A productive day in the garden...

Our eggs, my first lemon, kale, leeks, lettuce, radishes, spring onion, and parsley.

Yesterday the kids and I got out in the garden for the first time in a while. It's really ticked through winter quite nicely this year and producing some good colour and veges - this would be my first winter where I've had a good amount coming through. Out of my kitchen garden I pulled out what I thought was a weed (didn't recognise the leaves), but discovered a forgotten radish in there. I haven't grown radishes before, but had some in a bundle of seedlings I purchased from the supermarket a while back. After looking over the rest of the garden, I realised I had most of a meal out there waiting for me.

I made a self-crusting quiche - just added in some GF flour, cubes of potato, chicken, milk, and cheese to my leeks, kale and eggs.
Served with salad made with lettuce, radish, egg, spring onion, and lemon juice all from the garden.
Crutons baked in the oven with butter using semi-stale gluten-free bread.

Fast food

I have a standard 'fast food' meal that I tend to cook once a week - and I try to keep it seasonal. We have one day where we're out of the house and not home till 5.45pm. Although Nathan's gym class isn't till late afternoon, I've been picking the kids up straight from school and do a bunch of errands or go to the library to try and use our fuel economically. I will probably start doing a crockpot soon though, now that it's getting colder.

When asked by the kids "what's for dinner?", my reply is "the pasta tomatoey dish". Always received with a "Yum!".

A large tin (or 2 small) tins of tomatoes (or fresh if in season)

1 large onion

2 cloves of garlic

Fresh seasonal vegetables - grated courgette, finely chopped silverbeet/spinach/chard, broccoli pieces, capsicum, etc

About 1 T of fresh herbs (I usually use oregano, parsley and thyme and some dried basil)

A packet of GF pasta

It's as simple as sauteeing up the onion and garlic, adding in the tomatoes, veges, herbs, season with a bit of sugar (brings out the flavour of the tomatoes) and salt if desired. Meanwhile cook up the pasta and toss it into the tomato sauce when done. That's about 15-20mins all up.

Gluten free lunches

Considering my blog gets a lot of traffic from those seeking information about the GAPS diet, I thought I'd do a foodie post about something that affects us everyday. But first, just to explain why we did the GAPS diet ... I had Nathan on the GAPS diet 2.5yrs ago when I aimed to heal his suspected leaky gut (perhaps as a consequence of having damage from eating gluten prior to his coeliac diagnosis). We had ended up in hospital with his kidneys not working (of unknown causes - so frustrating to have no answers to that one except a name of the condition based on a bunch of symptoms rather than a known cause - idiopathic is the name they give to that kind of situation) and it was a time that I decided to reassess if I could be doing all that I could health-wise

The GAPS diet includes eating entirely fresh prepared foods due to the nature of the restrictions - no grains of any description, no starch (ie potatoes), no dairy (just for a limited time), and no sugar. The reason for the diet was one of those long-shot kind of things that could really only do good, and although not directly related to kidney function, I wanted to take a deeper look at his immune function and the way that he processed his food. (As an update on the Nephrotic Syndrome - he's been all good. Had one relapse a year ago (successfully and quickly treated) and fine since then. Here's to a further 4yrs of no relapses and he can then be considered to have outgrown that unfortunate childhood illness.)

Back to the nature of this post. Nathan has Coeliacs disease and was diagnosed when he was 2.5yrs old, which means that he needs to be on a 100% GF diet for the rest of his life. The good news is that this is the "cure" to the disease, so it's not a big deal in the big scheme of things (just frustrating at times), and we are fortunate that he doesn't suffer any life threatening repercussions if he were to consume something containing gluten (just a big tummy ache and negative consequences in the long-term if done repeatedly) - although we've not stuffed up on a big-scale as far as I'm aware, and certainly not even a trace for a long time.

So, I thought I'd now do a post on what I cook/prepare for lunches and snacks.

Since starting school, our lunches in particular have changed quite dramatically. Firstly, I have discovered that making GF lunches is much easier and cheaper than what I expected. This is the first time ever that he has been "allowed" to eat gluten free bread every day. I used to ration it because it's sooooo expensive and since I was feeding 3 of us at home for lunch, I wasn't about to make several meals, so we all ate GF lunches. But a cooked lunch I did still make to avoid the sandwich trap - hence the cost and the headache!

I don't find GF bread to be very nice at being sandwich bread (tends to be hard and dry even when fresh). However, with school lunches, I initially thought I'd give him 2 x slices of bread as a part of his lunch until I figured out what to do. But it's actually working out quite well. And he's not fussy about the bread - he likes it even.

Here's what his lunch-bag contains every day:

~ I make the bread into toasted mousetraps (GF marmite-alternative with grated cheese and then grilled) and he eats them cold.

~ Half a homemade GF muffin

~ Container of homemade popcorn

~ A few dehydrated apple slices

~ A piece of fruit (feijoas, apple, pear or banana depending on season)

~ A small GF biscuit that I buy

Weekend lunches include:

~ Baked beans (one that doesn't contain wheat)

~ Rice noodle omelette

~ Vegetable fritatta

~ Corn fritters

~ Sandwiches using corn thins and filled with salad/eggs etc

~ Homemade pizza with sauce, bacon and cheese

~ GF scones or fresh made bread

Snacks include:

~ Fruit

~ Carrot sticks

~ Corn thins with peanut butter

~ Popcorn

Dinner:

Well, these are fairly straightforward if you're cooking from scratch. We basically eat the same as what we used to with just a few modifications. GF pasta instead of wheat pasta, rice noodles instead of any other sort of noodles/spaghetti, no packet/jar sauces (although there is a growing range of products that just happen to have no gluten in them - not specifically marketed or priced as GF, just the manufacturers must realise they will tap a larger part of the market if they replace wheat thickeners with corn thickeners), plain corn chips for nachos rather than flavoured, tamari sauce instead of soy sauce, etc.

So, although my wee fella's suffered a few medical conditions in his short life, he's actually very healthy and robust when his kidney's are functioning as they should and he doesn't eat any gluten!

PS: Gosh, what a long rambly post!

Baking even I can do

Yep, I'm pretty hopeless when it comes to most baking. But *really* I think it's because it doesn't enthuse me, so I don't really put the effort in.

But, I was reading over at Rinelle's and she had posted a neat idea for making some little breads with savoury flavourings in it which looked like something I could definitely do.

So I made it up as per the gluten free bread mix instructions (which ends up looking like cake batter rather than a wheat bread dough), let it rise, then added some cooked bacon pieces and grated cheese and dolloped into my muffin tray. Baked it till they were brown (about 20mins I think).

I was told I was the best mummy chef. Says it all really!

Kumara Lasagne

As requested by Gypsy in my comments, here is a staple recipe we rely on in the cooler months. Especially when I have a heap of kumara arrive in my weekly vege box.

The history of this recipe...you will note that it is absent of pasta so the title is deceiving! I made this recipe up when we needed to cook gluten free, but I really liked lasagne! I'm sure I could have bought GF lasagne sheets, but I really dislike buying specially GF items. This was also after having a recipe for Moussaka which used kumara along with the eggplant. This recipe has been modified over the years to include a few extra veges along the way.

We had guests for dinner the other night, so I decided to cook this one up, and to make the meal go further I made a loaf of Corn bread.

So, it really was a mixed ethnicity meal - Kiwi, Italian and Mexican lol.

Kumara Lasagne

500-600gm minced beef
2 T oil
1 large onion
2 cloves garlic
1 carrot sliced
3-4 leaves of silverbeet including their stalks or other leafy greens chopped
2 x 400gm tinned tomatoes
4-5 medium kumara sliced and boiled till soft but not falling to bits
2 T of available fresh herbs (or a few tsps of dried) eg oregano, thyme, marjoram, basil
Salt and pepper to taste (or a teaspoon of powdered beef stock)

Heat oil and cook onion and garlic, add mince and brown well. Add tomatoes and other veges and cook till the liquid is reduced (add a little flour to thicken if it needs it). Add flavourings to taste.

Make cheese sauce (my recipe is a microwave one)
Melt, 3 T butter
Add, 3 T rice flour (or wheat flour)
Cook for about 20-30secs till the mixture bubbles
Add 1.5 cups of milk and microwave for 2mins, stir and cook for further minute or until thick.
Add 1/2 cup grated cheese.

I don't do multiple layers in this dish, but just put the mince mixture on the bottom of the dish, layer the kumara over the top and pour the cheese sauce over, add more grated cheese and bake for 20mins until heated through.

Corn Bread

I really wanted to find a recipe that was a "real" one without wheat flour in it and here it is.

1 cup cornmeal
1/2 t salt
2 t baking powder
2 eggs
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup sour cream (I have also used plain yoghurt successfully)
1 cup corn kernels
1/2 cup capsicum (optional)
2 cups cheese

Heat oven to 190 degrees. Add dry ingredients in bowl and make a well in the middle. In another bowl beat eggs, oil and sour cream until smooth. Pour into dry ingredients with corn, capsicum and cheese. Bake for 30mins.

We may be rationing the cheese...

But, we're still using it as a dinner ingredient.

With the price of cheese 50% more than what we were paying last year (and sometimes that's even when it's on special!), and the fact that the common sized blocks are now released in 800gm instead of 1kg, we have cut out all uses except dinners. The kids used to eat it as grilled cheese on toast for breakfast about 3 times a week, we'd have it grated with our lunches several times a week and occasionally I'd do slices of cheese for the kids as a snack - but no more.

I used to buy 2kg's of cheese in my fortnightly shopping, now I buy my one 800gm block and make that last 2wks.

We're doing well, it's lasting and nobody is missing it (I did explain to Nathan why he couldn't have cheese on toast anymore and he was willing to forgo it and hasn't put in an order for it once). Not that the price of gluten bread or cereal is much cheaper in comparison by the time I've offset one food against the other...

This afternoon as I was pondering what to have for dinner as I was blog-surfing, I caught up on a few days reading at BeanSprouts and saw that Mel had made a lovely looking vegetarian meal a few days back - Roast Vegetables and Goats' Cheese pasta. We have had combinations of this type of dish many a time, but never together. So, since I had all the ingredients (except goats cheese, which was substituted with colby cheese and instead of pasta I used rice noodles) it made a delicious meal that the kids gobbled up. I enjoyed picking my fresh herbs from the garden for making up the tomato sauce (and as usual I add some silverbeet to my tomato sauce for the "green" factor for the kids). They're not fooled, but some slips in there somewhere.

Stretching those crusts

Gluten free bread isn't the nicest at the best of times. It's kind of hard, stiff and not that tasty (and more savoury than good with jams) - well, in my opinion anyway. I don't eat the stuff, but the kids do for their toast - it's no good as sandwich bread really. (That's the negative, moany part of my post lol).

So, the end crusts really are even less appealing and they have been piling up in the freezer till I decided what to do with them. One idea was to put them in the kitchen whizz and make breadcrumbs. But today I decided we'd make a little snack from them. I made up some garlic butter, cut the crusts into strips, coated in butter and baked till they were crispy. They came out like little pita bread chips and were a success.

Summer meal #3

Well, I'm on a roll now. A super quick and easy meal this was AND eaten by the kids.

Pasta of your choice (we buy cheap rice noodles)
2 cans of tomatoes (can't wait to use our own fresh ones!)
1 capsicum
1 onion
Other chopped veges you want to add
2 cloves of garlic
2 tsp cornflour
1/4 cup of water or wine
1 tsp sugar
Fresh basil

Cook up the garlic, onion, capsicum for a few minutes till soft. Add the tomatoes, sugar and cornflour (premixed in the water/wine) and add the basil towards the end.

Enjoy!

Summer meal #2

This afternoon after a browse of the fridge and wondering if I'd made the right decision to cancel the vege delivery box I had a burst of inspiration. The fridge was looking rather sad with only a few different things in it (more to the point, they weren't things I would usually use all together, so had to think a bit!). I've been making polenta pie for about 6mths now as a now-and-again meal, but thought I could make a tasty dinner from what we had.

Cook 1 cup polenta (cornmeal) in 3 cups of water, about 50gms butter and some salt/pepper and simmer for about 20mins (if it goes lumpy, do what I do and put the stick-whizz into it to get it smooth again).

I sauteed up halved cherry tomatoes, leek, courgette and silverbeet.

Once polenta is cooked, put it into a greased pie/flan dish (it kind of sets into a firm porridge type texture). Place the sauteed veges over the top, add some grated cheese or parmesan (or both!) and bake for 20mins.

The kids picked it over - but Simon and I enjoyed it.

There are many variations you can do for this - chopped up eggs, feta, pre-roasted cubed potatoes/pumpkin, mushrooms or whatever you have available!

Menu Planning

As previously posted, I'm not really an enthusiastic cook. But I have a range of recipes that I seem to cycle through over a 2 wk period. At the moment, it's random, there is no plan - I am seriously thinking about getting one in order. Mainly to take away the "what shall I cook tonight" decision, but also to be a bit more structured in our grocery shopping which we do weekly but would be good to do only every two weeks. Because we receive a box of fresh fruit and veges weekly, we'd only need to buy things like milk (although maybe I could buy that up too and freeze?). We have a huge freezer that really isn't being used the most efficiently because it's mostly empty for much of the time. To make it work more effifciently would be to fill in the empty space so the freezer isn't working overtime to continually chill the air in there.

I now cook from scratch using whole foods since we became gluten-free 18mths ago (Nathan has Coeliac disease) - I didn't want to spend extra money on "specialty" food items. It didn't take too much adjustment, there were just a few jarred sauces that I was using on a weekly basis - but once I found a good recipe alternative it made me wonder why I was spending my money on a jarred version when the real-deal only took a couple of minutes to throw the actual ingredients in anyhow. I used to cook a lot more spicy food but Danielle's not so keen on it, so I tend to use herbs a lot more now in my cooking.

So, back to the list! And taking into account our eating a vegetarian meal every 2nd night...

* Baked potatoes/coleslaw/boiled eggs and vinegrette
* Shepherd's Pie
* Pasta/veges/chickpea crockpot
* Fried rice - vegetables, eggs and beef slices
* Gluten free homemade vegetarian pizza - roasted veges/feta/pesto
* Bolognaise sauce with meat served on GF pasta
* Vegetarian shepherd's pie (using lentils)
* Roasted free-range chicken with roasted veges and greens
* Beans and rice
* Lamb patties with pasta and sauce
* Creamy lentil and vegetable soup
* Corned beef with roasted veges and greens
* Fried rice - vegetables and eggs
* Crockpot chops with roasted veges and greens
* Lentil & tomato sauce served over rice
* Leek and kumura frittata with feta
* Polenta pie - boiled eggs, spinach, cheese
* Kumura lasagne - like normal lasagne with meat but without the pasta (kumara or potato in it's place)
* Vegetable bake - loads of veges sliced and layered into a casserole dish with canned tomatoes, chickpeas and grated cheese layered into it

Thinking it over further, to take into account that I don't know what will arrive in the vege box each week, and also some veges need using up within the first few days - I will just have my list available where I always have the ingredients to make each and then just pick one off the list each day. There are enough recipes there to do a 2 wkly shopping list.

So starting from this weekend - I will attempt a 2wk shop!

A simple dinner on a beautiful end of summer evening...

It was one of those days where I felt totally uninspired on what to cook for dinner. On asking hubby for suggestions he came up with sausages (his usual suggestion if he thinks he will be cooking it heehee) - but with a twist. He wanted to try out our new gas cooker my parents got us for a Christmas present (they like to buy practical and it was a great suggestion for being able to go camping or for emergency purposes) and cook it outside on the front lawn. Perfect! So here was our rather frugal meal of gluten-free sausages, boiled potatoes fried in slices and a salad of cubes of cucumber and tomato. Yum!