Warm veggie salad

Needed a quick meal and was craving veggies so this is what I came up with. I know my mother has made a broccoli and cauliflower salad but I really don't recall what's in it. Anyway here's mine...

Dish: Warm veggie salad
Special need categories: Gluten free, low fructose
Special needs translated: Gluten free, no onion

Ingredients:

• broccoli
• cauliflower
• green beans
• Gluten free pasta (I used shells)
• pesto (Note: Check ingredients)
• wholegrain mustard (Note: Check ingredients)
• rice wine vinegar
• olive oil
• salt & pepper

Method:

Start by putting the pasta on to cook. Then cut veggies into bite sized pieces and start them steaming. Now for the dressing. Add remaining ingredients into a small bowl and mix well, add some water if you want the dressing to be a little weaker.

When cooked tip veggies and drained pasta into a serving bowl and add dressing. Done.

The pasta helps turn this into a meal but I've also made it without before.

Yummy quick GF quiche

So I'm sitting at work on Thursday morning wondering what savoury, GF, low fructose dish I could take to a picnic that night when I have 1 hour to prepare it. My brain eventually got onto pasty (coz I had some in the freezer) and then I eventually thought of quiche, that's a picnic food! So I did a few quick web searches and got a feel for the general method/cook time and wend shopping for the remaining ingredients. On arriving home I went into a mad rush trying to prepare the quiche (having never made one before) and a loaf of gf bread in 65 min and this is what I came up with, even if it took me 75 min . . .

Dish: Yummy quick quiche
Special need categories: Gluten free, low fructose
Special needs translated: Gluten free, no onion

Ingredients:

• gluten free pastry (I had a rough cut puff pastry)
• eggs 4-5
• milk 1-2 cups
• bacon (check it's gluten free)
• celery
• mushrooms
• tomato
• grated tasty cheese
• frozen spinach
• parsley
• oregano
• garlic
• salt & pepper

Method:

Start by pre-heating the oven to around 190 deg C. Then lightly oil your baking dish and lay the pasty inside. Cover with foil and bake in the oven for about 10 min.

While the crust is being pre-bake, cut up your solid ingredients and fry the bacon, celery and mushroom a pan, add the defrosted spinach, parsley and tomato to the pan right at the end to combine and heat through a little.

Whisk the eggs and mile together in a bowl and add the salt and pepper and oregano (this could have been added to the fry pan instead).

Next to assemble. Empty the pan into the baked crust, sprinkle some cheese over the top and then simply pure the egg mixture on top into the crust. I found I didn't quite have enough so whisked another egg (5th) with some soy milk (was all I had) to top it up.

Now I started baking without foil over the top and added it later but the other way around is probably a better idea. So, cover with foil and place in the oven. Bake for approx. 25 min, then remove foil and continue for another 10-20 min.

Now remember these are best guesses (as all my cooking is), I was fiddling with the temperature and time to try and speed things up a little and then left it covered in the heavy dish while in transit to try and continue the cooking a little more. Anyway, in the end, there was a small section very slightly under done but it was more than edible and tasted fantastic. It's also worth nothing that I ended up with a fairly deep quiche (fried up too many yummy fillings) and this would have affected the cooking time too.

Anyway in the end I headed out the door 10 min late with a quiche and a fresh baked loaf of GF bread, not a bad effort I think. Stay tuned for a quick review of the bread mix I used too!

Lamb marinade - GF

One fine day we were planning a family BBQ at the holiday house when we suddenly realised, that there weren't enough chops and sausages for everyone! :s Then I remember I had a boned half leg of lamb and got to work.

Dish: Lamb marinade
Special need categories: gluten free, low fructose
Special needs translated: no gluten, no onion

Ingredients:

• Lamb (I had a boned half leg)
• Lemon juice & zest
• Rosemary
• Lemon thyme
• Garlic
• Olive oil
• Water
• Salt
• Pepper

Method:
Combine all ingredients in bowl and add the lamb (or add to the lamb). Now to get your hands dirty. Massage the marinade into the meat and make sure the lamb is well covered, including non-liquid pieces. Allow the meat to marinade for at least an hour, longer would be better.

The water is basically used as a filler to allow the marinade to cover the lamb a littler better however most of the liquid came from the lemon juice. Before I marinaded the lamb I made a few extra cuts to allow it to sit flat on the BBQ because that's how we were cooking it. This marinade could be used for roasts or lamb fillets or chops.

Don't forget that you can put your cooked meat back in the marinade or use it as a dressing but only if it has been cooked. This could be either with the meat (i.e. roasted) or separately (i.e. in microwave or saucepan).

Mushroom & prosciutto pizza (Gluten free)

Remember those gluten free pizza bases I got last month, well I finally got around to using them and they were yum yum yum. Aside from the actual base, a GF pizza is not much different from normal but it is a good idea to double check your ingredients.

Dish: Gluten free pizza
Special need categories: gluten free, low fructose
Special needs translated: no gluten, no onion

Pizza Base:

• Frozen gluten free Silly Yak's base

Topping:

• Tomato paste (double check it, not all are gluten free)
• Garlic - crushed
• Herbs
• Celery
• Prosciutto (again double check ingredients)
• Spinach
• Mushrooms
• Grated cheese
• Salt & Pepper

I know there's a million different ways to make a pizza and I would wouldn't be surprised if my way is 'wrong' but this is how I made mine...

The sauce:
Most pizza sauces had onion and/or some sort of gluten in them so it's probably best to mix up your own sauce, it doesn't take long and it super easy. Just combine your tomato paste with some garlic and your favourite blend of herbs to taste, you could even add some onion or onion powder if you don't need it to be fructose free. Because I was putting mushrooms on the pizza I added quite a bit of garlic coz they always go well together.

The build (yes I'm an engineer...):
Fri st up was the sauce, next I added finely chopped celery (instead of onion), then added the cheese (to form a bond between the base the the higher level toppings), then prosciutto, some spinach (just a little, some token green stuff), a big pile of coarsely chopped mushrooms, then a tiny bit of cheese, a little sprinkling of herbs and salt & pepper to finish.

The bake:
I cooked mine on a pizza stone with the oven set to around 200 deg C (I think). Basically let the stone heat up, sprinkle some flour (obviously use GF flour) or polenta on the stone and put the pizza on top. It cooked in about 25 min (I think. Brain no remember no details no more).

The verdict:
Incase you didn't catch it earlier; yum yum yum. The pizza base was tasty and the toppings worked well, have since done another one that had half as above and half with a marinaded roast lamb (might have to write that one up too) and roast pumpkin, or did the roast pumpkin go with the prosciutto, I forget. Anyway yummy! Highly recommended.

Notes:

• As I said earlier, check all ingredients, particularly the tomato paste and processed meats.
• Make sure pizza trays and stones are clean, this stone has only had GF products on it, but being a porous surface I'm not sure how clean is safe.
• Don't forget to experiment and report back with a comment on how it went!

Gluten Free pasty take 2

You may have read about the shenanigans of my first encounter with pastry, well armed with some bought gluten free pastry sheets from Melbourne Food Services, I eventually got around to having another try. So as before:

Dish: Gluten free pastry/pasty
Special need categories: gluten free, low fructose
Special needs translated: no gluten, no onion

Pastry:

• Frozen gluten free puff pastry sheets

Filling:

• Potato
• Celery
• Sweet potato
• Corn cut off the cob
• Carrot
• Mushrooms
• Beef rump steak
• Massel 7’s Chicken stock
• Garlic (crushed)
• Oregano
• Rosemary
• Salt & pepper
• Butter

Method

As a variation on last time I decided to mash my potato to hold everything together a bit more and once again I wanted to pre-cook ingredients to save time and to ensure it was cooked through because it was going to be a bigish pastry.

Preheat oven to 180-200 deg C. (depending on size and oven)

Start by dicing, cooking & mashing the potato. I simply microwaved it in a pyrex dish and mashed with a fork, didn't add anything to it like I would when serving as a side dish.

Next dice all other filling ingredients and pre-cook them, again I used the microwave. I started with just the sweet potato in and added in the things that would take less time to cook as I went. It doesn't matter if everything isn't fully cooked as we are still going to bake it.

Add all filling ingredients except the butter to a bowl and mix through. I added a little olive oil to help things combine better.

When trying to separate my semi-defrosted pasty sheets I had a few breaks, so rather than making a traditional pasty shape I went for an over-sized sausage roll which was super easy and worked well.

Lay the pastry sheet out on a greased baking tray and put the filling down 1/3 of it, leaving some space on the outside edge to join it up. I piled it reasonably high and pushed/shaped it all together a bit as the potato will hold it in place (and everything will shrink when cooked anyway), then put a few small dobs of butter on the top. I used a fork to roughen the pasty surfaces that would be joined together and then folded the rest of the pastry sheet over the top. Spreading some melted butter on the join surface they just get pushed together and then the whole "sausage roll" is brushed with melted butter and place in oven. I think our took about 30 min too cook but it will depend on the size and temperature, because the filling was precooked it should be ready when the pastry looks good.

While it would have gone well with a good chutney/sauce/relish, we were late for a movie so we chopped it in half, wrapped it up in foil and ate as we walked to the cinema :)

Massel 7’s fructose friendly stock

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Update (14/7/2011): Massel to redevelop a 7's Fructose Friendly Formula
I just got an email from Mark at Massel to say:

"We have had many emails from people such as yourself and have now 'heard the call'. To this end I am happy to report that our R&D department is now working on an onion free version to cater for the Fructose Malabsorbtion community."

This is great news! Thanks to everyone that contacted Massel to request the change, and thanks to Massel for their quick action!
In the meantime continue checking your packets as I suspect it will take some time for the new formula to hit the shelves and I'll keep you informed with updates as soon as I know.
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Update (12/7/2011): WARNING.  Massel 7's stock now has ONION in it! The onion (and garlic) is clearly listed in the ingredients but the rest of the packaging is the same so be sure to check.  You may get lucky and find some made with the old onion free formula.  To the best of my knowledge this was the only fructose friendly stock on the market so it might be worth sending an email to Massel to request they change it back.
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To all those who can't eat fructose and missing out on yummy risottos and soups, then Massel 7’s stock is for you! (Thanks to my sister who put me onto this)

I had assumed that this was a specialty item, possibly not even made any more after speaking to a friend who couldn't find, checking my supermarket, and not finding it on Massel's web site. That was till my sister left a comment that said "I found it in Coles Mitcham last week . . . " (or something like that).

So on my next supermarket trip to Coles on Glenferrie Rd (Hawthorn), guess what I found . . .

They seem to come in chicken and beef stock cubes with very little advertising or marketing buzz words on the packet. They are both gluten free and vegan according to the ingredients it does not specify where the 'natural flavours' actually come from. It does not indicate it is fructose free however, the Massel's normal stock cubes have almost identical ingredients BUT they individually list the 'dehydrated vegetables' they contain which includes onion.

• Massel 7's chicken stock: Marine salt,rice flour, vegetable oil, sugar, natural flavors, yeast extracts, vegetable protein extract(soy derived), disodium inosinate and guanylate, herb extract
• Massel Chicken stock: Marine salt, rice flour, hydrogenated vegetable oil, sugar, yeast extract, vegetable flavours, vegetable protein extract (wheat derived), dehydrated vegetables (onion, celery, parsley).

I did find them listed on the Allergy Block web site as; Gluten free, Egg free, Nut free, Dairy free, Low fat, Vegan, Vegetarian, Halal.

So to the best of my knowledge they are 'fructose friendly' but I'd be interested to find some more concrete evidence on this. Drop me a comment if you can help!

Interesting links and info

This post is basically an information dump, earlier in the week my sister emailed me a whole list of info on special dietary needs she put together for a catering course, plus I've been doing some searching of my own and getting some good info from comments.

Allergies:
Allergy reference cards
Helpful reference cards that have lists of ingredients that contain major allergens: peanut, egg, milk, soy, crustacean, etc.

Gluten free / Coeliac Disease:
Gluten free diet information
Catering for those with coeliac disease
General information on Coeliac Disease and gluten free diet with the second link have a catering focus, both from Sue Shepherd's web site.

Fructose malabsorption:
Fructose Malabsorption Summary Fact Sheet by Sue Shepherd, Accredited Practising Dietitian. She also has some samples from her recipe books on her web site: here and here.

Vegetarian and Vegan:
http://www.theppk.com/ - Post Punk Kitchen, a public access vegan cooking show with lots of recipes.
http://www.vnv.org.au/- The Vegetarian Network Victoria with a vegetarian & vegan food products list.


Stores/food sources:
Absolutely Gluten Free - is located in Werribee, Victoria (also offer delivery) and stock a wide range of Gluten free products. I actually found them when searching for a particular fructose free stock (Massel 7’s stock ). Note: have not actually visited or contacted them yet.
Choices bakery - is a dedicated gluten free bakery in Sydney and sell both fresh and frozen products and delivers to some areas in NSW, VIC, ACT, QLD. Note: have not tried this guys either, the recommendation came from a friend that works there.
Spring Hill - is a company that makes a range of boutique slices and have a gluten free range, they also make my girlfriends favourite gluten free bread mix.
Silly Yaks - is a gluten free bakery and cafe located in Northote, Victoria and make a range of GF foods. Note: haven't been to this store either but hear many good things (and have some pizza bases to try).
Melbourne food services - a catering company that socks a gluten free range (though not listed on web site), discussed here.

So thank you to my sister Fiona for her info and to everyone else who has made suggestions, please feel free to add comments, the more info we can put together the better.

New gluten free food source!

When I mentioned my failed attempt at Gluten Free (GF) pastry to a friend she pointed me toward Melbourne Food Service. They are basically a catering food supply company that have opened a store on the corner of Toorak Rd and Warrigal Rd in Camberwell and they sell a whole bunch of gluten free stuff. I picked up some frozen GF puff pastry and pizza bases to try out but I have a feeling I'll be calling in there again soon! Unfortunately they don't have any of the GF stuff listed on their web site but I'll try and get some more info next time I visit and update you on the pastry and pizza bases.

Gluten Free Cornish -almost- pasty

So I want to try making something using gluten free pastry, since I like pasties I thought I'd give it a go, while we didn't end up with pasties it was still a yummy lunch.

Dish: Gluten free pastry with filling 'thing'

Special need categories: gluten free, lowish fructose

Special needs translated: no gluten, minimal onion (only in stock)

Pastry:

• Orgrans Gluten Free pastry mix (mixed up as short crust pastry)

Filling:

• Celery
  
• Potato
• Butternut pumpkin
• Sweet potato
• Corn cut off the cob
• Zucchini
  
• Carrot
• Turnip
• Veal steaks
• Beef stock (dry/powdered) [contain onion]
• Garlic
  
• Oregano
• Rosemary
• Salt & pepper
• Butter

Method

In theory all the fillings get chopped up, mixed together, placed on the pastry with a dob of butter and then wrapped up. However it didn't take us long to realised that pasties weren't going to work with the pastry we had (let me know if you have any tricks for good GF pastry, this was my first time working with pastry of any sort).

So we changed plans to make a slice with a top and bottom layer of pastry. Apparently the filling for Cornish pasties isn't usually cooked before it goes in the pastry but because we now had a bigger dish we thought it would be a good idea to pre-cook it (plus we were getting hungry!). The pre-cooking was done in the microwave in a pyrex dish, it wasn't fully cooked but the meat was starting to brown and the hard vegies just starting to soften.
A baking dish was sprayed with oil, a bottom layer of pastry added, the filling and then a top layer. It was cooked for about 45 min. The end result was a little messy to serve and eat but really really yummy.
We served it with a really tasty chutney I found at the supermarket called 'Outback Tomato Chutney' made by Outback Spirit, they seemed to have a few gluten free products and are an Australian owned family company that is partnering with Indigenous food suppliers. I'll definitely be on the look out for what else they've got.
Oh and thanks to mum and Jo for joining me in this little experiment :)

Burritos for small group

Dish: Burritos
Special need categories: low fructose, vegetarian, gluten free
Special needs translated: no meat, no onion, no wheat, no gluten, minimal garlic

Sauce/filling:

• tinned chopped tomatoes
• potato
• sweet potato
• butternut
• broccoli
• cauliflower
• garlic (small amount)
• celery
• corn
• tinned 4 bean mix
• zucchini
• olive oil
• cumin
• chili & paprika mix
• chili
• sugar
• rice wine vinegar
• salt & pepper

Topping:

• tomato
• cucumber
• lettuce
• avocado
• grated cheese
• pickles
• ricotta
• taco sauce (not fructose free)

Wraps:

• white corn wraps
• flour wraps (not fructose or gluten free)

Method

I tried substituting the celery for the onion so I fried it off in olive oil with a little garlic before adding the tinned tomatoes. The potatoes, sweet potato and butternut were chopped, steamed and added to the sauce. The broccoli and cauliflower were also steamed before being added. I used corn that I had cut off the cob because it was on special but tinned corn could also be used. All other ingredients were either directly into the sauce. Remember to make sure everything is chopped relatively small so it cooks through faster and fits into the wrap easily. Note that I've indicated a couple of ingredients that do not cater to all requirements but they are options or alternatives.

Notes

• Don't use tobasco sauce, it contains wheat.
• All taco sauces I could find contained onion and/or wheat.
• Check the ingredients on your spices, sometimes they contain wheat.

Introduction

Welcome to my food blog!

What's this all about?
Well I'm basically just a guy who likes food, can cook a little and particularly likes cooking for friends. Somehow I have ended up doing rather a lot of cooking for people who have special dietary needs such as being wheat free, gluten free, vegetarian, vegan, dairy free, fructose free (or low fructose). This site is all about sharing what I've learned, recipes, handy hits, useful substitutions and things to watch out for. I don't claim to be an expert but I think I do ok.

As a secondary focus I'm also hoping to look into the sustainability of our eating habits, I don't know much about this yet but I do think it is important and look forward to sharing what I learn.

What qualifications do I have?
None, well no formal qualification in cooking anyway. My experience comes from being brought up in the kitchen with a mother that loved to cook, having a sister that did a degree in nutrition and now does allergy research, friends that have special dietary needs and a general interest in these sort of things. Take for example my small group (bible study group), we currently have someone who needs a fructose free meal as well as a vegetarian and I love the challenge of coming up with something that is tasty, interesting, healthy and easy to cook for a group of 10 people. Add to this the fact I was once on a wheat free diet and have a girlfriend who is a coeliac, I've had a bit of practice.

What do you mean my sustainable eating?
Basically I want there to be resources for everyone in the world, now and in the future and from what I've heard, our current eating practices in the developed world can't really continue as they have been if this is to be a reality. I'll be looking at things like the quantity of meat that we eat and the distance that food has to travel to get to our plates.

How often will you post?
Truth be told, I have no idea. Whenever I have an idea and get the chance. The fact is it may not be often but I do hope that this will be an ever growing resource that I hope you will be able to help me with so let me know if you have any ideas!