honey oat bread

MMMMMMMMMMMMm!

This is for a bread machine and super easy!

1 cup water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil (or cocout or olive oil)
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup rolled oats
2 cups rice flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1 teaspoon active dry yeast

wet ingredients, then dry. Make a well in the dry ad pour in the yeast. Make on light 1lbs setting.

GIVEAWAY!!!!

So Enjoy Life and I are doing a giveaway! 2 boxes of their AMAZING cookies!!!

My boys and I were lucky enough to get to taste test their 3 new and improved soft cookies.



Double chocolate brownie (OMG YUMMY)



Snickerdoodle (which gets a hubby who hates allergy free thumbs up)


Lively Lemon

These are great. One day this past week my 3 boys (Oldest just turned 4) and I had a LOT of errands to run one day so we did a trade. For each office/store they were well behaved in, I REWARDED (if you make them earn it, then it's a reward not a bribe :P) them with 1 cookie. Somehow the double chocolate brownie cookies were good enough to get my older two to behave in 5 stores!!!! LOL! (youngest was good too, but too young to eat cookies)

So needless to say they are good! My favorite were the lemon ones! OHHH YUMMY! The boys fav was the double chocolate brownie (shocker! LOL) and My husband's fav was the snickerdoodle. Really you can't go wrong with these.

They are small (think about chips ahoy size), nice and fluffy on the inside (not too thick at ALL) The lemon ones have what are like tiny chewy lemon peels in them. Looks a little strange, but the flavor burst is amazing! I had to make my husband take the box away from me. LOL!

Now some great things about Enjoy Life!

Top 8 free for everything!!!! Also most are also potato, sesame, sulfites, and casein free! They use no artificial ingredients OR GMO ingredients! WOOT! Love that! When it comes to allergy testing they actually test more strictly than the FDA requires to keep us safe! How great is that? (You know testing is never cheap) They are not certified corn free, however Gabe NEVER reacted to them, so I'm gonna put them at a level 1. (some traces in xantham gum and probably the natural flavors) So if you are EXTREMELY sensitive then don't eat, but if you can tolerate the small traces you are fine.

Okay so now that I have you drooling! GO ENTER!!!!

Here's how.

You can get up to 4 entries!!!!
1. Go like my facebook page and then post on there that you did/or have already liked my page)
2. Go follow my blog!!! Then go to facebook (you have to like it to post) and post that you now/or already have followed my blog
3. Share this contest!!! Then go to facebook (you have to like it to post) and post that you now/or already have shared the link to the contest!
4. Go like Enjoy Life's facebook page!!!! (you can find them in my facebook's like box on the left hand side under friends) Then go to my facebook (you have to like it to post) and post that you now/or already have liked Enjoy Life's facebook page!

2 boxes of YUMMY cookies to the winner!!!! I'm gonna let this contest go until Sunday night at 8pm! (I'll then message the winner on facebook to get their address and phone number so that Enjoy Life can ship out their prize!)

Mold Free Cheese.

NOT the easiest thing to find! ALL aged cheeses have mold in or on them. It is a BIG part of the aging process. Gabe is anaphylaxis to this mold. So now that he is eating corn. (knock on wood MIRACLE OF MIRACLES) I've been looking into what cheeses he can have. This is my list.

Cottage cheese, cream cheese, provolone cheese, ricotta cheese, farmers cheese, and mozzarella cheese are all mold free cheeses.

Now for obvious reasons I will only use the FRESHEST cheeses. (bought same day and WAY before expiration date) Mold is normally white! It is VERY VERY hard to see on white cheese. I have a cousin who is like Gabe and last year spent a few days in the hospital after eating moldy cheese. (SCARY!)

:) Anyways I know at least 1 reader has a bad mold allergy so I thought I'd post this. :)

Got this list from http://www.dynamiclist.com/?node=76aa84a0-705f-41f5-941c-99c34fa327d1

A great site for those with mold allergies.

Winner!

Christine Carlson

Congrats!!!! If you didn't win, make sure to stay tuned because at some point this week I'm going to be doing a enjoy life cookie giveaway!!!!

Thank you SOOO much to Namaste for doing a give away!!!!!!!

Salmon & Green Beans

So the other day I was low on food so I did a random hunt to figure out what we did have. I found a can of salmon and a can of green beans and so I cooked them up in butter and then added celery salt, paprika, thyme, 2 cups of milk and let it simmer (stirring often) to make a thick sauce. Then I added in macaroni. Mmmmm. Turned out pretty yummy. Didn't reheat so well though. :(

Also in my hunt I came across Quinoa. I decided to make that for dinner last night. Yea......I didn't get it quite right. I dunno. The taste was just not great for us. Next time I think I'll slather it in butter and see how that helps. Anyone else ever cook quinoa?

What did you use on it?

Vday Namaste Cake

Soooo in honor of Vday I made up the Namaste spice cake in a heart shape! LOL (Gabe took it to school for their party)


I made it in a 9in round pan and then in a 8x8 square dish. Then I trimmed down the round part so that the length of the circle matched the length of the square. Then I cut the circle in half and laid it next to the square. Frost and decorate and VOILA!

I then got to serve the trimmed pieces as a snack for company. They LOVED it and could NOT believe that it was free of everything!


You can see the two circle halves on the top sides of the diamond!





For frosting I made homemade frosting

5 cups homemade powdered sugar
2 ts CLEAR vanilla extract (this will have small amounts of corn) Must be clear to make a perfect white, but you can use homemade or regular to get it corn free, it will just tint it a little.
1/2 cup milk
2 sticks butter

This frosting is SUPER sugary and perfect for kids, so I just frosted the top and then did a little heard shape in colored sprinkles. (these have food dye and most likely corn as well, but you can decorate with anything!)

It tasted like a perfect spice cake. (hubby's favorite and he loved it) I wish I had thrown in some raisins and carrot peels to make it a carrot cake! LOL! It would be to die for with cream cheese frosting. (no cream cheese in the house) The texture was great too. A lot of you know that sometimes allergy free foods just have a funny texture from the different flours. Not in this mix!

The teacher and aides all enjoyed it and the kids liked it so much they ate the whole cake!!!!!!!

So all in all I have to say that I am really impressed with Namaste as an allergy free company. Great foods, wonderful customer service, good communication skills, tasty, easy treats, and because of them I knew that Gabe got to have the same as everyone else and that NOT ONE of those kids knew it was allergy free because it tasted funny. :) I'd rate them 10 out of 10.

So after these 2 reviews I hope you are all as excited as I am about the give away!!!!!!! I really think you guys will enjoy them!

Namaste Pasta

Made the Pasta Pisavera yesterday for lunch.

Really good! The boys ate the whole bag in 1 sitting!!!! (and the 2 year old has been known to survive off of 1 hot dog bug for the whole day so that says something!) I tried it and really enjoyed the taste of the spices. My mom wasn't too sure about trying a spice pack (she likes her food very plain) so she just had butter on hers and still loved it.

My favorite part..Quick and easy!!!!!!
Gabe's favorite part..The noodles were different colors!
Link's favorite part..YUMMY!

So here are some things that I have learned about Namaste today! They don't use ANY GMO foods!!!! WOW! That to me is so cool. Their Xantham gum is NOT corn derived! (xantham gum often is, but very few people are that sensitive to corn, but they take care of ALL corn in the mix!) They really listen to their fans! In a questions page I got they often have turned to their fans to help other fans. And the pasta was good, not just allergy free good, but good.

Here is a price comparison I got from the company




Their costs aren't too bad and what I have found to lower their prices is to buy in bulk off amazon :) If you buy 6 bags of an item at a time they are cheaper AND you normally get free shipping :) Hands down the cheapest way to buy.

All in all I really love this company and am so glad that they are my first giveaway!!! You guys will enjoy the giveaway bag!!!!!

Family Pressure

So the other night we went out to dinner as a family. We've been VERY slowly adding in small amounts of his allergens that he recently tested negative for. VERY slowly. I am actually okay with the corn, wheat and egg ones. They were not life threatening and so in my thinking it would stink if he had a reaction to them, but it would not be the end of the world.

HOWEVER the nuts and soy (and def the mold so no trials on that one)allergies were bad. Horrible hives all over, swelling of his legs etc. Yes on the spt he came back negative, but we all know those tests aren't the perfect answer we would like. I'm VERY nervous about giving him these.

So we went out to dinner with my husband my boys and my mom. I of course ask for the allergy menu and start looking for something with no soy. My mom starts giving me crap. He tested negative, just take the plunge! Let him try it!!! Etc. Now yes, I do need to give in and eventually do it. BUT ON MY TIME!!! I'm the one who will have to take him to the ER, sit with him while he itches and cries that his legs hurt, and deal with the GI problems!!!!!

I just felt so pressured and harassed. I didn't give in, but seriously considered it. :( From what I've read on several allergy boards a LOT of people deal with this. WHY?!?!?! It just doesn't make any sense to me why anyone would pressure a parent about allergy foods! I know it's because most people just don't get it, but it stinks! LOL!

Have you guys dealt with this? Have you ever done it? When is it encouragement? When is it harassment? What do you guys think?

GIVE AWAY!!!!!

Okay folks it's time to do a give away!!!!!!

Here's how it works. To get an entry, you need to "follow" my blog, "like" my Oh My Facebook page OR share a link to this contest!!!!! (each person can have up to 3 entries!) Once you have done this then go to my Facebook page (you have to like it before you can do this) and tell me you have done it! For instance put "I like you!" Or "I shared this contest!" Or "I follow your blog!" etc. If you already like or follow me then just put that!!!! (of course you will get an entry for being a fan already!)At 9pm Next Thursday I will take all the entries and pick a random winner! (well a computer program will so I can't be biased!)

So now that you know how........wanna know what I've got for you?!?!?!

Namaste is doing an AWESOME giveaway for you!!!!!



A cute reusable bag, 3 of their wonderful items to try, Living Without (allergy magazine), a GREAT cookbook (I have it already and use it all the time!) and some other little recipe cards and such.

So now that I have you drooling! GO SHARE!!!!! :) In the next few days I'm going to review a few of their products to show you what you are in store for. (to give you an idea of how much I love them, I'm saving their spice cake for Gabe's school Vday party!)

I am so excited to be able to do Namaste as my first ever give away. This company really truly saved my life when Gabe was first diagnosed with allergies. I didn't know what I could feed him! Then I found them at the health food store. I very clearly remember crying when Gabe got to have their brownies. Something so simple was suddenly not taboo for him anymore! And I've talked with their customer service a few times and then are WONDERFUL, CARING and INFORMATIVE! Can't say enough good stuff about them.

So go share, like and follow! And stay tuned for the reviews! I plan on doing one this afternoon of the pasta!!!!!

!!!!!!

Well it's been a crazy crazy week and I have been slacking on my blogger duties! I apologize!

Lets see. Last Saturday Gabriel had corn for the first time in a year.....NO REACTION
Last Monday morning he had eggs for the first time........NO REACTION
Last Tuesday night he had wheat for the first time.........NO REACTION!!!!!

Also when we had dinner on Tuesday night his pasta MAY have had traces of soy. We haven't been brave enough to full on try it yet. Baby steps.

These are all little steps, but so far so good. :) He's over the moon. He was SO excited to eat jello the other day. He kept walking around grinning saying I NOT ALLERGIC TO JELLO!!! and dancing. It was so cute.

Still have to test peanuts, soy, strawberries and peanut butter. (this is what set him off so we will do a separate test for it) The allergist also said we can try tree nuts, but that Gabe is probably still allergic to those. Definitely still allergic to the feta cheese and need to keep an epipen with us for that. But 1-2 really bad allergies as opposed to 19? (he still has 2 mild tree ones, but they don't bother him too bad.)

All of the bloodwork came back negative for immune diseases, and blood counts are all normal. :) YAY! Not really sure what to think though. It's just bizarre to me that he would have so many allergies all of a sudden and then poof they are gone. Very weird. A miracle though, so I'm not going to complain! :) Just pray it doesn't come back!

The ped allergist

Today we went to the pediatric allergist.

We drove an hour and a half to get there. Get there and there's a problem with the insurance. Don't know all what happened, I made all my calls, but they didn't send the right referrals and such. We tried to figure it out, but couldn't. The dr. said he wanted to see us anyways since we drove all that way. Chances are our insurance will NOT cover this THEN as we left we tried to fix the insurance stuff but he told us that he didn't care if it didn't get covered, he'd make sure it didn't fall on us.

He HATES the dr. we have been seeing. Thinks he's an idiot (said in so many words) They've been pushing something called delayed reaction testing for a long time. I just didn't feel comfortable with it. I did my online research because insurance doesn't cover it and we didn't do it. They kept pushing it. Everytime I called with a question Oh you should do it. This dr. told me point blank it's a joke and to not do it. He couldn't understand the testing notes they did and told me in so many words that the guy is an idiot.

Then he spends OVER an hour and a half talking to me about all of Gabe's reactions and such. He doesn't think Gabe has many food allergies. The nuts and mold one yes, but the others no. He doesn't know what has caused the weird symptoms (he thinks it's something, but not allergies) but that according to him only the tree nuts and mold sound like real allergies. He then did testing and almost all the things came back negative!!! (a year ago he did test positive) Out of 21 there were 4 very minor ones. mold, almond, and some minor tree pollens. The reactions last time were much bigger! So that is so great! He really might have out grown them! (the histamine reaction was MAYBE 1/8 the size it was last test!)

He wants us to slowly introduce the allergens back one by one. He thinks Gabe will be able to eat everything except nuts!!! The feta cheese he is confused by. He's not sure if it's really a reaction to the mold or something else in it. According to him mold reactions very rarely act like that. It's normally a breathing issue from the spores, not a vomiting reaction from eating it. So he's not sure but obviously we just avoid it and keep the epipen around.

Oh he says he doesn't want to make us drive that far again unless he has to see Gabe so instead of making appts he'll call us with all results and stuff and do the appts over the phone. Seriously guy is a SAINT!

So that's all the really good news.

Semi bad news. He is running a lot of blood work. He thinks something has been causing the rashes, coldsores, belly aches, fluid in the ear, post nasal drip and aches and pains. Gabe lately is always saying his back hurts. Our ped says he's 4 and dramatic, never thought twice about it and didn't look at his back at all. The allergist wants to look into it. Said it could be joint pain, or inflammation, or auto immune. So he's testing for all of that to see if we can figure out where to look for a cause of issues. He thinks it's something, but not allergies.

So we start introducing corn in small quantities on sunday. Gabe was so happy. He's been talking about popcorn for hours.

I'm still kinda in shock. It's crazy.

So THANK GOD Gabe's allergies are getting better! (except the feta cheese mold stuff) and pray that the food challenges go well and that all the blood work comes back negative!

Bread

So I've decided tob attempt altering a bread recipe! (for bread machine) The mixes you can buy are okay, but something is just lacking in texture. The boys don't mind it, but I'm on a quest! LOL!

I got the original recipe from here http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Light-Oat-Bread/Detail.aspx

This is my allergen free version!


1 1/4 cups water
2 tablespoons salted butter
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/3 cups white rice flour
2/3 cups tapioca flour
1 teaspoon guar gum
1/2 cup rolled oats
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Put liquids, in then dry, make a well in the middle and pour yeast in there. I used a 1.5lb light setting for mine. Med setting is better though.

It turned out tasting AMAZING! However I think my yeast was bad. It didn't rise. :( BOO! Super yummy though. I'll have to try it again to see if it was because of the yeast or the flour type. Texture was perfect though! Next time I will use the med setting there was a tiny amount of doughy center.