New Mission:Losing weight :)

Start of a new year give us Mummies a chance to re-evaluate, and make a new start of our own. I have decided to take my body into check, and shed some of the extra kilos. I started yesterday, adn i am happy to say that the recipes i have found can also fit into my son's dairy free lifestyle, so i can cook one meal for the whole family, adn i know it is healthy and good for everyone!

Last night i attempted my first slimming world meal, using a recipe i found in the slimming world magazine, for Jambalaya (I altered the ingredients slightly to fit in better with what i had in the fridge!)

First i sprayed my wok with Pam (cooking spray) and cooked 2 large onions (i cut them chunky as that is the way we like them) and 200g green beans (topped and tailed) for around 5 minutes. Then i added garlic (4 cloves chopped finely), ginger (4 cm piece peeled and grated) and cooked for another minute or so, until it started to soften. I stirred in cajun spice mix (1 tsp) and 200ml of chicken stock (this is a third of the quantity of chicken stock that you will be using in this dish) and cooked it for another 3 minutes.
I then added 1 can of chopped tomatos, 350g chicken (cut into strips) and another 200ml of chicken stock, brought it to the boil and added 250g rice, then i covered the wok and simmered for 10 minutes.
Lastly I stirred in 1 can kidney beans, brought it back to the boil, added the remaining stock and simmered for 7 minutes, before adding 200g of zucchini (julienned), and leaving to simmer for a final 3 minutes..(by this time the rice should be cooked and the liquid should have been absorbed. Serves 4 people

It should look somthing like this!

Chocolate fingers

Now, one of my ABSOLUTE favourite things to eat in this world, is chocolate fingers. It is also one of those things that my lil one has never tried (I don;t know about anywhere else in the world, but here in Cyprus, you can't find non dairy chocolate fingers), so i put my thinking cap on, and here we go! :) first the biscuit- take 260g plain flour and 2 tsp of baking powder, mix, then rub in 120g butter. It should end up looking like this:










Now add 100g sugar , 1 egg, and approx 2 tbsp of water, so that it comes together in a nice soft dough.
Tear small pieces off, and winkle them between your fingers to make small sausages. Place on greaseproof paper on a cookie sheet, and into the preheated oven at 175C for 15 minutes (or until the ends of the fingers start to brown.)

Take out of the oven and allow to cool. Then melt your chocolate (i put mine into the microwave for about 30 seconds) and dip each of the fingers into the chocolate. 

Lay them out again on the greaseproof paper, and place into the fridge to harden the chocolate up.

If you are living in a more temperate clime, you might be able to keep these in a biscuit tin, but here we have to keep them in the fridge!




And the best bit of the whole process? The children eating the leftover melted chocolate :D

one dough four bisciuts!

I took a basic sugar cookie recipe: (250g dairy free butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 egg, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 3 cups flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt) kneaded the dough into a smooth ball, adn put it into the fridge to chill. After around an hour, i took the dough out, and divided it into 4 smaller batches. I put 3 of these smaller balls back into the fridge, and added 1/3 cup of cocoa to the first dough. When the cocoa was evenly distributed into the dough, i put it into the fridge to rest again, and took out another ball. To this (the 2nd ball) i added 40g of well chopped pistachio nuts. Again i kneaded the dough so that the nuts were well distibuted, then back into the fridge. The next ball, i added the juice of half a lemon, and 2 drops of yellow food colour, as with the other two, i kneaded the extra ingredient in well, and replaced it in the fridge. The last ball, i left alone. An hour later i took the doughs out, one at a time, and rolled it out.

 I had some small cookie cutters in different shapes, and i thought it would be fun to make each differnet flavour, into a different shape. Into the oven the cookies went for 15 mins, and then i cooled on a cooling rack. When the cookies were cooled, the fun REALLY began :) The cocoa cookies i sandwiched together with a chocolate icing (1 tbsp cocoa, 100g icing sugar and  50g dairy free butter) to make mini bourbon cream biscuits...the lemon cookies, i iced with a lemon glaze (100g icing sugar, juice of 1/2 lemon and 3 drops of yellow food icing) the plain sugar cookies i drizzled with a simple icing (100g sugar, 3 teaspoons water) and the pistachio cookies i just rolled them in icing sugar.

 All the cookies were a hit with the children, which is, of course, the most important thing, but i also think that the small size of the cookies would make them perfect for serving at a tea, with bone china teacups :D

Summer is on it's way...

...how do I know? You may well ask! When my children are running around in their underpants, when the sky is blue with not a cloud in sight...when the mosquitos are attacking in their droves..THAT, my friend, is when i know that summer is on it's way. And so it begins, the endless calls for icecream! I dug out the old icecream machine yesterday, and remembered to stick it in the freezer last night, so today we were ready to go.
After a short debate on which flavour to go for, on this, the first spin of the year, we settled on chocolate. Always a crowd pleaser in this house of chocolate lovers...i have made it my mission to find the very best recipe for dairy free chocolate icecream. And i have to confess...THIS IS IT! I have taken tips and pointers from a few different sources, and it has been a bit hit an miss trying to find the perfect dairy free milk with which to create my icecream but I can now reveal my findings...i used coconut milk (not the canned stuff with the heavy cream) this coconut milk comes in a carton (much like a milk carton) and is thicker and fattier than soya milk.
 I used 2 cups, and added 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil to up the fat content a little more- this mixture i put into a pan with 2 oz chocolate (dairy free of course), and 1/3 cup of cocoa, heat until the chocolate is melted and then stir so that it all comes together in a glossy chocolate milk. Take off the heat, and while the mixture is cooling, in a clean bowl, seperate 4 egg yolks and add 1 cup of sugar. Beat the eggs and sugar mixture, and then add the chocolate milk 1 tablespoon at a time, (you must let the mix rest in between each spoonful so that you so not end up with scrambled eggs).

When you have added all the chocolate milk to the eggs, and it is all mixed together, return the mixture to the pan and boil for 2 minutes. Now you need to cool your mixture for at least 1 hour before you put it into your icecream maker. My icecream maker takes about 25 minutes to turn the mixture into softserve icecream, but i prefer mine to be firmer, so i then turn the icecream into a container and back into the freezer it goes for an hour or so.

Now, you might have noticed that you are left with 4 egg whites....what luscious thing can we do with those??? Ah, I know-MERINGUES! Place 4 egg whites into a bowl (not plastic) and whip until it makes peaks when you lift the beaters out of the bowl. Then add 115g sugar, a tablespoon at a time, until you have incorporated all the sugar,and the egg whites are glossy and stiff.

Line a cookie sheet with baking paper, and spoon the egg whites onto the paper in whatever shape you like. Into the oven at 100C for 1 and 1/4 hours et voila.... Icecream with meringues...dessert fit for a king!

Green Monday Blues

So, today is Green Monday (the first day of Lent) here in Cyprus. Traditionally we (cypriots) take to the fields this day, and eat shellfish prepared on the bbq, and vegetables. Today though, it is raining (so all the fields will be swampy) and we have decided to make food at home. The children are a little upset that their picnic (and kite flying) has been called off, so i came up with the idea of making rainbow cupcakes :) My daughter forund a video tutorial and told me that we just HAD to make them :)

Take your favourite cupcake recipe (or mix) and make it up. We used the basic cupcake recipes from Isa Chandra Moscowitz's "vegan cupcakes rule the world" (1 cup soy milk, 1 teaspoon apple cider vine, 3/4 cup sugar, 1/3 cup vegetable oil, 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, 2 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 cup plain flour, 3./4 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt). I (when i say I, i mean my lovely assistant ) put the dry ingredients into the bowl

and added the wet ingredients, and mix it up, into a nice batter.

Then, i seperated the mixture into 4(thats the number of food colouring bottles i had) seperate ziplock bags and added enough food colouring to colour the whole bag of mix.

Next I snipped off one corner of each bag, and layered the different coloured mixes into the lined cupcake trays.Be creative - i did a few different ones, but the bullseye one was my daughters favourite :)

Then into the oven at 180C for 18 minutes or so (quicker if you use a fan oven) Check them, by inserting a toothpick- if it comes out clean-they are done!

I frosted them with a quick and easy frosting-1/2 cup of dairy free butter, 1/2 cup of vegetable lard, 3.5 cups icing sugar. It should be thick, so you can put it in a piping bag. Put swirls of frosting on each cupcake, and then sprinkle with hundreds and thousands..






Yummy! It's heaven in a bite, and just the pick me up we needed today!

Rough and Ready Village Olive Bread

Take 4 cups of plain flour in your bowl, add 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 cup olive oil, 2 cups lukewarm water. 

Mix them by hand, until you have a very soft and fluid dough. Now add 2 cups olives (I prefer to leave the pips in, as they do here in the village, but you can always pip and slice the olives (or buy ready sliced olives), about 3 teaspoons of dried mint (rub it through you fingers into the mix) and 1 large (or two small) onions, finely diced. 

Knead the dough until all the ingredients are distributed through the dough, and put into a pan. 

Place the pan into a medium oven (180C) for one hour, or until it is a nice golden brown colour. Serve with coffee for a nice snack, or with some nice hearty soup to make a very filling meal!

ENJOY!