Caramel!

Caramel loving Feingolders such as myself will surely have noticed the dearth of caramel sauces in the Foodlist. I found exactly one listed, by Monin, which is a brand I have never seen for sale locally.

I seriously considered trying some off-list brands of caramel, but once I looked at the ingredients, I couldn't. I saw some with better ingredients, but they were pricy, and I want to dump a jar caramel on everything, so I couldn't justify it. I know you can make it, but all of the stirring and temperature taking intimidated me, and I never tried. So for a very long, very sad time, I went without caramel on my ice cream.

But no longer. Did you know you can simmer a can of sweetened condensed milk for four to five hours, and at the end you have caramel? I'm not kidding. It's like magic. I used Eagle brand (because it was cheapest, not because it's "most trusted").

I'd read about doing this, but it seemed too good to be true, and I was wary. Until friends brought some over one night. Clouds parted, angels sang. I was hooked.

This stuff has two ingredients: milk and sugar. It's practically health food.

First, remove the labels.

Then, put the cans in a deep pan, and add enough water to generously cover the cans. A stock pot is ideal, really, but let's not talk about the one I bought at a garage sale to use for canning, and how it sat unused in my basement for two years, until I brought it upstairs to make caramel. And let's definitely not talk about the horrible "what did they cook in this thing?" smell that lingered in my kitchen for two days, even though the pan appeared clean, and I washed it before I used it.

Bring the water to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer.

Check every so often, and add water if you need to, to keep the cans submerged. If the water gets too low and the cans are uncovered, they can explode.

I've read all kinds of variations on how long to let it cook. I found 4 hours and 45 minutes (give or take, it's not an exact science) perfect. I think that the longer you go, the thicker it gets, but my understanding is that it will never get as thick as caramel candy.

Once it's done, you do have to wait for it to cool to open it. I usually let mine cool in the pan until the water is lukewarm, then I pour out the water and add cold water. Once the cans are cool enough to handle, they are safe to open.

See? Magic!

Once the can is open, dump the caramel into a bowl, and give it a good stir. I also recommend adding  a half a teaspoon or so of sea salt at this time. If you like that sort of thing (I do).

Also, because the milk is canned, unopened cans can be stored in your cupboard for up to a year. So make extra.

Enjoy!

The Snowy Day

This obviously wasn't staged. If I'd planned it, I would have used my camera instead of my phone!

The Feingold Diet: Two Years Later

I'm a little late on this one! I realize Feingold is an understaffed volunteer organization, but I do wish they had a better notification system for the end of your subscription than "you know, I haven't gotten the newsletter in a while. I wonder..." Still, it has been such a blessing for us, that I really can't complain. 

I have noticed that I get a lot of visits to my site from people searching for Feingold information, but if you're unfamiliar with the Feingold diet (this also assumes you are curious about it!) here is a good place to start. If you're interested in reading more about our experiences with Feingold, I have talked about them here and here.

It has been a little over two years now, and we are all still following the Feingold diet. We've branched out a bit, and although we are fairly diligent, we have started experimenting with "unapproved" items here and there. We are still primarily eating stage one foods, because Lissie seems very sensitive to most salicylate containing foods in large quantities. She does seem to tolerate most, aside from tomatoes and apples, in small quantities, so we are happy about that.

If you are here because you are new to Feingold, I want you to know that as overwhelming as it was when we started, it is so easy now that I rarely give it a second thought. Please don't stress, you'll get there too! 

One thing that helps is that the Foodlists really don't seem to vary all that much from year to year. That makes it easy to keep track of acceptable brands. I wasn't much of a brand loyalist before Feingold, but still, I tended to buy the same products over and over. Now with fewer options, I just buy the same brands (of the same products) all of the time--which is actually easier in some ways! Of course, I do most of my own cooking. If you use a lot of processed products, then I can see where that could get boring after a while. 

Restaurants are a little trickier. You definitely have more options if you eat meat, so that's nice. Keep your restaurant guide handy when you travel! At home, I recommend finding a great local restaurant that actually makes the food. Go when they're not busy, and ask questions (you can always call ahead too). Get to know the people who work there. It might take a few tries to find "the one," but it's worth it. Seriously, we spent the first two years only eating at Panera or Culver's, but now we have three real restaurants we feel comfortable eating at, and it's so nice not having to suggest Panera for dinner with an out of town guest! Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against these places (though they obviously aren't the healthiest options), I just like variety. I am grateful for all of the companies that have gone through the effort of getting their products in the books, and I am happy to support them whenever I can.

Now that we have eating at home and eating in restaurants figured out, the part I hate most about doing Feingold is eating at other peoples' houses--but I love eating at other peoples' houses, so you can see my dilemma! Unfortunately, most people don't get it, or even if do they get it, they still don't quite get it. So that's an area where we tend to be a little more relaxed. I ask a lot of questions, and if something seems like it's probably okay, we eat it. It's generally fine, though not always for Lissie. Sometimes you do have to be assertive (and annoying). It sucks, but for us, the alternative is just not worth it. Maybe your reactions are less severe, and it is worth it. Lucky you! If you're not that lucky, I recommend, especially at first, that if you're going somewhere where you suspect that the food won't be okay, bring food. Pack a meal for the kids, or better yet, bring a dish to share. If that's not an option, feed them before you go. If neither of those will work, let them eat only the things you are pretty sure are okay, and stop for a burger on the way home (just don't tell anybody this is what you are doing!). Most people will understand. Even if they don't really understand. 

Now, onto our off-list experimenting. This is NOT something I recommend doing until you are comfortable with Feingold, your child has been on it for a while, and you know what reactions look like (don't worry if you don't know, you'll learn). Years ago, I read guidelines on how to test a wild food to find out if it is safe to eat (you know, in case I am ever stranded in the wilderness somewhere!), and I remember that it said that you should only test foods that are available in sufficient quantities to make it worth your time, because it is a process that takes several days and has the potential to cause severe discomfort. Are you seeing the similarities here? I try to keep those things in mind when we are thinking about trying something new.

When we try something that is not approved, it is generally something that is not listed in the Foodlist, or if it is, the approved brands are not readily available in our area. Occasionally there are things that are listed and available, but would be prohibitively expensive to buy in the quantities we'd like. If it's something I would only use a couple of times per year, we do without, but if it's something we'd like to use often, then it might be worth trying. Once we have identified a need, we look at the ingredients of the products that are available. Some foods are easier than others. Low or non-fat dairy products, for example, are things I wouldn't risk unless I was desperate. In a lot foods though, if you can find a product that "reads" clean, that's worth something. Of course, we Feingolders know to be wary of those tricky hidden ingredients. You might try contacting the manufacturer and asking about that type of thing (this isn't anything I have tried, but you could do it). If you do find an item you'd like to try, I recommend following the Feingold guidelines for reintroducing salycilate containing foods in stage two. My husband and I tend to eat more items like this, and only rarely allow the kids to try things. 

It's also helpful to remember that not everybody is sensitive in the same way. Just like some of us are more (or less) sensitive to certain salicylates or food dyes, some of us might be more sensitive to other risky additives. I have noticed that Lissie and I tend to share a lot of the same sensitivities (except, fortunately, I don't hit or bite people when I am reacting), so if we're considering testing something I can try it first. If I feel off after eating it, we've avoided a potential reaction in Lissie. This isn't one hundred percent effective, however. We've had a couple of bad experiences with products that look okay, and that I can eat without any problems, but that caused reactions for Lissie. I do wonder if Lissie might be less sensitive to preservatives than some other people seem to be, but maybe we've just gotten lucky in that area so far. "Natural" flavors, on the other hand, have been a big issue for us, so we're pretty cautious about those.

Photo licensed under Creative Commons

Photo credits:
Candy hearts: jamz196
Panera interior: ReneS'

This is What Tired Looks Like

Standing up, leaning on a chair, sound asleep.

Things to Make for Preschoolers to Do

Whatever crafting I do typically involves sewing. Clothes or quilts, by hand or by machine, little felt things, that's what I do. But once in a while, I like to try something different.

I found these cute little boxes in the unfinished wood section of Michael's. I can't remember what I was actually there looking for, but did you know they have all kinds of different sizes and shapes of boxes available? I had no idea. This particular one has a drawer, and a lid that flips up to reveal a small mirror. 

It's probably intended to hold jewelry, or hair accessories, but I thought it would make a cute portable dollhouse.

I kept the outside natural, and Lissie helped me paint fun colors on the inside, like a little surprise when you open it, then we sealed everything with beeswax polish.

Max loves it. The people basically seem to hang out and eat a lot of mushroom soup.

I also found some unfinished wood flower pots, and had these flat wooden spoons--you know, the kind that used to come with the little cups of ice cream from the ice cream truck? I hated eating ice cream with those. It always reminded me of being at the doctor's office.

I've seen a million variations on this, but the spoons came in a pack of way more than I needed for anything else, so that's what I used.

I sanded the flower pots, but the idea of sanding 24 tiny wooden spoons didn't sound appealing, and I left those as they were. I used watercolor paint to paint the bottom sections of the flower pots, and then painted four spoons in varying shades of each color I used for the pots. 

Some of the colors could have used a little more variation (I'm looking at you, yellow and orange!), but Maxine doesn't seem to mind. She likes to use them for counting "one, two, three, four, SEVEN! One, two, three, four, SEVEN!"

Our New Additions

Our family has grown, by two. Two cuddly, snuggly, adorable little rescue dachshunds.

Greta, on the left, is three, and Lotte is four. They are both retired breeders who were rescued from a puppy mill. They were at the same puppy mill and knew each other well, so although we got them a month apart, there was no real adjustment period. In fact, Greta was immediately happier and more relaxed with another dog in the house.

When they came to us, they had never lived in a house before. They didn't play with toys, or eat food off the floor (which, let's be honest, is half the reason we even wanted a dog!). They'd spent their lives in cages, and even had to be taught how to go up and down the stairs.

They are the absolute sweetest though. They love the girls and are great with other dogs. They are still learning to walk on leashes, but I'm thinking they might enjoy that more once the weather is nicer.

They are happy and healthy here.

And they love pooping on the rug in the living room.

Pinterest: Sometimes Good, Sometimes Bad

Are you on Pinterest? I love it. You can see my boards here. My favorite thing about it is having a place where I can find and collect all of the things I see that inspire me. I've been "collecting" bedroom images since I opened my account last year, and now that we are (finally!) getting around to redoing our bedroom, I love that I can just go to that board and see everything in one place.

But this post isn't supposed to be about my bedroom. This post is about how many of the boards I create on Pinterest turn into giant "to do" lists. I already blogged about making these cute little dolls, and the pouch babies inspired by these that Lissie and I made here.

I didn't blog about the mash up of these and these that I tried to make. I tried on three separate occasions, but I couldn't get the wrapping right, and it drove me crazy. I'd like to try these again sometime when I have more time and more patience.

More recently, we tried making "calm down" jars. We've had the book Peaceful Piggy for a couple of years, and it's a much loved favorite of both girls. In the back, they give vague instructions for filling a jar with sand and water and watching it settle. But, we don't really have a good source for sand nearby, and I knew the water would get scuzzy after a while. So I went looking for alternatives, and it turns out that the book Moody Cow Meditates (which we don't have, but is in my wish list) has a glitter version. And you know how we love our sparkles!

Not wanting to reinvent the wheel, I turned to that treasure trove of crafty things, Pinterest. I found a few recipes that looked promising, but this post on Momma Owl's Lab was my favorite. It was six different recipes! With notes! They already did all of the work! What could possibly go wrong?

We gathered our supplies:

We mixed, then we shook, and

all of the glitter floated up. To the top. Very fast. We used two variations of the recipes I linked to above, so I assumed the glitter was the culprit.

So we tried again, with different glitter, and

got the exact same results. Thinking maybe it was the corn syrup we used, I went to the store and got glycerine to try. By attempt number three, I was not happy, and poured out the glycerine-glitter mix before I took any photos, but it looked just like this:

So, that was frustrating. I am still not sure what went wrong, but I definitely needed a calm down jar for myself after that! I think we'll try a completely different recipe next time. I have seen some that use glitter glue. It seems like a lot of people had clumping issues (which was why I went with a plain glitter recipe), but we'll see.

Of course, sometimes things do work. Maybe it's not a craft, but just a good thrift store find (or this case, Estate Sale Warehouse find). I pinned this art supply caddy a year ago, but old soda crates aren't that easy to come by around here. I finally found one though, and for a cool $12.50, it was all mine!

It doesn't quite erase the sting of failure, but it helps.