Sugar and Spice and all things nice.

Today Miss B is three! In previous years we've kind of gone with a green theme being that it's St Patrick's Day. But now she's at an age where she knows what she wants, everything has to be pink!

So what could possibly be girlier than Rosewater cupcakes with fairies on top?

Gluten and Dairy Free Rosewater Cupcakes:
125 mls rice bran oil
3 eggs
2/3 cup white sugar
1 ½ cups gluten free plain flour (I used white wings)
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¼ cup rice milk
1 tbsp rosewater

Preheat oven to 180C.
With a handmixer, beat together oil and sugar. Keep beating adding one egg at a time.
Add flour, baking powder, rice milk and rosewater and beat until batter is smooth.
Equally distribute between 12 cupcake cases and bake for 25 minutes (check with a skewer, clean skewer = ready).

Decorate as you please, but if you want to ensure they are allergy friendly read decoration packet's carefully.

I simply coloured sugar with pink colouring for the fairy dust beneath the cupcakes. The icing was pure icing sugar, pink colouring, a teaspoon of rosewater and a splash of rice milk. The fairies are from the supermarket and one of the few GFCF things I could find!

Muffin Madness!

In my search to find more things to fill T's lunchbox, I've decided to make a massive batch of muffins. Thankfully, both were a huge hit with all three kids so this should also be a good breakfast for B who is refusing her gluten free cereal. And surely they can't be any less healthy than commercial cereal anyway.



Carrot and Cinnamon Muffins. (makes 12)

• 3 Cups Orgran Plain Flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
  
• 1 Cup white sugar
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup of rice milk
• 90 mls rice bran oil
• 1 generous cup grated carrot

Blueberry Muffins. (makes 12)

• 3 Cups Orgran Plain Flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
  
• 1 Cup white sugar
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
  
• 1 cup of rice milk
• 90 mls rice bran oil
• 1 generous cup fresh blueberries
  

Bake for 20-25 minutes at 210 degrees celsius.
Allow to cool on tray for 10 minutes, then they're ready to eat or allow to cook completely and store in an airtight container.

The Gluten and Dairy Free 1st Birthday Party!

Yesterday Baby E turned one!

As he had his Maxillary Frenulum Release operation on Thursday, we just had a quiet party for him. Just us, his Dad and a couple of my friends and their kids. As we didn't throw a party for Torin in December, I wasn't too sure on what to have on the menu. But it turned out to be quite easy.

For the grown-ups:
Antipasto - artichoke hearts, roasted capsicum and eggplant, olives, marinated asparagus spears, prosciutto (Hans make GF).
Maggie Beer Pate, dips and King Island double brie with rice crackers, carrot sticks and celery.
Home made california rolls, filled with avocado, cucumber and smoked salmon with wasabi, soy and pickled ginger on the side.

For the kids:
A fruit and veg platter - watermelon, grapes, carrot sticks, celery, rice crackers and corn chips.
Icy poles.
Chocolate crackles (made by the wonderful Donna).

The cake:
Home made by Donna. GFCF Chockie cake.

The Better Batter.

We're pretty lucky to have a Gluten Free Fish & Chip shop here in Ballarat. It means that from time to time I can have night off from cooking!
Another store I have been pleased to find is Abunda - a dedicated gluten free mini supermarket.

So last week I went into Abunda and got some rice noodles. I'd been checking the supermarkets and couldn't find any, and I had been hankering for a stir fry instead of fried rice!

Stir fry is simple here - snow peas, capsicum, water chestnuts, yellow beans - tossed in the wok with sea salt and ginger and rice noodles.

But we will be moving one day, and there mightn't be a fish and chip shop that does gluten free so I thought I'd use tonight to try out a gluten free batter recipe as well. I've never made batter before really, other than the once time I cooked oysters in tempura batter from my Jamie Oliver cookbook. I think I even used packet mix tempura batter for the last chicken nuggets I fried *blush*. This batter is simple and light, and I can see it working for all sorts of things, chicken, fish, vegies, the lot!

Gluten Free Batter for Deep Frying
1/4 cup cornflour
1/2 cup rice flour
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
3/4 cold water

Whisk together until the batter streams in a ribbon off the fork or whisk. It needs to be runny, but not too runny. Coat fry-able item in batter and toss into hot oil. Remove when golden brown.

Ice Ice Baby - a Summer Treat

And with a new season on it's way in, our gluten-free, dairy-free journey has taken another step. Different foods on the menu, mean more items to be closely examined in the supermarket.
So Good soy ice cream is safe if it's Vanilla. But not if it's chocolate. Nestle Icy Poles are safe (and now marked gluten free on the package) but I've never really forgiven them for that bad thing they did.

So before investing in an ice cream maker and doing it all myself, I thought I'd give sorbet a go by hand first.
When I spotted Kiwi Fruit on special, it was all the inspiration I needed. But having never made sorbet before, I had a lot of research and reading to do.

My first port of call was my friend Skipper. She had loads of wonderful recipes on hand but hers contained egg. As Baby E hasn't had egg yet, I kept looking. And I stumbled across a familiar place - the blog of Pig in the Kitchen, another Mum with an allergy child! And even better, a starting point on how to make sorbet!
I particularly liked how her recipes were more rustic (so many recipes demand you force the fruit through a strainer).

Kiwi Fruit Sorbet.
250 grams white sugar
600 mls water
9 kiwi fruit, [peeled and roughly chopped
0.25 teaspoons xantham gum
1 teaspoon citric acid

In a medium saucepan, dissolve the sugar in the water. When dissolved, throw in the fruit and remove from the heat. Allow to cool. Pour into a blender. Add citric acid and xantham gum. Blitz until smooth. Pour into a metal tin (I used a cake tin) and freeze for an hour. Remove from freezer and beat with a handmixer. Put into freezer containers and re-freeze.

Three Jars Full!

Well there will be three, but currently there is only two.

I've put my food processor to hard work this morning and have already made Pesto (sans cheese) and Macadamia Nut Butter. To complete the trifecta, I will be adding Hommus once the chick peas are all soaked.

Please excuse the shocking photo. It's from my phone as I can't find my rechargeable camera batteries.

Dairy Free Pesto is super easy. I can honestly say I think I have only ever bought pre-made Pesto once.
All you need is Fresh Basil, a little garlic, some pine nuts and olive oil (which isn't even really necessary in my opinion). I pick 3 handfulls of basil leaves. Process in food processor. Add 1 handfull of pine nuts, lightly toasted (I pop mine under the griller for a very short time). Process a little longer. Add one clove of garlic, crushed. Process until you're happy with it. Add oil if you wish. But remember if you use pesto for lots of different things, it doesn't always need to be "oily" so you can add the oil later if you need to.

Even simpler again, Macadamia Nut Butter. Take one 250 gram bag of natural macadamia nuts (not roasted not salted, just plain naked). Add a handfull at a time to food processor until the consistency you prefer. If they get dry, add a little oil (I used rice bran oil). And there you have an awesome spread for your toast!

And yes. In realise it looks like someone has been stuck into the pesto. I was hungry and I can recommend it with cheese in an omelette!

GF Banana Pikelets for Baby!

I had to share this recipe. The little kids had it for lunch. It lasted about 4.7 seconds. I even had a bite (which is a big thing for me because I loathe banana) and they were good! Really good! Very quick and easy too.

GF Banana Pikelets
One large banana, mashed
1/4 cup orange juice
1/2 cup GF flour

Stir banana and orange juice together. Beat in flour (I used a handmixer and it took no time at all).
Drop spoonfulls into a hot frying pan. Fry until brown on each side. Allow to cool and serve.

This made 7 wee little pikelets. See photo below so you get what I mean.

Grilled Eggplant and Vegetable Nachos.

We're back into routine! Hooray! After driving Torin to school, the littlies and I went to the green grocers. And Bridie was allowed to choose a vegetable and she chose a rather massive, shiny eggplant. So I thought about what I could do with it all the way home.

I used to LOVE grilled eggplant on foccacia in the days before coeliacs. So that was the obvious choice. So I sliced it into slabs about 1 centimetre thick and grilled it in the griddle. I found the pan had to be well oiled or the eggplant tended to just char. It cooks quite quickly though, so then I put it aside and did some more wondering.

I'm trying to cut down on our meat consumption. It's not environmentally friendly. It's not a VITAL part of our diet. And it's expensive. I can buy so much more food from the greengrocers if we just skip the meat. So with this in mind I did some fridge and pantry gazing (I seem to do that a lot, hey?) and decided I COULD do vegetarian nachos. I could even do VEGAN nachos! And the bonus is the preparation time can be broken down into steps (see, I've already grilled the eggplant) and assembled when you're ready to cook and serve.

Grilled Eggplant and Vegetable Nachos.
1 large eggplant, sliced and grilled
1 medium zucchini, grated
1 medium carrot, grated
1 handful baby spinach leaves
1 tin of kidney beans, washed and drained
1 packet Burrito seasoning
1/4 cup water
A little oil
1 packet corn chips
Grated cheese (Ours is still Vegan. We use Vegan soy cheese)

Place zucchini, carrot, spinach leaves and kidney beans in a saucepan with a dash of oil. Cook over low heat until tender. Add seasoning and water and stir though. Once thick, put aside.

Preheat oven to 180C. Scatter corn chips over an oven tray. On top of that, place circles or strips of grilled eggplant. Then make a layer of your seasoned vegetable and bean mix. Top with cheese and bake for 20 minutes.
Enjoy :)

Mother Hubbard's Fried Rice.

School holidays do my head in. I'm normally pretty organised and have my routine down pat. Monday is shopping day. But last Monday I drove to Melbourne so Torin could stay with his Nana for the week. Which meant no time for shopping. Then when I did shop, I bought less because Torin wasn't here. It's amazing how much a break in the mundane routine can work against you though.

This afternoon, I was wondering what to cook for dinner. I knew I had some gluten free sausages but they were frozen! So a meat free dish was on the menu. A quick browse through the fridge and pantry (and having a read of Dixiebelle's blog) made me decide on Fried Rice.
Mind you, Dixiebelle's is a little more gourmet. But Edan is finally starting to enjoy solids so this is very basic.

Fried Rice
1 Ear of corn, kernels shaved off
1 bunch pak choy, finely sliced
1 large carrot, julienned
1/2 cup frozen peas (preferably local but mine were from New Zealand)
1 cup of rice, cooked
2 eggs (whisked lightly)
soy sauce
oil for cooking

I heat the wok up and then make a mini omelette from the eggs. I then remove that and put aside for garnish.
Than add the vegetables and stir fry. Add the rice and stir everything through. Cover and lower the heat and cook for about 10 minutes. Uncover, drizzle soy sauce over and stir through. Serve, topped with strips of cooked egg.

Sweet Potato and Tuna Patties.

Wow!
These were so unbelievably good. Honestly, I'm normally pretty *meh* about food. But these patties hit the spot and were so easy!

Sweet Potato and Tuna Patties.
1 large sweet potato (peeled, cooked, mashed and cooled)
1 bunch Pak Choy (sliced finely)
1 425 gram tin of tuna in olive oil
1 egg
Cornflour to coat.

Mix sweet potato, tuna, pak choy and egg until combined. Scoop up fistfulls (the mixture is quite "wet"). Coat in cornflour and gently fry until browned on each side. These could probaly also be done in the oven if you preferred.

The kids loved them! Always a plus ;)

Facebook. Oh dear...

Ok. So I succumbed to peer pressure.
And I've actually had to tear myself away to get housework done.
So this morning (after making yummy pikelets for breakfast) I limited myself to one quick test.

ISTJ - "Trustee". Decisiveness in practical affairs. Guardian of time- honored institutions. Dependable. 11.6% of total population.

Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)

Gluten & Dairy free pikelets:
2 cups GF flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs
300 mLs soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence.

Sift flour and baking powder. Has anyone else noticed how hard it is to sift GF flour in a sifter thingie?
Pour wet ingredients into dry and whisk until batter is smooth.
Cook in a heated frypan, flip and serve.
We had ours with Freenut Butter or Tofutti "Better than cream cheese".
So while I spring clean today I will ponder the point of having all these mock products in the house...and consider making some jam.

Steamed Sesame Chicken balls.

I've been thinking about what to do with chicken mince for a while. So tonight, I came up with these.




Sesame Chicken Balls:
500 grams good quality chicken mince
a cup of finely chopped broccolli
a grated carrot
an egg
1/4 cup sesame seeds
3 garlic cloves, minced
a bowl of white rice

Mix everything except the white rice in a bowl until combined. Roll into balls and then roll in the rice to cover. Place in a steamer that has been lined with lettuce/cabbage/silverbeet over boiling water and steam for 30 minutes. Serve with honey soy dipping sauce.

This made too many for us, so I popped some assembled but not cooked into the freezer for a rainy day.

GFCF Mini Pizzas and some fun in the sun!

These were easy and another thing I could pop in the freezer for the looming school holidays.
Pizza dough:
2 cups SR GF Flour
1 cup water
3 tablespoons oil
0.5 teaspoons salt

Mix together to create a sticky dough. Pre-heat oven to 190 C.
Place on an oiled tray with a tablespoon and pat down to form small circles.
I topped them with tomato sauce (I forgot the tomato paste!!!), small circles of cacciatore, mini-chol soy cheese, oregano and slices of button mushrooms. Bake for 25 minutes and serve (or allow to cool and freeze).

We are loving this Spring sunshine. Finally I can coax the kids outside to explore the garden and enjoy the sun. After all the Spring cleaning it's a good thing too as they're not messing up the house! :)

The Easiest GF Sausage Rolls in the Universe!

Ha! Told you I was lazy!

But in all honesty, I don't completely trust mince some days. Whereas I do know the gluten free sausages we buy are hunky dory. I must write about the brand next time we buy them (I threw the packaging away) but they are marketed as "Kids Sausages" in IGA Supermarkets, are made in Geelong and are Gluten Free.

So anyway, this is how I made the super simple sausage rolls.
I had to pre-heat the oven to 210 C for the pastry. So I figured while it was pre-heating it's little self I'd save energy and use it to do some work while it was getting itself all ready. So I popped the sausages in a casserole dish. Poured boiling water over them (enough to just cover), placed the lid on and sat them in the oven while I made the pastry. My reasoning behind this was after tummy bugs and with all the food issues we've had, the least I could do was make sure the meat was absolutely, positively cooked. Because it's hard to tell once something is encased in pastry.

While they were baking, I again made "The Maggie Beer GF Pastry" replacing butter with Nuttelex and chilled it for 30 minutes before assembly-time.

So basically, 45 minutes after popping the sausages in the oven, I took them out and drained them. I then rolled out the pastry between sheets of baking paper, cut it into sausage width lengths and rolled the sausages up. Placed them on a lightly oiled tray, brushed them with water and sprinkled sesame seeds on top.

I made two lots. One for our tummies and one for the freezer. With school holidays only a few weeks away, I want the freezer stocked with snacks!

Nested Eggs and Red Soldiers!!!

Oops! I had visitors today and forgot all about dinner until it was nearly dinnertime! So a quick assessment of the pantry and fridge and I came up with this kid-friendly dish. Eggs poached in mashed potato nests served with a side of sweet potato chips for dipping!

Red Soldiers (sweet potato chips)
Preheat oven to 220 C.
Peel one large sweet potato. Cut into think chips/wedges. Lightly coat in olive oil, season with sea salt and ground pepper. Bake for 45 minutes (but shake the pan every 15 to make sure they cook evenly).

Nested Eggs (eggs poached in mashed potato)
Make up mashed potato as you normally would. One small potato to one egg is the best ratio.
Spoon mashed potato into baking receptacle. I used ramekins which each fit 2 potatoes worth of mash and two eggs. Muffin trays might work? Or one big baking dish would also be fine.
With a spoon, poke little wells in the mash. Crack eggs into a cup and pour into the holes. Bake for 20 minutes so the yolk is still runny.

Serve with soldiers and dip into runny egg!

I found this dish good because once everything is in the oven, you have time to set the table and so on. Pretty low maintenance dish.
:)

Easy Rice Rolls....TGIF!

These are one of the things I always wanted to try and I am so glad I did!

I bought a packet of Vietnamese rice paper rounds. Followed the directions on the packet. Filled them with cooked rice noodles, shaved ham or chicken from deli (I was pressed for time), julienned carrots and splodges of avocado with a sprinkling of sesame seeds.

They were awesome.
Next time I will remember to have GF Soy or some other dipping sauce on hand though.

I am looking forward to trying a few different fillings and possibly adding them to Torin's lunchbox.

Torin had a wonderful day out with my Aunt today. And we're both quite shocked with something amazing he did. She took him to a play centre. There was one of those machines you put a dollar in and the try and pick up a toy with the claw. I've never let him play them before truly believing they were rigged. But my aunty let him have just one turn.

Not only did he win a toy, he actually won the toy he wanted! He is now the very proud owner of a Yoshi toy.
I told you he was obsessed with Super Mario Brothers & friends.

The Coeliac Journey begins.

Yesterday I finally had an answer to all my health problems.

I tested positive for DQB1*02 and DQA1*05 in a genetic test for coeliac disease. The strange thing is I suspected Bridie had a problem (which she certainly may have and we start allergy testing and so on for her next week) but ended up solving a LOT of my own issues by removing gluten from the family diet.

Just as we did the elimination diet as a family (a number of times) for Torin, we all went gluten free for Bridie and we all felt better for it. So I have had to re-learn to shop, cook and eat. But I am enjoying it.

I’ve always pretty much cooked from scratch. So now it’s down to removing gluten from my recipes. We’re currently still Dairy Free as well (and have been for over 12 months) but hopefully in time we can reintroduce that down the track. I miss cheese!!!

Today was rather productive. Bridie and I sat down and looked through a cookbook for babies and toddlers to see what I could tweak (I actually had Edan in mind). She spotted teddy bears made from croquettes and insisted it had to be made for dinner. Our recipe for Teddy Bear Croquettes was super easy:

• 4 cups cooled mashed potato.
• 1 cup cooled cooked chicken.
• 1 cup frozen peas and corn.
• 1 teaspoon sage
• 1 teaspoon rosemary
• Polenta to crumb

Mixed all ingredients together except polenta. Shape into balls and rolled in polenta to coat. Shallow fried for a couple of minutes each side. Serve with steamed carrots as per picture.

The cooked chicken we used was a whole size 14 chicken, covered in water. Brought to boil and then simmered for 90 minutes. It literally falls apart on the plate which saves a lot of time. And we still have quite a bit left over for stir-fries, sandwiches and the like. We keep the liquid too - as chicken stock for soups. If we could grind the bones to make our bread it’d be zero wastage, but alas we’re not giants. And a good, home-made gluten free bread still alludes me at this stage.

While all the chicken cooking was going on, I had popped 3 pears and 4 small granny smith apples in the slow-cooker with 2 cups of water. Later they were pureed for baby food and I had a sudden thought - why waste the liquid??? So I made this up:

Apple and Pear Cordial

• 2 cups left over fruit stewing water
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 teaspoon citric acid
• 1 teaspoon tartaric acid

Simmer to dissolve sugar, add citric and tartaric acids, bring to boil then quickly remove from heat. Allow to cool, bottle and refrigerate.