Christmas and the Holidays and Allergies
WOW!!
It’s almost Christmas already!
This holiday is my favorite season. Over the years, being allergic to all these I have to say I have been pretty lucky. My family has been very understanding in terms of allergies and are extra careful when I’m around. In my own home for instance, there is obviously no peanut butter in the house. If someone does crave the peanut butter, they simply eat it out of the house at a Tim Hortons or some coffee shop.
My grandma is the best baker I know. She knows what to do and when to do it. She self-taught herself over the years because of my allergies. She already knew how to make quite a bit of treats, cakes and cookies. With my allergies she taught herself even more.
I’ve been thinking of taking courses myself but instead I realized that I have both my grandmas still alive to teach me their techniques. I’m from an Italian background which has it’s great side to it when it comes to homemade cookies and other baked goods.
We have learnt to use or alter some recipes so that they are consistent and of course peanut free.
Christmas time for my grandma is very busy preparing cookies, treats, desserts and even the main meal for our family of 20 it can get very tiring for her. This year as I am more and more interested in learning the techniques, I have decided to help out with the treats. She usually makes some of her milk cookies covered in icing sugar and sprinkled with colorful sprinkles or christmas colored sprinkles which I will add as a recipe fairly soon to this site.
If she does make some cookies that have nuts I trust her enough to know that she was extra careful when she made them. She never mixes up my cookies with the cookies for the rest of the family. She’ll always put a few aside just for me in case. She also makes the traditional sicilian cannolis with ricotta filling or for my grandfather who is quite picky with food likes the custard-filled cannolis. She hasn’t made her very light and delicious cream puffs or perifoles. I will have to remember to get that recipe so that you can learn how to make them too.
I actually tried the Truffle Recipe with the Rice Krispies last year and they were quite a big hit! You can check out the recipe here, I had posted it a while back.
I found the recipe on the Kraft website in the recipe section. Of course, their recipe contained some sort of nuts. I just made the alteration of adding Rice Krispies. This year I think I may decide to use the Toasted Oats instead. This might give the truffles a little bit more than a crunch. You can find the Toasted Oats Recipe Here or you can also purchase the homemade toasted oats at the peanut free store.
For the longest time, I have been quite upset at the fact the Ice Cream Christmas Logs always had nuts right on the top. I thought to myself, that is totally unfair…
That was until last year!
The Lambert Company has gained much of my respect over the years as I believe they were actually the first in my area to start with the Peanut Free Ice Cream. Not to my surprise but as I am writing this article and looking up the one flavour I knew they provided, they have 3 more flavours this year.
I remember a friend of mine in high school who also had allergies to peanuts. His mom was terrified and made sure that even when products said peanut free that they were peanut free by giving the companies a phone call. A very respectful and understanding answer was given to my friend’s mom when he said “yes, the Ice Cream is peanut free as my son is also allergic to peanuts”. What a relief! It felt nice to know that some companies finally feel for those that are left out because of such allergies.
See the pictures below, don’t they look delicious?? They don’t just look delicious, they are quite tasteful..now to try the new flavours. The Peanut Free Girl is going to gain some weight at Christmas time (not like it’s anything new when it comes to the holidays) I would put a link to their website but I believe it is under construction at the moment. I will check back and add the link under useful information once it’s updated.
Caramel Ice Cream Log
Original Ice Cream Log
Maple Ice Cream Log
- Chocolate Ice Cream Log
Now unfortunately for those of you in the United States, I am not sure if you have the above mentioned Ice Creams, who knows once I figure out how to ship Ice Cream without it melting I will let you know and add it to the Peanut Free Store.
Next review will be on Chapmans Ice Cream which is another one of my favorites. Funny how I say favorites since I don’t have many to choose from. Although I think if there were others Chapmans’ Chocolate Ice Cream would still stick as favorite in my taste buds.
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