Keller Family Blog

So on Sunday evening Jaden ate his first ever Pizza.  We had bought an Orgran Pizza Crust mix several months ago. The kids were itching to make something last night for dinner instead of having leftovers so I mentioned to them that they could make a Jaden Safe Pizza.  Shay and Karlissa jumped on it.

We greased the pan with Nuttelex and sprinkled some Polenta (corn meal) on it.  Then we followed the directions to make the Pizza Crust. The kids did all of the kneading and such.  We rolled it out with a round drinking glass since we don’t have a rolling pin in Australia. Then all four helped pinch the sides, put sauce and meat on it. We used some left over roast chicken, some ham and some Green Capsicum (Green Pepper).  Wish we had had some more veggies in the house we could have put on. Of course there was no cheese put on the pizza as there is no dairy free cheese substitute that is free from Soy (at least not that we have found).

Anyway after 15 minutes in the oven Karlissa pulled out the pizza (and dropped it but we had a great save).   We carried it to the table and fed one very excited boy and an excited family.

The neighborhood directly south of my old neighborhood in FL found bombs near it.  Surprise, Surprise they say.  Hmm.  I heard many years ago (at least that it was next door to a WWII practice bombing range. A co-worker at least a decade ago was looking for land for his church and he found quite easily that the area had been an old bombing range.  He said that it was mostly duds used for practice, but still there would be a LOT of lead and shrapnel in and around the ground area.  We figured there would need to be a lot of cleanup on the site if anything would want to be built there.  That really didn’t take a lot of work to turn up, but now the school board cries foul in that they didn’t know there was the possibility of bombs in the area.  I suspect they are taking the play it ignorant stance. If I knew there had to be plenty of others that knew the possibility.  If anything the land that we knew was a bombing range started maybe 500 yards/meters south of the land where they found the unexploded shells last year, but still someone else with more authority knows there was a potential problem.  I also think it is a little silly watching them use metal detectors in the video story below looking for bombs in an area that is now 5 feet higher than it was a decade ago. All of the dirt in the area shown on the video was taken from a couple of holes that have been turned into lakes.  That should mean that any bombs left in much of the housing area would likely be 5-8 feet underground and very difficult to detect.

Reference:  http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=8861633&ch=4226713&src=news

We drove to Brisbane for a student conference. We were able to hang out with students from all over Queensland. We had a wonderful time encouraging and challenging students to think about what they wanted to do with their lives. Several are considering how they can serve God full time after they leave Uni (college for us Americans). A highlight of the conference was the Internet outreach time where with three students we interacted with nearly 20 people on 4 continents who were seeking Christ in a space of 2.5 hours.

Today we made some Allergy-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies. They were great.  I got the recipe from: http://www.mothersclick.com/recipes/kid-favorites/madelines-dairy-free-nut-free-egg-free-chocolate-chip-cookies 
I had to substitute Nuttelex for the margarine, Darifree for the milk and used Gluten-Free and Soy Free flour and of course our favorite Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips as they are truly the only Jaden Safe Chocolate chips on the planet that we know. Too bad the 10oz bag costs $15 at our favorite local Allergy Food store.  I think I will try changing the sugar to all brown sugar.  When I do I think I will have varied the recipe enough to post it myself, right now just make those changes to the link and you will be good.

Summary: Normal Chocolate chip cookies would have had a food cost of $5 or less in America and these would have cost perhaps $8-$9. Here they cost us over $20 for the ingredients.  (Don’t know how often we will be able to afford these, but at least we had some good ones.)  I might try making them with some Australian made dark chocolate that is safe for Jaden to see if they still taste OK.

My wife has made some fabulous smoothies with berries and coconut milk, with some having the consistency of a good American Milkshake / Aussie Thick Shake.  But today we made our first batch of a more traditional tasting Chocolate Ice Cream.  We have some adjustments to do to get it just right but so far it is modified from other recipes we found on the net.  Here it is:

3 Cups Vance’s Food Darifree
1/2 Cup powered Sugar (I wanted it to dissolve faster)
1/4 Cup  granulated Sugar
1 1/2  tsp  GF Vanilla
3/4 Cup Cocoa
1 tsp Sunflower oil (Darifree is like Skim Milk so this was added for fat)

First I made the Darifree according to label directions with cold water in the Blender with lots of leftover for another try in a couple of days or for other cooking.  I think next time I will  use warm water to make the Darifree and then cool it in the fridge overnight.  Then I put all of the ingredients above into a blender.  After it was well blended I added it to a 1.25L/5 Cup Ice Cream maker.  It took about 30 minutes to freeze and then we scooped it out and put it in the freezer to finish hardening.

Analysis: It needs MORE fat and less cocoa.  We will probably use some Coconut milk next time for more fat. Typically we use some Coconut Milk with Rice Milk such as when making Mashed Potatoes to get the right fat content. But I don’t want to use Rice Milk for this as I just think the Darifree is more like the taste of Cow Milk and I will get a bit more picky with my ice cream. I LOVE Homemade ice cream and have grown up on the stuff.  We used to make Homemade Ice Cream in Florida at least once a week a few years ago and have really missed it in the past 3 years.

We probably would have made some ice cream earlier, but we really don’t have much room in the freezer to store the ice cream maker container and just happened to have some room lately.  We really need to get a larger fridge/freezer here.

What does Jaden say: Well he liked it until it melted. It just was melting too fast for him. But all of the family thought it was good though a little too much cocoa in it.

My neice got married an hour ago.  To that we say CONGRATULATIONS..

We were planning on “attending” via Skype to celebrate with them from 9000+ miles away. We wanted to hear my nephew sing and watch all of the beauty and stuff and in general just celebrate with them.  We had tested the connection on Tuesday Night (USA)/Wed Morn (Aus) and things looked good.  Friday night (USA) a storm blew through and knocked out the Internet connection at the church.  Ugggh.  No internet = no Skype.

My cousin comes to the rescue with his cell phone.  Unfortunately the USA cells are not 3.5G (especially in Berne). I think we were getting less that 50K connection. We missed all of the pre-service music and the first 20 minutes of the service.  BUT we did see three 8 minute or so blocks of the wedding and post wedding crowd dismissal from the sanctuary.  The first was the ring placement, then a bit of my nephew singing (no audio) and then the pronoucement of man and wife.

While we couldn’t be there, it was still worth staying up the night to see a glimpse. Now it is time to go back to sleep for a little bit. (6am)

Well I did it.  I ate an entire meal with just Chopsticks. First time in my life.  We took Karlissa out for her birthday on Saturday to a musical with a friend and afterwards went out to eat at a Chinese Restaurant. I couldn’t let 2 – 11-12 year olds show me up too much. On Sunday Crystal bought us some chopsticks to use at home when we cook stir-fry as we did on Sunday.

At AllergyBlock on Saturday, we bought some Jaden-safe Ice Cream cones made by Orgran.  Jaden had been asking for ice cream cones for some time and I just became aware of these a few weeks ago. The Gluten Free ones at the local grocery store still had some Soy in them. He has been asking for Jaden Safe Ice Cream every day since we got them. This Evening, 15 minutes before the oven incident below, I bought some Passion Fruit Sorbet made by Gelativo. After dinner I scooped some in his cone. He was so excited and happy. He ate it all up faster than I have ever seen him eat the Sorbet before.

I ate a cone too. They tasted as good as any other cake cone.  Wonderful.

Crystal just left to go out to dinner with several American women. I was home with the kids eating dinner while something was in the oven. We heard a pop and the lights dimmed. We heard another and the lights dimmed. And then a few more. I went to the oven and saw some flashes of white light when the popping happened. I opened the door to look at the roast that we are to eat tomorrow. Another pop or two. I could see around the side of the over that there was an orange glow like from a flame and there was several more flashes of light from whatever short was causing the fire. I told the kids what was happening and to stay in the dining room. I turned off the oven. The flames and the popping continued. I went outside and cut the power to the house.

I think the kids were a little frightened then. Anyway I could see that the orange glow was gone. I lit some candles for the girls and found a flashlight (torch) for me. I looked around and saw that the fire seemed to be gone, though there was smoke still coming from the sides of the mounted oven. I pulled out the fuse to the oven and restored power. I made a call to the property manager, and pulled out the oven from its place and pulled the plug. The flames and the short had been where the plug enters the oven.

Praise God we were home at the time and not having a roast cooking while we were at church or dance class or something like that. Or just Praise God it didn’t happen while I was at the store just 15-30 minutes earlier getting some more food for dinner while the oven was on and Crystal and the kids were home without me.

Wow. I used a Bomgar box this week to provide remote support to someone. This box is incredible. It is much more than simple remote control. I could not only see the persons screen but could delve into more technical details of their system. In one instance I was helping someone with a computer problem in Sydney with me in Melbourne. I was more effective and efficient. Got their problem solved in less than 30 minutes which could easily taken an hour without this tool. I have used different tools over the years to see someone’s screen. This by far was the best. If you do tech support you should check it out. http://www.bomgar.com/ (And no I receive no compensation for my opinion or words. It was just too cool to not share.)