L'addiction s'il vous plait

Apparently I have been in denial. Or maybe just underplaying it. It seems that I have an addiction. It was only last night as I added more photos to my Facebook page that I truly realised the extent of it.

Hi, my name is Trish and I am addicted to French Food.

 My favourite French band

There. I said it. It is out there now. 

I loved it before failsafe. Buttery croissants, coq au vin, boeuf bourguignon, baguettes with lashings of butter, tarte au fraise, crêpes, crème brûlée, cheese, wine and I'm getting quite worked up just thinking about it all (I may also be addicted to dairy looking at that list).

It seems only natural that I would be converting as much as I can to failsafe. It helps that a lot of it is easy to convert.

My latest attempt was soupe à l'oignon or as you would know it - French onion soup. Onion is out, but leek is in. Leeks are about as cheap as they get at this time of year. They aren't as big as they are at other times, but try to get the thicker ones so you get more bang for your buck.

Not the golden brown hue of its onion counterpart, but equally satisfying.

Soupe aux Poireaux  (leek soup) (Serves 8 as entree)

Ingredients

• Leek, halved lengthways, washed and sliced - Aim for about 1kg chopped which was 5 short fat leeks for me.
• 3 Tbsp failsafe oil (or nuttelex or ghee if tolerated)
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1/3 cup rice flour (or other tolerated flour)
• 2 1/2 Litres of liquid (water or stock or whiskey. I used 1/2 cup whiskey, 1Tbsp stock concentrate and the rest water)
• Bread to serve.

Method

1. Heat the oil in a heavy based saucepan and add the leeks. Cook over a medium to low heat for about 30mins stirring occasionally until they start to caramelise.
2. Add the garlic and flour and stir for a few minutes.
3. Gradually add the liquid while stirring to ensure there are no floury lumps.
4. Cover the saucepan and simmer for about 25 mins.
5. Serve with slices of grilled garlic bread on top

Variations

• Salicylates - Use onions (duh), add a bay leaf and a few sprigs of thyme.
• Non Failsafe guests? Serve with slices of baguette that have been grilled with grated gruyere cheese on top.

 This was a brilliant starter for my Mum's birthday dinner of Boeuf à la Ficelle. The kids had garlic bread slices on top of theirs (I had a few pieces of gluten free garlic bread in the freezer) and the adults had the cheesy baguette option. It was enjoyed by all.

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.

Taking Stock

There are a couple of recipes floating around for vegetable stock paste. The Diva has one and so does Frilly Pants, but they are both done for the Thermomix and those instructions are double dutch to anyone who doesn't have one. So I gave it a whirl and was really happy with the results, but had to wait until I ran out so I could make more and actually measure what I did.

The good thing about stock is that you can use all the bits of your vegies that aren't too pretty - the celery that went floppy in the bottom of the fridge, or the upper bits of the leek. A good habit to get into is to freeze your vegetable off cuts. I have a zip lock bag in the freezer that I add to all the time. The light green bits of leek that can be a little on the tough side to cook with get thrown in the freezer ready to be made into stock, so does the odd bit of celery too.

Vegetable Stock Concentrate
Ingredients

• 350g celery 
• 4 shallots
• 350g leek
• 3 cloves garlic
• small handful parsley
• 1/3 cup salt

Method

1. Roughly chop and wash all the vegetables and place in a large saucepan.
2. Sprinkle the salt over it all (it will start to draw the water from the veg quite quickly)
3. Put pan over a low-medium heat and cook, stirring often to begin with. As more liquid comes out of the veg less stirring is required.
4. Turn it down to a simmer and reduce until most of the liquid is gone. It took me about 1hr from turning the pan on to get to this point.
5. Cool and puree. Pack into a freezer container and freeze. (It doesn't freeze solid and can be scooped straight from the freezer)

This made 1 1/2 cups. Use one tablespoon to make one cup of stock. That is almost 19 cups of stock and it doesn't take up the entire freezer. Genius!

Variations
- You can use whatever quantity of veg you have, just make sure you don't over do any particular thing or it will dominate.
Salicylates - Add carrot or onion
Celery tops - I've heard that the celery tops may be higher in salicylates than the stems, I use the tops, but you may chose not to.

Use it to add flavour to risotto, stews or soups, just about anything really.

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.

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.

Sunday, Sunday

Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day. I'm not talking about rice bubbles, but something filling. Not something shoveled in as you are rushing out the door, but something a bit later, something that takes a little longer to make and is far more satisfying.

I like eggs and am incredibly grateful that we can eat them and all my favourite breakfasts have them and every now and then I can convince the less civilised people in the house to wait a little and have a decent breakfast. On Sunday that breakfast was Eggs Benedict. Well, almost. Since ham is on the "no go" list our eggs were a little on the naked side, but equally delicious. This is something you could make for guests. I've found since having children, that brunch is a really great time to get together with people. The kids are mostly happy and not tired, you have enough time to get it together in the morning and the kids haven't had a chance to trash any pre-visitor cleaning you've done. There is also the fact that failsafe breakfast food is not so different to non-failsafe breakfast food.

Eggs Benedict (naked)
Ingredients

• eggs - allow two per adult
• toast - whatever bread you tolerate
• Hollandaise Sauce

Hollandaise Sauce  
Serves 6
Ingredients

• 4 egg yolks
• 1 Tbsp citric lemon
• 180g nuttelex in smallish globs at room temperature

Method

1. Part fill a medium saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Lower the heat to barely a simmer and fit a bowl on the top so that the water doesn't touch the base of it.
2. Put egg yolks and citric lemon into the bowl and whisk (by hand or with electric beaters) until it is thick and pale.
3. Add the nuttelex a little at a time whisking continuously. Only add more when the previous piece is fully incorporated
4. When all the nuttelex is incorporated and the sauce is thick remove the bowl from the pan and set aside.

Poached Eggs
I found some brilliant instructions for perfect poached eggs on another blog, and since they were so beautifully done with fabulous photos I will just give you the link. Not Quite Nigella's Poached Eggs 101

To serve, place an egg on each slice of toast and top with sauce. Garnish with a little parsley.

Yes, I know. The day I plan to take photos my sauce flops. Still tastes fab, but lacks body. I added the nuttelex too quickly.

You could also serve with slices of deli chicken.

Variations:
Dairy - Use unsalted butter in the sauce.
Amines - Use salt cured ham or smoked salmon.

If you are serving this up for guests that don't have restrictions use slices of toasted baguette and ham or salmon for under the eggs. They probably wont notice the sauce isn't the real thing. I don't really like the taste of nuttelex and was worried it would taste terrible, but I happily devoured this sauce.

Mayonnaise

Mayonnaise is one of those things that can cause a lot of heart ache. People avoid making it as they think it is too hard or tricky and there are a few tricks to it, but once you know them you shouldn't have a problem. The only time I ever seem to stuff it up is when I'm trying to cut corners by using a different appliance.

Making mayo takes a little bit of time and some sort of electric mixer can save your arms. So electric hand mixer is great, a stand mixer is better, but does make larger quantities. I've tried using a stick blender and that is usually behind all my failed attempts. I'm pretty sure I've also made it in a food processor successfully.

A good homemade mayonnaise can transform raw cabbage into a desirable salad, add a European pizzazz to your french fries or glorify a chicken sandwich.

The kids' favourite Friday dinner - chicken nuggets and chips with pear ketchup and homemade mayonnaise

Mayonnaise
Ingredients

• 4 egg yolks
• 1-2 cloves of garlic, crushed (according to taste)
• 1 1/2 Tbsp citric 'lemon' juice
• 2 cups failsafe oil (I prefer canola, but any would work)
• Salt 

Method

1. Place egg yolks, garlic and citric juice into the bowl of your mixer (with whisk attachment) and whisk until pale.
2. Very slowly start adding the oil while still whisking. Start by adding a little dribble at a time. As that gets incorporated add a little more. It is important to not add too much at once as the mayo will "split" which means the oil will separate from the egg, very unappealing.
3. As the oil starts to emulsify with the egg you can add the oil a little quicker.
4. Once the emulsification really gets going the mayonnaise will get very thick and pale.
5. When all the oil is added taste and add preferred amount of salt.
6. Blob it onto anything you can.

This can be done by hand with a whisk. If you chose to do it that way then you are a far better person than I. You would have better luck making a smaller quantity doing it by hand or with smaller electric beaters

Actually, I think I quite like Friday dinners too

Lucky Dip

I added a picture to my facebook page the other day that generated far more interest than I expected. Or maybe I should have expected it as a platter of failsafe, dairy, gluten and soy free dips is hard to come by. Yes there was the standard failsafe hommus, but there were three more there.

L-R Parsley pesto dip, caramelised leeks, Cashew cream cheese and hommus

Besides my intolerant son, there was another guest who is lactose intolerant, so the normal cheese platter and something else for the kids was not going to cut it. So I invented and hoped for the best. I still have some cheese left over, but these were demolished.

I bought one of those pesto dip thingys, so wanted to make a failsafe equivalent. Since the only herb available is parsley, that's the one I used. Parsley is still high in salicylates and it is only recommended to have a sprinkle. This is a little more than that, but with three other dips to have there is no need to pig out on that one alone. This recipe only makes a small quantity, as much as you can see in the picture, so that also makes it hard to go overboard.

Parsley Pesto Dip
Ingredients

• 3 Tbsp chopped parsley
• 1 long green part of shallot, chopped
• 2 Tbsp chick nuts (commercial roasted chick peas)
• 2 Tbsp failsafe oil
• 1/2 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp citric "lemon" juice
• salt to taste

Method

1. Put all ingredients except salt into a mini food processor and blend until a nice dipping consistency.
2. Taste for salt - add a little at a time.

Caramelised leeks
(this makes a reasonable amount, but it keeps well and is nice with roast meats, on sandwiches or as a condiment for anything, really...)

Ingredients

•  1 large leek
• failsafe oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp brown sugar

Method

1. Remove harder green parts of leek and split the leek lengthways, make sure there is no dirt caught in it, rinsing if you need to. Slice finely.
2. Heat a medium frying pan over medium to low heat and add enough oil to coat the base. 
3. Add the leeks. Your pan may be very full at this point, don't bother changing pans, it won't stay this way for long.
4. As they start to heat sprinkle the salt over them to help draw out moisture.
5. Cook slowly stirring frequently
6. Add sugar and keep on stirring
7. They will be slowly reducing and turning a slightly golden colour (with a bit of a green tinge if you had a fair bit of pale green leek). Keep stirring occasionally, making sure they don't dry out and catch on the bottom. If they start to brown or dry out add a small quantity of water.
8. Once they are gold(ish) and look like a small pile of soggy string (this takes about an hour), they are done. They should be very sweet when you taste them.

Cashew Cream Cheese
There are a lot of recipes floating around the internet for raw cashew cheese, but not one of them is failsafe. They pretty much all contain nutritional yeast which is glutamates, not just a little bit of glutamates, but "you may as well be eating MSG" type glutamates. So that is out. What I have made is probably not even close to tasting like those ones, but it was incredibly good.  My son, who hates nuts, scoffed it and I've had to make more for the week.

The nuts require soaking, so a bit of forethought is needed. I've read that soaking doesn't increase the amine levels in the nuts, but there are a lot of cashews in this one, so moderation may be required for amine responders.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cup raw cashews, covered with cold water and soaked overnight (or for a few hours if that works for you), drained and rinsed.
• 3 tsp citric "lemon" juice
• 1 tsp whiskey
• 1clove of garlic, crushed
• 1 1/2 tsp salt flakes (if you don't have these use a smaller amount of salt and add to taste at the end)
• 2 Tbsp rice milk (or water)
• 2 tsp chopped parsley and chives.

Method

1. Put all ingredients in a small food processor or blender and blend until smooth.
2. Taste for seasoning and adjust to taste.

This was particularly good on a cracker with the caramelised leeks.

This was particularly good on a cracker with the caramelised leeks.

I don't actually have a recipe of my own for hommus. I make it to taste every time, sometimes using canned chickpeas, sometimes dried ones. I usually make a huge batch and freeze it in smaller portions as we go through a lot of it. Next time I make it I'll write quantities down.

I served these dips with rice crackers, broken buckwheat crispbreads and mini cracker sized rice cakes. You could also use celery sticks which have been my son's vessel of choice for the cashew cheese this week.

More Soup.

I'm totally loving this cold weather. There has been frost in the mornings in the reserve next door and this evening I watched fog rise up there too. This weather just makes me want meals like this. Soup that is thick and heavy and warm, that warms your belly and is just good for your soul.

This recipe is almost a straight rip off of a Jamie Oliver recipe from his first book. There were minor modifications to make it failsafe and due to ingredients I had on hand. It is incredibly easy and has few ingredients. Hubby is very soup critical and he gave it a big thumbs up. Unfortunately it seems Miss 3 has decided she doesn't like soup and mostly ate toast. Mr 7 also scoffed the lot.

This made enough for us with a little left over, so would probably happily feed four adults for dinner.

Chickpea and Leek Soup
Ingredients

• 3 medium leeks, split lengthways and sliced finely
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 large potato, peeled and chopped
• 2 400g cans of chickpeas, rinsed (you could soak dry ones for 24hrs. I was not that organised)
• 2 Tbsp failsafe oil
• salt
• 1L home made stock (veg or chicken or water with a bit of whiskey if you don't have stock)

Method

1. Cook the potato until tender (boil or steam)
2. Warm oil in large pot. Add the leeks and garlic and a big pinch of salt. Cook very gently until very tender (about 15mins)
3. Add the chickpeas and potato. Stir in and cook for a minute.
4. Pour in the stock and simmer for about 15mins. Add salt to taste.,
5. Now you can serve as is, or puree the lot, or puree some and mix back together (this is my preference as you get the lumpy bits as well as the thick creaminess)

  
Variations- Salicylates - Add a grind of pepper

It really doesn't need any other variations. It's great as is!

Poh-Tay-Toes

What's taters, precious? What's taters, eh?

Amusingly, since the Lord of the Rings movies I have trouble saying "potatoes" properly. More often than not it is said Samwise style "poh-tay-toes".

Ridiculousness aside it is a really lucky thing to have potatoes as part of this diet, they are such a versatile vegetable - "Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew... Lovely big golden chips with a nice piece of fried fish". Or you can turn them into soup.

This soup is such an obvious failsafe choice and one that we didn't even try until our second failsafe winter. My boy never liked soups, so I didn't even bother at first. Now he loves this one and it makes great leftovers. Since there are no amines in it, it can be kept in the freezer longer than meaty leftovers. Bonus! Last winter he took this to school for lunch in a little thermos tub with some gluten free bread to dunk in it.

Potato and leek soups with a crusty bread roll

Potato and Leek Soup
Ingredients

• 2 large leeks (I had about 600g chopped)
• 2 Tbsp FS oil
• 4 large potatoes (I had about 1kg peeled)
• 4 cups water
• 2 cups rice milk
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• Parsley or chives to garnish

Method

1. Trim leeks and halve lengthways, rinse and slice thinly
2. Peel and thinly slice potatoes
3. Heat oil in a large saucepan and gently saute the leeks for about 5 mins.
4. Lay the potatoes on top, cover and cook over a very low heat for about 30 mins.
5. Stir in the salt, water and rice milk.
6. Increase the heat and bring the soup to boiling point stirring often (so that it doesn't stick) and then turn down low again.
7. Partly cover with lid and cook gently for 20 mins.
8. Puree in food processor or with stick blender. Cooling as much as necessary first.
9. Return to pan and heat until desired serving temperature is reached.
10. Ladle into bowls and sprinkle with fresh snipped chives or parsley and serve with your favourite bread.

Variations- Dairy - Use butter and milk

This lovely bread roll was made from a recipe by the very talented Kersten and can be purchased from her facebook page.