Attending a significant others' family party for the first time when you have food allergies can be nerve-wracking. Here are our top tips for getting through the day...

Should you try AirBnB for your next long haul vacation? It sure helps to have a kitchen when you have severe food allergies and dining out is difficult.

Death in Venice owner Kaya Ogruce teaches us how to make top 8 allergen free sorbet

Quick allergen-free snack ideas using Enjoy Life products! Can you say delicious?

After an anaphylactic reaction it is common to have a long-lasting wave of anxiety, called reaction PTSD. These are the coping strategies I really use to find calm when anxiety is taking control.

Veronica of The Vegetarian Ginger made us breakfast bars and a warm allergen-free turmeric drink from the Deliciously Ella cookbook

Teen food allergy advocate, Susan Tatelli, is educating others about managing allergies and how to react in the event of an anaphylactic reaction via her Youtube channel!

Learn how to make healthy junk food that's allergen-free

Our friend Jessey is obsessed with bread. Get her recipe with step-by-step photos and instructions.

Read our definitive guide to planning and packing for traveling with food allergies, for teens and young adults.

Teen food allergy advocate and aspiring writer, Lauren Laughlin, shares her experiences growing up with food allergies and partaking in a new desensitizing therapy.

When you have food allergies it's always wonderful to learn of more ingredients/foods that you CAN have as opposed to ones that you can't. Add flavor-packed microgreens to your diet with these super simple recipes.

Learn how to make some delicious vegan and allergen-free Valentine's Day treats for your #bae with a little help from Bowl Bar

What does it cost to live with food allergies? Here's a window into my week

A humorous editorial article about how I live vicariously through others when it comes to dining out and traveling, as a person with food allergies.

Guest writer Natasha Tsakiris on what it's like to grow up with peanut and nut allergies, and the feelings of inconvenience and insecurity that come with it.

Reviewing the comfort food cookbook, Eat In My Kitchen, and custom-fitting some recipes to be free from the top allergens.

Frozen yogurt that's free from many common allergens including dairy, nuts, peanuts, wheat, and more.

Last week my friends Maddie and Simona joined me in the kitchen to cook from It's a Pleasure, by Virpi Mikkonen. She has an amazing Instagram feed and you can follow her here. As a foodie blogger she did all the photography for the book herself and it has a beautiful minimalist vibe with great textures and accents. It's a Pleasure is a collection of dessert recipes that are all free from dairy, gluten, and refined sugar. And here at EAF we like books that are already "free-from" some common allergens because it usually means less adjusting for us!

We made a batch of what I lovingly referred to as Mandy-friendly Bounty Bars, but they are actually chocolate-covered coconut bars and, despite my never having eaten an actual Bounty bar, I'm inclined to think these are much tastier.

For this recipe we used unsweetened coconut flakes, 1 potato, coconut oil, organic honey, pure vanilla extract, and dark chocolate. The dark chocolate did have some added sugar however it's the most trusted brand of allergen-free chocolate around so we decided to overlook the sugar issue.

To make the coconut center of the chocolates, Maddie peeled and chopped the potato and then simmered until cooked through. The potato acts as a binder for the coconut flakes and gives the center a nice soft texture while not altering the flavor at all.

Maddie was rocking some seriously Canadian socks

The potato was then drained and mashed until smooth. Simona added the honey, coconut flakes, vanilla, and coconut oil and mixed well.

The "dough" was pulled apart and formed into little sausage shapes which was hilarious to watch if you tuned into our Instagram live feed. Both ladies had their own ways of doing it! The coconut centers were then put into the freezer to chill for (what we intended to be) a half hour, but actually ended up being more like 10 minutes. Also my freezer is heinously full from my farm-share stock-up so we had to move things around to shove it in.

Killing time while we wait for the coconut+potato balls to chill

We melted the chocolate in a double boiler but if you own a microwave you could easily melt it in there. It's so hard to say I don't own a microwave without sounding like a pretentious millennial so let's just move on...

Since we hadn't let the coconut balls cool fully they wouldn't hold together when we tried to dip them in the chocolate. What can I say, we were impatient! Instead Simona transferred some chocolate to a plastic bag and drizzled it on while Maddie tested the dunking option. I can tell you that both tasted equally delicious.

So, what do we like and dislike about this book?

We like its aesthetic and simple photography. It's a wonderful book to buy for yourself if you're learning how to eat healthier or are already practicing a sugar/gluten/dairy-free diet. It's also just a wonderful book in general aside from the health aspect. There is no compromise to flavor, texture, appearance, or accessibility of ingredients even though it's free-from. We loved this because at EAF we believe that "free-from" does not mean less-than. The recipe was easy to follow and the end product was delicious. I've already flagged a number of other recipes from this book that I want to make!

There's nothing I really disliked about the book except that it is a bit heavy on nuts and I have not found a great substitute for cashews as of yet. I also need to find a good brand of dates that doesn't have a may contain warning on it as that will open up the number of recipes I can make quite a bit.

Overall, this book really was a pleasure to cook from!

Simple allergen-free substitutes for nuts and peanuts