Category: Celebrations / Holidays

Survive or thrive this Christmas?

Did you survive a coeliac child’s Christmas? How did you make sure your coeliac child had enough to eat, enough treats and avoided cross contamination whilst staying away?

We were lucky enough to be covid free and stayed with my parents over the Christmas period. My parents are geared up to having us, knowing the requirements of my GF child, but it still shows up glaring problems.

Problems don’t occur in your own house (mostly) as you have control over the situation and how food is prepped. This in turn brought up a conversation with my now 13yr old about how she gets anxious eating around others – but that’s next weeks blog.

Whilst I know that I’ve got it in hand most of the time, when you are in someone else’s house or kitchen, you have different worries. Even though my parents (my mother mainly) she has a large plastic box filled with separate equipment for her grandchild, there’s still only one place to cook. And in the most part it’s ok, we manage.

But on this occasion, there were 3 of us around the hob & in the kitchen pulling together leftovers etc. One was making up a regular gluten pasta dish. And another reheating the bread sauce. In a separate frying pan, bacon was cooking for Grace. Contamination is always at the fore front of my mind for my Coeliac Child. You’re used to seeing problem areas, events that will happen in front of you that you need to avoid.

Being Careful

Stirring was going on of both dishes, so I whipped the pan up out of the way & waited until they were finished before replacing it to finish cooking. I get a quizzical look, a “I’m just stirring” which is fine, but to ensure that my child is safe, I want & need to remove the pan up and out of the way whilst that is done. It made me anxious. They didn’t clock it then.

It wasn’t until later that it registered with either person as to why I was moving my pan out of the way. “I was being careful”. That I understand, but, at the same time, one little flick of bread sauce or pasta sauce could easily go in the wrong place. which I can’t risk.

Is there a right or wrong answer, I don’t know. But when your used to spending time in your own house with everything geared up for catering for your coeliac child, I guess it is so much harder to go somewhere else & have to ‘make do’, expecting others to pay attention & second guess themselves when they aren’t used to doing so.

But I saw too that she was bored with food. Fed up of hotdogs or bacon for lunch, wanting to be the same as everyone else if the chance allowed. So this week, she’ll have to adapt further & it may be a shock to her system. She’s got too used to having chips, nuggets, sausages when I’ve been busy or unprepared.

This week I’ve a menu plan. (if only I could remember where I’ve put it!!).

New recipe book to test

I treated myself to a new book by Dr Megan Rossi who I follow on Instagram. It’s called Eat more, Live well (affiliate link) & we’ll be trying out recipes. I’ve the the Thai salmon fishcakes, Reinvented chicken burger & the baked oat slice on my list. Recipes aren’t specifically for a GF diet but they’re adaptable as are most recipes. The breakfast muffin in a mug needs trying too but not 100% sure I’ll get away with it. We’ll see.

That’s the challenge for the week. Keep your eye out for pictures on Instagram as to what happens & whether the chip eating fiend will eat it! The deadline to subscribe to our baking kits this month to make the best ever Flapjacks is Saturday 15th January. Fun to make, tasty to eat with a little twist to make them just the more moist and healthy!!

A belated Happy New Year, may all your dreams come true in 2022 and the year be AWESOME.

It’s Halloween. This year we can go Trick or Treating, Covid permitting. But how do you survive Halloween with your Coeliac Child? How do you negotiate Trick or Treating when your child is gluten free or has Coeliac Disease?

It can be tricky in many ways. Maybe your child is used to going Trick or Treating but has now been diagnosed. Maybe they’ve never known any different, or never even been Trick or Treating.

My daughter had been Trick or Treating since she was little, initially just around the square where we lived. Both children enjoyed dressing up, decorating the house, carving the pumpkins that were grown by grandpa. Having fun without even thinking about it.

But then came the diagnosis of Coeliac Disease & changes were required to negotiate ‘normal’ events.

How to you survive Halloween with your coeliac child? With a little pre prep & planning!!

Plan ahead

Whether you are attending your first Halloween Party or your first trick or treat trip out having been diagnosed with Coeliac Disease, having a plan will help alleviate the panic in the first place.

Our first Halloween with her Trick or Treating involved several neighbours having a special box just for her with suitable sweets in. But, when you’re 9 you want to have some freedom to go to other houses with your friends (albeit with an adult in tow!).

So we devised a strategy. We had learnt what kind of sweets are suitable for those with Coeliac Disease and we only buy those for people calling at our house. In turn, we would take out the few sweets that were her favourites and keep them to the side. She’d put a couple in her pocket if she wanted a sweet whilst wandering around.

We then would go Trick or Treating. We’d call at any houses that had pumpkins or decorations, and choose a treat that was wrapped. That’s the first consideration. Don’t choose unwrapped sweets. It minimises cross contamination.

We then didn’t worry too much on what wrapped sweet she chose. She was taking part and that is what mattered most.

Sort and Swap

Once we’d finished going round, we would go home & tip out the haul on a tray in the kitchen. We’d then sort through them.

Any that were not suitable, unknown or no ingredients on them, would be removed swapped with her sister or the safe selection we had sorted earlier that evening. Then any unknown sweets would be added to our trick or treat box for callers to our house.

It takes the effort out of the guessing, searching through a box to find a suitable sweet, removes the disappointment at not getting something from someone’s bucket at a house.

It alleviates the stress for you, the worry for them and helps them feel normal, that they are participating in regular everyday events, just like everyone else.

Coeliac UK have an online list – check there if you have any queries.

What are your top tips?