Nachoes without meat OR beans! I’m not a huge fan of beans, i’d rather just eat veggies, so this is how we created our veggie nachoes, which came along well before we had kids, and has been a recipe I can easily adapt to suit the ever changing allergy needs of the family. Win!
Ingredients
Some in season root veggies – Carrot, pumpkin, kumara, potato (or whatever is in season – other veggies that work are capsicum, eggplant, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower)
Natural corn chips (ingredients corn & oil) or kumara chips
Sauce:
1 T chopped garlic
1/2 diced onion
1 diced capsicum (red, orange or yellow or a combo)
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp ground corriander
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 jar tomato puree
optional – chilli powder or fresh chilli
salt & pepper
Cheese or dairy free cheese
Sour cream / coconut yogurt / avocado
what to do
Dice veggies (carrot, pumpkin, Kumara, potato) into small cubes and roast them in olive oil until crispy.
Dice garlic, onion, capsicum and fry off in pan. Mix up equal parts cumin, smoked paprika and ground coriander (2tsp each) Add half to each the veggies in the pan and the veggies roasting in the oven and plenty of salt and pepper.
Add a jar of tomato purée to the onion capsicum mix on the stove and blend everything until smooth to make a tomato sauce (you can also leave chunky, but my small people would no doubt try and pick out the bits!)
Can also add some chilli, we prefer to so this at the table so the kids don’t moan in-case I make it too spicy!
Serve the roasted veggies on top of corn chips, covered in the tomato sauce, cheese and sour cream. – make dairy free by using zucchini cheese or dairy free cheese, and use coconut yoghurt with a squeeze of lemon and / or mashed avocado on top (pictured: zucchini cheese & coconut yoghurt)
Party Food! Real food, allergy friendly party treats (gluten, dairy, soy, nut, egg free)
The one stop for real food birthday party food inspiration – find links to the stuff i made here! Every single thing on the party table is free from dairy, egg, soy, gluten, wheat, nuts, peanuts, refined sugar and vegetable oils. Most of the food is made from good quality wholefoods ingredients, without feeling like the party food is missing. No sugar highs or post cake meltdowns after this party! And best of all, one very happy two year old, who for the first time in his life could enjoy all the party food!
Real Food Jelly Lollies
Ingredients
Strawberry & lime
1 cup strawberries (frozen is fine)
1/4 cup water x2
1 T lime juice
1 T maple syrup (optional)
2 T gelatin*
Blueberry
1 cup blueberries (Frozen is fine)
1/4 cup water x2
1 T maple syrup (optional)
2 T gelatin*
Peaches
1 cup peaches (i used tinned – rinsed and drained)
1/4 cup water x2
1 T maple syrup (optional)
2 T gelatin*
*(you can use up to 4 T gelatin for a firmer jelly / lolly like consistency)
what to do
Put the fruit, one lot of 1/4 cup water and sweetener for your your chosen flavour in a small pot and heat through.
While its heating add the gelatin to the other 1/4 cup water and stir. It will expand and soak up the water. Add this to the hot pot and stir through until dissolved.
Remove from the heat and blend the mixture in a blender, or with a handheld blender.
Pour into moulds, or line a tray with cling wrap and pour into the tray to cut into shapes when its set.
Set in the freezer for 20 – 60 mins depending on the size, or overnight. This part is essential for making sure the jellies come cleanly out of the moulds, especially if its a fiddly mould – like a lego man! you can store them in the freezer and defrost over night in the fridge before needed, or store in the fridge for a couple of days.
They should be able to handle being at room temperature for a couple hours, but are nicest when cold.
Chocolate cake – real food and top 8 free!
So this recipe stems from an original recipe, a somewhat famous cake in the real food world – the 84th and 3rd chocolate cake! The original recipe calls for pumpkin and has eggs in it, so we have made some adjustments to the ratios and ingredients, by changing out for seasonal veggies and substituting the eggs. If you are not egg free then go check out the 84th and 3rd best real food chocolate cake recipe ever ! (but stick around here for the marshmallow icing!)
This recipe has been tried and tested half a dozen times between Justine at Our Kitchen Adventures and Myself. She was kind enough to adapt the original recipe first and share it with me! I have also made the original recipe, which isn’t egg free, for Ashton’s birthday, when Felix was too little to eat cake! I’ve made it with pumpkin, kumara (sweet potato) and carrot, i’m not a huge fan of the pumpkin version, but kumara and carrot are both delicious. This time i used carrot because kumara is like $10 a kilo right now!
Ingredients
Cake:
1/2 c cocoa or cacao powder
1/4 c coconut flour
2 Tb psyllium husk
1 t cream of Tatar
2 t baking soda*
1/2 c maple syrup***
1/2 c water
1/2 c coconut oil
2 c Kumara, carrot or pumpkin finely grated
1 t vanilla extract
* or 1 t baking soda and 1 t baking powder
Chocolate Icing:
1 block dark dairy free chocolate (this part is not refined sugar free! the darker the chocolate the less sugar it has)**
1 400ml can coconut cream
1 t vanilla extract
** for a refined sugar free icing do try to the 84th and 3rd dairy free ‘buttercream’!)
what to do
Preheat oven 180 degrees c.
Cake
Put all the wet ingredients into a bowl and stir in the finely grated vege.
Sift the dry ingredients on top and then mix everything together, let sit for 5 mins for the mixture to thicken slightly.
line a cake tin with baking paper. I used a 18cm cake tin and split the mix in two to make two thin layers – so for the whole cake i made three batches of cake and 6 layers. (i made 1 batch a night and froze the layers to minimize the kitchen marathon!)
if you are doing two layers, bake each layer for 20 – 25 minutes, or a full cake batch for 35 minutes. lift out the baking paper and carefully place on a wire rack to cool. Without eggs to bind the cake is fragile so minimal handling works best. If you are wanting to layer or shape it, i recommend freezing for for easier handling. It freezes and defrosts beautifully, and actually tastes better after a couple days in the fridge!
icing
Melt the chocolate and add the coconut cream, refrigerate for an hour or so until firm then whip the mixture on high using an electric beater until fluffy and spreadable.
layer up with choc ganache icing between each layer, we also added strawberry chia-seed jam between each layer too, which was delicious!
If you want to add the marshmallow layer on the top then the instructions for that is here. Otherwise use this as your canvas to create whatever you want!
This part could be made a couple days in advance and stored in the fridge then the marshmallow icing added on the day or day before.
***for two of the cake batches i ran out of maple syrup! So i used coconut sugar made into a syrup, by measuring out half a cup of coconut sugar, then pouring boiling water over to reach the half cup measurement and stirring to dissolve.
Marshmallow Icing
This is what I poured over the top of Felix’s birthday cake in the weekend, to get the yellow drizzle topping. You can find lots of party snack photos on our facebook page and i’ll add more recipes for everything throughout the coming week.
Ingredients
1 cup water
3 Tbsp gelatin (we use great lakes or vital proteins)
100g honey or maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch salt
Natural colour if you wish (i used 1/4 tsp turmeric, beetroot powder would probably work for pink – use your imagination im sure the natural colour options are endless.
what to do
put 1/2 the water in a large mixing bowl with the gelatin and leave to bloom while you prepare the honey.
In a saucepan heat the honey, water, vanilla, natural colour and salt until melted and combined.
Using an electric beater or stand mixer, start to beat the gelatin and water on low, while slowly pouring in the honey mix. Once combined turn the speed up to high and beat until it starts to become fluffy marshmallow texture, can take anywhere between 5 and 15 mins depending on the speed of your beater. Mine takes no longer than ten mins.
I’m not sure if i over beat it every time, but i find it sets too fast to ice a cake with, so i then melt it in the microwave ever so slightly (5 seconds at a time!) to make it a pour-able texture. Don’t worry if you melt it too much – it will firm back up on standing! But you need to make sure its loose enough or it won’t pour over the cake!
Depending on your climate it might set out of the fridge (its freezing at my house!) otherwise an hour or two in the fridge will firm it up.
Alternatively pour into a baking paper lined tin and cut into squares of marshmallow when set.
Freezer Food!
If you are joining me this weekend on a kitchen mission to prep some freezer food – here is some of what i will be making 🙂
Choc Almond Cranberry Bliss Balls
Ingredients
1 c almonds
1 c dates
1/2 c dried cranberries
1 t vanilla extract
1 T coconut oil
1 T raw cacao or cocoa powder
1 c desiccated coconut
what to do
Put the almonds in the food processor and pulse until they are broken down. If you want almond chunks then leave them a bit chunky, if you want them all blended in then grind them to a powder. Add the rest of the ingredients and process on high until the dates are broken down and the mixture is clumping and sticky. Roll into balls and store in the fridge or freezer. I store them in the freezer and they get eaten straight from there.
Remember there is lots of dried fruit in these, even though they are wholefoods etc, they are still a ‘sometimes’ treat 🙂 they are especially good as an after dinner sweet or a high energy lunchbox treat.
Waffles – Free from gluten, dairy, egg, nuts
So if you have been following me for a while, you will know that I’ve spent a good part of this year trying to create the perfect gluten, dairy, soy free but also egg and nut free waffle. And a month or so ago I finally cracked it. Well actually, that’s kind of a lie, I found this fantastic pancake recipe from one of my favourite real food blogs and decided to try and turn it into a waffle. Low and behold, it turned out perfect! there is nothing I could have done to make this recipe any better. So i really can’t take any credit for the everything free waffle recipe I spent so long trying to create, but I’m totally cool with that because it found me in the end!
All the credit goes to Buffy from Be Good Organics who created this stunning pancake recipe which I then turned into waffles. Here is the original pancake recipe, and below I will outline how I make it into waffles! The best part is I can serve this to the whole family and everyone loves it, gluten eating Dad and egg eating Chef Ashton included, and the best part is that our little guy Felix can enjoy the same breakfast as the rest of the family! He thinks its pretty cool and loves to partake in ‘build your own’ waffle Sunday when I lay out a bunch of condiments on the table and you can choose what to top your waffle with. (think blueberries, banana, kiwi fruit, maple syrup, seeds, dark chocolate, whipped coconut cream, coconut yoghurt, homemade chia jam, honey).
This makes 4 waffles and feeds our family of 4, with toppings.
Ingredients
1c buckwheat flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp himalayan pink salt
1 large ripe banana
1c + 1/4c coconut milk (or milk of choice)
1/4 lemon (juice & flesh)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 dates
Oil – for the waffle iron (this is the one and only place I use an oil spray)
what to do
Turn the waffle iron on and set to preheat. Grease the waffle iron, grease it real good, like i said this is the one time i use an oil spray instead of coconut oil because you really need to get into all the crevices. Trust me, you don’t want the waffle to stick!
Add all the ingredients into a blender or food processor, except the 1/4 cup milk – i put them all into a 1 litre glass jug and use my hand held blender. If it’s too thick add at the 1/4 cup milk. The consistency works best if its thick, but pour-able, with the help of a spoon.
Blend until all the ingredients are combined.
When the waffle iron is heated set it to your desired doneness (i like it a little brown, but not too much – which is about a 4 or 5 on my machine). Pour 1/4 of the mix in and close the lid. Obviously your waffle iron might be a different size to mine, so be the judge over whether that will be enough or too much. You don’t want it to overflow! I’m always so greedy and pour too much in the first two then the second two end up kinda stingy (the kids get those ones haha).
Remove each waffle with a spatula when done and place in a low temp oven until the others are cooked. While they cook, I chop and assemble the toppings (see above for suggestions) also some nice suggestions in the original recipe you could check out.
So there you have it, the most delicious egg and nut free (and all the other stuff free) waffle! I’m generally not a hue fan of a strong buckwheat flavour, but I don’t find the buckwheat flavour over powering at all in these.
If you are like us, and need options for egg free baking, you should definitely check out Be Good Organics, why reinvent the egg free baking wheel when you can just go there! Some seriously yum stuff, using good, quality, real food ingredients that I’m happy to feed my family.
Meatballs – 4 ways
Ingredients
500g mince (lamb, beef or pork or a combo)
1 grated carrot
1 grated courgette (i use the ‘fine’ side of the grater)
Salt and pepper
Fresh herbs (whatever you have on hand)
1 Tbsp Finely chopped garlic
what to do
The grated veggies is what helps to hold the meatballs together in the absence of egg, if you can have egg however, by all means add one, it does help to bind the mix a bit extra.
Put all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and use your hands to combine everything together.
Meatballs and patties
Using a teaspoon to measure, roll into meatballs or shape into patties to your desired size.
Fry on medium heat and flip/turn when browned on one side. When I’m cooking meatballs I sometimes add
a ladle of water and pop the lid on the pan, to help cook them through, I let it evaporate then continue to brown them on all sides.
Meatball slice
Press the mixture into an oven dish and cook (fan-bake 180, 15 -20 mins) as one giant slab of meat! Then slice it to your desired size when its done.
Meatloaf
Add ½ cup quinoa flakes to the mixture and
press into a loaf tin. If you are feeling fancy, line the loaf tin with bacon first then press the mix on top!. Fan bake 180 deg for 30 mins or until cooked through.
Berries n Cream Smoothie
A smoothie bowl is one of my go to recipes for weekday morning breakfasts. Weekday smoothie bowls at our house usually have minimal toppings, and are sometimes made thinner so they can be a drink. In the weekends i take more time to put fun fruit shapes and little bits and bobs on top. I usually decorate with seasonal fruit (or sometimes frozen fruit), nuts, seeds, paleo cereal or granola, dessicated coconut, dried fruit, goji berries – it is only limited to your imagination!
Ingredients
Serves: 2 generous serves.
1 banana
1 avocado
1 cup frozen berries
½ tin coconut cream or milk of choice
1/2 small beetroot (optional) for extra pink
what to do
Put all the ingredients together
and blend! A hand held blender works perfect. Pour out into a bowl or add some extra liquid and pour into a glass.