Alisa Fleming ~ August 2011 - A few dairy-free and vegan news bites for you to chomp on …

New Divvies Nut, Egg, and Dairy-Free Sweets for the Classroom eBook:

If you have yet to get your hands on Divvies Bakery Cookbook, you might want to check out their new teaser ebook. It is a compilation of the most popular classroom-friendly treats from The Divvies Bakery Cookbook. The Sweets for the Classroom ebook contains recipes to take you through snacks, bake sales and parties, with tips on managing food allergies at school. It will be available for download on September 6, 2011 at http://us.macmillan.com/nutegganddairyfreesweetsfortheclassroom.

Going Vegan With Ellen website launch:

Famed talk show host and spokeswoman, Ellen DeGeneres, has launched a new website centered around the vegan lifestyle. Going Vegan With Ellen features tips for vegans, reasons to go vegan, recipes, links to resources and information, and fun tidbits like a list of celebrities who are vegan. Though Ellen is a huge animal lover, she is hoping that the site will help to spread the word on the health and environmental benefits of living vegan. Visit Going Vegan With Ellen at http://vegan.ellen.warnerbros.com.

August 2011 - Educators across the U.S. now have access to a free, interactive online course that provides a comprehensive tutorial on managing anaphylaxis in schools. This tool comes at a critical time as new prevalence figures show as many as 1 in 13 U.S. children have a food allergy, and nearly 40 percent of those children have a history of a severe reaction.

How to C.A.R.E.™ for Students with Food Allergies: What Educators Should Know is the result of a collaborative effort among the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN), the Food Allergy Initiative (FAI), Anaphylaxis Canada, the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, and Leap Learning Technologies.

 “This course provides one-stop shopping for a thorough review of managing life-threatening food allergies in the school setting,” said Scott H. Sicherer, M.D., a prominent researcher at New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine and a member of an expert panel that reviewed the program.

Tami Noyes ~ In Ohio, we live just a walk from Lake Erie. One of the benefits of being where we are, besides the lake, of course, is that glaciers formed nutrient-rich ridges of land that give us some of the best peaches, corn, apples and other produce. Sadly, few of the farmers there are organic, but every once in a while we find a smaller farmer who is.

Make this delicious French toast to celebrate the best fruits of the season, whatever they are where you are. Or top it with maple syrup and vegan butter. Either way, your day will be off to a sweet start ...

Last month, I shared a pre-review of The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen: Recipes for Noodles, Dumplings, Sauces, and More, but the cookbook has now arrived! Available on Amazon, this is one dairy-free AND gluten-free gem that Asian food lovers should not miss.

If you are like me, you might want a little sample from the book to chew on. So with the permission of the author and publisher, I have an incredible 3-in-1 recipe to share with you from The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen by Laura B. Russell.

Laura walks us through making salad rolls with rice paper and offers not one, but two very flavorful dipping sauce recipes. Rice paper salad rolls are a fantastic, light summer meal, but they also wrap up and store nicely to pack along for a healthy, low calorie back-to-school or office lunch. Simply include a container with your dipping sauce of choice (or both!).