Menu Plan Monday

Yikes - I'm not ahead with my posting this week. Here's the menu:

Monday - Mushroom, Bacon and Spinach Pasta
Tuesday - Chinese spiced roasted chicken nibbles, rice and vegies
Wednesday - Kids had leftover chicken
Thursday - homemade pizza night!
Friday - out at sibling's house for dinner - kids had chicken and vegies for dinner (thanks K!)
Saturday - Fish, chips and vegies - I attempted crumbing the fish and frying it - bit of a fail - the crumb came off in the pan so we ended up with fish with crumb sprinkles - still yummy though - phew!
Sunday - Beef stirfry - Will give you this recipe on Wednesday :)

Hope you have a great week and maybe some sunshine!

Allergy Testing - what to take with you

image from here

An allergy test takes a long time. At a private allergy specialist you arrive, wait, meet with the Doctor and take a history, go out, wait for the nurse, have skin prick tests, wait for 10mins for the reactions to occur, go back into the nurse, she measures the reactions, then you wait for the Doctor again and then they see you and tell you what everything means. It's a long time for kids especially if they are the one with the itchy arm. You will need to take a good amount of food, special treats, comfort items and anything that will keep them sitting still or happy waiting. Here's what we took to our latest allergy test with Miss 2:

- morning tea snacks - corn thins, fruit
- special treats - itsy bitsy bears, mini chuppa chup lollypop
- comfort item - her muslin wrap that she likes to snuggle
- my iPhone with Dora episode and Justine Clarke on it

I knew that the Doctor's waiting room had a decent amount of toys and books so I didn't need to take any but if it's your first time, I would take a couple of books at least.

We had morning tea while we waited to see the Doctor the first time. The chuppa chup lollypop was the best thing for having while we waited the 10mins for the reactions to occur - it kept her hand busy and you could cope with keeping an eye on the other one and making sure she didn't scratch. Her wrap really helped her deal with the pain of the skin prick test. I used the itsy bitsy bears to keep her quiet while the Doctor explained the results to me.

I also took her out for a special lunch afterwards and that was something she could look forward to.
Do you have any allergy test tips?

Pizza Bianca

Miss 2's pizza bianca

This is an entree pizza that my husband and I love, especially when it was made at a fabulous Italian restaurant in Perth that we used to visit. Pizza bianca means white pizza so it basically means no tomato sauce. We make this version (not as skillfully!) at home regularly on a small pizza base and we make a separate one for Miss 2 and these serve as a starter (not the whole meal - not enough vegies for us! It's more of a garlic-bread-type side).  We use the normal base recipe (sometimes we add the chia seeds) and then here is what we put on top:

olive oil
garlic thinly sliced
fresh rosemary, removed from stalk (we have some in our vegie patch - it's so easy to grow - but you can use dried)
Salt

Drizzle the olive oil so that it is generous but not leaking off the sides, place your preferred amount of garlic slices and rosemary on top and then season with salt.

Place in the oven and cook until garlic is cooked and pizza is looking pale golden. Yum!

Menu Plan Monday - holiday edition - and Allergy tests

My poor little munchkin - she scored dustmites too this time...

We had Miss 2's allergy testing 2 weeks ago - it had been a year since her last one and I didn't hold much hope for any changes. The big surprise then was that she didn't react to the wheat skin prick test! I could hardly believe it! Egg had also gone down and that indicates she might be ready for a baked egg challenge in hospital in 6 months time (baked egg meaning baked foods that have egg in them like a cake/muffin etc). So we followed the Doctor's advice and gave her part of a water cracker (nice and plain wheat, no complications) and 20mins later, a bit more and so on. It seemed ok. So for the rest of the week we tried bits and pieces of wheat in meals but soon found that she was getting spots around her mouth and on her body and her eczema was returning. So I rang the Doctor and they told me to let it clear and start again. So we are almost ready to do that - Miss 2 is very sick at the moment (unrelated to allergies) so we think we will wait until she is in full health to start challenging her immune system again. Fun fun.

We were on holidays over the last 10 days at a house near the beach. It was fabulous. Here's the menu - a reasonably easy holiday menu. Note that some of the meals weren't wheat free but could easily be made so. The best thing I did was travel both ways with frozen bolognaise in a container which meant all I had to do was to cook pasta when we got there/home and heat up the bolognaise.


Wednesday - Spaghetti Bolognaise
Thursday - Pizza (using store bought bases)
Friday - Chicken and Vegie stirfry (using store bought honey, garlic & soy sauce) on rice
Saturday - Soft Tacos with mince and vegies
Sunday - Fish and Chips (from the takeaway shop - grilled fish for Miss 2)
Monday - Pasta with Bacon, Mushroom & Spinach - I substituted spinach for peas in this recipe
Tuesday - Spaghetti Bolognaise (cooked enough to freeze for Saturday night)
Wednesday - Chicken Stir Fry (to use up the rest of the sauce)
Thursday -Sausages, mash potato and vegies.
Friday - Roast Chicken and Vegies

I think I might put my spag bol recipe up soon. I just realised I don't think I've put one up.

A change is as good as a holiday

I've been trying to think of a more concise name for this blog and I think I'm happy with this one. Does anyone get what I'm trying to do with the name? My husband thinks it's a bit of a stretch :) Oh well, even if you don't, I think it rolls of the tongue better than the sentence that was my blog name before!
I had a great week away with my family and am looking forward to getting back into blogging proper on Monday.

Holiday time

I'm taking this week off while the school holidays are on. Looking forward to sharing some exciting news with you next week!

If you haven't already, feel free to subscribe to my feed (see the 'Keep Up With Me' section on the right).

Have a great week

Chicken Noodle Soup

A yummy chicken noodle soup.

2L Chicken Stock (I made my own similar to this recipe, using a chicken carcass and kept the carrots to use in my soup)
2 chicken breasts
2 portions rice vermicelli noodles
half a cup frozen peas and corn
1/4 cup roughly chopped parsley (I kept it mostly out of the kids' soups and just gave them a little bit and mixed the rest in for us)


Make your own stock. B