Slight adjustments

For the last few weeks we have been keeping our oldest off dairy in a bid to get her eczema under control.  She has had eczema in varying spots and varying degrees ever since she began on solids and while test show that she is not allergic to anything different foods have a huge effect on her. 

The first clue came when as a baby she would projectile vomit after a breast feed.  Everyone assured us that is was not anything that I was eating and it was perfectly normal - that was until they saw her in action!  It was only after an observant friend noticed the correlation of me scoffing chocolate and baby power chucking that we realised what the problem was.  I stopped chocolate - my life source for the previous 3 months - and hey presto she stopped vomiting much to our relief.

We've gone through stages of cutting everything out.  Stages of leaving everything in and like now isolating one thing.  The trouble before is that I don't think I ever really gave it enough time or was strict enough with things.  Now it has been a strict 3 weeks dairy-free and we are starting to see an improvement.  The itchy is still occurring - the next mystery - however the patches behind legs and on arms look much better.  They are no longer red and angry looking, just dry and a bit uncomfortable.  Yay!!!! I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere with putting my knowledge into practice. 

We have been eagerly changing recipes, substituting milk for rice milk, butter for margarine (not my favourite choice and one that I'm still unsure about) and oil or cheese for tofu - not really a go'er.  Today with a chocolate cake at Play centre to avoid we tried out a chocolate brownie recipe which I really was impressed with.  So without further ado I'll share it with you:

Dairy Free Chocolate Brownies
Mix together 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 egg, 1tsp vanilla essence and 1/2 cup of olive oil.  Whisk well with fork and add 1 cup of flour, 1tsp baking powder and 1/4 cup cocoa (make sure this is pure without milk powder added).  Bake for 10 min on fan bake (20mins in regular oven) in a baking paper lined tin.  Leave for 5 min after cooking before turning out. Cut into square and sprinkle with icing sugar before serving.