MY BID to recreate the chicken in matzo meal I loved as a child – minus the wheat and egg. Cut into goujons, chunky nuggets or a mini escalope it’s a great dish served warm and just as tasty doled out cold the next day for a picnic-style meal.

Ingredients

One pack chicken breast fillets

Orgran corn crispy crumbs (basically just baked maize breadcrumbs)

Doves Farm gluten & wheat free plain white flour

Plain yoghurt (optional)

Olive oil for frying

White pepper

Method

Slice each chicken breast across the length so as to halve the thickness. Then cut into fingers, nuggets or escalopes – whatever you fancy.

Dole out a small portion of plain yoghurt (if using thick Greek-style yoghurt slightly ‘loosen’ with a teaspoon of water) into a breakfast-sized bowl.

Do the same in separate bowls with the plain flour and the maize crumb. Add white pepper to the flour to taste.

Dip each piece of chicken into the yoghurt*, followed by the flour, followed by the maize, ensuring each gets an even coating all over of the final crumb.

Fry in a pan with shallow oil until golden. Drain on a piece if kitchen towel to remove excess oil. Serve hot or cold.

* If going dairy free, a little olive oil may help the flour and crumb to stick.

SUDDENLY Sidney’s second birthday was upon us and I realised that, nope, I hadn’t spent the entire past year transforming myself into the queen of allergy friendly baking after all. And I had no idea what cake I was going to make.

For his first we managed, after much effort, to create a decent Victoria-style sponge, but I didn’t want to churn out the same staple year after year. I needed a repertoire of treats. Plus we were now free to eat banana, Sid having outgrown that ridiculous allergy at 18 months… and banana can be a handy substitute for egg in cake recipes.

In the end, this recipe was pilfered from the back of a Doves Farm flour packet, but I found the original too sweet, so ditched the vanilla, added some carrot and bolstered it with baking flour because the first few efforts fell flat. The result is a lovely, moist sponge that can be served up on its own with a cup of tea, or that works well with a cream cheese frosting and a fine grating of Kinnerton dark chocolate.

For this year, at least, Sid was delighted just to have a slice of cake and a candle to blow out. For next year, however, I may have to start thinking about how the buggery to ice an Upsy Daisy…

Ingredients

125g caster sugar

150g Doves Farm gluten & wheat free self-raising flour

6tbsps sunflower oil

4tbsps water

Half a ripe banana

One small finely grated carrot

3tspns baking powder (I use Barkat)

Sainsbury’s SO Organic cream cheese

Icing sugar (avoid Silver Spoon – it contains traces of egg)

18cm round cake tin

Bar of Kinnerton dark chocolate

Method

In a bowl, beat together the sugar and oil, then add the peeled and mashed banana and finely grated carrot to the mix.

Add in the flour, water and baking powder and mix together well.

Plop the mixture into a lightly oiled 18cm round cake tin and smooth the top.

Bake in a 180˚F, non fan oven for around 30 minutes or until golden.

Turn the cake out on to a rack to cool.

Mix the tub of cream cheese with icing sugar to taste and, using the back of a spoon or a spatula, apply to the top of the cake.

Add a light dusting of finely grated chocolate and…

I first made this recipe, just before Sid was born, for my husband’s birthday. (I’m not a mental baker, but I was six months pregnant and we weren’t going out on the razzle so I decided a cake would be a substitute – albeit a poor one!). I’ve adapted it here for Sidney using Tru Free digestives, which are egg, nut, wheat and gluten free.

I made two versions: vanilla and strawberry, and a zingy lemon. Next time I think I’ll try a plain soft cheese, with grated Kinnerton chocolate over the top.

Ingredients

250g Tru Free digestive biscuits - Try Waitrose or Whole Foods

100g unsalted butter – I use unsalted just so it’s toddler friendly

One vanilla pod

600g soft cheese – I use Sainsbury’s SO Organic soft cheese as it contains nothing but milk

125g Tate & Lyle icing sugar – rival brands such as Silver Spoon contain egg trace warnings

284ml pot double cream – infuriatingly Sainsbury’s SO Organic double cream contains a ‘nut trace’ warning – FFS – so I plumped for the bog standard version

400g punnet fresh strawberries

(For the lemon version: 2 unwaxed lemons)

1 x 23cm loose-bottomed baking tin

Baking paper

Plastic bag

Rolling pin

Blender or food processor

Sieve

Method

Butter and line the tin with baking paper.

Crush 250g of digestives in a plastic bag, using a rolling pin. Tip the crumbs into a mixing bowl and pour over 100g of melted butter. Mix to coat the crumbs.

Tip into the tin and press down across the base using the back of a large spoon or your knuckles, until flat and firmly packed. Pop in the fridge for at least one hour to chill and harden.

Slice the vanilla pod in half lengthways and use a knife to scrape out the seeds.

Place the soft cheese, 100g of the icing sugar and the vanilla seeds in a mixing bowl and beat with a wooden spoon until smooth. Add 284ml of double cream and continue beating to combine thoroughly.

Spoon the mixture over the biscuit base, ensuring there are no gaps or air bubbles, and smooth down with the back of a spoon or a spatula. Put in the fridge overnight to set.

Puree 200g of strawberries with 25g icing sugar and 1tsp of water in a blender then sieve to remove pips.

When the cheesecake is ready to serve, either pile or slice the remaining fresh strawberries on top and pour over the puree.

OR

Ditch the vanilla and strawberries and instead beat the zest and juice of two lemons into the soft cheese mix.

Meanwhile, this morning I headed out to the supermarket to buy ingredients for a Sid-friendly cheesecake (recipe also to come). And instantly proved my point.

Sainsbury’s Organic double cream? “Not suitable for nut allergy sufferers”. Silver Spoon icing sugar? “May contain traces of egg.” Sainsbury’s ‘Free From’ digestive biscuits? “May contain nuts”. Three separate shops later and I think we finally have what we need. Minus the cheery disposition I may or may not have had when we started…

Which I hope explains my blogging slackness over recent weeks. But the chaos has – ha! – subsided and I will be back, with recipes and angry foot-stamping, in a jiffy.

To come: egg, nut and wheat free fairy cakes, the food trials of birthday bashes and the battle to stave off silly allergies in no.2…

Worries about how Sidney will take to a new baby in the house (not to mention how we’ll tackle two of the blighters) have been supplemented by concerns that a second may also suffer from food allergies. And wouldn’t it be a f***** if they were entirely different to Sid’s? Just as we have built up a pretty good repertoire of food he can eat, to find a second tot can’t do dairy… it’s best not to dwell.

According to Sid’s allergist, the likelihood of a second child also being food allergic isn’t as high as you might think – if I recall rightly, it’s around eight per cent. Eczema in early infancy would be a suggestive sign, so if the baby does develop the same scratchy skin as Sid we’ll be straight to “Dr Bob” to get it checked out.

But I do have a small trick up my sleeve, that our doc has advised is as good a tactic as any in trying to stave off allergy in number two: probiotics.

So far there have been 16 trials that have looked into the efficacy of taking probiotics in preventing atopic disease (of which eczema and food allergy are part) and the suggestion is that there may be something in it. The first, by researchers at Finland’s University of Turku back in 2001, showed probiotics administered to the mother before delivery and during breastfeeding conferred “protection from atopic eczema for the infant” and had a positive impact on the “early immunologic mechanisms involved in the development of atopy and atopic disease”. If nothing else, the study concluded, “administration of probiotics to the mother during pregnancy and breastfeeding appears to be a safe and effective mode of enhancing the immunoprotective potential of breast milk and preventing atopic eczema in the infant”.

A comment paper penned by our own consultant, Dr Robert Boyle of St Mary’s Department of Paediatrics, notes that that first study was met with “a mixture of excitement and scepticism”. But he adds: “There is a persistent signal from randomised controlled trials suggesting that probiotics may be effective for eczema prevention, at least in infants at high risk of developing allergic disease”.

The notion that probiotics might help fits in with the so-called ‘microbiota version’ of the hygiene hypothesis. In layman’s terms, that is that developing infants aren’t exposed to enough microbes these days in countries where there are high levels of hygiene. This low diversity of microbes in the gut is strongly linked with allergy and asthma. Supplementing with ‘good bacteria’, then, is a promising tactic and could, eventually – pending further scientific trials – prove a successful public health intervention in the attempt to prevent childhood food allergy.

A Yakult a day won’t do the trick, of course – the recommended strain is something called Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, and typically it’s not that easy to get hold of.

I finally started taking the capsules yesterday but, lordy, it’s been hard tracking them down. The recommended brand is Culturelle. But the tablets, made in the US, aren’t commonly sold in the UK and it’s taken me six weeks, three failed attempts via Amazon and a convulted delivery route via the States to get them to my door. Plus nearly 80 quid.

There are several different types of Culturelle supplement but the key one is labelled ‘Health & Wellness’, as the others contain something called inulin, or chicory root, whose effects in pregnancy aren’t considered safe.

Three buggering times I ordered via Amazon from companies advertising the ‘Health & Wellness’ capsules – and each time the wrong ones turned up. The only other option offered delivery in “7 to 23 days” and with time ticking (I’m at 36 weeks now and was advised to start taking them at 35 weeks pregnant) it turned into a big old stress.

In the end, I contacted Culturelle directly but they could only point me in the direction of the American website drugstore.com, which doesn’t actually deliver to Europe. Instead they approve a company called myus.com, which you join for around $10 (£6). They set up a US postal address in your name, receive delivery of any items you order from within the States and then charge for quick delivery to you directly. A faff, and not cheap (add on £26 for 90 capsules, £10 for customs to release the shipment at Heathrow and £35 for delivery) but yesterday the boxes arrived, just one week after ordering, and I’ve started taking them – one a day for the forseeable.

So, we shall see…. but it’s worth a shot, right?

I’ve spoken with the exceedingly helpful folks at DS today who confirm that, yes, Sainsbury’s was their only major stockist and that they may now have to discontinue the line completely if no other big supermarket steps in. Deja vu – exactly what happened with Kinnerton milk chocolate. So do give Sainsbury’s a call on 0800 636 262, option ’5′, and ask them to reconsider.

On the plus side, other allergy-friendly DS pizzas, including a thin crust Margherita and a new Bonta d’Italia line that I’ve yet to try but which is also egg, wheat, nut and seed free, are stocked variously in Asda, Morrisons, Tesco and online via Goodness Direct and Ocado.

It’s typical, because I much preferred the deep pan Mozzarella & Tomato to the Margherita, which does taste suspiciously like those deep frozen mini pizzas you used to buy in stacks, wrapped in plastic, from Sainsbury’s in the 1980s…

Still, beggars can’t be choosers and, once more, hooray for DS for creating a line of pizzas that my multiple allergic Sid can eat, if only now and again at parties. Which is a big thing for us.

Nipping into our local Sainsbury’s to stock up on a few in time for Sid’s birthday party this weekend, I found the freezer cabinet stripped of DS pizzas with only Sainsbury’s own brand ‘Freefrom’ versions in its place. The problem with the own brand is that it contains something called psyllium husk, and psyllium is a seed. Sid is highly sesame allergic and we have been advised not to try any seeds (poppy, corainder, mustard, you name it) until he has been fully tested for each.

Ringing Sainsbury’s consumer care line this afternoon I’m told that, indeed, the DS line of pizzas has been discontinued in favour of Sainsbury’s own. This is an all too familar story and it makes me furious. What tends to happen is that products that cover all bases are replaced by own brand ‘free from’ stuff that is largely obsessed with being gluten free at the expense of all the other main allergens. Hence, for instance, we can’t buy Sainsbury’s own ‘Freefrom’ porridge oats as they “are not suitable for nut or peanut allergy sufferers”. We can’t buy Sainsbury’s own ‘Freefrom’ chocolate as it contains coconut milk – another no-go for Sidney. We can’t buy Sainsbury’s own ‘Freefrom’ bread as it contains egg. Etcetera.

It’s my utter bug bear and I’ve written about it so many times – supermarkets who think they’re fulfilling the ‘free from’ brief when all they give a shit about is churning out a few gluten free staples, edging the real stuff, properly aimed at allergic consumers, from the shelves and raking in the cash. It happened earlier this year when all the major supermarkets decided they wouldn’t stock Kinnerton milk chocolate – instead stuffing the shelves with their own confectionery, inevitably containing egg, or nuts, or similar. The end result? Kinnerton itself was forced to discontinue the line.

I’ve left a request with Sainsbury’s for them to start stocking the DS pizzas again. Apparently if enough customers demand it, they will reconsider: if you are fed up, like me, of the big supermarkets edging out the genuine free from competition in favour of their own, substandard products, then please, please call the Sainsbury’s customer care line on 0800 636 262, press option ’5′, and ask them to restock DS cheese and tomato pizzas.

Either way, it’s now too late for us to buy the pizzas in time for Sid’s birthday.  Same old same old.

New EU regulations set to come into effect in December 2014 state that allergen information should be extended to non-prepacked foods – that means that restaurants, delis, cafes etc will be made to comply.

The catch is, however, that it is up to each individual European country to decide exactly how to implement the proposals. And I for one am desperate to avoid the same mess we’re in with allergen labelling in shops: that is, the manufacturers slapping on ‘may contain’ warnings willy-nilly without ever getting to grips with the issues of cross-contamination and actually doing something practical and helpful about it.

Anyway, today the Government announced a public consultation on the new regulations. On the plus side, this gives us – people who live with food allergies day in, day out and know how current labelling laws do more to protect the manufacturers than they do to actively help the consumer – the chance to have our say.

On the down side, judging by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ publications on the matter, the issue of allergen labelling is way down their agenda compared to the accompanying changes that will come into effect relating to the labelling (nothing to do with allergens) of alcohol, ice creams, cheese and minced meat.

I’m still wading through all the bumf but below I’ve reprinted the new regulation as far as it relates to food allergy. It’s in Section 5 of the draft paper published here. As far as I can gather, it means that a food business operator selling prepacked, non pre-packed, or ‘packed on site’ food can choose how they want to convey allergen information. It can be verbally, on a label attached to the item or on a “notice, menu, ticket or label” positioned where the customer can clearly see it. If they choose to convey the info verbally there should be a notice stating that a member of staff can provide details of all ingredients. At least, that’s what I think the situation is, though I’m in the process of double-checking…

Foods that are not prepacked etc. containing an allergenic substance or product etc.

Sadly, his debut was not a taste of the pizza a taglio I wolfed down on the street as a child in Rome, or the huge, crisp, paper thin versions, bubbling with sweet tomato and mozzarella, served up in a proper pizzeria. In an ideal world it wouldn’t have been a cook-from-frozen special. But beggars can’t etcetera and thank god, in that case, for Dietary Specials.

I’m not sure how I missed their pizzas before. I think I may have balked at the rapeseed oil, unsure whether we were safe to try it, but at our last appointment with the allergist he was pretty clear that there shouldn’t be a problem. So when I stumbled across the DS deep pan mozzarella and tomato in the deep freeze at Sainsbury’s… the joy. We’ve got Sid’s second birthday looming and to find a pizza that might suit him and be edible enough for the rest of us is a wonder.

We tried it out this lunchtime. Actually, as deep freeze pizzas go it isn’t bad at all. Plenty of tasty tomato sauce and cheese; a crisp and fluffy – if bready – bottom. Nothing like the tooth-snapping beast of a gluten and egg free base I tried to cook up a few months ago. No wheat, no gluten, no eggs, no soya, no nuts (none of the Dietary Specials products contains nuts so they aren’t present on-site, although the company itself doesn’t specifically test for their presence). And even left to go cold it tastes perfectly fine – hence great for parties.

At the end of the day, though, the verdict was Sid’s.

“Like pizza,” he mused, one slice in each hand and a string of mozzarella trailing from his mouth. “Nice.”