In speaking with Betsy Karetnick of Martha Stewart Living's Everyday Food, the topic of eggs came up. For most dairy-free foodies (aside from vegans or those with an egg allergy), eggs are not a problem, and can add some delicious options to your diet. Personally, I couldn't stomach eggs for many, many years, but lately they have been creeping onto my plate with increasing regularity. Of course, when you end up making a fresh-from-the-oven Dutch Baby with a Warm Blueberry Maple Cinnamon Sauce, you could probably convert almost anyone to an egg fan.

Most of the Dutch Baby recipes I spied were made with white sugar, white flour, and an unnecessary amount of butter. If I ate that way for breakfast, I would fall flat on my face by 9am. So, I reduced the butter significantly, and in fact changed it to coconut oil (though you could use a pat of dairy-free margarine), I subbed the flour with rolled oats (ground in 30 seconds into a flour), and used maple syrup as my choice of sweetener in moderation. Trust me, there was no sacrafice. This is a wonderful brunch-worthy recipe that you can actually feel good about eating. Plus, with the changes, the recipe is dairy-free, soy-free, and wheat-free (optionally gluten-free)!

Haven't you heard? Pizza ovens are out, barbecues are in. Though this may not be a year-round trend, when you need a creative, fun, and "smokey" way to entertain your hungry guests for Labor Day Weekend, consider this delicious pizza recipe (below). It is from the Vegan Culinary Experience, August 2009 issue (which is available for free download on the VCE website), and as you might have guessed, this is a vegan (dairy-free, egg-free, meat-free) recipe.

As a presentation tip, the recipe's creator, Chef Jason Wyrick, suggests the following, "I prefer to let all my guests see the pizza whole before I cut it into slices as I think it looks very nice and appetizing that way. When you cut it, use a wet knife or a pizza roller. This keeps the ingredients from sticking to the blade and dragging the ingredients across the pizza."

Alisa Fleming, the founder of www.GoDairyFree.org and author of Go Dairy Free: The Guide and Cookbook for Milk Allergies, Lactose Intolerance, and Casein-Free Living, will be a guest on the Everyday Food show on Martha Stewart Living Radio. The event is scheduled for 12:15pm EST on Thursday, September 3, 2009 with Everyday Food host Betsy Karetnick. The show will broadcast on Martha Stewart Living, Sirius XM Satellite Radio, Sirius channel 112 and XM channel 157.

Fleming created Go Dairy Free the website in 2004, and has since helped thousands of people transition to a delicious and nutritious dairy-free lifestyle. The site now boasts thousands of pages of content, including recipes, product reviews, news, tips, and health-related articles. In 2008, she released Go Dairy Free: The Guide and Cookbook to be the most extensive offline resource for dairy-free living.

Earlier in the week we posted some “Food Allergy Back to School Tips from Allergy Moms and Enjoy Life Foods” and “Top Back to School Cookbooks for Vegan, Dairy-Free, and Food Allergy-Friendly Recipes.” Since both articles were quite popular, we wanted to help busy moms and dads find even more useful information for back to school with food allergies and special diets:

• "School Planning for Food Allergic Children," from Kids with Food Allergies
  
• "The Role of Allergists in Back to School," from Kids with Food Allergies
• "10 Things Children with Food Allergies Want You to Know," from AllergyMoms
• "Dr. Robert Wood’s Back to School with Food Allergies Tips," From Allergy Moms
• "Attack of the Killer Peanut Butter Sandwiches," from Linda Coss
• "Unexpected Sources of Danger in School" (Food used in lesson plans), from Kids with Food Allergies
• "Finding the Right Preschool or Day Care for Your Food Allergic Child," from Kids with Food Allergies

We’ve all seen them; those one-page stories that grace nearly every health-oriented women’s magazines. A person’s triumph over a health struggle, whether it is weight loss, cancer, or an autoimmune disorder, is summed up in a few short paragraphs. I am always left wondering, was it really that easy for them? And, did they actually find the answer, or are we catching them a moment too soon, when perhaps their true satisfaction with life is yet to be attained?

Over two years ago I came across a blogger known as The Healthy Cookie online, Meghan offline. Meghan seemed to be on one of these health journeys, but I could tell from reading her posts that she wasn’t there yet. She was learning, but like so many of us, there was still so much frustration. Yet, she persisted, and grew, and persisted, and changed, and persisted, and won.