12 hour CHILI in 30 minutes!

Fast, Yummy, Quick!

This Chili tastes like it has been cooking all day but it was made in 30 minutes!

Quick Chili

What you will need:

1 lb Ground Beef

3/4 of a Green Pepper

1/3 of an Onion

2 Garlic Cloves OR Garlic powder OR Garlic salt

1 15 oz Can of Dark red kidney beans (Rinsed and drained)

1 14 1/2 oz Can of diced tomatoes

1 15 oz can of tomato sauce (If you like thicker chili and not as soupy as I do, go with an 8 oz can)

3 tsp Chili Powder

Pepper

Chop Onion, Garlic and Green pepper and place into a large skillet or pot with ground beef.

 Cook until beef is browned and onion is tender. Drain Fat.

 Add drained and rinsed kidney beans, undrained diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, Chili powder and pepper (to taste, I use a grinder and twist about 5 times) Stir and bring to a boil.

 Once boiling cover and turn heat down to simmer for 20 minutes.

The finished product!

Corn bread compliments this dish. I use my trusty Jiffy mix so that it is egg, milk and nut free.

Enjoy!

Struggling with the future

As I am trying to sleep last night, I am kept awake thinking about my sons future. I rarely think outside of the present with his allergies. I even go on forums and help other people with allergies, children, teens, adults and parents. I have done that for a long time. Well before I started blogging. But, I never thought about it being my son that felt so much like an outsider, worrying every second whether someone ate something hes allergic to for lunch and did not wash their hands. He will not get the same experience most get with their first kiss. He will be scared and thinking about whether he is putting himself in danger. Of course, my son is only 4 years old and I in no way want to even fathom that my son will one day be kissing girls but it is inevitable. As of now, I am the one worrying about him. In his eyes I am sure that the isolated person in our family is my husband because he eats "Cow's cheese" Everyone else in our family sticks to soy products while my husband uses dairy. I have taught my son that Cow's milk is yucky, eggs are yucky, peanuts are yucky and tree nuts are yucky. That is really the only way I could start teaching him that he should not eat those products and he can let people know. Now, I am starting to teach him that it will give him allergies. He knows when he is having an allergic reaction and he will even ask me for medicine at just an itchy eye. So, I have started to teach him that he will get allergies just like the characters in the books he loves to read. I think he is finally starting to get it and that is good but it is also a little sad.

Today we were at the post office where my daughter starts playing with the packing peanuts.(I DID try to get her to stop but I was packing envelopes and she was only playing with the scooper.)  He sees on the side of the bin that it says peanuts. (He must recognize the word from books because he cannot read.) He says Mommy, I'm allergic, those are yucky. I said "No bud, those are PACKING peanuts you are not allergic. He says "Peanuts are yucky, they give me allergies." So, I just shut up and decided not to try to tell him that he was not allergic to ALL peanuts. That is just plain stupid  to try to explain to a 4 year old and could result in confusion causing a reaction. Then we were waiting in line and my daughter sees a candy machine and goes to it. My son says "No! You're allergic!" I never let him touch candy machines because a lot of times there are reese's pieces. Even if they are not that peanut butter candy, you never know what is in those candies or if they have been cross contaminated in a candy that was there before. I tell him "No, she is not allergic. You are allergic but she is still not allowed to touch." So, I think that he is starting to understand more clearly what an allergy is and that not everyone has it. But, it still breaks my heart as his mother to watch him discovering these things.

Benadryl Coupons

Benadryl is a great product for anyone with any kind of allergy. I used it growing up to help when I would get hives from animals or the sniffles and asthma from outdoor allergies. When I had my son I learned that it can also stop a mild food allergy from turning into anaphylactic shock. In fact, even if you go into anaphylaxis you should take Benadryl right along with the epinephrine. I have always kept Benadryl on me and at my son's school so that we can give it to him if we believe he has ingested or come in contact with an allergen. I have more recently learned that a lot of people with food allergies do the same. Even teens will carry Children's Benadryl on them to take with the first tingle of an allergic reaction.

If you click the link below you will be directed to the Benadryl website where you will fill out some info and then be able to print out coupons for different products from Benadryl.

Click here for your coupons.

Enjoy!

Reading a label

It can be tough for anyone to read a label. All of those unfamiliar words can be confusing. In a lot of cases you will just be scanning for an allergen. You could be looking for Peanut or Milk but did you know that there are what some call "code words" for these allergens as well? Reading a label requires more than just looking for one specific word per allergen, you are looking for a variety of words that could all mean that it contains that allergen. Any time I make something new, I am googling words that I am unfamiliar with. Companies also change formulas quite frequently so you want to be sure to read a label EVERY time you feed it to someone allergic. I have come across many foods that my son used to eat that is no longer okay because they decided to add one little ingredient.

If there is someone in your household with a food allergy or someone that you cook for with allergies it is a good idea to have these words on hand. Click here to see "code words" for common allergens  I would print that out or save it to your computer so you can refer to it if you have any questions.

Today 3-21-12

Today I have to decide whether to skip yet another day of my sons oral-immunotherapy because feeding him something he is allergic to sometimes upsets his stomach. If I skip today, I will be risking having to practically start over. This morning my son got sick. He seems fine now and was only mopey until about 1 o'clock today but I am still trying to be kind to his stomach. So, do I or don't I? I figured skipping yesterday was fine because skipping a day now and then is fine and he would eat something with egg baked in today but under normal circumstances I would not have given him his food with egg baked in.

It was a snow day in our town. We went all of winter with only a few morning snows and then today, during spring, we get a day of continuous snow. After my kids being excited about the snow and staring out the window all morning, I decide to get them dressed up in their snow gear and head outside. I open the door, with the camera on record, and my daughter steps out. I try catching her first glimpse at the yard when I hear it. I turn around and my son has covered his snow clothes in vomit. GREAT! It turned out that I actually still had the camera on record and had it that way for a few minutes. I now have my son getting sick on video tape and the following few minutes. It is always sad when your young child gets sick because they have no idea what is going on or why they are feeling this way. They are so helpless and there really is nothing you can do but try to help them aim and tell them they are okay. My husband shortly returns home from a short work day and he takes out daughter outside. I realize my son is in his room crying because he cannot go outside to play in the snow that he was so excited about. Against my better judgement, we decide that since it rarely snows like this in our town we would let him get dressed and at least watch. Although my poor son was feeling extremely icky, he got to join in and stand in the snow. He even helped us make a snow baby. Our hands were too cold to make a full sized snow man so we grabbed an old binky and made a baby.

I know it is not pretty! lol. But, as I said it was COLD and we had no snow gloves to be able to shape our snow baby. My son was also pretty upset that we did not have any carrots in the house to make a nose. He kept singing songs about making snowmen. He is so funny sometimes!

Although it is 7 here, I have dinner cooking. We are having meatloaf, potatoes, corn and jell-o. The jell-o is mostly for my son but who doesn't like jell-o? I think that today was not as spectacular as I would have hoped a snow day would have been but it also wasn't a bust just because my son was sick. It all kind of evened out.

Britny's Kitchen Pot Pie...ish

Tonight I tried a new recipe. I like to find what I can that my son can eat so that we have more of a variety during meals. Today I had planned on making meatloaf and potatoes because I need to go shopping and do not have much of a full meal here. That always seems to happen, I have pieces of meals without enough to make it a whole. BUT, tonight I was looking at my trusty costco size box of bisquick and saw this recipe that gave me an idea!

Make-shift Pot Pie

Ingredients:

1 Large Chicken Breast

1 1/2 c Bisquick

3/4 c milk (I use soy)

1 egg (I use applesauce, about 1/4 cup or a little more)

1 can Turkey Gravy (I use this because that is what I use when making regular pot pie since it is the only one I have found without my sons allergies. If the two different meat flavors scare you you can use another type of gravy OR cream of chicken soup)

1 lb frozen mixed veggies

Preheat oven to 400

Cube the chicken breast and cook in a skillet until cooked through. You can use olive oil to cook in if you do not want to cook the chicken on its own. Next thaw out and drain the frozen veggies. Mix together the chicken, gravy and mixed veggies in the cooking dish.(I use an 8x8 glass pan. In a separate bowl mix together the egg(or replacer), bisquick and milk. Lay out the batter on top of the mix in baking dish. Bake for 30 minutes or until it is golden brown on top.  Feeds 4 or 5 people.

I did not expect to blog this recipe but I took a picture of what is left of it.

It turned out pretty yummy!  Enjoy!!

The last couple of days

Hello again! I am BACK!
I was sick for a few days. I still am but I can actually move around the house now. Trying to take care of children while being sick proves to be quite the challenge. This is especially true when you have no voice to talk with. It got to the point where my kids must  have thought it was whispering day. They whispered right along with me, it was funny. My son did run into some allergy problems yesterday and the day before. I am unsure of why this happened on both occasions. The only problem he had was a couple hives on his cheek at dinner time and the next day hives across his forehead and a couple on his eye but they went away. That can be frustrating. Not only is my son food allergic, which can be life threatening, but he also has environmental allergies. It is near impossible to tell the two apart until you have waited a while and watched.

 With my sons environmental allergies he will get the red eyes, asthma and at times hives. Animals in particular will do this to him pretty bad. My son and I are very allergic to animals. We do have 2 cats and 1 dog though. Our cats were inherited because when we moved in the cats living here needed a home. So, we just made them outside cats. So, allergies from the cats are a rarity. I watch my son when he is in the backyard and advise him not to touch the things that belong to the cats. I do not pet them without gloves but my husband is a big animal lover so they get the attention they need from him every day. Our dog is actually a new addition to our family. We got him last summer as a puppy to see if there really is such thing as a hypoallergenic dog. Yorkies are a GREAT pet for allergy sufferers like myself. The only time my son gets a reaction is if he is scratched by the dog and even then it is only minor. As long as yorkies are bathed regularly and kept clean they are virtually hypoallergenic. It is amazing, although, I always know when he needs a bath. If my dog has not had a bath in a week I will start sneezing but if we give him a bath, the sniffles are gone.

Along with everything else happening over the last couple of days, I have been trying to potty train my almost 3 year old. She has never shown ANY interest in the potty whatsoever. Any time I have tried potty training her she just doesn't get it. She sees no need to use the toilet when she can use her diaper or even her underwear. In fact, while I am writing this she is bringing me a diaper and trying to get me to put it on her. (I have decided to try the 'nakie' method. Maybe she potties because she feels something there to potty in and eliminating that will get her to go in the potty. It works for some children, right? This potty training thing can be quite draining sometimes. My son took a long time to finally become "ready" but once he was he did amazing! After 1 day of potty training him, he had zero accidents to date. He never used a pull-up, not even at night! He has NEVER wet the bed at night!! That is not to say that his potty training was not difficult. He was 3 years old when he finally learned. We had many attempts at potty training where he would only freak out. Like I said, he just was not ready yet.

Anyway, that is what the past two days have been for me. Potty training, sick in bed and of course the normal every day allergies.