Blue Pancakes

At the moment, I am pulling my hair out attempting to cater to the health and nutrition needs of 3 children with differing allergies and sensitivities.

 While wandering through the library, I stumbled upon a wonderful cookbook called “Allergy Proof Recipes for Kids”. I fell in love! The recipes in this book are simple, delicious, and relatively cheap to make – a combination that was a big tick in my book!

 

One of the recipes I found was for pancakes that were healthier than your everyday flour, milk and egg pancakes. Nervously, I gave them a go.

 

Brilliant!

They were soft, moist and – most importantly – did not have the consistency of rubber!

Blue Pancakes

½ cup blueberries or blackberries
1 cup white or brown rice flour
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
¼ cup flaxmeal (optional)
¾ cup alternative milk beverage
2 Tbsp oil
2 cups applesauce

1. In a food processor, combine all the ingredients. Process until smooth.
2. Pour 2 Tbsp batter into a hot non-stick pan, spreading the batter thinly around the bottom to make a hotcake.
3. When the purple batter begins to turn blue, flip and cook on the other side. Remove the finished pancake and repeat until all the batter is used up.

Pancakes can be frozen by placing waxed baking paper between each pancake and storing in a resealable plastic bag for up to 2 weeks. To reheat, microwave them at 30 second intervals.

 

Yield: approx. 10-15 pancakes.

 

Enjoy! They are delicious!

 

Beetroot Chocolate Tea Cake

In my quest to ensure my allergy kids get their daily doses of fruit and veg, I came across the idea of using vegetables in cakes.

Sounds weird, right???

I was sceptical too.

Until I tried this recipe. It creates a moist, rich tea cake that melts in the mouth. Not that my kids noticed that. Al that they cared about was that it was chocolate, and paint. Full stop.

Beetroot and Chocolate Tea Loaf

1 cup of white flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup of unsealed butter or dairy-free margarine, melted

1/2 cup of white sugar

1/2 cup of brown sugar

2 tsp of egg replacement

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 Tbspn white vinegar

1 drained tin of beetroot, finely chopped in food processor

1. Turn the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease the loaf tin and lightly dust with flour.
2. Sift the flour, BP, cocoa powder, BS, and salt into a bowl.
3. Melt butter or dairy alternative and pour into a separate bowl. Mix sugar, egg replacement and vanilla into the butter, whisking until it forms a creamy mixture.
4. Add white vinegar to the dry ingredients, followed by the butter mixture and the processed beetroot.
5. Gently fold together until the batter is fully mixed.
6. Pour into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 38-40 min.

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Dairy-free Alfredo Sauce

We eat a lot of pasta. Its what the kids will eat so we all eat it. Its cheap, tasty and so versatile that we can adapt it easily to an allergy-friendly dish.

 

The problem isn't pasta. Its the sauce. Cupcake has been allergic to tomatoes since she was young. When I say she's allergic to tomatoes, I mean that she is allergic to the pesticides used ON the tomatoes.

 

Needless to say, she is afraid to eat tomatoes, tomato sauce or anything resembling a tomato.

 

But dry pasta is soooooo boring.

 

Enter: dairy free alfredo sauce.

 

 

Our local green grocer currently has enormous cauliflower for only 79c each!! When I say enormous, they're bigger than my head!

 

Dairy-free Alfredo Sauce

 

Ingredients:

• 1 large cauliflower or 2 smaller cauliflowers
• 1 carton of alpro soy cream or milk alternative
• 1 tsp minced garlic or 2 garlic cloves
• salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Roughly chop cauliflower and place in large saucepan along with garlic, salt and pepper.
2. Fill saucepan with water to 2cm depth and boil cauliflower until soft.
3. Let cool on the stovetop.
4. When the cauliflower has cooled, place in a blender or food processer along with soy cream, and blend until silky smooth. This took me approximately 3 minutes.
5. Store in freezer-safe containers for up to 3 months in the freezer or 3-5 days in the refridgerator.

 

There you have it! Nice and easy, and tastes almost the same as alfredo sauce containing dairy - and much better for you!

Dinosaur Eggs for Dinner

Here is the recipe for dinosaur eggs that I mentioned in the post "Frugal Friday - Family Fun for Cents". I'm sure they have a more adult name, but for the purpose of getting the children to eat them, we called them dinosaur eggs.

Dinosaur Eggs

Ingredients

• 250g premium beef mince
• one onion, pureed
• 2 icecubes pureed carrot
• 2 icecubes pureed courgette
• 1/4 c breadcrumbs
• 2 Tbspn oil
• 1/2 tsp oregano, dried
• 2c flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 25g butter
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Water, to mix
• Bought pasta sauce

Method
Using your hands, mix mince, breadcrumbs and puree's together. Form into small balls and put aside.

Melt the butter in a microwave safe dish. Sift flour, salt and baking powder together into a seperate bowl. Add oregano and butter. Using a breadknife, mix until forms a loose crumb.

Add water and knead until forms a scone dough.

Divide the dough into the desired quantities, making sure there will be enough to wrap around a meatball. Roll into balls and flattened until at least 10-15cm diameter.

Place one teaspoon of pasta sauce and one meatball on the centre of each scone disc.

Wrap the dough around the meatball and sauce, sealing on one side of the ball.

Place on baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes at 180 degrees celcius or until lightly browned.

Serve and enjoy!

Allergy Alert

Where to start????

 

We have had a crazy fortnight with the children. We took Toto to the doctor to find out where to begin looking at intolerances and allergies, and were referred to the same specialist Cupcake has been seeing at the Specialist Centre in St Heliars Bay.

 

Pretty straightforward, right? Ring the specialists, make an appointment, wait for the appointment, attend the appointment and get some answers. Right?

 

A few days later, Plunket visits to look at Toto and asks what weight Tinkerbell currently is. The children all started to plateau in their growth at approximately 9 months so we look at her old growth charts to get a view on what to expect for him. Hang on a second, you said she was 11.4kg?? But last time we weighed her 5 months ago she was 11.9kg. Oh dear....

 

Another doctors appointment made (happening tomorrow).

 

To make a long story short, we visited the specialist for Toto and certainly got some answers.

 

Toto

 

 

Toto is officially intolerant to oatmeal. Because his reactions are delayed and a skin prick test came back completely negative, the specialist does not think there will be allergies. He has a 7% chance of having the same allergies as Cupcake. So the way that we will go forward is to give him a piece of bread (causes eczema around Toto's mouth within the hour) every day. Hopefully that will help him become more tolerant of wheat/gluten. We are to avoid oats and start introducing him to egg, peanut butter and other high allergen food ASAP as per latest research findings.

 

 

Tinkerbell

 

 

Upon being asked whether Tinkerbell had shown any allergies, we mentioned the really horrible nappies she has experienced since having a 6 week bout of runny tummy when she was 15 months old. And the important fact that she also experiences this after consuming even small amounts of milk. The specialist confirmed that this could be her body having a learned lactose intolerance from that bout of sickness. But. Big but. I hate big buts. A lot of her symptoms are also signs of celiacs disease so we are to ask to have her skin prick tested, RAST tested, and also screened for celiacs. In the meantime? Take her off milk immediately. See if that helps. And get to the doctor.

 

 

Cupcake

 

 

So how is Cupcake going? I asked if I could please have the email of the immunologist who we saw at Starship Hospital. Why, can I help you, she asked? So I explained the long doses of antibiotics we've had her on and the struggle to keep her staph infections at bay. Apparently it shouldn't be returning so quickly. Really?? So we need to get her nose swabbed to figure out if THAT is what is causing the infection to continue. Certainly the easiest outcome.

 

 

Wow. A lot of things to get through in my busy little mind!

 

Can you see why things have been so quiet lately!!

 

Look out, dear readers, as I've got a lot to catch you up on what we've been doing!!