Dairy Free & Soy Free Brownies

We returned from Aruba to a big snow storm in the city and Chris's 30th Birthday!  Chris insisted that all he wanted was to spend the day with Savanna and me, so that is what we did.  

He loves the snow and was actually born in a blizzard so we were very excited for the storm.  We took Savanna to the park on Saturday to see all the snow and to show her the thousands of kids having fun in the snow (the baby bjorn was a lifesaver we would of never made it around the streets with the stroller).  

I had asked Chris if he wanted regular brownies or if he would mind if I experimented with some dairy free soy free brownies, and he was so kind to allow me to experiment for his birthday!  Last year I made him red wine chocolate cake so this year I decided to try port infused brownies (do you see a trend :) ).

I found a recipe for Vegan Brownies and adapted it slightly to make them completely dairy and soy free and added the port.  They were actually quite fabulous, but you did not taste the port like you tasted the red wine in the cake.  They are more of fudgy vs. cakey brownie, but that is the way we like them in our household.  It was a great family Saturday until out of the blue Savanna decided she wanted to get up every hour that night (we have been lucky with her sleeping through the night for a few weeks now).  I guess that is life with a newborn and we would not have it any other way : )

Dairy Free and Soy Free Brownies - (adapted from here)

• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 4 ounces (about 1/2 cup) unsweetened applesauce
• 2 ounces port or melted chocolate
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup Enjoy Free Dairy Free and Soy Free Chips 

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 8x8” pan with parchment and spray with cooking spray.
2. Stir together oil and sugar. Stir in vanilla, cocoa, and applesauce. Add port and salt, stir until smooth. Slowly stir in flour. Add chocolate chips.
3. Pour into prepared pan and bake 25-28 minutes. Cool before cutting.

Aruba!

We were very fortunate to escape the cold for a little last week and go to Aruba with Chris's family!  I was really nervous about getting on the plane with Savanna since she does not like when you sit with her for a long time (she likes you to be moving at all times).  This has been getting better, but a 4.5 hour flight made me worry. About two days before we left she decided she didn't want to nap more than 40 minutes and was very fussy.  A friend had told me she had a rough week 12 (which is what Savanna was approaching) and when I asked her about it she sent me this link on Wonder Weeks.  It is very interesting and helped explain to me what Savanna was going through.  Now that we are through it, I will say there is a huge difference in her tracking, focusing and grabbing from week 11 it is incredible!  The fussiness only lasted 2-3 days but the short naps lasted a full week.  So she did not sleep on the plane like everyone said she would but, the timing on the way down was perfect for her 1130am and 4pm feedings and she did great (with a little bouncing:) ).  The way home was a later flight which was a little harder on her but for a night time flight she did pretty good.  We were lucky there was an open seat so we were able to bring her carrier on which was really helpful.  I recommend it if you want to pay for the seat or definitely ask if there is open seat when you check in.  

It was great to be in the warm weather, but I will say even with grandparents it is hard and not as relaxing having a 3 month old at the beach who did not want to nap.  The hardest part is they are not supposed to wear sunscreen until they are 6 months old and she hated wearing a big hat.  I was very grateful to another friend, who told me about the coolibar spf blanket (I bought it on amazon).  We just draped it over her when we were going out and taking walks and had no problem with the sun on her skin!  There are a lot of palappas in Aruba which made being on the beach in the shade with her easier.  She loved being in the pool with Daddy and there were lots of shaded areas in the pool which was super helpful.  Below are some of my favorites from the trip!  

Milk and Soy Allergies

     We recently discovered Savanna has a milk and/or soy allergy (she's too young to conclusively test) While statistics say only a small percentage of babies have milk protein allergies, we've come across tons of friends and colleagues dealing with the same issue. A milk protein allergy is when a baby's immune system thinks the milk protein is a foreign body and should be fought off. This results in an allergic reaction which results in stomach discomfort which causes fussiness! 

     We felt so blessed with what a happy and easy baby Savanna was over the first few weeks. She slept through the night almost from the day we brought her home and regularly snoozed for 7-9 hours a night. Boy were we spoiled! It was easy to figure out something was up when her demeanor changed around 5 weeks old..Thats when the doctor thinks the allergy began to show itself. She stopped taking her long afternoon nap, became much more erratic at night, and was very fussy, especially while eating. Our New Year's Eve guests can attest to that! All of the books say 6-8 weeks is a supper fussy time for infants so we hoped she might grow out of it, but we checked in with our doctor after realizing it was impacting her eating. As mentioned earlier, the poop test cannot conclusively say what allergy babies have so its a process of elimination to rule things out. They started by having me eliminate soy and dairy, the two most common allergies, from my diet. If that hadn't solved the problem, they would have then tried taking out peanuts and wheat. As tough as it is NOT eating dairy and soy (soy is in EVERYTHING!), we were blessed to find the cause of her angst. Unfortunately it takes a full 2 weeks to see results, as it takes that long to get out of Mom's system and then Baby.

     It has definitely been a challenge, but It is worth it to see that my little girl is not in pain anymore.  The milk was not that hard (although giving up chocolate was after all the cookies I consumed at the end of my pregnancy:) ). What has been super challenging has been the soy.  Who knew soy is in EVERYTHING!  When you have a moment just open your cabinets and look at the ingredients it is crazy - most of the items in my cabinets I could not eat anymore.  Soy is in everything because it is an emulsifier (read here (http://www.food-info.net/uk/qa/qa-fi63.htm) and here (http://www.foodadditivesworld.com/emulsifiers.html) for explanations on emulsifiers).  It is also usually in vegetable oil blends since it is inexpensive.  So it is hard to eat a lot of commercially based products and I have been avoiding going out to eat.  The benefit of this is it is a really healthy diet and I eat a lot of fruit, vegetables and chicken.  As another option you can switch to a hypoallergenic formula which breaks down the proteins for the babies, but Savanna did NOT like them!  I don't blame her, just the smell is nasty.  I read that they are more bitter than regular formulas because of the broken down proteins.  So for now, it is a milk and soy free diet for me (which is totally worth it to make her happy)!  I will start sharing some of the fun milk and soy free recipes (especially for those other moms who have milk and soy allergies),  I have been cooking and baking but for today just a few pictures of my little Savanna :)