Recipes: Gluten-Free Tea Time

We don't have the standard three meals here at Babylon Sanctum. We couldn't be that normal, could we? ;)

We have:
Breakfast
Lunch
Tea
Dinner
1am Meal

The only meals there with specified times are dinner and tea. They are also the only meals that multiple household members are expected to take part in.

Dinner is by 7pm. Tea time is 2:30.

I've been eating a lot of microwave soup for tea time lately. Here's today's :)


Neo-Peasant Soup
-a soup spoon of butter-substitute
-broth (chicken, beef, veggie, or whatever you like)
-broccoli (fresh)
-1 small potato
-green bean baby food
-sqaush baby food

Add everything to your microwave-safe bowl; use enough broth to cover all the veggies. Chop the broccoli and the potato relatively small, so they'll cook.

I use scissors for the broccoli and cut it directly into my bowl of broth. And a very sharp knife for the potatoes.

Microwave until potatoes are tender, approximately 6 minutes.

In that six minutes, you can, in this order:
-put the kettle on to boil
-get the tea pot and leaves or cups and bags ready
-make a toaster oven sandwich to go with your soup
-clean up the counter after prep

And when your soup is done, your microwave is going to be very steamy. Give it a quick 10 second wipe-down with a rag or paper towel, and you're ready to sit down to a full meal, quickly and easily prepared :)


Serving Ideas

Excellent spicing options are adobe, soul seasoning, or just plain salt and pepper.

If you want to, you can thicken the soup with some instant mashed potatoes and then thin it with a little milk-substitute or cream-substitute. This makes a heartier version, really good for a cold afternoon :) You can also do this and leave the potato out if you're out of potatoes or just don't want to bother with a potato.

It's really good topped with deli ham, too.

Serve with a warm baguette topped with ghee, or with a toaster-oven ham sandwich, recipe below. Dip the sandwich in the soup. It's awesome :D


Toaster Oven Ham Sandwich
-par-baked gluten-free baguette
-casein-free ghee
-thinly sliced deli ham

Cut a section of baguette in half, spread with ghee, and arrange ham on bread. Toast open-faced in toaster oven until baguette is crispy.


Notes
Butter substitute: We use casein-free ghee and/or Earth Balance.
Broth: You can make your own if you want to, but you're good to use a high quality brand of store-bought stuff. Read the ingredients list to make sure whole ingredients were used. It should look like this, not like this.

Baby food: Trust me. They will add a lot of depth of flavor and nutrition to your soup. Experiment with different baby food vegetables, or even meats if you're adventurous. It's a quick, simple, shelf-stable source of lots of vitamins. Use Beechnut. Alternatively, you could make your own vegetable purees and freeze them for things like this.

Instant mashed potatoes: Again, go for something high quality. The ingredients should look like this, not like this.

Milk substitute: We use almond milk.

Cream substitute: We use a cashew-based product.


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There you go. Enjoy tea time :) What are you thankful for today?

Love, life, light and luck,
Mama Coyote

A morning :)

Because of the work being done on the house, Elijah is temporarily sleeping in a playpen in my room. The past two mornings, he has climbed out of the playpen and into my bed. I have woken up to, "Good morning, Mama! You look happy!"

And just now he said, "Mama making eggs for Elijah!"

How can I resist?

Time to make breakfast :)

-Mama Coyote

Waffles & Playgrounds

Good morning. It is a morning.

I have 45 gigs of music on shuffle right now. This should be interesting.

I don't think I actually have anything interesting to say right now, but if I don't try to post when I feel like it, then... er... well, nothing bad will happen and the world will continue just as it is. But! Hello. This is a blog post.

I've fallen down in routines lately, in making sure there's breakfast, lunch, AND dinner. We're doing better; and after dinner, we've been going to the playground. Elijah loves to "swing high!" and play in the sand.

I made waffles yesterday! Gluten-free, dairy-free ones, too. From a mix. But the mix tasted awful, so I added applesauce, extra sugar, a little vanilla extract (that Grandmere made!), and a lot of cinnamon. They were well-received by the family, and I don't expect that there are any left this morning. Which probably means I'm making more today.

I want to try this recipe: Glad GFCF all-purpose flour

That website is pretty awesome. I think it's going to help a lot.

Update on the bathroom renovation: The renovators found mold. We're in the processing of figuring out how to take care of that and how to pay for it. Sigh.

Out for now,
Mama Coyote

Gluten and Dairy-Free Hot Breakfasts

I'm trying to get Elijah away from cold cereal for breakfast... lunch... dinner... snacks... :) Perhaps it's true for all toddlers, but it's definitely true for those of us with SPD: When we find a food we like the feel and taste of, we stick with it. In an attempt to combat this rigidity of thought in both myself and Elijah, I am trying to make sure we have healthy hot breakfasts with at least a little variety.

This is not as easy as you would think, considering my morning laziness and sensory-driven personal desire to stick with one thing over and over as well.

Here are some of the things we eat for breakfast.

Tomagi Gohan
-cooked rice
-1 raw egg
-toppings: Furikake, adobo, gf soy sauce, gf tamari, BBQ sauce

This is a very simple meal. Place cooked rice in a covered microwave-safe bowl with a sprinkle of water. Heat for 1-2 minutes until rice is steaming hot. Stir in one raw egg very thoroughly, then replace cover. Let sit until egg is cooked. Top with your choice of yumminess.


Microwave-able Gluten-Free Oatmeal
-certified gf oatmeal
-water or milk-replacement of your choice
-toppings: soy or coconut creamer, brown sugar, honey, cinnamon

Regular oatmeal is generally thought to be heavily contaminated with wheat flour, so only certified gluten-free oatmeal is currently considered safe in my household.
Rolled oats microwave just fine as far as we're concerned. Place the desired serving of oats and water per the instructions on the box in a microwaveable bowl, cover, and microwave one minute at a time until you determine how long your microwave takes.
You can also cook oatmeal in a neuro-fuzzy rice cooker and if the machine has a timer, set it up the night before to be ready for morning, but I haven't tried this yet and it's been years since I cooked steel-cut oats in a rice cooker.
Elijah likes his with a lot of honey and cinnamon. I prefer brown sugar and soy or coconut creamer. We may try apples and other fruits soon.


Fried Eggs
-eggs (2-3 per person, in my house)
-bacon grease
-salt
-adobo
-sides: bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, black beans

Bacon grease is my usual butter-replacement for frying foods. I like my eggs over-easy; Elijah can't stand that texture and prefers his broken and well-done. Mushrooms raw or sauteed in bacon grease are a wonderful accompaniment to fried eggs.



Scrambled Eggs
-eggs (1-4 per person, depending on the day and the phase of the moon and the alignment of the stars...)
-rice milk (optional)
-bacon grease
-salt or adobo (Elijah prefers adobo with cumin)
-accompaniments: tortilla chips, salsa

Everyone in the house has a different way of making scrambled eggs. I scramble mine in a bowl with a little rice milk and some salt and then pour them into the hot bacon grease in the pan. Daddy C scrambles them straight in the pan. I cook them a little soft, he usually browns them a little.

A common plating in our house is: A handful of tortilla chips on the plate, top with eggs and salsa. Very tasty!



Apples & Peanutbutter
-apple
-peanutbutter
-toppings: cinnamon, honey

Slice apples, spread with peanutbutter. Simple :) I know cinnamon sounds like a strange topping for this, but someone recommended it once, and I found that it gave the peanutbutter just that much more depth.

Gaining Weight

I felt kind of stupid just now when I typed "gain 8 pounds" into my Goals at DailyStrength. Eight pounds doesn't sound like much, but that's nearly 10% of my bodyweight.

And food just seems so disgusting lately, and that is not okay. Food is practically my religion... not wanting to partake makes me very, very sad! :p

Ah, well. Solutions will be found.

Mama Coyote

6am

I like being awake at 6am, when no one else is awake and I can stare at my computer for a while. I have goals this month, and they involve writing more and decluttering more and loving more. If I woke up at 6am every day, I could potentially write a blog post, a Squidoo article, and relax with some tea.

In theory, I should be able to find that time during the day anyway. It's just a matter of letting myself not get overwhelmed by everything else in my world.

ChildFind is coming here on the 16th, to see how E is doing. I still want to install the therapy swing in his room. With the funeral and Jes and Emo moving in and most of us being pretty much out of it, I completely forgot half the things ChildFind wanted me to implement. But E's communication has improved anyway. And he's moved from a high chair to a booster seat!

I'm trying to figure out how to use one sensory issue against another: E uses his hands to put food on spoons or forks, and food ends up everywhere. Then he holds up his hands and says, "Wash hands."

He's having trouble with utensils, but doesn't want his hands to be messy. There's got to be a way to reconcile these two things ;)

The sun is coming up, and a freight train is rumbling by, shaking the house and whistling its good-morning. I'm going to move on to other morning tasks, and try to make this a good day.

Train out there... train on tracks!

Mama Coyote

Stories for the Last Day of the Year

A couple nights ago, I went into the half-bath in Elijah's room to grab some toilet paper for the main bathroom. I stumbled over some toys and it woke him up. He sat up in bed and looked at me. I went over, gave him a hug, and apologized for waking him up.

Me: I love you, sweetheart boy, good night.
Elijah: /Bye/, Mom.

As annoyed as he sounded, it was hilarious. Two years old and already telling me to go away :p

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I've invited Daddy, Daddy C, Mama K, and the Visionary to be writers on the blog. I would like this blog to show all sides of poly parenting, and some stories from their perspectives. I would love to have the memories, in years to come.

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The upcoming Childfind appointment is... I can't decide if it's making me nervous or not. I'll be glad when it's done. I'll be annoyed if they won't give him any help. I'm nervous about giving him gluten and casein beforehand, just as I was the first time around.

If this appointment gets canceled with no warning, I am going to be angry.

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We have the entirety of the core family home today, and the plans are to spend the day together, relaxing and eating and keeping the house together. I have a few babyschool projects I might put together.

Elijah is watching Little Einsteins even though it is not noon (his normal time for being allowed to watch cartoons), because he ran up to me this morning and said, "May I have Rocket please?" without any prompting. Maddy and I both said, "...it's not noon! But... yeah, you deserve Rocket today!"

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Dinner last night was: Red beans and rice, and it was amazing. It is going into the regular rotation.

We're working on the polyfamilies.com method of shopping. This should be fun ;)

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That's it for thi morning. I need tea!

Mama Coyote

Morning ramblings.

I have discovered that during a weekend, when the entire family is home (so we have Mama K, Daddy, Daddy C, Uncle Ap, the Visionary, me, and baby boy), extended family is visiting (Mamu, Uncle Cat, and Auntie Bug), and we've picked up between 1 and 3 strays, this household goes through 10 cooked cups of rice, which means running the rice cooker twice a day, and never having it available to make, say, brown rice, or rice pudding, or sweet rice. I suddenly desperately want a second rice cooker... a 10 cup, that only makes white rice. Hmmm... note to self: Start saving up.

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It's 8:23am. I can hear the Elijah playing in his room, babbling to himself and moving his furniture around. He'll happily play in there by himself for two hours before he fusses at the door for me to get out of bed and get breakfast for him.

He'll say, "Hi Mom! Change?"

He is starting to put together sentences. "Walk this way!" when he wants to show someone something or try to get them to do something for him (which he generally doesn't have the words for; he'll take your hands and try to make you do it, physically).

He's 28 months old, it's time to move on to the next Gymboree class, but watching him in his class, he hasn't really reached any of the milestones the rest of the kids have. He can't jump, he doesn't really interact, he's all over the place, off in his own world. I'm trying not to compare kids but I also don't want to drop him in over his head if the next class is going to be too much.

Although I did have the wonderful moment of him walking away from a dancing circle to come try to get me to dance. "Up mom!" And when I said I hurt and couldn't dance, he climbed into my lap and gave me a hug :)

He has an appointment with ChildFind on January 4. He had an appointment this past Friday, but when we got there, the office was closed. Probably due to weather. They didn't tell us they'd be closed if the weather was bad and they din't call to cancel the appointment. It was very annoying.

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In other news, I have a cat! He is sleek and black and talks a lot and plays a lot and his name is Kyle or Sanctuary or Get-off-the-computer, or "Oh, tit-ten!"

Elijah loves him and the cat lets him pick him up and carry him around. The cat does not look happy, but just waits until he's rescued. He's the most amazing cat ever.

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Yesterday, one of Elijah's Winnie the Pooh toys said, "A kiss on the cheek might be nice."

He got scared and threw the toy and hasn't touched it since.

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Everyone with food allergies should check out annaB's gluten free. Completely by chance I was able to try their products yesterday, and they're amazing!

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I've learned to cook dried black beans. I'm rather inordinately proud of that accomplishment ;)

My current favorite CFGF snack:
-cooked rice
-cooked black beans
-bacon grease for fat/flavor
-steamed broccoli
-adobo (either with cumin or with saffron)

I'm pretty sure eventually someone's going to yell at me for how much I use bacon grease and mayonnaise and other sources of fat. I'd like to give a little explanation here:

The body needs fat. My body's sources of fat used to be butter, cheese, and heavy cream. I used to walk 12 miles a day for my job; I drank po cha (tea with butter and milk) for the same reasons mountain climbers might carry whole sticks of butter.

All of those sources of fat have been cut from my diet. I don't even eat massive amounts of beef fat anymore. Rice milk, soy creamer and coconut-based creamer are extremely low in fat. Beans and rice are also low in fat, and most of the meats we have now are low in fat as well. So... bacon grease goes into my beans and rice to provide not only umami, but some dietary fat.

There we go. That's my explanation.

Now I need tea and breakfast.

I do so miss po cha.

Thoughts today.

I seem to go in cycles of getting excited about food, and the excitement fading out. At the peak of excitement, I am sometimes even eager to cook. Or at least eager at the idea of cooking.

I love to eat. I love food, its flavors, history, methods, theories.

I do not love to cook.

I actively dislike cooking, usually. Prep drives me crazy, except prepping mushrooms, and the cooking itself takes too much patience. It's not always so bad when I actually get to it, and if I let myself be patient, I'm usually pleased with the results. But on a day to day basis, cooking is not my favorite thing to do (while eating may well be).

However, in moments like these, when it's raining and thundering and I'm reading through a Jamie Oliver cookbook, my mind and desire wanders.

Several of these recipes are inherently gluten and casein free. Some may only require slight modifications.

This could be a good week.

This Wednesday has lots of words.

Elijah is sitting next to me, watching model train videos on my phone, while I write blog posts on my computer. I'm playing Kitchen Nightmares on C's computer, and C is reading Snow Crash next to me (I'm really excited about that, it's one of the most amazing books ever). B's computer, across the room, is playing Little Einsteins. There are wooden trains on the floor. The level of tech in this house amuses me.

Mama K has been amazing the last few days, dealing with my depression and pain and craziness and taking care of E when I am too pathetic to. Yesterday involved me sleeping too much, to combat pain and craziness. And today was my psychologist appointment, so K had E all day again. Hopefully I can let her rest for the rest of the week. I will try not to suck.

Today was interesting. I had a toasted sub from Subway, and it was amazing. I had hot chocolate from Starbucks. I asked them to make it entirely with heavy cream. And they did. It was amazing.

The reason the sandwich and the hot chocolate were amazing is they were the first wheat or dairy product I've had in a while. They were wonderful. I don't feel all that great right now, but that's okay. I'll sleep tonight, and I'll be better tomorrow. And I'll give B the rest of my sandwich.

But I will drink the rest of my hot chocolate. It is cold chocolate now, but that is perfectly okay.

I learned today that being casein-free means that Vicodin hits me harder than usual. Which is good, because it means it's actually effective. So: Yay! for no pain.

But I want to go to sleep ;)

Elijah is happily, though zombily, watching Dora the Explorer while K works on food plans and I . . . sit here, warm in a blanket, going through my Chrome tabs.

After breakfast, Elijah and I dealt with the kitchen. I put away the clean dishes out of the dishwasher, while he sat in his highchair and watched and babbled. I explained to him what every item was as I dried it and put it away, and he just watched me like, "Why are you talking?"

And he's learning to say "bulgogi". I can't wait to show the lady at our favorite Korean restaurant :D

Insert Title Here

It's naptime, and Elijah brought one of his train cars to bed. He waved it around for the first three and a half minutes of nursing, but as his eyes started to close, he set the train car down on his chest, between us, and rested his hand on me. He's in a mood today because of diaper rash, but this cuddle time is welcome. He'll be asleep when Winamp makes the transition from Suzanne Vega to The Sisters of Mercy.

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A week ago, in the car, he was exhausted and angry at being restrained, and screamed and screamed and screamed, refusing to fall asleep. I put on his sleep playlist (thank goodness for cell phones that play music!), and he screamed through the first two Suzanne Vega songs. As soon as the first Sisters of Mercy song started, he stopped screaming, listened for fifteen seconds, made an annoyed fussy sound, and closed his eyes. He was fully asleep. I don't think he even stirred when he was removed from the car seat and carried over Daddy's shoulder.

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Toddler breakfast these days may include a bowl of Cheerios, two bananas, three clementines and some cheese. He loves to eat.

Morning interlude.

We're having pizza rolls and cereal for breakfast. Elijah put a pizza roll down on his high chair tray and enthusiastically signed "pillow".

Snippets and commentary.

There's an animal that eats algae and steals algae genes so it can photosyntesize.

It can turn sunlight into energy.

It doesn't need to eat food.

It's an animal that eats sunlight!

Here! Go here! Animal-plant creature!

I want these: BLT Bites

We've been watching Lady and the Tramp. The animation impresses me, the expression on the dogs' faces. There's an excellent, "Shut UP, grrrr!" face on the Scottie when the bloodhound starts talking when Darling might hear. Which is amusing since the humans don't understand the dogs to begin with.

The best thing of all, however, is Elijah sitting in his rocking chair, watching the show.

And he moved his chair so that it was facing the screen, instead of away from it.

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Elijah wakes up enough to squirm and rub his face, make a cute little noise, then goes back to sleep.

This morning, he wore a black leather fedora all through breakfast.

Hello again.

Well, for a little bit there, I thought I was going to manage to post every day in January... but apparently not. Maybe I'll manage it for February :)

Elijah has been blowing kisses, giving hugs, pointing a lot, trying to babble more. Signing and signing and signing. He's gaining more recognition of the world every day and it's a lot of fun.

He's also discovered a love of frozen waffles. While still frozen.

I still haven't found a food he won't eat, though Kacy's given him asparagus and that didn't go over well. But garlic, mashed potatoes, spicy Thai curry, cheese (and cheese and more cheese), bacon, beef stew, baby corn, hot sauce on eggs? He gobbles it all up, loves it.

And he's learning to put his clothes on. He's figured out socks, and he nearly got his pants on today. He got them up to his thighs, and stood up, but I had to pull them up for him.

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As for me, the day's been full of pain, sleep, and Northern Exposure. And love, lots of love--the whole family was here for the weekend. Chris had to head home for job and school related stuff, but Kacy and JD and the cat are still here. I've done nothing of substance today except make coffee and cuddle the baby boy.

And continually threaten to eat Remmy, because he won't stop barking.

Bambooooooo

In today's news: Elijah blew on his hot oatmeal to cool it down, at breakfast, and this evening before dinner, he fussed every time an episode of Red Dwarf ended. He fussed until the next episode was playing. Then he would go off and play with his toys again.

Right now, he and Daddy are running through all the signs they know, from "thank you" to "pirate" and "helicopter".

One stalk of bamboo has died, so I now have only 54 stalks of bamboo ;)

My mom has a new cat, and that is awesome.

Peanut-beef stew with rice is tasty.

It's too freakin' cold.

Swearing now results in one five minute time-out per transgression. For me. Not for Elijah, as he is a baby and wouldn't understand. And doesn't swear yet. But! It should be a successful deterrent for me. Hopefully. We'll see.

I have one time-out so far today ;)

And we're moving up to level 4 at Gymboree next week. A whole new set of kids and parents and activities... Wish us luck.

Elijah will be fine. It's me who has trouble with transitions.

Good evening, 2010.

It's a new year!

Hi.

Goals:
-finish more books
-do one thing, say one thing, in life - every. day. (do something cool, talk about someone else's cool thing)
-try out new recipes

Anyone got any interesting ground beef recipes? I've recently acquired approximately 12lbs of ground beef that started out as really high quality meat... not sure why it was then ground, but I'm not complaining about free food.

So far, meat cobbler has been the most successful recipe.

Banana Bread

I made banana applesauce bread last night. I used olive oil because I didn't have any canola oil, and that turns out not to have been the best idea I've ever had :p And the bread is way too sweet.

And it tastes like bananas, which is a lose for me. I hate bananas.

But Elijah likes it, so I suppose it's a win.

Next time: Less sugar. No olive oil. Maybe no bananas, too :p

Early morning.

It's 7:43am and Elijah and I are awake and we've had breakfast and seen Daddyface off to work, complete with a belly full of breakfast (ham and swiss on a baguette) and plenty of good-morning Frangelico-flavoured coffee and a travel mug of coffee to go and a lunch for today and snacks for the week.

Now if I were reading this elsewhere, I'd probably be rolling my eyes and thinking 'good god stop bragging'.

But oh well. If I have to be turned into a morning person (I got up at 6:53am... around then used to be when I'd go to BED), I might as well make the most of it, and do what I live to do these days: Take care of my boys.

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When Mama Kacy and I took the babyface to Gymboree on Friday, the teacher called, "Mommies and... and adults..." to parachute time. I was amused.

Elijah will move up to the next level class next month. I love going to Gymboree, I love seeing him with all the other kids. The younger ones remind me how far he's come, and the older ones remind me what I have to look forward to. It's pretty awesome.

Snippets of Today

I want way too many of these: 12 Reinforced Nylon Bean Bags

So. This Friday, Mama Kacy and her crew + 1 are coming up for the weekend, because we have an event to go to on Saturday. They'll head back probably Sunday while she stays here to help take care of the babyface, because... B leaves on Sunday around 3am for Puerto Rico. Then on Tuesday, my parents get here.

This is all a little crazy for me.

However, I will continue to try to post to the blog. I felt good about posting every day this past month, even when the posts were pointless "Hi, I'm posting" posts. I'm hoping to keep it up.

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I should start a collection of index cards with writing prompts (for blogging, journaling, and actual writing), so I can shuffle them up and then draw a card or two.

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My working pantry as of today:
-10lbs red potatoes
-2gal milk
-1/2 gallon heavy cream
-6lbs frozen vegetables
-2lbs butter
-3lbs various cheeses
-3 dozen eggs
-4 chickens
-1 large beef roast
-smoked sausage
-3lbs carrots
-celery
-Ovaltine
-bagels
-yoghurt
-canned diced tomatoes

It's going to be a busy, busy weekend. And week.

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My house is relatively clean and orderly, and I am proud of that.

Let's see if I can keep it that way.

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Elijah tried to put his shorts on today. He pulled them onto his legs, then stood up and tried to pull them all the way up. They were backwards and he couldn't get them over his hips, but it's the first time he's tried that, so I was impressed :)