Quail in our Garden

Funny thing happened the other day, as I came in our front gate I saw a quail wandering up the drive ahead of me.

I ran inside to get Tim. He suggested we shoot it and have it for dinner, which I did not find very funny at all.

It wandered around the garden then climbed the stone fence and skipped off next door.

We have no idea where this bird came from or ended up, but what I do know is they do not run around here wild, so I assume someone locally is keeping quail and this little chap got away.

I was very pleased he left our property in one piece, as I have a very fast, hunting cat called Snow that lives with us.One lucky bird.

Food and Fundraising.

Aargh I hear you all say....... fundraising is a constant part of our children playing sport, for either club or school.
We had a quiz night for the cricket boys at school recently and I put my hand up to organise the food side of the night.

Given it was a quiz I decided to make the food, platter style so people could remain at their tables while enjoying the quiz. We only had a small domestic oven in the kitchen, so most of the food would be served cold. The final number was 350 people.

I decided we could have some warm food, so it was slow cooked pork, pulled and served in a fresh bread bun, and meatballs in a tomato sauce. The rest was served cold including roast chicken sandwiches, fresh vegetarian spring rolls with a dipping sauce and cheese straws.

I cooked the 20 kgs pork ahead of the day and pulled it and sauced it, then froze it down until the day. I rolled and cooked the 700 meatballs, then froze them down too.

I cooked the 16 chickens, and made 15 L meatball sauce the day ahead,.

16 roasted chickens

15 L meatball sauce

On the day, I had a gang of helpers to make 900 cheese straws, 700 chicken sandwiches and 350 spring rolls.

The platters looked amazing, everyone enjoyed the food very much. The best news of the day was that I managed to keep the food costs to $2.30 per head.

Platter

We had the support and generosity of the local businesses with some donations of food and very sharp pricing on the rest. I grew a lot of the veges and herbs we required.



It was a big week and night, a very successful evening raising enough funds to keep the school cricket club in good fettle for the rest of the season.

Chocolate Macaroon Cake.

George had her 18th Birthday recently,  I decided with her love of chocolate and coconut that I would attempt to make this cake wheat, diary and sugar free.

Here's the recipe I used .....(adapted).

100g olivani and coconut oil (roughly half and half)
1/2 c coconut sugar
3 egg yolks
3/4 c spelt flour
1/2 c coconut flour
1/2 c cocoa
2 t baking powder
2 t vanilla essence
3/4 c oat milk

Topping
3 egg whites
1/4 c agave nectar
1 1/2 c coconut
2 T cocoa
1 t almond essence

Melt butter in a large saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in sugar and egg yolks. Mix to combine.
Sift flours, cocoa and baking powder into saucepan. Add vanilla essence and milk.

Spread mixture into a 20cm ring tin. Spread topping over.Bake at 180 deg C for 40 mins until skewer comes out clean.
Cool in tin.

Topping
Beat egg whites until stiff, Gradually beat in the agave and mix until thick and glossy, fold in coconut, cocoa and almond essence.

It was a hit with all, a little dry for my liking but that didn't stop it getting eaten up.
The nice thing is that coconut sugar is Low GI. So everyone happy. :)

Grapefruit Cake.

Here's a photo of Harry's birthday cake.

It is still warm and very yummy. Will make again that's for sure!

BIrthday Cakes.

Well today is our son's 16th birthday, I have in the oven his birthday cake at the moment.

It is a Grapefruit Cake. I have grapefruit falling off the tree at the moment and it seemed perfect to make a cake that is in season.
It is a standard cake as he has no problem with food so I thought given it's his day that's what I would do.

We are having his friends over for dinner tomorrow night, for Pulled Pork and Roast Chicken for those who do not eat Pork.

George has decided she will make a cake for that event tomorrow, I think she will make a wheat dairy and sugar free cake. I will let you know. I will post a photo of the Grapefruit cake later in the day.

I used Low GI sugar in this cake, and given it is a coarse granule, it was quite hard to cream with butter, but seemed to work just fine. The icing however will be made with icing sugar and grapefruit juice with zest. Tim will just have to be careful not to eat the icing.

Leek and Potato Soup (well sort of)

One of my favourite soups is Leek and Potato, and this is what I was thinking about when I planted all the leeks in my garden, however when I came to make it I realised that I wouldn't be able to make it with potato, because the soup is pureed, this changes the molecular structure of the potato and this in turn is what makes Tim sick.

So on with the thinking cap and I decided to still use leek and replace the potato with butter beans. The soup turned out amazing.

So I sauteed chopped onion and garlic, then added lots of leek, sauteed until soft, added my homemade chicken stock and a couple of tins of butter beans.Topped it up with extra water. Cooked until soft, then pureed.My stock is very favoursome and fragrant so I just added some Tabasco to taste. I also fried off some bacon pieces to sprinkle over the soup as I served. Season.

Omit bacon if you like, or you could add a swirl of cream.

Serve with freshly made hot bread. I made a pre mixed multi grain loaf. It was very yummy indeed.

Homemade Sauces

I have been busy making Ketchup and BBQ sauce for a school fundraiser.
This I have been doing for a year or so, previously for the College Netball Girls, to enable them to fund raise for a netball trip to Australia, and National tournament. My daughter has been involved in netball for the last five years, and as any parent will know there is always money required to enable them to get the most out of their chosen sport. However George has finished the netball season and soon to be finishing college too.

So this leaves me with who to make the sauce for, well my son Harry plays 1st XI cricket and I have decided to give the fundraising opportunity to the boys for cricket, so as you can guess I now have to make lots of bottles of sauce.

I make two varieties Ketchup and BBQ, the later being a little spicy. There are 20 ingredients in these sauces and it has taken me a few years to develop the recipes. The sauces have become firm family favourites and with hundreds of bottles already sold they are making a real mark in the community.

It is a great fundraiser, as everyone already buys sauce and this way the money goes to the kids rather than the local store.The sauces are a premium product that you would normally pay up to $15 a bottle for, these sell for $8 a bottle, making  them a great deal, so it is a win win for everyone.I take out the costs of making the sauce and the rest goes to my chosen sport, this now being cricket.

My husband had fun designing the labels you see below.

"MEMBERS OWN  First Class Ketchup"

and

"STICKY WICKET  BBQ Sauce"

I make it in batches of 22 - 24. Most people buy at least 2 at a time so as you can imagine, I'm busy keeping up with demand at the moment.

Quinoa

Hello, I know it's been awhile.
I have been very busy of late, with Tim in and out of hospital, the close of the winter sports season with my children and some spring gardening.

One thing we have been eating lately is Quinoa. I bought some Quinoa linguine pasta recently and it was very yummy. Went down a treat with all of the family. Tim because it was Low GI, George because it is wheat free and Harry because interestingly he found it to be very filling, which is great when you are feeding a teenage boy. I liked the flavour profile, and also found it filling.

We also had Quinoa with Clams which was amazing and tasty.
I made a paste out of spring onions, garlic, chilli and anchovies, sauted the paste then added clams, poured in a glass of white wine, put a lid on pan and tossed until the clams all open(this takes about 1 minute).I discarded any clams that didn't open. Stirred in a cup of cooked Quinoa. Tasted for seasoning.Sprinkled with sliced spring onions and chopped chilli. Served immediately.
This was so yummy.(I

I have been adding Quinoa to soups and casseroles alot of late to thicken them up.
I can't use potato or kumara to do this as it changes the GI rating of the soups, and this then affects Tim.
I have found this out by trial and error.
I'm not a nutritionist but I have worked out that if you change the form of some carbohydrates (ie: whole cooked potato to mashed potato) this process shorten the molecules, which then get absorbed by the body alot quicker and this then in turn is what makes Tim so unwell.

Spring is in the air, and I can't wait.

I have put some spring veges in the garden, cos lettuce, spring onions, coriander, parsley, celery.

My leeks are very yummy and getting eaten up by alot of my friends too.

Homemade Rice crackers

Given George doesn't have wheat in her diet now, she eats rice crackers quite a bit, so I thought I would have a go at making some.
They are cheap and simple enough to make, fairly bland but edible all the same. I don't think I would win any awards for them, but they are something different to add to the lunch box, that isn't processed.
I put a soy and honey flavouring on them and sprinkled them with poppy seed.

Uncooked and finished product.

I have to hide them from Tim as they will have a High GI rating, being made from white rice.

Amazing Tricks With Cauliflower

I was fortunate to be given 2 very large cauliflowers recently and after a few meals everyone was getting very tired of cauli. I went on line and found an amazing recipe to make Cauliflower pizza. This I had to have a go at just to see if it would work and if it would be yummy.

Firstly you blitz up the cauli in a food processor to a fine crumb,until you have about 4 cups, then I microwaved the crumb for 8 mins. There are a few ways to cook the cauli, but you want to maintain a dry crumb. I thought the microwave would be good for this and it was.

You then cool the crumb down and add 1 egg, 1/2 a cup of cheese(I used goat chevre), some finely chopped fresh herb(parsley).Mix this with your hands to get it well blended. At this point it is nothing like pizza dough.

Spread the mixture onto a pizza tray lined with baking paper to about 1-2 cms thick. Bake at 200 degs C for about 35-40 mins, until golden.

Now spread with pizza sauce and your favorite topping. I used red onion, capsicum, Chicken tenders that had been dusted with a spice mix I make and  pan fried, and some cheese (only on 1), so George could enjoy some dairy free too.
Bake for a further 5-10 mins until topping is hot.

I cooked the bases ahead and they cooled and then reheated when we were ready for dinner, this gave my pizzas a soft base. They were very yummy. I would not do this next time. I would have liked the bases to be firmer.
Neither George or Harry could work out what the bases were made of. They were tasty and left you feeling fulfilled. A nice alternative that is gluten free and dairy free if you watch your toppings, and could also be vegetarian.

Whoopie Pie

Wow, I have just got back from my monthly visit to one of the most amazing wholefood shops in Auckland.

Harvest Wholefoods Grey Lynn, it's where I buy things like Rice flour, Coconut flour, Quinoa etc. Today I found Quinoa linguine pasta, I haven't seen it before in New Zealand so thought I would try it for both George and Tim, being that it doesn't have wheat (for George) and it's not made from white processed flour (which tips Tim up). I was very excited to find this. It is imported from USA and therefore more expensive that wheat based pasta. I hope they both like.

I also buy spelt bagels from a bakery next door.

While we were in Grey Lynn we can across a Whoopie Pie shop, again something I haven't seen in New Zealand.
I bought a gluten and dairy free carrot and pinepple whoopie pie for George. It does have sugar in but very exciting all the same.
I had to try a small ginger spice whoppie pie and it was divine. The shop is small with lots of delicious whoopie pies and coffee machine. A nice treat for my girlfriend and I.
What a fantastic find and nice way to finish of our shopping.

Celery growing.

Well.... the slugs got my celery in the garden, I discovered I could grow celery from an old base that I had just bought at the fruit shop, instead of throwing it out to the compost bin.

I put it in a saucer of water until the center sprouted (about a week), then potted it up in an old tomato paste tin. I'm hoping that it will just keep growing and if I use the outside leaves it will become a perpetual celery plant.

However, we do use a lot of celery, I think it might be a cool way of having some celery at hand, I will have to grow more bases or grow some plants in the garden. I use most of the celery for making chicken stock.

Nice way to get something for nothing, and it reminds me of the growing experiments I used to do with the kids when they were little. You could probably use any vegetable that has a similar base structure.
eg: pak choy.

I know you can get spring onions to regrow from the roots just in a glass of water.
Experiment a little and see what happens.

Tim's Having A Rough Time With Food.

I mentioned previously that Tim had been in hospital recently.It seems that any food, even the low GI diet we have him on is tipping him up at the moment, so this means that currently we are running with a very wholefood diet. In other words food that is in it's natural form.

Even a poached egg got him the other day. He's actually quite difficult to cook for at the moment because he doesn't want to eat anything. And as you will have worked out this isn't an option.

The Doctors are being amazing, trying to sort a drug solution, maybe, that will help him to tolerate food, all be it a low GI diet. That I can live with.

Meatloaf is as adventurous as I have been of late, filled only with beef, veges and egg. No breadcrumbs or fillers of any sort. Steamed veges are great. It really goes back to how our Grandmothers cooked, just meat and veges. Minus the puddings of course.

It really is, tread carefully and wait to see if there are any surprises. Hope that if he does eat something that would ordinarily not effect him, that it doesn't get him to bad.It's a bit like Russian roulette with food.

We have worked out that is he gets tipped up in the morning, any food of any type will tip him up for the rest of that day. He's easy on the budget some days that's for sure.

As Tim says" Thank God for beer". It doesn't tip him up which is amazing given the sugar load it carries. Go figure.

Masterchef Competition

I have just caught the end of "Masterchef Australia" cooking competition on TV, and thought it would be great to see a cooking competition where the contestants had to change out a recipe from traditional ingredients to alternative ingredients, ie, white sugar to coconut sugar etc.

I'm sure it would give them all a greater understanding of food and its application to life.

Just a thought really.....

Choc Chippie Oat Biscuits

George and I made 2 batches of choc chippie oat biscuits, one was the traditional butter and sugar mixture with white flour, and the other was with coconut sugar, olivani and spelt flour. The pictures are as they turned out.

Interestingly the consistency of the latter mix was quite soft, as the olivani doesn't thicken or bulk up as you mix it.

The spelt flour and coconut sugar gives the biscuits the golden colour.

We happened to have at home that afternoon 3 teenage boys and asked their opinion of the 2 batches of biscuits, they all thought they would rather eat the darker of the 2 as they thought they looked healthier and smelt so divine. You could have knocked me over with a feather as I thought their memory bank would have stayed with what they knew.

The taste test was unanimous we all liked the coconut sugar, olivani and spelt biscuits best. The only problem we did have was that they were very crumbly. Next time I would add some coconut oil to bind them better.

We made 2 batches because George had to do some baking for a fundraising bake sale at school. A good result for all concerned. All biscuits got consumed very quickly.

Proves once again you eat with your eyes.

Seasonal Eating

One thing I am passionate about is eating the current seasons food, being a horticulturist has given me the knowledge to be able to achieve this quite easily. Well like everyone I have the best intentions, but don't always get around to it all, as you saw from the picture of my leeks being kept cosy by the weeds.

However, I have fruit trees that are always producing seasonal fruit, Summer sun produces the boysenberries, raspberries, blackberries, then the figs come on, with apples next (3 varieties). Mandarins come ready as the first of the autumn/winter colds and flu's start. I have grapefruit now falling off a very old tired ugly tree, that just keeps giving me fruit. It has looked like this for the 12 years that we have been in this house. We have an abundance of lemons year round as well as rhubarb.

Vegetables at this time of year I have are spinach, brussel sprouts, beetroot, celery and leeks. Given our temperate climate I manage to keep rocket, spring onions and the last of the capsicums over wintering.

I like to have herbs on hands too, parsley, oregano, thyme, rosemary are the firm favs. I am finally just growing what the family likes.

Summer all the salad veges, tomatoes, chillies, zucchini and beans. I might vary it a bit this coming season.

I try to only buy other veges that are in season at that time, I believe that the food ripens as our bodies require it. Our household very rarely gets the winter bugs and if we do they aren't very major.

We also eat a lot of garlic and onions, of which I grew onions last year, but because of the lack of space for the time in the ground, and how many we use, I think I will just keep buying them. Garlic, I am growing a lot this season to I can see if I can grow enough or whether I will just stick to buying them like the onions.

Cupcakes!!!!!

George has iced the cupcakes and they look fab......

The icing was made with 1/2 butter and 1/2 kremelta with icing sugar. She gave up on the no sugar just for today, given it's a birthday.

Tim's Home.

Tim is now home from hospital, and waiting for a script for a drug that will enable him to tolerate his Low GI diet better, at least we are on the right track with his food diet.

It's amazing just how many challenges are in everyday lives for so many people with something as essential and simple as food.

Keep watching for future food adventures.

Spelt Rissotto

At the moment Tim is in hospital, with the Doctors tring to sort out his eating issues, food seems to be troubling him more and more at the moment, to the extent that Low GI food is tipping him up.I'm hoping that we will get a resolution for him that means he will be able to eat The low GI diet that he has been eating until recently.Fingers crossed.

Last night we had a rissotto made with spelt, it took alot longer to cook than even barley. Spelt has a husk coating that takes patience to cook and soften, the reward is well worth the effort. I flavoured mine with frankfurters and green beans, and used homemade chicken stock to make it with. The good thing with making rissottos is you can use any vegetable or meat as you wish.

Mum and Dad really liked this rissotto and the nice thing is that you feel really contented at the end of the meal.

Cupcakes for The Birthday Girl.

One of George's best friends, Riane is Eighteen today, and George made her cupcakes last night, these girls are caring, baking each other treats for their birthdays.

Riane also has some intolerance to some foods, so George made these vanilla cupcakes using spelt flour, coconut sugar and olivani. We have worked out that you need quite a lot of vanilla to overcome the earthiness of the spelt flour.
Riane, however, can eat dairy, so I think the icing may end up having butter in.
At least this way George can help her eat them(without the icing).

The colour of the cupcakes is worth noting as the coconut sugar has a caramel hue, and this is what gives these cupcakes their rich look. It is taking George a little while to get her head around this, as most of us have been bought up baking with all things "White".
This also was noticed when we made the rainbow cake, where the colours had a very autumn look and were not as bright as we would have expected. We are liking the more natural and "good for you" look of this new style of baking.

I will post a photo of the finished iced cupcakes later after George has worked her magic.
We also baked these in environment friendly unbleached Totally Chlorine free (TCF) baking cups. These are non stick, so look like they are falling off, because they are.
Riane is very much into sustainable living. I think she will like this.

Low GI Birthday cake

My Mum and Dad are staying and it was Dad's birthday, I wanted to make a cake that, firstly Dad would like and the rest of the family could enjoy. Turned out George wasn't going to be here so I just had to make it low GI for Tim to enjoy too.

I settled on a Tamarillo and Walnut cake, that I used Low GI sugar to make.
It was very yummy, we all enjoyed the cake with coffee.Especially Dad.
Tim however found that it tipped him up slightly.
I think I should have used a blend of flour that included wholemeal or replaced  it with all wholemeal flour.

I like the upside down effect of this cake as there is no need to ice it.We ate the cake warm from the oven, but if you let it cool you could dust with icing sugar.It would also make a nice dessert, served with cream.
Interestingly this recipe had no dairy in it either, so that is an added bonus for those who can't eat dairy.

A great cake for a cold winters day too.

Custard

I made Edmonds custard using oat milk and coconut sugar, instead of milk and sugar, and let me tell you I will not be doing that again.

It was okay...... but the coconut sugar made it quite caramel in colour and flavour. The oat milk didn't have the creaminess or richness of dairy milk either. Actually it was quite flat. The dairy eaters among us decided it would be good with cream in it.

Edmonds custard powder is a maize cornflour flavoured mix to make into custard for dessert.

I will however try one day to make an oat milk based custard again.

Curried Sausage Casserole

The casserole was a huge hit as it always is and the changes went unnoticed. Which is great and just shows you that it is easy with some recipes to change to the new wheat and sugar free diet. George was excited by this, as it is one of her favourite meals, particularly served with mashed potato, on a wet and windy winters night.

Nana's All Time Favourite Curried Sausage Casserole

For dinner tonight I'm making a curried sausage casserole that my Nana used to make. This got me thinking that everything I used to do has just changed.

For the new "Tim and George diet", I used a gluten free sausage; spelt flour, coconut sugar and olivani  in the curry sauce mix. I find it interesting how you have to stop and think about everything you do as you do it.Especially as this is a recipe my Nana taught my Mum, and Mum taught us kids to make as children.

Mum's coming for dinner tonight,so I'll be interested to see if she notices any difference.

Booby Trapped High GI Pie.

A funny thing happened last week. Tim and I  went to Christchurch for his sister's 50th birthday.
Tim was to help cook with his other sister, as his contribution to the evening helping her make curries for dinner. 
I got to have some time off with my sister and children for the day. A luxury for me as we live at opposite ends of NZ.

Tim and Jane went off grocery shopping for the evening meal and picked up a pie for lunch, normally okay for his low GI diet . After eating half the pie he wasn't feeling that flash so had a sit down on the couch, hoping it would pass, funny thing he woke 3 hrs later to find curries all made, and his sister very scared. Jane had gone to look in on Tim to find him sound asleep sitting upright on the couch, so still and pale she didn't know if he was dead or alive she kept cooking hoping he was just asleep. Fortunately he was just asleep, but when he has as episode of Dumping Syndrome caused from eating the wrong food, the sleep he has is very scary for those around him.. I often joke you could drive a truck past and it wouldn't wake him.Jane was relieved to have him awake and therefore alive.

Dumping Syndrome is a condition that happens when Tim eats high GI food, because he has no stomach, as a result of cancer surgery, food passes directly into his small intestine, which starts absorbing whatever he has eaten. The small intestine absorbs sugars and if there is too much present Tim becomes hyper glycemic, his brain sends all available blood to his gut to process the sugars, this in turn causes the rest of his body to shut down sending him into a very deep sleep that usually lasts around three hours.This is a really unpleasant painful experience for Tim and scary for others around him, and therefore to be avoided at all cost.

I think that it was probably the white flours or thickeners in the pie that would have tipped him up, as these are readily absorbed. Most pies are high in protein and fat and usually balance any high processed carbohydrates and sugars. Clearly all pies are not necessarily Tim friendly. Any future thoughts on having a pie for lunch will be treated like Russian roulette.

Dairy free pastry.

Last nights pastry, the verdict from the family was:


Taste: was good but not necessarily the best with chicken, it would be alot better with mince filling. Because it was quite savoury and earthy.
Texture: crisp and held together nicely.

Overall a good result, I may add suet or beef lard into it next time in order to enhance the flavour and texture a little.

Pie Burgers(Buggers) dairy, wheat and sugar free.

"Pie burgers" as they once were known became "Pie buggers". They are a fabulous rustic pie created by my Mother In Law, Kerry, and were a firm family favourite of my husband and his siblings as they were growing up.

I have changed the pastry as my families needs have changed recently to a dairy, wheat and sugar free diet. Kerry used to make a butter, cheese, milk based pastry, I decided to try an olive oil pastry, that I added fried garlic and parsley to. I have a suspicion that it maybe tough, it certainly looks as if it will be crumbly. I will let you know....., as it would be good to find a pastry, fit for this favourite, in order to carry on a much loved tradition.

Kerry usually made a mince (ground beef or lamb)based filling for her amazing pies,  I had leftover free range roast chicken and fresh green veges from the garden, here a filling emerged. I then added onion, bacon, egg, feta and parsley.

The construction of the pie is interesting in that it is two rolled out sheets of pastry, one as a base that  you put mounds of filling on, then the other pastry sheet you lay on top, that you press down around the mix and stick it together with water or egg wash. A couple of air vents in each pie bugger, and bake. Bake at 180c until pastry is cooked.

"Pie Buggers" ready to cook.

I will let you know the outcome soon, as they are in the oven cooking as I write this post. They certainly smell good.

My Thoughts About Sugar And It's Impact On My Family's Health

Sugar as it seems now is the major enemy in our lives. Initially with Tim on a low GI diet I found a low GI sugar that I changed over to for baking,  preserves and jams etc.
 It is" LoGiCane"  a Chelsea Sugar product. "LoGiCane has a low GI of 50 which means it has a lower impact on blood glucose, takes longer to digest and provides a slower and more sustained energy release". Brilliant for Tim and the rest of the family(I thought).
Now that George has an intolerance to sugar(any derivative from sugar cane),honey, maple syrup etc.
Our hunt started again for a solution. We have found Stevia, Agave nectar and coconut sugar.
All of which interestingly enough have a low GI too.

My grandfather having lived though a sugar shortage in war times, came to the conclusion that sugar held no value other than taste, when things returned to normal he decided that having not missed sugar he would continue to minimise his sugar use. What  foresight he had.

I'm am struggling with the fact that just about all processed products that we find in the supermarket are full of sugar. Even things like potato chips. It is amazing when you start to read the ingredient lists. George is amazed just how much she has removed from her diet because of the sugar content.

I'm very pleased that I was lucky enough to be brought up on a large farm, and that we grew our own meat, veges, pigs, hens, fruit trees etc. As this has provided me with a very real understanding of natural food and it's true value.
The saying "If your grandmother wouldn't recognise it don't put it your trolley" at the supermarket is very fitting.

We have discovered that the low GI Diet, has had the positive side effect of us all loosing weight.We didn't set out with this in mind, however it is a natural side effect of eating low sugar, low processed, highly nutritional food.

Risotto

Well as you can see from the picture my poor leeks have been kept warm by the weeds, and if it ever stops raining in Auckland, I WILL take time to weed them and the other veges.

Having picked and washed the leeks I'm actually impressed with the quality of my half grown specimens.
I decided to make a Leek and Bacon risotto for dinner.
It is the mid winter school holidays here and I seem to have teenagers in and out at all hours and often many stop for dinner, so the thought of something easy to serve and eat is a great solution.

Tim made some wonderful chicken stock yesterday, after a fabulous roast chicken so it got put to good use tonight.
So the beginnings of a risotto was formed,  the only complication was that Tim can't eat rice as the GI is too high, so checking supplies it became a pearl barley risotto, which is more nutty than rice and takes a little  longer to cook, but time I do have.

I really like the taste of using barley, farro or spelt in risottos. I don't add any cheese in the cooking process as George can't have dairy. So everyone else can add their own as they serve.
A very filling winter meal made from my garden. (even if it is a bit neglected at the mo).

Gluten, Dairy and Sugar free Choc Chip and Banana muffins

Ingredients 
1 1/2 cups gluten free all purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup coconut sugar
1 Tbsp Olivani

2 large mashed banana
1 cup dairy/sugar free chocolate chopped
1 egg
3/4 cup of oat milk.


In a large bowl stir together the flour ,baking powder, sugar and olivani until the mixture combines.
Stir in the mashed banana , chocolate chips , egg and milk to combine .
Spoon the mixture into prepared muffin tins and bake at 190 c for 20 minutes



These little beauties are awesome and both Tim and George can hoover them up . We have modified an old favorite recipe to get this amazing gluten, dairy and sugar  free lunch box snack . You can reduce the amount of chocolate chips if you want be we like muffins with real guts .They freeze well and can be added to the lunchbox straight from the freezer.

The rainbow cake that George made the other day was a real hit both at school and at home and one of the great responses was how amazing the caramel flavour of the coconut sugar was ,,, its a real game changer.

Crumbing Chicken Tenders

Kids love crumbed tenders no matter what their age, and with breadcrumbs being out for use with George beacause she's wheat free, and cornflakes being out for Tim because he's low GI,  I stumbled upon the idea to use quinoa as a coating, I started with rolling the tenders in spelt flour, then egg, and then dried uncooked quinoa, this made quite a heavy crumb, so I omitted the flour and watered the egg mix down and then just dipped in the quinoa. Shallow fried on med heat in rice bran oil. A great result.

The proof is always in the eating, dinner time bell rang and in they came,all looked and commented "This looks different! Is that quinoa?" . "Yes" . Off to eat, well my son Harry has a large healthy appetite, so the usual 4 tenders and 3 veges, (cabbage,carrot and peas). He got though 3 tenders and admitted defeat and was amazed at how filling the tenders became crumbed that way. George was also unable to eat all her dinner, Tim and I also liked the tenders this way.

I'm very happy with the result and actually next time, I would just dip in chicken stock and quinoa as the results would be as good. Nice not having the fiddle of the crumbing process. I know quinoa seems an expensive option but  they aren't eating the same amount, and the nutrition factor is a lot better, and you don't use that much quinoa anyway. Kids happy. Cook happy. What better result can you ask for.

Quinoa (keen wah) 

The nutritional supergrain. Comes from Incas in South America, it carries the highest protein of all of  the grains. It's gluten free. It is a pretty little flat grain that expands to 4 or 5 times it size when cooked. It has a GI count of 53.

It comes in three colours, white,red and black.

See you soon,

Sally

George baked a cake

We are right in the thick of it now, yesterday George , the one intolerant to wheat , dairy and sugar wanted to make a Rainbow cake, Mum !!! please help, and you guessed it , it was at dinner time . So off we went . The recipe that she wanted was a Martha Stewart one and looked cool , but we had to work out how to make it and not kill her. So the flour became spelt flour , the sugar became coconut sugar and the butter became Olivani , a spread made from olive oil , kinda like margarine, but different. We made up the mix to find the spelt flour made the batter a nice fawn colour , George was a bit miffed because it was going to be hard to colour brightly.

We used liquid food colouring and away we went ending up with five OK colours , we baked them off and assembled the cake. The hard part was what to use to glue the layers together , George had a brainwave , she blitzed some coconut sugar to a really fine powder , mixed with water , a little Olivani and some coconut oil and voila , instant cake glue . We topped off with some coconut and bingo a great cake . It had a sweetened pancake type flavour , was nice and moist , looked great and tasted amazing , one very happy young lady who can munch away to her hearts content knowing that she is not going to explode with eczema. Until next time Sally.

Welcome to my Low GI , Wheat, dairy, sugar free food adventure

Hi all and welcome to my Blog , my name is Sally and i am the Husband of Tim and the mother of two great kids Georgia 17 and Harry 15 .We all live in Devonport which is a cute seaside village in Auckland New Zealand. We all love great food and cooking but a couple of years ago Tim was diagnosed with esophageal cancer , boy was that a bombshell , he was 45 and fit . After months of  chemo treatment and surgery he is now slowly recovering but has many complications and in particular has to be on a low GI diet , follow me on that journey its is great but new.
understand
Recently George was diagnosed with intolerance to dairy , sugar and wheat after years of annoying eczema. So our life has gone from culinary creation to one of a pantry free of most standard ingredients . I figured that i would share my adventures on juggling all sorts of food challenges that i face daily with the hope to help others and maybe create an online community that will help in some way.
veggies

A Selection of home grown veggies from my Garden.