You Know What's Better...

...than Sunbutter on a Ritz Cracker?

Sunbutter in a cookie!

There's all sorts of posts across these internets of ours about the infamous (famous) Flourless Peanut Butter Cookie.

Well, we don't keep no stinkin' peanut butter around here. But I'm not missing out on a trend, no way!

I call these my PeaNOT Butter Cookies. Have a go - they're pretty tasty!

Peanut Free Mama's PeaNOT Butter Cookies
Recipe Source: The Kitchn (what? you thought I came up with this recipe? no way, i just substituted and tweaked this one a bit and gave it that new fangled name)
yields 18 cookies

1 cup Sunbutter (I used the creamy kind)
1 cup white sugar (the original recipe called for 3/4 cup, but i added 1/4 cup more to bind the mixture together a bit more and to add a little more sweetness)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
additional sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 375 degrees°F.

Mix all the ingredients up in a bowl. Roll walnut-sized pieces into balls and roll balls in the additional sugar. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and flatten slightly with a fork in a crisscross pattern. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove and let cool before removing from baking sheet.

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Verdict: These were darn tasty. They aren't identical to peanut butter cookies, don't get me wrong. They are darker than regular PB cookies and they have an undertone of sunflower flavor. The first bite is a little weird because your brain thinks it should be tasting peanut butter. But then you aren't. But it's still good. And warm out of the oven, they are mildly addictive. The recipe got a big thumbs up from B. And the hubs (who can't get behind Sunbutter in any other form).

The true test? One of B's friends ate one and the only thing he said was "I don't see the chocolate." I told him he wasn't going to. He proceeded to eat the rest of the cookie - didn't leave a crumb behind. My brother in law even ate 2 (even after he knew what was in them - although I suspect it's because I'm his favorite sister in law - oh, wait it must have been the cookies since I'm his ONLY sister in law).

Anyhoo - they didn't last long. Case in point. This is the only picture I took of them (and I know it's crappy, thanks). It was the last one left in the batch - before it went into my mouth.

Recipe notes: The dough is pretty wet, so keep that in mind (you kind of make a ball of dough and drop it into the sugar and that sort of helps to hold its place- i used a small ice cream scoop and dropped them in that way which seemed to be less messy). My only other piece of advice is to not over bake them. I think these would be especially delicious with a scoop of ice cream in between two of them. Hee hee.

Try them yourself and let me know what you think.

Vegan with a Peanut Allergy? Have I got a product for you...

While perusing the shelves of the grocery store near my work, I found myself in the 'raw food' section of the store.

Raw Food, you ask? What the monkey?!? Here's an explanation.

Here's the thing. I've been transitioning our diet at home into more of a vegetarian one (yes, me, the one who LOVES short ribs). Why? Lots of reasons. Health mainly. So there I was, in the raw section of the store, just checking things out. Living in Northern California certainly provides you with many opportunities to try new things, right there in the local grocery store (even at our local Safeway). And raw food is just another subset of the vegan lifestyle.

But as many of you out there have probably noticed, it seems that a vegetarian diet relies A LOT on nuts for protein and a vegan diet even more so.

So I'm NOT an expert on vegetarian/vegan diet so please don't blast me on this, it's just what I've observed in my limited research. I mean, check out this place in San Francisco: Cafe Gratitude. The menu looks amazing, but so many of the dishes have some sort of nut product in them: I wouldn't put B two feet near the place. They even have a disclaimer on their menu that anyone with a nut allergy should avoid eating there - which I actually appreciate, don't you?

So where was I? Oh yeah, the raw food section of the store. I was looking at all the 'bars' in the section, thinking that they would be good for me, but NONE of them would work for B as they'd be loaded with peanut butter, almonds, cashews - you name it.

But then, like a beacon, these appeared:
GoRaw Live 'Granola' Bars

• 100% Gluten Free
• 100% Nut Free
• 100% Wheat Free
• 100% Vegan (that means no milk or eggs!)

You can't really see it in this photo, but on the label, they say their production line/facility is 100% vegan, 100% certified gluten/wheat free, 100% nut free and 100% certified organic.

I bought one, but was skeptical about giving it to B in case there would be cross contamination issues. But an email to the company confirmed their claims (although they DO use coconut in their facility, which the FDA considers a tree nut, so if you're avoiding coconut many of their products wont work for you).

The ingredients are:

• Buckwheat Groats
• Sunflower Seeds
• Flax Seeds
• Sesame Seeds
• Raisins
• Dates

Again, be aware that the granola bar contains sesame seeds and sunflower seeds (I didn't ask how/where they source their sunflower seeds). B isn't allergic to either of these seeds, so I decided to try it out.

I didn't know if B would like it. It tastes really mild, but it's not like your usual Quaker Oats chocolate chip bars (not that she's had those - they have a peanut warning!). I gave her a little sliver, thinking she wouldn't want any more, but she ended up eating half the bar! She then proceeded to ask what other flavors they have? I bought a Banana Bread flax bar at Whole Foods yesterday, so we'll put that to the test over the weekend. You can check out their other flavors here.

The other product they have that I am in LOVE with are these:

Original Super Cookies
These little wafers of goodness (about the size of a quarter each) are SO addictive that I can't stop myself from gobbling them up! The ingredients are:

• Organic Coconut
• Sprouted Organic Sesame Seeds
• Organic Date

The GoRaw product line includes all sorts of other products which you can see here. If you are a vegetarian or a vegan with a peanut allergy I would check their products out (they even have a store locator on their site - I input a few random zip codes and found them all over the USA).

Warning: these aren't the cheapest snacks out there - the bars are almost $3 a pop (ouch!) - but it's nice to find a product that fits our niche. I'll continue to buy them as long as B wants to eat them.

Even if you aren't vegetarian/vegan you might find a good snack bar for your child with non-peanut/tree nut protein in it that they can take along on a field trip or hike. I'm always looking for something non-sugary to take in my purse on an outing instead of chips or fruit leather (that gets boring every time) so I think the bars or super cookies will fit the bill. I'm thinking of grabbing a few bags of the cookies for our earthquake emergency kit.

So that's it. A little shout out for a local-to-me company making a tasty little product!

Finally I want to say that I was NOT asked to review these items, nor was I given them for free or anything like that. I found them on my own and wanted to let you guys know about them.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

p.s. how is it that you can still be vegetarian and eat eggs? i don't get it. it's still a chicken, isn't it?

Just in Case You Needed Something to Drive You Nuts this Morning

A narrow minded, nosy middle school secretary felt it in her best interest to violate the rights of an incoming student who has a peanut allergy by complaining about it on her site (in great detail, I might add).

Read all about it here.

Shame on her. Per Gina at Allergy Moms, the district has been identified. Hopefully they'll take action and she'll be terminated.

A Lesson: Always be Diligent about Labels

So I did something REALLY stupid over the weekend.

We went out to the grocery store and picked up the usual staples for the week. I'm transitioning to a vegetarian-esque diet so I was picking up tofu and noodles in the produce section and noticed all the meat alternatives. Score! I could replace some of our meat with soy substitutes and maybe noone in the house would be the wiser.

So I grabbed some mock meat. Checked out and we came home to eat some lunch.

B got some mock chik'n nuggets. She gobbled them up with some secret sauce (organic ketchup and vegenaise - oops my secret's out!) and told me how much she was liking them.

I was feeling very proud of myself.

Until I wasn't.

I realized I had put these on her plate and NEVER checked the label!!! So what did I do?

I FREAKED of course and ran to the fridge.

We lucked out. No nuts. Phew.

But I felt really stupid (we're not allowed to use that word in our house, but in this case it's appropriate). And lucky.

After all these years I couldn't believe that I slipped up and didn't check - especially since it was a new product we'd never had before. Argh!

The lesson here: NEVER let down your guard. Keep reading those labels. Thankfully this wake up call wasn't accompanied by Benadryl and a shot of epinephrine.

Phew.

p.s. I could go on and on about Vegenaise. Where has this product been my whole life? It's incredible!!! So tasty and none of that grassy funk of regular mayo. Vegan, so no eggs or milk. But it does have soy. Says they are gluten free. I highly recommend it.

Summer Camps and Snacks

A couple of things floating around out there:

Camp Emerson - A summer camp for girls and boys, age 8 -15 in Massachusetts that addresses the allergy needs of its campers. Awesome! (found via Nicole's fantastic Allergic Child Newsletter).

I'd love to hear from anyone else who knows of summer camps that are good for kids with allergies (I'm sure a quick search of peanutallergy.com or kids with food allergies would bring up a few more). The thought of being able to send B off to summer camp without too much worry about her peanut allergy is amazing. The thought of paying that tuition might be more difficult though :)

Mark Bittman's recipe for Homemade Granola Bars. Only 4 ingredients! No preservatives or funky additives. Now, finding a safe granola might be a challenge in your local grocery store, but there's always Enjoy Life mail order. I'll be trying these this weekend. (found via Allergic Girl - thanks Sloane!)