French Toast for the Allergic Teen

I am feeling like a very neglectful parent. This happens from time to time. Like the time I forgot to pick up our daughter at school in temps of 10 below zero (thank goodness she waited inside). Or the time I forgot my son’s orthodontist appointment for the third time. I am sure there are many more times of my extreme “spaciness” that I have chosen to forget and have blamed it on too much “stuff” swirling in my brain to concentrate on one thing.

The other morning, my allergic teen said something that really made me feel terrible. It was last Saturday morning and in a very uncharacteristic moment for a typical busy Saturday, I asked her if she wanted me to make her some French Toast. She responded by saying, “I don’t know, I have never had French Toast.” “Really?!” I said a bit dumb-founded at the fact that she is 14 years old and I had never made it for her before. Even though I have made her countless variations of muffins, coffee cakes, donuts and even crepes, I cannot remember ever making her French Toast. Before you send me hate messages or turn me in for child neglect on behalf of my poor family, I know I have made French toast before, but the few times I had made it, I used traditional eggs in the recipe and she ate something else those mornings, which she did not seem to mind.

On that Saturday morning, I decided to make her some French Toast that she could eat; which meant that it needed to be dairy and egg free. I quickly did a search for "Vegan French Toast” and found several basic recipes. What I noticed is that each recipe used flour instead of egg to coat the toast before frying. I was sure this substitution would make the bread too stiff and feel like we were eating a sandwich for breakfast. Well, as I found out, this was not the case. The combination of whole wheat flour and maple syrup added just the right amount of texture to make the French Toast delicious! I also added some nutmeg because I adore nutmeg and I thought it would pair well with the cinnamon. 

From now on, I will make it this way because I really did not miss the egg taste, in fact, the maple, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla flavors are enhanced without the egg to mask them. Give this recipe a try and see if you like it as much as I do!

French Toast (no dairy, eggs, or nuts)

Makes 6 slices

1 ¼ C  Soy or rice milk

¼ C  Whole wheat flour

1 T   Maple syrup

1 tsp.  Vanilla

½ tsp. Cinnamon

¼ tsp. Nutmeg

6 slices of French bread

Powdered sugar

Directions:

Combine the milk, flour, maple syrup, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg and whisk together. Pour mixture into shallow bowl. Place slice of bread into bowl one at a time and coat both sides with mixture.

Place toast in a frying pan coated with cooking spray and heat over medium heat. Cook until golden brown on one side and flip. Do the same with the other side. Serve warm with powdered sugar or maple syrup on top.

Vaccines and the Allergic Teen

Vaccinations or the lack of vaccinations seems to be the topic of conversation this past month. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of measles cases reported has reached to 121 people in over 17 states; and this is just one and a half months into the year 2015.

It also seems as if everyone wants to express their own opinion on this subject. It is for this reason that I have held off mentioning it in this blog. Until now, that is. Last week I read a letter from Dr. Tim Jacks called “To the Parent of the Unvaccinated Child Who Exposed My Family to Measels” This article pretty much sums up how I feel about those who chose to not have their kids vaccinated.  I will try to express my feelings without sounding too “preachy” or “self-absorbed” especially since that is not my nature.

In this letter, Dr. Jacks talks about his five year old daughter who is currently undergoing treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which is a blood cancer. Because of this illness, his daughter, Maggie cannot receive the MMR vaccine and was in a Phoenix hospital receiving treatment when she and her brother were exposed to another patient who developed measles. Infants, children with cancer and children with egg allergies cannot receive the MMR vaccine.

You can feel the frustration and anger in his tone and his words. He goes on the say, “I have a number of strong feelings surging through my body right now. Towards my family, I am feeling extra protective like a papa bear. Towards you, unvaccinating parent, I feel anger and frustration at your choices.” This is not so much the frustration of a doctor who does not understand the reasons why someone would choose not to vaccinate their child; this seems to be a deeper anger only a parent can get when their child is being wronged or worse, in danger of harm. 

This is the same frustration and anger that I starting feeling last October when my Allergic Teen became sick. What we thought might be a cold with the usual asthma problems; coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath quickly turned into something entirely different. This time the shortness of breath turned into uncontrollable coughs and then a quick sucking in of air because she was unable to breath. For someone who is already having trouble breathing, this can be very frightening.

It took three doctor’s visits for her to be diagnosed with Whooping Cough, another disease that is prevented by vaccination. The first two doctors did not even mention the possibility of Whooping Cough because her records mentioned that she was already vaccinated for it so they thought it was highly unlikely for her to get it. Finally, the third doctor, her allergist, knew her symptoms were consistent with Whooping Cough.

In the three weeks she was sick with Whooping Cough she was using her nebulizer three times a day, taking antibiotics and on various strengths of Prednisone, a steroid, for over a month. She was so sick that they were thinking of admitting her to the hospital. Sometimes the coughing was so bad that she would throw up the dinner she had finally been able to eat after days of not eating much. Many times, she would have a coughing fit and then run to the bathroom to spit up the phlegm that had resided in her stomach. Take my word on this, the large amounts of phlegm were truly frightening. Even months later, the bouts of coughing still occur but not as often. I can tell you that this really scared me and each time I hear her cough I worry whether she is getting sick again.

To those parents who chose not to have their children vaccinated, I understand your need to protect your children from what you feel may be harmful to them. The problem is that by doing this you are putting many other children, like Maggie and others who cannot get the vaccine, all in jeopardy. For these kids, who immune systems are already compromised, this decision can be very harmful, even deadly.

For now, we will continue to hope that the MMR vaccine our allergic teen has received will be enough to prevent her from getting measles. So for those parents’ who have not vaccinated their children, please reconsider your decision for the sake of the other children out there who do not have a choice!

Wanted: Teens with Allergies to Help Educate!

Want a way to meet other teen's with food allergies from across the country? Do you feel you may be able to help other allergic teens? Would you like to let other people know what it is like to live with food allergies? FARE is giving you the opportunity to sign up with their Teen Advisory Group (TAG). They are currently looking for teens between the ages of 11 and 22 and who have food allergies to be part of their advisory team for 2015. This is a great way to communicate with other teens who might have similar allergies. Some of these lucky teens will be chosen to speak at the FARE National Food Allergy Conference and Teen Summit being held this year on May 16-17, 2015 at the Hyatt Regency Long Beach in Long Beach, CA. Teens can also write articles for their Teen Blog and can help other teens by being a mentor. Teens who are interested need to apply and should be between the ages of 11 and 22 and are currently living with food allergies. The application deadline is February 22, 2015.

Vegan Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies

As a kid, I used to love caramel, especially during Christmas time; they were our special treat from Santa! Every year on Christmas Eve, my parents would have all seven of us take our baths, jump into our pajamas, hop into bed and read books together as we waited for the jingle of Santa’s bell. That special jingle meant that Santa had come to our house! We would all rush downstairs and quickly open our presents. After everyone had opened their presents, it was time for us to see what Santa left us in our stockings. As I reached for my stocking, I would quickly toss aside the apples, oranges, and walnuts. Lo and behold, I would then zero in on the Hershey’s kisses and, my favorite, the caramel. If I was lucky, I could quickly eat some before my Mom would see me. If not, I would have to wait until tomorrow to eat them because it was off to bed. The anticipation would sometimes keep me up at night, dreaming of the mouth-watering caramel in my mouth.

Over the years, my love for caramel has diminished to be replaced for an intense need for dark chocolate instead. This long ago longing recently returned after I tried a salted caramel chocolate chip cookie for the first time. Sea salt, caramel and chocolate chips all in one cookie. Genius! Caramel is traditionally made with milk or cream and butter so that made it off-limits for our teen due to her dairy allergies. There are recipes out there on how to make your own caramels but most of them include nuts. Cara Reed from Fork and Beans has a great recipe that is nut free if you want to learn how to make them yourself!

I decided to buy some from JJ’s Sweets Cocomels Sea Salt Caramels to see if these would work for a quicker fix. Their caramels are made with Coconut Milk and are dairy-free and gluten-free. They have four varieties available and you can order a sample pack to try them all. Please note: they are manufactured in a facility that shares space with other companies who produce nut products. JJ Sweet’s uses their own equipment in their processing. Since my teen does not have trouble with the Cocomel Caramels, we used them in the recipe below.

Vegan Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

½ C vegan butter

¾ C brown sugar

½ C granulated sugar

2  Egg replacer eggs (3 tsp. egg replacer + 2 T warm water)

1  T non-dairy milk

1  tsp. vanilla extract

2  C All purpose flour

1  tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. sea salt

1  C non-dairy chocolate chips

9  pieces of Sea Salt Cocomel Caramels, each cut in half

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 375° F. Line your baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper. Mix the egg replacer and warm water and let stand for 5 minutes.

In a large bowl using an electric mixer, cream the butter and both sugars together until well-blended. Add the egg replacer mixture, vanilla and non-dairy milk and mix until blended. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and sea salt ingredients. Add half of your dry ingredients to the creamed mixture, mix well and repeat with the other half. Dough should roll together in a ball. If too flaky, add a bit more non-dairy milk. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Roll 1 tablespoon of cookie dough into a ball. Cut the Cocomel caramels in half and place one half in each rolled cookie dough ball. Smooth some dough over the caramel to close up cookie. Repeat for the remainder of the dough.

Place on the baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Allow to cool down on the baking sheet for 1-2 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack. These are best served warm but can be eaten at any time.

It’s A New Look

For those of you who have been following my blog, you may have noticed some changes over the past week. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to update the look of My Allergic Teen to make it brighter, easier to read, in addition to providing a new layout to display my recipes better.

My focus will still be on the difficulties my teen and other teens—with severe food allergies—face on a daily basis. I will continue to come up with more allergy-friendly recipes for you to try. My allergic daughter is an avid baker and we really enjoy creating our own creations as well as tweaking other recipes that are dairy, egg and nut free. My hope is that my teen will want to post some of her own experiences but at this point she is happy to just help out with the testing and baking.

Since I am determined to make most of the design changes myself, please be patient with me as our blog becomes a work in progress. This means that you will be seeing the changes as they occur; one change at a time. Lucky you! Look for more nutritional information to be added as I am starting my journey as a Certified Nutritionist. Wish me luck!

Feel free to let me know what you think of our changes and if you have any suggestions. 

Our Gingerbread Houses of 2014

We finally got a chance to make our annual Gingerbread Houses on Christmas Eve! We use graham crackers instead of gingerbread to make it easier but use our own vegan frosting to decorate them. This year the frosting turned out the best ever! We had a very limited supply of graham crackers so our houses were a bit smaller than previous years. See if you can spot my son's version of a gingerbread outhouse. 

Dairy Free/Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting

½ C     Dairy Free Margarine

¾ C     Dairy free Cream Cheese

1/8      Tsp. Salt                                        

1 Tsp. Vanilla Extract

2 ½ C Confectioner’s Sugar

In a bowl, cream margarine. Add cream cheese and cream well. Add salt and vanilla and mix together. Slowly add confectioner’s sugar and mix on low. Once sugar is mixed in, increase speed and mix 3-4 minutes on medium, until light and fluffy. Chill or use immediately. Makes 2 cups.

A belated Merry Christmas from our family to yours.

Being Thankful

Like most people, I am taking time today to think about what I am thankful for this year. As always, I am thankful for my family, friends and our good health. This year I am also thankful for our Michigan Retreat that my parents bought when I was 16 years old. When they bought this house I had no way of knowing we would still be enjoying it many years later. This retreat has been a place where our family, including cousins, aunts and uncles, gather to celebrate the holidays or sometimes just for a weekend of competitive game playing.

What I love best about our retreat is that it is ever changing. In the summer, we spend most of our day on the beach soaking up the sun or going for a ride in the kayaks and then off to ice cream after a late night dinner. Right now, we are here relaxing as we spend some quiet time celebrating Thanksgiving. I am always amazed at how beautiful it is this time of year, no matter what mother nature throws our way.

This is the view of the lake from our window the first day. It poured rain all day and the wind was so strong that you could hear the constant roar throughout the inside of the house.

 The next day was cloudy but warm enough for a walk on the beach. I love the different shades of November with the sky sometimes a light grey and sometimes a light blue.

Our breakers took a beating this year. They will probably be very little left come this spring.

A few brave boats this time of the year. Mostly fishermen and tug boats.

Thanksgiving Day dawned with snow on the ground and a full day of flurries.

The same beach I walked on yesterday is no longer accessible. Large waves and strong winds keeping us away.

We had time between cooking to enjoy the snow. This is how we like to enjoy our Thanksgiving! Wishing you the best this Thanksgiving!