Sauteed Cabbage

I'm posting this simple recipe because, well, it's amazing. I keep making it over and over because I can't get enough of it. You can see the same recipe here. The coconut oil really makes this dish sublime. I've used green cabbage, red cabbage and brussels sprouts and they all turn out great.

1/2 head cabbage, washed, cored and thinly sliced
2 tsp. coconut oil, plus more as needed
salt and pepper to taste

Heat a skillet over medium-low heat (I like using cast iron). Add the coconut oil - when that has melted, add the cabbage. Saute about 10 minutes, or until slightly wilted. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Saute another 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until the cabbage is lightly caramelized. Serve hot. Makes 2 servings for cabbage-lovers.

We have Moved - Finally!

At last, we are in our new house. It took two weeks to pack, a weekend to move, days of cleaning, and many more days of unpacking await. But we are in our new place, the girls are settled in, I have internet again, and I am completely wiped out. I am more tired than tired. And I ache all over. Moving on the cheap is exhausting. Next time, I'll hire someone to do it for me. Not that I want there to be a next time anytime soon!

Today I let the girls play on the playground and I told them "Mommy is sitting right here on this bench to watch you. I will not get up to push you on the swings. Sorry kiddos, but I'm beat. Go play." And they did. Anna pushed Megan on the swing and they had fun. See what happens when I tell it like it is? They rise to the occasion...Anna gets to be Big Sister and Megan asks sweetly for her help. I don't always have to hover, and I'm thankful for that!

One Week and Counting...

...before we move. There are boxes taking over the dining room. Every other room is mostly empty, save for furniture. Tomorrow I tackle the girls' room to take down the decorations and pack up the toys. They are taking it really well. I have not done much in the kitchen, it's mostly packed and a pain to cook in now. I baked and then froze three loaves of bread which we are slowly working through, and we make treks to Whole Foods when needed. I'm ready to pack up the linens and bring out the sleeping bags. All we need now is a mess kit and to light the charcoal grill. It's kind of fun, in a way, to see what you can do without.

Part of me thinks the girls might be enjoying the process, but mostly I think they are looking forward to getting a pet after we move. Yes, I promised them a cat. Megan wants to name our future cat Cracker, Anna wants to name it Cinnamon. I vote for Ginger or Mace, depending on the gender. Or Cardinal Fang (we have the comfy chair!). But I think with two little girly girls in the house, we'll end up with a cutesy name. Although, we might end up with a Hobbes since the girls have recently raided DH's stack of comic books!

Box Village

This is Anna's "Box Village" about a week ago (this picture shows only a third of the boxes we've got laying around now). I had them stacked up in one corner of the living room when Anna proceeded to take them down, one by one, and line them up across the room. Normally that would make this Type A Neat Freak a little crazy, but I let her do it figuring she was getting some sensory input that was good for her - lifting and throwing and carrying boxes can be a lot of work for someone with hypotonia. I love how the picture shows the boxes in neat rows, just like she used to line up her books at age two. Not that I miss that too much, but some of the memories over time grow fond on their own.

Another sensory activity Anna has engaged in since empty boxes came into the house is playing in foam peanuts. She doesn't just play in them, she lounges in them. She digs in and buries herself, she lets the peanuts run through her fingers, she throws them in the air and lets them fall down around her - all with a look of complete bliss on her face. I think a therapy room full of foam peanuts would do her a lot of good, but for now she's making do with a box.

I didn't think moving with AS would be a lot of fun, but I can see the pleasure Anna is taking in the process and that's making me feel less apprehensive about it.

Megan, on the other hand, is a creature all her own. She's almost 5 years old and has turned into a pill, replete with arguing, whining and baby talk. My mom tells me this is typical 5 year old behavior, but what do I know? I didn't get typical the first time around! Add to this the trauma and anxiety she's clearly feeling about moving and life with Megan has been a lot of work lately. I'll be glad when the move is finished and we can settle in our new place...two weeks to go!

Good Day at the Park

I've documented before how I hate the park and how I don't like bringing the girls all by myself. I see a lot, and there are some things I'd rather not see. I need a break, you know? So DH usually brings the girls to the park, and he's really stepped up. He takes all sorts of opportunities to get Anna to interact with kids on the playground. He coaches her on what to say and tells her how important it is to make eye contact. It's taken some time, but she's finally gaining some confidence and is willing to throw herself into the outskirts of whatever mix of children are on the playground.

This week is spring break and I'm home with the girls all week. We have play dates scheduled for every day this week, except today and Friday, and today we're without a car. So I took the girls to the park this morning. They loved it, of course. And now that they are old enough to run around and make their own fun, and aside from pushing Megan on the swing, I can sit back and watch them. Most of the kids were younger, but there were two sisters there, one about Anna's age and the other a couple of years older. The older one kept eyeing Anna to see if she'd be open to being approached. They did this little dance of looking at one another before turning away to do their own thing, but I could see that Anna was aware of the girl's interest and I could tell she was interested too. It helped that they shared a name, so every time the younger sister called out "Anna!", my Anna perked up and looked their way.

Finally, the younger sister ran over to her parents excited about just losing a tooth. The parents and older sister made a big deal out it, which caught Anna's interest since she herself has four loose teeth. When the sisters came back to the play equipment, Anna met them and told them her name was Anna too, and she also has loose teeth. The girls were excited and wanted her to wiggle her teeth for them. Anna did a good job with eye contact. Her body was turned slightly away so that is something we'll have to work on. The girls broke up to play on the slides and after a couple of minutes Anna came running over to me.

"Mommy! I made new friends and I wasn't even shy!"

"Anna, that's great! Good job not being shy!"

We left shortly thereafter, partly because it was nearly lunchtime but mostly because I wanted Anna to take this positive experience with her, fresh in her mind and surrounded by good feelings. Now she has good memory from her morning at the park where she approached someone all by herself, without prompting or coaching. She did it by herself and got positive feedback. Now that's what I call a good time at the park.

Shout-out for Butternut Hash Browns

Heal~Balance~Live is a great blog full of great recipes - not all casein free, but all gluten free and all interesting. I pop over on a regular basis to check out recipes that are safe for us, such as these amazing looking Butternut Hash Browns. Yum! I can't wait to make them. There's no chance my girls will eat these, so I don't have to worry about the egg in them. Anyway, I keep trying to leave comments on the recipes I like but for some reason, neither Firefox nor Explorer will let me! Firefox won't give me the option and Explorer keeps crashing on me. I'm soooo frustrated by this state of affairs and it's lasted for months (DH, if you are reading this, please help!). I can't leave any comments on any blogs, grrr. So I just wanted to quickly shout out to HBL - this recipe rocks. Thanks for sharing it!

GFCF Egg-Free Sandwich Bread for the Bread Machine

Up until now, I've been baking Megan's egg-free bread in the oven. It's been turning out great and it feels a little quaint, which I like. And I thought - why mess with something that is working? I've also been making two different breads - one for Megan, and one in the bread machine for the rest of the family that has eggs in it. For some odd reason I thought this was easier and cheaper, but it's neither.

Last week Megan's bread ran out and there was only the eggy bread left, and then I got sick. Actually the whole family got sick, everyone but Megan. We were so sick, all we did was sleep and poor Megan was left to fend for herself. It was all I could do to drag myself into the kitchen and make her some toast. Yes, eggy toast. I can't believe I'm admitting that, but it's true. In one day she had 4 slices of eggy toast, and all I could do was think through a sick haze "it's not going to kill her". It didn't, and her eczema seemed to be okay, but that is the last time I do something like that. Now, it's egg-free bread for everyone in the house.

Thankfully everyone likes this new egg-free bread. And thankfully, it turns out great in the bread machine. Actually it turns out better in the bread machine than it does in the oven. I guess that's what I get for being all grandma-ly and shunning the bread machine for no good reason. Oh Breadman Pro, how I love thee. Thou dost make great gluten-free, egg-free bread. Forgive me for ever thinking otherwise!

2 1/2 cups GF flour blend (see guide here - I use Bob's Red Mill All Purpose GF Flour Blend)
2 tsp. xanthan gum
1 tsp. salt

5 tbsp. gelatin egg substitute
1 cup warm water
3 tbsp. canola oil
2 tbsp. honey
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar

2 tsp. rapid rise yeast

Sift together the flour through the salt, set aside.

Pour the gelatin egg substitute, warm water, oil, honey and vinegar into the bread machine pan. Pour the flour mixture over the water mixture, covering the water mixture completely. Add the yeast on top of the flour. Set the bread machine to the gluten-free setting, medium crust. Help the mixing with a spatula. When the machine has stopped kneading (this takes about 20 minutes in the Breadman Pro), take out the kneading paddle and smooth the top of the loaf with your fingers. Replace the lid and let the bread machine do its thing.

Immediately after the baking cycle has finished, turn the bread out of the bread pan onto a wire rack to cool completely. Do not be tempted to cut a warm slice of bread from the loaf or it will gum up on you. After the bread has cooled completely, slice and store on the countertop for up to two days. After two days, store in the refrigerator.

GFCF Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies (Vegan)

I am slowly embracing gluten-free vegan baking. Each time I turn out something edible, I feel like doing a little dance. So far I'm able to scaffold off of what others have done, but I'm not yet able to wing it myself. I tried to make my Snickerdoodles egg free and they turned out fairly terrible. I don't know how the kids ate them, but they did. Kudos to them.

Today I made chocolate chip bar cookies. The original recipe can be found here at Gluten Free Goddess. I tweaked a couple of the ingredients and was very happy with the end result. These bar cookies are really yummy. I almost had to beat the kids back with a stick to save a few for DH. Just kidding. But they are really good!

The changes I made to the original recipe are:

used 2 cups GF flour blend
used 1 1/2 tsp. guar gum instead of xanthan gum
added another 1/4 tsp. baking powder
cut back the brown sugar to 1 cup
replaced Egg Replacer with applesauce
used 1/4 cup rice milk instead of 5 - 6 tbsp.
decreased the vanilla extract to 2 teaspoons
added 1 cup Enjoy Life chocolate chips
added 1/2 cup walnut meal

I baked the bars in an 8x11 inch baking dish for about 30 minutes, or until the bars got puffy and then fell in the center, leaving raised edges. The bars should feel firm to the touch, not spongy, and a toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean. The bars should be cooled completely before removing from the pan, and they should be cut with a very sharp knife, preferably serrated. Depending on how big you make them, you can get 16 - 20 bars from a pan sized 8x11. Then grab a bar for yourself before you blink and they are all gone!

We're Moving!

Okay, here it is - the reason I've been so quiet lately is that...we are moving! I've been looking and planning and running around like a crazy person, and in three weeks we'll be making our move. I'll try to keep recipes coming, but it might be sparse for a few weeks. Sorry - please bear with me!

So over Christmas break, we had our place painted. Anna went absolutely nuts. She obsessed over the furniture being displaced, the stuff being off the walls, the strange people in our house, the paint smell, the fact that we were out of the house all day for two days straight. The change in routine was just too much for her, and that was one of the reasons why we walked on ASD's Dark Side for a week before Christmas. Once everything was back in its place, Anna settled down. I've been dreading this move because if just a couple of days of painting pushed Anna over the edge, what would packing up and moving house provoke?

Well I have a really terrific friend who is brilliant and intuitive and works with kids like Anna. She recently moved to a new place and offered to walk Anna and Megan through it, to help them feel at ease with the coming transition. We went to her empty old place. My friend had the girls pack little boxes, vacuum dust bunnies and say goodbye to the old place. Then we went to her new place. The girls unpacked their little boxes and put the old familiar things in their new spots. My friend talked about how all your old stuff goes to the new house. We had a picnic dinner on the floor around the coffee table. It was fun and it got the girls excited about our move.

Now instead of dreading our move, I'm looking forward to it. The girls are excited and already packing up their belongings. I'm crossing my fingers, but I think it will be okay. It might be bumpy for a bit, but hopefully it will be an adventure to relish instead of a nightmare. Wish us luck!

Natural Food Colorings

I've gotten a couple of requests for dye-free frosting. Here I'm going to show you what beet and red cabbage can do!

To use beet juice as food coloring, roast some beets in a little bit of water, about 1/2 cup. Save the brilliant red beet juice. A little bit makes a light pink frosting, a lot makes a dark fuschia frosting.

To use red cabbage as a food coloring, boil half a red cabbage in a little bit of water...the less water you use the more color you will get. Save the cabbage water, it will look purpley-blue. I had to use a lot of it to get a pale purple color.

Tumeric will give you a yellow color. Cooked cherries mixed with blueberries will give you a dark purple-pink color. I have not experimented beyond this...well except for trying to cook parsley but that did not give me the green color I was seeking!

I got this light pink color from beets.
The dye-free gummy stars are from Whole Foods.

I got this pale purple color from red cabbage.

Forecasting Anna's Future

Anna's individual speech therapy ended in December. Her speech therapist recommended group social skills therapy to help Anna with her pragmatic language difficulties (officially Expressive-Receptive Language Disorder, where her receptive is better than her expressive). I have been unable to find a group that suits our needs, so we've been winging it on our own for the past few months. Then the speech therapist's report came last week. In it, she said that Anna's prognosis (a term I dislike) was good as long as she practiced speech and social skills in a group therapy situation. She said without group therapy, Anna's prognosis was only "fair".

Fair. Right now, Anna's outlook is only fair. That fact was hammered home over the weekend when we took her to a birthday party at a gym. Anna stood there white as a sheet, frozen, with a panicked look on her face, unable to deal with two dozen other kids running around and making noise and being entirely unpredictable. I don't think she breathed two words to any of the kids, not even her friend the birthday girl. She couldn't wait to leave. And even over the phone Anna is different. Tonight she got on the phone with my BFF's daughter (same age) and verbally ran her over talking about strange stuff - how she can make silly faces, how she can make up silly jokes. On the other end of the phone I could hear her friend say "What are you talking about? I don't understand." Even at this age girls want to talk about girly stuff, and Anna was stuck on something random and alienating to her listener. Nevermind facial or body language cues - Anna wasn't even getting verbal cues that were signaling her to change the topic.

Until now I've focused on getting Anna to a place where she is comfortable in her own skin and able to communicate her needs effectively to others. Now the focus needs to be getting her comfortable around other people (which will increase people's comfort levels around her). If her self-esteem is going to be worth anything, she will need to socialize. She wants it, but she can't cross that barrier that prevents her from being comfortable doing it or even knowing how to do it. There may be a social skills group forming for kids her age at a university starting this summer, and I can't wait for Anna to join. I don't want her prognosis to be fair, I want it to be fantastic.

As I was thinking through all of this, I ran across Anna's preschool exit interview. Three years ago Anna made great strides in her ASD-focused preschool - I was feeling great about her progress but the preschool coordinator pulled no punches. She told me how it was and how it was going to be for the foreseeable future, right through middle school (and probably beyond). I think I've blocked it out the past couple of years, not wanting to believe it would be as difficult for Anna as the coordinator said. But she was right. It will be hard, for a long time. Hard for Anna personally and as she grows older, hard for us to watch it be hard for her.

Below are the notes I took during that exit interview, 3 years ago. I'm surprised by how much of it is still spot-on to this day. And I'm feeling uneasy that it most likely foretells Anna's future. I try hard to deal with reality, and I try hard to change it when I can. Right now I'm feeling hung up on what Anna's future will look like and how much hope we can glean from the outline below.

Notes from preschool exit interview, April 2007

Anna needs a nurturing environment that will recognize and understand her need for routine and her need to regulate her emotions and arousal levels.

Anna’s vocabulary is not the problem, her communication deficit is that she has a hard time generalizing language to social situations.

Anna will benefit from a speech consultation at least once a month for social stories, labeling/recognizing emotions and body language cues, and social deficits.

Anna initially benefits from seeing as well as hearing concepts but does not need to rely on picture supports. Anna is able to memorize a picture and file it away in her brain for later retrieval. Her processing time is slower than typical children her age - as she searches for the picture associated with a word that is filed away in her memory, she will take longer to respond to questions asked of her.

Anna struggles with negotiating mutual attention and will continue to struggle with this for a long time.

Anna’s continued progress depends on her being in a supportive school environment. She will probably never function well in a class of 20 children. She will need supports through elementary school and a picture schedule for the first few weeks of every new school year until she memorizes the new classroom routine.

Anna will struggle with independent work but because of the language barrier, she will not ask for help. Distractions should be kept to a minimum. Her sensitivity to visual and auditory distractions will need to be addressed, as well as her sensory needs (taking breaks for whole body movement).

As Anna is progressing in school, we need to ask: how is she functioning socially in her environment? Is she functioning well, and why? If she is functioning well and progressing academically in a supportive environment, we need to consider keeping her in a place where she functions well, instead of rushing her to mainstream – where she may not function well either academically or socially and where she may regress in language, behavior and social skills. Mainstreaming is not always the best place for every child and we need to consider that mainstreaming Anna in a large classroom may not be the best thing for her.

Anna responds to a familiar adult first, then to familiar children. She functions best in a familiar structured environment first before being able to generalize to a new situation. We need to be aware of and supportive of the hierarchy in how Anna functions in different environments.

Anna does not talk much to other children but will play with them. Talking to children is very hard for Anna. She can’t read their body language and non-verbal cues. Anna needs to be taught how to ready body language and facial expressions. She needs to be in a consistent peer group as she catches up to her peers, which will take time. It will be helpful for Anna to have a parent run commentaries on what they see people doing and what people may be feeling in different situations (like at the playground).

Anna needs cues not only to talk to other children, but also to look at them while she is talking to them. When Anna communicates, she needs a response from the communicative partner for reinforcement. Anna needs to be in as a typical environment as possible so she can learn social skills from her peers. (Anna's current LD school) will be a good environment for her as it is has typical children from whom she can learn.

End of notes

Homemade Avocado Mayonnaise

In my continuing hunt for egg-free, soy-free mayonnaise, I ran across an article in Eating Well featuring Rick Bayless and avocados. The article mentioned that avocados are a natural emulsifier, so I ran to the computer and looked up recipes for avocado mayonnaise. Then I ran to the grocery store to pick out the perfect avocado - according to Bayless a perfectly ripe avocado is not green, but pale yellow inside. I managed to find one - not too soft, a ripe avocado should only give slightly when you gently press the top. Then I ran back home to make mayonnaise based on this recipe here.


As you can see, the mayonnaise turned out looking a little bit green and having a slight avocado taste. It's pretty yummy, but like the tahini mayonnaise it has limited versatility. This mayo would be good for salad dressings and dips. The girls liked it in tuna salad - so far that is the only way they will eat avocados, so I'm happy. I think this mayonnaise experience will be like the gluten free experience - each gluten free flour has a different taste and different uses. So far it's looking like I'll have to make different mayos for different recipes. It will keep life interesting, at least. I'm going to try one more mayonnaise featuring marcona almonds, and then I'll be done with mayonnaise!

For this recipe I used canola oil. I'm finding that I just don't like olive oil in my mayonnaise. In the future I'll try experimenting with different oils, like grapeseed and pumpkin seed and avocado and hemp, but for now canola suits me fine.

2 small, ripe hass avocados
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup canola oil or extra light olive oil

Slice the avocados in half, twist and pull halves apart. Stick a sharp paring knife into the avocado pit and pull it out. I like to peel the skin off avocados but you can also scoop the flesh out with a spoon. Place the avocado flesh, lemon juice and salt into a blender or food processor and process until smooth. Scrape down the sides. With the processor running, add the canola oil in a thin stream until the mixture is creamy and smooth - do not over mix. This can be stored in the refrigerator but will be best if used within a day. Makes about 1 cup.