Random MomBlog

The last time I made this, my father-in-law (I didn’t even know if he liked spinach!) said he loved it, but it needed more spinach. He’s from meat-and-potatoes Wisconsin, but he’s always had his meat and potatoes with a salad too. So this time I doubled again* the amount of spinach, and I hope this ratio works for us. This recipe as written serves my family: Daddy and Mommy eat all of our spinach, and there’s enough chicken to share with our two hungry sons who like chicken but are small enough that they don’t need their own serving from this recipe. Plus the boys just think food tastes better when it comes off our plates. No, neither of them eat spinach yet. I loved spinach, even as a small girl, and even more the other dark leafy greens, so I’m not worried yet.

*Almost all meat-and-veggie recipes taste better to me if I double the amount of veggies or halve the amount of meat. I’m pretty sure this recipe has already had at least one doubling, which is why it goes in a baking pan with high sides!

Baked garbanzo flour (mixed with olive oil or chicken stock) is a surprisingly good cheese sauce substitute! It even has protein, and a lot less fat than cheese.

I almost called this recipe “Vegan Chicken Florentine” because it is dairy-free and egg-free, but then I remembered the chicken … hehe … oops! But it is GFCF (not that the original had gluten either, but this version is gluten-free and casein-free) so it works around Cale’s allergies.

This is an easy make-ahead recipe: I do all of the steps except baking the chicken (sometimes I butterfly it and try to have the chicken breasts “hug” the spinach, but as I said, we like more spinach than you can even pretend to stuff inside the chicken, so the chicken is a topping on a bed of delicious spinach). I take it over to the in-laws, leave the boys to play (Karston said today that he doesn’t get to visit Opa and Grammy often enough), go to work, and return to a yummy meal that I know is allergy-safe for me and Cale to eat. Making three dinners tonight (chicken soup for Daddy who has the cold that the boys have, chicken stir-fry for me, and chicken florentine for tomorrow) was a challenge, but at least mine was just combining and heating leftovers.

Come to think of it, I guess that chicken soup was da bomb! Daddy went back for seconds, if not thirds, and this cold has removed his appetite (not that he ever had much). Chicken soup with tiny pastina stars made by a food lover is pretty tasty … homemade stock + chicken breast + grated carrot + sliced celery + a handful of frozen peas + a few diced onions from the florentine + a sprinkle of adobo seasoning + pastina added at the end so it doesn’t get over-cooked, boiled until done. Simple, and good enough for someone who’s sick and not hungry to go back for more.

I looked at The Post-Punk Kitchen for a butter or margarine to oil conversion (1/2 cup/1 stick of those to 1/3 cup oil). Also, when I use Ener-G Egg Replacer, I use the whisk attachment on my mixer to whip it into a meringue-like froth before using it, and I’ve never noticed the chalk-y taste. Another tip is that chocolate chips don’t “stick” to oil batters, so use fewer than in the chips-laden original. I also replace brown sugar with slightly less white sugar and a dollop of molasses. So here’s what I did:

I either left the cookies in too long (the kids were wild), or I need to drop the temperature to 300 °F for the oil substitution. Or perhaps I should use a combination of apple sauce (to hold moisture) and oil (to transport yummy flavor)? OK, this is still a work in progress, but completely edible as is too. The cookies also wanted to stick to the pan, so I either should have removed them sooner or I should have greased the cookie sheet. But still mighty tasty! These are my favorite cookies …

So I had some Bob’s Red Mill garbanzo flour that includes a recipe for hummus on the back. Starting with finely ground garbanzo flour seems a lot easier than grinding my own chickpeas to the properly smooth texture! I was also tempted by this hummus cracker recipe so something had to happen eventually.

The first time, I scaled down the hummus recipe to make only the 1/2 cup needed for the crackers, and I left out the tahini because I didn’t have (or want!) any. What I learned from this batch of hummus answers one of those little mysteries: why is some hummus so amazingly good, and why does the rest taste horrible like dirt? The answer is that cooked garbanzos are tasty, and raw garbanzos are ick ptooey. Cook the mixture again after adding the garbanzo flour, and it improves greatly!

On to the crackers, first time! I used olive oil instead of canola oil. Even adding extra flour, the crackers still were too wet to roll out, but after baking, the clumps tasted pretty good! Worth making again.

The second time I made 1/2 cup hummus from the Bob’s recipe much as before, except I put all the liquids (lemon juice and texas pete) in the 1/2 cup measuring cup, and topped it off to 1/2 cup total. I also skipped the olive oil in the hummus this time around (it still tasted mostly ok, suggesting I can skip the tahini and cut back on the olive oil, and still get enjoyable lower-fat hummus), and just added the olive oil for the crackers part of the recipe. This time I had crackers that I could roll out to a uniform thinness before baking on a silicon baking sheet.

The report is still yummy crackers, and more cracker-like with the much drier hummus. I’m inspired to try this with refried beans! I had never considered making my own crackers until Cale had allergies to most commercial crackers, but it’s not hard to make these crackers and they taste great! The one drawback (ahem) is that I get some remarkable gas from just two small crackers, so I probably need to cook the garbanzo beans even longer to tone down that effect. Or perhaps this is inherent in the garbanzo flour, although I suspect not since I don’t remember gas from the vegan calzones made with it.

We wanted pancakes this morning, and I’m still searching for the right vegan recipe to avoid Cale’s allergies. I started with the Simple but Perfect Pancake at Recipezaar. To eliminate the eggs, I followed the Post-Punk Kitchen’s advice and used 1/2 cup of banana that had been through the food processor (I was trying to make banana ice cream, but discovered that if the banana has been frozen so long that it has lots of ice crystals, the water prevents the desirable ice creamy texture: so I had leftover, defrosted, maple-extract-spiced banana purée to use up). Instead of milk, I used fruit juice (mango, passionfruit, peach, and pear; cleaning out the frig again). I followed the technique, even to beating the “eggs and milk” with a mixer. The banana and fruit juice, despite not having the protein (and allergen!) content of eggs in milk, did froth up a lot! I used the whisk attachment for my mixer, and that may have helped aerate it. Whatever the reason, frothy fruit or Bakewell Cream, the pancakes turned out great! They were thick, fluffy, light, and only very vaguely possibly fruity. No gooey center (and no crispy edges), either. Yum! I didn’t add fruit chunks this time since I figured I had already pushed my luck enough by replacing all of the protein and most of the liquid with Cale-safe alternatives.

I’ve seen a number of variations on Fish Oil versus Flax Seed Oil, and I think the most best answer is to use whichever one (or neither, or algae) suits you best. However, looking at this metabolic pathway chart, I agree that

fish oil is a superior source of omega-3’s since it is already in an active form upon ingestion.

In fact, that metabolic chart explains both of these “contradictory” results: ALA is the left side with all of the inflammatory agents (hmm, needs COX2 inhibitors), while flax is upper right (fish lower right) with the anti-inflammatory agents.

About two weeks ago, during a rare bout of heartburn (I had it once as a kid for overeating, as an adverse reaction to naproxen, and during most of both pregnancies), I wondered why I had such fond, rosy memories of my pregnancies. I mean, morning sickness kicked in before the fourth week, before the positive pregnancy test even, subsided around the 20th week, and kicked back in once I was really large. Add in the unaccustomed bulk and the every-movement-is-arerobic-exercise from week 24 on, and it’s no picnic. I figured it out, though. I relished the free license to be selfish about taking care of myself. Of course I have to eat this, it’s the healthiest choice on the menu that doesn’t make my stomach churn at the thought. Time to get ready for bed now so that I have time to do my static flexibility stretches to keep me from aching. No, it’s not breakfast time yet, I have to do my strength training first!

Post-partum, the rules change to keep the baby happy.

But since I noticed what I liked, I’m making more time for exercise. (I’ve always preferred healthier food, although I was falling off the wagon for sweet snacks more often before I noticed this.) I like it. I think I’ll go stretch now and enjoy my own oasis of luxurious, self-indulgent exercise. I’ve done this routine before bed so many times, I can’t stop yawning for the last third of my static stretches. Great way to take care of myself. I’m headed for the floor!

I have a reasonable diet (I love salad!), but as I mentioned yesterday, I love my prenatal multivitamins too. Since I probably get most of my trace minerals in my diet, I prefer that my multivitamin is low in vitamins with accessible toxicity (Vitamin A, I’m looking at you) and low in the heavy metal sort of trace minerals (selenium linked to infertility). I don’t like B vitamins from GNC because most of those have thousands of percents over the USRDA, and that sounds like overkill in the unhealthy direction to me. Once again, my “current” brand of prenatals went unavailable, so I’ve been trying other brands that meet my desire not to do over-do certain items while still bumping up the B’s.

The first one I tried was a pretty traditional women’s multivitamin. It lacked the slightly higher levels of B vitamins, but there weren’t any prenatals at the store. Back to sprue (especially about 30 minutes to an hour after I drink a cola), back to the search. The next one I tried is OneADay Energy, although I wouldn’t've bought it if I had noticed then that it has caffeine. (Most of the others that were high on some B vitamins were low on B6 and B12. Which would be one way to test which one helps me!) Although I drank tea for years, coffee gives me sweats and shakes, so “contains the caffeine of about 1 cup of coffee” isn’t reassuring. It’s even higher on those B vitamins than prenatal multivitamins, so I might alternate days with the standard women’s. New discovery! With those B vitamins generally at 200% (but not an unacceptable 6000%), my weight seems to be stabilizing! I was having annoying cyclic weight gain, a little loss, then back to the gain grind. How much I ate didn’t seem to affect the cyclic pattern much (so why starve).

Extra B vitamins beyond prenatal multivitamin levels, and (#1) I’m back to being in control of my weight and I like to be in charge of my own destiny, and (#2) for the first time in absolutely years, I’m not facing afternoon doldrums with a severe urge to snack on something sweet! Wow! I can probably learn to live with caffeine for that, but I notice that the OneADay Teen mixtures look similar but without the caffeine. In fact, the only amount I disagree with on those is the Chromium since it can affect appetite too. I think I like the Teen Boy formula best because it’s lower in iron and some weeks I average 3x USRDA for iron … I don’t need to take an iron supplement unless I like brittle hair and nails. I even think the RDI for iron is high since, at least for blood hemoglobin, the elemental iron is usually recycled into new hemoglobin: it’s a fairly closed cycle for iron in hemoglobin, not much loss. I think iron loss is 20 mg for childbirth, and most other times much lower than that … so I don’t think I need it. I do remember what anemia feels like (that lethargy, particularly in my elbows: my elbows felt weak) and I would know to take moderate levels of iron.

I really like that the US RDI tables are available online because these tables include the suggested upper limit too. There you can see that while the RDI for sodium is 1500 mg (a big drop from the old USRDA values), the suggested upper limit is 2300 mg! I think the old USRDA for sodium was 3500 mg. Yeah. So the suggested limit works out to about 3/4 teaspoon of salt … per day. Since fruits and veggies contain some natural sodium, it’s possible to get enough sodium with very little, if any, added salt.

So I used to think that prenatal multivitamins were the gold standard to balance my body, but I learn new things all the time. This time it seems to be that even a little bit more of those B vitamins is a better thing.

I try to tell my girlfriends these.

• Prenatal vitamins can cure a weekly+ bout of sprue without the suffering of a diagnosis of IBS. I thought I was headed for IBS myself, but prenatal vitamins fixed that when a regular multivitamin didn’t. This has worked for me and for two friends who are also professional women with stressful jobs. I note that prenatal vitamins are slightly higher in B vitamins, and I know research studies have shown that stress interferes with the absorption of some B vitamins. So my theory is that stress is blocking some vitamin B absorption (not sure which one or ones) causing the bouts of sprue, but prenatal multivitamins shore up your levels of B. (Yes, IBS is real, but for some women there could be a simple, effective solution. Note that a sample size of three women plus a heuristic argument does not make for good science. No harm in trying either!)
• Your menstrual cycle could be two days shorter without tampons. I heard this at a women’s health seminar. I went to be moral support for a friend so she would go, and it wasn’t the touchy-feely blather I was afraid of. The speaker cited research studies, although I haven’t been able to find them. So I’ll just say my sample size is one plus hearsay of research, but I don’t miss those two days one bit.
• Talc, although it comes in powder form, is still a rock. Talc in the panties has been causally linked to increased infections. If you really want to powder, use a cornstarch one unless you have a yeast infection. Cornstarch is from corn, a food item. Yeast can eat it and thrive. So no powder is best, but the occasional puff of cornstarch baby powder is fine.

These are non-obvious tips that can make life better. Share!

Cale ate all of his Rice Chex, one of the few ready-made cereals that’s free of all his allergies, so we put it on the shopping list. At the grocery store this morning, we noticed that all of the Chex flavors, except wheat obviously, are now gluten-free! Hurrah for them! Cale and I agree that corn chex has more flavor, too!

I was multi-tasking searching the web for two topics, looking for GFCF recipes and looking for possible causes of Karston’s abdominal pain.

From the GFCF recipe search, I ran across mention of a low oxalate diet (LOD) helping severe pediatric abdominal pain! Interesting! So I went looking for LOD and quickly got to the specific carbohydrate diet (SCD) (with recipes). Those might be worth trying, but it’s so hard to get Karston to eat anything that I shudder to think about trying to get him to eat from an approved list. On the other hand, maybe tracking his diet for oxalates and carbs while tracking how he feels …

I found this doctor, and he’s not that far away either. Hmm, a specialist … wouldn’t be the first one, but we haven’t gotten anywhere yet either.

I suspect either intestinal allergies (sadly, there’s no test for these T-cell-mediated allergies, so you just have to associate symptoms with diet) or colitis. Since Cale was diagnosed with colitis and it can run in the family, I think it needs to be considered for Karston. Unfortunately, it looks like differential diagnosis is a current research topic, explaining why it’s tough to get medical traction.

So, flipping through Pediatric Gastroenterology, I read up on Colitis and Short Stature. We already tested for Celiac Disease although he hadn’t had any wheat that week (should be able test for any wheat in past six weeks, though). I read Cholecystitis, which is interesting since we were worried about possible bilirubin earlier this month (but we think it was artificial color from lollipops). I read Colic, linked to milk protein allergy, and found the differential diagnosis of soy protein intolerance interesting. However, colic weight gain is typical, which doesn’t cover Karston falling off the weight charts at 6 months. I read about Crohn Disease (often considered with colitis) and other Malabsorption Syndromes. Protein Intolerance was interesting: “cow’s milk proteins are most frequently implicated as a cause of food intolerance during infancy,” “only a few of these [intolerances] have a clear allergic immunoglobulin E (IgE)–mediated pathogenesis” and “in children, GI symptoms are generally most common, with a frequency ranging from 50-80%, followed by cutaneous symptoms (20-40%), and respiratory symptoms (4-25%).” Constitutional Growth Delay mentions falling off the growth charts at 3-6 months of age, then resuming growth on the right slope but below the curve. Where have I seen that??? Silver-Russell Syndrome usually starts with low birthweight, which didn’t happen. Oh, and your word of the day is borborygmus: tummy rumbles!; can be caused by “incomplete digestion of carbohydrate-containing foods including milk, gluten, fruits, vegetables, beans, legumes, and high-fiber whole grains.”