Allergy free recipes - Apple crumble- Georgy:)

Well my little boy has come of his extremely strict diet and we now can slowly introduce various foods. Even so it is amazing how difficult it is to find recipes that don't contain, egg, tomato, nuts or sesame. These he definitely can't have.

I had friends over for dinner Saturday night and quickly discovered when trying to buy dip (most contain either sesame paste or nuts), crackers (may contain nuts or sesame and many with flavour contain egg). And then finding treats for the kids, not easy.

Because of this however I am learning to cook a lot of things from scratch and have discovered some great recipes. The Apple crumble I made for dessert on Saturday night was a definite winner - http://allrecipes.com.au/recipe/9877/the-perfect-apple-crumble.aspx

If you have any great recipes that you think a toddler will eat and don't contain the above please let me know.

Nappy Rash Cream- A miracle!

We (me, hubby and Bubba E) have just come out the other side of a nasty case a nappy rash. I can't really complain Bubba E is 13 months old and we are having his first real case of nappy rash. My daughter was forever having issues with nappy rash...if only I knew then what I know now! Well after trying and I mean trying every nappy rash cream on the commercial market plus steroid creams we were getting no where and the rash was getting worse - think major spreading and blisters - poor little man! Then I recalled a conversation with a friend of mine, she is a super mum, a woman who most definitely wears her undies on the outside (3 boys!!!!) - always looks amazing anyway I digress....back to the nappy rash saga. I recalled S telling me about this miracle cream that she had discovered, she said it didn't smell all that good and it didn't look all nice and white like the ones available commercially but it was amazing and cleared up her little boy's nappy rash in no time. So armed with this knowledge I got the name of the pharmacy that makes their own nappy rash cream went online bought a jar paid extra for express postage and have not looked back since! The pharmacy is David Hosking's Pharmacy in Essendon and not only do they post to anywhere in Australia they also post internationally. I am getting no kick backs from this and the pharmacy doesn't even know that I am writing about them, but I can not tell you how amazing this cream is....I will never bother with the stuff off the shelf again.....one application and we saw a major difference. So if your little person is suffering with slight or chronic nappy rash give David Hosking's nappy rash cream a go! They also have a variety of creams for other skin ailments.

Stir crazy - Winter has hit - Georgy:)

I have never liked Winter especially as I am an outdoor person and love warm sunny days. Now with kids Winter is even harder, especially when like the last week it has almost rained continuously and the temperature has dropped.

So with this going on I have been trying hard to do activities indoors. The tent arrangement over the new play alcove I created this past week was a hit for about a half hour until they got bored with it.

So over the weekend decided we needed to brave the rain and cold and get out of the house. Saturday morning we went to the Collingwood Children's Farm Farmers Market with Beck and her family. A big hit with the kids, I highly recommend it - the kids got to look at all the animals and us adults could buy great food and coffee. Plus I think Beck and I enjoyed having a reason to wear our wellington boots as much as the girls did.

Today hubbie, the kids and I headed into the City on the train. The kids were excited just about the train ride itself (and we were warm). This followed by a visit to Federation Square, the playground at Birrarung Marr, a walk along the river past the new Federation wharf area (good place for a drink) and then a wander along South Bank, was good entertainment for all of us.

So another week of Winter weather to look forward too, I will just have to find some more great things to do.

The hidden cook - Georgy:)

Well back online after a short break - it has been a difficult couple of weeks with us finding out that our little boy has a number of food and other allergies. On top of this he has been almost continually sick with one virus after another, which has meant asthma and sleep problems.

We seem to finally be getting on top of it now though with on our doctors recommendation taking him out of childcare. We are trying to break the cycle of illness by keeping him out of childcare for at least a month. Just on this I was reading the other day that toddlers tend to get sick a lot and if they are in childcare this can increase by 30%. It seems our boy falls into this category.

Anyway on the positive side I am getting to spend quality time with my little boy now having been home from work for almost two weeks and I have also discovered my hidden cook.

I have never been that into cooking with my husband doing the majority but with the discovery of my little boys allergies to egg, nuts, tomato and sesame seeds to name the top four (he can't have these until he is re-tested in 18 months), on top of which he can not have other things such as yeast (there goes the Vegemite), many preservatives and additives (means no cheese, flavoured yogurt), limited fruit and only certain veges for a month - this has resulted in me trying to come up with fresh things he will eat and actually having to cook from scratch!

I have discovered a couple of winners thus far like pasta with oven cooked chicken thighs, roast pumpkin, onion and of course olive oil (at least he can have that as I love to cook with it).