GFCF "Trail Mix"

I was scouring the internet for snack ideas and came across several who make a "trail mix" for their kids. This is a fantastic idea and adds some variety for us because our snacks usually consist of chips, rice cakes, pretzels or fruit. I made a large tupperware container full of my trail mix and can now store it in the pantry for another great snack.

To make your own trail mix, combine your favorite GFCF cereal(s) with any or all of the following based on what your child likes and can have on the diet:

raisins and/or craisins
nuts
marshmallows
chocolate chips (Enjoy Life)
dried fruit
granola (Enjoy Life)

Computer Time

Austin doesn't get to play on the computer any time he wants. My husband and I often tell him we are "working on something" when we are online and he wants on. This morning, I let him play while I got ready to take him to therapy. I came out of the bathroom and walked up the computer and was about to sit down when he said, "Austin is working on something."

Dorothy

We got a betta fish yesterday as a present for Austin. He really loves fish and we thought a betta would be simple enough to care for. We brought it in and got everything set up and then brought him over. What name did he choose? Dorothy - like Elmo's goldfish. It was cute!

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!