A Simple Apple Dessert

We went apple picking last weekend.  We do this many times in the fall and I am sure you'll do it once or twice, if not you'll take advantage of all the apples that are for sale around this time of year.   This is a very quick and simple dessert that pleases everyone and might be fancy enough for company.  All you need is an apple corer (worth every bit of the $6 or so you'll spend) and some oven proof individual dishes (though bigger than ramekins). My mother needs the credit for this dessert.... she makes it all of the time.

Basically, you core the apples (do not peel them). Place them in the small dish and fill the hole with maple syrup. I use real maple syrup, but I have never tried it with pancake syrup, so I am not sure if it would work as well.  You could also just use brown sugar if you don't have real maple syrup. Place the apples in the oven (about 350F or 375F, it doesn't really matter) and wait 30 minutes or so. They will start to melt down and bubble. The more time you leave them in there, the more melted the apples will become. Eat them as is or if you would prefer: top with ice cream (rice dream ice cream is fine), heavy cream or add some brown sugar. Adding dried cranberries or nuts would also be nice.  Its like eating apple pie without the crust and it takes no preparation or work, aside from coring the apples and opening the oven.  This dessert has always been a hit, and is a great and easy way to use all those wonderful fall apples. Enjoy!

Wheat, Soy and Milk-Free Shepherd's Pie

Shepherd's Pie is a great, hearty fall and winter meal that I used to make frequently. Unfortunately, it usually calls for butter, cream and milk along with regular flour.  Since I am trying to spare myself from making 2 dinners, I have finally made a good milk-soy-wheat free version that the 2 youngest kids can eat. If you like a bit more kick, be a little more free with the seasonings, particularly with the garlic salt and pepper, or add some mustard later.  This version was meant to be easily prepared... so you could spend more time and add real garlic and bacon if you wanted to. I wanted it prepared in under 20 minutes and something I could also prepare during nap time and pop in the oven at 5 pm.

5 small (or 3 large) potatoes, peeled. Halve the large potatoes, but you can leave the small potatoes whole.

3 large carrots (peeled and cut into smaller sections)*

*(2 cups of baby carrots that are already peeled work as well).

1/2 large onion or 1 small onion, chopped.

1 pound ground meat (turkey, beef, lamb, pork, etc)

1 cup sweet rice flour

2/3 cup of rice milk

2 tbsp of lard (or oil)

salt, pepper, olive oil, garlic salt and nutmeg

1. Peel and boil potatoes and carrots together.

2. In a large skillet, soften the onions.

3. Once the onions are soft, add the meat. Add a dash of salt and pepper to taste. Let the meat brown on medium-lower heat. Stir it around so it crumbles nicely.

4. In a small sauce pan, make the white sauce.  This is a quick and focused sauce. It can easily burn, so have your whisk handy and don't answer the phone!  First, melt the 2 tbsp of lard in the saucepan over medium heat.  Add the rice flour and whisk it all together. It gets very clumpy and sticky. Slowly add the rice milk as you whisk.  Soon you should have a smooth white sauce.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

5.  Place the browned meat in a casserole dish (either a round or square one, the rectangular ones are too big) and pour the white sauce on top and add a dash of garlic salt. Mix it together a bit to have the sauce really cover the meat.

6. Remove the potatoes and carrots from the stove. Drain the water, keeping about a tablespoon of the liquid with the vegetables.  Mash them together using a potato masher.  Add a tablespoon of olive oil and a dash each of nutmeg and garlic salt.  

7.  Spoon the mashed carrots and potatoes on top of the browned meat/ white sauce mixture.

8.  Bake in an oven for 25 minutes at 325, or until the mashed vegetables are browned a bit.

The kids like to eat it with Ketchup, while we like it with some Dijon mustard.  You could also vary it by adding different vegetables to the potatoes.  Spinach is nice, particularly with pork or lamb and would make a great green St.Patrick's Day meal (or some other green-themed day).

Soy, Milk and Wheat Free Waffles and Pancakes

Hello all,  as promised after 4 months of perfecting these recipes, here are our recipes for milk, soy and wheat-free waffles and pancakes. (They really aren't that hard!)

Milk, Soy, Wheat-Free Pancakes:

1/2 cup sweet rice flour*

1/2 cup brown rice flour*

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 egg

1 tbsp oil (safflower, etc).

up to 1 1/2 cup of rice milk

1. Heat your griddle, I like using one of those electric griddles since we can make a bunch at a time.

2. Mix your dry ingredients.

3. Add the egg and oil.

4. Add the milk until you get the batter to more liquidy  than in the waffle recipe, so that you can pour it onto the griddle and it spreads out. (But not so thin they are like crepes! Which are good too, but not as easy for a small child to eat.)

5. Pour a small amount of batter onto the griddle, they work best when they are mini-sized, about 1 1/2 to 2 inches in diameter.

6. Flip the pancakes over when they start to bubble, wait a minute or so more and voila!  rice-flour pancakes.

Milk, Soy, Wheat-Free Waffles:

1/2 cup sweet rice flour*

1/2 cup brown rice flour*

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1 egg 

2 tbsp of oil (safflower, etc)

up to 1 cup of rice milk

1. Preheat your waffle iron.

2. Combine all dry ingredients, mix.

3. Add egg and oil. Start stirring.

4. Add  rice milk slowly, until you reach the desired consistency, which is to say, a smooth but still thick batter (it will stick to your spoon).  Its about 3/4 of cup. 

5. Pour/ Spoon batter into waffle iron and follow the waffle iron's directions.

 

* If you don't want to make them wheat-free, just use a cup of regular flour instead of the 1/2 each of sweet and brown rice flours.

Enjoy!  You can also always add some Enjoy Life! Brand chocolate chips to vary the recipe a bit.  If you don't know about Enjoy Life! chocolate chips and you have a child that has soy and dairy allergies, google them. You can buy them on-line, but I can find them at my local health food stores, Hannefords, and Wegman's.  They are near the Gluten Free section.

Banana Oat Muffins- Wheat, Soy, Milk and Egg free

Today we hosted a playgroup and I wanted to make some muffins that all the kids could eat- including Emma and another toddler who was allergic to egg and milk. So I got out the mini-muffin tin again and Claire helped me make these muffins. This recipe makes about 30 mini muffins. At the end of playgroup there were 3 left. I am not sure I would say they are the best, but the kids liked them and Emma could eat them as well.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup olive oil

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/3 cup oat flour

1/3 cup rice flour (or ommit the rice and make it 1 2/3 cups oats)
2 tsp Ener-G egg replacer (or 1 egg)
1/4 cup of water
2 tsp baking powder
2 bananas (ripe)
1/3 cups oatmeal (preferable not the quick cooking kind)


1. Beat the oil and sugar together.
2. Add the dry ingredients (except oats), mix using the blender
3. Add the water and the bananas, mix using the blender again
4. Add the oatmeal, stir.

Place about a tablespoon or so in each of the mini-muffin cups and bake at 350 until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean (about 15 minutes.... sorry I forgot to keep track of the time!)

Homemade Chicken/ Turkey Nuggets

Saturday, I decided to try my hand at homemade nuggets in the hopes of getting Emma to eat some meat. She liked Ian's allergy-free chicken nuggets, but they are super expensive (almost $5 for 16 tiny things) and I am trying to have the girls eat the same things. So, I decided to make my own so that all my kids could eat them. Also, I am trying to avoid buying too many processed foods. Making them myself also allows me to control the ingredients and use organic and/or locally grown meat and remove corn syrup. Also, I could use olive oil instead of a soy oil blend, since Emma doesn't tolerate soy, at all.

You could just as easily subsitute regular wheat flour instead of oat flour and feel free to add veggies to the meat puree. The concept behind homemade nuggets is rather simple: puree the raw meat in the food processor, add a few spices (and veggies if you so desire) make little balls out of the puree. Then dip the pureed meat balls in flour, then egg, then flour. Fry in a sauce pan with 1 1/2 cups or so of oil. Nuggets are just glorified meatballs that are fried and tend to be made with chicken or turkey rather than beef.

This time, I used ground turkey and oat flour, so they were slightly darker. I also added a raw carrot. Claire and Emma liked them but Caroline refused to eat them. This is rather atypical of Caroline- she is usually the easiest kid to feed, but she wasn't feeling 100%. Also, she doesn't typically eat that many chicken nuggets since she eats lunch at school. Claire has them once a week at least, so I really wanted to make them healthier for her.

Once they are cooked, you could freeze them... I would have, but they are all gone. To freeze them you could place them on a cookie sheet, cover them with wax paper and stick it in the freezer for an hour or so and them place them in a bag or other storage container.

Ingredients:

2 boneless skinless chicken breast (or about 1 lb of ground turkey, chopped pork, etc)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp EACH of parsley and oregano,
1/4 tsp Each of Pepper and onion powder
1/4 vegetable of choice (carrots, broccoli, etc)- This is optional, but a good way to sneak some veggies.

2 Eggs- beaten (to dip)
1 cup or so of flour (I used Oat flour, but you could mix oat and rice and/ or add some corn meal for texture)
about 1 1/2 cups of oil

1. Heat oil in a heavy duty skillet or sauce pan on medium-high heat while preparing the nuggets.

2. Cube meat (chicken, turkey or pork)- skip this if you already have ground meat

3. Place meat, spices and vegetable (if using) into a food processor and blend until it is a fine paste.

4. Place the flour on a large plate and the eggs in a small bowl, ready to work with.

5. Roll the chicken/ turkey/ meat paste into 30 or so small balls (smaller than golf balls- the smaller the easier they are for a toddler)

6. Roll the chicken balls into the flour, then the egg and then the flour again. Press the ball down to make a nugget. Repeat with the rest of the chicken/meat paste.

7. Test the oil to see if it is ready. To do this, sprinkle a bit of flour into the oil. If it bubbles quickly and right away, the oil is ready. Place as many of the little balls as possible into the pan. Fry until the bottoms are golden and then turn and fry again. Each side will t ake about 4-5 minutes.

8. Remove the nuggets from the oil and place them on a towel lined plate.

9. Enjoy. They are great with some homemade ketchup!

Emma's Oat Pancakes (wheat, milk and soy free)

I am sure its hard to be a toddler, looking at your big sisters digging into a stack of Daddy's homemade pancakes and not being able to eat some because of food allergies/ intolerances. So, Eric came up with a pancake recipe for Emma. Since she does not have celiac's, she can tolerate oats.... this is a small recipe, it makes about 5 silver dollar sized toddler pancakes.

3 Tablespoons Rice Milk (I am sure regular milk or soy would work if you weren't allergic)
3 Tablespoons Oat Flour*
1/4 tsp Baking POwder
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp sugar
little dash of salt
1/2 egg replacer (Ener-G)- though if need be 1/2 egg would work as well. We still have a huge box since she initially tested slightly positive for egg allergy. If you were making scrambled eggs, you could use part of that- then mix it in with the milk.

1. Mix dry ingredients
2. Add the milk
3. Let sit for 5 minutes
4. Cook as you would other pancakes

These pancakes aren't super light and flufffy and have a slightly nutty flavor... but they pass the toddler test! And they are among the limited amounts of non-fruit food items that go into Emma's mouth!

* I found that buying the oat flour from the bulk bins tends to be much cheaper than the fancy packaged kind in the organic/ gluten free section. That is the same for most specialty flours. In order to save on packaging and to get the amount I need, I have been buying lots of things in the bulk dry foods section: raisins, chocolate chips, dried currants, oats and quick oats. Wegman's section is in the organic food area and most everything is organic... which is a bonus. I also found a natural health food store that sells similar dry goods in bulk. You could bring your containers back and reuse them. Some stores have paper bags that are available and you could compost those.

"Emma's AlphaTots Recipe"- AKA -How to Sneak Vegetables into Your Toddler

As many of you probably know, my youngest, Emma is Wheat, Milk and Soy intolerant. I suspected the milk protein allergy from the time she was 3 or 4 months old, but we did not find out until she was over one that the wheat and especially soy bothered her so much. These ingredients caused reflux and a host of intestinal woes. As a result she has some food aversions and would be happy to live off of fruits, Ian's Alphatot potatoes and rice cakes. Fruits are great, but without much other bulk, tend to have a certain affect. But she loves, loves, loves her Ian's Alphatots (basically, potato fries shaped as alphabet letters and cooked and processed on equipment that prevents the cross contamination of allergens such as wheat, soy, dairy and eggs). Potatoes are a great food, they have carbohydrates and starch and more potassium than a banana and almost have the RDA of Vitamin C. However in the hopes of diversifying her diet and salvaging my grogery bill, I came up with an easy recipe to make them myself. (Besides it kills me to have her eat so much processed foods, especially since all they are, are potatoes!)

I have an cast iron alphabet cookie pan made (for shortbread cookies), but if you don't have one, you could use a mini muffin tin and fill them half-way.

Note: The goal is to make a thick puree, one that would stick to the back of a spoon without dripping. The thickness you are aiming for is that of mashed potatoes, which is what they are. Using the food processor makes them velvety smooth and adding other vegetables add color and nutrition. If your child loves mashed potatoes, you could stop here. I often put carrots or squash in my mashed potatoes, especially now that we can't use milk since they add flavor.

Preparation:

Pre-heat your oven to 350

oil/ grease your mini muffin tin or alphabet cookie pan.

Ingredients:

2-3 potatoes, chopped

1 cup of any vegetable, chopped. I used a butternut squash that I had roasted in the oven to make soup the day before.... but you could use any vegetable cooked or raw.

1. Boil the potatoes and the vegetable (if not yet cooked)

2. Once the potatoes are cooked, remove them from the water and place them in a food processor, along with the vegetable.

3. Add just enough of the water from the cooking process to help make it smooth, about 1/4 cup, maybe even less. It depends on the kind of potatoes and vegetable you use - so add a little at a time.

4. Spoon the smooth puree of vegetables, (it should be rather thick, like mashed potatoes) into the mini muffin tin or other pan. Fill the mini muffin pan only halfway.

5. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until brown.

6. Let them cool 5 minutes in the pan and them place them on a cookie rack.

Voila!

If you want one of those alphabet cookie pans, you can get them for about $25 on Amazon.com.