Friday, May 25, 2007

Eggs and NotEggs

I'm fairly confident that J has an intolerance to eggs as well as dairy. I tested him a few days ago, and sure enough, he reacted. He seems to be ok with the tiny amounts in baked goods, however, but I wasn't sure of this until this week, so we had been putting other things in our recipies.
We had egg-free-dairy free pancakes a few times, which were very, very dense, but that can be remedied with additional rice milk. I actually prefer my pancakes thinner than most, so I'm used to adding milk as I cook them. I'm a huge fan of crepes, but since they have to sit for 30 minutes before you cook them, I don't make them too much for me and the boy. He has a hard enough time waiting for food to cook and cool down, so extra waiting is out of the question.

Anyway, while we were egg-free, I found a list of things that could subsitute for eggs ina recipie. As they don't have the pacakged egg-subs here, I chose half a mashed banana and a half teaspoon of baking powder as our sub in a zucchinni muffin recipie. It mixed ok, poured ok, but then it never really cooked. They were in the oven for an HOUR before they even came close to setting. It was like glue muffins. They never browned, and I was going to let them cool and then throw them away. J, however, saw me taking them out of the muffin tin (which is actually silicone), and asked to eat one. I checked the inside, and they had finally set, sort of, so I let him have one. He ate it, and had two more over the next two days, until I finally threw them away. Weird.

We're going to make zuchinni-oat muffins today, and we'll be using real egg. He had three chocolate chip cookies, made with real egg and dark chocolate, but rice milk not cow, and he was fine, so I think a muffin here or there with 1/12th of an egg in it might be OK. I'll keep an eye on it, though, and let you know.

UPDATE; So the oat zucchinni muffins have baked, taking ten minutes longer than the recipe said, but I think it's something to do with the super-havy-duty baking sheet that has to sit under the silicone muffin tin. They still seem REALLY sturdy to me, but taste pretty good. ANd easy to make, so here's the recipe.

One cup oats, instant is fine. One and a half cups flour, 2 and a half teaspoons baking powder, half teaspoon salt, half cup sugar. Mix all that together. In a seperate bowl, mix one lightly beaten egg, one cup milk of your choosing, one quarter cup melted margarine. Then mix the two bowls together gently, adding a half to one cup shredded, skin on, squeezed zucchini. BAke at 425 for about 20 minutes. Done when a knife or toothpick comes out clean.

A note about margarine: In the states, this would never be allowed in my house, but as there is no almond butter here, it's filling a calorie niche for J. I always prefer to cook with real butter, becasue even though it's full of fat, it tastes better and doesn't have trans fats. My father-in-law tells me they make margarine without trans fats now, but I hope I can avoid it all together. As alwasy, I prefer to eat food, not chemicals. The margarine I'm using, Rama, has no trans fats, so that's good.

J eats it with bread and jam, and of course on his muffins. I'll get soy butter when we get back to the states, or I may try a little butter, and see how he does.

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