Hey ya’ll and welcome to Everyday Made Fresh! I’m Joanna Brittain, a chef-wannabe, food & lifestyle blogger, based in Panama City, Florida.
About the Family Behind Everyday Made Fresh
I was born and raised in Alabama, and moved to Florida during high school. I met Zack, my Hoosier husband in 2001, and we’ve been happily married since 2003. We have two daughters, Kayla and Kelsie. Kayla has enlisted in the Navy, and going to be a Hospital Corpsman. She graduated basic training in May, and is currently in A school. And I homeschool Kelsie; currently in middle school. She wants to be a physical therapist for animals one day, and rescue sloths. Up until the summer of 2015, I was a Paraprofessional at a local elementary school where Kelsie was attending. Although I loved my job, it wasn’t my calling. I have been blogging off and on for years. I started a mommy blog in 2007, but didn’t find my true passion until July of 2014, when I started Everyday Made Fresh.
About Everyday Made Fresh
Everyday Made Fresh is an idea that I came up with after Kelsie was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis in October 2013. Her diagnosis was all we needed to change our eating habits, and become more aware of what we were consuming.
Naturally after the diagnosis of EoE, you go in for allergy testing. Her first allergy test was done 2 weeks after her diagnosis. We learned that Kelsie was allergic (like most of us) to a lot of environmental components. However, we focused on the foods. We learned that she was allergic to shellfish and tree nuts. Thus our journey began.
We searched high and low for allergy friendly foods. If you go to your pantry, you’ll see how difficult our search was. We did find that organic brands were more allergy “aware”.
We read label after label every time we go to the store. Yes, it’s a daunting task, but ingredients are constantly changing. We are always on the search for new brands that she (and we) can eat. (we don’t usually eat things she can’t)
Fast forward to Spring 2014 and she was still complaining of stomach pains. Her only outward symptom of EoE. After the omission of shellfish and tree nuts, along with medication; she was not getting any better. I decided to take her to another allergist and this is where we are today.
We discovered that she was also allergic to corn, tomato, egg, pineapple, soy, oat, and sweet potato. Yikes! We eat egg, corn, and tomato all the time, or at least some form of it. Think spaghetti, pizza, salsa, baked goods, and corn syrups in most processed products.
With all that, the way we shop for and eat food has changed. It has been extremely difficult to search for recipes that were allergy friendly and not gluten free. We went on a recent cook book search at our local book store and couldn’t find one that wasn’t gluten free but allergy friendly. Shopping for products has been just as hard.
We believe in labeling all recipes and products as much as possible. We believe that the world should be a much more allergy friendly place!
Everyday Made Fresh evolved from an allergy friendly blog into a blog where simple, quick, family friendly recipes are shared. It further evolved into sharing a lot about what our family does. I believe that recipes shouldn’t require a long list of complicated ingredients, and shouldn’t take long to prepare and cook. I also believe that families should invest in their time together in the kitchen, creating memories that last a life time. I want my audience (that’s you!) to create memories together with your family. I want you to cook and bake together. I want you to be in and out of the kitchen quickly so that you can be the mom, dad, grandparent, guardian, or whatever that your child(ren) need! Now go, go and make memories with your family!
**Update – As of January 2015, we have added cooked tomato products into our recipes. We also were able to start baking with eggs again!
**Update – As of winter 2016, we have added sweet potato back into our diet.
**Update – As of January 2017, we have added corn back into Kelsie’s diet. However, she still can’t tolerate corn syrups.
