If you or someone in your family has a food allergy or sensitivity, you likely have come across recipes you can’t make as written. Whether it’s gluten or dairy, soy etc…I’m sure you’ve sometimes wondered how to make something you wanted to eat without the ingredients you need to avoid. Of course, sometimes it just can’t be done, especially when it comes to baking, but often it can. Sometimes it involves changing what you consider to be your staple recipes. I’ve become sensitive to dairy and while it’s not life threatening it can be extremely uncomfortable. I no longer cook with cheese or milk…although butter is okay. This means no more cream sauces or just adding cheese to add flavour. I can no longer eat one of my go-to comfort foods, macaroni and cheese, but there are still many recipes that I can. When buying products at the grocery store the best approach is to always read the label and know your ingredients. If you are sensitive or allergic to a spice, for example, you can easily either eliminate it or replace it with spices that do agree with you. If you can’t eat gluten there are now a lot of gluten-free products available at your local grocery store or on-line. Gluten is a little trickier because it’s in so many food products and you have to know what ingredients contain gluten. Get to know them…it will make you feel a lot better if you avoid them. The easiest route to accommodating sensitivities or allergies is to cook from “scratch” at home. That way you know exactly what is going into each meal. I’ve often eaten at restaurants and have been surprised to find out when the dish was presented to me that it included dairy when it wasn’t listed as an ingredient. When you’re eating out, always ask the waiter before ordering. When cooking at home, the easiest option is to eliminate the ingredient, especially if it’s something that the recipe can do without. You can also replace it depending on what it is and what’s its purpose is. Look at this as your chance to experiment! It’s easy to replace regular pasta with gluten free like rice or corn. Make sure you read every ingredient of even your most basic staple…you might be surprised. A friend of mine gave me some hot chocolate mix this morning that she can’t use. Her husband bought it at a really good chocolate store in town thinking that it was gluten free, however wheat starch was right there on the label, which of course she can’t have. Who would think that hot chocolate mix has wheat starch? If you have to replace flour you can usually use gluten free cornstarch, brown rice, potato or even chickpea flour. They are all great for coating and browning meat, making a roux or thickening a sauce. An even easier way to thicken a sauce is simply by reducing the sauce. Depending on the size of the recipe, it could take an extra thirty minutes but it’s worth it because as the sauce reduces it intensifies in flavour. Also, be sure to check out some new websites. There is a lot of information available on substitutions, food allergies and sensitivities and recipes to accommodate them. One year I made a dairy free chocolate cake for my son’s birthday party because one of his friends attending had a severe allergy to dairy and it turned out better than I could have imagined. The other day I was going through some blogs and found one with a Julia Child recipe which I made for supper that night. The recipe is from the blog Living in the Kitchen with Puppies.  It’s a very simple recipe that is very easily prepared for a week night dinner. It turned out that I didn’t have any regular flour left so I used brown rice flour to make it and it turned out just as well. Here’s the recipe for you to try. Remember I used brown rice flour instead of regular flour.  It is a little more time intensive to clarify the butter but definitely worth it and it makes all the difference in the recipe.