Category: Snacks

Gluten Free Crispy Chicken Nuggets

These healthy, gluten and grain free homemade chicken nuggets are crispy, quick and easy. They are also egg free, dairy free and have an option for nut free as well.

Chicken nuggets, what is it about these little morsels of delight that kids just love. My kids have never had nuggets of the processed type, so it’s definitely something to do with crispy, bite sized pieces of chicken.

Nut free

You can make these nuggets nut free by swapping the almond meal or almond flour for sunflower seed flour. You can buy pre made sunflower seed flour, or you can very easily make your own by grinding raw sunflower seeds into a flour in your food processor or blender. I’ve tried making these with other grain flours such as rice flour or tapioca, and they are just not the same without that courser texture of the almond or sunflower meal.

Do you Really not need eggs?

Nope, you really don’t need eggs to make the coating stick. We no longer have to avoid eggs, but this is how I make our nuggets every time. I recon they come out the best texture and crunch using this recipe. And a bonus in that they are so, so easy to throw together without having to faff around with an egg coating.

These are best served with homemade aioli or mayonnaise, which I have the perfect egg free mayo recipe here.

Oils

Ok lets talk oils for frying in. We personally avoid highly processed oils such as canola oil, sunflower oil, rice bran oil, soya oil and ‘vegetable oil’. I fry these nuggets in my deep fryer which we fill with beef tallow or lard (just like the fish n chip shops back in the old days!) You could also use coconut oil. Olive oil isn’t the oil for frying in this recipe, as it doesn’t have a high smoke point, so you will end up smokin out your kitchen when it gets hot enough for frying.

If you try these don’t forget to tag me on Facebook or Instagram

Print Recipe

Gluten Free Crispy Chicken Nuggets

These healthy, gluten and grain free homemade chicken nuggets are crispy, quick and easy. They are also egg free, dairy free and have an option for nut free as well.
Prep Time10 mins
Cook Time10 mins
Total Time20 mins
Course: dinner
Cuisine: American
Keyword: chicken, chicken nuggets, coconut free, dairy free, egg free, gluten free, grain free, healthy, nuggets, nut free, soy free

Equipment

  • optional – Deep Fryer

Ingredients

  • 1 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon ginger
  • ½ teaspoon allspice
  • ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon white pepper
  • ½ cup almond meal (or ground sunflower seeds / sunflower meal)
  • 500 g chicken diced into small cubes / nuggets of your desired size
  • 1 Tablespoon olive oil
  • Oil for shallow frying, or deep frying.

Instructions

  • Combine all the spices, salt and almond meal in a bowl.
  • Dice the chicken into nuggets of your preferred size.
  • Coat the chicken in the tablespoon of olive oil.
  • Add the chicken to the bowl of spices and toss to coat. Leave them to sit for 5 minutes to soak up the spice mix.
  • If shallow frying, add oil to your pan 1-2cm deep and gently heat over medium heat. If deep frying heat enough oil to be able to fully drop the nuggets in, or use a deep fryer.
  • Fry the nuggets in small batches for best results, and remove after 3-5 minutes or when golden and cooked through.

Kayla

Gluten Free No Yeast Naan

As with most my recipes, this gluten free naan is quick, easy and has few ingredients. I don’t have time to wait around for yeast to do it’s thing. (plus we use natural fermentation for bread etc here so we have no need for yeast in our cupboards).

As well as gluten free, this naan is also coconut free, and has options to be egg free as well. The egg free version is every bit as delicious, but since we can have egg now, I do that because I don’t have to measure eggs or find a packet in the back of the freezer! Speaking of which, a quick tip: If you use and keep ground flaxseed as an egg substitute, or what ever you use it for – because it’s been ground and now many parts of the seed have been exposed to air, they can turn rancid quickly. Best to keep them in the freezer as soon as you have opened them. You can use straight from the freezer each time. This keeps them fresh and stops it from turning rancid quickly.

Enjoy with your favourite curry, or as a wrap, or on its own! We love ours with Thai curry, or butter chicken.

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Gluten Free No Yeast Naan Bread

This perfectly crafted Naan bread is paleo, and allergy friendly, including coconut free
Prep Time10 mins
Cook Time20 mins
Course: Main Course, Side Dish, Snack
Cuisine: Indian
Keyword: coconut free, dairy free, egg free, gluten free, naan, naan bread, side dish, soy free
Servings: 4 People

Ingredients

  • 1 cup almond meal (you could use ground sunflower seeds as a nut free substitute)
  • 1 cup tapioca flour
  • 2 tsp garlic powder (or two cloves fresh garlic, diced)
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking powder (or ⅓ tsp baking soda + 1 tsp vinegar)
  • 1 egg (Egg free: ¼ cup ground flaxseed + ½ cup water)
  • ½ cup water

Instructions

  • Put all the ingredients into a bowl together, and mix well until combined. If using flaxseed, let sit for 10 minutes until the water has been absorbed.
  • Heat up a pan over med heat. Don't oil it (unless you have major trouble with sticking – you know your pan best!).
  • When the pan is heated, dollop 1 – 2 tablespoons of the mixture into the middle of the pan. Using the back of a spoon spread the mixture out to the sides, so all remaining wet mixture ends up spread out over the pan.
  • Add a splash of oil over the top of the naan and around the sides. When bubbles have burst on top and it's browned underneath, it's ready to flip.
  • Flip it over until cooked and browned on the other side, then tranfer to a wire rack while you cook the rest, to prevent them from going soggy.

This is the almond meal I use for all my recipes and baking, I like how its affordable and the smaller bag (as I buy most other things in bulk) helps to keep it fresh, because, like the flaxseeds, nuts, once ground can turn rancid quickly too. 

To make ‘sunflower seed flour’ I simply grind raw sunflower seeds in my blender until they become a fine flour. I use it as a 1:1 nut free replacement for almond meal. You can store almond meal, and a batch of pre made up sunflower seed flour in the freezer, as well, if you are not going to use it within a week or two.

Kayla

10 of The Best Healthy Lunchbox Tips

So, you have come a long way, and there is hardly any packets in the lunchbox anymore. Lunch consists of: sandwich, apple, banana, yoghurt and a biscuit and muesli bar. Sounds ok huh?

What if I told you that there could be up to TEN hidden teaspoons of added sugar in this lunchbox? The recommended daily intake of added sugars from the World Health Organisation (WHO) is 4 teaspoons for a 5 year old (and a maximum of 8) this has just blown the sugar intake through the roof in just one meal! Let me explain; Fresh and fruity fruit yoghurt: just over 4 tsp sugar*. 2 superwine biscuits: 1 tsp. Muesli bar: around 3 tsp on average depending on the bar. Jam or honey in a sandwich: 1-2 tsp And just like that you have 8-10 tsp of added sugar all packaged up nicely in a healthy looking school lunch. Marmite and even some peanut butters have added sugar in them, it’s everywhere and unfortunately we have to become detectives to scope this out!

So what could you do about this? The trick is not to change everything at once, not only would that be hard work for you, your kids would probably be feeling pretty overwhelmed too if their lunchbox suddenly changed overnight. Make the changes small, easy for you to manage and sustainable – something you can do, and stick to, so you don’t look back. Some small, simple tips (choose one):

  • Replace the sandwich filling to something like ham, salami, egg or cheese Spreads: We slowly got rid of things like marmite and jam from the house, so they are not even an option.
  • Next time you run out of jam or Nutella, don’t replace it. We make homemade jam by blending up berries and adding some chia seeds and a tiny bit of honey.
  • Read the labels, make sure you get a peanut butter with no added sugar.
  • Try using plain Greek yoghurt instead of flavoured and add some fresh fruit to it, berries are perfect for that, fresh in summer, or frozen in winter. Even stirring a teaspoon of honey through plain yoghurt will have nothing on the sugar content of a brought flavoured pottle, you could try this with the intention to reduce it completely after a few weeks. For dairy free options, flavoured coconut yoghurt, does tend to have a little less sugar than some other dairy brands, but still check the label and try and choose the least sugar.

The lunchbox I described is one of the better lunches I’ve seen in the classroom, but just because it’s what everyone is packing, does it make it ok? (I’ll leave that to you to decide). There is no protien, fat or vegetables in this lunchbox – some ideal forms of fuel for little bodies to learn and grow. I will share my tips on how to add these in, in the coming weeks.

If you need a hand getting lunchboxes sorted I have created a Lunchbox Planner resource that comes with 70+ healthy, real food, minimal prep or fuss food ideas and 12 healthy lunchbox recipes. You can check it out here.

Come Back next week for tip #2 🙂

*one teaspoon of sugar is about 4 grams.

My kids lick the bowl has a fantastic blog post which shows how much sugar is in everyday items and how it correlates to WHO’s recommended daily intake. It’s been expertly calculated and put into easy to read visuals! I used this to help me with my lunchbox example. I highly recommend checking it out!

Kayla

Apple Crumble Slice | Gluten Free, Healthy

This Apple crumble slice is super versatile. It’s free from the top allergens, plus coconut. Can be made with any fruit. And you can also layer the fruit on the bottom of an oven proof dish, and crumble the whole mix over the top to make fruit crumble! I actually find we only need half of the mix for fruit crumble, and the other half freezes great, and can be used to make another fruit crumble later on.

This recipe is healthy enough for everyday, (or breakfast even!) and lunchboxes, if you are wanting to make an extra sweet treat, or you are serving people used to sweet baking, then you can use 3/4 cup of sweetener instead of 1/2.

Make it grain free / Paleo

You can make this recipe paleo by substituting the oats, seeds and flour for almond meal – so 2 cups almond meal + 1 cup tapioca. Or 1 cup ground seeds, 3/4 cup almond meal and 3/4 cup tapioca.

Which sweetener?

The sweetener is fairly flexible, this recipe is designed for a liquid sweetener such as honey, maple, brown rice syrup etc. If you use a granulated sweetener such as coconut sugar, then you will need to add approximately 1/4 cup water to ensure the current texture. It only just comes together, so you denote want it too wet.

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Apple Crumble Slice

This apple crumble slice is tangy and delicious and can be made free from gluten, dairy, soy, eggs, nuts and coconut
Prep Time10 mins
Cook Time30 mins
Course: Breakfast, Snack, treats

Ingredients

  • ½ cup oil (olive oil, coconut oil and butter all work)
  • ½ cup sweetener e.g maple syrup, honey or coconut sugar
  • 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
  • ½ tsp baking soda + 1 tsp vinegar (OR 2 tsp baking powder)
  • 1 cup mixed seeds or almond meal
  • 1 ½ cup flour rice flour, buckwheat, spelt or gluten free blend all work fine
  • ½ cup rolled oats or quinoa flakes

Apple Filling

  • 4 apples You can use any other fruit
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 Tbsp sweetener optional

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 180°c fanbake.
  • Peel and core the apples. Dice them and add to a pot with ¼ cup water, cinnamon and sweetener if you are using.
  • Cook over medium heat with the lid on for about 10 minutes, then when apples are softened, take the lid off and allow any liquid to evaporate, before setting the cooked apples aside.
  • If using seeds, grind them in your blender or food proccessor to form a flour. Place all the ingredients together in a large bowl and mix everything together. If it seems a bit dry and crumbly, add 1 Tbsp of water at a time, until it holds together nicely, when pressed.
  • Line a square slice tin with baking paper, and grease it.
  • Place half of the mixture on the tray and press down to spread out and form the base of the slice.
  • Spread the apples (now hopefully slightly cooled) on top of the base.
  • Take the remaining mixture and crumble it with your fingers on top of the stewed apples or fruit.
  • Cook in middle or lower rack in the oven for 25 minutes, or until the top is golden and the slice has risen.
  • Remove from the oven and let cool in the tin (you can put the whole tin in the fridge or freezer to help speed it up!) before removing and slicing. Store in the fridge or freezer.

Kayla

ANZAC Biscuits

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Allergy Friendly Anzac biscuits

The Most delicious ANZAC biscuits. Gluten, dairy, oats, soy, egg, nut and coconut free.
Prep Time15 mins
Cook Time15 mins
Course: biscuits, Snack, treats
Keyword: ANZAC, baking, biscuit, biscuits, coconut free, dairy free, egg free, gluten free, nut free, soy free, treats
Servings: 12 Biscuits

Ingredients

  • ½ cup Oil (you can sub coconut oil if coconut is ok)
  • ¼ cup Honey
  • ½ tsp Baking soda
  • ¼ cup Coconut sugar or other granulated sugar (for RSF you could use more honey, maple syrup, agave, date syrup)
  • ½ cup Gluten free or buckwheat flour
  • 1 cup Quinoa flakes (or oats, if oats are ok)
  • ½ cup Ground sunflower and / or pumpkin seeds OR almond meal if it doesn’t need to be nut free
  • ¼ cup sesame seeds (these make a nice sub for the coconut)

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 180 deg (fan bake)
  • Melt the honey and oil in small pot. Stir togther. Add the baking soda and watch the magic happen! It will puff and rise. Stir for a minute while it reacts.
  • Combine with the rest of the ingredients and gently mix everything together.
  • The mix should feel sticky but hold together when you press into a ball.
  • With wet hands gently shape into approx 12 balls and place them on a lined & greased baking tray. Flatten with a fork.
  • Cook for 10 – 15 minutes or until they start to turn golden – keep a close eye on them – they can burn quickly! Take them out and let cool on the tray and then a baking rack for as long as you can torture yourself with them, then store in an airtight container if you don’t eat them all at once!

Kayla

Gluten, dairy and grain free Hot Cross Buns

I don’t like to take up too much of your time, or make you scroll 500 miles to get to my recipe. So in keeping it as simple as possible, these are pretty much what they say – gluten, dairy, soy and grain free hot cross buns. You could probably make them nut free too, if you needed, using sunflower flour, which I have added notes about below.

I must add, these hot cross buns, are quite ‘muffiny’ and I have found that in fact if you are after that slightly chewy, more bready texture, that lends itself to hot cross buns, then my egg and coconut free version, hits the spot for that. Which is surprising, given the ‘allergy friendlyness’ of it, which often takes us further away from the real thing, not closer! It turns out that over the last two years of being gluten, dairy, soy, egg and coconut free, I have become quite accustomed to creating some delicious, allergy friendly food. And even though we are now able to have eggs and coconut again, I hope to still include these options in all my recipes for you. Let me know if you have any questions, I now have a messenger feature on the website to make that easier for you, hooray!

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups almond meal*
  • 1/2 cup tapioca
  • 1/3 cup coconut flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp cinnamon 
  • 1 tsp of each ginger, cloves and nutmeg
  • 1/4 cup honey or other sweetener
  • 2/3 cup coconut oil
  • 3 eggs 
  • 1/3 cup dried apricots, diced (we use Ceres Organics preservative free)
  • 1/3 cup dried Cranberries (we use Ceres Organics, refined sugar free)

The Crosses:

  • 1/8 cup almond meal
  • 1/8 cup tapioca
  • A tiny dash of sweetner
  • 1 tsp of water at a time

*If you are nut free you can substitute the almond meal with sunflower meal (either homemade by blitzing sunflower seeds in a blender or food processor until they are a flour, or store brought). If you cannot have nuts or seeds, you can make hot cross bun flavoured muffins using this recipe, and adding in the above spices.

What to do

Preheat the oven to 180°c fan bake

Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl together.

Melt the coconut oil and add to a seperate bowl, with the honey, and eggs. Whisk them all together, then mix into the dry ingredients. Leave everything to sit on the bench for ten minutes. Put it into the fridge if you are in a hot climate. This gives a chance for the liquids to absorb a little and the coconut oil to firm up which will help you scoop and roll the mix into balls.

Line a square slice baking pan with greased baking paper. Once the mixture has sit for 10 minutes, scoop out large tablespoon sized portions. Grease your hands, then very gently form into balls and place them, just touching in the baking pan. This should yield 12 of the same size buns. If you don’t want to muck around with this, they will cook nicely in a well greased silicon muffin pan.

The Crosses:

Combine the almond meal and tapioca, and a dash of sweetener in a bowl, add the water 1 tsp at a time, until it is a thick, but pipeable consistency. Add the mix into the end of a piping bag, with the smallest nozzle. Or into a glad bag, and just cut a very small snip off the corner. Pipe the mix over your buns to make the crosses.

Bake for 20 minutes. The buns should be starting to turn golden on top. The ones around the edges will be well cooked, but check the buns in the middle, they might need an extra few minutes. I have found that when they are just a little softer to touch, they continue to cook after I take them out of the oven and when left to sit for a while, end up cooked through.

Remove the whole baking paper with buns still on top, to a wire rack to cool. Don’t worry about removing the paper from underneath until they are cooled properly.

Enjoy as is, or cut in half and spread with dairy free spread, or butter if you can have it.

Kayla

Hot Cross Buns – Gluten, dairy, egg, grain free

These Hot cross buns are all the spiced, warm bready delight I could have hoped for in a gluten, dairy, soy, egg, nut and coconut free bun. The secret is in the psyllium husk, which helps to give it that springy bread feel. For some reason I only developed the recipe to make 4 buns because I honestly thought, when I could make a version with other stuff in it, why would anyone need to share my everything free buns. But it turns out my family love this version the best, and even myself, who can now have eggs and coconut, actually enjoy this recipe the most. So from now on I’m going to be making a double batch, every time. Below, I will include the double batch measurements for you, in case you would like to come back and do the same! Happy hot cross bun making, i’d love to know what you think of these, and as always happy to answer any questions. If you would like to check out the gluten, dairy and grain free version you can find that here.

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4.5 from 2 votes

Gluten, dairy, soy, egg, grain free hot cross buns

Gluten, dairy, soy, egg, coconut and grain free hot cross buns. Options to make nut free as well. These give a pleasingly bready texture with the perfect amount of fruit and spice to satisfy all your hot cross bun cravings.
Prep Time20 mins
Cook Time20 mins
Course: Breakfast, celebration, easter, Snack, treats
Servings: 4 Buns

Ingredients

  • 1 cup Almond meal or sunflower flour for nut free (Make your own by blending sunflower seeds to a fine flour)
  • 2 Tbsp psyllium husk 
  • ½ cup tapioca flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder  (for grain free use 1/2 tsp baking soda)
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • ½ tsp each ginger, nutmeg and cloves
  • ½ cup almond milk (or rice milk, hemp milk for nut free)
  • 1 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 Tbsp sweetener 
  • 1 tsp apple cider vinegar 
  • ¼ cup dried apricots (chopped)
  • ¼ cup dried cranberries 

The Cross

  • ⅛ cup almond meal or sunflower flour
  • ⅛ cup tapioca flour
  • 1 tsp of water at a time

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 180°c fanbake.
  • Put all the ingredients in a bowl together and mix.
  • Let the mixture sit for 10 minutes so the psyllium husk can do its thing, and soak up the liquid.
  • Divide the mixture into 4 (or 8 if you have doubled the mix) You should now be able to gently shape the buns with greased hands, into balls, then flatten them slightly. They can be rustic, if you handle the dough for too long it will start to stick.
  • For the crosses:
    Combine the almond meal and tapioca in a bowl, add the water 1 tsp at a time, until it is a thick, but pipeable consistency. Add the mix into the end of a piping bag, with the smallest nozzle. Or into a glad bag, and just cut a very small snip off the corner. Pipe the mix over your buns to make the crosses.
  • Line a square baking pan with greased baking paper. Place the buns touching one another in the middle of the pan. ( if you have doubled the mix they will take up most of the pan)
  • Cook for 20 minutes (or 35 minutes if you have doubled the mix).
  • The buns should be starting to turn golden on top. The ones around the edges will be well cooked, but check the buns in the middle, they might need an extra few minutes. I have found that when they are just a little softer to touch, they continue to cook after I take them out of the oven and when left to sit for a while, end up cooked through.
  • Remove the whole baking paper with buns still on top, to a wire rack to cool. Don't worry about removing the paper from underneath until they are cooled properly. You can eat them warm, but give them 20 minutes to cool down a little first.
  • Enjoy cut in half and spread with dairy free spread. Or toast them first in the oven before spreading.

Double The Buns:

If you would like the double the mix, I have made it easy for you here. Follow the instructions as above.

  • 2 cup Almond meal or sunflower flour for nut free (Make your own by blending sunflower seeds to a fine flour)
  • 4 Tbsp psyllium husk 
  • 1 cup tapioca flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder  (for grain free use 1/2 tsp baking soda)
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp each ginger, nutmeg and cloves
  • 1 cup almond milk (or rice milk, hemp milk for nut free)
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil
  • 2 Tbsp sweetener 
  • 2 tsp apple cider vinegar 
  • 1/3 cup dried apricots (chopped)
  • 1/3 cup dried cranberries 

Kayla4 Comments

The Lunchbox Mum

When Ashton was five and Felix was 6 months old, I quit my job to be a stay at home Mum. As I envisioned myself as a school Mum … a stay at home school Mum. I envisioned being that Mum that turns up to school pick up in activewear, because I’ve actually done yoga or gone for a run. The Mum with the slick pony tail who always knew what day it was, and sent her son off to school every day in clean clothes with a healthy 100% homemade packed lunch. The Mum who turned up to help out in class occasionally and paid the school fees on time. The Mum who was always smiling, and organised, with a clear head and a clean car.

The last two years has taught me, that I am in fact, none of those Mums! I’m the Mum that stays in the car at school drop off because she is wearing her slippers, and the toddler is in his pyjamas. I’m the Mum who may have actually been for a walk or a run, but is wearing track pants because she hasn’t shaved her legs in 6 months. I’m the Mum with the un-brushed messy bun, probably still up from overnight, and clothes covered in baby puke, snot and possibly poop, maybe chocolate – but probably poop. I’m the Mum who hasn’t been in to meet the new teacher except through the car window one time. I’m the Mum whose son goes to school regularly wearing odd socks, and on occasion, odd shoes. I’m The Mum who has no idea what day it is, but can tell the time by how heavy her eyes feel. And the Mum who can’t see the floor of her car (last time I checked there was an open jar of mayonnaise in the back seat). But I am also the Mum who tries her best to send her boy to school everyday with a lunchbox made with love. Love doesn’t have to be homemade, or tidy, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. Love just has to try it’s best.

Here is what it looks like when I am that Mum, the one who is messy, unorganised, covered in baby excretions, and tired beyond belief, that tries to send her boys off with a nourishing lunchbox every day. My lunchboxes aren’t perfect, they are not 100% homemade, they are made quickly, on little sleep, and sometimes empty cupboards. When my boys open their lunchboxes, I hope that they see the love.

Don’t worry about perfection, because even the most experienced of us don’t get it right, all the time. Be inspired to pack lunchboxes out of love and the kids will have everything they need 💞

And if you need a little helping hand, this resource I created helped to make sure the kids had somewhat healthy lunchboxes packed daily, in my manic attempt to get everyone out the door on time

https://mailchi.mp/b75eda91781a/chefashton_lunchboxplanner?fbclid=IwAR2zWqBO66IABaMZNqWiyNpDMObZCwe_TTv5MeQgwt92_PsHLadMMrU41Eo

Kayla

Confessions of a Healthy Food Blogger

I share a fairly popular recipe for zucchini cheese – but I never make it myself, and always buy that super expensive vegan cheese from the supermarket.

I don’t like Brussel sprouts, I think they taste like farts. I live with three males (five including the cat and the dog) yes, I know what farts taste like.

My kids won’t eat frozen peas, in fact they won’t eat frozen mixed veggies either. Purely to make my life difficult. Except this one time I told my friend that my kids don’t eat peas and my 1 year old then stole and ate all the peas from her sons lunchbox.

Ashton, just Ashton. Ashton is incredibly fussy. He has the most ginormous list of foods he won’t eat, and bunch of finicky food preferences that I often comply with because I hate the moaning at the dinner table. If you want a winge-fest serve roast chicken (unless it’s a supermarket rotisserie basted in all sorts of non allergy friendly crap that he shouldn’t eat), or potatoes, especially mashed, roasted is marginally acceptable but only if they are cut into 1cm cubes, and crisp, but not too crisp, heaven forbid. Or try soup – if it’s soup, it’s inedible. Make sure you have you best gag face at the ready to make a performance at the table on soup night. Also if its marginally spicy, it may as well be poisonous. Someone save me from this kid he is a healthy food bloggers worst nightmare.

My kids won’t eat my homemade hummus, the two little ones just straight up won’t touch the stuff while Ashton will only eat “Lisa’s” hummus original flavour.

Sometimes I eat proper crisps for breakfast … and let the baby join me.

None of my kids eat raw carrot sticks, but I put them in their lunchboxes all the time because they look good in photos.

When I was a kid I used to steal meal mates crackers from the pantry and eat raro juice sachets like it was sherbet.

My mum buys the kids allergy friendly biscuits and chocolate and I eat it all myself.

Our children are allowed pudding once a week. But every night when they go to bed we eat chips and chocolate and mug cakes.

Most of my blog photos are taken on our bed covered in white sheets, or on the floor of our snail infested sunroom (best lighting in the house 😆)- I peg an upside down piece of scrap vinyl to a portable clothes rack to bounce the light off. Once I spilled a milkshake all through the bed during a photo shoot.

Sometimes I lie to the kids about what they are allergic to, so they don’t eat too much sugar, because I can’t handle the meltdowns.

Anyone else got anything to confess?!

Kayla

Double Chocolate Caramel Slice

Free from Dairy, soy, wheat, eggs, coconut, refined sugar & options for gluten & nut free. 

Ingredients

1/2 cup oil (olive oil, melted coconut oil, or butter)
½ cup sweetener (rice malt syrup, maple syrup or honey)
1 T vanilla extract
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 cup mixed seeds (I used sunflower & pumpkin) finely ground up in a food processor or blender. Almond meal will work if no need for nut free.
1 1/2 cup gluten free flour (or whatever you use – gf blend, spelt, whole-wheat, buckwheat)
1/2 cup cocoa or raw cacao
1/2 cup rolled oats (the quick cook kind – or give them a quick buzz in the blender to break them down ) or quinoa flakes for gluten free.

Caramel
7 fresh medjool dates or 1 cup small dried dates
1/2 cup water + 3/4 cup warm water.

what to do

Preheat oven to 180 deg c.

Date caramel:

Boil the dates in 1/2 cup water to soften until all the water is evaporated.

Add them to a blender or food processor with 3/4 cup water. If you use a food processor you might only need 1/2 to 1/4 cup water. Blend until smooth. Return to the pot and stir over med heat for five or so minutes or until the mixture is super thick and sticky.

Slice:

Measure all the dry ingredients into a bowl then add the wet ingredients and mix to combine.

Divide the mixture in half. Press half into the bottom of your baking tin.

Spread your date caramel on top, but not quite to the edges.

Now roll out (or press with your hands) the other half of the chocolate mix between two sheets of baking paper into a thick slab just smaller than the shape and size of your tin.

Take the top sheet off and pick up the slab and flip it down on top of the caramel layer. Gently press out to the edges which should also squish the caramel to the edges.

Pop in the middle of the oven to bake for 25 minutes.

While its cooking make the chocolate icing for the top.

Remove from the oven and let it cool in the tin (can even chuck the whole tin in the fridge or freezer) **IMPORTANT** – this step is vital, or your slice might crumble! Make sure it’s properly cooled before removing from the tin. Then ice with either homemade chocolate, melted dark chocolate, ganache or your preferred icing. You might like to base this on whether it will be travelling in a lunchbox and is at risk of melting. Slice and Keep in fridge or freezer. This can be eaten straight from the freezer. I freeze then put in lunchboxes frozen in the morning. Ashton recons it’s good at morning tea (hasn’t made it past morning tea yet 😆) with a cool pack and in an insulated lunch bag. And that’s with my chocolate recipe (made with cocoa butter) for the icing.

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