Wednesday 27 July 2016

Potato, chickpea and cashew fritters

Another attempt at varying my daughter's diet!! We have successfully trialled and tolerated corn, so officially we are on 7 foods, but this is one without corn from earlier in the week.

If your foods are different, maybe you can substitute? Hopefully these suggestions will offer some ideas for anyone on a few food diet, even if your foods are not the same as ours.

Method

  • Either peel and boil 2 large baking size potatoes, or cheat like me, microwave them, allow them to cool then peel them!
  • Blend half a tin of chickpeas in the food processor
  • Add some cashew cream and mash together
  • Form into balls and roll in rice flour
  • Shallow fry


TIP You could also add a vegetable of your choice, carrot is our vegetable at the moment but my daughter is enjoying it separately.

Pear Crumble

Ingredients

Only Pear, Rice Flour and a little olive oil.

NB when poaching the pears do NOT add water, cover with clingfilm and they poach in their own juice. 



Method

  • Peel, slice and poach pears in the microwave. Allow to cool. 
  • Pour off the juice - not down the sink as you will need it!Bake at 180C or 160C Fan)
  • For the crumble, you need about 4oz rice flour per 3 pears, but it's very much an individual thing as to how you like your fruit to topping ratio! 
  • Add the pear juice and around 100ml of oil - I have a Kenwood mixer so I tend to turn it on low, then add the liquid until I get the desired effect - which is when you see small clumps. If you are working the liquid into the flour by hand in a bowl, use your fingertips and don't put it all in at once.
  • Put the pears in a dish and sprinkle the crumble mix on top. Bake at 180C (or 160C fan) for 10-15 minutes until golden on the top.



Wednesday 20 July 2016

Necessity is the Mother of Invention - Pancakes and Puddings

We are now well into our second week of our #fewfood journey, I'm delighted to say that my daughter's symptoms are very much improved. They are far from gone - but given the she has Ehlers Danlos Syndrome as well as food allergies it was never going to be a complete cure, but it's really significant progress and she's delighted - as am I!

She is, however getting a little bored of her six foods, and has almost completely rejected chickpeas other than as gram flour which a bit of a blow. It means protein will be high on the agenda for trials. I promised I would try and make some new desserts, other than just pears.

I've bought some rice porridge flakes from Marks and Spencer which have been a fantastic success mixed with pear puree. I also tried my own rice pudding, with pudding rice and rice milk. I loved it - K prefers the porridge!


I also decided to experiment making "pancakes'. I figured that I could use olive oil instead of the margarine I would normally use, brown rice flour, and some pear puree instead of an egg since fruit does have some impact as a raising agent. It was actually pretty successful! 


I made the "pancakes" like drop scones, or scotch pancakes. I followed the quantities for the fat and flour and then added a tablespoon of puree instead of the egg and whisked with a hand balloon whisk. Some people have had good luck with sparkling water and flour alone, this recipe here uses millet flour and  sparkling water with good success.

The key to living with only a handful of foods we've discovered, is to keep an open mind. These won't taste like the best Shrove Tuesday pancakes you've ever tasted, or the best stack of scotch pancakes your grandma makes.... but they DID taste good and by experimenting we've added another meal to the list and staved off the boredom of life with six foods.


Tuesday 12 July 2016

Homemade Houmous - Life with Six Foods

So we've started our few food diet. Day 3 so far..... the current breakfast favourite is puffed rice cereal with rice milk, then if I can persuade her some cashew butter on a rice cake, a handful of nuts or a pear.

Lunch so far has relied on our homemade houmous, which is literally a can of chick peas, a little permitted olive oil blended to the right consistency. I'm making use of all my tiny Sistema pots to store it in for a couple of days in the fridge!



Initially the houmous didn't go down well - she's used to the shop bought versions which have sesame and garlic in. However we've persevered and she's eating it. I also tried rolling a ball of it in gram flour and frying as patties, I thought these were delicious but she remains to be convinced!! (Photo to follow!)

We've added carrot sticks, plain crisps, pear chunks and pear puree, rice cakes and cashew butter, etc and today K made her own lunch.  The rice cakes have a thick layer of cashew butter between, and the pot has the homemade houmous in.


It's not as filling as a regular free from wrap/sandwich so she had another round of rice cakes and cashew butter a couple of hours later, with a pear - but she has started to think this through herself a little.

Tea yesterday was oven chips, a second attempt at pan fried houmous patties and today is pasta from gram flour with a carrot sauce. I'm blending well-cooked carrots which have been boiled with a little rosemary, to create a "sauce" for the pasta. Poached pear for dessert - tomorrow I'm attempting rice pudding! Either tomorrow or the next day I will also be making these - potato cakes are a firm favourite here!





Friday 1 July 2016

"Store Bought" Chocolate Brownies

This recipe claims to be so versatile it can make cake, cupcakes, brownies - whatever! A friend gave it to me to try.

Gluten free, wheat free, dairy free, soya free, nut free with safe ingredients, corn free and in theory could be egg free, but that's a LOT of eggs to replace.



Ingredients

  • 2 cups (250g) rice flour
  • 2/3 cup water of safe "milk" (I used rice milk)
  • 2 cups (400g) sugar
  • 1 cup margarine or oil (I used sunflower oil, olive oil is too heavy for baking)
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 cups (350g) safe chocolate chips
  • 6 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla

Method
  • In a saucepan over a medium heat, stir together the butter or oil, milk/water and sugar. Bring to the boil, stirring constantly.
  • Remove from heat and stir through the chocolate chips until smooth
  • Stir in the flour, working quickly stir in the eggs, or the egg replacer mixture. (I used a large beating whisk for this)
  • Pour into a lined cake pan or cupcake cases.
  • Cupcakes bake for 10 minutes, brownie pans for 15 mins and if split into two cake pans 16 mins together.
  • Allow to cool completely then remove for/baking parchment.
  • Add frosting if desired.


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