Dairy-free Pizza

Having a dairy-allergic child has caused me to re-think how we, as a family, eat. I never wanted Charlotte to feel that her food was different from ours, and so wherever possible we all eat together as a family. Certain pre-children dairy-laden favourites that my husband and I just can't live without are reserved for meals when we eat after the girls are in bed, just to save any upset when Charlotte can't have them.

Emma with her finished pizza

We eat a lot of oriental foods, which are naturally dairy-free and also pasta dishes where the children have soya cheese on theirs and we have ordinary cheese on ours. I do find myself splitting the kitchen in half with a dairy-free side and a dairy side, just so I don't get confused and mess up.

One of the things that has been a winner right from the start of weaning was pizza. Obviously we have to make them from scratch, but on a wet weekend, it can keep the children busy for ages helping to make their own individual pizzas. We buy pizza base mix from the supermarket, then make a tomato topping for it. I use "chair de tomate" for this, as it is thicker than chopped tomatoes and comes in smaller tins. We mix garlic salt and italian herb seasoning into the tomato, then the girls smear it on their pizza bases. They then sprinkle the soya cheese on top and bung them in the oven.

On the subject of soya cheese, the girls will only eat super melting mozzarella style cheezly as their cheese substitute. I have served this to unsuspecting small friends of theirs on a pizza and they didn't even notice that it was dairy-free cheese!