Cooking with a Nut-free Kid

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Right after his second birthday, we discovered that X was allergic to peanuts. Luckily, this discovery was accompanied by only a mild reaction to the offending legume. Peanut allergies are among some of the most serious food allergies around - right up there with shell-fish, I'd say. So over the past 6 months or so we've been slowly (probably a bit too slowly) ridding our home of nuts. Not just peanuts, because our pediatric allergist advised us that, at least for the next two years, X should not get nuts of any kind. This is because peanut allergies are often an indicator that other nut allergies exist within certain individuals.
So I've been scouring the internet and bookstores for cookbooks and recipe ideas for my nut-free Kid. I came across a great resource that I'd like to share: The Nut-Free Mom.
A couple of weeks back, she posted a recipe for two different variations on nut-free granola bars. So given that we've dedicated this week to reinvigorating our snack-time menu, I decided this was the week we would tackle one of them.


The Nut-Free Mom's Nut-Free Oatmeal Granola Bars (used by permission The Nut-Free Mom)
2 cups old-fashioned oats, uncooked
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup packed brown sugar (light or dark)
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (*we used cranberries)
1/2 cup toasted wheat germ (or in a pinch, use same amount of whole wheat flour)
3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt (Morton's makes this)
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup SunButter brand sunflower seed spread
1 large egg (if going egg-free, use 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce instead)
2 tsp vanilla extract (Nielsen-Massey or McCormick's are my faves)

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan with Pam.
- In a large bowl with a wooden spoon, mix oats, flour, brown sugar, chocolate chips, wheat germ or wheat flour and salt until blended. Stir in oil, honey, SunButter, egg or applesauce and vanilla until thoroughly combined. Pat mixture into pan with a wet hand (so you won't stick too much).
- Bake until golden around the edges, 30 to 35 minutes. Cool completely in pan on wire rack.

- When cool, cut lengthwise into bars of your preferred size.




Thanks to Jenny over at the Nut-Free Mom for sharing this recipe! X and I really enjoyed making it together.

The Nut-Free Mom Blog