Well in my post about cornflakes I mentioned that I would make a post soon about what can be made with Cornflakes.  For starters we save the crumbs from the bottom of every bag of cornflakes in a container. They last a long time for our purposes. Why go buy GF crumbs when this is so economical? Here is the first recipe:

Oven Fried Chicken

1/2 cup cornflake crumbs
1-2 tsp of brown sugar
1 tsp of garlic
1 tsp of chilli powder
1/2 tsp of thyme
1/4 cup olive oil
8-12 chicken drumsticks

Preheat oven to 375F / 190F. Line some baking trays with aluminum foil and put a light coat of olive oil down on the foil.

Start by putting the dry ingredients without the drumsticks in a bowl and mix and crush with your hands. Place the 1/4 of olive oil in a bowl. Then wash and dry the chicken drumsticks with a towel. Holding the end of the drumstick place the drumstick in the oil bowl and roll around to coat with oil. Next roll the drumstick over the cornflake mixture. You likely will need to use your free hand to pick up the cornflake mixture to coat and press the cornflake mixture on the drumstick. Place the drumstick on the foil and repeat until all the drumsticks are used up. If you are lucky you will use up all of the cornflake mixture by your last drumstick. If you have extra then toss. If you don’t have enough well you get to wash your hands and mix up a little more.

Place the baking tray in the oven and bake for 45-50 minutes. Depending on your oven you may need to rotate the drumsticks about 30 minutes into the baking. Remove nice golden brown drumsticks and carry to the table to be rapidly consumed by your family.

Variations:
Change the spice mix to vary the taste:
Examples:
Use GF/Soy Free Chicken Salt
Use Celeryseed

Here are some photos of our latest backing of this recipe:

In general Corn Flakes have been the best mass market mainstream gluten-free, soy-free breakfast cereal that we could buy. Well not the leading brands. All of the name brand version of Corn Flakes contain Barley Malt. So no Kellogg’s or Sanitarium here. There are a few health food branded corn flakes but they are over $5 for a 300g box or so. But IGA has had two lines of their store brands that have been Barley free and since they are their normal store brands they are affordable. This makes Corn Flakes one of the products that we drive out of our way to go to the Ritchie’s IGA in Mount Waverley (http://www.ritchies.com.au/) to buy.

But when Coles (http://www.coles.com.au/) recently reformulated their store branded Corn Flake recipe to eliminate Barley Malt I just had to try it since it is so much closer to the house.  Basically eliminating the Barley makes them safe for Jaden though they still have a “may contains gluten” warning on the side of their box. Well I snapped up a box pretty quick as they were about $1.99 for a 500g box. This also makes them cheaper than the IGA Signature Corn Flakes we had been buying that were $2.49 for a 415g box or the IGA Black and Gold version which is $1.99 for 415gm.

Well my first impression was OK as I popped a few in my mouth, but then I put them in a bowl and added milk. At that point my opinion changed sharply. They go soggy extremely fast, much faster than the IGA Signature Corn Flakes or the IGA Black and Gold corn flakes. So based on their sogginess I am going to still go to IGA.

Now why IGA Signature over the cheaper IGA Black and Gold?  Well by inspecting the packages side by side they definitely show signs of being made in the same factory and likely on the same line. But I still prefer the IGA Signature. Not only is the recipe a tiny bit different, but it also seems that the Signature version also has larger flakes. So there you have it. My preference right now is for the IGA Signature Corn Flakes followed by the IGA Black and Gold variety.

My recommendation: Buy IGA Signature and avoid the new Coles branded version.

What can you do with corn flakes besides breakfast? Well that is for a future set of posts.

So today we had Jaden tested for the fresh fruits on his list of allergens and pine nuts.  All I can say is wow.  He had NO reaction to pineapple, avocado, peach nor the pine nut.  However he did have a pretty severe reaction to Cantelope / Rockmelon.  The doctor was quite amazed at the Cantelope. He said, “Of the one I figured would have been the safest he is reacting to.” I agreed. Going into the tests I would have bet that Jaden would have reacted to the Pineapple and to none of the others.  So over the next few weeks we will be introducing one of these fortnightly on a very rigid way. We will start by placing the food on his lower lip the first day and waiting ~24 hours before giving him the first rice grain size piece. Then we will double each day until he is eating a full serve for his size.

We did this with pecans after the last test before today and he had NO reactions! So this is a very encouraging time….at least allergy wise. A note that he started having some reactions when we tried the walnuts, but we are tending to believe the reaction was from something else. We will restart the walnut as soon as his present cold has passed, then on to pineapple, peach, almond and pine nuts.  Avocado will be much delayed since it is what put him in the hospital twice. Plus avocado was a delayed reaction so it may not have shown on the skin tests. We will take it very cautiously with this one.

Well we had Jaden’s allergy tests refreshed. Pretty much all of his known allergies were reconfirmed and we can now add Dogs, Dustmites and Mold. Though after having severe responses to Cashews, Macadamias and Hazelnuts, he showed no reaction to Pecans and Walnuts. Therefore we have started giving him Pecans and will do so everyday for 2 weeks. Right now it is just a size of a grain of rice but everyday we will double it in size. Here is a pic of our first pecan test.

I have missed French Toast for the past 5 years. Finally I decided that with some extra regular bread I just needed to have some French Toast. Therefore I came up with the following after some trial and error and googling. In general if I can’t make something similar for Jaden I won’t have the original in front of him. Usually we eat whatever he eats except when it is quite cost prohibitive. Well this is one of them as the bread slices we use for this recipe cost in excess of $.50 each and are half the size of normal store bought bread. But really any bread that you can eat can be substituted in this recipe. Jaden LOVES it!

Eggless French Toast on a plate

Eggless French Toast in the pan

Eggless Allergen Free French Toast:

1 tsp of No Egg (or just cornstarch)
1/2 cup of prepared Darifree (or other non-Dairy Milk)
1/4 tsp of GF Vanilla Extract
4-8 pieces of acceptable bread. (Lately we have used Schär Pan Carré, which isn’t sold in the US and their products in US have Soy in them. The first time we used Sol Bread Pumpkin loaf.)

Place non-stick or oiled pan on stove and place on med-high heat. Wisk the first three ingredients in bowl large enough for the bread to fully be able to go into the bowl. Using a fork or your fingers place a slice of bread into the liquid and let sit for a few seconds, then flip over the bread and repeat. After making sure the pan is hot enough, by placing a drop of water or drip off the mixing wisk and hearing a pleasant sizzle, place the slice of bread on the pan. Repeat for the number of pieces of bread that the pan can hold without overlapping the bread. After about 2 minutes you should be able to flip the bread over to brown the other side. Remove when both sides are a pleasant golden brown color and place on plate. Top with favorite topping such as Real Maple Syrup, Margarine and sprinkled Powdered / Icing Sugar, Strawberry Syrup, or any suitable fruit topping.

Jaden and I went shopping today. I was determined to buy some Cocoa Butter in an attempt to make chocolate from scratch so that my son could have some chocolate candies for Easter like nearly every other person in this country.

While in the Health Food store which we have shopped before which has many foods for those with allergies and food sensitivities, the twenty something sales lady asked Jaden if he knew what he was allergic to. Jaden immediately replied. “Wheat, soy dairy, eggs, avocado, peanuts, nuts, avocado, pineapple and rockmelon and sometimes cherries….”  The lady had a common reaction which I have heard many times with a twist. This was the first time I heard someone ask Jaden directly, “What can you eat then?!?!” Jaden with his cute smile without missing a beat answered “Anything that doesn’t have those things in it.” As if the lady should already know it. I was not only impressed that he rattled off most of his list of allergens quite well even if he repeated avocado and left off the rest of the glutens but also with his nonchalant  answer.

Jaden is handling his life with allergies quite remarkably and makes his father proud.

Well, I first read about this not long after I got to Australia with the first research being published in the UK. I wondered then after I read the research how long before I heard about “alternative” health providers jumping on this and promoting it as a cure. In general good research takes time, but many have jumped on the initial theories and have started selling the cure. Well those alternative health people have been experimenting and now nearly 3 years later they are starting to pop up in the news.
Basically the theory is not that we lead a too clean lifestyle from dirt as was theorized a few years ago when we first had kids, but that we live a life devoid of parasites. Those parasites help the body keep from getting allergies. Here are two articles that I found recently on the subject:
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2010/10/04/parasitic-worms-cure-autoimmune-diseases/
http://www.besthealthmag.ca/get-healthy/health/can-hookworms-cure-allergies
I am not quite ready to go and infect our family yet, but I must think that these natural existing entities should be much easier to come by than $3000 for the infection. I will be watching this kind of research and wondering.

We made cornbread similar to how my wife grew up eating it in West Virginia. A good cast iron skillet bread with hearty crust. The other obstacle we faced was that the only type of cornmeal here in Australia we have found is Polenta which is a slightly grainier grade of Cornmeal and we have found NO Self-Rising Cornmeal.  However last nights pan turned out very well. So here is our Australia made USA Southern Cornbread Sans Dairy. Here is instructions/recipe. First you need a seasoned cast iron skillet.

We set our oven to it’s MAX temperature which is only 250C (482F) and let it preheat.

Mix up 1 1/2 cup Darifree Buttermilk and let set on table.

Place 1 heaping Tablespoon of Lard / Solidified Animal Fat in large Cast Iron Skillet (Frying Pan) and place in oven to heat.

While skillet is heating measure and mix the following:

2 cups of Polenta
2 1/2 (2.5) t Baking Powder
1/2 (.5) t Salt
1/2 (.5) cup Orgran Self-Rising All Purpose Flour (which primary ingredient is corn)

When the Skillet is sufficiently hot which takes about 10 minutes, using just a fork or wooden spoon to mix, pour in the Darifree Buttermilk until right consistency. If necessary add a little more Darifree to get right consistency. (This is really where Art comes in instead of science. It may take a couple of tries to get it right.)

IMMEDIATELY pour into the HOT cast iron skillet. You should hear a pleasant sizzle and see it bubbling/frying all around the sides. Place back into oven on lower rack and bake for 15 minutes until the outer edge looks a little browned, the top is dry and has a crack.

Then open the oven move the skillet to the top rack and change the oven to Grill / Broil (ie heat only from top element), leave the oven door cracked open and let it sit in there for 1 to 2 minutes until the top is browned a little more and pull out.  Then within another minute invert the pan over a large plate and the cornbread should fall out easily to the plate. Immediately and carefully cut the bread into pie shaped sections and place on table to eat.

Serving suggestions: Topped with Apple Butter, Eat with a bean Soup, Put Nuttelex or other Dairy Free Margarine on it, Crumble left overs the next moring and top with Darifree Milk like a breakfast porriage

When the skillet has cooled, just wipe it out and put it away. The Lard keeps it seasoned. My mother-in-law and my wife, keep 1 cast iron skillet for cornbread and NOTHING else is ever allowed to be made in it or face a stiff penalty.

This season in Australia as far as food is concerned seems to be all about Chocolate  with the occasional hot cross buns. The stores are loaded with lots and lots of Chocolate. And NONE of it is safe for Jaden. The only one that attempts to be Allergy Friendly has Soy in it. Anyway the girls went to Church yesterday and made Hot Cross Buns and Chocolate molds. Well we did the Jaden-safe Hot Cross Buns yesterday. Today I attempted to make some Jaden-safe Allergy Friendly “milk” Chocolate.  Unfortunately I don’t have a full recipe as I didn’t measure pretty much anything, but here is what I did.

I started out with an Artisse Dark Chocolate bar. I melted it in a double boiler (Pryex bowl over a sauce pan with water in it). I added about 3 Tablespoons of Prepared Darifree and at least 6 tablespoons of powdered sugar and another 1/2 tablespoon of Darifree powder and stirred with a small wisk. I had added a little Olive Oil but it needed something that would be solid at room temp in it like Cocoa Butter, Palm Oil, or Lard. We had the Lard in the house so I added it after the first pour turned out to be a failure.  We also dipped some gluten-free marshmallows in the chocolate to use it up. I did swipe a little Olive Oil on a paper towel and lightly swiped the oil in the mold before the successful pours. So the first pour needed more solid fat and some Olive Oil on the molds. The first pour is the “failure” pic below. Pour is a strong word, I actually spooned it in then tapped them on the counter. I would have made different shapes, but this was the only mold we had and we had borrowed it from someone else. I am considering wrapping the eggs in aluminium foil for presentation to Jaden so it looks more “normal”.

Successful Eggs

Failed to set well. Used spoon to remove which ruined the shape.

Hot Cross Buns cooling

Jaden and I baked Hot Cross Buns….We used Gluten-Free Flour and more or less followed the recipe at http://www.everydaywithallergies.com/2009/03/hot-cross-buns.html. We substituted 1/4 tsp Nutmeg for the 1 tsp Cinnamon. Best thing is that Jaden likes it.