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.