Food so far

Well, we heard back from Amy and it wasn't what I wanted to hear, but still helpful.  She told us that as far as cheese goes, Kalie might just have to go without it for a while.  She said she has never found a cheese that is very good.  After thinking about it, being without cheese for her wouldn't really be that hard.  She loves string cheese but it isn't something I always have in the house.  Amy also said that she has found some DF, corn free yogurt at her whole foods so I will go back and double check. She let us know that there will be wasted money when starting out new foods, and that it might  help for Charlie and me to try them with her.    Overall she is giving us a lot of good advice and helping us so that Kalie won't go to food avoidance right away, which is what I was worried about. 

 

We started easing into it Thursday.  We had ground turkey tacos.  Friday, for breakfast, she had her GF brown rice cereal with soy milk and some strawberries mixed in.  She wasn't really a fan of the milk I think but she ate most of it.  For her lunch I made her an organic PB and cashew butter sandwich on GF bread with carrot sticks and strawberries and a lemonade.  She only ate her strawberries because she said she ran out of time at lunch (this is a common occurrence with our social butterfly). I made her save the rest in the fridge so she could eat it Saturday. For her afternoon snack we had her try hummus with GF pretzels and crackers with cashews.  She said she didn't like the hummus or the pretzels.  I'm going to keep trying with this one though because the pretzels look way different than normal but taste really good.  Kalie is a very visual eater and if it doesn't look great, she has it in her mind that she doesn't like it. She may or may not get this pickiness from me.( I never tried strawberries until I got married because the little seeds on the outside freaked me out.) For dinner I made a pork roast in the crockpot seasoned with bay leaves, and salt and pepper, and about a half a cup of organic vegetable broth.  I also roasted eggplant.  She really enjoyed the pork, not so much the eggplant.  In her defense, I roasted them a little too long and so they were a little burnt.  Saturday morning she wanted to try her GF oats so I made that and sprinkled in some cinnamon.  She had rice milk with this and liked the milk but not the oatmeal.  For a snack I gave her strawberries (again. I need to get different fruit for her!), and pumpkin seeds.  For lunch she had her leftover sandwich, an apple peach applesauce, GF bbq potato chips and a lemonade.  Afternoon snack we made "sorbet" by blending frozen mixed berries with two tablespoons of cashew butter.  This was really good and even Kyna wanted some. At dinnertime, I made chicken tenders coated with olive oil and crushed brown rice cereal, flash fried them and then baked them at 425 for 12 minutes.  The kids also had celery sticks and GF ranch dressing.   This morning she had peaches and a piece of GF toast with cashew butter.

 

Overall, its been pretty good.  It takes a lot more thinking on my part, though.  Usually for an after school snack she would go to the pantry and pick out something that she wanted-usually goldfish crackers.  Now, I have to kind of prep stuff for it and think ahead because if you remember, we are doing a 4 day rotation with food so she's not really supposed to have the same thing everyday.  I haven't been doing it very well since she's had bread 2 days in a row, but I'm trying not to stress too much about this part of the diet.   It's been eye opening though.  I know that Kalie definitely suffered from "the crash" where she would have one sided meals or snacks and it wouldn't be enough to sustain her through the day.  Then she wouldn't be able to concentrate and would likely be grumpy.  Charlie was taught by his mom to HALT.  It means to check if you're H-ungry, A-ngry, L-onely, or T-ired.  I get so mad when he says he's grumpy because he's hungry.  In my mind, that's just a cop out.  After learning things from Amy, I'm starting to believe in Charlie's HALT system.  I don't think Kalie was getting enough in her breakfasts, especially, or her afternoon snack.  Now we pick a carb, a protein, and a fat for each of her meals and snacks.  Amy has made a sign with ideas of each food group for us that has made it pretty easy to see what I'm choosing from. 

 

I've been doing tons of "pinning" on Pinterest for food ideas.  I've found so many vegan food blogs and learned some really helpful tips for baking.  I'm going to make my own GF flour mix of brown rice flour, oat flour, and tapioca starch.  For GF baking, you have to mix different types and a starch to get a similar flour as wheat flour.  For egg replacement I am using ground flaxseed, which is actually really good for you, and for the milk I will just use rice milk.  I might buy a powdered egg replacer that I've read is good for baking too.  I even found a recipe that I could use for tortillas!  I'm really excited about the baking part.  If I learn to perfect it, I might even add vegan cupcakes to my bakery, and you know while watching Cupcake Wars you've always wondered if those vegan cupcakes really taste good :)