Gluten Free Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon rolls! What more can I say? These are gluten free, egg free, and dairy free, but if you are able to have egg and/or dairy you can substitute one egg for the egg-replacer and/or 2/3 c. skim milk for the dairy alternative and the water and you will end up with an even lighter and fluffier version. Those of you who are used to going without all three (as are we) are still going to fall in love with these! Plan to make them on a day when you have some free time as they are time consuming and a bit messy to make, but they are worth it. The last batch of 8 that I made in the evening was gone by morning. Two last notes before we get started...1: This dough is sticky and soft, it is not easy to roll, remember that no matter what your "rolls" look like they will still taste great! 2: You can frost these with any icing or frosting that you like. My favorite homemade dairy free butter cream frosting recipe can be found here. We used Pillsbury Creamy Supreme Cream Cheese frosting which, oddly enough, contains no dairy. (I know that's kind of scary, huh? It was good though.)

DOUGH:
1/3 c Warm water
1/3 c Soy milk
1 T Yeast
¼ c Potato starch
¾ c Corn starch (or arrowroot starch)
½ c Millet flour
¼ t Baking soda
2 t Baking powder
½ t Salt
2 ½ t Xanthan gum
2 T Melted palm shortening or dairy free margarine
¼ c Granulated sugar
1 Eggs worth of egg-replacer
¼ c Oil
1 t Vanilla extract

FILLING:
¼ c Softened dairy free margarine
1 T cinnamon
½ c Brown sugar

Pour warm water and milk (about 110 to 115 degrees into a large mixing bowl. If you would like to use a thinner milk alternative such as rice or almond, omit the water and just use 2/3 c. milk. Add the yeast and allow it to foam for about 5 minutes.

While the yeast is proofing, combine in another bowl potato starch, corn (or other) starch, millet flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and xanthan gum. Whisk or sift together.

To the warm water, milk alternative, and yeast mixture add 2 T. melted shortening or margarine, granulated sugar, egg-replacer, oil, and vanilla. Stir until combined. Add the dry ingredients and mix on low until they are incorporated, then mix for another minute on medium. Place the dough in an oiled bowl (I use the now empty dry ingredients bowl to save dishes). Cover with an oiled piece of plastic wrap and put it in a warm place to rise for about 45 minutes.

Lay out a large piece of parchment paper and sprinkle it with corn starch. Spread out the dough into as much of a square as you can. Sprinkle some more corn starch over the dough and lay another piece of parchment paper on top. Roll the dough into a 13" x 13" square. Remove top sheet of parchment paper. Spread the softened margarine over the dough leaving 1" at the top edge clean to help it stick when rolling. Combine the brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and sprinkle it evenly over the entire surface of margarine. Begin to roll, from the bottom up, as tightly as you can. The nature of gluten free cinnamon rolls is to roll more loosely than a stiffer standard dough. Lift the bottom layer of parchment paper as you roll to help it along and maintain shape. Your roll may collapse and look more oval than round, it is OK. Pinch the clean 1" edge into the roll to seal.

Grease a medium sized baking pan. Using a sharp knife, slice the rolls into 8 even pieces. If you dip the knife into corn starch between each slice it will prevent sticking. Place the slices into the greased pan. Cover with oiled plastic wrap and allow to rise again in a warm place until the sides of the cinnamon rolls are touching.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees while the rolls are rising. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, or until they are lightly golden on top. Cool slightly then remove from the pan.

If you want a thin icing you can pour it over while they are still warm. If you prefer a thick frosting, wait until they are fully cooled.

Ian's New Products- Rave review

I recently received an email from Ian's Natural Foods asking if I would like some samples of a few new item's they are introducing in exchange for an honest review. Of course I jumped at the chance! My youngest is currently going through a box of Ian's GF chicken nuggets every week with an occasional box of Ian's GF fish sticks thrown in for good measure. My middle daughter (more recently diagnosed) has also fallen in love with their chocolate chip cookie buttons. Before I move on to the review I would like to point something out so that no one else makes the same mistake I did. Ian's is a natural food company, but not entirely allergen free. The wheat based chicken nuggets look very similar to the GF chicken nuggets...the best indicator is that the wheat products have blue lettering on the front of the package and the WF/GF products have red lettering. Also, many of their WF/GF products contain other allergens such as eggs and milk, so (as is our mantra) always read the labels. They also have this great interactive allergen search to help you find safe foods for your specific need.

On to the review...

The first thing I tried (before my daughters even got out of bed) was the WF/GF Egg and Maple Cheddar Wafflewich. This is a funny story actually because both of my daughters who are gluten free are allergic to eggs. Well, someone had to try it, right? Mommy to the rescue, I can and will eat anything! In my "able to eat all foods" opinion these were REALLY GOOD. They rivaled any fast food breakfast sandwich I've ever had, and were better than any wheat filled frozen varieties I've tried. There were two in the package, so I tried one made in the microwave and the other made in the oven. (different days, I'm not THAT piggish.) Both were good. The microwave version was a little soggy and the one from the oven was crispy. My personal preference is soggy, but that's just me.

The next thing we tried were the chicken tenders. They were much more sophisticated than the nuggets we usually buy. Think of restaurant strips versus fast food nuggets. They took a little longer to prepare since they were baked and I usually microwave the nuggets, but it was worth the wait. There were 4 large strips in the box...Emily ate 3 and I ate 1. I felt just like we had gone out to dinner and ordered chicken strips. Good quality chunks of meat with crispy flavorful breading, exceptional! The tenders are not yet available in stores, but are expected to be out in September.

Last, but absolutely not least were the chocolate covered wafer bites. Oh my goodness these were dangerously good! They were very much like bite size Kit Kats. My middle daughter, as I have said, is still mourning the loss of wheat. Last Halloween ( has it been a year already?) she cried because she would never again have a Kit Kat, one of her favorites. She loved Ian's little bites so much that she asked me if we could get "180 million more bags". Sadly, these also will not be available until September, but at least I can get them in time for swap outs this Halloween. What amazed me, though, was how milk chocolaty the coating was. I must have read the label 3 times just to make sure I wasn't missing a milk ingredient. They are gluten free, milk free, egg free, and nut free. I don't have the bag anymore so I'm not sure about soy, but it is possible that they were soy free also. Everyone in the family tried the wafer bites, those of us with allergies and without, and everyone loved them!

I want to thank Ian's again for thinking of us. I also want to say again that this was an honest review. I just realized how much I am raving about all three of these foods, but they really are just incredible. I am grateful to Ian's and all the other allergy friendly companies out there that are making my life so much easier and my kids so much happier!

Gluten Free Vegan Banana Waffles

Yes, I finally have a new recipe! OK, so maybe the initial idea wasn't mine. I was inspired by Food Allergy Mama's vegan banana chocolate chip waffle recipe. I was browsing her recipes and my middle daughter saw these and got very excited, then I had to tell her they were made with wheat flour. She is newly diagnosed with wheat allergies (possible celiac) and it has been a VERY difficult adjustment for her. She still cheats sometimes and then feels lousy for days! I am, therefore, trying to come up with truly amazing new recipes for her so that she won't feel so deprived...this is one of those recipes. These waffles really are wonderful. Not only do they taste delicious, but the texture is very wheat-like. I made the fist batch using Enjoy Life chocolate chips, but they stuck to my waffle iron very badly. I tried the next batch without chocolate chips and the problem was solved. These are our new favorite breakfast food. Thank you Kelly!

1 c Rice flour
½ c Millet flour
½ c Sorghum flour
½ c Corn starch (use tapioca starch if allergic to corn)
2 T Sugar
1 T Baking powder
¼ t Salt
1 2/3 c Vanilla soy milk
6 T Oil
2 T Water
1 c Mashed ripe bananas

Preheat waffle iron.

Combine flours, starch, sugar, baking powder, and salt using a wire whisk. In a separate bowl whisk together soy milk, oil, water and banana. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Ladle about a 1/2 c. batter on hot iron that has been sprayed with dairy free baking spray. Cook until steam is no longer escaping from the waffle iron. For standard waffles my iron says it should take 5 or 6 minutes, my waffles took 10 to 12 minutes, so I would say try doubling your waffle irons recommended time. Watching for them to stop steaming is really the best way to tell.

Walk For Our Future! :)

A few food allergy statistics from FAAN:

 Though reasons for this are poorly understood, the prevalence of food allergies and associated
anaphylaxis appears to be on the rise.
 Peanut allergy doubled in children over a five-year period (1997-2002).
 Research suggests that food-related anaphylaxis might be underdiagnosed.
 An increasing number of school students have diagnosed life-threatening allergies.
 More than 12 million Americans have food allergies. That’s one in 25, or 4% of the population.
 The incidence of food allergy is highest in young children – one in 17 among those under age 3.
 About 3 million children in the U.S. have food allergies.
 The CDC reported that food allergies result in over 300,000 ambulatory-care visits a year among children.
 Eight foods account for 90% of all food-allergic reactions in the U.S.: milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts (e.g.,
walnuts, almonds, cashews, pistachios, pecans), wheat, soy, fish, and shellfish.
 There is no cure for food allergies. Strict avoidance of food allergens and early recognition and
management of allergic reactions to food are important measures to prevent serious health consequences.
 Even trace amounts of a food allergen can cause a reaction.
 Most people who’ve had an allergic reaction to something they ate thought that it was safe.
 Food allergies are life-altering for everyone involved and require constant vigilance.
 Early administration of epinephrine (adrenaline) is crucial to successfully treating anaphylactic reactions.

These are my three girls, each with her own special set of food allergies. FAAN will be hosting their annual walk for food allergies in Portland Oregon this year on August 28th and I am so excited! I have lived in Oregon for 8 years and have never been to Portland. I've heard they have many allergy friendly restaraunts there. I'm still trying to figure out the logistics of how to do this, since Portland is 3 hours away and my group has now grown to 8 people, but somehow I'm going to make it happen. If you live near Portland and are interested in joining the walk, please visit their website at http://www.foodallergywalk.org/site/TR/2010Walk/2010Walks?fr_id=1700&pg=entry. If you live anywhere else in the US and want to find the walk nearest to you the complete list can be found here http://www.foodallergywalk.org/site/PageServer?pagename=2010Walks. I hope to post more about this and about my groups name when I get a little more organized.

Teriyaki Edemame (Gluten Free)

This is a super simple, sweet, high protein dish that Nikki loves! We serve it over brown rice. The picture looks a little different than the dish usually looks because I was out of toasted sesame seeds, so we used Eden Organic Seaweed Gomasio instead. We also would normally use whole baby corn, it's the only kind I've ever seen in the stores, but a friend gave us a whole case of this sliced baby corn and I love it. They look like cute little yellow flowers!


1 20 oz. can of pineapple chunks in juice
1 Bag (12 oz. more or less) of shelled edemame
1 8 oz. can of baby corn
¼ c San J Teriyaki Sauce (it's gluten free)
1 T Sesame oil
2 T Rice vinegar
2 T Dark brown sugar
1 T Toasted sesame seeds


Bring pineapple juice and chunks to a boil. Boil over med-high heat for about 10 minutes, adding a little water if needed. Add edemame and corn, boil for another 3 minutes. Mix together teriyaki sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, and brown sugar. Pour the mix over the veggies, Stir and boil until thickened into a thin syrup. Remove from heat and toss in the toasted sesame seeds, or just sprinkle them on top. Serve over rice or rice noodles if desired.

The Celiac Maniac.. YAY!

I am so excited to share the good news! I live in a fairly small community and, although we do have a few places that cater to the gluten free lifestyle, we don't have the options that they have in places like Portland. Well, our gluten free community just got a little bigger! I am so happy to have found The Celiac Maniac!!! They are right here in Bend, Oregon, and their products can be found at Natures, Whole Foods, Riley's, Newport Market, and Empire Coffee Company. Not only that, but those of you not able to get to Bend can order their English muffins through their online store. Now I have to tell the story just so you understand how excited I am…
Part one:
One day my oldest daughter Amanda came home with a cupcake and said "this is delicious, Emily and Nikki have to try it". I said "there's no way that Emily can have that cupcake if you bought it in a store" (believe me, I've looked)! She told me it was gluten free, and of course I responded with "what about the eggs and milk?", she said "no, they're vegan", and I said "no way"! Well, yes they are…EGG FREE, DAIRY FREE, AND GLUTEN FREE…WOOHOO!!!
Part two:
My daughter Nikki is 14 yrs old and was just diagnosed with a gluten allergy this year. She is still struggling with it a lot. Nikki has been a vegetarian in a house full of meat eaters since she was 4yrs old. She is also allergic to nuts and eggs, so cheese and grains meet a huge part of her protein requirements. Not only that, but when I try to cook a "family meal" it is meat based, so she often fixes herself something quick and easy. Until this year she was pretty much living on things like Goldfish crackers, quesadillas on flour tortillas, mac and cheese, pasta with parmesan, grilled cheese sandwiches, and pizza. All of that came to a screeching halt. She hasn't truly acquired a taste yet for gluten free breads and pastas yet. I bought some English muffins a couple of weeks ago and when she saw them in the cabinet she really wanted to make some English muffin pizzas…but she didn't. I was proud of her (because she still cheats sometimes), but I was also heartbroken. A few days later I was in Whole foods and I decided to check out the Celiac Maniac cupcakes. As I was asking the bakery worker about the cupcakes, she reached down behind the counter and said "we have their English muffins too". I know I get a little too excited about food sometimes, but I think I may have heard angels sing! I raced home with the English muffins and popped one in the toaster for myself just to see if I had reason to be so joyful, I did. They are fabulous! Nikki made her pizza muffins (pictured above) and loved them, and Emily finished off the bag, eating toasted English muffins and jam every day until they were gone.
I just want to say "welcome" to The Celiac Maniac, and "thank you"!!! One more victory for the allergen free!

Fabulous "Allergen Free" Marble Cake

Well, here it is, the culmination of 3 years work. I have tweaked this recipe so many times that it barely resembles the original. This can be made a vanilla cake by simply omitting the cocoa powder, or be made chocolate by adding a little more cocoa powder to the whole mix. Be sure to use good quality vanilla and cocoa powder, it makes a difference. I had hoped that when I finally posted my masterpiece I would have a stunning photo to go with it, but we still have not replaced our long lost camera with the "food" setting, so this is the best I could do. I hope this will aid in bringing many happy birthdays to all those who, like me, had all but given up on birthday cake!

½ c Rice flour
¾ c Corn starch
¼ c Coconut flour
½ c Millet flour
¾ c Potato starch
2 c Granulated sugar
1 t Xanthan gum
½ t Salt
2 t Baking powder
1 t Baking soda
2 c Room temperature water
1 T Ener G egg replacer mixed with ¼ c warm water
2/3 c Canola or sunflower oil
2 T Vinegar
1 T Vanilla bean paste
¼ c Unsweetened cocoa powder
1 T Water

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour (I used rice flour) 2 round cake pans or one 9"x13" rectangle.

Sift all dry ingredients (rice flour through baking soda) into a mixing bowl, make sure there are no lumps in your coconut flour. Add 2 c water, prepared egg replacer, oil, vinegar, and vanilla bean paste. Mix on low for 30 seconds, scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a spatula, then mix for an additional 2 minutes on medium.

Pour 2/3 of the batter into the prepared pan/pans. Do not smooth it out, empty spaces will actually help with the swirling.

Add ¼ c of cocoa powder and 1 T of water to the remaining batter. Stir until blended. Pour the chocolate batter into the pan/pans, filling in any holes in the vanilla batter. Use a knife, spoon, or spatula to swirl the chocolate and vanilla together. If you have ever used this method with a "standard" cake you will find it is not quite as easy here. This batter requires more of a forceful pushing than a delicate swirling. If you drag the knife through a glob of chocolate it will float around in the vanilla like an island. Push down, lift up, then swirl… you'll get the hang of it.

Bake 2 round pans for about 40 minutes, bake rectangle for about 1 hour, the middle should spring back when touched gently.

We frosted the birthday cake with this frosting. It can also be made soy free by using all shortening (no margarine) and rice milk or water instead of soy milk. The cake pictured here is frosted with Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge frosting. This frosting is dairy free, as are their regular chocolate and vanilla frostings. They do, however contain soy. Keep this cake covered, due to the high starch content it dries out quickly. Enjoy!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMILY!!! (and CAKE!)

Happy 8th birthday Emily! We had the most amazing party this year at Bouncing Off The Walls, an indoor playplace full of bounce houses, inflatable obstacle courses, giant inflatable slides, a velcro wall, and tons of toys. If you have one near you, I highly recommend them for parties. They took care of everything, even making a list of which children brought which presents. I received a confirmation letter from them about a week before the party which included some helpful tips for a smooth running party. It included things like bringing extra socks and such, but it also said to find out in advance if any of the children attending have food allergies...I wasn't expecting that. It turns out that the manager has two children of her own with food allergies. I wish I could post pictures of all the kids playing, but since the grownups all got to play too we didn't take any pictures. Here is a picture of the happy birthday girl and her wonderful sister who decorated the cake for me.

The cake, by the way, was AMAZING! Some of you may have been around about this time last year when I wrote about how depressed I was, and part of the reason being that I had been trying to create a perfect cake recipe for over a year and I still hadn't mastered it. I quit trying for about 8 months. As a matter of fact, as is evident in my lack of recent blogging, I pretty much took most of last year off from cooking altogether. Well I guess I just needed a break, because now I am feeling excited about cooking again and am working on new recipes for my vegetarian/gluten free daughter. I just finished making her some biscuits and she said I "have to post them!". Anyway...back to the cake (I seem to be rambling, but I do that when I'm excited). I made a great chocolate cake but it was VERY chocolaty. I made a decent vanilla cake, but it had that slight protein shake flavor. Then it came to me...marble cake! I also found that by increasing my starches quite a bit I get a much lighter, fine crumbed cake. The only problem with that is that it seems to get stale much quicker, fortunately that wasn't an issue this time because the entire cake was polished off in one day. I am hoping to post the recipe next week. In the meantime I will leave you with one more picture of the most exciting cake I've ever made and some precious little party guests.

Gluten Free GingerBread People with Egg Free Royal Icing

I have decided to take it easy on myself this year. I realized that I just don't have the time or the energy to make a ginger bread house, then I patted myself on the back and said "that's OK". However, I did still want to post my egg-free royal icing recipe, so we decided to make gingerbread people instead. For this I did not even need to create a recipe, I borrowed this wonderful recipe from Janeen at Mom's Food Allergy Diner, which is egg free, dairy free, gluten free, and nut free. I didn't have any Bette Hagman's Gourmet Light Flour Blend so I had to play with the flours a little bit. My final flour blend was:
1 ½ c Sorghum flour
1 c Tapioca starch
1 ½ c Rice flour
½ c Cornstarch
½ c Potato flour
This is a whole cup more flour than the original recipe called for, but it worked well for us. It could be the humidity or the altitude, who knows. After baking the gingerbread people, the girls decorated them with egg-free royal icing. So, here are our little gingerbread people (the ones who haven't been eaten yet) saying "Merry Christmas everyone"!

Merry Christmas From Our New Home!

A dear old friend of my husband came to visit this week. He is an amazing photographer, and I finally got some pictures of my new house. This (among other things) is what has taken so much time away from my blogging for the past 5 months. It is finally starting to feel like home though. Isn't it beautiful all covered in snow? It is a whopping -9 degrees here this morning. It was freezing all weekend, but we still managed to get our tree too. Thanks again to our friend for taking these pictures for me!!! These are just snapshots. If you want to see some of his truly breathtaking nature photos you can find him at http://treesloth.printroom.com/GHome_main.asp?domain_name=treesloth .


A VERY HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON TO EVERYONE! :)

Egg Free Royal Icing

I have been holding on to this recipe for a year. Actually, I lost it when my hard drive died and was thrilled to see that I had posted it on another site so I was able to get it back. The other site, by the way, is http://hoppobumpo.blogspot.com/2008/12/great-eggless-royal-icing-experiment.html , and has amazingly detailed descriptions of several other egg free royal icing recipes. I made my icing thick. It was strong enough to assemble a gingerbread house and was hard as a rock by the next day. It also tasted good! You can thin it out a little if you want drippy snow-like icing for the roof, but I don't know how long it will take to harden. I wish very much that I had pictures to show, but we don't have any working cameras in the house. If I can get a decent picture with my disposable camera, I will post it later. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

1 c Powdered sugar
1 T Ener-G egg replacer (dry)
1 t Cream of tartar
1/8 t Xanthan gum
2 T Water (approximately)

Blend all dry ingredients together. Add water slowly until desired consistency is reached.

Broccoli Rissoto

I thought I had already posted this recipe, but I have searched my site and can't find it anywhere. It must have been one I was about to post when I lost my hard drive. I usually make it dairy free for Emily, but here I have added a little cheese at the end to add some protein for Nikki. I just make a full batch, then take half out, and add parmesan to the remaining half. I have been using Wolfgang Puck's Free Range Chicken Broth in a lot of my cooking lately. It tastes wonderful, and I contacted the company and was told that it is free of gluten, dairy, and eggs, (and of course nuts). I can't remember if it has soy and my package is gone so I can't read the ingredients right now, but they assured me that when you read the ingredients there will be none of the top 8 allergens hidden under such titles as "natural flavorings". All major allergens will be stated.

1 c Uncooked arborio rice
2 T Olive oil
2 T Dairy free margarine (for soy free, omit margarine and add 2 more T olive oil)
1/2 c Chopped onion
2 c Chopped broccoli
4 c Chicken broth (one 32 oz box of Wolfgang Puck's Broth)
1/4 c Parmesan cheese (optional)

Saute onion and broccoli in olive oil (and margarine if using) for about 3 minutes. Add rice and stir for another 2 minutes.
Stir in one cup of broth and cook for 5 to 10 minutes, or until broth is absorbed (mine took 8 minutes). Stir while cooking to prevent sticking to the bottom of the pan.
Stir in another cup of broth and continue stirring and cooking for another 5 to 10 minutes, once again until broth is absorbed.
Add another cup of broth and do the same.
Stir in the last cup of broth and continue stirring and cooking until most broth is absorbed and rice is soft with a creamy texture.
Add salt and pepper to taste and at this point add parmesan cheese if desired (If cheese is used this will of course contain dairy). For a "cheesy" taste without the dairy you can also add a T of nutritional yeast which is also fairly high in protein and B vitamins. Enjoy!

Hello Again

I've missed you! Have you ever fallen so far behind on something that the thought of picking it back up again was frightening and overwhelming? I have been thinking about blogging constantly but I just don't know where to begin. We spent the entire summer trying to buy a house with one mishap after another, but we have finally bought our first home and are starting to settle in. between the house and my new job I have been relying on old recipes and not really creating any new ones. I thought that maybe I was done with this whole recipe creating/blogging thing...but times are changing...
Until now all of my recipes have been created for my youngest daughter Emily who has the most food allergies. No one else in the house really eats "Emily's food", it has a stigma. My oldest daughter Amanda was allergic to milk when she was a baby, but she seemed to outgrow it. This past year, however, foods with dairy have started to make her mouth itch and give her stomach aches, so she has been avoiding it for the most part.
A few weeks ago my middle daughter Nikki had her allergy tests done and (drumroll) she is allergic to wheat! I had suspected this for a while but was unwilling to face it. Nikki is a vegetarian and has been eating nothing but pizza, pasta, cheese sandwiches, and Goldfish crackers for a long time. She has had "Emily's food" and doesn't care much for it. We are in the process of working hard to change her diet, but every once in a while we still have a "she's going to starve to death" moment. Nikki is eating rice pasta and we just found a local pizzeria that has gluten free pizza on Mondays, but she is desperately longing for the texture of wheat. Also, Nikki tested negative for peanuts, which I thought was odd, and I told her not to go running out and eat a peanut...so of course she did! I got a call from the school. She was violently ill, throwing up for an hour, then sleeping for two days. I'm thinking the peanut result was wrong!
To sum it all up, it looks like I do need to get back to the drawing board and create some new recipes for ALL of my girls. I don't know when it will happen, I think my muse is on vacation. In the future some of my gluten free recipes may contain eggs and dairy to improve the texture for Nikki and also to provide a little more protein for her. I will try to remember to post a little warning on these recipes ( not that you aren't all pros at reading ingredients!). All of my old recipes will still be here too for those of us that are on more limited diets. Well, here's hoping that I will be back before another three months has flown by! Thanks for sticking with me!!!

Broccoli Salad

I had a hard time naming this one, and yes, my creative conclusion was
"broccoli salad". The flavor is a lot like cole slaw, but it also has a slightly Asian feel due to the sesame seeds. By the way, I didn't use plain sesame seeds in mine, I used Eden Organic's Seaweed Gomasio because that's what I had laying around. Also, I haven't tried this, but I'm thinking that you could avoid the soy by leaving out the Vegenaise and it would have a more genuine Asian flair...but you may need a little more liquid of some sort.

½ c. Vegenaise
¼ c. Agave nectar
¼ c. Rice vinegar
2 T. Toasted sesame seeds
½ t. Celery seeds
½ c. Dried cranberries
1 Bag of Mann's Broccoli Slaw
1 Head of broccoli
Salt and pepper to taste

Chop up the head of broccoli and put it in a bowl with the broccoli slaw and the dried cranberries. Mix the Veganaise, agave nectar, rice vinegar, sesame seeds, and celery seeds. Pour it into the bowl of veggies and stir well. Add a little salt and pepper. Chill for an hour or so to let the flavors combine. WOW, that was easy (and yummy too)!

Yummy Gummy Bears by Surf Sweets!

The Surf Sweets company contacted me and asked if I would like to review their products on my blog. (Well of course I would!) I said yes, and shortly thereafter received a generous box of treats to sample. As a matter of fact, there were so many different candies to try that I kept putting it off because I wanted to be able to devote some time to the sampling. I finally found some time and rounded up three children. E is 7 and has multiple food allergies, N is 13 and a vegetarian but she eats "standard" gummies anyway despite the fact that they have gelatin in them, and K is 13 and has no dietary restrictions whatsoever.

I have before me now four very detailed reports and I am trying to figure out how to organize my review. Let me start by saying that Surf Sweets are mostly organic, with the percentage of organic ingredients used ranging from 87% to 97%. They are made with real fruit juice and natural colors, and provide 100% of the RDA for vitamin C. All of the candies are gluten free, dairy free, soy free, nut free, and made in a completely nut free facility. Most of the treats are also vegetarian because they are made with pectin instead of gelatin.

So, here is the list of candies that we got to try:

Vegetarian: Jelly Beans, Sour Worms, Fruity Bears, Gummy Swirls, and Sour Berry Bears.

Non-Vegetarian: Gummy Bears, and Gummy Worms.

Please use the link at the beginning of this post to see pictures of everything and to get more information.

The textures were just as I'd expect. The Gummy Bears and Gummy Worms were springy and bouncy just like they should be. Everything else had a texture that reminded me a lot of those orange slice candies. It's a softer more jelly-like texture.

As for flavor, we had varying opinions but I'll try to combine them.

Jelly Beans: very very sugary sweet.

Sour Worms: I thought they were the perfect combination of sweet and sour, K said they weren't sour enough.

Fruity Bears: These truly reminded me of the "fruit slices" candy, fruity and sugary.

Gummy Swirls: These had a nice sweet and fruity flavor too, but more than that they are pretty. They look and taste like swirly gumdrops and would be wonderful for decorating cakes and such.

Sour Berry Bears: Way too sour for N, E, and me! N actually spit hers out. K LOVED them!

Gummy Worms: Taste just like gummy worms only a little more tart.

Gummy Bears: These were the hands down favorite of everyone! The taste and texture was incredibly similar to traditional gummy bears, but these were even better! You can really taste the fruit in these.

All of the candies were deliciously fruity. I definitely recommend grabbing a bag and trying them when you get a chance. Hopefully my brief summary above will help you find the one that's just right for you. Thank you again to the Surf Sweets company for thinking of me. The girls and I truly enjoyed your sweets!

Egg-Free Potato Salad On A Rainy Spring Day

I have always considered this to be a "German style" potato salad, but after doing a little research I found that theirs almost always has bacon in it. I may be trying that version next since Emily loves bacon. This salad, however, was created for Nikki, my vegetarian. As you can see it is a beatiful day for eating outside. Everything is green and smells of fresh rain. I picked some chives from my garden and sprinkled them on top of my salad (since the girls don't allow onion IN the salad). Chopped red onion would be really, really good in it too... personally, I love onions!!! OK, enough about onions, here's to spring and the beginning of salad season!

6 Medium sized red potatoes
½ c Chopped Kosher dill pickles
½ c Chopped celery
½ c Sliced black olives
¼ c Dill pickle juice
2 T Reserved black olive juice
2 T Rice vinegar (or any preferred vinegar)
1 t Dried dill weed
½ t onion powder
½ t Salt
A couple of grinds of black pepper
　
Bring 1” of salted water to a boil. Add whole potatoes and bring back to a boil. Cover the pot and reduce heat to medium. Boil for 20 to 30 minutes depending on the size of the potatoes. You want them to have a little resistance when pierced with a sharp knife, but you don’t want them to feel “crunchy” in the middle. Remove potatoes from heat, drain them, rinse in cold water, and drain again. Put them in the fridge to cool.
While the potatoes are cooling, chop up the pickles, celery, and olives. Take out the potatoes and chop them into bite size pieces. Put them into a medium bowl. Add the pickles, celery, and olives, and all of the remaining ingredients on top. Stir everything together with a sort of “folding” motion. It can take a little while to get everything incorporated without mashing the potatoes. A little mashing is good, however, it gives the potato salad a hint of creaminess.

Say Hi To Sophie

This is my niece's daughter Sophie. I can't believe she's 15 months old already and I'm just getting around to introducing you to her. I've never met her in person because they live so far away. Sophie was born on Emily's birthday and has the same allergies plus soy. I am writing this partly to welcome her and her family to our allergy community, but also to ask for help. We used to avoid soy and I remember how hard it was. As soon as we found out we could have it, all of my soy-free knowledge flew right out the window. Her allergies are wheat, eggs, milk, soy and peanuts. If any of my fellow bloggers out there have recipes for this set of allergies, would you please leave your info in my comments box? Any comments or suggestions for toddler foods would be greatly appreciated too. Thank you all!

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries-Allergen Free (unless, of course, you are allergic to strawberries...or chocolate)

I am not a candy maker by any stretch of the imagination, and yes, I've seen prettier, but I'm still darned impressed with myself right now. :)

Several weeks ago my amazing daughter Amanda had to take a HUGE advanced placement European History test, you know, the kind where they search you and take all of your belongings as you enter the room. She was not even allowed to have a water bottle, and had to be "escorted" to the restroom. It was a scary test! I thought she deserved a reward when it was all over so I bought her some chocolate dipped strawberries. She shared them with everyone...except Emily who couldn't have them. I said "I can make some for you, it should be pretty easy". Well, the funny thing is that making them WAS easy, finding the time to make them wasn't. Three different times I bought a basket of beautiful strawberries, came home and put them in the fridge, and by the time I had a day off to make them they were not pretty anymore. Well here they are Emily, finally, I'm sorry it took three weeks to make them!

6 Beautiful strawberries

1 c Allergen free chocolate chips (I usually use Enjoy Life brand, but I just discovered FMV brand-super cheap- at Fred Meyer...so cheap I guess they couldn't afford to put milk in them...YAY! FMV does have soy lecithin, Enjoy Life does not have any soy)

2 t Spectrum brand Palm shortening

1/2 c Allergen free white chocolate chips

1 t Spectrum brand palm shortening

Put your chocolate chips in a tall narrow plastic cup with the 2 teaspoons of shortening and melt in the microwave on medium setting, stirring about every 30 seconds. I would be more specific but every microwave is different. Mine actually has a "melt chocolate" setting. You can, of course, do this the traditional way with a double boiler, but I like to keep things simple. Also, having your chocolate in a narrow and tall glass makes dipping simple and minimizes waste. Cover a plate with parchment or waxed paper. Grab a strawberry by the top and dip about 3/4 of the way into the chocolate. Lay it with the prettiest side up on the plate. Continue until you are out of chocolate or out of strawberries. Place in the fridge until chocolate is hard.

The white chocolate drizzle is optional and I actually found it to be a little trickier than I expected. Add the other 1 teaspoon of shortening to the white chocolate chips and, again, melt in whatever way you are most comfortable with. Allow to cool slightly (that's the part I had trouble with). Transfer into a plastic sandwich bag. Snip a tiny corner off of the bag and use it to "pipe" the white chocolate drizzle over the top of the strawberries. Enjoy!


A little side note here... I made this recipe soy free with my niece's beautiful baby girl Sophie in mind. Sophie is allergic to almost everything Emily is plus soy. I know that a lot of my readers are allergic to soy and so I do tag all of my recipes that are soy free. If you go to my "labels" on the right side of this blog and click on "soy free" the recipes that come up should all be free of gluten, dairy, eggs, peanuts, beef, and soy.

What's A Working Mom To Do?

No, seriously...What? How do you people do this? I used to be offended by the term
"working
mom" when I was a "stay at home mom" because I felt like it implied that those of us staying home weren't "working", but I realize now that there is a difference. Now I have my full time job at home AND I have to spend 9 hours away from home too. I have no time to cook, much less create recipes and write about them. So anyway, I came home from work the other day, Emily was hungry, and I had nothing prepared. This is how it went down...
Open the fridge... "hmmm let's see, we have some leftover steamed broccoli from last night, here's some white rice from the Chinese take out we had on Sunday, and a block of Emily's cheese...cool, cheesy broccoli rice!" So I melted about 1/4 of the block of cheese with 1 tablespoon of margarine in the microwave. I threw in some salt, pepper, onion powder, and a little nutritional yeast for good measure. I added the broccoli that I had chopped up, and the rice, and stirred it all up, then threw it back in the microwave for another minute. Voila, dinner! Technically a side dish really, I did give her a hot dog too for protein.
I just want to take a moment to tell all of you parents out there dealing with food allergies how amazing you are. Weather you are a mom or dad, working outside the home or not, weather you are creating recipes or researching allergy blogs and cookbooks, constantly reading and interpreting labels, always with your child's health foremost in your mind (and those of you doing this for yourselves too) every one of you is a hero! My thoughts go out to you today and I am sending you all a great big virtual allergen free hug!!!

Life Changes

Not much cooking going on this month, as I am working part time now and we are looking to buy a house, not to mention having to show this one. I actually broke down and spent $5.00 a box for Amy's Kids Meals Baked Ziti (my links aren't working so I'm going to do this the long way... http://www.amys.com/products/category_view.php?prod_category=20 ) Emily LOVES these. As far as I know this is the only Amy's Kids Meal that is vegan and gluten free, but it does have almonds, sunflower seeds, and soy. It's a little rice pasta in red sauce with soy cheese, broccoli, gluten free faccocia, and a little apple crisp. It is yummy! My 13 year old will be babysitting Emily while I work so I am going to have to have a lot of quick and easy (probably frozen) meals on hand. It may be time for ME to call on all those wonderful allergen free mommy blogs out there!!! So anyway...we haven't found a house yet but we are renting right now and the owner is selling this house, so the move is imminent. I am very slowly starting to clean house and pack up things that we really don't need out. This poster has been hanging on my wall for a year now, Emily made it in kindergarten. I just love it so much, everything about it! I love the artwork, her design and choice of colors, but of course I also love her awareness of her allergies. It is posted on there, in my opinion, with a sense of pride. It is time for the poster to come down now, but it is definitely going in her memory box! :)