Happy St. Patrick Day!

It's St Patrick Day... it's time to make some GF Green chocolate chip cookies and Vegan Green sugar cookies. They are not my new recipes.. I simply use my regular chocolate chip cookie and sugar cookie recipes with some green coloring. They looks festive don't they?

Happy St. Patty Day!

Happy Chinese New Year!!!!

Happy Chinese New year everyone. This is the year of tiger... so this year is sort of my year since I am born on the year of tiger way back when. Anyway... I am going to my friend house for new year dinner later this evening and I am trying out some new recipes for cookies and other dishes. I will post them later when I got the Chance to post it. Above is a pictures of my Vegan Cookies Platter; it contains Vegan Double Chocolate Chip Cookies and my sugar cookie. For those of you that are not chinese, the characters in the front said 'Happy New Year!'

Now the picture here is newer recipe for my favorite Gluten Free White Chocolate Chip Cookies with Macademia Nuts. My other recipe is good but it's a little bit too runny when baking. I have modified the ingredient and I came up with a better version of the cookie. I will post it when I got a chance to write it down.

Now the pictures here is the my Gluten-Free and Vegan spring roll filling. I have made this for a long time and my neighbor always wanted the recipe. It is so easy that I am too afraid to give out my secret. But I am going to share it. In chinese tradition, pork and shrimp are often included in the fillings. I opted for vegetarian version. The wrapper skin is not typically used wheat flour. For Gluten-free version, I actually wrap my filling using rice paper and it is not deep fry. In a way, it is heavier.

Here is a closer look of my Vegan Double chocolate Chips Cookie. It's my daughter favorite now. She loves the cocoa powder in the dough.

I promise, all the recipes will be posted as soon as I get the chance too and again.. Happy Chinese New Year Everyone and stay healthy!

Trouble Eating Out.. Good or Bad?!?

Once my husband is forced to be in a gluten free diet... Eating out has been a major issue for him. It basically rule out most of his favorite restaurant. It was a sad day. Because of this eating out problem, we were force to cook at home more often than usual and has to constantly reminding myself not to use any gluten. It is a big adjustment but once you get into habit of it. It is not that bad.

So what is the good and what is the bad for not being able to eat out...

The good:

1. Save money - Since you are not paying for restaurant food and service; often time, even though the restaurant serve gluten-free, they tend to be a little bit more expensive because the cost of the ingredients are often more expensive.
2. Stay Healthy - By cooking at home, you are more awared of the ingredients that are involved making a dish. Often time, you can't really know what was in the dish even though they might seem gluten-free. 
3. Be a better Cook - I have been doing a lot of research on gluten-free cooking and exploring and experimenting different recipes. By doing that, I am actually learning to be a better cook and learn to cook more variety. It's always a good thing.

The Bad:

1. Cost Money - I know I mentioned above that 'Save Money' is a good thing. But the initial phase of getting the gluten-free ingredients does cost quite a bit of money. Imagine spends $20 on a bag of Xantham gum or different type of flour for example. The ingredient cost a quite a bit, but they do last awhile.
2. Time Consuming - Even though I enjoy cooking now, however, it is time consuming expecially after a long day of work and need to prepare a meal that is not so much 'Out of the pantry'.
3. Shopping Take Longer - Often time, you will need to go to health food store to get the gluten-free ingredients; luckily, most of the larger supermarket does carry gluten free item now. If you are not shopping in the gluten-free aisle, you will have to read every single label and make sure that there is no known and/or hidden gluten in it. That will cost sometime.
4. Bye Bye Corona - This is extremely hard for my husband because he loves beer and Corona is his favorite. He is not a wine drinker so it's not easy for him to just switch. It was like the end of day when he found out that he could not have beer. He tried some gluten-free beer, it is just not the sample. Beer is not created equal afterall.

Sometimes, it is the idea of not being able to just simple going out and have a meal that it's difficult for a lot of people I talked to with Celiac Disease. But I think as long as being aware and smart about what you order, it will get easier.

Raising a Allergy Child

Recently I read a good article about raising kids with Celiac Disease and the challege involved in it. The article was very well written and so close to my heart and I would like to share some of the strategy that I use to raise my kids, Kimi and Isaac, who has suffered severe food allergy.

1. To educate them early
It is very important to educate them as soon as they started to aware of their surrounding. As for Kimi, I started showing her picture books of different type of food. I would show her the picture of 'Cow Milk' and told her that she could have Milk, but has to be Kimi Milk (Rice Milk) but not 'Cow Milk'. As Kimi became toddler, I would show her the picture of 'Cow Milk' and asked her whether she can have them. Kimi would shake her head and told me, 'Kimi cannot have cow milk, but Kimi can have Kimi Milk.' When I asked her why she could not have cow milk, she would tell me that cow milk make her sick and itch (she has terrible ezcema along with the allergy. By educate them early, they will learn to protect themselves to some extend and help minimize any accident.

2. Teach them How to Handle Emergency
When the kids are a little bit older like around 4 years old, being a parents should start educate the kids how to handle emergency situation when they have a reaction. I always have Kimi to bring her benedryl when having a sleepover. I have a long talk with the other parents about my kids allergy and how to handle the situation when Kimi is having a reaction. I teach Kimi how to use Epi-pen. Kimi  learn early on if she did not know what to do when she has allergic reaction, it will have serious effect on her life.

3. Bring them Shopping
I know sometimes it not be a great idea to bring young kids to the store; however, I learnt that it's important to show them what the food look like that they could have and what they could not have. When the children are young, they would like to grab everything on the store and they are extremely visual. By teaching them what the food look like will help them to say 'NO' to people who offer them with food that they are allergic to.

4. Teach Them Always Ask Before Eating
I always told my kids not to be shamed asking the gredients on the food that they were being served even from me. Yes, even I made mistake sometimes. If my kids are in someone else house and not sure about certain ingredients, I told them to call before they eat anything.

5. Tell them They are not Strange
My Kimi has asked me whether she is a different because of her food allergy. Because of her allergy, her skin got irritated very easily. Kimi's skin would get so itchy that she would tear her skin off. It was a very tough period of time not only for her but also for me. I used to spend 20 minutes every morning and evening to put bandage on her hands, arms and legs so that she could not reach her open scar and to scratch them. I put long pants and sleeves shirt on her on hot summer day. Kids and adult would ask her why she got hurt so often; and I got fair amount of questioning stares from people when I was out with Kimi. I told Kimi all the time that she is not strange and everyone is unique in her/his own way. I told Kimi not to be afraid to explain to people what happen to her skin and arms if people ask. I told her she is just a normal kid and should act like a kid; a little bit of boo boo should not affect her ability to play at the playground with other kids. It is not healthy to make your kid to feel different because they cannot eat certain food or do certain activities. Educate them and keep telling them they are not strange is important. Provide as much love and attention you could possibly gift.

6. Cook Food that can Share as Family
Mealtime could be challeging in my household but it's not impossible. Instead of cooking different things for different members in the family. I tried to find recipe that would cater for the entire family and you will realized that it is actually not that difficult once you get into habit of it. For example, I will have beef stew; and instead of flour for the thickening agent, I will use corn starch. I will cook meatloaf and instead of egg for binding the meat together, I will use egg substitute. If I cook chicken as the potein for dinner, I would also make lamb for Kimi since she is allergic to chicken and she loves lamb chop. Every meal, I would cook starch and vegetables that everyone could have and share as family. I try not to cook a separate meal for Kimi and/or my husband because of their unique dietary needs. We are family and we are in it together.

There are a lot of resources and support group out there for people living with allergy so we are not alone. To me, just keep an open mind and deal with it one day at a time and be thankful that my family are happy and living a healthy life.

Ad hoc Baking - Good Idea or Not?!?

I came home from work last night and saw 2 overripe bananas sitting on the counter and decided to make some Gluten-Free banana bread. Since I have good experience with my other gluten free baking. I figured that it should not be too difficult to make banana bread. May be I am a little bit over confidence?!?

Without any recipe, I pulled out all the necessary ingredient for baking and figure out what I need.

1. I go for my gluten-free items: my silkie flour mix which includes brown rice flour, white rice flour, tapioca flour, corn starch, potato starch and xanthan gum. 
2. I pulled out other necessary ingredients for baking, such as baking powder, baking soda, vanilla extract, sugar and salt.
3. I went to my fridge and pull out eggs, unsalted butter and sour cream just in case. 
4. I pulled out my loaf pan for baking

After I have all the ingredient layout in front of me, I started to guess what I need and try to work my magic. I knew the oven needed to be 350 degree and I know a typical banana bread will probably take about 1 hr.

After putting everything together and looked at the batter. The batter looked normal in the pan so I put it in the oven. I checked my banana bread after 20 mins and I realized that the top of it was getting really brown and I thought to myself, 'it doesn't look too good.' But I kept going for an hour. After the timer went off, I checked my "masterpiece". It looked very brown on top but it was not completely cook through. So I decided to put my banana bread in for another 15 minutes. At the end, my banana bread has finally cooked.

I let my very brown banana bread rest for 5 minutes before transferring to the wire rack. What the bread looked like to me at that point was a piece of brown brick. It was not the best thing to look at. After all my success in GF baking so far. This banana bread was a little bit of a disappointment. I was at the point to toss the "brick" away; however, I decided to at least taste it.

I cut a slice out from my brown brick and realized it is actually very nice looking inside and very moist. I took a bit of the banana bread and it tasted delicious. It bring my spirit up a little bit. The only comment I  have was the texture seemed a little bit of heavy. I figured I can probably alter the ingredient a little bit and try it again next time.

So my verdict of my ad hoc banana bread is 'Look bad, Texture OK, Taste Good' and it is definitely a 'Try Again' recipe. I will post a recipe once I refined my GF banana bread.

Cooking with Food Allergy

Welcome to my Allergy Blog. For some of you might know that I have another blog for Knitting which is one of my other hobbies. The other blog is http://silkieknit.blogspot.com/.

The main reason why I started this blog is because cooking in my house is very interesting. My daughter and son both has food allergy. My son's condition is relative minor, he is only allergic to nuts; whereas my daughter, she is allergic to everything in the past, as she grows older, she is only allergic to Dairy, egg, chicken (yes it's terrible), all nuts and all seafood. When she was younger, she was also allergic to wheat and soy. To add to the existing dietary restriction in my household, my husband has been dignosed with Celiac Disease (gluten allergy) a few months ago.

Ever since my daughter was cleared with Wheat and soy allergy a couple years ago. Wheat was a major food in my household. Hence, when my husband was dignosed with CD; I found it a little bit difficult to go back to my old way of cooking. It has been difficult for my husband because he loves bread and beer. So for giving up what he loves has not been easy. Nowadays, due to the increasing number of food allergy, more food companies have manufactured food that can satisfy people with special dietary need. However, I found the choice is not bad but still limited. With my husband, he has been eating wheat all his life, by switching to gluten-free food has not been easy. I have a few gluten-free cookbooks and tried some of them. Some of the recipes are good.. some are so so and some are just simple terrible. The most difficult part about not eating wheat is baked goods. My husband loves bread and dessert so I decided that I would play around with different recipes and ingredients and try to found some good recipes to satisfy my husband and my kids and to share them with anyone that has same dietary need as me.

I hope this blog will not only help me to be a better cook but also to help people with allergy.