When Sophie was just a baby, she was so itchy, eczema covering her lower back and legs.  I felt so bad for her and nothing seemed to relieve the itchiness - not lotion, not a change in detergent, not hypoallergenic anything or everything.  I brought her to the doctor and we started her on a topical cream, which he told us to stop days later saying that a study had just come out that put the cream in question saying that it may cause cancer.  We threw it away and were grateful that we'd only used a small amount over a short time. 

With no solution on the horizon, I started doing some research and found that for many people, eczema is the outward way of showing a food allergy.  I looked at the list of most likely offenders - dairy, wheat, soy - and decided that we'd knock them out one-by-one and see if any of them made a difference.  I was still nursing exclusively at the time, so it was my diet that had to change.  I decided to start with dairy, and two weeks later (the amount of time for dairy proteins to make their way through your body), Sophie's eczema disappeared.  IT WENT AWAY.  And so did dairy.

It was really hard for awhile, trying to figure out what food to make for our family.  Everything I thought about making included dairy and our meals in those early days were very bland.  Without some of my old standbys and my usual ways of cooking, I just didn't know how to cook.  I started purchasing ingredients and meals from the organic section of the grocery store, but I still felt like we were missing a lot.  Then I began to discover all of the products that are available without dairy, many of which are store brands of items I would normally purchase.

It's been almost three years since we've changed our way of cooking, and I've found lots of recipes for foods we like to eat and substitutions for many others.  Not every substitution provides a good outcome, but we've found lots of new favorites.  For the past two years, I've been adding a lot of these recipes to our family blog and have used it frequently to track down the recipes for things I've made in the past.  The problem is that the recipes are all hidden in stories and not named appropriately for recipe searching.  Of course, that wasn't my original intention when I added them to the blog, but now I need a better way to keep it all together.  And, here we are.

How will it work, Jennie?
This site will include all kinds of recipes we're making at our house - all of which are non-dairy.  Some of the recipes are non-dairy from the start and when possible I'll link back to the original source.  Others are recipes I've modified to make them non-dairy - in that case, I'll link back to the original and provide the new non-dairy version.  A handful of the recipes are ones I've made up in order to try to recreate some of our old dairy-laden favorites - I'll just give you those straight up.

To start, I'm going to organize the recipes by food genre (or whatever its called).  I haven't yet decided if I'm going to give the recipes any sort of rating, but any recipe that we LOVED will be given our very top rating - "Oh Fay!" (taken from one of our favorite movies "What About Bob?" when Bob Wiley ooohs and aaahs over all the food at Dr. Marvin's table, praising his wife Fay on her excellent fried chicken.  You know, in case you're wondering).  Oh Fay! favorites can be found all grouped together in their very own category.

But Jennie, we eat dairy at our house.
Yes, most people do.  Many of the recipes that will be on this site will not include any special non-dairy ingredients.  And for those that do, you could easily substitute your favorite dairy foods in place of the soy, rice, or almond-based ingredients we're using at our house.

Will you just cook for me?
Sure come on over.  This is our kitchen.  It always looks like this.

Just kidding.  It almost NEVER looks like that, and that's why I had to take a picture of it to capture that split second miracle.

When you come over, expect to find these two at the counter:


They like to help me measure and stir and cut stuff up.  We go through dozens of spoons every time we make something, and I spend most of my time saying "NO! Don't lick that! Wait! Don't put it back in the bowl!"  It's loud, somewhat messy, and lots of fun.  Sometimes I can even get them to sit on chairs and keep their feet off the counter.  I mean honestly, how gross.

So, on that note, feel free to join us at our house for dinner.  Or, if you have higher standards of cleanliness, you may want to just print the recipes and cook at home.