Daily Eating and Low Allergy Cookies

Over the past month, we've caught up with lots of friends and family.  One of the first questions we get asked about Tabitha seems to be, "what does she eat?"

Well, this is a typical day of food for Tabitha - from yesterday.  Overall, I'm pretty happy with her diet.  She isn't hugely fond of fruit, but will eat lots of apple and watermelon, and she does eat sweet 'treats' most days, but they are homemade and generally made with fruit/veg/wholemeal flour included, so I'm not worried about that at all.

6:30am - breastfeed

7:00am - steel cut oat porridge with whole milk, coconut and sliced banana

9:00am - tuna, avocado and cucumber handroll

9:30am - half a homemade date scone

11:00am - wholegrain Bergen sandwich with avocado, cheese, grated carrot, cucumber, tomato and capsicum (gets picked apart, most of the carrot gets thrown overboard, the tomato gets tossed today as well).

12:00pm - breastfeed

3:00pm - nearly a whole Lebanese cucumber.  She fished it out of the fridge herself and wandered around the house eating it.

4:00pm - half a cup of homemade hummus (cooked chickpeas, tahini, garlic, lemon juice, salt, olive oil, paprika) with some carrot sticks

5:30pm - homemade 'bolognaise' with beef mince, 8 kinds of grated veggies and lentils, mixed with some brown rice

5:45pm - Elgaar vanilla yoghurt with some fresh peach slices mixed in.  She mostly spooned around the peaches, but ate two servings of yoghurt.

6:00pm - breastfeed

So, every day her diet differs, but this is pretty typical.  I'm happy with what she eats overall, and her likes (dairy, cheese cheese cheese, sushi, fish and bread) seem to mirror mine almost exactly!

She is very partial to a piece or seven of cake ("cake!!  Cake!  CAKE!!!  Peeeees?"), but then, so am I.

This morning, we went to visit my little cousins M and G, who are 4 and 7.  M is allergic to eggs, dairy and nuts, and has other intolerances, so her parents have to be quite creative with cooking (luckily, they are both great and creative cooks).

During out visit, the three girls donned aprons and helped cook some allergy-free cookies (no dairy, eggs or nuts, and can be made gluten-free).

They were actually really delicious!  Certainly a brilliant option if you ever need to cook for children (or adults) with allergies.  Here is the recipe:

One Bowl Allergy Free Cookies

1/2 cup Nuttalex or other dairy-free margarine

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup soy milk

2 cups self-raising flour (or gluten free self-raising flour)

1/2 - 1 cup of dairy free, nut free chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Cream the margarine with the sugars in a large bowl with a large metal spoon.

Add the vanilla and soy milk, mix well.

Add the flour and chocolate chips, mix well until combined (will be a little crumbly).

Roll tablespoons of dough into balls, place on a tray lined with baking paper.  Flatten slightly with a fork (or flatten a little more if you use gluten free flour, because they will not spread as much).

Bake 10 - 12 minutes until lightly golden brown.

These are really delicious (as with most cookies) when eaten warm.  I believe the recipe was taken from a book called One Bowl Allergy Free Baking.

Here is Tabby with her little apron on, munching on a cookie and enjoying her cousins' back yard - it has a little hole cut into the fence, with a step, so that the kids can spend all day climbing between their yard and the next door neighbours' yard.  What a great situation for those kids!