Home-made Icecream

With some lovely warm weather our thoughts turned to ice cream today. So we whipped out our icecream machine and away we went.

 Look at the lovely yellow yolks - nothing like free range home grown eggs

We used a really simple recipe which can be adapted to any kind of milk (cow, rice, soy)

100g caster sugar

1 tsp cornflour

4 egg yolks

2 cups milk

* Put caster sugar, cornflour and eggs yolk into a bowl and cream together until egg yolk gets lighter
* Heat milk until it just starts to boil. 
* Pour into bowl and mix with egg yolk mixture. 
* Put back in saucepan over low heat and mix together until it feels slightly thicker (dont let it come to the boil or simmer). 
* Put in fridge to chill for 6-12 hours.
* Add 1 tsp vanilla or 1/4 cup cocoa to mixture.
* Then put into ice cream machine and voila you have ice cream.

For an egg free option - replace the egg yolks with 1.5 tbsp rice brain oil (as it has no flavour). I make rice milk ice cream this way.

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

 From Heidi Swanson's blog '101 Cookbooks'

I love and adore Brussel Sprouts but it hasnt always been that way. I used to avoid then like the plague due to memories of soggy foul tasting things from school camps. Then I found a recipe for roasted brussel sprouts in Heidi Swansons cookbook "Super Natural Cooking" and I was a convert. Funnily enough so was Little B. He likes nothing better than a bowl of brussel sprouts which shocks people no end when they visit.

I've also found once outed as brussel sprout lovers, people come out of the woodwork to tell me all the funky little ways they cook them. And I find them the most universal veggie during winter - they work on their own, in soups, stews, and even stirfrys.

Here is an extended version of Heidi's recipe, but for something quick I just throw them into a bowl, with some olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. Then I roast away till they look cooked and we all scoff them :-)

And I had the most hilarious conversation with an older lady recently at the greengrocer. She told me that brussel sprouts were too expensive at $4.95 a kilo. Considering how many I could get if I bought a kilo, it's an absolute bargain if you ask me!!

Garlicky Lentil Soup

For Maxabella :-)

5 cups water / stock

250g red lentils

Garlic **

1 swede

2 stalks celery diced

1 carrot diced

6 x brussel sprouts

¾ cup green beans, diced

1 tsp salt

Pepper to taste

** The amount of garlic you add depends on your personal taste. We add 2 cloves of garlic crushed because Little B doesn’t like too much garlic. You may want to add more or less depending on how garlicky you like things – Mr B would add 4 if Little B wasn’t eating LOL **

Throw everything in a pot. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 40 minutes. Let soup cool then puree in a blender. Service with crusty rolls for dipping…yumm

The swede and garlic add a beautiful sweetness to this soup, and the rest of the vegies are packed full of nutrients. Cheap, tasty and relatively quick makes this soup a winner at our house.

Baked Fruit Bread Custard

This is a great filling dessert while the nights are still cool. It has more of a baked custard feel (less bread, more fruit) than a traditional bread and butter pudding. It’s also low GI. It’s a mixture of recipes from Low GI Food and Jude Blereau’s Coming Home to Eat.

I’ve become quite a fan of desserts at the moment. They fill Little B up (he has hollow legs) and Mr B (he works hard physically) plus they are quite nourishing when made from natural whole foods.

4 slices sourdough bread (or fruit bread or wholegrain)

1 tbsp jam (your choice)

½ cup dried peaches (or any fruit of your choosing, we used diced bananas)

2 eggs

¼ cup sugar

1 tsp grated lemon zest

500ml low fat milk

freshly grated nutmeg

- Preheat oven to 170 degrees. Spread the bread slices with jam, and cut each bread slice into quarters and arrange in a 1.25 litre ceramic baking dish. Scatter with chopped fruit.

- Whisk together eggs, sugar and lemon in a bowl. Whisk in the milk. Pour over bread and sprinkle with nutmeg. Set aside for 5 mins to allow the bread to soften.

- Put the dish in a roasting tin of hot water. The water should come halfway up the sides of the dish. Bake for 35 minutes or until set.

Making lollipops

For Sonia & Meagan

I thought I’d post how we made lollipops to take along to a birthday party last weekend. Little B cant eat normal lollipops as they have salicylates if they are fairly natural or soy lecithin if they are not.

I followed the method of Leela at She Simmers, combined with a recipe from Sue Dengate’s Fed Up with Food Additives book.

1 cup organic raw sugar

2/3 cup water

½ tsp citric acid

Dash of pureed pears for flavour

I didn’t use a candy thermometer (not something I have stashed in the kitchen) and will admit they I burned the sugar in my first batch and they tasted awful (Little B having never had a lollipop thought they were brilliant). Second batch I knew more or less what I was doing and had greater success. I also think induction stovetops are awful and hard to cook on so this contributes to successes and failures in the kitchen at the House of B.

We made them as flat lollipops on a greased metal tray using 1 tsp of mixture to create the circles. First using cut down paddlepop sticks to practice. Then proper lollipop sticks for our second batch. I wish I'd taken photos but time was of the essence (after the first batch tanked) and we had to get to the party :-)

But if it all looks too hard and you want to buy some pre-made the Little Lolly Shop makes failsafe lollipops here (no nasties).

Spiced Pumpkin Soup with roasted pepitas

This soup is a current favourite of Mr B & I. It’s a really nice thick soup for a cold winters day – we love it for lunch. It keeps and reheats really well if we make a big batch.

1 tablespoon of oil of choice (we use sunflower or coconut)

1 brown onion

1 garlic clove, minced

1 long red chilli, roughly chopped

1kg kent pumpkin, peeled and cut into 3cm pieces

400g can organic cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

4 cups home-made vegetable stock

2 tablespoons pepitas

coriander leaves, to serve

Step 1 – Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Put oil into saucepan and heat over medium-high heat. Cook onion, chilli and garlic for 5 mins, or until onion softens.

Step 2 – Add pumpkin and cannelloni beans. Stir to coat with onion mixture. Add stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for 15 minutes or until pumpkin is tender.

Step 3 – place pepitas on a tray lined with baking paper. Drizzle with a little oil and bake for 10 minutes or until toasted.

Step 4 – Mash pumpkin and beans until soup is nice and thick. Sprinkle with coriander leaves and pepitas, then serve.

** Another nice trick is to mix in some breadcrumbs. Gives the soup a really nice texture.

Whoops

Let me preface this post, by saying that I’m blessed that I have a husband and son who will pretty much eat anything. Little B will eat most things offered and at least try them happily. Mr B will eat anything (even if it tastes like rubbish).

So today I was experimenting with one of our normal cookie recipes – trialling some sugar alternatives and different seeds. Looked fine in the bowl, but as they were cooking, I thought to myself “they look like super flat anzac biscuits” but smell a bit funny.

Well, coming out of the oven, they still smelt a tad odd. I gave them to my taste testers to try. Little B takes one bite and hands it back (we should have taken a photo, I’m sure he’ll never hand a cookie back in my lifetime again) and says “tastes funny, like farts”. Mr B eats a few and admits defeat and hands them over for the compost bin (another photo op).

Not present for Little B’s opinion, he then goes on to tell me they smell like “farts” and taste really weird.

That’s right ladies and gentlemen….fart cookies – coming to a store near you ;-)

Home-made Gnocchi

This is a staple recipe in our household. Its quick and easy and tastes divine :-) It was only hard the first time I made it, when I had no idea what I was doing and used a garlic press to puree the potatoes LOL. Now I know what I’m doing, its easy peasy.

We either use this with an organic tomato pasta sauce for us with lots of added vegies (which we blanche quickly with the gnocchi) & organic cheese or with a lentil vegie pasta sauce that we make for Little B.

The two important things in a gnocchi recipe are having the right kind of potatoes, -they need to be floury. And using the right amount of flour – too much and they become stodgy, too little and they disintegrate in the water when they are cooking.

I prefer Sebago potatoes. I find desiree are too time consuming to peel by hand. This recipe I adapted from a recipe at www.taste.com.au

Fresh uncooked home-made gnocchi

4 x organic desiree or Sebago potatoes, unpeeled

1 and 1/3 cup organic plain flour

-  Place potatoes in saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil over a high heat. Cook for 20-25 minutes (depending on size of potatoes). Drain well and set aside until cool enough to handle.

-  While still hot, peel by hand and discard the skins. Using sieve or potato ricer, puree potatoes into bowl. Cool slightly.

-  Add flour to the potatoes, then use hands to knead briefly until a soft dough forms.

- Cut into 4 equal pieces. Using your hands, gently roll each piece to form a log 2cm wide. Cut lengths of 1.5cm. You can run one side of gnocchi over the tines of a fork (this pattern helps the sauce to stick – but I sometimes skip this step and hasn’t made a difference that I can see).

-  Add to boiling water. Once the gnocchi has floated to the surface, let them cook for approx 10 secs. Drain well.

-  Add sauce and serve.

Jam making escapades

I’m proud to say that I have embarked on jam making.

My first attempt has been organic pear jam. I have been using pureed pears as a “jam” for Little B on his toast so thought this should be our first port of call (NB: Little B can only eat bananas and pears).

Organic Pear Jam

1kg fresh organic pears (for 500g fruit)

1 ½ cups organic raw sugar

1 tbsp organic lemon juice

2 tbsps water

3 tbsp Jam Setta

·      Peel and quarter pears and add to pot

** Now I cheated and used our breadmaker for my first attempt as it has a jam making function. I have electric induction hot plates so cant make jam the traditional way as I cannot get the heat consistent **

Sterilising Jars

·      “Wash the jars and lids in hot soapy water, rinse and drain upside down on a clean cloth

·      Place on a tray in a cold oven

·      Turn oven to 110 degrees. When the oven reaches this temperature, turn off the heat and leave jars for 10 minutes

·      When cooled to warm, they are ready to pour in jam

·      Simmer lids in boiling water for 2 minutes, drain and use dry”

(Excerpt from A Year in a Bottle by Sally Wise)

The final product!!

I have to say the jam is delicious and I’m a complete convert now to this easy way of making jam. Little B loves it too. Next up is Mr B’s choice of jam contingent on what fruit I can get from our organic f & v shop. But Granny B and I will be able to make marmalade from our orange tree this year :-)

A really great book on preserving is A Year in a Bottle by Sally Wise.

Lentil & Roast Vegetable Salad

For Sonia :-)

1 x 400g can organic green lentils
Roast vegetables of your choice (sweet potato, pumpkin, any root vegetable)
Good handful of baby spinach leaves
2 tablespoons organic olive oil (or oil of your choice)
good squeeze lemon juice
1 teaspoon organic honey

1. Heat oven to 200 degrees, then mix root vegetables with 1 tsp oil and place on tray. Roast for 15-20 minutes, or until soft.
2. Combine oil, lemon juice and honey to make a dressing.
3. Combine lentils, salad leaves in a bowl. Mix through roast veges when ready and toss through the dressing.

We have also done a variation of this with some oil, balsamic vinegar and mustard. It’s also really nice with cherry tomatoes mixed through.

Little B loves this salad without any dressing. The saltiness of the lentils and sweetness of the roast veges is tasty enough on its own, and I quite like it this way too.

Washing Experiments

I’ve been using a variety of eco-washing powders for the last 3 years and have been fairly happy with them. But Mr B is not happy with them. As an engineer he can have days where his clothes get really greasy and grotty and the eco powder just doesn’t cut it. I tried soaking them first but still his clothes just don’t come out fresh and clean and often have an odour that smells really damp and stale.

The last straw has been during our renovations, where Mr B has developed a bed sore type rash from clothes chafing against his legs in the warm weather while he worked. Our gp said he believed our washing powder was contributing as it wasn’t cleaning his clothes properly and this combined with the chafing has caused infected wounds.

So I decided to make my own washing powder as per Rhonda’s recipe at Down to Earth. I had most of the ingredients on hand and decided to omit the Borax as I’m really not comfortable using a product that is a) mined and b) can be toxic to children.

The result?

Surprisingly good actually ☺ I couldn’t stand the smell of Lux flakes so moved onto grating the Sunlight soap and that helped heaps. Mr B’s clothes are really clean and he didn’t mind the smell of either versions (and I will say once the clothes are dry they don’t smell so strongly of the Lux flakes).

It doesn’t make my whites any whiter but then again none of the eco washing powders I have used make clothes any whiter. But a few days on the line in full sun works wonders – a cool trick I learned when we used cloth nappies. Sunlight is the best stain remover!!

Gozleme

I’m sure this recipe has already done the rounds of blogia but it has been such a hit in our house recently (and its so easy) that I thought I’d post it anyway. I found it on Simple Savings. It’s great for using up stuff out of the fridge.

Gozleme

200g plain yoghurt
pinch of salt
250g self raising flour
Then whatever filling you like – traditionally spinach / rocket, and feta with some lemon, salt and pepper

1. Beat yoghurt and salt until smooth
2. Gradually add flour and stir with knife until it becomes a stiff dough
3. Knead by hand until the dough becomes soft and sticky
4. Put in a clean bowl, cover and stand for 30 minutes
5. Divide into 4 round pieces, roll into a 20cm circle
6. Add filling, fold over to form a half circle, then press edges with a fork
7. Brush with oil on one side, cook in frypan until golden, then coat other side with oil and repeat

We’ve made these with leftover vegies and cream cheese and they were yummed up by all. I’m next going to try with different cheeses as Little B passes those food challenges.

I love that the dough is really pliable. It’s given me lots of ideas of how I could use it in a dessert form with a little bit of sugar added to the dough.