Wednesday, May 27, 2009

What's A Working Mom To Do?

No, seriously...What? How do you people do this? I used to be offended by the term
"working
mom" when I was a "stay at home mom" because I felt like it implied that those of us staying home weren't "working", but I realize now that there is a difference. Now I have my full time job at home AND I have to spend 9 hours away from home too. I have no time to cook, much less create recipes and write about them. So anyway, I came home from work the other day, Emily was hungry, and I had nothing prepared. This is how it went down...
Open the fridge... "hmmm let's see, we have some leftover steamed broccoli from last night, here's some white rice from the Chinese take out we had on Sunday, and a block of Emily's cheese...cool, cheesy broccoli rice!" So I melted about 1/4 of the block of cheese with 1 tablespoon of margarine in the microwave. I threw in some salt, pepper, onion powder, and a little nutritional yeast for good measure. I added the broccoli that I had chopped up, and the rice, and stirred it all up, then threw it back in the microwave for another minute. Voila, dinner! Technically a side dish really, I did give her a hot dog too for protein.
I just want to take a moment to tell all of you parents out there dealing with food allergies how amazing you are. Weather you are a mom or dad, working outside the home or not, weather you are creating recipes or researching allergy blogs and cookbooks, constantly reading and interpreting labels, always with your child's health foremost in your mind (and those of you doing this for yourselves too) every one of you is a hero! My thoughts go out to you today and I am sending you all a great big virtual allergen free hug!!!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Life Changes

Not much cooking going on this month, as I am working part time now and we are looking to buy a house, not to mention having to show this one. I actually broke down and spent $5.00 a box for Amy's Kids Meals Baked Ziti (my links aren't working so I'm going to do this the long way... http://www.amys.com/products/category_view.php?prod_category=20 ) Emily LOVES these. As far as I know this is the only Amy's Kids Meal that is vegan and gluten free, but it does have almonds, sunflower seeds, and soy. It's a little rice pasta in red sauce with soy cheese, broccoli, gluten free faccocia, and a little apple crisp. It is yummy! My 13 year old will be babysitting Emily while I work so I am going to have to have a lot of quick and easy (probably frozen) meals on hand. It may be time for ME to call on all those wonderful allergen free mommy blogs out there!!! So anyway...we haven't found a house yet but we are renting right now and the owner is selling this house, so the move is imminent. I am very slowly starting to clean house and pack up things that we really don't need out. This poster has been hanging on my wall for a year now, Emily made it in kindergarten. I just love it so much, everything about it! I love the artwork, her design and choice of colors, but of course I also love her awareness of her allergies. It is posted on there, in my opinion, with a sense of pride. It is time for the poster to come down now, but it is definitely going in her memory box! :)