Celebrate the Spring Holidays (Easter, Passover, etc.) Even with Food Allergies

Springtime delights me!  My boys and I look for signs of spring every day, and each day we find new ones.  When you live in the frozen Midwest, each new crocus, tree bud or returning bird is really exciting!

The holidays that lots of folks celebrate in the spring can at first seem challenging if you live with food allergies or restrictions.  With a little creative thinking (and a quality recipe or two) you, too, can have your cake and eat it too (both figuratively and literally, pardon the pun!).

If your family celebrates Passover, wheat-free or gluten-free matzo can seem like the first challenge you must surmount.  No worries!  There are plenty of gluten-free options for your family.

If your family celebrates Easter, you need a safe alternative to Easter eggs.  Our family leaves out baskets filled with empty plastic eggs (they're reusable year after year) that the Easter bunny fills and hides.  He fills them with stickers, tattoos, little toys and chalk or markers.  The kids find the baskets filled with books, small toys and sometimes an Enjoy Life candy bar or other safe candy.

Since dyeing eggs isn't an option in our home (for oh-so-many reasons -- allergies, veganism, etc.), we make all sorts of spring-time decorations.  We might decorate paper eggs with stickers and markers, or we might draw nests with robin's eggs.  We also will probably start some seeds that we can plant outside once we're sure that it's not going to frost again.  We focus on the spring/renewal aspects of our celebrations.  When we do that  we see that there is so much we can do to relish this exciting season.

But, seriously, what's a celebration without great things to eat?  We'll make our own candy (like the sunflower seed butter cups and pepita cups posted earlier), and we'll have a holiday brunch with Brunch Hash and Crispy Apple Crisp.  Here are some other great vegan, gluten-free, and food allergy-friendly treats.

However you celebrate the season, we wish you a glorious spring!

Happy Cooking!
Kim