What a week! This past weekend was a blur, as are most of our weekends during the summer. Most of the weekend I spent running around town trying to find allergy free products for my pig fest I was planning on enjoying. As soon as I received my 2 new cookbooks in the mail, I read them like a novel and marked all the pages that I wanted to try. Needless to say, this past weekend I made zucchini bread, Pink Lemonade Tartlets, Black Bottom Blondies, a mac and cheese casserole, a ranch pasta salad and of course some chocolate chip cookies. But, on the downside, I could not find any butterscotch chips that were safe to eat. The ones I did find that did not contain milk, listed an allergy notice that they were produced in a plant with milk. This is up to the individual whether you want to take the chance. Of course, with Kevin's severe allergy, there was no chance we were going to try. I did find someone on the internet (a friend of the author of one of the cookbooks I had just received) tracked down a kosher chip that should have safer practices. I tried to contact the company, but didn't get too far, except to find out that milk isn't on that line. Oh well, maybe it's not meant to be.
In the meantime, I have many new recipes I am going to try out for this weekend. Tomorrow is our neighborhood block party. This will be the first time we will allow Kevin to be there while everyone is eating....I hope we're not sorry. He did very well this past weekend at his baseball swim party. There were many milk items there, including Doritos. This sent Ken and I into danger mode, b/c as you know, Doritos have a powdery cheese that gets on everything. Kevin did end up with a skin rash from transfer of the cheese, and his eyes started to swell. Thank the good Lord that this powder did not make it into his mouth. But, as Kevin has started to grow and learn his limitations, he knows that touching mouth is a big no-no when milk is around. After a bath, a dose of Benadryl and eye drops, he was good to go. So, we took him out to a movie....Land of the Lost. He had been wanting to see this since it had a T-Rex in it. It also had a lot of adult language, and it was only a PG movie! But, this gave us another chance to remind him that those words were not OK to repeat....a win win (<: As for the baseball party, Kevin received his trophy! He was so excited to be able to put it in his bedroom along with his other one. Now, he's already talking about soccer in the fall and where he's going to put that trophy. But, back to this weekend. Not only is it our neighborhood party, but this is the big weekend for the Home School Fair. We are going to be signing him up for first grade through Gateway Christian Academy. I can't believe my baby is going to be in first grade! I can't believe that I am going to be homeschooling him in first grade! He's excited, I'm a nervous wreck. I know we have been doing kindergarten, but this time, I am responsible for reporting weekly what we have covered along with his grades. I am going to have to be more strict, and stay on top of a more thorough schedule. It scares me that now I am going to have someone watching what I am doing. Oh well, I am trying to look at it like I'm starting a new job. I am very organized, so I'm not worried about that. But, this is going to be the most important job I have ever had, and I don't want to screw it up. So far, Kevin is doing well in his math, reading and writing. He was doing so great in his math, I thought he was cheating. I would give him 2 pages of addition and subtraction (each page had at least 15 problems), and he would have it done in less than 5 minutes! And, they were all right! I loved math in school, and Ken is a definite numbers person. Plus, my Papaw taught math in school and did taxes. So, I guess it was a given that Kevin would be able to do it. Makes my life a little easier.......YEAHHHH As for the party, I am planning on making some Mini Cheesecakes, Black & White Cookies, Red Velvet Cupcakes, and Potato Salad....all milk free of course. I will let you know how the recipes turn out. But, for today, I have my Carrot Cake recipe. I love carrot cake! If you know my mom, ask her sometime how her allergy free carrot cake turned out a few Easters ago. Let's just say, after that incident, she will no longer attempt it! We still laugh about it to this day!
Carrot Cake
1 cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
1 cup carrots, shredded
1/3 cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup water
Preheat oven to 350.
Mix sugar, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and flour together. Add carrots and stir until combined. Add oil, vanilla and water to flour mixture and stir until blended. Pour into a greased 8-inch pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or till a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let completely cool. Frost cake with Allergy Free Cream Cheese Icing.
Makes 1 single layer
Next week, I am going to post an allergy free Ranch Dressing recipe. Since going milk free, one of the hardest things to do away with was ranch. I love ranch on everything...on salads, a dip for chicken, in pasta salads, etc. After this past weekend, Kevin couldn't get enough of the Ranch Pasta Salad....so I will include some instructions for it along with the recipe too.
Oh, and as for the other things I made last week....they were all winners! And, I was shocked how well the mac and cheese casserole turned out. Did it taste like a real cheesy casserole....kind of. It reminded me of what it would taste like if you used a cheap cheese. But hey, at least it tasted like cheese. For someone who hasn't had any mac and cheese for a while, this was wonderful.....and Kevin & Ken liked it. That's the biggest compliment of all! As you know, kids don't believe in holding back with their true feelings!!!
Have a great weekend!
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