quick, easy and dairy free?

[ruth1104]

I'm new mum to a 3 week old and after a rather stressful weekend at the hospital we've discovered he's got a milk allergy. I'd like to keep breastfeeding as long as possible but now my lovely organised freezer full of batch cooking is totally useless as I need to be completely dairy free. I will be seeing a dietitian, hopefully this week but in the meantime I'm still starving all the time without much time to cook or get myself snacks etc, any ideas?

From what I've read and been told, it's often advised to give up soya at the same time as dairy so until I've spoken to the dietitian I'll be doing that but it doesn't leave me with a lot of options! I'm currently filling up on rice cakes, nuts and raisins and peanut butter on toast (after reading the bread label very carefully..). Any ideas for meals or snacks would be appreciated!

Are you a vegetarian as well? Just that your freezer food being useless makes me wonder if that's because it's fake meat!

Stirfries, grain salads, sausages and mash (not so quick but not a huge amount of effort!), smoothies/milkshakes if you have a blender that's easy to rinse out.

What sort of things do you usually like to eat? Can they be adapted?

i am fish eating veggie (although seriously considering eating meat, but not just yet) but i dont eat a lot of meat substitutes; in my freezer is quiche with fromage frais, vegetable lasagne with white sauce, bean casserole with mash made with butterâ?¦ you get the picture. Normally we do a lot of cooking from scratch: pasta with veg sauces, curries, stir fries, most of which are adaptable but id love some quicker options!

penne pasta stirred through with pesto
If you get a little time- roast vegetable of any sort together in large quantities and freeze into portions to use with pasta/ or couscous.
I tend to just chuck shallots/ halved tomatoes/ chunks of courgette/ red and yellow peppers with a reasonable amount of olive oil salt and pepper and basil.
Works well if you use some of the oil from the tray to pan fry gnocchi ( only takes about 2 minutes) then add the veg, and a tin of drained chickpeas if wanted

ooh good idea about pre roasting veg. i love pesto but can you get it without cheese in it?

Sacla chargrilled Aubergine pesto is dairy free.

If you go to the allergy board and trawl back through the archives there was a fab thread on dairy free finds a while ago.

When you fancy a treat, Oreos are ok as are Jaffa cakes and most Bourbon biscuit.

Search for vegan ideas, as apart from egg you effectively are!

Make flapjack with marg - stork in a block is df, but not stork in a tub. Add in seeds and dried fruit for interest.

Most bakery bread was dairy free so lots of different nut butters on toast or bagels. Or muesli with Koko coconut milk or oat milk.

Banana Soreen, warbutons fruit loaf with pure sunflower spread.

Lots of roasts, or sausages baked with veg, or stir fries. You can use oatly cream instead of real cream for most recipes.

Basically once I was over the dairy free shock (DD was allergic to dairy too, happily now outgrown), I found that eating at home was generally fine and easy but eating out a bit more of a pain. Tho pizza express do a vegan pizza which is actually quite tasty!

Good luck!

Fish dishes:

• kedgeree
• salad nicoise
• pasta puttanesca (fish and tomato based sauce, no cheese needed)
• salmon burger

Veggie dishes:

• Egg and toast
• Spanish tortilla or a frittata
• humous and pita bread
• lentil or chickpea curry

Minestrone or ribollata

Bean burgers - carrot and chickpea burgers or butter bean burgers or lentil burgers- all can be bonded with egg and cheese omitted( replaced with seasoning)

Salmon roasted in a bag with basil tomatoes and olives served with new potatoes

Veggie Jambalaya

Lentil or veg bolognaise

Kedgeree

Coconut milk based curries- green Thai, red Thai, massaman, laksa etc

Paella

Morrocan fish tagine with cous cous

Veg tagine and cous cous

Roasted vegetable cous cous

Red lentil dhal

Red lentil and chickpea soup

Egg and chips

Frittata/ omelette/ scrambled eggs and smoked salmon makes a great late night bf meal

Chachouka/ shashuka- a pepper and onion stew with an egg cracked into the middle and baked

Country veg soup, butternut squash soup, multigawny soup, French onion soup ( I'm not sure about this last one without butter, though worth a try)

ruth1104 I make my own pesto - just pine nuts , olive oil , salt , garlic and basil ( or young spinach is good) in a little grinder/ food processor - takes about 2 minutes!

Notice on re-reading about snacks- how about hummus/ taramasalata and olives with bread or breadsticks.

thanks for all the ideas folks, i think i need to do some planning and (online) shopping, this is seeming a bit more manageable now. Eating out and at others over christmas is still pretty daunting though! thanks again