Creepy Crawly Spider Burgers & More Halloween Meal Ideas for Food Allergic Kids

When you have food-allergic children, you learn to get creative.  But as every parent knows, there is no need to reinvent the wheel.  Lots of sites feature vegan or even allergy-friendly recipes or meal ideas (ahem...).  But even if they don't, with some imagination and ingenuity, you can turn most recipes into something your children can and will eat.  Just sub in safe and loved ingredients.

I saw this meal idea and HAD to have it!  Since my kids can't have egg or dairy in the raviolis, I modified the recipe, making them Creepy Crawly Spider Burgers on Crispy Polenta Rounds.  So easy! 

The spider body is a mini turkey burger and sits on top of a fried polenta round.  The legs are bell peppers and the web and eyes are chilled ketchup that I piped out of a Ziploc with the corner snipped off.  My kids made tarantulas with caramelized onions for hair and sweet potato fries for fangs (Trader Joe's frozen sweet potato fries). 

The whole concept was fun, but honestly, I had the kids at the ketchup web.  The great thing about kids is that with a bit of effort, they're really easy to impress.  Enjoy!

Check out these easy and fun allergy-friendly Halloween snacks:

Snack-'o-Lantern Simply a scooped out orange with carved out facial features and added fruit salad.  Healthy, easy, and delicious!
Black Bean Cat Crudites Lots of your child's fresh veggies and this simple black bean dip make this snack the cat's meow!
Halloween Veggies Veggies with a Hummus Dip served in a carved out pumpkin
Spider Web Soup Make a spider web with sour cream (for dairy allergies, try Tofutti Sour Supreme) and a toothpick in your child's favorite soup (try Butternut Squash Soup for a sweet, smooth introduction to soup for your pickiest of eaters)
Mummy Wraps Wrap a turkey hotdog or chicken sausage with breadstick dough, then add ketchup eyes (Pillsbury Crescent Rounds or Pillsbury Crescent Rolls are two good dairy free options.  You can always press together crescent roll triangles and recut into strips)
Squiddlies Poke uncooked spaghetti (try buckwheat or rice pasta for gluten alleriges) through hotdog chunks and cook for the weirdest pasta your kids will eat--and love!

And don't forget to send your kids to school with their food allergy bracelets, especially on Halloween, when both safe and unsafe treats will likely crop up throughout the day.  What?  Your FA children don't own an allergy bracelet yet?  Well then, register to win a full Allerbling bracelet set just by RSVP'ing to our Food Allergy Rocks event in San Francisco on November 6.  We'll see you all there!

And until then, a creepy, crawly Halloween to you all!