂

Tortilla Press Review

Tortilla Press Review

I told you all last week that I would give you my review on the *tortilla press that I have. Honestly, I LOVE this tortilla press so much. I think I made tortillas by hand one time which included rolling them all out and then frying each one individually. If you must do that, it works, but man it is a lot of work. For me, it wasn’t worth making tortillas at that pace.

A few things that you will learn about me more and more are that I am frugal where I can be, I save time when I can, I make simple but tasty foods, I skip unnecessary steps in recipes to save time, and I’m a bit unconventional in the kitchen to be able to do the things mentioned above. There are times that I have to decide which of the above are the most important if I can’t squeeze them all into one recipe. I think the tortillas fit into most of the above. The press wasn’t terribly expensive, it saves me SO much time, it is simple and easy to use, but this one isn’t unconventional. You can see a video on how easy they are to make under my oat tortilla recipe. It really is amazing how fast and simple it is.

Tortillas

Ingredients
2/3 C Brown rice flour
2/3 C White rice flour
2/3 C Tapioca starch
1 t Guar gum
½ t Cream of tartar
¼ t Baking soda
1 t Salt
1 C Warm water

Directions
In a large bowl mix together all dry ingredients well with a spoon. Add water to dry mixture and mix until well combined. The dough is a bit sticky. I use a tortilla maker to make these which saves a ton of time. Using a large cookie scoop place dough on tortilla maker, press down, let cook for about 30 seconds, then remove and place on a plate. Enjoy!

If you are making these by hand with a frying pan I would still use a cookie scoop to get even balls. Then use a baking mat dusted with extra tapioca starch. Place a ball of dough on the mat, sprinkle the top of the dough with more tapioca starch, then roll out into a circle. Spray pan with non-stick spray and fry each side for 10-15 seconds. Repeat until done.

This recipe works really well to double.

The one thing that I really don’t like about my tortilla press is that it’s not that easy to clean. While the press says it is non-stick, I find that I need to use non-stick spray to ensure my tortillas don’t stick. With that, the grease from the spray leaks out the bottom (see the photo below). This is definitely not a deal breaker for me, but something I think is important to share with you all. I clean it the best I can and then I store it with a paper towel underneath it.

Now for my unconventional idea with the tortilla press. For a long time, I have been wanting to make home made ice cream cones that are cane sugar free for my family. I found a great looking recipe that I want to try, but I just can’t get myself to buy an ice cream cone press. While it would be fun to have ice cream cones with the checkered pattern, I don’t think it is necessary to have the pattern and add another gadget to my kitchen. I am going to attempt to make ice cream cones with this tortilla press. 🙂 Wish me luck and I’ll let you know how my pattern free ice cream cones turn out.

* This is an affiliate link for your convenience and to help keep my site running. I will always give my honest opinion, for me, there’s no other way to be. Also, I am a frugal shopper and I like to pass that on to my readers as well. 🙂

Multiple Food Allergies

Multiple Food Allergies

Most of you I don’t know me personally, so I thought I would share a little bit about us. In the “About” section, I go into a some detail about how I came to be a consultant for kids with multiple food allergies. I thought I would go into a little more detail here. My husband and I have been putting together a presentation for my business this week and this is one of the slides for it above. While I am very aware that food in the world of having food allergies is getting to be really amazing, I know we can all relate to this picture. If we know better than this, most people without food allergies don’t.

One thing that is difficult having multiple food allergies and intolerances, is finding recipes that fit our needs without having to “tweak” something. Here is a glimpse of what I have running through my brain every day as I look at recipes, create my own, and look for pre made foods that we can eat. This list is what my three daughters and husband can’t have:
– Gluten
– Dairy
– Soy
– Egg yolk (whites are fine)
– Nuts
– Corn products, not derivatives (I’ll do a post on this at some point)
– Cane sugar
– Tomato
– Garlic
– Beans

My two youngest daughters had severe (though not anaphylaxis allergies) to dairy, soy, and eggs from the time they were just days old. I go into more detail in the “about” section on this if you care to read about it. At 18 months old, my middle daughter, had an anaphylaxis reaction to peanuts while we were on vacation. A trip to the ER, benadryl, and an epi shot finally stopped the reaction. As my girls have gotten older, their allergies have become less severe, and my middle daughter amazingly has grown out of her anaphylaxis allergy to peanuts. While their allergies have become less severe, the above foods still have enough effect on my girls that they choose themselves to not eat them. All of my daughters want to do oral challenges (ok’d by our Dr’s) about once a year. When they want to, I let them so they can make the decision themselves what foods don’t make them feel well. Each time they have done oral challenges, my girls feel miserable whether it be horrible nausea, vomiting, rash, diarrhea, headaches, bronchitis type cough and sinus congestion, malabsorption in their gut, etc. While I’m abundantly thankful that my girls reactions aren’t life threatening, the reactions they do have are no fun for them either. They have each decided that their reactions to the foods above aren’t worth experiencing. Gluten, dairy, and cane sugar are on all of my girls and husbands lists, but the other food items are for one or some of them. All of my girls vomit from eating cane sugar, go figure. I’m not sure if that is because they don’t eat very much of it or they have an intolerance to it. They sure are funny when I joke with them about it. I tease them that they can eat a whole bowl of candy and they all yell “NO, we don’t want to get sick. YUCK!!!!” Cane sugar and corn are the most difficult foods for us to avoid when looking at pre made foods so I make virtually all of our food. It’s easiest for me to cook one meal for everyone so I take the whole list above into consideration when I cook. I have purposely left myself out of the list above because I have quite a limited diet due to health issues of my own.

OK, back to finding recipes for people with multiple food allergies… I tell you the above information so you know what I go through in finding food to feed my own family with multiple food allergies and intolerances. Since I have been making food for multiple food allergies for almost 12 years, it has become much easier over time for sure. One of my greatest joys in working with kids with multiple food allergies is finding food that they CAN have. I absolutely love finding recipes from some of my favorite trusted food allergy bloggers, creating my own recipes, and finding products on the market that my clients can eat. Problem solving is so much fun for me and I am fiercely determined to be sure my own family and my clients can eat foods that they love and miss even though they have multiple food allergies. If it is possible to recreate a food for my family and clients with multiple food allergies, I am determined to figure it out for them. I push many boundaries in the kitchen and am willing to try just about anything to be sure my family and clients get to enjoy the best allergy friendly foods possible. You don’t have to eat cardboard, spend many hours, and failed recipes to find great food for your child with multiple food allergies. Let me do it for you, it’s what I do best! I do all of the research of finding recipes for my clients specific food allergies, foods they want to eat, and then help them meal plan as well. Leave me a comment of a food that you wish you could still eat, along with your restrictions. Bring me the joy of problem solving for you. 🙂

Bulk Baking

IMG_7178bulkfreezer

I have been asked several times how I keep my family fed when I have to make the vast majority of what we eat. The answer is simple, but making it happen takes time. Bulk baking is the only way that I can realistically keep bread on the table, literally. Early on, we invested in a large freestanding freezer that sits in our garage, which holds meat, sauces, fruit, and a few other random items. In our freezer that attaches to our refrigerator which feels small, I put desserts, breakfast items, bread items, and frozen veggies. Without all of the freezer space we have, I wouldn’t be able to bulk bake the way I like to.

Typically, about twice a week, I spend several hours baking. Since I still have two daughters at home during the day, they bake with me or I bake while they nap. The items that I typically make in bulk are, muffins for breakfast, sandwich bread, egg cups for breakfast, buns, tortillas, and any dessert. I choose to bake all of these in bulk because they aren’t items that can be baked quickly, they disappear quickly, and/or we don’t eat them daily so they aren’t on the top of my head to make when I really need them.

Ziplocks and permanent markers have become two of my best baking friends. I freeze all of my baked goods in Ziplock freezer bags and then label the item with what it is and who can/can’t eat it. Since our family has a very long list of allergies and intolerances between us, labeling is really important for us. I want to be sure that anyone (babysitter, grandparents, friends, etc) who opens my freezer to pull an item out knows who can eat the contents in the bag.

A few weeks ago, I had one of my dear friends over that lives in another state. We ate dinner and then I asked if she wanted dessert. She asked what I had so I went over to my trusty freezer to tell her. To my surprise, I listed at least 10 different dessert choices. Clearly I have a sweet spot for making desserts even though I can’t eat any of them myself. I find myself seeing amazing desserts online in so many places, tell myself that I can surely make that yummy dessert for my family, and enjoy the smell of baked goods. Since this time, I have put myself on a no baking new desserts restriction. ☺ When the dessert stockpile begins to dwindle, I have some amazing recipes to fill my freezer back up. HA!

I would love to work with you to help learn to bulk bake, or just to begin the journey of allergy friendly baking. Contact me to find out how I can help you.

*Note- This picture was taken the day I brought home 1/2 of a grass fed cow. My freezer isn’t normally that full. I just snapped this with my phone to show my husband that I did in fact get all of the meat in the freezer, barely.

What is a Specialized Diet?

IMG_6370umpalaraincornishhen

You may be wondering what a Specialized Diet is. That is a great question. A Specialized Diet is a way of life that requires a person to remove certain foods from their diet. It can be for food allergies, food intolerances, taking out certain foods for other health and wellness reasons, or could be that you have found the right way of eating that fits your needs. I have clients from all of the categories listed above which is why I call it a Specialized Diet. Each persons diet is specialized for them and their particular food and health needs.

A Specialized Diet is different than our culturally traditional diet. For those of us on a Specialized Diet, our main goal is not to lose weight, though this may be the outcome for some. Our main goal is to feed our bodies food that makes it function properly, at its highest potential, and also food that won’t make us sick. These are all very important to each of us.

A Specialized Diet is also inclusive of people with food restrictions for many different reasons. I enjoy working with any client that requires removing food from their diet for any reason. Hopefully this was helpful for you to understand more about my services and also understand my clients a bit better.