Travelling on a restricted diet

***Although this post was drafted pre-GAPS but not published, it applies to our current GAPS diet as well.***

When we took our 1st vacation of the year at Batam in April 2011, we were blessed by mil who cooked several meals worth of food and brought them over via the ferry ride. How blessed dd is to have grandparents who love her so much that they were willing to inconvenience themselves twice in our 5 day 4 night vacation! I just borrowed a tiny crockpot from a friend to cook her quinoa in. That settled her lunch and dinner and I I allowed her to eat the breakfast offerings at the hotel Sadly though, she reacted to the food even though she was on medication. The reaction thankfully was mild but it showed me that her body hasn’t completely healed.

So when the time drew near for us to attend our Church Camp in June 2011, I was rather stressed by the food challenge again. No, ils were not in town so they couldn’t do a repeat of the above Not that they could even if they were in town since the drive up to Johore is much longer than the ferry ride to Batam. So I started planning and planning and planning.

But we did it! I would like to share my experience in case you have a child with allergies and wonder how you can ever go on a vacation ever again

I started with a menu plan for the 4 days we were to be away and went grocery shopping. Then I sliced and marinated all the meats and fish. Next, I packed them into the meals I had planned and labelled them. I used Ziplock bags since I did not want to chance upon them leaking! They were then popped into the freezer for a few days.

The only thing missing were vegetables. Since she hates peas and beans - the only frozen vegetables I could find - I didn’t bother to bring any along. She had a holiday from her vegetables for 4 days! The Ziplocked packets of food were then wrapped and wrapped in layers of newspapers. Then I bought and brought along a medium sized crockpot just for the trip. An entire suitcase was dedicated to food and its related stuff - crockpot, rubber gloves, detergent, salt, etc.

As for the cooking itself, some meals were started before we left the hotel room for breakfast while others had to be started about an hour or so before lunch/dinner. It was rather stressful to remember when to walk all the way back to the room to cook but we pulled it off! Thank God!

Again, she was allowed to eat breakfast at the hotel. This time round her body handled the food better. She was on a low course of oral steriods and she didn’t seem to react to the breakfast foods. Praise God!

So travelling with a child with multiple food allergies is doable. Stressful, but doable. It really helped that she is not at all fussy about her food and she is strong enough to not cheat on her diet.

Now I am already starting to plan ahead for this year’s Church Camp ! Maybe we will have enough healing to be able to relax more?

Cooking for an allergic child

One never stops learning. When I was growing up I never cooked anything except instant noodles When I got married I had to learn how to cook rice (and use the washing machine too!). So you can say that I am so not Nigella Lawson

Fast forward to today, I not only have to cook almost all meals for our family of 9, I also have to cook special meals for dd and myself since we have severe eczema. God is so not done with me, eh?

When I first saw the long list of foods that dd was allergic to I nearly fainted. Eliminating wheat and dairy is hard enough but her list was super long and included stuff that we eat without even thinking! But the thing that hit me the most is that we no longer have the luxury of eating out – at least till her body heals itself. And I no longer get a break from cooking. That was depressing.

Dh used to bring us out for meals at least once a week, especially on weekends to give me (and the rest of the family I am sure!) from cooking. But now, even when the rest of the family enjoy their food outings, dd and I will bring along our food and eat that. So I still have to cook, albeit in a smaller amount.

Before GAPS, I substitued rice and noodles with quinoa, buckwheat and sweet potato noodles. For seasoning and marinating I used a combination of salt, herbs (Italian usually), honey, pepper, sesame oil and tapioca flour. Is it boring? It hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be. But since healing the body was top priority, even if it was boring, we still pressed on.

To solve the breakfast problem (do you realise almost all breakfast foods are wheat based?) I serve ourselves leftovers from dinner or eat home-made, grain free granola with almond or coconut milk (made fresh in my Blendtec and then frozen). I used to serve dd Green Smoothies which she loves but they don’t fill her up at all. Even when I add chia seeds and avocados. She is hungry by 10am!

I didn’t bake alternatives to bread since most recipes call for eggs and guar or xantham gum and usually have rice or sorghum as an alternative to wheat flour. But I did manage to find a grain free, vegan free wrap recipe. So we still got to eat something starchy in the morning instead of bread.

So actually switching to the GAPS Intro actually made my life easier since we mainly eat and drink meat and bone broth for all 3 meals. And almost everything is boiled in the beginning. Now if only all the family can switch to this diet

However,  our gas bills have increased since there is almost always a pot of soup cooking on the stove the whole day. And the kitchen is just so hot and humid

But the actual cooking is easy. I usually throw in whichever meat and bones scheduled to be cooked into my largest pot, fill it up with water and some salt. Then I just boil the whole thing for a minimum of 2 hours on very low heat. Then I portion out what is needed for dd and myself for one meal and leave the rest of the soup in the pot. And voila breakfast, lunch and dinner is served!

Boring? Yep. But super tasty! After being weaned from additives and “extra” seasonings, “plain” broth is super delicious!

After progressing through the various stages, we are now allowed roasted/baked meats and not just boiled meats so our meals have been more varied. But whenever I am pressed for time I fall back to just eating and drinking our meat and bone broth.

So while it has been really challenging to cook everything from scratch every single meal, I have, by the grace of God, been able to find some sort of rhythm to our days now.

Moving on to full GAPS will present another challenge I am sure as I have to learn to make new dishes but it will widen our repertoire of dishes served, which I am sure dd will appreciate. She’s been such a trooper. Never complaining about what is served and actually enjoying the GAPS meals.

Menu Planning Central Having A Half Off Sale

Just in case you would like some help in getting your Menu Planning done, you may want to check out Menu Planning Central who is having a Half Off Through Feb. 2nd sale.

* I am an affiliate of Menu Planning Central.

A cooking post?

A reader recently asked me why I do not post recipes, menus or cooking advice on my blog. Ah!!! Have any of you wondered too? Afterall my blogs are set up to help encourage fellow SAHMs on our SAHM journey right? And cooking features a lot in our time at home.

Well, the reason is simple – cooking is so not my forte Cooking to me is a necessary evil. Lol! And in my contact with fellow SAHMs many who struggle with homemaking are not struggling with cooking. They usually are struggling with laundry or keeping up with their cleaning schedule. In fact, many of them love cooking.

I don’t feel qualified to give any advice on cooking except to always keep things simple when you are overwhelmed in your SAHM journey. And when you have only littles, this is not the season to do elaborate 10 course dinners but more 1 dish meals. And if all else fails, there’s always McDelivery!

Motivated Moms Planners Are On Sale!

If you look to the right column of my blog, you’ll see a blurb that asks, “Need Help With Your Chores?” and if you click on that, you’ll be directed to the Motivated Moms website.

Well, if you have been wanting to try it and see if it is really worth the money, now is a good time to do so. The 2010 Motivated Moms planners have been marked down to $4 since July 1st since there will be only half a year left on them.

The 2011 planners should be ready only in October so that gives you 3 months to get a planner for only $4.

Good deal I say

Meanwhile, I’ll try to find some time to share with you how the planner has worked for us.

Click here to visit Motivated Moms.

Home Made Skirts

As mentioned before, we school 4 weeks and take 1 week off the whole year through except for Christmas where we take 2 weeks off. We also give ourselves a day off on our birthdays

I usually take the 1 week break to catch up on chores, let the kids do some crafty stuff and/or bake if inspiration strikes . Well, at the last break, we re-did our study and installed wall-to-wall cabinets. That involved lots of decluttering, dusting (scratch-scratch) and re-organising.

And to just up the ante, I decided to sew some skirts for the girls which they had been bugging me for. So sweet that they actually want me to sew them skirts, right?

And so in the photo you see some of the skirts I sewed for the girls. I sewed 11 skirts (4 in yellow floral print, 4 in black floral print, 2 in black and 1 in pink floral) in total for 4 out of the 5 girls. It took me 1 day to cut the fabric another day to sew them all up. All with a crawling, clingy baby at my side. It was erm..challenging. And I swore never to do it again till the baby is 2 years old!

I even tried to sew patch pockets for the yellow floral print skirts. Not too bad I must say for someone whose only sewing lessons was way back in the early 80s in Home Economics class which made me cry coz I was just so bad at it!

But what really makes me feel all warm inside is is that the girls inevitably pick these skirts to wear for Church. And it is so cool to see 4 of them trotting out of our home in a single file. Although I still stand by my decision not to sew anymore till the baby turns 2!

 

Dust Attack!

Everytime I declutter stuff, I get attacked by dust It is such a miserable feeling that I am almost tempted to never declutter ever again!

But stuff keeps coming in and I need to keep throwing/donating/selling them to keep clutter to a minimum. I like to delcutter at one go so that I only suffer the itchies once. But having a baby in the house makes that an almost unachievable goal!  Now my lips are so itchy and swollen and I’ve got another 4 bags to stuff to go through!

I know, I know – be glad that I have things to declutter, eh?

In case you are wondering why I am not decluttering but typing this post The answer is simple – I can type with one hand but need two hands to declutter! And the kids also have a dust allergy so I can’t even get them to help me. All ds did was to go through his own clothes and ended up sneezing till he ended up in a bad mood.

I just thank God it is a cool day. Wet but cool

Meanwhile, keep a lookout for my “For Sale” posts.

I Miss My Robots!

Back in 2008, we invested in 2 robots to help me with housework as I was pregnant with #7. In Robots to the Rescue I wrote about what a lifesaver they both were.

W’ell, I’ve had to send them BOTH for servicing early this week and boy do I miss them! It’s only been 3 days since they have been gone but the house feels less clean without them around

I especially miss my Scooba since my oldest dd is still doing her daily sweeping with our electric sweeper from Philips. So the dust and crumbs, are still being eliminated but an unmopped floor just feels dusty, kwim? I hope they come back soon or horrors! I’ve actually got to mop my floors!

Back to cooking

Come Monday, I would be back to cooking our family’s meals. Yep! I have been on a holiday the past 1.5months. I had done absolutely NO cooking and yet the entire family has been blessed with homecooked meals.

All courtesy of the many ladies and one man (thanks Pastor Andrew!) from our Church who so graciously offered to cook for us – yes all 8 of us (excluding baby at this point in time) the past 1.5 months. Not only did they cook for us, they even delivered right to our door step! How cool is that?

On top of all that, I even had a friend’s mom bless us with her yummy cooking! We have been so, so, so, so blessed!

Anyhow, as all good things need to come to an end, we will be back to our normal routine of things come Monday. Boo Hoo!

So now, I am dutifully doing up my Menu Plan and Grocery List and will start stocking up our fridge, freezer and pantry. How fun – not!

Chore Planner Review

 

I finally ordered my Motivated Moms 2009 Chore Planner last December and have been using it since 1st January 2009. (Click here to view more details) And I have discovered that I absolutely LOVE IT!!!

To be honest, it is such an easy planner that you or I could simply DIY it. And that’s why I hesitated for a year before I finally succumbed  Why bother re-inventing the wheel when someone has already done the legwork for you? Well, unless you have the time and like doing lists and charts. I like that too. But at the moment I have no time! So purchasing the eBook at US$8 is a steal! Especially since the Sing Dollar is still quite strong at the moment! So it worked out to be less than S$12.

You can see a sample of it when you Click here to view more details.

Some of the things I like about it :

• it reminds me of all the chores I need to do but often forget till dust balls or crud is gathering on the aircon filters and corners of stove tops
• it also reminds me to declutter parts of the house in regular intervals before they build up to an organising nightmare!
• daily chores are laid out together with chores that are rotated weekly/monthly/yearly.
• you can choose to have it with or without a scheduled Bible reading planner. The price is the same!
• there is a full sized planner and a half-sized one to choose from to suit your needs.
• I use it as a Master List to draft up a Chore List for the children.

Yes, some of the chores are unnecessary for our family – eg. feed the pet or sweep the porch   – so I just strike those off.

Basically I like it because I have a reminder to do all sorts of chores around the house regularly instead of killing myself trying to do a deep clean once a year. I love lists and this planner appeals greatly to me The sense of accomplishment when I strike off items on the list gives me an adrenaline high!

I am off to check my Chore Planner – Click here to view more details and my DIY Planner and tick them off one-by-one!

 

 

~~~   Articles for the Christian SAHM can be found at  Building Up Moms  ~~~