April Nienhuis Photography - Tulsa Oklahoma Photographer » cooking

recipes

April Nienhuis — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 18:00:48 +0000

If you’re one of my facebook friends then you’ve probably seen the fantastic news about Finley outgrowing many of his food allergies. According to the blood test he’s outgrown his corn, avocado, egg, banana and potato allergies. His milk and tomato allergies barely register and his peanut allergy dropped incredibly low. We still have to go through the process of doing a food challenge for each food just to make sure he doesn’t react. I know that it’s a possibility that he won’t pass all the food challenges but I can’t help but browse through all my bookmarked recipes and dream of the very near future. I thought I’d share a sample of the recipes I’ve bookmarked over the past 18 months and saved for when this time would come. Here’s a full month of dinners I can not wait to cook:

mini pops

April Nienhuis — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 19:06:19 +0000

I’m going to be frank here. Having a corn allergy absolutely sucks. It’s in about 98% of the foods you buy at the grocery store. I’ve never been a huge popcorn fan but my kids LOVE it; but then we found out about Finns corn allergy. However, I found out about mini pops last week and immediately ordered several bags. They were delivered about 30 minutes ago and Finn is still sitting at the table gobbling them up. I think we’ve found a fantastic new snack to keep stocked up on.

See the piece of paper under there? Yeah, just writing “thank you” on an invoice can go a long way

our tacos

April Nienhuis — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 21:01:27 +0000

Mix and match whatever you please.

…homemade tortillas…

…refried beans…

…sauteed veggies…

…cilantro lime rice…

…grilled chicken or steak…

…feta cheese…

My favorite is the cilantro lime rice, sauteed veggies and some feta (obviously not dairy free but easily omitted). Oh, some guacamole would be amazing!

easy lunch

April Nienhuis — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:47:27 +0000

With all of Finn’s food allergies, I have many people ask me what we can/do eat. So, I thought it’d be fun to share a couple of our favorites with you. This is my favorite go-to lunch. It’s fast, easy and yummy. All you do is boil your choice of noodles in some chicken broth. I always sprinkle some garlic powder and pepper in afterwards. You can leave it at that if you’d like or step it up a notch. If I have garlic on hand I’ll throw a couple cloves into the boiling broth. If I have spinach I throw that in there too. Leftover, chicken, shrimp, salmon or tuna? By all means, toss some in. Now this is totally optional but my absolute favorite: feta cheese. I’m obsessed with feta and will put it on almost anything. Finn can’t have dairy and Layla doesn’t care for it so I’ve been known to sneakily put some in my bowl from time to time. I suggest adding a light salad or some garlic toast to your plate too.

dangerous brownies

April Nienhuis — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 19:34:41 +0000

I can not stop eating these brownies! I’m not sure whether I should love Erin right now or hate her

* 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
* 1 cup water
* 1/2 cup butter (I used 1/2 cup canola oil)
* 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
* 2 cups white sugar
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
***chopped up chocolate bar!*** or some chocolate chips.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9×13 inch pan. In a heavy saucepan combine the 1/3 cup of flour and water. Cook over medium heat stirring constantly until thick. Transfer to a mixing bowl and set aside to cool.

2. In a small saucepan, melt butter. When butter has melted, add the cocoa and mix until smooth; set aside to cool. Beat the sugar and vanilla into the cooled flour mixture. Stir in the cocoa mixture until well blended. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt, stir into the batter until just blended.. Spread evenly in the prepared pan.
***if you have some chocolate chips, or a bar of chocolate. chop it up and throw it on top. (i didnt mix it in because i’m a noob. halway through baking i got a fork and mixed it while it was still gooey–so it gave a yummy nice bubbly texture ontop) ruuustic. oooohhher.

3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool before cutting into bars.

They’re a big hit with 2 year old boys

busy bee

April Nienhuis — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:52:27 +0000

I can’t believe how busy I’ve been and I haven’t even been “working”. My days are packed with cooking, cleaning and stalking my phone waiting for my sister-in-law Mandy to call and say she’s having her baby. The cooking seems to be getting a little easier. I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of making recipes work for us by substituting ingredients. I’ve managed to spend all of today cooking and have enough cooked up to last us a couple days. We’ve also been a household of sicklings this past week. Justin and I both have nagging colds but Finley is being treated for both pneumonia and bronchialitis. We did have to make a trip to the ER for poor Finley but I’m so thankful we’ve been able to treat him from home rather than being admitted to the hospital. Layla appears to be as healthy as they get. It appears that our baby girl is quite healthy too. Since I’ve been measuring small at my doctor appointments I’ve had two growth scans done on the baby. At the first scan, she measured exactly right and at the second scan two weeks later she measured 1 1/2 weeks ahead. Only 5 more weeks until our sweet girl gets here!

thankful

April Nienhuis — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:55:27 +0000

I’ll be honest, life is a little on the stressful side right now. I feel like I’m constantly talking about Finley’s food allergies but it consumes me right now. Seriously, for the past two nights my first and last thoughts of the day are about food and I’ve actually woken up in the middle of the night thinking about it. We already knew that Finn is allergic to peanuts, dairy, egg, avocado, banana and tomato. Monday at his allergy appointment, I found out that he is also allergic to corn, potatoes and pecans. We’re starting to reach a point where his nutrition could be jeopardized. Following his doctor’s instructions we are eliminating the corn for the next 2-4 weeks and if he doesn’t get better then we will have to eliminate potatoes. Before this week, I had no idea how much stuff contained corn. We can no longer buy anything pre-made at the grocery store. Everything he consumes must be made from scratch with his special milk, butter, oil and baking powder. I never realized before this diagnosis how much I had to be thankful for. The ease of opening a box of graham crackers to give the kids for an afternoon snack is a thing of the past for us. I’ll admit that it all makes me sad and even breaks my heart but I still have so much to be thankful for. I am so thankful that I have my very happy boy. I’m thankful for the products out there that I can cook with; products that make this lifestyle a little easier. I’m thankful for all my friends and family that send me recipes and ideas for meals. I’m thankful I have a working oven to cook in (even if it does smoke). I’m thankful for the internet and the endless amounts of information I’ve been able to obtain. I’m thankful for the medical knowledge and testing that has allowed us to diagnose Finn. I’m thankful for epi-pens. I’m thankful for the many prayers from our friends and family. I am thankful that God is good.

This morning Finley and I made these simple biscuits (I’m including our modified ingredients below). I am so thankful my boy loves to help me cook!

1-3/4 cups flour

1 Tbsp. Hain Baking Powder (made with potato starch rather than corn starch)

1/2 tsp. salt

1/3 cup Earth Balance natural shortening

3/4 cup Silk soy milk

Preheat oven to 450°F. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in large bowl. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add milk. I had to throw in a little extra flour due to the extra stickiness because of using shortening instead of butter/margarine. Place on lightly floured surface; knead 20 times or until smooth. Pat or roll lightly until dough is 1/2-inch thick. Cut with floured 2-inch cookie cutter to make 16 biscuits, rerolling dough scraps as necessary. Place on ungreased baking sheet. Bake 10 minutes or until golden brown.

ETA: Because the above substitutions lack the buttery flavor these tasted kinda floury. I made them again today and cut back on the shortening and subbed some honey instead. They tasted much better this time.

Since we can’t smother our biscuits in butter once they’re cooked we dipped ours in some raw honey.

recipes

April Nienhuis — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:40:47 +0000

Hop on over to Life as Mom blog for some allergy/diet restriction friendly recipes.

Don’t forget to try these chocolatey cookies too.

absolutely delicious vegan cookies

April Nienhuis — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:11:56 +0000

I think this was the first time I’ve baked since finding out about Finley’s food allergies back in April. The clouds, rain and thunder just called for some nice, hot cookies. I found this yummy looking recipe and thought I’d give it a try. The kids were way too excited to actually have some bakes sweets in the house for a change. I think Justin was a little happy too

4 tsp ground flax seeds
1/2 cup milk (I used coconut)
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cups cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups oil (I used vegetable)
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips (I used dairy free chocolate chips and way more than 1 cup)

Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix flax seeds and milk and let set for 10 minutes.
Combine all dry ingredients.
Add in all wet ingredients.
Bake 1″ dough balls on ungreased cookie sheet for 10 minutes.