Checking in, again.

So much for weekly posting! We've been really enjoying the summer, and the move into a new house, and it has kept us busy over the last month or two. In terms of new foods, we've been gobbling up a lot of summer fruit - our little guy's usual favorites (watermelon, blueberries), plus raspberries plucked from our garden, and cherries. No luck enticing him with peaches, plums, or apricots, although he likes peach juice. I finally let go of my irrational fear of apples, and after weeks of eating Enjoy Life caramel apple bars, I moved on to apple juice. He's been drinking a lot of it with no obvious reaction. His eczema is great - a little spot here or there but I've barely used any medicated cream since Easter! Amazing. I have noticed his scalp has a lot of dark brown spots on it,  so I think he has some kind of toddler cradle cap thing going on. I keep hoping to fix it without getting a dermatologist referral.

We bought a grill this summer and have found it SO useful in preparing safe meals with a bit more variety. I also bought a crock pot, and have been making roasts and soups, all of which is allergy friendly. Here's a lamb and veggie meal from last week:

Today I called a nearby restaurant, and they assured me they could handle his allergies. So we might venture there sometime this week. We haven't trusted a restaurant with his allergies in a couple of months. I can't say I miss it all that much. I've been having so much fun cooking.  (We did, however, in a moment of bravery, feed him chicken kabob skewers from a food truck (!) last month, and lived to tell the tale.  The very nice owners showed me their 100% vegetable oil (so no dairy), and I could see that the kabobs were the only thing on the little grill they were using).  

We've also started baking often - practically daily. I pull the chair up to the counter and let the little baker stand on it (while I chant "don't kick, hold on, hold on, don't kick or you'll fall -- I caught the chair in midair once after a kick!). Mostly we've been baking from this new book (I bought my own copy, which is the one I've been using, but I also won a give away, so another is on the way). 



The first week, I tried three recipes and had mixed results. I think I need to fiddle with the amount of leavening due to altitude issues. They all tasted wonderful, but I couldn't get a good consistency. I had two really nice creations from the book this week, though -- one of them is a cake (they call it a bar, but it's quite cake-like) made from rice flour, lots of orange juice, and fresh blueberries.



Yum. And it actually looks like a cake! I might try them in muffin cups next time.

And the other, which I made last night and really enjoyed, were little melt-in-your-mouth round cookies (made with corn starch and flavored with chocolate chips), rolled in confectioner's sugar. We ate them all before I could take a photo!  

Have I mentioned how much we love the coconut-milk based ice cream from So Delicious?  It comes in vanilla (the little guy's favorite, but our grocery store just stopped selling it) and mint chocolate chip (my favorite), among other flavors.  I bought some coconut milk and am thinking that once our stock of vanilla flavored ice cream runs out, I might dig out our old ice cream maker and try making some.  Because of the cost of the ingredients, it won't really end up that much cheaper than buying it at the store, but it might be our only option since they're not selling it at the local shop anymore.  I'm so glad we started eating coconut, despite the whole FDA "tree nut" thing (see what FAAN says about coconut).

I scheduled an allergy appointment for the end of October, when we'll most likely repeat testing and possibly do a trial of wheat.   Sorry for the hodgepodge nature of this post, but that's what's new on the allergy/culinary front.