Curried Pasta Salad

Ahh fall. 

A couple of weeks ago we made the trek to Wisconsin to kick back, soak in the scenery and most importantly, to celebrate my father-in-law's 70th birthday. Rest assured there was plenty of swimming, drinking, celebrating, and oh yes, eating to be done.

Now, three households, consisting of 6 adults and 5 kids sharing a single kitchen for a few days can pose some unique challenges, especially when everyone has their own agenda - food allergies, vegetarians, carnivores, diabetics, picky kids, you get the idea.

My solution? Make as much as possible ahead of time so you can sit back, relax, and sip a Mai Tai by the (yes, indoor) pool. In addition to a batch of egg-free chocolate chip cookies and a few loaves of banana bread I had stashed in the freezer, this easy salad also made the trip and was a tasty accompaniment to sandwiches and salad greens all weekend long.

Curried Pasta Salad
adapted from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook by Ina Garten

4 cups small pasta (such as stellina, ditalini, or similar), prepared according to package instructions, rinsed in cold water and drained.
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/2 cup fruity, good quality olive oil
2 tsp white wine vinegar
2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp tumeric
2 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp black pepper (cut it back to 1 tsp if you're serving kids)
1 cup carrots, grated
1 cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup dried cherries
4-5 scallions, sliced
1/2 cup red onion, diced (you might want to omit this if you're making it for kids. Mine balked at the "spicy" onion bits)

1. In a small bowl whisk together the yogurt, olive oil, and next 5 ingredients (through black pepper).
2. In a separate large bowl, combine the cooked, cooled, and drained pasta with the carrots, parsley, raisins, cherries, scallions, and red onion, if using. Toss to combine. Pour yogurt mixture over pasta mixture and stir to combine.

Serves 12.

Traversing the Restaurant Scene with Food Allergies

I want my kids to see the world before they're too cool to hold my hand. I want them to run their fingers along the weather-pocked stone of the Mayan temples I keep telling them about. I want them to know the sharp sting of black sand on the soles of their feet and the cool melt of ahi on their tongues. They should be sticking their noses into steaming pots of dal in India and sampling nshima in Zambia where their father was born. Our passports are up to date. I even bought a new bathing suit but sadly we won't be boarding an Airbus any time soon. Damn you, food allergies. I want to go on vacation!

OK, so we're not quite ready to tackle international travel yet, but as I mentioned in a previous post, we're inching toward mobility. Over the course of the past four years of dealing with Roo's allergies (now down to eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, beef, and peach) we're starting to get the hang of this eating on the road gig.

First things first. When we go to a restaurant we always have Roo's epi-pens and Benadryl. Always.

We call ahead whenever possible to get a rundown of how the restaurant handles allergies, what food items are safe, and what type of oil they use to fry stuff. We do not call to ask these questions at 7:00 pm on a Saturday night.

Once we get our menus, we ask all of the allergy questions again and compare answers. Often they are not the same as those received on the phone.

We keep an emergency snack bag in the car with a few small items in case we can't find something safe and need to buy ourselves some time. This bag contains fruit snacks, pretzels, and Dum Dum lollipops at a minimum. Bananas and turkey roll-ups do not keep well in the car. 

When someone, say a busy waitress, takes time to find out once and for all if there is egg in the fusilli pasta and returns with the label torn from a box, we do not let this act go unrequited. We are chronic over tippers. This is not a bad thing.

And we're learning to relax.

Eating out with food allergies is a risk but so is everything else worth doing. Every time Roo works his way across the monkey bars I worry that the kid before him had peanut butter on his fingers. Every time Looly goes on a play date I worry that there's an unsecured firearm in the house. Every time Bean opens our back gate on a stormy day I worry a gust of wind is going to smack the iron handle into her teeth. But somehow the monkey bars get crossed, the play date gets played, and the gate gets secured once more.

I guess that's what we do. I can't protect them from everything. For Roo, eating buttered noodles and broccoli from a kids menu is just one of those things.

Travels with Roo

Please excuse my absence. We had a busy March!

Our trips to a Wilderness Territory in Wisconsin Dells to celebrate Bean and Roo's 4th birthday, spring break in Albuquerque, and a few house guests of our own left me playing catch up for a while. But, I'm back, and happy to report that our travels were once again, pretty darn successful! Maybe we're getting the hang of this traveling with food allergies business.

Our trip to Albuquerque marked our first family air travel since Bean and Roo were in infant carriers. We've been avoiding it for a lot of reasons.  Roo's nut allergy, lack of overwhelming desire to get on a plane with three small children, the fear of wet underwear, or worse, at 10,000 feet from a mostly-potty-trained child, and the sheer expense of five, count 'em, five plane tickets have kept us in travel by car mode for some time. 

But, this March we faced our fears and took a trip to visit my sister and her family in Albuquerque.  Aside from one intense meltdown at boarding time from Roo, who developed a complete and utter phobia of flying shortly before our trip, the flight was relatively painless. In fact, Roo's outburst somehow landed him a starring role on our flight as he got to assist the flight attendants by handing out pretzels. The kid even got a goody bag to take home. Did I mention he wailed hysterically for the first 15 minutes on the plane? Because he did. Only on Southwest. Here's Roo in all his glory.

Looly, Bean, and Roo had a super time playing with their cousin, having tutu-enhanced dance parties, looking for cacti, going to the zoo, the park, and experiencing their first real mountain. Yes, they are true Midwesterners. A trip to the top of Sandia Mountain was a definite highlight of the trip. 

Overall, we're becoming more mobile.