Natural Food Coloring

OK, I was in a bind.  My three year old as been complaining that all the other kids in his preschool class get lemonade, and he only gets water.  I've asked the teachers not to give Noah the artificial HFCS with red dye #40 brand name pink lemonade they serve.  He already brings his own snack because of his severe life threatening allergies.  But like his older brother, even if he didn't have the allergies, I'd still pack his lunch and/or snack to keep it all natural.

I don't think children should r food with lots of "non-food" ingredients in it.

Anyway, so I recently started sending in my own lemonade in a bottle for him.  Only problem is, he wants pink lemonade, not yellow.

OK, how can I turn this pink.  My Whole foods all natural food coloring is dried up so not working (I'm thinking brown lemonade is just NOT appealing...)

So I think....what's red in my kitchen?  Strawberries!

So I take a couple of strawberries, blend it up very fine (I have a magic bullet but a food processor would work), then strain it into a cup.  I pour this liquid into his lemonade and bingo!  He had pink lemonade.  Actually, he hasstrawberry lemonade - yum!

The whole process took me less than 2 minutes.  More clean up?  certainly!  But my child is going to school chemical free - and that certainly is sweet!

Mom Monday belatedly

OK, I'm a little late.  Yesterday was a particularly hard day.  I found out we have $2500 in debt from my fertility treatments.  I took it really hard.  It means not only did I put a burden on my family with this (selfish?) desire of mine, but also that I can't possibly go back again.

I've been feeling at peace lately...Since my husband and I were finally on the same page together,  I decided to fill the remaining scripts of clomid and give them a chance.  I felt like finally I had a balance... I was handling the emotions of this process - even those monthly negative tests - and finally coming to a peace about me never getting pregnant again.  Oh sure, I would still have those days where it would hit me hard, and I would just break down.  But that's more a couple of times a month, not every day like it was before.

Since we were finally really trying this time, with both parties on board, I felt like if it was meant to be OK then.  But if it didn't happen, I wouldn't have any regrets about "what if ?"  I would have done all I could.

So now all that's gone.  I can't go back and wrack up more debt on let's face it, an almost useless chance that I can get pregnant again.  I suppose I could take the remaining scripts un-monitored if I go every other month.  I'd have to  - we know I can over-stim easily.  My kids just lost their grammy...they don't need to lose their mom too.  But without a monthly trigger, it's probably useless.  And while I have scripts for those too, I wouldn't know when to use them.  That's another $100 a month anyway....

So I'm back to grieving with regrets....again.

I started dreaming about babies again.  The worse is when I am forced to watch over and over as friends of mine have babies, and I can't.  I hate those nights.  I haven't slept well in weeks as it is.

So add on to all that, that I am missing my mom.  I spent 45 minutes on the phone with my Dad yesterday, first answering his questions about thank you notes (yes to people who sent donations, flowers or food, yes to people who bought masses to be said in mom's names, no to people who just sent sympathy cards unless they are family out of state who would like one of her prayer cards). Then reminiscing guiltily once again, did we make the right decisions, could we have done anything differently and of course, it still doesn't seem real.

This past weekend marked her month's passing.  I went over to my Dad's Friday night both to visit and also because he had more stuff for me to go through. Since we had two cars, Rob took the kids home earlier and I stayed just to have some time with my dad.  We haven't been this close since I left home when I was 18.  Something happened then and it was never the same.  Now it's like a trip back in time the way we talk.

As I was driving home that night, tired, emotionally drained, the roads dark, I had a sense of deja vu....and then it hit me.  Exactly one month ago, on another Friday night, I was in the same situation. Driving home alone from the hospital late at night.   My mom had just died.

I can't tell you how much I miss her.  And I hate that both Josh and Katelyn commented to me about me being sad yesterday.

Anyway, one of the things we were going through at the house were all the shelves in her kitchen.  She was somewhat of what I call a "hidden hoarder."  Not like those people on tv,  their house was always neat.  But she saved everything!   She had all kinds of stuff hidden away in drawers and shelves in baskets, envelopes etc.  


In going through those books we again talked about recipes and things we've always had for the last 40 years.  I share a recent experience with my dad.


In browsing Pinterest, I came across a recipe for what they called " broken ice." 

I was immediately brought back to my past.  Mom made something similar, only she called it cracked ice.  The recipe was similar, only she didn't use condensed milk, she used whipped cream with the knox gelatin.  But I can clearly remember the pans of jello in the fridge in the days leading up to Christmas eve.  It was always there on Christmas Eve, a tradition, although in reality, I think me and mom were really the only ones who truly liked it.  I was the only one who liked the graham cracker crust, Mom just preferred to serve it in a clear glass pedestal bowl (which we found on her kitchen shelves to my relief)

Another unique and now I realize, cherished memory is pasta.  Not off the shelf of the supermarket spaghetti, but home made.  Mom used to make home made pasta.  She'd roll out the dough in a flat sheet, roll it up  and then make thin slices, like a cinnamon roll, but much thinner (think a 1/4 in) and just pasta dough.  Then she'd un-roll all the slices and lay them out on all our beds (which had been covered with clean sheets on top) to dry.  While I'm sure it would seem odd to most adults  to walk into a bedroom and see pasta drying on the beds, if I were to see it today, it would simply bring a fond smile to my face.

It was never the same once she got a hand crank pasta maker.  I missed the old fashioned way she made it. Mom always swore that each pasta tasted different.  I believe she was right. 

Isn't it interesting how so many family and holiday memories are tied to food? What is it about it that ties us together?  Maybe because it is so much like families.  Each recipe, like a family has unique ingredients (or family member) that serve specific purposes, contributes flavor or variety.  Without any one ingredient , the dish is simply not the same.  

In some cases, you can maybe add a little extra to make up the difference, say an extra egg when running short on baking powder, or a little extra garlic when salt in omitted. Just like families. When I am sick, Rob takes up the slack and does a little more. Will it taste the same?  No, but it's enough to get by .  So it is with families.  We lose people we love sometimes temporarily or sometimes forever. The family is not the same, but that does not mean it can't be good.

Our new family is still good, and I love it.  But with missing such a key ingredient, it will never be the same again. 

Gluten Free Mexican Lasagna recipe

This recipe is can be made more Paleo friendly by skipping a layer of tortilla and going light on the cheese.  I did this since Rob is not eating any grains at all right now.  He was able to "scoop" from the top and leave the tortilla behind.

Ingredients

1 sweet onion

1 large green pepper (or 1 red or both!)

1 - 1 1/2 pound of chicken

rice flour tortillas (I get mine at Trader joes)

16 oz  tomato sauce

2 tsp rice vinegar (did you know regular white vinegar may not be gluten free?)

bag of shredded cheddar cheese

2 tsp of sweetened lime juice

chili powder

cumin

salt and pepper

olive oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 350

Dice onion and green pepper in olive oil until softened. Cut chicken into cubes and add to the onion mixture.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  When chicken is browned, add tomato sauce and remaining ingredients except cheese and tortilla.  You may want to increase cumin, chili powder and vinegar to taste.  Simmer for a few minutes

in a large casserole dish, cover the bottom with a couple of tortillas.  Spoon out chicken mixture to cover and add half the shredded cheese.  Add a second layer of tortilla, chicken mixture and cheese.  PLace in the oven for 20 minutes or so to "meld" the flavors. 

Note: one more option is to add a layer of refried beans.  However, please note, legumes are NOT paleo.  But for my gluten free friends out there, it's another layer of flavor and texture.

Stress and staying on program

So I'm sure I've mentioned once or twice I'm trying to conquer my issues of emotional eating.  I tend to eat when I am stressed, worried, angry or frustrated...

I'm sure you can understand with watching  my mom suffer as badly as she did, making the decision to let her go and her ensuing death falls into this category of "stress."

Actually, while spending so much time at the hospital, I was pretty close to staying on program.  I mean, there were few gluten free options at the hospital cafeteria and in particular, most of the "temptation" items certainly contained gluten.  And certainly, toward the end, when my mother was allowed little to no food, I certainly wasn't going to eat an ice cream in front of her. So while the candy machines and cafeteria offered plenty of sugary temptations, I resisted, and pretty easily.  I got used to going long hours without eating or drinking (towards the end, Mom was so very scared and wanted us there close, holding her hand. It got to be so we did without)

So actually, while I gained a shameful amount of weight over the holidays, thanks to my "hospital diet" I really am not too far off.  If  you recall, I had gotten down to 175.5.  I am now 185.  So really only 10 pounds to go to get back where I was.  That doesn't sound so bad....

But if you also recall, losing 10 pounds is also very difficult process for me.  It could take as long as 2 or 3 months of hard calorie counting and/or exercise to take that off (thank you pcos!).

I'm trying to look at myself and my motivations...when exactly do I get that craving, you know the one, not just the "i have a taste for something sweet" craving. Nope, that I can handle with a little will power.  No, I'm talking about the "Oh my gosh if I don't get something sweet right now I might explode!" craving...

That's the one I can't resist.  No, that's not accurate.   I think it's not that I can't resist...it's more that I don't think about what I'm doing.  It just kind of.... happens.

After the kids have been fighting
When I'm tired and I have a mountain of laundry
When the elementary school is giving me grief  again (Man I hate that school)
When I get another negative home pregnancy test
and oh yeah..when my mom dies

Those moments hit and I'm so full of emotion, I don't even think, I just do. There is no process of temptation/decision making/action.  I just do.  That just can't be good for me.  It certainly hasn't been good for my not so little hiney that needs to fit into a swimsuit soon.

So my goal is to come up with some coping methods.  What to do (and not to do) when the kids are screaming at each other, all three fighting over the single beanie baby seahorse there's only one of, and all those little life moments that get the best of me.

It's to not have my cake and eat it too.

Mom Monday

I think for awhile I'm going to use Mondays to talk about my mom.  I'm hoping the more I talk about her, and the more Mondays that pass, the less I will feel the ache in my heart.  It still feels like she is just away on a trip and she will come home to us any day now.

(me and mom on a cruise together, just the two of us)

We celebrated my brother's 47th birthday yesterday.  Without mom.  It was very bittersweet.... I think more the bitter than the sweet.

I've mentioned before that my brother is mentally handicapped and lives with my parents. I guess  now just my Dad.  Obviously, he's taken my mom's death badly.  It's been hard for him to understand why she had to go away, hard for us to really explain to him why and how she died.

Hell, I think all of us our wondering the same thing.

But we must forge ahead, so we planned his birthday. My Dad asking all kinds of questions... "How do I make Kenny's favorite (Angel Food cake), when do I take it out of the pan, do I use a table cloth? I bought cool whip to put on the cake."  He says he talks to her throughout the day, wishing he had paid more attention to what she did in the kitchen.  He asks her, "what are all these bottles for, how do I  make that soup we love , and what do I do with this tarragon?  And yes he too asks her, "why did you leave me?"

He mentioned to me that maybe that all died along with her.  Ugh, talk about breaking my heart.  I'm not sure what's harder, feeling my own grief or watching him mourn his best friend of 50 years.

Dad, just use a mix, that's what Mom did.  Cool it in the pan for 10-15 minutes then dump it, the table cloths are in the hutch and Dad, I'll bring heavy cream to make whip cream, put a bowl in the freezer for me don't use cool whip.

(That's not real food. With all this sickness and tragedy for pet's sake,  let us never forget, let thy food be thy medicine.)

I told him I know how to make the soup he loves, and the salad dressing and most of his other favorites.  Like I 've been teaching him to cook these last several  months, I will continue to help him learn their favorites (maybe with more natural ingredients though?).

So I tell him, Dad, we won't forget them (and I think or her), and by the way, in all my years of cooking, I've never used tarragon, so don't worry about that, nor all the other bottles. We'll figure it out one day at a time.

But I can't answer that last one Dad, I don't know why she had to leave us.  And I miss her too.

PS - I made this little arrangement from the flowers from her funeral.  It will be a small memento to remind us of what we lost, or maybe what we were lucky enough to have in the first place.