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.

Clearspring Organic Purees

Disclaimer - I was sent a selection of Clearspring organic purees for an honest review. The views expressed are entirely my own.

About Clearspring

From their website:-

Clearspring have been trading in the UK for over 20 years, last year (2013) Clearspring celebrated their twentieth birthday. Marketing "Authentic, wholesome, easy-to-prepare and great tasting Japanese and fine foods for optimum nutrition" Clearspring has a wide range of products to suit everyone.

• All their products are 100% vegan with no artificial additives, MSG, colourings, preservatives or refined sugars and they subscribe to extremely high standards. 
• Clearspring have won many awards, being Commended in the Free From Food Awards in 2014.
• All Clearspring products are Dairy Free and refined Sugar Free.They also have a Gluten Free range and a Nut Free Range

Perfect for Us 

We at The Recipe Resource struggle with complex food allergies, and are always on the look-out for new products with single or few ingredients. Clearspring purees are perfect in this respect - but what *really* got us excited, beyond the obvious single ingredient, ease of use in cooking/baking, perfect weaning food options was their new range of pouched purees!

Clearspring "On the Go" Fruit Pouches

My eight+ year old twins have just gone into Year 4, and no longer is it deemed acceptable to take  fruit puree pouches in that have come from the baby food aisle of the supermarket. I have used such brands for years, but however good the contents are you are not going to persuade either of my two that they acceptable in their lunch anymore. Also, since both have swallowing issues and many allergies it can be tricky meeting their nutritional requirements each day, and with a few wobbly teeth to boot its impossible biting in to fruit however soft! So I'm thrilled about these pouches - as are they.

Clearspring Puree Range

Like many parents feeding children on exclusion diets, we avoid multiple proteins. All too often the food industry substitutes these proteins (which often add flavour) with processed fillers and excess sugar and sweeteners. This is one reason why I won't purchase cakes, biscuits etc for my children. I rely on fruit to give homemade treats a naturally sweet flavour, and purees are perfect on meringues, in cakes, on cereal, in fact they have so many uses I like to keep a stock of them all the time! 

Without a doubt Clearspring offer the best variety of purees I have ever seen. They offer are a variety of blends as well as pear on its own. Often, in strict exclusion diets pear is one of the first foods you are asked to try, as it is one of the least allergenic foods. (see this chart for a Food Allergen Scale.

Any banana puree can also be used as a raising agent, so the pear and banana puree is ideal for adding to muffins to help them rise - often a problem is you are excluding, and substituting egg. (See this chart for other egg alternatives.)

I used the pear and banana puree to make some fruit muffins:-

The basic banana muffin recipe is here and I made pear muffins here and added cocoa powder. This time I made the banana muffins with the puree, banana helps them rise and the pear was a lovely additional flavour. The texture was really velvety smooth too.

Lastly I wanted to make some fruit puree lollies but my lolly moulds split recently. Instead I used the strawberry and apple puree to make a lolly mixture, using this recipe but obviously the puree instead of the frozen fruit. It was delicious but would definitely be better as lollies in proper moulds, like these!

VBites/Redwood "Wot, no Dairy" desserts recalled

Unfortunately, at least these flavours of the "Wot no Dairy?" Redwood desserts are now being recalled as they contain milk. 

Just as I get my daughter eating them! (Might explain current gut flare though!) The Food Standards Agency have flagged up the raspberry and black cherry and our local Holland and Barrett have removed all the peach flavours also.

This is from the Food Standards Agency page:-

Few Foods Chocolate Mousse!

Dairy fee, wheat free, gluten free, corn free, egg free, sugar free......

...pretty much everything free so hopefully lots of you can enjoy this delicious chocolate mousse recipe!

Ingredients

• 1 ripe avocado
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup raw agave nectar
• 1/4 cup almond milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

Puree until smooth.

When my avocados *finally* ripened I realised I had run out of cocoa powder. So I used some rice protein powder and Anthony Worral Thompson's chocolate spread as a combination. It worked well, looked fab.... but even after chilling I could *still* taste the avocado, which just didn't seem "right" for a chocolate mousse. And I only used a small one too...

So not one of my favourite recipes but I'm glad I tried it, I think I would add more sweetener of some sort another time maybe?

Free from "Cheesecake"!!

The is gluten, soy, egg, dairy, oat free.

Ingredients

Base

• 2 packets biscuits (Doves farm lemon and cocoa for us)
• 50g vitalite melted (may need more)

Crush the biscuits and mix with melted butter as you would a normal cheesecake. Spread into the base of the tin.

Filling

• 2 ripe avocados
• a squeeze of agave syrup or other sweete
• ner
• a carton of coconut cream (the cartons not cans - drain the thin liquid out)
• 45g melted choc (we use 100% because of soy and dairy)
• juice of a lemon

Put all the filling ingredients in a blender.
Mix til you can't see green bits.
Spread on top of biscuit base - chill for several hours.

You genuinely will not realise it is not real cheesecake! The is gluten, soy, egg, dairy, oat free.