Happy Halloween! Arrrggh!!!

I hope you have had a Happy Halloween.  This holiday is a minefield for people with corn allergic kids, because of all the candy and trick or treating.  Since Brittany is now a young adult, that isn't such an issue for us.  It is her favorite holiday, though, and so usually she has a party with friends.  I have been so impressed with the things I see young moms on the corn allergy forums doing to make it a fun holiday for their allergic kids.  One mom posted and said that she had made homemade corn-free gummies for her child to trade his trick-or-treating candy in for.  I thought that was a great idea!

    One thing this allergy makes you do is think outside the box when it comes to holidays, birthdays and other occasions.  Before figuring out what we we were dealing with, our family was one of those that relied on eating out and going to movies for fun family time. Typically parties with our kids' friends happened at our house when they were teenagers, and let's face it, the default food for teens is usually pizza.  Sooooo easy to pull off when you can grab Little Caesar's for $5.00 a pizza.

    When we got wise to the allergies and realizing just how bad they were, I was quite proud of myself for pulling off some decent food for Brittany's Halloween party.  I can't remember everything we had, but I made sure that the food was either stuff that everyone could eat, or if there was something Brittany couldn't have, I provided a comparable alternative for her.  One of my favorite websites for recipes is The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen--these people are brilliant and the recipes she comes up with are pure genius.  I made these pumpkin cupcakes, along with the "frosting": 

http://www.nourishingmeals.com/2011/10/grain-free-pumpkin-cupcakes.html

    I didn't say anything to anyone about them being healthy (Brittany knew but didn't know the ingredients) and I was really gratified to see people going back for seconds and thirds.  I just chuckled to myself.  LOL  Not sure they would have been as excited if they knew the body of the frosting was mashed potatoes!

    This year Brittany came up with ideas for a pirate-themed party, including ideas for a feast.  She researched food found on pirate ships, including the fact that when stocking the ship before sailing it included livestock for eggs and milk and then later for fresh meat. Sleep patterns flipped just before last weekend and in trying to flip them back was running on 4 hours of sleep in the past two days. She started baking last night and realized midday today that she wasn't going to make it.  We have a lot of the food done, so we are being flexible and having our pirate feast tomorrow night instead.

    Flexibility and taking care of yourself.  Those are two of the things you are forced to learn with these kinds of extremities.  So, in what has become a family tradition called Birthday Week, we are having Halloween Week. :)

Soup Recipe #2: Potato Leek Soup, Allergy Friendly (Corn Free, Dairy and Soy Free)

It's been chilly around here today, so I made potato leek soup and it was divine. :)  I think the first time I made this was last year, and I was so proud of myself for being able to figure out substitutions that worked!

I modified this from a recipe I found on allrecipes.com .  The original recipe is called "Potato Leek Soup III" over there.  I'll list the original recipe first, then relist with the modifications I made (besides corn free, I also have to make sure it's wheat, dairy and soy free).  Even if you don't have allergies, the modifications make it a LOT healthier--coconut oil is good for you, so way less guilt than that large amount of butter; and hooray for replacing the heavy cream!  It turned out really good!  It's very thick, so keep in mind that a little goes a long way once it settles. LOL

Original ingredients list:

1 c. butter (yikes)

2 leeks, sliced

salt and pepper to taste

1 quart chicken broth

1 Tbsp. cornstarch (that word gives me nightmares)

4 c. potatoes, peeled and diced (Yukon Gold suggested but I just used russet)

2 c. heavy cream (yikes again)

Heidi's modified ingredients list:

3/4 c. coconut oil

1/4 c. ghee

2 leeks, sliced (I slice in half lengthwise first then chop thinly like I do with green onions)

salt and pepper to taste

1 quart chicken broth (I was a little short so combined chicken stock with vegetable stock to make a quart and it tasted great)

2 Tbsp. tapioca starch/flour (with tapioca, whether the box says starch or flour it's the same thing.  I increased to 2 Tbsp. because I didn't use heavy cream and wanted additional thickener to make up for it)

6 c. potatoes, peeled and diced* (I increased from 4 c., again because I didn't use heavy cream and this added to the thickness)

2 c. canned coconut milk (I use milk from young, green coconuts, no guar gum added.  If you use coconut milk that has guar gum added to it, reduce tapioca starch to 1 Tbsp.)

1.  Over large pot over medium heat, melt coconut oil and ghee.  Add thinly sliced leeks and salt and pepper; cook, stirring frequently, about 15 minutes.

2.  Stir tapioca starch/flour into broth, then pour broth into pot.  Add the potatoes and bring to a boil.  Season with salt and pepper.  Pour in the coconut milk, reduce heat and simmer at least 30 minutes, until potatoes are tender.  Adjust salt and pepper if needed to taste.  After removing from heat, use potato masher to lightly mash most of the potatoes (this will also help replace the thickness lost from not using cream).

* This did turn out very thick, so if you don't want it quite as thick or want a better idea of the starting point, reduce to 4 c. potatoes and see how you like the results with that.  Then you can adjust the amount you put in accordingly the next time.  My husband and I ate ours in bread bowls, and honestly one serving of soup (about two ladles full) was plenty.

I Have a Kitchen Floor!

    Praise the Lord, after a month of even more chaos than usual I now have a kitchen floor again!  Let the Hallelujah Chorus now commence.  It is so pretty--I did a pirouette earlier and am seizing the opportunity to clean the walls since the stove, etc. can't be moved back into the kitchen until tomorrow morning.  I will probably do some more happy dancing before the night is out.  It is absolutely aMAZing being able to walk barefoot without the fear of splinters!  I'm a barefoot girl so I didn't love having to make sure I had something on my feet to go into the kitchen.  What can I say, I guess I'm high-maintenance.

    Lovely, lovely linoleum--I may kiss it before the night is out.  Sorry, hubby. . . ;)

    Tomorrow will be glorious.  I will finish canning tomatoes and will bottle grape juice.  Barefoot.

Soup Recipe #1: Don't Be Scared of the Cabbage!

    My daughter has told me a few times that I need to post my soup recipes, specifically this one.  This recipe is one I came up with a couple of years ago when a neighbor brought us a huge wheel of green cabbage her father had grown and she cut it up to share with people.  The amount she gave us was about 1/3 of the cabbage and it was HUGE!!!  As I was thinking about what to do with it, this just kind of came together.  Besides the cabbage, there is a beautiful variety of root vegetables used and the flavor is just lovely.

    If you're not a cabbage person, try and give this a chance.  It really is wonderful, and I'm not saying that because this is my recipe.  Besides loving the flavor, one reason this has been a hit with my daughter is that no matter what state her health is in and what foods her body is rejecting, or if due to a fuller allergy bucket she just needs to eat really simply, her body responds well to it.  I don't know all the reasons, but I do feel that part of it is that it is so simple and light, easy to digest, etc.  Calorie-wise this is about as guilt-free as you can get; I don't use potatoes in this one so there really isn't anything to watch as far as starches go.  Did you know that you actually burn calories when you chew celery?  True story--it takes more calories to chew it than what is in the celery in the first place.

    A really telling fact that showed us how beneficial it is was that during the demolition that went on after the laundry flood, while she pretty much had to camp outside, she was feeling really crappy because of the initial exposure she got to the chemicals they used. We had a camp stove, etc. set up outside and I pretty much kept this soup going as a staple.  She couldn't get enough of it and it helped her to feel better.

    I also think that a key to the flavor and benefit is the fennel. Fennel is really good for inflammation and pain; I've used fennel essential oil on her when she has had a lot of abdominal and/or ovarian pain, and it has helped a lot.  Fennel compliments the cabbage beautifully; there's something about the combination of the two that is just really lovely.  As I was thinking of what to do with that huge cabbage, I kept remembering a time when I lived in England for a year and a half and boiled cabbage was a mainstay that a lot of people used as a side dish to dinner (excuse me, tea--not dinner! ;) ).  I had many invitations to dine with people and to me the cabbage always tasted really good.  This was pretty amazing because I had never been a cabbage fan--HATED coleslaw, etc.  As I was thinking back to this time I remembered that there were usually little seeds in the cabbage and realized that it was fennel, and THAT was the taste that had been missing whenever I tried doing boiled cabbage myself (usually after it was boiled, it was drained and tossed with butter, salt and pepper)--you boil the fennel WITH the cabbage.  When you make this soup, you can just use fennel seeds or you can also cut up fresh fennel--I use the green tops (including the feathery looking part) and chop them up the same way you would with green onions.  I use the bulb part of the fennel to add to pot roast, putting it in with the carrots, potatoes and onions.

So, with that said, here's the recipe:

Heidi's Feel-Better Soup

32 oz. safe-for-you chicken broth (we use Kitchen Basics)

32 oz. water

medium onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

medium large turnip, peeled and chopped

3-4 carrots, peeled and chopped
(Optional: 2 stalks bok choy, chopped - how much I put in usually depends on how much celery I have. If I don't have enough celery, then I supplement with bok choy.)

1/2 green stalks of fennel, chopped

1/3 of medium green cabbage, cut into 1" pieces

2-3 Tbsp. dried parsley

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

2-3 Tbsp. dried fennel seeds (you can add more if you aren't using fresh fennel as well)

Put broth, water and spices into large pot (I use the standard two-handled one that came in my set of pots and pans).  Add vegetables in order listed while bringing to a boil.  Turn down and simmer until all the vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes (longer if needed), adjusting spices if necessary to your taste.  Cool for 10-15 minutes before serving.

    For those of you who may not know what fresh fennel or bok choy looks like (I know I didn't when first using them!), here are some pictures. :)

This is fresh, feathery-topped fennel.

This is bok choy. Or, Chinese cabbage.

Recipe! Stuffed Portabello Mushrooms (My Daughter's Creation--Corn, Gluten, Soy and Cow Dairy Free

I thought I had died and gone to heaven several days ago when Britt made this for dinner.  She made up the recipe herself, and it is fantastic.  It was a happy, happy day when she was able to have goat cheese (for quite awhile she reacted to the enzyme that makes cheese so it didn't matter what source it was from), and she has loved figuring out ways to use it in cooking.  You should try this!

http://ramblingsoftheblissfullyblonde.blogspot.com/2013/09/recipe-time-corn-free-sugar-free-cow.html

And the Laundry Saga Continues. . .

    The asbestos got pulled out last week, and the insurance finally got the final estimates, etc. done and we got the call to pick out flooring, which we did yesterday.  No idea how long it will take for the restoration to get going.  I am so ready to put my house back together (not that I am a fantastic housekeeper in the first place but this has produced even more chaos than usual); I am very ready for the refrigerator to not be in the dining room anymore.  It would be really cool to not be walking on sub flooring in the kitchen, too.  I should count my blessings, though, because I had a friend tell me that they had a flood several years ago when their family was on a vacation and her parents' kitchen still looks like ours; I'm guessing they probably didn't have insurance that covered everything.

    I think the big reason this has taken so long is because two days before Sir Maytag gave his attention-grabbing performance, we had a really big storm in the area that caused flooding in a lot of homes. For some reason we didn't get any flooding with the storm, but since our incident happened right in the wake of all of that, we have been one of many claims.  If I remember correctly they have been processing about 120 other claims locally at the same time.

    I will be glad when everything is done, and am a little worried about adhesives and other smells when they put the new flooring in.  If it turns out that we need to reconstruct "Hoboken" outside for a few days, I'm really hoping that the work will coincide with a pocket of warmer weather for several days.  It has been COLD lately and my daughter doesn't need to get sick again.  Her allergy bucket has been filling up a lot more lately than it had in a long time and we've had to keep the compounded Benadryl handy a lot more than we have in awhile.  On the whole things have been a lot more encouraging as far as her getting well, so having these setbacks is frustrating and discouraging.  As much as I hate seeing her sick, I know it's a drop in the bucket compared with how she has to be feeling.