My New Year's Food Resolution

2022! It’s almost here! We made it through another year dealing with food allergies. And, you know what? Over all it has gotten better. Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to say we are unfettered. But it’s better, you know? I’m less stressed to let my kid try new things (she’s even eaten food prepared by hands other than mine!). Plus, we’ve started feeling comfortable eating allergens next to her instead of making sure there are always two completely clean hands at all times (which means we can eat take out without one adult starving). And, I’ve been writing a post a week for this blog for 7 months! It’s been a big year.

January will bring another food challenge (cashews!), this time with a kid who has a lot more opinions about what she eats- let’s hope she actually tries what she is supposed to try AND does not need epinephrine this time around. 

She’s also got a visit to a dietician. And by she, I mean me, since I control all of her food. However, the person scheduling the visit made a big deal that my kid had to be there with me. Ok, ok, I get it. I’ll have my 2-year-old right beside me during a video visit. She probably won’t push any buttons, yell, scream, or be distracting at all. 

In the new year, I’m also going to do a series on allergy friendly recipes that are hard to find online- you know, a vegan coating for a pork chop. A vegan meatloaf… but with ground beef. Maybe fried chicken? No milk, no eggs, but yes please on the other animal products. It’s going to be an exciting year indeed.

So, do I have any New Year’s resolutions?

Let’s take the kid out to eat at a restaurant!

Wait, no. COVID. Let’s not do that.

Let’s get take out for the kid from a real restaurant!

Ugh, no. That still seems impossible. We could try a vegan restaurant… but how do we make sure there’s no peanuts? No garlic? How could I even explain the possibility of anaphylaxis to garlic over the phone? Let’s face it, she’s never going to be able to eat food from a restaurant.

Ok. Let’s take her to a birthday party and NOT freak out that nobody washed their hands after eating milk and egg infested cake.

Yes?

Yes.

She’s getting older. She doesn’t automatically put everything in her mouth now. We’ll just teach her not to lick her friends.

2022: Outside, socially distanced birthday parties and not licking people!

HERE.

WE.

COME!

Merry (egg, milk, and peanut free) Christmas!

Vegan sugar cookies... Crumbly with an unpleasant powdered sugar flavor. Just like Grandma used to make!

🎶On the twelfth day of Christmas, my food allergies took from me🎶

Okay, so we are skipping to the last verse of the song. It's pretty repetitive anyways.

12 Santa Snickers

A dozen. That’s the correct serving size, right?

11 Snowball Cookies

Buttery, buttery, oh so buttery. Too bad you can't sneak a bite because as soon as you even think about touching one that powdered sugar is getting everywhere.

10 Scoops of Homemade Chex Mix

Presumably you could try to make this without dairy and wheat, but your mother-in-law definitely isn't going to!

9 Crunchy Cheese Straws

Why do we only eat cheese straws at Christmas? Can’t know. But they taste like winter and Holiday get togethers.

8 Bites of Grandma’s Toffee

This stuff is legendary. It’s the thing that she’ll give you the recipe, you can even try to make it with her, but good luck trying to make it at home in your own kitchen. And, it only comes out one time a year.

7 Peanut Butter Balls

I think most people call them buckeyes. Not in this family. We like to keep things simple. How do we like our peanuts? Mixed with butter and powdered sugar, covered in chocolate please.

6 Gingerbread Men

You can make vegan gingerbead (I have…), but it was akin to munching on a rock.

5 Chunky Fruitcakes

You know, they might not be that missed, but they sure do say Christmas.

4 Cups of Eggnog

Maybe it’s better to not drink uncooked egg mixed with cream? Eh, it’s December. You are going to have a stomach ache anyways.

3 Baked Bries

If you can’t eat baked brie what are you going to eat at all of the Christmas parties?

2 Figgy Puddings

Truth be told, I do not know what a figgy pudding is. But.. it’s in a lot of Christmas songs and looks good?

And

A Christmas morning casserole

RIP egg casserole. Goodbye mixing it up Christmas eve and just throwing it the oven Christmas morning. Scrambled tofu will never compare.

A very Merry Christmas to everyone who has had food allergies take away something delicious!

Cookbook Review: The Everyday Allergy Free Cookbook

 

This cookbook was a gift from one of our friends after my kid was first diagnosed with allergies and it has a fair number of recipes the avoid not only the top eight allergens, but also spices and fruits. Spice and fruit? Yes. It eliminates dairy, gluten (yes gluten not wheat), soy, eggs, fish, shellfish, nuts (and peanuts though a peanut is not actually a nut), fruits, and spices. That’s like the whole food pyramid. What’s left? Veggies. Rice. And some chicken. Not all of the recipes eliminate all of those things (I mean, how could they? literally what could you make without all of those things?), but it's pretty impressive what Tiffany Shelton tried to do.

Good things about the book? It’s got cooking time for each recipe! *confetti explosion* On the other hand, it’s not completely accurate. Not in like a, oh add 10 minutes to each recipe because clearly they had a sous chef helping them chop and prepare everything. No, it’s in a, if I add up all of the times in the steps it's mathematically impossible and I'm going to need a time turner to get dinner on the table in time.

This was a recipe called the "Lentil Burger" but I think I would have gone for a "Lentil Sloppy Jo". She's not a looker but she tasted pretty good. 

Okay, so are the recipes actually good?

Well, none of them are necessarily ground breaking. A lot of them are pretty simple- carrots cooked in vegan butter with sugar, cauliflower roasted with nutritional yeast, a standard salsa recipe, and one that is just hilariously melting chocolate chips and putting it in molds (the ingredient list had one ingredient on it [chocolate chips]). Plus, most of the recipes in the desserts and snacks section are pretty typical vegan recipes with “gluten free flour.” But, and this cannot be said enough, it is so nice to have a cookbook that actually has considered food allergies. While it doesn’t have a whole lot of main courses, it has a lot of good ideas for desserts and baked goods.

So, is it good for people with allergies?

Yes? On the one hand, it does have a lot of recipes that are safe for my kid. On the other hand, some of the recipes that are supposed to be safe aren’t. Like, the frittata that is egg free? I couldn’t wait to see this. How do you make a frittata egg free? It seems impossible! So, I eagerly flipped to that page and under the ingredients it says “8 eggs (if you are allergic to eggs, you can use just the yolk)”. Well. Okay. I get it. Technically the egg protein is in the egg white BUT if you are really allergic to eggs (and my kid is) then you aren’t supposed to eat any part of the egg (because without some sort of magic you cannot completely separate the egg yolk from the egg white). I guess the answer to how do you make a frittata without eggs is… you can’t.

And while not all of the recipes in the book are completely free from all of the top 8 allergens and fruits and spices; almost all of them do avoid the top 8 allergens. That’s pretty impressive! Because the top 8 allergens are in a LOT of things (if this blog teaches you nothing else, it should teach you this: there's at least one top allergen in almost everything people without allergies mindless consume each day. Allergens have started haunting me. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!).

Overall, it’s a cookbook specifically for people with allergies! And there aren’t a whole of those out there. It’s so easy to feel left out flipping through magazines and seeing delicious recipes that have no thought to people with food allergies. So, it's nice that there’s at least one book out there dedicated to eating with such limitations, even if it does bite off a little more than it can chew, so to speak.

Happy (Allergen Free) Birthday!

My littlest one turned two this week! This meant more practice for my vegan baking skills, with the best results yet. The War World II era chocolate cupcakes (made without eggs and butter due to food rations) were definitely the best vegan cupcakes I’ve ever made. And adding Oreos to the icing was a stroke of genius. Crushed up Oreos can really hide all kinds of problems: Lumpy? Weird taste? Doesn’t matter! It’s got cookies in it!

Could you tell these cupcakes were missing eggs and milk? Of course. 

Did every kid eat one anyways? Yes.

Birthday parties are always a little stressful with food allergies, for no other reason then there are at least THREE of the top nine food allergens in most cakes. If you have a peanut or tree nut flavor you can easily get four of the top nine. And that’s not including the rest of the food. It’s pretty hard to think of any dessert without any of the top nine food allergens in it. A fruit popsicle? Or fruit candy? I think that's it.

A not exhaustive list of delicious desserts that have some of the top nine most common food allergens:

• Cake- wheat, milk, eggs, plus tree nuts/peanuts could be hidden in there
• How easy is cake to make allergen friendly? Not very. Milk, eggs, and wheat are like 90% of a normal cake. Plus, even if you have a good vegan recipe, once you have you switch out the flour you are going to be dealing with something very different than what you started out with.
• Then there’s the icing. No matter how long you try to whip that plant-based butter, you are never going to be able to beat it into a fluffy, creamy, delicious buttercream.
• Pies- wheat, milk, maybe eggs, tree nuts, peanuts
• Pies are a little more forgiving than cake. While some pie fillings may be off limits (chess pie or custard), a lot of fillings are fruity and delicious and safe. And the crust, while arguably the best part of the pie, is still just a small part of the whole. You may have a soggy bottom, but you could still conceivably make some sort of vessel for the delicious apple pie filling. Plus, store bought crusts only have wheat in them, no butter. How do they make it flaky delicious? Lard, of course! The other animal based, solid fat. Yum!
• Cookies- wheat, milk, eggs, maybe tree nuts/peanuts
• In general, I’ve had more trouble with cookies than cakes. The vegan butter plus egg replacement seem to create a dry, crumbly, sad cookie and if you put in enough chocolate chips to cover up the taste, you might as well just eat straight chocolate.
• Cheesecake- wheat, milk, eggs, maybe tree nuts/peanuts
• I thought making a cheesecake without the top allergens was impossible- all of the best vegan recipes are made with cashews (tree nuts) or tofu (soy). But I did stumble across a recipe using store bought vegan cream cheese. I haven’t made it and don’t know how good it is, but I guess there’s at least a way you could try to make it. That graham cracker crust is still going to be a struggle though- maybe some ground up cereal?
• Pudding- milk
• Pudding is easy enough to substitute in a nondairy milk. The Jell-O website even has instructions on how to make the substitutions. If you make it with coconut milk, it’s just as creamy as the real thing, but it does have a coconut flavor. If you use other milks, it won’t be as thick. But it’s still something resembling pudding!
• Mousse- milk and eggs
• There’s a surprisingly good chocolate mousse recipe that’s made with avocados. However, one recipe book called it "unusual chocolate mousse" which is a pretty unfortunate name. Pretty sure I want most of desserts on the more usual side of the spectrum.
• Brownies- wheat, milk, eggs
• Without eggs? It just can’t be done. Not a fudgy brownie, at least. It’s always going to be more cakey. And a cakey brownie is NOT a true brownie.

 

I made some vegan banana muffins with chocolate chips for a breakfast potluck at work. A coworker said “Oh, they don’t taste unhealthy.” Ahhh… thanks? I think the goal is for them to be HEALTHY and taste UNHEALTHY. Not the other way around. Anyway. Good luck making your desserts safe!

Milk Alternatives

 

One thing there are a lot of now? Alternatives to dairy milk. But the nutrition really varies based on what they are made from. First let’s look at what dairy milk has to offer-

Per 8 oz, 2% dairy milk has:

• Protein: 8 g
• Fat: 5 g
• Carbs: 12 g (11 g sugar)

Taste wise, the classic is creamy and relatively neutral tasting. Great on cereal. Great with cookies.

Let’s check out how the alternatives stack up

Soy

• Protein: 7 g
• Fat: 3.5 g
• Carbs: 1 g (0 g sugar)

Truth be told, I love soy milk. I drank it even before the food allergies made their appearance because I can’t have a ton of lactose and soy milk has a good amount of protein. I do get the kind that’s sweetened- the unsweetened kind tastes a little bit like beans and it’s hard to drink a cup of beans. But with sugar added, it’s still got less carbs than true dairy milk and I think it tastes creamy and delicious. It’s readily available, not too expensive, and has been a dairy milk substitute for a long time. I would 100% recommend, as long as you aren’t allergic to soy!

Pea Protein Milk

• Protein: 8 
• Fat: 4.5 g
• Carbs: <1 g (0 sugar)

This took me a while to find (perhaps because it’s bad marketing to have “PEA PROTEIN” in giant letters on the side of the container?). I saw it mentioned in a dairy free cookbook and really thought it just hadn’t come to my grocery store until I realized that “Ripple” was actually a pea protein milk. I could only find the unsweetened vanilla kind at the store, and it has a tint of chalk (I’m guess it’s the protein?) aftertaste that is a little hard to get over drinking it straight from the bottle. I think the sweetened kind would be much more palatable as sugar covers all kinds of ills, I just couldn’t find it. It’s definitely not my favorite dairy milk alternative, but it’s the only alternative that doesn’t have any top 9 allergens AND actually has protein.  

Ok, now for some that have no where near the amount of protein of a glass of cow’s milk-

Oat Milk

• Protein: 3 g
• Fat: 1-9 g
• Carbs: 15 g (7 g sugar)

My wife loves her oat milk, and it does taste creamier than many of the milk alternatives. Especially if you get the “full fat” kinds that have extra oil blended in. It also has one of the more neutral flavors (though it does feel weird putting it in oatmeal… like some weird kind of how many ways can you eat oats at the same time experiment). Nutritionally, it’s not as good as soy or pea protein, but it has 100% less bean taste, if that’s something you’re into.

Almond Milk

• Protein: 1 g
• Fat: 2.5 g
• Sugar: 0 g

I was surprised at the lack of protein and fat in almond milk. After all, almonds have a good amount of protein- 1 cup of almonds have 30 g of protein (1 cup of peas only has 8 grams of protein, 1 cup of soy beans has 23 grams). But I think what it comes down to is the store bought almond milk is almost all water. Probably if you are making it home and you really blend up some almonds you can get more protein in it, but off the shelf you really might as well just put water on your cereal. My main problem with almond milk, though, is the after taste. I don’t mind the taste of actual almonds, but I do not enjoy almond extract and almond milk has a hint of that astringent bite that I just can’t get behind. Other people online claim that it’s nutty and creamy- but it mostly just tastes watery to me.

Coconut Milk

• Protein: 0 g
• Fat: 4 g
• Carbs: 1 g (0 g sugar)

So, the coconut drink selection is a little confusing. This coconut milk is not the liquid in the center of a green coconut (that's coconut water). And, I’m also not talking about the canned coconut milk that you cook and bake with- that stuff is delicious but would taste like sipping heavy whipping cream. No, this is a carton in the refrigerated section that is processed similar to the canned kind (grating up the coconut meat and then straining it), but with more water and more preservatives. I really like coconut milk, but it’s definitely got a specific taste- great for curries and coconut ice cream, but maybe not as good straight from the carton. Even though the drinkable coconut milk has less flavor than the canned kind, it still tastes like a tropical drink. And sometimes you feel like a (coco)nut, and sometimes you don’t.

 

There are  even more options out there- cashew, hemp, rice… but they haven’t made it to my grocery store. Ultimately, though, all dairy milk alternatives are way more expensive than the stuff from a cow. Thanks a lot dairy subsidies!