Thursday 28 September 2017

Feeding the family with limited diet - the beginning

I first wrote "limited budget" in the title, but it's not true. The one thing that limits our eating, is all the restrictions in our diets.

We have two very difficult food restrictions in our family: Onions and poultry. I'm allergic to onions,and me and DD to poultry. That means no onios, no leeks (also: no chives, no shallots, no dried, pickled or cooked - especially this includes everything with red onion, spouse starts to vomit violently 1-2 hours after eating anything with it). That, suprisingly, eliminates most of convenience foods. If something is left, you can bet there is chicken (or somekind of poultry, because turkey is a no-no, too).  Spouse has mild lactose intorance as well as mild intolerance to trehalose (that limits his intake of mushrooms). I haven't dare to test Jerusalem artichokes on him.

One of the children won't eat whole meat, one just won't eat. And I hate celery. I wouldn't say the kids are picky eaters, but I would say that about the spouse.

Oh! The joys of cooking for this family! (but I do love this family).

So, what DO we eat?
Anything I cook.

 I have found one stock cube (made by Maggi) I can use, but I have learnt to season my cooking without storebought stock. It is easier to make same dishes day after day, but it is also utterly boring. I have tried to add more and more vegetables to our diet, and my humble aim to next year is to have one meat/fish-free day a week.

Kids get lunch at school, me and spouse have leftovers, sandwiches (or rather filled buns), fruits etc. for lunch. I cook warm meal for dinner every day.

We are lucky to live near our families. We get potatoes, apples and berries from our parents, and kids drink mostly my mother's cordials (made from currants, gooseberries etc). We also get most of our bread from my mother, I buy toast for kids' breaksfasts and buns for spouses lunches. During summer and autunm we eat a lot of home-grown veggies (this summer was a lousy one in my veggie plot). I grow my own vegetables (as much as weather permits) and forage various things (mushrooms, berries, herbs for tea). I wish I could grow my own fruits, but even apples are having a hard time around here (my parents-in-law live by the lake, so apple trees grow in their garden).

Low-lactose and lactose free products are easy to find around here, and pricing is moderate - sometimes there is hardly any difference between regular and low-lactose products. Therefore most of my cooking and baking is low-lactose, but if we have visitors I usually make completely lactose free.

I try to buy locally grown/produced food, and vegetables that are on season. Living in cold climate limits this quite a lot - there is no vegetables that grow under half a meter of snow...

And once again, winter is coming.