This is a recipe my girls love! It's a great one to make a big batch of, then put it individual servings in the freezer. For a moist bar, add milk (or Almond/Rice drink). If you're feeling really creative, add 1/4 cup of pumpkin or butternut squash puree.
Many recipes I find are high in sugar and low in protein. I "tweaked" this one to increase the protein content and decrease the sugar. My youngest daughter is very sensitive to egg--the original recipe called for 4 eggs; I cut the eggs in half and used applesauce. You might also try butternut squash puree or pumpkin puree. As usual, this recipe has also been altered to leave out any milk or soy. Ingredients 8 slices High Fiber, whole grain Bread (I found a bread with Quinoa) 4 tablespoons Butter (many milk allergic people can have butter) 3 Large apples, peeled and sliced thinly 2 TBSP brown sugar + enough Agave Nectar to equal 1/2 cup 2 tablespoons Water 1 teaspoon Cinnamon 4 Large eggs (or 2 Large eggs + 1/2 cup Applesauce) 1 1/4 cups unsweetened Almond milk (or any type of milk) 2 teaspoons Vanilla extract 1 cup Chopped pecans (I use 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans and 1/2 cup finely chopped almonds to boost protein) 1. Melt the butter in a large skillet and add apples. 2. Cook and stir for 5 minutes. 3. Add brown sugar & Agave, water, chopped pecans and cinnamon and continue to cook and stir for 10 minutes until apples are tender. 4. Spoon mixture into 13x9 baking dish. 5. Cover apples with bread slices, making sure to cover the entire surface. 6. Trim the bread to fit if you must. 7. Beat eggs until foamy, then beat in milk, applesauce and vanilla. 8. Pour egg mixture over the bread slices. 9. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. 10. In the morning, remove the dish from the refrigerator and let it stand while oven is preheated to 375 F. 11. Bake uncovered for 20 minutes, or until bread is golden and firm. 12. Let sit 10 minutes before serving. 13. To serve on a platter, run a knife around the edges of the casserole, place platter on top of casserole, and carefully flip. 14. To serve individually, use a spatula to remove serving, place serving plate on top of serving and carefully flip so apple side is up.Preparation
This is a family favorite that has been passed down. Every Christmas, we bake up a couple dozen and decorate them as a family to give to friends and family. The butterscotch refers to the brown sugar; our first year together in our first house, I told my husband that I was making them and he turned his nose up to the term "butterscotch." He has learned, since then, that he has a hard time resisting them. ;)
Since my daughter is milk intolerant but not butter, she can have these cookies. 
Maybe I should really call it a "lack thereof" budget when it comes to food. The last year has been a real struggle finding new ways to prepare foods without milk or soy ingredients for the sake of our one year old. My trips to Whole Foods have been extremely expensive and self-indulgent to cope with our change in diet.
After reading The Grocery Cart Challenge Blog, I feel recharged to get not only our menu, but our budget under control. If she can feed her homeschooling family of 6 on $60 a week, surely I can cut our budget down from...um...about $150 a week.
My biggest struggle? Continuing to eat mostly organic foods. In fact, in true lack-of-a-budget fashion, I signed up for Milk delivery...again. I'd cancelled it about a year ago because it didn't seem like it was cost-effective. THAT is why I usually don't answer the door from noon to 5 p.m. each day, I just can't handle it! The milk is good, hormone free and fresh, but it makes me committed to a certain amount of milk each month. I cannot be held responsible for salesmen at my door during lunch.
I can admit that my biggest problem with meals is the lack of planning. Each day I toil over what to make and we are ALL getting bored with my meals. We own a house with my parents (extended family philosophy) so I often cook for my dad (mom is on Slim 4 Life, so she is very strict with her food); he's terrible about eating a variety of foods (in fact, he does NOT eat green vegetables). I've somewhat catered his meals to what he likes, but from now on I'm going to have to stick to a meal plan that works for our family; that means that 1) he can eat what I make, including the hidden veggie purees or 2) he can nuke some nasty canned crap in the microwave ;) As for our breadwinner, my husband, he's usually pretty good at eating whatever I make, so I don't worry much about him.
I found a great resource online to plan our meals: www.mealsmatter.com
It's a free tool for menu planning, creating shopping lists, finding recipes. It's free because it's paid for by the California Dairy council. Did I mention it's AD FREE?!
With this site, I can add my recipes to my cookbook and click and add it to my menu. I can also create shopping lists.
My goal? Create weekly menus that include all three meals. I gleaned that from The Grocery Cart Challenge--she is a homeschooling mom of 4. Without a plan, it's easy to break the budget buying items that "might" be eaten for breakfast, lunch and snacks. With a plan, it's much easier to avoid overspending.
I'm wisely starting my weekly plan next Monday, December 15th. This will give me time to get some of my recipes typed in, a grocery list printed and organize the fridge, freezer and cabinets to get to know what we have "stocked." I'm also hoping to help integrate my kids into the whole plan--checking for food we already have, contributing ideas for meals, maybe even volunteering to cook? ;) Okay, they are still rather too young for that, but I can dream of the future, can't I?
PETA asks Ben & Jerry's to use breast milk19 hours ago
Quotes from Ingrid Newkirk, PETA's founder:
“I wish we all would get up and go into the labs and take the animals out or burn them down.”
Newkirk has said that “everything” PETA does “is based [aimed] at adults.” (see above--this is a boldfaced lie)
“Probably everything we do is a publicity stunt ... we are not here to gather members, to please, to placate, to make friends. We're here to hold the radical line.”
(referring to hand, foot and mouth disease): "It would be good for animals, good for human health and good for the environment."
Read more...
Milk and Soy Free, but not wheat/gluten free
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Couscous with sweet potato and carrots
1 cup chicken broth
2 cups regular or whole wheat couscous
1/2 cup carrot puree
1/2 cup sweet potato puree
1 tbsp butter (or smart margarine)
Bring the chicken broth and butter/margarine to a boil. Add couscous and purees, stir and cover. Let sit until soft.
This one is great warm or cold.
Baby Lily skipped pureed foods. Apparently, she has an aversion to the texture. So until the last week and a half, she was strictly nursing. She has 7 teeth now (5 came in within a month and a half) so I'm finding ways to feed her what she needs with a little texture to it.
Here are some foods she's eating:
Bring the mixture to a boil and reduce the heat so that the liquid is softly boiling. After 15 minutes of boiling, add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of broccoli puree (the puree is simply steamed broccoli that has been put in a blender or food processor) and 1/4 cup of almond milk. *Then add 1 tsp of corn starch.
*You can avoid the corn starch if you reduce the amt of beef broth to compensate for the milk and broccoli puree
Stir again and let the mixture boil for 3-4 more minutes, until the noodles are soft and the liquid has thickened. Add the ground beef/turkey/bison to taste (I added the entire lb of meat since I had such a large batch). Stir well and enjoy!
My six month old has food intolerances. Not allergies--they are usually correlated with anaphylaxis (troubles breathing, hives). She has food intolerances which are characterized by many symptoms that include (but are not limited to) diarrhea, vomiting, mood changes (for instance crying and screaming, crabbiness) and in milk intolerance you often see a constant runny nose and bright red cheeks.
It took me months to figure it out. I has suspected something early on because she always had painful gas where she'd cry and arch her back but it wasn't consistent; some days it was much better than others. Just before she was 4 months old, she and I both got sick with a respiratory infection and she also had a bad ear infection. I had chalked up her terrible green diarrhea to the illness and the antibiotic but when it didn't get better after weeks, I started to get concerned. It wasn't until a friend mentioned her constant runny nose and another mentioned her bright red cheeks that I put it together.
It took 2 days to see a behavioral change (she was sleeping longer again and happier). I started to think she just had a crabby disposition. It took 2 weeks before the green mucousy diarrhea resolved.
Since then, I've had to change my diet drastically. Though I've always shopped at Whole Foods and Vitamin Cottage for much of our family's food, I now rely on those stores to get me though the week. I'm discovering new foods like Baba Ganoush (Ganouj), different Hummus flavors and the only cheese-like product I can have is found at whole foods and made of pea protein. Thank goodness for the variety provided!
The food bill has definitely increased and coping with that is somewhat difficult. I've found there is a balance--I cannot eat out like I used to so it generally balances the increase in food price for me because of the specialty foods I buy. The only restaurant food my dd hasn't reacted to so far is from Chipotle--Chicken or Steak burrito bowl, rice, black beans, green chili salsa, fajita veggies, and guacamole. I can have Chik-fil-A fries, but nothing else so we don't eat there.
I tried eating out at an Italian Market Restaurant last night. The head chef was kind enough to show me around and let me know which foods contained the allergens milk and soy. In the end--and if I had avoided soybean altogether--I would have had grilled chicken, grilled veggies and a custom pizza with no cheese out of the 50 selections available for dinner. Even the salad had soybean in the oil. I did, however, think I was safe with a couple options that were flash fried in soybean oil (fried zucchini, calamari and eggplant). Unfortunately, my dd reacted to it and last night was another one of those "screaming gas and no sleep" type of nights. :( I also had to forego all 25ish of the dessert options for all of them had milk in them.
I have the utmost sympathy for those with severe food allergies. I can't imagine how difficult it is to live with every day. In 6 or 8 months, I'll return to my typical healthy but milk and soy laden diet while continuing to watch out for soy, milk and coconut (for my 6 month old AND my 2 year old).
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