Meal ideas for non dairy eating child

[snowydrops]

DD has been told to cut out dairy by the Dr for the moment. This has made me re-assess my really rather boring cooking. At the moment the majority of what I cook is:

SPag bol
fish fingers
mild chilli and rice
jacket potato and various fillings
pasta, pesto, veggies
pasta and tomoatoes / veggies
sausages, mash
roast chicken, veg etc
Veggie / meat lasagna (although not so nice without cheese)
Homemade chicken nuggets

Nothing very interesting!! DD easts quite a lot of veg, a lot of salad / fresh stuff so I'm not overly concerned about that as whatever i cook i can serve with veg and she will eat it but i really need better options than the above...

Any ideas?

I should add that she also doesn't eat eggs, I have tried her with them so many times but she point blank refuses them in whatever form (except when hidden in cake) but it does limit me to no omelettes etc. She is 4yrs old and I am also feeding a 1yr old too so ideas that can be given to both would be fab! The quicker / easier the better :-)

Most of those listed are, or can easily be made, dairy free anyway.

Substitute or miss out cheese and buy dairy free pesto sauce if you don't make your own

Is it the lactose or the protein you need to avoid? If just the lactose you can get lacto-free milk/cheese etc. If it is the protein you may need to avoid soy as well which is more difficult (that is in things like dairy -free pesto etc).

Yes it's the lactose we are avoiding not the protein, in fact it's made me realise how much protein she was getting from dairy rather than meat or fish so would like some ideas for meat / fish meals really.

As above, you can make dairy free versions of the meals you listed (particularly if you cook from scratch). Sacla sell dairy free pesto. You can also look at cuisines that rely less heavily on dairy. Indian, Thai, Japanese etc.

If it is just the lactose try lacto-free cheese (can't comment on taste as my twins are avoiding the protein so cheese is out completely here!) so you can still do lasagne/pasta bakes etc.

Try some stir fries with noodles; either with home-made or bought sauces (or just soy sauce if you wanted).
Curry with coconut milk such as a mild Thai green (or hotter if she will take it)
Fajitas/enchiladas/tacos/burritos. We often do fajitas with minced beef instead of chicken as well (if cheese required again try lacto-free, but fajitas can be served without sour cream or cheese).

That's all I can think of off the top of my head! Things like roasts etc are dairy free, just use a dairy free spread for your roast potatoes etc. Pure do a nice sunflower spread (also do olive oil and soya spreads).

When baking if you usually use stork the one in the foil block is dairy free, not the one in the tub.

Right that really is all I can think of right now

not !

This will sound weird, but you may want to check out vegan recipes. I say that as a vegan you can always add meat on top of whatever you make!

All those meals (apart from lasagna) are easily made dairy free. You may have to cook from scratch a bit more eg make your own nuggets but it's all pretty straight forward tweaks to what you're doing already.

You can get soya or coconut yoghurts and ice-cream, dairy free marg and soya / oat / almond / coconut milk. It's worth trying a few and seeing what she likes best.

Tesco do a great dairy free range of yoghurts and soya cheese which is good for cooking with.
Vitalite is dairy free.
Be careful with gravy as some contain whey powder which is from milk. Also some stock cubes!

DCs have the same kind of issues. I ended up doing lots of batch cooking. Annabel karmel does some nice recipes - a tangine, chicken and apple balls (good hot or cold). Meatballs are also another freezer staple. Much of the Asian (Chinese, Japanese and Thai) recipes don't include dairy and DCs don't seem to notice egg in fried rice, and like marinaded meats like teriyaki or orange chicken. Rice and almond milks are pretty staple in our house along with banana 'ice cream'.