Success!!

I should have taken a picture of my dinner success tonight.....but we ate it. All. Let me share with you what I made.

Dairy-Free Roasted Red-Pepper Alfredo Sauce with Chicken and Gluten-Free Noodles

1 C Soymilk (I used Almond Milk)
1/3 C Raw, unsalted cashews
1/4 C Nutritional Yeast
3 TBL Tamari or Soy Sauce (I used Tamari)
2 TBL margarine (I used Crisco butter baking sticks)
1 TBL Tahini
1 TBL Fresh Lemon Juice ( I used the stuff in the bottle that I keep in the fridge)
2 tsp Dijon Mustard
1/2 tsp Paprika
1 pinch nutmeg (I omitted this because I detest the flavor of nutmeg)
2-4 Cloves of Garlic (I used 1 1/2 tsp of garlic powder)
Black Pepper to taste.

3 chicken breasts
Gluten-Free noodles

Add all the indredients to a blender and blend until smooth. You can't over blend it, so feel free to blend extra long to get all the lumps out.

I started off by putting only the cashews in the blender and making them powder before I put everything else in. I also added roasted red peppers, but since I didn't have any fresh peppers to actually roast, I used 3 or 4 pieces from a jar of roasted red peppers in oil. I cut up the chicken and cooked it in a pan on the top of the stove with some garlic salt, onion salt, and chili pepper paste. Once the chicken was cooked, I drained it (it was super juicy for some reason) and added the sauce to the pan with the chicken. I turned the heat on super low and waited for my noodles to cook. I did not get a chance to make homemade gluten free noodles like I had planned, so I just used store bought noodles. They were not the greatest, but Alex doesn't seem to care. I did, however, make Blake and I regular noodles for our part of the dinner.

This was so delicious!! Blake went back for seconds and then thirds. If you know my husband at all, you know he is not a big eater. He loved it! I also adored it. I think it could have had to do with the fact that we used to eat alfredo all the time, but since we found out about Alex's allergies, we havn't had anything alfredo-y at all. It was simply fabulous!

I have been messing around with buckwheat flour the last day or so. I made some awesome oatmeal cookie bars and I am going to try buckwheat noodles. I like the taste of the flour, it's just a matter of getting the consistancy correct. I tried to make noodles with Bob's Red Mill all purpose flour, but the aftertaste was so disgusting, I had to throw the entire batch away. Not edible at all. I am hoping to have better results with the buckwheat :) Anyway, I hope all of you had an equally fabulous dinner! Laters!!

New haircut....and mini Cara photo shoot :)

You can't tell very well, but Alex has a new haircut. I am trying to keep from just buzzing him completly every time! I think it works :)

Cara's view from the last couple of days....just a few, mind you!

Alex's lunch. She loves taking pictures of his food...
Again, her foot. She always takes pictures of her foot.

Alex's cereal....and foot.

The ceiling lights in the kitchen. She has been slightly picture obsessed with them lately.

That's it for now.....

Merry Christmas :)

Blogger on my phone?

Just checking to see if posting from my phone works :)

Fun times :)

They both adore Alex's new bike! It's just cute!!

The last few weeks :)

Alex was much more interested in the christmas tree box than he was in actually decorating the tree!!

Cara, on the other hand, had a BLAST decorating it! She did almost all of the decorations by herself :)

We have no idea what Alex was so intently staring at outside. He was like this for five solid minutes!

A couple shots from Cara.....

She loves Alex's new bike. There were a good ten shots of this alone!

Mommy, of course, always gets a picture taken of her....I seem to be a favorite for her!

Daddy let her take a nice shot as well :)

We went to the Armament Museum last weekend. The kids just love this place! Airplanes are just so cool, you know!

So, I haven't updated in awhile :) A lot has happened to us in the last two months. We finally got all of the results in from Alex's allergy blood test. Drumroll..........................oh yes, he is allergic to gluten, dairy, apples, and hazelnuts. Fantastic, right? Of course we got all of the results in a week before Thanksgiving. I was in serious panic mode. How do I do this??? Not only does the boy eat applesauce everyday, he eats bread everyday and milk seems to be in everything. After an entire weekend of "pinging" (my husband likened it to living with someone mentally insane), I finally pushed through to the optomistic side of this craziness. I found some great people who have gone through the same thing and they have helped me out HUGE. I have baked Alex his own bread for his sandwiches at school, and even though I don't think the bread tastes that great, he doesn't care. Thankfully, he is young enough to where it isn't going to be that big of a deal to switch out what he eats. After only a week on this new diet, I can already tell a difference in him. Tonight, I successfully made gluten-dairy free pancakes that actually tasted great! There is a little bit of a wierd after taste that comes along with either the gluten free flour or the almond milk, but with syrup, Blake and I couldn't taste the aftertaste at all :) Woo hoo for that! Thanks Jess for the recipe.

So, in doing my research on gluten-dairy free recipes, I have found out so many interesting things. The allergist said that most skin problems and breathing problems that children have can be linked to a food allergy. He also said that food allergies can affect the brain chemistry. I have been doing research for a paper in school on ADHD, and a lot of kids who are diagnosed with ADHD don't actually have it, but have either food allergies or a learning disability. Also, it seems that a lot of autistic children are put on a gluten-dairy free diet as it helps even out their brain chemistry. It is just all so very interesting. It almost makes me want to be an allergist :) So many things are linked in wierd ways!

Anyway, so this is what's up in our life. The kids are both doing really well in school, as am I. I cannot believe that the semester is almost finished. This was such a scary step to start school, but I am finding I like it. And (surprise, surprise) I am not to shabby at it :)

Tinkerbell and the Pirate!

Okay, so the kids had a BLAST dressing up this year! It was just the cutest thing ever. They came back from trick or treating with a pretty decent amount of candy as well. Alex didn't quite grasp the concept to begin with....the first door they knocked on, the guy opened it and Alex ran straight into his livingroom! By the end of it, though, he was getting it :) Both of the kids loved their costumes. They got to wear them to school that morning, so they were in them almost the whole day. It was a fun day!!!

Cara and Alex and the firetruck!

I am not sure if you will be able to click and zoom in on the pictures. The school sent them to me in a format to where I could just copy and paste them. I hope you can zoom in! The kids had SO much fun with the firefighters today. They got to tour the firetruck and even spray the firehose. They each got a firehat (which both of my kids have not taken off since we got home). It's just adorable!!!

Just a day in the life....

Daddy and Alex playing a video game. Alex loves to sit like this!!!
The three of us :) They love to cuddle and take pictures all together!

Cara had a tea party with all of her "friends". They each had to have their own pillow to sit on...it was a little strange to see!

Fun!

Robert, Cara and Alex watching a movie in 3-D
Alex thought he was pretty cool!

I made homemade pizza with yeastless dough. It turned out pretty fabulous! The first one was ham, olives and cheese and the second was buffalo chicken. Both had a white cream sauce instead of tomato sauce. Yummy!!

She is a cheeseball. This is the only look I can get right now with the camera. Slightly creepy....

Alex in hand-me-down jammies from California :)

So, where do I begin with our saga this week? I think I may have mentioned that we are getting Alex tested for food allergies. He had a blood panel done a few weeks ago and the results have started coming in. So far he isn't allergic to raspberries, strawberries, coconut, tangerines, lentils, sugar cane and gluten. He is, however, highly allergic to the cow protein in milk...so in other words, he has a major dairy allergy :( Today was our first day being completly dairy free. It's insane what kinds of things have milk in them!!! We don't know if he is allergic to soy or almonds yet, so I am thinking we will probably do rice milk until then???? This is just all so new to me! I hope he grows out of it. It will be nice to sit down with the doctor once we have all the results in and talk it over. I will definitly keep you updated on the situation!! More later...