I'll make a few sugar-free deserts for the kids & I, which I'm sure others will enjoy. We have an abundance of bananas, so will make some ice-cream & some muffins for sure.
Having just returned from camping with friends & their children I'm so proud of my kids for sticking to sugar-free & failsafe diet so well. There were a handful of marshmallows toasted on the camp fire, but only white ones & just one shortbread each - so that was it for sugar. I remained sugar-free & didn't cave to the group pressure or even chocolate left open on the bench. I just don't feel tempted these days, I'm so happy to eat foods I know will be good for me. Staying on a farm we got to eat farm bacon (without nitrates) & fresh picked veggies. I was even shown how to make sourdough bread & have come home & started my own culture... so watch this space for further disastrous bread attempts!! Clearly not my forte but no one could call me a quitter.
We were on a subsequent Amines & new Nitrates challenge which from sons perspectives would be be a pass, but after getting home & reaching day 4 once again my daughter clearly failed - I would say Amines only at this stage. Its the 3rd Amines challenge we have done & each time she has gotten defiant, stroppy & unable to control her bladder - wet bed & couple of accidents in day time. I appear to be ok on Amines, as any symptoms I got were from the salicylates in wine or sulphates :( (I wasn't technically challenging myself this week)
... Well Xmas Day is over for another year & a lot of fun was had by all. The kids were made up with all their gifts & my super happy little man was just amazed at the whole event & so grateful, not one tear or wrong doing all day. Madam on the other hand was a tad testy but enjoyed things when they were going her way. Before they went to bed Xmas eve they left food out for Santa & his reindeers & it was magical to see their faces in the morning when just crumbs & carrot tops were left. Mr.5 did question why we were leaving sugar biscuits out & a mince pie - which I explained away with that you don't get a tummy like Santa's unless you eat sugar. He said he didn't want to get a tummy like that (I hope Santa was listening). But given Mrs.Claus actually did all the hard yakka this year it might have been fairer to leave some sugar-free treats instead!!
Sugar-free sweet treats that I made for the big day were some Banana-Choc Muffins, Cheesecake & a Christmas Fruit Cake/Loaf. A tradition for my family has always been to have shortbread in the morning & as I'd gone for the convenience of shop bought sugar ones for camping the kids had 2 each of those & I sampled one. In the grand scheme of things I would say 1 commercial biscuit for the year was acceptable. Had I bought enough butter I could have made some myself with dextrose.
The Christmas cake turned out pretty good flavour-wise & substituted pudding for the 3 of us. It didn't rise quite as well as I'd hoped but texture-wise was dense & pudding-like. The others actually didn't even eat their commercial pudding that they were insistent on buying. But I can imagine that will get devoured after the cricket & beers tonight. We had ours with fresh cream & was tasty enough to go back for a second helping & will be polished off again today. I will post the recipe on my facebook page later. It was one I conjured up to be sugar-free & semi-failsafe by bastardising a Christmas cake recipe from Sweet Poison Cook Book & a banana loaf recipe of mine. It omitted spices, so no salicylates, & alcohol, so the kids could eat it. Most of the sweetness comes from the banana, pear & swede (YES swede) so just a little dextrose & RMS is required. In hindsight I should have added baking powder to assist rise.
All in all I would say we have had success in remaining sugar-free & failsafe over the lead-up & festivities. Had we not been dealing with challenges & strict failsafe during this time I would have been more stalwart on sugar too for the kids but somethings gotta give when time is precious. Below I'll list a few things we have done to limit sugar & take focus away from food, to share & record for next year.
- Use an advent calendar in which you can put small novelties instead of chocolates. I put in handmade hair ties, Trashies, erasers, costume jewellery & Christmas tree decorations. Next year I might breakdown a Lego kit to be built each day for my son which I saw a friend had done & looked more exciting.
- Provide kinder teachers with a small bag of alternative treats (marshmallows & caramels for Failsafe) to swap for candy canes given with cards (that I wasn't able to get to myself first & remove!). This was to limit additives (colours), but in future I would provide stickers, pencils, small toys in lieu of food to avoid sugar.
- Provide/bake own Xmas party food. This included Reindeer Gingerless Breads, Shortbread Stars/Trees & Carob cupcakes in green & red wrappers, with white dextrose icing.
- Give craft activities to do at Xmas parties to limit eating time e.g. Making reindeer food (decorate boxes, fill with oats & glitter), decorate a card, wooden tree ornament or christmas hat
Mostly though I'm happy to say this Christmas I did not go with gluttony. I tried to limit what we bought, however the other half insisted on some "normal" Christmas food for him & visitors, which meant there was more than we really needed. I did not however go to bed with an aching belly & exercised restraint myself when it came to indulging. I ate extra food a little later in the evening than a normal day as drinking but I would hope the scales don't show that when I do my next weigh in. I had bought a new pair of summer shorts just last week to replace the ones I bought last year - they are fitting very comfortably - happy to say they are the exact same brand & style, but a size less! I'm probably only a couple of kilos less, but there's definitely been no gain in weight over the year.
Due to Failsafe & Amines in particular I was conscious I didn't want too much excess food to be left over & devoured in the week proceeding. Even with the smallest Turkey there's loads left. So I've frozen some of it to prevent build up & same with muffins I made a full batch of. The excess bananas from a double-up purchase, I've sliced up & frozen for use as ice-cream/cooking. I will however be limiting Miss.3's intake of all that given her reaction.
Now as ever in the post-Christmas wind-up its how to get creative with turkey & ham! This morning we had Egg & Ham pies for brekkie. For lunch cold turkey, potato & ham salad (with homemade garlic mayo - yum!!) Tonight we had Spring Rolls from the Friendly Food recipe, but with turkey instead of veal. They were a big winner, will be making that recipe again, but try chicken or add other veggies.
So wrapping up this post, I trust you have all had a happy christmas time & wish you all a very merry new year. Meanwhile if you have any suggestions for creative turkey recipes please comment below to share.
