Omit, Adjust, Substitute, Invest

In my journey with food allergies and our daughter (who is now 3), I have come to several conclustions that I would like to share.  I remember how lost I was in the beginning and felt no one could help me.  Well, actually no really did.  The doctors just said give her soy.  Okay, that doesn't help when you look at the big picture of feeding three meals a day along with two to three snacks.  But I slowly started doing following and became much more comfortable with feeding our daughter.  Now it seems easy, but it hardly is.  Hope these words of advice can help some.


Omit-- Take dairy or other allergens out of a recipe.  If a recipe calls for cream soup, just omit it.  I did this with a creamy rice with broccoli and chicken recipe.  I just made broccoli, ricc and chicken and mixed it together our daughter.

Adjust your thinking - Don't think how am I going to do this.  Instead think this is what we have to do and people all over the country deal with this too.  Finding resources can be very helpful so you as a parent don't feel so alone.  Try to stay positive and optomistic.

Substitute-- Somwtimes it's very simple to substitute a soy or rice milk in place of regular milk.  Sometimes it's not that easy.  Here are some good resources for substituting for food allergies.  Plus any blogs on my sidebar give great ideas, too.

• Go Dairy Free Substitution list 
• E-Cookbook Substitution list (many more than just food allergies)
• About.com Substitution article

Invest - No doubt about it, trying to figure out how cook allergy-free takes a lot of time and energy.  Be willing to invest your wholeself.  If you do it half-hearted it will be much harder overall.  Educate yourself with blogs, cookbooks and other great resources out there.  Many listed on my blog.

Deconstruct --  Instead of following a recipe exactly, I now look at it as separate pieces.  First I find the allergens we can't eat in the recipe.  Then I look at every other ingredient.  I decide then if I can just omit the allergen (usually dairy, such as cheese or milk-based sauce) or if I can substitute a soy or rice based product.  I can now take just about any recipe and make it work for us and taste pretty good, too.

Experiment -- try new ways of cooking, it's okay if it fails(and many attempts will).  You must try new ingredients and see how they work in different recipes before you really understand how to cook and bake with these substituting ingredients.  Sometimes it feels like waste but some of my experiments have turned out to be absolute favorites.

Embrace -- realize this is just what it is and it's okay.  Your purpose is to keep your child safe and healthy.  We just get a little extra practice at it.  And guess what you're child will embrace you and be very thankful.

Anyone have any other tips?

Cookbook Recommendation

I have just found the most amazing recipe in "The Divvies Bakery Cookbook: No Nuts. No Eggs. No Dairy. Just Delicious!"  I made chocolate zucchini bread with encouragement of our 3-year-old.  She loves my other zucchini bread recipe (which does have egg), but chocolate was appealing to her. The chocolate zucchini bread was just absolutely the most amazing thing I've made or put in my mouth in months.  Even my husband who isn't really much of a chocolate eater, told me it was "awesome." I feel it not right to post the recipe since the cookbook is new and I couldn't find it posted anywhere else online.  But check the book out from the library or snag you own copy.  It will be worth it.  I can't wait to make some more recipes from this book.

Cookbook Recommendation

I have just found the most amazing recipe in "The Divvies Bakery Cookbook: No Nuts. No Eggs. No Dairy. Just Delicious!"  I made chocolate zucchini bread with encouragement of our 3-year-old.  She loves my other zucchini bread recipe (which does have egg), but chocolate was appealing to her. The chocolate zucchini bread was just absolutely the most amazing thing I've made or put in my mouth in months.  Even my husband who isn't really much of a chocolate eater, told me it was "awesome." I feel it not right to post the recipe since the cookbook is new and I couldn't find it posted anywhere else online.  But check the book out from the library or snag you own copy.  It will be worth it.  I can't wait to make some more recipes from this book.

Cookbook Recommendation

I have just found the most amazing recipe in "The Divvies Bakery Cookbook: No Nuts. No Eggs. No Dairy. Just Delicious!"  I made chocolate zucchini bread with encouragement of our 3-year-old.  She loves my other zucchini bread recipe (which does have egg), but chocolate was appealing to her. The chocolate zucchini bread was just absolutely the most amazing thing I've made or put in my mouth in months.  Even my husband who isn't really much of a chocolate eater, told me it was "awesome." I feel it not right to post the recipe since the cookbook is new and I couldn't find it posted anywhere else online.  But check the book out from the library or snag you own copy.  It will be worth it.  I can't wait to make some more recipes from this book.

Great Resource

One of my all-time favorite blogs is $5 Dinners.  She just recently redesigned her website design with a very awesome feature.  You can now search her recipes (cheap ones at that) that are dairy-free.  She also has an option for gluten-free recipes and gluten-free, dairy-free and soy-free recipes. Wow!

Quick update

So far lunch has been going really well for our 3-year-old at preschool.  While she's not eating a lot (normally she eats what she wants), I'm happy she hasn't had any food allergic reactions.  So happy.  I'm going to try to take some pictures of lunches soon and share what's working for us.  In the meantime, check out this lunch link (even if you don't have one in school -- it's pretty helpful).  Of course, you need to adapt a little for food allergies.


Also, we are using these Ziploc containers and they are working wonderfully.  They have three sections (2 small and 1 large) and the seal tight.  Even if placed upside down the food doesn't mix.  Very easy for her teacher to put on the table in front of her.  And a lot less worry about food allergy cross contamination.  These are cost effective, just under $3 for two and clean up really easily.

Birthday Doll Cake -- Dairy-Free, Egg-Free, Peanut-Free

I've been just waiting and waiting to post this awesome doll cake that I made of our daughter's birthday.  I've been extra busy this week, so sorry for the delay.  Our daughter just turned 3 this week, so the cake had to be extra special.  But it also had to be free of allergens -- dairy, nut, peanut, and egg.  Oh boy what a challenge it was!  I made several cakes and tried several frostings.  On top of that I had no idea how to decorate a cake to begin with.  Talk about a learning curve.

Dairy-free, Egg-free, Peanut-Free Cake Recipe
Adapted from Divvies Chocolate Cupcakes.  I used it as a cake recipe.  I made two cakes in a Pampered Chef bowl.  See links below for tutorials on how to make doll cake.  

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder (I used Hershey's dark cocoa)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 5 Tbsp vegetable oil (Crisco)
• 1 Tbsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups water

1. Preheat oven 350 degrees.

2. Grease cake pan or bowl.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

4.  Mix together oil, vinegar, vanilla, and water until well combined.  I used my KitchenAid mixer.

5.  Add Flour mixture to wet mixture.  This will be a very wet batter.

6.  Pour into cake pan.  If making cupcakes or cake bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until done in center.  If using Pampered Chef bowl bake for 1 hour 15 minutes.

Frosting Recipe:  I tripled the recipe.  Note when I was decorating the doll,  I had to move very quickly.  The frosting started to melt as it warmed up.  I did some decorating then stuck it in the freezer.   Then after 20 minutes did some more decorating. The cake then stayed in the freezer until serving.  Tasted great cold.  My niece said it tasted like ice cream cake.


Tip:  I made the cake ahead of time and frosted the "dress."  I then kept it in the refrigerator until the day of the party.  That's when I decorated the doll and put in freezer as noted above.


Tutorials to make doll cake

• Betty Crocker's YouTube directions
• Pampered Chef Doll cake directions
• Allrecipes -- view photos for ideas
• Happy Housewife YouTube directions (Betty Crocker by nonprofessional)

Silk Soy Milk Coupon -- reset

There's a new $1/2 Silk Soymilk Half Gallon coupon.  Be sure to print it twice!