Hemp Milk

Hemp milk:

You will need:  

5-6cups of spring water

1 cup Hemp hearts (divided into 2, 1/2cup servings)

Sturdy/safe container to soak seeds in
Strong blender, such as a Vitamix 

Refrigerator and time

To make milk: 

1. Put 5-6cups of spring water in a safe container (sometimes I use the large gallon jar pictured here, other times I simply soak in my vitamix). 

2. Add 1/2 cup of shelled hemp seeds/hemp hearts (I use Manitoba Harvest and typically just buy right from their site, because it is my son's main source of nutrition for so long, we buy it by the 5lb tub!)

3. Soak, and refrigerate for minimum 3hrs (I have experimented with the soaking time and do not know if there is anything scientific to it but have found 12hrs to be best soaking time for my needs).   

4. Mix with high powered blender (such as a Vitamix) for 2-4minutes on high (start on low, work up to high)  

5. Add 1/2cup of shelled hemp seeds/ hemp hearts and refrigerate and repeat steps 2-4.

6. Pour and serve. 

Total time: 24hrs. 

Total volume: 5-6cups. 

Tips: I pour it into gallon jugs for pouring (typically the jug I got the spring water out of).  I let the sediment settle, and pour off only the creamiest white parts- the sediment at the bottom are the parts of the hearts that don't quite get mixed well -- although it is very, very fine (because it will go through a bottle nipple), I mainly do this to decrease the fiber content for my young son that has an intestinal allergy, with frequent intestinal inflammation- he needs the nutrition of hemp but often the added fiber can slow down the healing from an inflammatory reactions he may have.  Disclaimer: nothing scientific about this, just what I have done to meet my son's needs.  I have done various things to make this more calorically dense, such as adding maple syrup or oils; but this recipe is simply how to make the hemp milk. 

Pizzelle Waffles

Pizzelle Waffles:

Combine:

5Tbsp. millet flour

1Tbsp potato starch

1/2tsp. baking powder (Hain)

1Tbsp. Hemp seed +1Tbsp. water

3Tbsp. oil

Can also add pure maple syrup to the batter.

Mix ingredients together.  Preheat Pizzelle, spray well and scoop 1Tbsp mix onto plates, close and set darkness (3 works well).

546 calories, 3.7 g protein, 43 g CHO and 41 g fat. 

Feet, Eat....

Little Man man has a small vocabulary.  He understands EVERYTHING, follows simple commands, puts puzzle pieces in a puzzle, "reads" (can tell if the book is upside down), gives Hi-5, blows kisses, waves bye-bye, gets shoes and keys when we say we are going somewhere, knows where his feet and tummy are, and can find his bottle, puppy and blanket when asked.  He knows his brothers by name and is learning the sounds of animals (horse, dog and eagle are his favorite- and everything is a horse, dog, or eagle right?!).  But noticing he is a little behind on the words.  We continue to encourage him to ask for what he wants and use his words, he certainly is proud of the one's he can say:  mama, daddy, Hi, all done, shoes, please, feet, eat, keys (guess long e's are his strong point!).  His favorite word?  Eat.   Eat....irony is never lost on me.  But likely it is because he hears me say it so often...."be quiet and eat", "hurry up and eat" (so I can get it cleaned up and put away and out of danger for little man), "JuSt eAt"....3 times a day to his brothers.  You know when you were little and your parents would say, "eat everything on your plate, there are hungry kids in the world"?  Well, our other boys will grow up to remember hearing all this and "hurry up and eat because your brother can't".

Thanks to another FPIES mom, I got the idea to roast Little Man's hemp seeds.  First, I made him hemp butter the other day- from her recipe creation!  It is very nutty tasting and a bit strong by itself but someday he will have an arrowroot biscuit to put it on.   Until then, I roasted the seeds for him to snack on - I think he knew they were his! He was so excited to try them, they had barely come out of the oven and he was asking to sample them!  He loves this kind of textures- I am really hoping this means we can still avoid real oral aversions but we need to get going on food he can actually eat (and not just primarily play with).  But at least, with this kind of snack- he can sit at the table and be "normal".   "Eat" he says....

Last weekend I made cupcakes for church potluck.   Cupcakes?  What are those?  I hadn't baked in so long, the mix was almost expired!  Ok, for those that know me personally- I am little betty crocker- I LOVE to bake.   Just another thing FPIES has robbed from me.  The irony of it all is how much convenience foods I cook/prepare/hit the drive through for these days.  I hate it.   One day, when Little Man can actually have something besides hemp seed and arrowroot starch - I will be back to my kitchen making more than just Hemp milk formula.    But for now, convenience foods for Little Man's brothers so I can spend 2hrs making his formula every 2days.   I already have 2 blogs to get FPIES friendly recipes from, and can not wait to use some of them!  I have always said I wanted to do more scratch cooking, and I thought I did do a good majority of my cooking from scratch.  Now, with little man's allergies- I will learn what from scratch really means....and I can't wait.  With no soy and no corn- we will have to be careful with everything down to the seasonings and flavorings.  Corn and soy are in EVERYTHING.   Oh, and those cupcakes?  My other boys went CrAzY over them but I couldn't wait to get them to the church and OUT of my house- they were like poison in a cute little cupcake wrapper....crumbs were everywhere.   Little man didn't miss a beat though, and he was "helping"- he lined the cubcake tins and pretended to "eat" a cupcake (from an empty/unused liner)....so cute and so sad all mixed up in one snapshot.  

I hope the pictures show the color that is coming back to Little Man's eyes and face.  His eyes lack a glow when he is reacting/recovering from reaction.  It is hard to explain and I don't share too many of those pictures but it is always there (well, absent)- when he is feeling better, his eyes dance.   His anemia has given him a pale look even on top of his already fair-skin paleness but, to me, he is getting some color back there too.  I hope this means his body is responding to the iron supplement.  He certainly is returning to a baseline (after 2weeks ago reacting to the tapioca starch in the Vit.C supplement), so that is encouraging to see.  He has been playing well, is content most of the day, plays independently, sleeping better, exploring more, drinking his formula well, maintaining (hopefully gaining) weight, and his diapers have returned to "normal".   We aren't trialing anything right now, we may do something at the end of this week (we'll see what the new Allergist has to say) but at least we know his body is ready when we are ready.   For now, we are enjoying his baseline- once again.   I love my Little Man.

...because he's not allergic to water....

Little man really enjoyed the ice chips when we were at the hospital. So, we bought him a sno cone maker so we could duplicate those at home (we have tried just chopping ice ourselves but it is just in big hunks). He thinks the chips are a special treat. That is when he isn't having hemp milk popsicles and hemp seed cereal!

Mud pies (aka, big brothers) are enjoying the sno cone machine as well, of course they get to add sugary syrup to their sno cones. We had friends over for a much needed "normal" playdate day (thanks B boys!!) and Little Man's big brother (2nd mud pie) had to explain that Little man could have sno cones "because he isn't allergic to water"! :) His big brothers really do look out for him.

I found some Hemp seeds, I've made him a cereal out of this. As his ingredient list grows, I will have to think about what else I can make out of it...but for now, he is LOVING his new food. Yesterday morning, he had his cereal while his brothers had Saturday morning chocolate chip pancakes and he got to sit at the table with them! Oh, boy what a treat that was! He sat there for an extra 20min past when they were done, just eating his cereal- licking every morsel of it until it was gone....