Out of Avalon

July 12th, 2010 by Ascelyn

I’m new to all this, but I think it must be a telling sign that one is the parent of a child on a restricted diet when making breakfast can make you so misty-eyed that you need to step away from the stove. Some parents would be thrilled to get their almost-toddler to eat foods with frighteningly healthy-sounding ingredients like milled flaxseed and whole grain millet flour. I was just excited to share pancakes with my little guy.

Let’s backtrack a little. I guess I ought to mention that some of the scenes that kept running through my mind during the interminable wait for my little guy were things like giving him his own little garden plot and tiny tools, or teaching him to knead bread like my grandfather taught me, or baking his daddy’s favorite apple pie to surprise the him after a long day at work. As biological organisms, food is what sustains us, and for most of our history as a species and for far too many people around the world today, it is the most pressing, driving need out there.  With this in mind, I don’t think it’s too wrong that food factored so heavily into my dreams for my as-yet unconcieved child, do you?

So when Moose’s allergy signs started appearing at about a month of age, and more recently, when we were given the list of his known food allergies, my picture of motherhood, particularly as a stay-at-home mom, took a bit of a blow.

As I tell my own mom on a regular basis, we can eat perfectly normal foods without too much extra work.  Last night we had southwest-seasoned chicken breasts with peppers and onions and garlic mashed potatoes.  The only changes I made were to use rice milk in the potatoes and potato flour in the bit of a sauce I made from what was left in the pan from the chicken and veggies.  Lunch was panang curry, dinner the day before was marinated chicken and grilled zucchini, eggplant, and green peppers, lunch was chili…you get the picture.  No substitutes needed for any of those!

Breakfast and snacks are the challenge.  My mini-moose and I have been eating a lot of fresh fruit, which is healthy and tasty, but what happens when you’ve eaten all but a single banana and don’t want to drive half an hour to the closest market before eating breakfast?  What happens when you just need a cupcake?  What happens when you’ve finally, after years of trying, managed to learn to make French toast…only to find out that your breastfed son can’t have bread made from wheat flour, egg, or milk?  (I’m still working on a French toast recipe.  There must be a way!)

Which is all just a long, roundabout way to say that Hodgson Mill Apple Cinnamon Muffin Mix just about made me cry.

The box had been sitting in my cupboard for a while due to an apparently unfounded fear that the muffins would taste horrible.  Sure, we’re permitted to eat them, but no one says we’re going to want to after the first bite!  I used the pancake recipe on the back of the box; the actual muffin recipe called for butter, while the pancake recipe used oil.  I also substituted a tablespoon of flaxseed meal mixed with two tablespoons of water for the egg. 

Compared to my previous attempt at allergen-free pancakes, these were just dense enough, chewy, and altogether pretty great.  Could I do better on my own if I could use wheat flour, milk, and eggs?  Sure.  For a “real breakfast” that someone with numerous allergies can eat, though, these hit the spot.  Moose ate up every bite that I gave him, even after devouring a third of a banana while I cooked. 

Huh. I've never had anything like this before....

I do think these would be better with some sort of topping—maybe not syrup, exactly, but homemade apple pie filling or the like—but I ate them plain without causing my sweet tooth any problems.

I’ll admit, quickly, that the baking powder gives me pause.  Most baking sodas contain corn starch.  Corn is the least severe allergy Moose has by far, however, and he’s eaten handfuls of corn kernels in the past without having any noticeable problems, so I figured the tiny amount present probably wouldn’t hurt him.  I will be emailing the company to find out if they use corn-free baking powder, though.  You never know!

Hey Mikey, I think he likes it!

Mix Ingredients:  Whole grain millet flour, dried apples, whole grain sorghum flour, whole grain brown rice flour, milled flaxseed, cinnamon, monocalcium phosphate, baking soda, xanthan gum, salt.

December 23rd, 2009 by Ascelyn

J has decided that Michael Needs. A. Stocking.  Right now.  This after he had originally agreed that we might as well wait until next year when (a) the kid would actually care and (b) I would have a functional sewing machine on which to make a rockin’ stocking.  Instead, we have to run around town two days before Christmas to find a stocking.  A stocking into which we have no stocking-y gifts to place.

The tree, on the other hand–the first tree we’ve had since we’ve been together–is decorated, and gifts have been placed under the care of its verdant limbs.  Unwrapped gifts, for the most part, since J’s gift is part his new grill and part a framed picture for his desk at work that may or may not be ready in time.  Mikey’s gifts are unwrapped and apparently “boring,” mostly consisting of books, useful items we’d need soon anyway, and three outfits.  We did get him two or three small toys, like a trio of soft stacking blocks, but nothing flashy.  Oh, and the baby signing kit I wanted!  That’s for both of us, I suppose, but I had to keep myself from opening it when it first arrived.

I guess I should eventually get around to putting away the boxes the ornaments were packed in.  The sheet the tree sat on needs washed, and the plastic netting trashed, and needles vacuumed.  Oh, and I need to get a picture of our baby into his first Christmas ornament instead of the default child that comes with it.  Ours is cuter.  Hmmph.

Tomorrow we got to J’s sister’s house for Year 2 of our Christmas Eve extravaganza.  I voted for moving it to our house this year, since C’s is teeny-tiny (as in, meant to be a two-person hunting lodge; you have to step over people constantly) and V’s is so new and shiny that it doesn’t really have anything in it yet.  We have space and stuff, including a twin bed and a crib for my nephew and niece, a nice TV for the movie-watching, and a decent kitchen for making the meal.  Oh, and a place for me to retreat and nurse the baby instead of having to go out to the car, since not only is there nowhere to sit at C’s and no extra rooms, but several people also get squicked out by the idea of breastfeeding and I can’t sew my nursing cover until I get my new machine.  Which will be a day later.

Still, it was a lot of fun last year, and I’m looking forward to continuing our turkey-eating tradition, a tradition which, unlike Thanksgiving, doesn’t involve any form of parents/grandparents or driving from one house to another and is therefore fun instead of stressful.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

August 18th, 2009 by Ascelyn

I had this whole long thing I was writing about food.  But instead, I’m trying not to laugh and reading Dr. McNinja.  Hee!

July 16th, 2009 by Ascelyn

I feel a million times better today.  It’s amazing what an extra hour of sleep will do for a person.

I eagerly desire blueberry cake donuts.  They were my favorite when I was little, but I hadn’t had them in years…until yesterday.  Now I need more.  Need them, to the very essense of my being.  Can you freeze donuts?  If I put in a special order for a few dozen, then get my lazy butt out of bed early enough to go to the bakery, could I potentially have tasty, tasty donuts for months to come?

So hungry.

April 14th, 2009 by Ascelyn

I’m highly irritated by the “children having children” comments I’ve been seeing today.  Not directed at me, granted, but still.  Someone in their early twenties is not a child.  Once you cross that magical demarcation of majority at age eighteen, you’d better be able to take responsibility for your own actions.  (Older) adults:  stop babying younger adults and making excuses for them.  “They just don’t know what they’re doing” is a load of crap.  And to all the people out there my own age that aren’t reading this anyway, stop making me look bad.  If I hear one more college student complain about her sad story of getting knocked up after a one-night stand, made so sad because “I’m still a child myself,” I think I’ll hurl.  I probably could, too.

March 24th, 2009 by Ascelyn

I really, really want to eat lasagna right now.  Also, soup, and mac & cheese, and hot chocolate with whipped cream on top.  But mostly lasagna.

The good thing is that when I do get around to making this tasty, tasty food, I’ll now be able to make two or three of them.  One will get cooked, while the others will be frozen and made ready to bake at a later point when I simply NEED lasagna.  Like, right now.  Srsly.

For Christmas, my parents got Jason and I a freezer, and I adore it.  It’s a 14.8 cu. ft. Whirlpool chest freezer with these awesome sliding baskets that let me keep things organized and at a level that my short self can actually reach.  Big things like whole turkeys and perhaps stacked lasagnas go on the very bottom, and so far I’ve divided the four baskets in fruits and veggies, meats, snacks, and everything else (gumbo, chicken broth, that pesky salesman…).

I was initially very against getting a chest freezer, part because I can’t reach the bottom of any of them, part because I could only find one with an automatic defrost.  The Whirlpool has a nice little drainage doohickey at the bottom that accomodates at long piece of aquarium tubing to whisk water right to the drain two feet away in our laundry room floor.  Jason’s promised to do all the defrosting, forever and ever amen, but we’ll see how that goes.  I’m glad to know I’ll be able to do it myself.

It also has an alarm if the door is left cracked and a nifty lock and key to keep any evil minions from falling in and getting trapped.  Or, you know, from stealing all my ice cream before they’re tall enough to reach the key.

It’s Energy Star rated, and all of our research leading up to the great buy indicated that it was very energy-efficient.  Which is, you know, good and stuff.

All in all, I’m really excited to get cooking and stash stuff away.  First on my list is pizza dough and waffles, followed by casseroles and lasagna and anything else that I think will be good to have on hand.  Like maybe burritos.  Mmm, burritos.

I seriously need to kick the man’s butt into gear and go eat something.  Time for more annoying phone calls, I think.

March 19th, 2009 by Ascelyn

Why is it only 9:30?  Shouldn’t it be lunch time by now?

I made rice krispy treats last night, the extra-awesome kind with peanut butter mixed in and chocolate/butterscotch goo on top.  They’re getting some sweet compliments at work.  Hopefully the kids will tolerate the second batch tonight; some didn’t like them much when I made them a few years ago, but we have a mostly new group now.  Lesson learned:  double batches of rice krispies are really hard to stir.  Other lesson learned:  I should not be allowed to attack a block of refridgerated treats with a butcher knife early in the morning.

I also washed my brown wool flannel, and when I pulled it out to dry this morning it seemed slightly fulled.  I’m curious to see what the drier will accomplish today.  The lightweight white linen washed nicely and looks much better now.

We also watched episodes two and three of Dollhouse.  Yes, it was a gorgeous day out, and after only slight hesitation we barricaded ourselves in a dark basement to watch TV.  I’m starting to get interested, but it still doesn’t even come close to Firefly.  Then again, what could?

As a side note, I snipped another bunch of basil for D today, and there was a box of fresh eggs on my desk when I got here.  Makes me want to bake tomorrow.  I considered making chocolate cherry cookies for the La Belle trip, but those are a pain in the neck and I don’t think I’ll have time.  Oh well–more for me.

March 13th, 2009 by Ascelyn

I brought in a big container of fresh-cut herbs someone at work this morning, but apparently she isn’t going to be here today.  Another coworker ended up taking them off my hands instead and wants start trading me herbs (basil, especially) for fresh eggs.  Considering how fast my stupid basil is growing, I was more than happy to give it to him just to get it out of the house.

Hooray for trading!  I’m excited to have eggs, and he’s excited to have fresh basil when his own garden is dormant.  This is a great start to a Friday!

January 21st, 2009 by Ascelyn

The next person who tells me to smile is going to get…

Glared at.  Who am I kidding?  I’m all bark and no bite.  Actually, I scribble more than I bark.  Good thing I’m not a dog.

Honestly, though, who are you to tell me to smile?  What stake do you have in my feelings?  How effing selfish are you to demand that I put on some sort of performance just so you don’t have to face a world in which not everyone is some smiling, head-in-the-clouds clown?

If I’m smiling, I’m not smiling for you.  If I frowning, I’m not frowning for you–unless it’s an oh-so-subtle hint to leave my presence immediately.  I do not feel for you, and I don’t see how you ought to have any say in how I express those feelings as long as they’re not hurting anyone else.

If I’m not smiling while I type away at my paperwork, maybe it’s because I’m NOT HAPPY.  And you know what?  That had nothing to do with you until you stuck your fake-cheery face in where it didn’t belong.  Maybe I’d smile more if you’d just leave me alone.  Maybe I’d smile more if my life didn’t feel like it were crashing down around my head…not that you’d know about that.  I, you see, don’t bother assuming that you care in the least.  Just like you shouldn’t care whether or not I’m smiling.  Just like you don’t care how much my attempts to act “normal” (since when have I bothered being normal?) and “cheery” drain me so much that I barely tolerate the world once I escape it for the night.

If you feel like asking if I’m all right, or attempting to cheer me up, fine.  But please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t demand that I smile.  You’re just not worth it.