Stuck With The Turkeys

It's Thanksgiving, a day that always makes me sad when I'm out of the country. I just heard a radio DJ say it's okay to eat any food you see today, to cram yourself full of any old crap, and if anyone says anything to you, you should just tell them, "It's okay! It's Thanksgiving! The Americans are doing it!"

Foreigners just don't get it.

I feel really strongly about Thanksgiving, and when the atmosphere is missing, it leaves a horrible void. It's a day to spend with as much family as possible, no matter how dysfunctional that family might be. When I was growing up, we often spent the day with my father's first family, which meant a bizarre combination of me, my mom, my dad, his first wife, their children, and their children's children, most of whom were older than me, and who started bringing their own kids as they had them (my father's great-grandchildren - I was in my teens). We'd all gather in the fire station across the road from my half-sister's house, and the chaos in there was awesome (by which I mean "awe-inspiring" as opposed to "rad, dude.") As an only child (in my father's second family, if that makes any sense), I was usually lonely, and life was very quiet. Claiming all that color as my family - albeit slightly DISTANT family, and just once or twice a year - added facets to my otherwise boring person, I felt. It was like being the baffled participating audience member in an intricately choreographed dance.

(My half-sister has probably spewed coffee across her screen by now. I somehow feel sure that my memories of those occasions have a slightly rosier glow than hers...)

For my first Thanksgiving in South Africa, my husband's family very gamely went along with a "proper" Thanksgiving meal. Their enthusiasm touched me (and still does, eleven years later), but there's something about having everybody working on a day that should be a massive holiday for everyone, regardless of race, religion, or personal beliefs, that's just not right. It's the atmosphere that's missing.

I think one thing that a lot of foreigners don't understand is that Americans are proud, yes, and we work hard to be the best we can be, but that we judge ourselves against ourselves, nobody else. Being proud of who we are doesn't mean we think less of anyone else. We just don't think in terms like that. It's not a competition for us, so nobody wins and nobody loses. We're far from perfect, but we keep working to get there. I can't seem to adequately explain that here.

Anyway, I'm going to make a pumpkin pie today. I normally wouldn't ever use canned pumpkin for this - I always roast my own - but since the right kind of pumpkin isn't available, I'll open one of the huge cans of pumpkin puree that I brought here with me.

A friend told me yesterday that Martha has been baking up a storm all week (I'm still cross with her about the Katonah incident). My friend says Martha drains her pumpkin puree in cheesecloth overnight. I see the point of that: to thicken it. But I've always preferred the flavor and texture of moist, fresh pumpkin. If it's too thick, it'll taste like the canned stuff I'm being forced to use.

I've never made a pumpkin pie with fructose, though I think it will be okay. The thing about fructose is, it's not sweet when it's warm, only when it's cool. So I'll cook the pie, and then have to let it cool completely before eating it, which is a shame, since it's so delicious warm. Of course, it's delicious cold the next day, too. Actually, I could screw up the recipe a fair bit, and it'd still be great. Pumpkin pie just is.

This is my egg-free recipe, which I've been using for years. The original recipe, from The Joy of Cooking, makes an amazing pumpkin custard, but eggs are still off-limits, and the cornstarch works. I might have to play around with the sweetness of the pie, since these amounts of fructose and Karo are guesses. I like to use Karo when I can, since Leander has a high tolerance for it (Karo is basically high-fructose corn syrup), and it adds some of the gooey texture you'd get from real sugar, particularly if you're trying to use dextrose as a substitute for sugar. With fructose, maybe I don't really need the Karo, but I'm going to use it anyway, particularly since I've substituted the eggs with cornstarch. I might decide later that I should have used dextrose instead of the Karo, but we'll have to wait and see.

I won't bother making my own pie crust this year. Homemade crust is delicious, but I find it's rarely worth the effort. Locally, there's a "savoury" frozen crust. You could probably use the sweet one, but it's got sugar in it, and the savory frozen one they sell here has a crunchy texture that is really very nice.

If you use real cornstarch, and not the kind made with wheat, and a gluten-free crust, this pie would be gluten-free. Also, I'm sure the milk and butter could be substituted for a dairy-free pie. I'd never do that, since we don't need to avoid dairy, and I think the real milk and butter add a necessary richness, but basically, you could adjust this recipe for a lot of different dietary restrictions.

Here it is:

Sucrose-free, egg-free, nut-free pumpkin pie:

2 cups cooked, pureed pumpkin
1 cup milk
3/4 cup fructose
1/4 cup Karo light syrup
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp butter, melted

Mix all, pour into unbaked pie crust.
Let sit in refrigerator overnight before baking, if possible.
Bake at 450 for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and bake one hour.
Allow to cool mostly before serving, though it's nice warm.

Serve it with fresh whipped cream, which I make. Fructose added to freshly whipped cream is absolutely delicious. In fact, I'd probably choose to use fructose even if I could use regular sugar.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Recipe: Grandpa Ed's Waffles

As I mentioned, Leander and I both went to the doctor on Tuesday. My appointment was great: we heard the baby's heartbeat, even though the doctor said it was a bit early and he wasn't sure if we would, and it was a "nice, strong heartbeat." Also cool was the fact that I still haven't gained any weight. At 21 weeks pregnant, I am nine pounds lighter than I was at five weeks pregnant. I'm only losing the weight I gained during Oliver's pregnancy, and the doctor is completely happy with the state of my health.

Leander and I both needed blood tests. Mine was to check up on a previously low iron level, and Leander's were for everything but the prostate screening, I think. We're a little concerned that with his limited diet, he might be missing some nutrients. It's been two years since he was diagnosed with CSID, and he's been a little tired lately, not quite himself. Also, fructose can build up in the liver like alcohol, and since that's the sugar he uses every day, it's a good idea to have a liver function test done.

Our tradition is that if you get a needle stuck in you, Mommy buys you something at the toy tore, mostly because Mommy is a sucker. Because Leander is the one who always gets the horrible things done to him, he's the one who gets all the treats. The other two understand this, though they would like to get the treats, too. They agree, though, that it's not worth getting poked with a needle.

But Leander said, this time, "Can we buy three treats, so Eddie and Oliver can have one, too?"

Which opens up all sorts of philosophical avenues.

If they all get treats, it kind of defeats the point of the treat. And will the other two start hoping Leander gets poked with a needle so they can have a new little tractor?

But Leander himself has requested equal treats for his brothers, and I hate to discourage that kind of philanthropic spirit.

What to do?

We've been talking about buying an ice cream machine, because ice cream is one of the boys' favorite things, and there's a place in Hilarys that makes one with fructose (for diabetics, which I don't quite understand, but I'm no dietitian). But it's $12 a liter, and it's made with soy milk, to cover lots of dietary requirements. I'm not so big on the soy milk. Also, it's hard for us to get, being in Hilarys and all. So after a month or two of batting the idea around, I made the executive decision to order the ice cream maker. Wandering around the appliance store while the guy was on the phone with another customer, I passed a waffle maker, one that makes a flower of five hearts. My dad gave me one like that for my birthday one year. I've never understood why he bought me a waffle maker, but he picked it out all by himself, and maybe I liked it even more because of the mystery. I couldn't bring it to Australia because of the power thing, and it's one of the few bits we left behind that I really miss.

That was way too much detail about why I wanted a waffle maker all of a sudden.

Anyway, the boys love pancakes, the American way, that is: for breakfast, hot, with maple syrup and bacon on a lazy Sunday morning. So I asked Leander if we should get a waffle maker for everyone as the treat. He happily agreed. We had waffles for dinner that night, but the waffle recipe in the waffle maker box was a bit floppy, not crispy like I like them.

Today, nearly eleven years after my dad died, I cried all the way back from the next town over. I think it was triggered by extreme exhaustion, and thinking of the daughter of the electrician I like so much. I saw her yesterday, and the obvious affection with which she spoke of her father made my eyes leak, though I blamed it on pregnancy hormones to cover my embarrassment. My dad was an electrician, too, and I miss him just as much now as I have for the last eleven years.

On that half-hour drive today, it occurred to me, for the first time, that my father must have thought, at some point in his life, about the fact that he would be 87 when I was 37, and that the odds of him knowing me for much more than thirty years were pretty slim.

That makes me incredibly sad.

So in honor of my father, who I think about every day, we're having waffles again tomorrow morning, and here's my own recipe in all its nut-free, egg-free, sucrose-free glory:

2 cups flour
4 tbsp dextrose
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp lemon juice
1¾ cups milk
4 tbsp melted butter
a dollop of glucose

Melt butter, milk and glucose together. I'm not listing a measurement for glucose, because you could spend a LOT of time trying to get it to cooperate while you try to measure it. Be sure to melt it, though, since otherwise you'll have a lot of semi-sweet waffles, and one glucose-waffle.

Sift dry ingredients.

Add butter, milk and lemon juice to dry ingredients and mix well. Allow to rest for ten minutes.

Pour by 1/4 cupfuls onto medium hot waffle maker and cook until nicely brown. Serve with real maple syrup for the people who can handle sucrose, and with Karo syrup for the people who can't.

Stay tuned for an ice cream recipe, though there will no doubt be a fair bit of trial and error involved in that one...

Because Fintan Needs A Birthday Cake

My friend Alina wants to make a low-allergen, healthy birthday cake for her son's first birthday. He doesn't have any allergies that they are aware of, but I may have freaked her out enough with my horror stories about our experiences over the last several years... so she's being really careful. And if I'm honest, which I can't always be, because people don't REALLY want honesty when it's inconvenient, I wish all parents were like Alina. It can prevent your child from having lifelong, life-threatening allergies, if you just hold off feeding them the seven major allergens until they reach the age of three, when their little immune systems may have matured to the point where they are able to react properly to the allergens, even if they might otherwise have been prone to allergies.

And now I'm off on my little lecture. Just one more minute: Obviously, it's hard (if not impossible) to avoid all seven allergens for three years. Avoid them for the first year, and then avoid the ones in your family history, which for us means eggs and nuts, until the child is three. And of course, it's also important to avoid eating these allergens if you are pregnant or breastfeeding and the baby has a family history of allergies.

And don't complain to me that it's hard, because I've done it. It's not that hard, people. Not nearly as hard as imagining yourself plunging a huge, scary Epi-pen into your baby's sweet little thigh while he chokes and gasps for breath and clings desperately to life.

Right! Enough drama; onto important things, like chocolate!

This recipe is some sort of wartime, rationing recipe. In fact, I used to make it all the time even before we had children (before I even knew that egg *was* an allergen), because it was cheap (and ingredients in South Africa were expensive), ridiculously easy, and really moist and delicious. The only major allergen it contains is wheat, and by the time your child is one, you usually know if he's had a reaction to wheat (and you could substitute the flour with whatever flour substitute you usually use). The recipe is dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, and effort-free. You don't even need a mixer.

1½ cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
¼ cup cocoa powder
½ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp vinegar (white)
½ cup oil (I use canola)
1 cup water

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, in no particular order, and bake at 375 (or 180 C) for 35-40 minutes. I have three kids and a husband, so I always double the recipe and bake it for 40-45 minutes. As it's written above, it will fill an 8x8 baking dish. Use an 8x13 if you double the recipe.

We modify the recipe further to suit our specific dietary needs, by which I mean we use alternative sugars, and we add dairy to it (because my children and husband all have a tendency to lose weight, damn them).

So I use dextrose instead of sugar (dextrose can usually be found in the home brewing supplies), and half again as much glucose syrup (which can be found in the candy-making supplies). And I use some percentage of milk instead of water (half and half, usually). I also replace some of the oil with melted butter (never margarine). Those substitutions took a lot of fiddling with (the sugar ones, that is), but I have finally managed to bake a moist cake with just the right amount of sweetness, and it's incredible how satisfying that is.

I make a frosting with Nuttelex (which, surprisingly, contains no nuts - it's a margarine), cream cheese, dextrose, fructose, and food coloring. But before we knew about the CSID, we just bought Betty Crocker's ready-made frosting. For a one-year-old, frosting is completely unnecessary, though it does add value to the photo opportunities, particularly if it's inhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif the hair. You could just apply it directly there to save your child's teeth.

Happy Birthday, Fintan!

Listen To The Nurse, Duncan

I just took my husband to the hospital, and it was totally worth the inconvenience of taking the boys and their pajamas to Ouma's house for a bath, and the hassle of going to the hospital on a public holiday (ANZAC day - we made cookies - see below), and the bother of it now being 9:19 pm and having to yell at the boys to hurry up and brush their teeth after having cinnamon toast for supper.

Because the nurse's verdict was this: "You need to listen to your wife more."

Well, DUH.

See, he's been feeling unwell since Saturday (he told the nurse Friday - he never gives me all the information. You'll find this is a frequently recurring complaint of mine. Ridiculously frequent. Way too frequent. Have I mentioned the frequency?) But I don't think he's sick, I think he's exhausted. He doesn't get enough sleep, what with getting up at 5 am three days a week to cut meat (and 6 or 7 am the other days), working six days a week, and making all those sausages, and then, in an act of supreme brilliance, refereeing a rugby game on Saturday and playing a footy game on Sunday. And when he starts to get run down, he stops eating. And drinking.

So I've been trying to get him to rest - I made him come home after his game on Sunday and lie down (he always wants to watch the next game, but I was a mean, horrible wife, and dragged him home), and I sent him home from the butcher shop on Monday afternoon to take a nap. And I've been making him eat more vegetables (I think he's probably so deficient in some vitamin or mineral at this point that he needs a needle. Preferably a large one. In his butt. By an unsympathetic nurse. But, of course, ALL nurses are sympathetic to his butt. Have you see his butt? You'd be sympathetic, too).

I took a nap today (after we went to a friend's fabulous birthday party - it was her four-year-old son's birthday, but it was fabulous - champagne, etc), while he watched television. I keep telling him to eat - things like dry toast and Weetbix, you know? Sensible things. And he tells me he HAS eaten (and I find out when he's talking to the nurse that no, he didn't have breakfast like he told me he did).

So while I'm asleep, he decides to take my advice and eat. He's weak, lethargic and nauseous, as he has been for five days now. I know he needs more than food, but it's a start. But remember, I'm asleep. He eats leftover beef stirfry and what he calls "eggnog." Are you ready for this? It's milk, sugar, and a raw egg, all mixed together.

And he feels really sick. Huh. Imagine. And he makes me promise not to tell the nurse he ate it. LOVELY NURSE KATE, MY HUSBAND DRANK MILK, SUGAR, AND A RAW EGG BEFORE WE CAME IN TONIGHT.

His blood pressure, blood sugar, pulse, oxygen levels, and bowel sounds (poor lovely Nurse Kate, having to listen to my husband's bowel sounds) were all fine, though his wee showed dehydration (lovely Nurse Kate had the other nurse check his wee, which was fortunate for me, since I would rather have checked it myself than had her sully her lovely hands with my husband's wee). They decided that he wasn't in acute distress, and that they couldn't really justify calling the doctor (the doctor on call tonight is in Katanning, 30 minutes away), but that he needs:

1) to go to the doctor tomorrow, and
2) TO LISTEN TO HIS WIFE MORE

Australia has wonderful national health, but I'd have happily paid for that piece of advice.

ANZAC BISCUITS
a recipe from my friend KateTheVet, which I have modified for my family's unique dietary requirements. Thank you, KateTheVet!
125g butter, melted
3 tbsp Karo syrup (melted in the butter)
1 cup self-rising flour
1 cup dextrose
1/2 cup fructose
3/4 cup dessicated coconut
1 cup rolled oats.

Mix. Bake at will. Edges will burn - perhaps from all the butter? More likely because the dextrose and fructose make the mixture a different texture than it should be. The second batch worked out better: I poured the whole mess in the middle of the cookie sheet and baked it like that. Only the edges got burnt. Next time I'll do them in a dish like brownies, so there won't be any burnt edges. Yummy! Yippee for ANZAC Day!

Brown Easter (An Original Recipe)

When I try to read after playing Ponturu, my eyes make little lines between all the words. Sudoku, you'll be getting a call from Shannen Doherty.

Easter was fun. Duncan took the kids to the butcher shop to get bacon for breakfast, and I put some stuff out on the verandah for them to find when they got home. Of course, they got home around 11 or 12, or something, and they'd already thoroughly searched the yard, the porch, the world while I'd been in bed trying to ignore them and the dog and the dog's incessant barking. So we had to talk them into going back out to look around. I can't remember what we did last Easter, or the Easter before that, so I have no idea what Oliver expects (on the subject of Easter, or anything else on this earth).

Oliver got out on the porch and shouted, "There it is! I found it! Easter poop!"

(We have a puppy. Did I mention the puppy? I should mention the puppy, before you start wondering about poop on the porch.)

Oliver then found Easter rocks, and an "Easter dead rat," which, I hasten to explain, was just another Easter rock. He has a vivid imagination. There might be poop on the porch, but I assure you there are no dead rats in the agapanthus. (Agapanthi?)

Or live rats. No rats at all, I promise.

Eventually, they found their Easter baskets, a term I use loosely to describe the Glad containers holding their purple Easter poop candy and their Brown Easters, which I loosely based on an Australian recipe for White Christmas. We read their new Dr. Suess books, and I tortured Oliver with his new tickle frog (a small Mary Meyer finger puppet I bought at their outlet, oh, about seven years ago), and eventually Leander got over his disappointment at ONLY getting candy specially developed for his enjoyment, a book and a Dockers armband (well, wristband, but he loves to have a band around his bicep, and it's an adult-sized wristband, so it will fit there and maybe replace the green bias tape he was given to wear at the school's swimming carnival to denote which faction house he was swimming for. Well over a month ago. He can't find the shoes he wore this afternoon, but he hasn't lost that crappy little piece of bias tape), and came back in time to hear that green eggs and ham could, indeed, be eaten in a boat.

They all liked their candy, though Oliver wouldn't eat the purple poop. There's cream cheese in there, and I can tell you from my own experience that that there is a acquired taste. I didn't eat cream cheese until I was 33.

Just in case you all want to try making purple poop or Brown Easter, I'm including the recipes here. That CSID website says they're tracking around six hundred kids world-wide. The odds of also having life-threatening allergies probably severely reduces the audience for this kind of recipe, but about a year ago I'd have maimed kittens for a few recipe ideas to entice my starving child to eat. He'd just been diagnosed with CSID (which is a story for another day), and suddenly all our "safe" foods had to be taken away. The only control he had over what he could eat was to refuse to eat anything. He was skinny to start with, and there has been nothing in my entire life that cut me so deeply as watching my five-year-old son become anorexic. Not even the sight of those earless kittens wandering around in tiny pools of blood.

I'm giving you both recipes at the same time because you really need to make both of them. Not just so you can use a little of the extra Copha from the first recipe in the second one, but because these two delicacies are best enjoyed together. You know: you try one, and it's okay, then you try the other, and you think, "Oh, yeah, THIS one is good." And then, in a couple of seconds when the Copha becomes reality in your mouth, you think, "Hm, actually, that first one was better, really." Take a bite of that one. Yup, it definitely enhances the one you're not eating.


Purple Easter Poop
a recipe by amy
60g Copha
125g cream cheese
1/2 cup dextrose
1/4 cup fructose
1 cup desiccated coconut
extra desiccated coconut for topping
food coloring

Melt Copha in microwave (use defrost). Blend together all other ingredients. Poor in Copha and mix well. Add red and blue food coloring, in large quantities (there's a reason other recipes measure food coloring in "drops" as opposed to "teaspoons." Use your discretion. Originally, I had envisioned pretty pastel Easter lumps. The dark purple grows on you, though).

Keep stirring until the Copha cools a bit, and then scoop them into little mounds. This is the only time a Pampered Chef tool has ever come in handy: I have one of those little mini ice cream scoopers. Top with extra coconut and refrigerate until hard. Store in airtight container in refrigerator.

Brown Easter
another recipe by amy
250g Copha (actually, cut a extra chunk off the Copha you used for the purple poop and add it to this recipe)
2 cups sugar-free, organic, horrible puffed rice
1 cup desiccated coconut (you should be sensing a theme by now)
1 cup full cream powdered milk (get the calories in those kids any way you can)
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 cup dextrose
1/2 cup fructose
1/2 tsp vanilla

Melt Copha in microwave (using defrost). They say you're supposed to chop it up before you melt it, but that's just making more dishes. The whole chunk will melt just fine. Eventually).

Mix everything else in a bowl (or, I don't know, a hat. Why do people always say to mix it IN A BOWL?) Add the melted Copha and mix well. Line a baking dish with aluminum foil and pour in the mixture. Mush it down firmly. Refrigerate until hard, and then break into pieces.

Happy Easter, everyone.

What's With The Eggs, Isaac?

Fig Newtons don't have eggs. Why do all the recipes I find have eggs in the Newtons? Why do all the recipes on earth have fricking eggs in them?

I'm not opposed to eggs. Not at all. Especially since two years ago when we learned they were no longer violent killer allergens (for us, for our six-year-old son. For others, they are still violent killer allergens). For us they are now simply hanging-over-the-toilet-for-45-while-the-antihistamines-kick-in allergens.

I need a Newton. And I can't go to Price Chopper and buy some because my local Price Chopper is 11, 669 miles away (not an estimate - I checked), and also because I can't digest the sugar in them. Figs are one of the few fruits with very low amounts of sucrose in them, but neither Leander nor I really want to eat the figs. I want the Newtons (Leander is blissfully ignorant, happily for him).

I'm really not into this whole Easter thing. What with being anti-religion and all, and now with the sugar, the eggs, the nuts, the carcinogenic poisonous "may leek out of your butt" chemical sweeteners. But before, in my stupidity, before the CSID, before the Outback, when I thought I was so clever with the Easter, I conditioned my children to hear Easter and think little-plastic-eggs-with-mini-oreos-inside. Poor planning. Very poor planning.

So I've just made (very, icky, dark) purple copha (google that one), cream cheese, and coconut mound-things, and "White Christmas: as modified by Amy to be brown and made with horrible organic puffed rice things I swore I would never make my children eat." I have sugar-substitution down to a fine art (use the same amount of dextrose, and add half again as much fructose, increase the liquid a bit, and LEAVE OUT ALL SALT - don't ask me why, just DO it), so actually, they're not bad.

They're not Easter, but then, I'm not down with the rising of Christ. So... fitting, I suppose.

But the Newtons. I'm sad about the Newtons. I found a recipe for Honey Newtons that doesn't have egg in it... but it has a cup of grated CHEDDAR CHEESE. WHAT GIVES? I love the lactose, but not in my Newton.

I am sad. I will make the brownies, and the brownies will cheer me up, but the packet of dried figs on my counter will mock me.