What shall we have for dinner?? Dairy Free, Gluten Free, Soya Free

When I first went 'dairy free', I can remember the panic. What were we going to eat?? 

It took me a while to realise that whilst some things had changed, not everything was going to be different. And after a while things became a whole lot easier, as we discovered things we could 'safely eat'. We then began to stick to a 'safe list'

Do you have one of those?? You know, a list of tried and trusted dishes.

Don't know about you, but it can be so easy to get stuck in a familiar rut, when it comes to making dinner. Occasionally I'll come across a 'new' (to us) dish and make it ad infinitum, but sometimes Kiddo decides she doesn't wan it and suddenly it's off the menu again, and we're back to the same old, same old...

However, what's MY 'same old' may be different from yours, so if I share mine, and you share yours... hopefully we can all share a bit of inspiration!

BUT, I'm NO Nigella... just so you know!


As in previous posts, this list is by no means exhaustive (especially as Kiddo is not fond of spice) but here's an idea of what we might eat:


Takes a while:

Roast Chicken - with roasted potatoes and veg. (use Bisto Free From gravy if gluten free like me, otherwise make sure that your chicken gravy does not contain milk)

Roast rack of lamb - with roasted potatoes and veg. and Bisto Free from gravy

Lamb Casserole (Knorr gluten free gravy stock)

Shepherd's Pie (Knorr gluten free gravy stock and mash made with dairy free alternatives)

Barnyard Pie - Chicken, bacon and leek, sweetcorn, mushroom, or whatever veg you like to add. It's made with gravy and topped with mash - much the same as Shepherd's Pie.

Lasagna - either making the sauce from scratch with dairy and gluten free alternatives, or using Dolmio smooth hidden veg and Tesco Free From lasagna sauce, with Violife or Daiya Shredded 'Cheese'.

Fish Pie - using white sauce made with Doves gluten free flour, Pure sunflower Margarine, Almond milk and Violife grated 'cheese'.

Sausage Casserole (suitable sausages - Tesco Finest Pork, Heck Pork, Rankin's Pork)

Paella (cooked with Kallo gluten free chicken stock) according to Jamie Oliver's instructions.

Fish and Chips (a la Hub!) Using the deep fat fryer and gluten free batter for the fish.

A wonderful dish to cook on a barbecue, but make sure you get the right pan!

Slightly less prep:

Chicken Fajitas (gluten free wraps/seasonings, Coyo coconut yogurt in place of creme fraiche, Violife grated 'cheese')

Spaghetti Bolognese (Dolmio smooth hidden veg sauce and gluten free pasta)

Jacket Potato (with various fillings)

Sausage Pasta Bake (gluten pasta & suitable sausages)

Chicken, Bacon & Mushroom Risotto

Bacon-wrapped chicken breasts (oven cooked and served with veg/potatoes)

Bacon-wrapped cod (oven-baked with vine tomatoes, served with veg/potatoes)

Sauteed potatoes with pan fried fish (salmon/mackerel/bream/sea bass)

Pan frying fish is so quick and easy!

Chicken curry (made with a ready made Free From sauce - Indian Butter Chicken)

Sweet and Sour Chicken with rice (Made with Sweet Mandarin Sweet and Sour Sauce)

Sausages and Mash ('safe' sausages with mash made with usual dairy free substitutes)



I'm in a hurry:

Pasta and Seafood with tomato-based sauce (Gluten free pasta, tomato-based sauce and fresh sea food mix from Waitrose)

Chicken/Prawn (or both) Egg Fried Rice or Noodles. The rice can be cooked in advance and cooled or you can use a packet of Tilda ready rice, or two! I stick to Tilda because I know it is specifically gluten free, but there are other brands out there. Amoy Straight to Wok Noodles are good too!

Egg fried rice is a real favorite in our house!

Pizza  (gluten free Schar base for me and Violfe pizza 'cheese' on top, toppings, whatever you choose)

Please note: 

This post is not an advert. I have not been paid to write this post. I am not sponsored in any way, even by advertising. I do not receive products free to review, although I have often been offered them. This is to try and maintain an unbiased approach. Any products listed in this post are here purely because they genuinely are the products we have used and enjoy consuming. They are included here merely to point people who are new to suitable products that they too may enjoy. All views expressed are my own (unless I've asked for The Hub's or Kiddo's). I try to tell is 'as-it-is'.

Related posts: 

Let's do lunch!

Anyone for Breakfast?

A pud would be good!

Simple Shepherd's Pie - dairy free, soya free, gluten free

If you're a bit of a foodie, switch off NOW - as I very much doubt you'll learn anything from me. BUT if you are  a complete novice, or are just interested in whether we do anything different, well you might just want to read on!

I suspect that when I was a child what we, as a family, called 'Shepherd's Pie' was probably more likely what is more correctly termed 'Cottage Pie' - the difference being in the meat. Cottage Pie is made with minced beef and Shepherd's Pie (the clue is in the name) is made with lamb mince. Whatever! Whether it's Shepherd's or Cottage Pie, I love it and make it completely the same way, no matter which meat we use.

Baby also loves Shepherd's Pie, and it's a great way of sneaking in the veggies, without her noticing, so we tend to make it about once a week. The great thing about it is that it is so simple to make - even I can do it. The only downside is all the prep!

Ingredients:

750g Potato
450g mince (lamb or beef)
Half an onion
3 medium carrots
1 courgette
6 white mushrooms
2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
Margarine
Stock cube Kallo/Knorr or similar
Handful of grated Violife/cheese
Salt & pepper (to taste)

Method:

1. Heat oven to 190 degrees C.

2. Half fill a saucepan with cold water and bring to the boil.

3. While you're waiting for the saucepan to boil, peel and chop the potatoes, carrots, courgette, onion and mushrooms.

4. Once the water has come to the boil, add the potatoes and a pinch of salt. At this stage, I usually add a steamer tier to the pan and steam the carrot, as I like my carrot soft-ish.

5. Heat olive oil in cast iron casserole or large pan. Add the onion and the minced meat and mushrooms. Stir until meat is thoroughly cooked and juices run clear (about 30 minutes).

6. Once the potatoes have cooked, drain the water, add a few dollops of margarine and a splash of almond (or other) milk. Mash the potatoes until they are smooth. Before 'Baby' we would add a little salt and pepper at this point, but we try to avoid adding salt with her around, and she's not so keen on strange flavours.

7. Take the casserole/pan off the heat. If using the pan, empty the contents into the casserole dish. Add the carrots and courgette and combine the ingredients, with a spoon.

Cooking in the casserole makes for one less pan to wash ;)

8. Use boiling water and a stock cube (best to use a reduced salt version, if cooking for a little one - Marigold Swiss Bouillon make a reduced salt version) to make 250ml stock. Pour it over the meat and vegetables. I don't like my stock too runny, so will use the whole cube.


9. Now add the mash with a fork. Add it in small dollops to avoid it sinking in with the meat/stock.  I like to fork it over, so that it crisps nicely in the oven.

10. If you like a cheesy crisp, to the mash, you can sprinkle a handful of grated cheese (we use dairy and soya free Violife) over the top of the mash. I think it makes it more scrumptious!

11. Cook until the top is crispy and golden (around 30-45 mins).

Variations:

Talking of all things scrumptious, I saw a tip from the Hairy Bikers the other day, which suggested adding some lardons to the mince and instead of mash using gnocci to speed things up (some gnocci is made dairy free and gluten free). Not tried it yet, but... Ooo! I'm tempted!

Please note: 

This post is not an advert. I have not been paid to write this post. I am not sponsored in any way, even by advertising. I do not receive products free to review, although I have often been offered them. This is to try and maintain an unbiased approach. All views expressed are my own (unless I've asked for The Hub's or Kiddo's).

Related Posts:

Sausage Casserole

Simple Sauteed Sea Bass

I love Sea Bass. I find it hard to believe that before I met The Hub, I'd never tried it, but its true! At least if I did have it, I really don't remember it. Yet it's so simple to cook and so light and delicious! When I lived at home, my mother usually cooked cod (fish fingers or steaks in batter) apart from the rare occasion when someone we knew went out fishing and caught some mackerel.

We usually buy our sea bass pre-packed from Tesco, as I can guarantee I can get some without the (seemingly mandatory) additional knob of unwanted herb butter. Once bought, the question always is, what to do with it.

Sometimes we steam it, more often we have it sautéed - Baby loves its crispy finish, and I must admit, so do I. Whichever way we cook it, we usually have rice with it too.

Usually I prepare the carrots first (the only vegetable that Baby will knowingly eat, at the moment) and put on the water for steaming the carrots. Occasionally The Hub sautees the carrots (having steamed them for a bit first) with some courgette, but usually, we just steam the veggies.

Then, I wash the rice and put it in the rice cooker, together with a little water. Our rice cooker was a wedding present and is probably our most used kitchen appliance (after the kettle and the coffee machine). If you like rice, you should seriously consider getting one - perfect rice, every time! The other great thing about it is that because you don't need to watch it, you can get on with whatever else you need to do, whilst the rice is cooking.

You don't necessarily want the one we've got though! Although the extra steaming layer on the top is a great idea, ours has an annoying little bit around the bottom, which is hideous to clean out by hand!

Sautéed Sea Bass - sorted!

The next job is to put the carrots into the steamer and start preparing either broccoli or courgette, to accompany the carrots. I need to be quick, or the rice will cook before they're ready. Although the rice cooker can keep the rice hot and resting whilst they finish off, I usually find the rice just a little bit dry, if we do this.

The last stage is sauteeing the fish. This stage is really quick, if you have the right pan! We really need a proper sautee pan. The teflon coating on the last one was ruined, when something got burned on. Oops! However, we (or rather The Hub - I always get him to do this bit, as he's such a dab hand at it) still do quite well with our little frying pan. He just cooks  them one or two at a time, as that is all that will fit. 

Basically, he heats up some olive oil in the pan (enough olive oil to cover the bottom), then fries the sea bass fillets on both sides, until they're crispy and the flesh has turned from translucent to opaque. If you'd like step-by-step instructions, here's a link to a great post, with pictures of every stage.

Once cooked, we just serve the sea bass with the rice and veggies. Usually, I just like my fish plain, so I can enjoy the flavour. Baby has the same and really enjoys it that way - you should hear the, 'Mmm, mmm!' noises she makes whilst eating! 

However, if that would be a bit boring for you, then you could squeeze a bit of lemon over it or do what The Hub does - he has been known to splash a bit of soy sauce over his. If you're gluten free you could use a glug of Tamari gluten free soy sauce, I don't. Tamari sauce actually makes me more uncomfortable than normal soy, with the gluten in! How bizarre is that?

If you don't fancy rice and soy, you might like to try serving your sea bass in a Mediterranean style. Try it with new potatoes, small green beans and a tomato-based sauce. 

However, you decide to serve it, enjoy!!

Another simple supper:
Sausage Casserole

Simple Sausage Casserole

So tonight, despite all the heat we've been having, I found myself making flower shaped carrots for our sausage casserole. Yes, you heard me casserole! But it was that or Spaghetti Bolognese today, partly because I forgot to buy my special pasta, when I was out shopping today, but also because The Hub ordered our food the other day, and this is what was left in the fridge!

Flowery carrots

Oh, and if you're wondering about the flower shaped carrots - that's just a ploy to get Baby to eat them. It's a trick of my mother-in-law's invention. You draw a zester several times down the length of the carrot, creating grooves in the surface. When you cut through the carrot the flower shape can be seen. Sometimes flowery carrots work and sometimes they don't! Anyway, back to the casserole...

Our sausage casserole began with a Jamie Oliver recipe that I found in Sainbury's a few years ago. It was one of those 'Feed your family for a fiver' recipes. Of course you could only feed your family for a fiver if you bought some of your ingredients from their 'Basics' range, and, if I'm totally honest, it wasn't really enough to feed a family larger than three (in my humble opinion). Anyway, it was quite tasty and so I made it from time to time, just for me and The Hub - the leftovers were next day's lunch!

We've changed it slightly though - we took out the pepper and red onion and added tomato soup! It works though - you'll see!

One of the things I like about this dish, apart from the fact that it contains sausages (which I lurve) is that it is what I call a 'One Pot Wonder' - which basically boils down to everything being chucked into the same pot and less washing up - which suits me just fine!!


Ingredients:

3-4 carrots
3-4 sweet potatoes
1 courgette
dollop or two of olive oil
1 pack of sausages*
1 carton of tomato soup (ours was Covent Garden) or a jar of tomato pasta sauce.


Method:

1. Warm oven up to 200 degrees C.
2. Peel and chop carrots and sweet potatoes.
3. Put a couple of dollops of olive oil in a large oven dish.
4. Add Sweet potatoes, carrots and sausages.
5. Pour carton of tomato soup over the ingredients and stir in together.
6. Put in oven for 25 mins (of 45-50 in total).
7. Add courgette 20 minutes from the end.

Ta da!

*When food became more of a problem, for me, I felt my world close in around me somewhat, but, realising that some of my favourite recipes were still achievable made things a bit more bearable. Sausage casserole is just one of them - we simply make sure we use gluten free and dairy free sausages. The ones we consumed today, were Rankin's but there's quite a range out there that are suitable (not just the ones in the Free From section). They're usually the 'high end' ones, that are a little more expensive, but are made with a higher percentage of pork - which is always a plus as far as I'm concerned! We also like Heck.