PANCAKES!!!

I made delicious PKU Pancakes on Sunday.  (Thanks mom!) 

I haven't had pancakes in forever!!!  And I really excited when my gorgeous mother found me an easy recipe.  In fact, I made them straightaway. 

Here's how they turned out:

  Delicious!  (Actually they were a little crumbly, but that's my fault and how stingy I was with the rice milk.  And even with crumbliness, they were pretty awesome.)

Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cup Rice flour
• 1/2 cup Wheat or Tapioca Starch (I used wheat... it was what I had on hand)
• 2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 Tbsp Sugar (I used sugar for my first go but I'm sure honey or any other replacement would work as well...)                                                                                                                        
• 1/4 cup Applesauce (or you could use sweet potato, banana, or even pumpkin!)
• 2 Tbsp Oil (kind doesn't matter)
• 1/2-1 3/4 cup liquid (yeah that's right liquid... it could be coconut milk, rice milk, water, anything...  But start at 1/2 cup and go from there to the consistency you want.  I used rice milk)

 Directions:

1. Mix ingredients above the line together (dry ingredients)
2. Mix ingredients below the line together (wet items)
3. Mix both bowls together
4. Pour onto greased frying pan.  And you probably know the rest... (here's a hint: Flip the pancake when the bottom is cooked)

You know what's cool about pancakes?  The versatility.  Add dried cherries and chocolate chips?  Yum.  Use pumpkin instead of applesauce and add cinnamon?  Autumn Themed pancakes.

You can eat them with just about anything and be happy.

Pancakes are delicious.  And fun.  Enjoy!!!

 So your welcome for providing you with a great recipe.  (And thanks to both my mother and dailydietribe.com for the recipe.)

Is PKU a culture?

As many of you know, I'm on my 3rd year of college.  I know!  Where has the time gone!  But, this year one of the classes I'm taking is called "American Sign Language 2".  In this class we have an amazing textbook by: Thomas K. Holcomb entitled "Introduction to American Deaf Culture".  

I was reading in it yesterday and I came upon a fascinating concept.  "Culture versus Community".  The textbook talked about the Deaf communities.  But, me being me, I'm going to take the idea another route.  

What is a community?  According to Holcomb it's, "typically perceived as a group of people who happen to reside in a similar geographical location."  Google defined it as, "a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common."  

Would that mean that high school cliques are communities?  In my experience as a swimmer, we definitely have a community.  We all go to the same high school, and have a love of swimming in common.  But, I think the fact that we spend time together really makes it a community.  

If you had a group of people who all loved sports, but didn't spend anytime together... you'd just have a handful of sport-lovers.    

So, my own definition of community would have to be: "a group of people living in the same region, who have a characteristic in common, and who spend time together because of that characteristic."

But what is a culture?  Paraphrasing Holcomb he says, "it is more than just shared language, food, and clothes.  It is the shared values and beliefs of a community."  When I looked at google it didn't have a satisfying answer.  In fact, it tried to define it  as "bacteria and germs" even after I added community to the search engine.

So.,. culture is the shared values and ideals of a community.  (At least on the deeper level.)

Maybe I should change my definition of community.  

Community is a group of people who happen to reside in the same area, who share a characteristic, values, and ideals.  And who are drawn together because of that culture.

I hear the words culture and community thrown around a lot.  All the time I see posters shout "Join our club and be a part of the community!"  

And I wonder, is PKU a culture?  I'm not so sure.  We have a characteristic in common: Phenylketonuria.  But do we have the same beliefs?  Do we have the same ideas?  

Maybe I just don't see it, because where I live we don't have a strong community.  Maybe I don't see it because I've never been to the National PKU Conference.  (Although I was really close to going this summer...)  Maybe I'm just out of the loop.  Or maybe it depends on where you live, and how close-knit the community is...

But if we did... what do think our common beliefs would be?  Is PKU a culture?  (Not rhetorical questions by the way!)

Honestly, what are some common beliefs that you think PKU'ers have?  I'd love to hear some of your ideas.  :) 

The Familiarity Effect

Back in 11th grade I took AP Psychology.  I learned lots of neat things about the brain, and I still remember quite a few of those things to this day.  But, one of the biggest things that stuck with me is psychological phenomenon called: Judging.

(Now bear with me, because in a few moments this article is going to take an unexpected turn.)

People automatically judge things within 30 seconds of seeing it.  It's been scientifically proven.  And honestly, that's okay.  Because, judging is how your brain copes with new information.  If we didn't judge things, we couldn't totally process them.

 This happens when we see new people too.  30 seconds after seeing them you've categorized them and stored it all away in their compartment.

But, science also says that the more you see someone and the more you interact with them, the more you are familiar with them.  And the more familiar you are with them, the more you actually like them.

For example, you walk into a small class and find a seat.  You happen to be sitting next to a tall boy with an extremely big nose.  Already you've judged him.  But as the class progresses, and the more you work with this boy the more you like him.  You don't see that big nose that used to bother you slightly.  Instead you see his personality.  You see the class clown that everyone likes.  You see your friend.

Now, I've stayed within the realms of proven science so far.  But, I'm going to take this principal and see if I can apply it in another direction.

You see people everyday.  In fact, you see certain people everyday for hours on end.  You are looking at them.  You have time to get familiar with their face, their size, their hair...

In fact, you grow to like who they are and what they look like.  No matter what they look like.  Because you like what your familiar with.

But, what about yourself?  You don't get that chance to get familiar with yourself.  Even if your a mirror hog, you only get at most 2 hours of exposure to your own face.  And you get even less exposure to the rest of you.

Maybe (and remember this is all theoretical- dreamed up by me.) just maybe, you don't like certain characteristics of yourself because you haven't had the time to get familiar with it.

What would happen if you spent just a few minutes each morning just looking at yourself?  Not in a critical "I am so ugly I should go see a plastic surgeon" kind of way.  But in a "this is who I am" kind of way.

They say talking in a mirror helps boost elf-esteem.  And this is kind of the same concept.  Just take a look at yourself in the mirror.  Make expressions, so that you can see what you look like when you're using those expressions.  Go ahead and talk, maybe even laugh.  That way you can see yourself and in a way interact with yourself.

As you get familiar with yourself, I hypothesize, you'll find that you like yourself more.  That you can see through the physical attributes, and that you'll begin to see the person underneath more.

Again, this is just a theory I've worked on.  And it's worked for me.  Let me know if it works for anyone else!

Thanks for reading my blog!  Come back anytime!    

Pink Sauce

Unlike some other food bloggers, I am not a great cook.  My mom and sister are both amazing cooks.  I can follow a recipe.  

But lately I've been in this experimenting mood.  It's been kind of weird.  And most of my experiments end up... let's just say it's classified.  

Friday, however, I had a couple of tomatoes that wanted to use.  But, I wasn't sure exactly how.  So, out of the blue I decided to make spaghetti sauce out of it.  And to my surprise it actually went (mostly) right!

What I did was I blended up the tomatoes with some rice milk and water in a blender.  Now I didn't blend it up too well because I wanted tomato chunks in the sauce.  I put the mixture into a pot and put it on simmer.  

Then I added spices: garlic, salt, and basil.  I just added it until it tasted right.  (Sorry I was just experimenting so I didn't get any measurements.)  

It tasted great, but I was faced with a problem.  The sauce was more like a soup, I needed some way to thicken  it.  Being the 21st century girl I am, I googled "how to thicken sauces"  and found a very helpful website: 

http://www.wikihow.com/Thicken-Sauce

It had seven different ways to thicken a sauce, but in the end I used a mixture of two different ways.  

At first, I started with the "Reducing Method" where you basically simmer the water away until it's thicker and the flavor is more concentrated.  (When you do this, make sure you stir occasionally so that the bottom doesn't burn.) 

It worked, but it was really slow.  And I was hungry, so I decided to hurry it up by using a different solution to help it along.

The second solution was called "The Flour Method".  I added tapioca flour, but I'm sure regular flour, or rice flour would work too.  What you do, is you add flour (it gives you an estimate of how much on the website, but I eyeballed it).  Now, I didn't do exactly as the instructions called for.  I just added the flour and turned up the heat.  

It did have a flour-like taste, so I added more spices.  And it seemed to work out just fine.  If I use this method again, I'd turn the heat up higher so the flour would dissolve better and give less of the flour taste.  

It was a great sauce, considering it was my first time ever doing something like that.  Funny thing though, it was bright pink.  From the flour and rice milk I guess.  I wonder if all tomato sauces are really pink and they add food coloring to make it the traditional red?  

Another method I didn't try (simply because I didn't have it on hand) but would in the future was the "Pureed Veggie Method".  Apparently it thickens without adding a taste.

Anyways, that was one of my successful adventures in the kitchen.  What's cool about being able to make sauces, it that once you become an expert you won't need to buy sauces from the store anymore.  And you can control the ingredients making it more PKU friendly, like I did with the rice milk and tapioca flour.  

Thanks for reading!  Sorry, I didn't think to take pictures as I was experimenting.  Maybe next time!     

      

A "Pintresting" Post (pun intended)

I haven't written a blogpost in forever.  I'm really sorry to everyone.  Excuses are just that (excuses), so I won't offer any but I have a goal of posting once a week for the rest of the school semester.

Okay, so today's topic:

Pintrest has been regarded as many things.  A place to waste time.  A place where you can find some really neat projects that you wish you could do.  A place to put all your project ideas before you start them.  

Well, I want to talk about 1 way that Pintrest can actually be a help to PKU'ers.  

Hint:  Have you ever wished you could make something else instead of your basic 10 recipes that you make all the time?

Well, using Pintrest you can actually find a lot of PKU proof recipes.  

I have 118 pins in my "PKU Friendly Food" board.  It's currently my largest board.  And the great thing about it is, a lot of PKU'er Pinners have a PKU -proof board.  So pretty easily you can go and look at all these great recipes.    

I've Pinned recipes that aren't strictly PKU because I can see an easy way to change it so it does become PKU-proof.  

Now, the question really is whether you're going to try those recipes.  Or if they'll be sitting there forever.  It takes a little bit of dedication to actually cook something up from Pintrest.  But, if you're tired of the same old PKU-proof dishes it's a great way to add variety.  

Make a goal.  "I'm going to try 1 new dish a week."  That's not too hard is it?  Then buy the ingredients.  (I go to the grocery store every other week, so to save on cost I would choose 2 similar dishes.  That way I don't have to buy as many ingredients.)  Cook the meal.  If you like it, write it down or print it out.  If you don't, delete it.  You don't need to keep nasty recipes around.  

If you're finding it hard to get yourself to cook a new meal 1x a week for whatever reason.  Choose a day of the week and make that night "new recipe night".  If it becomes a habit to make a new dish, it won't be as hard to get around to it.  

In conclusion (since I always feel as if I'm just throwing things around and rambling): Do you ever feel like you eat the same things over and over again?  Especially as a PKU'er when you're options are limited anyways?  Well, Pintrest actually has a lot of recipes that are PKU-proof or can be adjusted really easily.  You can find them on other people's PKU boards or you can search PKU in the search bar.  If you're having a hard time actually making the foods, make a goal.  Make 1 new dish a week.  If you need to make that new dish on the same night every week, that way it becomes habit.  And you won't have a problem anymore.  :)  

Geez, that conclusion was tons better than the rest of the post.  The only reason I'm not rewriting this post all over again, is because I promised myself I'd post today, and I don't really have the time.  So, I'm sorry again for rambling and for not posting forever (even though I warned you it would happen).       

 Thanks for reading my blog.  :) I'll see you again soon.