I have such good news!
This past weekend was so awesome for a few different reasons and I’ve been on a high ever since. Gah. I needed this.
I’ve been stuck in a rough patch for a couple of weeks. I don’t know if you could detect it through my [infrequent] posts but I’m coming out of the fog now. I haven’t felt super inspired to check in here on this space and so I just haven’t.
But first, muffins!
PUMPKIN muffins no less. #basic fall move.
Turns out this kid loves pumpkin (future food blogger?). And baking. And cooking. And all things food. I’m really lucky because he does have allergies and that means restrictions, so having a voracious appetite and interest in food makes my life easier. And his! I’m so proud that he eats things like calamari and tofu and dates and everything from the garden. He’s really the light of my life.
Anyway.
He helped a ton with this baking project and asked to eat the batter like 15 times throughout the process. He needs his own apron because he wants to be all up in the kitchen with me all day long and I LOVE IT.
We’ve baked from this cookbook before (I swear I’ve reviewed it on HHH but I can’t find it anywhere?). So let me emphasize…Debbie Adler knows allergy friendly baking.
We made her pumpkin pie muffins (which we’ve made before) and tweaked it ever so slightly (coconut milk instead of rice milk, no guar gum, maple syrup instead of coconut nectar).
Spatula AND spoon…because more is more…and then he could hardly wait for them to bake. But he was oh so patient.
It’s hard to see the perfectly fluffy soft inside in the photo above, but they were the absolute best.
I mean, I make my own quick breads and baked goods allllll the time because there are too many allergen risks in not doing so. Sometimes they end up a little iffy, but I’m not a baker, so I guess that’s to be expected when you combine six different recipes and tweak them so heavily they hardly resemble “bread” anymore. Sweet Debbie, however, has a bakery in LA that is famous for a reason.
Ready to dig in.
I froze half and we’ve already worked our way through the other half in a few short days. And that’s even with another batch of muffins on hand. I can’t stop baking. It’s my therapy. And my happy place (bonding time with P!).
The above muffins are from Elana’s Pantry. Her website is my go to for almond meal/almond flour based recipes which I make for myself (not P). He doesn’t help me with those tree nut recipes for obvious reasons.
Here’s where the extra cool (but unexpected) part comes in.
See what’s on his plate?
Pumpkin Pie muffin. Walnuts. And almond flour muffins.
I already told you guys about the walnut thing, but as of Sunday we have cleared almonds too! Green light!!!!! What WHAT!?! I CAN’T EVEN PUT INTO WORDS how much this means. For him. For us. It’s huge. HUGE. Almond milk. Almond flour. Almond butter. They are such a massive part of our family’s diet – really the only allergen of Pattycakes’ that we’ve kept in our kitchen (very carefully) – that I’m beyond stoked to now be able to use for us all. Weeee.
And for the record, Mr. P loves raw walnuts and requests them all the time now. And while I’m thinking he may still be a little young to understand the nuances of which tree nuts he tolerates (he tested reactive to cashews, pistachios, and pecans), he is in the “million-question-asking” phase of toddlerhood and I obviously can’t lie to him. He sees me cooking in the kitchen and asks for/about things, and if he isn’t allergic to it, I don’t want to say no! Sometimes he asks 200 questions in rapid fire style (which is trying for other reasons) but I adore his inquisitive mind and his desire to learn about everything…he’s such a little sponge…so yeah, I ended up deviating from our hard and fast “no nuts” rule that he had down pat…now I have to decide what to do about this almond business. He’s far more mature than the average 2.5 year old but allergies are still a tricky subject that lots of adults have a hard time grasping. I’ll share more as we broach the topic.
Hi Elise! I somehow stumbled onto your blog a few months ago and have been silently drooling at my computer screen everytime your posts pop up in my email because they look so freakin’ amazing and delicious!! The pumpkin muffins that you and P made look sooo good! I was wondering if you would be able to share the modifications that you made to the recipe?
Glad that you’re out of your rut – I know how that feels and it’s no fun.
Hey girl, I couldn’t find your email or other social media. I’ve been reading you for a long long long time! I rarely comment because I’m just a lurker/lazy! But I did want to bring something to your attention. You may or may not have heard of the show Sister Wives on TLC…. Well Meri (one of the wives) was catfished into having an affair with a guy (or possibly girl pretending to be guy) named Sam Cooper from Vegas. He’s vegan and stuff and he’s using his blog to release video, audio, and his/her first hand account of the affair. Okay so you are probably wondering why I’m telling you….. Well your blog is all over his blog. http://www.notbatmanyet.com is the site. It could be just because he was/is vegan but I didn’t know how you would feel about your blog being recommended on a site that about to have heavy heavy gossip site traffic. I adore you and your family and I just felt you should know. Blessing to you all!
AH! Thank you for the info. Looking into it now.
Sure!
-I used Bob’s Red Mill GF all purpose flour blend.
-Instead of pumpkin pie spice I used a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and allspice. I didn’t measure the amounts but I tried to get it to roughly measure out to 1 tbsp. I suspect it was more like 2 tsp though.
-I omitted guar gum (didn’t sub anything in place though).
-I used maple syrup instead of coconut nectar (same amount).
-I used coconut milk instead of rice milk (same amount).
Happy baking! [And thanks for the kind comment]
Elise, this child is beautiful!!!!!
Oh you are so sweet. Thanks Carol!!! 🙂 I’m biased but I couldn’t agree more!
That is AWESOME!!!! There are just sooo many great uses for almonds that is really just amazing news that now he can tolerate them!
How adorable that he enjoys cooking so much with you:))
Hi Karrie! Thanks for sharing a little about you – it’s always nice to put a “face” to the people who read. I made your comments private because I agree with you on the risk of adding fuel to this person’s fire. She/he clearly has psych issues which is why I was hesitant in the first place in contacting their site – I don’t want to provoke him/her but I also don’t want to be aligned in any way with that site!! The internet can be so scary and frustrating.
As a blog fan, I agree with Tara. It’s really disgusting what this person has done to Meri Brown of Sister Wives. He has created a fake persona and publishing suggestive texts and photos on his blog. In my opinion, this Catfish has really gone too far. Like, Tara, I hate to see your positive work being splattered on such a scammy site. Look on the home page, on the lower left site. (notbatmanyet.com)
He/she has just blatantly published many of your recipes. I don’t see any permission disclaimers. Your site is a family site, that other blog is, well, not family oriented. That blog has already had trouble with copyright infringements, protect yours!! For a good summary of this whole drama, read here: https://nickoconner.wordpress.com/
Keep up the good work!
THANK YOU KATRINA! Going to return to sorting this out now with your leads… I really appreciate it.