Baking and Birds

Made some wheat-free Samoas (the Girl Scout type cookie).  They were kind of fussy to make-lots of steps-but pretty darn good.

And the goldfinches have their summer colors now.  Here are two of them on our finch feeder, along with a sparrow.  The sparrow is the one with the wings flapping.  You can only see the wings.

 Here's our bachelor sparrow.  He set up housekeeping in our finch house and has been tirelessly singing and calling for an eligible young sparrow lady to come join him and start a family.  Poor guy, he's been out there for a couple of weeks!

All Mine!

Had Gracie's birthday party tonight at a local gourmet pizza place.  She had a great time and I had this:

Gluten free pizza-had it with pesto, pepperoni, sausage and cheese.  Haven't had real pizza in four years!

 No, I didn't eat it all, but I tried!  I have enough left for two lunches this week.  Stan had one with jalapeno peppers and loved it, too!  One more good restaurant that is safe for me.

Miss Boo blowing out the candles on her My Little Pony cake.

Seat Covers and Pizza Crust

My patio set is showing some wear.  Not the table, it's glass topped and is holding up nicely, but the plastic on the seats is disintegrating. 

So a couple of months ago I picked up some nice heavy outside fabric from Jo-Ann's.  I was going to just recover the seat, but I like the curvy metal work on the front of the seat so instead, I just made a Velcro-on cover.  I lined it and wrapped the cover all the way around the seat and it Velcros on the underside.

It's cut on a slant since the chair seat is tapered.  It worked out better than I hoped.  I'll take them off and bring them inside after use.  I have quite a bit of fabric left-I'm going to see if there's enough to cover the pew cushions.  I can cheat and use something else on the underside.

The other day, I found a recipe on Pinterest that I wanted to check out.  I like to explore the blogs that have the pinned item, and while doing that I found a recipe for cauliflower pizza crust.  I can't believe how well it turned out.  I haven't had pizza in years and this recipe just gave me back a beloved food!

The recipe called for almond flour, but being allergic, I substituted equal amounts of tapioca flour, potato starch and coconut flour.  It wouldn't roll into a ball, so I patted it into the pan, using lots of potato starch.  Be sure you use parchment.  I've been a tightwad for so many years, but this year I broke down and bought some.  Why did I do without it for so long?!!

Looks very nice and you can pick it up in your hands and eat it just like wheat crust.

I have lots of leftovers, yummy!!

Got Me Some Peaches!

As I was leaving town yesterday, I noticed a fruit stand at the gas station.  I called Stan and told him.  He went right up and bought a case of Washington peaches.  When he got home with them, he promptly devoured two.  When I got home from work, I made peach cobbler, and today sometime I will probably do some freezer jam.  I used this recipe from my cooking blog.  I pretty much made it the same way, except I used less water since peaches have enough juice, and I used a mixture of sorghum, tapioca and potato starch for the flour.  After he gets the applesauce (from our own tree) going, Stan will process 7 quarts of peaches just for eating this winter.  The cobbler was so good, I had to have some for breakfast!

Just look at that ice cream melting into the sweet peaches!

Just looking at the pictures makes me want to go back for more!

An Explanation

I've made reference to my allergies and food issues in my blog, but I've never explained what is going on.

I have been coughing for almost 20 years. I coughed so hard people would ask me if they could be of assistance. My bladder was shot and I couldn't sing anymore-something I love more than even sewing! I've been to doctors, here and in other cities. Nobody seemed to have an answer. My lungs were clear and I didn't have any horrible disease. I did have really bad acid reflux, and Irritable Bowel Syndrome, so they finally did surgery for the acid reflux. It helped about 30-40%, but I still coughed when I ate, and other times, too, which made me wonder about food allergies. I've had multiple allergies since I was a baby, but no doctor made the connection or even seemed to care enough to pursue that avenue. I was really at the end of my rope. I was totally over the medical community! I kept giving it to God, and just kept telling Him that I knew He had the answer.

About two months ago, I was doing some surfing on the Internet, looking for more craft and sewing blogs to read. I found a couple of blogs that not only talked about crafts, but about the fact that they had problems with gluten. A light came on! I decided that I didn't need a doctor's guidance to give up gluten for a while. Anything was worth a try!

To my amazement, I started coughing less! I quit having diarrhea, and my heartburn completely went away. I figured I was on to something, so after my trip I went to see my GP, a wonderful lady who had been as frustrated as I was, trying to figure this out. When I told her how much better I felt and asked for the RAST blood allergy test, she jumped right on the bandwagon and immediately ordered the test.

The results were astounding! The celiac tests came back negative, but I'm allergic to all the stuff that has gluten, plus a whole lot more. Avoiding the gluten meant I was avoiding some of my allergens! It's easier to keep track of what I'm NOT allergic to than what I am allergic to. Avoiding eating foods I'm allergic to has been a real test. There are very few grains I can have, and most of the stuff I like to eat like garlic and marinara sauce are completely off limits.

I've started losing a little weight, partly because I'm hungry about 50% of the time, and partly because I'm not feeding myself things that are bad for me.

After not being able to sing for a long time, I can finally sing in church again! My voice does not seem to have any permanent damage, and it's getting better and better.

I give all the credit to God, He was the one who led me to the clues that brought the answer. He is good and always takes care of us. I don't know why the food allergy thing didn't come up sooner, but that's God's timing. Maybe I wasn't ready to hear it before, and maybe I wouldn't have been so willing to totally revamp my diet before now. Whatever the reason, I give Him glory for taking care of me!

Sorry for such a long post, but when one has good news it needs to be told! Stay tuned for updates and some ideas I have about dealing with my immune system.

Everything??!!!!

Just got a call from my Dr. She has the preliminary results of my allergy tests. The one test that came back OK was the gluten test. However, it seems that I'm allergic to everything else. The list includes but is not limited to:

Corn, wheat, rice, tomatoes, garlic, peas (?), peanuts, and walnuts. She said she's never seen so many positive results on an allergy test in her life!

I'm going to stop by her office and pick up a complete copy of the results. She is going to request a more in-depth test as well-things that might not normally be on an allergy test. She said the reason, of course, that I felt better without gluten was because I was avoiding the allergenic foods. Yup!!

Now just what the heck am I supposed to eat?

Update: Here's the full list of positives: Corn, garlic, peas, orange, peanut, rice, soybean, tomato (my worst allergy), walnuts, and wheat. In addition, she has called and requested that they test the sample for rye and oats,

This is going to take some creativity!

The good news? I am NOT, I repeat NOT allergic to chocolate!!

This One is a Yum!

First, I have to tell you my doctor finally ordered a full panel food allergy test, plus the celiac and gluten sensitivity tests. We just might have some answers-it takes a couple of weeks, so stay tuned for an update. I hear that the gluten tests might come out with a false negative if you haven't had gluten in a while-sure a good thing I had those beignets in New Orleans!

Until then I'm staying gluten-free. With that in mind, here is a recipe for everybody's favorite cookie, chocolate chips. This is a recipe that I had already altered to have less sugar and fat.

Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookes

1 C butter, softened
1 1/4 C brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 C quinoa flour
1 C rice flour
1 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
12 oz chocolate chips

Cream butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Stir together dry ingredients, mix into butter mixture. Stir in chips. Using a 2 tablespoon scoop, place on greased cookie sheet and flatten slightly. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes.

These are cakey, soft, delicate cookies. They taste much better than the recipes I've used that have bean flours and the quinoa makes them rise nicely. Sometimes I mix in a tablespoon or so of milled flaxseed.

Makes about 4-5 dozen cookies.

Sweetie?

OK my blood is boiling! I am 58 years old. I am gluten intolerant, newly discovered, and am trying to weed out what I can eat at restaurants. I had to go to town today and started looking for a place to eat lunch. I remembered that the local wing place has grilled chicken strips.

So after waiting 10 minutes for my drink and another 10 minutes for a young thing to come take my order, I started asking her questions. She did bring the bottle my wing sauce came from and the label showed no gluten or wheat. I ordered grilled winglets with the sauce and a salad. After 20 minutes another young thing brings me a platter with the winglets and a pile of french fries. I told her I had ordered a salad instead of the fries. She disappears to get the salad. A young man brings me the salad, covered with croutons. Rats! I decided to just pick them off, but I didn't have salad dressing.

I asked the young man if the fries were cooked with the breaded things or had a dedicated fryer. (McDonald's has a dedicated potato fryer-I know I worked there for 4 years.) He said no they were not cooked with the chicken. When he came back, he said he asked the cook and the cook said that the grilled winglets and the fries were not cooked together. I said, "That's not what I asked. Are the fries cooked in the same vat as breaded things?" He said, "Yes, but your chicken is grilled." Sheeesh! I tried to explain about cross-contamination, but gave up.

Now the original waitress, "Holly" or something, brought my salad dressing (finally) and started coming by often and calling me "Sweetie." Every time she spoke to me she called me "Sweetie!!!"

Like I said I'm 58 and she was all of 19. A little respect here, people. I almost wrote on the credit card reciept, "your tip would have been bigger if you hadn't called me sweetie," but I figured she wouldn't get it so I gave up and left.

They said they wouldn't charge me for the salad but they did. There were finely chopped tomatoes in the salad. I was so frustrated and hungry by that point I just ate them, forgetting that fresh tomatoes give me stomach cramps.

Of course, I got the cramps. I had to race home-20 miles. $10.50 plus tip for this? I won't go back.

Update-I stopped by the local cafe today. One of the waitresses reads my blog. She couldn't wait to hand me my ticket, and call me Sweetie! She said she hoped I'd come in. Bad girl, Kami!