Random oat based question

Not missing anything, that is oat flour!

Are you baking with it? Have you thought about corn flour? Corn bread is just delicious.

Yes. I do this to make biscuits for my dog. Lol.

I am baking with it, I thought as I buy oats for 75p a kg as opposed to the rather higher price for oat flour I might as well make my own.

Can I make corn flour or would I have to buy it?

It may sound rather pathetic but I am trying to reduce out food bill - I went from paying 80p on bread for B's lunches a week to £5 a week for his bread rolls and similar price increases across a lot of items so am trying to reduce it where ever else possible. I am desperately trying to find ways to save money.

I had hoped for more inspiration from the resident baker as opposed to that's what you use for your dog!

In fact you could be my biggest support, you could experiment with stuff on your blog for me as opposed to my blind guess work?

I think that is indeed pretty much oat flour, I was wondering how the gluten free was going. You could prob make your own nut flours for cakes and things, because they just seem to be the nuts finely ground. Actually I have a link for you will see if I can find it.

Lovely thank you?

Although we are only wheat free as opposed to gluten, but I don't know how much of a difference that makes? They think he is either intolerant to wheat or allergic to one of the minor proteins in wheat that they didn't test for.

I need to find a supply that can sell me stuff in bulk to save money!

Nuts don't tend to agree with me☹️

I'm not sure if it would apply for your boy or not but 2 of my clients are coeliac and they get gluten free products on prescription from their GP, they get bread pasta, flour. I think they are allowed 15 things per month on the prescription.

Thank you, he doesn't have coeliac apparently but the prescriptions are at the GPs discretion rather than it being univerally available. Although it would make a massive difference - he gets through the tiny loaves at a rate of two a week and that's because I am rationing it with him.

Shameabout the nuts as I know it can make a good subsitiute for flour when it comes to cakes.

as for the link not sure if this helps with ideas or not but I came across this webisyte when i was investigating the ketogenic diet and brain disease

http://lifeinmyhousefulofboys.blogspot.co.uk/p/recipes.html

and this one

http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/gluten-free-casein-free-recipe-index.html

Have you looked on Amazon in their grocery section? You can bulk buy a lot of gluten free products, including bread mixes, and they sometimes offer 5% discount for regular orders.

Slightly off topic, but have you considered giving up on bread completely for packed lunches? My two have cold sliced new potatoes, rice, potato salad or sushi rice in pressed shapes as alternatives to bread. In the winter they often take hot food in a flask, or even a baked potato: even easier to make wheat free.

Kriek - fab, never though of looking on there, cheers?

MOMB - this might sound awful but the things I have in short supply are money and time. I did think about doing things like that for B's lunch but it was the time involved in making it every day. Plus I was also concerned about it sitting in his bag all day. Hot food I would imagine he would end up burnign himself. How old are your two? But appreciate the idea. At home we hardly ever have bread, so it only really flared up badly when he went to school and ahd bread every day.

I don't think you're being awful.?

My two are 8 and 13, but have been eating wheat free lunches for a couple of years (they aren't intolerant: I am allergic, and we just don't have bread in the house). I find it is less time consuming than sandwiches becasue I used to have to make those in the morning, whereas I can do some rice or potatoes while I'm doing tea the day before and pop it in the fridge in boxes overnight: then they go straight in their lunch bags with a plastic fork in the morning. I use those rectangular take away boxes for mixed salads, ham and rice etc.

I bake potatoes in the slow cooker overnight, wrap them in kitchen roll (3 layers or so) and then foil. If hot in the morning it's just warm by lunch. Then they have a pot of grated cheese with it. The hot (flask) food does take more effort in the mornings, but I'm a batch cooking fiend at the weekends so it's a matter of taking a portion of something I made earlier from the freezer and heating it in the microwave.

This came about because I, like you, have neither time nor money for faffing about, plus my two would rather eat the cardboard box than the wheatfree bread!

Genius on the slow cooker front - hadn't thought about that! Asked if he would like that and the answer.... no. Will try it over the summer holidays and see if I can convert him. He can't have dairy or tomatoes so it limits what he can ahve in his baked potato but he does love tuna!

I'm a batch cooking fiend as well, alas currently I have lots of thigns portioned up which he now can't have, because I made it using gravy with wheat in it or used cous cous or you name it. So I have had to ahev some reallyw eird combinations at work recently trying to work through them! Because he can't have tomaotes I made 'baked beans' for him which sued gravy powder<groan> and this summer I was planning on making spagetti hoops for him. I got the pasta shapes ready but now theya re poitnless too!

The nutritonist said we were luckier than most because we do ltos of home cooking anyway, but it is still difficult!

My step mum said, well you can still ahve roast chicken and veg. Yes but not everyday and it isn't soemthign you can batch cook with ease either!

Would you be willing to share some more examples of meals you make for them in their lunches please?

Proper baked beams without tomatoes or gravy = easy. In fact, why was there gravy in the first place?

Because I ws a twat and it hadn't thickened and I had run out of cornflour and bunged gravy in? Typical!

Sorry; just saw you'd asked me a question!

packed lunch carbs:

sushi rice (vinegar rice, keeps well in the lunchbox and I have presses so it comes out like a bear or a flower etc), potato salad, rice salad, houmous, onion bhajis(baked), mixed beans, corn tortillas.

Tortillas might be what you need actually: really quick to make, still sandwichy enough that he's not too different from his friends, and cheap as chips. You need to buy the limed corn flour (masa harina (also called 'instant)), and for a speed I have a press, but you can roll out until he decides if he likes them. I make it using a couple of tbs of flour as i just make 4 at a a time, so the bag of masa goes down really slowly.

The same applies to the chickpea flour (gram flour) for bhajis (which I bake not fry), I make onion, spinach and in fact any leftover vegetable fritters with some garam masala and gram flour: heaped tsps on an oiled baking tray and a drop of oil on the top half way through cooking.

Sushi rice is the easiest. If I can't find sushi rice on special offer anywhere i use thai jasmine rice. It cooks in 10 mins. Once it's cooled to tepid I stir in a tablespoon of seasoned rice wine vinegar (mirin). The change in pH helps the rice to keep longer. It can be moulded in to all sorts of shapes which even at 13 my eldest still likes (google bento for ideas).

Hope this helps ?

MOMB I slightly love you now. I'll have to write it down and work out what it means carefully though?

Oh to be slightly loved ?. I hope you find it useful, probs best to google for recipes rather than taking my word as gospel. For bhajis I crossed the hairy bikers' recipe with a baked version from the internet (it's not particularly authentic but my two really like them).

...edited to say rice cakes! One of my youngest daughter's friends has those dairylea lunchables every day and she was quite jealous, so I occasionally give her a 'make your own' lunch of ricecakes, ham, sliced tom or cuc, sliced cheese or egg etc. Maybe your son might like something similar (with the tom and cheese substituted).