Monday, July 5, 2010

Cake - 4th of July Cake


Hello,
The girls and I made a 4th of July cake today. We used two boxes of Cherrybrook Kitchen's yellow gluten free (also dairy, egg, nut free) cake mix, and then added the cut up strawberries and blueberries, then our own white icing (made without vanilla since we do not have any clear vanilla on had at present) and then we topped it with strawberries and blueberries to make it look like a flag. Who says you can't have a pretty cake that is also wheat/gluten, egg, dairy, soy, etc. free. It tastes good too!
This is the recipe for the icing we used.
6 cups powdered sugar
6 tsp. filtered water
3 tbs. Spectrum organic vegetable shortening
*** You would normally use about 3 tsp. of vanilla, but if you use it with this recipe your icing will be a dark cream or beige, not white (unless you have clear vanilla on hand).
Mix all ingredients until smooth and creamy. You can add more of any ingredient to make it the consistency you need for your project.

Product Review - So Delicious Ice Cream Sandwiches

Hello,

The children had Day Camp this week and Thursday's snack was ice cream sandwiches. My daughter is avoiding wheat, gluten and soy among other things, but if you are not these are a great alternative to regular dairy ice cream sandwiches. They taste great and they look just like what everyone else is eating, except - NO TUMMY ACHE! (According to my son who is avoiding dairy.)

Now, please check the label and call the company before you try to give this to your child. They say they use safe practices in cleaning their equipment between batches (because they do use a lot of different allergens), and when we tried these for my daughter (during the 9 month period when she was able to eat soy) and (starting first with just 1/8 tsp. of the ice cream every 15 minutes and gradually working up to more over 4 days) she did not have an anaphylactic reaction. She did, however, have severe stomach aches so that closed the case for us on soy and we are avoiding it again. If, however, you child can tolerate soy but not dairy, try these out. Also look into their coconut based ice cream. It might work for you. Please note, however, that they have also started making an ice cream that contains peanut/peanut butter. Please be careful and enjoy it if you can.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Blog Link - I am gluten free blogspot

Hello,

When my daughter was first diagnosed with all of her allergies there were so few allergy resources. Now there are so many allergy recipe books, support groups and blogs. Here is one I found today. The recipes look great. Check it out sometime.

http://iamglutenfree.blogspot.com/

Book Review, Blog Link - Gut and Psychology Syndrome: Natural Treatment for Dyspraxia, Autism, ADD, Dyslexia, ADHD... by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride


Hello,

You probably know by now that when you start to enter the allergy world or the world of nutritional supplements, dietary intervention and so on that everyone around you is probably going to be offering you different advice. At a particularly low point when my daughter had gotten so sick that she had lost 20 pounds, and seemed to be loosing language or struggling to find words that had come easily only days before, a friend recommended the book Gut and Psychology Syndrome: Natural Treatment for Dyspraxia, Autism, ADD, Dyslexia, ADHD, Depression, Schizophrenia by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, MD. I watched all of the videos on-line and then started searching for the book. Now if your child only has food allergies, this may not be an avenue that you will even need to pursue, but since my daughter had always spoken, interacted and performed better in school every time she got sick and stopped eating (or only ate fruit), we knew that all of our food testing, blood testing and food avoidance was just the first step. We needed to try something more to help her succeed. Right around that time I decided to call a DAN doctor because the more I learned about the gut symptoms, severe cramping, and night wakings due to extreme pain that my daughter was experiencing the more it seemed that a new diet and supplement protocol would help. At the same time we were able to make an appointment with a DAN doctor, Dr. Mary Megson of Richmond, VA. When it came down to it we decided that it would be easier to take wheat, gluten, oat, and soy out of her diet (we are already eliminating dairy due to severe food allergies) and add the supplements that her body was lacking. This decision was easy for us because at one time my daughter had been anaphylactic to wheat and soy and we had only been back on wheat for 5 years and soy for 9 months. It was during this time that we had noticed the increase in word slurring, severe cramping, increased break outs, eczema, etc. Within six weeks of this diet change my daughter's health began to improve dramatically. She began to gain weight again, the severe stomach cramps were gone, and her conversation and reading skills increased dramatically. We have been following this protocol for 19 months, and now that it has become part of our routine, we are ready to try a few more dietary changes to make our family more healthy. For one, I am going to pull out the book I mentioned above and try to implement what we can to help with some digestive problems that I am having myself and see if it can help my family become more healthy. For so long our focus has been on just finding foods that my daughter can eat on a daily basis or at parties, and now I want to work on seeing if we can continue this gut healing process and maybe in the process make some of her lesser food allergies or intolerances less severe (if this is even possible).

Here is a helpful link for cooking and planning menus on the GAPS diet http://www.heartofcooking.com/.

A link for Dr. Mary Megson - http://www.megson.com/


I will add the links for the videos in the near future.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Product Review - Tinkyada Pasta

Hello,

Tinkyada Pasta is the best gluten/wheat free pasta we have found. It is the best at keeping its shape and not getting slimy, hard or falling apart. It is also the best when re-heated, so it will still be nice and al dente if you decide to cook it at home and then re-heat it at an event or restaurant. You will probably not want to do this with plain pasta, but it is great if you mix it with spaghetti sauce, a gravy, or even an Italian dressing (for a cold pasta salad).

Product Review - Salad Dressing - Good Seasons Italian All Natural Salad Dressing

Hello,

This is a very simple way to make a delicious Italian Dressing for a green or pasta salad. I like the mix because it is very flavorful and you can use your own oil. So, if you are allergic to soy (which is used in many commercial salad dressings), vegetable, olive, or canola oil, you can substitute an oil you can tolerate like safflower or corn oil.

We have used this dressing on green salads, to marinate chicken for grilling, and on rice pasta for a salad which tastes very similar to the Suddenly Salad mix. I hope you enjoy it too.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Product Review - Ice Cream Storage Containers

Hello,

I was so happy to find these little containers. They are just the perfect size for freezing individual size portions of ice cream or sorbet for my daughter to take to birthday parties, ice cream sunday making parties, or travel. (I am going to attempt to transport ice cream this weekend. I will let you know how it goes.) I am also trying to keep a few of these on hand in case the Ice Cream Truck ever ventures into this neighborhood. There is nothing more disheartening than having to tell a child no when it is because of a dairy allergy. I found these at Wegmans for less than $10.00, so don't buy them from Amazon. Their price is outrageous!