Yes, another apology!

I don't know if anyone is even coming here yet, but I feel terrible about not posting, anyway.  The problem is that I don't have a lot of free time at the moment.  I am a "temp" office worker, and I have a couple more months until my 2013 contract is up for the winter.  I should be off for a few months, if I can be financially stable without a job during that time; then I start over at the same office mid-January 2014.  If our expenses outweigh our savings, I'll have to look for another temp job during the down time from my regular temp job!

Another reason that I've been absent from posting, I hate to admit--I finally had to undergo gall bladder removal surgery.  I developed acute pancreatitis from having let my bad gall bladder go for so long without treatment.  Had I started eating "clean" much earlier in life, I may have been able to avoid the ailment altogether.  

I already have plans for my down-time, but please keep in mind that I have a rambunctious two year old who will be home with me during that time.  He needs his mom, so I'm going to be "working" on the blog and recipe testing at home around his schedule.

I have amassed quite a few delicious-sounding recipes from Pinterest, but most need alteration in order to become allergy-friendly recipes.  I plan on creating a test-kitchen, and being my own guinea pig (although the family will have to help out with that, too).  Once I'm able to get the ball rolling, I will be posting my results.  For now, you can expect a few recipes here and there as time allows.

I'm currently making a wish list of new cooking items to replace my non-allergy-friendly recipe stuff with.  I have read in multiple places that you can't use cookware for allergy-free foods if it has previously been used with allergenic ingredients--no matter how well it's been washed.

Pre-made foods are terribly expensive in comparison to home-made components; so I'm buying myself a pasta maker to test out some allergy-friendly pasta recipes.  I haven't tried any allergy-friendly breads in the past few years, but those that I tried years ago (2007-ish) were TERRIBLE.  So, I'll be buying things to make all of my own breads, too.  I'm not sure that I'll go to the expense of a bread-maker just yet; but new baking pans are a good start.
In addition, I will be tackling all of our other non-natural family staples.  We have a very picky family, so our less-obvious staples are:  

• chocolatey breakfast things for me (mmmm--all natural cacao "energy ball" recipe)

•  faux "Kool Aid" for my younger two sons (cool herbal tea with fruit juices--alternating with filtered water flavored only with mint leaves or fruit slices)

•  chips made of sliced baked veggies without oil or salt (maybe even some cinnamon apple chips)

•  healthy snack crackers, dips and spreads

• fruit leathers and gummies made without sugar or syrups

 My oldest son has come to love Pop-Tarts (thank you school breakfast program, for giving them absolute crap as a choice), so I plan on making him a healthy alternative with a gluten free tart base, and organic naturally sweetened jam.

My goal is for our menu to be gluten free, sugar free (at least refined sugar), GMO free, additive free, and almost entirely cow's milk free.  I am looking into "alternative" cheeses and hoping to find some tasty options; but still plan on buying GMO free/additive free natural butter.  We eat a lot more cheese, than we do butter.  We only have one milk-drinker in the household so that should be a fairly easy switch for him, and there are certainly good alternatives for cooking purposes.

We are going to try our hand at growing our own veggies and herbs, and sticking to buying organic fruits.  Growing fruit trees isn't easy where we live, or we'd be doing that, too.  Vine fruits like strawberries, grapes, tomatoes, and peppers are easy, we'll definitely grow our own with those.  There will be times when we'll have to buy organic when we're out of season, but I would like to grow as much as we can during the warmer months.

What I wouldn't give for fruit trees (including avocado) and olive trees!  Honestly, reading about the arsenic levels in packaged rice scares me too, and makes me wish that I could grow my own.  Throw in some nut trees, tea shrubs, chickpea and peanut plants, and I'd rarely need to go grocery shopping.

I have also considered making almond milk, but it seems that my youngest may have an irritable reaction to nuts, so I'll have to consider coconut milk instead...and will probably be buying that rather than milking my own organic coconuts.

We're also going to be pre-made free.  I'm going to make all of our "mixes" and "bases" from real, whole food ingredients--and I'm faithfully considering making our own condiments and dressings as well.  The fewer things that I have to pick up at the store, the better!

Besides, a good friend gave me an awesome home-made catsup recipe, and I found an equally good-sounding BBQ sauce recipe to try.  Mustard may be a tad more difficult, but I'm willing to give it a shot.  As for worchestershire, soy, and pepper sauces...I will just have to research the brands that I currently buy, and see if they're the most wholesome ones out there, or if there are better alternatives.

Once I have all of our staples under control, I may even try my hand at canning, and I plan on buying a vacuum sealing tool so that I can make some Mason jar salads.  Those look SO good, and I tend to be lazy when it comes to making a salad in a hurry.  I am bad and just skip it and eat something else, instead.

Update to "You Are Not Abandoned!"

While I realize that I have yet to have any "followers", I still feel badly for those of you who have found this blog through a search engine, in hopes of finding recipes for the "Six Food Elimination Diet".  It is still my intention to post recipes as I find them.  When I researched it myself, I realized how few sites there were out there, that cater to such a diet.  My intention was to change that--to add at least one that was well-kept and updated as frequently as life allows.

As I stated in my previous post, it turns out that my son does not need to follow the "-6" diet.  However, there have been a lot of factors in our lives over the years, that have led me to where I am today--seriously studying what we eat, and working on changing it.

That also led me to change the name of this blog to reflect allergy diets and clean eating in general.  I am a 40 year old mother of three, who grew up eating mostly processed foods.  Both of my parents had to have their gall bladders removed, and, for the last six months, I have experienced sometimes excruciating pain that seems to also be gall bladder related.  Over the last few years, I have changed the way that I eat, but I still use a lot of processed ingredients.  Experiencing these bouts of intense pain has been a real eye-opener for me.  Processed foods of ANY sort, are simply no longer acceptable, according to my digestive system.

I haven't been blogging, because I've been reading other people's clean eating blogs, canning blogs, gardening blogs, and allergy diet blogs.  I've been pinning my little heart out on Pinterest.  What I also have not been doing, is following any of those pins or blogs in real life.  Meaning, I have the info, but I have not been putting it to good use.  That needs to change, says my body.  My brain and willpower beg to differ--how could that beautifully iced tiny little cupcake hurt?  Half a bottle of Starbucks cappuccino!  Just HALF!  Body says NO WAY.  After of course, I chose to eat and drink it anyway, and then suffered for it.  So, here I am.  Not ready to change, but needing to anyway.

Other factors that have led me to the need to change; well, I'll be honest.  One of my sons exhibits major ADHD behaviors, and another has been diagnosed with "moderate autism", to the point that he is unfortunately, non-verbal at the age of 11.5 years.  I did a lot of research in the past, regarding the diagnoses of my children, and of course, I tried the "GFCF diet".  I will even shamefully admit, it worked very well for my 11.5 year old--to the point that he was able to actually speak to me, if only just once.  Why try it again if it only worked once, you ask?  Because I am sure that if we had been able to actually keep following the diet, it could have done wonders for him.  Unfortunately, when his father and I were still married, he was completely against it and continued to feed him gluten-laden processed foods like round buttery crackers (I can't say the name, you know it well), and the very common chocolate-with-white-creme sandwich cookies.

I vowed that once I became a single mom, I would begin the GFCF diet for myself and my children again.  I've been a single mom for about a year and a half, and have yet to do that.  Granted, we lived with other family members for over a year, and they were not interested in the diet, and we were not in the financial position to make two meals for each time that we ate.  Now that we are out on our own, and I control both the menu and the grocery list, I am finally able to restart the diet, and hopefully change my family for the better.

We need to eliminate gluten and casein, refined sugar, and artificial everything.  I eliminated HFCS long ago, and we've been successful in staying away from that.  I lost 20 lbs from that alone, how scary is that thought??  Never let anyone tell you that HFCS isn't bad for your body, and does not influence your weight!

Now, I personally am not allowed to consume red meat, citrus, eggs, corn, nuts, and caffeine in addition to the above.  I think that it's going to be harder for me than it is for my boys.

Another reason that I want to change the way we eat, is that I want to avoid genetically modified foods, and produce grown with pesticides.  While I won't be slaughtering my own pigs or chickens anytime soon, I am being more conscious about the meats that I buy.  I don't currently have a garden, but I have one planned.  We will be moving again sometime soon (hopefully), and I will be able to have a regular garden, as opposed to the container garden that I had initially planned.

Overall, I intend to make my own mixes and flavorings, in addition to growing whatever produce I possibly can.  There aren't any health food stores in our town, so I am going to have to do some bulk shopping in a larger city a few times a month, in order to get the GFCF ingredients that I will need.  It's going to take a lot of trial-and-error as far as experimenting with substitutions goes, but I really will track my progress here.  I only hope that it helps others as much as it helps my family.