Our latest dessert successes

Frozen mocha pies; one LPLD friendly, one not

Spring rolls are always LPLD friendly!

 My non-LPLD daughter loves to cook and bake and has been crushing it with her masterpieces lately.  All with at least a version that is LPLD-safe.  Check them out!

Candy corn cake!  A layer of vanilla, pumpkin, and lemon; whipped cream frosting

Layers!

Birthday Cake Success!

Birthdays are such a struggle for me. Do I make both a fat free cake and a fat full cake? Do I buy one or the other? Do we all eat the fat free cake? 

 This year for my birthday I decided to make both myself. We are Great British Baking Show junkies, so I chose this, GIUSEPPE’S AMARENA CHERRY CAKE, and OH MAN! It was SUCH a success! 

 I don't think I've ever made a yeasted cake before, and I love it. It tastes more like a coffee cake to me, but then when you load it with pudding or custard and a frosting like glaze (and I put some kirsch liqueor on mine, too), it was just excellent. Light, moist, sweet but not too sweet, with big chunks of DELICIOUS cherries. 

 That's one of the keys to the recipe, I think, using the expensive cherries in jars that are just so delicious. And don't worry, you don't waste any of that delicious syrup, either! You soak the baked cakes in it! So yum! 

 I admit this post is mostly for future reference for me to find the recipe in the future. I soaked the dried cherries in the amarena cherry juice/syrup instead of rum for the kids, even though it would get cooked off, I wasn't sure they would enjoy the flavor of rum. 

 So, the changes I made for the fat free version: 

 -I used the flaked almonds but the kids didn't like them, so there's an easy way to cut back the fat next time 

 -I used skim milk instead of whole 

 -I did 3 eggs plus 2 egg whites instead of yolks (leftover from the fatty version I made) 

 -instead of any butter or MCT oil or coconut oil at ALL, I used all fat free yogurt, strained to make it a big thicker, like a yogurt cheese. I can't BELIEVE how beautifully it turned out with this big change!! 

 -I used instant vanilla pudding mix instead of the custard at all, and they really really loved it. I piped it on to make it more fancy, but there was plenty left over that they piped onto their individual pieces. I did add a bit of extra vanilla extract to it for extra flavor, and of course used skim milk. 

 -I just excluded the butter from the honey syrup and added all the leftover amarena juice/syrup I had 

 -and of course skim milk for the almond glaze. 

 I forgot to do any altitude adjustments, and made it in the bundt pans I have and it turned out so good.

Just out of the oven, praying they look this good all the way through

They do!  They look so good!  Low fat version on the left

Can you tell it's low fat?  So yum

The best possible birthday gift - two beautiful cakes that turned out and my kids loved. Oh! And Thomas update - pretty soon after that last post, Thomas stopped appreciating the skimmed breastmilk I was making. He turned 1, so we stopped sweating it - I backed down to pumping once a day, and freezing it just to donate to the local milk bank and keep my supply up. During the day, my husband mixes the Monogen formula samples we got with skim cow's milk for extra calories, and Thomas is just fine with that. Score! Extra calories and non fat and I don't have to go through the process of skimming breastmilk anymore! Hurray! Thomas still loves to nurse, and will sometimes sadly make the sign for nursing when taking a bottle, to show that this is NOT what he really wants. But he is growing (slowly)!

Adventures in Formula!

We had another baby! Welcome, Thomas Theophilus! We were even good about getting his blood checked right when he turned 6 months old - triglycerides of >1575. Man. Our 3rd baby with LPLD! So we started collecting my breastmilk that I pumped at work in large mouth jars and using a ladle to scoop off the fat after a day in the refrigerator and saving that fat in bags to donate to the local milk bank. But it wasn't perfect, there was still plenty of fat in the milk. So then I tried firing up the old Ukrainian milk separator and running hot water through it and... it spilled water eeeeevveeeerryyywheeeere. No bueno. I'm not putting my breastmilk in that! We trouble shooted and trouble shot some more, and figured it wasn't spinning fast enough and so the motor was probably shot. I mean, it was 7 years old and had made a few moves, 2 international, so it's appropriate to retire it finally. We ordered a new motor alone, to try to save some money... and 3 months later we're still trying to get it installed. The bolts are hard to reach! Then it turns out the are metric sized bolts instead of imperial! So after lots of purchases and returns from the hardware store, we finally have it set up and running!!!

And now that he's got fat free milk to drink, Thomas is TEARING THROUGH what I pump AND what I have frozen. Drat. I have 3 months to go with feeding him this way, and I'm not sure we'll make it on breastmilk alone. He loves his solids, don't get me wrong, but we can't fill him on on solids sufficiently to slow down his milk intake. Hmm. So it's time for me to learn about fat free formulas! There are two that I'm aware of - Nutricia Monogen and Enfaport. They are designed for Long-Chain Fatty Acid Oxidation Disorders (LCFAOD) or LCHAD or chylothorax, which means they have lots of medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) (and less fat in general). It turns out you can request samples: Monogen sample Enfaport sample So, onward to another LPLD adventure!

And I was sobbing last night and snapping at my kids in frustration over the milk separator being a pain to use and my milk supply getting low. So, sorry to be so upbeat in this post - I promise I'm not always!

Better fruit tart

Monica declared this her favorite dessert ever!

I pounded up 3 graham crackers, added 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tablespoon of coconut oil, and pressed it rather haphazardly in a tart pan. I baked it at 325 F for maybe 10-15 min to give it a bit of crunch, but it still crumbled all over when I served it. But for once, it was tastey! I made a package of lemon Jello Pudding mix with skim milk and poured it on top of the cooled crust. Topped with berries (Monica did that part, actually), and I recommended warming up some jelly (apricot is a classic to use), and brushing it on top of the fruit to help it maintain its juiciness and shine. Everyone loved it, LPL or not! I couldn't cut a clean, nice looking piece, but it didn't matter, it was still delicious.

Rustic Apple Tarts

I've been at a loss for a long time about the best option for a pie crust. They often stuck horribly to the pie pan and were dense and chewy. Yuck. Which is a shame, as a fruit-based dessert is such an obvious answer for LPLD. So maybe the answer is to free the pie from the pan? I made these rustic apple tarts and instead of butter I used half coconut oil, and half MCT oil. Not perfect for LPL, but they were certainly delicious! Lighter crust, one actually worth eating. I skipped the butter entirely in the filling, and used just egg white for making the pastry extra golden - turned out great. Don't forget the dusting of flour before you put the apples in, it really made a difference - the ones I forgot to dust ended up leaking apple juice and burning on the edges from it. Still tasty, but not quite as pretty.

Basic tomato sauce

Tomato sauce is a staple in our house.  It is a reliable tastey 'dip' for toddlers, as well as a perfect fast meal with a bit of pasta.  We also use it as pizza sauce, and as a base to add things to and make barbecue sauce or even a mild salsa.  We like to make big batches and store a lot of it in jars in the freezer, then whenever our jar in the refrigerator gets low, we bring out a new one to defrost.

The key to making a sauce that is so versatile, though, is to keep it simple.  No adding oregano or basil or other spices, which would be great as a pasta sauce, but if you use it on beans and eggs with cilantro might not taste entirely right.

Simple pasta sauce recipe:

Six 28 oz cans of whole tomatoes
teaspoon of salt
splash of olive oil
5-6 garlic cloves, diced

Open your cans of tomatoes and add them (two at a time for us) to a food processor or blender to puree them, and add the salt.  (or we just recently bought an immersion blender, so now we put them in a big pot and puree them there!).  Take the biggest pot you've got, heat it up on medium heat, then add the olive oil, maybe a tablespoon for the whole batch.  After it's hot and sizzling a little, add the diced garlic cloves.  Sautee the garlic for maybe a minute, then add all your pureed tomato and stir it around.  Then keep heating the sauce until it's as thick as you want it.  For instance, we like our pizza sauce pretty thick, but our pasta sauce more thin.  So we will make it more on the thin side, knowing we might have to add some tomato paste to it on pizza night.  The higher you turn the heat, the faster it will thicken up, but the more often you need to stir it to keep it from burning.  A lower heat requires less stirring, and is fine for a long day that you'll be hanging out at home, anyway!

The face of a pasta lover

Fancy desserts part two

My husband requested a fruit tart for Father's day - a buttery crust, creme pat/ custard filling, with fruit on top.  So I made an additional one for my LPLD girls!

I mixed graham crackers crumbs with an egg white for the crust (baked it at 350 for 10-20 min), filled it with instant vanilla pudding (with skim milk), and beautiful fruit on top, and even microwaved some strawberry jelly to brush on top to make it shiny and fantastic.  I dare you to try to tell which is which!  My eldest requests a lemon pudding next time, for some contrasting flavors.

I continue to struggle with the pie crust, though.  It stuck to the pie plate so horribly that most wasn't eaten, sigh, and it made a mess of serving it.  The leftovers the next day came out quite easily, as the pudding had softened the crust a bit - so not as crunchy, but prettier?  Maybe I'll add some crushed almonds for a bit of crunch (and fat, sigh), and plan to serve it the next day?  I've also tried graham cracker crumbs combined with apple sauce and had the same issue.  I will find a good fatless crust solution one day!

Can you tell which is fat free?

Fancy Desserts in a Time of Pandemic

I've been hooked on watching the Great British Baking Show for a few years, now.  In Germany I had to see the episodes slightly illegally on Netflix (apparently if you live in Germany you don't have access to the show, but if you live in the States you do).  It's much easier here, and I love to watch it on my phone while I pump breastmilk at work.

Sometimes they have great low fat options.  Because of them, I am learning about fatless sponges (cakes) and ALL the different varieties of meringue.  And I have some time between shifts at work, with the Covid Quarantine, and my kids could definitely use a fancy dessert as a pick-me-up in this weird and stressful time!

I made my first meringue layer cake last week, after inspiration from the GBBS, using a powdered egg white that we had leftover from Christmas gingerbread house frosting/glue.  It got rave reviews!  I put raspberry jelly between the first two layers, fat free whipped topping and cherries between the second two layers, and a few stripes of chocolate syrup on top.  Oh! And I put drops of blue food coloring in with the meringue while I piped the layers out, to give it a pretty blue stripe.  The occasion was the Annunciation, so it needed some blue for Mary!



The first batch that I made, I cooked for too long and didn't add sugar to the meringue, so it tasted awful and curled up into an unusable mess.  Luckily, our chickens still liked it!

But the second attempt turned out well.  I used a silicon baking sheet to weight it down and prevent curling.  Monica said I put too much jelly on, but it was otherwise good.  Darn near impossible to cut cleanly - we ate it all in one night!

Previously I tried making Jaffa cakes from the GBBS, but I think the chocolate on top has a bit too much fat.  I also bought some Jaffa cakes off of Amazon from the UK, but we haven't tried them yet.  Apparently they have 1 g of fat per cookies which isn't terrible...  Since Snackwell's stopped selling our favorite chocolate cookies, we are in desperate need of another chocolate treat.



We discovered some greek yogurt ice cream bars that everyone LOVES - and just 2 g fat per bar!

My future baking plans include a rolled cake for Easter, with either meringue or a fatless Genoise sponge.  When they say fatless, they mean there's no butter, oil, or cream - there are still eggs as a source of fat, but it's better than many cakes!  I'll let you know how it goes.

Two Week Meal Plan

Someone asked on Facebook the other day about a 2 week menu for LPLD, which has me curious as to whether I can provide that with the recipes I have!  Which is apparently the motivation I needed to get blogging again.  So, let's give it a try!

I love meal planning, and consider it essential to keep my family eating healthy, with plenty of vegetables, and to avoid daily trips to the grocery store, as well as avoiding high costs of convenience meals.  I find time between other chores to look at the calendar with my husband and write on our family dry erase board the basics of what's going on that week, and what meals would likely fit where.  It helps a lot to be able to look what's for dinner when it's still the morning, and plan when to start defrosting meat or start rice (or other things that require long cooking times) during the day!  This meal plan is mostly from scratch, which can admittedly be exhausting - convenience foods are indeed hard to find for LPLD!  But real life is full of leftovers, anyway.  One loaf of banana bread or batch of pizza yields many meals, which is where most of our 'convenience foods' come from ;).  Yay leftovers!  Plus, we usually have hamburgers every week on our busiest day.  Pick a meal that you don't mind eating weekly, and run with it!

Hypothetical meal plan, with fat in parentheses:
*Note on MCT oil: most folks with LPLD are able to eat MCT oil with impunity, as MCT oil passes through cell membranes without the need of the lipoprotein lipase enzyme that they lack.  So that's why I don't count MCT oil in total fat, but make note of it just in case you do.

Also, in our family, we try to average 10 g of fat per day.  Sometimes there's more fat, sometimes there's less, but it seems to average out OK.

Monday:

• breakfast: Banana bread (assuming 15 slices,1 g per slice from eggs, plus 3.6 g from MCT oil*)
• lunch: Frozen pieroggies, sauerkraut, mustard, and oven roasted butternut squash (3 g for olive oil for the squash)
• dinner: Bibimbap (10 g, assuming an 8 oz serving of meat, plus a little oil from sauteeing)
• snacks: Potato chips (1 g)
• Total fat: 15 g/ 18.6 g counting MCT as fat

Tuesday:

• breakfast: Crepes (1.5 g per crepe from eggs, plus another 2.5 g per crepe from MCT oil*)
• lunch: Hamburgers (quarter pound patty has 5.75 g of fat if 95% lean, 2 g from whole wheat bun) with steamed green beans
• dinner: Pizza! (4 tablespoons of MCT oil in the crust with nonfat cheese and vegetable toppings, each crust making 15 pieces, and you eat 4 slices; 15 g of from MCT oil*)
• snacks: Pretzels (1 g from MCT oil each) (roll in cinnamon sugar for a sweet treat!)
• Total fat: 7.25 g/ 25.75 g counting MCT as fat

Don't let olives fool you, they have 10 g of fat in 3 ounces!

Wednesday:

• breakfast: Pumpkin muffin (1 g from egg and pumpkin seeds; plus 4.5 g from MCT oil)
• lunch: curried chicken salad without nuts and fat free mayo, on 1 slice whole wheat bread (6 g)
• dinner: whole wheat pasta with jarred sauce, maybe some sauteed zuchini (3 g, depending on sauce)
• snacks: fruit pizza (0 g with fat free cream cheese and yogurt)
• Total fat: 10 g/ 14.5 g counting MCT as fat

Thursday:

• breakfast: Huevos Rancheros (7 g fat, or 2 g if you use nonfat egg alternative like EggBeaters)
• lunch: Frozen tuna steak with stir fry sauce and carrot sticks (1 g)
• dinner: Beef and cabbage stir fry (7 g fat if 95% lean beef and no cooking oil; sesame oil is so flavorful!)
• snacks: air popped popcorn (0 g! unless you top it with MCT oil, yum)
• Total fat: 15 g

Friday:

• breakfast: German pancakes (1 g from coconut oil or MCT oil)
• lunch: Veggie bean burritos (1 g per corn tortilla you eat, or nonfat served over rice!)
• dinner: Banh Mi sandwiches (13 g, use nonfat mayo mixed with sriracha, whoo!)
• snacks: lemon (or another flavor) sorbet! (0 g)
• Total fat: 15 g

Saturday:

• breakfast: Pancakes (1.25g, 3.5 from MCT oil or coconut oil)
• lunch: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat bread (4 g, depending how much powdered peanut butter you use)
• dinner: Fish tacos (3.25 g with tilapia and a corn tortilla)
• snacks: One chocolate cupcake (3 g MCT oil) 
• Total fat: 8.5 g / 13.75 g counting MCT oil

Sunday:

• breakfast: Bowl of cheerios with skim milk and sliced banana or blueberries or strawberries... yum (0 g)
• lunch: Chicken tacos (6 g without avocado, on a corn tortilla)
• dinner: Pasta fagioli (scroll down, past other good recipes :) ) (3.2 g)
• snacks: Kettle corn (7 g if you eat half the batch, muah ha ha)
• Total fat: 16.2 g

WEEK TWO!

Monday:

• breakfast: Instant oatmeal (3 g)
• lunch: Lettuce wraps (9.5 g from 95% lean ground beef and a little oil)
• dinner: Pasta primavera (2 g from the olive oil, top with fat free feta)
• snacks: Rice pudding (0 g)
• Total fat: 14.5 g

Tuesday:

• breakfast: Bagel with fat free cream cheese (1.5 g)
• lunch: Vegetable Lo Mein (0 g)
• dinner: Shepherd's Pie (if you eat one sixth of the recipe, 9 g)
• snacks: slice of apple pie! (6.75 g for an eighth of the pie, serve with fat free whipped topping?)
• Total fat: 17.25 g

Wednesday:

• breakfast: Nonfat yogurt with fruit (0 g)
• lunch: wrap with sliced turkey, nonfat cream cheese, slices of apples, banana peppers, and fat free ranch dressing (~3 g, but depends on the tortilla you use)
• dinner: 2 California sushi rolls with edamame beans (7 g of fat per roll)
• snacks: strawberry ice cream (2.5 grams if you eat one fourth of the whole batch, don't forget chocolate syrup!)
• Total fat: 19.5 g

Wraps are a favorite picnic meal

Thursday:

• breakfast: Sauteed vegetables (onion, zuchini, mushrooms, peppers with a tiny amount of olive oil) and an egg (8 g)
• lunch: homemade pizza rolls (0 g)
• dinner: Can of nonfat soup
• snacks: Angel food cupcake from a box (0 g! eat a few... top with fruit or jelly!)
• Total fat: 8 g

Friday:

• breakfast: Smoothie with fat free yogurt, bananas, strawberries, other fruits and veg of your choice (0 g)
• lunch: boiled shrimp with cocktail sauce and steamed cauliflower (4 g)
• dinner: 3 oz sirloin steak with sweet potato with marshmallow and cinnamon (12 g)
• snacks: Pumpkin cookie (1 g per cookie)
• Total fat: 18 g (you're going to have more than one cookie...)

Saturday:

• breakfast: French toast  cooked in 1 teaspoon coconut oil, topped with maple syrup (4.5 g)
• lunch: salad with a hard boiled egg, shredded carrots, shredded cabbage, green apple slices, sliced red bell pepper, nonfat Italian dressing (5 g)
• dinner: grilled cheese sandwich with fat free mayo or cream cheese, fat free cheese, and roast bell pepper, with a side of canned tomato soup (2 g)
• snacks: fresh whole wheat bread dipped in balsamic vinegar (1 g per slice of bread, usually)
• Total fat: 12.5 g

Sunday:

• breakfast: homemade cinnamon rolls (1.8 g each) 
• lunch: Cheesy chicken quesadillas (5 g in each, you'll want 2 though!)
• dinner: Baked chicken nuggets (1.5 g in 8 nuggets)
• snacks: pretzels in a fat free dip (0 g)
• Total fat: 13.3 g

Whew!  That was harder than I thought, I need to post more recipes!  This was a good exercise for me.  It made me realize how much LPLD is easier to manage with one meat per day; there's all sorts of other reasons to cut back on meat intake, from environmental to health to money saving.

And just to reassure the parents out there, a lot of these are adult servings.  Kids tend to get more restrictive daily fat goals (10 g or less is what we first heard), but kids also just don't eat as much as adults.  It's not impossible!  We went through months of weighing the food on our daughter's plate before and after every meal to gauge her fat intake, but it only took a few weeks for us to get a good feel for it, and it hasn't been that bad ever since!

We've moved!

Well, our time in Germany has ended.  It was so lovely living in Europe!  But it's also good to be back around the grocery stores with more fat free cheese, fat free cream cheese, and fat free vanilla ice cream - I was never able to find those in our little German town.

But have you bought a package of Snackwells lately??

What used to be our mainstay supply of nonfat chocolate goodness, the closest we could let our LPLD girls overindulge in chocolate... now has fat???  SIGH.  We are a little heart broken.  Definitely not the greeting I was expecting upon our return to the states!

If you happen to find a source for the fat free cookies of yore, please let me know.  And mail us some.  Lots!  We've checked Amazon pretty thoroughly.  Monica is planning to write a letter to the company, which is adorable and I'm pretty excited about.  SIGH some more.  If you feel the way I do, you should look at the Snackwell's facebook page - the comments are tearing the company apart for changing their cookie.  At least we're not the only ones sad about the change!

Potato Chips

Have you seen or heard of Pampered Chef's chip makers?  They look like this:

and are meant to make fat free chips in the microwave. 

Being a Pampered Chef fan, I knew about their existence since about the time Monica was first diagnosed.  But for some reason, I was wary of them.  My mother in law kindly made some potato chips in the microwave for Monica, on a paper towel to absorb moisture, and they turned out great!  But they used far too many paper towels for me to love them.

Our local thrift store even had a box of the Pampered Chef chip makers, and I still resisted buying them!  I think they sat on the store shelf for years.  And every time I went in, I chose NOT to buy them.

Until last month.  I finally spent the $2 to get them and feel silly I waited so long.

I think the best part about them is that it's a healthy (enough) snack that Monica can make entirely on her own.  We turned two large potatoes into chips last night to go with a rather celebratory Peruvian inspired dinner (to celebrate St Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo from a favorite meal planning book, Feast!) and Monica did almost all the work!  Since I got the mandolin out, anyway, I cut up most of the potato (with fancy gloves that limit how much I can cut myself on the sharp blade that Luke sweetly insists I wear!), but we also tried just peeling layers with a vegetable peeler that Monica can easily use, and that worked just great.  A sprinkling of salt, a rather ridiculously long time in the microwave (5 minutes), and a fat-free snack is created!

Now we need to try apple chips and sweet potato chips.  Maybe I waited so long to buy it because that way Monica could learn to make these on her own right away!  Or maybe I'm just weird.  Or never eat potato chips myself so I thought this was silly.  But I'm so glad we bought it finally!

The magic maker herself!

Book Review - French Kids Eat Everything

Upon the recommendation of a good friend, I started reading this book.

And then I kept talking about it, and so my husband read it.

And then this morning I made a recipe from it.  And later this week I plan on making 3 more.  And I am shocked at how all these classic French recipes can be easily adapted for LPLD!

I have adored French food for years - the small serving sizes at restaurants, yet perfectly plated and beautifully displayed; the outrageous ingredients to try; the rich flavors; the smooth sauces.  I can't speak French to save my life, which is a challenge for traveling there, but we have had many lovely trips outside the main city centers where we can get by and enjoy the food.

French Kids Eat Everything opened my eyes to the day-to-day aspects of French family life- quite similarly to my favorite parts of living in Germany for 3 years.  Some of my favorite parts of travel include going to local markets, watching families of various cultures at playgrounds, and eating the foods that are everyday staples there.  Because of this book, my husband and I have been working on enjoying cooking instead of unconsciously thinking of it as a chore, setting the dinner table more thoughtfully so that we don't have to get up during the meal, sitting at the table for meals instead of rushing through a meal to dash off to our next thing to do, and talking with our girls about how their food looks, smells, tastes, and feels in their mouths.  I hope to remember this book to reread in a few years, after its lessons have faded from my memory.

In the meantime, we are trying some of the recipes.  This morning I made pain d'epices for breakfast (I used skim milk and MCT oil instead of the butter), this afternoon with lunch we plan to have Sophie's Spinach Surprise soup before our egg sandwiches, and later this week I want to try Baby's Vichyssoise.  Eventually I will buy some endive and learn to cook with it.  Maybe I can make a quiche more often (crustless, and with lots of egg whites), and the stuffed tomatoes sound good, too.  I have big plans!  And I am so surprised to find the soups are so fat free!  They are basically just pureed steamed vegetables.  I'll let you know how they go.

Pain d'epices!  Just don't ask me to pronounce it, it won't be pretty.  But tastes like gingerbread, yet it has rye flour!

I have been working to lose the baby weight from my 3 month old recently, and reading this book definitely has helped.  I think its lessons would benefit anyone trying to eat better.  Changing our mindset to enjoy and actually relish good food, rather than just view it as a utilitarian fuel, seems to satisfy a deep desire that is essential to being human.  That desire being filled in other, disordered, ways leads to mindless overeating and mindless snacking, which never really satisfy.  But sitting down to a meal, carefully (but still often quickly!) prepared, with good company, and considering each attribute of every bite is immensely satisfying, and helps me not WANT to snack or overeat.

I highly recommend the book and wanted to share.  Even though many French flavors use significant amounts of fat, oil, and lard, they are also expert at displaying the other flavors of food.  I will keep looking for good LPL-friendly French recipes!

Banana Bread

My kids LOVE banana bread and it makes for an easy breakfast.  I like to soak my grains anyway, so that means I do most of it the night before, then do the final mixing step while the oven is preheating in the morning, then go back to bed until the timer wakes me up.  It's just as special as pancakes or waffles to my kids, but a WHOLE lot less work.

I have modified this recipe from Nourishing Traditions, one of my favorite cookbooks.

3 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups skim buttermilk/kefir/yogurt

Combine the above and let rest for 12-24 hours.  24 hours will apparently give fluffier bread, but I always forget to get it soaked that long.  In a separate bowl, combine, mix, and refrigerate:

3 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 c MCT oil
2 ripe bananas, mashed thoroughly

If you don't have any nice ripe black bananas, place whole yellow bananas in a 350 degree oven for 10 min; it will turn them black and sweet, perfect for this bread

After 12-24 hr, mix the two bowls together, along with 2 teaspoons baking soda.  Pour into a 9 inch loaf pan and top with a few pecans or walnuts if desired.

Bake at 350 for 1 and a half hours, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Bibimbap

Have you ever wished you had more Korean food in your repertoire?  Well if you're anything like our family, you will after you try this meal.  I was inspired to make it when one of my favorite bloggers wrote about it here.  When we make it for the kids, it's very un-spicey, but each individual can turn up the heat as desired.

So it's a bowl of rice, with various vegetables with different flavors on top, with some thinly sliced meat, and a nice runny egg on the very top to slowly ooze its 5 g of fat all over everything else with deliciousness.  We like to use pork loin for extra low fatness, and it's all just so tastey!

Here's a rundown of some vegie toppings you could use:
~pickled cucumbers and carrots (cucumbers cut into coins, carrots sliced with a peeler all the way through to be nice and thin; soak for a few hours in a mixture of 1/4 c sugar, half white vinegar, half water, and ta da! it's pickled!)
~kimchi (storebought, or it's basically spicy sauerkraut if you want to make it yourself, it's not too hard)
~sauteed spinach (we toss ours with a little Korean barbecue sauce we have on hand, but basically a little Asian flavor of any sort will do)
~bean sprouts
~sauteed mushrooms (shiitake are good and flavorful)

For the meat, we sliced the pork loin thin, and set it to marinade for a few hours.  The marinade for a whole loin was:
1/3 c brown sugar
1/2 c soy sauce
1/3 c white wine vinegar
1/3 c lime juice
1 T garlic powder
1 T ginger

We pass some gochuchang sauce around for the grownups or others who tolerate spiciness well to add as desired, but really it belongs in the meat marinade in the first place, oh well.  Our kids love getting to put together their own bowls, then we put the egg on top as the piece de resistance, and it's delicious and healthy and low fat!

Homemade Pizza Recipe

One of my proudest moments of a parent is hearing Monica declare, like most any 5 year old, that pizza is her favorite food.  I love that I can make a pizza that she loves, even with LPLD.

I haven't had luck with finding a crust that we like that's store bought, especially with low to no fat.  Instead, once a month I'll make a big batch of this sourdough pizza crust, bake them, and freeze them in a big plastic bag.  I have a sourdough culture living in my refrigerator that I really only use for this recipe.  I'll start 'feeding' it and letting it grow on the counter for a week prior to when I know I'll have time to make all those crusts.

When it's pizza night, all we have to do is take one out of the oven, cover it with our homemade all-purpose tomato sauce, sprinkle on the nonfat cheese, then top with mushrooms, pineapple, ham, chicken, olives, bell peppers, tomatoes, sautéed onions, or anything else sitting in the kitchen that sounds good!  Bake it as listed in the crust recipe above, and it's delicious.  Crisp crust that doesn't sag under the weight of all those goodies.  Very low fat.  Yum!

Half pepperoni pizza for my non-LPLD daughter, and half Hawaiian with fat free cheese!

CREPES!

Crepes are by far the girls' favorite food in the world.  My husband is a master at making them, and he'll make them at least every other weekend.  We try to save them as a special Sunday, Lord's day, kind of food.  But they are good all the time!

This is the basic recipe.  We make a double recipe to feed our family of 5.  We like the mix of half white and half whole wheat flour, as Luke finds them much less tear-able (like all white flour would be) but not too thick and hearty (as all whole wheat tends to be).

2 eggs
1/2 cup white flour
1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups skim milk
1 T coconut or olive oil

Mix the above ingredients.  Whisk well.  Prep your pan by heating it on medium, once warm add a splash of coconut or olive oil (you don't have to eat the first crepe if you have LPL, you won't need more oil for cooking), wait for that to warm up.  Pour batter into the heated and prepped pan and tilt it to coat the pan with a thin layer of batter.  As soon as the crepe looks dry, flip the pan upside down onto a serving plate and pour more batter in!  We keep the plate covered by a large pot lid to keep them all warm, but you could also keep the plate in an oven set to 'warm.'

It took us many months to perfect our technique.  But even messed up crepes are rather delicious...

Makes 6-7 large crepes.  24 g of fat for the whole recipe, so 4 g of fat per crepe (17 g total if you count coconut oil to be half the fat, then 3 g per crepe).  So we try to keep the filling all non fat, which isn't hard!

Ideas for the filling:

• the classic is a wedge of lemon squeezed over the crepe, then a spoonful of sugar sprinkled on tap of that, and folded into quarters.  Yum!
• chocolate syrup with fresh fruit (strawberries! blueberries! bananas! kiwi!)
• cook down frozen fruit or firm fruit (like apples or pears), adding water or juice and some sugar, to make a pie-filling like deliciousness...
• canned pie filling!  Tart cherries especially!
• savory - any nonfat cheese combination with lean lunch meat, maybe with roasted peppers, asparagus, oh man, the combinations are limitless...

guten Appetit!

PrEtZeLs!!!

Pretzels are ubiquitous to Germany.  They are sold in every bakery, at most festivals, and many food stands.  And there's a reason: they are delicious!

Pretzels save us on a regular basis - a fresh pretzel is reliably extremely low fat, and my girls will gladly accept one as a special treat.  We are going to miss these when we return to the States!

Or will we?  Pretzels are amazingly easy to make at home!  They have yeast but don't have to rise.  They have to be both boiled and baked, but it's not as hard as you might imagine.

Super cool pretzel-lovers

So give it a try!  Make them with salt, or coat them with cinnamon and sugar for dessert (I recommend dipping in cinnamon sugar after baking, not much of the flavor comes through if you dust them beforehand).  Here's my go-to recipe, with great explanations and videos, or here's their recipe copied for a quick reference:

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Adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction:

• 1 and 1/2 cups (360ml) warm water (lukewarm-- no need to take temperature)
• 1 packet active dry or instant yeast (2 and 1/4 teaspoons)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 Tablespoon coconut oil (warmed and liquid) or MCT oil
• 3 and ¾  - 4 cups (460-500g) all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
• coarse sea salt for sprinkling

Directions:

1. Whisk the yeast into warm water. Allow to sit for 1 minute. Whisk in salt, brown sugar, and melted butter. Slowly add 3 cups of flour, 1 cup at a time. Mix with a wooden spoon (or dough hook attached to stand mixer) until dough is thick. Add 3/4 cup more flour until the dough is no longer sticky. If it is still sticky, add 1/4 - 1/2 cup more, as needed. Poke the dough with your finger - if it bounces back, it is ready to knead.
2. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Knead the dough for 3 minutes and shape into a ball. Cover lightly with a towel and allow to rest for 10 minutes. (Meanwhile, I like to get the water + baking soda boiling as instructed in step 6.)
3. Preheat oven to 400°F (204°C). Get out 2 baking sheets, I prefer stoneware.
4. With a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut dough into 1/3 cup sections (to make 12 pretzels)
5. Roll the dough into a 20-22 inch rope. Take the ends and draw them together so the dough forms a circle. Twist the ends, then bring them towards yourself and press them down into a pretzel shape. (or make letters and silly squiggles with your kids!)
6. Bring 1/2 cup baking soda and 9 cups of water to a boil in a large pot. Drop 1-2 pretzels into the boiling water for 20-30 seconds. Any more than that and your pretzels will have a metallic taste. Using a slotted spatula, lift the pretzel out of the water and allow as much of the excess water to drip off. Place pretzel onto prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle each with coarse sea salt. Repeat with remaining pretzels.
7. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Pumpkin Muffins

Adapted from this recipe.

If I can find a way to get vegetables into breakfast, I consider myself a pretty accomplished mom.  So this recipe, with a good amount of pumpkin and all whole-wheat flour for lots of good fiber, plus molasses to increase the iron levels of my daughters, is a favorite - even more so because my girls love them!  A warning, though - they only love them if I put pretty decorative pumpkin seeds on top.  Presentation is everything, I suppose!  I've even served them with cream cheese frosting (made with fat-free cream cheese) for a special occasion, breakfast or dessert.

Low Fat Pumpkin Muffins

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda/ baking soda
• 1 heaping tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• 1/4 cup MCT or coconut oil
• 1 cup canned pumpkin (half a can)
• 1/8 cup pumpkin seeds (I think 3 seeds per muffin is perfect)

Combine dry ingredients.  Add wet ingredients.  Pour into 12 greased or papered muffin tins (we like to have the girls 'paint' each cup with coconut oil using a pastry brush).  Mix well, and spoon promptly into the muffin cups such that each is one half to three-quarters full.  Top with a few pumpkin seeds for decoration.  Bake at 350 F/ 180 C for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Let rest in muffin tins for 5 minutes (if you can resist eating one right away) before removing.

Potluck Ideas

We just welcomed a new baby and there are plenty of generous friends who would like to provide meals for our family, but are intimidated from hearing about our LPLD requirements.  How do you give meal ideas to people with no experience with LPLD?  Here's my list, maybe it will help you, too, whether with a new baby, after surgery, or at a potluck at school, church, or work:

-Stir fry with rice, specifically with no more than a tablespoon of oil or two for the entire meal (no fried foodstuffs), and plenty of vegetables

-Baked pasta dishes or casseroles without sausage or bacon (other meats are fine), no cream sauce, and any cheeses (or bacon or sausage) on the side so we can add them as needed

-Salads with all the chopping already done is such a relief, being healthy AND easy.  In our house, we emphasize the toppings more than the lettuce - everyone likes the carrots, peppers, tomatoes, cranberries, and hard-boiled eggs (etc) best, anyway!

-Sandwich fixings - bread rolls, lunch meat, cheese to add to certain sandwiches, lettuce, tomato or roast bell pepper... just think of your favorite combinations at Subway and provide the fixings for one of them!  We like to add fat free cheese to our LPLD girls sandwiches and toast them to be extra yummy.  Little additions like some thin slices of green apple or a few mild banana peppers with a little fat-free Italian dressing goes a long way, too!

-Homemade pizza kit - some premade pizza crusts (ones that are already rolled out, not the ones in the can, which can be so full of fat), marinara sauce, grated cheese, and 3-4 favorite toppings

-Soups and stews without sausage, bacon, cream or cheese (or just serve them on the side) - chili, minestrone, barley beef, chicken noodle are all favorites in our house!

-Pulled pork sandwiches with carrot sticks or another veggie on the side.  Leftover pulled pork can always be served later in tacos, on chips, even in breakfast eggs!

-A variety of packs of fresh pasta (ravioli, tortellini, etc) with a jar of pasta sauce

-Dessert of Jello, angel food cake with fruit, or sherbet

I have a short recipe index for actual recipes that have worked for us, too.

Our reason for needing meals - we'll find out if he has LPLD when he's 6 months old

What would you add?  How do you explain LPLD dietary requirements?

How Do Holidays Change With LPLD: Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  We are in the midst of our 12 days of celebrating.  This is how we do it with LPLD, maybe it will inspire you for however you celebrate in December, and throughout the year.

We spent the month of December making a batch or two of cookies each weekend, and saving them (in tins, outside in the cold to keep them fresh) for Christmas Eve.  A plate of that variety of cookies serves us as gifts for teachers, landlords, etc, as well as dessert for Christmas Eve and many days after.  A few cookies in front of an (electric) fireplace while singing Christmas carols is a perfect blend of treat and family-strengthening memory-maker for us.  At some point, we also like to have a birthday cake for Jesus, which is typically angel food cake, served with strawberries (previously frozen, it is December, after all).

For stocking stuffers, this year the girls got a container of Mike and Ike's each, which they polished off in a few short hours.  Otherwise, they get bubble bath, hair ties, band aids, stickers, temporary tattoos, pretty stationary, and/or jewelry for their stockings.  We have a steady supply of (fat free!) candy canes of various flavors on the Christmas tree for bonus treats.  In the future, we might put apples, oranges, or (low fat) granola bars in stockings, since it's hard to get anyone to eat breakfast on such an exciting morning, anyway.  But that's all the sweet treats we provide for the season!  Christmas lunch this year was a smorgasbord of snacks laid out, including a can of high-quality crab, shrimp, cocktail sauce, fat free cheese, tastey farm bread with balsamic vinegar, and carrot sticks.  For dinner we had prime rib, roast beets, and sweet potatoes.  After cold walks or bike rides outside, we are pretty easily swayed to pass out hot cocoa made with skim milk and chocolate syrup.

Now that we've done this for a few years, there certainly doesn't feel like much of a sacrifice in our family to have plenty of delicious LPLD options for the holidays.  I hope it feels like that for you and yours, too, and that you finish out 2018 with plenty of joy and relaxation!