Enjoy Life Soft Bars Review

I was sent an awesome package of Enjoy Life’s new Decadent Soft Baked Bars.  They are free of the top 8 allergens and are delicious!  I love Enjoy Life’s chocolate chips and chunks for baking so I was really excited when Enjoy Life approached me about doing a review of their latest products.  They come in wonderful flavors like cherry cobbler, chocolate sunbutter, cinnamon bun, and s’mores.  The first bar that I tried was the cinnamon bun, it is delicious, it isn’t overly cinnamonny in a good way.  You taste all of the flavor profiles in a cinnamon bun without all of the guilt, it even has this yummy drizzle of icing over the top.  Next was the S’mores, I typically don’t like s’more flavored things, but this was my favorite of the 4 bars.  It is perfectly chocolatey without being overpowering and it’s a little crispy and chewy at the same time.  I definitely plan to stash some of these in my purse for snacking since it’s so hard to find appropriate food on the go when you have dietary restrictions.  The Cherry Cobbler flavor is really yummy too, again, I really didn’t think I was going to like the cherry cobbler flavor because I don’t like actual cherry cobbler very much, but oh my it’s yummy!  It’s a little fruity and oatmealy tasting in a good way.  Finally, the chocolate sunbutter, this was the flavor I thought I was going to fall head over heels for, but I didn’t like it.  I really wanted to like it but I didn’t, neither did Jeff.  We agreed 100% that all of the other bars were delicious though and we want to buy them regularly for snacking for us and for Major!   I love that I don’t have to worry about cross contamination or hidden allergens in Enjoy Life’s products and I can’t wait for you guys to try these!

Find Enjoy life on the internet here:

Website: http://www.enjoylifefoods.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/enjoylifefoods

Twitter: https://twitter.com/enjoylifefoods

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/enjoylifefoods/

Blog: http://www.enjoylifefoodsblog.com/

*******Also enter promo code DECBLOG10 at checkout for 10% off of your first order of decadent bars ordered on Enjoy Life’s online store at checkout!

www.shop.enjoylifefoods.com ********

Queso and Taco night

Dairy Free Queso

½ cup jarred salsa (make sure it is free of your allergens!)

1 ¼ cup Daiya Cheddar or Jack Style Shreds

¾ cup of So Delicious Coconut Creamer Plain Flavor

Combine all of the ingredients in a saucepan and heat over low heat.  Whisk until combined.  Serve hot with tortilla chips. 

I tried this recipe on the recommendation of a facebook friend and was skeptical, as I am of all things including fake cheese these days.  I have to tell you, this is THE BEST fake cheese dish hands down. I liked it so much that I ate it on chips for dinner, healthy right?  Anyway, we all liked it and ate it on our tacos and on chips.  This gets a huge thumbs up and I would highly recommend for your next fiesta! (Or more likely taco night at your house if you have kids)  Also, I made Turkey Tacos that were yummy, here’s how:

Turkey Taco Meat Mixture

1 lb ground turkey

1 (allergen free) taco-seasoning packet

¾ cup of frozen corn kernels

½ cup canned black beans, drained and rinsed

½ cup jarred salsa (make sure it is free of your allergens!)

½ cup warm water

Put the raw ground turkey into a skillet and sauté it until cooked through, once the turkey is cooked add the remaining ingredients.  Cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes until most of the water has evaporated and it has created it’s own sauce.  Serve immediately on taco shells, tortillas, or tortilla chips with the yummy queso dip! 

Top 8 allergen free, but ALWAYS check your specific products to be sure! 

Safekeepers review

I approached Safekeepers about doing a review of their food storage containers because they are labeled “go” and “stop” so that people with food allergies can easily know if the food in the container is safe for them to eat.  I love this product because they are cute and useful.  Having a toddler with severe food allergies creates a lot of worries in my mind.  Knowing that he has his own special food storage containers to take to other people’s houses (his grandparents house, vacation homes, friends houses) where he will know that the food is safe for him to eat is SO important to me.  I love that I can buy a set of these containers to keep at my parents’ bay house, so that we can keep his “Major safe foods” in the go containers.  Also, I think these containers will be a valuable teaching tool in teaching him about looking for labels on packages and containers before eating a food. 

I have been using these containers daily for about 3 weeks, and I have to say they are awesome!  I love that they are durable, easy to throw in the dishwasher, and easy to spot in the fridge.  So far, we haven’t used many of the “stop” containers as we have a dairy free and 99% soy free household, but they are the same design as the go containers, and the go containers have gotten a workout!  I have washed the containers on both the top and bottom rack of my dishwasher on its hottest setting and they did not melt.  Also they have been in the microwave and done great, the heavy-duty plastic really stands up.  I even let Major step on one play with one for a few days, and I couldn’t even tell.   The only con I have found for the containers is that they can stain if you put something like tomato sauce in them.  This is a problem with most food storage containers on the market so I don’t think it is a reason not to buy these wonderful containers! 

Allergy Proof Recipes for Kids Review

Recently I trialed a few recipes from Allergy Proof Recipes for Kids by Leslie Hammond and Lynne Marie Rominger.  I had really high hopes for this book, but unfortunately the recipes I tried were less than stellar.  The ideas for the recipes sounded great, and I really wanted them to taste excellent, but at the core they were flavorless and had a strange aftertaste.  The main dish recipe that I tried (and consequently decided the test of the cookbook was over because it was so bland) was the pastitsio.  The pasta with meat sauce was easy (you just add some onion and garlic to jarred tomato sauce) and then there is this white goo you make that is meant to be a white sauce, but it is literally gooey and disgusting.  You paste it over the top of the pasta, and it hardens so the pasta clumps together.  All of the red sauce is absorbed in the pasta, and so it’s pink pasta with a hard white shell on top.  As a result this cookbook is not for us.  I wish it was, because I love an allergy friendly cookbook, but I plan to look elsewhere for future recipes for my family!  If you still want to try it out, you can buy it  on amazon on amazon here.

safe and not safe stickers

Some parents of kids with food allergies choose to have an allergen free household for their child, and some other parents do not.  If you choose to have items in the household that isn’t safe for your child to eat, it is important to label it.

 As a parent of a child who is allergic to dairy, soy, and beef; we sometimes have foods that have soy or beef in them that his dad and I eat, but he cannot.  We have chosen to keep a completely dairy free household based on the severity of his reactions to dairy (and his doctor’s recommendations.)  I have been searching for cute labels that are available to label foods, and I have come up with NOTHING!  The labels out there that I have found are really ugly or just basic and hard to pick out on product packaging because it blends in.  I did some playing in word and created these templates, I hope one of you finds them useful!  What I did to print was ordered sticker paper from www.onlinelabels.com and then printed the labels out and cut them out to the size and shape I wanted! 

Below are the url for the files, click the link, then download (using the down arrow in the top left corner of the page) to see them formatted properly.  Please comment below with any questions or problems with the links:

not safe stickers file

safe stickers file

Parties, Play Dates, Babysitters: How to Transition Care for Children with Food Allergies

Parties, Play Dates, Babysitters: How to Transition Care for Children with Food Allergies

Last night, I finished listening to this webinar and I found it very useful.  As a parent of a toddler with food allergies, I sometimes find social engagements difficult to plan for and navigate.  I feel like this webinar helped me to learn some valuable tips for how to allow Major to live a full life even though he has allergies!  Although not every tip applied to our situation, it might apply to yours.  It’s about an hour long, but an hour well spent!