Squash Brownies

No really, they're fabulous.

1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup palm oil shortening
1/2 cup brown sugar (or honey or maple syrup, etc)
1/2 cup pureed squash/pumpkin
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp tapioca starch
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/4 tsp sea salt

1. Preheat oven to 350*F
2. Melt shortening
3. Stir in cocoa until well mixed
4. Stir in sugar/sweetener
5. Stir in squash & vanilla
6. In a separate dish, mix rice flour, tapioca starch and sea salt
7. Add flour mixture to cocoa mixture, stirring just until all dry ingredients are wet
8. Pour batter into a greased 8x8 glass pan
9. Bake for 30 or so minutes at 350*F (you will know it's done when a knife or toothpick poked into the center comes out clean)
10. Enjoy

Tuna Noodle Casserole - An American "Classic" hypo-allergenicized

(If you can't do fish, sub in your favorite cooked and shredded meat...)

1lb rice noodles - we like the brown rice fusilli
2 cans (6oz each) of safe tuna (JUST water packed)
1 1/2 cups diced mushrooms
6 Tbsp rice flour
6 Tbsp palm oil shortening (or other safe oil)
1/2 tsp sea salt
pinch pepper
2 1/2 cups rice milk, water or fish stock (or other stock to match your meat choice)
a couple handfuls of safe rice crisp cereal - we like erewhon
a few handfuls of nutritional yeast, if you can have it.

1. Start water boiling for noodles.
2. In a med saucepan, melt oil, add flour, salt & pepper, stirring. simmer until bubbling.
3. add mushrooms & water/stock. simmer until it has thickened to your desired thickness.
4. prepare noodles according to directions, drain & rinse.
5. preheat oven for 350*F
6. put noodles in two large casserole dishes.
7. mix one can of tuna into each dish.
8. mix in half of flour mixture over each dish.
9. sprinkle top with crushed cereal & nutritional yeast. salt to taste.
10. bake in oven for roughly 20 minutes - until the sauce is bubbly and the top is crispy.

(If you can do potatoes, crumbled up chips instead of nutritional yeast/rice cereal is more "authentic".)

Still Here!

Sorry for the down time. Life has been super intense with Lily's reactions.

In brief, we started seeing a shiatsu Chinese Medicine Practitioner a week ago. He showed us some accupressure for Lily. He also gave her some herbs to help with detox and healing and to lessen inflammation. In reviewing our history, he really focused on the months surrounding when Lily's major eczema first appeared. In talking with him, it became apparent that the croup, the random vomiting, the mystery fever and the lingering eczema/rashes are signs that her body was trying to fight something off and didn't win. He says that childhood rashes can be mysterious but he is confident we will figure it out together. I am willing to embark on this journey with him. He comes very highly recommended by several people I know.

When you see it in print like that, it sounds so stupidly obvious. But the eczema came and then a few weeks later the croup. And then that healed and then a few weeks later she got a high fever. And just thrown in there intermittently she had a few sporadic days of vomiting. So, we were just in survival mode, getting through each malady as it occurred. Also Dave was in his last semester at school and I was 5 or 6 months pregnant with Aevryn at the time, so there was a lot going on. If everything had come on, all at once, presenting together, I think we would have thought things were very seriously wrong and perhaps we would have responded more critically. I don't know. We're here now, though, and that's what matters.

We have a referral to an allergist on Oct 8. It will be very interesting to see what he has to say. Our holistic pediatrician recommends him and says he's very open-minded. Hey, I will always talk to a new person about Lily. Everyone's perspective is welcome.

And finally, we are on the schedule for a new patient appointment for the dermatologist for -- get this -- February 17. Yikes. Our nurse practitioner says she will send our file with a note and hopefully the doctor will review it and bump us up to an earlier slot.

This is all on top of Lily having her third occurrence of a strangely cyclical full body rash. At first, we thought it was swimmer's itch or maybe hand-foot-mouth, especially since she had a low fever for a day or two. The second time we were concerned, so went to the doctor's, only to be told she was just as stumped as we were. This third time seemed to be triggered by a trip downstate to my aunt's house (she also had a hive-y allergic reaction to my aunt's tiny dog). Unlike the previous two cycles, this one is not getting better on its own. We treated her, Friday, with a topical insecticide in case it was mites. That seemed to help, but as of yesterday evening (Tuesday) little bumps were back (on top of the full body scabs since she'd rubbed herself raw itching).

I am consumed with this. I don't even know what to do anymore. We're back to giving her one nightly dose of benadryl when the itch gets to be too much, just so she can get some sleep. This is not where I want to be.

Coconut Ice Cream

Here is a link to a fabulous ice cream recipe. We made it just by putting it in a bowl in the freezer and stirring intermittently. We just got an ice cream maker (brand new from a thrift store for $5!!) so we will try that tomorrow. After 10 months of no ice cream of any kind, it was heavenly. Even Dave, who has had ice cream in recent times, said it was really good. Time to experiment. I will report back.

New Breakfast Cereal

Aevryn won't eat breakfast. Well, Aevryn won't eat most food. But breakfast is particularly bad. Her willingness to actually ingest food increases as the day wears on. She likes to have access to everything, and she will put anything in her mouth (including dirt, rocks, leaves, bugs, etc). The problem is, she will not swallow most things. Right now her list of "acceptable" food stuffs includes: rice; avocados; rice pasta; brown rice chips; potato chips; raspberries; blackberries; blueberries, only if they are frozen; tapioca pudding; pate on rice cracker. Everything else gets spit out, all chewed and mangled.

However, the last time we were at the health food store, we picked up a box of Perky O's. They are made by our friends at Enjoy Life Natural Brands. This morning she actually ate an entire handfull and asked for seconds. Yay!

Homemade chips.

Since the eggplant chips were such a success, we tried the recipe again with sweet potatoes. Very good. Very, very good. Ever since we got our mandolin slicer our batches of homemade chips and fries have turned out so much better - way more consistent.

We've also (in the past) made chips out of eggplants, carrots, rutabagas, turnips, regular potatoes, squash, and zucchini. The only ones that didn't turn out well were turnips. Thinking about root veggies, the law of completion says I need to try parsnip chips when they come available. Oooh, and beet chips, those would be great (and are currently in season, locally).

We've tried deep frying in oil (in our cast iron skillet) and roasting in a 400*F oven. By far, the best results have been obtained from the oven. I just can't control the frying in the same way. With the oven, I find rubbing oil and salting each side prior to baking and then flipping over each piece after five or so minutes is the best (and easiest) approach for our crazy house hold.

I've considered getting a deep fryer for making chips, fries and chicken tenders, fried zucchini, etc. Now that I've written it out, I don't know why I haven't yet. Heh. But, in reality, we really don't eat fried foods all that often enough to warrant an entire machine devoted to their production. Although, if we had the deep fryer we'd eat fried foods more often, I'm sure. Yet another good reason not to get one, I suppose.

Eggplant chips

Since Dave's parents are out of state for the week, we got their CSA box. It was full of lots of yummy veggies. We've eaten the tomatoes and the zucchini (see the Turkey Tacos from a few nights ago). I'm going to make arugula pesto (recipe to be posted upon its completion in a few days). We've had salads. We, sadly, had to give away the beans (we're off all legumes for the time being). Yesterday we had eggplant chips made from the outline of the recipe provided by the farm. Here is my implementation of that recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

• eggplants
• olive oil
• sea salt

DIRECTIONS:

1. thinly slice eggplants.
2. arrange in a single layer on ungreased cookie trays.
3. rub tops of slices with olive oil. sprinkle with salt.
   
4. turn over and rub other side with olive oil. sprinkle with salt.
   
5. place both trays into a preheated 300*F oven.
6. bake for five minutes on one side.
   
7. turn them over.
   
8. bake for another 5-10 minutes on the other side.

You will know they are done when they are browned and crisp and wrinkly, edges up off the tray.

Yield: we only had two small eggplants from the farm, so it only produced two cookie trays full of eggplant slices. it was a nice little snack for the girls and I. Next time, I will make it with way more eggplant for a larger yield.

ALTERNATIVES:

• experiment with different oils.
• experiment with different spice blends.
  

5 minute quinoa veggie soup

Everytime I roast a chicken or cook any chicken cuts with bones, I make homemade bone broth. I have 2 quart- and 6 pint-sized jars of stock in my freezer currently. And a chicken carcass in the fridge waiting to be turned into broth (should yield roughly 3 quarts, total). I put bone broth in everything I can, since it is such an easily assimilated source of calcium, gelatin and protein. It's great for healing a damaged gut, as well. Therefore, at any given moment, I have soup ingredients on hand. The other day, the kids were hungry and ready to mutiny. I felt like I had "nothing" in the house for lunch (translation: no left overs, or anything easy or ready-made). I pulled a jar of bone broth, grabbed some veggies & quinoa flakes and we had a lunch in 5 minutes.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 pint of bone broth
• veggies - we had broccoli & cauliflower
• sea salt
• coconut oil
• 1/2 cup quinoa flakes
• juice of 1/2 lime
• fresh cilantro
• fresh minced ginger, about 1 tsp
• thinly sliced onion stalks
  
• coconut milk, a few tsps in each bowl

DIRECTIONS:

1. in a saute pan, saute ginger & veggies in coconut oil with sea salt.
2. add bone broth, bring to boil.
3. add cilantro leaves and steams.
4. add quinoa flakes, turn down heat and simmer for several minutes - quinoa will thicken.
5. add sliced onion stalks.
   
6. remove from heat and allow to cool.
7. pour in a little bit of coconut milk into each bowl and stir.
   

Yield: lunch for two hungry kiddos and their mama. obviously, very easy to double, triple, etc.

ALTERNATIVES:

• try onions or other aromatics in addition to or in place of ginger.
• add chicken meat.
  
• use pre-cooked grains (buckwheat, quinoa, millet, rice, etc) instaed of quinoa flakes.
• use pre-cooked rice noodles instead of quinoa flakes.
  
• try various veggie combinations.
• spice it up with cayenne pepper or minced hot peppers.
  

Tortillas & turkey taco filling

In the past, I've made buckwheat tortillas with moderate success. I've both fried them and baked them. I think the baking turned out the best, I think, but I was totally winging it. I had just mixed buckwheat flour, oil and water together and went for it. That's the basic recipe, I do believe for genuine tortillas. I did find this link for authentic corn tortillas and I'm going to follow it with buckwheat flour (or possibly a half and half of buckwheat and sorghum).

I will try them this afternoon and then post an update this evening or tomorrow. Wish me luck.

UPDATE: I used Bob's Red Mill buckwheat flour - it's dark and very finely ground. It is not my favorite buckwheat flour, but it was what we have available to us, since we are trying to avoid bulk-bins (i.e. gluten contamination). I've heard there is a pre-packaged "light" buckwheat flour, so I will have to look into it. My point is, when I started making the dough based on the corn recipe, the dough was way too sticky. I added probably another cup of flour and it was still too sticky. So, I added some tapioca flour. That helped at first, but then it made it sticky in a different way. Good for holding the tortillas together; bad for allowing them to transfer from wax paper to frying pan easily. Adding even more buckwheat flour as I was flatening then (with my hands and fingers, not a roller) seemed to help. I fried them on high heat in palm oil shortening. The dash of baking soda I added to the flour helped them bubble and rise.

They were chewy and fabulous. But also very time consuming. I think it took me an hour to make a dozen. [Dave had 4; I had 4; Aevryn had 1; Lily had 3. That alone tells you how good they were.] I knew it was going to take awhile, so I had pre-chopped my veggies so I was able to just let the filling simmer while I did the tortillas. I'm not sure how these would be if I made them ahead of time, put them in the fridge or freezer and then warmed them for dinner. I wonder if I'd lose a lot of the flexibility these had.

For the sake of completeness, here is what we had for dinner last night, to go with our tortillas.

Turkey Taco Filling:

• 1 lb ground turkey
• 1/2 large onion
• 1 green pepper
• 4-5 tomatoes
• 1 lg zucchini
• bone broth
• fresh cilantro
• juice of 1 lime
• sea salt, pepper, cumin, paprika, coriander, allspice, clove
  

1. Brown turkey.
2. Add 1 cup bone broth & spices. Let simmer for a few minutes.
3. Add finely chopped veggies. Simmer some more until veggies are soft.
   

Yield: enough filling for 12 small tortillas, plus lettuce cups. roughly 6-8 servings.

Taco Toppings:

• avocado
• green salsa
• lettuce
• black olives

We're back!

Okay, so we didn't *go* anywhere. Whatever. I needed some time to devote to kids, family, the house, etc. I will hopefully get back to once-a-day recipes starting with my next post. Also, consider this an invitation to comment on recipes or to share what has worked for your family. My email address is on the sidebar to the right and I'd love to hear from you. Reader submissions are always welcome.