Cavell Update

We made an unconscious decision to spare our reading public from the horrors of Cavell's face for a while.  It may have been out of sensitivity or it may have been because I got put in charge of the update and just never got around to actually doing the work.

Meanwhile, Cavell has continued his slow but miraculous healing process.  The swelling has gone down on his forehead but is still present.  The bruising has gradually worked it's way down his face, but still leaves a shadow.  Below is a series of photographs we took over the last month as he progressed.

Once the black bruising left his face, the red seems so much more violent.  While Cavell was in this condition, I took him and the rest of the brood to watch Stacy finish her half marathon.  At one point during our wait, it started raining, leaving puddles of water on the ground.  Cavell, being a boy, decided he needed to jump in the puddles.  Cavell, being a 3 year old boy is a little clumsy and he skinned his knee.  So there I am, in the rain with three kids wearing shorts and t-shirts.  Lex is crying because it suddenly got cold and wet.  Alayna is crying because she is done waiting for mom and wants to go home.  Cavell, my obviously abused son, is jumping in puddles, soaking wet, with copious amounts of blood running down his leg.  I have no idea how we didn't get picked up by the cops.

Satisfied with himself

That blood red eye was pretty disturbing

Aren't they cute?

The two scabs in the middle of his forehead remind me of a snake bite.

OK, which one is cuter?  Tough decision, right?

When the deep red coloring started to fade, we were left with this dirty, shadowy, mix of colors.  People knew that something painful had happened, but really didn't get the full effect at this point.

It just started to look like he had a really dirty face.

By Thanksgiving, the bruising had finally faded enough that it just looks like he has dark bags under his eyes.  As pale as his skin is already, he looks a bit overworked, malnourished, and in dire need of a nap. 

Of course, through it all,Cavell has remained his positive and upbeat self.  Part of that is due to his total lack of understanding of just how much he could have milked this opportunity, and part of it is just the kind of kid he is.

Thanksgiving Dessert

I know, most people have pie, pie and more pie for dessert on Thanksgiving.  We are the Jensen Family.  There are only four of us eating.  We can't eat a lot of dessert, so we pick one dessert to have after our Thanksgiving Feast. The Head Baker of the Family is not a big pie fan.  We can't even buy a ready made pie to satisfy the big pie fan of the family.  Instead, we have adhered to an Onines Family Tradition and indulged in Pumpkin Cheesecake every year.  I now admit to adapting the recipe  many years ago, and not just to be gluten free.  But wait!  This year, The Head Baker of the Family cannot consume such large amounts of dairy (thanks to the beloved, new addition to the family).  Why would I spend the time and energy making a delicious treat that I cannot enjoy?

During Family Home Evening a few weeks ago, the whole family helped to make the menu for our Thanksgiving Feast.  Alayna requested carrot cupcakes.  The Head Baker of the Family is not a big fan of carrot cake either.  We have a recipe; I've made it; the family has enjoyed it.  I didn't want that as the finale to our Thanksgiving meal.  Luckily for Alayna, I had just read about a Brazilian carrot cake the day before.  She just needed to accept that it would not be in cupcake form.  When she saw the Bundt pan we would be using instead, she stopped pouting.

Bolo de cenoura
(from Glutenfearless)

Ingredients
Cake
1-1/3 C  Rice Flour
6 Tbs + 2 tsp Potato Starch
3 Tbs + 1 tsp Tapioca Starch
1Tbs + 1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp salt
1½ tsp Xanthan Gum
½ t. Cinnamon (optional)

3 C Carrots, grated (rougly 4 medium or 8 slender carrots)
3 Eggs
1 3/4 C Sugar
½ C Oil
1 tsp Vanilla

Glaze
2T cocoa powder
2T butter
5T milk
8T sugar

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350° grease and flour a 10" Bundt pan
• In a bowl combine flours, baking powder, salt, xanthan gum, and cinnamon.
• In your blender purée remaining 5 ingredients until smooth.
• Pour the blender concoction into the dry ingredients and stir together until everything is well mixed and very orange.
• Pour cake batter into prepared Bundt pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 40-50 minutes.
• While still warm, invert the cake onto the serving platter.
• While stirring, gradually heat glaze ingredients in a small saucepan.  When the icing bubbles, keep stirring for another minute.  Pour hot glaze over the cake while the cake is warm.

Notes/Verdict  Boy, did we all enjoy this cake!  Moist, fluffy, sweet . . . and the glaze, Wow!  Not only is it yummy, it is fun to make . . . in the blender.  It went from layers of ingredients to this bright orange slurry.  It became a lovely orange batter when mixed into the flours.

Thanksgiving Breakfast

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
(adapted from cinnamon rolls in  The Gluten Free Kitchen by Roben Ryberg found here)
Ingredients
Rolls
2 Tbs Butter
1/4 Cup Sugar
2/3 Cup Milk, warmed (~105*)
1 Tbs Yeast
1 Egg
1/4 C Pumpkin Puree
1/2 C Potato Starch
1 C Corn Starch
1/4 Tsp Baking Soda
2 1/2 Tsps Xantham Gum
2 Tsps Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Vanilla Flavoring

Filling
1/2 C sugar
1/3 C brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground allspice or cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
4 Tbs chilled butter, cut into small pieces
Mix dry, cut in butter to form crumbs and spread over rolled out dough

Glaze
½ C powdered sugar
1 Tbs Pumpkin puree

Directions
Add yeast to milk. Whisk well to fully dissolve.  Cream butter and sugar.  Add milk/yeast to sugar mixture. Add remaining ingredients. Mix very well, being sure to remove all lumps. Dough will be quite soft

Roll dough out between plastic wrap.  Cover with filling, leaving a filling-free edge for sugar to spill over onto.  Roll into a log and trim ends.  Slice (with thread) into 8 or 9 pieces (roughly 1½ inches).  Place in greased pie pan.

You can bake them now, or cover with plastic wrap and store in the fridge overnight.

Remove rolls from fridge and bring to room temperature.  Preheat oven to 375°.  Remove plastic wrap and cover with aluminum foil.  Bake for 20 minutes.  Uncover and bake an additional 10 minutes and make glaze.  Remove from oven. top with glaze and enjoy!

Notes/Verdict
I took them out of the fridge while the oven preheated this morning.  I think they should be room temp before putting in the oven.  I didn't get enough glaze, so I added another 1/4 C powdered sugar, the rest of my pumpkin puree (maybe 2 tsp), and a splash (maybe a T) of almond milk.  Paul thinks we need to adjust even more to increase the pumpkin (hard) and spice (easy) flavours.  We all LOVED these!  They are all gone.

Chocolate Waffle Pillows

This treat was the most anticipated recipe from the Mrs Fields book.  I think that is because my kids KNOW waffles.  We make waffles almost every week.  We use our waffles as sandwich bread almost every day.  Cavell calls them "Goggles."  By 'them' I am referring to the waffles AND the sandwiches.  I have recently convinced him that the meal is called lunch, NOT waffles.  Just yesterday while playing with Alayna, he named the puppet he was characterizing, Goggles . . . I mean Waffles.  The kids were extremely excited for Chocolate Waffle Pillows.

Chocolate Waffle Pillows
(adapted from Mrs. Fields Best Ever Cookie Book!)
yield 2 dozen

Ingredients
2/3 cup Rice Flour
3 Tbls Potato Starch
2 Tbls Tapioca Starch
1/2 tsp Xanthum Gum
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 cup Cocoa Powder
1/2 tsp salt (because I use unsalted butter)
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened
1 cup Sugar
2-1/2 Eggs*
1 tsp Vanilla

Directions

• Combine flours, xanthum gum, baking powder, cocoa and salt.  Set aside.
• Cream butter and sugar.  Beat in eggs and vanilla.  Slowly add flour mixture until just combined.
• Drop by rounded Tablespoons onto each section of a hot, greased waffle iron.  Cook approximately 1 minute (or more) and carefully transfer to a cooling rack.
• Serve with any yummy topping(s), like powdered sugar, cocoa powder, raspberries, or whipped cream.  We used chocolate syrup.

Notes/Verdict
Because I halved the recipe I needed 2-1/2 eggs.  I beat 5 eggs together, weighed them and used half for the waffles and half for an omelet in the morning.  I don't think they need as much xanthum gum as I used; they might even work with none.  I liked these better off of our small squared waffle iron than from our larger/deeper, not quite Belgian, waffle iron.

These were easy to make.  I feel bad that it took as long as it did to get around to making them.  The kids LOVED them.  Paul did not like them.  I thought they were fine.  I would describe them as a brownie that is almost on the fudge-y side, but isn't cake-y  This might be because they were thin.  They were a bit better as a warm dessert than as "cookies" in the cookie jar.  If the kids think to ask for these again I would be willing make them, but I would suggest other treats instead.  I might try "baking" a few other types of cookies this way, just to experiment.

Moving Down and Up

It took me a moment to understand what happened to the Paddington Bears.

I think when the baby is able to sit up and pull his mobile down it is time to lower the crib.

Not a day too soon.  After I took the pictures of the fallen bears and adjusted the crib down, I caught Lex pulling UP for the first time!

Pecans

While waiting to pick Alayna up from school today, Cavell and I noticed one of the moms picking something up from the ground . . . and eating it!  When Alayna came to the van, and I went to buckle in Cavell, I realized there were pecans on the ground.  We gathered some.  10 of them.

Not all 10 are pictured.

We got to cracking.

and cracked some more.

Then we went to work peeling . . .

. . . and peeling . . .

 



. . . and peeled some more.

This took a lot more work than expected.  Cavell kept throwing the cracked shells into the nut bowl, some did still have the nut in them.  Alayna wasn't able to get any big pieces because she kept cracking her shell, and the nut, more to try and get them out.  Not that I was able to get many big pieces either.

A bit of toasting and we had pecans for snack time.

We saved some for Papa.

Yummy!

That was a lot of work for such a small treat, but we enjoyed the experience together.