Category Archives: Food Recipes

FISH

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Hello every one I haven’t dropped off the planet, I’ve just been really busy with traveling this wonderful country of ours and not having much Internet service or time. I’ve also been attempting to teach our 3 wonderful children.  The good news is though I have been working on a few recipes and special posts in this time so more is coming your way.

Since my last post we have traveled from the bottom of W.A to nearly the top of W.A and seen some most amazing sights. Exmouth and Karajini would have to be my most favorite spots so far.

 

 

Well this blog is about food so I better stop rambling on about where we have been and start talking about the wonderful food that we have been eating. As we have been heading north we have been staying in a lot of free camp sights and unpowered sights, so Thelma (the Thermomix) hasn’t been coming out of the cupboard very often. When we stop at a powered sight I replenish all my flours, milk and mayo, and cook up a few cakes and things like that for the next week.

While in Exmouth for a few days Matt was lucky enough to go out fishing with friends of friends. He didn’t catch much but as a boat they caught a nice amount, so our Engel is now a freezer with lots of fish fillets in it. As a result of the fishing we have mainly been eating fish for dinner in every way possible. We as a family have decided that fish bites (nuggets) are our favorite (I will add a quick recipe for these at the bottom).  Our second favorite would have to be the easiest way to cook fish but it is so yummy, you simply get your fillet and some fresh garlic and cook it in your fry pan.

 

FISH BITES

Fish fillets of your choice cut into bite size pieces

Rice flour

Egg

Coconut milk (or milk substitute)

Crumbs (we used corn flakes)

 

Lightly dust your fish bites in rice flour. Mix together your egg and milk and then coat your floured bites in it. Place your crumbs in a zip lock bag and once your bites are coated with the egg and milk place them in the crumbs, zip the bag and shake to evenly coat them with crumbs. You are now ready to cook them. We shallow fry ours in coconut oil,  we also do them in a few batches to keep a good hot temperature so that they turn out nice and crispy.

EASTER FUN

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Carrot Balls

I dont have a recipe of my own but just finished making carrot balls but changed them slightly to suite a friends nut allergy.  In placement of the nuts I used Pine Nuts and for the nut butter I used tahini.  They turned out realy well.

Hope you all have a great Easter

http://urbanposer.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/raw-carrot-cake-balls-giveaway-upgrade.html

PASTA ROCKET SALAD WITH FIG

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I would like to ask you this question.  Whose kids love to cook and create their own food?  Mine do, our eldest loves to cook. I think she gets this from her granny and a little from me, our middle daughter just loves food and our youngest is just coming of age to do most things by herself. With three girls into food and cooking means I don’t have to prepare all the family dinners, and as of late our oldest daughter has been making us the most simple yet delicious pasta rocket salad. I think she got the idea from a supermarket website and changed it a little to fit into our diet.

Going off the salad topic for just a little bit. It will fit in eventually but this story needs to go back a few days so that I can catch you up on the full story. FIGS!! I just love fresh figs. My husband and children just don’t share my enthusiasm for them but they do like them (not everyone can be as good as me). Well where we are staying at the moment there is a big public fig tree (what a find) and it is fig season (even better find). So every couple of days we have been going down to this tree and picking fresh figs. Everything we have been eating has figs in it which gets me back to Natalia’s pasta rocket salad (now with fig). What a great taste match, rocket and fig. I hope you all try this recipe it is so fresh and easy.

 

Pasta rocket salad with fig

 

GF pasta

Rocket

Cherry tomatoes halved

Chicken

Figs

DRESSING

Sweet chilli sauce

Lemon juice

Crushed garlic

 

First you need to cook your chicken I use any pice of chicken with no bones and cut it into strips or dice and season with Herbamare . Set your chicken aside to cool and cook your pasta as per their instructions.

Add the rest of the ingredients into a salad bowl. Once the pasta is cooked and you have drained it add it to the salad bowl and mix well without breaking your pasta. When you are ready to serve, drizzle with your dressing and enjoy.

I was thinking that instead of figs you could add mango, or even spiced poached pear.

So simple yet really exquisite. Hope you all enjoy it.

PANCAKES

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We have been road testing this recipe for some months now and I’m happy enough with it to share it with you all.

Pancakes are loved by most kids and most kids at heart and I’m no different. When we turned gluten free this was one breakfast that I was missing. We use to have pancakes at least once every 2 weeks and then I had to go cold turkey. I tried many recipes but none turned out quite as good as this one that made up from a couple of other recipes.

 

PANCAKES

 

1/2 cup coconut milk

3 eggs

1 tbs coconut sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup coconut flour

1/4 cup GF self raising flour

 

Combine all the ingredients and mix well. Cook the way you would normally cook pancakes and then watch them walk off the plate.

I always double this recipe if all 5 of us are eating pancakes. I have also tried a few different flavors.

Banana – mash a banana and add to the mix and if desired a little cinnamon.

Chocolate – 1/4 cup cocoa powder and up the coconut milk to about 3/4 cup (my favorite)

You could also try berries or apple pieces.

 

My children’s comments on this recipe (Yummy yummy !!!!!!❤ What a great recipe).

We tend to eat them all before I get to take a photo.  Sorry for that folks!!!

NIBBLES

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Time flies when you are having fun. Not only have I been enjoying the sights of the Margaret River region I’ve also been busy trying out new recipes. Trying new recipes has been a little tricky with Matt working night shift and the girls and I having to relocate to the local library during the day while he sleeps. All the recipes that I have been trying still needs some more tweaking before I’m willing to share them with you. Just so you keep your appetite here are a few things that I’m working on, Sweet potato slice, Flat bread and Bagels.

There are a simple things that my family and I enjoy on a regular basis and I would love to share it with you. There is no set recipe just amounts of what you would like to eat.

NIBBLES

 

Nibbles, how much more info do you really need. This is so easy to prepare and is always a winner in our house. My girls love to have a choice about what they are eating and when I serve up a table full of carrot sticks, celery sticks, cucumber, sun dried tomatoes, olives, artichoke harts, egg plant, smoked oysters, crackers and a dip of any flavor, they don’t know what to start with. We always find that every time we have nibbles there is always one thing that gets finished first but it is never the same thing every time. Other nibble ideas are capsicum, cherry tomatoes, boiled eggs, apple, nuts and even chips (home made are the best).

SMOOTHIE

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What a busy time it’s been for me lately. Getting settled for a little while, and starting the kids with their home schooling. This home schooling thing has been a little bit of a challenge (not for the kids, just for me getting my head around the back to basics).  Now that we are getting into the swing of things I can start to test out and post up some more recipes.

I think I’ve kept you waiting long enough now for a new post so I should get on with it.

 

WOW what a great find on the Internet, I never thought of using dates and chia seeds in a smoothie but it dose turn out quite delicious. Dates add the sweetness that is nice in a smoothie, and also adds a little bit of thickness. Chia seeds adds thickness to the smoothie and acts a little like putting in a dollop of ice cream for body and thickness but without the dairy. Chia seeds are also full of omega-3, antioxidants, fibre, calcium and protein. So why wouldn’t you add them to your next smoothie.

I did change this recipe around a bit to suit our tastes.

 

Smoothie

 

Add to blender

 

1/2 – 1 cup frozen berries or 2 bananas

8 pitted dates, soaked to soften them

1 tbsp Chia Seeds (you can grind them in a coffee grinder if you wish)

3 to 4 cups rice, almond, coconut milk

 

Blend

I put my milk and dates in a jug to soak at breakfast time. This way when I’m ready for a smoothie the smoothie is almost ready for me.

RHUBARB

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As we travel around this wonderful country of ours we are trying to catch up with as many family and friends as we can. We are now in Western Australia enjoying the cooler weather without it being to cold even though the nights are quite chilly for us NT folk.  While staying overnight in Albany with on old family friend who lives on 4 acres, we acquired a fair bit of organic rhubarb and an organic zucchini.  What to make with them was the first thought that went through my head. Well the rhubarb had to be stewed first and then I can use it in muffins, cakes or even on my morning breakfast.

 

STEWING RHUBARB

I’m not sure how many cups of rhubarb I had in my slow cooker but it must of been around 6 to 8 cups, I also added 3 cups of water and 1 cup of coconut sugar. Turned the cooker onto high and left it be for a couple of hours until the rhubarb had softened and mixed together. This recipe is not a sweet one it is still a little tart. Just the way we like it. If you like it sweeter add more sugar.

Now what to cook that is rhubarb flavored? I think I will try a muffin recipe. As for the zucchini I think we will use some of it for dinner and the rest can make me a zucchini bread to have for lunches.

BANANA GINGER CAKE

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Well it’s been a big couple of days for us in the red center (Alice Springs & Ayers Rock). We’ve traveled from Cairns through to Alice Springs where we spent nearly a full day and stayed overnight. While in Alice Springs I made this most wonderful banana and ginger cake for our stay out at Ayers Rock. When I make this cake again I will be adding some grated fresh ginger to the recipe, I don’t think it was quite gingery enough for my likings. When you have made it let me know your thoughts on adding more ginger!  Sorry I didn’t get a chance to take any photos but my locusts (children) ate it all while I wasn’t looking

 

BANANA GINGER CAKE

 

4 bananas mashed

1/4 cup coconut oil, liquified

4 room temp eggs

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

2 tsp ginger powder

1/4 tsp sea salt

1 cup coconut flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

 

Before you mix the ingredients get your cake tin ready and grease it with coconut oil.

 

Add all the ingredients into a bowl and mix. Place the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake. In my air oven it took about 50min at 175degrees.

 

PLUM PUDDING

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Im so proud of this, I used my great grandmothers recipe and changed it a little so that it was gluten free. I hope you all enjoy making and eating this fantastic plum pudding.

PLUM PUD

 

1/2 cup sultanas

1/2 cup currants

1/2 cup dates chopped

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1/4 cup dried blueberries

1/4 cup prunes chopped

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/4 cup coconut sugar

1/2 cup Almond flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp mixed spice

1/2 tsp bi carb soda

1/2 tsp xanthan gum

Pinch salt

3 eggs

Brown spirit of your choice (I like scotch or bourbon)

Crushed nuts of your choice (a little twist)

Ginger (a little twist)

 

Cooking twine

Cloth

 

Mix all the fruit into a bowl and add some of your spirits (about 2-4 tbs) and let soak for a couple of days.

After a couple of days you are now ready to combine the other ingredients together and form your pudding.  First thing you need to do is in a big pot boil some water (this is what you will be cooking your pudding in).

In 1 bowl mix together the almond flour, bi carb soda, salt and spices. Now you need to add the soaked fruit to the dry ingredients and mix well so that all the fruit is coated in the flour mix. Set this aside. In your food processor mix your oil, sugar and eggs.  Make a well in the flour and fruit mix and add the egg mixture. If it is a little dry add some more of your spirits (this adds great flavor to your pudding).

We now have to get our cloth ready so that we can place our pudding mix into it. First you need to fold the cloth into triangles then into triangles and into triangles again. Dunk your cloth into the boiling water about 2/3 of the way in with pointy end going in first. Take it out and open it up on your bench and sprinkle almond flour over the wet area (this stops the pudding from sticking to the cloth).  Place your pudding mix in the middle of your cloth, gather your edges and tie up firmly.

To cook your pudding place it into the pot of boiling water making sure it is fully covered with water and boil for around 4 hours. Once done you can eat it or hang it up to dry and re boil for an hour or two when Christmas day is here.

Eat with coconut cream and dairy free custard.

 

The taste test is always the best part of cooking

APPLE CRUMBLE

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We headed over to a friend’s place last night for dinner to celebrate her completion of one unit out of seven in her degree. Really it was just an excuse to have a get together, and the fact that she has rejected us for the past 3 weeks for dinner might have something to do with it as well.  Dee at the moment is on a strict paleo diet to rid her body of any toxins so the recipe that is attached will not have any added sugar. I do have to say that the pastry that I used is quite sweet and I will be working on a homemade pastry in the near future.

Mains were delicious purple cabbage coleslaw, green tossed salad and T Bone stake. Such a colourful dinner full of goodness.  Love having such great friends that you can sit around and talk and laugh with.

 

 

 

 

APPLE CRUMBLE

 

1 sheet pastry (I used THE PASTRY PANTRT pastry sheets)

1 tin apples 770g

1 1/2 tsp Cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp All spice

Punnet fresh blueberries

 

Crumble mix

 

1 cup walnuts

1/2 cup almond meal

1/2 cup rice flour

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/8 cup coconut sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

 

Defrost pastry and place in pie dish. Cook till golden brown. While the pastry is cooking prepare the filling. Place the apple, berries, cinnamon and all spice in a bowl and mix together. Set aside and start to prepare the crumble. Add all the crumble ingredients to a food processes and process till combined. When the pastry is golden add the apple mix and then the crumble on top and continue to bake till crumble is lushes golden and crunchy.

Serve with a little coconut cream

The food was awesome.  Thanks Dee and Shane for a fun night