Sweet, Sweet

These are something that I make a lot. It seems that most recipes call for egg yolks and the only recipe that wants the white bits is meringue. I asked my mum if she had any other ideas what I could do with them, she suggested an egg white omlette and the thought of that makes me want to puke. Taking all the nice flavour and texture the yolk adds and leaving you with something resembling rubber. No thanks. So I keep on making meringue. And since I regularly make mayonnaise, I regularly have egg whites, so I regularly make meringues too.

This is a simple recipe, two ingredients, that is it. It bothers me that the commercial ones can contain so many ingredients.

Meringue
Ingredients

• 4 egg whites, preferably at room temperature
• 1 1/4 cups of caster sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 110°C
2. Place egg whites into a very clean, dry bowl of a mixer (Stand mixer is easiest, hand held electric is alright anything less is doable, but tiring).
3. Beat/whisk the egg whites until they are stiff.
4. Add the sugar a tablespoon at a time until it is all incorporated and the mixture is thick and glossy and the sugar has dissolved.
5. Pipe or spoon the mixture onto lined oven trays leaving a few centimetres between them.
6. Bake for approximately 35 mins. Leave them longer so they are crisp through or take them out sooner for a gooier centre. It depends on how big they are too. Half the fun is testing them during cooking to see if they are done yet.

Variations: Make them large and flat to use for a pavlova.
                   Add 1-2 teaspoons of sifted carob just before piping for variety.
                   Add a small quantity of vanilla seeds before piping for flavour.
                   Sprinkle uncooked meringues with natural sprinkles for a special occasion.
Dairy/soy - After they are cooked and cooled dip the tips in melted white chocolate or carob.

These make great afternoon tea treats or are lovely for a party.

Nanna's Cake

My mum is really great about cooking for us when we go there and always making sure she has snacks or something for the kids. This is a cake she has made on several occasions. It is nice for afternoon tea and lovely for dessert. Last night she made a rice milk custard to pour over it too. Everyone likes it except for my daughter who is quite the fuss pot.

She adapted it from some recipe she had cut out of a magazine ages ago. The original recipe was for a Pineapple Streusel Cake, but it now contains pears.

One thing I like to try to do with this blog is have recipes that are good for Failsafe beginners or for people wanting to cook something for failsafe guests. So I try to have some things that don't require a large quantity of strange ingredients and things that will only be used once and the go bad in the pantry. This cake fits that bill very well.

Photos were taken on my phone, so please excuse the quality

Pear Streusel Cake
Ingredients

• 2/3 cup gluten free flour blend (like Orgran)
• 1 1/4 tsp baking powder (or use self raising flour)
• 100g nuttelex
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 2 eggs lightly beaten
• 5 tinned pear halves, chopped small and lightly crushed with a fork.

Struesel Topping

• 30g nuttelex
• 1/3 cup gluten free flour
• 1/4 cup caster sugar

Method 

1.  Preheat oven to 170˚C
2.  Lightly grease a 20cm round cake tin and line the base with baking paper
3. Beat flour, baking powder, nuttelex, sugar and eggs in a bowl with electric mixer until well combined.
4. Stir in pears
5. Spoon into tin
6. Make the streusel topping by rubbing the nuttelex into the flour until it resembles bread crumbs, then mix in the sugar.
7. Sprinkle the topping over the cake.
8. Bake for about 50 mins or until cooked when tested with a skewer.

Serve warm with custard or cold on it's own.

Leftovers also make a nice lunch box treat

What a Tart!

Visitors. They give me an opportunity to try something other than standard meals. To take a bit more time and make something fancier. I experiment on visitors. Mostly it goes well. Today went exceptionally well.

We always have nibblies with these guests and a main meal and dessert. We spend a lot of time eating, drinking and being merry. The sun was shining today and sunny winter days are the best for sitting out under our pergola. It's always far too hot in summer. So we enjoyed a lovely roast lamb lunch with lots of vegies and after a bit of bocce and some baseball we sat in the dimming light with hot drinks and a frangipane tart.

How can you have a failsafe frangipane tart?

Well that is what makes this recipe interesting. I suppose you could substitute cashew meal, but that is an awful lot of cashew and would contain too many amines. I chose to substitute quinoa flakes. I had read somewhere on the internet that some ingenious person had used them to make nut free french macaron. I tried that too and they worked pretty well, so why wouldn't they work for this tart?

Quinoa is not usually a flavour you expect in desserts and the first mouthful caught me a little off guard, but after that I was amazed at how good it tasted. The texture was pretty close to the real thing and my guests said they would not have known that it wasn't the real thing if I hadn't told them so.

For the tart shell I used the same recipe that I have used for everything so far (I'm sure I'll try a different recipe one day, but I had some in the freezer, so today was not that day)

Pear Frangipane Tart

Sweet shortcrust pastry

• 340g gluten free plain flour
• a small pinch of salt
• 150g nuttelex
• 90g icing sugar
• 2 eggs beaten

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180℃
2. Sift flour, salt and sugar into the bowl of a food processor add the nuttelex and pulse until the nuttelex is incorporated and you have something resembling bread crumbs.
3. Add the eggs with the motor running and process until a dough starts to form.
4. Tip out onto some cling wrap, knead into a ball, wrap and put in the fridge for at least an hour.
5. Roll the pastry between sheets of baking paper and line a 25cm loose based fluted tart tin trimming the edges. Place in the freezer for about half an hour.
6. Line with baking paper and fill with baking weights or dried beans or rice.
7. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove beads and paper and bake for a further 4 minutes or until the pastry is just cooked, but still pale.

Filling

• 140g quinoa flakes
• 150g icing sugar
• 25g plain GF flour (today we had whitewings)
• 150g nuttelex
• seeds from 1 inch piece of vanilla (optional)
• 3 eggs lightly beaten
• 5 pear halves (tinned in syrup)

Method

1. Place quinoa, icing sugar and flour into a food processor and blitz at high speed to get the quinoa a little finer. Remove and put into another bowl.
2. Put nuttelex and vanilla into the processor and mix on until combined. 
3. Add the quinoa mixture and process on a medium to low speed until well combined.
4. Slowly add eggs while the processor is still running and mix until it is well incorporated.
5. Pour mixture into tart shell and roughly smooth over with a spatula. 
6. Cut pears in half and gently press into frangipane.
7. Bake for approximately 45 mins. When cooked the frangipane will be puffed, golden and firm to touch.
8. Cool and dust with icing sugar to serve.

Just out of the oven

This was lovely by itself, but if you were inclined to make it, then a dairy free custard would go nicely. Or, if you are the dairy eating kind of person, a blob of whipped cream would also go down a treat.

Ready to eat.

Variations - Gluten - use wheat flour
                    Dairy - use butter instead of nuttelex
                    Salicylates - use any soft tolerated fruit eg. apricots, nectarine, blueberries
                   

Cake. Always.

I find more inspiration in sweets than real meals sometimes. I guess it is easy to make things tastier if there is sugar involved, and who doesn't like cake? Well at the moment my son is not a fan of cake, but he will happily eat this one. I used to make this one BFS (before Failsafe), but used different fruit. In it's original form it had gluten and dairy, but it was one of those fundamentally good recipes that you just know will work without them. Happily, it does not just 'work', it works fantastically!

It is based on a Donna Hay recipe and is brilliant for afternoon tea or you could serve it for dessert with a little custard.

Pear Cake
Ingredients

• 125g nuttelex
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla (I always use it, but I think it would be really good without it)
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups self raising gluten free flour, sifted (or plain flour with 3tsp baking powder).
• Tinned pear halves in syrup, drained and each cut into about 4 wedges  (depending on the size you will probably need 5 halves) You could also use very soft fresh pears.
• 1 Tbsp icing sugar

Ready to bake. Pear pieces aren't too large.

Method

1.  Preheat the oven to 160°C and line a 22cm round springform (or loose based) cake tin with baking paper.
2. Beat nuttelex, sugar and vanilla together until light.
3. Add the eggs and beat until well combined
4. Fold in the flour and scoop into the tin. You will need to spread it out a bit, it is quite a stiff mixture. Don't be fooled into thinking the tin is too big at this point, even though it doesn't take up much of the tin now, it will when it's done. I found this out the messy way.
5. Place the pears on the top however you think looks nice. Don't press them in and try not to have them too big. If they are too heavy they won't stay on the top of the cake. I also found this out the annoying way recently. It doesn't wreck the cake, but it is less pretty with the pears on the inside.
6. Bake for 1hr or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
7. Remove from the tin and dust with the icing sugar. It can be eaten warm or cold.

 Variations - Gluten - use wheat or spelt flour
                     Dairy- use butter
                     Salicylates - use nectarines, peaches or apricots. Any tolerated fruit should work as long  as it is soft.


This cake gets a really lovely crust on the outside and is quite heavy, but extremely delicious.

Challenging Times

After talking to our doctor and explaining that my boy didn't tolerate gluten, she suggested doing the blood test for coeliacs disease. This involves 6-8 weeks of consuming large amounts of gluten. So our entire Christmas holidays and part of first term was spent eating copious quantities of gluten and reacting and behaving accordingly. Fun times. For all of that the test was negative, but back to gluten free we went.

This recipe is also a recipe for challenges, but salicylates challenges. I served this at our recent autumn feast and it was loved by all, even those who were very familiar with the version that's loaded with gluten and dairy liked it. This, to me, is proof that the recipe is a winner and it's not your standard aussie dessert.

Pumpkin Pie
Ingredients

Sweet shortcrust pastry (the same recipe that I have used before)

• 340g gluten free plain flour
• a small pinch of salt
• 150g nuttelex
• 90g icing sugar
• 2 eggs beaten

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180℃
2. Sift flour, salt and sugar into the bowl of a food processor add the nuttelex and pulse until the nuttelex is incorporated and you have something resembling bread crumbs.
3. Add the eggs with the motor running and process until a dough starts to form.
4. Tip out onto some cling wrap, knead into a ball, wrap and put in the fridge for at least an hour.
5. Roll the pastry between sheets of baking paper and line a 25cm pie dish trimming the edges.
6. Re-roll the offcuts to make the decoration for the top. As the theme of the day was autumn I cut leafs using some biscuit cutters that I have and some were done free hand to get that leaf pile.
7. Line with baking paper and fill with baking weights or dried beans or rice.
8. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove beads and paper and bake for a further 4 minutes or until the pastry is just cooked, but still pale. Bake the leaves on a tray at the same time. They look better if they have cooked unevenly.

Filling

• 2 cups cooked, mashed pumpkin (the round ones are nicer ie. kent, jap, grey, but if you want slightly less salicylates use butternut)
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 2 Tbsp flour (corn starch or another GF flour)
• 1 Tbsp golden syrup
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup rice milk
• 3 beaten eggs

Method

1. combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Mix in pumpkin thoroughly
3. Add milk and eggs and mix in well.
4. Pour filling into pastry shell and bake for approx 40 mins at 180℃

This pie is delicious served solo, but if you have dairy eating friends sharing it with you, whipped cream goes rather nicely with it.

Variations
Gluten- Use white flour
Dairy- Use butter in the pastry and cream in place of the milk in the filling.
Salicylates - With all the spices the salicylate levels are huge, even if you are only having a slice. To tone it down a bit use the butternut pumpkin and reduce the spices. In reality you could still get a really nice flavour with 1/2 tsp cinnamon and a decent shake of nutmeg.

An ode to Autumn

We Shall Eat Cake

We had a little birthday party to attend yesterday. Some of the food was going to be failsafe, but I needed to take cake for us. It's something that drives me a bit nuts. Not the taking of cake, I don't mind that. It's the going to the effort of making cake and then my son deciding he doesn't want to eat it. This has been happening a lot. He has decided that he doesn't like vanilla cake anymore, nor does he like caramel cake. These have been my easy fall back cakes, but he is over them, so I offered to make something different. I offered pear, lemon or carob. Completely out of left field, he chose the carob. We're not big fans of carob here; he eats it sometimes, but it has taken me a real long time to stop gagging at the smell. It is easy enough to convert a chocolate cake recipe to carob and I decided to team that with a caramel icing. He didn't like the icing, but the cake was good. The cake was actually so good that I (who gag at the thought of carob) enjoyed some. So today I experimented with something else - Marshmallow frosting. Bingo! We have a winning combination.

The cake was adapted from a Hummingbird Bakery book that I own and the frosting is straight from Martha Stewart

Carob Cupcakes makes about 24 patty sized cakes
Ingredients

• 200g plain gluten free flour (I used white wings)
• 40g carob powder
• 280g caster sugar
• 3tsp baking powder
• pinch salt
• 90g nuttelex
• 220mls rice milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170℃
2. Put flour, carob, sugar, baking powder, salt and nuttelex in the bowl of an electric mixer (or you can use a hand held mixer) and beat on a slow speed until everything is combined and it looks sandy.
3. Whisk the eggs, milk and vanilla together in a jug and slowly pour half into the flour mixture. Beat on high until it is smooth
4. Turn the mixer back to slow and add the rest of the milk mixture. Continue mixing until you have a smooth batter. Do not overmix.
5. Spoon the mixture into patty cases until two thirds full (don't be tempted to over fill them, it is a very runny cake batter and it will overflow)
6. Bake for about 15 mins or until cake springs back when lightly touched or a skewer comes out clean. 
7. Cool on racks.

Frosting 
Ingredients

1. 6 egg whites 
2. 1 1/2 cups sugar
3. 3/8 tsp cream of tartar
4. dash vanilla essence

Method

1. Bring a saucepan of water to the boil. Turn down to a gentle simmer.
2. Place egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar into a heatproof bowl and place on saucepan. Make sure the water isn't touching the bottom of the bowl.
3. Using electric hand beaters, beat on a slow speed until the sugar is completely dissolved and the egg feels warm (approx 3-4 mins).
4. Take the bowl off the heat and keep beating at increasing speeds until the mixture is glossy and stiff peaks form (8-10 mins)
5. Add vanilla, beat until combined. Scoop into a piping bag and decorate cakes as desired.

 

Variations - Amines - Use cocoa

                    If you have a little blow torch, you could use it lightly on the frosting for a toasted marshmallow finish. (I have one. I have yet to figure out how to get the gas into it.)

The biscuit on top is half an Orgran Rotondo which is almost failsafe.

These cakes are deliciously moist and you won't want to stop at one.

Pear Season!

Pears. What would we do without them?

March is the peak season (in Australia) for William pears and a bunch of other varieties, which makes it the perfect time to make your preserves. Pears are cheap, plentiful, high quality, and in theory you could make your whole year's worth of preserves right now.

Quite some time ago my best friend sent me a link to recipe and asked if it could be done failsafe. A really quick look at the ingredients told me that it practically was. It was a recipe for Pear and Vanilla Bean Honey and quite frankly, it looked divine. I made it and, lo and behold, it was divine. My son ate it at every opportunity, on toast, on sandwiches, on (homemade) crumpets, on scones, on ice cream and straight from the jar.

Here is my adaptation (it makes way more than the original, because really, why bother to make one jar when you can make five).

Pear and Vanilla Bean Honey

Ingredients

• 12 ripe pears, peeled, cored and quartered 
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/2 vanilla bean
• 3 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1/2 tsp citric acid

Method

1. Pop your pears into a large saucepan with the water, bring to the boil and simmer until the pears are very soft and squishy.
2. Push the pears and the liquid through a sieve - and no you can't just put them in the food processor, because with the sieve you get rid of all the thick fibres which would get stuck in your teeth and ruin the texture.
3. Put back into cleaned pot. Split the vanilla bean and add the seeds and the pod. Add the sugar and the citric acid.
4. Bring to a gentle boil and cook for about 45 minutes.
5. Pour into hot, sterile jars and once it is cool store in the fridge. This is not preserved as well as jam, it is far too liquid and I can't say that it would keep safely out of the fridge.
   
   

A Special Night

Christmas is just around the corner and who can really believe that it has come around so quickly. I barely feel like I've gotten the hang of this year and now it's almost over.

Last night we put up our Christmas tree and I always like to make a nice meal to have to make the event just a bit more special. We enjoyed a family favourite Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic and for dessert I made creme caramel again adapted from a french book I have. The amazing thing about this is that, besides being incredibly easy, it doesn't taste like rice milk. I have actually made this for visitors who had no idea that it didn't contain dairy until I told them!

Creme Caramel
Ingredients

Caramel

• 125g caster sugar

Custard

• 625ml rice milk (or other milk of choice)
• 125g caster sugar
• 1/3 vanilla pod split open(or 1/2 tsp vanilla essense)
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 4 egg yolks

Method

1. Place sugar into a heavy bottomed saucepan and heat until it dissolves and starts to turn into caramel. Swirl the pan so that it cooks evenly. Remove from heat and carefully add 2 tablespoons of water to stop it cooking. 
2. divide between six 125ml ramekins or pour into a large ring tin and leave to cool.
3. Preheat the oven to 180℃
4. Put milk and vanilla pod into saucepan and bring almost to the boil.
5. Mix together eggs and sugar in a large bowl.
6. Strain the milk over the egg mixture and stir thoroughly.
7. Pour into ramekins or tin and place into a roasting pan.
8. Pour enough hot water into the pan to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins.
9. Bake for 35-40 mins or until the top looks set and it feels firm (kind of like a set jelly)
10. Remove from roasting tin and leave to cool for approx 15 mins
11. Run a knife around the inside of the mould and invert onto a serving plate.

So I think the bubbles mean that I've done something bad, like whisked it too much. But I put it down to the lack of cream.

Mmmm... Custardy goodness.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

Never!

My son like crêpes. He really likes crêpes. I'm could probably fill one with brussel sprouts and he'd gobble it up. Well, maybe that's going a bit too far. He likes them for breakfast the most. His favourite thing to have on them are 'lemon' juice and sugar. I find this a little boring and have made a really lovely filling that would work for breakfast or dessert and there are a few more things you could do for non-failsafe family members or guests who join you for brunch.

We had these crêpes on the weekend just gone. It was the long weekend, so theoretically we had unlimited time to spend making breakfast. Batter was made, batter was resting, filling was gently simmering on the stove, I started to cook the crêpes and suddenly everything stopped. We had run out of gas! That has never happened before. We are not connected to town gas, but have two enormous cylinders that are solely for the cook top. They do nothing else and last forever. We have been here nearly six years and have only needed one replaced in all that time. But alas, we were out of gas.

Out comes the trusty old electric frypan that I haven't used in years and almost threw away recently. Thank goodness I didn't because we won't have gas until Wednesday. It took ages to cook the crêpes one at a time on that thing and the filling was finished off in the microwave.

This is the same basic crêpe recipe that I have posted previously.

Basic Crêpe Recipe

Ingredients

• 250g plain gluten free flour
• pinch of salt
• 1tsp sugar
• 2 eggs lightly beaten
• 410ml (1 2/3cup) milk of choice - I used rice milk
• 125ml (1/2cup) water
• 1tbsp melted nuttelex
• Failsafe oil for frying.

Method

1. Sift flour, sugar and salt into a bowl and make a well in the centre.
2. Mix the eggs, milk and water together and pour slowly into the well.
3. Whisk until everything is incorporated and you have a reasonably smooth batter.
4. Stir in melted nuttelex. Cover and stand for at least 20mins.
5. Heat a crêpe pan or medium sized non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. Wipe or spray with a little oil. 
6. Pour in enough batter to thinly coat the base of the pan (a soup ladle was pretty spot on for my pan), tipping it around to get it to the edges.When the crêpe starts to lift away at the edges give it a gentle shake so it comes loose and turn and cook on the other side for a minute of two. They should be slightly golden.

Stack on a plate (you could put baking paper between them to make sure they don't stick, although mine didn't stick together) and cover with foil until they are all done. They can be frozen with paper between them.


I had previously made this filling on Fathers Day, just so there was something else that my boy could eat, and it was just so good. The smell alone is drool worthy.


Vanilla Pears


Ingredients

• 3 ripe pears, peeled, cored and chopped into smallish pieces (roughly 1cm cubes) or use tinned pears in syrup.
• 1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
• 1 cup of water (or if you use tinned pears you could substitute part of this for some syrup)
• 3cm piece of vanilla bean, split lengthwise.

Method

1. Put sugar, water and vanilla into a saucepan over medium heat
2. Stir until the sugar dissolves and mixture comes to the boil
3. Simmer until the syrup reduces by about a quarter.
4. Add pears and simmer until they are soft.
5. Spoon into crêpes and fold over.

 

Sweet and caramely and fragrant with vanilla

Variations
Have 'lemon' juice and sugar or just pure maple syrup or golden syrup.
Salicylates - Add a small piece of cinnamon stick to the pot. Or fill with fresh strawberries and maple syrup.
Dairy - Serve with big dollops of whipped cream or ice cream
Amines - Place some broken up good quality dark chocolate on half of the crêpe while it is still in the pan. When the chocolate starts to melt fold crêpe into quarters and serve. I have incredibly fond memories of eating crêpes au chocolat noir while wandering around Paris at midnight.

If you are having visitors you could put all the different fillings into bowls on the table and let everyone help themselves.

crêpe au chocolat noir

Strawberries, maple syrup and whipped cream

The best things in life are free...

... Free of gluten, free of dairy and free of all those nasty chemicals that make life in this house not fun.

This pie is free of all those things and it's so good that your guests won't even know it.

Without further ado I give you the gluten free, dairy free, soy free, lemon free-

Lemon Meringue Pie!

This is an amalgamation of several recipes that I adapted and put together for this.
The pastry is the same that I used for the pear tart. I will put it here again, though, to save you having to go look for it. 


Sweet pastry
Ingredients

• 340g gluten free plain flour
• a small pinch of salt
• 150g nuttelex
• 90g icing sugar
• 2 eggs beaten

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180℃
2. Sift flour, salt and sugar into the bowl of a food processor add the nuttelex and pulse until the nuttelex is incorporated and you have something resembling bread crumbs.
3. Add the eggs with the motor running and process until a dough starts to form.
4. Tip out onto some cling wrap, knead into a ball, wrap and put in the fridge for at least an hour.
5. Roll the pastry between sheets of baking paper and line a 23cm loose based tart tin, trimming the edges.
6. Line with baking paper and fill with baking weights or dried beans or rice.
7. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove beads and paper and bake for a further 4 minutes or until the pastry is just cooked, but still pale.

The Filling
This makes a thin layer of lemon filling, approximately 1cm deep. If you like more it is fairly simple to increase the quantity by thirds.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 cup cornflour (cornstarch)
• 1 1/2 tsp citric acid 
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 3 egg yolks

Method

1. Put sugar, flour, citric acid and water into a saucepan and stir until combined.
2. Put saucepan over a medium heat and stir constantly until the mixture comes to the boil (it may go lumpy at first, but don't dismay, keep stirring and it will become smooth as it all cooks).
3. Remove from heat and whisk egg yolks thoroughly into the mixture.
4. Cover with cling wrap and chill in the fridge for 2 hours (not completely necessary, if you are short on time, but cool it a bit)

The Meringue
If you like lots and lots of meringue then by all means make more.

Ingredients

• 3 egg whites at room temperature (conveniently left over from the filling)
• 3/4 cup caster sugar

Method

1. Place egg whites in the bowl of a mixer and beat on a medium speed until firmish peaks form, but not till it's dry.
2. Add caster sugar bit by bit while still beating until it is all dissolved and you have a thick, glossy meringue mixture.

Now put it all together

1. Spread the lemon filling evenly over the base.
2. Top with meringue so that it joins the pastry all the way around and it mounds up in the middle.
3. Bake for approx 10 minutes or until the meringue is golden.

I think I have the worlds most poorly lit dining room.

Pie!

 If you want mini pies, use little tart tins. Unless you are making loads of them you will probably only need a third of the filling mixture. Excess pastry can be frozen and used at a later date. Just remove from the freezer and that at room temperature before trying to roll.

Parlez-vous Français?

Failsafers are masters of adaptation and substitution. Some cuisines are really easy to adapt, some are not. For example, tomato based dishes are impossible and as much as you can add pear and salt and citric acid, as Ms Frillypants once said - A pear is not a tomato. It's just not. But french food is great for it. They do have some traditionally tomato based dishes, but a lot of them are based on stock or wine which is adaptable. I've had some really good successes just doing straight substitution of ingredients in recipes from a French cookbook I bought a few years back.

These are meals that you can serve up to non failsafe guests. No, really. Provincial french food is based on really basic ingredients and it tastes and looks awesome!

My in-laws came for lunch today. My son was going to baseball open day and they came to watch and hang around for the day. Baseball was supposed to finish at 12:30, so I assumed that I still had plenty of time when I went shopping at eleven o'clock. Baseball finished at 11:30 and so everyone was back home before me! My mad organisational skills meant we were in for a late lunch and even later dessert. Chicken crêpes and pear tart were on the belated menu

Basic Crêpe Recipe
250g plain gluten free flour
pinch of salt
1tsp sugar
2 eggs lightly beaten
410ml (1 2/3cup) milk of choice - I used rice milk
125ml (1/2cup) water
1tbsp melted nuttelex
Failsafe oil for frying.


Sift flour, sugar and salt into a bowl and make a well in the centre.
Mix the eggs milk and water together and pour slowly into the well.
Whisk until everything is incorporated and you have a reasonably smooth batter.
Stir in melted nuttelex.
Cover and stand for 20mins.

Heat a crêpe pan or medium sized non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. Wipe or spray with a little oil.
Pour in enough batter to thinly coat the base of the pan (a soup ladle was pretty spot on for my pan). tipping it around to get it to the edges.
When the crêpe starts to lift away at the edges give it a gentle shake so it comes loose and turn and cook on the other side for a minute of two. They should be slightly golden.
Stack on a plate (you could put baking paper between them to make sure they don't stick - mine didn't stick together though) and cover with foil until they are all done.
They can be frozen with paper between them.

Crêpe Filling
failsafe oil or nuttelex
1 large leek - quartered and sliced
1/2 stick of celery finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
3 chicken breast fillets cut into smallish pieces
rice milk
2 tbsp corn starch
1 tsp salt (or to taste)
1tbsp chopped parsley
1tbsp chopped chives

Heat oil and sauté leeks, garlic and celery.
When soft, add chicken and stir until mostly cooked.
Add enough rice milk to just cover chicken mix and bring to the boil.
Simmer until the chicken is cooked through.
Mix cornflour with some cold water, add some of the hot sauce from the pan, then stir into chicken mixture.
Bring to the back to the boil and simmer for another couple of minutes until thickened.
Add salt and herbs.
Spoon down the centre of each crêpe and fold the sides over the mix.

This is enough to make and fill about 8 medium sized crêpes. You could serve them with a salad, I didn't have time and who ever eats the side salad on a crêpe?

Et voilà!

Some variations
Dairy - use normal milk and butter and add ricotta to the chicken sauce.
Amines - add some grated cheese inside and on top of the crêpe and serve with a generous dollop of sour cream (you may choose to do this for guests as it is done after cooking and can be done selectively).
Veg - most vegetables can be hidden in a white sauce as long as you don't go overboard.

We sat down to lunch at two o'clock and then I had to (wanted to) make this dessert, which was eaten at 4:30. It should have been later, but I couldn't wait to let the tart cool.

Pear Tart
Sweet pastry
340g gluten free plain flour
a small pinch of salt
150g nuttelex
90g icing sugar
2 eggs beaten

Preheat oven to 180℃
The easiest way to make pastry is in a food processor (otherwise there is rubbing and pecking and, if you're like me, flour everywhere).
Sift flour, salt and sugar into the bowl of a food processor add the nuttelex and pulse until the nuttelex is incorporated and you have something resembling bread crumbs.
Add the eggs with the motor running and process until a dough starts to form.
Tip out onto some cling wrap, knead into a ball, wrap and put in the fridge for about an hour.

Roll the pastry between sheets of baking paper and line a 23cm loose based tart tin, trimming the edges.
Line with baking paper and fill with baking weights or dried beans or rice.
Bake for 10 minutes, then remove beads and paper and bake for a further 4 minutes or until the pastry is just cooked, but still pale.

Crème Pâtissière
6 egg yolks
125g caster sugar
40g cornstarch
560ml (2 1/4 cups) milk of choice (I used rice milk)
1/2 vanilla pod (or vanilla essence)
15g nuttelex

Whisk together egg yolks and half of sugar until pale and creamy.
Sift in the cornflour and mix well.
Heat milk, remaining sugar and vanilla pod, bringing just to the boil. (If using vanilla essence, add at end of cooking.)
Strain hot milk over egg mixture, stirring continuously.
Pour back into clean saucepan and bring to boil while constantly stirring. Boil for two minutes (add essence now).
Stir in nuttelex and leave to cool.

Spoon crème pâtissière into pastry shell and top with 2 - 3 peeled and sliced pears.
Bake for 25 - 30mins or until pears are golden
Leave to cool completely (If you don't, the filling will be hot and sloppy and will ooze out everywhere)
Melt a few tablespoons of pear jam with a tablespoon of water, sieve out any lumps and brush over pears to make them glossy.

Fresh out of the oven and coated in jam

If I'd have waited another hour to cut it, it would have looked like this.

Variations
Dairy - use butter and milk
Salicylates - use sweet apples.

Bon apetit et au revoir!