Yummy muffins!

My little guy wanted muffins, so I had to whip some up! :) This recipe is derived from the Gluten-Free Whole Grain Muffin recipe posted at gluten-free girl. You'll need a scale for this one. By using the weight measurement instead of volume you can easily switch out ingredients (like choosing a different flour or starch) and still get good results.

300 grams brown rice flour
50 grams arrowroot starch
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
180 grams dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup applesauce
1 Tbl apple cider vinegar + rice milk to make 300 grams
100 grams canola oil

Prepare muffin tins and preheat oven to 350F.

Add apple cider vinegar to the rice milk and set aside. Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl, then stir in remaining ingredients.

As an add-in this time he picked A few little handfuls of Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips. :) I think I'll try chopped apples and a bit of cinnamon next time! After that, maybe coconut muffins by using coconut oil and a bit of shredded/chopped coconut mixed in and a little on the top that will get toasted?

Bake for 25 - 30 minutes.

The original recipe says this makes 15 muffins. Since non-eggy, baking soda-heavy muffins have a tendency to overflow, I was a more cautious and made 24 smaller muffins. As you can see they don't reach the top of the liners, but they are good kid-sized treats!

No-Tomato Ketchup

One of the heartbreaks of my little girlie losing tomatoes is that she ADORES ketchup! She wants ketchup with nearly every meal. Thankfully I'd stumbled upon a tomato-free ketchup recipe some time ago and was able to come to her rescue. The recipe below is modified from one posted at food.com.

No-Tomato Ketchup

1 (14.5 ounce) can jellied cranberry sauce
1 (14.5 ounce) can pear halves in natural juice, less 1/4 cup juice
1 (14.5 ounce) can sliced carrots, drained
1/2 cup white vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

Place all the ingredients in blender and puree until smooth. (It won't take long!) It's a very similar color to tomato ketchup, just slightly transparent, and smells just like tomato ketchup.

It received the Miss M seal of approval! My husband thinks it tastes a lot like a certain roast beef sandwich chain's sauce. My oldest didn't care for it at all. I'm embarrassed to say I couldn't bring myself to try it. I have a lot of food aversions, and this apparently was just too much for me. But it makes a large batch and I won't have to mix it up too often. I split up the finished ketchup and put half in the freezer. I need to buy a little squeeze bottle and fill it up with safe ketchup so it's easier to manage than spooning out of the pictured container.

More Allergies :(

I haven't posted in a while because the food allergy situation is changing so much. No fun new recipes for Little C and now it's become clear my little girl is sensitive to some food too. Because of her symptoms she is now going to be screened for eosinophilic esophagitis.

New additions to C's allergy list: mustard, grapes, barley, oat, celery and almonds. This summer he also mildly reacted to peaches and cherries but we're hoping that was oral allergy syndrome and will retry them this winter, since those didn't show up on the skin test. Of course grapes didn't show up either, and when he retried them this week after much begging, he reacted with a rash on his face and arms and coughing. He snuck a raisin the next day and reacted with a rash again.

Miss M has had troubles for the last 2 years that neither we nor doctors were never able figure out. After doing a food diary it became all too clear that she quickly reacts to tomatoes and potatoes. I suspect dairy might be a problem too. She hasn't undergone allergy testing for tomato or potato, so I'm not sure why those foods are causing problems, but there isn't a doubt that they do. In November she's scheduled to have an upper endoscopy.

Chocolate Chip Crispy Cookies

It's been a while since I'd made my little guy his own safe chocolate chip cookies, and the recipe I used before needed some changes, so we gave it a try together while my girls were in school. He especially loved taste-testing the dough along the way (a great benefit of egg-free batter!).

I intentionally made these small because they were for him but also because my previous attempts produced a rather flimsy cookie, but these are pretty sturdy despite begin thin.

Chocolate Chip Crispy Cookies

1/2 cup shortening (I use Spectrum Organic Palm Shortening)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white granulated sugar
1/4 cup applesauce
1/2 cup barley flour*
1/2 cup oat flour*
1/4 cup arrowroot starch
3/4 tsp baking powder (homemade corn free, see sidebar)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
3/4 cup Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat mat.

In a medium bowl, cream the shortening, brown sugar and white sugar. Then mix in the applesauce. In a separate bowl mix together the barley flour, oat flour, arrowroot starch, baking powder and salt. Slowly mix in all the dry ingredients into the sugar/shortening mixture until fully blended.  Then stir in the chocolate chips.

 Place rounded teaspoon-fulls on the lined baking sheet, leaving about 3 inches between each. Bake for approximately 8 1/2 minutes or until edges are set and center is no longer bubbling. Cool on sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to cooling rack.

Yields about 60 cookies, 2" in diameter.

Enjoy!

* If you can't use gluten grains, why don't you try substituting the barley and oat with your favorite flour?

I included these cookies this week on Cybele Pascal's Allergy Friendly Friday! Be sure to visit and see all the creative allergy-friendly recipes!

Chicken Drumsticks

I've made this meal a few times for the whole family. The kids especially love it! It's easy and cheap too!

Chicken Drumsticks

Drumsticks, skin removed
Oil, I used canola
Kosher salt
Black pepper

Preheat oven to 400F.

Pour just enough oil in baking dish to coat the bottom. Put the chicken in the dish and coat each piece in oil. Lightly season with salt and pepper.

Bake for 20 minutes, turn the pieces, season the other sides, then bake for another 20 minutes or until chicken is thoroughly cooked.

Enjoy!

 

I've submitted this recipe to Cybele Pascal's Allergy Friendly Friday!


I'm not sure if I'll be able to make the exact version of this recipe for Little C again though. :( Last time I made it he broke out in hive around his mouth and I'm not sure why. The black pepper maybe? Since, he hasn't eaten any chicken either. Yesterday he actually had a major reaction and according to his action plan I should have used his epipen, but didn't realize that until this morning. Again, I'm not sure why. He's fine today, thankfully.

Homemade Rum Vanilla Extract

This is one of those little projects I put off for way too long, but it is SO easy! Now we have not only safe vanilla extract for the little man, we have lots of yummy and inexpensive vanilla extract that I use in all my baking. Many commercial extracts are marked as gluten-free but they are made with corn alcohol.

Homemade Vanilla Extract

• Good quality, unflavored rum
• Vanilla beans (I used 8, a mix of Tahitian and Madagascar beans)

That's it!


Split the vanilla pods vertically, then scrape the seeds out and into the bottle. If the beans won't fit into the rum bottle (or whatever bottle you use for your vanilla extract), cut them in half. Place the pods in the bottle too.

There are homemade vanilla tutorials all over the internet, so if you want a few more photos, they will be easy to find. Typically vodka is recommended, but little guy is allergic to many of the sources, so I used rum because it's made from sugar cane. Research the brand you buy and make sure no other flavors are added to it. Another safe option we found for my guy would have been barley vodka, but went with rum because I wanted to be able to use it when baking for my gluten-free friend too!

Let the vanilla mixture soak for about 2 months, shaking it occasionally. I keep the bottle in a dark corner of my counter. I use it pretty frequently, but if you don't, give it a shake once and a while.

I added this to Cybele Pascal's Allergy Friendly Friday post! Check out the other allergy friendly recipes linked up!

More new allergies?

I haven't been experimenting with new recipes much this summer, short of baking the same cupcake recipes without guar gum. One of these days I'll write up the coconut yogurt recipe I'm using (gum-free is a struggle!). The goal for this summer was to find a safe multivitamin and hopefully a safe vegetable or two, but we haven't done that yet. Unfortunately it has been one reaction after another and little guy seems some new allergens: celery, cherry and peach. I hope I'm wrong but I'm pulling them for now. Corn has become even more of a problem and he's now even having trouble with citric acid (which is generally corn derived). He reacts to yellow mustard now too, so I don't know if that's the mustard seed or if he's reacting to the source of the vinegar (wheat and/or corn).

The good news is that he is becoming more aware of what food is safe and what isn't. We got him a MedicAlert bracelet in his favorite orange. It usually takes some bribing with Enjoy Life chocolate and he's only wearing it when we go out now, but it's a good first step, right?