Balls!

Hectic is how I would describe life at the moment. I have this idea that at some point life will slow down a little, I'll have a little more time and I'll get things done that I've been wanted to get around to doing. It never seems to happen though, something is always going on.

There are some things that can be done to save a little bit of time here and there. One of those things is leftovers. Not something that should be happening to much in the world of amine sensitivities, but it can be done. No one in this house would normally want to eat the same thing for dinner twice in a week, but if you reinvent it and use it for lunch boxes, well, that's a different story.

Risotto is something I can never make the right amount of. I don't think I've ever really tried to be honest. But risotto is also pretty uninspiring reheated. So what do you do with it? You turn it into balls!

This is not so much a precise recipe as a general guide. There are those that would argue that arancini should have a centre and they would be right, but there really isn't much for us failsafers to put in the centre. So they remain centreless.

Arancini - Risotto Balls
Ingredients

• 1 quantity leftover risotto.
• Egg - probably one unless you have a tonne of leftovers
• salt
• crumbs

Method

1. Heat oven to 180℃
2. Once leftovers are reasonably cool add some extra salt to taste and mix in beaten egg. All of the mixture needs to be moist, but not sloppy.
3. Roll into balls of desired size and roll into crumbs.
4. Place on baking tray and bake for approximately 20 mins (depending on size) or until hot through. (Alternatively, you could shallow fry them in a frying pan)

 These make for a great lunch box filler. Make sure you freeze them once they are cool enough with paper in between layers. We put them into lunchboxes straight from the freezer and they are thawed by lunchtime. It puts a bit of variety into lunches that could otherwise consist of rice cakes every day.

Variations
Dairy/amines - Do it properly and place a cube of mozzarella in the centre of each ball.

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!

Not Quite Curry

So my son had a friend over today who is Indian. He was telling me about the food he normally eats and it got me craving curry. Hubby and I had real curry about a month ago when we went out for our anniversary, we go out so rarely that something so incredibly un-failsafe is a fitting choice. But I wanted curry tonight so I experimented with what I can use here and the results were surprisingly good. Actually, it was seriously delicious.

Clayton's Chicken Curry
Ingredients

• 1 large leek, split lengthways and sliced finely
• 5 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 2 Tbsp failsafe oil (or ghee if you can tolerate it)
• 600g chicken breast, diced
• 2 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup rice milk
• 1/2 tsp saffron threads
• 1/4 cup gin (optional, you can just add more rice milk)
• 2 Tbsp ground raw cashews

Method

1. Heat rice milk and add saffron and let soak. Set aside.
2. Heat oil in a large saucepan and cook leeks and garlic until soft and pale gold.
3. Add chicken and seal on all sides. Stir in salt
4. Add gin and rice milk with saffron, cover and gently simmer for about 20 mins or until chicken is cooked and tender.
5. Add ground cashew and cook for another few minutes.
6. Serve with steamed rice and flat bread.

Variations - Dairy - use cream instead of rice milk.
                    Salicylates - add a tsp of garam masala with the salt and a Tbsp of fresh coriander to garnish


This was so easy to make and everyone liked it, so I think this will be a regular feature at dinner time.

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.

Warm My Chills

The cool weather has really set in now and I have to admit that I rather like it. I like scarves and warm coats, heaters and hot drinks and I really like winter food. It's quite lucky that failsafe food lends itself so well to delicious warm meals. Inspiration can be hard to come by in summer, but not winter, far less thought is required to come up with something that hits the spot.

This casserole definitely hit the spot. I have been getting into using the failsafe alcohols for cooking. They can really add a hit of flavour that failsafe cooking often needs. If you don't like to use them, you can leave it out or substitute a bit of stock.

Warm, stodgy, stick to the ribs goodness.

Beef Casserole
Ingredients

• 1.5 kg diced beef
• 1/2 large leek, diced
• small stick celery, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 swede, diced small
• 1/2 cup french lentils
• 1/4 cup red lentils
• 1/4 cup amaranth, washed very well
• 1/2 cup whiskey
• 2 1/2 cups water
• 1-2 tsp salt (or to taste)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C 
2. Put everything except the salt into a large casserole dish cover with lid and place in the oven.
3. After about half an hour (when everything is boiling away) turn down to 120°C and cook for another 1 1/2 hours until the meat is tender.
4. Add salt to taste and serve with mash and steamed vegetables.

That's it! So easy. You could mess around and seal the meat and saute the vegies first, but it really doesn't need it and any leftovers can be used as a pie filling or just tipped over toast.

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.

Bringing the Tagine Back

Once upon a time I had favourite types of food that I just loved to cook and that the whole family loved to eat. Just before we started the elimination diet, my absolute favourite was Moroccan. The rich sauces, fragrant spices, the sweet and savoury combinations did it for me. It was fun to make, there were so many things that I could do with it. I had, up until now, been far too apprehensive to try a failsafe equivalent, there was no way it could possibly measure up to the past efforts. Tonight I gave it a go and while it was nothing like the dishes that I used to make it was still good in its own way. It was flavoursome, it has the sweetness and the meatiness and it was rich and filling. Plus it gave me the opportunity to use my tagine which has mostly been gathering dust the last few years.
For those who are unfamiliar with it, the tagine is a Moroccan earthenware cooking vessel. It has a shallow dish for the food to sit in and a conical lid. These are traditionally cooked over hot coals, but can be used over a gas flame too. If you don't have one, never fear! A large frying pan with a lid or a lidded saucepan or a flameproof casserole dish would do the job quite well.

Chicken and Pear Tagine with Quinoa
Ingredients

• 700g (approx) Chicken breast fillets cut into large cubes.
• 1 medium leek, halved lengthways and sliced thinly.
• 5 cloves of garlic, crushed.
• Large pinch of saffron threads, soaked in 1/4 cup boiling water
• 1 Tbsp oil or ghee**
• 1/2 swede, grated
• 400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
•  1-2 tsp salt
• 3 pears, peeled, cored and cut into wedges
• 2 tsp nuttelex
• 2 Tbsp rice malt syrup

• 1 cup quinoa, well rinsed (I used a mixture of white, red and black for colour)
• 2 cups water

Method

1. Heat oil or ghee in tagine base over medium to high heat. Cook leeks and garlic until soft.
2. Add chicken and seal all over.
3. Stir through the swede and mix in the saffron and water.
4. Turn heat down to very low, cover and simmer for 20 mins
5. While this is cooking bring water for quinoa to boil in a medium saucepan, add quinoa, cover and turn down to a bare simmer. It will take about 20mins to cook
6. Heat nuttelex in a frying pan and add pears. Stir and turn often so they don't burn. Cook for about 10mins then drizzle the rice malt syrup over them and cook for another few mins.
7. While the pears are cooking add the chickpeas to the tagine and add the salt to taste, cook for another 10mins.
8. Serve up, placing the pears and syrup over the chicken and the quinoa on the side.

My son mumbled "This is really good" through his first mouthful. So I'm taking it to mean this is a winning dinner here.

Variations- Gluten - Serve with couscous instead of quinoa
                    Salicylates- Add ras el hanout just before you add the chicken and sprinkle with chopped coriander for serving. You could also use honey instead of the rice malt.
                   ** The ghee - There has been a bit of talk amongst some failsafe groups lately as to whether ghee is ok for those who can't eat dairy as the lactose and proteins should no longer be in it. Some people say they tolerate it, some don't. Use your own judgement or treat it as a challenge, or if you are unsure just don't use it.

This tagine is not for cooking in, just for serving and display. The cooking ones are far less ornamental. So don't buy one like this if you want to cook in it.