Easy Christmas goodies

Have you noticed that I still haven't gotten around to posting about our Disney vacation? I have been lazy the past few weeks, just enjoying the holiday season, baking up some yummy things, and spending time with our family. But I had to post about a couple of things I did lately that are so incredibly easy to make, and are safe for kiddos with Ainsley's allergies.

First, I made peppermint bark for the first time, and it was a hit. The directions are as follows:

Dairy-free, Egg-free, Nut-free Peppermint Bark

Ingredients:

2 bags safe chocolate chips

About 5 mini-candy canes or 2-3 full-sized ones (I used Spangler brand because the box said the candy canes do not contain any of Ainsley's allergens and are made on dedicated equipment)

Directions:

-Put candy canes in a gallon-sized plastic ziploc bag and crush them with a rolling pin until they are in very small pieces.

-Line a 9x13 baking pan with parchment paper.

-Pour the two bags of safe chocolate chips into the pan, making sure to spread them out pretty evenly.

-Put pan in the oven at 375 degrees for about 5 minutes. Check after five minutes - if the chips appear to be melting, take pan out and tap on the counter to spread out the chocolate so that it gets (relatively) flat and smooth. If the chocolate chips haven't melted enough to do this, put in the oven for a minute or two more. Be sure not to overcook the chocolate chips, as they will eventually dry out in the oven and not be spreadable.

-If the tapping doesn't completely smooth out the melted chocolate, you can use a spatula to smooth the top of it.

-Sprinkle crushed candy canes on top of chocolate. Cool pan in refrigerator until chocolate is solid. Then break into pieces.

Here is a pic of the LAST piece of ours!

I also took a reader's suggestion and, for the first time, made chocolate pudding using Jell-O instant pudding mix and coconut milk (we are loving being able to use coconut!). We were completely enamored with the result.

Dairy-free Instant Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients:

1 can (about 13.5 oz) regular coconut milk

1 box Jell-O chocolate instant pudding mix

Directions:

-In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the 1 can of coconut milk and 1 cup of water.

-Refrigerate bowl for about 20 minutes or stick in the freezer for about 10 minutes to make sure mixture is cool (you could also chill can of coconut milk before opening it and mixing it with the water).

-Take bowl out of refrigerator and add the Jell-O instant pudding mix. Whisk for ~2 minutes. If you can wait, refrigerate for 15-30 minutes before eating. If not, eat right away!

I don't feel so bad about Ainsley not being able to eat school lunches ...

I know it's been a long time since I've posted. I was busy at work, then with Thanksgiving, and most importantly, with planning and going on our huge Disney trip, which we took last week. It was WONDERFUL, and I am currently working on a long post that describes our adventure, complete with pictures.

But for now, I wanted to post this disturbing news blip that I read this morning. It is an article that says the meat served at fast-food chains is from better-quality animals, and is the result of far higher testing standards, than the meat served in public schools. This makes me feel a little better about the fact that Ainsley won't be able to eat school lunches next year in kindergarten, and relieves some of my parental guilt about allowing her to eat about once a week at McDonald's and Wendy's (pretty much the only two restaurants I allow her to eat at, because their limited selection and use of dairy-free buns means it's a safe alternative to my cooking).

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - 6 thumbs up

This afternoon Dave and I finally got to take Ainsley to see this movie, after Dave's parents graciously agreed to watch Leighton, who, at 19 months, cannot be expected to sit through anything longer than 5 minutes. Ainsley had begged for weeks to see the movie, so we were glad to have a couple of hours to be able to do that. Ainsley loves movies - she memorizes the trailors she sees on TV and then asks in very specific terms to see whatever movie was advertised (as in, "Mommy, I saw this movie called Planet 51, and it's about an astronaut who goes to another planet and all of the aliens call him an alien! It's coming to theaters on [fill in date].").

So anyway, we saw the movie and it fully captivated us the entire time. It was equally entertaining to kids and parents and wasn't scary at all to Ainsley (although I must say that she's pretty tough and rarely gets scared in movies).

The best thing about the movie (to me, anyway) was that the main female character, a "weather girl" named Sam, had a severe peanut allergy, a fact you learn relatively early in the film. Later, the allergy becomes part of the story line, when Sam comes into contact with some peanut brittle and suffers an allergic reaction that requires an epi-pen. The reaction part was done in such a way that it wasn't scary or traumatic, just matter-of-fact.

I loved Sam and her allergy because (a) it allowed Ainsley to connect with a character who has the same challenges that she does, and (b) it reinforced that having allergies is just one aspect of a person. Indeed, Sam is a fully developed character, and her peanut allergy is only a small part of who she is (in other words, you wouldn't walk out of the theater thinking that Sam was "that food allergy girl"). I really appreciated that.

So, for all of you food allergy parents who haven't yet seen the movie with your (4 yrs +) kids, I highly recommend it. You better believe that Ainsley will be getting a DVD of this movie whenever it comes out.

Until next year, Candy Witch

This year, as with last, the Candy Witch made an appearance on Halloween. The Candy Witch is a good witch who brings toys to children who can't eat all of their Halloween candy for one reason or another. Related to the tooth fairy, she exchanges the toy(s) for the kid's unsafe candy. Last year, Ainsley got a Tinkerbell DVD in exchange for her candy. This year, at her request (you can ask for certain toys, as with Candy Witch's good friend, Santa), Ainsley received a stuffed kitten (okay, she actually got two - Candy Witch made double appearances Saturday and Sunday night). Because Leighton also had to give up candy that was unsafe for Ainsley, Candy Witch brought her a book.

So how does this Candy Witch thing work? First, I or another trusted grown-up, sorts the Halloween candy Ainsley and Leighton have just raked in, and then all of the unsafe candy is put in a bag. A call is then placed to the Candy Witch letting her know that the parcel is ready for pick-up, and we place the bag on the front doorstep and close the door. After a minute or two (she has a fast broomstick), we hear a knock, and we know the Candy Witch has just made the exchange. We open the door and, low-and-behold, the toys are on the doorstep where the candy bags had been sitting.

Ainsley LOVES the Candy Witch. This year, after collecting her fair share of safe candy, she purposefully began picking out unsafe candy from her trick-or-treating destinations just to give to Candy Witch (I suppose her idea is that the more unsafe candy we collect for the Candy Witch, the better the prize will be ... so the unsafe candy is sort of like Chuck E. Cheese tickets).

You might think it's bad that Ainsley purposefully took a lot of unsafe candy this year, but I learned long ago that she likes to collect a variety of candy in her Halloween bag even though she knows some (okay, most) of it is unsafe. Basically, she thinks an entire bag of Starburst, Skittles, and Twizzlers is boring, so she likes collecting a few M&M bags here and there (and, yes, even the dreaded Reese's peanut butter cups ... who can resist the bright orange packages?) to create a colorful array in her bag.

So what happens to the unsafe candy the Candy Witch picks up? Well, she eats it, of course ... like me, Candy Witch has a remarkable sweet tooth (and also bears a striking resemblance to yours truly). She takes it to her office and shares it with her coworkers. She also gives some (the stuff she doesn't like) to her husband for him to do the same.

I love Candy Witch because she makes Ainsley feel special at Halloween time. Other kids just get candy; she (along with other food-allergic children, as well as diabetic children) gets candy and a fun surprise. This simple concept has transformed Halloween from a rather sad affair that revolves around treats my child can't eat into an exciting time of anticipation that allows Ainsley's imagination (What does the Candy Witch look like? Where does she live? What does she do with all that candy? What will she bring me?) to run wild.

Hooray for Halloween lollipops!

I am glad to say that over the years I've found a wide array of Halloween candy that Ainsley can have, including Dum Dums, Smarties, Sweetarts, Twizzlers, Starburst, Laffy Taffy, Mike & Ike, Dots, and Act II Popcorn Balls, just to name a few. The one thing missing from this list, you might notice, is any chocolate candy ... which is my favorite type of Halloween candy.

In the past, I've spent a fortune buying safe chocolate from places such as Amanda's Own, but in the past year I've begun making my own because it is so much cheaper and is very fun and easy. As I did with our Easter chocolates, for Halloween I bought a couple of candy molds (you can get them online from a place like this or from a craft store like Michael's or Jo-Ann's) and a bag of safe chocolate chips (normally I use Enjoy Life, but this time I went cheap-o and used Kroger Value chocolate chips, which contain soy but none of Ainsley's allergens). The molds I got were for lollipops, so I also purchased a bag of lollipop sticks. Total cost of this endeavor was about $5, and it made about 20 pops. Not bad!

I made the pops in the same way that I made the Easter candy - by pouring the chips into a glass bowl and microwaving them for 1 minute, then stirring, then microwaving and stirring for 30-second increments until the chocolate was melted and smooth. I then spooned the chocolate into the molds, tapped the molds lightly on the counter to get the air bubbles out, and stuck in the lollipop sticks. I refrigerated the molds for about an hour and then pulled the pops out of the molds and put them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator to store (you can also wrap the individual pops in small strips of saran wrap or press & seal before putting them in the bag - this might protect them a bit more).

Here are pics of the lollipops, of Leighton's face after eating one, and of us at a pumpkin patch this morning. I love this time of year!

Italian extravaganza!

Lately I've had a hankering for italian food - not the fancy pastas, but the pizza/calzone/breadstick-type food. As those of you dealing with a milk allergy know, italian food is particularly tricky because almost all popular italian dishes contain cheese or cream. I have tried a couple of vegan recipes that substitute tofu for cheese, such as in calzone and lasagna, and they've come out okay, but those recipes typically take a lot of time.

These last couple of weeks, I haven't had time for recipes like that, so instead I whipped together two very quick, very easy, and very yummy dishes: (1) cheeseless pizza with sliced tomatoes and olives and (2) pepperoni roll-ups. Both, of course, involve some sort of quick-baking Pillsbury canned bread (and by the way, did you know that if you pay attention, you never have to pay full price for those things? My Kroger frequently runs sales on the crescent rolls and pizza crust, and I've also found oodles of coupons for them).

Anyway, here is #1, the pizza:

All I did was unroll some Pillsbury thin-crust pizza dough onto a cookie sheet, put 1/2 can of pizza sauce on it (I like Muir Glen brand) and cover it with some thinly sliced tomatoes and sliced black olives (straight from a can). I also threw some ham on it too. Pepperoni would have also tasted awesome on it.

And here is #2, the pepperoni roll-ups:

The secret recipe is this: I rolled 3 slices of pepperoni up in each crescent roll and sprinkled some garlic salt, basil, and oregano on them. After baking them according to the package directions, I used the 1/2 can of leftover Muir Glen pizza sauce for dipping. As you might note, I tried to counterbalance the relative unheathiness of the pepperoni roll-ups by adding broccoli to the plate. I used a lemon sauce for the broccoli, the recipe for which is in the Vegan Lunchbox cookbook (see sidebar for cookbook details).

Given their ease and yumminess (not to mention that it's fun for the kids to dip them!), these roll-ups are probably going to make a regular appearance at our dinner table.

Camping trip - a success!

I am so sorry it's been so long since my last post. For the past couple of weeks, my husband has been working crazy hours so I have been trying to hold down the fort while he's been basically unavailable.

Dave did manage to take an approximately 28-hour-break to take Ainsley on one night of the first Adventure Princess campout, which was at a large campground 2 1/2 hours away. He had to bring so much camping-related stuff that I seriously didn't think he was going to be able to carry it all. Add to that the safe food he had to bring for Ainsley and I realized how difficult it was going to be to pull off this camping thing.

Thankfully, we did manage to figure out a camping-food strategy that is perfect for short trips to places where we're not expecting much of the food to be safe. We organized the food by meal and put all of the meal bags in a giant, soft-sided freezer bag. As an example, we put in Ainsley's Saturday lunchbag a soybutter & jelly sandwich, sweet potato chips, and a chocolate-soy-milk drink box. We put in her Sunday breakfast bag a covered bowl of her favorite cereal, a bagel, bacon, a drink box of rice milk (for the cereal), a drink box of apple juice, and a spoon. For the meal bags, we used gallon-sized ziplocs, but you could also use paper bags or large Glad/Tupperware containers.

Dave called ahead and made sure he could use the dining hall's refrigerator and microwave. After he arrived, he put the whole freezer bag in the refrigerator and would grab a meal out of it at mealtime. He kept a separate bag of snacks in his backpack and gave those to Ainsley while they were out during the day.

Because all of the other dads were very understanding of Ainsley's allergies, they were more than happy to supply safe foods for the big Saturday-night cookout (Dave had sent a safe list in advance). She ate hot dogs, chips, and smores just like the other kids, except her smore was made with an Enjoy Life chocolate bar instead of Hershey's. Her favorite part, of course, was roasting the marshmallows over the fire.

All in all, a successful campout and wonderful daddy/daughter bonding experience. The only unfortunate part was that, within an hour of their arrival back home, Dave had to go back up to the office. Hopefully he'll actually be able to enjoy an entire weekend of camping and relaxing next time.