There is Life in My Garden!!

I decided that this year I would start some seeds inside and then transfer them to my garden in late April/early May. I tried this last year and it seemed to work pretty well and I was able to plant vegetables that you normally cannot find plants for at the garden center or farmers market. This year I went with brussel sprouts, broccoli, purple tomatillo, yellow squash, rosemary and basil. I planted the seeds with my kids (this was massive chaos!) last Tuesday and by Saturday I started to see some little seedlinds popping up! So far the brussel sprouts and broccoli are doing great and a tiny yellow squash plant and a tiny purple tomatillo are starting to appear as well.

I am really hoping that my garden is a success this year. In addition to these plants I already have artichokes in the ground from last year (they are a two year plant), a grape vine and strawberries. We are also planning on starting a compost bin (every fertilizer I have used has not seem to help so we are going natural this year to see if it makes a difference) and my husband wants to see if we can install a large rain barrell to water the plants.

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.

Coupon Giveaway

Since our family has so many food allergies I am not able to use most of the coupons that I recieve so I have decided to do a short giveaway. All the coupons are manufacturers coupons and come from the paper. There are a lot of coupons of all types. They are from as far back as January, but I have tried to sort through them and only include coupons that don't expire until the end of March (although I may have missed pulling out a few).

This giveaway is going to be really short and there is only one entry per person and is only open to those in the U.S. To enter you must be a follower of my blog and leave a comment on this post. The giveaway will end on Monday, March 7th at 11:59 EST. The winner will be emailed Tuesday morning and will need to email me back by 11:59 EST on Tuesday.

Silk Soy Milk May Contain Almonds!

I went shopping for milk last night and I just happened to look at the Silk Soy Milk label and discovered that they now state that their milk may contain almond and coconut. This is a huge concern for us since all three of my children are allergic to treenuts and my oldest is very allergic to almonds. I checked every variety of their refrigerated half gallons and their non-refrigerated boxed milks and they all contained this warning. I checked the yogurt I purchased at Whole Foods on Tuesday and they do not have this warning on their containers. I have emailed Silk to express my concern and if this impacts you I would suggest emailing them. I will keep you updated if I recieve a response from the company.

Update: In addition to emailing the company I also asked them about this issue on Facebook. Here is the link to their response. Basically they make all the coconut milk, almond milk and soy milk in the same facility so there is always a risk of cross contamination.

Divvies Review

I am so happy to share this review of Divvies with you! All three of my children have food allergies and it is important to me to find treats for them that are safe for them to eat and also taste good.

Divvies is a company that makes "fun-food" that is free of milk, eggs, peanuts and tree nuts. It was started by Mark and Lori Sandler whose son has food allergies. Their product line consists of bakery cookies, gourmet popcorn, candy (which is also gluten free) and cupcakes. All of their cookies, popcorn and cupcakes are made in their own bakery which is free of milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts and peanuts. Their candies, frosting and sprinkles are certified to be milk, egg, peanut and treenut free.

Divvies sent me a package which included their carmel corn, jelly beans,
Choco-lot Brownie cookies, and Bing-Go! Benjamint Crunch Chocolate bar.


Carmel corn- since going on a milk, egg, peanut and tree nut free diet I have not been able to eat carmel corn (which I love!) so this was a great treat! I personally think that their carmel corn tastes better than any carmel corn I have ever bought at the grocery store. It is sweet and crunchy, not sticky and chewy.

Jelly Beans- I think that their jelly beans made me a hero in the eyes of my kids. They loved them and could not get enough of them!



Choco-lot Brownie Cookies- These chocolate cookies definately filled my chocolate craving. They are filled with chocolate chips (which was a great suprise) and the top is sprinkled with sugar. My son loved them. He ate two cookies and right away asked for more and continues to ask me for a cookie every day!

Bing-Go! Benjamint Crunch- This is a semi-sweet chocolate bar with crushed organic peppermint candies throughout the bar. I really enjoyed this chocolate bar (and so did my son!). I was really suprised that he enjoyed it so much because he has never really been a huge fan of mint and chocolate together, but the peppermint is not overwhelming and was delicious!




My overall opinion of Divvies is that their treats are delicious. I am so happy that there is a company whose main focus is to have fun but yet safe treats that those with life threatening food allergies can enjoy without all the worry. Both of my older children and I really enjoyed everything. Normally my son is very hesitant to try anything new and if he does agree to try something he will try just a tiny piece and not want anymore, but not with the Divvies treats. He tried them right away and kept asking me for more.


Buy it! You can purchse Divvies at select retailers including some Whole Foods locations or online at http://www.divvies.com/


I was not compensated for this post, but was provided with the items review by Divvies.

Giveaway Winner

We have a winner for the Curly Girly Bow-tique giveaway!

The winner is entry #64 (via the True Random Number Generator at random.org)
ArtsyChaos!

I have emailed you and you have 48 hours to respond or I will choose another winner.

Thanks to everyone that entered and check back for more reviews/giveaways!

Great Allergy Friendly Deals at Meijer

If you have a Meijer near you may be able to snag some great allergy-friendly deals. It appears that they are discontinuing some of their allergy-friendly foods and have a lot marked down.

This is what I saw at my Meijers:
Allergaroos
Enjoy Life Cookies and Granola
I.M. Healthy SoyNut Butter
Rice pasta
Various Gluten-free baking mixes
Ians cookies

They had a few other things on clearance that were not outdated, so if you want to stock-up this would be a great opportunity!