Pancake Saturday

As you might have guessed it we love our Saturday morning panckaes! I try to make them every Saturday morning as a tradition I wanted to start with the kids. Once we went gluten free it took many, many recipes to find the best GF pancake recipe in my opinion and many others in our household that were not gluten free. They were great. But then sadly we went into allergy mode again trying to figure out what the kids are now allergic too and have gone off all dairy, eggs and corn. The last few Saturdays have been back to the drawing board and many mishaps of egg free pancakes. :(

They are definitely not the same without egg. I found one recipe online and I changed it drastically to make it GF and DF (Dairy Free). It was the probably the second best but nothing in comparison to my favorite and as Eric told me his too. I tried using a 1/4 cup of mashed bananas as a substitute for each egg but it of course was too banana-y.

I have been researching all of these possible allergens and what kind of symptoms and degrees of intolerances. Now allergic reaction is different than intolerant, which I knew but not the degree of difference. Allergic means an immediate reaction to the food. Whereas intolerant is more a slow effect, maybe an half hour after you eat or so or even maybe later that day depending upon your intolerance.

I did not know this but as I was researching egg allergies/intolerance I found out that you can be allergic to the gas that is let out as the egg is being prepared! Meaning if I am scrambling eggs for Eric's breakfast I could get a hay fever reaction! What?! How crazy is that, just from the gas of the egg.

It has been since the 19th of May since we have been off Dairy, Eggs and Corn, a little over three weeks. I pretty much know that the kids and I are intolerant if not allergic to dairy and I am okay with that. We have made subtle changes in order to make it work. I was looking for a butter replacement. Well all of the vegan butters had corn in them and I tried goats milk butter which was not bad but oh so expensive. It was about $7 for two cubes of butter, Ouch! I even tried making my own olive oil and canola oil butter. It was not hard at all. All you do is mix a small amount into a ziploc container, I used the 1/4 cup size, the smallest one, put it in the freezer overnight to solidify it and then you keep it in the refrigerator after that. The only thing I did not like was the harshness of the olive oil. I mean we really only need butter for our toast and pancakes everything else I have substituted cold pressed oils for. Then I started thinking what about Coconut oil...it is always in a solid form, Ah ha! By George I think she has got it. So a bought a jar of coconut oil from New Frontiers the health food store in SLO, which I love, it is like Whole Foods but smaller and cozier with a great deli. The coconut oil is perfect and you hardly need any in order for our rice bread toast to be buttery. Kids did not even think twice about it...sweet.
Butter dilemma solved.

Now to the eggs, so today I decided to make our beautiful pancakes with eggs. I made those pancakes with oil instead of butter and put in the eggs required. Oh did I miss them, they were so fluffy and light and airy..as the kids say now "yummy in my tummmmy!" Now I was not quite sure how the reaction be, would it be like the Wahoo's incident last year when he had gluten on accident and projectiled vomitted everywhere? Would it be later on in the day with his first bowel movement? Nope, it was about a half hour after we ate and his nose was running like a faucet! I mean uncontrollably running. Clear snot coming out ALL day long. Poor bub, he started saying, "momma, nose, nose, runnin, help me." I would not have even thought it was the eggs except for reading about the hay fever reaction, are you kinding me. Clearly he is not allergic per se, but why would I torture him with a runny nose because I need my fluffly pancakes. Yet another wah wah Wahaa.

Of well so much for that experiment, on to the next Corn!
Wish me luck!

***As I was proof reading this Enzo can storming out of his room with his fireman's hat on and knight sword looking for me (it is 11:30 p.m.) I love that he takes the time to get ready to look for me even in the middle of the night. Too cute!