Confessions of a Healthy Food Blogger

I share a fairly popular recipe for zucchini cheese – but I never make it myself, and always buy that super expensive vegan cheese from the supermarket.

I don’t like Brussel sprouts, I think they taste like farts. I live with three males (five including the cat and the dog) yes, I know what farts taste like.

My kids won’t eat frozen peas, in fact they won’t eat frozen mixed veggies either. Purely to make my life difficult. Except this one time I told my friend that my kids don’t eat peas and my 1 year old then stole and ate all the peas from her sons lunchbox.

Ashton, just Ashton. Ashton is incredibly fussy. He has the most ginormous list of foods he won’t eat, and bunch of finicky food preferences that I often comply with because I hate the moaning at the dinner table. If you want a winge-fest serve roast chicken (unless it’s a supermarket rotisserie basted in all sorts of non allergy friendly crap that he shouldn’t eat), or potatoes, especially mashed, roasted is marginally acceptable but only if they are cut into 1cm cubes, and crisp, but not too crisp, heaven forbid. Or try soup – if it’s soup, it’s inedible. Make sure you have you best gag face at the ready to make a performance at the table on soup night. Also if its marginally spicy, it may as well be poisonous. Someone save me from this kid he is a healthy food bloggers worst nightmare.

My kids won’t eat my homemade hummus, the two little ones just straight up won’t touch the stuff while Ashton will only eat “Lisa’s” hummus original flavour.

Sometimes I eat proper crisps for breakfast … and let the baby join me.

None of my kids eat raw carrot sticks, but I put them in their lunchboxes all the time because they look good in photos.

When I was a kid I used to steal meal mates crackers from the pantry and eat raro juice sachets like it was sherbet.

My mum buys the kids allergy friendly biscuits and chocolate and I eat it all myself.

Our children are allowed pudding once a week. But every night when they go to bed we eat chips and chocolate and mug cakes.

Most of my blog photos are taken on our bed covered in white sheets, or on the floor of our snail infested sunroom (best lighting in the house 😆)- I peg an upside down piece of scrap vinyl to a portable clothes rack to bounce the light off. Once I spilled a milkshake all through the bed during a photo shoot.

Sometimes I lie to the kids about what they are allergic to, so they don’t eat too much sugar, because I can’t handle the meltdowns.

Anyone else got anything to confess?!

Dairy Free Butter Chicken |Coconut free

This dairy free and coconut free butter chicken is one that the whole family can enjoy. When we were coconut free I missed curry so much, I spent a lot of time trying to create something that was just as delicious as the cream or coconut laden version, that was family friendly as well. At the time I made this we were dairy free, coconut free and cashew free (among other things) and it was so hard to find recipes that could resemble anything creamy without any of those ingredients. It’s safe to say that iv’e nailed this one. No dairy or coconut required as the cauliflower helps to achieve that creamy texture. It’s fragrant, smooth and delicious.

Anyone else struggle to get veggies into the kids at dinner every night? Eight veggies crammed in and disguised as butter chicken in here! This one is solving all sorts of problems! 

The lemon juice

If you don’t have lemon juice on hand, you can replace that with a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. 

Veggies out of season?

Here in New Zealand when veggies go out of season, you either need to take a second mortgage to pay for them, or they are just straight up not available. Seeing as i’m also budget conscious I’ve adapted to do without certain veggies when they are out of season:

Zucchini – replace with another ¼ of a cauliflower. 

Tomatoes – replace with another ½ cup tomato passata / puree. 

If you would like a delicious gluten, dairy, soy, egg, nut, yeast, grain and coconut free (instant!) naan bread recipe to go with this, you can find that here. 

I love to hear when you make my recipes, don’t forget to tag me on Facebook and Instagram

Butter Chicken – Dairy Free, Coconut Free

This butter chicken recipe is not only dairy free and coconut free, its also free from gluten, eggs, nuts and made predominantly of vegetables, that your family will have no idea are in there!

Ingredients

The Spice Mix

  • 2 teaspoons Cumin
  • 2 teaspoons Garam masala
  • 2 teaspoons Paprika
  • 2 teaspoons Ginger
  • 2 teaspoons Turmeric
  • 2 teaspoons sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon pepper

The sauce

  • ¼ large cauliflower or 1/2 a large
  • 2 small carrots or one large
  • 1 large zucchini
  • 1 red capsicum
  • 1 small onion
  • 3 large cloves garlic (about 2 Tablespoons)
  • 3 mushrooms
  • 2 tomatoes
  • 1 cup water or broth
  • ½ cup tomato passata or purée
  • ¼ cup lemon juice
  • 500 – 700 g boneless chicken breast or thigh.
  • Chilli to taste

Instructions

  • Measure out all your spices into a small bowl and set aside. Half will go in your sauce and the other half will coat the chicken.
  • Cut up the veg into rough pieces, the carrot needs to be the smallest as that takes the longest to cook. Add them to a pot with a swig of olive oil and gently sauté. Add Half of the spice mix and sauté for a few minutes until everything is coated and it smells fragrant. Add the water / stock and cover for ten minutes or until all the veggies are cooked through. (See notes for pressure cooker instructions).
  • While it's cooking, cut up the chicken into 1cm slices, all of similar size and coat with the remaining spice mix. Set aside to marinate, until the sauce is done.
  • When the veggies are cooked add them with the cooking water to a blender. Make sure you leave the top open where you would feed things into for the steam to escape or the hot pressure might build up and you will be cleaning butter chicken off your walls! I usually cover the top with a tea towel as I'm blending so none escapes. Blend it all together until the sauce is thick and smooth. Add the tomato passata / purée & lemon juice and mix through. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed. If it seems quite sharp or bitter, it may need more salt.
  • Now you can either put the sauce aside in the fridge and let the chicken marinate further until dinner time (I usually prepare the sauce earlier and then cook the chicken in the sauce at dinner time). Or you can add the sauce back to the pot, gently heat and add your chicken to cook in the sauce. It’s a thick mixture and sometimes thick molten bubbles can erupt from your pot, I tend to cover the pot and keep the heat low, so I don’t have molten butter chicken bubbles erupt in my face! Check every five mins and remove from the heat when the chicken is all cooked through.
  • Serve with your choice of rice (basmati, jasmine, white, brown, cauliflower) and if you have more time (said no Mum, ever 😆) you can make my naan bread to go with them.  I add chilli oil or flakes / powder to the adult dishes after serving and leave mild for the kids. We dont want to risk any complaints at this point!
  • Now watch your family inhale their invisible veggies and ask for seconds!

Notes

To make the sauce in a pressure cooker, simply roughly chop all the veggies into page chunks, add to your pot with half the spice mix, and the water, and set to pressure cook for 7-10 minutes. Then Follow the rest of the instructions as above. 

Mac and Cheese – Gluten free, dairy free, soy free, yeast free, egg free, nut free

Paula’s Mac n Cheese!

Over on facebook I said I wanted to help you guys, to do a meal make over by creating a dish of your choice and make it fit your dietary requirements. This Mac n Cheese Requested by Paula, proved to be quite popular, so i thought id better put it on the blog for easy reference. Mac n Cheese – free from gluten, dairy, nightshades, yeast, (no nutritional yeast or dairy free cheese) low histamine and also free from soy, eggs, nuts, coconut and packed with veggies.

I made the recipe and tested it on my family. I made a huge pot and there was not a scrap leftover. So I’ll take that as a big thumbs up!

Feeds 4 hungry people

Ingredients

You need:
3 zucchini, peeled & diced
1/2 cauliflower – chopped
1 carrot – grated
2 T fresh garlic
3 rashers bacon
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp smoked paprika (omit for nightshade free)
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper (ideally white pepper but any is fine)
Juice of one big lemon

What to do

Fry off the bacon and garlic, then add all the other ingredients, except the lemon, and cover.

Simmer over medium heat with lid on until the veggies are tender. Add the lemon juice and blend up the mixture until smooth.

Stir through 250 – 300g cooked gluten free macaroni and serve with crispy bacon and fresh cracked black pepper.

Feeding Kids with Food allergies

The leaflet from my talk at the Total Health Explosion on Saturday, in case you missed it. There I shared some of Felix’s story (you can find his full story here and Ashton’s story here), and I gave some ideas on healthy, allergy friendly breakfasts, lunches and dinners that are all free from the top allergens – dairy, soy, wheat, eggs, nuts and peanuts. If you went, i hope you all enjoyed the event as much as Ashton and I did!

total health handout