Thursday, February 3, 2011

A Cheesy Birthday Dinner

We have a couple of birthday traditions at our house:) I love them because they are so simple and easy and we all look forward to them on our birthdays:)

The first is the Birthday Meal(s). For the meals on our birthday, we all get to choose what to have!! It's fun to see what the kids and Brian picks each year and then make it and serve it them:)

The second is the Birthday Plate. I always seem to forget about the plate.... but this year as I was setting the table for Lydia's birthday, she asked for the plate:) Very sweet.

A meal Brian has really enjoyed since I met him was PIZZA!!! He loves pizza. I remember on our first wedding anniversary we went to a "nice" Italian restaurant and my husband orders... pizza!!!

Since he discovered his allergy to milk/dairy products and it seems to be getting more and more sensitive, it's been a LONG time since he has enjoyed a pizza without the worries about reacting to it... and even then you don't "enjoy" eating a food you know you'll be sick from later :(

So Brian's request was PIZZA!! A challenge since we can't use regular cheese and so the search was on...

Harris Teeter.... Lowes Food... Walmart... Trader Joes.... nope!!

WE finally found the "goods" at Whole Foods... almost 2 hours from home!
(I'm sure I could find it locally in a smaller organic/vegan food store...
always a hassle to stop though with 4 kiddos when we only need 1 item...
on this trip we had Daddy and there was more motivation!!)

The kids were excited because they have never eaten pizza before.
Anna helped with the pepperoni!
The pre-baked pie...
crust, sauce, "cheese", pepperoni, green pepper, "cheese" and Italian herbs! Yummy:)

Out of the oven.... the first time!

I put it back in the oven to try to melt the cheese some more and really toasted ( i mean burnt) the edges... whoops :(

Regardless...

What was the response???

At least, at first everyone was willing to give it a try, except Lydia! Anna didn't eat much and Chris only liked the edges... he doesn't like "slimy" textures:) So my kids aren't die-hard soy-cheese pizza eaters...

but Brian and I were pleased with the taste and were thankful for a bit of "normal". Even if it wasn't really "normal" for us;)

And Daddy got his birthday wish meal:)

Photobucket

This weeks theme is Red:)

Oh, and if you have experience with vegan cheeses, I'd love to hear what brands you recommend!!

We used Follow Your Heart brand this time.... but the oven had to be sooo hot to melt the cheese that it really burnt the edges of our pie :( And it was kind of "watery"! It tasted good though and we plan on eating another pie soon to use up the cheese:)

12 comments:

Heather said...

Have you tried Fresh Market in Greenville?
My best-friend who lives in Raleigh is on a gluten-free diet. There is a pizza she LOVES made by a Raleigh restaurant and sold at stores (including Whole Foods.) I'll get you the name if you're interested.

Anonymous said...

me&my girls, we're having milk allergies as well, but i always use goats-cheese. it's a little stronger, taste-wise, but it's yummier than all the other "fake" cheese-stuff i had so far....

and goats-cheese, basically everything "goatie" can be eaten by milk-allergies! and actually it's much healthier than soy.

leslie

In Everything said...

I've wondered about goat cheese, but our allergist have told us NOT to use goat products since they have found people with milk allergies DO react????

And I"d love to get away from using soo many soy products !

Anonymous said...

How fun. Glad he was able to have his meal.

Stacey said...

I know somewhere I heard of a cheese that was allergen free, no soy, no dairy, etc. I'll have to figure out where I found that. It sounded really good!

Brooke said...

HA - love the thumbs up shot!

Anonymous said...

Have you tried cheese with sheep or goose milk instead of cow? Perhaps you are so lucky like me that it is "only" a cow milk allergy? And how about buffalo? I tried mozzarella cheese made of buffalo milk on New Year's Eve for our pasta in the oven. It works fine and melts easily.

Anonymous said...

LOL, I should have read the comments here before starting to write mine. Something else I have Kelly is that when you react to birch pollens you should not eat any soy products, because it makes it worse (same group brich and soy), just want to let you know. Anyway if you'd like to get away from soy you should give goatie stuff a chance. I think it cannot gets worst.

Gina Kleinworth said...

YUM- that looks like a whole lot of fun

Ang said...

Yum!!! Love that thumbs up!

Jennifer said...

Looks delicious! Love the thumbs up!

Rachel said...

I used a rice cheese before that was decent, but was several years ago. Haven't had it since b/c of something or other (corn maybe?) that I realized I couldn't actually eat. I've also had sheep's cheese from Trader Joes several years ago that was way better than expected. Not sure if the sheep's cheese would work for y'all or not.