When my kids first started school the bento box was just coming into fashion. I never bought them for the boys because they didn’t look like they would fit enough food for the kids I was growing.

Since dealing with the allergies though the bento box has actually come into it’s own because i can put a whole lot of stuff in there that isn’t a sandwich and a piece of fruit and they can easily get at it.

So I thought I would show you what I put in Dustin’s lunchbox to give you a bit of an idea of how you can work a gf df diet.

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A couple of weeks ago I shared our muffin recipe. We have just this week run out of frozen muffins, so usually I would include a muffin instead of a sandwich. Today I put in a sandwich made of vogels gf bread with oliviani and marmite in it. Tegel does some ready roasted chicken in a packet – in the fridge section. along with some beef jerky. Dried apple slices and dried apricots. Some peckish crackers with beetroot chutney. A beerstick, and some fresh sliced up fruit.

At the moment this whole lunch is being eaten at preschool, not one single thing is coming back – i think he is growing!! Please remember to double check ingredients, but you can literally swap out any of this stuff for things your kids like. Hummus is a great one instead of chutney. DF cheese in a container to go on the crackers. what ever seasonal fruit your kids will eat. I know it’s a pain chopping it up in the morning but if it means they will eat it that’s a win. Sometimes I put salami in if we have it, or if I pick up some df gf cookies, I will pop them in too. Popcorn and chopped up veggies with peanut butter, are a winner with some kids as well.

Think outside the square, if there is a favorite meal the kids like, make a bit more and put it in container to take to school. Get the kids involved. Do they like bacon and egg? Put a piece of bread in a muffin tin, fill it with an egg and some cooked bacon and bake it in the oven. This weekend I will do the baking to top up the freezer, so I have asked them the flavors they want. We are doing corn, chocolate orange and lemon and blueberry.

Have fun with it, and don;t be afraid to ask them what they might want to eat. If they say something that sounds a little crazy – say for example, last nights chips, or a banana sandwich, give it a go at least they are getting something into their little bodies!!

this is going to be a bit of a wordy one so hang in there!! over Easter i really wanted to have a go at hot cross buns, gf df anything is hard to find at the best of times, so there are some things that you just tend to miss out on. this was our first Easter with two gf children. we managed to find hot cross buns, but i still wanted to have a go working with yeast and gluten free flour. i thought that yeast didn’t really work with gf flour but i had never actually tried.

so anyway over two separate cooks i gave it a go and as far as my captive audience went they were both a winner.

I took the recipe from Issue #2 2020 of the Food magazine that you get from countdown, and altered it to suit.

hot cross buns basic recipe…

• 1 tablespoon dried yeast
• 1/4 c caster sugar
• 1 1/2 cups milk warm – almond milk for us
• 4 cups of plain flour – we used the bakels brand as edmonds was out of stock
• 2 teaspoons mixed spice
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 60g butter, room temperature – we used Oliviani
• 1 egg

right so this is the basic ingredients list for the bread dough, with our alterations. i’ll give you the method, then tell you about our experiments

combine the yeast, sugar and warm milk – be careful not to heat the milk too much as it will kill the yeast. you should be able to just feel the warmth when you stick your finger in it. pop a tea towel over it and leave it on the bench to froth up.

while that’s happening, put your flour and spices in a bowl together and pop the oliviani in the flour and use your fingers to gently rub it in. by now your yeast should have risen, it will smell all yeasty and be high in your jug. pour it all into the flour and butter and give it a good mix. this is quite a wet mix so it will be quite sticky. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave to rise for about 45 minutes.

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ok so these guys are not particularly attractive, but i was quite pleased with my first go. this lot didn’t rise very much at all, in fact neither of them rose a lot but this one the least. I only gave it a quick stir before leaving it to rise and i left it in a sunny spot but it didn’t seam to want to do anything. i have come to the conclusion that that is the case when using gluten free flour, but please let me know if you have had different experiences.

anyway, to continue this was supposed to have raisins soaked in rum, but we couldn’t get either in lock down, so I soaked my cup of saltanas in some water and brandy essence in a bowl for an hour.

turn the dough out onto a floured bench and and give it a knead, then roll it out into a rectangle shape, add some extra flour if needed, as it is quite sticky, it should be about half a cm thick. sprinkle with some brown sugar, your sultana’s drained of any remaining liquid and some chopped up pecans and dark chocolate.

then from the long side roll the dough up trying to keep the shape quite tight. cut in half, then the halves in half, then cut four or five rounds out of each quarter. put all the parts cut side down into a lined pan. it doesn’t matter if they are close to each other. leave to rest and rise a little while your oven heats up. 190oc on bake, or I made mine in the top of the BBQ with the lid down.

while the baking is all going on, mix together 1 1/2c brown sugar, 3/4 dark rum or water and brandy essence and 60g of oliviani and melt in a pan. Drizzle this over the scrolls when they are finished baking.

when the scrolls have stood for five minutes, if you can keep people off them for that long, drizzle with an icing of 1 cup of icing sugar and 1 1/2 tablespoons of boiling water.

So yeah it was a bit of a process, definitely a weekend project. everyone loved them but they were a bit sweet overall, even for me. maybe that is because you don’t have that glutenous texture to bulk out the sweetness.

these were the next ones i tried, and man oh man were they delicious!! also i found the portrait function on my phone so they look equally delicious in the picture!! I used the same base recipe but i turned this one out and kneaded it a little bit before letting it rest. this was a mission as the dough was very sticky but the results were interesting. it didn’t rise heaps but the texture was noticeably different. you could feel the air in the dough.

so what did i do? after leaving the dough to rise, i chopped up some dark chocolate and knead the chocolate into the dough, then take small bits and roll them into balls, pop them onto a lined tray. let them rise while the over heats up 190oc. bake for 10 minutes.

when they are done toss them in a bowl of caster sugar and cinnamon.

these guys were lite and fluffy even when cold, and they were gone by dinner time!!

so yes yeast does work with gluten flour. it will be interesting to make some different recipes and see if they are as successful.

I’d love to hear about your success’s and failures, so please feel free to comment!!

wow how time flies when you are locked in a small space with three boys, though you would think i have not much to do, i’ve managed to miss a couple of weeks of posting. I think what it comes down to is missing my schedule. at the end of the day though sometimes in this strange time we just have to do what works in the moment.

so the other week i talked about freezing the raspberry and peach shortbread for school lunches. so i thought this week, with all that flour you have left over from doing so much baking over lockdown i would share the recipe for the muffins i make to put in the freezer for the kids to take to school. we potentially have another week of kids at home, so we may as well use it!!

buying dairy and gluten free treats for school an get really expensive. i decided going into this year i was going to try an reduce my food bills, so i had to find ways of filling their lunch boxes with things they would eat that didn’t break the bank.

muffins are always a winner and the kids just get them out of the freezer in the morning and by lunch they have defrosted and are ready to eat. I went to the warehouse and bought a few of the biggest sistema click clacks I could find and while we were at my parents in the holidays i baked until all the containers were fill. so all i am buying for them now are crackers, and then lunch foods.

this muffin recipe is from two peas and their pod it’s a lemon and blueberry muffin recipe, but ill talk about how i alter it too.

lemon and blueberry muffins…

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• 2 cups Edmonds gluten free flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup Oliviani
• 1 cup sugar
• lemon zest
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• lemon juice
• 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1 cup blueberries

preheat your oven to 180oC and spray or lines some muffin trays ready to go.

now the actual recipe calls for separate bowls, for wet and dry ingredients but i don’t do that. my reasoning? i can’t be bothered. gluten free flour is a lot more forgiving than gluten flour, actually i didn’t do it then either. I just can’t be bothered with extra dishes, and extra time to pt these together.

heres what i do, put all the ingredients, in order in the bowl except the blueberries. you want to be careful not to smoosh them so leave them til the end. mix everything together, use a whisk if you have a good strong one, but a wooden spoon is fine. mix until all the flour is mixed in.

add your blueberries, and gently mix them through. use frozen ones if you want, directly from the freezer.

pop your mix into your muffin pans and put them in the oven. bake for 15-20 minutes. but your nose is the best test of when they are ready. when baking is getting close you can start to smell the delicious baking smell in the house, so if that’s before your 15 minute timer pop a knife into one and check if it’s ready early. the knife should come out clean.

so alternatives in this recipe. there is no need to alter the quantities of your base ingredients, even if you want to add something like cocoa, you don’t need to alter the flour, it’s a nice wet mix anyway so it’s all good (I can hear all you bakers screaming at me out there, but seriously I don’t have time to fluff with recipes so I just do it, and surprise it works!!)

• so add 1/2c cocoa and a handful of chopped up chocolate for double chocolate
• add some drained cherries, or plums and 1/2 c cocoa for dark forest
• add some chopped capsicum, onion and df cheese for a savory one

basically any combination takes your fancy will work, they only rules are, don’t be tempted to overload on additions, drain any fruit in syrup, don’t defrost any frozen fruit, and make them something that you would eat.

when you’re done, let them cool right down then put them into a click clack container in the freezer. the kids can take them out in the morning add them to their lunch box and enjoy when they are ready.

i’ve been following Sophie at @rawandfree for a while now. she and her family have a diet of mostly raw food. when i started following her i was in awe of her ability to eat so many fruit and veggies. if i’m honest i’m kinda rubbish at it. i only eat certain fruits and have to force myself to eat salads, I could eat potatoes all day but they don’t agree with my weird stomach. Still eat them though lol.

however along with the kids cutting dairy and gluten from their diets, i’ve gone on the journey with them. realistically they probably got their issues from me. i get itchy when i eat dairy and have stomach issues with both dairy and gluten, the separate issues for each boys are combined into one.

i’m pretty shocking with my eating really, i often have an upset stomach in the morning, from anxiety so don’t eat breakfast. i leave it till later or if i’m super busy i don’t have anything at all. lunch is hit and miss. i might get something from a cafe if i’m in town, or have crackers or a smoothie, usually in a rush before running off to get the kids. dinner is probably the only meal i actually eat properly, because we are all together.

coming into this lockdown time Sophie from raw and free decided to put together a two week challenge. how she did it in such a short space of time i have no idea. her photography is beautiful and her menu plan has great variety. but the main thing is it’s all about getting more fruit and veggies into your diet, whether raw or cooked.

the challenge came at the right moment for me. i needed some ideas on how to get more health into my diet without it being complicated. you know me by now, if i have to go to an addition store it’s just not going to happen.

i printed out Sophie’s plan and immediately saw some ideas that worked for me and my weirdness. the smoothies, the salads, the small changes that made sense to me. the salads that i could alter to suit our diets.

but the big thing i need you to take from this is that you don’t need to strictly follow diets, or recipes even to make them right for you. take the ideas, and make them work for you, make them work for your likes and dislikes, your allergies or intolerance’s, just get that extra fruit and veggies in there. also open your mind to changes to what meals look like. in new zealand we traditionally eat cereal, or toast for breakfast. but there is no reason you couldn’t have an egg, avo and tomato salad instead.

so let me show you a couple of Sophie’s recipes and how i made them work for our family, living in a caravan with not a whole lot of appliances available in our small space, with our random allergies.

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this one is “creamy spinach alfredo pasta” it’s gluten free pasta – i always use san remo gluten free – and has a mix of soaked cashews, spinach, milk, garlic, lemon, nutritional yeast and wholegrain mustard, tossed over it garnished with tomatoes and chives.

this recipe is a lovely fresh pasta dish, the kids all loved it. it called for a blender, which now that i think of it i could have used my nutra bullet, rather than struggling with my mini blender, we only had a little spinach left so i added some parsley, and Dustin is allergic to tomatoes so i left them out. just because a recipe has certain ingredients, there is no reason why you can’t change or take them out to suit your own needs. was it what Sophie had in mind, not quite, but it got food into the kids while giving them a great filling healthy meal.

the next one was “super green chunky avocado tabouli with potato wedges” another easy to put together delicious filling dinner, where you don’t even miss that there is no meat. although there’s no reason why you couldn’t add a bit of cherizo sausage to the roasting dish when cooking the potato’s. or add a steak on the side, if that gets your family eating.

with lockdown in full effect my stocks were low, and although i had prepared my menu before shopping i was short on some of the ingredients. as i couldn’t just race out to the shops i had to really think outside the square. the tabouli required spinach, herbs, red onion, garlic, tomato, avocado, cucumber, spring onion, lemon and salt and pepper. yip there’s quite a lot of stuff in there but nothing too complicated. and you are supposed to just bung it all in a food processor and you are done. ok so i don’t have a food processor in the caravan, knives work just as well, and you have time to do it when the potato’s are roasting.

so i didn’t have cucumber, or spinach, or red onion, and Dustin’s allergic to tomato’s so my version ended up really something different. i had basil and parsley in the garden, so avocados, green apples, basil and parsley and spring onion. with a dressing of oil, wholegrain mustard, lemon juice, salt and pepper. we added the tomato’s on the side so Dustin could eat the salad.

when you’re battling with allergies, be prepared to make some changes, be prepared to make it work for you, to the point where it almost doesn’t look like what it’s supposed to. but it can still be delicious and it can absolutely be healthy. go and check Sophie out for some more inspiration and let me know what you come up with to make the recipes work for you. raw and free