Grammar Police

Posted on June 25, 2012 by admin

This blog entry has nothing to do with food or allergies or foodallergies. I have decided that it is time for me to come up with a disclaimer for my blog. I have noticed that quite a few blogs have disclaimers stating things like , ‘Opinions expressed here are mine only’ (isn’t that the point of a blog) and some bloggers put stuff in their disclaimer section about ‘Don’t steal my stuff’. Fair enough, but my disclaimer is a wee bit different – for the time being at least. I really don’t think anyone wants to steal my stuff. My disclaimer is as follows…

‘All spelling errors and grammatical failures are solely the fault of my neighbour’.

This may seem a bit unorthodox but I think you’ll understand. You see, she is a member of the Grammar Police (GP). We all know the type. They just about have a fit holding it in when someone says something like “I did good on my test”. I think my eldest son is a member of the GP because he would respond with, “Superman does good, you did well”. Ya ok Smartie Pants point taken. I desperately want to be a member of the Grammar Police, but my spelling is atrocious and my grammar wouldn’t pass the qualification exam. My Mum is a member from way back and she has the credentials to back up her English grammar superiority. She was educated in Scotland where even today real grammar is taught. I seem to be digressing…

Back to my neighbour, she has been known to not only correct restaurants with their misspelling of Caesar salad, but she actually challenged a poor sales person in a department store about a misplaced apostrophe. She means business and question her conjugations at your own peril. She was the first person to subscribe to my blog and she has been my unofficial editor ever since. If you spot an error please tsk, tsk her, not me. It means she hasn’t yet read my current post and she is falling behind in her duties. I have thrown a few misplaced modifiers into this post to see if she spots them. I think I’ll time how long it takes for her to send me an email telling me of my shortcomings. Have to keep those GP members on their toes.

image from openclipart.org

Next post I will be back on topic with a recipe for chocolate pudding.

Cheeze Looeeze

Posted on June 18, 2012 by admin

I have a love/hate relationship with cheezies aka cheese pleesers, Cheetos, cheese puffs, etc. Love because they were a rare treat when I was little. On a Saturday night that my parents were going out, my sister and I would get to choose a bottle of pop (usually Swiss Cream Soda) and a bag of cheesies from the local corner store. We savoured the salty, cheesy corn puff treats making them last as long as possible, letting them melt in our mouths. The best part was licking the Day-Glo orange powder off our fingers.

It’s that same orange powder that feeds my hate. This powder is insidious! The treat of it sticking to my fingers when I was a kid is now my nightmare. The darned powder gets everywhere. Believe it or not this unnatural looking orange powder actually contains a milk product. For a family with dairy allergy this stuff has to stay out of oor hoose.

We have milk in our house, we have real cheese, yoghurt, ice cream and other delicious dairy products, but this powdered cheese product used to make corn puffs cheesy and taco chips nachoie is not allowed past our front door. We’ve hosted many parties and BBQs over the years and we always ask that people not bring snacks containing powdered cheese. We explain about our son’s allergy to dairy products and about how the powdered cheese gets everywhere; our guests have always understood. I know you would understand too, eat a handful of Cheetos and I challenge you not to be wearing an orange bib when you finish !
Oh no! I’m totally craving some cheezies…

PS To take the picture I broke the rule and brought the evil cheesy corn puffs into the house and I (carefully!) gave in to temptation.

Yam Protein Power Muffins

Posted on June 12, 2012 by admin

Including a protein with breakfast is challenging when the standards: eggs, cheese and yoghurt are out. G’s dad came up with this muffin recipe through a lot of trial and error, but even the errors got eaten because they contained chocolate chips! These muffins are a yummy start to the day even if you do not have allergies. So, today we have a guest baker. I did not write this recipe, or bake the food or take the photos. Full credit goes to my husband. Here we go …

INGREDIENTS

Dry mix:

1/2 cup dried soy protein
1-1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cocoa powder
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
1 handful dairy-free dark chocolate chips

Wet Mix :

1 med size yam
1/4 cup vegetable oil (canola)
1/3 cup white sugar (brown optional)
2 tsp vanilla
Splash orange juice

DIRECTIONS

Oven 350 F ; prep time 15 minutes ; bake time 20 minutes ; yields 12 muffins

1. Wash yam and perforate skin all around with end of sharp knife. Place on microwave-safe dish and cook 6 minutes on 60% power. Yam should be soft through to centre when done. Remove from microwave and cut in half lengthwise. Let cool. When cool enough to handle, remove skin and slice halves into smaller sections and allow to cool to room temperature.

2. While yam is cooking and cooling, add all dry ingredients except chocolate chips into cuisinart with sharp blade attachment (or hand mix with whisk). Run Cuisinart until soy protein chunks are fully chopped into powder and all dry ingredients are well blended (approx 3 minutes). Place into large mixing bowl and sprinkle chocolate chips on top. Set aside.

3. In same Cuisinart with blade attachment add all wet ingredients including yam – make sure yam is room temp or slightly warm but not hot. Blend until well mixed and slightly runny ( use the splash of OJ to make the mixture flow better). Mixture should flow but still require spatula to get it out of the bowl. Set aside.

4. Line a muffin tin with paper muffin/cupcake cups.

5. Using a large spatula, add the wet mix to the dry by folding and gently stirring, but do not whip or vigorously mix the batter. Add OJ in small quantities until the batter is well consolidated. The batter should be stiff but not dry. Spoon into the muffin cups using all of the batter for 12 muffins.

Place in the pre-heated oven on the lower or middle rack. Bake 20 minutes, no peeking. Check if done using toothpick into centre of muffin – if it comes out clean they are cooked through. Remove when done and place on wire rack to cool.

Enjoy!

Allergy test results

Posted on June 8, 2012 by admin

Ever have an itch you can't scratch...

So, after the allergy testing yesterday, the platter of Quality Street Chocolates for G is out as is the hunk of blue cheese. If you look at the photo above… those four nice round welts along the bottom are the milk tests. This wasn’t much of a surprise. Having spilled milk on G when he was a baby, I know first hand what evil milk had wrought (once again, SO sorry G). I was actually hoping that egg would be reduced, but see that big amorphous welt in the crook of his arm… that’s the egg white test. Guess it’s not reduced!

If you’re not familiar with allergy testing, here’s a quick primer. Pen marks indicate where a small drop of serum containing the allergen is put on the skin. A tiny scratch is made on the skin where the serum is and then you wait to see what happens. Sometimes it’s quite spectacular, but what you’d rather see is nothing. I must say, G displayed incredible self control. Just looking at his arm made me itchy. Poor guy was going out of his mind wanting to scratch!

There is actually something positive that came from the testing, I mean the test was negative which was positive….Oh what ever, it was good news. G requested to be tested for pistachio nuts and to his delight it was negative. Forget the Quality Street and blue cheese, on our way home we stopped for a slushy and a small bag of pistachios (with a Benadryl chaser).

When I’m off my allergies…

Posted on June 6, 2012 by admin

When I’m off my allergies… is what G would occasionally state before listing the foods he would like to eat if he ever were to lose his food allergies. I understood the “huge platter of Quality Street Chocolates” but wanting to eat blue cheese is a bit more difficult to understand. I love blue cheese but could someone who has never eaten cheese actually get a bite of the pungent blue stuff past their lips?

When I’m off my allergies… G hasn’t said this that much over the thirteen years. Considering all his food restrictions and that he usually has to have some lesser alternative when treats are unexpectedly produced, he doesn’t often long for things he can’t have.

We have often wondered if he will ever be “off” his allergies. When he was a baby we were told that most babies out grow food allergies within a couple of years. Then it was thought that it might happen before starting school. Now it may be a possibility (remote) there will be a change with puberty. Well tomorrow G goes to the allergist for testing. Will he be “off” his allergies? We’re trying not to get our hopes up. We don’t want to be disappointed if there’s is no change because we all manage just fine. His normal state of being shouldn’t be a disappointment. So we’re treating it as routine.

Speaking of treating… If G ever does get “off” his allergies, I’ll get him a nice ripe hunk of blue cheese to try, but I’ll have a platter of Quality Street waiting in the wings!

Pancakes – dairy-free, egg-free

Posted on June 5, 2012 by admin

This pancake recipe is the one that G was supposed to have followed when making me my Mother’s Day breakfast. It is very simple (if you read the ingredients correctly – right G?) and they taste like regular pancakes (see caveat above). We often have pancakes for breakfast with butter (dairy free stuff) and maple syrup. While in Scotland we often have smaller sized ones, cold, for tea (or a snack) with “butter” and jam.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 heaping teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/4 cup soy milk

DIRECTIONS

Mix together dry ingredients. Add soy milk all at once a beat well. If batter is very thick add a bit more soy milk. You should be able to pour batter without it being runny.

You can use a frying pan on the stove or an electric pan to cook pancakes. These pancakes stick easily so a bit of oil in the pan for the first batch is recommended even if using a nonstick pan. Set to medium heat.

Pour batter onto pan to form pancakes the size you would like and when bubbles forming on top begin to burst, they are ready for turning.

Give about the same amount of time to cook the second side.

** If you can tolerate eggs, cut the soy milk to 1 1/4 cups and add two beaten eggs. Pancakes will be more tender.

Eggs-actly what are you allergic to?

Posted on May 30, 2012 by admin

So we knew about the milk allergy because of the spilt milk episodes, but G. was a bit young yet to have allergy tests. We were very careful about introducing new foods and we had begun the eye squinting job of label reading in the grocery store. G. was not quite at the ‘feeding himself’ stage, but he sat in his high chair at the dinner table with us. It was Sunday night and I had my parents over for dinner. For this meal dessert is expected and I had made small meringues, the melt in your mouth variety. I gave one to G. to play with while we finished our own. I figured it would be safe because if he did put it in his mouth, it would just melt away. Choking was the only thing I had to worry about with a baby learning to feed himself, right? There was no dairy in my home-made meringues so no problem. G. played with the meringue, rolling it around in his hands. My heart did that shudder skip beat thing when I saw the red welts form on his fingers and G. start to itch. Luckily it hadn’t yet made it to his mouth. Egg!? Allergic to egg? Yup. A thorough wash and a check mark in the box for egg allergy. Heavy sigh.

A Face Only a Mother Could Love

Posted on May 20, 2012 by admin

Ever heard of “baby acne”? Your beautiful newborn baby’s face erupts in a teenage like acne break out just at the time you want to show him/her off to all your friends and relatives. This wasn’t in the instruction manual…

For G. it was a bit different. His skin condition was eczema. It started off with a bit behind his ears, then his cheeks, then in the folds of his pudge – you know, the chub on baby’s legs and arms. Then the crease of his neck. It was time to go to the doctor when the eczema on his neck began to weep and the eczema on his cheeks got infected (eew). You’re probably shaking your head thinking, silly woman should have taken him to the doctor sooner, but the time line for this was only over about a week or so. So, just when we were proudly showing off our new boy to the world, he was staring up at people with a beautiful smile across his scabby face. Baby acne would have been an improvement to his skin condition. Actually, the smile on G.’s face is what people always remember. He had a smile that was contagious and would brighten people’s day and he still does!

How we treated G.’s eczema:

The bad, acute out break on his face and neck were treated with antibiotic cream and cortisone ointment, but we needed a long term non medical solution for the rest of his body.

We were told to bathe him every night and while his skin was still damp, we were to apply a moisturizer. The challenge was to find the right cream. Our poor little guinea pig. Some creams made him scream as they irritated his eczema cracked skin others made his itching worse. So after going through numerous “for sensitive skin” potions, my mum told us about a cream that transformed bath/lotion time from stress and frustration (and for G., discomfort and irritation) to soothing, calm relaxation. My mum’s friend’s daughter (don’t you love word of mouth!) has eczema and found relief in the Body Shop’s Hemp Cream. Wow, what a difference. So after soaking in a bath of warm water G was slagered (my Mum’s word – I think I prefer slathered) in hemp cream while his skin was still damp. This ritual went on for a few years and the distinct smell of this cream will always make me smile and think of wee G.

In The Beginning

Posted on May 8, 2012 by admin

G was an easy newborn. The only thing that I didn’t expect was that he refused a bottle and boy do I mean REFUSE. Oh well, breast is best as they say and cheaper! Talk about shocking when one morning I accidentally spilled milk on G and where the milk touched his skin big welts arose. As I rushed him to the bath to rinse it off I was thinking, surely this must be a one off thing. Milk can’t be harmful, didn’t Cleopatra bathe in it?! Was it my lack of coordination or fate that caused me to once again spill milk on G a few weeks later. Why was I eating milk laced cereal while balancing G on my lap after what had happened the first time? Stupid, stupid, stupid! Nothing like doing an unplanned allergy test right in your own home! By the way, we don’t do this any more – we try to keep G away from falling milk and allergy tests are saved for the doctor’s office. He was only a month old when I first spilled milk on him and by the time he was a year and a half, he had been properly tested and shown to be allergic to eggs and dairy. Since then he has developed a peanut allergy too. No wonder he refused a bottle! That hysterical screaming (from him not me) was his plea for me to stop. What a learning curve – and the knuckle balls keep on coming!

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Life and food with a food allergic son

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