Celiac and cold cereal, because oatmeal's out for now ...



Oatmeal was our staple breakfast pre-diagnosis, except for those non-school days I'd give in and allow 'cold cereal' ... which for some reason, according to my apparently misguided parental wisdom, didn't seem as hearty or filling for days she had to be 'on' (at least according to preschool standards) until lunch-time?  I guess I was mistaken since that's what Z-Bug eats most mornings with some fresh fruit and she does just fine ... who knew?! 

So far we haven't tried any of the G-Free oats... I don't really get it, do you?? If so, please explain it to me - from what I can tell the issue is supposed to be cross-contamination, but oats do have gluten just not wheat gluten ... but is that okay or not?? So we're staying off the oats until, perhaps, we've been on the diet a while longer and want to see how she does with a gluten free oatmeal.

So yesterday I practically bought out all of the Nature's Path Gluten-Free cereal left on the shelf at Whole Foods - how could I not, they were on SALE!  They're really yummy (we've been eating Gorilla Munch and Peanut Butter Panda Puffs since well before Z-Bug's celiac diagnosis - to be honest, since well before Z was old enough to eat cereal!).  And some actually have a little fiber in there (e.g. Whole O's which I'll happily give E-Bee as an alternative to those filled-with-good-stuff, but not-so-filling and get crunched into the floor really easily Happy Baby Green Puffs). 

Check out how many options there are: http://us.naturespath.com/our-products?field_product_type_tid=All&field_special_diet_tid=14&field_superfood_ingredient_tid=All&field_new_value=All

And for some humor ... (cartoon found at  http://www.thefastertimes.com/pediatrics/2011/08/10/celiac/ )

And as long as we're on breakfast, since I didn't take the time to toot my own horn last week, here's Z's G-Free Valentine breakfast plate - with apple slices, plain Greek yogurt (with Cinnamon) and coconut-bluberry muffin (asI wrote about previously) ALL in the shape of hearts!

Something's missing in these muffins... oh yeah, gluten!

We do love to bake in these parts, and now that the pantry's fully stocked with an array of gluten-free flours (coconut, almon, Trade Joes blend, king Arthurs blend, some xanthan gum and corn meal ... so far!) we plan on getting back into it.  Yesterday my big girl and I had a few hours to ourselves without baby E, so after a few games it was into the kitchen to get down to business!  I was hoping for banana bread so as not to let the extremely (overly) ripened banana in the bowl go to waste, but Z-bug wanted blueberry muffins so out came the GFB (for the second time in a week of owning it) and all the ingredients for Coconut Blueberry Muffins.  With, of course, a few tweaks - with only 1 egg in the fridge but a full container of organic egg whites I had bought for easy frittata-making but haven't used yet, we used a cup and a half of egg white instead of the 6 eggs. I also added a dash (about a 1/2 teaspoon) of vanilla.  And we used frozen blueberries, because it's February.

 Z-bug meticulously measured and poured everything but the xanthan gum - it was our very first time using it and I read the warnings about too much so I wanted to be the culprit if we ended up with hockey pucks.  We didn't!

Princess Z made sure that every muffin would have some blueberries...

We did, however, only end up with enough batter for 10 "almost full" muffin cups - not the yield of 12 the recipe told us we'd get (and I think my muffin pan is regulation size?!)

 Most of them popped out of the muffin tin without effort - minor sticking on a couple (used spray, not paper cups)

                                                               The result? Delicious!


And ... Muffins-ish.  Sure, they taste good - there's that lemony, bakery-ish thing they have from the zest and the coconut flour does add a bit of sweetness and hint of something tropical... but they are, after all, gluten-free. So, they're not quite muffins ... they're Muffin-ish. 

Which, reminds me of a book we recently got.  Though we love "The Dot" and it's delightful main character Vashti by the same author, Peter H. Reynolds's "Ish" I'm not so sure about - sure it's a fun read if your kid's old enough not to internalize nor try to emulate the rotten older brother but I don't love the message that unless it's an exact replica, your drawing is not the actual thing you were aiming for - or even your best interpretation thereof - merely a lesser, not as good, only iSH version...
Feel free to comment to the contrary - please! I really do want to like it, but I only sort of "like-ish" it...

Birthday Parties: Gluten Free with Princess Z

Two down and about two thousand more to go... I'm getting pretty good at this bring your own gluten-free cupcake to the party and make it seems both effortless and completely awesome to your newly diagnosed 4 year old thing.  Of course I keep forgetting to take pictures of my fabulously frosted "Cupcakes" but they're beautiful (yes, the package says Udi's Gluten-Free Double Chocolate
Muffins - but they're chocolate chocolate chip, which makes for a cupcake in my book).


Literally, one of the first questions I asked the doctor when he confirmed the diagnosis (after the health stuff of course) was about birthday parties & can't she have just a sliver of pizza or cake just every once in a while so she's not the only kid at the party who can't have the treat?  My Z-bug, a one-treat-a-day sweets-loving four year old, loves birthday party treats.  Must be genetic! Isn't the whole point of a birthday party to eat cake?!  Yeah, yeah and play and see friends and of course celebrate the birthday boy or girl. But wondering whether it will be cake or cupcakes, and what flavor and oohing over the frosted confection and waiting patiently until it's time to sing Happy Birthday .. . Well, anyway the Doc of course said NO. He also assured me she wouldn't be the only one at most parties with an allergy or intolerance ... but that's no consolation, just makes me feel sad for all the other kiddos too.

Fortunately, last Saturday's birthday adventure was an hour of climbing and playing followed by cake and snacks - easy peasy!  A defrosted "Cupcake" with a fresh layer of vanilla frosting, under a layer of chocolate frosting, under a layer of chocolate sprinkles per my little Princess' request (and omg, what awesome chocolate frosting it was - had nothing cocoa to use but a fancy high percentage dark chocolate bar so I melted and added some to the vanilla buttercream I whipped up in small batch for the occasion ... it is my new secret recipe, yum!).  And my sweet girl was so excited that she got to pick her own flavor cake even though it was someone else's birthday party!

Just like she was for our first foray into the gluten-free at a birthday party scene ... one of my biggest dreads upon diagnosis and as luck would have it, on the Tuesday of our very first G-Free week (coincidentally our first week in a new preschool) we find an invitation to attend a pizza and cake party that Saturday.  All I could think was: my poor girl.  A lifetime of "differentness" and feeling left out and having to be deprived of things that look yummy and that everyone else is eating ... I know the stats, there are Celiacs everywhere and all sorts of gluten-free goodies on the market ... but this is my little celiac and I am sad for her (even though, thankfully, she has not been sad for herself yet).   I am also determined! So we spent the next few nights trying out G-free pizzas to find our favorite & the winner was: Glutino Peperoni - http://www.glutino.com/our-products/frozen-meals/pizzas/pepperoni-pizza/


I baked it before we left the house, wrapped it in foil & popped it back in it's cardboard delivery pizza-ish box, and she happily ate it off the same paper plate as everyone else.  And the darling dad of the birthday girl - whether he noticed on his own, or saw the look of pain on my face - removed an open box of the delivery pizza with it's bubbling cheese and fresh sauce that someone had put right in front of her on the table.  Then it was cake time.  A beautiful, princess covered cake with buttercream frosting.  I held my breath waiting for her to wail about the unfairness of it all, especially since our cupcake - with buttercream frosting I had made that morning & painstakingly piped on to look fancy - had smushed into the side of the container and wasn't looking quite so pretty anymore, certainly not compared to a bakery work of art portraying Belle, Ariel, Cinderella & Tiana.  Thankfully I was able to salvage and beautify with fresh blueberries - so it looked like a scrumptious chocolate fruit tart - and, dare I say, even more delicious looking than the food coloring laden sheet cake. Score! But not for me - the point goes to my super-sweet little Z - she wanted to bring blueberries so she would have something healthy to go with her cupcake (seriously, this is the girl who put a few pieces of cooked broccoli on Santa's plate this Christmas along with sugar cookies so he wouldn't just have sweets all night!).

Flourless Chocolate Cake - Happy Birthday Man!

Mmmm. And again, mmmm! Whipped up the flourless chocolate cake from the Gluten Free Bible for Man's birthday... well, mostly from the GFB - I really do try to follow recipes exactly, I just seem to have this tinkering thing I can't get control of (just minor tinkering here, used half unsweetened and half semi-sweet instead of the called-for breakdown). Anyway, it was fabulous. Warm, molten, chocolaty goodness that made us feel like we were in a fancy steak house.   And believe it not, it's even fabulous out of the fridge - like a fudgy piece of real cake. Don't miss the gluten in this baby!

In it's water bath, about to go into the oven..

                                                YAY, it actually came out of the pan - in one piece, while still warm!

Flipping it back over was a little challenging - some of it molted right out the top through that crack, maybe I should have baked an extra couple of minutes?

With a chocolate covered strawberry & a dollop of the whipped cream Z-bug whipped up for the occasion, giving her little arm quite a workout - but how excited she was to watch it turn from cream and a dash of (organic cane) sugar to real whipped cream all by herself!




                                        Happy Birthday, Man! We love you ;)

The morning routine - with all its glitches and glory...

It was a case of mistaken identity - the clock actually said 5:01, not 6:01 when I told Man to get up with baby so I could rest for another half hour (baby doesn't sleep, but that's a post for another day!).  Out I wander an hour later, shocked to find it's only 6am but uttering the word every loving husband wants to hear after being rustled out of bed an hour early: COFFEE!

 

With babe attached to one boob and the flange of my trusty pump on the other, I managed to take a few sips to get the day started with a caffeinated smile!  It was going along great, really ... lunches made quickly with E-bee sitting on the counter:

• Papa: Nitrate-free, organic ham, turkey and cheese on Udi's gluten-free white bread for dad
• Z-Bug: Bento box with g-free sandwich on top, black beans, red/green peppers and mixed veggies on bottom (along with a whole apple and bottle of water). 
• Baby E: Bento box with rice mac & cheese on top, black beans, steamed carrot sticks and broccoli florets on bottom. 

E plodded off from the kitchen to see what Papa was up to, and in wanders Z wiping sleep from her eyes as she jumped into my arms happy to have a few mama-minutes to herself.  Before heading off to get dressed, she measures out 1/2 cup of Rice & Shine cereal, pours the water up to the 2 cup mark and gathers up enough dried apricots, raisins and walnuts to make a nice morning porridge.Can't you picture it, there could've been cameras rolling to film an insurance or anti-depressant commercial with such a happy, calm, organized family getting ready for work and day care.

 

And still, it went along swimmingly - Z ate breakfast, E even had a few bites, Papa left for the day, I pulled out E's blocks and Z brought in a coloring book so I could bang out one itty,bitty, but something's-better-than-nothing mile on the treadmill.  And I was feeling pretty sassy - while alternately redirecting a thirteen month old to blocks/ball/crayons when she got within a foot of "mama's run-run," keeping the 4 year old from oppressive protection of her sister when she got too close to the run-run while oohing and ahhing about the beautiful job she was doing coloring in cinderella and giving tips about how to figure out which of the four butterflies was different, and not having any loss of life or limb because I was using a treadmill within feet of two small children (should I not admit that?), I still managed to bang out just one measly, BUT one measly sub-seven minute mile.  Who's a soccer mom now???

 

You know we're headed for a fall (fail?!) so here it is: Post-shower apocalypse.  Z-bug decides she wants to color some more and do some more imaginary work on her imaginary computer, she does not want to clean up her crayons and brush her teeth, not yet at least.  She would have eventually, I know this, but somehow forgot and I failed the moment. Big-time. I looked at the time and did some mental calculations (adding up the time to day care, time spent holding a screaming baby before I peel her off and scurry out with tears in my eyes, time spent peeling off an almost-crying preschooler reminding her that she actually likes preschool, time to get to work ...) and in, what was NotMyFinestMoment, decided to lay down the law. Now. No. Do it NOW and don't make me ask again. (Why? No idea, but now I'm stuck with it, and with 'And if you make me tell you one more time then ... ' Then what? No idea!).  So Z starts gathering all crayons up on book, they of course roll off, it happens twice more - I recommend she take two trips - it happens again, she gets increasingly frustrated as do I, now E picks up a few crayons and gets yelled at by Z for interfering, now Z is in trouble for not only not listening to me but for yelling at E ... spiraling downhill, fast! Now Z is screaming, or whining, or I'm not sure really what you call that noise, E is now crying (and not yet fully dressed) and SNAP! go into your room now and don't come out until i tell you to and you may not listen to your Tangled CD until the weekend.  Oh no, did that just come out of my mouth? Yep. Did I just take something away and send her to her room? Yep.  Did this just go from a delightful morning of just us gals to something out of really bad reality-TV land? Yep.

 

We did manage to get out of the house, almost thirty minutes after we should have, and we made it to day care after a brisk and chilly walk with chatter and smiles ... where, upon arrival, we learned that my big girl missed the entire morning run-around time (pretty sure the sprint to school counted as decent exercise for her little legs?) and both girls looked after me longingly with tears in their eyes and frowns on their pretty little pink mouths when I pried each one off in their respective classrooms.  I made it to work in time to not be obscenely late, red lipstick in place (on a morning like this, I needed my war paint!) and wishing I could rewind the clock two hours to get back to that idyllic time where we were like a well-oiled two-kids in daycare, two working parents machine ... or perhaps I should quit my job and be a SAHM and home-school teacher so my girls could work at their own accelerated learning but not drop-everything to listen to mama pace. Hmmm...