Sorbet Calories and “Houston, We Have a Hot Dog"

So, we have thoroughly enjoyed the sorbet that we made out of our few ingredients from my last post.  The great thing about the sorbets that we made is that you can even have them for breakfast.  My oldest son, Gabriel, is taking the STAAR test at school today (Go Gabriel!), and they told the children to make sure they ate a good breakfast.  So I made him eggs with just a touch of non-dairy margarine and then gave him a small bowl of our “ice cream” so that he could have some fruit with his breakfast.  He was in hog heaven.  I made sure to ask him, “How many of your friends do you think get to have ice cream for breakfast?”  His reply was, of course, none.  But that’s one of the awesome things about making your own foods, is that you know what goes into them and can judge for yourself whether or not to let your kids have a “super treat” at an odd time of day.

I did a rough calorie estimation for the banana ice cream this morning.  Assuming that each banana was 75 calories and a 1/2 cup of honey was 515 and there are eight servings total in the mix, it comes out to right at 130 calories PER CUP of our homemade sorbet.  Dieters, start your engines, this is a food for you.  OMG, I think I just did math.  In fact, it’s even worse, it’s one of those stupid word math questions like, “if person A you don’t give a crap about left Baltimore on a train going X miles per hour...” AAAHHHH!

Okay, let’s be done with math.  (shudders)


Hot Doggit

Last night, we decided that we wanted to have hot dogs, you know, the food of champions?  Well, the great news is, we can still have them.  So we bought some kosher hot dog links, which means there can be no milk ingredients in them, some non-dairy wheat buns and turkey chili.  Then, we put our favorite new “cheese” product on top, Daiya.  They were FANTASTIC.  Putting that cheese on there is SO much like going to a James Coney Island and having one of their dogs with the American cheese on top.  MMM, missed it so much until yesterday.  Sorry, James, your day in the sun is over, now we’re on to Hebrew National.  Not the healthiest dinner ever, but at least we had vegetables and fruit with dinner.

We continue to have good luck with almond, soy and coconut milks for dinner with the children, which is a positive, so they continue to get their vitamins that way.

Last, But Not Least...
We’re slowly, but surely, making our way up to having most of the kinds of foods that we had before we were thrown into non-dairy-land, level 1-1.  We do seem to see a gaping hole in the non-dairy recipe market for normal, everyday recipes that kids will actually want to eat.  Maybe there’s a cookbook in our future?

Mooove Over Ice Cream.. here comes the Sorbet

Ice cream is a funny thing.  When you can have it, you want more of it.  When you can't have it, you want it.  I guess, no matter what, you generally want ice cream.

With dairy allergies, we've had to leave ice cream behind, though we can still enjoy sorbets and "alternative" ice "creams."

Today, we made two attempts at making our own version of "ice cream" and we totally hit it out of the park.

Usually ice creams are made up of milk fats (solids and non solids), sweeteners, stabilizers and water.  Well today we made our own version of ice cream with only three ingredients.  That's right, two.  Well, four if you count air.

This "cream" has a banana base and is incredibly easy to make.  We'll get the kids' help next time we do it, but this time we just wanted to get the ingredients in and figure out exactly how to make it work.

Banana Sorbet
Our first product is basically bananas and honey.  Yup, that's it.  That's all you need to make an absolutely scrumptious sorbet that will have your tongue bashing your brains out trying get more.  Here's what to do:

Ingredients:
2 overripe bananas
6 regular "yellow" bananas
1/2 c local honey
1/2 tsp real vanilla
Food Processor
Ice Cream maker

Directions:
Take your 6 bananas and put them into a food processor until smooth.  They will take on a light batter-like appearance.  Add your 1/2 cup of honey until fully incorporated.  Put in the fridge to cool for about 30-40 minutes.  Add all ingredients to your ice cream maker and churn until semi-frozen.  Add to freezer.  You're done.

When you take this out of the freezer, you will instantly notice that the texture of the sorbet is very similar to ice cream.  Eerily so, in fact.  This recipe makes just under a half gallon of sorbet.  You'll want to store it in an airtight container to keep the consistency even.

My youngest son actually asked if he could completely finish the 1/4 gallon container.  We said no, though we did give him extra.  My other son liked it, but he said he enjoyed this next recipe even better.  All the adults were absolutely enamored with this particular recipe.  Overall, my "panel of judges" gives this particular recipe a perfect score.

My Moo Rating:

Strawberry Peach Banana
This next recipe came directly on the heels of the first one, as we already had the equipment out and dirty and didn't really need any cleanup between the two recipes.  This one is almost as simple as the first, though the results are completely different.

Ingredients:
1/3 c banana sorbet (as seen above) as a stabilizer
1 16oz bag frozen peaches
1 16oz bag frozen strawberries
    (fresh fruit in any case would be great)
1/2 c + 2TBps local honey
Food Processor
Ice Cream Maker

Directions:
Take your banana sorbet starter, peaches, strawberries and honey and blend until incorporated.  Because our fruits were frozen, it actually took on a sorbet-like consistency almost immediately.  Add all ingredients to the ice cream maker and churn until semi-frozen.  Place in freezer until serving time.  Enjoy.

This batch of sorbet actually has a much lighter, fluffier texture than the aforementioned banana one, and is very different, though extremely enjoyable.  We'd rate this one as excellent, though we might make some slight adjustments to the recipe next time we make it.

My Moo Rating:



The great thing about both of these recipes is, I know EXACTLY what my family is getting in their bodies because the ingredient list is almost nonexistent.  You could probably even substitute your own favorite fruits to make exactly what you want.  Next time we'll be

Have you tried this recipe?  Did you like it?  Did you make changes?  Let us know in the comments section.

Chicken, Cereal and the Dreaded Milk Monster

Okay, so one of the first things we started doing was researching what blogs and resources we could find that would help our family.  Fortunately for us, there’s a lot of them out there.  Unfortunately, there’s a lot of them out there.  So I’m culling through them, seeing what sticks, weeding out what doesn’t, and creating a blog roll that we can have as a go-to-resource for awesome information and recipes.

One of the other weird things we’re finding out is just HOW MANY PRODUCTS on the shelves of our local store have milk in them.  I knew when this started that we would have trouble going to restaurants, as you can’t control what they make their food with.  That problem was easy enough,  I just use my outgoing superpowers and go talk to the managers to find out what doesn’t have milk/butter/cheese/lactose/satan in it.  But worse is going to your local supermarket expecting to find products that are clearly marked, only to find out that there are exactly 1,856,934 ways to say “milk products.”

Let’s play a little game.  Which of the following products has milk in it?

Milk

Ice Cream

Fresh Chicken

Breakfast Sausage

Canned Tuna Fish

Ice cream

Eggo Waffles

NutriGrain Bars

Is it: a) none of the above
        b) less than half
        c) more than half
        d) ALL OF THE ABOVE

If you answered anything other than D, you’re wrong.  Every single item that I listed there has milk in it, in some form or fashion.  Sure, you can buy versions of those products that don’t have milk in them, but it’s still shocking to think that typical brands of these products sitting on store shelves today use milk or milk products to make their items “creamier,” “more plump,” “fresher-looking,” “longer-lasting,” or, my personal favorite, “tastier.”

Really?  Do we really think that adding milk to tuna fish is going to make it better or tastier?  What, does it cut the taste of the fish out of the can of fish?  Do we honestly think that adding a cow to a fish is somehow going to get us something other than a fish dish?  Really, great marketing, guys.  Way to go.

Shopping takes three times longer when you have a food allergy in the house, but it’s totally worth it to make sure my boys act like little boys again.  God bless their sweet little hearts.  I’m finding that I feel better, too.

I thought it was strange a few years ago when I felt like God was telling me to go “paleo.”  It seemed odd at the time, and I adopted the bathing portion of the paleo idea.  Little did I know he was trying to tell me to change how we ate as well.

Oh, yeah, the cereal part of the post title.  So, obviously, we changed milk brands to drinking almond milk.  It’s wonderful.  But I have to say my favorite change so far has to be the vanilla flavored almond milk with breakfast cereal.  A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.  Definitely the best change so far.  Definitely, definitely.  It makes the cereal explode with flavor in your mouth.  Try it, definitely try it.