Cybele Pascal is my idol mom!

I finally got my copy of Cybele Pascal's The Allergen-Free Baker's Handbook. Thank you Cory! The book as travel from California to Hong Kong and Thailand and back to Hong Kong before I got it. It is definitely worth the wait!

The first thing off when it comes to baking bread, it is hard, and for allergen free ones even harder, because I can never find a easy to follow recipe and my bread either turned out really dense or like stone. One thing with Pascal's book is so easy to follow and she gives you great tips.

First of the bat, I tried her Continental Rolls, don't asked why I start at the back of the book. But that is what I usually do anyways read from the back couple chapters to see if I like the ending of the book before I read the book. Anyways ... so easy to make and my children loves them.

Directions that I find are great tips for any novice bakers like me:

Proofing yeast : warm water, light agave nectar and yeast

Rising dough: cover the dough with a tea towel, place a pan of very hot water in the bottom of the oven, put the dough in the oven and leave the dough for an hour with oven turn off of course for  30 minutes. The replace the water after 30 minutes and leave it for another 30 minutes.

my version of Pascal's rolls. i dusted it with flax seed meal.

natural yeast : raisins part 2, using the yeast

Ingredients 

yeast juice

flour of your choice

Directions

01 Use a strainer to strain the yeast juice into a bowl.

02 Add your choice of flour into the yeast juice and mix until a paste like mixture.

03 Cover the bowl and set it aside in the kitchen until your flour poof to double the size and it will be ready for use to make your dough.

yeast juice

i used buckwheat flour
unproof

proof

natural yeast : raisins part 1, fermentation process

With a week turn around time I made my own raisin yeast.

Ingredients

a handful of raisins

distilled water at room temperature

a teaspoon of sugar

Directions

01 Get a clean jar. You can recycle. I boiled my jar and cap before using.

02 Put all the ingredients in the jar and mix. Amount of water should cover the handful of raisins or a little bit over.

03 Cap it and set the jar in the kitchen. 

04 Watch the fermentation process which takes about a week. During the week time you should shake it and open the cap for the mixture to breath and talk to it if you wish.

Day 01 : starting raisin yeast fermenting process.

Day 02: the raisins are a bit plumb, but no fizzing.

Day 03: shake it and heard a pop sound when I opened the jar,
but no alcohol smell yet.

Day 04: fizzing and I smell alcohol.

Missed Day 05, but continues on to
Day 06: smelling strong alcohol
and it fizzes like soda! yea!

pork and beans

I purchased some mixed colorful dried beans and decided to make something out of them.

Ingredients 

1 cup of dried beans 

1 pound of grounded pork
2 to 3 bay leaves

1 onion 

6 gloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cup of veggie broth

Pork Marinade Ingredients

1 tablespoon of chinese cooking wine (xiao-shing)

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of fish sauce

1 teaspoon of ginger powder

1 teaspoon of arrowroot starch


Directions

01 Soak dried beans in water over night for at least 12 hours. 

02 Marinade grounded pork with pork marinade ingredients. You can prepare this the day of.

03 Chop up onion and mince up garlic.

04 Sauté bay leaves, chopped onion and minced garlic with evoo until the onion turns golden.


05 Add marinaded grounded pork into the onion garlic mixed. Continue to sauté until the pork is cooked.


06 Then add the beans to the mix. Sauté the beans into the mixture.


07 Add the veggie broth into the mixture.


08 Cover and let it cook in low heat.

natural yeast : strawberry

My cousin just recently made her own bread with her natural made strawberry yeast. Her bread was textured like sourdough but without the sour taste.

Ingredients

strawberry

water

1 teaspoon of sugar

Directions

01 Get a clean jar.

02 Put all the ingredients in the jar.

03 Watch it ferment. It will usually take about a week. But hers took 4 days to ferment because the weather was hot.

04 She found a youtube video with step by step directions to take care of the fermentation process.

donna's strawberry yeast

bacon mac and uncheese

I adopted this uncheese sauce from Karina of Gluten Free Goddess:
http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2008/02/best-vegan-baked-mac-cheese.html

Both my kids love bacon!

Star Ingredients

4 to 5 slices of bacon cut to strips

1 bag of brown rice elbows (Tinkyada)

Roux Ingredients

4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

2 cups of rice milk

2 tablespoons of white rice flour

2 tablespoons of tapioca flour

Dry Ingredients

2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast (Frontier)

1/2 tablespoon of dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon of onion powder

Wet Ingredients

2 teaspoons of rice vinegar

Directions

01 Saute the bacon strips in some evoo until brown and crisp then set those bacon aside.

02 Boil pasta. I love Tinkyada brown rice elbows.

03 Making the roux is easy. Heat up evoo in a sauce pan and mix in the white rice flour and tapioca flour. Then pour in 2 cups of rice milk and mix into a sticky paste.

04 Mix in the dry ingredients and wet ingredients to the roux. Then add in the bacon and mix.

05 Lastly add the cooked brown rice mac into the uncheese sauce and mix well.

i can't believe it's not cheese!

Enjoy this yummy =)

Notes: I added tapioca to make the sauce a bit sticky with just the rice flour it wasn't creating the texture I was hoping for. 

EVOO cookies

These cookies are adapted from Allyson from manifest:vegan

The original recipe is lemon olive oil cookies:
http://www.manifestvegan.com/2011/06/lemon-olive-oil-cookies/

Since my Clem can't have lemon in anything I took lemon juice out and sub with rice milk and I also sub almond meal with flax seed meal and chia seed since she can't have almond neither.

evoo cookie dough

Dry ingredients

1 cup of sorghum flour

1 cup of brown rice flour

1/2 cup of potato starch

1/2 cup of brown sugar

1 teaspoon of xantham gum

1 teaspoon of baking soda

Egg sub

1/8 cup of flax seed meal

1/8 cup of chia seed

1/2 cup of warm water

Wet ingredients

1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup of rice milk

4 tablespoons of agava

Directions

01 Preheat oven at 200 C.

02 Egg substitute mixed flax seed meal, chia seed and warm water and set those aside for 15 minutes so they can form into a gel with a sticky texture.

03 Mix all the dry ingredients into a bowl. Mix them well.

04 Mix all the wet ingredients into a bowl. Mix them well.

05 Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix them well. Then add in the egg substitute. Mix and mix and mix.

06 Roll cookie dough into rounds and press down each piece with a spoon and place them 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet.

07 Bake for 12 - 15 minutes.

crispy outside and chewy inside

korean bbq ribs

I finally found a frozen meat shop that sells korean ribs. It is located on Kimberly Road in TST. The street is a mini Korean town.

Per pound marinade for bbq ribs. I like the idea of per pound because you can cook more or less. I usually cook about 3 to 6 pounds of ribs so you can invite people over to eat.

Marinade

3 tablespoon of fish sauce 

(soya sauce if you are not okay with it since some people are allergic to fish, 

 my Clem is the opposite as she is allergic to wheat and to soya)
1 tablespoon of rice wine
1/8 cup of apple juice

1 tablespoon of agava
2 tablespoon of brown sugar
1/4 tablespoon of salt

1 bunch of spring onions (chopped into fine rounds)

3 tablespoons of ginger (freshly grounded or puree)

3 tablespoons of garlic (usually 3 to 4 gloves, chopped or puree)

2 tablespoons kiwi fruit (freshly puree)

Directions:

01 Puree the ingredients that needed to be puree, chopped up ginger, garlic and kiwi fruit and puree.

02 Put the puree mixture into a mixing box. I prefer to use a box when it comes to storing these marinaded ribs. 

03 Add the rest of the ingredients to the puree mixture and mix. You can taste to know if you like it sweeter or saltier. It is really up to you a this point.

04 Rinse the meat and pat them dry and marinade them. Keep them in the marinade for 2 days. 

05 I do not have grill and I wished I did. But you can pan fried these babies. Don't have to add any oils cause the ribs are pretty much with fat in-between and the fat will melt into the pan.

06 Pan fried them until they turned are dark and slightly burnt, but don't over do them cause then they will look dried up. 

Note: Why kiwi fruit? Kiwi is a natural meat tenderizer and if don't like your meat to be too soft marinade for a day. But I always like to marinade anything for 2 days as the marinade seeps into the meat and more flavorful. If you don't have kiwi you can use apple.

fluffy buckwheat pancakes

This recipe is adopted from Heidi from Adventures of a Gluten Free Mom!

http://www.adventuresofaglutenfreemom.com/2011/02/fluffy-buckwheat-pancakes-chia-egg-replacer-corn-free-baking-powder/

Dry Ingredients 

1 cup of buckwheat flour (Bob's Red Mill)

1 cup of brown rice flour (Ener-G)

1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon of arrowroot starch (Bob's Red Mill)

1/4 teaspoon of baking soda (Bob's Red Mill)

1/2 teaspoon of sea salt

Wet Ingredients

1 egg replacer (Ener-G)

2 tablespoons of grape seed oil or extra virgin olive oil

4 tablespoons of agava nectar (Madhava Organic Light)

2 cups of rice milk (Aussie's Dream)

Directions

01 Mix all the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl.

02 Mix all the wet ingredients together in another mixing bowl.

03 Mix the wet mixture into the dry mixture. You really can't over mix this because it is gluten free.

04 Heat up the pan and add grape seed oil or extra virgin olive oil. And flip away.

absolutely fab!

Note: I used Bob's Red Mill's brown rice flour three times because I ran out of Ener-G's brown rice flour and somehow it didn't turn out right. The pancakes were brittle and break easily instead of just flexible. As soon as went back to using Ener-G's brown rice flour the pancakes were back to the way it should be.

As for grape seed or olive oil, I didn't see any significant differences. But I do prefer using extra virgin olive oil.

cooking for my kids

I am starting another blog just to post or repost recipes that I have tried and will do again with success and also other recipes that I find successful and my kids approved with a tad of modification by me to meet my kids dietary needs.

Both my kids need to be on gluten free, wheat free, corn free and egg free diet.
Clem also needs to be dairy free, nut free and soy free.
No oranges for both. No lemons for Clem and No bananas for Theo.

With the above as my guideline sometimes it is a challenge.

I have learn to shop differently and read labels if I have to, but I rather go for fresh produce anytime and make things from scratch.