Kitchen Adventures

There's nothing quite like being snowed in. You have nowhere to go and even if you did, you couldn't get there anyway. The only thing (well, not the only thing...) left to do is cook. And cook we did, all throughout Snowmageddon 2010 - soups, stews, bread, cookies, cupcakes, marshmallows, sausage...lots and lots of yumminess. None of the recipes we used involved any of the ingredients A can't have: wheat, dairy, eggs, soy, corn, chocolate, peanuts, or potatoes (I've given up on mentioning watermelon - it's a non-issue).  If the original recipe did, we substituted ingredients she could have.  This really only seems like an achievement when you look through the average cookbook. Nearly every recipe has one or more of these ingredients. We've had to get really creative and we're having a ton of fun with it.

Ok, so it's not all fun. Some of the recipes are definitely not hits. Take last night's dinner: Santa Fe Chicken Chili. BUMD and I loved it; the kids, not so much. In times like these, I feel the need to create a 'make-up dinner' (yes, kinda like make-up sex). I'm still trying to figure out what tonight's will be. If I'd really planned well, we'd have had a 'make-up dessert': something really lush and yummy to make up for not having something they liked for dinner. Offering something else to A for dinner isn't really an option. There's only so much she can eat and we're trying to keep her diet as varied as possible (the other two just have to suck it up as a show of unity). I'm sure that this'll result in many stories about how their mother tried to make them eat healthily and ewwwww, so gross! That's probably a rite of passage - they're just getting a lot of miles on it.

In the meantime, they've become quite spoiled. There's nothing quite like having freshly-baked treats and hot, home cooked meals all day, every day. A's food challenges may have made our lives more complicated, but they've also made things more delicious. I'll try to share our cooking adventures a little more often. We're blessed with a bounty of good resources from the Internet. The food bloggers of the world are my heroes.  Thank you!

Nine down, ??? to go

So I said I'd cry if this happened, but it doesn't seem worth it. A is off of wheat now too. For right now, she can't eat anything that has these ingredients: wheat, dairy, soy, eggs, corn, potatoes, watermelon, peanuts, or chocolate. The good news is that we're going to try and reintroduce either corn, potatoes, or chocolate in a couple of weeks. Given that it'll be Valentine's Day, I'm voting for the chocolate. Watermelon is a non-issue; she doesn't like it anyway.

We're eating a lot of good meats, fruits, and veggies - in short, a very healthy diet. No problem with that. I bought some more alterna-flours and I'm going to try bake some cookies today. This could be fun. My grocery bill is huge. I need to plan my garden for the summer. Thank goodness for the internet too - there's a ton of great recipes out there. I haven't food a decent one for bread...yet. Maybe I'll just have to make one.

That said, I'd like to eliminate the term "allergy free." Really, a recipe for water? 'Cause that's the only thing I can find that's non-allergenic. People have a vast array of allergies. There's no "allergy-free" recipe database that's going to take care of them all. I prefer the term "allergy friendly" because there's less of a chance I'll be let down. The last time I clicked on the featured recipe from an allergy free site, the recipe contained several ingredients we couldn't use. I know you can't please everyone all of the time, but we could compromise, right?

In the meantime, we're getting creative around here. It will be fun!

Updates as they happen

I've been slacking on updating the blog, but at least BUMD has been keeping up with things.  In case you're wondering:

The fifth First Annual Holiday Letter

...what happened after the letter went out (or, why holiday letters should wait until after the year ends).

From there, I should probably start updating more.  Gotta get these thoughts out of my head!