Grandma Does It Again: Countdown Checklist to Holiday Hosting with Food Allergies

If you've read Grandma's Guide to Holiday Hosting with Food Allergies, you know that I have a wonderful mom who is an amazing Grandma to our Little Guy with food allergies. Well, Grandma has done it yet again!  She has written a wonderful quick checklist and planning guide for holiday hosting with food allergies. 

Whether you use it as a Thanksgiving Checklist, Christmas Checklist, Hanukkah Checklist or for whatever holiday you celebrate, we hope you find this quick planning checklist helpful!

Grandma's Countdown Checklist to Holiday Hosting with Food Allergies

by Karen Dalfonso

Grandma needs help!  The family get-togethers are a special challenge because my kitchen needs to be allergy friendly less than 1% of the year and I have a lot of work to do.  This is the season for  balancing 60 years of family tradition, exposure to novel grocery store product items and  recipes, social media entertaining ideas and a desire to make this a memorable SAFE-EATING holiday event for my family!  

This year I’ve decided to add my own allergy friendly planning checklist to my “traditional” holiday meal planning list.  If you are using this checklist, simply cross off items you do not find helpful.

Ten days before:

➤Get updated allergen and safe food list (discuss with person with food allergies or parent of child with food allergies).

➤Plan “simple” appetizers, main dish, side dish, salad and bread.

➤List ingredients needed.  Remember to cross off list when purchased.

➤Find designated space for “safe” items and kitchen gear: Paper plates, paper cups, disposable utensils, place mats any cooking utensils such as knives, pans, colander, measuring cups/spoons, flour, sugar, oats, purchased snack or dessert items.

Seven days before:

➤Buy food staples, freezer, and non-perishable refrigerator items.

➤Wash serving dishes, platters, silverware, glasses.

➤Notify guests you appreciate their offer but your menu will not include “extras” as all food items need to be safe.

Two-Four days before:

➤Clean refrigerator and designate a specific shelf for dairy-free butter/yogurt/milk or other allergy friendly items.

➤Find specific area for safe snacks.

➤Scan shelves and remove allergens from shelves if possible or at least arrange in one place in the kitchen.

➤Clean workspace/countertops.  If possible plan regular meals for the remaining few days that do not contain allergens.

➤Prepare make-ahead dishes. Save all labels of foods for guest with food allergies to read

One day before:

➤Complete make-ahead dishes.

➤Re-read food labels.

Day of dinner:

➤Give labels to guest with food allergies to review.

➤Consider arranging for fixed seating (especially helpful if small children with food allergies will be present).

➤Review menu.

➤Make sure guest knows about safe space in refrigerator, shelves, bin, safe snacks, paper and storage items.

➤Arrange for allergy-friendly plate to be served first along with  “seconds” plate. If serving buffet style, arrange for the guest with food allergies to get food first (and put extra food to the side for seconds).

➤Enjoy your time with your family!

What other items are on your countdown checklist for holiday hosting?

Other posts you might like:

Grandma's Guide to Holiday Hosting with Food Allergies

A Food Allergy Friendly Trip to NYC

Last Minute Holiday Recipes

Dairy Free Chocolate Holiday Bark

Gluten-free Homemade Stuffing that Tastes Like Stovetop

We had a great Thanksgiving. I hope you did too! I thought I'd share my new favorite recipe for homemade gluten-free stuffing. In my opinion it tastes very similar to Stovetop stuffing. I used a whole loaf of Schar Gluten Free Multigrain Sandwich Bread, but this can also easily be made into non-gluten-free stuffing if you use regular old wheat bread too.

What a tasty, savory side dish. It's probably my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal.

Ingredients:

• 1 loaf Schar Gluten Free Multigrain Sandwich Bread(or other bread of your choice)
• 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1/4 cup Earth Balance (dairy-free) butter
• 2 cups diced yellow onion
• 5 stalks celery
• 1 tsp dry parsley
• 1 tsp dry basil
• 1 tsp salt
• 2/3 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp black pepper

Directions:

• Toast the Schar gluten-free bread in the oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or less on a cookie sheet. Flip the bread during toasting if needed.
• Cut the Schar bread into small cubes
• Saute the Earth Balance butter, onion and celery in a pan.
• Add the bread cubes and seasonings and stir
• Add the chicken broth in 1/2 cup portions until the bread cubes are moistened, but not completely saturated.
• Spoon the stuffing into an oven safe dish. At this point you can put it in the refrigerator until you're ready to cook it, or immediately put it in the oven at 350 degree until it's warmed throughout and a little crunchy on top.  


For a beautiful finishing touch, put it in a polish stonewaredish. I love my polish stoneware!
All opinions in this post are my own. This post contains Amazon affiliate links at no cost to you.

My 5 Favorite Cookbooks for Allergy-friendly Thanksgiving Recipes

Every holiday I like to try out one or two new recipes to make our holiday meals a little more exciting and varied. I did like our menu last year and I think everyone was satisfied with what we ate for our early Thanksgiving celebration and for our actual meal on Thanksgiving day!  Even though I've been cooking allergy-friendly meals for about 3 years now, I'm STILL learning and striving to find all of our favorite recipes that are tasty and safe for Little Guy. I've recently been looking though cookbooks for new recipe ideas. So, I thought I'd share my 5 favorite cookbooks for food allergy friendly Thanksgiving and holiday recipes:

1. Simple and Easy Recipes and Ingredients
I love my Sophie-Safe cookbook by Emily Henrix since it includes simple and easy food allergy friendly recipes and ingredients. The recipes are free of the top 8 allergens - milk, eggs, wheat, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish. This cookbook includes my go to muffin recipes like pumpkin muffins and apple muffins that would be great for Thanksgiving. It also includes the below cranberry salad recipe that I also found on the Sophie Safe blog:

Aunt Jeannie's Cranberry Salad
1 12 ounce bag of whole fresh cranberries
1 navel orange
1 granny smith apple
1 cup sugar 

Grind fruits using a food processor one by one.  Do not peel oranges before grinding. Mix fruits and sugar and refrigerate several hours or overnight before serving. 

2. The Go-To Gluten-Free Baking Cookbook
Colette Martin wrote an amazing cookbook that not only gives you allergy-friendly recipes, but TEACHES you about baking. Learning to Bake Allergen-Free: A Crash Course for Busy Parents on Baking without Wheat, Gluten, Dairy, Eggs, Soy or Nuts includes some amazing recipes that would be great for the holidays like Cinnamon Rolls (and holiday morning family favorite in our house), Crescent Rolls (MUCH better ingredients than the ones off the store shelves!) and Chocolate Mousse Tarts.

3. Creative Food-Allergy Friendly Recipes You Won't Find Everywhere 
A friend gave me the What's to Eat? The Milk-Free, Egg-Free, Nut-Free Food Allergy Cookbook by Linda Marienhoff Coss. I haven't tried too many recipes in it yet (note that it does include a number of recipes with sesame and/or wheat in them), but I definitely want to try the recipes for Cornbread Stuffing, Gingerbread Cookies and Holiday Cut-Out Cookies.  Perfect for Thanksgiving and the holidays!

4. Vegetarian/Meatless Recipes Everyone Will Love
Although we're not vegetarians, I appreciate a good meatless meal or side dish. This Meatless: More Than 200 of the Very Best Vegetarian Recipes cookbook by Martha Stewart is a new favorite of mine for it's creative take on veggies. It does include a number of allergens like nuts and dairy, but there are so many recipes that are allergy-friendly and easily adaptable!  For the holidays, I'd like to try the Mashed White Beans and Vegetables (which look like mashed potatoes!), the Glazed Carrots with Whole Spices and Rosemary, and the Warm Quinoa and Green Bean Salad.

5. Gourmet and Homestyle Recipes that are Allergy-Friendly
The Whole Foods Allergy Cookbook by Cybele Pascal was the first allergy-friendly cookbook I bought after I found out Little Guy had food allergies. I wish I had more time to try out all of the delicious sounding recipes in this cookbook, but someday I will!  I thought the dairy-free Curried Pumpkin Soup, Acorn Squash with Cranberries, and the Holiday Orange Sweet Potato Bake sounded like perfect holiday dishes to try this season.

Wishing you an amazing Thanksgiving full of food, family and fun!



All opinions in this post are my own and I actually own these cookbooks. This post includes affiliate links.

Thanksgiving Wrap-Up

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful day full of family, food and fun...Mamacado-style!  As I said in my last blog post, I decided to keep the Thanksgiving meal simple and no-fuss. Everyone brought side dishes, and we stuck with the basics which still made for a wonderful and filling meal!

Below is a photo of the great meal....we had everything I listed on the menu in my last post.

Here is my son's plate - filled with everything that was allergy-friendly for him. He didn't care for the cranberry sauce or stuffing - of course the two things that he usually doesn't eat.  But he enjoyed everything else (and has been eating those leftovers for the past few days too!).

The cornbread stuffing was a new recipe I tried, and I definitely liked it. It wasn't as "pretty" as the traditional stuffing (but I could work on that with more time), and I personally prefer the savory vs. sweet stuffing. But I thought it was a great allergy-friendly option.

I also tried a new recipe listed on my last blog post: Sweet potato truffles. I changed it just a bit to make it allergy-friendly by substituting gluten-free oats for the pecans. I'm guessing the pecans add a nice flavor and texture to this dessert that I think it was missing. These tasted like sweet potato pie, which was definitely a good thing.  But they were a little too soft for my liking - they needed some sort of crust or nut filling.  I froze the leftovers and may try them on top of vanilla ice cream as they'd probably be very tasty that way!

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!

My Thanksgiving Dinner Menu

We've hosted Thanksgiving for the past 4 years and are continuing the tradition this year. We usually have around 15 people, but this year we have a smaller crowd of about 8 (plus the two lovebugs).  Less people is a good thing as I am MORE unprepared for this Thanksgiving than EVER. 

Since we were away this past weekend and since I’m working all week, my Thanksgiving prep has involved making lots of lists. Most of the actual prep will be done after work tonight and before everyone arrives tomorrow!  Thankfully our guests are bringing more than one side dish with them, so I definitely have help with the meal.

I’m keeping things rather easy this year. I'm sticking with the basics and also only making 2 recipes I've never made before: Allergy-friendly stuffing and sweet potato truffles.  Here’s my Thanksgiving dinner menu, a combination of allergy-friendly and traditional Thanksgiving food!

Allergy-friendly Thanksgiving food:

• Turkey – bought from a local farmer. I'm making it with olive oil and seasonings like rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper.
• Allergy-friendly stuffing from this recipe
• Mashed potatoes (made with Earth Balance butter)
• Sweet potatoes (made with Earth Balance butter)
• Steamed green beans (for those who want an alternative to green bean casserole)
• Sweet potato pie truffles from this recipe in Clean Eating Magazine
• Possibly some Enjoy Life cookies

Traditional food (made with non-allergy friendly ingredients):

• Traditional sausage stuffing made by my mother-in-law (so good)
• Green bean casserole made by my mother-in-law (a crowd favorite)
• Rolls
• Pumpkin pie (My mom is making this.  We would have loved to make this allergy-friendly but I didn't have time this year!)

Hopefully I’ll remember to take photos of the meal this time!  Wishing you and your family a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Early Thanksgiving Celebration

I hope everyone had a fun and restful weekend before the big Tday. I should have been cleaning my house, food shopping, and maybe even cooking this weekend in preparation for Thanksgiving at our house, but instead we went on a trip!  

We had a great time celebrating an early Thanksgiving with our extended family in Maryland and Delaware.  We spent one night at The Dunes Manor Hotel and enjoyed seeing the beach and hanging out at the hotel with family. We've been staying at The Dunes Manor since I was a wee little one, so it's now sort of a family tradition to meet there.  It's a quaint hotel that's located right at the end of the boardwalk, so it's a great location.  It also has fun things like tea, crumpets and cookies at 3pm every day - even right now during the off season.

At night we all went to Winterfest of Lights to get in the holiday spirit and do something festive with the kiddos. My son REALLY enjoyed the train ride that took us around a park decorated with beautiful Christmas light displays. He didn't want to sit on Santa's lap at the end of the ride, so we just waved and moved along.  For some reason he loves sitting on the Easter bunny's lap, but Santa is still a bit scary!

Here's a photo of my husband and son having a bunch of glorious fun at Winterfest.....

On Sunday we traveled to Delaware for the early Tday with about 20 of our family members.  It's always a fun group with lots of kids and craziness! As with every big event with lots of people and lots of food, I worry about my son eating something that's unsafe for him. I also worry about what he's going to eat - especially when we're traveling. 

Thankfully my cousin, the host, was very thoughtful and made an allergy-friendly turkey just with olive oil and spices. She also roasted butternut squash with olive oil that my son always enjoys. I'm always so thankful when friends and family members take time to even think about making food my son can eat.

Below is the spread of the amazing and yummy food we enjoyed. It always breaks my heart that he can't taste all this wonderful food, but thankfully he's more interested in playing right now than eating!

Below is my son's plate. I added a banana muffin from home that I pulled out of the freezer for the trip.  He ate about 3 of these muffins over the course of the weekend.  It's one of my favorite recipes from the Sophie-Safe cookbook

Hope you enjoy this short week. I'm still trying to plan my allergy-friendly Thanksgiving menu.  What are YOU having for Tday?

PS - Here's a sleep update for my son after this post last week.  My husband has been home during bedtime more often, which has allowed me to spend more sitting next to my son's bed to sing or tell stories before he goes to sleep. I've found that if I stay in his room just a little longer until he gets REALLY sleepy, he doesn't run out.  I hope this is our solution to the running out problem!