Tag Archives: home cooking

“Nothing can hold us back”

This week is “Feeding Tube Awareness Week” and a great opportunity to raise awareness and garner support for those brave children and young people who are currently living with a tube to provide essential nutrition. Their motto for the week is “Nothing can hold us back” and for many a feeding tube allows them to take precious steps forward. There are a number of different feeding tubes that can be used: NG-tubes, NJ-tubes and TPN to name just a few, and you can find out more information about all of these from The Feeding Tube Awareness Foundation here. The reasons for a feeding tube are even more varied then the number of tubes available and can include premature birth, EGID, Cerebral Palsy and over 200 other conditions and diseases.

As well as the initial trauma of facing the decision to start your child on tube-feeding and the challenge of placing the tube, families then have to learn all about giving feeds, looking after the tubes, replacing them when necessary and how to deal with the little complications that can make a big difference. The prospect of tube-feeding can be a frightening one, but these children are able to go to school, play and participate in after-school activities alongside their peers with the right support given by trained medical staff, friends and family members.

Ms first tube

Whilst our journey so far with M has been tough and continues to throw new challenges at us from time to time, this is one thing that so far we have not had to face. M has had feeding tubes twice – once when he was first born so prematurely at 33 weeks and secondly, for just a week back in October, when he was admitted to GOSH. As I recounted then, it took a while for my brave boy to become accustomed to it and to stop worrying that it might fall out at any moment, but he did. We know that we are extremely lucky as there are a number of EGID children out there who are dependent on a feeding tube to give them the daily nutrition they need.

October 2013 and another tube

The decision to start your child on such a path is a difficult one for any parent to make and there are no guarantees as to just how long that tube might be in place. At the moment some of our wonderful FABED friends are surviving life with a feeding tube, some have finally managed to say goodbye to that tube and others are contemplating whether a tube may be the next step for their child. To all those families, this week is for you and about you and the support and understanding you all deserve.

You can read more first-hand experiences here:

musingssahm.blogspot.co.uk – Feeding Tube Awareness week 2013
musingssahm.blogspot.co.uk – “Wiggling the Wires“
afeedersdigest.wordpress.com – “Why is that pipe up your nose?“
afeedersdigest.wordpress.com – “What the hell is an NG tube and elemental feed?“

Ginger creams

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Since our appointment at GOSH at the beginning of January, I have had to flex my baking muscles in an attempt to create some tasty treats for M. Some of our old favourites have had to be shelved due to the additional exclusion of potatoes and raisins from his diet and choices have become limited. I’ve chosen to work within the constraints of rice flour, despite how granular it can taste, as we are fortunate to receive this on prescription for M. This means that every new recipe has to not only be delicious, but also moist enough to incorporate the rice flour and disguise its texture. I can’t imagine that my baking and cooking adventures will continue at the current rate, but this week’s offering is a definite winner and one I’m delighted to be able to share.

Courtesy of thedailybalance.com

One of my all-time favourite treats has to be Fox’s Ginger Crunch Creams, which combine a deliciously crunchy ginger biscuit with a cream filling that has a hint of ginger too. I’m a big fan of ginger of any kind, always have been and, having been treated to one of those delicious biscuits recently, I decided it was about time I made a version M and G can eat. I have never made ginger biscuits before, so wanted a recipe that was relatively simple to adapt for M. I found. and rejected, a number of recipes that I felt had too many steps and ingredients to work in a M-friendly environment, before settling on this recipe by celebrity chef, Paul Hollywood, who is now perhaps best known for his role as a judge on the Great British Bake-off.

As this recipe for his Mum’s ginger biscuits contains just 5 ingredients, I felt up for the challenge and set about making my M-friendly adjustments. The whole process was quick and easy, and I was very impressed with the results. I decided to leave a handful of biscuits plain, but whipped up a delicious ginger “cream” filling to sandwich the remaining pairs together. I used a simple home-made buttercream icing that I flavoured with some ground ginger and created my home-made ginger creams.

Both G and M enjoyed the biscuits, although I may have added a little too much ginger to the filling for their taste, which was reflected in their scores of 7.5 out of 10. I have taken their comments on board and will try to remember to reduce the amount of ginger I use the next time I bake these treats. I am certain that it would be relatively easy to also adapt both the biscuit and cream filling recipes to mimic the others currently produced by Fox’s, or indeed any other flavour that might be enjoyed. The rest of the family loved them and I can highly recommend them dunked in a nice cup of tea!

Time for elevenses – choc chip cookie anyone?

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Another peaceful Sunday afternoon could only mean one thing – another chance to try my hand at a new recipe. Since our last visit to GOSH, M’s diet has become even more restricted and I desperately needed a new treat to add to his lunch-box and hopefully bring a smile back to his face. Whilst the children were outside enjoying some long-awaited sunshine and Mike was working on our bathroom renovation plans, I sat at the kitchen table, pouring over my vast array of cookbooks. This may come as something of a surprise, but I only have one that is dedicated to allergy-friendly cooking, instead I prefer to take my inspiration from regular recipes, which are adapted to suit M’s food needs.

Courtesy of theguardian.com

I had already looked through my store cupboard to see what interesting ingredients might be waiting for me to use them and stumbled across a pack of Moo-free dairy-, and soya-free chocolate drops. For those who have yet to discover the delights of Moo-free chocolate, this amazing product has been a real revolution for our household. Not only do they produce chocolate buttons, but themed chocolate bars for Christmas and even Easter eggs that are suitable for both dairy- and soya-allergy sufferers. I added their Cranberry and Hazelnut chocolate to M’s Rainforest flapjacks recipe, which became an instant hit in our household last summer.

Chocolate drops could only mean one thing – chocolate chip cookies. I had a quick hunt through the books and found a recipe that seemed to be easy enough to convert for a M-friendly batch. It came from a fundraising cookbook called “Squeeze your Lemon”, which Father Christmas kindly left in my stocking a few years ago. I hadn’t before attempted a recipe from here, so was excited to see just how well the cookies would turn out.

The recipe itself was easy to follow, though the end result was a little sweet for my tastes. G and M sampled them warm from the oven and, after mere seconds of deliberation, awarded them – and me – a more than satisfactory 9 out of 10. The only complaints were that they were too crumbly, which is probably due to the rice flour used, and that they were too puffy! M insists that they would have been near-perfect if only I had made them a little smaller and flatter. Either way, the recipe worked well and a cookie has found its way into 2 small lunch-boxes every day this week. A definite bake to add to my ever-increasing repertoire, which makes it a success in my book.

Sweet – and Savoury – Crumble

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I love cooking, I really do, though it has to be admitted that sometimes I get more than a little fed up of constantly re-hashing the same old recipes week in, week out, to feed my terrible two. We are not a family that eats a great deal of puddings, but I do like to occasionally whip up a special dessert for after Sunday lunch if inspiration should hit. Last week I decided to use up the blackberries that had been lurking in the bottom drawer of the freezer for a while and add them to that old family favourite, apple crumble.

I have to confess that I am so adept at making crumble these days that I no longer weigh and measure out the ingredients, but rather use my experienced eye to achieve the mixture I’m after. However, with a view to wanting to add this recipe to my blog, I took my time and painstakingly recorded each and every element of my recipe to share. A delicious apple and blackberry crumble served with lashings of custard, made using Bird’s Traditional Custard powder, which is amazingly gluten-, dairy-, egg- and soya-free when mixed with old faithful rice milk, was the perfect way to finish off our Sunday lunch.

During the week that followed, I took my standard crumble recipe and adapted it to create a delicious, if unusual savoury dish. Here and now I admit that I cooked this for just Mike and me, knowing full well that my chances of getting G and M to eat it were somewhat slim, BUT there is no reason why this couldn’t be served to food-allergy-suffering children as it was, for the most part, M-friendly.

This time I cooked mushrooms, onion, garlic, courgette, sweetcorn and tomatoes together and added a hefty sprinkle of madeira, thyme and creme fraiche* to make the base. I then mixed in some rice before covering the whole with my crumble mix. For this savoury dish, I made the crumble without any sugar and instead included chopped chestnuts and some more thyme to taste. As this meal didn’t need to be M-friendly, I also stirred in cubes of blue cheese, though this could easily be replaced with the wonderful Violife vegan cheese that I have recently discovered for M. I baked the final dish for around 25 minutes and served hot.

I was delighted with the end result, which could easily be adapted to include other veg or meats depending on your own tastes. My recipe was based on whatever was hiding in the corners of the salad bins at the bottom of the fridge and is a meal that I know I could convert for M and G’s tastes too. An easy dinner and one perfect for a cold winter’s night!

Courtesy of telegraph.co.uk

* you could easily replace the creme fraiche with coconut cream or any other grain-based cream if you need it to be dairy-free.

National Spaghetti Day

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The accidental discovery through Twitter that January 4th is National Spaghetti Day was a welcome answer to that age-old dilemma in our household of what precisely to cook for dinner. I’ve never been that impressed with gluten-free spaghetti as it has inevitably turned into lumps of glutinous mess, rather than the delicate strands it starts out as, no matter how I’ve cooked it. This time I decided to try some of the Glutafin spaghetti we were given at the Allergy and Free-from Show back at the start of last summer to see if I could get a better result.

The biggest decision I had to make was what sauce to concoct for G and M. They’re not too keen on a traditional bolognese and I wasn’t sure I could adapt a carbonara recipe without a little work beforehand. There’s nothing I love more than just throwing together ingredients from the fridge and, as M had expressed a desire for prawns the night before, I decided to base my pasta sauce on those and the little smoked salmon I had left after Christmas.

Apologies for the poor quality of the photo, but the pasta was delicious!

Using my fail-safe base of onion and garlic, I added the prawns, some smoked salmon trimmings, corn, peas and some chopped chestnuts. One of the challenges that we’ve given G for 2014 is to choose a new vegetable or fruit to add to each meal. The variety of fruit and vegetables that she eats is relatively limited and we have struggled to successfully increase the amount she will eat. At every meal, I am now offering her a choice of 2 she dislikes or hasn’t tried before. She can choose which one she would prefer and then add it to the meal in some way or another. For this meal, G had the choice of adding tomato to the main course or orange to her pudding and quickly decided on the tomato. I added a chopped tomato to the pasta sauce and finished it with some coconut cream.

I cooked the spaghetti in strict adherence to the instructions on the pack – boiling water, a tablespoon of olive oil and stirring the pasta only once before allowing to cook for 10 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised by the results and the spaghetti was an immediate hit with both G and M.

This was a quick and easy pasta recipe that made use of some of the leftovers from Christmas and a selection of vegetables from the fridge and freezer, whilst being completely M-friendly. You could obviously add whatever vegetables you wanted – I added courgettes and mushrooms to the sauce for Mike and me to enjoy – and can always use cream or creme fraiche instead of the coconut cream if you don’t need to be dairy- and soya-free. Best of all, it got that all important extra vegetable into G with the minimum of fuss!

A Duo of Birthday cakes

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As this year was a milestone birthday for G – her first in double figures – I wanted to bake her a cake she’d love and remember for a long time. Some time ago, I had seen this post by fellow allergy-friendly blogger, The Free From Fairy, and had duly filed away the information in the depths of my memory ready for the right occasion. I loved the idea of creating a cake for G that would be as unique as she is and would have that often elusive wow factor too.

The morning before her party dawned and having bought every colour of icing under the sun and ensuring I had enough supplies of all the key ingredients, I started to bake. In an attempt to make the cake extra-special, I decided to sandwich together layers of chocolate cake as well as plain sponge and used the tried and tested recipes I had developed earlier in the year. The chocolate cake was perfect, but I wasn’t happy with the plain sponge layers as they were too soft in the centre to allow me to successfully cut and stack the cake as I needed. I desperately searched for an alternative recipe and quickly found one that I tweaked according to the new principles of allergy-friendly baking that I have learnt this year. This second Victoria sponge worked brilliantly well and has now been added to my allergy-friendly repertoire.

With cakes baked, layers trimmed and stacked and my icing ready, I attempted to construct G’s rainbow pinata cake. I filled the hollow with a selection of G- and M-friendly sweets before struggling to cover the structure with icing, ready for the final decoration. I have to be honest and say that I wasn’t totally happy with the end result. I found it hard to create the stability needed using an “everything-free” sponge cake. With hindsight, I wish I had assembled the cake layers whole, rather than trying to create the arch of the rainbow as I think the outcome would have been even better. All that being said, G and her friends loved the cake and were thrilled to discover the pinata-effect of the sweets hidden away in the middle of each slice.

Of course, me being me, I wasn’t satisfied with just one cake to celebrate such an important occasion and once the party was over and done with, I set to finding the perfect creation for the big day itself. My inspiration for this second cake came from the amazing book, “Cupcakes, cookies & pie, oh my!“, which had been part of my recent leaving present from my job. G and M have spent hours drooling over the wondrous creations featured between those pages and I determined to create a cupcake piece of art just for G. I now have several great cake recipes to choose from, but stuck to our new favourites of Chocolate and Victoria sponges, though I ambitiously attempted to marble these together for the cupcakes.

The challenge this time round was that I needed to bake the cakes, ice and finish the decorations all in one day. Usually I bake the day before and then spend the evening before the party finalising my ambitious decorating plans, but with G’s birthday falling on a Friday, I had to do it all whilst the children were at school. Cupcakes and 8-inch cake baked, I started to prepare the icing, which needed carefully combining to ensure I had the final effect I wanted. Everything ready, I put all the component parts together and perused the final masterpiece. G had fallen in love with the cupcake peacock in the recipe book and I have to say, it has quickly become one of my favourite bakes too. Needless to say, the birthday girl was delighted and it tasted pretty good too!

Perfecting Christmas stuffing

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With Christmas now less than a mere 3 weeks away – and counting – our preparations are in full swing. Christmas lists have been created; letters to Father Christmas written; Christmas cards written and very nearly sent; presents bought, wrapped and squirreled away until the tree is up; and my attention has now turned to the small matter of the food.

Courtesy of mirror.co.uk

A couple of weeks ago, I was given the job of cooking a Sunday roast for my Aunt whilst she was staying with Mum. As I prepared the chicken and veg, I felt a sudden desire for stuffing to accompany the meal. I have fond memories of delicious home-made stuffing on Sunday lunch-times as a child and realised, with a pang, that G and M would have no such recollection due to their food allergies. As a family, stuffing disappeared from our table two and a half years ago when M first started on his MEWS-diet. It has made the occasional reappearance at Christmas for us adults, but never in a M-friendly format.

Inspired by the pleasing aroma of chicken seasoned with sage that was drifting from the oven, I decided then and there to find a recipe for stuffing that I could tweak to meet G and M’s food requirements. I sourced a vegan recipe for Sage and Onion stuffing and set about pulling the necessary ingredients from my Mum’s cupboards to start the mixing process.

M helped create the perfect breadcrumb

Despite my fears that this would turn out to be an unmitigated disaster, the final outcome was delicious. Sadly, I was unable to convince G to even try a tiny morsel, but M set to with gusto. He enjoyed the flavours, though he complained it contained too much onion for his tastebuds. My final recipe can be found here and I am hoping to add recipes for other varieties for Christmas as I try them at home. It was a great result for a Sunday morning’s work and I’m looking forward to tweaking more recipes to accompany the Christmas turkey. The only question now is which one to adapt first – Chestnut, Sausagemeat, Cranberry or maybe all 3?

Unfortunately, I forgot to photo the final product and we ate the lot, so you’ll have to be satisfied with a photo of the pre-cooked version!

A Pizza Express birthday

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The first day of December heralds the start of the busy season for most, but an especially hectic time in our household. As well as the much-awaited day itself with all the associated celebrations at school, work, choir and church, we also have to fit in a 10^th birthday and a wedding anniversary. This weekend we got the ball rolling in fine fashion with an early birthday celebration for G.

Whilst G is most definitely a December baby, this year other commitments near her birthday led to my decision to throw her party early and sneak it in at the end of November instead. The first discussion was about the format her party was going to take. G was keen to combine cooking or baking with a sleep-over. I was less keen. The prospect of organising a group of near 10 year-olds (and two 7 year-old boys) to prepare, cook and possibly decorate a selection of M-friendly foods lacked appeal. Add in M’s inability to settle and sleep at the moment and I could see that it was more likely that full-scale battle would break out, rather than the joyous birthday celebrations G had in mind.

Thanks to some wise words from Canadian friend F, I found the perfect solution – a pizza-making party at Pizza Express. Now I appreciate that throwing a pizza party for a child with wheat- and dairy-intolerances and her multiple food-allergy suffering younger brother sounds somewhat off the wall, but thanks to the gluten-free menu introduced by Pizza Express earlier this year, we knew it was a viable option. We discussed our requirements with our local restaurant and were reassured that both children could participate fully and work around their dietary restrictions.

The date was duly booked, invites sent, travel arrangements made and finally the day dawned. Following our prompt arrival at the restaurant, each child was given an apron and hat to don before their starters of garlic dough balls and a side salad were served. Thanks to the information provided by Pizza Express, I was fully equipped for all eventualities and the chef was able to lightly toast 4 slices of M-friendly bread, which was served with garlic butter that I had prepared at home.

Next the task of making the pizzas themselves. G, M and their friends were given a ball of pizza dough each and were then instructed in the art of rolling, pressing out and filling the pizza pans. The children had varying success with their pizza bases, but eventually, after a couple of false starts, everyone had a base to be proud of. They were then given a selection of toppings to add before their pizzas were baked in the ovens. G and M were able to take full part in this, preparing pizzas for Mike and me to enjoy.

Stretching and fitting the dough to the pan

Adding the GF tomato sauce to the base

Once these pizzas were ready to be cooked, G and M were then given the opportunity to make their own lunch. Our party host was fantastic and explained just how Pizza Express make sure that their GF options are kept safe from the risk of cross-contamination in their kitchens. The GF pizza bases are pre-made and kept in separate storage as is the GF tomato sauce for the base and they use different pizza pans to cook the GF pizzas, which are easily distinguished from the normal ones. I had brought our own supplies of grated goats’ cheese for G and chunks of Violife vegan cheese for M, which is both dairy- and soya-free.

G’s with goats’ cheese and ham and M’s with black olives and Violife cheese

We finished the meal with a small portion of ice-cream with various toppings they could add at their discretion. Once again I had been able to bring with me a tub of Booja-booja chocolate ice-cream for G and M to enjoy and was thrilled to discover that the Pizza Express toffee sauce was safe for them too as the party host had made the effort to check the detailed allergy listing for all their products and could reassure me that it was safe.

A game of “Pin the moustache on Paulo” entertained them whilst the pizzas were cooking

All the children had a wonderful time and we were hugely impressed by the attention to detail that PIzza Express makes to ensure that their allergy-friendly options remain safe, even down to serving G and M’s pizza on separate platters to once again ensure no cross-contamination occurred. It was a real treat to be able to offer a “normal” birthday experience to G and for them both to enjoy the birthday celebrations with their friends.

The Battle for Breakfast (magnificent muffin recipes included!)

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Courtesy of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_to_work_on_an_egg

Who can forget this advice?

Over the past 12 months, there has been a lot in the national press about the numbers of children who are arriving at school without having eaten any breakfast. More schools have introduced breakfast clubs, in some cases financially supported by the teachers, to ensure that pupils get that all important start to their day. The benefits of a good breakfast to see us all through our day are well-documented and as a Mum, I’ve tried install those principles in my children.

G is a fantastic breakfast eater and always has been. I remember, at an early age, picking her up from nursery and being told by the astounded key-worker that she had eaten 3 whole weetabix for her breakfast that morning. What amazed me more, was that she had already eaten a full bowl of cereal (2 weetabix) at home before getting to nursery – where my tiny mite had put those 5 weetabix we will never know, She happily munches her way through an overflowing bowl of rice pops and cornflakes with raisins and milk and, if she has enough time, then another bowl will be consumed too.

Courtesy of controlengeurope.com

M is the complete polar opposite of his sister. He is much more like me and doesn’t like to eat as soon as he wakes up in the morning. The problem is that due to his sleep issues, I inevitably have to wake him for school and even showering and dressing before we attempt breakfast rarely achieves much success. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to get M to eat even a scrap of breakfast, which simply reflects his current health and declining appetite.

Which is why I’m constantly and desperately searching for a tasty morsel that will entice him to eat first thing, whilst being relatively healthy. We’ve tried toast, bacon sandwiches, cereal, porridge, fresh fruit and yoghurts, all with relatively limited success. One day he’ll eat something like it’s going out of fashion, the next day it’s like getting blood from a stone. I was stuck for ideas until last weekend, when inspiration hit. We were up in London for an extended celebration of my Mum’s birthday and at breakfast on the Sunday morning, G disappeared off to the buffet and came back bearing a mini chocolate chip muffin for me as a thank you for taking them to London for the weekend.

As I munched my way through this tiny treat, it struck me that it was just the thing that might tantalise M’s tastebuds first thing in the morning. All I needed to do was find a muffin recipe and do some of my free-from jiggery-pokery to turn it into the perfect M-friendly nibble. We had a huge amount of rapidly-browning bananas in the fridge, so a recipe for banana muffins seemed the obvious choice. I found one, played around with the ingredients and ended up with this wonderful looking batch:

By the time I got round to photographing the end result, 3 had already been devoured by G&M – success!

Excited by the instant success, and with some left-over bacon and soya- and dairy- free cheese (yes such a thing really does exist) lurking in the bottom of the fridge, I found, adapted and baked a recipe for bacon and cheese muffins. These turned out a little more anaemic-looking and seem to be a recipe I’m going to need to tweak a little more to perfect:

Less golden than the banana ones, but still delicious

So, from one evening’s work, I’ve found 2 new recipes – banana muffins and bacon & cheese muffins – and have a pair of happy children. The only problem? As much as M loves the muffins, it appears they weren’t the weapons I was searching for and the battle to get him to eat breakfast rages on!

Simple Pleasures

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When in the midst of dealing with the complicated life that is M, it’s really easy to get bogged down with the problems and overlook the simple pleasures in life. As the saying goes, sometimes you need to just stop and smell the roses. Despite the challenges of the last few months, there have been some wonderfully simple pleasures that are a precious reminder of just how good this summer was between the difficult bits:

Standing in the back garden with the children and watching the Red Arrows fly overhead
Courtesy of en.wikipedia.org
G & M using walkie-talkies made from nothing more than scrap cardboard and their imaginations

Drinking an ice-cold glass of home-made lemonade
Without the “pink”
Taking the train into the city and walking around on a local Art trail whilst investigating the area and sights

Watching G and M cheer as Andy Murray won Wimbledon
Courtesy of capitalfm.com
Watching G and M then recreate the Wimbledon moment using our washing line and their beach tennis set

Late night cuddles with M and early morning ones with G

Enjoying some classic Disney films before bed and finding some new favourites
Courtesy of hdwpapers.com
Home-made burgers cooked on the BBQ

Camping in the garden – well this was one for Mike and the kids, I am definitely never, ever going to consider camping to be a pleasure of any kind

G & M spending hours out in the garden: building dens, climbing trees and bouncing on the trampoline

Courtesy of dartmoor-npa.gov.uk

Long lazy summer days spent lying on the beach, building sandcastles and splashing in the sea

Perfecting a myraid of free-from, M-friendly recipes and enjoying tasting each and every one!
Rainforest flapjacks

7 years to diagnosis

Searching for an answer

Tag Archives: home cooking

“Nothing can hold us back”

Ginger creams

Time for elevenses – choc chip cookie anyone?

Sweet – and Savoury – Crumble

National Spaghetti Day

A Duo of Birthday cakes

Perfecting Christmas stuffing

A Pizza Express birthday

The Battle for Breakfast (magnificent muffin recipes included!)

Simple Pleasures