Mulberry Jam

Sorry I left it so long!
Expect mulberry everything for the next couple of weeks. Our tree is aboundant with them. Ive already posted Mulberry Pies and now mulberry jam. It's just the start of a long line. I adapted the Nourishing Meals Cookbook recipe for Strawberry lime jam.

Mulberry Jam

Ingredients

450 grams/1 pound Mulberries stalks removed

3 - 4 tablespoons water (depending on how juicy your berries are)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/4 cup honey

1 and 1/2 tablespoons arrowroot/tapioca starch

Method 

Whisk lemon juice, honey and starch. Put berries and water in a saucepan add the honey mix and whisk to combine. Bring to a boil (lid off) and immediately turn down to medium heat simmer for 8-10  minutes stirring constantly. Remove from heat and pour in to a mason jar. Place in the fridge lid off to thicken.

Mulberry Pies

I basically copied Brittany's recipe for Cherry Almond hand pies but used mulberries from our tree instead of cherries, coconut sugar in place of xylitol and ground my own almonds. Oh and I left out the almond and vanilla extracts. :).

My gluten free flour mix

This mix is used in a few of my recipes such as my dirt and worms and my vanilla sponge cake. I Have changed it to be 1 cup buckwheat 2 cups coconut flour on occasion due to shortages. I grind my own buckwheat flour using this method.

Gluten free flour mix

Ingredients

2 cups buckwheat flour

1 cup coconut flour

1/4 cup tapioca flour

1/4 cup potato starch

Method

Whiz in a blender to combine. Alternatively you can stir by hand, but this is slower ans more messy. Store in a sealed jar in the pantry and use within the next two weeks. (whitch should be no problem with all of my recipes on hand!)

Vanilla sponge cake - Egg free!

I am fine with eggs but I know a heap of people are allergic/intolerant so I really wanted to share this with you. Food.com had done all the egg free and dairy free for me so all I had to do was try my gluten free flour mix in place of theirs and use honey in place of sugar so really they did all the really hard stuff for me ;) I adapted it from this recipe which I found while desperately searching the net fr an everything free sponge. THANK YOU!

Vanilla sponge cake

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups My gluten free flour mix

1 cup grated palm sugar or honey

1/3 cup oil (I use coconut oil)

1 cup water (or dairy free milk such as almond milk)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 - 2  teaspoon vanilla powder/extract

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C Oil and line a round cake tin. (I use 20cm/8inch pan- but smaller or larger will just vary the height of the cake)
Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Use an egg whisk to aerate- their is no need to sift the dry ingredients.
Using a mixing jug, beat the oil, vinegar, vanilla, sugar and water together. Mix well.
Make a well in the flour mix and add the wet mix. Beat this together slowly and when mixed through beat with a wooden spoon for a couple of minutes.
Pour the mixture into the prepared tin.The mixture should be the consistency of a thick batter. Cook 45-60 minutes.When cooked, remove the cake from the oven and allow the cake to cool in the tin for 5-10 minutes before turning out to cool.

How to make buckwheat flour - two ways

This is more of a method that a recipe. option A. is simply to chuck it in your blender and whiz. option B. is to soak and dehydrate and then grind - Q. Why bother? A. It makes it more digestible. I can't have rice flour or ordinary buckwheat flour as they make me feel sick. However, soaked and dehydrated buckwheat flour is fine for me. (I'm going to experement with soaked and dehydrated rice flour soon, too)

Method A:

Place 1 and 1/2 cups buckwheat in blender and whiz until a fine flour is reached.

Method B:

Put buckwheat in a bowl and cover with 5 inches of water. Soak over night. In the morning drain and place on a baking tray. Spread thinly. You might need two trays. Place in dehydrator and dry at  50C for 8 hours or overnight. When dry blend to a fine flour.

Sherbet

Apricot. Mango. Strawberry. Kiwi fruit. Really any freeze dried fruit you can find. It's not strictly sugar free. It has coconut sugar,and only a small amount of that even. I am seriously addicted to this stuff. MAKE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Sherbet

Ingredients

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon citric acid

3 teaspoons crushed freeze dried apricots

2 - 4 teaspoons coconut sugar

Method

Mix. Just make sure your bowl and spoon are DRY.

Sour Cherry Surprise Balls

I'm posting this now due to forgetting yesterday. Leave out the lucuma and halve the cacao and pour into molds for chocolates. Or halve the lucuma and add a tablespoon of coconut oil and chill an then use as a spread. Or replace the sour cherries with another dried fruit such as raisins. Really, the options are endless. I ran out of cherries by the end so really the surprise was "OMG! I didn't get a sour cherry" in my case  ;)

Sour Cherry Surprise Balls

Ingredients

50g cacao powder

70g cacao butter, melted

1/2 cup lucuma powder

60g honey

1/4 - 1/2 tsp peppermint extract

4 Tablespoons dried sour cherries

rice flakes, for rolling

Method

Mix lucuma and cacao in a small bowl. Whisk together cacao butter peppermint, and honey. Add in they powder mix. Keep adding in more lucuma untill you get a dough. Roll a ball of it around a sour cherry and repeat the rest of the dough. Crush some rice flakes and roll each ball in them until well coated. Chill until hard about 10 - 20 minutes and serve.

Apple Crisps

I just popped over to http://www.paleoforkids.com.au and started making their brilliant apple crisp recipe. Although when I got the cinnamon down from the cupboard. I spotted my cacao powder and endend up changing it. Theese are in the oven right now, so will post a pic later.

Apple Crisps

Ingredients

3 - 4 small apples

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup water

5 Tablespoons palm sugar

5 Tablespoons cinnamon

1 Tablespoon cacao powder

1/2 teaspoon vanilla powder (you can use vanilla extract here, but instead add it to the lemon mix as it is a liquid)

Method

Preheat oven to 50C. (Or as low as your oven goes)
Stand apples right side up and slice down the middle. Slice apples with a pane slicer. In a bowl combine lemon juice and water. Soak apple slices while you make your cinnamon mix. In a shaker Mix sugar, cinnamon, cacao and vanilla. Remove apples from the lemon mix and lay on a baking sheet. They can touch, but not overlap. Sprinkle with the cinnamon mix and  bake for 2 - 4 hours depending on your oven temperature.


If you have any questions about this recipe or any other on the site, please leave a comment.

Copycat Grapefruit Pearl EasyWay

I love doing Copycat recipes! (even though most of the time I have never tasted the thing that I'm copying) I used to get the to Grapefruit Pearl Easy Way from the little shop near the train station and get them to leave the sugar out but the green tea made me hyper. Years ago I used to copy them with some grapefruit juice and pearls but for some reason I stopped doing that. Today I pulled the jar out of the back of the pantry and looked up how to cook them. I was feeling ambitious so I experimented with strawberry green tea and lemonade fruit juice. It would also work with all grapefruit juice and ordinary green tea. This is super easy despite thee crazy long instructions. It made a HUGE amount about 15 servings but i'm going to freeze some ;)

Copycat Grapefruit Pearl EasyWay

Ingredients

2 cups black tapioca pearls

5 cups water

Juice of two grapefruits

Juice of one lemonade fruit (or more grapefruit juice)

Juice of half a lemon

1 and 1/2 cups boiling water

4 Tablespoons honey

1 teabag of Strawberry - Rose green tea

1 - 4 cups water

Method

Boil the water. Add the pearls to the boiling water and boil for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally to make sure the pearls are not sticking to each other or to the pot. Turn off heat and let the pearls steep in the water for another 30 minutes with the lid of the cooking pot on.
Drain the tapioca pearls and rinse with cold water to cool them down. Dilute honey in boiling water and add tea bag. Let sit for 1-2 minutes depending on how strong you like it. Add in juices and whisk to combine. Add 1 cup of water and taste if its to strong add more. Repeat until it tastes not too strong. Spoon 1/4 cup of pearls to 1 cup of drink in a large cup and serve chilled
.

Popcorn - Corn free!

HA! Told you I was working on it! One day away from my coming soon - Popcorn post. It all started when I found this recipe. (That got them a spot on my blog list) I pretty much copied it word-to-word but I used Extra Virgin olive oil. They were a little bitter from the oil, so next time (very, very soon!) I might use light olive oil or even coconut oil.

Popcorn - Corn free!

 

 

Ingredients

200g Puffed Lotus Seeds (NOT dried)

1/4 cup olive oil or melted coconut oil

 Salt, to taste


Method

 Preheat oven to 200 C/ 400 F.
Mix oil and lotus seeds until well coated. Spread on a baking tray and bake for 5-8 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and mix in salt. Serve with an icy cold  mint shake.

Coming soon! - Corn Free Popcorn

I won't deny it. I LOVE Popcorn. before I went Everything free I loved that salty snack that was a handful of delicious , crunchy  goodness. MMMMMMMMMMMMMM! Any way I have been working on an alternative for some time now. Anyway, be expecting something salty and delish popping up (Get it? - Popcorn popping up - Haha ) in my Blog Archive.

Back soon,
Layla

Mintshake

I love Chocolate Covered Katie! (for a link to her blog check out my blogroll tab) I have been living on that site. This is adapted from her "Mint choc chip shake".

Mintshake

Ingredients

4 large frozen bananas

1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

3 cups coconut milk/almond milk

1/2 cup sorrel leaves/ baby spinach

1/2  cup chocolate chips

Ice, for serving

Method

Blend everything except chocolate chips in a high speed blender untill smooth. Sprinkle over chocolate chips and serve over ice.

Chocolate Coconut Brownies

These are pretty adaptable. The first time didn't work so good, but after a bit, I got it just right. Try These with sweet potato, spinach, beetroot or zucchini for a change from the applesauce. I swear you can't taste it. use real eggs if you don't avoid them.

Chocolate Coconut Brownies



Ingredients

50g cocoa powder/raw cacao

50g coconut flour

100g applesauce

100g coconut oil (must be solid)

100g -150g honey

2 flax eggs  (2 tablespoons flax meal and 6 tablespoons water - let sit 10 minutes)

1/4 cup shredded coconut (optional)

Method

Preheat oven to 160C.
Sift cocoa and flour together. In a separate bowl beat coconut oil and honey until smooth, light and fluffy. Beat in flax eggs and applesace. add in dry ingredients and mix well. Pour into a lined baking pan and sprinkle over coconut. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or untill no longer bubbly on top

Super Easy Lasagna with Rice paper

There are numerous gluten free lasagna recipes around the net, but they all seem to contain gluten free lasagna sheets. Urgh. And Cheese. Hrrumph. And White sauce. Grrrumph. and - Ok you get the Idea. So one day I was browsing the net urging at lasange sheets, humphing at cheese and growling at white sauce, when I found this recipe http://theactorsdiet.com/2011/02/09/whos-the-laziest-of-them-all/ I was so exited to see the rice paper in it I forgot to read the directions and besideds It has cheese in it (Hrrumph!). In this version I use hummus to replace cheese but if you don't have an intolerance/allergy you are perfectly welcome to adapt. To make this even easier, use frozen left overs for this for a 5 minute shove-in-the-oven favorite.

Super Easy Lasagna

Ingredients:

550g lamb mince (frozen)

550g pork mince (frozen)

2  680 gram bottles tomato puree

1 head broccoli

                                                         

1 carrot

                                                      

4 brussel sprouts

1 stick celery 

1 medium capsicum

3 medium tomatoes

1/2 cup chopped beans

1 cup water

1/2 cup hummus (optional)

rice paper (about 40 sheets)

Method

Place the meat in a saucepan on high heat and cover. Blend all vegetables with all the water and 1/4 of the tomato puree  until smooth. Add the veggie mix and the rest of the tomato to the meat in the saucepan. Stir. Cover, and cook for 15-20  minutes. Uncover and cook off extra liquid for about 15 minutes Soak all sheets one at a time in boiling water for about 5 seconds. They should still be stiff. Layer four sheets on to of each other and pour over a 2 inch layer. Cover with rice paper and repeat four times or until you run out of space. Spread hummus over and add a final layer of rice paper. Bake for 20 - 30 minutes.