2017 was certainly a whirlwind of events for me, but I am back and ready to share new recipes!

Of course, those recipes may need to be slightly adjusted now. You see once our son Maxwell was born and I had taken to nursing our son rather than formula feeding, Matt & I ran into some potential dietary issues. As I could eat anything I wanted, Max’s digestive system had not yet developed and he started to exhibit signs of discomfort. One night of screaming baby and a pediatrician’s office visit later the culprit was simple: Mommy’s eating habits were taking its toll on the little guy. The only solution available was to start eliminating foods from my diet and see how it would affect Max in the long run. First to be eliminated were dairy and soy.

Now for those of you who aren’t aware, trying to go dairy and soy free felt damn near impossible at first. Why? Because if you read the labels on several of your favorite foods, you will find either one or both of those ingredients in it. Bread, bagels, frozen waffles, Onion Soup Mix, Gravy Master, Chicken & Beef Broth, most Asian cooking, Coffeemate flavored creamer, etc.–I had felt as though I was being put in food prison yet again. The first time for gestational diabetes in my third trimester, which is another story.

But I was determined to breastfeed and so I took to the task of restructuring my diet. Matt & I discussed more fresh food options for our meals. I incorporated more protein into my diet and cut out dairy in cooking. I read the labels on the current items in our pantry to understand what I could still incorporate into my diet. (Happy to report that pasta is still a possibility for me!) When I went food shopping I ventured into the specialty food aisles for myself. And while Stop & Shop has a limited selection of specialty foods, I was still able to pull together enough items to create my own menu.

Yet I missed baking….and unfortunately a lot of my recipes called for items such as milk or butter in the ingredients. I didn’t even bake my annual New York Cheesecake for Christmas Eve because I wouldn’t have been able to eat it. Fortunately though, Max’s condition began to improve and he didn’t look as pained as he used to. If me giving up dairy and soy meant that he would be happy, then I would do that for him.

As an alternative, I started to really take a look at my baking recipes and find ways to substitute ingredients for the troublemakers. Now for those who remember one of my specialties is Banana Chocolate Chip muffins. You can find my recipe for that here: A muffin a day makes a happy husband! Of course that has milk and chocolate chips (with milk in them) so I substituted the regular milk for rice milk (you can also use almond milk if you’d prefer) and instead of Nestle Chocolate Chips, I found the Enjoy Life products have created an Allergy-Friendly chocolate. With those two substitutions I made my muffin batter, poured it equally into the 12 baking tins, and prayed that they would come out just as good as my original recipe….and they did!

So my advice is this: when you can substitute to make it more allergy-friendly, DO IT! I promise it was difficult to tell the difference in these muffins versus a regular batch.

And as always….enjoy!

– Jenny V