A culinary coup this week

For a long time I have been wanting to try my hand at making nut yogurt. I'm thinking that having a yogurt around that my son can eat would open up a whole world of dishes that we couldn't serve before. Yogurt can add a lot of creaminess to a recipe and you don't get creamy sauces on a GFCFSF diet very often. Anyway I finally tried my hand at it this week. My first attempt was a failure because I used store bought almond milk. I read a tip after the fact that said not to use store bought because of the preservatives and other ingredients that get in the way of fermentation. I went looking for a nut milk recipe and it's very easy to make actually. I can't believe I spent so much money on store bought almond milk now that I know how east it is to make. The second attempt was a combination of two recipes and this worked much better. I successfully made nut milk, yogurt, herbed cream cheese, and frozen yogurt from the first batch of almond milk so this recipe also gets that money saving gold star and the time saving gold star because it's all so easy to make. My son loves the cream cheese and frozen yogurt the best. He willingly ate the strawberry yogurt too once I sliced fruit into it and added a few nuts. This is a good sign that with the right approach he'll really get to liking it after a few tries. I read somewhere that you've got to give a kid a food 10 times before they will start to get used to it so even if he doesn't get that into it the first time I keep trying and tweaking my approach till he comes around. The yogurt is pretty thin...see the photos...but I think I will try maybe adding some gelatin to it for thickening next time. The cream cheese is a huge hit. He's eating it on toast, apple slices, and anything else I put it on so it's a nice way to negotiate veggies into the mix. Sliced thin with a dollop of cheese should do the trick. I'm even thinking that it's a good replacement for mozzarella on pizzas. Here's the recipes for making the milk and the yogurt. I will also post below that my variations for the frozen yogurt and the cream cheese which were kida last minute ideas without a recipe that just really worked out well so bare with me since the recipe was made to taste and unmeasured. I'm really excited about the yogurt recipe and I hope this helps bring a bit of creaminess back to your table. Enjoy!

I used a combination of two recipes. The first I used to make the almond milk. It can be found here: http://www.giprohealth.com/makingyogurt-2.aspx

Basically I put 1 1/3 cups store bought almonds that had the skins removed, check the baking isle, then added them to a cup blender and put in water to bring the level to 1/2 full. Blend for 8-10 minutes. You can strain if you want at this point if your kid is texture sensitive then I recommend you do. Now take the milk and finish with the second recipe here:

http://funkyfoodallergies.blogspot.com/2009/02/allergen-free-yogurt-recipe.html?

(My changes to the recipe will be in bold)

Allergen Friendly Yogurt Recipe


8 cups or 1/2 gallon of milk(I just used the milk from the above recipe for this 1/2 gallon. It was a little short but made tons of yogurt

anyway)(cow, goat, soy, rice, almond or coconut!!)

1/2 cup plain yogurt OR 1/4 tsp probiotic
( I used the probiotics in my fridge that are GFCFSF)

Use at least a 4qt crockpot.
Pour 1/2 gallon of milk into your crockpot and cook on low for 2 1/2 hours.
Turn off crockpot and let sit for 3 hours.
Take out 2 cups of the milk and stir in the yogurt or probiotics.
Return to crockpot and cover with heavy towel.
Let sit overnight! Wake up in morning and have fresh, healthy, cheap, allergen-free, yummy yogurt! Puree in some frozen fruit or a large drizzle of maple syrup to sweeten it up. If you want it to be thicker whisk in 1/4 cup tapioca starch--it's what the pro's do! (I added 1 cup of strawberry puree to the left over yogurt after taking out what I wanted for cheese.)

Herbed Cream Cheese

For the cream cheese I took a cup of the plain yogurt and set it in cheesecloth over a fine strainer and let it drip out the water for a few hours in the fridge. Then I mixed in a couple tsp. of dried basil, garlic powder, and olive oil. Added salt and pepper to taste and let it sit in the fridge. You can add any combo of herbs you like. Just experiment with it. Make sure you under season it before it sits in the fridge for a few hours because the flavors of the garlic really intensify after a while. You can add more after it sits for a while if you still think it needs more seasoning.

Frozen Strawberry Yogurt

This was 2 cups of strawberry yogurt with 1/4 cup of pure maple syrup stirred in. Then I added it to an ice cream maker. It freezes hard but stays creamy so let it sit for a minute on the counter after being in the freezer for a while.

For any of you who haven't seen this yet

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by Emily Perl Kingsley.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

My kingdom for some cheese!

I told you during my rant the other day that I am determined to get us some cheese substitute here locally. I know how wierd that sounds but a kids gotta have some pizza right? We have to find a good replacement and we need it available locally! I took some steps toward making this a reality today. I heard of this Galaxy Vegan Rice Cheese that is really popular on my GFCF Mom's group. It is not available anywhere locally so I requested it today at Holiday Market in Cottonwood. They are supposed to be really good about customer requests and will even go as far as shipping something across the country UPS for thier customers. So we'll see. Keep your fingers crossed. They encourage customer requests so call your nearest Holiday Market and ask them to carry it too. The Holiday in Cottonwood started carrying GFCFSF Earth Balance spread upon our request and now I'm happy not to make a whole extra stop in Redding for it when I'm there. It's the best tasting Butter replacement I've found and bakes really well too. Anyway I'll keep you posted on the Galaxy Cheese Quest. Here's the link to the Cheese. http://www.galaxyfoods.com/Products/VeganCheese/RiceVegan/index.html

That's how I bento roll

I know what you're thinking, or at least at some point while reading my blog, you've had to think this thought "Sure I could make cute Bento too if I had all the time she does!" Well I don't really have all that much time. The only reason I even bother with it is because it helps my son to eat so much better. Everything about Bento helps him to eat better and if your kid is on the GFCFSF diet then you know you need all the tricks up your sleeve you can get! I have quickly devised a system that works for us to save time. I make food and freeze it ahead of time. Pancakes, sausage, chicken nuggets, and french toast sticks are all usually hanging out in our freezer. I focus on just adding different foods to little silicone cups and adding food picks and flags. If the mood strikes I will coordinate it a little better with a punched out smiley face on a hard boiled egg, car sandwich or hot dog octopus. I hate wasting time so I have invested in the tools I need to make things easier on myself. I dedicated a corner of the kitchen as the GFCFSF counter and food prep area. Everything I need is within reach for his meal preps. All his Bento gear and eating utensils are all right in front of me organized into mini drawers for quick assembly. All I really do is grab various foods and add them to little cups and picks. The overall effect is impressively cute without adding a lot of work. Check out tonight's dinner. I was inspired to take a little extra time since there were two new foods I wanted him to try so I made his dinner extra cute. I don't usually make Bento for dinner because we all eat the same meal then but tonight was a rare occasion. Anyway look at the dinner in small sections and you'll see it was not much hard work just a lot of cups and divided sections. Here's what is in this dinner. Hot dog cut into sticks, roasted garbanzo beans, hard boiled egg, mustard, blackberries, olives, red bell peppers with dip, salad with dressing bottle, and a mini apricot. It sounds like a lot of food but it's all small portions which is a great thing. He's much more likely to eat a small portion of a variety of veggies than he is to eat a whole side salad. Bento size salad always gets eaten now, especially if he wants another blackberry. Lets remember here though that last year I would have been laughing myself out of town had I read this. Veggies of any kind might as well have been the boogie man as far as little man was concerned but now? Man has Biomedical Intervention changed everything for us. Including getting him to eat more foods. Anyway back to the bento. Here are a few pictures of my bento prep area, you can see I put the gear into these $5.00 Plastic drawers from Target. They are super handy to stay organized with the gear. That makes it easier to throw some food in a box and run.Here's the various food picks and mini forks we use. The Occupational Therapist wanted my son to use small pencils and crayons to work on fine motor skills. I found these mini forks and they fit the bill for sure. He has to practice fine motor skills to use his mini forks and to open his sauce bottles pictured up at the top of this post. We have many different types. They are supposed to be for soy sauce but I use them for dressing on salads and it really helps him to eat the salad. he likes the little bottles very much. This is the drawer for my food dividers. They are just another way to add some fun to a bento and for kids who don't like food to touch...well these things are a life saver!

Here are the smaller silicone cups I use for the bento boxes. I also have a drawer for the larger size silicone cups (All are about $1.50 - 3.00 for a pack of 6-10 pieces. These are the workhorse of my bento boxes. They make the food look cool and all I have to do is fill a couple of them up and add to the box. Can't be easier and it helps him to eat veggies and other foods he does not like too much.

Bento cutters, in case I'm feeling like getting jiggy with it. Mostly borrowed from my cake decorating supplies but you'll also see some scrapbooking punches in there too. See Wilton for lots of local Bento cutters.

So there you have it. My precious bento gear and tools. These make it easy for me to do bento boxes for my son and the bento style of presenting food is an invaluable resource for my kiddo on the spectrum. Good luck and for any of you interested in giving it a try check out my links page for web sites that sell the gear online. It's really really easy and not time consuming like you think it would be. If you've got a picky eater you should give it a try. It might just be that giant sigh of relief at the dinner table that you've been waiting for. I know it's been like that for us. Ta for now!

I love getting fun mail

Look at the tiny cuteness that was left in my mailbox today! These little sandwich cutters. They are each about 2 inches across and they cut and imprint a design from your bread the shape of a car, bus, airplane, or boat. It works on lunch meat and tortillas too! My son loves them and is already asking for more car and bus sandwiches. I found them on ebay for about 3 dollars and I bought it with some silicone bento cups that will fit well into his favorite bento box and some rounded ones we use too. Shipping from Japan was quite fast and the seller combined shipping and didn't charge extra for the second item. I saved the name if anyone is interested. The two items cost about 9.00 with shipping included. Its a nice way to keep the bread intake down...tiny sandwiches. When when we aren't limiting bread I tuck the extra scraps under the sandwich or save the bread scraps for bread crumbs later. These cutters are just another very visual tool that encourages him to eat well. My wheels are spinning right now trying to come up with something healthy to attach to these cutters. Like lettuce in his sandwiches. I know he'll eat salad now so I'm thinking that I may try adding car shaped lettuce to his car shaped sandwiches. It helps for me to think like this....how can I use this new bento gear to encourage healthy eating? I do this because in our house the better he eats the better his Autism gets. Period. I took some photos of our first sandwiches made with the cutters. They didn't photograph too well but you'll get the idea. They looked much better in person. For those of you with girls you're not missing out because there are plenty of cutters like this that are cat and bunny shaped, and lots of hello kitty stuff too. I got this sandwich cutter from my mom that makes tiny animal sandwiches but it does not imprint. They are also available on ebay. I just throw on some mustard or ketchup eyes and mouth and call it good. It makes 4 tiny sandwiches and cuts off most of the crust. I got the dinosaur cutter at Walmart in Anderson in case you're wondering.
I love tools that are multi purpose and that save me time and these all fit the bill. Bento tools are really cheap and save you tons of time. There are even face punches that punch out little edible die cut faces to save you time. Anyway I just wanted to share about what came in the mail today. Bento has breathed new life into our GFCFSF Diet menu and has really switched on my son's desire for meal times. This is why I share about our Bento adventures too, because it's a huge tool and opportunity for parents of picky eaters and for kids on the spectrum it visually encourages good eating. We use pictures and visuals for our kids on the spectrum to teach a variety of things that they struggle with, so why not extend this thinking to the eating struggles? I know eating can be complicated by sensory issues and speech issues and motor planning issues but this visual way of presenting food can really help other kids I think. Can't hurt to share and see right? Let me know if you want more Bento info and check the links page and Bento page on this blog for more information.

Well that's just great!

I'm coming to you a little pissed off today. I was hoping this post would be about the two great new products I found for the GFCFSF Diet but unfortunately it was not to be. Sometimes it is very frustrating to find foods your kid can eat. This week I thought I found replacements for cheese and mini pickles. Both of these foods are sorely missed at our house. Turns out the company that makes the cheese does no allergy testing so they cannot guarantee that the oat flour in the cheese was not exposed to wheat in it's processing at some point. And the pickles were processed in the same facility as wheat, oh but they assured me that they "wipe down" the machines after using the wheat. Oh really? You wipe them down do ya? Well that helps me like a whole warm pile of........ok never mind. I'm a little heated over this. The good news is that I am determined to get these products available to us locally. I will request a good cheese replacement at all the places where I know they sell cheese replacements and see if I can get them to help us out. I already got Holiday Market to carry the GFCFSF version of the Earth Balance Spread so maybe they will carry this too if I ask? If I can find a good cheese replacement my son's food choices would improve so much! I'm on a mission now because my baby deserves to eat pizza just like all the other kids do. I'll let you all know how the quest for cheese replacement goes. Fingers crossed ya'll!

New Recipe Trial Crispy Cinnamon Garbanzo Beans

I tried over the Holidays to make these tasty little treats but failed miserably....twice....long story...burning beans....holiday stress....yada yada yada. Yesterday I noticed Dried Garbanzo Beans at the grocery store and thought about giving it another try with no distractions. Turns out oven roasted chickpeas or garbanzo beans are quite rockin. It's a grand slam at our house. Mama, Dada, and little man all like them. I plan on making a savory version tomorrow with salt, pepper, garlic, and paprika or onion. I wanted to pass this can resist recipe along for it's easy prep and irresistible yummieness. Enjoy courtesy of Cookie magazine and Epicurious.com. Link to recipe

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Crispy-Cinnamon-Garbanzo-Beans-350959

Crispy Cinnamon Garbanzo Beans

yield: Makes 3 cups
active time: 5 minutes
total time: 50 minutes (plus overnight soak)

These tasty (no-allergy!) nut alternatives are great to have out around the holidays. Give them to the kids in rolled-up parchment-paper cones (as shown).

Ingredients
1 cup dried garbanzo beans
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons raw (or regular granulated) sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
print a shopping list for this recipe

Preparation1. Soak the beans overnight in cool water. Drain and pat them dry with paper towels.

2. Preheat oven to 350°F.

3. In a bowl, toss the beans with the vegetable oil and sugar.

4. Spread them in a single layer on an ungreased baking sheet. Roast them in the oven until crunchy and no longer soft in the centers, about 45 minutes. (Stir them a few times to prevent burning.)

5. Immediately toss the beans in a bowl with the cinnamon and salt. Cool and serve, or store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.

Tip:
For a savory snack, try tossing the beans with salt, paprika, and freshly ground pepper instead.

Experiment for the week: The Jello Makeover

A few weeks ago I was on one of my favorite bento sites and saw a recipe that one mom used often for a home made jello jiggler made from blueberry juice. This got my wheels to spinning. I knew this was a good idea and wanted to use it as inspiration to make something healthy and GFCFSF to our bentos too. This weekend I went in search of a basic jello recipe made with knox gelatin and set out to swap out everything to accommodate my idea. The idea was this: Swap out most of the juice called for in the recipe and replace with a mixture of veggie and fruit purees and a little honey. The recipe was an experiment but turned out really well and the little man likes them! I may have to adjust the texture a bit by straining out some of the fibers or adjusting the gelatin but so far it's a great start to a quick and easy recipe that is GFCFSF and also gets more veggies into my kid. In my experiment I put the jello into mini muffin papers bought at the grocery store and then poured the rest into an 8 x 8 glass pan. Both worked well but the mini muffin papers will store better in the fridge. I just put them all into a covered Tupperware container. Hope your kids like this quick, easy, and nutritious treat :)

Here's the link to the original Knox recipe and below that what I came up with.

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,189,146163-236205,00.html

Jello Veggie Fruit Cups

Time: about 15 minutes start to finish and 2 hours chill time.

2 1/2 cups 100% fruit juice (Any type your kid likes)

1/2 cups frozen peas (Or any other frozen veggie in your freezer)

1/2 cup frozen carrots

1/2 cup frozen blueberries (To cover up the green color from the peas)
2 T Honey

Add juice, frozen fruit, and honey in the blender and puree. Pour 1 cup blended mixture into a small bowl and add 4 packets knox gelatin (You may want to try just 3 packets for texture sensitive kids).
Add the rest of the juice mixture into a shallow pan and bring to steaming hot temperature.
Mix gelatin mixture and hot mixture together and pour into mini muffin tin lined with papers and the rest into an 8 x 8 glass pan or other vessel brushed with a small amount of oil or lined with parchment paper. Chill in the fridge for 2 hours or until firm. Serve and enjoy. This recipe can be adjusted to suit your child's taste buds. Add favorite juice and veggies you think will be most undetectable for your little one. Let me know how it works out for you.