red meat? yes please!

If you're a little worried about all the negative press red meat consumption has been getting, stop by Mark's Daily Apple and check out his piece, appropriately titled The Red Scare.

tired

There are so many different things I could post in here, sometimes it gets kind of overwhelming.

It's not really a recipe blog, or a diet blog, or a rheumatoid arthritis blog. It's not strictly an autism blog, or a colitis blog.

It's just... an SCD blog, I guess. Our journey.

With that, I have an update on my condition.

I'm currently taking doxycycline to combat my rheumatoid arthritis. Antibiotic therapy is not widely used, but the research behind it is interesting to be sure.

I've been on the antibiotic now for almost three months. My doctor went over my lab results with me, which were drawn after one month on the antibiotic.

At the time, I was in a lot of pain and discomfort. But all of my disease activity markers... are trending downward. Also, I'm able to tolerate more advanced foods, like raw fruits and veggies in small amounts. Yay!

But, if all of these markers are looking good, why do I still feel bad? My wrist is still all swelled up. So are my hands.

The hypothesis is, I'm experiencing a Herxheimer reaction.

In simpler terms, I'm going through a massive round of die-off of bad bacteria -- which pretty much everyone on SCD can identify with.

So! My doctor thinks I should stay the course, because the medication is actually working.

And contrary to popular belief, you CAN be on medication and do SCD at the same time. Now, many medications have ingredients that you probably should steer clear of, but you can either choose to take them (which will delay or slow healing) or you can get them compounded at a compounding pharmacy.

So. I am doing OK, even if I am in a lot of pain right now.

I have another recipe to post for you when I have a bit more energy, I promise.

And man, I just can't stop making pickles!! They taste so awesome!

pickles

So after much consulting of the Internets, I have come up with my own refrigerator pickle recipe. They are a lot of fun to make and they are very crisp like Claussen's... or at least, what I remember Claussen pickles to taste like.

I was told at one point there is a legal pickle at Trader Joe's. They were called half sour dills with whole spices in the jars. So far, I have never found them, but if you do... they're accepted as legal by the SCD populace.

On to my recipe!

You might want to cut the brine recipe in half if you are not making a lot. I found that if I stuffed a quart jar with cucumbers, I needed 1/2 cup vinegar and 1 1/2 cups water (and thus 1 1/2 tsp salt). So that is 1/4 of the recipe. At least I think it was a quart jar. Now it is full of pickles, so I can't check.

MY REFRIGERATOR PICKLE RECIPE

2 cups apple cider vinegar (or distilled white vinegar, wine vinegar, whatever you want)
4 cups cold water
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon dried dill (or fresh sprigs of dill)
pickling cucumbers, cut into spears (peeled if you're still symptomatic)
whole peeled garlic cloves (if you want)

Mix up the vinegar, cold water, and salt. Peel if you are still peeling your veggies to cook them.

Cut cucumbers into spears or rounds or whatever. Toss in the jar with the dill and garlic, and refrigerate. Ready in about 10 days.

I found pickling cucumbers at my local grocery store, but I live in a really strange ethnic neighborhood, so I can't say that they're available everywhere. I'm told the dark green ones with lots of warty spots are the freshest. As you can see from the photos, the ones I got are not the freshest. But they still worked fine! I just picked the ones that felt really hard.

Heh.


My not-fresh pickling cucumbers

Here you can see our very big pickle jar in progress. This jar holds half a gallon I think. I needed the whole brine recipe and then some for it. Luckily you can do the math and cut it down or multiply as needed. Well, at least I hope you can. I can't really assume. One time while I was working retail, these 11-year-olds asked me how much 50 percent off a pair of earrings was. After I finished laughing, I realized they were serious. And then I was sad.


See? Dill bits abound.

The fresh sprigs of dill are a much better idea than the dried. The dried dill sticks to the pickles and then you have to worry about dill in your teeth. A social faux pas if ever there was one.


Finished jar, ready for refrigeration!

So there you have it. You can start eating the pickles in about 10 days. Anything before that, they don't really taste much like pickles. They will become more pickle-like as time goes on. The brine and pickles should keep for about a month after the 10-day period.

Oh, and I did have a pickle helper...



He hasn't exactly been behaving lately, so he hasn't had a chance to try them. But I am sure he will be thrilled when he does. :)

Enjoy!

the brady bunch!

OK, so I had this totally brilliant idea!

I'm ruining it already, aren't I?

Anyway.

Today, I was thinking about Clark, and about other autistic kids, and one popular way for them to learn appropriate interactions with other kids is through modeling.

Video modeling is popular, where the kids are shown appropriate videos of peer interactions.

Anyway, I was just thinking...the Brady Bunch would be PERFECT for this.

There are a TON of kid interactions, and they are ALL appropriate. If somebody hurts someone else, they have to apologize. If somebody lies, they get called on it.

Plus, it's NOT SUBTLE at all. Autistic kids have a terrible time with subtleties. I think TV viewers today would complain about how sanitized and simplified the Brady Bunch is, but those qualities make it perfect for autistic kids, in my opinion.

I totally want to show Clark Brady Bunch reruns now. I think it would be a great and fun thing to watch with him and discuss what was happening in the episode during the commercial breaks.