Fun Food Allergy Friendly Holiday Treats

So I have been feeling guilty about not making any special holiday treats that my little guy can enjoy with his siblings, so I decided to make a few treats everyone can enjoy. My little guy is allergic to milk, eggs, peanuts and treenuts. Both of my older children grew out of their food allergies this year (with the exception of treenuts) so this year they have been able to enjoy a lot of treats they had never tried before. I have gotten so used to making non-allergy friendly treats and just giving my little guy a treat that is safe for him, but now he is realizing that what he has is different. So this week this is what I made:

Christmas cupcakes- Duncan Hines has several flavors of cake mixes that are milk, egg, peanut and treenut free (check the package) and Pillsbury has several varieties of frosting (please check each can of frosting). In substitute of the egg I used 1/4 cup of unsweetened applesauce for each egg required. They taste exactly the same, but they tend to seperate from the cupcake liner. We chose to decorate them with red and green sprinkles and Christmas tree picks.


Yummy Edible Playdough- Now I was not even going to make a peanut friendly playdough, but then it occurred to me my little guy would have just as much fun playing, plus did I want to worry about cleaning it up and still worrying about him comng in contact with peanut butter. So I made edible peanut butter playdough with soynut butter instead. It was just as yummy and safe for our house.


Homemade Marshmellows- My favorite treat of the week! I was shocked that I was able to find a marshmellow recipe without eggs, but I found this one on the Food Network. It was fairly easy and they were so good, especially dipped in chocolate. I know that they are not going to last long in our house! Our next batch will have chocolate and red and green sprinkles! These would make a great homemade gift along with homemade cocoa mix!


I am linking to:

Fresh Salsa

One of my favorite parts of summer is all the fresh fruits and veggies! I love going to the farmers market and I am so excited that the new city we will be moving to (hopefully really soon) has an awesome farmers market. Here is my favorite fresh salsa recipe:

Two fresh ripe tomates, diced small
Two ears of corn, cut from the cob (my favorite is Silver Queen)
One half green pepper, diced small
One half large onion, diced small

Combine all ingredients. If you like a little kick you can always add a little jalapeno pepper. We don't add it because our kids love to eat it and the jalapeno would be too spicy.

My Favorite Burritos- Allergy Friendly Recipe

Where I grew-up we had this great fast food burrito restaurant that made the biggest burritos I have ever seen. They had two sizes regular and large (and the large was so big that you pretty much had to share it!), now they carry three sizes: Big Daddy, Regular and Little Brother. This is my take on their burritos.

Ingredients:
Pot Roast (I cook my pot roast all day in the slow cooker)
Rice
Black Beans
Salsa
Spinach (opinional) this needs to be cooked spinach. I cook my spinach in a boiling pot of water and then as soon as it wilts I take it out and shock it.
Monteray Jack cheese or Cheddar cheese (shredded)- omit if you have a dairy allergy
Burrito sized flour torillas

Combine all ingredients on your flour tortilla.

Here is the burrito I ate last night. I did not use the spinach because when I opened the bag I discovered it had gone bad.

Allergy Friendly Sesame Chicken

I have not made this recipe for a while, but it is a favorite of my husband. It is also really easy, like most of my other recipes. Sorry that there is no picture. With all the moving preparation it has been totally crazy here!

Ingredients:

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breat, cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter or margarine (Fleishmann's makes a soy margarine that is dairy-free)
1/4 cup sesame seeds

Coat the chicken pieces in melted margarine. Combine flour, salt and sesame seeds. Coat the chicken in the flour-sesame mixture. Heat a pan and put oil in the pan. Cook the chicken in the pan on all sides until cooked through.

Grilled Chicken and Pasta- Allergy Friendly!

This recipe is free of all the top eight allergens (except wheat, but it could very well be made with rice or corn pasta). We had this for dinner last night and not only was it totally delicious, but so quick and easy!

Ingredients:
Half box of ziti or choice of pasta
Two grilled chicken breast cut into strips
One bag of spinach (or a box of frozen spinach defrosted)
One package of sun dried tomatoes (cut into smaller pieces)
One heaping teaspoon of diced garlic About 1/4 cup of olive oil Salt to taste Optional- Kalamata Olives (I did not use them but I think that they would be delicious in this dish!)

Cook pasta as directed on box. Boil a second pot of water and boil spinach fo about a minute, then remove them from the pot and drain as much water as you can. Pour oil into a pan until it is hot and then add all other ingredients. Mix until they are all integrated and heat until all ingredients are hot.

Strawberry Shortcake (free of six of eight top allergens)

I love strawberry shortcake, especially with fresh in-season strawberries. Our stores ran strawberries for $1.00 a package for a couple weeks so I had to make strawberry shortcake! This recipe is free of milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish).

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

3 tsp baking powder

3 tbsp sugar

6 tbsp shortening

Egg substitute equivalent to one egg

3/4 cup soy milk

1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine dry ingredients then cut shortening into mixture with a pastry cutter or two knives. Stir in wet ingredients until everything is combined. Form into buscuits and bake for 20 minutes. Serve with fresh strawberries. The picture for this post has whipped topping, but I have not been able to find a whipped topping without milk.

Easy Chicken with Tomatoes, Peppers and Onions

This recipe is super easy and my favorite part is that it is also free of 7 of the top 8 allergens (it does contain wheat, but if that is a concern you could always use a non-wheat flour). I also cook this in the crock pot (I love crock pot meals especially if I know it is going to be a busy day when I will not feel like cooking)!

Ingredients:

Four chicken breasts (I like to cut them in half)

One green peper (sliced)

One onion (sliced)

One large can tomatoes

Flour- to coat the outside of the chicken breasts

1 tsp of minced garlic

Preparation:

Coat the chicken in flour and then sautee in a pan with a little oil on the stove top until golden brown. Place all ingredients in the crock pot and cook 6-8 hours.

How easy is that?

Cowboy Beans Recipe

This recipe is adapted from a recipe from About.com. For the original recipe please click here. This recipe is also free of the top 8 allergens!

Ingredients:

1 lb. lean ground beef

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup ketchup

1/4 cup barbeque sauce

2 tbsp molasses

1 tbsp chili powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

2 tbsp mustard

1 can pork 'n beans

1 can butter beans

2 cans kidney beans

Preparation:

Brown ground beef until browned. Add onion and cook until tender. Pour meat, onions and the rest of the ingredients into the crockpot. Cook on high for one hour then reduce to low heat and cook two to four hours.

I. M. Healthy SoyNut Butter Review

The I.M. Healthy brand sent me a jar of their SoyNut Butter to review. I was so excited because I had not tried SoyNut Butter before and the only peanut butter substitute that I have tried was Sunflower butter. I think that there is a definite difference! The SoyNut Butter tastes more like peanut butter and is not grainy. Besides being peanut and tree nut free my favorite part about SoyNut Butter is that it is not as sticky as regular peanut butter.

SoyNut Butter is available in creamy, chunky, honey, unsweetened, and chocolate. It contains 15-33% less total fat than regular peanut butter and 33-50% less saturated fat than regular peanut butter. They also make roasted sweet corn and gluten free corn crumbs. All of their products are peanut, tree nut, dairy, sesame, egg, gluten and shellfish free and are manufactured in a facility free of these foods to avoid cross contamination.

I tried the product plain and then I decided to make peanut butter cookies. The cookies recipe I used was from their site. You can find the link to their recipe page here.

Chewy SoyNut Butter Cookies

1/2 cup shortening

3/4 cup I.M. Healthy Creamy SoyNut Butter

1 cup brown suagr

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs (I substituted this with 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce)

2 Tbsp light corn syrup

2 Tbsp water

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix shortening, SoyNut Butter, brown sugar, eggs (applesauce), corn syrup, water and vanilla together. Make sure all lumps are out of mixture. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix all ingredients together well. Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.

I really enjoyed the cookies and my children and husband (who is not peanut-free and loves peanut butter) enjoyed them as well.

I really enjoyed their product and would recommend it to anyone that is avoiding peanuts or tree nuts.

Buy It! SoyNut Butter is available at many large grocery stores, on Amazon and Nutricity as well as the SoyNut Butter site.

Disclosure: The I.M. Healthy Company provided me with a jar of SoyNut Butter for this review.

Ham and Bean Soup (free of all top 8 allergens!)

This is such an easy recipes and it tastes really good too!

Throw the following ingredients into the crock pot:

2 cans Northern Beans


Ham- I like to use the cottage butt (this piece was 1.7 lbs) but you can even use leftover ham)

Two cans of water

One chopped onion

1 tsp garlic powder

I put everything into the crock pot yesterday at 10:30 on low and then switched it to high at 3:30 and let it cook until 5:00 (so it is was in the crock pot 6.5 hours). If you use a large piece of ham don't forget to take all the meat apart once it is tender.

Easy Chicken Soup for a Chilly Day

This morning my son J asked me if he could have chicken soup for dinner. Two weeks ago I made chicken soup for dinner. J would not try the soup for dinner (which is not unusual for him, he is always hesitant to try anything, which we think stems from his food allergies). The next day for lunch he saw me eating a bowl and asked if he could try it. He tried it and loved it so much he had two bowls. He continued to eat the soup the next few days until it was all gone. Here is the the easy recipe that I use:

Cook about a pound of chicken (I actually used 1.8 lbs of chicken breast today because J loves the chicken and the more good non-processed food I can get in the better!). You can also use leftover chicken, I have done this after roasting a chicken and having leftovers.


Add the chicken and broth to the crockpot. I like Aldi's Fit and Active because it does not have MSG in it or milk, eggs, nuts or soy.

Cut up three stalk of celery, a medium onion and three large carrots, throw them into the crockpot. I also added about 1 cup water because there was not enough liquid.

Start the soup in the morning and cook on low in the crock pot all day. By dinner you will have a great pot of healthy, allergen friendly soup!

Allergy-friendly Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies

This recipe is an allergy friendly version of my husband's favorite cookies.

1/2 cup margarine (I use Earth's Balance soy free)
1/2 cup rice or coconut milk
1/3 cup cocoa
2 cup sugar
1/2 cup Sunflower butter (may have traces of soy)
3 cups of oatmeal (I like to use quick oats)

Mix butter, milk, cocoa and sugar in a pot on the stove on medium heat until it has been boiling for 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat and add sunflower butter and oats. Mix until completely combined. Drop by the spoonful on waxed paper. Let cool before eating.

Saturday Birthday Party

We hosted our one year olds first birthday party yesterday. All the food was allergy friendly and free of milk, eggs, peanuts, treenuts and soy (with the exception of one cookie, which contained soy). Here is our menu:

Cake (I used Duncan Hines yellow cake mix and used Ener-G egg replacer, the frosting was homemade here is the link to the recipe:http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/White-Cake-Frosting-I/Detail.aspx)
Tortilla chips and salsa from Aldi and Tribe GarlicHummus
Blackberry muffins (Food Allergy Mama's Baking Book)
Cinnamon bread (Food Allergy Mama's Baking Book)
Chocolate Sugar Cookies http://www.foodallergymama.com/2011/02/02/dairy-egg-and-nut-free-chocolate-sugar-cookies-and-a-food-allergy-cooking-show-today/
Gingersnaps http://www.foodallergymama.com/2010/11/29/dairy-egg-and-nut-free-gingersnaps/
Soda, water and lemonade

The party was very inexpensive to host (I think I spent less than $30 for an allergy friendly party, including food, invitations, paper products and favors for the kids)

For favors I wanted to do something consumable and I did not want candy. So I decided to do washcloths and soap. I purchased hanmade soaps from Brown Bag Bath Bars on etsy. She made me robot soaps for the boys and castle soaps for the girls. For the washcloths I purchased princess castle washcloths from KBExquisites on etsy. My mom made robot washcloths for the boys.

Overall the food went over great- especially with the kids who loved the cookies (and J who decided that after the party he would eat the icing off the leftover cake.)

My Favorite Granola Bars

I LOVE Granola bars, but the vast majority of granola bars are not allergy friendly by any means. So while my husband was chomping away on his Nature Valley granola bars I decided that I really needed some so I scoured the internet and after trying a couple of recipes that I was not crazy about I found a great alerternative (and in my opinion they are better than store bought granola bars).

http://www.food.com/recipe/granola-bars-110421

Granola Bars
4 cups Oatmeal
2 cups flour
1 cup coconut (you can leave this out- it is not necessary for the recipe to turn out)
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup honey (or 1/2 cup honey and 1/4 cup molasses OR 1/2 cup honey and 1/4 cup corn syrup)
Optional: raisins, chocolate chips, craisins

Mix the dry ingredients together. Add oil and honey. Mix well get your fingers in there and mix it until all is blended and sticky feeling. Add any optional ingredients. Firmly press in a 12 x 15 inch pan. Bake 15 to 20 minutes at 375 degrees (they will look puffy when they come out and don't let them get too brown). Cut immediately or they will be too hard to cut.

A Weekend of Treats!

One of my favorite things to do at Christmas is bake cookies and make candy. Well this year, being that I am on an elimination diet I pretty much had to ditch all my favorite recipes (there was really no way to alter them without totally changing them). So this weekend I made four tasty treats. I made the kids sugar cookies with sprinkles (these have soy margarine in them, but can be made with Earth's Balance margarine if you avoid soy- sugar cookies aren't my favorite so I opted to use the much less expensive Fleishman's margarine)- this recipe is under my recipe tab- "Crisp Sugar Cookies". Second I made Cybele Pascal's fudge http://www.eatfreelyshow.com/. I have never tried any of her recipes before since they call for a lot of ingredients that I don't frequently purchase, but this was a good alternative to my normal marshmellow cream fudge that I make every year. Next I made Food Allergy Mama's Gingersnaps- which are always a hit http://www.foodallergymama.com/2010/11/19/dairy-egg-and-but-free-gingersnaps/. Finally, I made Food Allergy Mama's Cranberry Chocolate Chip cookies which if you are looking for a festive looking cookie these are great- but I will warn you- once you put them in a container they do get soft (I only made a few and froze the rest of the dough) http://www.foodallergymama.com/2009/08/19/dairy-and-egg-and-nut-free-cranberry-chocolate-drop-cookies/.

Our First Milk, Egg, and Nut- Free Gingerbread House

Last night I made a milk, egg, peanut and treenut free gingerbread house for J's Christmas party. The recipe I used was Food Allergy Mama's gingerbread cookie recipe http://www.foodallergymama.com/2009/12/13/dairy-egg-and-nut-free-gingerbread-kids/ (I did not feel like trying to alter one of my non-allergy friendly gingerbread recipes). I followed the recipe, but the dough was really sticky. I had to add a lot of flour to make it manageable. After adding all the flour, I think it turned out well. The next issue I had was putting the house together. While I could not use a traditional strong icing recipe because of the egg allergy I found another recipe for "edible glue". I boiled 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup corn syrup until it reached 300 degrees- unfornately mine went over 350 degrees and burned, but it still worked as really good food glue. In order to cover the "glue" I outlined the house with a safe icing made of powdered sugar, corn syrup and soy milk. I think it turned out well and my son loved it- he decorate it with snowman marshmellows, skittles, starburst, gummy bears and peppermint sticks.

Cranberry Scones- Yum!

I found this recipe a couple of years ago in Southern Living magazine and up until now I made it with eggs , butter and milk. Here is my version of the recipe:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup fresh cranberries (divided- I like to chop half of my cranberries- but this is totally optional)

1/2 cup allergy friendly margarine (I use Earth's Balance soy free), melted

1/2 cup coconut milk or rice milk

egg substitute equivalent to one egg


Stir first four ingredients together, stir in cranberries.

Whisk together margarine, milk, and egg substitute, then add to flour mixture. Stir just until all is moistened. Drop onto a greased cookie sheet. Lightly sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Menu for the week of November 15th

Well last week I had planned on trying some Christmas cookie recipes and posting them on the blog- well that did not happen. Things have been crazy trying to prepare for our first of three crafts shows on Saturday. We are doing craft shows three consecutive weekends (we are totally crazy) and hopefully we sell LOTS of stuff. Here is my easy menu for the week:



Monday- Spaghetti



Tuesday- Hamburgers



Wednesday- TBA



Thursday- parents



Friday- Ham and Bean Soup



Saturday- Craft show



Sunday- Meat Pies (this is repurposing the spaghetti sauce from Monday, since we will probably be exhausted and not want to cook anything) - use store bought pie crust (I use Pillsbury- it only has wheat and it has been on sale a lot lately!) and stuff individual pies with spaghetti sauce.

Menu for the Week of November 8th

Well after a weekend when we did not have much planned (we still went to IKEA, church and Kroger) we have a pretty busy week ahead of us. Hopefully the food I have planned is pretty easy. I am also hoping to modify some Christmas cookie recipes so I can enjoy cookies this year with everyone else.


Monday- Enchilada Casserole (from last week but we did not get to it)


Tuesday- Pork Roast


Wednesday- Ribs in the crockpot


Thursday- Bierocks (http://www.5dollardinners.com/2010/09/aleas-bierocks.html)

Friday- Parents


Saturday- Pulled Pork BBQ Sandwiches


Sunday- Leftovers

Menu for week of November 1st

Wow I can't believe that we are already in November! This week I have been frantically looking for J's glasses (they have been missing since Friday) and trying to get a lot of bows finished (we only have 17 more days until the first craft show). I went to Remke on Monday and purchased 24 lbs of lean ground beef (it was on sale) so I will be busy this week freezing it (I freeze it in 1 lb packages) and it should last about 3 months. I have two recipes for the ground beef this week (that way I have to freeze two fewer pounds of meat!)

Monday- Pizza (on a Pillsbury crust- they only contain wheat)

Tuesday- Sloppy Joes, asparagus and fries

Wednesday- Chicken with Veggie Confetti (we missed this last week- the link is in last weeks meal post)

Thursday- parents

Friday- Meatloaf

Saturday- Chicken Fried Pork Chops

Sunday- Mexican Lasagna (http://blog.fatfreevegan/2006/07/mexican-lasagna-or-enchilada-casserole.html)