Tag: easy meals

Fruit Crumble (allergy free!)

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Gluten free fruit crumble

Gluten free fruit crumble

Looking for something easy to make for the family over Easter? Why not try old fashioned fruit crumble? Warm, delicious, comforting, and the leftovers also make a great breakfast. This recipe is a bit of a twist on an old classic as it is free of gluten and other key allergens.

Ingredients

  • 3-4c stewed fruit
  • Brown sugar
  • Cinnamon
  • Ginger
  • Allspice

Topping

  • 1c rolled oats
  • 1c superfine rice flour / plain all purpose flour
    • 1/4 tsp guar gum or xanthan gum if using gluten free rice flour.
  • 1/2c cornmeal (polenta)
  • 150g Nuttelex (allergy free vegan spread) / margarine / butter
  • 2 tsp Baking Powder
  • 3-4T honey, or brown sugar, or maple syrup.

Optional:

  • 1/2c finely grated carrots
  • 1/4c almond slivers
  • 1T ground linseed
  • 1T chia seeds

All extra ingredients that I would like to try in the topping! (Though I don’t think I’d add all at once).

Allergies: dairy free, soy free, gluten free, egg free, nut free.

Stewed Fruit

Some fruit does need to be stewed before being used in the crumble; these are mainly harder fruits like apples. You can chop apples up finely, add a little water, and cook them quite quickly using a microwave steamer.

If you have a food processor then it’s easy to blend fruit before putting it in the crumble dish. You’ll still need to stew fruit like apple but the food processor will help get them smooth. You can also put tinned fruits straight into the food processor and soft fresh fruits like feijoas.

Fruit crumbles are a great way to use up leftover fruit (like those apples that your toddler took ONE bite out of). For this crumble I used: 1 1/2 apples, a handful of sultanas, most of a 400g tin of apricots in juice, and a big bunch of fresh feijoas.

Serve with

Depending on allergies and budget, this is delicious hot and cold.  You could serve it with things like:

  • Whipped cream
  • Custard (can be made with almond milk)
  • Berry yoghurt
  • Ice cream (can use coconut yoghurt)

 

Directions

  1. Prepare fruit. Cook and stew the fruit if required; consider blending the fruit in a food processor.
  2. Pour the fruit into a cooking bowl (i.e. a Pyrex cooking dish or a silicon cake tin).
  3. Mix in sugar and spices. Remember that it’s easy to add more but you can’t take any out! I suggest starting with 1T brown sugar and a pinch of each of the spices. Keep adding until it is to your liking. Keep in mind that sweet fruits (like strawberries) may need some lemon juice to balance the flavour whereas acidic fruits (like feijoas) may need more sugar. There is also some sweetness being added to the topping so the fruit doesn’t need to be overly sweet.
  4. Mix all of the topping ingredients together. (I used the food processor again!). It should turn into a malleable topping that you can roll into balls in your hands and then squish and place over the fruit.
  5. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 190’C for approx. 25 mins.

Creamy coconut pumpkin curry (dairy free!)

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Pumpkin and Yellow Split Pea Dahl.jpg

Pumpkin and Yellow Split Pea Dahl

This delicious Pumpkin and Yellow Split Pea Dahl is creamy, sweet, and lightly spiced. It’s a wonderful balance of flavours, it’s cheap, it’s filling, it’s nutritional, and it’s easy to make. I’ve used a slow cooker for this recipie as it means you can prepare the vegetables ahead of time if you want and then just throw everything in so you can be occupied with other things while it’s cooking. It’s also wonderfully allergy friendly!

Ingredients

  • 60ml neutral oil (I like rice bran oil)
  • 1 chopped carrot
  • 1/2 chopped pumpkin (flesh only, skin & seeds removed)
  • 2 potatoes, diced.
  • 200g yellow split peas (soaked overnight in water)
  • 1/2c sultanas
  • 3T curry powder
  • 400g can coconut cream

You can substitute the pumpkin for butternut squash or kumara if desired.

Allergies: soy free, dairy free, gluten free, egg free, peanut free, tree nut free.

Pumpkin.jpg

For sizing, I used half of this pumpkin.

Directions

  1. Put everything in the slow cooker and mix.
    • I suggest putting in half the can of coconut cream to begin with. You can then decide part-way through cooking if you want to add the other half. It will take longer for the full can to be fully absorbed but it does give a wonderful creamy flavour.
  2. Cook on high for 2-4 hours.
    • I added the second half of the coconut milk after two hours and switched it to warm after four hours.
  3. Eat on it’s own, with flatbread, or with rice. Add salt & pepper to taste.

Easy Butterscotch Pudding (Gluten free!)

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Easy butterscotch pudding.jpg

Easy butterscotch pudding

Ingredients

Sponge

  • 1c fine white rice flour / 1c plain flour
  • 1/2 tsp guar gum (or xanthan gum) / *not needed if using gluten containing flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2c sugar
  • pinch salt
  • 1/4c neutral oil (I used rice bran oil) / 60g margarine (i.e. Nuttelex) / 60g butter
  • 1/2c water / milk of choice (i.e. almond milk)
  • egg replacement i.e. 1T ground linseed + 3T warm water / 1 egg, whisked

Sauce

  • 1/2c brown sugar
  • 1c boiling water

Allergies: gluten free, dairy free, soy free, egg free, nut free.

NOTE: This is a delicious and easy self-saucing pudding that can be made free of all major allergens. I’ve included options so that you can tailor it to your needs; i.e. I made my batch gluten free, dairy free, soy free, and included the egg. You can also tailor the sugar to meet your sweet tooth; i.e. you can use less sugar in the sponge (and just have the sweet sauce), or make less sauce, or dissolve maple syrup in boiling water for the sauce.

I was thrilled when Mum sent this to me – gluten free and doesn’t require mixing several types of flour together! It’s also versatile; you could add cooking cocoa to the sponge and sauce to make this a chocolate pudding, or serve with spiced stewed apple, or with warm custard etc.

Mum mixed and cooked hers in a Pyrex dish; I cooked mine in five ceramic ramekins. It occurs to me that this would be a great gluten free option to serve at kids parties (especially winter birthdays!). It’s easy to make individual serves (if you don’t have enough ramekins consider using the large silicon muffin trays) and then kids could add to them with with things like custard, sliced fruit, fruit sauces, ice-cream, marshmellows, lemon curd, chocolate hazelnut spread etc.

Directions

  1. Mix all the ingredients together.
    • Choose whether you want to cook this in a single dish (i.e. Pyrex bowl) or individual serves; if the first option, you can mix it up in the dish it will be cooked in.
  2. Pour into cooking dish or ramekins.
  3. Sprinkle brown sugar over the top. Slowly pour on boiling water (you may want to pour over the back of a spoon to help disperse it more gently).
  4. Cook in pre-heated oven at 180’C. Takes approx. 25 mins in ramekins or 35-40 mins in pudding bowl.

Sweet cornbread muffins

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Cornbread muffin

Note: I only wanted to make a small batch so this makes 5-6 muffins, double the recipe to make more.

Ingredients (Dairy or Dairy Free)

  • 1/2c yellow cornmeal
  • 1/2c plain flour
  • 1/2T Baking Powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2T Brown sugar
  • 2T liquid honey
  • 1 egg
  • 1/3c milk*
    • I used coconut milk.
  • 1/4c butter*
    • I used rice bran oil.

These turned out beautifully; they were quite sweet with 2T brown sugar & 2T liquid honey. I wouldn’t have known they were dairy free. They were light, fluffy, and delicious warm & cold. Made 5 muffins.

Allergies: soy free, dairy free, peanut free, tree nut free.

Ingredients (Dairy Free & Egg Free)

  • 3/4c yellow cornmeal
  • 3/4c plain flour
  • 1/2T Baking Powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2T liquid honey
  • 1T ground linseed soaked in 3T warm water
  • 1/2c – 3/4c coconut milk.
  • 1/4c rice bran oil.

With this batch I was aiming to increase the size of the mix, replace the egg and reduce the sugar. I find, in general, that linseed works well as an egg replacer but you may need a little more liquid. These still turned out well although not quite as fluffy as the first batch. Makes 6 muffins.

Allergies: soy free, dairy free, egg free, peanut free, tree nut free.

Directions

  1. Mix the dry ingredients together.
  2. Mix the wet ingredients together.
  3. Pour the wet ingredients onto the dry and mix till combined. Do not over mix.
  4. Put mixture into muffin trays. Bake at 180’C for 15-20 mins until golden brown.

Egg in a hole

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Eggs in a hole. Such an easy recipe but one I’ve only discovered recently.

Ingredients

  • Egg (can be gluten free bread)
  • Butter (or dairy-free spread)
  • Bread
  • Optional: Salt & Pepper to taste. Chopped chives. Grated cheese.

Allergies: soy free, dairy free*, peanut free, tree nut free.

Directions

  1. Butter the bread and cut a rectangular window out of the middle.
  2. Heat frying pan (or skillet) and pop both pieces of bread in butter side down. Add a little butter into the ‘window’ and wait for it melt.
  3. Crack an egg into the ‘window’.
  4. Let it cook until the egg white has firmed up and then flip. Also flip your little cut out bread.
  5. Cook for a bit longer so the egg white is firm (you may want the yolk runny).
  6. Serve with any seasonings that you want. The cut out bit of bread is delicious and crunchy and can also be dipped into runny egg yolk.

 

Cracking the egg
Flipping it over
Serving egg in a hole