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.

Why waste your money?

I'll admit that I'm a sucker for some convenience items on the diet. I'm a busy mom of 2 children, one who is a toddler, and the other who has several hours of therapy and school every day. I need meals that are quick and easy to make. Almost every time I headed to the store, I used to pick up a box of Ian's chicken nuggets. The awesome thing is that these nuggets are free of gluten, casein, soy, eggs, and nuts. The bad thing is that they are about $6 a box and only have 9 nuggets which amounts to a measly 2 servings. When I finally got around to trying more homemade recipes, I discovered a recipe for "McDonald's" chicken nuggets on gfcfrecipes.blogspot.com. The author takes no credit for the recipe as he found it somewhere on Yahoo but I must say these nuggets are great, simple (calling for only 6 ingredients), and much much cheaper than $6 for 2 servings. The downside is that these are fried. However, I don't serve these every day so it works for us in moderation. You'll have to adjust the serving for your child but for my son who is 3, I can make 8 servings on a regular package of chicken tenders. I divide each package into 4 and freeze. Then when I'm ready, I make 2 servings (each about 6-8 small nuggets) out of each quarter and then Austin has 2 ready to heat meals for the week. I could easily make all 8 servings but like I mentioned, they are fried so it's a treat. I also don't know how good these will taste or how long they last if frozen once made. But it's simple so it's easy to do a serving at a time. Here is the recipe:

Chicken - cut up into small nugget size pieces (mine are about the size of chick-fil-a)
1/3 cup gf flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 tsp vinegar
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup water

Mix the flour and salt in a bowl. Then, combine the vinegar and soda in another small bowl, quickly dumping it in the flour as it reacts. Then, quickly add the water. Whisk well. Let this sit for about 5 minutes. It thickens. Meanwhile, heat some oil in a frying pan. Mix your chicken pieces in the batter and let them sit in there while the oil heats. When hot, fry until golden brown and cooked through.

Pizza Crust

Here is another mix that just became a good one for us. I'm not quiet up to the task of cooking from scratch and trying to figure out what substitutions work best so for now I'll stick to trying mixes. I followed the directions on the box for the pizza crust and used egg replacer and a soy free oil. Instead of making one large crust, I made several mini crusts. They don't brown well so I had a hard time making sure they were done but you can't over cook them because you'll end up with a tough crust. The end result, for me, turned out like sourghdough bread on the outer layer and a slight taste resembling a pita pocket (which I have been known to make mini pizzas with so that was perfect). Austin is tomato free right now so I couldn't actually make real pizza but I did try a cannellini bean spread recipe idea that was posted on gfcfmommy.blogspot.com. I added a little bit of spices to the beans and it actually turned out really well. My neighbor even added that she wanted to be invited over for dinner the next time I made them. I froze the extras in vacuum sealed bags but they didn't turn out as good as the first one from the oven.

Pancakes and Cupcakes and Muffins, Oh My!

We recently got back from visiting our family in the great state of Texas. Both Austin and Kaitlin had lots and lots of fun seeing and playing with everyone. I know trips might be stressful to some on the gfcf diet because it means planning and packing lots of food and/or making sure the place you are going has food or places you can get it. But for me, I was not stressed at all. I have a wonderful mother-in-law who just so happens to be great in the kitchen and she was very excited to cook and experiment with some of the foods for Austin. I'm sad that I didn't get pictures of everything but I would still like to share some good food that we enjoyed.

First are some blueberry pancakes. I'm sure for those experienced gfcf dieters, pancakes might be easy but I had no idea where or what mix to start with. We found Organic Arrowhead Mills Pancake and Baking mix. Most importantly this mix calls only for simple ingredients (egg(substitute), canola oil, honey, water). Our main problem with some of the mixes is that they have soy, sunflower, and/or safflower, or they call for so many ingredients that it is hard to substitute all of them without changing the taste of the finished product. These were great with blueberries, pure maple syrup, and Hormel Natural Choice bacon.

Second are the chocolate cupcakes you see above. Kaitlin was celebrating her first birthday and we did not want Austin to be left out when it came to the cake. We picked up Pamela's Chocolate Cake Mix. Once again, no ingredients that Austin couldn't have and very simple preparation. There is also a frosting mix but I think it called for several tablespoons of butter and I didn't know if ghee would substitute well so we just decided to sprinkle with powdered sugar. All I can say is wow! These cupcakes were awesome and everyone who tasted them agreed that the difference was not noticeable. Austin's cousin even wanted a cupcake instead of cake but of course that could have been because he was eating one. If anyone has had bad cake gfcf cake experience, I encourage you to try Pamela's and I am NOT a spokesperson - they really were that good! One side note: Pamela's products are made in a factory that does process things that have dairy, eggs, nuts, and soy so there is a disclaimer on the package for those who avoid any possible traces.

Our final experiment was for muffins. Again, we used the Organic Arrowhead Mills Pancake and Baking mix. The same ingredients that are added to make pancakes are added plus baking powder, vanilla, and xanthan gum. You can add pretty much anything to the muffins but my mother-in-law chose grated apple (for moisture) and then she made a streusel topping out of brown sugar, cinnamon, ghee, and rice flour. These were pretty good and were frozen for extra breakfasts.

Now that I have a couple of go-to recipes, I feel better that I am able to serve Austin a wider range of food! I also find that the more I experiment, the more comfortable I am with the gfcf diet as a whole.

More Cooking and More Updates

I've been trying to find the time to sit down and make some muffins with the gluten free pantry muffin mix but with school and two kids, time is not really on my side. Finally I put my foot down and made them tonight. The recipe came from Beth Hillson's gluten free newsletter and was supposed to be for chocolate cherry muffins but I omitted the cherries b/c I didn't have any on hand. The results were so much better than my last attempt even with all our substitutions so I guess I will need to swear off baking from scratch and stick to prepared mixes for now. I can definitely still taste a difference b/w these and regular muffins but these came out so much more moist and cake like than did the other ones. Bottom line, both me and my husband agreed that these were edible for everyone in our family. See recipe at bottom.

Also the other night, I was surprised to see a recipe on Austin's tortilla chip bag. It called for dipping chicken in crushed chips and seasoning and the best part about it was that you dipped the chicken in water, not eggs or milk, before coating so we tried that. I would have to say it tasted like a faux shake and bake and was not too terrible but in my opinion there are lots of better recipes for GFCF chicken. No picture because I didn't think about it. For kicks the recipes is posted at the bottom. I served it with GFCF mashed potatoes and corn.

As for improvements, the only thing I can say is wow! At first, the husband and I didn't know whether or not we were imagining it but several people including some who did not know about the diet have commented on how well Austin is doing. The two major things that we have noticed is a lot less stimming and way more spontaneous language. This is my little boy who a few weeks ago had lots of words but had to be prompted almost every time to say just one or two of those words. He is now using 2-3 word phrases unprompted most of the time and every now and then we will get a 5-7 word phrase with a little modeling. Some of the things he has said recently are: "bye bye daddy", "Love you daddy", "all done diego bubble bath", and "eat dora(cereal)please mama". There are so many more and there seems to be something new each day so we are thrilled with his progress.

Beth Hillson's Chocolate Cherry Muffins

1 box Gluten Free Pantry Muffin Mix
1/3 cup vegetable oil (I used Canola)
1 1/4 cup buttermilk (I used potato milk with vinegar added)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg (I used Ener-G egg replacer)
1/2 cup chocolate chips (enjoy life)
1/2 cup dried tart cherries chopped

Mix oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and egg. Add to muffin mix. Stir until well mixed. Gently fold in chocolate chips and cherries. Scoop into lined muffin pans. Bake at 350 for 20 min. Let cool for 10 min in muffin pan. Makes 16 (or 14 in our case) muffins.

Mission Crunchy Chicken Dinner

2 cups Mission Tortilla chips crushed
1/4 tsp garlic salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp oregano
1/8 tsp paprika
2-3 pounds chicken (we used tenders)

Add crushed chips and seasoning in large ziploc bag. Dip chicken in warm water and then place in bag. Shake to coat until well covered. Bake in lightly greased dish at 375 for 60 minutes or until cooked and tender. Serves 4.

Baking is hard!

Grrr... So I've been trying to find some good muffin recipes to start baking so that Austin can have something else to eat for breakfast. I scoured the internet and found a rice flour muffin recipe. I checked and I had all the ingredients so I decided to make blueberry muffins. What a disaster. I think the recipe did not call for enough liquid because I followed everything to a T and it was like dough instead of muffin batter. Then I though well this is GFCF baking so maybe it is supposed to be this way. I went ahead and baked the dough in muffin cups and they were terrible. They stayed the same shape, did not cook well, and of course were awful tasting. To the trash they went and back to the internet I went. I found a good looking banana chocolate chip recipe from GFCFmommy.blogspot.com and once again I had everything to make it. These ones actually turned out well for us but the taste is very different than regular muffins. I almost think they taste like banana chocolate cardboard but I'm not sure if that is how most GFCF bread products taste like since we are new to baking. I made them from scratch and plan to try again with gluten free pantry muffin mix. I'll be back to report!