Kid's got a death wish and a strong neck.

In the sling he goes and settles like this, without fail.

His face, as you'd expect, is not supposed to bury itself in the sling.

With some effort I can make it face correctly.

Which lasts about three minutes.

Dairy-, Soy-, Egg-, Nut-, & Wheat-Free Vegetarian Meals

For love of a boy, I gave up ice cream and tofu.

All dairy and soy, actually.

Also, nuts.

And eggs.

And wheat.

Oops.

I was kind of terrified of wasting away as a result, but faced with the possibility that my favorite foods were hurting my tiny companion, what other choice could I make? I mean, look at this kid.

See? You just spontaneously gave up chocolate and adopted a special needs cat, didn't you?

I needn't have worried, though.

I looked online for dairy-free and soy-free meal ideas, but they weren't vegetarian, much less "no dairy, no soy, no wheat, no nuts, no eggs, no meat." So here's some of what I've been eating this month. It's overwhelmingly stuff we eat regularly anyways, which is why many of the photos have bread and cheese- they're our standard recipes, tweaked a bit.

In baking, we made some substitutions:

• wheat flour with spelt flour (sticking to recipes where a lot of rising wasn't required, since spelt doesn't make the nice gluten-y air pockets that wheat will)
• butter with oil (or occasionally applesauce)
• eggs with moistened ground flax seed
• just plain omitted cheeses and nuts

For snacks there's been a lot of fruit, salads, hummus with fresh vegetables, and frozen French fries.

For breakfast, a handful of commercial cereals meet the requirements- e.g. Kix, store-brand Crispix- and are just fine with cold rice milk. Oatmeal with raisins, dried apples, flax seed, and maple syrup works too.

I'm on week three of the allergen-free diet (unless you're sensitive to legumes, in which case, god help you). I couldn't do it forever (without a major major pity party and lots of sighing), but it's been easier so far than I'd've thought. There's been a lot of rice and quinoa, beans and lentils, and an emphasis on vegetables moreso even than usual. I had planned to pick up wheat again next week and look for changes in Apple; then add eggs in and wait, etc., leaving dairy for last. Wheat would allow pasta and bread, opening up more dinner choices, but I am craving eggs and since they offer more nutrition than the white flour I'd mostly consume instead, I'll add eggs first, today in fact.

I am torn about hoping Apple's rash is a food sensitivity; if it is, I can be avoid eating whatever's responsible, and the problem is solved. If it's not, though, maybe it's just a one-time deal and will clear up and stay gone spontaneously- without me (insert selfish whining noises here) having to give up Joe's homemade ice cream or soy sauce or scrambled eggs or fresh bread or...

Bad mommy.

Anyways, if you're also going on a crash anti-food-allergen vegetarian diet, here's a starting point. Click for recipes, making the above substitutions as necessary; and ignore all the enticing bread in the backgrounds, it's too hot for much baking anyways.

                           

Sneaky Gardening

Sneaky in that I must sneak in fifteen minutes here, a half hour there, while Apple is otherwise occupied (i.e. not hungry) with Joe. For the haphazard attention it gets, the garden is doing well again. The soil might be crazy rocky, but aside from that it's decent; we haven't amended it at all except to chuck a few shovelfulls of old chicken bedding into one corner. I really need to buy a good sharp hoe, though.

The benign neglect of the garden is made tolerable for the plants by our automatic irrigation system, which this year consists of a soaker hose on a timer. We're experimenting with watering durations; 45 minutes seems a bit long so we're trying 35. We need to pick up one more hose, to get the entire garden.

It would have been better to lay the hose before planting things, but it didn't work out that way. Next year. I got a little creative with the soil, to extend the water's reach.

We encouraged the soaker hose to stay where we wanted it with the use of metal U-shaped garden-fabric stakes.

Since a rubber hose snaking across the yard from the spigot to the garden makes for a challenging mowing session, we bought a quick-release connection which allows us to quickly pull the rubber hose out of the way. We installed a Y-connector at the spigot, too, to provide access to the water for filling a watering can or chicken dish, cleaning hands and tools, and grabbing a drink.

The strawberries have recovered from their freeziness and have made a couple flowers to try again for fruits.

The cucumber seeds I planted a week ago have sprouted and a few have real leaves. The  zucchini seeds from last year that I planted in this bed seem to have been spoiled, so I picked up fresh seed and got it in the ground this week.

Both plantings of snap peas and shelling peas are doing very well and flowering. I planted the rows too far apart, but I'd put them in before the trellis and didn't really think the spacing through. I was very pregnant and very postparum during pea plantin'. One pair of plants is doing about ten times better than all the others. It's kind of scary.

We put out our seed-grown basil, tomatoes (cherry and slicing), and bell peppers about two weeks ago(?). I meant of course to meticulously document things this year. Well, my hands are too full of Apple I guess.

They were much smaller than we'd've liked, but again, one year at a time. They were pretty neglected when Apple was itsy, and they didn't have the heat they should have (again) when germinating. (Next year- heating mat!) I felt foolish planting the tiniest ones, but oh well.

The tomatoes and basil I grew from seed:

The bell peppers I grew from seed and some purchased seedlings:

More purchased seedlings- hot peppers and tomatoes:

Arugula and lettuce:

These radishes really need to slow down and wait for the lettuce to catch up...

The green beans need supports put in. It'll have to wait until my next sneak into the garden. 

I spent the last sneak tossing some old sprouted potatoes from the cupboard into the ground. See those lush potato greens there already? I guess I did a poor job of harvesting my potatoes last year, because I apparently missed at least a half dozen- they overwintered and volunteered this spring. 

Also volunteering are a gazillion tomato seedlings, leftover from the cherry tomatoes last year that were split or otherwise undesirable, which I left in the garden for the most part. So I have little tomato seedlings everywhere, some of which look better than a few I grew on purpose in the house. :p I'll let them go and see what becomes of them. 

The swiss chard I planted after the first round failed may or may not be sprouting. I can't tell. Why can't I grow swiss chard!? Maybe I waited too long. 

That's everything I think we plan on growing this year. We plan to expand the garden bed this summer for next year's garden, as well as buy some blueberry bushes and maybe a pair of fruit trees.  Expansion this time will involve hand-turning the soil and acquiring some manure to lay on top, then pounding more fence posts and re-running the fence. Lots to do, and little time in which to do it.