8 Years in the Making

Have you heard the song "Allergies" by  Bare Naked Ladies?  If not, you should take a listen and get a little glimpse into my life.    Here are some of the lyrics:


My little brother is allergic to meat
My friend's mother is allergic to wheat
Allergic to meat?
Allergic to wheat?
Gotta be tricky finding something to eat

That song was made for our family (except me).  My kids and husband have a lot of food allergies.  I am used to it now, after dealing with it for 12 years of marriage and 8 years of motherhood.  Although, nothing prepared me to see my extremely swollen husband with fluid coming out of every orifice in his body in the ER during our first year of marriage.  It was my first time seeing him so severe while he was still in the hospital.  I had seen the after effects, but never to that extent.  Think Martin Short in the movie "Pure Luck".   I knew when we had kids there would be a good chance that they would have some food allergies and boy was I right!  At 6 months, we found out that Makai was allergic to eggs and peanuts.  Cooking without eggs...is that possible.  Now, eight years later, I can say "Yes it is!".  Tanner came along and was allergic to peanuts.  No big deal, easy to avoid.  But then came the big Kahuna, Jameson.  From the time he was 6 weeks old and I found blood in his stool, I had to avoid ALL dairy in my diet while I was nursing.  Can you say difficult?  But I managed.  Everyone told me he would grow out of it by the time he was two years old.  He is now three and just as severe as ever with his dairy, egg and peanut allergies!

People always ask me "what do you cook"?  It seems like such a strange question to be because I just adapt and I am used to it.  I will say that Jameson eats WAY too many dino nuggets, but they are his favorite and are easy to microwave while the rest of us are enjoying our pizza.

However, I finally reached my crowning achievement recently.  Dairy free, egg free chocolate chip cookies.  I have tried many different ways to make them with no success.  They were too hard, called for strange ingredients, cooked funny, tasted funny, etc.  But I finally got it!  Here is the delicious Allergy Chocolate Chip cookies.

2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup shortening
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup applesauce (in place of 2 eggs)
1/2 tsp. water
3/4 of a package of Ghiradelli's semi-sweet chocolate chips (gold package- no dairy in them!!)

Combine everything but the first three ingredients and mix thoroughly.  Add the dry ingredients together and mix.  Slowly add the dry ingredients and chocolate chips to the other mixture.  Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes.

ALL of my kids love these and it is so nice to have a sweet treat that everyone can enjoy.  I hope you enjoy them as well!