Sweet Potato & Chickpea Brown Rice Baked Risotto

I was tempted to add 'Moroccan' to the title however it was already long enough and I don't really know a lot about Moroccan flavours but I think it might be close.  Regardless, it is and easy tasty one pot dish full of veggie goodness.

Ingredients

• Brown rice (medium grain works better than long or basmati)
• Sweet potato
• Chickpeas (tinned or re-hydrated)
• Celery (or onions if preferred)
• Greens (I use zucchini or beans or both)
• Stock (I usually uses Massel 7's chicken flavoured)
• Garlic
• Paprika (I usually used a lot of paprika including some smoked)
• Cumin
• Rosemary
• Coriander seeds
• Turmeric

Method

1.  Pre-heat the oven 180 degrees C
2.  Fry up the celery in a stove and oven safe pot with some oil
3. Add rice and garlic and continue frying for about 1-2 minutes
4. Add crumbled stock cubes, chopped sweet potato and pre-boiled water
• The quantity of water can be hard to judge but about twice as much as you have rice
5. Add herbs and spices
6. Bring to boil, put on the lid and place in the oven
7. After 20 minutes add chickpeas and greens.  Add water if required
8. Cook for a further 20 minutes in the oven
9. Serve on a bed of baby spinach and top with balsamic vinegar

Options and variations

• Add/substitute pumpkin to/for sweet potato
• Use beef flavoured stock for something different
• Add a tin of tomatoes and lessen the water a little

Fructose Friendly Gado-gado

This one is always popular, healthy and works well for large groups since everything is cooked separately and combined at the end.  Having the sauce over the top of steamed potatos and a salad was shown to me by a Tasmanian friend's dutch mother who lived in Indonesia for many years, she didn't give up her sauce secrets but I reckon this one is pretty good!

Recipe: Fructose Friendly Gado-gado (peanut sauce)
Special Needs Categories: gluten free, fructose free, (vegan variation possible)
Special Needs Translated: no gluten, no onion, (no fish or egg)

Sauce ingredients:

• peanut butter (I like crunchy) (check if gluten free)
• gluten free soy sauce
• chili
• garlic
• fish sauce (don't use for vegetarian/vegan)
• chinese five spice (Check if gluten free)
• coriander (dried)
• water

Method:
Really simple, combine all ingredients together in a saucepan over low heat.  I usually microwave the peanut butter to soften it a little and help get it out of the jar, then heat it a little on it's own before adding other ingredients.  When you add the water it usually doesn't look like it will mix in but just keep stirring.  Add the water till you get your desired consistency.  Make sure there's plenty of flavour in there as this is what really makes the dish.  (If I wasn't making this fructose friendly I'd have onion in the sauce too, semi-fine chopped and fried a little before you add the other ingredients.)

now the rest of the dish...

Ingredients:

• steamed rice
• steamed potato (& sweet potato if you like)
• chinese cabbage
• cucumber
• bean sprouts
• snow peas
• other assorted salad ingredients
• hard boiled egg (not for vegan dish)
• fresh coriander

 simply combine on a plate (rice then potato then salad with eggs on the side) and pour over the gado-gado sauce!  You can make a salad with the fresh ingredients or just allow people to pick and choose.

Tasty Baked Zucchini's (Gluten Free)

I don't really like zucchini's, and I know a few ppl in the same boat so I thought I'd attempt a recipe that makes them taste good.  So, here's a gluten free, fructose free, vegetarian recipe (with vegan variations) that's cheap, quick, easy to prepare and even I think is really yummy.

Recipe: Baked Zucchini
Special Needs Categories: gluten free, fructose free, vegetarian (vegan variation possible)
Special Needs Translated: no gluten, no onion, no meat (no cheese for vegan)

A non-fructose friendly version before
the cheese was added.

Ingredients:

• zucchini's (biggish ones, room enough to stuff & be a meal but if too big they don't taste good)
• celery
• corn (take off the cob)
• grated sweet potato
• tomato
• garlic
• herbs of your choice (I think I had basil & oregano)
• salt & pepper
• grated cheese

Method:
Split your zucchini's in half, length-ways and scoop out the seeds to create a hollow down the middle.  Take some of these insides and fry them off with the chopped celery, corn, sweet potato, tomato, garlic, herbes and salt & pepper.  Once the veggies have started to soften place the cut zucchini's onto a baking try and spoon the mixture into hollow.  Cover the tray with foil and cook in the oven for ~30 min at 180 deg C.
Once the zucchini's have softened remove the foil, cover with grated cheese (or not for vegan version), place back in the oven and increase the temperature for ~220 deg C for 5 min till the cheese is melted and starting to brown.
Serve on a bed of steamed rice, polenta, potatos (or couscous for non GF version).

Filling variations:

• Onion instead of celery (not fructose free)
• Parmesan cheese stirred through the filling mixture
• Top the zucchini with prosciutto (not vegetarian)
• anything else you want to throw in the filling!

The end product, YUM!  (Again, this is the non-fructose friendly version)

Notes: Often I struggle to get baking trays properly clean (particularly muffin tins), often there's a bit of a residue left behind.  While I think it's just an oil residue, when I'm cooking for someone who is is very gluten sensitive/allergic I'll line the tray with tin foil just to be safe.

Stir-fry sauce

One of the big problems with gluten free asian cooking is that almost all sauces have wheat based soy sauce and/or onion powder for those fructose free. I have found a gluten free oyster sauce, but that doesn't work if you are vegetarian or allergic to seafood, there are also vegetarian 'oyster' sauces, but I haven't found a gluten free version. So anyway, I've come up with a bit of a stir-fry sauce the I reckon tastes pretty good, it's only had a few iterations so I will continue to play with it a little.

Dish: Stir-Fry sauce
Special need categories: Gluten free, fructose free, vegetarian, shellfish allergy
Special needs translated: no gluten, no onion, no animal products, no shellfish

Ingredients:

• gluten free soy sauce
• little olive oil
• brown sugar (this is a substitute for palm sugar which looks to be high in fructose)
• corn flour (check it is gluten free, i.e. made from corn/maize)
• garlic (contain fructose but usually safe in small quantities)
• ginger
• chili
• tamarind paste (I don't think this is a high fructose fruit)
• chinese five spice (check the packet, some spices contain gluten or onion)
• rice vinegar, just a little
• a little water to make it less rich and go a bit further

Method

Basically it is just a matter of combining everything in a bowl and tasting it to see what you think. I use the brown sugar because I can't use ketchup manis like I normally would and the corn flour is a thickening agent. The tamarind paste is just a fruit paste that give a bit of a 'tang' to the dish, the vinegar does a little of the same. Chinese five spice is a great spice for just about any asian dish, the actual mix of spices varies but typically it is something like fennel, cloves, cinnamon, star anise, cassia, ginger and/or peppercorns. The rest is about as expected I would think. You could also add some onion powder to fill out the flavour a little if it didn't have to be fructose free.

I usually mix this up in a bowl before I start cooking, make it easier to get the flavours right (I used to put my individual ingredients straight ontop of the stir-frys before). When I'm cooking with unflavoured tofu I marinade it in the sauce for a while and just tip it all in together.

Otherwise I think that's about it, mix, match, add/subtract ingredients and flavours till you find something that works. Asian cooking has lots of gluten free options however it often means you have to go back to base ingredients because in many cases, you can't use pre-prepared sauce. Have fun with it!

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.

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.

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!