Vegan Vanilla

Vegan Vanilla Pudding

1/3 cup sugar

3 tbsp corn starch

1/8 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups coconut milk

Place sugar, corn starch, and salt in a medium saucepan. While on low heat, gradually add milk while stirring to avoid lumps. Cook on low heat until mixture thickens. Cook 2-3 minutes more. remove from heat. Add vanilla. Whisk. Cool 10 minutes. Place in fridge for 3-4 hours.

Enjoy!!!





Chocolatey Goodness

Ahhh brownies.....chocolatey, gooey, crusty....all the elements have to be there in order to truly have a brownie. The following recipe is the closest I have come to a vegan, gluten-free brownie....it is actually a lot better than I was expecting....and for my son....it is all he knows of brownies so he thinks it is quite fantastic!

Vegan Gluten-free Brownies

1/2 cup applesauce or you can use 1 1/2 tbsp ground flax see soaked in 3 tbsp water (for at least 5 minutes)
1 cup corn flour
1/2 cup and 2 tbsp sorgham flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
pinch of xantham gum
2 tbsp corn starch
1/2 cup cocoa powder (or dark cocoa powder)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup and 2 tbsp oil (I used corn oil)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup and 1/4 cup nondairy chips (I personally like the Enjoy Life brand)
1/4 cup coconut milk
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a 9 in. pan inncluding the sides.
Mix the flours, cocoa powder, salt, xantham gum, salt, baking soda. Set aside.
Melt the 1/2 cup of chocolate chips in the oil in the microwave for about 1 minute. Whisk in the applesauce, suagr, milk, vanilla.
Mix with the dry ingredients. It will be thick. Keep mixing. Fold in the 1/4 cup chocolate chips.
Pour into the greased pan. Bake for 35-37 minutes. Let cool for at least 1.5 hours. Cut and enjoy!

Strawberry Matterhorn

Ahhhh Vacation Bible School Week!!! One of my most creative weeks of the year! With all the themed snacks the Church provides, I have my hands full trying to imitate them so AW will not feel left out. Yesterday was Strawberry Matterhorns....The idea was a cookie with a strawberry topped with Cool Whip.....Well, the strawberry is the only part my son could eat.....Below is my version of it. A sunbutter cookie (a little bigger than the cookie the other kids had...oops!) with a strawberry topped with vanilla icing.

Vanilla Icing

4 cups powdered sugar

1 cup shortening (I use palm oil shortening to avoid soy)

2 tbsp water

1 tsp vanilla

(Add more water to thin ~ up to 3 tbsp)

Whip for 5 minutes 

Enjoy!

Simply Simple Sunbutter Cookies

YUM! Just made these cookies last night. The are the best cookies I have made for my son to date! So excited! So here's the recipe:

1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup shortening (I use Palm Oil Shortening to avoid soy)
1 cup sunflower seed butter
4 tbsp of apple sauce (If you don't avoid eggs, you can use 2 eggs)
2 1/2 cups of flour (I used a flour mix: 1 cup corn flour, 1 cup sorghum flour, 1/2 cup tapioca flour, pinch of xantham gum)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract

Cream sugars, shortening, and sunflower butter. Add applesauce and vanilla. Then add baking soda. Mix in flour. Roll into balls and flatten. Bake at 375 for 8 to 10 minutes.



Enjoy!!!

Introduction

My son has allergies....not that uncommon nowadays. It seems like allergies are everywhere we go and getting worse. My son's allergies are interesting and challenging all at once. He is allergic to the top eight allergies and then some. For those who don't know the top eight are wheat, soy, egg, peanuts, tree nuts, dairy, fish, and shellfish. (In no particular order.) We have known about his allergies since he was 11 months old though we suspected them much earlier than that. Our pediatrician told us that we were wrong. (Always trust your gut, Mamas!) Anyway I have been striving to cook and bake for him for the past 3 plus years. My goal is to make his food as similar as ours. If we go to a birthday party, he has a cupcake. If we go to a Christmas cookie exchange party, he has a variety of cookies (and just skips the exchange). If we go to a pizza party, well you get the idea. It isn't always easy. In fact at times, it is downright difficult and frustrating. Recently, rice became a problem and we had to drop it. Unfortunately rice flour was a staple in my baking and cooking for for the Allergy Wonder. My heart broke the day AW asked for pancakes and I failed. The coconut flour just didn't cut it. He cried, I cried, heck even his twin sister cried. (She by the way has no allergies. Just to make life more interesting!) My friends and family have been saying for a while now that I should write a cookbook for allergies. I usually protest because I don't feel like I really come up with the recipes. I just find recipes to use and then bastardize them with my substitutions. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. (Hence the Pancake disaster of 2012) But in reflecting on the trials and tribulations of having a kid with allergies, I decided that maybe putting the recipes I have used successfully out there might help some other poor allergy kid (and certainly his or her Mama!) So that is what this page is about. A place for me to share recipes and substitutions. Hopefully some of you will find it useful. Maybe some of you won't but it will make you appreciate if you don't have to go through the trouble of substituting food. I don't know. One thing is for sure. It will help me keep track of recipes so I can use them again. As of right now my system is writing the basic recipe on a scrap of paper....adding and changing things as I go. And then later when I want to recreate said item, looking through a billion scraps of paper most of which are unlabelled and untitled, and hoping and praying I first find the right one and second remember what the heck I did. So much fun. I hope you enjoy the fruits of my labor :)