Muesli Made Easy

As you know Jeremy and I have been re-designing our lifestyle and looking at ways that we can start spending less, earning more, and eating better!

One thing I have been wanting to do for a long time is to reduce the amount of sugar loaded cereals that we eat in the morning and replace them with homemade muesli.

So the last time we were grocery shopping I grabbed 2kg of rolled oats, and two 750g bags of pre-mixed trail mix and decided to get cracking!

Making your own muesli is so easy and it has far less calories and sugar and oil than the stuff you get in a bag!

Your Lunchtime Dilemma Solved

What's for lunch today?... Jeremy's Special Fried Rice!

This recipe is perfect when you have left over rice in the fridge from the night before... in fact often we purposely cook too much rice at tea time so we can have fried rice the next day!

Full credit goes to Jeremy on this one - I can't say I ever successfully made fried rice before he taught me how to do this, mine always ended up soggy and bland - nothing like the this!

To start it is ideal to have day-old rice so that it isn't steamy and wet.  Heat a fry pan with a good tablespoon of oil and add the cold rice into the pan.

Give it a stir in the oil and add in a teaspoon of vegetable stock (some chilli flakes if you like), salt and pepper, and a handful of frozen peas.  Keep the rice moving and it will slowly start to fry and become a tiny bit crispy.

When you see this happening add a splash of soy sauce and stir well so it gets mixed through the rice.

Crack an egg into a cup (or 2 eggs if there is a lot of rice or depending on how 'eggy' you want it!) and whisk it with a fork.

Then tip this into the pan and stir to break it up and combine it through the rice.

Continue frying and stirring until the egg is cooked and your peas are tender!

Serve it in a big steaming mound on your plate and dig in...

With a swirl of sweet chilli or soy sauce on top if you like!

Lunchtime is sorted!

Quick and Easy Coconut Chicken Anyone Can Make

This meal is so easy it can be made in less than 20 minutes - so its perfect for those nights when you don't have a lot of time to make dinner!

First put the rice on to cook - I use a rice cooker that takes about 15min to cook 2 cups of rice - but you can make the rice in the microwave or on the stove top in a pot if you prefer or don't have access to a rice cooker.

Take one large chicken breast (or two small) and cut into bite size pieces.

Add it to a fry-pan with a 'glug' of olive oil over a medium heat.

As it starts to cook add a tsp of vegetable stock and 1/2 tsp of turmeric to the chicken and stir.

You will need a can of coconut milk (or I often use coconut milk powder made into milk with hot water) but either way add half of your milk to the chicken, stir and simmer for a few minutes.

Add a good handful of vegetables into the pan - here I used peas and green beans from the freezer!

Add the rest of the coconut milk and leave to simmer until the vegetables are tender.

Now have a quick taste of the sauce... I often find it needs a tea spoon of sugar to help balance out the savoury coconut milk taste. Stir this in and simmer for another minute or two if it does.

Then go ahead and serve over your rice!

This is a smooth coconut milk sauce.  If you want a spicier coconut curry have a play around adding chilli, garlic and ginger to give it more kick!

Also try adding some pumpkin into the mix as it goes really well with the creamy sauce.

And of course salt and pepper to taste!

Farewell Dinner For 3

Recently mum came to visit for 2 weeks.  On her last night here I decided we needed a good feed and sit down dinner to say goodbye properly!

Although I wasn't really in the mood for cooking

So I decided to bake my quick and easy potato bake, serving it with a crunchy spinach salad and steak.  

This potato bake is one of our favorites because of the flavor it has from using stock... instead of an overload of cheese and cream that other recipes for potato bake use - so it is a healthier alternative.

To start off I sliced up 5 big potatoes to about half a cm thickness and layered them in a baking dish.  Then I sprinkled about a teaspoon of vegetable stock over them and about 1/2 cup of boiling water, I then covered and microwaved them for 6mins on high (to speed up their cooking process...)

Once out I covered the potato with a handful of grated cheddar cheese and parmesan cheese and then finish with a sprinkle of paprika.  And then put into the oven at 180 deg....

30min later the potato bake is ready with a nice crispy topping and soft flavourful potato layers.

The salad came together from what I had in the fridge...baby spinach, stuffed olives, sun-dried tomatoes and red capsicum....

...I LOVE this dish I found at a local secondhand shop for $4... there's something about yellow in the kitchen that makes me smile!

The table was set, with a few extras of cold meats from the fridge which needed to be eaten up, feta cheese for the salad... and some juicy rump steak sliced into ready eat pieces!

The potato bake got the tick of approval from mum... and yes that means it is really good!

A Quick Lunch...

When you work from home it is sometimes easy to lose track of time and you can forget to stop and have a proper lunch break.  

Today I was super hungry about 2pm but when I looked in the fridge I couldn't see anything I wanted to eat.  

Sometimes it can be hard to make lunch when you're not eating bread - a toasted sandwich or just plain toast used to be my go-to staple!  But now that I'm on my low-fodmap, gluten free diet - bread is no longer an option...

It didn't seem like we had much in the fridge until I saw the fresh free range eggs and thought.... an omelette!

Now I have to say that this is a VERY weird choice for me because I don't remember ever eating an omelette in my life! 

But... as I have decided to try new things and experiment with food... I decided to give it a crack (excuse the pun)!

Ingredients: 2 eggs, chopped red pepper, 1/2 tomato, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, salt and pepper.

The eggs were first whisked with about 1Tbsp of water to thin them a little (you could use milk) and then everything mixed in together...

Poured into a GOOD non-stick frying pan...

Flipped over in half... (this is the tricky part!)

Served with tomatoes on top!

So the verdict for a non-omlette eater.... it was actually pretty good.

Next time I would add some kind of meat maybe ham or chorizo into the mix... (as it was I did actually find some bacon in the freezer and fried that up too which went VERY well with it)!

There's definitely a lot of scope for adding different flavours and left-overs from the fridge into a dish like this.

It will be my new go-to lunch!

Oh Crumbs!

What to do when you have excess almond meal from making your own almond milk??? 

Use it to crumb your chicken!

First off you need to get rid of some of the moisture in the almond meal (because it has been soaked in water from previously making the milk) so just gently toast it in a fry pan until enough moisture evaporates and it feels dry.  

Once cooled  mix it with some chickpea flour and a little salt and pepper to taste.

Split one large chicken breast in half (lengthwise) and then dunk these first into one egg (whisked with a fork) to act as the 'glue' and then flip them a few times in the crumb.

Fry then in some olive oil till crispy and cooked through...

and serve them up with a crunchy salad on the side.

Alternatively once cooked you can pour on some tomato passata and sprinkle over some cheese and grill till melted and golden - for homemade Chicken Parmigiana - too easy!

Back To Biscuits

In the last blog post the recipe I used to make the choc-chip biscuits required 750g of 'flour' (I used almond meal and brown rice flour).  

This was actually enough to make 3 batches of cookies.

I cooked one batch straight away and the rest of the dough I put into the freezer as ready-to-go cookie dough logs.  

They are really easy to do, you just portion the dough and roll it into a log on a clean bench or board and then wrap it in cling wrap.

 Now when you want cookies you just take out a log, slice it into 1cm rounds and within 30min you can have freshly baked treats!

You don't even have to cook the whole log - in these photos I only sliced up half of one and put the rest back in the freezer.

... but I did eat 6 cookies in one day... whoops!

Homemade Cookies AND Milk

Would you believe it but these cookies and milk are both made with the same base ingredient - ALMONDS!

We have started making our own Almond milk.  It is really simple to do and tastes delicious!  It is also great because we get to control how much sugar goes into making it...

I have adapted the process as inspired by the recipe in this book: My Darling Lemon Thyme: Recipes from My Real Food Kitchen: Vegetarian, gluten-free meals, small bites, which I received as a Christmas present last year.

To start I soak a large cupful of almonds over night in cold water in the fridge.

In the morning I rinse them and then put them in a jug with 1 cup of cold water and blitz them to form a gritty paste. I only have a stick blender so mine is still a bit chunky... so no need to stress if yours is too.

Then I add 1Tblsp of rice malt syrup (you could use honey, maple syrup or even raw sugar if you don't have this...I had no idea what this was until I tried it...it tastes a bit like golden syrup but not as strongly flavoured) and another 2 and a bit cups of water and blitz it altogether again.

The next step is to strain the bits of almond out of the milk.  As suggested in the book I use a piece of muslin cloth do this  (I found some for cheap at Spotlight - I think it was about $6/m).  I give it a good squeeze and wring out all the liquid.

You have to be a bit careful doing this though as there has been a few times when I have had almond paste splattered all over me, the bench and the floor in an over zealous attempt at 'milking'!

The result is a bowlful of creamy almond milk and a good cupful of ground almond meal!  I add a bit more water to make it up to about 1L.  But if you want it really creamy you don't need to do this.

The milk gets stored in the fridge in a jug and used for our morning cereal and baking -  (but that all depends on if we have milkshakes - then it can be gone in 30 seconds flat)!

The left over ground almond I keep aside in a bowl in the fridge and use it to make home baking for the rest of the week.

Today I made chocolate chip cookies - the ones in the photo - I simply replaced the wheat flour quantity of 750g (from a recipe I had torn out from a magazine yonks ago but never got around to making yet) with about 500g of the almond meal (what I had left over sitting in the fridge) and 250g of  brown rice flour.

The ground almond is quite moist so I used a fork to mix the two 'flours' together to get rid of any lumps.

The cookies took a bit longer to cook than usual... (I'm guessing because they had a little extra moisture in them from the almonds) but they have a great texture and a chewy bite which makes me want to go back for seconds and thirds!

The great news is I don't think we have bought any milk, bread, or treats from the supermarket in the last 3 weeks because our pantry and freezer are overflowing with homemade bread, cakes and now biscuits.

I have calculated that 1 cup of almonds is about $4 to buy (depending on specials and bulk availability) but from that 1 cup I can get about 1L of almond milk and at least one baked cake or loaf.

Compared to $4 for 1L of store bought almond milk and at least that again for bread or a packet of biscuits we are already noticing our shopping bill reduce!

I think we are addicted to almonds!

P.S. to make the milkshakes either use a chocolate syrup or milo or drinking chocolate powder with a scoop of icecream (if you so desire) and whiz it up with your stick blender! YUM

The Best Coconut and Berry Loaf

I have been experimenting using alternative flours to wheat flour and found some coconut flour in the supermarket the other day.  

I'm not strictly gluten free but I have been on a Low FodMap diet for a few months as I've had some digestion issues after catching a bug.  

It has been interesting to try some new recipes with ingredients I am not familiar with. Although I am missing wheat flour (I just can't get a similar texture or flavour) I am learning to enjoy some new ones!

Coconut Flour
Desiccated Coconut
Yoghurt
Frozen Berries
Golden Syrup
Baking Soda
Eggs
Vanilla Essence
Ground Ginger and salt ...

Mix it all together and bake till golden and firm

...I've already had it for lunch and afternoon tea today!

I found the original recipe on the back of the MacKenzies Coconut flour and decided to give it a go with a few adjustments (I only had vanilla bean flavoured yoghurt, (not plain) and didn't have any lemons on hand to zest into it as they suggested).  I find I'm often tweaking recipes to accommodate what I actually have in the cupboard...

We shall see what Jeremy scores it out of 10 when he gets home from work tonight!

Welcome to Our Blog!

This blog is a record of our creative ventures – inside the house, outside in the garden and anywhere in-between!

We hope you will enjoy following our progress and perhaps get inspired to undertake something new and creative around your home too.