Emily's Allergies: Favorite Banana Pancakes on Fathers Day

It's Father's Day and there is nothing like a great breakfast with that special lady in your life. I love pancakes. I can eat stacks of them. Emily loves bananas as well; she would have them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if she could. Her allergies to milk and eggs make it impossible for her to enjoy pancakes outside of the house, which is a bummer because I would have loved to take her to some of my favorite diners for breakfast.

For this recipe, I picked up some Cherrybrook Kitchen Gluten Free Dreams Pancake Mix at Whole Foods. It's dairy, nut, and egg free. I love this stuff. I just followed the directions on the box. Next, I chopped up 2 large bananas - one for the mix itself and the other for topping. They suggest rice milk, but I used Vanilla soy milk instead. I also added a pinch of cinnamon and sugar to go with the banana. Emily had a blast mixing for me. You can see the focus in her face.



She ate most of the bananas in the preparation process; so by the time I served her the pancakes, she only ate a few pieces. That's O.k. Dada is always there to "clean up" after her. After she was done, it was time for drawing before we headed out to Central Park to play and get wet. That's where my cell phone tragically leapt into a watery grave. I hope all the Dads out there (mothers also) had a wonderful Father's Day. I know I did.

Emily wants Broccoli in hers please!!

Last week Wednesday I asked the Twitterverse where should I take Princess tomorrow for dinner? I was answered by Tamara Wudinich who runs the blog Serendipindots if Emily Likes Mac n' Cheese. She heard of S'Mac in NY and that it was a good Food Allergy friendly place. I have heard of S'mac before and even tasted some of their Mac n' Cheese at a street fair a long time ago. So the decision was made. My co worker and good friend Kim who runs the site Virago Inc. (This one is for the grown ups;) One of the many people who kidnap my princess whenever I bring her into the office treated me and Emily to S'mac once I told her about the place. We stopped to get some Vegan Chocolate cake before getting to S'mac.  I asked princess what she wanted in her Mac n' Cheese and gave her the choices of hamburger meat, broccoli or chicken to go in her vegan noch size pan of mac n' cheese. She chose the Broccoli. I love that she loves it as much as I do. Kim got vegan mac n' cheese with Spinach and Garlic and I got American and cheddar cheese with broccoli and mushrooms. You have to be careful the pans they bring out your orders in are very HOT! So let them cool a bit before digging in. Emily Loved her order but then saw the "Ketsup" sitting on the table and wanted some on hers. I put a tiny bit at first to see how she would like it. Of course she loved it and made me put it on the whole thing. After eating this Delish! Mac n Cheese Dinner it was time for Cake! I must say this cake was a little sweeter than the other one we had before. Emily went through it like no tomorrow afterwards Jetting out of S'mac! She was on a sugar rush running and climbing every set of steps spinning and jumping. It was toddler Parkour. 

Emily's Allergies Chocolate Bliss

OK so every weekend I have with princess is always a great one. We had a great time at my my mothers (booboos) house for her Birthday. Ate until we all dropped, But the highlight of the weekend for Emily was Death by Chocolate Cake! I have had my fair share of chocolate cakes but nothing like this. We went to Atlas Cafe. A vegan and non vegan hole in the wall Mecca. They get there desserts from Vegan Treats in Bethlehem, PA. A co worker of mine put me on to them and Atlas Cafe. So I had to share this with Princess. I ordered a Vegan Philly Cheese Steak and a piece of Death by Chocolate Cake. Emily went straight for the cake :) I have to admit I was skeptical at first thinking how could something be soooooo god and vegan. So watching Emily indulge herself in this chocolate paradise looking at her face waiting for her to break out from an Allergic reaction. Nothing happened thankfully she ate some sandwich also but was more into the cake. They have a variety of treats from Strawberry Shortcake to Coconut Cake :) I recommend Atlas Cafe to anyone for a good meal (vegan or not) and make sure you save room for Desert! Princess always has room.    

April Food Allergy Fools! (My Weekender)

Soooooo yesterday was April first (April Fools) I made some delish Vegan sugar cookies for Emily. She loved them so much. Nothing seemed to be wrong with them by her standards but there was something a little deceiving about them. Maybe it was the cauliflower i steamed and pureed and added to the batter ;)
Yes i did it i added veggies to my princesses yummy treat. Even though it wasn't a really good april fools attempt. I still liked the fact she was fooled by thinking she was just getting a treat that was just something sweet to eat. I used a simple recipe you can find here.  Just break off about 2 bulbs of cauliflower steam them puree and add to the batter. It doesn't change the taste at all. If it did Emily's picky tongue would figure it out. I say give it a shot. Maybe add it to a cake. And if you don't want to use an egg replacer like Ener-G you can always use a banana smashed and mix it in with the batter. I hope you all had a great april fools.

Soooooooy Good Biscuits

I'm going  to be sharing one of Emily's favorite things to eat. Biscuits...she can't have regular buttermilk biscuits so I had to come up with a way to work around princesses food allergies. So knowing that my grandma knew how to make some gooooood buttermilk biscuits so i took her recipe and tweeked it for princess. Her recipe was.

• 2 cups of flour 
• 1 tbs of baking powder
• 1 tbs of sugar 
• 1/2 tbs salt
• 8 tbs of butter which I substituted with Earth Balance buttery sticks
• 3/4 cups of milk that i replaced with Soy Milk

Preheat the oven at 450°
In a large bowl add flour, baking powder, sugar,salt and the butter
Mixing it together with your hands is always best for me until the mixture looks like crumbs.
Add the soy milk (or whichever milk you like) and mix until sticky. Place on a floured surface and kneed the dough until the moisture is gone.
Roll out your dough into a 1/4 inch thick layer and fold. Cut out your biscuits and place them on a greased baking sheet. Bake for 15 min or until the tops are golden.
They always come out great. Emily loves biscuits with jelly or Apple Butter :)

I wont let Food Allergies stop the goodness.

Having a child with food allergies can be hard sometimes. You want them to enjoy all the things you did when you where a kid. When i was little one of my favorite things to eat was Banana Pudding. Oh gosh how i loved it so much. I got sick one time from eating it so much :) I took princess to my grandmothers house and my grandma wanted an old fashioned Banana Pudding. You know the cooked pudding the Nilla wafers and the whipped egg whites all layered up and baked so the top is a little brown. Well its a tasty banana pudding but i felt sooo bad because princess wouldn't be able to enjoy the goodness. I had to figure out a way to make a banana pudding for my Emily to enjoy. I found out that the Jell-O brand instant pudding mix didn't have any protein allergens in the ingredient list and i know that Oreos are safe for princess to eat also the golden ones. Nilla Wafers contain milk and eggs.So making the mix using soy milk i started splitting oreos. I didn't want to make it super sweet so i removed the cream and lined the baking pan with the cookie. I needed a cream to layer with the cookies and bananas. I found a recipe for Vegan Coconut cream. I mean wow this banana pudding was amazing. Using these simple replacements Emily got to enjoy a great treat. She wanted more and more but I didn't want her to get a tummy ache like i did when I was young. It was a great desert. Nothing special make it just how you would any other banana pudding.

What does Milk mean to you?

Yesterday I listed the names of ingredients on labels that you may not understand what they are and they contained egg protein. its the protein that trigger allergic reactions when the immune system produces antibodies and histamines to fight off the foreign body. Thus causing maybe a breakout or itchy eyes or throat or even Anaphylaxis. I'm listing ingredients on labels that contain Milk Protein in them so you know what to look out for.

 

• Butter 

 Any type of butter that you see on a label. From Butter fat oil to Natural Butter Flavor.

• Casein & Caseinates 

Anything with these words in it has Milk Protein in it. Casein is a bonding agent that's used for things like cheese. But it can also be found in cosmetic products some pants and adhesive products.

• Cheese

  All types. Even cheese flavor (artificial and natural), Vegetarian cheeses have casein. So i use Vegan cheese like Daiya.

• Cream, whipped cream

• Curds

• Custard

• Dairy product solids

• Galactose

• Ghee

• Half & Half

• Hydrolysates 

• Ice cream, ice milk, sherbet

• Lactalbumin, lactalbumin phosphate

• Lactate solids

• Lactyc yeast

• Lactitol monohydrate

• Lactoglobulin

• Lactose

• Lactulose

• Nisin preparation

• Nougat

• Pudding

• Quark

• Recaldent

• Rennet casein or Rennet

• Simplesse is a fat replacer

• Whey 

• Yogurt 

There are vegan products you can buy so your child doesn't have to be deprived of tasty treats in life.

Warm up to Cauliflower

 I have hardly had problems with Emily eating her veggies. She sees me enjoying them and she wants to do the same thing and feel as good as "Dada" does when he eats his veggies. But she is a toddler and she has her moments where she doesn't want anything to do with veggies. So I have to disguise whats good for her so she will eat it. Princess loves mashed potatoes but they have little nutritional value. In steps the MIGHTY CAULIFLOWER! I use a simple for Cauliflower mashed potatoes you can look at here. And Cauliflower comes in different colors like purple, orange, and green. So you can have fun with it. Maybe a purple Cauliflower soup with a orange swirl. Cauliflower is also great to cook into other things like cakes, cookies, and brownies to give them some nutritional value. Cauliflower is a great source of Vitamin C

Ohhhh yea its Fat Tuesday

Ok its a bummer I'm not in New Orleans Licking my fingers after a Crawfish Boil. But I'm not. ( insert sad face here). So I'm just going to share a recipe for some New Orleans Style Chicken. For me being a Vegetarian I use Light Life Chick'n Strips in which I love almost all there products. So thats what I replace the chicken in the recipe for and as for the cheese I use Daiya Vegan Cheese. The cheese has none of the common allergens in it but as for the Chick'n strips they contain soy. Those are my tweeks to a simple recipe.