An ode to food allergies

I had to laugh at this: "How do you milk an oat?" My hubby has always wondered this!!

I hope you enjoy this clip as much as I did :)

No bake peanut butter oat balls (egg-free and dairy-free)

More oats! This household must eat more oats than a stable of horses!

Luckily, this energy bite recipe is a no bake recipe, so it is easy to whip up and the kids can help too. You've got to love quick and healthy snacks. :)

Just be warned: these are as easy to eat as they are to make!

Peanut butter oat balls

Ingredients

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1 cup dessicated or shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup rice bubbles
• 1/2 cup sultanas or other dried fruit
• 1 tsp vanilla

Method

1. Mix everything in a medium bowl until thoroughly incorporated.
2. Chill in the refrigerator for half an hour.
3. Once chilled, roll into balls. Store in an airtight container and keep refrigerated for up to 1 week.

Notes

This recipe is one where you can substitute to your heart's content e.g. use currants or dried cranberries for the sultanas, rolled or quick oats, creamed honey or liquid, crushed cereal or flax seed instead of rice bubbles. Use whatever you have in your pantry!

Microwave Muesli Bars (Egg-free and Dairy-free)

The kids are eating soooo many muesli bars these days, I can barely keep up! To make matters worse, Uncle Toby bars have milk powder in them and a large number of the rest contain nuts, which are a no-no for school. So I found a recipe that is quick & easy to make. These get devoured very quickly, so it's just as well that they are easy to make!

Microwave Muesli Bars

Ingredients

• 75g non-dairy spread e.g. nuttelex
• 5 tablespoons light brown soft sugar
• 2 tablespoons golden syrup
• 150g rolled oats
• 75g sultanas*
• 75g dried apricots, chopped*

Method

1. Place the butter, sugar and syrup in a microwave safe bowl and cook on high power for 1 to 2 minutes, or until butter is melted.
2. Stir in the oats, sultanas, and apricots and mix thoroughly.
3. Press mixture into a small greased and lined baking dish. (I used a medium-sized rectangular pyrex dish)
4. Cook on high power for 4-5 minutes or until the centre is bubbling. Allow to cool then cut into squares.

Notes

1. * all that is required is approximately 150g of add-ins. You can split it any way you like: e.g. 50g sultanas, 50g apricot, 50g glace cherries, or just all sultanas. Try nuts or chocolate chips if your family can take it
2. I know it's tempting to cut it while it's still warm, but I found that this makes it disintegrate a bit as it is not set yet.
3. You don't have to line the dish, but it is easier to remove the bars if you do.

Persimmon Cookies (Egg-free and dairy-free)

When I was little, persimmons were a rare treat. They were also astringent, which means that the skin is inedible. So we had to wait until they were soft and squishy on the inside, and then scoop the sweet pulp out with a spoon.

These days you can buy persimmons with edible skin, and eat them hard like apples, or wait until they become so ripe that they're soft and mushy. We had a few too many mushy ones, so I decided to try making some persimmon cookies.

These cookies are quite easy to make. The Carnivore's sister helped me do the mixing. The cookies are a bit soft & cakey on the inside and remind me a little of gingerbread. These yummy treats only survived two days in our house, and I made four trays of them!

Egg-free and Dairy-free Persimmon Cookies

` Makes about 40

Ingredients

• 2 ripe persimmons, pureed (I also peeled mine)
• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 egg replacer (1 heaped tsp No Egg with 2 tbsp water)
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup (100g) non-dairy spread e.g. nuttelex
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan forced/350°F ).
2. Stir flour, bicarb soda and spices together, set aside.
3. Cream together nuttelex and sugar until fluffy.
4. Add egg replacer and persimmon and beat until combined.
5. Add the dry ingredients from step 2 and mix with the beater.
6. Stir in nuts and raisins.
7. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto greased tray. Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly golden.

Note: These cookies don't really spread much when cooked, so you can place them fairly close together on the tray

Eating out

Eating out is often a challenge. To make things easier, we tend to stick to sushi when we are in a food court (being mindful that california and tuna rolls may have mayonnaise). When we dine out, we don't want to be "difficult diners", so it's usually Chinese.

So I was really happy to see a list of places we could try other than our usual haunts! We might have to go and dine out some time :)

Here is the list of places to eat:

Sydney restaurants for "difficult diners"

A wonderful Mother's Day present!

Well it is Mother's Day, and that means I get to have what I want for breakfast: PANCAKES! But not just any old pancakes, Jamie Oliver's One Cup pancakes. (Told you I like Jamie Oliver!) These pancakes are so easy to make: 1 egg, 1 cup self-raising flour, 1 cup milk and a pinch of salt.

"But what about the Vegan Carnivore?", I hear you say. Do we make his special non-dairy and no egg pancakes? Well, no! Today is a special day. Today we finally get to do a baked egg challenge! So we will use one egg and some oat milk, and fry in oil and see how it goes....

And......

He was ok!!! Hip hip hooray!!!! We can bake with eggs now!!!!

Don't worry, I'll still write about living with no eggs and occasionally bake no egg recipes. I still have lots of friends who have egg allergies. Plus, that's only baked egg. We aren't up to whole eggs yet....

“Lactose Free” is NOT the same as “Dairy Free”!

“Lactose free” and “dairy free”. Sometimes you see these things written on food and drink packets. Be careful: They are NOT THE SAME thing!

“Lactose free” means a product doesn't contain lactose, which is a sugar contained in milk. People who are lactose intolerant, lack an enzyme required to break this sugar down. Take the lactose out of the milk and everything is fine.

However, there are some people, like my little boy, who are allergic to the protein in the cow's milk. If you are one of these people, it means you cannot have any milk products at all. You need to look for “Dairy free” as “Lactose free” can still have the milk, but without the lactose.

The casein trap:

Looking for “dairy free” is especially important when you are looking at products like soy cheese or cheese made from something other than cow's milk e.g. goat's cheese. You may look at the ingredient list and think it all looks ok. But then you might see something called “casein”. What's casein? It's a protein that's found in milk. So if you are allergic to cow's milk, stay clear of casein!!

Rennet

Another thing to watch out for is rennet. Rennet is another thing used to make cheese. It is often derived from the stomachs of cows, goats and sheep. The good news is that there are non-animal sources of rennet.

I am not sure if Australian cheesemakers have to disclose the source of their rennet. But if you want to be safe, buy from vegan sources (no animal products), or kosher places (milk and meat are not allowed to be mixed).

So, in summary: If you are allergic to cow's milk (not just lactose intolerant), look for “Dairy Free”, avoid casein and check your rennet source.

Well, that's all for now. I hope that this has been as interesting for you as it has been for me to research!

More info:

• What is casein?
• What is rennet?

Dietary restrictions - how do you know what to eat?

I was talking to a friend the other night about the dietary restrictions he's been put on, to try and make him healthy enough for a poo transplant (it's a long story!). Anyway, he's lucky enough to have some professionals checking on him periodically to make sure he is not making too many mistakes with his diet.

But it made me wonder - what about the rest of us? Food allergies are so much more prevalent now than when we were kids. I didn't know anyone who had a food allergy when I was growing up. We could bring all sorts of things to school - tiny nutella packs with those little plastic spoons, peanut butter sandwiches etc. Things that are now banned or strongly discouraged from most daycares centres, preschools and primary schools. This means that most of us do not have a good working knowledge of what is safe to eat from an allergy perspective and what is not.

I'm kind of lucky. I like to cook and even more than that, I love my gastroporn. I have a bookshelf groaning with cookbooks with gorgeous pictures of food. I also love to watch cooking shows like Masterchef, Poh's Kitchen and Jamie Oliver and drool over the yummy food they cook (well, ok, watching Huey's Kitchen isn't terribly sexy, but you know what I mean about the food shows).

So I have a pretty good idea of what goes into food e.g. pastry usually has butter & egg, so pies are a no-no, consommé may be a clear soup, but it's clarified using egg. Nevertheless, I've made mistakes when I've been feeding the Vegan Carnivore. It must be even harder if you don't have either a good knowledge of cookery, or someone to constantly watch out for you and advise you. So my next few posts are going to be about what to buy/eat and what to avoid.

And if you have any stories about mistakes you have made, please feel welcome to post below! :)

ANZAC biscuits (egg-free, dairy-free, nut-free)

On ANZAC Day, I thought we should make some dairy-free ANZAC biscuits for the kids. Luckily they are already egg-free, so the only substitution is nuttelex for the butter.

Today I was talking to some people about making them, and someone pondered how they would have coconut during the war. So I did a quick search on the history of ANZAC biscuits. Did you know that the original ANZAC biscuit was called a wafer or tile and was incredibly hard? It also didn't have any coconut.

I have a few books with ANZAC biscuit recipes, but the CWA one seemed the most appropriate to follow. Here it is.

ANZAC Biscuits

Ingredients

1 cup self-raising flour

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup desiccated coconut

1 cup sugar

125g nuttelex, melted

2 Tbs golden syrup

2 Tbs boiling water

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced) and grease baking trays/line trays with baking paper.
2. Sift flour into a bowl. Add dry ingredients (oats, coconut, sugar) and stir to combine.
3. Add bicarbonate of soda to boiling water and mix
4. Add melted nuttelex, golden syrup and boiling water/bicarb.
5. Mix with a spoon to a firm consistency.
6. Place spoonfuls of mixture onto the tray.
7. Bake until brown (approximately 15 minutes).

Notes

• Nuttelex can be melted in the microwave, just zap for about 30-40 seconds
• Shredded coconut can be substituted for dessicated coconut.
• Leaving space to spread is really, really important! Otherwise you will end up with a big sheet of biscuit. You can cut/break it apart and it still tastes ok, but it won't be as pretty. You can see the results below from overcrowding.

Here is what happens if you use a tablespoon and put your blobs too close to each other! It's better to put too few on and make more trays. But the kids certainly enjoyed snapping bits off and eating this "disaster"!

Healthier Chocolate Pear Muffins

Ever since I saw this on Better Homes and Gardens, I've wanted to try this Chocolate Pear Muffin recipe. It looked pretty easy and yummy, and it was already egg- and dairy-free, so I didn't need to make any substitutions.

So I bought the magazine, planning to make these yummy muffins. That was in November last year! I have to say though, it was worth the wait. This recipe is fairly easy and it is delicious as well as fairly healthy.

As for no substitutions, well, I did have to make a couple of little ones as I (yet again) didn't have all the ingredients! Luckily, this recipe was forgiving of my last-minute switches.

Healthier Chocolate Pear Muffins
Preparation time: 10 mins
Cooking time: 25 mins
Makes 12

Ingredients
250g wholemeal self-raising flour
1/4 cup dark cocoa powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
125g golden syrup (I had to substitute half this with treacle)
2 large pears, peeled, cored, grated
100g raisins, chopped (or use sultanas or currants)
100g extra virgin olive oil
185mL non-dairy milk
Extra 1/2 pear, finely sliced

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C (fan-forced 160C)
2. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases
3. Sift flour, cocoa and cinnamon into a bowl.
4. Combine syrup, pear, raisin, oil and milk in a separate bowl. Beat into flour mixture.
5. Spoon mixture into prepared tin and top with extra pear (the cases will be almost full to the top if you make 12).
6. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer.

Notes

• 28 April '12: I originally posted that ordinary cocoa powder is fine. I substituted Nestle baking cocoa for the dark cocoa powder as that's what we currently have in the pantry. As Jappy pointed out, it may contain traces of milk. If you need to strictly avoid milk, then please use dark cocoa powder and always check the ingredient list on your purchases.

Gluten-Free Five Cup Loaf

I went to visit a friend whose boy is on an elimination diet. So I modified the Five Cup Loaf recipe to try and fit with their current restrictions: gluten-free, soy-free, additive-free. So I substituted gluten-free flour, rice milk and fresh apple and frozen berries.

How did it go? Well, it worked out kind of ok, but it was completely flat. It also needed a lot more cooking, about another half hour. Next time I might try adding some xantham gum, something I've avoided buying so far. At least it tasted good!

Here's the recipe again, with the substitutions.

Gluten-free Five Cup Loaf
Ingredients
1 cup gluten-free self-raising flour (or ordinary gluten-free flour + 2 tsp baking powder)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup dessicated coconut
1 cup frozen berries
1 cup rice milk

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C. Line a loaf tin with baking paper and set aside.
2. Mix all ingredients in a bowl. A spoon will do.
3. Pour into lined loaf tin.
4. Bake for 60-90 mins until cake springs back when lightly touched in the centre.

Five Cup Loaf

Ever looking for things to buy, recently renewed my long-forgotten membership of Simple Savings. Ironic, perhaps?* Still being in a splurge mode, I bought a copy of the $21 Challenge book, even though I figured a lot of the recipes would not be egg or dairy free.

Inside was a recipe for Five Cup Loaf***. It doesn't have any eggs and I realised the recipe could be easily modified for non-dairy milk. It's a nice, easy recipe, something I really like!

Five Cup Loaf
Ingredients
1 cup self-raising flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup dessicated coconut
1 cup sultanas (or any dried fruit, I used a mix of currants & orange peel)
1 cup oat milk (or other non-dairy milk)

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C. Line a loaf tin with baking paper and set aside.
2. Mix all ingredients in a bowl. A spoon will do.
3. Pour into lined loaf tin.
4. Bake for 40-45 mins until cake springs back when lightly touched in the centre.

Notes

• Don't leave the mixture to stand too long, I left mine for a bit and the currants all ended up on the bottom
• I used a large loaf tin, but I think you could do this in a small loaf tin and not cook it for as long, as it doesn't rise that much. The $21 challenge book says 25 min, but this wasn't the case for me.

* Simple Savings is a website devoted to teaching you how to save money. It can actually be very helpful, but initially you do have to fork out some dough!**
** Or just sign up for the free newsletter.
*** I've since found this recipe is quite common elsewhere. OK, that's probably enough with the asterisks now!

Egg free and (mostly) dairy free lasagne

I was missing lasagne a lot, so I decided to make some at last. I am not really sure if goat cheese counts as dairy-free, but it's not cow's milk cheese anyway. If you don't have goat cheese, you can leave it out as it only adds a little bit of extra taste. Or try tofu! I am tempted to try one of the tofu substitutions I've read, the next time I make lasagne.

Egg-free and cow-milk free lasagne
Instant lasagne sheets
Goat cheese

Tomato Sauce
600g Mince meat
1 large Onion
2 cloves Garlic
1Tbsp. Tomato paste
Dairy-free chicken stock
Salt to taste
half large bottle Passata

Bechamel Sauce
4 Tbsp. dairy free margarine
3 Tbsp. flour
2 cups dairy free soy, oat or rice milk
salt and pepper to taste
pinch nutmeg

Method
Tomato Sauce
This is a pretty rough guide, I am sure everyone has their own bolognaise sauce recipe or a vegetable sauce recipe

1. Sweat off the onions & garlic
2. Brown the mince. I think it's important to make sure all the liquid has evaporated.
3. Add tomato paste & cook for a minute
4. Add passata, stock and salt to taste. Simmer for an hour or until sauce has reduced sufficiently. (You can use canned tomato instead of passata)

Bechamel Sauce

1. Melt dairy-free margarine on low in a saucepan.
2. Add the flour to saucepan and whisk mixture until flour is incorporated and not lumpy, about 1 minute or so.
3. Slowly add the dairy-free milk, and salt and pepper to taste.
4. Whisk constantly for about 5-10 minutes on medium or until mixture thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon.

Layering

1. Preheat oven to 200C/180C fan force
2. Ladle tomato sauce on bottom of oven-proof dish
3. Cover with lasagne sheet
4. Spread some of the bechamel on top
5. Top with tomato sauce
6. Repeat layering of lasagne sheets, bechamel and tomato sauce until used up
7. Top with goat cheese
8. Cover dish with foil or lid and bake for 45 minutes
9. Remove foil/lid and bake for further 15 minutes until top is nice and golden. Remove from oven, cool for a little and then cut and enjoy!

Icing for Gingerbread Cookies

My last post was about making Gingerbread Cookies. Here's how we ice them.

Icing in a makeshift piping bag
Ingredients
Icing mixture
Water
Food colouring (if desired)
Plastic snaplock bag (sandwich size is good)
Rubber band

Method

1. Mix icing mixture and water until a thick paste
2. Add food colouring as desired. Be careful - a little goes a long way!
3. Place icing into a snaplock bag. I find it helps to line a cup with the bag and flip the bag over the edge so the cup holds the bag and there's a nice big space to put the icing in.
4. Push the icing into one corner, squeeze out the air and seal the bag. For extra help, put a rubber band just at the top of the icing. This will help stop it escaping and make it easier to push out the bag.
5. Cut a tiny, tiny hole in the corner for the icing to come out. Make sure you don't make too big a hole or it becomes very messy.
6. Decorate!

Here are pictures of Omnivore Girl doing some piping, to compare using the rubber band & without. It still works, but it's harder to control without the band.

Egg-free and Dairy-free Gingerbread Cookies

One of my sister's rituals is to decorate gingerbread cookies with Omnivore Girl. I couldn't leave Vegan Carnivore out of the action this time, so this was a recipe for him.

Egg-free and Dairy-free Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup treacle or molasses
1/4 cup plain soy or oat milk

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour (or a mix of both)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

spice blend:
1/2 teaspoon each ground nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

Method

1. In a large bowl beat together oil and sugar for about 3 minutes. Add treacle/molasses and soy milk. The treacle/molasses and soy milk won't really blend with the oil but that's ok.
   
2. In a separate bowl, sift together all the other ingredients.
3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet in batches. Mix together with a firm spoon or spatula until well combined. You should have a pretty stiff dough.
   
   
   
   
   Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap in cling wrap and chill for an hour or up to 3 days in advance. (If you chill longer than an hour you may want to let it sit for 10 minutes to loosen up a bit before proceeding).
4. Preheat oven to 180 C / 350 F. Lightly grease your baking trays or line them with baking paper.
5. On a floured surface roll your dough out to a little less than 1/4 inch thick. You can do this in 2 batches if you don't have the space. Cut out your shapes with your cookie cutters and gently place on cookie sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and let them cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet then move to a cooling rack. They will still be a little soft, but they will firm up a bit as they cool. Wait until they are completely cool before icing.

Cookie Notes

• This recipe is quite sweet, it is good to cut down the sugar.
• I am lazy so I roll out my dough between sheets of baking paper so it doesn't stick and it's less messy. I also line my baking trays with baking paper. My sister uses cling wrap for rolling.

See my next post for how to ice the gingerbread.