It happened one day

It was about 18 months ago (or has it been longer?) that we got the results of Amara's allergy test. It was both a shock and relief. I knew something was wrong and was happy that it was just an allergy. However, it was an allergy to gluten. At the time it seemed incredibly overwhelming because everything, it appeared, had gluten in it. We slowly learned to adapt crappy loaf of bread after blah loaf of bread until we found a nice stride.

Then I decided that my digestive discomforts deserved some investigation. As I suspected dairy was a problem for me but there was more. Just like Amara cranberries were off my list as well as garlic which was enough to bring me to tears, literally. I adapted because I could still have butter, cheddar, and cream since they were low in lactose.

Since I had allergies and Amara had allergies and Greyson had similar symptoms to Amara pre-gluten free plus he had some pretty bad eczema we decided to have him take a test too. His allergies were the same as Amara's but he had a few extra to throw in like egg whites, tuna, and peanuts which were advised to let him have only occasionally. This wasn't too bad and we found out that we really like Sunbutter, almond butter, and Nutella in place of the PB we did occasionally eat. We still used eggs but more sparingly, basically just in GF baking which really benefits from the proteins in the eggs so I'd often use just the yolk and replace the white with flax.

It only seemed logical that Shawn should be tested too. Afterall, any time he eats yeasty bread or has something with milk he feels awful after. He was really concerned that he might be allergic to something he really enjoys like chocolate or meat so he put off testing for a while but did eventually do it.

This week he got the results. Shawn is now vegan + meat, well, that's what I refer to him as in my mind. All dairy, eggs, yeast, and gluten are now out for him. Lucky guy can still eat soy though. I miss soy sauce (though I suppose I could get one of the cheap brands that is all wheat). Never one to want anyone in my family to miss out I spent a good portion of last night printing out recipes that would accommodate everyone in our family. I found a lot of recipes from reputable sources since there is nothing worse in the kitchen than making some expensive, time consuming recipe that you are really looking forward to eating and having it fail miserably.

Here is a list of what I found and I'd be happy to share (and I'd be happy to receive some recipes too!):

Cinnamon Crumb Cake
Quinoa Surprise Muffins (dried berries)
Raspberry Orange Muffins
Apple Crisp
Cookie Pie Crust
Breakfast Muffin
Basic Sweet Muffin
Brownie Bites
Gingerbread Pancakes
Crepes
Mini Pancakes
Russian Rock Cookies (spicy and "buttery")
Scandanavian Cardamon Cookies
Maple Date Cookies
Pumpkin Pie (crust and filling)

Basic Yeast Free Bean flour bread (to be turned into rolls, hamburger buns, sandwich bread, etc)
Orange Crumpets
Pizza Crust
Basic Muffins
Apple-Nut Butter Muffins
Caramel Rolls
Baking Powder Biscuits
Crackers (mock Hi Hos)
Graham Crackers

I've had a lot/nothing to say

I'm not doing a resolution this year (as I'm always resolving to do better) but I am going to try harder. I'm going to try harder to be patient, try harder at this homeschool thing, try harder at the housewife parts, and now that I've got a job I'll get to balance that in the mix too and work harder at getting a career rolling.

Nothing much else to say so instead enjoy the photographic evidence of one perfect moment with my son.