The 1 Thing Every Family — Food Allergies or Not — Should Do Before Making Dinner

After a scary trip to the emergency room with her daughter, Pia, food blogger and chef Heather Christo had to face a reality she had been stubbornly refusing for years: the presence of food allergies in her family's life. Lover of cheese and other ingredients — eggs, gluten, cane sugar, nuts — that she and her two daughters would have to give up, Christo was thrown into uncharted territory.

Despite being a chef who could "bake a wedding cake with her eyes closed," she had to relearn everything she knew so well about being in the kitchen to accomodate her family's new lifestyle and to serve delicious and healthy food that is also allergen-free. She spent a year creating and adapting recipes, and her creations have been turned into a cookbook. Pure Delicious ($30), she told POPSUGAR Moms, was created as a resource "so that all of the families going through this lifestyle change — or just people who want more than gluten-free recipes — could have something to turn to."

Scroll through to see some of the beautiful photos of allergen-free recipes in the book and to hear some of the best tips she shared with us to help others struggling to adapt to living with food allergies.