Scrumptious Saturdays: January

carrot top soup

Baby Brother enjoying juicy grapefruit slices in the backyard

lunch

most delicious grass-fed steak

lunch outside on our patio

 gorgeous local produce

variety of local citrus

Chocolate Coconut Squares

These chocolate coconut squares are super simple to make.  They require just a few simple pantry ingredients and five minutes in the kitchen. I have daily chocolate cravings, do you? These squares could be your answer to those cravings. What cocoa/cacao powder would you use? Is there one safe enough? I like Nutiva's raw cacao, for myself despite the fact that they process tree nuts (cashews); however, I would not use for Baby Brother. Would Trader Joe's cocoa powder be a good option? The lines for TJ's cocoa powder are cleaned and sanitized between runs.  And then there is Vermont Nut Free Chocolates cocoa powder.  I will be  inquiring further about cross-contamination with our other allergies. Is there an ideal, allergy-friendly cocoa or cacao powder out there? If you have one, please share with us. Click here for original recipe.

All set to go in fridge to firm up

What you need:
1 1/2 cups of coconut butter
1 cup of raw cacao powder, or cocoa powder
1/2 cup raw, local honey
pinch of real salt
*can add a touch of vanilla and/or cinnamon.  I even sometimes toss in sprouted ground flax seed, hemp and chia

What to do:
Combine ingredients in TM bowl and blend
Pour into brownie pan lined with baking paper
Put in fridge 
When hardened, cut into squares

I keep a few pieces in the fridge and freeze the rest. 

Our Two TM Bowls at work
Baby Brother's coconut butter set aside
the rest went into the chocolate fudge squares

No mess, no waste by using up what's leftover in TM bowl in the following recipe.  Let's see if I can explain how I do this coherently. Please note the back-and-forth use of my 2 TM bowls: I have 2 TM bowls as of last year. This way I totally avoid cross-contamination.  In other words, Baby Brother's TM has his own bowl which only processes ingredients that he can eat. 

First I make coconut butter in Baby Brother's TM Bowl

Then I make coconut butter candy using safe ingredients for Baby Brother in his TM Bowl.  

coconut butter, pinch real salt, raw honey, hemp seeds,
sprouted flax powder and vanilla nutritional supplement.
I cut into chunks--my experiments!

Then I make a batch of hemp milk or coconut milk and incorporate what was left behind from steps 1 and 2  into the milk. No waste!

Then I switch to the other TM bowl and make the chocolate coconut squares

After making the chocolate coconut squares I don't wash the bowl.  I simply proceed by making a pumpkin smoothie for myself and take advantage of the goodness left behind :)

Fresh hemp milk combined with what's left behind of the
fudge squares.  This is the base of my pumpkin smoothie

Batch with hemp and chia seeds

    

Saturday Evening Kitchen Counter

After dinner and before bathing my little guys on Saturday evenings, I take 20 minutes to prepare overnight waffle batter for Sunday breakfast, Farinata batter for Sunday lunch and to soak lentils and brown rice as the first step in weekly Idli batter. It simply takes a little extra planning, commitment and organization to eat well.  It's a routine that I have come to do efficiently and happily.  Eating healthy and from scratch takes a little extra work.  This extra work is worth it.  It's especially worth it since we eat all of our meals at home, and most of what we eat has to be homemade due to food allergies. I'd rather eat as well as we can with all the limitations imposed on us.  Would I be cooking with the same seriousness regardless of food allergies?  I think I would. I had just been reading this post on reframing the concept of "work" in relationship to food. Eating well requires "work", and this work is necessary for healthy eating.  Eating well isn't effortless. I was also reading this post from another favorite blog.  Isn't it true that starting your morning in a conscious and enthusiastic way really sets the tone for the rest of the day?  Leaving different cereals and batters to soak overnight has become a meaningful kitchen ritual.  When I turn off the lights to go to bed, I feel like the extra work is worth the while.  I choose to put in the effort so that I can eat the way I want to and feed my family the best way I know how.  I just wish I could use the ingredients that we are forced to avoid.  That part is the hardest for me.  

Sandwich Bread

Our house has been virtually wheat and gluten free for over a year now. I haven't had a bite of gluten since I learned of Baby Brother's wheat allergy via skin testing; that's what happens when you are nursing an allergic baby.  Meals, snacks and and ingredients containing gluten made their departure from our kitchen rather quickly. Would anything containing gluten be able to stay? Crossing out family favorites and upcoming kitchen projects, such as the sourdough starter I had been looking forward to tackling, were more than agonizing for me.  While I felt nostolgic and angry, I had to move on and make changes.  I soon began baking the best gluten free, Thermomix foccacia every Sunday and almost suddenly stopped missing previous favorite breads.  We all loved it, and Big Brother requested it for school lunch sandwiches. So no more worries, right? 

Several months later Baby Brother and I learned that we both needed to avoid grains and potato in the same meal, specifically with a 4-6 hour window space between the two.  So, gluten free foccacia on the back burner until I figure out how to swap the potato flour.  In the meantime,  I am back to preordering a loaf of sprouted whole wheat sourdough from our local Whole Foods as I used to prior to wheat allergy.  But this time around, the bread would require strict allergy standards; crumbs would have to be carefully contained. I figured that  as long as Big Brother were to eat the bread at school and out of the house, then the crumbs would remain elsewhere and not be a threat to Baby Brother's safety. 

Can you picture all the careful attention that goes into being allergic?  Should I dare throw another allergic whammy we experience at you?  Remember, Big Brother is allergic to sesame, and like all allergies, there are safety issues at play.  Basically, there is a whole process in order to get a safe loaf of bread for a sesame allergic child.  

This is how I order it: I preorder the loaf from Whole Foods.  I call them when I need a loaf and the bakery records on an order form that the bread is for a boy with a sesame allergy.  This means that the bakery is to handle and store the bread properly and to not slice on the bread slicer . The goal is to reduce the risk of cross-contamination as much as possible.  Does it make sense to you that it's better for me to slice the bread at home in order to avoid sesame seeds on the slicer even though wheat crumbs are a hazard as well?  

This is how I slice and store it:  After bringing the bread home, it sits until Baby Brother is tucked in at night.  I need full concentration and elbow room to begin slicing and storing.  Step one is making sure that I have a lot of counter space so that there is no risk of crumbs getting into places and things that affect Baby Brother. Once I have the proper space cleared, I place down on the counter a specific board used to cut this bread. I can now slice and freeze.  After all of this, the counter is thoroughly washed.  Then out comes the dust buster and I hope to not wake anyone with the noise.

I wrote this at 10:15 pm after going through this whole bread cutting process.  Big Brother's lunch is in the fridge.  He has a sandwich containing three of the foods his brother cannot touch: wheat bread, cheese and avocado.  Sigh...