Polish Apple Fritters and the Polish Housewife

My food heroine strikes yet again!

You should first of all know that I know Lois.  Yes.  You can insert envy 😉

She was a beautiful part of our ladies Bible study for years, as well as making Rich and I beautiful comfort food while Max was fighting for his life in the ICU.

She is as beautiful as the recipes she creates or makes…and I love every one I have ever made from her site!

On top of cooking, however, you can also buy her guide book on Berlin!

This woman is beautifully unstoppable!

Here is what I made Adelyne before school.  I just “whipped” it right up.  To be honest, I kind-of did.  That’s the beauty of her recipes.  Some require the simplest of ingredients and produce the most divine results.

In any case, here is my masterpiece via the recipe of my favorite Polish Housewife:  Polish Apple Fritters.

Hope you enjoy her creation!

(Link in blog below for the recipe to make for your own jolly family!)

Polish Apple Fritters:  http://polishhousewife.com/slodkie-placuszki-z-jablkiem-apple-fritters/#comment-83037

My Sweet Littles Saying Their Prayers and Dancing on Couches!

You must think that I only have two children with the fact that only Josephine and Maxwell appear to be in my videos.  Sometimes I feel as if I only have two children.  But I actually have three:  Sweet Adelyne, as well.  It’s just that, at 9 years of age, Sweet Adelyne has the most social of social calendars of ANYONE I know.  Not just of 9 year olds. Of anyone—9 or 90—that I know.

It’s awesome fabulous—because, you know, we live in this foreign land called Poland.  And it’s awesome fabulous that my daughter is not a foreigner in this foreign land—she is a Pole.  A proud one.  And she lives her life as a full-blown Polish gal.  Romping, playing, going to school, studying, extra curricular activities, and so forth.

She breathes White and Red.  I am so thankful to God for that!

But that also means when I am at home being Mommy 24/7…(last night daddy actually was home and by 6pm, so we had family pizza night.  twas awesome!)…

Anyhow…As I play this magical and amazing role of Mommy 24/7, I tend to video those subjects most around me:  Which would continue to explain the absence of Adelyne and Richard 🙂  Neither tend to be around me that often…

Hmmm?????  Perhaps it’s me?!  Haha!

Once again, I really hope you enjoy the videos of the Littles that steal my every moment—even my potty breaks.  But they fill my life with such amazing miraculous wonder, I can’t help but love my every minute.

Here continues the sweet adventures of my Littles, Jo and Max!  Enjoy.

GoGo, will you dance with me?  Asks her awesome Big Bro Maxwell!

Trying to get two toddlers that share a room to settle down and pray is oh so stinking sweet!

I walk into the living room and find Max on top of the couch dancing to Christmas music (yes—we’ve been playing it ever since the chill hit the air!).

I wish you all well and lots of warm love, Christmas music, and overall contentment with where God has placed you in life.

xo for now,

b

Best Belgian Waffles in the World. Not sure Belgium would agree?

I have to cook a lot for my son at home.

You may find it crazy. I used to. Until I had him.

Him being the cutest little 2-year-old in the entire world. Biased? Definitely YES!

He is a miracle—did you know he tried to die? So many times! Like a ridiculous amount of plenty.

In the womb. Out of the womb.

Crazy boy.

My crazy, crazy boy!

And since the womb and his coma didn’t kill him, he went and got all peanut-allergy-d on me. Making my life just so much more simple.

RIGHT?!

Never! and Not!

And, therefore, since my little stinker is so beautifully ALIVE===I work ridiculously hard each and every day (with his daddy and his big sister) to keep him amongst us!

We are rather fond of our troublemaker. Like. REALLY FOND of him.

He is our Maxie Moo—and we are his family. His earth protectors.

Therefore, we pray each day and night—basically 24/7—for our little man. “LORD, thank you for keeping him alive—help us do right by him!”

And we make him most every single item that goes into his mouth.

Last night for dinner it was WAFFLES.  Let me tell you, they were brilliant!

You should know that we have made lots and lots of waffles since we’ve returned to Poland—but this is by far the MOST SCRUMPTIOUS recipe yet (obviously it’s not mine).  So, I thought you should have a go at it, too.

The alterations I, of course, made:  Rice milk instead of real milk, and we added 1 tsp of real Vanilla.  I do believe the trick is folding in the egg whites.  It really does make them perfectly crisp and delicious.

As we say in Poland, “Smacznego!”  Enjoy your waffles and tell me what you think:

The Best Belgian Waffles (click to go to recipe)

And, because the internet is awhirl right now with the tragic recent deaths of children that have eaten food items from places outside of their homes…I am realizing just yet again and again how scary this Mommy to Max thing is.

Here’s an article so well written and speaks as if it came from my own heart, too:

What Happens When Another Child Dies From Food Allergies?

Here are also a couple articles I have written in the past in regards to my own allergy-living son:

Raising a Nutty Kid

Cooking for Max

You can also read all about his story on his Facebook page that was set up for him when he was in a coma between the throes of life and death here:  Prayers for Max.

Last but never the least—the siblings of the allergy or special children-like Max-often get overlooked.  And yet they strive so gallantly forward with brave faces.  Our daughter, however, broke one day.  Here is a story I wrote after one panic attack she had.  May we remember all in our brood===even though, sometimes, it is so easy to focus on the one that needs the most protection (or the most obvious protection–because the others seem to appear “just fine” on the outside, right?!) :  I forgot to feed my daughter.  And we sent her to a counselor.

Anyhow, as you spring into another day, I hope that you think about making these scrumptious waffles for breakfast, lunch, or dinner—there’s pretty much no bad time to indulge in them!

Here’s the proof:

The oldest, Adelyne!  She approves.  With lots and loads of whipped topping, sprinkled with chocolate milk power on top of the already sweet.  Ah, well.  At least she was fed, right?!

GoGo stuff it in your face girl—until she discovered Sissy’s whipped cream…

That’s when she really went to town on them!

And, finally, the little Moo Man himself enjoying his only Max margarine waffles.  He did not want jam or anything else I offered.  But, to be fair, they are perfect just the way they are!

Max’s glad bites are proof of that!

Try the recipe.  Have some reads.  And come on back and let me know what you think!

As always…

xoxo from here to there!

b

Cooking for Max

When you have a child with life-threatening allergies, you learn to live differently.

And it is not easy.

My son is deathly allergic to peanuts.  But we have found that he reacts to even the touch of other nuts.  Very unfortunately, he also reacts strongly to sunflower seeds.  Not because of an allergy.  Just, most likely, because of the factory where they are processed.

Max is deathly allergic to the smell of peanuts in the air.

On our last airplane journey with him—returning home from Norway back to Poland—we were taking an airline where they offer no service except for paid service.  In other words, a really cheap airline.

The foods that they sell include foods with peanuts.

On the way to Norway, we did not notice anyone purchasing peanuts.  The flight was very uneventful.  And, believe it or not, when you live in Poland, a flight to Norway is also very short.

So our journey to Norway on the plane was great.

Upon return, however, immediately after the customers’ purchases, Max became swollen and red and leaned over to me as if to say, “I CAN’T BREATHE, MOMMA!”

My husband looked at him.  I looked at him.  We had no idea what was taking place when my husband sniffed the air and said, “I smell it.  Peanuts.”

I grabbed Max’s life-saving bag and ran him into the restroom where I basically spent the rest of the flight giving him medicine, watching his breathing counting down the seconds on the clock to the number 20===where I read once that if you make it 20 minutes after an allergy attack, then you can start to breathe easier.  Is this true?  I don’t know.  But when you are a mother to a child that may die due to food or air—it is really nice to have something to grasp.  ANYTHING to grasp.  Hope to grasp.

Poor airline.  Poor customers.  We felt horrible.  Here they just paid for their food and had to close their purchased items and wait to eat them until after the flight.

And, of course, we were scolded.  “We need to tell them AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FLIGHT!”

“Yes.  Of course.  We understand…”

Sigh.  Hanging our heads.  Hiding our son from the general crowd and air filtration system.  Living in the airplane bathroom with shame and fear and all of it wrapped up sometimes into frustration.  Frustration that you have to constantly helicopter your child.  Especially when air or touch can send him spiraling out of control.

And yet you love your child more than you love your very life—and so you hover on.

No one ever said parenting was easy.  Oh, and I should mention that Maxwell is treated as an asthmatic.  Hence breathing problems super serious to start (he is on 3 daily meds as it is).

But that’s not all.  Oh no.

Maxwell is also allergic to milk.  Not in quite the same death-way.  But in a way that also makes it very difficult to maneuver.

He welts at the touch of milk to his skin.  His swells if ingested.  He vomits.  And he has great difficulty breathing, too.

I guess one of the only big differences is that the smell of milk does not bother him.

My coffee is so grateful for that one!

And my husband—because my husband LOVES butter!  So do I.  And freshly whipped cream.  YUM!  And my daughter loves mint-chocolate chip ice cream.

Therefore, I think we are all a bit happy that Max can be air-exposed to milk.

Peanut butter was a hard one for our family to bid farewell.  You may judge and say, “Your child is more important.”

Listen, Peeps.  We laid peanut butter to rest—but it doesn’t mean that we still don’t crave it, okay?!

But having peanut butter in our home made us all live in constant fear.  And, thus, we banned our favorite food friend from our presence.  It was not an easy thing to do.

Anyhow…Cooking for Maxwell is a daily—multiple times a day—chore.  Every food prepared or every item purchased is scrutinized.  Foods are kept separated in the refrigerator.  And we have our 2-year-old son deathly afraid of new food.

And when people offer him food, he has known forever to say, “NO!”

Kids his age don’t understand and cheerfully try and try and try to give it to him.  This eventually sends him running into my arms.  And for that, I am simultaneously sad and grateful.  Sad that he must run.  Grateful that God has given him the fortitude to understand that his very life may depend on his actions.

And, as Maxwell nears 3, we all are getting better at Cooking For Max.

In fact, today, I was a Maxwell cooking machine.

Belgian Waffles for breakfast?  Yes, please and CHECK!

Coconut milk, rice milk, orange juice, banana, apple, and frozen strawberry smoothie to compliment breakfast?  Yes, please!  And check!  (No picture—it was devoured too quickly.  Oops.)

Depression chocolate cake for snack?

  

With freshly whipped chocolate-coconut whipped cream?  Yes, please and CHECK!

Fresh sopapillas for lunch?  And fresh toppings for it (beans, corn, salsa, and more)?  Yes, please.  And check!

And dinner?  Well, something Max friendly will come about—I am just not sure what.  Yet.

How do we do it?

We found the following items to be musts in our home:

Good olive oil.

Good coconut oil.

Fresh popping corn kernels as it is a very Max-friendly snack.

Rice milk.  Coconut milk.  Oat milk.  Max does not like soy milk.

A completely 100% milk free margarine.

Good chocolate that is 100% milk free.

And a huge separation of anything that may touch something he cannot eat.

We use more plates, spoons, and bowls than a small army—as we have to keep all things separated.  He cannot touch his sister’s milk or straw.

He can’t have her chocolate—he has his own.

He MUST ask before he eats anything.

Should I remind you all that he is only 2?  Two.

“It’s a hard-enough life for us kids!” Or is it hard-knocks life?

In any case, as Annie and the gang sing it—It is a hard life.  For all of us.

But we are slowly getting into a Maxwell-friendly system in our home.  We normally have 2 different meals at every 1 meal.  One meal that all 3 kids typically eat.  And one that Rich and I eat.

Jo and Max usually get the exact same foods and probably always will.  Josephine does not even know what cows milk tastes like.

Ada is 9.  So she gets to choose what she wants.  And she even made the choice herself to give up peanut butter—her favorite food ever.

And the internet gets used a lot to help us get creative as we try and cook and feed a kid that has had to grow up a picky eater.

We like cooking.  We like creativity.  We like desserts.

We are just all learning to like it the Max way.

That way we can enjoy life together.  The way it is meant to be.

Together.  Even at the dinner table.

***

Here are where I found today’s recipes.  And if it calls for non-Max friendly items, I just substitute them with his butter or his milk.  Usually you can’t even taste the difference.

Real Sopapillas:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/real-sopapillas/

Coconut whipped cream:  http://tasty-yummies.com/2014/03/04/make-whipped-coconut-cream/

Depression-era chocolate cake:  http://www.sweetlittlebluebird.com/2013/03/tried-true-tuesday-crazy-cake-no-eggs.html

Best Belgian Waffle Recipe I have found yet:  http://www.food.com/recipe/the-bestest-belgian-waffles-63071

When I was electrocuted…and Adelyne made banana muffins.

I was 10 weeks pregnant with Adelyne when Richard and I were working one really late night out at the New Life Center. We had just purchased the property, and it needed a completely new deck.  The old deck was basically non existent.  Which means, the framework was there, but the walkway was dangerous planks placed strategically one next to each other.  And believe me when I say, if you fell off the plank, you were fed to the sharks…or the spiders and other spooky stuff that lived under the porch.  It was a true walk the gangplank challenge.  And, in order to open a transitional home for men, there definitely needed to be something other than gangplanks to walk.

If you want to see the NLC and the porch, click on the link above (the highlighted New Life Center) and look at the blue house and you’ll immediately see the porch.

Okay, back to my story.  So, at 10 weeks pregnant, Richard and I were out there working really late one Polish summer, building the deck.  It was quite a dangerous job, and we were basically working off of the day’s light or the waning sun’s light.  Just as we finished one part of the deck, we prepared to move to another section to work on when I saw a dangling wire.

Now, mind you, I am not a daft person, but this was definitely not one of my most defining Einstein moments of my life.  I decided to loop this dangling wire and hang it from a nail that was protruding from the nearby pillar.  I thought, “Oh, great idea, Brooke, I’ll get that dangling wire out of the way.”

Oh, bad idea, Brooke.  As soon as I touched the exposed wire to move it, not realizing it was live, 220 volts went shock, right through my body!

Yowzer!  It hurt.  Yes, it did.  But I got back to work.  And many hours later with lots of help, that deck was finally finished.  Just one small step in the process of making the home that we purchased into the perfect transitional center.  Don’t get me started on all of those bags of cement I also had to go and purchase and carry—yes, while pregnant.  And the sewage that needed to be cleaned (um…after basically telling Richard that I would clean the sewage filter rocks, even though I was pregnant, he finally jumped in and got the job done)…

Needless to say, every single ounce of effort was so worth it.  To see how God transforms the lives of the men that go through the center and its program is astounding.

And, today, as several of the participants from the New Life Center were at our house (our personal house), Adelyne, that same little baby that was in my belly when I was electrocuted 8 years ago, was using electricity.

This time to make muffins.  Muffins for the men from the New Life Center.

It’s funny how God works.  Eight years ago, I would have never thought my electrocuted baby belly would be using some of that same 220 to bake for the men that live in the home of the porch that she, in my belly, helped build.

Walking the planks was worth it…And I love that my daughter continues to walk them with me.

Tell me, what did you do in your past that continues to be a big part of your life today?  I look forward to hearing from you!

 

Sonoran Living…Hey, I know her!

Wow!  Remember how we linked up to Polish Easter Blogs recently?  Well, what do you know?!  Our very own Polish Housewife, Lois Britton, was on Sonoran Living this morning presenting 3 recipes from her beautifully fantastic food blog.

You should also know, that when Maxwell was in the ICU in his coma, we have personally been served by this Polish-living saint.  And, yes, her food was not just fantastic—it was fantabulous!  It was so good that I made up my own word to describe it.

On top of that, I still dream about her chocolate chip sea salt cookies.

Scrumptialicious!  Another made up word.

Anyhow—it’s a short segment on the internet, but her attached recipes are right below the video.

Perhaps you can become a Polish Housewife, too, and whip up some surowka or chlodnik…or a side of pound cake lemon curd with a little limoncello.  After all, who doesn’t like a little limoncello?!

Enjoy the video…Make the recipes…and Enjoy:  Lois Britton on Sonoran Living

I look forward to hearing about your Polish-cooking endeavors.

xoxo

b

The other half of Crazy!