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.