Welcome to my little corner for recording ways we work around our food issues.
Please feel free to leave comments with any questions. I’m in New Zealand, and terms are often different, so if you don’t understand something just let me know.
I hope you will find something useful here. 🙂
Look at me go – two posts in two days!
This is a pretty standard cookie recipe, but I’ve made it twice now….. well, kind of – I didn’t write it down the first time I made it, so they’re probably not exactly the same, but near enough….. anyway, I’ve made it twice now and they’ve actually held their shape BOTH times! I have a real talent for “melting” gluten free biscuits(cookies), so much so that I usually pull them out of the oven half baked, scrape them in to a slice tin, put them back in the oven, then call it good. Or I just give up and switch it to a slice recipe completely.
I’ve managed to get back in the habit of taking photos of food for the blog. But then I don’t get around to posting for a while, and since my “style” tends towards drive-by-cooking I can never remember exactly what I did by the time I DO remember to to blog it.
Hence the silence.
Anyway, one thing I do remember is how I cook spuds. And since they kindly included themselves in the photo I know how I cooked the asparagus. Technically they were baked, not roasted, because there was no meat involved, but it would be the same if there WAS meat in there, so I’m sticking with roasted.
Roast Asparagus
I have my oven on 200c/400f to bake potatoes.
Trim the woody ends of asparagus.
In the last ten or 15 minutes of baking time chuck your asparagus in too, lightly sprinkle with salt if you want, and roll in whatever fat you have in there.
Turn and check each five minutes ’til they look good. The ones in the photo were cooked for 15 minutes.
Convince your children that yes they do like asparagus, and they have so eaten it happily before, and they just need to get used to it again because it is a seasonal food.
All done!
. . .
. . .
For more great recipes check out the Tasty Tuesday link ups at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam.
I used four eggs, and got 28 macaroons.
Beat egg whites to stiff peaks, slowly add in caster sugar (that’s the really fine one) – 50g for each egg white. Stir in dessicated coconut – 1/4 cup for each egg white.
Spoon onto baking paper, or if you’re not making them in a big rush because you need to take a plate to a baby shower in a few hours you could pipe them all fancy-like.
I went with a tablespoon.
A sampling toddler is optional at this point.
Bake about half an hour at 150c/300f, until dry but not brown. Cool on the tray.
They’re yummy like that, but I melted a little chocolate for drizzling this time. I used roughly 25 grams.
So to sum that up because I got a little rambly…..
Preheat oven to 150c/300f. Line baking tray with paper.
For 28 macaroons use –
When I was having a look around at recipes, they are traditionally made with butter and breadcrumbs, so I decided to see what I could come up with.
Turn the oven on hot – 220c/430f
I used six potatoes. First of all you want to slice the scrubbed spuds almost all the way through, at distances of a few mls. The slices won’t necessarily spread at this point, it might happen during cooking.
Place the spuds in whatever baking dish you will use.
Next I crushed four cloves of garlic, mixed it with about 4 Tbs olive oil and 1 tsp salt (I totally forgot to measure), and spooned that over the top of the potatoes before putting them in the oven. Bake for about an hour, and you are all done. The sky is the limit with what you use as a topping, I definitely plan on making these again and mixing it up with the flavours. 🙂
My one caution would be, if you’re wanting a fancy looking dinner, don’t do these if it’s your first time. I got a couple that looked right, but cut right through in a couple of places, and didn’t cut deep enough in others. They were yummy for the family, but if I was doing them to impress others I would’ve gone through several more potatoes!
Proof:
Uh, it’s been a while, eh? Life has been pretty wild this year, but I’m determined to post SOMEthing (anything!) this week. Excluding this post of course, I mean something that actually pertains to food. 🙂
Ten Things…….
I mentioned I was going to try to make Valentine treats using this method, but obviously had to change the actual recipe for it to work for us.
First I used this recipe to make a sheet cake. I figured it would work but hadn’t actually tried it before, I think I baked it half an hour on 150c/300f. I popped it in the freezer to help it cool faster.
When the cake had reached room temperature I mixed this up (using gluten free flour, coconut milk, and just skipping the butter to meet everyone’s needs) and followed the original method. One thing I did different, is I put a little mark on the bottom of the paper liner so I couldn’t lose track of where the front was. Some of the hearts stayed down, while others floated, but that’s okay because I made a dozen and only needed seven. In fact, for BT2 I chose a floaty one on purpose, I think they look just as cool.
Once the muffins were cooled I whipped up some icing. (Cream 250g butter, add 250g icing sugar, colour with lots of strawberry jam…. LOTS.)
At this stage the kids were all happy, so I decided to melt a little bit of chocolate and drizzle it over the top.
BT2 doesn’t eat diary so I used one where the heart was visible (I had to cut a little batter off the top of it, but not much) and just drizzled the chocolate over it.
And a post-three-year-old-mauling shot:
They required more effort than I would usually put in, but for a treat they were lots of fun!
Take one marrow, peel the skin and discard it. While whatever sauce you are going to use cooks keep peeling and peeling. Run the peeled ribbons under the hot tap, and there you have it.
I usually salt the water when I cook pasta, so I found these diluted the flavour of my sauce a little. With a sprinkle of salt on them before topping with the sauce they would have been perfect.
(Editing to add this to Tasty Tuesday, check it out for loads of recipes.)
Hmmm, let’s see now….
On Tuesday we ate dinner at the beach. I coated chicken nibbles in the KFC-esque seasoning, made mashed potato and gravy, and made coleslaw (cabbage, carrot, onion, mayo).
One day Dad-of-the-Tummies decided to make lunch for everyone, even though he had eaten, and even though everyone was calm/not falling apart. He made gluten free wraps which we filled with avocado, mayonnaise, beetroot pickle (store bought), capsicum, tomato, finely shredded cabbage, cheese, and a little tuna (because BT1 (9 years) heard wrong when he asked her to open a tin of salmon). They were delicious, but he doesn’t do recipes. I’m pretty sure it was just an all purpose flour mix, with a bit of oil, and water (which is what I would use) but I have no idea what quantities he used.
Fresh pineapple has been the snacky highlight of the week, though BT4 (3 years) didn’t think it was so flash when he ate so much it bothered his lips!
On Saturday I fed the kids watermelon, celery and peanut butter, dried dates and apricots, and popcorn for lunch. If I just handed them that stuff they would complain and say it was only a snack, but as soon as I put it on a plate they are satisfied. Weird, but whatever.
It’s got a bit dusty in here! Life got in the way of keeping the blog up for a while, but I’ll try to get back in to it.
In the meantime here is at least something I PLAN to make…
Have you seen these gorgeous muffins/cupcakes with hearts inside them? I want to whip some up for Valentines day, but of course there are the food issues to work around. I’ve decided to try it with this batter to make white hearts, then my fail proof cake to make chocolate muffins. (Yes, it works for muffins too. I did tell you it was fail proof!)
If the hearts stay inside the cookie like they’re supposed to I’ll make some mock cream (which I think is buttercream?) and colour it with strawberry jam. BT2 won’t mind if I skip the icing on his and make it with real butter. If the hearts float up like some of the comments say I will melt chocolate and drizzle it over.
I think they’ll be lots of fun!
Preheat oven to 180c/350f.
Mix dry ingredients, while butter and syrup are melting. Stir butter mix in to dry ingredients, as much as you can. Add water to finish wetting all the ingredients. Place in dish (mine is oval, but at the widest points it’s 33cm long and 20cm wide, whatever you use make sure it has high sides because this boils). Bake for 20 minutes. I usually cut it when it has not quite finished cooling, and remove it from the dish once it is cool.
Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside... yum.
Chaotic Cuisine 