Cinnamon Toast With Rice Bread

I have found over the years that most recipes are easily adaptable to being allergy friendly so long as you don’t expect it to be exactly the same. For example there are some Vegan cheeses that are free of milk and casein that aren’t terrible but they are never going to exactly duplicate a soft Cotswold or have the exact flavor of cheddar.

The lack of wheat, eggs and milk makes baking difficult and the variety of dessert is unfortunately limited in the kid’s diets but we get around it. When I was pregnant with my daughter I used to love eating cinnamon toast. A slice of bread, a generous amount of butter, sugar and cinnamon broiled for a few minutes and you are left with a seriously yummy treat. I have tried this in a wheat, eggs and milk free way and its actually delicious!

Ingredients:

1 slice of rice bread of choice (these slices are usually hard but soften up nicely when warmed/toasted)

1 tablespoon of sugar

Nucoa (or other dairy free margarine)

cinnamon to taste

Directions:

Generously “butter” your bread. I put on an unhealthy slab of it so it gets good a buttery but I will lightly butter it for the kids! Then sprinkle the sugar on top and add cinnamon to taste. Put it in the over and broil for approximately 3 minutes or until the sugar caramelizes.

You really can’t make a bad batch of this so long as you don’t burn it! Sometimes I add less margarine and more sugar. Sometimes no cinnamon. I often top this with whatever Jam I have in the fridge with sliced bananas. This has become a new favorite in our house for breakfast with a mountain of fruit on top of it. Its easier for me to make than a batch of pancakes from scratch!

Enjoy!

Strawberry Allergies No More!

Strawberries are very easy to grow and are a very beautiful addition to the garden. Unfortunately, we had a no berry zone in our garden for many years. My daughter has a lot of severe food allergies and one of her biggest allergies was berries. I say “was” with a smile on my face because she tested negative to berries this past year and we have slowly made them a regular addition to our meals. She is seven years old now and was diagnosed with life threatening food allergies when she was only a month old. Its been a very limiting road for us with food, however, we have always enjoyed everything we can. I am so much more aware of food, ingredients, preservatives, chemicals and organics because of this life change it was only a natural progression that I took to growing our own. I never would have thought that I’d be growing, jamming and canning our own food but here I am making so many foods from scratch and enjoying every step of the way.

After we slowly tried all the berries we could she decided that strawberries are her favorites and blueberries are a very close second. Since she is crazy about strawberries we had to grow them for the first time this year! I really do love to garden with children and most importantly I love growing our own food. With a lot of patience and the right timing gardening is really enjoyable with them. Earlier this year we picked up three different varieties of strawberries from the nursery so we could compare them. The first strawberry that started to form was watched by my daughter daily. She would go outside to “check on it” as often as I would let her. She would gently keep checking the mulch around it and make sure it wasn’t too thirsty. That first strawberry was such a milestone for us because not only could she finally eat them but we enjoy their beauty daily since they line our walkway to the front door.

Okay, in all honesty the first strawberry was real small and very runty but it was delicious! Or so she told me since I didn’t even get a nibble! I had hoped that we could eventually grow enough so I can make some strawberry jam but the ripe strawberries rarely make it inside the house and are gobbled down immediately.

Who knows, next year we might expand our tiny strawberry patch and be up to our ears in jam but for now we enjoy each and every one like it was her first and appreciate her food allergy accomplishments.