mmmmm vegan pancakes...

... now if only I could remember how I made them.

I made some pancakes yesterday for the family, and they scarfed them down! We had a few left over so Buggy and I ate those today - and they were even better! (pretty sure that just means I should have let them cook just a smidgen longer since all I did today was microwave them for 25 seconds)

I will try to make them again tomorrow and write down the recipe to share. They are very simple and allergy friendly - at least for us. They DO contain almond flour though, so if you're allergic to almonds, you'll have to substitute a different flour. I topped mine with some coconut oil, strawberries, and a light drizzle of 100% maple syrup so these pancakes (even with those toppings) are free of the following allergens: all legumes including peanuts, wheat, beef, chicken, rice, corn, dairy, eggs, shellfish, sesame, ginger, lemons, soy, and nightshades (things like tomatoes, potatoes, and bell peppers). I will also post pictures tomorrow, because I don't trust recipes this allergy free to taste good without pictures first!

We welcomed sleeping in and an extra scrumptious breakfast this morning because we've had some recent setbacks with Buggy's allergies. She had allergy testing last week, and to say it went bad would be an understatement. The doctor literally GUESSED what she might be allergic to! In his defense though, I wouldn't have been able to even guess - her entire back was red and inflamed from where the tegaderm was holding the patches on. There were a few patches of clear skin where I'm guessing patches that she wasn't allergic to might have been? But your guess is as good as mine on this one. He threw out a few suggestions the first day the patches were removed and then completely different suggestions the next day, at which point he said he was sticking with those and to remove them from her diet - but don't add any of the old stuff back in yet - for the next 6 weeks and he'd see us again in 8 weeks. After this 2 month trial, we can start attempting to add foods we think she tested negative to this time but she was positive to last time. Comforting. At least we have corn free diphenhydramine (anti histamine. Think hypoallergenic benedryl) now though!

One of the other things was that she had an endoscopy the week before that and they found eosinophiles in her stomach, which means she's still consuming something she's allergic to. I'm hoping the doc was right with his guesses, but we'll see.

Finally, yesterday she broke out in hives 6 times (no joke). 4 times were after eating foods she's had at least a dozen times before, the other 2 times she hadn't consumed anything for at least 45 minutes to an hour. One time was when her daddy was making popcorn, so I'm wondering if maybe her corn allergy has taken another turn for the worse? He says no way, but what else was there? Nothing that I saw. I guess we'll see.. tomatoes were one of the things she broke out from yesterday, so my husband wants to trial those today and see if she breaks out; she was also eating a pluot, some red grapes, and lettuce at the time. We picked tomatoes as the most likely culprit since the doctor suggested a potato allergy and both of these vegetables belong to the nightshade family. So, if she breaks out in hives today from JUST tomatoes, then I'll be more confident in the doctor's potato allergy guess. Our other guess is cross contamination. We only have a handful or less of things in the house that contain corn. We used to have more than that, but as her corn allergy became worse, some products had to be replaced with hypoallergenic ones. Soda is no longer allowed in the house because my poor Mt Dew loving husband left the cans in Buggy's reach one too many times. She's pulled them down on herself on 3 different occasions, and anywhere it touches breaks out immediately and looks more like a bad burn in pictures. After the first time I told him to make sure he puts them up or disposes of them, after the second I said if it happens one more time no more soda here - then she did it a third time.

The only other thing I have to share today is that I invested in a scale for my kitchen yesterday! So now I'm trying to figure out the perfect mixture of flours for us since a lot of gluten free recipes recommend using a mixture of flours rather than one. I have decided I will not use any quinoa flour in there though... I used 16g of quinoa flour in a 140g mixture and when I bit into the muffin, all I could taste was the quinoa flour. Maybe we'll try again tonight.