Continued: What's cooking: Food allergies? Try this

Food allergies? Try this

More than 12 million Americans have a diagnosed food allergy -- double the number of a decade ago. Ninety percent of the often frightening reactions are linked to eight foods. Those statistics came home to Melisa Priem's family in North Oaks in 2003 when her daughter was found to be allergic to 25 foods. Priem always loved to cook, but never had formal training -- which, she believes, actually was a plus because she's felt freer to stray from certain kitchen rules. Armed with that and a mother's fierce drive to help her child, she adapted more than 250 everyday recipes to make them free of the top eight allergens: wheat, soy, eggs, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish, and also dairy- and gluten-free. The result is "Eight Degrees of Ingredients" (Beaver Pond Press, $24.95). Chocolate chip cookies, potato salad, onion rings, tacos, blueberry muffins, turkey tetrazzini and more have been overhauled. There's also a glossary of hypoallergenic products and their sources.

Spence swirls, and wins

St. Paul resident Lynette Spence has won the $5,000 grand prize for her entry in the Bake Life Sweeter recipe contest sponsored by Betty Crocker Cookie Mix. Her Cinna-spin Cookies are based on a memory of baking with her grandmother. She prepared a pouch of Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix as directed, adding 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Then she rolled tablespoons of dough into 5-inch ropes, pressed one side of each into ground cinnamon and coiled each into a cinnamon roll shape. She baked them at 375 degrees for 7 to 10 minutes, let them cool, then drizzled them with a powdered-sugar glaze. Her recipe and other runners-up can be found at BakeLifeSweeter.com/cookies. Spence also won 1,000 bonus box tops for her school choice, Trinity Catholic School in St. Paul, to use in the Box Tops for Education school program.

'On the Road' in Haiti

Last month, KSTP-TV reporter Jason Davis took his "On the Road" feature to Haiti to show the work done by the thousands of Minnesotans who volunteer for Kids Against Hunger, founded by St. Paul native Richard Proudfit. Proudfit developed rice-soy casserole food packets with vitamins and nutrients that are assembled by Scout troops, youth groups and churches. Davis' report will air on Channel 5 at 10:35 p.m. Sunday, and again on May 17.

Yogurt for mom

TCBY, which stands for "The Country's Best Yogurt" (did you know that?) is giving away free cups and cones to all moms this Sunday for Mother's Day.