A Farewell to Legumes

I've been sick for the past two weeks and not up to bento making. Now I'm finally feeling better, but have another challenge to add to my meal making list. Over the weekend, Senorcito had a bad reaction to split peas. Right after he'd finished a plate of the stuff, his eating arm broke out hand to elbow in a red bumpy rash with large blister type things. Since he already has a major peanut allergy and a soy allergy (both legumes), the allergist wants him off of all legumes until his next blood tests in November. This means no more of his beloved beans, no lentils, no peas, no green beans, and no more of the one cereal I thought was safe, because it does contain pea protein. As frustrating as it is for me, I feel really bad for my little guy. He just wants to eat and enjoy his food. He's not a big meat eater beyond ground turkey and was very displeased with the turkey breast and veggies I gave him for dinner. The doctor basically wants him on just meat, veggies, and fruit, plus breastmilk, of course. I'm going to continue with the rice, too, as I've seen zero issues with it and I'm not going to deny the kid his muffins and pancakes if I don't have to. Looks like I will be experimenting with meats, including those I haven't touched in over a decade. I used to be a vegetarian, so all this meat stuff is not only hard for me to deal with emotionally/ethically, it's completely foreign in terms of cooking! I have a kid friendly recipe for chicken apple meatballs, I'll be trying soon. I made turkey-apple meatballs previously and he loved them. Hopefully, I can continue to keep him interested in his food with this extra diet change. I so glad I decided to keep on breastfeeding, though. That should fill any gaps he has with solid food. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll start getting foods back before he weans himself.

Muffin Mayhem

I spent the morning in the kitchen experimenting with different kinds of muffins. One important lesson was learned. The kind of rice you use to make the flour is very important! I've been using a short grain brown rice and it's worked wonderfully. Earlier today, I picked up a bag of sweet brown rice thinking it would be good to try for "sweet" foods like muffins. That assumption was WRONG. The sweet rice was way too sticky and I ended up with a gooey mess where I wanted blueberry-apple muffins. Oh well. Next time, I will have my blueberry-apple muffins! For now, I'll have to settle for Pumpkin-Quinoa and Pumpkin-Zucchini (I had pumpkin I needed to use up). On to the recipes ... which I actually wrote down as I baked to verify. For the record, I use a cheapie coffee bean grinder to make my own flours for my son's sake. I use Lundberg Short Grain Brown Rice and run the grinding cycle a few times to get the flour a little more fine. This is a textured muffin.



Instructions: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a single bowl, mix together the ingredients of one of the following muffin types. Pour batter into a lined muffin tin. The muffins will stick to the pan, so liners are very important. Each recipe makes 6 muffins. I like to mix and match my muffins, so I keep the batches small. For full size muffins bake for 20-25 minutes. Mini-muffins take about 12-15 minutes.

Any Flavor Muffins

• 1 C brown rice flour
• 1/4 C brown sugar
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 3/4 C unsweetened applesauce
• 1/3 C water
• 1/4 C add-in ingredient of your choice (blueberries, apple, chocolate chips)

Rice Quinoa Pumpkin Muffins

• 3/4 C brown rice flour
• 1/4 C white quinoa flour (also home-made in a coffee bean grinder)
• 1/4 C brown sugar
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/2 C unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 C canned pumpkin
• 1/3 C water

Rice Pumpkin Zucchini Muffins

• 1 C brown rice flour
• 1/4 C brown sugar
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/2 C unsweetened applesauce
• 1/4 C canned pumpkin
• 1/2 C grated zucchini (I use a food processor)
• 1/3 C water

My Inspiration

I love this kid more than words can ever express. The past year has been the best, scariest, most wonderful, frustrating, fantastic year ever! Senorcito fully has my heart. I imagine being a new parent is a challenge for everyone, but it's an even more stressful experience when the most basic of things, namely food, can be a poison for your child. I hate that he has to suffer through all these allergies, but I'm proud to have been able to provide him with so many diverse and healthy foods thus far and I'm happy he so readily eats majority of it. It's been a sacrifice to cut his allergens from my own diet, due to breastfeeding, and a time consuming feat to make our meals, but I would do it all again in a heartbeat for this little guy.