Menu Plan Monday and Garlic Bread Recipe

Home made "everything-free" garlic bread was a hit!

Monday - Nachos at our brother and sister-in-law's
Tuesday - Baked fish and vegetables
Wednesday - Homemade chicken nuggets made with crushed plain potato chips rather than rice crumbs (from Friendly Food Cook Book)
Thursday - Homemade Lasagne witha frozen lasagne for my daughter from Choices Bakery and garlic bread
Friday - Bacon, Leek, Zucchini and Mushroom Pizza (base from Choices too)
Saturday - Kid's dinner with cousins - Chicken Nuggets, chips and Frozen vegies
Sunday - Easy Meal - Leftovers for adults, scrambled eggs on toast for Master 3 and boiled potato with Nuttelex and peas and corn for Miss 2. She really enjoyed it!

Unfortunately, the lasagnes from Choices was a big fail. I had a taste as well and it really was pretty disgusting. The garlic bread, praise God, was a hit and saved the meal! Here's what I did:

1 tablespoon Nuttelex
1/4 clove garlic, very finely chopped unless you have an excellent crusher (I found a very small clove instead of dividing but if you just multiply the recipe you could just freeze the leftovers)
1/4-1/2 tsp finely chopped parsley

Mix all the ingredients well and butter onto a slice of bread. Put into preheated oven at 180C and cook until a bit golden on the edges.

Avoiding Contamination #3

The Microwave.
It tends to be full of crumbs doesn't it? I used to just pop our bread in on it's own to defrost it. Now I have to be regular in cleaning the microwave and always use a plate. This helps to avoid contamination.
I had better clean my microwave...!

Menu Plan Monday

Choices small pizza bases - pic from here

Here we go again! Hope you have a great week.

Monday - at my parents place - sausages, rice, mashed pumpkin, peas/corn and tomatoes
Tuesday - we had a dinner out and the kids had spaghetti and meatballs from the freezer
Wednesday - baked fish, rosemary potatoes and vegetables
Thursday - Hamburgers
Friday - Pizza with my daughter's pizza base from Choices to make life a bit easier this week
Saturday - Veal Schnitzel
Sunday - Beef Stir-fry - an improved version - I added some water and cornflour to make more of a sauce.

Baby Mum Mums

Photo from here

Another blessing for babies with our sort of allergies - Baby Mum Mums are a rice rusk that softens easily and is a great little snack. They say that they are for children over 1 year of age but I gave them to Miss 2 quite a bit before that and, as always, kept an eye on her while she ate. She still enjoys them now. You can get 3 types in local supermarkets - Original, Vegetable (it has carrot and spinach powders - I figure it's worth choosing that one even if the amount of vegetable is minimal) and Banana. Read more about them here.

Vanilla bean biscuits

I adapted this recipe from The Australian Women's Weekly Allergy-free Cooking for Kids book.

125g Nuttelex
1/2 cup Gluten Free Icing Sugar
1tsp Vanilla Bean Paste (or 1 vanilla bean)
1 1/4 cups plaing GF flour

Place Nuttelex in a bowl and sift icing sugar into it. Put vanilla bean paste (or seeds) into the bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Stir in siften flour in two batches (just not all at once really).

Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth. Shape the dough into a log (diameter as big as you want the biscuits to be). Wrap in clingwrap and put in the fridge for at least 30mins.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line baking tray with baking paper.

Cut log into ~1cm slices. Place slices on trays about 2cm apart. Bake for about 12mins or until they get a little golden. Cool on the trays.

And as for the recipe book itself. Now that I own it and have looked through it, it's only ok. Unfortunately they separate the allergy free recipes - so it would help if your child was only allergic to one of the egg, dairy or gluten. But for my girl needing to miss all three, I still have to do almost as much substitution as a normal cook book. Lots of great kid food ideas though.

Menu Plan Monday

Vanilla biscuits

Here's my offering for this week

Monday - Spaghetti and meatballs
Tuesday - Nachos
Wednesday - Pork chops and vegies
Thursday - Homemade pizza
Friday - Roast Chicken
Saturday - BBQ sausages, chicken and salad
Sunday - Left overs "Things on a plate"

Snack - vanilla biscuits

So your child has allergies...

Here's a few suggestions of what to do first
- Follow your allergist's advice. Eg - remove allergens from their diet, buy medications as required, such as antihistamines and epipens and make sure you always have them with you, tell everyone who cares for your child the action plan for when an allergic reaction takes place.
- Meet with a dietician who is experienced in children and allergies. It's worth paying for if you can afford it. They will go through your child's current diet, make suggestions for changes and give you ideas for substitutes.
- Meet with your GP if you think your child is lacking nutrition somewhere and work out if there is anything you can do - like going on vitamins with iron, like we did.
- Work out what substitutes there are for your child to help you cook more eg No Egg, GF flours, Milk, Margarine etc and buy them.
- Find recipes that help you cook good food for your child - your local library should have a good selection, look online (you are here already!) and speak with friends who might have ideas.
- Something I've yet to do, but is a good idea, is join up to your local allergy support network such as Anaphylaxis Australia. They will keep you up to date with the latest information about allergies.

Feel free to contact me if you want to chat personally about anything. It's a tough road.