Butternut butter bean sausage rolls

July 17, 2018 ~ desertcook ~ Leave a comment

Sausage rolls are a massive favourite with my kids … and husband!

They are easy to make in bulk, and freeze and they are perfect for hiding veggies, so it is nice to know that they can be a slightly healthier option for my family – Obviously they’re still wrapped in pastry so they’re definitely a ‘sometimes’ food!

This is a simpler version of my veggie loaded sausage rolls and are Harry’s current favourite 🙂

I use Chevup sausages in my mix. They are a skinless, gluten free, Aussie beef sausage with about half the saturated fat of normal sausages – I feel much happier about using them than the questionable sausage mince that is commercially available. You can find more details about them here.

The sausages I use have great flavour, so if you are using regular beef mince, there is a note below the main ingredients for a couple of extra things for you to add.

Gluten, egg, dairy, nut and soy free pastry is the next issue. There are many GF pastries out there but they are often really disappointing. Obviously use the one that suits your diet and that you enjoy.

I have used this pastry from the Gluten Free Bakery:

And it does a pretty good job. But ….

if you live in WA you really, REALLY have to check out Busy Bees Gluten Free pastry (I buy from Weigh n Pay in Woodvale)! It is amazing! It comes in a long roll and it handles just like wheat based pastry. It is soft and easy to work with and even non GF people have been happy to eat it!

8 Chevup sausages
250g butternut pumpkin
400g tin butter beans (drained)
1 tsp dried Italian herbs
1/2 tsp pink salt
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1/3 cup hemp seeds
2 tsp coconut aminos (or soy sauce)
4 sheets of your puff pastry (1 used 3 regular and 1 ‘everything free’)

If you are not using the Chevup sausages, use

450g beef mince, plus
2 tsp olive oil
1/4 tsp mild paprika
1/4 tsp garlic flakes
1 tbsp coconut aminos

Finely blitz the pumpkin. (Speed 6 for 8 seconds, scrape down and repeat).

Add the additional flavourings and oil, if not using chevvups and process again (Speed 5, 8 seconds)

Add the sausages or mince, to the processor and process until it is quite smooth (Speed 6, 10 seconds at a time, scrape down in between).

Add the butter beans and process until well combined (speed 5, 10 seconds, scrape and repeat)

Add the nutritional yeast, hemp seeds, salt, aminos and herbs and then process again until evenly combined and fairly smooth (speed 6, 10 secs, scrape and repeat)

Cut the pastry sheets in half and divide the mixture up between the sheets.

I find it is best to place it in a thin line down the middle of the pasty.

Roll the pastry over the top of the mix to form long cylinders.

Lay on a lined baking tray with the join side facing down (helps the join to hold together as it puffs).

Cook in a preheated 210C oven until meat is cooked and pastry is puffed and golden brown. (Use a short burst under the grill to get them extra golden and flaky). Takes about 35-40 mins in my oven.

Enjoy 🙂

Apple Berry Crumble

July 7, 2018June 27, 2024 ~ desertcook ~ 5 Comments

Apple crumble was a regular dessert feature in my house growing up and I have always loved it.

My husband jokes that he knew that he was going to marry me when I brought him a bowl of it as sustenance during exam study time at uni! That was a looong time ago – tomorrow we celebrate 16 years together, so it seemed like a good time to bring this one out again 🙂

Over those many years, I have added to my mum’s recipe, adapted it to suit our diet and boosted its nutritional value. I hope you enjoy it too!

2 tbsp butter/plant based butter
1 cup rolled oats*
1 cup puffed rice OR GF rice bubbles
2/3 cup almond meal OR plain flour of choice (wheat or GF)
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup toasted seeds**
zest of 1 lemon, finely grated
juice of 1 lemon
2 tsp ground cinnamon/mixed spice
2 large tins sliced apples (or home made stewed ones if you are more organised!). Pear works well here too.
2 cups frozen blueberries or raspberries

*Need it coeliac friendly? Replace the oats with an extra cup of puffed rice plus 1/4 cup rolled quinoa or shredded coconut

**I like the combination of 1/3 cup each of pumpkin, sunflower and hemp seeds – but use your favourites.

Start by mixing together the seeds and toasting them in a pan under your grill until they are golden brown – watch them carefully as they only take a few minutes. Toss them to make sure you get an even coverage.

Place apples and berries in a large greased baking dish.

Sprinkle fruit with the lemon juice, zest and the cinnamon. Then set aside.

Mix together all of the dry ingredients and then pour over the almost melted butter. Stir until well combined and evenly coated.

Evenly spread the crumble mix on top of the fruit mix and then place in to a preheated moderate oven for about 40 minutes, or until golden brown and the juices are bubbling.

Serve warm, on its own or with the custard or ice cream your diet allows.

This makes quite a large crumble … well, because everyone loves crumble and this often comes to family gatherings – there are a lot of us! If you don’t need quite so much, it’s easily halved. Or better still, just make this size, and gradually eat it for dessert for the next few days 😉 It lasts well in the fridge, but is better reheated in the oven than the microwave as it will keep the crumble topping more crunchy.

Enjoy 🙂

Boosted Breakfast Bars

July 2, 2018February 13, 2020 ~ desertcook ~ 1 Comment

My crew are on school holidays – hooray!!!

Holidays means slower mornings, adventures, time together …. and food. So much food!

I’m always astounded at how much more my kids neeeeed to eat in the holidays, when compared to what they eat from their lunchboxes during the school term. They tell me that it is because at school they stuff in what they can super fast so that the don’t miss out on their precious play time – apparently holiday are then for catch up!

These gorgeous bars are fibre filled, have a good serve of polyunsaturated fats and with a sweetness that comes from whole fruit, they’ll satisfy you and keep you going for ages. They work well as morning tea on the run too.

1 cup GF weetbix
1 1/2 cups rolled oats OR 1 1/2 cups fruit free GF muesli
1/4 cup wholemeal spelt flour OR plain GF flour mix plus 1/2 tsp psyllium
1/2 tsp GF baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 heaped tbsp each of hemp, flax and pumpkin seeds
8 medjool dates, pitted
1 large overripe banana
1 heaped tbsp seed butter (or nut butter that suits)*
1 medium egg*
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/4 cup milk of choice

*To make these vegan, remove the egg and add in a 2nd tbsp of the seed butter. Simple!

Place all of the dry ingredients together in your processor/thermal cooker/bullet and pulse a few times until the ingredients are roughly chopped and well combined. Then set aside.

Place the dates, seed butter, milk and vanilla into your thermal cooker. Cook on 90C, Speed 2 for 3 mins. Add in the banana and cook on speed 3, 90C for a further minute. Then boost up to speed 4 for 8 seconds.

To cook this one without a thermal cooker, place the dates, seed butter, milk and vanilla into a saucepan and cook over a low heat, whilst whisking regularly until the mixture is well melted – the dates will still be quite large. Add in the banana and continue to cook, whilst whisking for a further 2 minutes. Then transfer the whole mix to a blender or processor, then process until fairly smooth.

Now add the dry ingredients back to the wet and process until just combined (Speed 2, about 15 seconds). If you are using an egg, add it in here. The mixture will be quite thick and sticky.

Scrape into a line 20×20 baking tray and use a spatula to smooth out and press down into the tin.

Place into a preheated 180C oven and bake for 18-20 minutes until risen and golden brown.

Allow to cool for about 15 minutes in the tray before moving to a cooling rack to finish cooling before slicing in to 8 bars.

These will last several days in an airtight container in the fridge, or freeze them individually to pop into lunchboxes or grab on your way to work.

Enjoy

Honey oat biscuits

June 4, 2018May 31, 2018 ~ desertcook ~ 6 Comments

Sometimes you just really need bikkies in a hurry!

This recipe doesn’t need anything special – just 4 basic pantry ingredients and they’ll be cooling on your bench less than 25 minutes after you decided you needed a bikkie!

240g rolled oats
260 flour of choice (wholemeal spelt or a plain gf mix)
200g vegan butter
200g honey or maple syrup

In a large bowl, melt together the honey and butter (Speed 2, 100C about 2 1/2 mins) – then set aside.

Place the oats in your processor/thermal appliance or even bullet and give a couple of quick pulses to roughly shop the oats.

Add in the flour and mix well until combined (Speed 4, 10 secs).

Add in the melted butter mix and mix to combine (Speed 4, 8 secs).

Scoop spoon fulls of mixture on to a line baking tray and then use a fork to slightly flatten them.

Place in to a preheated 180C oven and bake for 16-18 minutes.

The biscuits will still be soft when removed from the oven. Leave them on the baking tray for 10 minutes (go ahead a ‘test’ one if you must!).

Move to an airing rack to finish cooling … or just eat them warm!

Makes about 22-24.

Enjoy 🙂

** I haven’t made an oat free version of these ones yet. I’d start by increasing the flour mix to 300g and then using a 200g mix of rice puffs, rolled quinoa and shredded coconut to replace the oats. I’ll update with exact quantities when I do!

Carrot Cake Pikelets

March 7, 2018March 21, 2018 ~ desertcook ~ 2 Comments

You might have already guessed …. but we are quite partial to pikelets here.

Pikelets, hotcakes, mini pancakes – whatever you like to call them, they are very popular with most kids and they are a terrific way to pack in a heap of goodies to make for a nutritious and filling snack – or breakfast! They freeze well, are portable and they are easy for little fingers to hold on to when they are learning to feed themselves.

We are enjoying these ones for afternoon tea today. They are a particularly terrific serve of long lasting fibre, with their mild sweetness coming from whole fruits. Hopefully we’ll have some left for lunchboxes!

1 1/4 cup spelt flour (half wholemeal) OR 1 cup GF flour mix plus 1/2 tsp psyllium
1/4 cup rolled oats OR shredded coconut
1.5 tsp GF baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 cup milk of choice
1 large carrot, roughly chopped
1 small over ripe pear (it needs to be soft to the touch) OR 1/4 cup pear puree
1/2 medium overripe banana
4 medjool dates
1 heaped tsp Sunflower seed butter OR other nut butter

In your blender/processor/bullet/thermal cooker blitz the oats or coconut until they are a fine flour (Speed 9, 8 seconds, repeat if required)

In a large bowl mix together all of the dry ingredients, including the blitzed oats, with a whisk then set aside. (Speed 4, 8 seconds)

In your blender/processor/bullet/thermal cooker place; the carrot, banana, pear, dates, seed butter, vanilla and milk and blitz until very smooth (Speed 4 initially, then build up to speed 7 for 8 seconds, scrape down and use speed 9 for a further 8 seconds, scrape and repeat if required.

Add the wet mix and the dry together and whisk or process until well combined and smooth.

Place a tbsp of the mix into a hot, lightly greased frying pan. It is quite a thick mix, so you’ll need to spread it out with the back of the soon a little bit. Flip over when bubbles appear and cook until both sides are golden brown.

Delicious served warm, on their own, with a little butter of choice or even some more seed/nut butter.

These work well sandwiched together with a little butter as a filling lunchbox snack.

Makes about 15

Enjoy 🙂

Strawberry ice dream

February 23, 2018February 25, 2018 ~ desertcook ~ Leave a comment

This delicious dessert is like a cross between ice cream and sorbet.

It’s very refreshing and simple to make, no need for any churning, but you do need to make it several hours in advance.

We used up the last of the strawberries that we had frozen after a very over zealous ‘pick your own’ session at a local farm.

3 cups frozen strawberries
270ml coconut cream (Ayam)
2 tbsp rice malt syrup*
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
3 over ripe large bananas

*You can of course use honey or maple syrup if you’d prefer – I choose the rice malt here not because of any mythical ‘sugar free’ properties, but because of its more neutral taste.

In your processor or thermal cooker place the strawberries. Blitz them until they are very finely chopped (almost like crushed ice) speed 4, working up to speed 8 for 10 secs, scrape down and repeat.

Add in the coconut cream, followed by the syrup and vanilla whilst processing (on speed 4), then scrape down and process again.

Add in bananas, one at a time and process until very smooth. (Use speed 6).

Pour into a dish, cover and freeze for at least 6 hours, or over night.

Remove from freezer about 10 minutes before serving so that it is scoopable.

If you’re after an extra special treat you can add some chocolate! We make ours by melting 4 squares of chopped dark chocolate together with 1/2 tsp of tasteless coconut oil, then just drizzle away!

This makes enough for 8-10 serves.

Enjoy 🙂

Carrot and zucchini chocolate cake

February 19, 2018January 4, 2024 ~ desertcook ~ Leave a comment

Chocolate cake is always welcome in our house, and it is especially welcome in muffin form for lunchboxes. I always try to add some extra goodies in to boost their nutritional value.

The carrots and zucchinis were really cheap at the markets so I decided to have a go at something different to my normal beetroot version.

These are quite a bit lighter in texture and they are very happily scoffed by all of the kids and even the biggest sweet tooth.

Small zucchini (approx 200g), chopped
Medium carrot (approx 80g), chopped
Medium banana, very ripe OR 1 large egg
100g light tasting oil (melted coconut oil/nuttelex or butter works too)
100ml milk of choice
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
250g plain flour (half wholemeal)* OR 230g GF flour plus 1tsp psyllium
2 tsp gf baking powder
120g sugar
40g cocoa powder
3/4 tsp mixed spice
Optional: 2 heaped tbsp hemp seeds

*When these ones aren’t going to school, I remove 50g of flour and replace it with 50g of almond meal

In to your bullet/blender/processor/thermal cooker place the veggies, banana, oil, vanilla, vinegar and milk. Then blitz until it is very smooth. (Start on speed 4 then build up to speed 10 for 8 seconds. Scrape down and use speed 10 for 10 seconds).

Add in the dry ingredients and mix gently until evenly combined (speed 4, 8 secs, then scraps down and repeat if required). If you’re mixing this by hand, whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl, pour in the blended wet mix and then fold together.

Spoon into lined muffin tins and place into a pre heated moderate oven for about 16 minutes, or until well risen and the muffins spring back to gentle touch.

Makes about 14-16 and they freeze and defrost well.

Enjoy 🙂

Creamy tropical icy poles

February 12, 2018February 8, 2018 ~ desertcook ~ Leave a comment

I’ve seen the lovely looking pre-made creamy icy poles in the shop … The ones you buy and freeze at home. But my goodness they’re pricey!

I would have needed to buy 2 packets for the tribe this afternoon so instead I got to work using the delicious goodies we already had at home.

Some cheap mangoes I bought from the markets ($1 each!), the over ripe banana in my fruit bowl and some of the slightly bruised apricots from our tree that we had frozen 2 months ago, plus the left overs of a can of coconut cream that was in the fridge and we had such a winner! Hope you like them too.

250g ripe mango (cheeks of 2 medium)
200g ripe apricots
1 large ripe banana
100g coconut cream
1tbsp honey/maple syrup

Blend, blend, blend until it is a very smooth mix.

Pour into moulds …. My advice is to use a funnel!

Freeze for 6 hours or until solid.

Makes 8

Enjoy 🙂

Cheesey popcorn

February 2, 2018 ~ desertcook ~ Leave a comment

My baby started school yesterday. It just feels unbelievable to me, but he loved it!

I missed him so much, so today we had a special day doing his favourite things. We did blocks, trampoline tricks and cars and I surprised him with tickets to a kids movie. Of course he immediately requested that we make popcorn together …. How could I refuse?!

He is not such a sweet tooth, so he asked for ‘the cheesey ones’. As you wish my precious dude!

50g popcorn kernels
2 tsp vegan butter/coconut oil
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp pink salt
1/2 tsp onion flakes
1/4 tsp garlic flakes
1/4 tsp paprika

Air pop the popcorn then lay in a baking dish.

Melt the butter/oil and drizzle all over the popcorn. Mix well for an even coating.

Place all the dry ingredients together in a blender/bullet/mortar and pestle and blitz until fine. You can also do it in your thermal cooker if you make bulk batches.

Sprinkle the dry mix over the popcorn then mix well to give an even cover.

Place in a preheated 200 C oven for about 10 minutes.

Allow to cool … Or not 😉

Enjoy!

Troll Scrolls

January 17, 2018February 24, 2019 ~ desertcook ~ Leave a comment

It really is all about the marketing with kids 😉 how to get them to eat something green and with bits that are all bumpy? Call it something gross!

Continuing on with my need to use up what we’ve got in the fridge, pantry and garden because I can’t get to the shops, today’s lunch was a favourite – Troll Scrolls!!

I use the base of my yoghurt dough then add lots of goodies to make these ones, green and bumpy (and extra nutritious).

470g Spelt flour (or 420g GF flour together with 1tbsp psyllium husk)
2.5 tsp GF baking powder
1/2 tsp pink salt
3 tbsp Nutritional Yeast
3 heaped tbsp seeds (I use pumpkin, hemp and flax)
300g natural yoghurt or soy/coconut yoghurt
1 packed cup of spinach
Shredded Cheese of choice (we do both a dairy batch and a Bio Cheese Batch)

In your processor pulse the seeds until they are finely chopped.

Add in the other dry ingredients and process to combine (Speed 4, 8 secs). Then set the dry mix aside.

In your blender/processor/bullet/thermal cooker place the spinach and just 150g of the yoghurt. Blitz until very well combined (Speed 8, 10 seconds, scrape down and repeat) – it’ll look like a very unappealing milkshake at this point!

Add in the remaining yoghurt and process to combine (Speed 4, 6 secs)

Add the dry ingredients back to the wet and process until it forms a dough (Speed 5, 15 seconds), knead together, dust with flour and roll out into a rectangle.