Welcome to my world.

Being a mom means always thinking about food. It starts with the birth of baby one, and continues until all the kids cook for themselves. I'm not there yet. I'm past the bottles and baby food though! With three preschoolers/toddlers at home, food is always a few minutes away. Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, and sometimes, ANOTHER snack. Really, is it any wonder stay at home moms struggle to maintain a healthy weight when they are constantly around food? And in my life, we have food allergies to contend with, so eating is a bit of an extra challenge.
 My eldest is allergic to dairy, eggs, nuts, and beef. So we cook creatively. At first it was HARD! The dairy council is an un-named mafia in this country. Really! I remember shopping right after the allergies were finally named, and picking up a package of frozen chicken breast. Thinking it totally unnecessary, I checked the ingredient list only to find MILK! In frozen chicken breast. Milk is the hardest for us to avoid, because it hides in so many places. Now it's even in soap. What's up with that?
 The good news is that I LOVE LOVE LOVE the new allergy labeling. Those days of spending three hours on every grocery trip reading every ingredient list for every food I touched are gone. Granted, there seem to be some loopholes, so I still pay careful attention, but my time in the store has been cut way down.
 I'm rambling. The real reason I decided to blog is that it's hard to feed kids, and even more so when you have to avoid whole groups of food. I wanted a place to share my frustration, but more so my success. I want to share the winning recipes that the kids approve of, and the husband will enjoy too! Sometimes he is pickier than they are, because he comes from a history of eating with no limitations, so substitutions don't always go well with him.
 Here I am to share food that my kids eat. I am going to share food my whole family will eat. We will build a cookbook for kids, one recipe at a time.
 Thanks for tuning in, and know that allergy free cooking gets easier with practice. I'd love to hear from you, frustrations, questions, and tips for making it easier. More soon, right now, the dirty kitchen is demanding attention so that I can start the never ending food parade again tomorrow.