Funday Sunday - Pizza Casserole

Pizza's great and wonderful and all, but sometimes it can get a little old. So here's a nice little recipe for something that is like pizza...only not. I have no memory of where I picked up this recipe, but I've been making it since I was still living at home with my parents. It's pretty tasty. So tasty, in fact, that the hubby asks for it fairly often. It's called Pizza Casserole. It's another one of those recipes that you can add or subtract with any ingredients you feel you want. Enjoy!

Pizza Casserole**

12 oz. Fettuccine or egg noodles
1 Package of pepperoni (3 1/2 oz pkg.)
1 1/2 jars of pizza sauce (14 oz jars)
12 oz. Mozzarella cheese or soy cheese substitute; shredded*
1 Can of mushrooms (4 oz)
1 Can of sliced black olives (2.25 oz)

Cook the noodles and drain. Cut the pepperoni in halves. Add sauce to the noodles. Add as much as you prefer, but I like my saucy. Add the pepperoni, black olives and mushrooms and mix well. Then add half of the cheese and mix into the casserole. Put it in a 9X13 pan and top with the remaining cheese. Cook in the oven at 350° for 30 minutes or until the cheese on top is melted and slightly browned. Serve with some garlic toast and green beans or a nice salad for a tasty meal.

*This recipe is great without the cheese as well for the kids. Naturally, due to milk allergy, I don't add the cheese for the kids. I put some in a separate dish for the kiddos and set it aside. Sometimes I add a soy cheese substitute, but they seem to like it better without it.
**You can get more creative with this recipe. Think about a pizza you like and put those ingredients in. Example: Peppers, onions, sausage, pepperoni, mushroom, & black olives= Supreme pizza. Canadian bacon & Pineapple= Hawaiian pizza. Be creative and enjoy!

Funday Sunday - Ultimate Marshmallow Brownies

This weekend I made a tasty pan of brownies. Not good for my diet. At all. But it was meant purely as my Sunday dinner dessert. Um...I mean the kids' dessert. Yeah. I bought a box of brownie mix (because I wanted to be totally lazy and it was on sale). I didn't want just plain old brownies so I got creative and made a much tastier dessert. A lot of brownie mixes out there just have wheat and soy as their listed allergens. Just remember to always check, check again, and triple check for the milk-allergic kid. It makes a 9X13 pan of sinful deliciousness so beware the scale after consuming this lovely dessert. Needless to say, a good chunk of this bad boy will be leaving the house in Josh's lunch box tomorrow morning. Otherwise, enjoy!

Ultimate Marshmallow Brownies

1 Brownie mix*
1 C. Chocolate chips**
2 C. Mini Marshmallows

Chocolate Glaze

1/8 C. Cocoa
1 1/3 C. Powdered sugar
1 t. Vanilla
Soy milk (add 1 t. at a time until glaze-like consistency.)

Make the brownies according the instructions on the box. Mix in the chocolate chips to the batter and spread in a greased 9x13 pan. Once the brownies are done baking, then take them out of the oven. Sprinkle on the marshmallows to cover the top and place back in the oven for about 2 minutes or until they fluff up nice and big. Do not over cook or marshmallows will brown. Cool for 10 minutes. While waiting for the brownies to cool, make the chocolate glaze. Use a spoon and drizzle the glaze over the marshmallows. Cool completely for an easier cut. Enjoy!

*You can make the brownies from scratch. This is just an easy way to do it. **Don't forget to make sure you have a milk-free chocolate chip.

I Could 'Soy'vive

I've been doing some thinking lately about the food allergy situation that we've been dealing with now for going on three years. It's been a bumpy ride, but lately things have been going relatively smooth. When I first found out that Alex was allergic to milk, it was devastating. It was as if someone dropped me into a a sea of black water with no stars to guide me home and I was barely able to keep my nose above the water. I was still breastfeeding Alex when it all happened. For Alex's protection, the allergist told me I had no other choice but to stop eating milk, eggs and nuts (in any form - including manufactured in a facility). I was so lost and confused that I couldn't manage to find anything to eat. I lost so much weight in such a short time that it became seriously unhealthy for me to continue breastfeeding my child. Before this time I had never had anyone refer to me as 'guant'. I was so much thinner than normal. By nine months, I had to wean him just so I could eat again. When looking back on that time, I wished that there was someone giving me advice because the allergist was anything but helpful. I've learned that sometimes you need to use your own motherly instincts in the situation as well as the advice from doctors. When they told me that he had a 'border-line' egg allergy, I didn't think twice because the doctor struck the fear of God into me and told me that if he had eggs he'd slip into anaphylactic shock and possibly die. Point is, I didn't know how to survive without keeping milk in my diet (seriously, it's in everything).

Three years later, I've come to realize that my self-education on food allergies has made me a pro. If ever I had to take milk out of my diet, I know now that I could survive and probably never lose a pound in doing so. I've adjusted our house so that every meal I make, I can make milk-free. Not only every meal, but ever dessert, every drink, and every snack. Okay, okay. So I still snack on the occasional dairy products that are kept well out of Alex's searching fingers. But if I had to get rid of that stuff, it'd be a piece of dairy-free cake. If I had to replace milk in my diet, I couldn't stand soymilk plain. But have you ever tried Silk brand chocolate soymilk? Um...I still buy that for the kids once every few months and find myself drinking half of it. Yummy stuff. SoyDelicious brand makes amazing non-dairy soy 'ice'cream. There are various soy cheeses to make pizza and I'm certainly a pro and reading lables. I've found just about everything I ever really wanted in a non-dairy form (except whipped cream...still searching for that one.) I've made everything from pumpkin pies and pudding to pizza and ranch dip for chips. Heck, I can even live without peanut butter due to the soybutter options out there.

So after three years of diligent label reading, restaurant research (Wendy's hamburgers and fries), and constant research I have learned to take my son's food allergy and work with it to the point where I can do almost anything to let him live a normal and happy life. Heck, the kid is still in the 95th percentile for weight and 80th for height. The next time I will have to worry about it will be when he goes to school, but God willing he might have grown out of it by that time. He's due for another round of allergy testing. It's been a year and he's supposed to be checked every six months to a year. I used to get so anxious for those days. I'd build my hopes up that he might have negative results for a change. This year, I think I might actually be skipping the tests unless the doctor stresses it. Because for the first time in three years...I'm comfortable with my allergic kid. It can be stressful and sometimes break my heart when he can't have what the other kids have. Especially when others just can't fathom how allergies can turn your world upside down. But personally, it's just good to know that after three years of worry and doubt, I know that I could really soyvive.

Funday Sunday - Banana Pudding Dessert

Funday Sunday is back this week with a couple of new tips that I discovered for the dairy allergic kid and a tasty recipe that I remember my mom making when I was a kid. I do believe there is a recipe like this on the back of a Nilla Wafers box, but seeing as how the actual Nilla Wafer brand of cookie has milk in it, I can't really say for sure. I have searched high and low for milk free Nilla Wafer type cookies and finally was victorious. Just a tip, if you are looking for tasty store bought cookies that don't have milk in them, check the cheap store brands. I've found extraordinarily wonderful cookies that only contain wheat and soy. The kids thank me for them. And the new tip of the week is for boxed pudding. Turns out that Jello brand cook and serve puddings actually work when you use soy milk. Just add about one tablespoon of watered down cornstarch once it's boiling and wa-lah! Pudding! So this week's Funday Sunday is for the Banana Pudding Dessert. Enjoy!

Banana Pudding Dessert

2 Boxes of Jello brand cook and serve pudding
4 C. Soy Milk*
2 Bananas
2 T. Cornstarch for thickening the pudding
1 Box of milk-free vanilla wafer cookies (see picture)

First make your pudding on the stove. Follow the instructions on the box using two boxes of pudding mix and the four cups of milk. Prepare the cornstarch by adding enough water to it so that it becomes a liquid. Probably anywhere from 2 to three tablespoons of water. There are instructions on the box of cornstarch. Once the pudding has come to a rolling boil, add your cornstarch mixture and whisk until it becomes partially set up. Remove the pudding and cool in the fridge so that it's no longer boiling hot. Warm is fine. Line a 8X8 or 9X9 pan with the vanilla cookies. Place them side by side until the bottom has a layer of cookies and then place a row of cookies on the sides of the pan so that you now have a cookie 'crust'. Put a layer of pudding on the cookies. Slice your bananas in medium thick coins to make the next layer, then cover that with pudding. Make another layer of cookies, then pudding, then bananas...you get the idea. Make as many layers as you have pudding to put in between the layers. Top it off with a layer of cookies (crushed or whole). Let it set for at least one to two hours so the cookies have time to soften. Enjoy!**

*Use the highest fat soy-milk you can find. I use Silk Soy-milk that is Omega 3 Plain. It's the highest fat one out there that I've found.
**When I was a kid, my mom topped it with whipped cream (Cool-whip). But I've yet to find that item dairy-free. Feel free to whipped cream it up if you aren't milk-allergic!

Funday Sunday

So, when I started Funday Sunday I said I'd use it to share fun recipes or neat items of food that I've found that are milk-free. During Halloween, it was difficult to watch Alex ask for all of the chocolaty goodness and have to tell him no. I don't know why it hurts me to think that all those other kids get to try the Three Musketeer or the Snickers but not him. After weeding out all the milk-free candy, I got to wondering if I would ever find a label on something chocolate that would not include dreaded milk. This is when I almost tossed my miracle candy into the milk pile. I saw a little box of Junior Mints and after checking countless labels, didn't know if it was worth looking. But to my surprise, it said "May contain traces of milk" but didn't actually contain any in the ingredients list. So I got all warm and fuzzy inside and decided to research it. I called the company and had a message in to product control. They actually called me back a couple of days later and told me that it is packaged on the same line that have packaged one product that also may contain milk. Turns out that this product only 'may contain milk' because of where one of the ingredients come from. The lines are fully cleaned and sanitized and so after careful consideration...Alex can now have Junior Mints. Chocolate for my milk allergic kid! Ahh...a silver lining to the madness. I'll still always check the label though.

Funday Sunday: Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies

This Sunday's edition of Funday Sunday is brought to you by Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies. This recipe has been passed on to me by my mom who shall from here on be referred to as the best cook ever. This recipe, though deceiving by the name, can be made 100% milk and peanut free. It's a very good recipe that has countless possibilities when it comes to different combinations. You just change up the different kinds of chips and pudding flavors that are out there. Now as far as dairy free goes, I've never found any other flavor other than chocolate for the chips. But a good majority of Jello® brand pudding oddly enough has no milk in it. Just be sure to always double check the label if you have a milk allergy like Alex does. So without further ado, here's the goods.

Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies

1 c. Butter*
1/4 c. Sugar
3/4 c. Brown sugar
2 Eggs
1 t. Vanilla
1 Box of vanilla instant pudding**
1 t. Baking soda
2 1/4 c. Flour
1 Package of chocolate chips***

Mix butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla together in a large bowl. Add the dry pudding mix and stir until mixed well. Add the baking soda and flour and mix and then add the package of chocolate chips. Spoon out on a cookie sheet (I don't grease my pan because it's supposed to be non-stick, but you could use a lightly greased pan if the cookies seem to stick). Bake at 375 degrees until lightly brown. Now...if you use chocolate pudding it is a bit harder to see how brown they are so I'd venture to say check them after about ten minutes. The funny thing about my mom is that she never really was one for setting timers on her food. She passed that down to me.

*For a good stick 'butter' that is 100% milk-free I've found that Blue Bonnet Light works great.
**For allergy-free families, you can use any kind of chip. White chocolate and butterscotch are really tasty in these. There are two brands I've found that are milk-free. Kroger Value brand Semi-sweet chocolate chips and Baker's Choice chocolate chunks.
***Make sure you check the allergen label on Jello® brand pudding if you want milk-free. But try changing it up with different flavors. White chocolate chips with fudge pudding, chocolate chips with butterscotch pudding, cherry chips with lemon pudding...the possibilities are endless!