For the love of Feijoa's

If you're a kiwi you'll know what I'm talking about.  Feijoa's are synonymous with Autumn here in NZ.  Love 'em or hate 'em, nearly every house has a tree.  And for a few short weeks in April, Feijoa's are everywhere.  For those of you who don't know, Feijoa's are a firm green fruit on the outside with a pulpy center.  They have a really distinctive fragrance that gets stronger the longer as they age.  We eat the inside only, but some people eat the outside too.  Each to their own.

The real problem with having a feijoa tree is what to do with all the feijoa's?  Today we had a bit of a production line and cooked up a batch of feijoa's to go in the freezer - some say you can put them in raw, but we found they went brown and yucky, so we always cook them first.

A day's worth

Some people get a little side tracked!

But what else to do with all the fruit......?

Some got pureed and then dehydrated to make our own super yummy and completely natural fruit leathers.  And lots got frozen so we can use it in crumbles later in the year.

But there was still more - so I thought I would make a feijoa cake.  I used my basic vegan cake recipe and made a few adjustments and added a yummy crumble topping

Here is the recipe I created

1 1/2 C Flour
1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 C Sugar
1 1/2 C feijoa pulp

Mix it all together well and then pour into a cake tin lined with baking paper

25g Olivani
1/4 cup Oats
1 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp Brown sugar

Melt Olivani and add other ingredients - add more oats if needed to cover cake.
Sprinkle over cake
Bake for about 40 minutes @ 180 C.

This cake was so yummy and I think even those that aren't great Feijoa lovers will enjoy this and there is no fat in the cake, only in the topping so it is semi-healthy.  And the allergy kid absolutely loved it.

I hope you are enjoying your feijoa's too.

Barbs x.

Thinking out loud.

Um.  Hello.  Long time, no see.

Yes it has all been a bit quiet over here in our bloggy land.

Hubby has been away lots (his mum has terminal cancer) and I have been finding out first hand how hard solo parenting of three kids and a dog is.  But these are mere excuses.  Truth is my bloggy mojo went.  I'm not sure if it is back or not but I thought I would try and put something out there.

Gotta love these three 

When I started this blog my intention was to provided recipes and information for allergy families.  When I had Emma, I couldn't find information or recipes anywhere.  After years of searching the internet, I stumbled across the lovely blog Delissimon.  Mon's girls went to kindy with my girls and I was so inspired by her story.  After checking out many of her fave blogs, I decided that I could do it too.  It's not that hard to write some words and upload some photos is it?  Well I guess the answer is yes it actually is.  You have to think about blogging when you are doing things, you need to take photos when you are doing things and then you need to sit down and find the words and bring it all together.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

I've needed a few of these...It is not healthy, it's a wine slushy!

Now I have a decision to make.  Do I leave my blog and my intentions alone and forget I ever tried?  Or do I make a commitment to my blog and post regularly?  Thing is, I get a real buzz out of writing, always have.  And I love taking photo's.  And I love information on Allergies and Eczema.  These two topics have taken over our life for almost 10 years. So I guess there isn't any question of forgetting about my blog and I have to commit to making it work.

And sometimes Sausage Rolls and tomato sauce just hit the spot

Thing is I'm lazy.  And I mean L.A.Z.Y.  If I can get away with not doing something I wont do it.  I'm not a supaMum.  I'm getting by but things have been getting me down a lot lately.  Being on my own with the kids is hard. You don't realise just how much that extra pair of hands is needed until it is not there.  We are so spoilt on a daily basis coz hubby works from home, with him away I have to drag all the kids everywhere I need to go.

Guacamole and corn chips - the ultimate lazy, yet kinda healthy afternoon tea

So now it's Easter time.  A great celebration of rebith.  A chance to eat lots of chocolate.  A hard time to be an allergy kid.  Whilst I can go out and by lots of easter eggs for the other two, finding Emma safe treats is usually not so easy.  But this year there are these

And better still, I don't have to traipse all over town coz they are available at my local New World supermarket.  A big thank you to the wonderful Robyn (Emma's Girls Brigade Leader) who told me about them.  Finally Emma will be able to have a fun easter egg hunt with her siblings and get to eat what she finds.  And I am also so lucky that Emma is not gluten free.  Where would Easter be without hot cross buns.  Usually I make my own but this year I've been too lazy so we have been scoffing these ones down regularly.

Well that's about it for now.

Thanks for reading.

Barbs x.

What Emma ate

Menu Planning  

I've been trying to do it for the last year or two, but this year I am going to make it happen.  2012 is the year to get my act together and get organised.  I know menu planning saves money and I know it makes life easier.  On Monday this week I planned my menu and then did the groceries.  Not only did we eat well, but we came in right on budget as well.

This is what we ate this week:

Mexican Mince with Rice, salad and guacamole
Chicken and Tomato Pasta
Cajun style fish'n'chips with salad
Home made burgers with roast vege chips
Asian style pork noodles
Pumpkin and Chick pea curry with rice and poppadoms
Corned Silverside beef with mashed potatoes, carrots, beans and spinach

pumpkin and chickpea curry - recipe here -
not my photo

Emma's snacks have been Orgran's itsey bitsey bears (left over from being away), Healtheries Rice Wafers with olivani and vegemite, chocolate chippies (made by Dan), Banana,Blueberry and chocolate chip muffins, sultana's, carrot sticks, nectarines, plums and oranges.

Breakfast has been Weetbix with hot water & sugar, Emma style coco-pops (ricies with hot choc mix and hot water) and home made waffles with blueberries and banana.

This week Emma has enjoyed various sandwiches for lunch - filling included red onion and tomato, hot beef, hummus, sweetcorn and baked beans.

And just to make sure I keep on being organised, I even tidied out my pantry!

Now all I have to do is think about next week.

Shop bought goodies

After having to throw out many ingredients due to the infestation of pantry moths in my pantry, I thought I would  post about some store bought goodies that we  use.

Real Foods Corn Thins are high up on the family favourites list, spread with Olivani and vegemite they are a yummy after school snack.  (We find they go a little bit soggy in the lunch box though).  The other crackers we use are Carrs water crackers and Ryvita's.  Other savoury snacks we keep in the pantry are plain rice crackers, pretzels, Bluebird potato chips (as well as ready salted, the new sunday roast flavour and the honey baked ham are also dairy free but they do have the  "may contain traces of Dairy" disclaimer), Mexicano natural corn chips and also Abes bagel crisps (again carries the may contain traces of dairy & sesame due to the presence of sesame seeds and parmesan cheese at their factory).   

Sweet snacks are harder to find but Emma likes Orgran outback animal biscuits. Also Golden crumpets are on the safe food list and good with honey on them.  We also buy Florida Fruit nuggets and occaisonally nice and natural fruit strings and marine mix.

We always keep a supply of the small tins of tuna as these are great to take with us when we go out and arent sure if we will be able to find anything for Emma to eat.

Also new to the market are the Wiggles range of snacks from Healtheries.  Although they do state that they may contain traces of Dairy, this is due to being made on the same production line.

Check out this great allergy foods website which lists all the foods available that are guaranteed free from certain allergens.  The biggest problem I find with it is that it only has peanuts in the search engine so some of the foods will contain other nuts, but it is a good base to start from when trying to find premade allergy friendly snacks.