Allergy Story ~ Week One

I have to admit, when the nurse asked me to remove all dairy and eggs from ds4’s diet for a week I was overwhelmed…I honestly had no idea how I was going to be able to make it through an entire week of cooking and baking for my family without dairy and egg.

Well, some of the non-dairy substitutions were pretty easy to make.  Dh brought home some almond milk a few days into our non-dairy week…and ds4 LOVED it!  I had some with my cereal the other day, I think I actually prefer it over cow’s milk :) 

It also seems that there are many different foods that you can use to replace eggs such as vinegar, applesauce, and even a flax meal and water mixture.  The dairy-free and egg-free cake that I made for ds4’s birthday called for vinegar, which I assume replaced the egg…and it turned out pretty good.

However, I was having a very hard time coming up with non-dairy butter substitutions that I was comfortable using.  Many of the recipes that I came across used non-dairy margarine, non-dairy shortening, or vegetable oil to replace butter.  I have not used margarine or shortening in my baking for years…and I did not feel comfortable using it now.  So what to do?

Then I  remembered that I had an unopened jar of coconut oil in my cabinet…didn’t I read somewhere that coconut oil can be used to replace butter, shortening and oil?  Maybe it’s time to do some experimenting…One night I replaced the butter in one of our favorite fall recipes, Apple Crumble, with coconut oil…and it turned out great.  There was a slight coconut taste to the dish, but it was still very yummy :)

I wasn’t sure that we could do it, but we have managed to survive our first week of being dairy-free and egg-free…well, a couple of us non-allergy people have eaten a little bit of cheese {I have a fridge full of the stuff}, and my dh and the two older kiddos are still drinking regular dairy-full milk {I had picked up two gallons of the stuff the night before the nurse called}.  But for the most part we have eliminated much of the dairy and egg from our meals this past week.

It has taken a bit of pre-planning on my part, and a lot of research.  Thankfully I have found some very helpful resources that are making this change a bit easier.  I ordered a wonderful resource on going dairy free, aptly named Go Dairy Free ~ the author also has a website entitled One Frugal Foodie which features some really yummy sounding dairy and egg free recipes.  We had the Whole Wheat Vegan Pancakes for dinner one night…dh and ds8 declared them to be delicious…maybe even better than our regular pancake recipe!