Snow Party

If the weather outside is frightful (and one or more of your children have winter birthdays), throw a snow party! Have everyone bring a sandwich for lunch.
You provide:


Lots of hot cider and hot (soy) cocoa with marshmallows


Snacks/snowman materials


Your own personal snowman


Snow Paint
2-4 drops of food coloring mixed with water in a squeeze bottle
(I bought these ketchup and mustard containers on clearance at the grocery store.)


Frozen Picassos


Yellow snow paint = Questionable color choice?


Dairy-free mitten cookies to decorate


Look! It's a marshmallow 'snowball' on the cookie mitten!


Winter-themed treat bags



Now go inside and take a nap.

P.S. As of today, I have been blogging for two years. Crazy!

January

Wonderful One

(Artwork by Katherine)



Helen's likes:
Her sister
Her brother
Daddy
Mama
Nursing
Sucking her thumb while holding Mama's hair
Walking
Peas
Bananas
Drinking from a sippy cup
Baby dolls
Anything soft and cuddly

Helen's dislikes:
Bumping her head on furniture
Being fed her dinner by someone else
Baths
Sleeping through the night
Being left behind

Words:
Hi
Hey
Dada
Mama
Ka (Katherine)
Eee (Eli)
Baba (baby)
Dis
Dat


Happy (Belated) Birthday, Baby. We love you.

Oxymoron

Today's review: Meatless Hamburger! Yes, you read that right. Otherwise known as Soy-licious! (TM) Hamburger Mix.



As anyone who has more than a passing acquaintance with us knows, we are not vegans. But we do enjoy trying new things, we want to be healthy, and our dairy-allergic daughter has had so many cross-contamination issues with red meat that she doesn't like to eat it anymore. Besides poultry burgers, is there any other type of burger out there that our entire family will eat?

Soy-licious! is almost the answer for us. The taste and texture is very close to ground beef. Four out of five Hatfields ate it and liked it. (The two-year old didn't, but he's...two.) Even Scott, who is VERY PARTICULAR about burgers, said that he liked this "for a veggie burger." That's high praise.

If you will be serving these burgers to carnivores, keep everyone out of the kitchen while you:


Add water and wait 15 minutes.


Add oil and mix well.


Form into desired shape and cook.


OK, you can come into the kitchen now! Look, burgers!

EDITED TO ADD: I forgot the ingredient list! Duh.
Ingredients: Textured soy protein, soy protein isolate, soy protein concentrate, wheat gluten, methylcellulose gum, garlic and onion powder, maltodextrin, hydrolyzed corn and yeast protein, and hydrolyzed wheat gluten, soy sauce powder, dextrose, cottonseed oil, autolyzed yeast extract, malt extract, spices, natural flavoring, torula yeast, chili powder, caramel color, and malic acid.

Nutritional Designs' Meatless Hamburger Mix is available online at Nutritional Designs or by calling 1-888-2-ND-Labs.

Written for Go Dairy Free.

Snow Day Activism

It's a Snow Day. Again. Actually, Ice Day is more accurate. If you're stuck at home like I am and you feel like, I don't know, writing a strongly-worded email or something, I have two topics to suggest:

1. The whole CPSIA thing. You can read more about it at Baby Boo Felt's blog, or at pretty much any other craft blog you follow. This is crap!

2. Disney's decision to stop publishing Wondertime, the only magazine I subscribe to and home to our own Catherine Newman. Also crap!


Then to cheer yourself up (sort of) you can enter the CPSIA giveaways at Swistle's blog. Me? I'm going to think happy thoughts about my friend/neighbor's pregnancy she just announced yesterday. This will bring our block's kid total to eighteen! Woot!

You have GOT to be kidding me

You know what else is not conducive to blogging? Not having INTERNET OR PHONE SERVICE ALL WEEKEND that's what. So my weepy post about this baby turning one! on Sunday is just going to have to wait until things calm down around here.

Happy Monday, Yo.

Not Conducive to Blogging:

Four family members with a stomach virus (AGAIN.)
Snow days
School holidays
Paperwork
Planning two winter birthdays
Preparing for new pets (Guppies--don't get too excited.)
The furnace breaking at 1:40 a.m.
Insomnia
Waiting for the furnace repair guy
Learning how much a furnace combustion blower costs
Car battery dying in the cold
Van power steering going out in the cold

What's up with you?

Form Help, Please

I am redoing our church's registration forms for our afternoon program because ours our hopelessly outdated and do not have room for parents to accurately describe their children's health concerns. I'm going to use FAAN's Allergy Action Plan form for any allergic children, but I need help with other health issues. Is there a form you like that has questions about doctors, health insurance, health issues (asthma, epilepsy, autism spectrum, etc.)?

And the Winner Is...

...Comment number 87, made by Rosann K., as chosen by Random.org. Please send me your information, Rosann, and Alisa will get your copy of Go Dairy Free to you!

For everyone else, Go Dairy Free: The Guide and Cookbook for Milk Allergies, Lactose Intolerance, and Casein-Free Living is available on Amazon, on Ebay (with a discount!) and on godairyfree.org.

There's Still Time...

...to enter the Go Dairy Free: The Guide and Cookbook for Milk Allergies, Lactose Intolerance, and Casein-Free Living giveaway! Just leave a comment here by midnight EST on Friday, January 16.

For a great review of the Go Dairy Free Cookbook, written "of her own free will" read Becky's post.

Nowheymama is Not Lisa Kudrow

While the rest of you have been getting Fit on your Wiis, I've been trying out my own Nintendo Personal Trainer. Personal Trainer: Cooking for the Nintendo DS, that is. I'm sure Santa put it in my stocking thinking it would be a nice project for Katherine and me. And it is--it's been fun to find recipes using the world map, to talk about geography and the foods of different countries. But it makes me nervous to have her DS in the kitchen with us while we're measuring and stirring and cooking and spilling, and the game isn't intuitive for me yet, so I have to keep back-clicking, like, twenty times after each step. Luckily, K. chose Apple Crumble for our first recipe, which is probably the easiest one out of all of them. Whew.

Nowheymama is not Catherine Newman, Either

Have you been reading Catherine Newman's food column on Wondertime? It is excellent. It's not just a good read; she has a gift for writing recipes that use what you have in your fridge at the exact moment you are reading. Recently, she posted recipes for Dinner Beans and Corn Chowder. We have two similar recipes in our repertoire, so I thought I'd share them just for fun.

Black Beans and Corn from my friend Beth

1 can black beans
an equal amount of frozen corn kernels
1 jar of salsa

Mix together and heat.

Serve:

• over rice
• with chips
• as a side dish
• with chicken

Sometimes Beth puts chicken breasts in the mixture and poaches them in the oven and then serves it all over rice. If you use a mild salsa to make it kid friendly, you might want to serve it with some hot sauce for the adults.

Corn Chowder adapted from Guerrilla Cooking : The Survival Manual for People Who Don't Like to Cook or Don't Have Time to Cook by Mel Walsh

1 cup water
1 cup plain soymilk
1 pound frozen hash brown shreds (about 4 cups)
17 ounce can of creamed corn
1/2 cup onions, green or white, chopped
4 slices of Canadian bacon, or bacon, or leftover Christmas ham, chopped
salt and white pepper*

Put the water and milk in a large saucepan and heat just to a boil. Meanwhile, chop the onions and bacon/ham and open the creamed corn. When the water/soymilk mixture comes to a boil, add the potatoes, breaking up any large chunks. Stir for a minute, then add the rest of the ingredients and stir. Cover and simmer for about eight minutes.

* You can use black pepper, but it sure is visible floating around in the pale broth.

Let's Play Giveaway!

Alisa has very kindly agreed to a Go Dairy Free giveaway here on No Whey, Mama. So let's do it! Leave me a comment telling me why you'd like a copy of Go Dairy Free: The Guide and Cookbook for Milk Allergies, Lactose Intolerance, and Casein-Free Living
before 12 midnight EST on Friday, January 16, and you will be entered to win. I'll do a random drawing over the weekend and announce the winner by Monday, January 19.

Good Luck!

EDITED TO ADD: Many of the recipes are vegan and therefore egg free as well!

C'mon People, Now

* Are you on Facebook? Why haven't you mentioned it to me? Tell me so I can find you and see all of the embarrassing photos your college friends posted of you. (Or is that just me?)

* Send in a recipe or twelve to the next Pillsbury Bake-Off so maybe we can all hang out together in Orlando next Spring.

* Scott just got a cell phone through his work, so we're going to change our home plan to just one phone. What service do you like/is the cheapest?

* I am happy to see some bloggers back at it and sad that some others are taking breaks. Le sigh.

* Do your children have ice skates? What kind do you like?

* Random much?

Dear _______

Dear In-Laws' Neighbor,

Please pick the gorgeous tangerines you have growing in your backyard. Do you know what those would be worth up North? Stop letting them fall to the ground and rot!



***

Dear In-Laws,

Thank you for hosting us for a week, and for sharing the bounty of your yard with us. We enjoyed the pineapple (the cactus fruit not so much). Maybe next time I'll take an aloe plant transplant home with me.







***

Dear Children,

Thank you for being such good travelers and such well-behaved visitors, even though two of you were suffering from some sort of stomach virus. I'm sure Grandpa forgives you for vomiting in his car and for leaving him with mounds of extra-stinky trash.

***

Dear Lady on the Plane,

Way to cough and hack and cough our entire flight and not cover your mouth. Even my almost-three-year old knows to cough into his elbow. I blame you for my children getting sick. Not because I have any proof, but because I feel like it.

***

Dear US Airways,

I know times are hard, but requiring your passengers to PAY ADDITIONAL MONEY for water, coffee, tea, or juice? Really? How are we supposed to distract children on the plane without plastic cups, ice, and little bags of pretzels? Also, shilling for MasterCard during the flight is just embarrassing, and I guarantee the flight attendants hate doing it.

***

Dear Lowry Park Zoo,

Thanks (?) for letting our children feed your animals. It seemed a bit dangerous to me, but they were fine.





***

Dear Allergy Mom and Allergic Kid,

Thank you so much for hosting us at the zoo. It was lovely to meet you both!

***

Dear Helen,

I realize you are learning to walk, but please stop hitting your head on sharp furniture corners. Mama's heart can't take it.

To Do List

Unpack.
Pay bills.
Do laundry.
Return phone calls/emails.
Cook dinner. (Anyone have a good clementine/candy cane recipe?)
Take care of sick babies who caught stomach virus while traveling.
Do more laundry.
Take down Christmas decorations and tree.
Figure out where all of the new toys are going to live.
Write thank you notes.
Plan two winter birthdays.
Toilet train middle child.
Pick up hand-me-down bed for middle child.
Rearrange children's bedrooms.
Turn attic room into playroom.
Catch up on blogging/twittering.
Get back into the after-holiday routine.

What are you doing?