Okay, I actually did post last week, but something went wrong and it didn’t save. And I was too tired to type it all out again, so I just left it. So here goes. Sorry it took so long.

Someone had suggested to me I make a comment on Lent (since we’re about a week and a bit into it) and having such a restricted diet. What does one give up when already having given up so much in the diet? Well, let’s just put it this way, my Lent commitment has nothing to do with food. That being said, having to make so much from scratch is sort of a penance in itself. Not always, but sometimes. Sometimes it gives me great satisfaction to know I have made something from scratch, but on the days when I don’t feel like cooking, I wish meals were easier. It’s certainly taken some organization and a bit more planning on my part. Anyway, it’s a bit off topic, but if you’re curious, I’m reading a book by Henri Nouwen for Lent, called “The Return of the Prodigal Son.” It is speaking to me.

That being said, the great part about not having any food related fastings for Lent, there are brownies that just came out of my oven J Here’s the recipe:

Wet Ingredients

½ cup unsweetened apple sauce

1 cup maple syrup

2 eggs

4 squares Baker’s unsweetened chocolate, melted in glass bowl over boiling water

1 tsp vanilla extract

Dry ingredients

½ cup whole wheat non-enriched flour

¼ tsp Bob’s all Natural Sea Salt

½ cup chopped walnuts

Mix wet, dry separately, and then together, bake at 350F for about 20 – 25 mins.

I also tried making Thai Chicken Balls this week, based on this recipe. These were a fair amount of work for the result, and I wasn’t sure if it was worth it. They were a little dry, but tasty. I am trying to figure out how to make my own Sweet Thai Chili Sauce. The store bought stuff is tasty but full of junk. Basically in this recipe I just used a Thai chili pepper and honey. It had the reminiscence of Sweet Thai Chili taste, but not quite. Nonetheless, it wasn’t bad, but I need to do some experimenting. I had a small chicken in my freezer, so I took it and made ~ 4 litres of chicken broth, then I took the chicken, de-boned it, and pulsed it in the food processor. I also must say, I bought some fresh cilantro herb from the store for this recipe. Yum. I want to grow some this year so I can have it whenever I want to plop it into a recipe. It gives a really fresh flavor. Anyway, check out the link and cut out the sauce.

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I had my ND appointment today. There’s a mild to moderate improvement in the appearance of my eczema, but nothing to write home about. However, with the information that I gave her today, she tells me we’re on the right track. The fact that my eczema is not weeping anymore is significant. If I could remember why, I’d tell you. But I trust that my ND is right. I have also noticed some differences in my son’s skin and in his bowels. This too, is encouraging. I am debating having him tested for intolerances. The greater chance is that he likely has the same intolerances as me. But I am scared to get him tested, lest we discover he has other intolerances, and then I am not sure how we would eat/cook at all in our household.

Unfortunately, the next treatment she wants to give me has to wait until I am finished breastfeeding my son. I am guessing then, that we won’t be able to proceed as planned for another 5 months at least. My ND wants to give me amino acids to clear up my “leaky gut.” This means that I still have some toxins that are not being processed properly, and my intestinal tract is releasing them into the body instead, resulting in eczema. But, she did give me a Human Microflora powder, which is supposed to help protect my gut for the time being.

This is somewhat unfortunate, as I would like to get moving on this, but I still want to breastfeed my son until he’s about a year. That said, we have started Baby Led Weaning, which totally relates to my food experiences right now, so I’ll chat about that in another post.

Granola and Risotto (no creative names for this post, sorry!)

Per title, I want to tell you a little about the risotto and granola I made.

First, I'd never had risotto until recently. And if you like thick, creamy, starchy stuff (as I do) you will love risotto. Basically it's an Italian rice dish, and so I wanted to try making it at home. Here's a YouTube link showing how to make your own Risotto. It's really not that hard, just takes some tweaking and some time. Now of course I had to make a few adjustments in the ingredients. I can't toast the rice in butter, so I used olive oil instead. And because I can't have salt, I can't use regular chicken broth, so I could use homemade broth, or broth without potato-based salt in it (it's the iodine in salt that has potato source). Superstore's organic section has Imagine brand broths and soups. They're made with natural sea salt. So I used a beef broth, some standard white wine, and button mushrooms. I left out the parmesan cheese at the end (very sad, I am certain this would have been delish). My ND said I could have cheeses as long as I stuck to the higher fat ones, but I decided to stay away for now. Anyway, like I said, the risotto was thick and creamy and had a nice mild taste. I'd like to experiment with it to see what other flavors I can get.

Now, granola bars. If people knew how easy this was, everyone would be making their own granola bars. Really. This is one of the first items I attempted to make when starting my diet, so I've had the opportunity to try a few things. First, I didn't have a recipe for granola bars, so I went to All Recipes and found a recipe called Playgroup Granola Bars. Check it out. It's really easy. At first, I subbed honey for the brown sugar, but then I got my hands on some maple syrup, and I liked the taste of this much better. Here's the base recipe with a few variations.

Processed Sugar Free, Potato Free Granola Bars

Dry Base:

2 cups rolled oats

1 cup no name all purpose whole wheat flour

Dry ingredient options I've tried (I usually picked about 4, and kept each to about 1/4 to 1/3 a cup

Kamut grain

Cocoa powder

Flax seed (I grind this in the Magic Bullet)

Unsweetened coconut

Prunes (chopped)

Dates (chopped)

Sunflower seeds

Pumpkin seeds

Dried Apricot (chopped)

Cherry Raisins

etc etc you get the idea

Wet Base:

1/2 cup honey

1 egg, beaten

1/2 cup applesauce

2 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup maple syrup

Place on parchment paper that has been lightly greased with olive oil, on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for approximately 15 - 18 minutes.

The allrecipes.com recipe has them in the oven for 30 - 35 min but I find when cooking with honey or maple syrup it bakes faster, I'm not sure why. As you can see, I also subbed applesauce where the vegetable oil was.

On my eczema: I think it might be getting a little better. It's less red and the skin is softer on my hand in that area. It's hard, because with all this cooking, and my little one I am constantly washing my hands and I know I exacerbate the ezcema by doing that. But I do think I am starting to notice a difference. I'll keep updating.

Bonus: I weigh less now than I did before I got pregnant with my son. 5 pounds lighter than my pre-pregnancy weight, just by eliminating processed sugar. Oh and maybe yoga once a week. Life is good.

Slack as of late...here's an update (ha that rhymes)

Not that I have that many followers to apologize to, nor in the grand scheme of things do I consider this really really important, but to any who are reading, I do apologize for not keeping up over the past few days. Parenting is new to me and has kept me very busy over the last few days as I have a near 6 month old who I am convinced will be getting teeth very soon.

That being said, I have had a few frustrating meals; in addition to the fact that I have some new spots of eczema. Now, I have heard from a couple people that often when changing a diet like I am, that your symptoms may get worse for a little while. I would consider that to be my case at the moment. Not wildly worse, but I do have some new spots, and my hands are desperately itchy and the ezcema is creeping up my ring and middle fingers on my left hand. I am convinced though, that this venture is my only hope, so I will be sticking to it for a good time to come. I mean, practically the whole back of my left hand is covered in ezcema. It's really bad. And so I don't really have much choice.

Onward with some frustration, my bread seems to be touch and go in my bread making machine. It'll produce one lovely loaf, then a couple weird ones. The top of the last loaf (which is usually the glorious heel of the bread) came out looking more like brains than bread. Nonetheless, I didn't want to waste it, so this morning I had what you might call "bread nuggets and honey" for breakfast. McDonalds, eat your heart out.

I was keeping the yeast in the fridge since I opened it, and so I thought it might be a temperature thing, but alas, after a couple weird loaves and the yeast being brought to room temperature, I'm still wondering what the deal is. Granted, the bread maker is a little rusty, and sometimes I think the motor smells like it's burning when it's on knead cycle....it's either the motor or the bread's too thick? I don't know. If anyone has any wisdom out there feel free to pass it along. I think I'm going to try another flour. Someone suggested Speerville Mills flour...I have been meaning to get it but not able to get to the store to do so.

If you follow my Facebook, you'll see that I was wondering if I could make processed free sugar date squares. As a matter of fact, I did try it. They didn't turn out perfect, but they were deliciously yummy, just like date squares should be. I took the recipe off Jean Pare's "150 Delicious Squares" cookbook (you know Jean Pare...the one with the series of Company's Coming cookbooks, who as of late has stopped matching the color of her shirt to the color of cookbook). Hilariously, the date squares in here are called "Matrimonial Squares." I've never heard them called that, forgive me if that's common knowledge to you. I'm left wondering why I got proposed to over an Asian chicken recipe instead of a good batch of Matrimonial Squares.

Anyway, for the bottom and top oat layers, I directly subbed honey for brown sugar, and applesauce for butter. It came out a bit gooey. In hindsight, I think I would have decreased the amount of honey or applesauce, or a little of both. The bottom layer wasn't quite cooked, although the top layer turned out quite nicely. They were better the second day after having sat in the fridge. I'm sure you could take any date square recipe and sub what I did. Just be sure not to add any sugar to the date filling. Dates already have enough sugar in them anyway, that without the addition, it's plenty sweet.

I made this for dinner the other night. My husband thinks I have a woman crush on Lovoni. That's okay, he's got one on Donovan Bailey. I'm not sure why. He says he seems like a cool guy. Well Lovoni's a cool cook. That suffices for me wanting to make her dinners, does it not? Anyway, the fish wasn't bad. I didn't have chilies so I used hot red pepper flakes. I'm sure it would have been tastier with the chilies.

To polish my post off with one last frustrating moment. So in the past few months I have been making a pretty good chickpea curry. I've been using the canned chickpeas, up until yesterday (they have loads of salt in them). Well an email from the receptionist at my ND's office reveals you can buy chickpeas dry, and soak them for 20 hours and proceed as planned. Not true. I soaked my chickpeas from 10 pm the night before until 5 pm the next day, and they were totally hard. I mean, you could hear them plunking onto the plate. Phoned my mother in law. Truth is, they need to be boiled in the appropriate ratio of water to chickpeas, until the water evaporates. Not that this is any spilled milk to cry over, but everything in my kitchen feels like an experiment lately, and too-hard chickpeas are just not yummy. And there's lots of leftovers.

Until the next meal!