Coconut Pie

Moist Coconut Pie

Ingredients:

• 4 Eggs
• 125g DF margarine
• 1/2 cup Gf plain flour
• 1 cup of Castor sugar
• 1 cup of Dessicated coconut
• 400ml tin of Coconut milk

Method:

Put all the ingredients in the same bowl & mix with an electric mixer until smooth. Pour into greased 23 cm pie plate & bake in a moderate oven (180 c ) for about an hour.

Its great with gf/df custard cream etc

I'm back....well sort of lol

Just thought I would give everyone an update.
I went for allergy testing, have various foodstuffs placed on my skin & then got jabbed over 40 times with a scalpel. Between that and the blood test I found out that I'm not coeliac yay! And that I didn't seem to have any problems with whet or dairy.
So I have come to the conclusion that my three children and I are just lactose and gluten intolerant. At least thats the way we are going to manage it. I refuse to put my children though the testing. I'll wait until they get a bit older.
Unfortunately I have also lost my job in the last month. So I'm up to my eyeballs in bills, and am doing a weekly food shop on under $100. How do you shop with very little money and keep dairy & gluten free?.......... I quickly found out you don't!
So we are all on an normal wheat and dairy diet. The kids are loving eating "normal food".
I have managed to take away almost all of my children's symptoms using vegetable enzymes. They have half a capsule with a spoon of honey before they eat lunch & dinner. I try where ever possible to still keep breakfast & snacks gf & df.
Before using the enzymes, if I gave my youngest a cheese sandwich, within 20 minutes she would have diaorrea so bad it would be running down her leg with he nappy still on.
With the enzymes, she will do a normal solid poo. Very exciting stuff.
Now that I have more time at home I plan to slowly post all of the gf/df recipes I have used in the past that worked really well.

Pancakes

This is another recipe I found on the net. I am unsure of the original owner of it. It was a much loved family recipe.
I have just changed it into a lactose & wheat free pancake mix.

Good old fashioned pancakes
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 15 min
Ready in : 20 min
Makes 8 servings

We all love pancakes so for 5 of us I double the mix & it easily does us all for breakfast.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups plain gf flour
3 1/2 teaspoons gf baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 1/4 cups of lactose free milk
1 egg
3 tablespoons of butter, melted

Method

1. In a large bowl; sift together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.
2. Make a well in the centre of the mix and pour in the milk, egg and melted butter.
3. Mix with electric mixer until smooth.
4. Heat a lightly oiled fry pan over a medium to high heat.
5. Pour mixture into hot fry pan.
6. Use a 1/4 cup of mixture (approx.) for each pancake
7. Brown on both sides

Serve with lactose free marg and golden syrup or lactose & gluten free ice-cream

Flour

I use Orgran flour for everything I do. I would love to experiment with different flours in my cooking, but I find by the time you get 250g rice flour for $3.50 down at your local healthfood shop, then 500g of potato flour etc (And alot of gluten free recipes have 2-4 different flours just to bake a cake or loaf of bread) its not cost effective on a weekly basis. So I use these flours in place of a cup of any flour I find listed in any recipes I use. It cost about $3.50-4.50 a box & you can find it in most of the big supermarkets or local healthfood store.

Praise: Balsamic Spritz

This makes a great alternative to salad dressing, you just use the pump bottle to spray a few times over a serving of salad. It tastes good. Is very cheap & has less than 1 calorie per spray for those who are watching their weight :)

Celiac Diagnosis

I am finally after 5 years going to be formally tested for celiac disease.
I’m booked in for blood & allergy test. I asked if my children should have the test too, the doctor said that its fine to just keep them on a diet until there 15 & get the test done then. That took a lot off my mind as I feel everyone has been judging me & thinking I am doing the wrong thing by my children for putting them on a gf, df diet without the tests.
I reckon my mothers intuition was right & I am sticking with it.
Anyway can’t get results for a few weeks or so. But I will post what I find out when the test results come back.

Asparagus and Creamed Corn Quiche

Asparagus and Creamed Corn Quiche
Adapted from Kazandy’s recipe off Bestrecipes.com.au

The recipe is still a work in progress. I haven’t got it right yet. I figured though, someone could read the recipe & instantly know what to change to perfect it.
I will update it when I get it right.

This is a crust less quiche. I made it the other night for dinner. It tasted really good. Even my husband who used to pick asparagus and hates it with a passion went back for seconds lol.
There’s just one thing wrong, it didn’t hold together properly. It has a lot of liquid & ended up more of a soggy fritter in texture & fell apart. But one thing I have found with gluten free cooking is a lot of things that you adapt from normal wheat recipes loose their flavor, this on the other hand had lots of flavor. So I would be willing to make it again as is just to eat something tasty.

Asparagus & Corn Quiche
Serves 4 as a meal, 6-8 as a side

Ingredients:
1 Onion
3 Shallots, chopped ( I didn’t have any so it works fine without them)
1 Tablespoon of Dairy free butter or margarine
1 x 310g Tin of creamed corn
1 x 310g Tin of asparagus cuts, drained (I found a 330g jar of “GreenLand” marinated asparagus spears, & would definitely recommend using them instead)
300ml container of dairy free thickened cream
2 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons chopped parsley (you can use dried if you don’t have any fresh stuff)
Salt & Pepper to taste

Method:
Heat butter in a saucepan and add onion & shallots if you have them. Then put the drained asparagus (if your using the marinated one as the spears are still quite hard and raw) into the saucepan & simmer until it softens.
2 Combine Creamed corn, beaten eggs and cream in a bowl and mix well.
Add onion and asparagus mixture with desired salt & pepper.
I whisked in a few tablespoons of gf flour mix to thicken it.
Pour into a greased quiche dish and cook for 40-50 minutes in a oven that has been pre-heated to 180C or until the quiche is set.

Feel free to adapt this more & perfect it :)