dairy free sugar free ice cream

This ice cream is oh so healthy and yummy at the same time.

Most of you have probably seen this around before, but for those of you who haven't, simply peel some ripe bananas chop and freeze.

Take your bananas out of the freezer about 15 minutes before to soften a bit and then put the bananas into your food processor and whizz until smooth or if you have a champion juicer (on my wish list) use that instead.

You can serve it straight away, it will be like a soft serve, or pop it back into the freezer for a while and it will be like proper ice cream.

Now for some variations:

-add some other frozen fruit, blueberries are yummy, so are peaches or whatever you have on hand

-for chocolate ice cream add some cocoa or cacao powder and a little honey or rice malt syrup, 

-for chocolate chip add some cacao bits or chopped 85% dark chocolate

I just sprinkled some cacao bits on the top of my chocolate ice cream in the (wonky) picture above.

I am sure you can think of other variations- just have some fun experimenting!

I have made a blueberry one and a peach one to take on holidays with us ready for our Sundaes on Sunday.

I will be back in 2 weeks, with some more recipes, birthday party planning and some holiday snaps.

getting out

Thankfully the flooding was only moderate and after it peaked at about 8am yesterday it started going down.

Between our place and town, going what we call "the front way" which sees us entering our town from the north, there are three places that the road will be cut.

When VCH was down at the cut closest to our house, about 500m away, our neighbour told him that people were able to get through the next two cuts, ours was still too high.

VCH thought we might try going to town via a rather roundabout route around 35km longer and with a good 20km of dirt road, this would bring us out close to the 3rd crossing.

So VCH and I left the kids at home and set off for town in his 4WD work ute (pick up truck).

We had to go through a little bit of water on the dirt road, but that is normal for that spot and when we came out onto the main road we found that the water was indeed low enough for us to cross safely in the 4WD.

The water was also still, there is no way VCH would have driven across if it was flowing.

So it took us nearly an hour to get to town instead of the usual 15-20 minutes.

We did our shopping and came home, thankfully the water had subsided enough that we could now come straight home without any detours.

(apologies for the poor quality picture, our internet is so slow that they are taking so long to load they come out wonky- when we get back I will fix it up)

flooded

Yep, we are currently unable to get into town, the creek where we live has risen with all the rain and cut us off from town VCH gets to start his annual leave a day early!

Lots of people drove past this morning on their way to work only to go back past again 5 minutes later as they got to the water across the road- they get an unexpected day off!

Fortunately the water is actually dropping and hopefully we will still be able to leave for our holiday on Sunday.
This would not be the first time that we have left late for holidays due to flooding.

choc coconut bliss cookies

 
 I made these cookies yesterday as a little treat to take away with us on holidays.

I adapted this recipe for the tropical bliss cookies which I also made and froze to take away. I was going to make another batch but then thought if I took out the citrus zest and put in cocoa it would make a nice chocolaty treat.
You could almost call the a lamington biscuit- perfect for Australia Day!

Chocolate Bliss Cookies
2 C dessicated coconut
1/2 C almond meal
scant 1/2 C rice malt syrup
2 eggs
1 1/2 t vanilla
2 heaped T of cacao or cocoa powder

Mix all ingredients together
Roll into balls and press down
Bake at 180C for 10-15 minutes
Cool on tray for 5 minutes before cooling on rack

I amde some more today to take to an Australia Day BBQ and iced them with a little chocolate ganache and sprinkled the top with coconut

italian socca pizza

This "pizza is very yummy and great to serve with a meal.

It is not a pizza with lots of tomato paste and toppings in that sense but you could perhaps use it like that after you have cooked it first.

This is another super easy gluten free grain free recipe from Grain Free Living.

 

1 cup chickpea flour (besan flour)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp, at least, ground black pepper
1 cup lukewarm water
3 to 5 tbsp olive oil
1/2 large onion, thinly sliced, optional
1 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves, optional

Preheat oven to 230C.
Put a well-seasoned or non-stick 30cm pizza pan or cast-iron skillet in the oven (put foil around the handle if it's not metal to stop it melting)
Sift chickpea flour into a bowl; add salt and pepper; then slowly add 1 cup lukewarm water, whisking to eliminate lumps.
Stir in 2 tbsp of the olive oil.
Cover, and let sit while oven heats, or as long as 12 hours.
Batter should be about the consistency of heavy cream.
If using onion and rosemary, stir them into batter.
Pour 2 tbsp oil into the heated pan, and swirl to cover pan evenly.
Pour in batter, and bake 12 to 15 minutes, or until pancake is firm and edges set.
Heat grill, and brush top of socca with 1 or 2 tbsp oil if it looks dry.
Set socca 5-10cm below grill for a few minutes, just long enough to brown it in spots.
Cut into wedges and serve hot, or at least warm.

I am thinking of playing around with some garlic to maybe make a garlic bread to go with an Italian style meal.

Enjoy!

grain free cheese crackers

I found this recipe just before Christmas and adapted it to be Gluten Free and because I used tapioca flour they are also Grain Free.

They are easy to make and the crackers remind me of the country cheese crackers that VCH's dad always has in a big jar in his kitchen.

 Cheese Crackers

Makes about 70 1-inch square crackers

~

1½ cups grated Cheddar cheese

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened and cut into pieces

¾ cup tapioca flour, plus more for dusting

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon paprika

1 tablespoon milk

1. Preheat oven to 180˚C

2. Put everything except the milk in a food processor. Pulse the processor, 5 seconds at a time, for about 5 or 6 times, until the dough is in coarse crumbs.

3. Add the milk and process until the dough gathers together in a ball.

4. Roll the dough out on a floured board with a rolling pin that has been floured until it is about 4mm thick or use two sheets of baking paper

 

5. Cut the dough into 2.5cm squares with a sharp knife or pizza cutter. 

You can put a bit of flour on the blade of the knife to keep it from sticking.

 

 6. Place the crackers apart on parchment paper on a baking sheet.Use a fork to poke into each cracker. I like to sprinkle with a little paprika

7. Bake for 12 – 15 minutes until the edges are just starting to brown. 

8. Put the tray on a rack and let the crackers cool completely.

9. Eat! Or store in a covered container to eat within a day or two.

I am going to make a couple of batches of these to freeze for our holiday 

Shared at

today...

.... I attended a funeral, my second one in two weeks, both of them were for 47year old women who died unexpectedly, leaving behind husbands and teenage children.

This is the third funeral that VCH has been to in 2 months for wives of his friends.

The first lady was 45 and died of pancreatic cancer and left behind three older girls (early twenties- late teens) and a 13 year old son.

The second had suffered from an auto immune disease for many years and her body had been through hell, she simply died in her sleep one night 2 days after Christmas, she leaves behind a 12 year old, 14 year old and 16 year old.

Then today's funeral was for a healthy active woman who suffered a brain aneurism and died while on a camping trip with her husband and two son's aged 16 and 14.

B2 has had two of his friends lose their mothers just weeks apart.

Three fathers suddenly left to bring up their kids on their own- two of these men are golfing mates.

Imagine going to your friends wife's funeral only to have your friend coming to your wife's funeral 2 months later.

So everyone please keep these families in your prayers.

Hug your loved ones a little closer, tell them that you love them, spend that extra bit of time with them, be a little more patient, do not hurry, savour each moment and thank God that you have each other.

don't be afraid to try something new

Do you like trying new foods or are you stuck in a rut?

When you first start eating gluten free you are presented with lots of new flours and tastes and textures particularly if you are trying to make bread substitutes.

If you decide to go grain free suddenly you need to find alternatives to rice and corn.

If you have limited your diet because of the foods you can no longer eat you might have found yourself getting bored of your usual salads or vegetables because they have now become a major part of your diet.

Well I am here to encourage you to try something new.

How about a new vegetable?

In winter our family discovered and fell in love with Brussels sprouts, I did a post about it here.

Have you tried eggplants, parsnips, swedes, asparagus, pomegranate, lychees?- these might be common to some people but would still pass as exotic to some Australians.

Growing up in Australia in the 70's broccoli, zucchini, sweet potato and capsicum were exotic vegetables but now they are common everyday fare.

Meat and three veg consisted of three of the following potato, pumpkin, carrot, beans or peas- maybe some corn if we were super lucky and had perhaps visited my cousins' farm where they grew it.

But back to our discussion...

Sometimes I see something new and I am tempted to try it- I might buy it but then procrastinate on cooking it - wondering if I will cook it the right way, if we will like it or not?

I was a bit like that with quinoa (pronounced keen-wa), I had seen it on blogs, in magazines etc. I thought I would try it for a wheat free version of tabouli- so I bought it and it sat and it sat, I forgot to get organised enough to make the tabouli in time for tea one day so it sat a while longer.

Then I did a mini detox and one day the lunch menu had quinoa - so I cooked it plain and ate it

Yum! gave some to the kids to try- 6 x yum!

Next time we were having a bit of a Middle Eastern meal I got myself organised and made tabouli - It was very yummy- even nicer than the wheat stuff.

Now I was sold on quinoa!

I went out with my Bible Study group to the TAFE restaurant and they had a salad made with red quinoa on the menu so I ordered that- it was delicious!

Last night we tried cheesy quinoa cakes.

 

 These were really yummy and I served them with a salad.

Everyone loved this and it was super easy to make- just my kind of cooking!

 The recipe says to use fontina cheese but I had never heard of it and I don't even know if it is available in Australia- my local supermarket certainly didn't have it, so I looked online and found I could substitute mozzarella, so I did. 

I also used tapioca flour because the recipe used wheat flour.

I found it a little hard and messy to make into cakes so I divided the mixture between two fry pans and pressed it down flat, when the bottom was cooked I simply flipped it onto a dinner plate and then slid it back into the pan to cook on the other side, when it was cooked I flipped it out onto a plate and cut into wedges to serve. 

The recipe has a nice aioli recipe to go with the cakes, which is that white dollop you see on top of the wedge.

 Tonight we are having quinoa tabouli,

 sweet potato pita breads recipe found here, roast lamb coated in harissa and and I will probably make a carrot and raisin salad.

This is quite a labour intensive meal because everything has been made from scratch and I do not cook like this very often.
My usual motto is "Keep it Simple" and often in summer we just eat salads with some meat, but I wanted to try these pita breads so I based my evening meal around them, thankfully it is a rainy day so it is not too hot to be in the kitchen!
So if you haven't yet tried quinoa please do.
Do you have something that you would like to try but haven't been quite game?
Do you have something new that you tried recently and loved?

easy yummy grain free buns

Following on from yesterday's post about eating gluten free, I have a new recipe to share.

Some people find that eating gluten free is not enough to get their health back on track, some people have to take it a step further and become completely grain free.

While I haven't personally felt the need to go down this track I do get concerned that a lot of GF things use rice and corn as substitute grains.

Although you don't really hear a lot about people reacting to rice (although I do know some people who are intolerant) more and more you hear about people reacting to corn. 

Now I figure that people are becoming intolerant to wheat because it is the main grain in our western diets, so if we substitute it for another grain, could it be that we will also become sensitive to that grain as well?

So as I am now quite comfortable eating gluten free and because this year our whole family- for the moment anyway is cutting out gluten and sugar, and as some of those family members were quite reliant on bread to snack on, they are feeling a little lost in this new eating regime, so I am exploring some options for these people as well as exploring some recipes using grain free flours.

 I came across some great recipes on this site that I thought I might try.

Fabulously this is an Australian site which means that the ingredients Janelle uses will be available to Australians.

Sometimes I have found some great recipes on overseas blogs or websites only to find it virtually impossible to source some of the ingredients.

Anyway after my ramble you are probably wanting to get to the recipe.

I used this recipe for Grain Free White Bread Rolls

Let me say these are super easy and everyone in the family liked them.

 Now a word of warning if you have yet to make GF bread of any description, it is quite different to cooking with wheat that has gluten in it.

Your mixture needs to be quite runny.

With this recipe you literally put spoonfuls onto the tray.

I sprinkled some sesame seeds over the top, because to me a bun is not a bun without sesame seeds on top.

 Janelle states that they are great to go with soup.

Seeing it is summer and the last thing on the menu is soup we tried them with salad.

 Everyone - even VCH liked them and a request has been made for some more to be baked for a fishing trip tomorrow!

I tried them toasted with cheese and tomato, yummy!

The beauty of this recipe is that as it doesn't use yeast, you can mix and bake and eat quite quickly.

It has been slightly cooler today so I have spent the morning cooking up some GF treats.

Stay tuned.

I will have a few more things to share with you in the next few days.

eating gluten free

I have been essentially gluten free since October 2010.

I previously have had stints not eating wheat, but this is the longest I have gone without wheat except for the six weeks where I had to go back on wheat so I could have a coeliac test. 

The test came back negative but I immediately went back onto a gluten free diet. 

While I was back eating gluten I felt sick, my digestive system was not working properly, I was constantly tired and bloated and my hayfever was really bad.

Three of the children have at various stages joined me on this diet and have found health benefits from it.

I know of a few people who are needing to eat gluten free and I thought maybe some menu ideas might be helpful.

When I first embraced this way of eating I needed to look at the food we ate and see how I could incorporate gluten free into a large family without costing us a fortune.

Firstly go through foods that you already eat and list the stuff that is naturally gluten free.

So in our case I might put down the following:
 Steak, potatoes and salad (our standard Saturday night fare)

Tacos (check any sauces you use are gluten free)

Chicken wings and salad

Roast and veges (make gravy with cornflour or arrowroot)

Harissa Lamb Cutlets
Scotch eggs

Then list foods that are not necessarily gluten free but can be easily adapted:

Fish and chips- I usually toss my fish in flour and shallow fry it so I changed it to a GF flour (coconut or tapioca work well) or finely crushed nuts.
San Choi Bow  (Asian mince served in lettuce cups)- use GF tamari instead of soy sauce

Spaghetti Bolognaise- meat sauce is GF - change to GF pasta (to cut costs you can just use GF for the people who need it and regular pasta for the rest of the family) I have seen where people use zucchini finely cut in strips instead as well.

Enchiladas - filling is gluten free, I make my gluten free flat bread instead of tortillas, top with taco sauce, sour cream and cheese- cook until cheese is melted.

Then of course are some foods that bread is a main component like hamburgers, sausages and buns or steak sandwiches.

What we have done in the past when only some of us were GF was just ate the meat and salad component and maybe added something extra like a fried egg, while the others still had the bread.

 Then there is stuff like pizza that is essentially gluten based.

We usually have pizza fortnightly on a Sunday night, so this presented quite a problem.

We always make our own base from scratch so for the GF people we have made a GF base adapting a GF bread mix (directions were on the packet) or tried a GF pizza base recipe from the net- there are lots out there, I just look for something that is easy and doesn't require too many obscure ingredients.

Since I have been trying to lose a bit of weight I cut out pizza so the GF kids just chose to have a wheat night. Now as we are only intolerant that works OK as long as it doesn't happen too often, but obviously this choice is not available to those who have been diagnosed Coeliac as this is an auto-immune disease.

I would also suggest that not only you look at gluten free sites on the net and there are heaps out there but invest in a gluten free cookbook that you like- I find borrowing some from your local library and trying them first before spending money on something you are not happy with a great way to start out.

For my money though I love the 4 Ingredients Gluten Free Cookbook- the recipes are easy- even kids can use them and they don't require 50 ingredients which is always a pain and can become very expensive.

Once you have tea/dinner worked out you need to tackle the other meals.
Gluten Free cereal and bread can be expensive and not everyone likes the bread (I personally don't, but the kids are happy to eat it), so here are some alternative ideas.

Breakfast: 

Bacon and eggs

Homemade hash browns (grated potato, cheese, salt and pepper, press into patty in palm of your hand and fry in a little oil)

Tomatoes, mushrooms and onion stir fried, serve with an egg, or avocado and fresh herbs.

Boiled egg- serve with oven baked vege sticks (carrot, zucchini, caspicum, sweet potato)

Fruit with yoghurt (I use a goats milk yogurt)- sprinkle with a GF muesli or nuts for a treat

Fruit smoothie, based on juice, almond milk or yoghurt, or cows milk if you are OK with that.

 

Gluten Free pancakes with berries.

Lunch:

Wraps made with my GF flat bread recipe filled with salad or egg and lettuce.

Rice paper rolls - fill with salad and bean thread vermicelli

Cold meat and salad

Soft boiled egg with roast vege dipping sticks

Crustless quiche (use GF flour) or frittata by itself or with lettuce, tomato and cucumber

Leftovers from night before.
Home made Chips (french fries)

Snacks/ morning tea:

Can be the hardest things to change or adapt to a gluten free life.

 
 Fresh fruit is probably the cheapest, easiest and most economical snack, stick to what is in season and cheap, buy in bulk if you can.
Vege sticks, nuts and dried fruit are also good.


I like to make my own dips and the variety is endless.
Into the food processor put cream cheese and some herbs from your garden with a couple tablespoons of yogurt or sour cream or you can use semi dried tomatoes or a GF relish or chutney of your choice.
The dip pictured above is made from spinach and cashews (the Jatz are obviously not GF but the other biscuits are)
Serve with rice crackers or vege sticks.


These homemade crackers are very yummy and I will be posting a recipe for these soon.
Yoghurt and fruit, or smoothies are also great snacks.

I have found it fairly simple to adapt most recipes by just substituting normal flour for Gluten Free flour.
I have found the Orgran flour to be reasonably economical and works well.
A cheaper alternative available from Coles is the FG Roberts brand, while it works well it does contain soy which I don't overly like and it does need to be sifted before you use it as it comes out of the bag lumpy.

 Some of my favourite cake recipes contain almond meal.
Look for a bulk packet in the health food section of the supermarket rather than the little packets available in the cooking section.
Alternatively look for a wholesaler that you may be able to buy from in bulk.
A few of us go in together to buy from Santos Wholefoods which allows us to buy in bulk and share the freight costs.
If you have a mill you could buy almonds in bulk and grind fresh as you need them.

You can buy GF ice cream cones from Coles, or just serve ice cream in a cup or if you are game make your own.


Don't be afraid to try GF baking, all my baking is done with GF flour these days and I regularly serve it to guests who have no idea that it is made without wheat and they don't know the difference.
Because GF is more expensive than wheat flour you may want to limit your baking to special occasions or once or twice a week, your waistline will thank you for it as well!
To see my Gluten Free recipes go here.
I will be posting some more recipes soon so keep an eye out for them.