Wheat Free, Egg Free, Dairy Free Pancakes

I'm so happy this morning! We have pancakes almost every Sunday morning. I used to use the boxed stuff and it was very good (and super easy).

Then my son's diet restrictions came into place and we had to find an egg free, wheat free version and I finally found one. It was so good that my husband said we should never go back to the boxed stuff, even if we could. Then, my son's diet changed again... now no milk or barley, but wheat was ok. I modified my wheat free, egg free recipe but for some reason it was no longer working, so I've been on the hunt for a new replacement. Let me share my recipes with you!

I found this first recipe online from a vegan website but changed it a bit to be wheat free, and it still works great. Very tastey and thick pancakes. These are the ones my husband made the comment about loving so much.


Wheat Free, Egg Free Pancakes

1 cup oat flour
1 cup barley flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp oil
1 1/2 cups milk
2/3 cup carbonated water (more as needed)
chocolate chips, blueberries, etc. as desired

Mix dry and liquid ingredients separately. Then combine. Fry on pan and serve. For thicker pancakes, use less liquid, for thinner pancakes, use more liquid.


So then my son's diet changed. He could no longer have barley or milk in his diet. I tried the above recipe with Rice milk and used 100% wheat flour but they turned out flat and sticky. I'm not sure exactly why. So I went on the internet and found about 5 recipes to try. They are all similar and some were better than others, but they weren't great.

I have to say that I'm not a baker by any means. I barely passed chemistry so I have no clue how the ingredients in these recipes react with each other. I just started trying to combine some of the recipes to see what would happen. I am also suspicious of the 365 (Whole Foods brand) 100% wheat flour. It seems to have a different consistency than the oat and barley flour I was using. It's much more fine and mixes kind of goopey. So maybe that's why the simple substitutions didn't work. Anyway....

After many stacks of pancakes later, and a lot of frustration, I found a complete winner this morning! Here is what I did and hopefully you can recreate it. They tasted super delicious and they were so fluffy that cutting through a short stack of 3 pancakes was like cutting into a little pillow!


Egg Free, Dairy Free Pancakes

2 cups 100% wheat flour
2 tbsp sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups Rice Milk
1/2 cup carbonated water, more if needed to thin
4 tbsp vegetable oil
Optional dairy free chocolate chips, blueberries, etc. as desired

Sift together dry ingredients. Add oil, milk and then the carbonated water. Mix together. Thin if needed with more carbonated water. Pour batter on pan with medium heat. Flip when the edges appear to be drying. Serve.

Here's a picture of our pancakes from this morning. They were awesome!

I hope that between the two recipes one of them will work for your family, or maybe you can make a substitution where needed and still maintain the fluffy results!

I Hate Shopping at Whole Foods

I had to make a run to Whole Foods yesterday, not by choice. I hate going there. Let me explain...

When my son's allergies were identified we had to look for food alternatives. The local Safeway didn't have much to offer. Lucky for us, there is a Whole Foods a few miles away. I thought for sure I'd find some great alternatives there.

Well, the place is always super crowded and the aisles are so small it's impossible to get around in there. But that aside, here's the real reason I am so fed up with that place...

I HAVE managed to find some great alternative foods for my son. I found some snack bars, some cereals, some crackers, oat flour, etc. But they always discontinue everything I find and want to buy again. This has happened over a half a dozen times! I bring something home that's safe, my son actually likes it, I go back and they no longer carry it. They didn't just move it, because I always ask. It's drives me absolutely insane! I hate fighting the crowd to come home empty handed.

Yesterday's adventure to the store was for some Perky O's. I have been getting them there for a long time. Yesterday, they were gone, completely. No flavors and no spot for them to be on the shelf anymore. They used to take up a large section of the aisle. Why????

This has happened just too many times without warning or reason that I can figure out. I will only go there if absolutely necessary. I'm sure that eventually the couple things left that I go there for won't be available anymore anyways. I'm going to have to look for an alternate store now, or do more online shopping for foods. Maybe I can sweet talk my Safeway into carrying a few items.

Wheat Free, Dairy Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love to pick up Chip Ahoy cookies when they're on sale. They're one of my favorite naughty snacks. But I feel bad because my son can't eat them. So I was flipping through some recipes I had and realized I never tried to make the Wheat Free Chocolate Chip Cookies I had written down. Well, now he can eat wheat, but he can't have the milk in them, so I made a couple substitutions. I had all the ingredients on hand so I went at it. He even helped which makes them even more special. I found this recipe somewhere on a vegan website over a year ago, but can't remember where.

Wheat Free, Dairy Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 3/4 cups oat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil (or melted margarine if ok)
1 tbsp flax meal
1/4 cup Rice milk (I'm sure soy or regular milk would also be fine)
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup chocolate chips, dairy free

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees
• Sift together flour, baking soda, salt.
• In small mixing bowl, whisk together flax meal and rice milk. Add sugars and stir, add oil and vanilla and whisk vigorously until all ingredients are emulsified (about a minute).
• Mix wet ingredients into dry, fold in chocolate chips.
• Drop batter by the tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheet, leaving 1 1/2 inch of space between cookies.
• Bake 10-12 min. Remove from oven and let cool for about 5 min. Using spatula, put them on cooling rack to cool the rest of the way.

These were amazingly good! Even my husband and I enjoyed them. They definitely taste like oatmeal cookies, but that's not an issue for us. They were still very enjoyable. And my son was quite happy to be able to each chocolate chip cookies along with us!

Our Current Treatments for Eosinophilic Esophagitis

I thought I should share how we are currently treating my son's case of Eosinophilic Esophagitis. I know there is no set treatment and most of it is still experimental. There is currently no known cure for this condition.

Before he was diagnosed with EE, he was on Zantac, a medicine usually given to people with reflux. It didn't improve his daily vomitting at all.

In September 2006 when he was finally diagnosed they said to continue the Zantac to help his stomach, but also put him on Qvar, a steroid inhaler. He was to swallow this medicine, not inhale it like it's usually taken. The steroid is supposed to reduce any swelling in the tissues of the esophagus caused by the eosinophils.

When we switched insurance we had to find new doctors. They then changed his stomach medicine to Cimetidine which also has a histamine blocker. He was also switched from Qvar to Flovent, the more commonly used steroid to treat EE. Again, he has to swallow this, not inhale it.

All these medicines didn't seem to do a single thing though. The one thing that made a HUGE improvement in his health was eliminating a long list of foods. On October 17, 2006 he had scratch testing done for the most common foods. He tested positive to many of them. That very day we eliminated the following from his diet: eggs, chicken (all poultry), wheat, corn, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, and peas. He didn't throw up again since that day. That's why that date sticks in my mind so strongly. My money is on the food eliminations at the winning "treatment", if you can call it that. It's more about avoiding than treating, and not fun, but it's working for now. We're grateful that he is no longer getting sick several times a day.

He continues to take Cimetidine twice a day. He is also down to taking the Flovent only once a day. Interesting to note, he had a strong reaction to a cold virus in the spring of 2007 that caused incredibly large hives on his body and a few bouts of vomitting, but nothing like in the past. Once the cold passed, everything cleared up and we reduced his Flovent again back to once a day. He is also taking Zyrtec every day and is on an iron supplement.

We continue the meds and the restrictive diet. The diet has changed a bit. We're now also eliminating milk and barley. BUT, we have been able to add back wheat! I'm crossing my fingers that we can eventually eliminate the medicines since in my opinion, I can't see that they're making any improvement. And I also hope that he outgrows the need to eliminate some of the foods currently on his "do not eat" list.

I consider us lucky. Even though we're on meds daily and have a very long list of things he can't eat, we try to stay positive and talk about all the things he CAN eat. I know there are many children with this condition who can't eat a single thing. I simply can't imagine how challenging that must be. My son is strong and he is dealing well with the food elimination in my opinion. And if you looked at him, you wouldn't know he has any kind of health problems. He is a very handsome, smart and charming young man. I love him dearly!

What is Eosinophilic Esophagitis

Many of you are here because you already know what it is because you or a family member have been diagnosed with it and you're looking for more information.

If you don't know what EE is, here are the basics:

Eosinophilic Esophagitis is a condition in which there are eosinophils (a type of white blood cell) in the tissues of the esophagus. Normally, they should not be there. Certain things may trigger the production of these cells in the esophagus, such as an allergic reaction to a food(s) or other environmental things. They then cause inflamation of the esophagus.

The inflamation causes symptoms such as nausea and vomitting, food impaction, and difficulty swallowing just to name a few.

I highly recommend you visit the following links for more information on eosinophilic esophagitis as to what it is, symptoms, treatment, etc. These sites explain it so well that I feel I should just let them explain it rather than rewrite it for you.

http://www.apfed.org/ee.htm#ee

http://www.chop.edu/consumer/jsp/division/generic.jsp

http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/svc/alpha/e/eosinophilic/about/

Patch Testing on Children with Eosinophilic Esophagatis

We went through our first round of allergy patch testing this month. Before we scheduled the appointments I looked for information about it in regards to children and why it's done. I couldn't find very much at all and was quite frustrated. I was also frustrated because the staff at the office, or at least the person I spoke with was not able to answer my questions without playing relay to someone else. She shouldn't have been on the phone telling us what to do if she couldn't answer my questions. For example, we were told to bring jars of babyfood for them to put on my son's back. The meat products are not pure, they have corn startch. My son has tested allergic to corn previously, so I thought it would be wrong to use it because it would give false positive results. Question after question and we finally got it all sorted out. (By the way, they ended up asking the doctor and he said that the corn starch shouldn't pose a problem "because it's only the starch". I wonder why then I'm avoiding it in all his foods then??) Anyway....

In my research for information I found a lot of references to patch testing for contact dermatitis and the main things it tested for was metals and chemicals that irritate peoples skin over time. I was totally confused how this related to eosinophilic esophagitis. We were going to test for foods only, it turns out, despite the paperwork they mailed me. I did finally find ONE great letter from Dr. Jonathan Spergel from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia on the APFED website ( http://www.apfed.org/faqs.htm Question #4) that explained in much greater detail about why we do patch testing and what it indicates in EE. Basically, scratch testing and patch testing examine different "systems". Scratch testing shows immediate reactions to foods, patch testing shows delayed reactions to foods. People who have delayed reactions to foods have a difficult time pinpointing the culprit foods. This test should help with that.

We had just done scratch testing in January and my son had tested negative for several things that he had tested positive to in the past. We were very excited that we might be able to return some foods to his diet. With the patch testing though, he still tested positive to most everything and a couple new things! And if you test positive on either test, that food is recommended to be removed from the diet. So back to square one. But I do believe in my heart that his body must be improving since he got over his wheat allergy according to both tests, and he is not testing "as positive" as in the past to other things, if there is such a thing. Allergy testing is so not cut and dry.

Our experience with the patch testing in general was very good. It only took about 15 min. to get all the little cups of food taped onto my son's back. He thought it was quite hysterical that he was wearing baby food on his back! He just turned four so they had a little difficulty finding room for five strips of food cups, but it all worked out. He wore those test strips for 48 hours. He didn't complain about any discomfort or itching or anything. I think he was most annoyed that I wouldn't let him play too hard and get sweaty! After 48 hours, the office removed the test strips and took the initial reading. It didn't look too bad at the time. I was able to see two spots that looked positive. More grew over the 24 hour period until the next reading. My son still had no complaints of itching or anything which was good. At the final reading though, he was covered in spots. He tested positive for quite a few things. It's now over two weeks later and he still has a spot where he tested positive for egg (his most serious allergy).

I hope this helps other parents who are wondering what to expect when taking their child in for patch testing, for EE or for allergies in general. I'm attaching some photos of my son's tests just to share.

Meatloaf Recipe - No eggs, dairy, wheat, corn

My husband has been bugging me to make meatloaf for a very long time now. We used to eat it quite often. The funny thing is that the recipe we used, he had gotten out of a college cookbook about how to cook in your dorm room. It’s the best meatloaf we’ve ever eaten (sorry Mom).

I haven’t made it since we found out our son’s food allergies. But the other day I decided to see if I could find another recipe for meatloaf that didn’t contain egg, milk, wheat or corn. I found a couple but they didn’t sound like they would be as satisfactory. So I decided to just try to alter my own recipe and see if it survived.

In my research I found oatmeal to substitute the bread or corn crumbs. Now, why I hadn’t figured that one out a year ago, I have no idea. So I used oats instead of bread crumbs, rice milk instead of milk and Ener-G egg replacer for the egg. I saw other egg substitutes but didn’t think it would make much difference anyway since the meatloaf would most likely hold it’s form.

We were delighted when we tasted our meatloaf tonight! You have no idea how good it made me feel to be able to cook a meal that everyone enjoyed and was safe for everyone to eat! I’m still floating on clouds. I also made mashed potatoes and used the rice milk. For my husband and I, we got to add some margarine to our potatoes and had peas as well (my son is also allergic to peas.) When I mentioned peas he stated “I”M ALLERGIC TO PEAS!” Good for him to take charge of himself. Anyway, here is how I made my meatloaf…

Ingredients:
1 1/2 lb. ground beef
1 small onion, chopped fine
2 tblsp green pepper, chopped fine
1/2 cup oats
2 tblsp organic ketchup (no corn syrup)
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp sugar
2/3 cup Rice milk
1-1/2 tsp Ener-G egg replacer and 2 tblsp warm water

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place beef, onion, green pepper, oats, ketchup, salt, black pepper and sugar in mixing bowl. Mix together. Add the rice milk and egg replacer and mix thoroughly. Place meat mixture into loaf pan and put in oven. Bake 1 1/2 hours total. While it’s cooking, make sauce topping…

Sauce Ingredients:
3 heaping tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 cup organic ketchup
1 tsp dry mustard or 1 tblsp prepared mustard

Directions: Combine all sauce ingredients in a small bowl and stir well until the sugar is dissolved. After loaf has been cooking for at least 30 min., spoon some sauce over the top of the loaf. Continue to baste from time to time if desired.

I hope you enjoy this meatloaf as much as we did. We’ will definitely be putting this back on our menu!