Crock Pot Cooking for Noah

Noah eats a very healthy diet. It is limited because there he has so many food allergies and sensitivities. If everyone ate the way Noah eats, we'd all be thin and much healthier than we are today (none of that SAD diet for Noah -- standard American diet). The problem is that he struggles so much with digestion that we still have a few issues with what he eats.

The main problem we are having is that Noah isn't digesting his grains -- particularly the rice and quinoa (pronounced KEEN-WA). But as we were eating turkey breast and rice the other night from the crock pot, I had an idea. The more broken down the grains are before he eats them, the better he will digest them. So the night before he eats rice, I put a cup of rice and four cups of water to cook all night in the crock pot. And the night before he eats quinoa, I do the same. So far we are seeing really good results.

He likes the texture better because it is softer, and I don't have to grind the grains at all, which saves a step. And best of all -- his breakfast is pretty much ready when we get up. I just add a little fruit and crushed nuts. For the rest of his meals I cook a meat and some veggies, which are pureed then added to the grain.

You can see from this picture of the crock pot cooked quinoa (if you've ever cooked it, that is) that instead of the quinoa being in the typical little round balls like couscous, it is much softer.

A Favorite Family Snack -- Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

This is a really simple recipe that everyone in my family loves. Actually, we have a really hard time keeping it around. I'm sure there are plenty of recipes for toasting the seeds in the oven, but they don't puff up like they do in the microwave.

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

2 cups raw, shelled pumpkin seeds

2 tablespoons water

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tsp onion powder

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Stir together all ingredients in a microwave safe bowl with lid (I love my pampered chef microwave dish -- it has a great cover that locks into place). Cover and microwave on high for around 3 minutes (our microwave isn't as high powered as some, so adjust your times as needed). Remove and stir. Cover and microwave another 2 minutes. Stir again, then microwave for one more minute. Stir, then set on the counter until cooled. Transfer to an airtight container and enjoy!!

Here are the pumpkin seeds before heating.

After heating, they have puffed up to almost double their size and are a brown and crunchy treat!!

A New Allergy Cookbook!!

While I was looking up some more recipes to make Noah and Eli some good foods that don't bother their food allergies/sensitivities, I came across a recommendation for the following cookbook. I got it yesterday, and am really looking forward to trying some new recipes from it!!

The Allergy Self-Help Cookbook by Marjorie Hurt Jones, RN

I am especially excited that there are a lot of recipes using buckwheat flour, which can be tough to work with. I'll let you know how the new recipes work out. It gives many recipes free of all the major allergens and lots of suggestions for ingredients that can be switched around if the recipes do contain common allergens.

I'm already enjoying some of the suggestions from the first section of the book, which talks about food allergies and sensitivities. There are also several good charts to which I will be referring regularly, including one for foods in the same family.

Happy Cooking!!!

GFCF (and egg free) Blueberry Muffins

Wow! What a poor "poster" I was last week! Well, this week I have a lot of new stuff coming at you, but I thought I'd start with a new recipe that I did this morning for muffins that are pretty much free of all the major allergens and I used maple syrup instead of sugar to sweeten them. They were successful with the hubby and the six-year-old, and I thought they were pretty good myself.

I would love to show you a picture of these muffins -- they turned out a pretty shade of blue-green because of the blueberries -- but they were all eaten before I could get the camera out!

Here's the recipe:

GFCF Blueberry Muffins (GFCF = gluten free, casein free)

1 cup Garbanzo/Fava flour

1/2 cup Tapioca flour

1/4 cup ground flax seeds

1/4 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. Baking powder

1/2 cup Almond milk (or other milk)

2 Tbsp oil of choice (I used canola)

1/4 cup Maple syrup (agave would work well, too)

1/4 tsp vanilla

1 cup frozen blueberries, thawed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray muffin pan with nonstick spray and set aside. Mix together dry ingredients, stir in wet ingredients and blueberries and mix until there are no dry spots -- but do not over-mix. Pour into prepared muffin pans and bake 12-15 minutes (my oven bakes kind of hot - yours may take a little longer). Makes 10-12 muffins.

New Low-Allergen Muffin Recipe

Trying a new recipe is always a bit tricky -- especially because these days I've never met a recipe I didn't have to modify. Right now I have my version of Bob's Basic Gluten Free Muffins in the oven. I used the Bob's GF All Purpose Baking Flour, but I used maple syrup instead of sugar, egg whites instead of whole eggs, and almond milk instead of milk. I'll let you know how they turn out...

This is what they looked like.

And the way the disappeared, I think we can call them a success! They had a slightly spongy texture, but were nice and moist. I will definitely be making these again -- but next time I will be adding a cup of blueberries to the recipe.

The Bob's Red Mill Recipe can be found here.

Here are my changes:

Amelia's Basic Gluten Free Muffins:

1 1/2 cup Bob's GF All Purpose Baking Flour

1/4 cup Maple syrup

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

4 egg whites

1/4t sea salt

1/2 cup almond milk

1/4 tsp vanilla

1 Tbsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly spray a 12-cup muffin tin with nonstick spray, set aside. Mix together dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients and stir with a wire whisk -- but do not over-mix. Pour into prepared muffin tins and bake 10-12 minutes.

NOTE: Blueberries would make a great addition to this recipe!!

Enjoy!

Food Allergies -- Eggless Marshmallows

Actually, these marshmallows are not only egg-free, but they also contain no cane sugar. They are made with maple syrup, but you could use agave or corn syrup according to your needs. They should stay refrigerated, and they are slightly gooey-er than the typical marshmallows, but the recipe I used said they work well for rice-crispy treats, which I plan to make with them soon.

The best part? They are super-duper easy!!

Egg-free (and sugar "free") Marshmallows

6T cold water

2 envelopes unflavored gelatin

1 cup Agave, maple, or corn syrup

1t. vanilla

1/4 t. salt

flour or corn starch

Add gelatin to water and microwave 30 seconds. Pour into mixer. Add syrup, vanilla, and salt. Beat with electric mixer for 12 minutes until the marshmallows are very thick and tripled in size. Pour into a 9x12 baking dish coated with cooking spray and dusted with flour or corn starch (I lined my dish with parchment paper and put a little corn starch on top). Let them cool in the fridge at least three hours or overnight. Cut marshmallows with a wet knife into squares.

When I first put the ingredients in the mixer I thought, "These are gonna be brown!" But they fluffed to a nice color fairly quickly.

The mixture globbed down into the dish, and I spread it with a rubber spatula. I didn't worry about trying to make them too "pretty" as I am just planning on using them in a recipe. I would be good to note that this would make a great marshmallow cream to add to a recipe without any other steps.

And this is the finished product -- not beautiful, but very tasty. My 6-year old allergic child was thrilled when I gave him a bowl-full!! I may make some Christmas shapes the next batch using the old metal cookie cutters.

Gluten Free Muffins

Okay, so at least mostly gluten free. There is that argument of whether or not there is a very small amount of gluten in oat flour or if the oats are sometimes contaminated with wheat gluten at the "flour making plant." Anyway, most people who are gluten sensitive don't have problems with oat flour.

This is a slightly modified version of a muffin recipe from the cookbook I blogged about on Friday. I don't usually do it because my husband doesn't like the walnuts, but a quarter cup of walnut pieces mixed in the with dry ingredients works great, too.

The picture below is of the even more healthy recipe that I came up with -- and people still really like it. I'll share the that recipe another time.

Banana Oat Muffins

2 1/4 cups oat flour

1 T arrowroot powder

2 t. baking powder (look for ones that don't contain foods you are sensitive to!)

1 cup apple or grape juice

2 T vegetable oil (canola or grapeseed works great)

2 T honey

1 Ripe banana

Preheat oven to 400. Combine dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl. Mash the banana with a fork and add to the flour along with the remaining ingredients (I like to mix my wet ingredients together before adding them to the dry. Mix with a spoon just until all the flour is moist, and spoon evenly into 20 cups of a small-sized, oiled or sprayed muffin pan (leave the last four empty). Bake for about 10 minutes. Check them at 8 min, though -- you do not want these to overcook. Use a fork to flip the muffins on their sides to cool.

I have yet to find a person who does not like these muffins, so feel free to share them with your gluten-capable friends.

Gluten Allergies

It is astounding to find the number of people who are finding out they are sensitive and/or allergic to the gluten in wheat. I guess it was about seven years ago now that I started having to become creative with my recipes to keep out gluten and all other sorts of normal ingredients out of our food. As a matter of fact, Noah is sensitive and allergic to so many foods that I learned to make a darn good muffin using only a few ingredients -- and none of them typical. I can come up with a cookie recipe on the fly tailored to what Noah needs on a given day -- and have them turn out tasty and well-textured.

I'm not bragging. No, wait, I am bragging -- but I'm doing it to say that all it takes is a little practice and starting out with the right cookbook. When I first started, it took me forever to gather up all the right ingredients and put them all together just right -- and I turned out with quite a few inedible trials. It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention, and I say few inventions come about without a great deal of perseverance. Anyway, that leads me to today when cooking takes me half the time (or less) than it did when I started, and the results are usually good. Often they are surprisingly good. Oh, and did I mention I can do it spending a lot less money than I did when I first started -- that's another blog post.

Okay, so now to the point. If you have recently found that you have gluten and other allergies, this is the first cookbook you need to start with. And it's not just a cookbook. It is a fabulous teaching tool that will help you to understand food allergies more clearly as well as why certain ingredients are used and how they can be put to best use.

It is called The Complete Food Allergy Cookbook (and a tag line that I can't read from the picture because I have spilled so many ingredients on the cover -- thereby proving it is well-loved). It's by Marilyn Gioannini, and you can find it on amazon.com. Happy gluten-free cooking!