Healthy meals for extremely picky eaters plus allergies?

[MyneighbourisTotoro]

I’m really trying to incorporate more healthy meals as I’m trying to get a bit fitter and I’m looking for some ideas, mainly light breakfasts or lunches.

My main obstacle is the meals cannot contain fish/seafood, cheese or nuts, seeds or gluten!

Every website I click on for meal ideas is just full of recipes that I can’t use, even the ones tailored to picky eaters!

I also need the ingredients to be inexpensive, I’ve been skipping meals in order to make our food last longer as we are really starting to struggle to afford our weekly shop but it’s making me feel so tired.

Any advice is much appreciated!

[PurpleDaisies]

What sorts of things do you enjoy eating?

[MyneighbourisTotoro]

I love fruit, veg, oats, pasta, potatoes, chicken, I eat eggs but they aren’t my favourite.

I’m not a big fan of meat but I eat it as I know how limited my diet is already.

At the moment I’m living off oats or scrambled eggs for breakfast, an apple for a snack and dinners are usually pasta based.
I just don’t know what else I can do for breakfast or lunch that can be filling and cheap to make.

[DinosaurOfFire]

Risotto can be cheap, if you cook it with gf stock cubes, add a lot of onions, and some mushrooms and peas or tinned sweetcorn. You can stir chickpeas through too for protein, or cook some cheap meat on the side, or eggs. It can be kept in the fridge for a day or 2 as well.

Breakfast: plain yoghurt and microwaved apple slices- the apple goes a little like stewed apple. Or sliced banana or other fruit. Rice pudding could work too, baked the traditional way in the oven, and then portioned up and eaten cold for breakfast with jam.

Lunches- egg mayo sandwiches, ham sandwiches, egg with baked beans and some toast, potato and onion salad with value tinned sweetcorn and boiled sliced eggs or some ham.

[Fivemoreminutes1]

Do you buy GF pasta then?
if you buy GF pasta, could you not buy GF bread and cereal as well?

[CatNamedEaster]

As you can't have fish, seafood and cheese, you could try some vegan cookbooks/recipes for ideas. Eg, there might be a vegan dish that you could use as a side and add a piece of chicken that's been marinaded and cooked. A lot might use nuts and seeds but there should be some that won't.

Vegan cookbooks have been brilliant for helping me really develop a sense of which herbs and spices to use and how to add distinctive flavour to meals, whether vegan or not. I am a rubbish instinctive cook so will have to follow a recipe even if I've made the dish lots of times, but I'm starting to make dinners up that actually taste decent and well spiced now!

I get a couple from the library each month and photograph and recipes that worked well.🙂

[CatNamedEaster]

One of my fave sandwiches is vegan 'tuna' from "Isa Does It". It contains sunflower seeds but you can leave them out:
Cut up carrot, celery and onions into tiny pieces.
Drain and squash a tin of chickpeas. Have some whole bits remaining rather than mashing.
Add mayo, 1tsp lemon or cider vinegar and seaweed flakes if you have/want them, salt and pepper.

Nutritional yeast flakes are great for adding a nutty cheesy flavour to white sauce, eg for pasta sauce, pie filling.

[PurpleDaisies]

If you like spice, dals are great cheap healthy options. I make big batches and freeze in portions. Veg soup is another staple here, made with whatever’s cheap.

Most of my lunches are just leftovers from the night before’s dinner. I save a small portion when I’m dishing up to make sure we don’t eat it!

[MyneighbourisTotoro]

@CatNamedEaster vegan cookbooks is a fab idea, I’ve not thought of that before so thank you!

@Fivemoreminutes1 I buy GF cereal but as it’s quiet sugary so I don’t eat it often and tbh my family love it so it doesn’t last long either. I don’t buy GF bread as it’s too expensive and I’m not fond of the taste.

Thank you so much for all the suggestions so far, I’ll definitely look into vegan options. I don’t eat yoghurt, chickpeas, onions, mushrooms or celery, I do have a what people would call a child like palette. When I was vegetarian I was given all sorts of injections every two weeks because of the lack of nutrition in my diet so I was advised by my doctors to at least eat chicken if I’m able to as I was getting really ill.

I know I sound really picky but I also have autism so it does impact on my diet so I’m trying to find ways to make my intake healthier or more nutritional without breaking the bank which seems impossible right now with everything costing so much.

[PrettyDelightful]

Vegetable curry and rice
Chicken and rice
Egg fried rice
Rice noodles and stirfry veg with chicken or tofu if you like it
Beans chili with rice or wedges
Jacket potato with beans or chili
Chicken soup,Roast Chicken, Chicken drumsticks and wedges, rice n peas, vegetarian burgers/sausages with chips or wedges or hashbrowns

[Matchingcollarandcuffs]

Fajitas with corn tortillas
omelettes
cottage pie

if you can get a bag of gram flour (chickpeas, are you allergic or just don’t like?) you can make great fritters with it

[CatNamedEaster]

It sounds really tough OP.

I only started on vegan cookbooks as DS was diagnosed with allergies to dairy and egg at 6 months so by default vegan cakes and biscuits were the only options open to us! They have definitely improved my cooking overall as I learn more about flavour combinations.

[AtleastitsnotMonday]

How about grilled tomatoes, beans, poached egg and spinach.

[PurpleDaisies]

My lunch today was stir fried veg with soy sauce and tofu. That was quick, easy and cheap depending on your veg.

[PurpleDaisies]

That should say tamari soy sauce which is gluten free

[SpaceOP]

DD has a slightly limited diet but where we've got to is that while it's repetitive, she eats some variety/enough of the good stuff. Is your problem that you also get bored? eg DH isn't a fussy eater but he also is absolutely 100% not interested or able to cook. So when I'm not around, he will regularly survive for days on big piles of steamed vegetables, boiled eggs and pasta/jacket potatoes. I find it hideously boring, but it does do the trick. Is that an option for you at all? Similarly, his default meal for him and DS on the days me and DD are at swimming is a fry up - bacon/sausages, eggs, beans, toast.

Other easy options that might work for you:

Do you like gyoza? we buy the Itsu ones and fry them. I sometimes just have them like that with a dipping sauce but for a proper "meal" I make rice noodles, thinly chop carrots and peppers and spring onions and pour a dipping sauce over so there's a kind of salad.

Do you like soup? Vegetable soups can be a great way to use up older vegetables or ones you've bought in a sale in bulk and if you don't like strong flavours, you can make them quite simple. Add some finely chopped chicken if you want to increase the protein value.

Do you eat baked beans? Beans and jacket potatoes are a good option.

I quite often do roasted vegetables and just serve with flatbreads and hummus. If you don't want to buy gluten free, you could serve with potatoes or pasta? And any dip of your choice?

[TheSandgroper]

Ok. Figure out what you do like. List each one. Divide into fruit, vege, carb, pulses, flavour. Then work out what you would like to put together. Who cares what it will taste like? Only you.

Figure out what can be cooked if not in bulk but to excess so it can be stored in the fridge and tossed in. Cabbage, rice, etc.

Breakfast doesn’t need to be cereal or toast. Nadi goreng will do nicely.

Africa, India etc and Asia would be good influences but South American and the Caribbean are also good. Then there are the lovely Mediterranean dishes, of course.

You say no cheese but is that everything or just no cows milk? Sheep and goat cheese and milk are very tasty. And I wouldn’t go back to cows cheese now. It smells too off.

I will photo some recipes and repost later.