Delusions of... Everything

Mojito Cake

If you read yesterday's post you know that I had a Cuban themed dinner with my friends last week.  My contribution was a wonderful Mojito Cake recipe found at this website.  It was so easy to make!

20 ounce can crushed pineapple, un-drained
Juice of 1 lime
1 (1 lb.) box angel food cake mix
8 ounces reduced fat cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup limeade from concentrate
0-4 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 teaspoon rum extract
8 ounce tub Cool Whip Lite (a little over 3 cups)
1/3 cup shredded sweetened coconut
Zest of lime
Mint leaves

Mix the angel food cake mix, crushed pineapple and juice of 1 lime.  Pour into 9x13 pan and bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

 

So I have a new oven.  It's a convection oven and I haven't quite learned how to use it yet. 

Within 5 minutes I could smell over cooked angel food cake.  Sure enough this is what it looked like. 

I changed the setting from convection bake to normal bake and that seemed to help.  The top didn't get too much darker.  I ended up scraping the burnt part off before putting on the frosting.

Making the frosting:

Mix together the softened cream cheese, 1/4 cup limeade from concentrate, the powdered sugar (I used 2 TBSP), 1 teaspoon rum extract.  After well mixed fold in the Cool Whip.  After frosting the cake sprinkle the lime zest and coconut on top.  Serve and enjoy!

So easy and so delicious.  It's really very light tasting.  I'm not a huge fan of fruit in my cake and it was a little too much pineapple for me.  If I make it again, I'd use less pineapple.  I might also try different fruit like mandarin oranges and use orange zest.  It's an easy recipe to experiment with!

Wheat Free Wednesday

This week I'm sharing a wheat free cookie recipe. 

Notice that I'm not saying saying dairy free this week.  There are two items that I still use and one of them is butter.  There is just no super substitute for real butter in baking.  My mom uses Imperial margarine and it works, but I just can't bring myself to use it.  There is also dairy in the chocolate.  My body and I have an understanding, I am not giving up chocolate!  I am willing to use olive oil and/or fake sour cream, fake cheese, etc.. on my baked potato, but I will never put fake chocolate in my cookies.  End. Of. Story.

Let's make these delicious Wheat Free Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies that I adapted from a recipe on Allrecipes.com!

Here are the ingredients you will need:

11/2 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour
3/4 cup rolled oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cube butter
1/4 cup honey
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
chocolate chips - as many as  your heart desires!

Mix flour, oats, baking soda, in a medium bowl.  Set aside.

Using an electric mixer (or a super nice Kitchen Aid mixer that you got from a great blogging buddy and all around good friend) beat peanut butter and butter.

Side Note:  I LOVE Adams Peanut Butter, it's my favorite peanut butter to eat.  What I don't like about it is this:

The separation!  All the oil on top is so hard to mix together with the hard peanutty part.

But just look at all those yummy peanuts!!

Okay... Back to the recipe.  Here is what the peanut butter and butter mixture looks like all mixed up.

Add brown sugar, honey, egg and vanilla and mix.

Add flour mixture and mix again.

Mix in chocolate chips.

 

Drop approximately 1TBSP size amount of dough on to a cookie sheet.

 

Bake for 12 minutes in a pre-heated 350 oven or until tops start browning.

 

Cool on a rack.  Eat and enjoy!

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Last night we (the whole family) went to the Pub for dinner and I stayed wheat free there.  I was the only one who had an Irish meal.

Star Wars son ordered the Plain Jane burger, but he ordered it even plainer... nothing on it.

 

We ran into a familiar face!  Of course Dancing Daughter and I just had to have a picture with this Pub celebrity!

 

(Photos by asthmagirl, TOG and me using her camera, mine was safely at home sitting on the table where I accidently left it.)

Monday Mumbling

I'm mumbling this morning because I'm barely awake.  I loathe springing forward.  It will take me a week to recover.  Is there a reason we can't leave the clocks on daylight savings time forever?!

We had a crazy weather weekend and I guess we can expect more of the same today.  Here is a picture I took yesterday at sunset looking east out my window.

I entered into new cooking territory yesterday when I made garlic mashed potatoes and roasted asparagus is the oven.  Unfortunately I over roasted the asparagus.  I was really disappointed.  I have more and I'll try again.  Advice about how you roast asparagus would be appreciated.  I also need help with roasting garlic.  Here is what I did.  I peeled the outer skin, put in in a small dish and popped it in the oven.  This is what it looked like when I took it out.  I think I might have over cooked it too.

I tried to smash it with a fork, the the outer part was hard and crusty. 

I ended up taking the crusty parts out and using it.  It tasted fine in the mashed potatoes, but I'd like to know how to roast garlic properly, any advice would be appreciated!

I need to go wake up now!

Wheat (and dairy) Free Wednesday

Before we start go check out the pictures I took yesterday of the stormy sky.  I love watching the sky change before my eyes and it literally did that yesterday!

Welcome to Wheat (and dairy) Free Wednesday!

This is where I share with you all things wheat free; products, recipes and meal ideas.

I cook quite a bit.  I don't really like to cook, but it's one of those necessary things that must be done.  I'm not very good at following recipes and I frequently make recipes up or adjust them according to my or my families likes and dislikes.

The wheat free recipe I'm sharing today is one I made up.  I call it Rice and Chicken Surprise.  It starts with a base of rice and chicken, the surprise is whatever else you decide to put in it.

Here are the ingredients used:

Everything in the above picture is from Trader Joe's except the cayenne pepper.

Chicken breasts - I used frozen breast tenderloins, but you can use any kind of boneless chicken breast.
Rice - I used Jasmine rice, but again you can use any kind.
Corn - about 1/2-3/4 cups.  I used frozen, but canned would work
Broccoli - as much or as little as you want, I used fresh but you could use frozen
Spinach - I used about 1/3 a bag of fresh baby spinach, chopped
Yellow onion - about 1/4 of a large one, chopped
Garlic - pressed or chopped, the more the better.  I used 3 cloves, only because I was low.
Cayenne Pepper - as much or as little as you like.  I just sprinkled some on.
Salt - I only use sea salt, just a sprinkle
Olive oil - enough to coat the bottom of your pan.

First cook the rice according to package directions.

While the rice is cooking, add chopped onions, garlic, salt pepper to the pan where olive oil has been heated on low-medium heat.  I use a very large cast iron pan.

Lay chicken pieces on top.  I use mine frozen and cook them longer on a lower temp.

Cover and let steam for a while.

Now you can chop your other veggies.  I just used spinach, corn and broccoli, but you can use anything else you want!  Carrots, zucchini, mushrooms, green beans, etc.

When the chicken is almost done I cut it into pieces with my spatula.

Now would be a good time to steam your veggies.  For this recipe, I steamed the broccoli and frozen corn together.

When the chicken is browned I add the chopped spinach and the steamed veggies

I stir it all together then add the cooked rice.  Sometimes I add a little more olive oil and salt while it cooks together.

Serve with salad (or citrus fruit) or whatever you want!

You could make this dish so many different ways.

Make it with a Mexican flair by adding some peppers, black beans, and salsa with some non-dairy cheese sprinkled on top when served.  You could also add some non-dairy sour cream and avocado on the side.

I added some scramble eggs to the leftovers for breakfast with some salsa on top.  YUM!

While it is a challenge to eat wheat free, it's not impossible.  It takes a little more planning and a lot less eating out, but it can be done.

I've now been wheat free (again) since February 23 and feeling better everyday!

Fess Up Friday

I have an intolerance to dairy and wheat.  This means I rarely get to eat what I love, specifically Italian and Mexican food.  I also cannot eat pizza.  It sucks so much.

When I was young I had chronic colds.  Sore throat, plugged nose, ear aches and laryngitis.  I missed some school, but mostly learned to tolerate it.  By the time I was a sophomore in high school I was missing more school than I could afford so my doctor sent me to a ear, nose and throat doctor.  That doctor did a bunch of allergy tests.  Besides getting all the skin tests the doctor decided to also test food allergies.  He started with wheat and moved to dairy.  When they test for food allergies you cannot eat that food for 6 weeks and see if you still have the symptoms.  I started with wheat and still had the symptoms.  After about 3 weeks off the dairy I started to feel so much better.  My nose was no longer plugged and my throat was no longer raw.  It felt great to have those annoyances gone.

Fast forward to a couple years ago when I was seeing a Naturopath.  After checking me over and asking me a lot of questions she said that I should not eat wheat.  I was appalled and stubborn.  In my head I was thinking there is NO WAY I can give up wheat.  Do you know what that means?!  No bread, pasta, pizza crust, bread crumbs, etc, etc.  I gave an half assed effort to give those things up, but I didn't take it seriously.

The spring of 08 I started feeling seriously crappy.  Tired all the time, headaches, joint pain, mood swings, sneezing, heart palpitations.  The last one was the scariest.  Being that I'm a computer addict I googled my symptoms thinking maybe it was menopause and what I got was wheat allergy.

It was pretty devastating to read that.  Even though I heard it before from the Naturopath I knew I had to give up my beloved wheat.  At first it was really hard.  If you read labels you will find out many things you would never suspect have wheat.

After a couple weeks of being wheat free almost all my symptoms were gone.  I felt amazing, better than I had in years.  I even went on a trip to Boston and stayed wheat free!  I found out that after you cleanse the wheat for a few months you can introduce small amounts into your diet without it being bothersome.  The challenge is to stop once you start.  Then the holidays came and it's been a slippery slope back to eating wheat since.

I've decided that wheat is like heroin to me.  I really cannot have it.

On Monday I gave up wheat again.  It sucks so much.

Food Issues

I've mentioned the food issues of Star Wars Son a couple of times, I thought it was time to get down to the nitty-gritty.

When SWS was born I did all the right things, breast fed solely for the first few months, moved on to rice cereal and all those strained fruits and veggies and he ate it all.  He ate everything and anything placed in front of him.  He continued on this path until he was about 3.  We were having spaghetti for dinner, he took a couple bites and said it was choking him and he didn't like it.  We said you need to eat your dinner.  He took another bite and threw up in his plate.  This kept happening with one food after another over the course of the next few months.  We were getting concerned about all the food he wasn't eating anymore.  When he went in for check ups the doctor would say not to worry, all kids go through food battles and not to make a big deal out of it, so we didn't.  He did suggest giving him Carnation Instant Breakfast to make sure he was getting vitamins.  We called it muscle milk, and SWS loved it.

By the time he was school age he only ate a few things, pbj sandwiches, hamburger/rice and peas, chicken nuggets, chicken patties, hamburgers, french fries, sloppy joes.  We sent pbj sandwiches to school for lunch, which he ate, until I bought new sandwich bags.  After a few days I noticed he wasn't eating his sandwich, just his crackers and juice.  When I asked him about it he said it was because the sandwich was stinky.  Sure enough, upon investigation I found the new baggies did smell a little like sour milk.  We tried the sandwiches in plastic containers, but those were stinky too, or they made the sandwich squishy.

When we served hamburger/rice and peas we would put butter on it.  One time we had to buy a different brand of butter and you guessed it, he noticed and refused the eat the meal because it didn't taste right. 

At age 10 we ended up taking him to a therapist for a non-food issue (story for another day).  She did an extensive evaluation having him and us fill out questionnaires, separately.  Her response to the questionnaires was very fascinating and interesting.

She said the reason he stopped eating many foods was because he had developed very sensitive taste buds and sense of smell.  She said the texture of certain foods was bothersome to him.  She said he also had a "trigger happy" gag reflex.  Just the smell of foods could be off putting to him.  She ended up medicating him, though the meds helped with the other issues they didn't help with food.  She suggested we talk to him about what he was willing to try and prepare it for 10 days in a row, making him take one bite, then two bites and so on for the 10 days.  It worked with a couple of things, but it was also very hard.  We didn't keep up with it like we should have.  It was a struggle to get him to take the bites.  It was one of those battles we weren't willing to have with him.

Now he's 16 and it's been 4 years since he's been on medication.  The other issues are gone, but the food issue remains.  It makes things like traveling, camping and spending time at friends houses a big challenge.  He does try new foods without much of a fight but he's still sensitive about taste and smell.  He likes to eat what he knows he likes.  He doesn't like to gag and who can blame him?

Everyone has food issues to some extent, right?  I realize SWS is a very special case of picky eater, but there has to be others out there!

P.S.  Dancing Daughter only drinks water, no soda, no juice, no milk... Only water!

Aliens Abducted My Daughter

Yes, it's true.  It must have happened Monday, but I wasn't fully aware of it until yesterday evening when she offered to clean the kitchen!  She. Offered. To. Clean. The. Kitchen.  I knew something was up when yesterday morning she got up and ready for school on time and without me dragging her ass gently coaxing her out of bed.  Then she made me and herself breakfast, while I took her brother to school.  She. Made. Me. Breakfast.

At first I thought maybe she was just excited about it being Inauguration Day and all, but then after school she was nice to me.  She let me use the computer!  She. Let. Me. Use. The. Computer.

She then announced she was going make scones!  Scones?!  Oh my!  And she did.

They were the best scones I've ever had and I've been to the Puyallup Fair many, many times.  Of course it could have been that I hadn't eaten dinner or anything since lunch, but I don't think so.  They were amazing!

Then this happened... Last night when I announced I was going to clean the kitchen before I take a shower, Dancing Daughter said "I'll do it mom, I'll clean the kitchen, you go take your shower."  Wait... What?  I just stared at her with my mouth hanging open.  "Really mom, I want to do it."  Wait...What?  When I got out of the shower this is what she was doing:

I'm really scared.