Yummy… But I Can’t Have That Either

January 2012, I stood in my kitchen.  I opened my cabinets and refrigerator.  Anything that read gluten in the ingredients list or I thought had gluten in it had to go.  That was cold-turkey with not much planning on what was to follow.

As it turned out, that wasn’t just for Mia’s sake but for mine as well.  My own food allergy panel brought to light dietary limitation.  For example, some traditionally made Italian foods were snatched right off the table… like pasta and bread.

It’s getting close to four years since that decision and, recently, a definite lack of variety settled into my kitchen.  I searched the internet for gluten-free and dairy-free pasta dishes.  The only thing that seemed to come up was pesto.  Basil… yummy…. I can’t have that either. Nor can I have oregano.  I kept searching and found three different recipes that sounded good, but I could not have all of any of them. So, I turned the three into one dish.

For the pesto, I used two bunches of kale, grapeseed oil, three small lemons, frozen garlic with salt and pepper to taste.  That all went into the food processor.  I oven-roasted the chicken with pepper, salt, and garlic.  The pasta was a gluten-free, store-bought mix of quinoa, brown-rice, corn, and white rice.

This meal was for Craig and me.  Mia is not quite there yet.  The look of green “spaghetti sauce” doesn’t go over well with her.  But, as far as Craig was concerned, he liked it.  Good thing too.  Food variety has its limits in this household.  The meal will come around again.

Please be sure to check out Mia’s GoFundMe page,  http://www.gofundme.com/sc29p7xc.  This is no time to breathe a sigh of relief. That will result in Mia's regression, back into sickness and lengthy, high-volume, self-harming tantrums. We have to keep searching, find more pieces to help Mia reach for and aspire to her dreams.