Rare recipe finds!

If you're a food allergy mama (or daddy, I suppose), then you know how rare it is to run across a recipe that you can use straight up without modifications. Especially if you're egg and dairy free and are looking at baking recipes!! Plus, fall/winter is "time of the nuts" it seems. Ugh. Honestly, I impulsively (and stupidly) bought the holiday recipe issue of one of the popular woman's magazines and a third of the recipes contained nuts (yes, I counted!).

Anyway. That said, I found this GREAT biscuit recipe in last month's Wondertime magazine. No modifications necessary if you have a vegan margarine in your "safe" list. They are totally delicious. And easy. I've made them three times this month -- once with butternut squash instead of sweet potatoes, because that was what I needed to use up. G and Hubby were both big fans too, which isn't an easy feat.

Another great, accidental find was this muffin recipe from Mothering Magazine about a year ago. It just happened to be on the front page of their website and I couldn't believe it was vegan. Yummy and healthy. What a joy to not have to find the best egg/dairy substitutions!

Book review

I am currently in love with The Joy of Vegan Baking. In love, I tell you.

I like to bake and I have had pretty good success with baking since we realized that G is fine with wheat/gluten. The main restriction is lack of egg, as it tends to be easy to work around dairy with butter and milk substitutes.

This book, however, has really improved my already decent egg/dairy-free baking. From the allergy perspective there are some definite cons: it relies heavily on wheat andsoy products (tofu, soy yogurt), plus there are plenty of recipes with nuts and seeds, of course. In our case, the soy and wheat aren't a problem, so we're basically good to go. I skip the nut/seed heavy recipes, or just omit them if they aren't a big part of the recipe. Also, you need to have a safe margarine in your repetoire (FUM*, Nucoa or Earth Balance).

The pumpkin pie and sugar cookies are great. I even think they are better than their eggy and dairy laden counterparts, actually -- but perhaps my palette is skewed nowadays. The German Apple Cake is also a huge hit in our house. It's quick, easy and relatively healthy...especially given how freakin' delicious it is.

*Fleishman's unsalted margarine (salted Fleishmans and most other brands have whey).