Mark’s brother demonstrates how to fry hush puppies (using polenta):

Video of the men frying the Thanksgiving turkeys:

Last Wednesday Mark had a milestone of his own; he ate a Wendy’s burger and chili-with-crackers for the last time.

Last Wednesday Mark was diagnosed with Celiac disease, an intolerance to gluten. Gluten is found in wheat, barley, and rye, but is also used as an additive in processed foods. No one is totally sure what causes Celiac, but it is an autoimmune disease that targets the digestive tract. In Celiac patients, the body reacts to the absorption of a protein in gluten (gliadin) by attacking parts of the small intestine, which causes the breakdown of the small intestine and difficulty absorbing certain vitamins and minerals. Mark was diagnosed because of his moderate anemia. We started the diagnostic process in March, when he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, and it’s taken till now to determine the cause of the anemia.

Now, I know what you’re all thinking. Seriously? This family has ANOTHER weirdo disease? Pretty crazy, huh? Well don’t tell anyone, faithful blog readers, but we’ve decided to go for the world record in rare diseases in one family. I don’t know what the current record is but I assure you, give us enough time and we’ll beat it. Or if not, we should at least get featured on House.

I am grateful that we’ve been able to gradually slide into this. Last month Mark tested positive for the Celiac associated antibodies so we knew Celiac was a strong possibility, but the doctor gave us a list of a few other things it could be instead. Two weeks later Mark had an endoscopy/colonscopy and we got a 99% diagnosis of Celiac, but had to wait another week for the biopsy results to be sure. This gave Mark and me lots of time to research the disease, learn what a gluten-free diet would entail, and get used to the idea.

I’m really proud of Mark. He is a “foodie,” so having to give up a lot of his favorite foods is a huge sacrifice. His doctor said if he follows a gluten-free diet he will hopefully go into remission within a few months, but if he ever re-introduces gluten (in any real amount) he’ll get sick again. To that end we’re getting used to some new foods, cleaning out the pantry, and creating a better method of food storage (because I’m not going totally gluten-free). We’re also very particular about what foods Menininho eats because his immune system is still developing. If we keep gluten out of his system now, his pediatrician said we have a better chance at preventing him from getting Celiac (hard to know for sure, since the exact cause isn’t known, but it certainly won’t hurt).

Along those lines, if you’re interested in gluten-free cooking, I’ll be posting recipes to these blogs: Take That, Martha! and Healthy Eats.

I’m hoping that we can turn this bad luck into a kick-start into healthier eating for our family.

At the risk of sounding like TAMN, I feel the need to be excited about/document/get advice from fellow bloggers about my homemakery doings. I know I’ve said it before, but being home all the time is still a difficult adjustment for me, even though I enjoy spending all the time with Menininho, so I’ve decided to try to throw myself into homemaking and see what new skills I can acquire (none of these new skills are going to include organization because I can admit there are some things I am just never ever ever going to be good at and that is one of them!).

I finally got Menininho started on cloth diapers this morning. The reason for the delay is that I’ve had trouble finding washing soda (it’s not at Walmart or Safeway) so I had to order it from Amazon and if it doesn’t show up this morning, I told Fed Ex I’m not paying for the shipping. I could *really* use some feedback on folding the diapers. I looked at a few diff. sites on how to do it and decided the “newspaper fold” looked easiest (I’m using Chinese prefold diapers). However, none of the sites I looked at really showed how to fold the diaper with the baby in it. Check out my first attempt!

The second time around I did a little bit better:

However, even though the diaper is for a 15-30 lb baby, and Menininho is not yet 15 lbs, I’m barely able to fit this diaper around him. I must be doing something wrong. Thoughts? I just got him up from his morning nap and the diaper did leak. His right side is soaked through the diaper (not the cover, but the cover didn’t cover it). He also pooped through the diaper. 4 diaper covers may not be enough, after all…

Now, on to bread. We got a breadmaker from one of Mark’s labmates when we got married and I’ve never used it. I had every intention of doing so when I was pregnant, but didn’t happen. So, Monday morning I decided “Today is the day!” and scoured Anne Bean’s blog for the best way to make wheat bread. She is pretty much my DIY healthy cooking hero. If you’re interested in the recipe I used, plus loads of other whole wheat recipes, making your own baby food, doing compost, etc., check out her blog. You can find the link to her whole wheat recipes HERE. It’s worth noting that her whole wheat bread recipe makes a 2.5 lb loaf. My breadmaker only goes up to 2 lbs and Anne was kind enough to send me an adjusted copy of the recipe.

I wasn’t able to find all the ingredients for the dough conditioner that Anne suggests, so I left the conditioner out. The bread is a little dense, but still tastes really good, if I do say so myself! I was so excited to try this out that I stayed up till 12:30 with it. I felt so domestic eating a slice of my homemade bread with some of my homemade peach jam on top, haha! Here is the finished product!

I’m planning on just making all our own bread from now on. I saw Anne’s cost breakdown and making my own is going to be a LOT cheaper than buying.