Vegan Pumpkin Coconut Pie for Sarah :)

So this year I am experimenting with a different kind of pumpkin pie.  Clearly you already know that if you read the blog title.  And actually it's custard not pie.

Custard typically has both milk and eggs.  We don't keep either of those in the house for allergy and health reasons.  But oh how I love me some pumpkin pie.  Pumpkin anything really, will do.

When I started to throw together my custard this morning for tomorrow's Thanksgiving meal, I suddenly got struck with the hair-brained idea of using coconut milk instead of my typical almond milk.  I thought perhaps it would make the pie a bit richer since there is a marked difference between almond milk and sweetened condensed death...er...milk in taste, texture, thickness and richness.  While I am fine with plain almond milk I thought that experimenting with the slightly richer milk option was a good idea.  Enter 1 cup of reduced fat coconut milk.  Not the full fat, although I'm sure you could do that and it would be AMAZING.  I just didn't feel like adding THAT many extra calories.


I also had been tossing around the idea of adding some cashews to my custard to help thicken it up and add some richness.  I googled both these combinations and found I wasn't totally off the wall in my scheming, but the recipes were very different from what I was thinking for reasons involving dairy and a non-bake, fridge option.

So I started dumping and came out with something pretty tasty.  I won't say it's amazing, cause I don't think it is yet.  I'd have to do more experimenting.  But is it tasty?  Oh yea.  Very good.  A little bit coconutty and pumpkiny.  Very yummy.

And while I wouldn't necessarily post a recipe I wasn't fully done with, a friend asked for the recipe for her little girls for Thanksgiving who I believe have some dairy intolerances, so I'm sharing early.  So if you are looking to change up your typical punkin pie/custard this year, you might give this a whirl and give me some feedback. :)

The picture is nothing fab since it was taken amidst lots of kitchen chaos.  Then again I don't ever pretend to have fabulous pictures since I am not a photographer and haven't spent any time increasing my knowledge in that area.  Lame me.  But really, how fabulous can custard look?

Vegan Pumpkin Coconut Custard

1 15oz can pumpkin
1 cup lower fat coconut milk*
1/2 cup almond milk (needed it to balance out the cashews and get it to blend)*
1/4c cashews**
1/4c cornstarch***
1 3/4 pumpkin pie spice
1 Tbsp molasses
1/2c agave  (I could have been happy with 4-6 Tbsp, but since this was for others too, I went with 1/2c)
1 tsp vanilla

Everything gets combined in a blender, poured into a lightly greased pie plate (or pie crust), and baked at 350 for 45-1 hour.  Simple as that.  Now for notes.

*If you are hesitant about the coconut flavor and want to start out with half of the coconut milk and start tasting, do so.  Don't add the cornstarch until you are satisfied with your coconut/almond milk ratio.
**Cashews were added for richness and can be left out if you have allergies.  If you omit them, start out using only 1 cup of milk and add the rest only if you need it to blend.  The extra almond milk was really just to balance out the thickness from the cashews.  ALSO, if you are not sure your blender will blend them sufficiently, either try adding them first with the milk and half the pumpkin to see if they will thoroughly blend, OR try adding cashew butter instead of cashew pieces.
***The cornstarch helps it set since it doesn't have eggs.

If you feel like playing up the coconut a bit more, I'd try adding some unsweetened shredded coconut to your custard or sprinkling some on top towards the end of baking for some toasted coconut topping.  If you feel like ignoring the coconut milk, just use all almond milk instead. :)

So, here is a recipe in the rough.  If you are brave enough to try it at this point, tell me what you think!! :-)

Gratituesday: therapy

I was reminded yesterday at Charlie's Dysphagia therapy, that this coming Thursday will be 2 years exactly since we started therapy for his eating issues.  That was quite a realization to think it's been 2 years.  My initial thought was how ironic that the anniversary of something I've been so un-thankful for is falling on a day of thanksgiving.  Wait, is that irony?  I never know.  And not that this is the only day we should be thankful, people.  

It's been a long two years.  There are plenty of days where I feel like the martyred mother who must do therapy with her child every day, multiple times a day.  The mother who can't eat a meal in peace unless her child is at someone else's house.  Wait, maybe that's all mothers with toddlers.  The mother who's life revolves around her child's meals and food.

And then I get perspective.  Perspective like the Dragon Mom I recently blogged about.  Or this other story I found recently of another Dragon Mom who finally lost their battle and kissed their sweet baby girl one last time. I'm sure I would have cried over both of these stories even when I wasn't a mother, but being a mother now makes these stories so much more real, and I can easily saturate tissues and napkins galore before I get past the first paragraph of stories like that.


And when I finally connected all of this in my brain yesterday, I had this moment, perhaps for the first time, where I was truly. seriously. for real. absolutely grateful. for therapy.  Not just the "oh yea I'm grateful we have this and are trying to fix it, blah blah blah" kind of thankfulness.  Charlie has never been failure to thrive (which some kids with eating disorders can be), it's not a terminal illness, we have money to see a therapist, and most vivid yesterday was the fact that WE ARE SEEING PROGRESS!!!  The progress part is exciting because we have definitely been through long periods where progress has been microscopic to non-existent.  And recently it's been visible!  I have hope!  My son will one day eat soup and bread and raw veggies and nuts and pieces of all kinds of healthy foods, instead of pureed everything.  Did I mention I hate purees?  I do.


Why am I glad for therapy specifically?  Because we are seeing progress.  Wait, back up.  Because the speech/dysphagia therapists caught the problem when he was 6 weeks old, and we started taking measures to make sure that nothing got worse, so he didn't grow up establishing a cycle of incorrect eating patterns, resulting in more problems as he grew, poor digestion from un-chewed food, refusal to eat food due to poor digestion and upset tummy (which can lead to failure to thrive) and scariest of all, lots of potential choking that happens when you don't have correctly established chew/swallow patterns.  I don't care how experienced you are in the matter, that moment when you realize your child is really choking, it's scary.

Am I grateful to have avoided all of that?  You bet.  Did that mean I was thankful for therapy?  Not really and truly.  Not until yesterday.

So on this Gratituesday I am thankful for Charlie's therapists and his therapy sessions.  And while I'd love to think of what else we could have done with the time and money we've poured into therapy, I can truly say that  I am grateful we have been able to do this for our son to save him a whole host of problems as he progresses through life.

And this Thanksgiving day - 2 years from our first therapy session - I will be so grateful to have a happy, healthy, thriving child.

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The weekend in reverse in pictures (take 2)

....minus the death warmed over part

....plus today, which is definitely not the weekend, so we'll say "extended weekend in reverse".

So here we go...

Today is crockpot day.  Almost every Wednesday is or there is no dinner when I get done teaching.  Charlie loves to help Mama make food.  Mostly stir things.  He loves to stir.

 So he stands on his Learning Tower aka The Tower of Power and helps Mama stir.  Did I mention he loves to stir?

And yes, that is a teaspoon he is stirring with.  I finally figured out the smaller the spoon, the less mess he makes.  And yes his hand is practically in the soup in that last picture.  What can I say, he loves to stir soup.  Also, this is why hand washing is important.  Who am I kidding, a little dirt never hurt anyone.

Back up to Monday afternoon.  This is what I came home from Charlotte to.  :-)

Are you grinning from ear to ear?  Cause I was.  See, William left last Sunday afternoon to go to Baltimore for a week.  I left the following Friday morning to go to Charlotte to visit friends.  He came back on Saturday afternoon and I finally came back Monday afternoon (while he was at work).  8 days without seeing him.  So I loved my welcome home greeting. :)

The Daddy and Mommy legos being key components of it all.  We're a little obsessed with "Daddy and Mommy Wegos" as they are called in our house.  Someone marches all around the house toting them and losing them and causing his mother to stress about finding them again.

The best part being that Charlie was the one who actually came up with the "Daddy and Mommy Wegos".  At first sight he immediately associated the red hair with daddy and the brown hair with mommy.  I was pretty proud, I have to admit. :)

Me and my "Mommy Wego".  See the resemblance? ;-)

Back up to Friday morning on the road and this is what I caught sight of.

Don't know what you are looking at yet?

I kept inching closer and closer.

Yea baby.  Only the best beer ever. ;-)  I wanted to follow that van wherever it was going and grab an ice cold Hummin' Bird.  Too bad we had our own separate agendas.

This one's for you William! 

Caught it as I drove by!  And no I did not take my eyes off the road to snap that picture.  I got a lucky shot as I was driving by.  Always drive responsibly.  I was.  For the most part.

So somewhere in between the Legos and the Red Oak beer, the weekend with Charlotte friends occurred, as did the 36 hours from hell.  Still don't know if it was food or just a passing bug or both, but I spent Saturday morning to Sunday evening in such tummy agony as I ever remember feeling.  No one should spend that much time in the bathroom.  Need I say more.

My host was gracious enough to take care of me and watch my kiddo and not take any pictures of me stumbling around in my sweats looking like death warmed over.  Erin, I am EVER so grateful for all of those.  I am pretty sad that I didn't get any pictures of Charlie and Jack playing, but maybe Erin will send me some pictures and I'll get to post them anyways.  I think they had a jolly good time, in spite of the person making mad dashes to the bathroom.

So there was this past weekend.  Glad to be home.  Enjoyed seeing friends.  Wish I could have seen more of them instead of so much bathroom tile.  But still good.

So many more things to blog about.  That must be what being a mom blogger is all about.  Tons of posts to write and never time to write them.

Happy Wednesday evening!

10 Things...just for you.

10 things to catch you up on my life that is.

1. I think I inadvertently managed to teach my son how to say "good call!" tonight while building our usual duplo train tower.  Every time he put a brick down in a place that wasn't going to structurally weaken the wall, I said, "good call, Charlie!"  And after a while I noticed that every new brick he put on he would say, "goo cahh!"

2. A roach scampered across my living room floor tonight while I was doing my ab exercises.  On the floor. Not 2 feet from the roach.  Nothing like having some bicycles interrupted by a black flash, a screech and a mad leap into the air to grab a shoe.

3. I have tons of pictures that I want to share and things I want to blog about, but they stay unwritten for the time being.

4. I am addicted to Hummus Soup.  So.  Addicted.

5. I will in fact share the hummus soup recipe with you all one day.  Eventually.  When I actually get around to doing a real post.

6. I get to visit a dear friend tomorrow, which I am totally psyched about.  What I'm not psyched about is the 3 hour road trip with my toddler in the car, all by myself, during NON-NAPTIME HOURS.

7. I have discovered Pinterest, and the little girl inside who once used to cut up magazines and save all the favorite pictures and clippings in folders and boxes is running around inside a candy store.  A virtual one that is.  Filled with pictures, not candy.  But there are lots of pictures of candy.  You seriously have no idea how much my inner magazine cutting, favorite picture clipping little girl is coming out.  The best part is - NO EXTRA CLUTTER IN MY HOUSE!


8. I shouldn't be up this late, but I'm waiting on cloth diapers to finish washing so I can pop them in the dryer.

9. I really just want to get my hair cut again. (I know! Really?)  Who would have ever thought this long haired child would become a short hair junkie.  (Btw, the inspiration was a Pinterest picture.  Don't hate me!)

10. I have finally bought a winter coat.  The first one in YEARS.  You have no idea how excited I am at the prospect of not feeling cold all winter this time.

That's all you get for now.  And the dryer is done.  So I'm off to bed.  :)

How to handle a bad day when you're 2

What do we do in this house when we're having a bad day?

What any decent self respecting toddler would do.

Double-fisted applesauce shoveling.

That's how we roll.

Seriously though, I'm beginning to wonder if he has a bit of ambidexterity about him.  I was totally under the assumption that he was going to be a lefty since I usually see him eat with his left hand and he has much better fine motor control with his left hand.  But lately he's been going back and forth.  I need to take a real good look at him when he's coloring and drawing to see what he does.  Hey, I'd take a lefty or an ambidextrous kid...or a righty.  Those are just fine in my book too.

I am becoming my mother...

That title really might sound more ominous than it should.  Unfortunately most of the time when people make such statements as "I'm becoming my mother!" or "My parents used to do that!" it's in a negative tone.  How unfortunate.  There are of course sins of every father that the child does not wish to repeat themselves.  We are all imperfect.  However, people should focus on the good aspects of being like their parents more than they do.

Soap box aside....

I am in fact becoming my mother.  At least where my salads are concerned.

Notice the stainless steel mixing bowl.  Only a mixing bowl will do for that size salad.  Relax, it's just my medium 2qt bowl, not my large one. :)

My mother is the Queen of "Everything but the kitchen sink" salads.  Seriously.  While I don't particularly care for all the toppings she includes, I am stepping ever closer to the "...but the kitchen sink" part.  In the above salad there is:

Standard Salad fare:
-good old romaine
-carrots
-tomato
-zucchini

Standard Jamie Salad fare:
-black beans
-hummus
-lemon juice
-ACV
-Bragg's Liquid Aminos  (the 3 liquids and the hummus make a killer dressing)
-pepper

New additions today:
-Urad Dal (aka Ivory Lentils I recently picked up at the Indian Market and cooked up a small portion of to see if I liked it enough to go back and buy another 4lb bag before the Diwali sales went off)
-mixture of leftover regular brown lentils and ivory lentils cooked up with my Smoky Autumn Blend seasonings used to make a sandwich spread/filling
-some stray white beans
-green onions

If I had been thinking about it, some pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds would have made a nice addition.  I don't think I'm nearing the number of ingredients that my mother usually puts on a salad, but she is the Queen after all. :)  I'll keep trying Mom. ;-)

And for better or worse, I am one of those people who likes uniform flavor in her food (not dull, just uniform), so once I reach the desired ingredients and flavor, I mix it up like crazy so that every bite is evenly covered with dressing/lentils, and I try and get a small bite of each veggie in every forkful.  Yes, I am I that person, who turns a beautiful bowl of salad into a crazy stirred up mess in order to enjoy the same awesome flavor in every bite.  Don't hate me because I'm a food stirrer.

You should also know that the Ivory Lentils were just one of 4 different types of lentils picked up at the Indian Market the other day.  I can now proudly state that I have 5 different kinds of lentils in my house, several of them in 4lb bags.


Don't kid yourself, 4lb bags of any bean don't last real long in our house, especially if it's a lentil or a chickpea. 

Gratituesday: Perspective

When one is in the middle of potty training, one needs perspective.  A whole lot of it.

When one's two year old still cannot/will not correctly chew table foods in his mouth and has to be fed purees and done exercises with every meal, one needs perspective.

Potty training has not been going swimmingly.  In fact, I have my doubts as to whether or not he's ready.  I feel a little like hitting myself in the head with a brick due to the tediousness of it, but I think I could deal with that if I truly felt like this was something he was willing to do.  When after two and a half days he cries whenever I take off his pants to have some "naked potty time", I have my doubts.

But back to my tediousness.  In my few attempts at potty training, it's the one thing that really makes me feel like not having anymore kids.  I sat on the kitchen floor Monday morning thinking in the most no uncertain terms, that I was done having kids and didn't ever want to go through this again.  And for those of you that know me, you know considering stopping after one kid is just not on my list.  But this is tedious.  I almost hate it more than his daily eating therapy.  Actually I do hate it more than the actual act of therapy, but the length of time we've been doing his dysphagia therapy outweighs the more unpleasantness of the actual act of potty training.  One kid and I feel like potty training has defeated me already.  I'm sure all you mother's of multiple potty trained kids are laughing at me right now.

Anyways, back to Gratituesday and the actual topic: perspective.  This morning I read this article called Notes from a Dragon Mom.  I would encourage you to read it, but do know it was absolutely heart wrenching.  Confession: I did in fact cry, a lot.  My heart broke for the mama writing it.


If you don't feel that you can make yourself read it, the gist of it is a mother of a little 18m boy who has Tay-Sachs, an incurable genetic disease, that will likely take his life by the time he is 3 years old, and how that has altered their life.


If that doesn't give you perspective over potty training and two years of non-life threatening dysphagia therapy, I don't know what does.  Lord willing, I have a reasonable hope to enjoy my sweet baby long after he is 3 years old.  As bad as I feel it can get when I'm stuck doing exercises with a little guy who doesn't want me near his mouth, or when I've sat on the floor for two hours watching my son's every move in the hopes of catching some pee-pee in the potty, I am grateful for my reasonable hope.  I am grateful for my God-given son, whom I cherish getting spend time with, raise and love.

At the risk of sounding completely insensitive, there is one aspect to their situation that, I wouldn't exactly say that I envy, but that I wish I could implement in my daily life even without their unique circumstances.    Because her son is slowly regressing towards a vegetative state within the next few years of their lives, there is no push, no schedule, no "we must get through this for the future".   There is just today.  Just loving.

"But the day-to-day is often peaceful, even blissful. This was my day with my son: cuddling, feedings, naps."

How often would I describe my day as peaceful and only consisting of cuddling, feeding and loving my son?  Less frequent than I would like.  Mothers of non-terminally ill children have a different set of goals for living.  They plan for the future and make decisions based on future good.  Dragon Moms have today.  They have loving and living and comforting today.

I'm not jealous of her situation.  My heart grieves for that Mama and Daddy who will soon lose their precious child, but I wish I could capture the "freedom from tomorrow" mentality sometimes and remember to take days where all I do is enjoy and revel in the amazing little boy God has given us.

I do realize that no one is guaranteed tomorrow.  "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. Job 1:21"  We don't know when our time on this earth is done and we are not guaranteed tomorrow.  I know this.  But....I admit that this feels different.

So, perspective.  On the verge of feel very frustrated and declaring potty training unsuccessful at this time, I am grateful for perspective on it all.  And grateful for yet another day to enjoy my son.

NC State Fair 2011

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