We will remember them

Remembering...

Marching.....

Listening...

Thinking...

We will remember them.

To all those brave people who gave their lives for our liberty.

Thank you.

We will remember you.

Barbs x.

Chocolate Blueberry Muffins

This morning I needed to make muffins.  Something chocolatey was definitely needed, but there had to be a healthy element to them too.  So I decided on chocolate blueberry muffins.  A quick search on google found this recipe which I quickly adapted to make it Emma Safe

1 3/4 C flour
4 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 C Cocoa
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C choc drops
1 C Oat milk
1 Tbsp Cider vinegar
1/4 C Rice bran oil
1 C frozen blueberries

Step 1 - Sift flour, baking powder and cocoa together, then stir in sugar and choc drops
Step 2 - Mix oat milk, vinegar, oil and blueberries together
Step 3 - Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour wet ingredients into it.  Gently combine until all the dry ingredients are wet.
Step 4 - Spoon into greased muffin trays and bake for @ 20 minutes at 180C.
Step 5 - Eat!!!!!

Enjoy

Barbs x.

Methotrexate - a year on.....

It has been almost a year since our beautiful Emma has been on Methotrexate.  And it has been almost a year since she has had any broken skin or any infections and she has hardly even been to the GP.  We no longer need to smother her skin in steroid creams and she hardly ever needs anti-histimine and I can't remember the last time I had to sedate her to stop her scratching herself silly.

Before Methotrexate

A few weeks later

For the most she has had the best year of her life.  There have been a few hiccups, a couple of trips to hospital as a precaution, once for a tummy bug, once for a high temperature - If an immunosuppressed person gets sick, they can go downhill so very fast, so we have to be super cautious and get her sorted straight away.   But these were merely normal childhood illnesses. She has barely missed a day of school in the last 3 terms - compare that to missing almost half of the first term last year.  In fact, this year she hasn't even caught the coughs and colds the other two have had.

Methotrexate has some nasty side effects and I must confess, sometimes on Saturday night after taking her pills, she feels really nauseous and sometimes she is sick.  But even if that is the case, she is usually fine on the Sunday.  We haven't noticed any other side effects - she certainly isn't too knocked out by them like we were told she could be.  Her monthly blood tests have all come back positive.  The only annoying thing is she cant seem to get rid of the molluscum on her back as her immune system isn't fighting it.

For the most, her skin is amazing.  Her hands that have always been a chronic problem but now they look pretty normal - they are no longer cracked, raw and bleeding nor are they infected - and this means Emma will wash her hands better and therefore less germs are spread around.  The skin on her body looks good and clear.  The only area that is still a problem is her feet, but they are nothing compared to what they were a year ago.  Emma has even been brave enough to walk bare foot on the beach and go in the sea.  That is a major breakthrough for her.

Cheesy grin but look at the clear skin

Beautiful Hands

Feet that are healing up nicely

Her dermatologist is really happy with the results.  And whilst we still don't know how much longer Emma will be on the drug, I am hoping that we are about halfway through our methotrexate journey.

I am really pleased we decided to put Emma on Methotrexate.  It is no easy decision to give your child a serious drug.  I rarely take anything stronger than paracetamol myself and felt like the world's worst parent the first time I gave Emma Vallergan (a sedating anti-histimine).  Once we made the decision to go ahead with the immuno-suppressant drug, we knew we would be putting her at serious risk of getting really sick.

But for Emma it has been a life line.  A chance to start living a life that wasn't taken over by her eczema, an opportunity to play at the beach without it ending in blood and tears.  Her school work has improved, she is better at sport,  her attention span has got bigger (yes, really - she is reading books now) and we are seeing on a daily basis what a fantastic kid was hiding behind the itchy scratchy exterior.  Everything is better since we have got her eczema under control and stopped the constant reinfections.

It's hard to believe that a year ago I could never have imagined bed time being like this for Emma.  She would have been writhing around the bed and scratching till she bleed.

Content and happy at bed time

Yeah. CONTENT.  That is the word to describe where we are on our journey.


Barbs x.

For the love of Feijoa's

If you're a kiwi you'll know what I'm talking about.  Feijoa's are synonymous with Autumn here in NZ.  Love 'em or hate 'em, nearly every house has a tree.  And for a few short weeks in April, Feijoa's are everywhere.  For those of you who don't know, Feijoa's are a firm green fruit on the outside with a pulpy center.  They have a really distinctive fragrance that gets stronger the longer as they age.  We eat the inside only, but some people eat the outside too.  Each to their own.

The real problem with having a feijoa tree is what to do with all the feijoa's?  Today we had a bit of a production line and cooked up a batch of feijoa's to go in the freezer - some say you can put them in raw, but we found they went brown and yucky, so we always cook them first.

A day's worth

Some people get a little side tracked!

But what else to do with all the fruit......?

Some got pureed and then dehydrated to make our own super yummy and completely natural fruit leathers.  And lots got frozen so we can use it in crumbles later in the year.

But there was still more - so I thought I would make a feijoa cake.  I used my basic vegan cake recipe and made a few adjustments and added a yummy crumble topping

Here is the recipe I created

1 1/2 C Flour
1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 C Sugar
1 1/2 C feijoa pulp

Mix it all together well and then pour into a cake tin lined with baking paper

25g Olivani
1/4 cup Oats
1 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp Brown sugar

Melt Olivani and add other ingredients - add more oats if needed to cover cake.
Sprinkle over cake
Bake for about 40 minutes @ 180 C.

This cake was so yummy and I think even those that aren't great Feijoa lovers will enjoy this and there is no fat in the cake, only in the topping so it is semi-healthy.  And the allergy kid absolutely loved it.

I hope you are enjoying your feijoa's too.

Barbs x.

Easter Breakfast Allergy Style

When Bear woke up this morning she asked if we could please have waffles for breakfast (that was after asking for easter eggs of course!).  I was happy to oblige and they were so yum.

The recipe I use is from the food allergy mama and is the best egg and dairy free pancake recipe I have ever tried.

2 C flour

4 Tbsp sugar

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 Tbsp water

4 T rice bran oil

2 C Oat or rice milk

Preheat a cast iron pan or waffle iron until hot.

Preheat oven to 150 degrees. 

In a large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt with a wire whisk. 

In a large liquid measuring cup combine water, oil and milk. 

Pour water mixture into the dry ingredients and mix with a wire whisk until just combined. Do not over mix; lumps are fine.

For waffles just pour a ladle full of the mixture into the greased waffle iron and wait for them to cook.

For pancakes pour about ¼C of batter into the lightly oiled frypan and cook until small bubbles start to form on top. Flip and cook other side until light brown. 

Transfer waffles/pancakes to a warmed oven to keep warm and then continue until all the mixture is used up.

Serve with fruit.

YUM.

Happy Easter.

Barbs x

Thinking out loud.

Um.  Hello.  Long time, no see.

Yes it has all been a bit quiet over here in our bloggy land.

Hubby has been away lots (his mum has terminal cancer) and I have been finding out first hand how hard solo parenting of three kids and a dog is.  But these are mere excuses.  Truth is my bloggy mojo went.  I'm not sure if it is back or not but I thought I would try and put something out there.

Gotta love these three 

When I started this blog my intention was to provided recipes and information for allergy families.  When I had Emma, I couldn't find information or recipes anywhere.  After years of searching the internet, I stumbled across the lovely blog Delissimon.  Mon's girls went to kindy with my girls and I was so inspired by her story.  After checking out many of her fave blogs, I decided that I could do it too.  It's not that hard to write some words and upload some photos is it?  Well I guess the answer is yes it actually is.  You have to think about blogging when you are doing things, you need to take photos when you are doing things and then you need to sit down and find the words and bring it all together.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

I've needed a few of these...It is not healthy, it's a wine slushy!

Now I have a decision to make.  Do I leave my blog and my intentions alone and forget I ever tried?  Or do I make a commitment to my blog and post regularly?  Thing is, I get a real buzz out of writing, always have.  And I love taking photo's.  And I love information on Allergies and Eczema.  These two topics have taken over our life for almost 10 years. So I guess there isn't any question of forgetting about my blog and I have to commit to making it work.

And sometimes Sausage Rolls and tomato sauce just hit the spot

Thing is I'm lazy.  And I mean L.A.Z.Y.  If I can get away with not doing something I wont do it.  I'm not a supaMum.  I'm getting by but things have been getting me down a lot lately.  Being on my own with the kids is hard. You don't realise just how much that extra pair of hands is needed until it is not there.  We are so spoilt on a daily basis coz hubby works from home, with him away I have to drag all the kids everywhere I need to go.

Guacamole and corn chips - the ultimate lazy, yet kinda healthy afternoon tea

So now it's Easter time.  A great celebration of rebith.  A chance to eat lots of chocolate.  A hard time to be an allergy kid.  Whilst I can go out and by lots of easter eggs for the other two, finding Emma safe treats is usually not so easy.  But this year there are these

And better still, I don't have to traipse all over town coz they are available at my local New World supermarket.  A big thank you to the wonderful Robyn (Emma's Girls Brigade Leader) who told me about them.  Finally Emma will be able to have a fun easter egg hunt with her siblings and get to eat what she finds.  And I am also so lucky that Emma is not gluten free.  Where would Easter be without hot cross buns.  Usually I make my own but this year I've been too lazy so we have been scoffing these ones down regularly.

Well that's about it for now.

Thanks for reading.

Barbs x.