Best Hospital food ever!

If you have food allergies like me some of the worst times can be going to the hospital and being admitted. While most times you have no warning or ability to make arrangements when you are going to have a baby you have a bit of warning. When I had my second daughter I contacted the hospital because with my first the only foods they could find that I could eat was water and jello. Not exactly the best diet. So I didn't want that again. They went out shopping just for me ahead of time. The food was amazing and it was like being at a resort and being catered to. I was actually looki forward to the same thing this time around. So I contacted the hospital again and since they still had all of my menus they were able to quickly put together an amazing array of food. 

This was amazing spare ribs. Soo tasty.

This is an amazing Antistresstimine, because food while recuperating is essential. What impressed me most was one morning I got some crackers on my tray that were not safe for me. No big deal they had the ingredients right on them so I made sure to read them. The dietary coordinator I was working with came up to my room the second morning to check in with me, and I just off the cuff mentioned it was on there, because the hospital is a children's hospital too and kids may not read the label and just assume it's safe. She was livid. She switched my tray preparer and made quite a big deal about it. Even sent up her boss to appologize. It wasn't that big of deal to me, but to them it really was. That makes me confident to put myself in their hands when it comes to my food. So good job Kapiolani medical center for women and children! Mahalo Nui Loa for your care!

Texas Brownies

Not sure why they are called Texas Brownies, perhaps because everything is bigger in Texas? The pan you need is a jelly roll pan or a large sheet pan with a minimum of one inch around the edge. In my family these are Nana's Texas Brownies. My Nana lived in Nebraska and Minnesota at different times. When she lived in Minnesota when I was little I remember her teaching my how to make cookies. As I grew up she moved back home to Nebraska. The one thing I will always remember about her Nebraska house in the winter around the Christmas holidays is that the garage was as cold as a refrigerator, and at times as cold as a freezer, and no one used the front door every cousin walked in through the garage. Along the wall leading to the house and over and beside the door were shelves full of ice cream buckets. In those buckets were cookies. Lots and lots of cookies. And if you happened to be walking in the door with Uncle Dale, Brian, Eric, Tim, or Craig you could get the most sought after cookies. They were the ones you had to be tall to reach. I'm pretty sure that they were the ones that put those buckets in that location because my Nana wasn't super tall like they were. We are headed into the holiday season and a bit of me got nostalgic the other day. I didn't have diagnosed food allergies when I was a kid, and so I could indulge in any treat Nana made. These brownies never made it outside to the garage cooler shelves. The pan would sit inside her washer/dryer closet in the kitchen. It had a bifold door. I'm not sure how she did it but I know she never oiled it to fix the noise it made opening. She would scold you for sneaking a brownie, but we all knew she never really meant it. Now that I'm older with annoying food allergies. I decided it's time to make some of the treats edible to me again. So without further ado soy free, dairy free, egg free Texas Brownies.

2 c. flour
2 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. Canola oil

(Optional) 2 drips dairy free butter flavoring by Wilton
1/2 c. shortening (spectrum farms)
1 c. strong coffee 
1/2 c. Coconut buttermilk ( to make simply put 1tblsp of vinegar into 1 cup canned coconut milk)

1/4 cup Apple sauce (cheat: I used 1 pouch of go go squeeze Apple apple sauce)
1/4 c. dark cocoa (unsweetened)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla

In large mixing bowl, combine flour and sugar. In heavy saucepan, combine conola oil , butter flavoring, shortening, coffee or water, and cocoa. Stir and heat to boiling. Pour boiling mixture over flour and sugar in bowl. Add the coconut buttermilk, applesauce,  baking soda, and vanilla. Mix well, using wooden spoon or high speed on electric mixer. Pour into well buttered 17 1/2 x 11 inch jelly roll pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. While brownies bake, prepare frosting.

FROSTING FOR TEXAS BROWNIES:

1/2 c. Spectrum shortening
2 tbsp. dark cocoa
1/4 c. Coconut milk
3 1/2 c. unsifted powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

In saucepan, combine the shortening, cocoa, and coconut milk. Heat to boiling, stirring. Mix in powdered sugar and vanilla until frosting is smooth. Pour warm frosting over brownies as soon as you take them out of the oven. Cool. Cut into 48 bars.

Shortcuts to Amazingness!

When you are allergic to as many things as I am you learn how to make things from scratch. Most days this is not a big deal. But when your daughter is a Girl Scout a d you see the left over thin mints and Samoas in the fridge. So the other day I went to our local vegetarian store and bought these crunchy chocolate cookies from Enjoylife. I ate one and thought thin mints! So I did a quick grab in the cupboard and fridge for the enjoy life chocolate chips and peppermint oil. I melted the chocolate chips with a few drops of peppermint oil in the chocolate until it tasted just right. Then I spread it on the top of the cookies. Let it cool in the fridge.

Perfection! It was soo simple too, no fighting with the cookie batter.

No dealing with baking in the hot summer weather just allergy free cookie goodness.

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Location:Palai St,Village Park,United States

Cinnamon braided Bread

Anybody keeping track would notice that I am a carboholic. Most days it's safer and keeps the hunger at bay. So here is yet another recipe where you begin with my basic bread recipe.

Once the dough has risen remove it from the bowl and cut off about 1/3 of the dough. On a well floured surface roll out a long rectangle approximately 1/4 inch thick. Then place the rectangle on a sheet of parchment paper on a cookie sheet.

Using a pizza cutter cut strips down each long side of the rectangle. Make sure each one has a buddy on the other side. Then cut the corner strips off.

Liberally sprinkle the center with cinnamon sugar. 1 Tbsp to 1 cup. For more cinnamon flavor lightly sprinkle the strips. If you are not allergic to butter and you want even more flavor thickly butter the center before sprinkling with cinnamon sugar.

Fold over one end.

Flip in one side strip at about a 45 degree angle.

Repeat with opposite side.

Repeat alternating sides until you reach the other end.

When you get to the other end and before you do the last 2 strips fold up the end, then do the last two strips and tuck under the end. Allow to rise for 20 minutes.
Place in oven at 400 until golden brown.

While your bread is baking its time to make some frosting. I make this by taste so I'm only guessing at measurements. Use about 2 cups powdered sugar add 4 tbsp canola oil, add 1/4 tsp butter flavoring

Then about 1/2 tsp vanilla. Then slowly add water until it is thick but drizzle able.

Ignore the yellow color, we made duckie sugar cookies the day before. Lol.

Drizzle over the fresh warm bread, let cool a few minutes cut and serve. Amazing breakfast treat.
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Pretzel Dogs

So I said we would do more variations to our amazing bread as I take the photos. Today I made pretzel dogs for my daughters kindergarten graduation party. As I made them I took the few moments to take photos soooo here we go, how to make pretzel dogs.
Use the basic bread recipe, but as you are letting the yeast proof, or foam early on. Put in one teaspoon full of onion powder. Follow the rest of the steps until you turn it out on the counter after rising.


Roll out the dough on a well floured surface until it is about an 1/8 of an inch thick.


Using a pizza cutter cut squares about 3x3.


Cut the package of hot dogs in half. one batch of dough should cover about 5 packages of hot dogs.


Now you are going to wrap up you hot dog.


Tuck all 4 corners around the hot dog.


Once you fill a pan prepare your baking soda and water mixture.


Let your dogs go for a swim.then sprinkle them with salt. Put in the oven to bake. I bake them in large batches until they look about like this then I freeze them nd take them out and put them in the oven to crisp back up.


Otherwise bake them until they are a little darker and share for a party or fun event.
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Demystifying Kindergarten

Information = the best antistresstimine there is. 

When I enrolled my daughter I felt there were details I was missing in the Kindergarten process, and then proceeded to find out slowly that there were a lot of details that many of the parents who also enrolled their kids didn't know about it too. It seems that we all had snippets of the information but enough to actually know what was going to happen.  So I thought posting this online would be a great way to pass it on to people like me who googled the Hawaii Kindergarten process. Naturally my experience comes from Kaleiopu'u Elementary in Village Park on O'ahu, so other schools will have a variation on these processes.

Evaluation Day

You and your child’s first day of Kindergarten is your child’s evaluation day. This day was shrouded in mystery for me so let me demystify it for you. On that first day of school the teachers ask you to drop your child at the door and not come in to the classroom with them. Not an easy thing to do for some of us, but honestly as the days and weeks go on it is a good line to have drawn in the sand. Mommy and Daddy, Uncles and Aunties are not allowed in the classroom. This becomes a hard and fast rule and is easy for a young child to understand. Then those keiki who struggle with separation will know that the rule is the same EVERY day.

On evaluation day there will be multiple teachers in the classroom your child is assigned to, as well as the counselors and others helping to see where each child falls on a social level. This is meant to help the teachers divide kids who are really open and friendly and mix them in with kids who are more shy, thus giving each teacher a balanced classroom. The kids will also be taken either alone or in small groups to be asked to identify letters, numbers, colors and shapes.  This will again allow the teachers to evenly dispurse the kids and give each classroom a few who will be helpers of those who may be a bit behind the others. They call this Heterogeniously grouping them. Meaning to make each classroom function well and progress at roughly the same pace. 

My daughter had never been in a school situation prior to Kindergarten and I was soo nervous she would be so far behind, but as it turns out every kid is unique and my daughter learned soo fast. Her evaluation paper was given to us later in the year and she actually knew quite a bit more than I gave her credit for. Plus I was amazed how well the teachers understood her.

Orientation Day

Orientation day  is refered to as a parent only day. This is important because your  child will find it quite boring yet they will be giving you information you will need. Your child’s class list will be posted and you will finally have a name and get to meet the teacher. After an all Kindergarten parent assembly you will get to go to your child’s new classroom and meet the teacher. He/She will ask you to put away the kids’ school supplies, and make sure everything is labeled and ready to go.  If there was anything on that Massive school supply list you couldn’t find, this is a time when the other parents will tell you where to find it. (HINT:  The glue pen can be found at Don Quijote in Waipahu in the pen and marker section, I looked for that thing everywhere and never thought to check there until I called the school about it.) This is the time you have to ask questions and really get to know what is coming. I went totally blank and couldn’t think of a single question that day. Don’t worry you will also get email addresses and phone numbers to reach the teacher.  In my experience the teacher was really good about reading emails around lunch time and getting back to me. 

If your child is registered at Kaleiopu'u and you want more information about the school and the kindergarten process and experience email us and I'll forward you a special parent to parent "handbook" I wrote, I've submitted it to the school to be given to you, but as usually happens they may not hand it out until that parent day. Not much help on the early days. LOL.

Pretzels!

Okay so back when I posted the bread recipe I said I would post some of the variations I make. Today as we near the end of school my daughter's school year her school planned staff appreciation days by color. So one one day we were to bring something blue, then purple, then green, then yellow, And brown. On yellow and brown day we had a cold, so I was unable to bring in the pretzels I had planned to bring for the staff. So instead on this. Last Monday of the school year I brought pretzels. Anyway long intro but here it is my pretzel recipe.

Make my basic bread recipe.


Once you take it out of the bowl following the in a bag rise, you should have a ball of dough. Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead until it is no longer sticking to your hands.


Prepare a pan with a piece of parchment paper. I use Reynolds parchment paper. Trust me you do not want to try and do this without the parchment paper.


I use a pizza cutter to cut off a portion of dough from the large ball. Then I use my hands to make a "snake", although this is also very fun to make with toddlers all the way through grown ups and let them. Playdoh their own shapes. We've done snow men, turtles, Honu or sea turtles, bunnies, or just rolled it out flat and used flower Cookie cutters. For these I made traditional pretzels. Once you have your pretzel shaped place it on your parchment paper covered cookie sheet.


Once all of your pretzels are shaped it's time to do the special step that makes them pretzels. Take a large bowl big enough for your pretzels to float in. Add water to it. Then add about a 1/4 cup of baking soda to the water.


Then take your pretzels and let them go swimming.


Be sure to flip it over so both sides get wet, then place them back on the parchment paper. Repeat this step with all of your pretzels.


Then sprinkle your pretzels with coarse salt. I like the flavor of sea salt so that is what I use, but you could use kosher salt as well. Once that is done place them in the oven at 400 degrees until they are golden brown.


Yummy! Place them on a cooling rack and. Enjoy once you can hold them. I like mine hot, but I've always been told not bread is bad for you. One of those old wives tales I'm sure. Hehe. LOVE these. Pretty sure I'm not going to make lunch now cause I'm so full. Enjoy.
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