Fruit Pie at Trader Joe's

We just went shopping at Trader Joe's and what did I see in the middle of the isle? Yup, fruit pie. I am not generally one for pie, but out of habit I just checked the label anyways. You may have guessed it, the pies do NOT have any milk products in them. Based upon that great discovery (I would have bet they have milk products in them) I of course had to buy one, and again I am really not crazy about pie. In any case I bought a Cherry Pie, other types I saw were Blueberry, Mixed Fruit, and Apple there may be more. The box is still closed and nobody has tried it yet so I cannot speak to taste yet. I will let you know.

Happy pie eating to all :)

Rescheduled clinic appointment...new year, new deductible...

I am just venting. The girls had an appointment at the Metabolic Clinic last week. We had a major snow storm here, the once every 40 years kind of storm, so the clinic was cancelled. Made sense b/c we would not have been able to go. The streets were not cleared off, chains required, and OHSU sits on top of a major west side hill...(pictures of the snow are posted on my other blog - http://germanpdx.blogspot.com/). In any case, the appointments are now rescheduled for next week Tuesday which is great but it is a brand new insurance year. So we have to start up again with the $500 deductible for each person before insurance pays...OK I really should not gripe, I am so happy that the girls are well taken care off, but you know it just never ends. Right?!

Pharmacy Listing - New Feature of the Blog

Finding a pharmacy where we feel comfortable has been challenging until we found the pharmacy at New Seasons Market. Unfortunately they closed down the pharmacy (due to the competition), but provided a list with pharmacies which are independently owned, and/or also compounding pharmacies. Look for the list on the left hand side of the blog. We chose one pharmacy from the list and have been pretty happy. In my experience large corporate owned pharmacies have not been as good. In any case, I added a list of all the independent/compounding pharmacies in the PDX area. Some of the mail order ones are located in Medford, Grants Park, Colorado Springs, and Youngtown, Arizona. Not sure if they also provide pick-up. I have also added links to their respective website (if they have one).

We use the Brooklyn Pharmacy and the girls thankfully did not have the need for any meds since New Seasons Market closed their pharmacy. We have NOT tried out any of the other pharmacies. I hope that the list is useful to you. Will you please let me know?! Thank you!

Hopworks...great pub, restaurant and (dare I say) beer...

Today we went swimming and the girls really wanted hamburgers for dinner. We decided to go to Hopworks in SE Portland. This place is fantastic. There is a play area for the kids, they serve you (if you ask for it) pizza dough as play dough for the kids, and just really fun. Their menu is sustainable and most items are made out of organic ingredients. There is a kids burger (we of course ask for it w/o the cheese), but they also have "Grilled free range chicken" on the menu which is served with BBQ sauce. The chicken and the BBQ sauce are fine, and we also allow the girls to eat the burger. They also have pizza which can of course be ordered without cheese. The dough does not contain any dairy. - Oh, and just to mention it again their beer is fantastic :)

This is just another great option for a casual fun dinner here in PDX where we do not need to worry about the ingredients. The official link to the restaurant is http://www.hopworksbeer.com/ Happy dinning everyone :)

The upside for not having milk products in our girls diet...

Is there really an upside for the girls growing up avoiding products containing conventional milk? At first glance it maybe not, but honestly...since adding the recall feature to the blog I have been looking at all FDA recalls and let me tell you. A bunch of items including chocolate Santa's to biscuits have been recalled because, as the FDA puts it, they may contain Melamine. Melamine? Here is a link to site of the World Health Organization explaining melamine. http://www.who.int/csr/media/faq/QAmelamine/en/ At this point I am really, really happy that I do not have to worry about this chemical in my kids diet. Now isn't that a positive?

Of course I can also find other positives sides for avoiding milk products. Let's just think about cholesterol. Their diet is just so much healthier, and by that mine has become healthier too.

Happy December to all.

Exciting news from Austria...

In the Austrian Newsletter I read the information about a 29 year old woman with CG who must have had a baby by now. She wrote the article to the newsletter when she was 38 weeks pregnant and said that after a year of trying she had become pregnant. Isn't this exciting news? As a mother of two girls who both have CG I just like to hear about women with CG who do become pregnant.

NOTE: I just revised this posting. It originally said that the woman did have fertility
treatment. I re-read the article and she did NOT have fertility treatment. Sorry about
that...

Very delicious, rich chocolate tart...

This is a quick, delicious recipe - nobody will guess that it does not contain cream

You will need
1 frozen vegan pie crust (I like the one from Maple Lane Bakery out of California)
8 oz of dark chocolate (I like Scharfenberger)
1 cup of Silk Creamer (I also use the flavored ones for a twist)
1 Egg beaten

- Pre bake pie crust according to package
- Chop 8 oz. of chocolate
- In a small pan bring 1 cup of the Silk Creamer to a simmer
- Put chocolate pieces in a metal bowl, place in the simmering Silk Creamer until melted. Whisk
until completely melted
- Add 1 egg beaten (be careful and continue to whisk
- Add chocolate filling to the pre baked pie crust
- Bake for 15 - 18 minutes at 375 F

Serve with vanilla soy ice cream, and/or Soya Too! Whipped Topping, or in the summer time serve with berries.

This is yummy :)

Christmas Dinner at our house is completely Galactosemia friendly...

Like every year we will be making our Christmas Goose along with braised red cabbage, chestnut-fruit stuffing, potato dumplings, and gravy. This is our 4th (or is it the 5th?) year of making a Goose for dinner. I use the Joy of Cooking recipes and if there is any butter, milk, etc. I just swap it out for Earth Balance, or Soy Milk. For desert I will make our chocolate tart. This is very, very rich and chocolaty. I will post the recipe separately. Happy Holidays to all.

Cookies, Part III - more galactosemic friendly cookies for the holidays...

With this snow I am back at making more cookies. All of the chocolate sables are already gone. I decorated part of them with a walnut and baked them like that. They were my husband's favorite...and all, yes all of the chocolate ones, are already gone. So I am making more. Here is another recipe you may not know yet...

Hazelnut Macaroons - Haselnuss Makroenchen

3 Egg White
1 pinch of salt
100 gram Sugar
300 -350 gram finely ground hazelnuts
Additional whole hazelnuts for decorating

1. Beat egg white and the pinch of salt until they are firm
2. Add 1/2 of the sugar until egg whites are "shiny"
3. Add rest of the sugar and hazelnuts mix well
4. PREHEAT oven to 350 F
5. Use two teaspoons to put dough on cookie sheet (put parchment paper on the cookie sheet)
6. Top each mound of dough with a hazelnut
7. Bake 8-10 minutes

Depending on the size of your dough mounds this recipe can yield up to 50 pieces. I generally make big mounds and therefore I don't get more than 30 each out of this recipe...

Happy baking - please let me know if you like this...

Cookies, Part II, makes 6 different types... - fit for the diet of persons with Galactosemia

Sables - Basic Recipie, sorry measurements are metric here is the link to a converter http://www.unitconversion.org/weight/pounds-to-grams-conversion.html

175 Gram Margarine --> I like Earth Balance
75 Gram Sugar
1 TSP Vanilla
1 pinch salt
1 TBP "Milk" I use regular Silk Soy Milk
250 Gram Flour

1. Stir margarine, sugar, vanilla and salt together until soft
2. Add "Milk"
3. Add Flour --> mix everything together until you have a smooth dough
4. Divide dough into two parts, and make rolls out of the dough
5. Wrap dough into clear plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 30 minutes (or you can also put
the dough into the freezer for about 10 minutes)
6. Preheat oven to about 400 degrees F (if you can adjust to 390 F its best)
7. Cut slices (about 5mm thick) off the rolls and put on backing sheet
8. Bake immediately

VARIATIONS on the basic recipe

TUSCANY SABLES
- Before you add the flour add either 100 gram ground Pine nuts, or ground Walnuts
- After cutting, decorate each cookie with either pine nuts, or a walnut
- After baking sprinkle with powdered sugar

MIKADO SABLES
- Add 50 gram finely chopped candied dried fruit
- After baking brush with lemon/powder sugar mixture and some finely chopped mixed dried fruit

CHOCOLATE SABLES
- Add 2-3 TBL unsweetened cocoa before adding the flour
- You can decorate these (if you wish) with powdered cocoa

MIXED SABLES
- Follow recipe for basic sables
- Follow recipe for chocolate sables

1. Marbled Sable
- mix chocolate and vanilla dough together

2. Rolls
- roll out vanilla & chocolate dough
- lay chocolate dough on top of vanilla dough, roll back up

I hope you will enjoy these cookies

The lactose-free chocoloate Santa's are back at New Seasons...

I am excited to tell you all that New Seasons Market carries again the 60% chocolate Santa's. They do NOT contain any milk derivative and come in a pack of three. Oh, and they are not huge kind of small but really, really good. They are made by Storz Schokolade of Tuttlingen, Germany. And yes, Tuttlingen is my home town in Germany. We actually have a whole big box of them as my Mom just came to visit and brought them along from their factory store.

Please let me know if you like them. Our girls LOVE them....http://www.newseasonsmarket.com/. FYI - there is also online shopping available if you'd rather get your Santa's delivered....

Happy snow day to all here in PDX...

P.S.: Here is the link to the manufacturer http://http://www.storz-schokolade.de/index-en.htm

Recall's updated as they come out - How to subscribe to the Blog

I have added the "Recall" on products to the post and am adding new information as it is released. In order for you to get the information as it gets posted you can actually "Subscribe" to the blog. The link to subscribe to the blog is found on the left hand side underneath the "recall"section. I hope you all find this new feature helpful. Please let me know.

Did you know that you can also post comments to the blog, or just click on the icons underneath each entry to give me some feedback. I really would appreciate it :)

JAM - Breakfast on Hawthorne...

Alena and I had breakfast this morning at JAM. Just her and I on this cold, snowy day in Portland. Mia is in school, and Ron at work. Alena is still a little sick and its a good day for her to stay home with Mommy :). We dropped off Mia, then Rona and then the two of us went out for breakfast. Just the two of us like a couple of weeks ago in Chicago but what a difference.

We went to JAM (address etc. is listed to the left hand side of the blog under "restaurants") what a great place. There is Soy Milk, Vegan hash browns, even Vegan Blueberry Pancakes served with Earth Balance...Alena almost ate both pancakes (from the kids menu of course), with syrup, drank a glass of pineapple juice and both of us had so much fun. There are plenty of crayons, paper, toys, books, etc. and of course the Oregonian.

Have a great day everyone.

So glad we live in Portland...Chicago Restaurant experience

Alena and I had to go to Chicago this past weekend. It was so, so bitter cold and snowy. Alena was very excited about the snow at first, but she just hated the cold. She actually wanted to wear a hat, two scarves, gloves, and two sweaters. Brrrrrrrrr....it really was cold, and we are just not used to it anymore.

The air travel went well. I prepared with snacks for the trip, and then stopped at the next Whole Foods to get Soy Milk, bread, etc. I hate to admit it, but for dinner we had McDonald's since I knew that it'll be OK. One night we had pizza without cheese, and without sauce. Turns out, that the place we ordered from actually puts cheese also in their sauce. No offense to all you cheese eaters out there, but how much cheese do you actually need? So this told me that eating out would be a little bit more challenging. But then again, this was Naperville and not Chicago... Sunday - Monday we spent with friends in Evanston. Monday morning Alena and I went out to have breakfast. I still had our loaf of bread but I felt certain that I would not need it, that the waitstaff would be prepared for vegans, had soy milk, etc. well no question in my mind because this is Evanston a University town, right next to Chicago one of the largest cities in the country. Well, let me tell you was I WRONG!!! - The restaurant (and it was funky not your run of the mill place) did not have ANY soy milk, did NOT know about the bread, added butter to the oil to fry the eggs in (never heard of this one here before), and put dried cheddar cheese powder over the hash browns. WOW....turned out Alena ate the bread we brought along, had a poached egg and bacon. So eating out was of course still possible, put just a lot more challenging.

Am I glad we live on the west coast where it seems almost every place we go to has soy, or rice milk, people are aware of what is vegan, etc.