Nut drama

Somehow I forgot to post about Tuesday.  And by “somehow” I mean, Kyle was out of town and I was just trying to stay afloat.  The advent season is all consuming, you know?  Every day I’m trying to figure out which events are happening and when and what presents I bought for who and what baked goods I’m supposed to bring where and when is this party and that party and that’s just the half of it.  It’s so fun, but leaves me feeling a bit frazzled.  I want to do the best to make the season fun, but maintaining some sanity in the process.

She knows she’s cute and it’s dangerous.

V and I did stroller strides on Tuesday which was cold and windy but better than trying to find the motivation at 6 am when they both got up.  Oof.  I was soooo tired and dragged my feet to get out of bed HARD.  Kids don’t have any appreciation for sleep.  Such a shame.

Here’s the start of my lunch: kale, cabbage, roasted butternut squash, candied walnuts, and a EVOO + balsamic mix.  But then I realized it needed a little something else.  So I went with cheese.

Sheep pecorino romano to be exact.

With carrots on the side.

I spent the afternoon at back to back gymnastics for the wee ones.  Snacks and books for each while the opposite was in class.

Came home to this, so now I have two of the week’s meals accounted for.  Since Kyle was gone I didn’t make them that night.

Instead I made this raw ground walnut “meat” for tacos/taco bowls.

V loved it last time, but P was questionable on it, so I figured if I put it in a taco shell he wouldn’t bat an eye.

I was actually wrong.  His palate is phenomenal.  For better or worse, he can detect nuts hidden inside anything.  I know this because I’ve tried to trick him into cashew “cream” based things and now I’m trying to do it with his peanut doses (which are getting harder and hard because of how much he HATES peanuts), soooo…it’s a blessing and a curse.

More on that later.

I had mine in a bowl with romaine, like a salad, and had some more smoky cheddar cashew “cheese” from the Cultured Kitchen.  I swear I posted about this the last time I tried it (it’s from that same purchase, which was well over a month ago, so that’s good to know it lasts), but I can’t find that post.  I used it as a sauce on spaghetti squash last time and was totally blown away.  It was just as awesome this time.  It’s not cheap, so it’s a treat for sure, and I’m shocked I’ve been able to make it last as long as I have.

I gave them two tacos each, which they started to devour, until P got to the walnut portion.  That stalled him big time.  It’s like he is a walnut detecting dog or something.  It wasn’t that big of a deal because I told him he needed to get over it, but it slowed him wayyyy down.  What’s with his new nut aversion???  Is it all due to his peanut dosing (which he gags down these days)?  It was never so much a problem until recently. Maybe I’m just overanalyzing because peanut dosing is all I live and breathe right now.

This was super good, thanks to the numerous yummy ingredients but I wanted a little crunch so…don’t think I’m super weird now…but I added these in to my salad.

A) They were delicious.

B) Now for the back story.  In Michelle Tam’s book Ready or Not she has a “nacho” recipe that uses chicharrones instead of chips.  The first time I saw it I thought it was genius.  Talk about clever and creative!  The next time I was at a non-TJs generic store I sought them out.   I was surprised to see that epic (a trustworthy brand with high quality sourcing) makes them in cool interesting flavors.  This may seem obvious, but let me just disclose up front that I’ve never tried pork cracklings.  Because they sound 100% disgusting.  But I’m also food curious, so I bought a bag for sh!ts and giggles.  The bag has been in the pantry for a few weeks.  Until now.  I didn’t feel like chips, but I wanted the textural crunch that you’d get from a crispy tortilla and I remembered the chicharrones.  So I added some to my salad and guess what!?!  It was really good!  But I could only handle like 3-4 in the salad because on their own they are…how do I say this…pretty nasty. It’s like eating fried airy pork fat and it’s utterly bizarre.  I know that sounds weird, but I don’t know how else to describe this odd food.  Anyway, I liked it in the salad, but can’t recommend them on their own as a snack.

My poor baby.

I tried to make his dose more disguised by baking it into a “cookie.”  The thing is, I don’t have any extra doses, so I can’t mess it up.  I’m going to ask for more at our next appointment so I have some additional ones to play around with, but for now, I’m doing the best I can do with what we have.  I made a small batch of dough and then split it into four portions, two for the bottoms and two for the tops, so I could put the ground up peanuts in between and then form two whole cookies.  I did it soooo carefully so all of the peanut went into the cookie and then baked it, hoping for the best.

And as you can see by the above photo, he was pretty meh on it.

At first he was trying to be upbeat and excited, but that wore off when he started tasting the peanut and then had to choke down the rest of the cookie (in under 10 minutes).  He can feel it and it’s very upsetting for him, and therefore me too.  I feel terrible.  This is the first we have encountered this in our oit journey, although I was kinda waiting for it since sooo many people on the facebook page are always discussing this same issue.  How to get their kid to take their doses… If the payoff weren’t SO worth it, I’d be more likely to throw in the towel, but we can’t after getting this far.  It will save his life one day and he understands that (as best a 4 year old can) and so I’m just going to try to be as supportive as possible and hope that this is a phase that will pass.

I have a million questions and ideas to run by the staff at our next oit appointment, so I’ll update you as I try new things.

In the meantime, let me just tell you about how oit may have actually saved him just yesterday!

Do you see the problem here??  Do you see how terrible this label is for people with peanut allergies??  WHAT THE HECK COSTCO!?!?!  We’ve already filed a complaint so hopefully others don’t have this accident, but omg, I nearly gave him this trail mix!  It was on his plate and he had one piece of mango before I whisked it away (thank goodness I did a triple check of ingredients).  Ugh.  Peanut oil on the nuts but peanuts not listed as an allergy!!!  FAIL.