Barrett's Unusual Ice Cream Party

Having children with food intolerances has its challenges for both mom and children. I have watched my children go through some heart-wrenching experiences. There were times where they had to sit apart from the other kids in the church nursery and eat their own little snack so they would not take any from the other children. They have gone to birthday parties where the mother had said they would have something for my kids but then forgot and I took my kids home in tears. In preschool Barrett had to always be the odd one out who got a few Starbursts while everyone else had cookies or cupcakes on the other kids' birthdays. When it was his birthday I was determined that he could be like anyone else and so I made allergen-free cupcakes with little monster trucks on top--only to be told that homemade snacks were not allowed for safety reasons. (Ironically, Barrett cannot eat most store bought snacks for safety reasons). We have gone to wedding receptions where well-meaning people have handed my children cookies which I then had to take away, breaking their little hearts.

One of the worst times was when I had made one of Barrett's favorite meals for the family, and made him his own dairy-free version. We all had a fine dinner and Barrett ate all of his. The disappointment came when I was eating leftovers for lunch the next day and Barrett wanted some too. When I told him his was gone he just burst into tears. I don't know what it was--maybe just the final straw. But we have had so many experiences like that, I wanted to find a book or something to help my children feel better about their situation.

I looked around on the internet for such a book, but could not find anything. I decided to take matters into my own hands and write a book myself, using experiences from my own childrens' lives as well as some children who live near me. This is the result:

BUY IT NOW!

'That will make you sick.'

This is one of the first phrases six-year-old Barrett learns because he has celiac sprue, which means he can't eat cake and bread or even drink milk.

Barrett is embarrassed of how different he is from the other kids in his class...until a new kid who also has unusual allergies comes to school.

At Barrett's Unusual Ice Cream Party, Barrett and his classmates learn that what makes them different makes them special.

It is available from the publisher now, and will be available through Amazon and other large chain stores in mid-April.

For more stories and information visit my author's website and my Facebook page.

Book Review: Special Needs Kids Eat Right

This is not a book review I wrote. This is one a friend of mine wrote but I needed to share it. Please read it: http://freelifeglutenfree.blogspot.com/2011/08/special-needs-kids-eat-right-book.html

I took her recommendation and got a copy of this book. It is helpful for any child with bowel problems, not just kids with disabilities. Although I found it even more helpful because I do see some elements of Asperger's in my son, I just have not found it necessary to seek a diagnosis.

The book talks about how nutrition significantly affects the functioning of children and their ability to focus, learn, and grow. She addresses specific issues children with Autism and ADHD face nutritionally and gives steps for restoring nutritional health in children. Proper nutrition can make medications work more effectively, or eliminate the need for medications at all. I highly recommend it.

Gluten-Free All Purpose Flatbread--by Mary Brown

I recently sent in a children's book manuscript modeled after my son Barrett with his experiences living gluten-free around other children. My book (currently titled That Will Make You Sick but that will probably change), was accepted by Tate Publishing and given a production date. After having a discussion with my publisher they informed me they had just published a Gluten-Free cook book and sent me a free copy:

Going Gluten-Free: Breads and Baked Goods with Mary Brown

I have only tried this flatbread recipe, but it is just perfect for making sandwiches, bread sticks, cinnamon bread, pizza, and much more! I have made a few adaptations, as usual, but the original is very good too.

dry:

1 1/2c brown rice flour

3/4 c gluten-free oat flour (or white rice flour)

3/4 c tapioca starch

3 tbsp potato starch

3 tsp sorghum flour

3 tsp cornstarch

3 1/2 Tbsp sugar

3 tsp xanthan gum

1 1/2 tsp salt

3/8 tsp unflavored gelatin

1 1/2 tsp yeast

liquid:

1 1/2 c water with 3 tsp sugar dissolved

3 egg whites

1 1/2 tsp egg yolk

3/8 cup corn oil

1 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

Take the yeast and eggs out of the refrigerator and bring them to room temperature. (You can warm the eggs faster if you place them in a bowl of warm water).

Mix dry ingredients and set aside. Grease pan (I use a jelly roll pan).

Mix yeast and sugar water in your mixing bowl and let sit until it foams.

Separate the eggs from the whites. (Google it if you don't know how, there are lots of ways to do this).

After the yeast is foaming add the required amount of eggs, oil, and vinegar and mix. Slowly add the dry ingredients and mix. (I use the bread arm on my Bosch but I bet a paddle attachment on any mixer would also work well). Beat for 10 minutes.

Spread dough (looks like a really thick batter) in the pan and let rise in a warm place for at least 1 hour. (I have cheated and done it for less--the bread is just flatter and more dense).

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

When bread is risen bake for 20-24 minutes. (The instructions say to release immediately and cool upside down on cooling racks, but I have never done this).

Cut the pieces to whatever size you want. Use right away or freeze for later use.

Product Review: King Arthur Brownie Mix

I had a brownie craving the other day and found a Brownie Mix by King Arthur at the grocery store. (Give me a break, I'm 8 months pregnant!) I have been really pleased with the King Arthur chocolate cake mix so I decided to try the brownies. I had some guests over for dinner who were not gluten intolerant when I made this mix.

The good:

• tasted really good--especially with ice cream on top!
• very fast and easy to make
• King Arthur produces their products in a facility free of the top 8 allergens--that means no soy or dairy so my son can eat them!
• our guests never gave an inkling that they suspected I was feeding them gluten-free food. The subject would never have even come up if they hadn't asked about my son's milk allergy.

The not-so-good:

• They totally fell apart. They might work better if you let them cool completely, but then you lose the sensation of warm, fresh-baked brownies.
• They were really good, but not quite as good as the "gluten" brownies I used to crave.
• The mix only makes an 8x8 pan--hardly enough for a pregnant woman and her dinner guests. :)
• It's over $4 for one box

I think the brownies would be improved by the addition of chocolate chips. Especially if you like a sweeter flavor, adding milk chocolate chips would sweeten them up a little.

Gluten-Free Bread Experiments

For a long time I had given up on the bread idea altogether. I couldn't find anything that tasted good enough to make me want to spend the money on it. I couldn't really use any of it for sandwiches because it wouldn't stay together, and never tasted very good after the first day it was opened/made. But I have been CRAVING bread lately (probably because I am pregnant now :) ). A friend of mine told me she found a recipe that made delicious, chewy bread that stays together. I was skeptical but desperate so I tried it.

She was RIGHT! I smelled good, tasted good for multiple days, and stayed together!

I will credit the author of the book the recipe came from just as soon as I can find out. I'm hoping to buy a copy and try some other recipes from it as well.

Stir together:
¾ C brown rice flour (I used GF oat flour, my friend uses a mix of rice and oat).
2/3 C potato starch
2/3 C tapioca flour
2 tsp potato flour
2 ½ xanthan gum
2 tsp egg replacer
1 tsp salt
2 tsp (1 pck) unflavored gelatin
1/3 C almond meal (or grind up some almonds)
1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp yeast
Put yeast on top of powder mixture

Stir together in separate bowl:
1 ¼ C warm water
1 tsp vinegar
1 ½ tsp olive oil

Pour on top of yeast and let it sit for three minutes.
Mix everything together on low speed.

Add two egg whites
Mix until combined and beat on high speed for five minutes.

Grease a loaf pan
Spoon into pan and let rise for 20 min. (texture is really sticky, thick)
Smooth it out with wet fingers or greased spatula
As bread is rising, preheat oven to 400 degrees
Bake for about an hour, covering with aluminum foil after first 10 minutes.*

*I didn't have very good success with the foil thing. Next time I am going to cook it uncovered and put foil on for the last 10 minutes. If you don't do it right the crust is way too hard and the middle is doughy. (Still tastes good though).

King Arthur's Bread Mix--Product Review





This tasted pretty good, but it was not as "normal" as the bread recipe above. It almost has the texture of angel food cake, but it stays together better than most GF bread mixes. It also stayed soft after several days. I know mine doesn't look very professional, but that's because I wasn't very careful about smoothing it out in the pan. It made decent toast. It still probably wouldn't work very well for sandwitches because it is still pretty dense and falls apart under pressure. I didn't try doing it though so I could be wrong.

Product Review: Lindsay's Lipsmakin' Sugar Cookies

These cookies were surprisingly good! They don't look that great in the picture but that's because I let my son paint some with food coloring and frost the others.

There are a few things you need to do though, to make them work:

• The first batch I followed the instructions on the box and the cookies were nearly impossible to roll out and then when I cooked them they "melted". After that I kneaded a little bit of extra flour into the dough (I used gluten-free oat flour) they worked perfectly.
• Roll the dough out directly onto the pan and peel away the extra dough because it is incredibly difficult to transfer the cookies.
• Take the cookies off the pan before they have cooled off completely or they will break into pieces when you move them.

Product Review: Enjoy Life double chocolate brownie cookies

I give these two stars. They don't taste bad but they have that chalky/sandy texture of many gluten free foods. Not worth the calories. My children, however, seem to like them and since they are free of all of the foods Barrett cannot have, I guess they are okay to have around on occasion.

Product Review: Enjoy Life Snickerdoodles

I admit I had low expectations for these cookies. My experiences with the Enjoy Life cereal bars and granola cereal were not very good. I only bought these cookies because I knew they would be safe for Barrett.

However, I was pleasantly surprised! I expected hard-as-rock cookies that taste like sand. What I got was the deliciously chewey-soft flavor of cinnamon and cream of tartar that is so familiar to me. They really do taste like a REAL snickerdoodle! These will make great home and travel snacks for my children. Delicious "duckies" (as Abbie calls them) that I can send with my kids to parties and events on holidays and birthdays so they will not feel left out.

I highly recommend this product.

Product Review: Cherrybrook Kitchen Chocolate Chip Mini Cookies

I was hoping these cookies would make a good travel snack or a snack to send to nursery/preschool with the kids. No good. They are way too hard and the kids can't really eat them without milk. (My kids can't anyway--older kids should be fine). They taste pretty good and stay together well though. My only real criticism is the hardness. Buy them for your 6 year old but not your 3 year old. They also have soy lecithin so be cautious of that if your children have problems withs soy.

How to Have a Gluten-Free Big Mac in the United States

Lately I have been craving the taste of a McDonald's Big Mac. Strange, I know. You'd be amazed at the kinds of things you crave after living your whole life eating whatever you want and then suddenly having to restrict your diet significantly. So I finally broke down and found a way to satisfy my craving. (It was expensive and probably a one-time deal, but I thought I'd share it anyway).

First, I found some Schar Classic White Rolls in my local Wal-Mart (only one of our two Wal-Marts have a gluten-free section). I took them to the McDonald's across the street and asked them to make me a Big Mac using my own bread. The manager was happy to comply and used three rolls to make 2 burgers.

Here is my suggestion--because gluten-free breads are more dry and fall apart more easily than regular breads, use less bread. It was better when I just used one roll and left out the middle portion of the bun. Also, ask them for extra sauce to offset the dryness of the roll. With those small suggestions it made a perfect Big Mac! I was quite pleased with the result.

As for my review of the rolls, I would say if you are craving the rolls you used to eat at your favorite restaurant--these will not satisfy. They are too dry and too thick for that. However, if you are craving a burger, chicken salad sandwich, or other item that you typically put condiments on it is an excellent choice. It stays together well enough and tastes pretty good.

Ingredients: water, corn starch, rice flour, palm oil, sugar, guar gum, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, lupine protein, yeast, salt, psyllium seed husk (vegetable fiber), diacetyltartaric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides of edible fats

(May contain egg and soy)

Schar Pizza Crusts

This was $8 for two pizza crusts. It's a little pricey, but not nearly as pricey as paying $15 for the same size of pizza (but only one) at Pier 49. I crave pizza on a regular basis and this is a quick and tasty alternative to eating out. I have really been impressed with the quality of gluten-free products that are becoming available! Bon Apetite!

(Unfortunately it does have milk so my son can't eat it--but my daughter and I can).

Ingredients: water, corn starch, rice flour, potato starch, glucose syrup, yeast, guar gum, mono- and diglycerides of edible fats, potassium bicarbonate, sodium bicarbonate, glucose, whey protein, salt, tartaric acid, citric acid

Kinnikinnick S'moreables Graham Style Crackers

These crackers get five stars in my book! They are a pretty good imitation of what graham crackers really taste like--and they actually taste really good. There is no strange texture or chalky rice-flour taste in them. They are sweet and tasty and were a big hit with my kids! I am so excited to be able to bring these along on our family camping trips so Barrett (and I) will no longer be left out of the Smore tradition. Another bonus is I now have the means to make my own "graham cracker" pie crust!

Ingredients: Pea starch, non hydrogenated shortening(palm fruit and/or canola), potato starch, brown rice flour, brown sugar,sweet rice flour, tapioca starch, water, rice bran, sugar, blackstrap molasses, honey, glucose,vanilla, salt, sodium bicarbonate, pea protein, pea fibre,guar gum, inulin, soy lecithin, mono calcium phosphate(May contain traces of eggs and tree nuts).

Product Review: Kinni Kritters Animal Cookies

Over the holidays I visited a Good Earth store in Orem, UT. They had a huge selection of products (particularly snack products like cookies) that were safe for Barrett (no dairy, gluten, soy, egg, or yeast). I splurged and bought a lot of them and will post a review of each as I use them.

The first one we opened was the animal cookies listed in the title (http://consumer.kinnikinnick.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/products.home/productcategoryid/12) These do have soy lecithin, but Barrett doesn't seem to have a problem with the lecithin (amazingly enough). They were delicious though! I think they taste as good as any normal cookie and Barrett was so excited to be able to eat a cookie. I wish I had bought more boxes of it because it isn't available where I live at this time.

Product Review: Gluten Free Life Cookie Mix

I'm not sure if this is a real brand or not. I picked it up near the check stand at a Good Earth store in Orem, UT. My guess is that it is created by either Good Earth itself or a local distributer. There isn't really a prominent brand name on it. The ingredients are sorghum flour, organic evaporated can juice, tapioca flour, baking powder, xanthan gum, baking soda, and sea salt. You are supposed to add 1 1/2 sticks of soft butter, 1 egg and that is all. (I used Earth Balance soy free buttery spread).

This mix is terrible.

1. It smells disgusting and that is never a good sign.

2. The recommended butter/flour ratio is totally off. It was way too much liquid. I would recommend less butter and/or using half shortening and half butter.

3. It said to drop by tablespoons onto a sheet, which I did. They completely melted together to make one giant cookie.

4. They ended up being hard as rock.

5. If you could manage to chip any away to eat it did not taste very good.

6. The recipe says it can make chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodles, or sugar cookies. What it really means is that you can put chocolate chips in it, roll it in sugar, or roll it in cinnamon sugar (although it would actually be extremely difficult to roll in anything with how runny it was).

Galaxy Nutritional Foods Vegan Rice Cheese

A friend of ours with a milk allergy made an interesting discovery the other day: rice cheese. Better yet, Vegan rice cheese. This "cheese", made by Galaxy Nutritional Foods, comes in slices like the Kraft Singles. I tried them myself and while they weren't bad, I wasn't that excited about them. It seemed more like a really soft cracker than cheese, but it would probably be alright on a sandwich or something.

The good thing is that my son really liked it. He felt so special to be able to eat cheese like his sister. He kept asking for the "cheese that doesn't make me sick". It warmed my heart to have him feel like he was included in something that the average person participates him. That alone made it worth it!

Betty Crocker Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix

I just made a wonderful discovery. Recently Betty Crocker came out with a line of gluten-free products. I bought a cookie mix just to try but I didn't have high hopes. After all, the main ingredient is rice flour. Last night we had a Gluten-Intolerance Group meeting that was a Christmas sampler. I figured now would be a good time to try the cookies because if they were nasty I wouldn't be stuck with a whole box of them.

The first test of knowing if you have truly good cookies is the batter test--and it passed with flying colors! Sampling the dough made me feel like I no longer had to miss the cookie dough I so loved as a kid. In fact, I'd much rather eat the dough than make the cookies!

The next test was the cookies. They tasted awesome! A little crumbly, perhaps, and they probably won't last more than a few days, but they tasted like a real cookie--even my gluten-eating husband thought they were good! It was a pleasant surprise.

I did not try it with egg replacer this time (I used real egg) but I will add to this post when I do and let you know how it worked out.

New Cereal: Cookie Crips Sprinkles!

I discovered that General Mills now makes Cookie Crisp Sprinkles, which appears to be gluten free. Wikipedia states, "In July 2009, Cookie Crisp Sprinkles were introduced. They are vanilla cookies with small sprinkles on them. The cereal is said to be gluten free." The beautiful thing about this is that I can use them as a substitution for Nilla wafers and they make great travel snacks. Even though they are loaded with sugar I feel good about the fact that they are fortified with vitamins like most breakfast cereals. In my opinion that makes them BETTER than Nilla wafers!

Sorry for those intolerant to corn--it is a corn-based cereal.

Just an Update

I just wanted to update since I haven't posted in awhile.

The kids are doing very well as am I. It is amazing how much better I feel after going gluten-free. It is even more amazing to see how much Barrett is progressing since we supposedly discovered all of his intolerances.

Abbie is also doing very well on whole milk. It is a relief to see that she is not really bothered by the dairy. I still try to keep her away from soy as much as possible. I will let her decide whether or not to eat soy when she is old enough to connect the effects of what she eats with her symptoms. We've been tempted to test her on gluten again but every time we go to give her some we get a really bad feeling about it and pull back. I hesitate because I must have gone through my whole life with an intolerance and never known it. I don't really want to take that risk with her.

And as a side note--I am loving the Earth Balance soy-free butter. It has made life 10 time easier!

Product Review: Pamela's Bread Mix, Palm Oil Shortening

I tried Pamela's bread mix for the first time yesterday. I used half the small bag to make a small pizza for myself and some bread sticks for my kids. It actually tasted good! Not like the sawdust-pizza I had been making from scratch. I didn't follow the directions quite right but it still had a good texture and taste. It doesn't have any of the allergens my kids can't have in the ingredients although it is made on the same equipment where milk is processed. I haven't seen a reaction in anyone. I assume, knowing who they are, the Pamela's company cleans their equipment fairly well between processing. Then today I made a pie crust out of the rest and it worked really well. I actually like doing crust better with gluten-free mixes because it's easier to patch mistakes. (Unfortunately my pie didn't really turn out, but once I figure out a dairy-free recipe that works well I'll post it.)



Also, I used the Spectrum Organic 100% Palm Oil Shortening for the first time in my pie crust. I substituted it for both butter and shortening and it worked out well and tasted fine. I did add about 1/2 tsp imitation butter flavor but I don't think it was necessary. Anyway, it looks like it will be a fine substitute for regular shortening and as far as I can tell it doesn't behave strangely.
Doesn't that look wonderful? The crust was. Too bad the rest totally didn't work. I think I failed on the egg-replacer part of it.