Hommus

A little while back I posted a few dip recipes, but didn't have one for the hommus. I'm normally a "cook by feel" kind of girl, tasting, adding a splodge of this, a dash of that and tasting again and again until I am happy with the results. Hommus is also something I make in large batches and freeze, so when I posted the other recipes I didn't actually have a concrete recipe. I made it again and recorded what I did.

We all love this and go through tonnes of it. My daughter takes it to preschool with rice crackers for her healthy morning tea or has it on rice cakes for lunch, my son has it on celery sticks for fruit time at school, we've also been known to have it with lamb cutlets for dinner too.

Hommus 
Ingredients

• 400g dried chick peas
• Big pinch of bicarb soda
• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1/2 cup failsafe oil
• 3 Tbsp citric 'lemon' juice
• 4 small shallots, very finely chopped.
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp chopped parsley

Method

1. Soak the chickpeas over night in plenty of water
2.  Drain and rinse the chickpeas and put into a large pot. Cover with plenty of water, add the bicarb and bring to the boil. Cook until the chickpeas are tender. If you get one out and squeeze between your fingers it should squish easily.
3. Drain and let them cool until they are able to be put in the food processor.
4. Put the chickpeas, garlic and shallots in the processor and gradually add the oil while the motor is running.
5. Add the citric 'lemon', salt and parsley and process until you have a fairly smooth consistency (some chickpeas are drier than others, so it may need more oil).
6. Taste and adjust if you prefer.
7. Store in the fridge or pack into smaller containers (I use ones that are about a cup) and freeze until needed.

Breakfast Biscuits

Breakfast can be tricky when you are gluten free and dairy free, especially if you don't really like milk substitutes and have trouble reconciling the "white brick" with being bread.

I saw a new product in the supermarket the other day - Breakfast Biscuits. Really? Biscuits for breakfast? I knew they would never be an option here, but checked the ingredients out of curiosity. Except for the sugar content they looked reasonably healthy. Surely I could make something like this that my son could eat. I made a batch and he was really happy to eat them. I thought them to be less than stellar. Batch two was tweaked a bit and now I'd be happy to eat them too. The boy likes them as they are easy to get himself and since he has recently come around to drinking rice milk he likes to have a glass for dunking them in.

Healthy Breakfast Biscuits
Ingredients

• 125g Nuttelex
• 1/3 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/2 cup of brown rice flour
• 1/2 cup white rice flour
• 1/3 cup millet flour
• 1/4 cup puffed amaranth
• 1/4 cup buckwheat flakes
• 2 Tbsp quinoa flakes
• 1 Tbsp psyllium husks
• Small handful of freeze dried pears, broken up (optional)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160˚C
2. Beat nuttelex and maple syrup together in a large bowl until well combined.
3. Beat in the flours and psyllium.
4. Stir in the remaining ingredients
5. Take about a tablespoon and roughly shape into a short log. Place on a lined baking tray and flatten with fingers.
6. Repeat for the remaining mixture (mine made about 24)
7. Bake for 10-12 mins. They are ready when you can see them starting to brown on the bottom edge.
8. Cool on the trays for 5 minutes before moving to wire racks.

Variations

• These would work well with any tolerated flour. It does affect the taste.
• Rice malt syrup would also work instead of maple syrup.
• I'm also sure that other things could be substituted for the buckwheat, amaranth and quinoa. Just keep the quantities similar. You'll know when you try to shape them if they are too dry and need more syrup or are too sticky and need a little more dry stuff.

Making Something Out Of Nothing

Do you ever completely misjudge something? It has taken me a while to get used to not cooking too much in one go when it comes to dinners. Meat based leftovers have such a short life span that leftovers are usually wasted. So most of the time leftovers are minimal, but every now and again I totally misjudge quantities. For example, the other weekend my parents came over for a meal which included mashed potato. So I was over catering to begin with, but went completely over the top. I had a ridiculous amount of leftovers and was loath to waste them. What to do, what to do?

Vegetable croquettes of course! They can contain anything that you have on hand. If you've got other leftover veg (or meat), chuck 'em in. A can of beans? Chuck 'em in. Pretty much anything can go into them.

Crispy on the outside, hot and squishy on the inside.

Again, this isn't an actual recipe, just an idea, a bit of inspiration.

Vegetable Croquettes
Suggested ingredients

• leftover mashed potato
• finely chopped leek, shallot, celery, garlic, cabbage, brussels sprouts
• grated swede
• any vegetable puree you may have
• cooked lentils
• tinned beans (kidney, cannellini, chickpeas etc)
• egg(s)
• salt 
• crumbs
• oil for frying

Method  

1. Saute or steam any raw vegetables
2. Mix them through the mashed potato adding salt to taste.
3. Add as many lightly beaten eggs as necessary to moisten your vegetable mixture (unless you went completely over the top, one is probably enough).
4. Take about a tablespoon at a time and shape into a log and coat in crumbs.
5. When they are all done heat enough oil for shallow frying in a frying pan and cook in batches until they are golden on the outside and hot through. 
6. Drain on paper towel if necessary.
7. Try not to burn your mouth as you shovel them in.

Hubby thought that I had bought them and not just thrown them together from leftovers.

Muesli Bars

There has been a request for this recipe (Woohoo!) . We've had a huge day at a birthday party and I'm quite tired, so I'll skip the witty banter and just jump straight to the recipe. It's based on the Pear Muesli Bars from the Failsafe Cookbook. It can be fiddled with a bit to make it how you like it.

Muesli Bars
(Well, they're really cereal bars, but we can let that slide)

6 cups of cereal - I use 2 cups puffed rice
                                     2 cups millet rings
                                     1 cup puffed millet
                                     1/2 cup puffed amaranth
                                     1/2 cup quinoa flakes (or sometimes a bit of millet meal too)

1/3 cup (140g) glucose syrup
2tsp failsafe oil
1tbsp white sugar (or you could use brown)
2tbsp pear jam (or a bit more if you like it peary)

Combine syrup, oil, sugar and jam in a saucepan. Heat gently while stirring until sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil to drive off sulphites. Boil gently for a few minutes.
Put cereal in a large mixing bowl. Pour hot syrup over and stir it through.
Press firmly into a slice tin lined with baking paper and bake at 180∘C for about 10 mins. Less if you like it chewy, but chewy also means crumbly with these.
Once cool cut into pieces and store in an airtight container.

Optional extras - Add extra dried pears (sulphite free) for more peariness.
                            Add white chocolate or carob chips or drizzle melted over the top of cooked bars
                            Add some maple or golden syrup to the the sugar mix (not too much or it's too moist)

You can really use whatever cereal you have (even the gluten type if that is your thing) as long as it is about 6 cups. Don't overdo the quinoa or amaranth unless you really like the flavour (I will keep likening them to grass). They keep really well in a container for around four weeks. That is the longest I've had some left (my son didn't want them for a while), so they may keep for longer.

Goodnight friends
:D

What is a party without sugar?

So, we've had a gap between my first post and this one. I guess the excitement wore off a bit when I thought no one would ever read this little blog and I'm not sure how well this reads when I am typing after I've finally got the kids to sleep and my brain has gone to automatic shut down.

New found inspiration has come from a little group on facebook, who are constantly looking for new ideas for food for their little failsafe kids. I found myself typing out recipes and ideas in little threads and suddenly thinking it would be so much easier if I put them all in one place and just had to post a link. So there you have it and I'm back.

Other treats on the birthday menu were fairy floss, doughnuts and sherbet

The kids went crazy for the sherbet... I mean super crazy. They thought it was hilarious. It was probably the easiest thing to make ever.

Sherbet
1 cup pure icing sugar
3 tsp citric acid
3 tsp bicarb soda

Sift the icing sugar, then stir in the acid and soda. Pop scoops into little cellophane bags (I used the extra ones from the lollipops) and tie it tightly as any moisture that may get into it will start the fizzing. I put them all into a plastic top hat with a cup full of plastic tea spoons.

The fairy floss is also easy, if you have someone to work the machine for you. We got a $20 machine and it was kind of lucky that there was so much else to eat and do as it only made quite tiny serves. If you needed a lot of it and reasonable sized serves, it would probably be worth hiring a machine.

Grandparents working the treats stand

The doughnuts were also quite easy and I enlisted grandparent help for that too. I have a doughnut maker which takes minimal effort to use. The recipes that come with it are not yeast ones, they just use baking powder which is a bonus with gluten free.

The basic Gluten and dairy free batter
1 1/2 cups GF plain flour (I use Orgran)
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp GF baking powder
125g Nuttelex, melted
3/4 cup milk of choice
1 egg lightly beaten (I am positive egg replacer would also work)

Preheat doughnut machine.
Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Make a well and whisk in nuttelex milk and egg until a smooth batter is formed. Transfer to a jug.
Spray machine with failsafe cooking oil. Fill the bases of doughnut rings with batter. Close the lid and cook for 6mins or until golden and cooked through.
Use a non-stick spatula to remove the doughnut and either cool on racks or toss straight into a dish of caster sugar. They can also be iced when cold.

The goodies table. Lollies, chips, sherbet and 'lemon'ade and labeled cups

To drink there was an esky full of bottled water and a dispenser full of failsafe 'lemon'ade.

'Lemon'ade
1 cup sugar
1 cup boiling water
1 tsp citric acid

Dissolve sugar in boiling water, stir in citric acid.
Dilute 1 part cordial with 4 parts soda water.

To save time during the party, have it already made up in bottles or a dispenser.


The kids loved the snacks and played loads of party games before they had dinner.