A Time to Eat

You know your life is crazy when you don't have time to eat. You're too busy but you know it's important to eat because if you don't you won't have enough energy to finish all you need to do. But there still isn't time. And when there is time you're too tired to make anything. That's how it is for me right now. It's crazy on it's own. But when you have PKU? That makes it even more important to eat.

It's not just that we have to not eat high in protein foods. We have to eat the right AMOUNT of phenylalanine. Too little is as bad as too much.

When you have PKU you have to make SURE you eat all your PHE (phenylalanine) for the day. At my house that's what saltine crackers are for. One saltine cracker is roughly 1 equivalent. So I figure out how much PHE I've had today and how much I need to be in my goal. Then I have that many crackers.

Let me tell you now, lately those crackers have been a lifesaver. Because I really am busy. Too busy to eat, too tired to cook. I survive on crackers and formula. :)

PKU Pumpkin Cookies- recipe

My family loves cookies. Sunday nights it's common to find someone in the kitchen baking a fresh batch of cookies. (Especially after a cookie fundraiser.) As a PKU'er cookies are rather high and so my sister usually only have 1 or 2 a day; but it's REALLY tempting to take another. So naturally I want to find some simple PKU cookie recipes that I can freeze and make some Sunday evening.

Today I made Pumpkin Cookies (in honor of Halloween) with my friends and I wondered: Is there a recipe for PKU Pumpkin Cookies??? So I did what any other semi-tech savvy teen in America does... I googled it. :) Here is the best recipe I could find. I'm going to have try it and take pictures.

Pumpkin Cookie Recipe

1 C brown sugar

1 C white sugar

3/4 C butter or margerine

15 oz. can pumpkin

2 t baking soda

1 t baking powder

1 t cinnamon

1/2 t nutmeg

1/2 t ginger

1/2 t salt

3 1/2 to 4 C of Wel-plan baking mix

Frosting:

1/2 C butter or margerine

1 C brown sugar

4 T Rich's Coffee Creamer or Mocha mix (or other liquid creamer - adjust phe as needed)

3 C powdered sugar

Cookies:

Sift dry ingredients. Cream sugar and butter. Alternate dry ingredients with creamed mixture and pumpkin. Drop by spoonful onto cookie sheets. (Dough may appear soft, but cookies form and rise nicely). Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Frosting:

Melt butter and brown sugar, bring to a boil. Boil for 2 minutes. Add non-dairy creamer and return to a boil. Cool. With beater, add sugar gradually. Final consitency should be spreadable. Frosting can be colored or Halloween decorations added.

Cookies per recipe - 70; Phe per cookie - 5 mg

Recipe from Ahn H, mother of Stephanie and Samantha, from MN PKU Foundation 2000 calendar.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! :)

Happy Hallow's Eve!

Halloween. The time of year where you can dress up as someone else and get free candy for it. :) I may be a teenager but I still enjoy trick-or-treating with my friends. It's a blast! I remember one year when I was little I wanted to be SuperMAN not supergirl... SUPERMAN! (That was also the year I cut my own hair.) My mom ended up putting a bow in my hair so people would realize I was a girl.
Yes, there is candy out there I can't have because of my PKU. (Anything with peanut butter, artificial sweetening, nuts... and I think that's it.) But ever since I was little I'd just do what any other kid would. I'd trade. ;) Anything I was allergic I'd just trade to a friend or to my parents for some of their leftover Halloween candy. It's never been a big deal. Why should anyone make it a big deal? Houses where they let me pick out what I want are great. But if they slip it into my bag it's okay, I'll just trade it later.
The ONE thing that annoys me most is: the foiled covered chocolate. I don't KNOW if it has peanut butter in it! So I have to either break it in half before I eat it or let someone else taste test it for me. (And if I let someone taste it you can be sure there won't be much left for me if it was fine.)
Free candy?? Yum. :) I love Halloween. I even can accept the lame houses that hand out carrot packages. *Yes house that passed out carrots last year I'm talking about you. Unfortunately my Best friend can't accept you so we're not stopping there again this year.*
Halloween is oodles of fun. And it's not really different for PKU'ers, we just have to eat it slower. Which is always the goal right? ;)

Happy Halloween!!

Another article

Remember that Dr. Koch article from my last really short post??? I found another article about him. http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-richard-koch-20111008,0,5500503.story I personally think of Dr. Koch as the PKU person's hero. He did so much for us. It is because of him that I can think, talk, go to school, I owe him so much. He'll always be a hero of mine. Rest in peace Dr. Richard Koch, you lived a long successful life. :)

PKU Hero

I came across this article today: http://www.pkuheroes.org/drkoch/. It's about an amazing man who has done so much for PKU'ers like me. Without him I would be mentally retarded. Thank you Dr. Koch!

School Lunches

Some schools have vegetarian choices. My school has a salad, but it's the longest line in the school. So it's not worth it. My past schools haven't even had this choice. I could fight for more choices. But after the school "agree" to do it in my experience... they don't. I once fought for microwave rights in elementary school. It was a waste of time because they didn't let me anyway. They were just avoiding a big scene. So I bring home lunches. It's healthier and cheaper anyways. Plus you don't have to wait in a long line for it. It can be fun too if you get creative. I rarely have time to be creative but it's fun when I am.

Good things to put in a PKU'ers lunch: fruit (apples, pears, grapes, fruit cups...) and vegetables (carrots, salad, celery, raw broccoli...). You can make bread for sandwiches, put vegetable soup in a thermos, pack a couple cookies. You could add a container of ranch to dip your veggies in. For a while I would pack these "fruit chillers" in my lunch with an ice pack (basically it's sorbet). Fruit leathers and fruit snacks are excellent!

Tip: Frozen grapes turn into goop when in your lunch. They taste excellent at home but not on the go.

My lunch on the go is usually an apple, fruit snacks, fruit cup/lemon pudding, and it depends what else in the house at the time. But it has filled my throughout my school life so it works for me.

It's nice to have a dependable menu. Just in case I don't have time to think about what to pack. But sometimes change is good. Get creative! Add a sauce, pack a thermos. smoothies are fun! Just because you bring home lunch doesn't mean you have to bring dull things. You can pack lunches that will make school lunch kids drool! I have (that would be the smoothies). Try something new! :) And have a good day!

Tastiest Way To Get Rid Of Zucchini!

Dear readers,

How was your summer? As you could probably tell I've been a very busy person. I still am, so right onto business we go. :)

Recently my house has been overrun by evil zucchini. It's like a curse we eat/freeze/deal with 1 of them and my dad goes and picks 4 more! He's crazy for planting as many plants as he did. But because we've been overun by zucchini we've been looking for tasty ways to get rid of it. Here by far the yummiest/ weirdest recipe yet! (Thanks to allrecipes.com)

Zucchini Cobbler

Ingredients (serves 25)

• 8 cups peeled, chopped zucchini
• 2/3 cup lemon juice
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 1/2 cups butter, chilled
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

1. In a large saucepan over medium heat, cook and stir zucchini and lemon juice until zucchini is tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Stir in 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and nutmeg and cook one minute more. Remove from heat and set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 10x15 inch baking dish. In a large bowl, combine flour and 2 cups sugar. Cut in butter with pastry blender or two knives until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir 1/2 cup of butter mixture into zucchini mixture. Press half of remaining butter mixture into bottom of prepared pan. Spread zucchini mixture over top of crust, and sprinkle remaining butter mixture over zucchini. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon cinnamon.
3. Bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until top is golden. Serve warm or cold.
   

It's a pretty weird recipe when you think about it. Zucchini in a FRUIT dessert? Yuck! But zucchini actually picks up the taste of whatever it's cooked in. And this recipe makes the zucchini taste like apples! I promise you! When we served it to people who didn't know it's zucchini-like qualities they complimented us on our Apple Cobbler. Their jaws literally fall to the ground when we tell them the truth. It's that good. I couldn't get my mind over how it tasted like apple cobbler yet I knew it was zucchini cobbler. Trust me you've GOT to try this one! :)