A new chapter begins...

So, I've been meaning to write this for a while, but here we are, November already. Around April or May Nadia started complaining that her stomach was hurting. This was nothing new. We've been giving her chamomile tea for that since she was about 1 here and there, and it always seemed to help. When she started complaining more frequently, I thought she just wanted more tea because she really likes it, but she would usually say "No, my tummy really hurts, I don't just want tea to drink". I started trying to figure out if it was something new she had eaten or if she had gotten dairy somewhere. I couldn't figure it out. Meanwhile, she had worked up to needing "tummy tea" every day. Then is was several times a day. Then it was all day every day and she didn't want the tea any more. I had asked a few people about their experiences with gluten intolerance and Celiac disease. It seemed like that COULD be the problem, but it  seemed strange that the symptoms would appear so suddenly. Finally one Friday afternoon, after the all day every day thing had been going on for about a week, I told Ricky I was going to put her on a gluten free diet over the weekend and if she wasn't better by Monday I was taking her to the doctor. Sunday morning she asked for tea because her tummy hurt--ONCE.

The rest of the week she got better and better. She stopped having borderline diarrhea all the time (literally). She was eating better. She was eating more. We decided to do GF for Aidan, too, just to make life easier since they eat all the same things. One day after being gluten-free for a few months, they both unintentionally had something that had gluten in it. They BOTH got sick. So, now we know both kids need to be gluten free. And we also know that I'm relearning how to cook.

The picture is Aidan eating gnocci (little pasta-like balls) with chopsticks, right before we started doing GF with him. I think this was his last meal before.

Gluten-free Cinnamon Raisin Granola

Mmmmm, granola...

 

 

Ok, so I'm totally cheating and posting the cinnamon raisin granola recipe I found at The Spunky Coconut blog. ( http://balancedplatter.com/cinnamon-raisin-granola-grain-free-sugar-free/ ) It's grain-free and sugar-free, AND dairy-free! Can you believe it? Oh, and it's AH-mazing!

 

Since we figured out that Nadia was having trouble with gluten we've had a challenge finding breakfast cereal options that work well. We don't eat cereal all that often, but when we do the kids almost ALWAYS want whatever Ricky is having. The challenge was to find something that everyone likes and that doesn't cost $8 for a 10oz package. I thought I'd try out a granola recipe or two and see what happened. The first couple of recipes we tried were ok, but they weren't great. This one has been my favorite by far and is very filling. Some days, Ricky isn't even famished by lunch time. Yeah, you read that right. This stuff has some staying power.

 

Here's my take on it:



Soak 4 cups of nuts for about 8 hours. (I used 1c cashews and 2 1/2c almonds. I added more stuff later to make up the last cup.) This is in bold because I always forget this is part of the process and start way too late. 
Rinse and strain.


Add to a bowl with:
1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup almond meal flour
1 cup applesauce with no added sugar
1/4 tsp of vanilla liquid stevia (I used NuNaturals.)
1/4 c pumpkin seeds
1/4c flax seeds


In a separate bowl mix:
1/4 cup Chia Seed meal (I used the coffee grinder like the original author recommended.)
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp sea salt
Combine the two bowls.
Spread onto baking sheet or roasting pan.

The original post said to "dehydrate at 130 degrees overnight, or until it’s dry and crunchy", but I only have my totally unfancy oven. SO, (yes, this is tedious, but I usually forget there's something in the oven to begin with if there's no timer, so you can blame it on that--partially) what I did was turn the oven to 250, let it preheat, then turn it off and let the granola sit in there overnight. The next day I turned it to 350 with the granola still in the oven, let it preheat, then turned it off. There it sat, all day long. Then that night I turned the oven to 170, as low as mine goes, and left it for a couple hours, stirring pretty frequently to make sure it wasn't getting too crispy in one spot. As soon as it felt dry all over I took it out. (Well, Ricky did, but whatever.) I'm sure you could just put the oven at 170 and watch it really closely and stir frequently to make sure it doesn't overcook or prop the oven door open with a towel or something, but as I mentioned before, I forgot about the soaking part, so I got started a tad late and couldn't (wouldn't) stay up all night to watch granola bake. But anyway, now it's delicious. Nadia kept stealing pieces all the next morning until I got it put away. And Aidan's a big fan, too. And that picture up there is my bowl of yogurt--covered in granola! Yum!