Hot Chips & Chicken Salt - Red Rooster & McDonalds

Having fun with a birthday treat earlier this year :)

I have been meaning to blog about this for a while because last year we went to Red Rooster for hot chips and, after it taking a very long time for them to find the ingredients of their hot chips and chicken salt it then turned out that it had gluten in it. So we went back to our safety zone of McDonalds fries (download the food sensitivity table or look at the ingredients list)

However, I thought I would check the nutritional information again and looks like they no longer have any allergens in them. So whether or not the information I got first was right or not, you can now know that their chips and chicken salt are free of gluten, dairy, egg, soy, peanuts, treenuts and all other main allergens. Nice to know that a more solid potato chip is available.

Read more about hot chips and which other ones have allergens here.

Little Caesar's Pizzeria

It just looks - and tastes - like a normal pizza!

My husband and I love this Perth based pizzeria. Their pizza creations are amazing - including their dessert pizzas! When we lived in Perth we used to head way out to Mundaring when we found out about it and since we were in Perth the other week we took advantage of it's new Hillarys location and the fact that they have gluten free pizza bases and soy cheese options. The staff were really helpful in working out what toppings my daughter could have and we ended up going for the Oka which was just sauce, cheese and bacon and my daughter enjoyed it (she loves bacon!) and I really enjoyed the taste I had as well. It even tasted good the next day - we took the rest home. So for those of you with (or without!) allergies reading in Perth - check them out!

Hot Chips & Chicken salt: KFC & Oporto

Yesterday we went searching the food court for hot chips for my daughter. The only options for hot chips were KFC and Oporto. I went to Oporto first and their allergen info was easily accessible for the person serving (she knew where it was) and it showed that the chicken salt had gluten, seeds and soy in it. So on to KFC we went and asked the girl there - she had to check with the manager where an ingredients list was, he couldn't find the brochure but thankfully thought of getting the chicken salt box. It had gluten and, I think, dairy, in it (as well as other things that I didn't bother listening to once I knew she couldn't have them). So I asked if we could buy chips with no salt and that was easy. Not sure if Oporto could do unsalted chips, but I assume they could if you asked? It just means getting them out of the fryer and not putting them in the storage/salting area.

So - be aware of chicken salt - it can contain allergens.

Friday Fish & Chips

We treat ourselves maybe once every 2-3 weeks. My tip is to find an understanding takeaway joint and make friends with them. Even though we aren't that regular, we now go in and she says "Grilled fish with nothing on it?". She then cooks it on the grill in another pan so that no contamination occurs. We didn't even ask her to do that. How great is she?!

Travel food

It's difficult travelling with a child with allergies to mainstream foods.

Whenever we are going out for dinner or lunch, I tend to pack my daughter's meal and take it with us, rather than risk trying to find allergen-free food. For lunch I take a thick slice of her bread with Nuttelex to spread on it and some fruit. For dinner I pre-cook GF pasta and some veggies. Then for the lunch or dinner I take a Rafferty's 'spout pouch' (our allergen-free choices are 'Hearty Beef and Veggie Puree', 'Tuna & Rice Vegetable Puree' and 'Bangers & Mash Vegetable Puree') for her to have as well. She loves the spout pouches and those particular choices. We have tried a few in the lumpy range but she's rather specific on flavour. They are great to throw in the bag, you don't need spoons or bowls and you know it is organic and reasonably good for them.

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!)