Thursday, March 17, 2011

Last minute egg-free feta cheese phyllo "cups"......

We had another home visit scheduled for Alexa's class today.  In case you haven't been following the trend, I managed to get the teacher to agree to "no food" at these visits after the first fiasco but then she went on maternity leave and the flood gates opened and now ALL the parents are providing food at their visits.  So, this leave me checking with each parent before each visit to find out what they are serving and if I need to make a substitute item and/or attend the visit for safety reasons.  The mom for today's visit emailed me Monday to tell me that they were making "feta pies" using egg, feta cheese, and phyllo dough and wrote, "please let me know if would be hazardous to Alexa." I emailed her back immediately and said "Thank you very much for passing this information along.  Alexa is allergic to egg so that will not work for her but if you could email me the recipe, I will try to create a similar item to send along with her on Thursday. Thanks again!" Well, we all get busy with life, and she didn't send the recipe along.   Since I knew this might happen, I bought the feta cheese and phyllo dough and planned to experiment and try to make something similar for Alexa to bring with her.  Yesterday was one of those very busy days and by the time I got the kids to bed at 7:45 p.m. I was exhausted and didn't feel like experimenting in the kitchen but skipping it was NOT an option.  I just couldn't imagine sending Alexa along to the home visit and making her watch while they all cooked and ate the feta pie and she snacked on crackers or whatnot.  I researched some online recipes and found that folding the little triangle thingys looked WAY to extensive and complicated for my tired Mommy brain so, instead I opted to make phyllo cups in a muffin tin.  I mixed together the feta cheese with a little cream cheese, basil, and fresh ground pepper.  I cut the phyllo to smallish squares, fit them into the muffin tins to make a "cup", brushed the phyllo with a little butter, put a small amount of the cheese mix in the center and cooked it for about 7-9 minutes until the edges of the phyllo where well browned and it seemed the bottom dough would be done.  The result was a bit salty for my taste and the phyllo was crumbly in some places and a little underdone at the bottom but not a total failure.  I sent her off to school with 3 in her bag and hope that I hear good reviews tonight.  I'll let you know the verdict.  Oh, life with food allergies is always interesting!! 

2 comments:

  1. Good job on the feta cups with substitutions! On a related note: Why is food so incorporated into everything at school nowadays?

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  2. Thanks Lindsay-she actually really liked them which is a great surprise and she said they made them in squares so now I know I can make them in big sheets, add spinach and have a good treat for them! I know-the incorporation of food into EVERY event is driving me wild, fortunately the challenge of creating a safe substitute has been ok so far. Fearing the FLAN or CUSTARD challenges since she can't do egg ;-)

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