Congrats! You have found my blog! This is a blog of dairy-free and gluten-free life and products I have found throughout my time being both of those things and also my son being beef free as well! Eventually, I will get some recipes up and possibly and E-BOOK to download and print all my recipes gluten-free and dairy-free. Here’s how I’m different. I don’t sacrifice flavor or simplicity when making my food. I use one bulk flour and simple items from the store its not a ridiculous amount of unheard-of items and they all are approved by many people who have no allergies and even some super picky eaters! Do not take my research as fact because you need to come to a conclusion about gluten and dairy for yourself. I am not soy-free which is common among many dairy-free people. I DO however have mostly soy-free recipes or they are easily soy-free and along with that most of them are naturally nut-free as well. Check out my posts and I hope I can help!
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Junk Food!
Now I know replacements for every day cooking is important. But junk food is a MUST in my life and I need all of it! I will show you my products that are just amazing and hit the spot. I don’t even miss the real stuff anymore ( that’s a lie I still miss it just not as much!)
Now many of these products are a bit spendy but it is worth every penny for me to feel like I live a happy and fulfilled life!
First off is this brand! Kinnikinnick
This brand has so many amazing options for sweets! I have tried the donuts ( AMAZING!), chocolate animal crackers, K-toos (Oreo type cookie), chocolate chip cookies, and vanilla wafers. They are all amazing replacements but the donuts are where it’s at! They also have breads of various types but I havnt tried them or even been able to find them.
Next thing is Glutino brand! This brand has great pop tart like pastries and also great crispy cookies and creme filled cookies
Chocolate! Okay there one brand that is AMAZING but again, hard to come by. It’s only at Walgreens though I suspect amazon might have it. It’s from Italy, that’s all you need to know.
Hot chocolate! This one has been hard to find. It’s still not 100% the same but I will conquer this too! So far I have found that the Starbucks packets of hot chocolate and candy cane hot chocolate don’t have dairy! Just add your version of dairy free milk to a small pot and whisk in the packet and YUM! A great substitute.
By the way, cocoa butter is not milk based. It is the oil from the cocoa bean and makes things super creamy and yummy. Fun fact: I worked in a chocolate factory for three years that my mother owned. Cocoa butter is pretty much what makes chocolate smell so dang good!
Frosting! I have not yet mastered the art of making frosting but until then a lot of frostings are dairy free and gluten free! It’s awesome! Just check the label for the lack of dairy ingredients and your golden! You can even have some cream cheese frostings! 😱 Here’s my go to one
That’s all I can think of for now but if I find more then I will let you lovely people know!
Product Updates!
I finally tried the Violife cream cheese on a bagel for myself! And it was good! Of course it’s not the same exact thing and I would say use less than you normally would, but it was definitely hitting the spot!
Next product that should be a staple in my house but they are a bit hard to come by and a bit too much for me to always eat them… Potstickers! These where one of my absolute favorites before I became gluten free and I have waited five years to find them! But be sad no more, they are here and delicious!
Just a simple dinner
Sometimes I get caught up in making things gluten free and dairy free and forget to make the things that naturally are. So last night I made chicken and rice with some zucchini from my dads garden! This lifestyle doesn’t have to be hard it’s as simple as chicken and rice!
3 cups of rice
4 cups of water
2 cups of chicken stock
1t salt
Garlic salt
Pepper
Three chicken breasts filleted
Set the oven at 375° line a sheet pan with foil and set chicken breasts on it and cover with oil, garlic salt, and pepper to your liking. Set in oven for 20 minutes or until insides aren’t pink.
Assemble rice,salt,water, and chicken stock on a large pot and turn on medium. Let cook until water is gone. Set aside.
While rice is cooking cut a zucchini and set in a small sauce pan with oil, garlic salt, pepper, and a little splash of chicken stock. Cool until you like what you see.
And that’s it! Plate and eat! Super simple and simper cheap. Enjoy your simple meal.
Do you miss Alfredo?
Ahh…Alfredo sauce. Before going dairy-free this was a huge staple in my household. It was my go to when I wanted a quick meal. We always had milk and always had Parmesan so this was no big deal! Then I went dairy free and my beloved Alfredo sauce went away with many of my favorite foods. Well I’m here to tell you that I figured it out! All you need to do is replace your milk or heavy cream with a can of coconut milk. No it doesn’t taste sweet or coconutty ( I was surprised too!) and it made the perfect replacement for the milk. I honestly don’t even notice the difference anymore! Make it fancy by adding some chopped up sun dried tomatoes and kielbasa sausage and you my friend have yourselves a very tasty meal!
Continuing my Muffin Making
I decided to try chocolate muffins! I say they taste pretty dang close to Costco muffins AND I made 18…they where gone by that night. If that doesn’t tell you how good they where then I don’t know what will! Also we had a little craft session with a good friend so I will also post those accomplishments because it’s pretty 😬
Recipe Book!
Im working on making an E-cookbook so everyone can have my recipes that are tried, true, simple, and yummy! I really strive to make it as easy of a transition as possible. If you have ever looked up gluten free or dairy free recipes it’s a LOT of mixing flours and super random items you can’t find anywhere, lots of cashews, and lots of prep. I really don’t see why being gluten free or dairy free has to be harder than substituting ingredients. So I found recipes that where easily made one way or another and called it good! I even just added some simple recipes that are naturally gluten free and/or dairy free so you won’t even miss it! I finally have my own recipe book typed up and it’s such a great feeling to have that be mine. But I will be keeping you guys updated on what I make and hopefully soon get your own printable E-cookbook of simple recipes!
I Still Mess Up!
So I know there’s so many people who accidentally eat something with dairy in it, or gluten, or carbs? (Is that still a thing?) Anyways, I’ve been gluten-free for 5 years and I still, without thinking, take a bite out of something for my son that’s not gluten-free. I also still assume things and don’t read ingredients because it seems obvious that something in the dairy free section would be dairy free when in fact it isn’t dairy free!
I really think there’s a bigger problem here with the way things are being marketed, but until the stores figure out their crap I’m gonna have to keep checking labels on EVERYTHING. Anyways, I found a “rice cheese” that looked like string cheese! So excited for my kids to experience this! So I buy it, get home, open the package, and decide to look at the ingredients ( finally!) and it says on the back it has casein in it. The fumes coming from my ears and a childhood memory taken from my kids! The AUDACITY to call yourself “rice cheese” but have dairy! Anyway, point is, check your labels people. Even I still mess up and that’s money down the drain that’s all my fault. Also, quick note of something that looks like dairy free cheese called “Go Veggie” that’s seen in a dairy free section. There’s two other varieties of that cheese with milk. So check yourself before you wreck your stomach. 😬 but really, don’t beat yourself up too bad. Slip-ups are going to happen at some point and you need to know that it happens to the best of us! I have said it too many times and I will say it more because even I can’t remember. Check. Your. Labels.
Product Update!
Just a quick update on some products I found!
Vio Life cream cheese! I found it at my local natural food store and it’s AMAZING! Definitely a great substitute for real cream cheese really I can’t taste the difference but it has been almost two years of dairy free-ness so I thought, maybe it’s just me. But I had my husband try a roll up of meat and cream cheese on a tortillas and he didn’t gag or nothing! Ha! He didn’t even seem to care it was dairy free so I say this is a golden product!
Silk Almond milk Yogurt. I bought this for my kids because honestly I haven’t heard the greatest of things about this brand. It could be that many people have tried just plain flavor but the peach flavor was super good! There was only a slight after taste that was off from regular yogurt but nothing I can be mad at. Also, yes I was going to guinea pig my children with a new product, but they don’t know what real yogurt tastes like so I figured if they liked it and I hated it that’s a new snack for them I won’t steal!
Last product I found is something I have used before but it’s been a while so I tried it again. Tofutti sour cream. I don’t like sour cream even with dairy in it but it is in many a recipe. Today I tried it in a muffin recipe and they turned out just fine! It is a little more firm than real sour cream but with the thin viscosity of the almond milk I used I think it evened out nicely for how thick the batter needed to be. There is some weird wording on this but it is in dead in fact vegan.
Muffins!
I tried out a few recipes today! Here’s the thing you gotta just go for it and try recipes or you won’t know if it’s good. It sucks if it’s a flop but it’s so awesome when it’s a win!
They definitely hit the spot
What Can I Eat?!
There’s no doubt about it, finding food to eat is difficult. Let me capitalize on that. DIFFICULT. Being Gluten-Free was hard and slowly there where a lot of products that came out over time, but adding Dairy-Free to that made a whole new amount of pain in my butt. Like I had mentioned before, I lived off of salad with cut up chicken strips for a LONG time. It was a dark and way too healthy time for me. I need my junk food and I need my convenient food, I’m a mother for crying out loud! Anyways, to get what you came to this post for let’s start on the food I always have as a staple in my house. Again, I do not need to worry about cross-contamination or may contain warnings so please double-check products before you use it in case you are more sensitive than I am!
Milk: I buy three different kinds depending on what I’m making, and always unsweetened since I don’t think my kids need any more sugar in their diet!
my every day milk for my kids or recipes 
I use this brand for when I make drinks or need a thicker option for some foods 
this one is just for when I feel like it. my son loves this and I feel like it fills him up nicely before bed. also used for the pink drink 
This is a milk used for Sauces it is very Thick and Creamy so I don’t think you would want to drink it
Next is Bread Crumbs:
this is my every day kind I use when anything calls for bread crumbs 
I have not used the plain but the seasoned one I always use for my chicken but not in recipes in case it effects the flavor it smells amazing but you definitely need to add salt
Butter: this is also a preference thing; I have tried Earth Balance, Melt, and Country Crock. For flavor reasons I don’t like those ones and I keep going back to I cant believe its not butter LIGHT [ the original is not dairy free!] I am on a quest to find one that is healthier, but for now I use this in all my baking and cooking. It’s also great on toast!
I use this specific type of this brand purely out of convenience to where I shop 
from what I can see on ingredients this isn’t really different I’m not sure why this one is said to be vegan and the other one isn’t if your worried just stick with vegan!
Flour: I use only one kind of flour in all my recipes and that’s Bobs Red Mill Gluten-Free Baking 1:1 Flour (the blue bag). I have not found any other flour from this brand or otherwise that can truly hold the flavor of real flour quite like this one.
don’t test me guys if you use a different flour in my recipes it will be a completely different flavor! If you want to challenge me leave me a comment on your favorite flour to buy. i personally don’t want to make my own flour that’s a lot of work and I’m all for simple and easy
Pasta: The love of my life next to chocolate and my family [not in that order ] tastes like real pasta, its not mushy, and you can cook it in one pot recipes [ except the spaghetti its weird when it cooks and makes all the water thick and creamy and not in a good way] The only con is that it breaks easily when you eat it as left overs, but flavor is there and I’m willing to overlook it for the flavor.
WHATS WAITING FO RME IN THE NEXT LIFE
Andouille Sausage : The base of most of my pasta dishes, and in many other recipes when I need a quick protein to add a little extra flavor to my dish without an overwhelming amount of meat
Cheese : Vio Life is a new discovery for me and they make a variety of different types of cheeses including aged cheddar, provolone, feta, parmesan, cream cheese, mozzarella shreds and a couple more. Check out their website here: https://violifefoods.com/us/our-products/. The other brand of cheese I’m very fond of is Chao cheese! It’s probably the closest to real cheese that I have found. When it comes to cheese its such a personal preference on which one is best because they all taste so different. I will say the parmesan cheese from Vio life is the only one I have found (same goes for their feta, but I haven’t tried that one yet) that actually tastes like the real thing. Now a very common dairy free brand is Daiya and they have a large variety of products. This brand is more of a convenient brand for many but I’ve heard 50\50 on if people like it or not so try that brand for yourself before judging it.
Bread: This one is kind of like the cheese where it comes down to preference. There’s quite a few gluten free breads, but my favorite is canyon bakehouse. Again, a very popular brand is Udis and they are not bad by any means, but I do prefer the other brand for bread and bagels and Udis brand for their multiple other products which I can find in almost any store now.
yes those are muffins and yes they are amazing
These are the main things I always have in my house and use on a daily bases for recipes! I will make more posts with different themes later but hopefully this helps you start your dairy-free, gluten-free journey!
Keep all the Flavor 