Beans–Day 24

Minestrone

Here are my changes. I’ll post what we thought later.

3 cups cooked red beans

1/2 cup diced smoked sausage

2 TB olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 large carrot, cut into 1/2-inch dice

3 garlic cloves, chopped fine

2 cups frozen green beans

2 large potatoes, peeled and diced

1 package frozen kale

1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes

4 1/2 cups chicken broth

Freshly grated Parmesan

Saute onion, garlic, and smoked sausage in the oil until the onion is soft. Add in remaining ingredients, except for the parmesan, and bring to boil. Simmer soup, covered, for 30-45 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Top with freshly grated parmesan.

Beans–Day 23

Black Bean Salad

http://www.recipezaar.com/47660

Always a favorite here….served with tortilla chips or Fritos (which are gluten free!!)

Diversions

One of the really great things about homeschooling is the ability to take a day off from our scheduled lessons to learn more about the world around us–in real time.

Today is just such a day. How cool is it that I can plan our entire day around the election? We started our day with voting first thing, followed by a couple of worksheets on the electoral college.

I am proud to be raising a bunch of nerds. When I brought out the worksheets, the reaction was, “Sweet.” LOL!

Tonight we are going to be coloring in our electoral college maps and to celebrate the festivities, I am going to make this. I figure that if our guy wins we’ll be celebrating.  If he loses, we’ll be crying in our fondue–either way, we’re going to need chocolate.

Beans–Day 22

African Sweet Potato Stew with Red Beans

This recipe looks good. I love soups with sweet potatoes. I will be posting our comments later. See comments below.

Here are my changes:

• 2  teaspoons  olive oil
• 1 1/2  cups  chopped onion
• 1  garlic clove, minced
• 4  cups  (1/2-inch) cubed peeled sweet potato (about 1 1/2 pounds)
• 1 1/2  cups  cooked black beans
• 1 1/2  cups  chicken broth
• 1/2  cup  water
• 1/2  teaspoon ginger, ground
• 1/2  teaspoon  salt
• 1/2  teaspoon  ground cumin
• 1/4  teaspoon  black pepper
• 1  (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
• 1  (4.5-ounce) can chopped green chiles, drained
• 3  tablespoons  creamy peanut butter
• bottled lime juice

Instead of placing all of this in the crockpot, I am cooking this on the stove. In a soup pot, saute onions and garlic in olive oil for about 5 minutes, or until onions are tender. Add in everything to the chiles and bring to boil. Simmer for 30 minutes or until sweet potatoes are soft.

In a small bowl, combine peanut butter with 1 cup of cooking liquid, stirring until smooth. Stir peanut butter mixture into stew. Serve with lime juice.

Comments: We really enjoyed this recipe, enough so that we will be making it again–soon. I was worried about the soup before I added in the peanut butter mixture because it tasted pretty thin but the peanut butter really makes this dish.

Menu Plan Monday

Here is my menu plan for dinners for the week. We are still working on beans for lunch, so those will be posted each day.

• Chicken and Noodles with peas
• Smoked Sausage with Potatoes, corn
• Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, fresh cauliflower
• Oven Swiss steak, rice pilaf, carrot sticks
• Potato Soup, GF biscuits
• Rice Crust Pizza, peas
• Smoked chicken, roasted potatoes, corn

Gluten-free Pizza

I’ve been promising for a while now to post the recipe for my gluten free pizza. The word pizza really should be in quotation marks here since this pizza isn’t really going to have the same characteristics as a normal pizza would. The difference in this case is the crust.

There are numerous gluten free pizza crusts on the market today and I have yet to find one that I actually like–or one that is affordable, not to mention one without the gums to bind it together.  As I’ve mentioned before, those gums really bother my stomach so I use them sparingly. I am happy with this version, although my kids would still rather have “normal” pizza.

Gluten Free Pizza

For the crust:

• Make a batch of rice using 3 1/2 cups water, 2 cups white rice, 2 TB butter, and 1/2 tsp each garlic powder and onion powder
• 3 eggs
• 2 TB spaghetti seasoning (I buy this from Sam’s. It has onion flakes, pepper flakes, as well as the traditional Italian seasoning)
• 1 cup cottage cheese
• 1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese

Mix everything together quickly since the rice is hot and will cook your eggs if you’re not careful. Spread this mixture onto a parchment-lined jelly roll pan. Bake in a 400-degree oven for 20 minutes.

While the crust is cooking, prepare your toppings. For the sauce, I am using 1 can of tomato paste, 1/2 tsp each: onion powder, garlic powder, spaghetti seasoning, and enough water to make a spreadable sauce. I am also using leftover chicken as well as colby and mozzarella cheeses. Nothing fancy tonight!

Since the crust is already baked, the cheeses just need to melt before serving, so I will pop the pizza under the broiler until the cheeses are nice and bubbly.

Pictures coming soon.

Beans–Day 21

Baja Black Beans

http://www.recipezaar.com/55768

 

This recipe is a favorite and very easy. I substitute a can of tomatoes for the fresh when tomatoes are really expensive.

Beans–Day 20

Black Bean and Chocolate Chili

http://www.recipezaar.com/89066

Another chili recipe.

Beans–Day 19

Rice and Black Bean Pilaf

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ellie-krieger/rice-and-black-bean-pilaf-recipe/index.html

My Son….

I was asked a couple of weeks ago about my son. I apologize for taking so long to respond to comments/questions left for me. These past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of activity!

With this new diagnosis and planned trip to Denver to visit with a new doctor, we’ve had to dig up all sorts of past records on ds and I suppose, that’s caused quite a bit of emotion to come back to the surface.

DS was diagnosed at the age of 14 with a form of autism. While we do have the label of “Asperger’s”, the doctor who diagnosed him had quite a bit of trouble trying to place him in the right category since nothing ever lines up as neatly as we’d like and ds was no exception.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to the time when ds was a baby, before the developmental delays were apparent, and just relive that time. By the time ds was 2, we were in speech therapy and at that time, those were the only delays we thought he had.

We moved when ds was nearly 3 and had to give up the wonderful therapy we’d received. Everything is handled differently here–through the school district–and it was another year before we had everything worked out for ds to continue therapy. By this point he was speaking but had developed a pretty severe stutter. From that point to now, there have been times where he was nearly unintelligible due to the stuttering.

There were signs along the way that ds wasn’t keeping up developmentally with his peers. He wasn’t potty trained until 4. Kindergarten was a nightmare some days. Even though he was nearly 6 when he entered kindergarten, transitions were heart-wrenching. There were many, MANY days where he had to literally pried off my body and/or pried out of the car. Even now, all these years later, it breaks my heart and brings tears to my eyes.

First grade brought more delays to mind with the complete lack of comprehension. Teacher’s notes were sent home asking us to work on comprehension with ds. He was falling further behind when compared to peers. He didn’t know how to make friends. He didn’t understand that these kids were making fun of him. He didn’t understand jokes.

As he’s matured, he has overcome some of these delays. Some of them have been so difficult to watch. His lack of understanding when people made fun of him were days of bliss compared to watching his heart break in understanding that his “friends” were making fun of him.

We had accepted the autism diagnosis and had learned to plan life around it. The delays that ds was overcoming made us hopeful that he’d be able to finish high school and go on to votech as well as finding a job that he liked.

A little over a year ago, all of my boys went to church camp. All three were looking forward to it and couldn’t wait to get there. When they got home, my 2nd oldest came to me to let me know that ds1 had had problems while at camp and those problems were scaring ds2. DS2 said that while running ds1 would have moments where he seemed to drag his leg behind him. At that point, we decided to watch him to see if it continued to happen. When it didn’t continue, we assumed it was just a fluke and thought nothing else of it.

Then ds started public high school. Our homeschooling experience had been a good fit for ds up to that point but by the time ds was to start 10th grade, he really wanted to try ps for a while. We agreed that it would likely be a good experience so he was enrolled for 10th grade.

Before the first semester was even finished, ds2 was again telling us that ds1 was having problems. We took him to the doctor and we were then referred to a pediatrician for further testing. The problem we had was that dh and I hadn’t actually seen these episodes and had to rely solely on the description given to us by ds2.

The pediatrician referred us to a neurologist which meant another couple-months’ wait. We still hadn’t seen what was going on with ds but had gotten him to admit to what was going on. He said at that point his arm and hand were tightening up whenever the bell would ring at school. That was February.

It’s now October and what was an intermittent problem for ds has now become a daily frustration. He reports that the spasms are happening at least once a day but oftentimes it’s several times in a day. His legs are also affected–greatly, it seems. He says that his legs don’t want to work when he gets up and that one leg is stiff and the other foot turns up and in when he tries to get up.

As he’s able, ds tells me more about what is going on with him. The other day he came home and said that there was a fire drill at the school and he couldn’t get up. His legs simply wouldn’t work.  He says that he can’t make his legs work in enough time to answer the phone when it rings.

I can no longer expect him to be able to get up as soon as I call him. He says that if I ask him to come to see me or to do some chore, he is no longer able to make his legs work. Once he’s up, he says he’s okay and his legs work (though from this side of things, they’re working–but not well). 

All of this coupled with our neurologist’s apparent inability to guide us in making the best decision for ds has me scared for what the future holds for ds–but also hopeful that this new doctor will have answers for us.