Fish Fried Rice

We ate this tonight. My son asked for second helpings and my daughter ate all of hers (and she is unwell)! This amount gave us enough for seconds for 3 of us.

Cooked rice for 3-4
4 broccoli florets cut into smaller florets
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 small zucchini, diced
1/2 capsicum, diced
1/2 corn corb, corn removed (keep the corn!) :)
1/4 (or more if you want) brown onion, finely diced
2 fillets of white fish (I used Basa I think), cut into 2x1cm 'cubes'
Soy sauce (I use Fountain brand because it's gluten free)


Cook the rice and the broccoli together until cooked. Drain. (I think for proper fried rice the rice is cooked a lot earlier and cooled. I didn't have this liberty and it worked fine. It was just softer.)
Heat large frying pan, add olive oil. Fry up onion, capsicum, corn and zucchini (I reckon mushrooms would be great too!) for a few minutes until softened, add fish and stir-fry until fish is cooked.
Add rice and broccoli and mix through. Sprinkle soy sauce (probably 1-2 teaspoons, but you can add more if you want) and stir through again. Serve.

If I had green onions I would have put a little bit on top as a garnish for the adults. I also mildly beat some egg and fried it up in a separate pan, cut it up and put it in the dishes for those who can eat it. The visit to the dietician also reminded me that I need to keep an eye on the rest of our nutrition and make sure we aren't missing out just because my daughter has to - she is only at risk if she eats it or comes into direct contact. She also doesn't get anaphylaxis with any of the allergens, so we can eat them around her.

Fish in Foil

Here's a super simple fish recipe.

1 Fillet of fish per person (I have used Dory and am planning on using Basa this week. They are white fleshed fish)
1 lemon
Freshly ground black pepper
Paprika (I think mine's mild)
Aluminium foil

Preheat oven to 180-200C (I often bake fries with them so the oven tends to be on the hot side).
Tear off aluminium foil sheets that are big enough to wrap the fish in. Place fish on foil.
Slice lemon and place 1-2 slices on fish. Sprinkle pepper and paprika on top (to taste really. I don't do heaps).
Fold up the foil so that it is closed and will open at the top middle.
Place in oven and bake for about 10-15min. It all depends on the size of your fish and heat of your oven. You can always check it and put it back in. The fish has to be white through.

Serve with fries or potatoes, green vegies. I have roasted cherry tomatoes with them before - yum (just drizzle with olive oil before putting on the tray with the fish).

Always be aware of bones especially with your little kids.

Date Muffins

Here's one to get some 'milk' into them.

1/2 cup butter substitute (I use Nuttlex)
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs equivalent No Egg (or any egg substitute)
1 cup soy milk
1/4 cup finely chopped dates
2 1/2 cups SR gluten free flour

1. Thoroughly blend butter and sugar
2. Beat in eggs, then milk. Fold in dates.
3. Fold flour into wet mix. place into greased muffin tins (I used silicone muffin patty pans in my muffin tray instead) and bake at 200C for 20-25min.

You can substitute dates for 450g tin of blueberries (or fresh or frozen. Be careful not to over work them so they squish).
Freeze most of them so you can bring out one a day.

I made half a batch for my daughter and then washed everything up and made another half batch with 'real' ingredients for my son. Then they can have the same but my son can be getting eggs and dairy since he can have them. It also works out cheaper that way. A pain but probably worth it.

Wishing to be normal...

We went to the dietician today to look at my daughter's diet. Something I highly recommend for those out there with allergies. From the meeting, it seems that she has a pretty good diet but is lacking calorie intake from a milk substitute like soy formula/milk. She doesn't like it and hence doesn't drink much. Last time I tried giving her a 'milky' meal (like a creamy pasta), she hardly ate anything, so I haven't been pushing it too much. Anyway. I didn't think I got the 'mummy guilts' very much but today I was feeling devastated that I hadn't been looking after her nutrition. So tears in the car as we drove home and feeling like a good cry even now. There is no-one nearby to have it with though so I'll just blog it out a bit.

It's days like this that you realise how hard it is for mums of kids with allergies (especially ones that differ) and how hard it is to get meals on the table (all mums know that difficulty), let alone ones that provide for everyone's nutrition. It's horrible and hard work and I'm thankful that there's a light at the end of the tunnel because otherwise despair might set in. I'm also glad to have God as my friend who listens to my prayers and my cries and teaches me to be content in my life, knowing that it could be a lot worse and that He has saved me through Jesus and called me to serve here, in this life, with my husband and these 2 beautiful children, whom I love and couldn't do without.

Corn puffs

I found this a couple of weeks ago in Coles. I was looking for a snack food that could go with sultanas.

Abundant Earth Puffed Corn.

They remove the hard bit that you normally get with popcorn and so they are safe for little ones to eat. Just looking at the back of the packet - you can also get puffed brown rice and puffed millet too. They all could be useful in making a breakfast cereal in the future.

Taco pasta

This recipe was inspired by my sister-in-law who told us about using leftover mince from tacos with pasta the next night. I made this fresh for a pasta dish because my kids can't handle taco shells yet and gluten free tortillas just don't cut it. The kids ate it all.

500g beef mince
1 large corn cob
half standard can cannelini beans, rinsed.
1 cheek of a red capsicum, finely diced
1/2 sachet taco seasoning (I use Homebrand)
1/2 cup water

cooked pasta for 4. (I used gluten/dairy/egg etc free pasta for my daughter and normal for the rest of us - 2 saucepans/2 spoons but saves money!)

Cut corn off the cob (you can use frozen, but I like fresh better and we had it in the fridge).
Fry up mince in fry pan with a little bit of olive oil. once meat is browned put in corn and capsicum and follow straight away with taco seasoning. Stir and then add water (you might need a bit more). Simmer until sauce has thickened/absorbed. Pour in cannelini beans. Stir and cook for as long as it takes for them to heat through.

Put on top of pasta and grate cheese over the ones who can have it.

You could also put this on top of corn chips to make it nachos and add sour cream (for those without allergies) and avocado/guacamole as well.

Roast Chicken dinner

Since I mentioned roast chicken last post, I thought I should tell you what I do. This is one of the easiest and most delicious meals we have at the moment.

A good quality (hormone free) whole chicken
salt
freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Rinse the chicken inside and out and pat dry.
Season with salt and pepper inside and out. Truss legs together if you have kitchen twine (I don't usually).
Place in roasting tray (I have one with a rack so I can put vegies underneath) and cook until juices run clear (about 1-1.5hrs depending on size of your chicken). For example - 1.5kg chicken takes about 1hr15 if you start the oven at 220 for 15min and then turn it down to 200, according to a Bill Granger recipe).

Putting a lemon inside the chicken gives a lovely flavour.

I usually serve with potatoes, pumpkin, sweet potato and peas. I usually half cook the potatoes (halved) and sweet potatoes (large pieces) in the microwave, drizzle them and the pumpkin (large pieces) with olive oil and place them in the tray under the chicken for the same amount of time as the chicken. Then I cook frozen peas and make gravy with Gravox powder, boiling water and the juices from the chicken. I have used gluten free flour, the juices from the chicken and pepper before as well to make the gravy (I think that's all the ingredients).

Enjoy.

Chicken Stock

This is the chicken stock recipe I use. It is great especially if you need to avoid soy or all gluten (or just want to save money and have real ingredients). I did it with an uncooked chicken as per the recipe but now I just do it with the carcass after our roast chicken dinner. Much better use of the meat. I also sometimes leave out the leek and just put in extra onion.
Click here to go to the Taste.com.au recipe.

Chicken Drumstick Casserole

I did this in the slow cooker. It was tasty but not spectacular. It smelled great while it cooked. I served it with rice. Served 2 adults, 2 kids.

1kg chicken drumsticks (the large variety)
4 medium potatoes, large dice
2 1/2 large carrots, large dice
1 onion, quartered (you could chop, but my kids don't eat onion so I can still get the flavour but not end up with it in their dinner more easily when I cut it like this)
1.5 cups chicken stock
1 tsp salt
0.5 tsp freshly ground pepper
0.5 tsp thyme (I used dried but I'm sure fresh would be better)
0.5 tsp gravox powder (the gluten free version. It says it contains milk products but that is only dextrose, a sugar, so doesn't contain the milk protein - I think!)

Place in slow cooker and cook on low for ~7hrs or high for ~5hrs. I had to do high but slow is usually better.
Serve with rice and more vegies if you can.
Variations - I think celery would go quite well in this recipe and I was tempted to put a green capsicum in it but it had gone bad...

Sushi

Today we had lunch at the shops. I hadn't packed anything for my daughter so we bought her some sushi. The sushi shop we went to makes mini sushi rolls (9 to a mini box) with a tiny piece of avocado (or cucumber, tuna etc) in them. I bought one each for the kids ($3 each) and both ate a bit more than half. My son would normally eat them all but he'd had a milkshake... Not bad for a 14month old and an almost 3 year old's lunch. Much better than McDonalds! (Although the fries from there have been our saviour more than once!)

Chicken marinade

We avoided soy for a little while and hence struggled to find quick marinades.
Here's one I found. I just used the marinade and cooked the chicken on the BBQ, but the whole dish looks yummy too.

It's a recipe from that great Taste website - click here

Quick lunch starters

My daughter is usually very hungry by the time we are ready to start lunch. And since an easy lunch is pretty tricky for her (no nice soft yummy bread or tasty cheese that you can just put in front of her) I keep some things in the cupboard that I can just pull out so I can make the rest of her lunch.
Today she had:

a 1/4 can "everything-free" spaghetti (Orgran brand)
a slice of 'The Real Bread' bread toasted and spread with Nuttlex (dairy free margarine)
2 slices of ham (thankfully processed ham has maize flour in it so she can eat most hams out of the packet)

Normally she would have some fruit afterwards but we were at playgroup today and had a good amount of fruit for morning tea.

Canned baked beans are our other fallback meal. Full of protein, folate and iron.

Chick Peas

Canned chick peas are a great snack. I use them often to placate my daughter while I'm cooking dinner, so she sits in the high chair as I finish off and starts her dinner early with chick peas. She loves them.

The Real Bread mix

This is a fantastic bread mix by Springhill that my daughter really enjoys, and I did too while I was still breastfeeding. It smells 'real' as well!

Click here to check out their website.

Rosemary potatoes

My little girl is quite slender thanks to her dietary restrictions. Since she is lacking the fats found in dairy and doesn't like avocado, I look for other ways to get some good fats in. Here's a recipe that does this.

Rosemary Potatoes
(serves 1-2 as a side dish depending on size of potato of course)

1 potato, peeled and diced
fresh or dried rosemary
olive oil
salt

Boil/microwave the potato until cooked but not crumbly. Place potato in a bowl. Drizzle some olive oil, sprinkle some rosemary and a little salt (not too much and see if you can do the iodised salt because then they get some iodine too). Toss gently. Fry in frying pan until a but crispy on the outside. Place on a paper towel lined plate to take away excess oil and then serve.

Very yummy and also great on the BBQ.

Vegetables with Rice

This was a "what's left in the fridge" dinner that both my kids ate their whole portion!

Feeds 2 adults and 2 young kids with leftovers (so probably 4 adults)
Ingredients
1 small zucchini, finely diced
1 medium capsicum, finely diced
a handful of mushrooms, finely diced
a handful green beans, chopped
1 green onion finely sliced
1 carrot, grated
1 small can cannelini beans, rinsed
rice for 4
soy sauce and sesame oil to taste (for adults)
sesame seeds as garnish


While the kids were asleep I prepared the vegetables, put them in a bowl and placed them, covered, in the fridge.

15 minutes before dinner time I boiled some rice, rinsed the cannelini beans and then cooked up the vegetables with some olive oil in the frying pan.

When everything was cooked I cooled some of the rice down and added the cannelini beans and vegies on top for the kids and then returned the rest of the rice to the pan where I added some soy sauce (you can get gluten free if required) and little bit of sesame oil and fried it briefly to mix everything up. Sprinkle some sesame seeds on top and it was ready.

It is easy to leave out the soy and sesame if you need too or just add to those who can.

A new blog!

My daughter has recently been diagnosed with allergies to dairy, wheat and egg. Although the doctor has told me that this is transient, it will still be approximately 4 years worth of working out what I can feed her that will help her grow and thrive. My son is allergic to peanuts and treenuts and has anaphylactic reactions to at least one of them. His diet is a lot easier to manage.

My aim in this blog is to write about recipes/products I discover or create that are kid friendly, easy, nutritious and quick to make, enjoyable for the whole family and safe for my kids to eat. I hope that it will help you as well. I would love to hear your comments and welcome your contributions as long as they are appropriate to this blog.

I am not qualified in any way to give nutrition or food advice so please be aware of that.

I look forward to journeying with you.