Cornflake Cookies

Makes approximately 24 Biscuits

Ingredients:
200g sugar
250g butter (or for dairy free/vegan use nuttlex)
5 cups of cornflakes (check that they are gluten free). You can use Kellogg's, Woolworths home brand, or freedom foods
2 no egg (egg replacement - I use Organ no egg)
300g of gluten free SR flour (I use Organ)
Pinch of salt
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

Method:
1. In your thermal cooker blitz the sugar for 5 seconds on speed 5 to make caster sugar.
2. Add the butter and vanilla extract and mix on speed 4-5 for 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides.
3. Add the no egg (4 teaspoons of the powder to 4 tablespoons of water) and mix on speed 4-5 for 30 seconds again.  Scrape down the sides again.
4. Add the flour and salt and mix for 45 seconds on speed 4-5 scraping the sides with the spatula as you go.
5. Once it is well mixed in add the cornflakes and mix on speed 1 for 10 seconds.  If it needs further mixing you may need to do it by hand so you don't crush the cornflakes.
6. Using a dessert spoon to portion the biscuits roll them into round flat balls in your hands and put on a tray lined with baking paper. (You will need 3 trays.)
7. Bake at 180°C for 15-20 minutes.
8. Allow to cool on the tray and then transfer to a cooling rack to completely cool and harden.

I hope you enjoy making this recipe like I did rediscovering it. :)

Self Saucing Chocolate Pudding

Recently I realised that I have not eaten chocolate pudding since before I had to go gluten free.

I wanted to rectify that, but didn't want a pudding for 20 people!!!

So I found a mug cake recipe, and as I do, changed it a lot!

Ingredients

Pudding:

3 tablespoons of GF SR flour
1.5 tablespoons of sugar
2 tablespoons of milk of choice (e.g. dairy, rice,  soy, nut)
1/2 teaspoon cocao or cocoa

Sauce:
1 tablespoon Brown sugar
1 teaspoon Cocao/cocoa
1.5 tablespoons Boiling water

Method:

1. In a mug measure your dry pudding ingredients.
2. Mix well with a fork to ensure that there are no pockets missing something or clumps of flour or sugar.
3. In a second container (I use another mug) mix the dry ingredients for the sauce. Mix them together well with the fork being extra sure to get all the lumps out of the brown sugar.
4. Add the milk to the pudding and mix well.
5. Smooth over the top.
6. Gently sprinkle the dry sauce ingredients over the top.
7. Add hot water to cover the top. If you run out of water and still have some of the pudding uncovered add a little more.
7. Cook in the microwave for 1 minute.  (If you have added extra water you may need an extra 30 seconds.)
8. Wait for it to cool a little before eating it.

It tastes beautiful with cream. (Or coconut vanilla ice cream if you are dairy free.)

Strawberry Rhubarb Compote

Recently I fell in love with rhubarb again. It is a lovely low FODMAP fruit and it pairs beautifully with other low FODMAP fruits, not just apple - which leaves me with nasty IBS symptoms for days.

My favourite is strawberries because I can sometimes get away with no added sugars because they are so sweet.

Having said that, they usually do need sugar so I use rice malt syrup.

Ingredients:

1 kg of hulled strawberries
750 g - 1kg of rhubarb
1/2 cup rice malt syrup
1/4 cup water

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 C.
Wash fruit thoroughly.
Trim and dice rhubarb into stalks about 2 inches long and ensure that you remove all the leaves.
Cut strawberries into quaters.
Place fruit in a deep oven safe dish (I use Pyrex glass dishes) ensuring that you have at least an inch clear as the fruit tends to bubble over when it is hot.
Melt rice malt syrup in the microwave for 30 seconds.
Add rice malt syrup and water.
Cover the dish top in aluminium foil and put it in the oven.

Set a timer for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes is up check if the fruit is bubbling and falling apart a little. If it is take it out. Mix the fruit around so the top bits don't burn and then put it back in the oven WITHOUT the aluminium foil for another 30 minutes.

After the time is up remove it from the oven again and recheck. If the rhubarb is falling apart it is done. Turn the oven off and leave the fruit to cool for a while. Once it has cooled sufficiently you can try a little to ensure that it is sweet enough. If it isn't, add some more rice malt syrup.

Serve with custard and/or ice cream. Yum!

You can also turn it into a crumble or eat it with your soy yoghurt for breakfast.

Soy Yoghurt Updates - Even Better Soy Yoghurt

Even Better Soy Yoghurt

I've had more hits on my blog for my soy yoghurt recipe than everything else put together.

In the last 2 years the recipe has had some tweaking to make it better. While my friends have been informed about those tweaks (that is, if they asked), no-one else has.

So, since I'm on holidays I thought I might add the additions.

It all started when one of my friends commented that the yoghurt was very runny. I didn't really care before she brought it up, but I decided to have a play and see if I could fix it up a bit and make it better.

Thicker double batch (2 litres of soy yoghurt)

Ingredients:

2 Litres of Soy milk

3 tablespoons of gluten free cornflour

60 grams of rice malt syrup

Small scraping of culture.

Method:

After boiling the water to sterilise everything add 1/3 of the soy milk (if using 1 litre- if you are making 2 litres use 1/2 a litre of soy milk) and 1.5 tablespoons of gluten free cornflour per litre of soy milk.

Heat this at 75-100 degrees C. (75 is quicker, but 100 is thicker.) Once it gets up to temperature give it 5 minutes to break down the starch and make it thicker. 

Then add the rest of your milk and 30 grams of rice malt syrup and mix it for 4 minutes on speed 3 or 4 (some thermocookers only go to speed 3 with hot foods). 

You'll need to let it cool down to 37 C before adding the culture so that it doesn't kill your culture. I recommend that you put the lid on the jug and surround the jug with ice packs to cool it quicker or if you can plan ahead put the milk cartons in the fridge 12 hours prior so they are cool to help quickly cool the hot mixture when you add them to it. Let it cool for about 30 minutes, then it should be cool enough to use again.  Check the actual temperature with a food thermometer.

Once the temperature is below 40 add your culture, mixing at speed 4 for 4 seconds. 

Empty the easiyo containers of the hot water if you haven't already; then pour the mixture into them. Seal them tightly and put the containers into the easiyo hot water bath to keep it warm and pop the bath's lid on. I recommend getting them as close to 24 hours as possible as the yoghurt will be nice and thick then.

If you're like me and want to make a double batch don't forget that you will need 2 easiyo sets to make a double batch but it's well worth it in my opinion.

Enjoy! :)

Pumpkin Chili Soup

Ingredients

1 large butternut pumpkin or 2 smaller ones
1/6 bunch of parsley
1 red chili (This makes it quite hot - don't add the chili if this is for people who have a low tolerance for hot food, or if there is a mild tolerance use half of the chili.)
1/2 bunch of spring onion (green tops only for low FODMAP)
Dash of oil (you could use garlic infused olive oil)
500 ml of chicken or vegetable stock - I used Sue Shepherd's low FODMAP stock.  (Obviously, use vegetable stock if you are making this vegetarian/vegan.
1 cup of almond milk (you could use coconut or soy if you need it nut free)
1/4 teaspoon paprika
2 pinches of salt - optional

 Method
Wash all veggies
Put the parsley, chili and spring onion in the bellini and blitz for 20 seconds starting on speed 5 and going up to speed 7.
Peel and chop up the pumpkin into small cubes.
Add the pumpkin, stock, oil, paprika, salt and almond milk.

Cook on speed 1 at 100 degrees for 30 minutes
Using a tea-towel on top of the lid to prevent any blow out slowly increase the speed from 3-6 - but wait until it has cooled somewhat so you don't accidentally get 2-3 degree burns!  Alternatively, leave this step out, and just let it take it's time to break the pumpkin up by stirring.
Cook again on speed 3 at 90 degrees for another 10-30 minutes with the clear top out to allow it to reduce.

Very yummy.  If you need to keep protein up add some cooked chicken to the soup when you serve it.

Serve with hot multi-grain toast.

Easter - Hot Cross Buns and Other Treats

This Easter I was determined not to make food that made me need to run to the bathroom and/or left me doubled over with stomach cramps.  I also didn't feel like pretending Easter didn't exist as I have previously tried for special occasions.

To help me out I steeply modified a recipe from Jo Whitton of Quirky Cooking for Hot Cross Buns. Hers have egg and dried fruit and the mixture is also really sloppy.

These are my very modified babies before they went in the oven, as might be noted by the fact the crosses haven't melted yet.

I got some ideas of Jamie Oliver's Food Tube (of course it was from Jamie.  I love Jamie.  *cough* anyway...) and added both xanthan gum and psyllium husk instead of only one of the two.  I switched choc chips for the dried fruit (Sweet William for those who can have soy, the allergy free ones from iherb for those who can't), and wished I had put in less cloves.  But overall it tasted pretty good despite tasting suspiciously like clove zone.

I won't bother with my icing sugar mix since it didn't work well, but don't use just plain flour for the crosses - that is disgusting as I know well from last year.  Use some icing sugar as well (50/50 plain flour and icing sugar).  Don't add nuttelex like I did though, because it melts in the oven and the buns looked pretty stupid.  But, hey, it tasted great.  A couple of drops of vanilla essence gave it a better taste too.  I used egg replacer as per normal.  I don't know, my buns looked pretty stupid afterwards, but they definitely are an improvement on last year, as mentioned.

Next time I will let them rise in the buns rather than shape them after they have risen, because, surprise, surprise, they didn't rise any further.  The chocolate kinda exploded everywhere too, so be careful when making.

(Well, it melted then stuck to everything that came near it, and made a jolly mess.  It *looked* like an explosion though.)

As food tube suggested, I used a bowl of boiling water in the bottom of the oven to create a moist and warm environment for the buns to rise.  It certainly seemed to work well for them.  It also gave my oven a bit of a steam clean.

Because Jo's recipe seemed to think you needed to leave it overnight at least to get flavours other than cloves to permeate the mixture I added the zest of a second orange, figuring that I was altering the recipe so much it wouldn't matter if I did that too, and it might add the flavour I needed without the extra time that I didn't have.  I couldn't taste the difference really, but it wasn't bad.  Maybe it did mask the cloves a little bit.

Next time I also think I should make more glaze.  It didn't go as far as I planned this year.

Also a side warning with this, they take far to long to make - so if you are Martha Stewart, you'll be fine, but for everyone else, either convince your boss that everyone needs another holiday on the Thursday before Easter, or clear your weekend and make them on the weekend before.  They freeze okay, and if you're like me, and used to eating gluten free treats if you even get a treat it will taste amazing.  Never mind those naysayers who think they would die without gluten.  IMHO gluten isn't worth killing over.  Yourself, or others to test if they actually can't eat gluten without it making them sick.  Chances are if they aren't flipping between gluten and gluten free they really can't eat the crap.

If you happen to be reading this and can eat gluten and other crap* yourself but are making these for someone who can't eat gluten and friends, I just want to say you are a special person.

By the way, chocolate wise, Target and David Jones are selling Kinnerton eggs again this year, and Sweet William has bunny heads somewhere that I haven't found apparently.  If you are inclined to gorge yourself on chocolate I hope those options help you out next year or tomorrow when you run to the shops to buy all the cheap chocolate.  I also brought some Haigh's dark chocolate eggs, which were popular with a lot of people.  :)

As for me, later this week I need to restock on cinnamon because not only am I out, but so is Coles apparently.  I still have enough cloves though, because unfortunately, last time I used cloves I thought I had none, so I brought a new container of the stuff and I only use it once a year - so I now have two fairly full containers**.

*This is a term coined to represent all the foods I can't eat - FODMAPS, dairy, egg, etc.

**They were just 'full containers', but I used copious amounts from one container in the recipe as you may have noticed.  Don't do what I did there.  Use it up in apple crumble (or something else if you can't eat apples anymore because of the FODMAP content).

Soy Yoghurt

Several people have asked about my Soy Yoghurt.

I do have a few aids for this:

1. An easy yo maker (I highly recommend you invest in one of these if you will be making yoghurt regularly, as it's not that expensive and makes it really easy.)
2. Bellini (BIKM) - but anything else that mixes and heats would do the trick.

Following is my foolproof recipe.

Ingredients:
1 litre Bonsoy or Pureharvest Soy Milk.  (Both are non GMO - Pureharvest is organic) *1

30 grams rice malt syrup (normal sugar or honey would also work, but honey will alter the flavour.) *2

Tiny flick/shake of Greenliving Australia Dairy free culture *3

Method:

Using a Bellini, Thermomix, Kogen, etc al.

Fill jug with water, cook at steaming heat/veroma on speed 2-3 for 20 minutes or until it has reached the max temperature for at least 5 minutes to ensure it kills all other bacteria.

Once that is done, empty water into the easy yo container to also kill the bugs in it. *4

I do this utensil less, but any utensils you use need to be heated to kill bacteria too.

Place the jug on kitchen scales and measure in rice malt syrup

Add soy milk.  Mix on speed 3 for 7 minutes at heat of 37 degrees C.  Do not heat hotter than this or it will kill the culture.

Pour hot water from the tap into the base of the easy yo maker as per instructions.  (I don't use boiling water because I don't want to kill my culture.)  Set this aside somewhere it won't get bumped or disturbed.  Empty out the water from the easy yo container.

When your milk and sugar mix is heated perfectly add your culture.  I do 2-3 small taps on the side of it to shake a few grains in.  If you want it thicker, definitely go for 3-4 taps.

Mix on speed 4 for 4 seconds.

Pour into easy yo container.  There will be a little more than you have space for due to the froth.  You may as well put it in a glass and drink it.  It's basically probiotic milk.  ;)  Put the lid on, the easy yo container, pop in the easy yo maker, put that lid on, and leave it to set for 8-24 hours.

It needs to be undisturbed for this time, once it has been disturbed, take it out the hot water bath in the easy yo maker and put in the fridge.

The longer you leave it the thicker it gets, and as this soy yoghurt is sans thickener, leaving it longer is better.

* Kitchen tips:

1. You may use either.  I find bonsoy tastes better and is thicker, but it costs about x2 the price, and Pureharvest is Australian and organic.  I personally use Pureharvest in yoghurt for cooking, but prefer bonsoy with my breakfast.
2. The culture needs simple sugars to feed off of, so don't use agave or skip this step.
3.By the way, I don't get anything for giving a promo to green living Australia (or anyone else), I just know they worked for me and I was pretty happy with them.
4. Ensure that you thoroughly wash and rinse out your easy yo containers prior to using as any contamination or detergent could wreak the yoghurt.

Pineapple Strawberry Mint Sorbet

It's been a hot day, and I cooked up a fabulous pizza for tea, but that was hot too.

While I was outside picking some of my happy greens for my pizza I had this marvellous idea.  I could make strawberry mint sorbet.  I was trying to think of what other flavours I should include... I have lemons, that could give it a bit of zing.  But then I saw the pineapple - yes!  Perfect.  It was better than I imagined it would be.

Approx 400 grams of frozen strawberries.
1/3 a large pineapple, with the peel cut off
5-6 fresh mint leaves.

Blend for approx 2 minutes on speed 9.  Check for no lumps, but otherwise - that's it!

Try not to eat too quickly as it will give you a cold headache.  ;)  This makes 3-4 serves.  I think.  Depending on how hot it is, how hungry you are, and your ice cream eating habits.  I know males who could have easily eaten the whole lot themselves!

If you don't have a Bellini, Thermomix, Kogan, al, etc. a good blender should do the trick, but be careful that you don't kill it.

Homemade Pizza

Tonight I was going to hang out with some friend and celebrate end of exams - or at least end of my exams, but we was all too tired.  So instead of eating out I decided I had better create my own delicious dinner.

I've been dying to try homemade pizza since I saw this recipe for the base on Jo Whitton's blog, Quirky Cooking.  It was amazing.  Just in case you were wondering.  ;)

Crust as per Jo's instructions.  Be careful though, I burnt my top base because it was too hot in the oven, and I sliced 10 minutes off the cooking time too!  I would stick with putting them on bottom shelves, and don't accidentally splash too much oil on them - I think that makes it worse.

Joy diced up 3 cloves of garlic for me (speed 9, 5 seconds), I then added 8 small tomatoes (speed 9, 10 seconds), and cooked on steam temperature for two minutes, I added 1/2 small brown onion.  This took about 4 minutes to get from watery, to tomato paste.

Spread 1/2 of tomato paste on base, add olives and 1/2 onion, cook for 5 minutes while you clean up the mess you just created... (oven temp 180C)

Pull it out and add other toppings (mushroom, parsley, mixed herbs, baby spinach, spring onion, and the rest of the tomato paste to hold it on.)

Cook for 10 more minutes... delicious!!!  Mmmmm, the whole house smelled wonderful.

Roast Capsicum and Semi-dried Tomato Dip

This dip is another great starter, and fairly easy if you just buy the ingredients from a jar, however if you had leftover roast capsicum that would also work quite nicely in here.

Ingredients:
1/3 cup roast capsicum
1/3 cup semi-dried tomato

Method:
Blend well with a stick mixer or in a blender.

If you're unsure about it you can sample it at this point to check you are happy with the taste combination.

Serve with crackers or veggie sticks.

Semi-Dried Tomato and Olive Dip

This is another favourite.  I love this stuff, and once you make it, I'm sure you will also love it.  Even my friend who doesn't like olives thinks this is great!

Ingredients:
1/4 cup high quality pitted olives  (You can buy non pitted and pit yourself if you prefer.)
1/4 cup semi-dried tomatoes

Method:
Blend with stick mixer or in a blender.
Check it's not poisonous and tastes okay.  ;)
Make more, because you ate it lots before the guests came...

Avocado Dip

This is one of my favourite recipes and very quick and easy:

Ingredients:

One ripe large avocado
One fresh spring Onion
Freshly ground salt and pepper to taste.

Method:

Mash the avocado with a fork, or you can blend it with a stick mixer if you prefer.
Finely chop the spring onion, again this can be pulverised by a stick mixer.
Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with crackers, veggie stick or whatever you so desire.  The only issue with this is that is disappears so quickly...  ;)

Quinoa and Chia Seed Porridge

This is my standard breakfast, quinoa and chia seed porridge.  It's very yummy, warm, quick to make and just plain fabulous.

I have several variations, so if you're wanting to try it different ways, be brave - it's better with variations!

For one person:
In a bowl place:
1/4 cup rolled quinoa
1 Tablespoon chia seed
1 cup of milk of choice (I like almond milk and coconut milk) or 3/4 cup of water.
Good teaspoon of cinnamon
Fruit to sweeten (1 handful of sultanas, or 1 mashed banana or 1 mashed pear, or stewed apple, etc.) Alternatively you could use honey, agave, stevia or another sweetener.

I prepare that the night before, and leave it in the fridge to soak, as it tastes better this way.

The next morning I pull it out the fridge, and pour it into a small pot. Mix it around well so everything is evenly distributed, and if it's completely absorbed the liquid add a little more so it's slightly runny.

Put it on a very low heat, and check it regularly, but it will probably take around 7 minutes to heat up.  DO NOT raise the temperature to make it happen faster.  (I usually use this time to clean the kitchen or do some other job, as it will take a few minutes...)  Once it has heated it will start bubbling a little.  Stir it gently, to make sure it doesn't stick.  This may take another 2-3 minutes.  (You don't need to stir constantly, give it a stir, leave it for a sec, come back give it another stir...)  Once it's a nice porridge consistency, you're done!  Take it off the heat and pour into a bowl to eat.  Yummy, yummy.  Just beware - it's hot.

Variations:
Chuck in a handful of nuts at step 1- almonds or walnuts are nice.

1 Tablespoon of coconut at step 1

You could add 2 teaspoons of Cacao powder for a nice chocolate flavour instead of the cinnamon, but you would want to think carefully about what fruit you matched with it (banana might be nice) and it may need extra sweetener to take off the bitter edge.