Cooking with Kids (Dairy Free Recipe)

D1 has an egg and dairy allergy. We are not talking Lactose Intolerance but a full blown allergy - Swelling, hives, vomiting, extreme itching and pain.

The BigD and I are both food technologists (Not to be confused with nutritionists) so we are probably quite lucky that we have a greater awareness of where hidden milk proteins and sugars might be hiding. Did you know that lots of pre-sliced sandwich meats contain milk?

I remember in the early days how daunting dealing with it all was so thought I would share with you the odd example of typical family meals in our house. For ease we all tend to eat a dairy free diet - it saves cooking separate meals as we did a lot of in the early days. Don't get me wrong D2 and I still use cows milk on our cereal and eat yoghurt and chocolate, etc. I am just talking about the main family meal.

We have done a lot of work in desensitizing D1, it has taken 18+ months to do this. She can now tolerate a small percentage of milk as a processed ingredient in foods and some margarine type spreads containing buttermilk straight on her toast. This has been an absolute godsend as it has taken the fear factor away and generally makes eating out so much easier. I do have a post about our journey planned for the future so before I waffle on and tell our whole story I will crack on with sharing what we had for dinner last night!

In our house D1 is chief carrot peeler, sauce stir-er and stock cube crumble-er!

The Simple Stir-Fry

Ingredients:

• Chicken breast/Beef (whatever you fancy - I only had 1 small chicken breast left in the freezer so BigD played "spot the meat" when I served his meal up.
• Veg (Whatever you have to hand - I used peppers, some leftover sugar snaps, red onion, 1/8 of a cabbage and a rather large carrot)
• Vegetable oil

For the sauce:

• 2 tbsp honey
• 6 tbsp soy sauce (If you want more sauce the general ratio is about 1 honey:3 soy)
• 2 tsp cornflour
• 3 tbsp water

Sauce variations: (We went for the five spice)

• large handful chopped coriander
• Five Spice
• Cashew Nuts
• Sesame oil

Mix all sauce ingredients together in cup/jug.

In separate bowls coat thinly sliced meat and veg in oil - not much is needed.

Stir-fry meat, remove from pan and set aside.

Make sure wok is really hot and add veg, when just about done return meat to pan and stir in the sauce. Add more water if the sauce is too thick or a little bit more cornflour if you prefer a stickier/thicker sauce.

Serve with rice or mix the whole lot in with some noodles (You can get some great egg free ones)