Friday 31 January 2014

Links between food allergies


Fabulous Chocolate Muffins

This is NOT a sponsored post. 

One of my older children has recently been placed on a gluten free diet, however it was his birthday this week and I wanted to find a cake recipe which would suit everyone. I often use the Glebe Farm chocolate cake mix which works really well as cupcakes, but decided to give this a try for a change. It does contain soya lecithin which can be a problem for a minority of people, since it's the purified oil and contains no protein it is safe for most.

 

I often find these mixes, and all my own freeform attempts at cakes work best in small sizes, rather than one large cake, so we often make muffins or cupcakes for birthdays instead of one birthday cake.

Sunday 26 January 2014

Smoothies

In addition to our "Biscuit Bake-Off" the twins and I have been trying some new ideas as I try and hand over a little of the control over their diet.

My daughter is far more willing to experiment, and far less fussy than her twin brother. She had been reading about how to make smoothies in one of the cookbooks we have here and actually came to me unprompted with her version of the recipe.

To be honest, it's not necessarily a "recipe" because you can put pretty much anything into a blender and whizz it up. What interested me was her plan to try with and without banana, which she hates.

Ingredients
  • Raspberries
  • Cherries
  • Grapes
  • Blackberries (not the cheapest time of the year to be trying this!!!)
  • orange juice

then the same again with banana added.


She did actually try both versions, but pronounced the second "pretty disgusting, too bananery". No surprise there then....

But what really interested both of us was how thick the one with banana became, and very quickly. It was a useful reminder that banana is an excellent alternative to other raising agents and makes a good thickener too!

Friday 24 January 2014

Another #FreeFromFavourite ! Blueberry Muffins

Apologies to those with egg allergies, as tonight I made these with the single egg the recipe required, I wasn't quite brave enough to go straight to fully "freeform" as this is a regular buttermilk blueberry muffin recipe I adapted.

Free from - Wheat, gluten, corn, dairy, soya and plenty of other things!
Preheat the Oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4

Ingredients
  • 175g/6oz Dove's Farm self raising flour
  • 175g/6oz caster sugar
  • 175ml/6 fluid oz of buttermilk replacement - buttermilk is a dense liquid with raising properties, so I substituted 4 fl oz of rice cream, 2 fl oz rice milk and an extra teaspoon of baking powder
  • 40g/1.5oz Pure Sunflower margarine - melted but cooled
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
  • 150g/5oz fresh blueberries
Method
  • Dry Bowl - Combine the flour, sugar and extra baking powder
  • Wet bowl - melt margarine a little, whisk with egg, vanilla, rice cream and rice milk.
  • Mix the wet bowl contents with the dry bowl. 
  • Fold in the blueberries until mixed but slightly lumpy.
  • Spoon into muffin cases (makes 6-8) or cupcake cases (makes 10)
  • Bake for 20 minutes (muffins) or 18 minutes (cupcakes)
  • Turn out on a wire rack and leave to cool.
These didn't rise as perfectly as I would have liked but did rise sufficiently as you can see in the picture above. (I'm a perfectionist!) I'm going to re try with 1fl oz less of the rice milk next time I think. They taste delicious though!

Meal idea

Go American - we did tonight. Homemade burgers (just minced lean beef whizzed up in the food processor with a pinch of salt, pepper and chill flakes, nothing else) and form into patties. Grill or oven cook and pop into Sainsbury's delicious Free From Granary rolls. Serve with sauce and salad garnish.

Great for a quick Friday tea with the muffins to follow! 

Pin it!

Wednesday 15 January 2014

Cashew Cream

Now this recipe got me *really* excited, as I am always looking for protein rich alternatives to cream. We cannot have soya here, in common with many others on exclusion diets. Rice cream is hard to find and Oatly cream getting seems to be getting scarce too - and is not rich in protein. So when I head you could whizz up cashew nuts to make "cream"  it really got my attention!!!

The recipe is very simple:-

Ingredients

55g unsalted cashews
120ml water
For sweet cashew cream add 1/2 tsp vanilla extract and 1/4 tsp maple syrup.

Method

In a food processor blend the cashews and half the water to a thick paste it takes a couple of minutes, stop the machine and scrape down the sides as necessary. Slowly add the remaining water through the funnel until smooth again a couple of mins.

To make it sweet add the vanilla and maple syrup, or agave nectar.




Free From Mayonnaise

This mayonnaise recipe is dairy, egg, gluten and nut free. Many thanks Michelle from our Facebook group for sharing :)

Ingredients
  • 2tbsp potato flour
  • 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
  • 4 tbsp water
  • 1/4 tsp dijon mustard (gluten and wheat free)
  • 120ml olive oil
  • 1tbsp lemon juice
  • 1tsp white wine vinegar
  • 1/2 tsp caster sugar
  •  salt and white pepper

Method 
  • Mix the potato flour, gum and water in a food processor until it is white and peaking.
  • Then beat in the mustard, measure the oil in a jug and with the machine running trickle the oil in a thin gradual stream. I found it was really runny at first but it does thicken.
  • When you have added about 3/4 of the oil add the lemon juice and vinegar and then add the last of the oil in a faster stream.
  • Taste and add more salt if needed.
 It will keep for up to 3 days in the fridge in a air tight container.  I had to have a few trials with it at first, but really simple to make.

Monday 13 January 2014

Biscuit Bake-Off!

Following on from my summer post on Independence, I have been involving the kids in catering for their exclusion diets and giving them more say to try and boost their food confidence and take some ownership of their diets.

Having a chronic medical condition can be daunting and scary for anyone, but for children it can be overwhelming. For my youngest two on strict exclusion diets (and the many others I know on similar or worse) and with many eating-related symptoms they often need to feel they have some control in their lives. Some like my youngest son refuse to eat, some comfort eat, some eat non-foods, some just bottle up their feelings and suffer in silence. But food can STILL be fun, it's just a lot harder to achieve and needs a bit more inspiration.

With so many "can't have"s it's vital they feel they have some say in what they CAN have, so we decided to tackle an essential part of children's diet - BISCUITS lol !!

Sunday 12 January 2014

Free From Favourites - Share your recipes on our linky!

This is our first Recipe Resource Blog Link Up!




Do you have a favourite "free from" recipe? Something which is easy, fail safe, popular with the kids? Your go-to meal when pushed for time, or something quick and healthy which freezes well? There are many "free from" Bloggers out there - recipes don't have to be MEWS free or few ingredients recipes, they can be gluten free, dairy free etc.

To enter, click on the Link up button below and follow the instructions. Please take care to follow the three simple rules below. Happy linking!

Rules

1) You must specify which foods your recipe EXCLUDES
2) Make your reason for entering your chosen recipe clear - i.e. why it is a favourite. If you are entering an "old" post maybe add a line to explain why it's a favourite.
and lastly:-
3) The Recipe Resource takes no responsibility for anyone testing a recipe listed within this link-up, it is your responsibility to check ingredients carefully. (i.e. not everyone is always clear about gluten containing foods so if a recipe says it is "gluten free" please CHECK when following it with your own ingredients.

Chocolate Salted Caramels

These are from Emma on our Facebook group!



Free from all major allergens.

Ingredients:-
  • 1 bar of Dark Chocolate plus "Moo Free" chocolate melted together
  • Teaspoon of coconut cream
  • for the "caramel":-
  • 50g Vitalite
  • 75g sugar
  • few drops of vanilla essence
  • 3 tbsp coconut cream

Method:-
  • Melt all the chocolate with a tbsp of coconut cream and used a paintbrush to paint the sides of the mould you are using, leave to set in the fridge.
  • To make the "salted caramel"centre  melt the Vitalite or similar, sugar and vanilla essence.
  • Then add 3tbsp coconut cream, simmer for about 10 mins.
  • Add to the chocolate lined moulds when it's a cooled a little and spoon more chocolate on the top. To set quickly pop in the freezer, then allow to warm to room temperature before eating!

Friday 10 January 2014

Chocolate Nutty Crunchies

This recipe is from the "Kid Friendly Food Allergy Cookbook" by Leslie Hammond and Lynne Marie Rominger. It's a book I have more recently got to grips with, the breakthrough moment was buying myself a set of cook's measuring cups so I wasn't trying to convert all the time..... genius lol.

This recipe is MEWS free, but DOES CONTAIN NUTS. If you tolerate coconut I'm pretty sure you could swap the nuts for desiccated coconut. I didn't have whole nuts to blitz in the food processor in any case, so I substituted ground almonds.

My biggest problem was stopping myself eating the dough, it's DELICIOUS. Seriously more-ish!

Ingredients

1 cup (175 grams) safe chocolate chips. (Dark chocolate would be less sweet)
1 3/4 cups (250g) almonds (I used ground almonds, desiccated coconut would work fine)
1/3 cup (70g) sugar (I used caster sugar)
1 teaspoon powdered vanilla or vanilla essence
2 egg whites, or 2 eggs' worth of egg replacer.  I made the egg free version.

Method

Weight and place the chocolate into the food processor.
TIP: If you use a block, break into squares first and be prepared for a lot of noise, but it works fine.


Weigh and add the sugar, almonds and vanilla essence, then mix.


Add the egg whites or egg replacer and mix to form a smooth dough.


Form the dough into balls approx 2cm across according to the recipe, although mine were a little larger. It says to leave plenty of room between them on the tray - which i did, but they didn't spread much.


Bake at 180C for 8 minutes (recipe says) but mine took a few mins longer. I also used a metal spatula to flatten them a little as the balls didn't melt down on their own - probably because I used the ground almonds.

Leave to cool. Try and resist eating and they *might* keep in an air tight box for a fortnight. but I doubt it...... Truly scrummy!



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