Chicken Nuggets and Chips – Allergy friendly receipe

This one is a bit of a favourite in our house with the little man. It is gluten free, egg free, dairy free and nut free. Eating takeaway is very limited with our little duckling’s allergies, so below is our version of Chicken Nuggets and Chips.

Ingredients

Chicken Breast

Gluten Free Breadcrumbs (or sometimes we use allergy friendly cornflakes crushed up)

Rice milk (or your choice of milk)

Gluten Free flour (or cornflour)

Mixed dried herbs

Sea Salt and cracked pepper

Potatoes and sweet potatoes

Coconut oil

Chicken Nuggets

1. Cut Chicken breast into nugget shaped pieces – no right or wrong way to do this step!

2. Put the gluten free flour, seasoning and a little dried herbs in one bowl.

3. Put rice milk in another bowl.

4. Put breadcrumbs and a little dried herbs in another bowl.

5. I dip all of the nuggets into flour making sure each surface is covered and place on a plate.

6. Then take a floured nugget and dip in milk and then cover in breadcrumbs. Place on baking tray covered in baking paper. Continue this step until all of the nuggets are complete.

Bake at 180 degrees celsius for 7 mins. Turn nuggets over and bake for an extra 5-7 minutes. We serve our nuggets with oven baked chips and some gluten free organic BBQ sauce or we make our own hummus.

Oven Baked Chips

Peel and cut chip shapes from potato and sweet potato. In a bowl mix a little melted coconut oil with a pinch of sea salt and toss the chips through. Place on tray lined with baking paper and place in oven for 15-20mins (depending on the size of your chips) at 180 degrees celsius.

Enjoy!

Duck Egg Blue Mamma xx

Cooking with Toddlers

For as long as I can remember I have been in the kitchen cooking with my mum. When my sister came along, who is 9 years younger than I, she joined us sitting up on the bench in her bouncer. When our little duckling came along he naturally joined me in the kitchen cooking. First in the bouncer, then later sitting on the bench and now he cooks with me. So I thought I would share some tips on cooking with toddlers…..well what I have learnt so far!

1. Choose an easy recipe 

Toddlers have short attention spans, make it easier for yourself. Choose a recipe with only a handful of ingredients and a few steps.

2. The Mess

Yes there will be flour everywhere, fingers in the butter, spilt milk, and mouths full of cookie dough – embrace the mess, its lots of fun.

3. Cooking = Playtime

Once hands are clean and apron is on, our little duckling sits on the bench and plays. Let them play and explore. He explores how different ingredients taste (only if he wants to, there is no pressure), how ingredients feel, he pours, sprinkles, rolls and kneads, scoops and stirs. 

4. Give them space

I let him roll his own cookies. Yes this is hard for me as I like to be in control! So I give him a small amount of dough and I show him how to roll it into balls and press on the tray. Last time we cooked he rolled a few and then ate the majority of them. A few made the tray – they had big finger holes through them, all different shapes and sizes but who cares. He made them himself, while I rolled the rest out. While I am happy to eat his cookies with him, I wouldn’t serve them up to guests! I can’t be certain that they weren’t licked on the way to the tray!

5. No force

Sometimes I’ll set up to cook with him and he gets on the bench and either doesn’t want to cook or is just ‘hard work’ for me. In those cases I give him two options depending on how much cleaning I want to do afterwards.

1. Playdough and a whole heap of cookie cutters etc

2. Mixing bowls, measuring cups and spoons and flour (or uncooked rice or pasta) and he pours and stirs and plays. Big mess but lots of fun and he enjoys pretending while I get stuck in cooking.

Final words…have fun and don’t stress. Once the food is in the oven I sit our little duckling in front of a favourite DVD while I clean up the mess. Afterwards we get to sit down and enjoy what we have cooked. What a rewarding activity to do.

Allergy friendly Coconut Slice – 4 ingredients, no bake

I love this recipe! It is super simple to make, and even easier to eat! I recently found the blog Chocolate covered Katie and her fantastic ‘Coconut crack bars’. It is very exciting as our little duckling can eat them! They are nut free, wheat and gluten free, dairy free, cane sugar free and amazingly delicious! I have changed it slightly from her original recipe, below is my take on it.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups desicated coconut

1/4 cup agave syrup or maple syrup
3 tablespoons coconut oil
pinch of salt 

1. Take 3/4 cup coconut and put in blender. Blend it up a bit so it is a bit finer. Pour into bowl and add the other 3/4 cup desicated coconut.

2. Add coconut oil, agave or maple syrup and a pinch of salt and stir to combine. Taste (just to make sure it is good!!!)

3. Line a small dish with baking paper and press in coconut mixture. Put in fridge until hard.

4. Optional extra – melt some allergy friendly chocolate (or chocolate of choice, I think dark would be best) and spread over the top of coconut mixture before placing in fridge.

Carefully cut into small squares. This best eaten straight from the fridge as when it is warm it is very delicate as the coconut oil starts to melt. Enjoy!

Duck Egg Blue Mamma xx

Little Allergy Boy

There is not a day that goes past where I am not thinking of food. Food that my little allergy boy can eat. It has been almost a year since we found out that our little duckling is allergic to eggs, peanuts and milk. In this time we have also found out that there are foods we try to avoid as they are either on the ‘high’ allergy risk or he is intolerant to, being strawberries, kiwifruit, sesame seeds, nuts, wheat, tomatoes and citrus…..phew! I’m exhausted just thinking about it!

Lately I have been thinking about all the time and energy I put into his allergies. I am constantly thinking about new meals for him, what to pack in the next lunchbox, experimenting with ingredients, creating new recipes and cooking meals for him. There is rarely a night that goes by where the three of us sit down to the same meal. While we have the support of our friends and family, I don’t know any other mums dealing with the allergies and food restrictions we have. Of course I would not change him for the world, allergies and all, but it is really tiring.

I am going to attempt to document the recipes we create this year in the hope that they may help others and help me deal with feeding our little allergy boy.

Sweet Dreams,

Duck Egg Blue Mamma xx