Guest recipe: Muesli (Granola) Bars

If only I'd waited while it cooled - it was still yummy

It's been a while since we've had a guest recipe but here's another from my good friend. Her children also had to avoid soy as well. Muesli bars are often a source of nuts or traces of nuts and they are unbelievably expensive too! Here's one you can make at home that everyone will enjoy.

180g Nuttelex (dairy free spread)
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 cup each of dried apricots and dates – chopped
1/2 cup plain GF flour
1/3 cup pepitas
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1 egg equivalent of no-egg (Egg substitute)

Place Nuttelex and sugar into a small saucepan and stir over a low to medium heat until Nuttelex has melted and the sugar has dissolved, set aside to cool slightly. In a large bowl, mix oats, apricots, dates, flour, pepitas and sunflower seeds. Make a well in the center of the dry mix and add the cooled butter mixture, egg and vanilla.

Stir until well combined. Spread evenly into an 18x28 greased tray and press down firmly, bake for 25-30mins at 180 degrees or until golden brown. Then allow to cool and slice into fingers.

We didn't have pepitas so added puffed amaranth instead. We also halved the recipe so it didn't fill the tray but it still worked. I reduced the amount of apricots and added in sultanas instead because we try to avoid sulfites. I was a bit keen and took the slice out before it cooled and it all fell apart so I encourage you to be patient - I think it will cut better if you wait! :)

Menu Plan Monday

Also egg free!

It's been a while since I've done my Menu Plan Monday but here it is again!

Monday - homemade fish & chips
Tuesday - chicken sausages and vegies (thanks Soph!)
Wednesday - Roast chicken and vegies
Thursday - Pasta with mince (we had some frozen leftover burrito mince the other week to use - yay for minimal cooking!)
Friday - We had friends over for dinner so the kids had chicken nuggets and vegies
Saturday - We tried a new pizza base by Old Time Bakery that I found at the supermarket - the kids both ate it so as not to waste any and both really enjoyed it. I had a taste and thought it was pretty nice with a not as nice aftertaste but overall a good thin and crispy base. We'll use the other one when we go on holidays and I'm not up for making our own. I like the fact that you can freeze the 2nd one for up to a year!
Sunday - Chicken noodle soup and toast - I made my own chicken stock (we bought a chicken carcass for about $1 from the butcher - bargain!) and we used vermicelli rice noodles. I will post this recipe later in the week.

Vanilla - a flavour saviour

In general, allergen free foods don't taste anywhere near as nice as 'normal' foods. It has been hard to work out how to make things more enjoyable. Here is one tip - use vanilla in baking. Most of the recipes that I've liked when I've baked allergen free have had vanilla essence or vanilla beans in them. It's a pantry essential.
Here's a few recipes that I use vanilla flavouring for -
Sultana and Oat Cookies
Vanilla Bean Biscuits
Brownies
Berry Muffins
Wacky Cake
Coconut Vanilla Icing

Pea & Ham Soup

Before stirring the meat in. I used yellow split peas. Next time I think I'll try to find green ones for the colour.

An amazing slow cooker recipe for pea and ham soup from a friend of ours. We made it over the weekend and it was well-received by all except Miss 2... she struggled with the texture I think but had 3 spoonfuls with the promise of yoghurt to follow! Despite that, I think it is a fantastic recipe. It can also be done in a pressure cooker or on the stove top but you'll have to work out your timings for them.

1 cup split peas (yellow or green), washed and soaked overnight

~8 cups water

1 (~700g) ham hock (a ham shank is better I think but harder to get)

1 chopped onion

Pepper & salt (usually the ham is salty enough but I added a tsp of chicken stock powder)

2 chopped carrots

2 potatoes, peeled and chopped

a chunk of pumpkin, chopped

1 sweet potato, peeled & chopped

You can add other soup vegetables like celery if you like.

Place eveything in the slow cooker (include the water that the peas were soaked in as part of the 8 cups and add more if you need to so that you cover everything in the slow cooker) and cook on low for about 7hrs or until the meat is falling off the bones.

After it is finished, remove the bones and as much of the meat as you can. Blend the soup (you don’t have to, but I prefer to. You can just give it a good stir and it will mostly break down anyway but still stay a bit chunky – depends how you like your soup). Chop the meat into small pieces and put back into soup. Stir and season with pepper again if you think it needs it.

Hot Chips & Chicken Salt - Red Rooster & McDonalds

Having fun with a birthday treat earlier this year :)

I have been meaning to blog about this for a while because last year we went to Red Rooster for hot chips and, after it taking a very long time for them to find the ingredients of their hot chips and chicken salt it then turned out that it had gluten in it. So we went back to our safety zone of McDonalds fries (download the food sensitivity table or look at the ingredients list)

However, I thought I would check the nutritional information again and looks like they no longer have any allergens in them. So whether or not the information I got first was right or not, you can now know that their chips and chicken salt are free of gluten, dairy, egg, soy, peanuts, treenuts and all other main allergens. Nice to know that a more solid potato chip is available.

Read more about hot chips and which other ones have allergens here.

Sultana and Oat Cookies

I think these are the best allergen-free cookie I have made so far. Crunchy but slightly soft inside. Yum!
I adapted this recipe from Taste.com.au.

The amount below made 14 cookies. You can easily double the mixture:

65g dairy free spread
1/4 cup caster sugar and brown sugar mixed together (about half and half)
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
Equivalent of 1 egg using No Egg
1 cup gluten free self raising flour
1/2 tbsp soy milk
1/3 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup sultanas
another 1/2 tbsp soy milk

Preheat oven to 180C.
Add sugars and vanilla essence to the dairy free spread and mix with electric mixer until creamed. Add egg replacer and mix until well combined (takes a little bit of time).
Sift in flour, add the first bit of soy milk and stir until combined well.
And in oats, sultanas and the rest of the milk and combine.
Roll into balls, place on baking paper on a baking tray and then press down with your fingers or fork.
Bake in middle of oven for ~17 mins or until golden. Mine took 17mins :)

Menu Plan Monday

I really do the planning!

Bit late this week!
Monday - Lamb and Vegetables (my husband and I had a fantastic lamb curry so I just made plain meat and 3 veg for the kids)
Tuesday - I'm going to try out a Chicken Parmigiana using soy cheese (normal cheese for the rest of us though!). Will tell you about it if it works!
Wednesday - pizza night - will use chia seeds in it and mushroom, zucchini, corn, capsicum and maybe ham on top.
Thursday - soft tacos - those tortillas will get another workout!
Friday - Fish and homemade chips and veg.
Saturday - Will be out for a shared dinner - have arranged for the sausages to be gluten free and will be making and taking a pea & ham soup that is allergen free for everyone but hopefully she'll try it. Will take along a bread roll from Choices too.
Sunday - leftover soup (hopefully!) and toast. Maybe a Raffertys sachet for her if she baulks at the soup. Easy dinner day!