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.

Cookies for the Holidays...recipies fitting into a dairy free kitchen

Now with Thanksgiving over we are getting ready for Christmas, and the Holidays. I have always liked to make cookies this time of year. From now to Christmas I will post recepies I make which are all safe for the Galactosemic diet

Ausstecherle (cut-outs)

Ingredients for the dough (sorry its all metric, but you can convert here http://www.onlineunitconversion.com/ounce_to_gram.html --> you must adjust the type of units on the screen)

250 gram Flour
125 gram Powderd Sugar
Grated lemon rind of 1/2 lemon
1 Egg
150 gram Earth Balance (this is where the recipe calls for butter)

1. Add flower, with sugar and lemond rind.
2. Add the egg in the middle, and surround it with the Earth Balance cut up in small pieces
3. Mix everything up either by hand or with the dough hook on your mixer
4. Roll dough up put into foil, and let rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour

5. Preheat oven to 360 F
6. Roll dough 3 - 4 mm thick out
7. Cut out hears, starts, etc. and put on baking sheet that has been lined with Parchment Paper
8. Bake 8 - 10 minutes until cookies are golden
9. Let cookies cool off

Frosting
125 gram Powdered Sugar
2 - 3 TB Lemon Juice

10. Mix sugar with the lemon juice --> it must be thick
11. Brush frosting on the cookies
12. Decorate cookies with colored sugar, or any other decors

Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving

I confess that I will not be making my own Pumpkin Pie. I certainly had all the intentions of making one for Thanksgiving but then I called Sweet Pea Bakery...Yup, they are open on Thanksgiving and will have Vegan Pumpkin Pies. Ours is already ordered and we will pick it up Thanksgiving Day.

So what can you do if you are not as lucky as we are? I just looked at the recipe in Joy of Cooking. The recipe uses either evaporated milk, or heavy cream - to make the pie Galactosemia friendly I would substitute the heavy cream with Plain Silk Coffee Creamer. I make a chocolate pie where the recipe also calls for heavy cream. There I substitute with Plain Silk Coffee Creamer and it works perfectly...Let me know how those pumpkin pies turn out :)

Alfredo Sauce Mix

Today we tried the Alfredo Sauce Mix from "Road's End Organics". When I first put the sauce together in the sauce pan I was not so sure. But it actually tastes good. I added on 1 TB of olive oil and some plain, unsweetened soy milk. Then I put the pasta (we had Trader Joe's Alphabet Pasta what a hit that is :) ) in the pan with the sauce and tossed it all together. I also got a box of pancetta from Trader Joe's which I fried up and put that on top of the pasta. For Alena I grated some Parmesan Regiano as well...Bottom line the Alfredo Sauce Mix is a great alternative www.chreese.com...

Birthday Party

Our big girls is having a Birthday Party this weekend. She is so..... excited, and to be honest, I am very excited too :)

This week we already went to Sweetpea Bakery to pick out her birthday cake. Yes, I admit I am not making the main cake this year myself. But it seems to me that all the parties I had been to all the girls had cakes that weren't baked by their parents....In any case we went to Sweetpea Bakery. Alena picked out a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. The frosting however MUST be pink she said :) Prior to picking out the cake she of course sampled just a little bit...Sweetpea is such a GREAT place. Everything is vegan so the girls can eat whatever they like. Yummy donuts, cakes, linzer bars, bagels with cream cheese, even soups....In case you have not been to Sweetpea here is the link http://www.sweetpeabaking.com/.

As for the Birthday party there will be the cake, chocolate soy milk (of course it has to be chocolate), games, music. For dinner we will have potato salad and Wiener's. The theme of course is a fairy with lots of pink. It is a all "Prinzessin Lillifee" :) (see picture above...

Memories...

It is November again - Alena is about to turn big 5!!! WOW - time flies by. She is doing so great, and I am just so proud of her. Still I am plagued by the memories of her first six weeks of life. To this day I keep having flashbacks to the time my little baby was lying in the hospital bed and we did not know whether she would be OK. The scare whether her little body would continue to be up for the fight, putting in the PIK line, the scare whenever she needed to get platelets...The sounds of the machines beeping...It still continues to hunt me.

But you say, she is doing so great why do you still dwell on it...I do not know but it is still there and always will be there. I reminded me how fragile life really is. Five years ago one Saturday was the happiest day in my life, one week late it was the scariest day of my life with my little baby being in the PICU....OK - I feel much better now that I have written this off my chest.

Thanks for listening...

New feature on blog - Recall information

I just added a new feature to the blog and am now listing food recalls as they become available. The information is on the left hand side of the blog. Please let me know if this is helpful for you...

FYI - the information is added as it becomes available, and is for recalls in the United States only. Please also not that recalls prior to November 1st, 2008 are not mentioned. For an all inclusive list go to http://www.foodallergy.org/alerts.html

Legacy Emanuel Hospital NICU celebrates 30 years

Last week I saw in the paper that Legacy Emanuel Hospital is celebrating 30 years of its NICU. To celebrate all those who have been patients of the NICU, or been affected by the NICU of Legacy Emanuel are invited. The celebration is on the 18th of November, not quite five years after Alena was a patient there. Should we go, should we not go? - We talked about it and decided that we will be going. When calling to R.S.V.P. I got all choked up and teary eyed. This is the hospital that saved our little girls life. This is the place where I spent much of the month of December in 2003. I never left from my baby's side, yes, I did get a cot but I could not leave. It may not seem like much to the reader, but to me just thinking about it gives me chills and yes I could start to cry. Alena still has a scar on her arm from the PIK Line which was set then...For the longest time I could not bear even driving past Legacy Emanuel. Always being hunted by the memories of our fear, and not knowing what would happen. Of course we have the greatest outcome, and that is a reason to celebrate. This is why we will go with the entire family to celebrate the NICU. Hopefully we will also get to meet some of the wonderful nurses, and Doctors who helped save Alena.

To learn more about Legacy Emanuel Children Hospital click here, there is also a link to the NICU...http://www.legacyhealth.org/body.cfm?id=34&oTopID=34&PLinkID=21