We are eating Mac n Cheez

I found some products by Namaste at a local health food store here. Their products work great for us because they are free of wheat, gluten, corn, soy, potato, dairy, casein or nuts. After I checked their website and emailed their customer service to make sure the pasta's butter flavors were casein free, I picked up their "Say Cheez" which is a GFCF cheese pasta to try out with Austin. It was a huge hit with him. He thinks he is having macaroni and cheese. It's been so long since he's had the real thing, I'm sure he does not remember the exact taste.

My verdict: It's good for what it is. The cheese flavor isn't the greatest but it's not bad and the pasta is actually pretty good. He can't have soy for now so I'm surprised we've found any "cheesy" products. It also helps to add things. The first time I made it, I added ham. Today, I added ground beef. Broccoli florets might be good as well as chicken.

Homemade Mini Corn Dogs

As I started searching for more easy meal ideas, I came across several recipes for mini corn dogs. I thought that they would be great not only b/c they are a finger food but they probably taste almost normal considering most of what the recipe calls for is corn meal which is in real corn dogs. After google searching, most recipes called for the same ingredients, the only difference being what type of gf flour people used and that some people added a few tbsp. of oil to the batter. I saw some that called for a general GF blend and others who used 2 or more type of other flours. I decided to follow the recipe from Kathi's blog at http://kathi-gfcf.blogspot.com/ mainly b/c I had her two flours on hand and the way she prepared the corn dogs seemed very easy and very little mess.

Mini Corn Dogs
1/4 C garbanzo bean flour
1/4 C white rice flour
1/2 C yellow cornmeal
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg (or egg substitute which we use)
1 c. milk substitute (we used Dari Free potato milk)

Mix dry ingredients then add the egg and milk. Here is where I loved Kathi's method. She says to cut the hot dogs into six pieces each and then put a piece on the end of a skewer to batter and fry. This was great and made virtually no mess. Fry to golden brown. I assume you could also make regular size corn dogs with this recipe using popsicle sticks.

I found that if I put 3 in the fryer, by the time I got 3 more skewered and battered, the other ones were ready to come out. My corn dogs were not as thick as commercial ones but they tasted great. I made an entire package (could've made 2 with the leftover batter) and froze the rest for lunches.

Also, my neighbor came over and said that when she worked at a corn dog stand, they used to fry all sorts of things in the batter but one of the better tasting things was bananas. She said it comes out like banana waffles. Interesting, I just might have to try that one soon!

Jules Gluten Free Flour

I'm not sure where I first heard of Jules but I've read excellent reviews of her flour and how similar it is to white flour. I ordered a sample packet of the flour a while back but the only recipe included was one for blueberry muffins that called for sour cream. Being the savvy cook that I am (not!) I didn't know of any soy free substitutes so I put the flour away until I could find a recipe that called for the 2/3 cup sample.

Then I revisited Jules' website yesterday and saw that they've added 2 new recipes that can be used with the sample packet. One of those recipes is for pancakes and doesn't call for any ingredients that he can't have or at least that I can't substitute. I'll be making those later this week to review.

Also, I found some awesome information on Kathi's blog at http://kathi-gfcf.blogspot.com/ I was searching around for recipes so I can try out some new things for Austin when I came upon her post for homemade taco seasoning. Like Kathi, I just stopped giving Austin the seasoned meat when we have taco night b/c of all of the added ingredients plus soy in the McCormick's mix. Kathi came up with her own mix using basic GFCFSF seasonings and it comes out EXACTLY like the mix!! I don't want to re-post her recipe but you can definitely find it on her blog.

Recent Conversations

These are all phrases that were used appropriately but we have never even heard him use them before.

Austin: (looking at something gross) eww, yucky!!!

Austin: (playing with cars) Lighting McQueen and Mater
Me: That’s not Mater. Where is Mater?
Austin: He is not here.

Daddy: Is it this foot that hurts?
Austin: No, this one! (pointing at other one)
Daddy: (kisses it)
Austin: All better

Austin: bye bye Daddy car (when he thought Daddy was going to work)
Daddy: No, Daddy’s car is broken (car battery was dead)
Austin: (looking at a hot wheels car that is the same color as our car) Daddy’s car is fixed!

Simple.Delicious.Chicken.

Simple is what goes in our household. I'm not a gourmet chef and I probably never will be. I don't have the patience to cook a meal with 10 or more ingredients, half being ones that I've never heard of or are probably to expensive for my budget. Besides that, I have picky eaters in my household! I have seen the following recipe on many sites so there is not really a "source" that I retrieved it from; I just wanted a simple way to prepare chicken one day and I remembered reading about this. Sorry for not posting pictures but I never thought to take any. The outside of the chicken comes out beautifully golden brown and the inside comes out incredibly moist.

Honey Chicken

Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
Honey
Salt & Pepper

Layer chicken in a pan. Season with salt and pepper to taste and drizzle with honey. Bake at 425 for 25-35 min. until done. Enjoy!

Pretend Play

Austin's therapists have started working with him on pretend play. For kids with autism it is a difficult to produce symbolic play (ie.. pretend that a cup is a telephone) although they may be able to do functional play things such as pushing a toy car or drinking from a play cup. We started with using the most basic things like pretending to eat or feed the baby but now the therapists have been wanting to introduce new concepts like driving a car by using chairs or just squatting or pretending to eat but with no play food. They haven't really done to much of this yet but today out of the blue, Austin took his play golf bag and told us it was a cup with pear juice and that he was drinking. Then he told us it was granddaddy's car and he pushed it around saying vroom vroom. Later he put it on his arm and said it was his back pack and that he was going bye bye. Finally, while he and his therapist were playing with blocks, he lined them all up and said it was a line and then a train, choo choo.

For us this is amazing!!! It was a really neat moment.

Convenience Items I DO buy

I spent my last post writing about why I don't buy the prepackaged chicken nuggets. This post is dedicated to prepackaged snacks that I DO buy. I find most of these reasonably priced and buy them because after all my son does have to eat and a lot of times he needs to eat on the go. Not many of these products are organic and although I try to buy organic when I can, I don't always have the money to. However, most of the products have limited ingredients and all of them are pronounceable.

Gerber Pear Juice - I've been told and read that pear juice is very easily tolerated and digested. I've only found 2 brands - RW Knudsen at $4.99 a bottle or Gerber at $1.87 a bottle. We stick with the Gerber and as always half water and half juice.


Hormel Natural Deli Meats - It's not organic but there are not any nitrates/nitrites, no msg, no added anything and it says Gluten Free right on the box. They have bacon as well!



Motts Natural Applesauce - If the apples that motts used were organic then it would be exactly the same as Earth's Best organic applesauce.


Lundberg Organic Rice Cakes - I buy the lightly salted ones because I think they need a little flavor but still only 2 ingredients with organic brown rice and sea salt.



Organic Brown Rice Snaps - Organic brown rice flour and organic white rice flour make these. I serve them as chips or sometimes with a little organic fruit spread.



SunMaid Raisins - Like the commercial says, "grapes and sunshine".


Gerber Graduates Fruit Twists - Like a twizzler but with real fruit. I'm assuming these are similar in taste (not texture) to Trader Joes Fruit Leathers. Of course they have more than just fruit in them but no preservatives or artificial flavors and they are cheaper for one serving.



Wylde Pretzels from Ener-G - These are the only GF pretzels I have found that are free of sesame in addition to being free of everything else. They also have a version with sesame.


Mission Tortilla Chips - As much as I would like to buy a different brand of tortilla chips, any that I have found are either made with soybean oil or have sunflower or safflower in them. Some of the Mission ones are done in corn, palm, or cottonseed oil. Other than that they are made with just corn, lime, and salt.



Last but certainly not least, I serve fresh fruit. He likes a little of everything except for bananas and oranges but we stick to apples, pears, strawberries, and grapes. Every once in a while I pick up pinapple, peaches, or mangos.