Only Sometimes Clever

…if you or any of your children have food allergy or intolerance problems, PLEASE make this recipe:  Allergen-Free Breakfast Cookies.

Sometimes, it really seems like God is watching out for my future, as well as my present.  When I started homeschooling, I had no idea that I would eventually have a kid with a learning disability who thrives in a homeschooled setting, but who would likely be pressured by school staff to be medicated, if I had him in a regular school.  I had no idea that I would have a different son with serious food intolerances, an immune disorder, and a life-threatening allergy to peanuts.  Again, all easily treatable at home, but it would be a rats’ nest if I was trying to navigate him safely through the public school system.  I am part of local Yahoo groups for both allergies and celiac disease, and this is the time of year where conversations are FLYING with talk of difficulty with school administrations and policies, tips from parent to parent, heartbreak, commiseration…  I say a little prayer of thanks as I delete those messages, that they are not relevant to our situation.

More than a year ago, I developed the above recipe simply based on the fact that my cupboards were bare of our usual breakfast foods.  But, now that my baby needs me to be:

• gluten-free (well, I have to be gluten-free, so she is by default)
• soy-free
• dairy-free
• egg-free
• almond-free
• banana-free
• yeast-free

and… it’s now looking like she has problems with POTATOES*, of all the hypo-allergenic foods, I’m really scraping the bottom of the barrel for breakfast foods that have at least a modicum of healthfulness.

Enter my “accidental” recipe from last year.  Seriously, it’s one of the most unique-but-successful recipes I’ve developed.  They are so good, yet also so healthy, AND free of all of the allergens that bother my baby Fiala.  What a “coincidence,” eh?

Yesterday afternoon, we were in desperate need of groceries…  Well, not really desperate;  we have food in the house.  But, we had a dearth of items that I could eat.  Beset by hunger pangs, I snacked on half a can of Bush’s baked beans!!  Ack.  So, making those cookies this morning, enjoying their hearty tastiness, knowing they were altogether safe for Fiala (I think!), wrapping some up to freeze…..  It just felt great, all around.

Only tangentially related:   I love fresh fruit, but by the 4th or 5th day after going to the grocery store, the fresh stuff is gone, and I’m combing the cupboards for something dried or canned.  So, during my late-night shopping trip, I got prunes (and raisins and cranberries).  Wrinkle your nose if you may, but I like ‘em, and so do my kids.  I filled a bag with pound and a half of gooey, healthy, sweetness (on sale!).  After putting the groceries away, I sat down with my current book and five prunes.  I left the bag — bad Mom! — on the coffee table when I went to bed.  It was found by our dog, who, apparently, adores prunes.  She chewed the bag open, and consumed all the contents, as evidenced by the bits of sticky plastic spread around our family room this morning.  My 12yo, whose job it is to daily collect the dog waste, is not pleased.  I’m just mad that the prunes are gone. 

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*Not sure about potatoes, yet.  But, her skin was greatly improving from the antibiotics she’s been on since Friday, and from eliminating eggs, banana, almonds, and yeast.  Then, on Monday I gave her a few chunks of red potato — she LOVED them, but woke up yesterday with red, crusty, peely cheeks again.  I wasn’t sure if it was potato that was the problem, and I went ahead and gave her potato again last night.  Her cheeks are worse this morning!  So, potato is out.  I’m going to do my own little patch test later this morning, when she awakes from a nap.  In the meantime, this is a really interesting page on potato (and other) allergens.