We're all going on a... dairy free picnic

Well not 'all' to be perfectly honest, Baby and me may well be the only dairy free people there. 

I just heard, the other day, that even though Baby's favourite toddler group is finishing next week, for the summer (sob, sob) they are going to hold a picnic at some point during July. Woo hoo! We will still get to socialise, and I love picnics... I think. 

They always sound like a fun idea - very Famous Five, in a let's-spontaneously-go-off-on-some-kind-of-adventure kind of a way. However, on reflection, thinking back over my childhood memories, the food in our childhood picnics tended to be (dare I say it) just a little bit boring - sandwiches, a packet of crisps, a piece of fruit and maybe a chocolate biscuit. 

The most exciting and spontaneous picnic, that I've ever been on, was when I was dating The Hub. On a complete whim we just went to M & S and just bought everything we liked the look of, including the cutlery, blanket and everything (we were both earning at that point, without any other encumbrances, if you know what I mean)! Then we got in his car (TT back then, very nice) and drove until we found a spot we liked, There we stopped, lay in the grass, relaxed, chatted, ate, etc. We were so carefree about the whole thing, it was lovely!

Nowadays... hmm let me think! Well we'd probably better look out the plastic boxes - in the cupboard under the kettle and check to make sure they're clean. The picnic blanket might also need a clean, I think - it's been kicking around in the back of the car for some time (just in case we ever need it) and who knows what state it's in, by now! Then there's the food! Now that we're dairy free and I've got a whole other list of things that I can't eat, not to mention that Baby just doesn't do sandwiches  - ho hum! And there's not much point in going to M & S - they don't do gluten and dairy free anything! There are a few things, though, that I've found elsewhere, that might come in handy!

Breads

Not able to tolerate most gluten free breads, I can cope with small quantities of the following (also dairy free, although if you're just dealing with milk, then most of the 'normal' breads that you find in the supermarket seem to be OK):

1) Genius Pitta breads. I like the tomato and herb (available in Tesco). They're a bit drier than your normal pitta and tend to fall apart but they're a bit more exciting than your standard dry gluten loaf, if you're doing something a little bit different.

2) Warburtons bread rolls - long and torpedo shaped these are also an option  (we get ours from Waitrose, or Ocado). Sandwiches in a different shape are often more appealing, when you're on a picnic.

3) Round rolls (just found these in Waitrose, the other day). By Antoinette Savill, they're a bit dry, but they don't fall apart quite so easily as some gluten free breads.

Sweet Potato Rolls

4) Sweet Potato Rolls - shared on Pippa Kendrick's blog 'The Intolerant Gourmet'. I'm no Nigella, but I've recently tried making these. Fresh out of the oven, they are a bit like a savoury doughnut or muffin rather than a bread roll - not sweet, as I half expected them to be. They are quite simple to make, and ideal for a picnic! I'm just not sure what to accompany them with, just yet.


5) Mini pizzas - Hale & Hearty produce a gluten free pizza mix, that I've yet to try. I'd like to think that these might make a great picnic food, topped with tomato purée and tuna or sausage, although we might have to skip the cheese!

Sandwich Fillings

Gluten free bread being dry and crumbly, I favour moist fillings, which counteract the dryness of the bread, without soaking into the bread too much (which can cause it to collapse). In my opinion, salad is nigh on useless in a homemade sandwich. I prefer mine in a little bowl on the side. Otherwise, it just slides all over the place and makes the sandwiches spill their contents all over your lunch box, before you have time to eat them. However, I've got a few ideas: 

This filling is left overs from the night before!

1) Guacamole and bacon or chicken - great taste, if I can be bothered to do a lot of prep! Stick a bit of salsa in for some added zing! 

2) Hummus and ham - much quicker if you buy the hummus instead of making it yourself. I read a great recipe for hummus recently but didn't hold onto it - it took a lot of preparation. The ham of course needs to be dairy free. I usually go for Tesco Organic wafer thin ham.

3) Sausage and ketchup - probably my preferred option - especially if we have sausages left over from the night before! Obviously, check your sausages, to make sure they're dairy free. The blog in which I shared our Sausage Casserole lists our favourites.

4) Chicken and marmite - the Duchy originals chicken at Waitrose is the only dairy free chicken (suitable for sandwiches) that I know. It's expensive as lunch meat goes, though.

5) Tuna and mayonnaise - tuna is the only food from a tin that I'll allow myself to have - tinned food causes a skin reaction on my cheeks! However, you can't beat a bit of tuna mixed with mayo! Hellman's original (not light) is dairy free. The 'light' version contains cream powder!

Crisps

You need a few of these on a picnic - packed in a little tub, maybe. What to choose? No contest for us! 

1) In terms of flavour, I love Salt and Vinegar, but a lot of brands use milk in their flavouring, so for me it's got to be Kettle Chips! I like the 'Salt and Balsamic Vinegar', but am not sure that I should have those. 

Ridge crisps are great to crunch!

2) Wanting to limit Baby's salt intake, we sometimes give her a few of the 'Lightly Salted' variety of Kettle Chips. 

3) Tyrell's 'Naked' crisps, are another option, although these are made in a factory which handles milk, soya, gluten and mustard. 

4) Seabrook 'Perfectly unsalted' are another plain option. Ridge-style crisps, they make for a satisfying crunch!

5) Organix corn snacks - found in the baby food aisle at most large supermarkets. Baby loves the tomatoey stars or noughts and crosses. They're gluten and dairy free and a great alternative to crisps (no salt). A whole pack is usually too much (in one go) for Baby, so I tend to decant some for her. 

Desserts

Do you take desserts on a picnic? I always think of a picnic in terms of treats, so I might be tempted.

1) For Baby there's always Alpro. She loves their chocolate desserts, but isn't keen on their yoghurts.

2) 'Wot no dairy, wot no soya?' Soya and dairy free, these yoghurts (available in Holland and Barrett, as well as online, from The Redwood Company) might do for me, and being long life, they don't need to be chilled.

3) Fruit jellies - I might be tempted by one of these - you can find them ready-made on the shelves of most supermarkets (these no point in me making up my own, as it would just be me eating them - Baby isn't keen and neither is The Hub).

They also do a Banoffee!

4) If you can't tolerate dairy, but can cope with nuts, Goodness Direct sell some great little 'raw' 'cheesecakes,' by The Living Food Kitchen. I have risked myself by sampling a tiny amount. If I thought I could eat them, I might treat myself from time to time, but unfortunately for me, they contain cashew.

5) Cake/flapjacks - homemade, if I've got some, or from the supermarket, if I haven't. Hale and Hearty's Date and Chocolate flapjacks taste the best, in my opinion. Gluten and dairy free, they can be found in Tesco.

Mini bites

Now, as traditional as sandwiches, in an English picnic, are, sometimes I just want something a little bit more different than just another type of bread, don't you? So I'm thinking, 'Hang the bread! It's dry and crumbly and doesn't hold together that well (my gluten free sandwiches are very crumbly and usually fall apart)  and Baby doesn't like bread anyway.'

Fortunately, for me, I've found a few other things recently!

1) Mini Scotch Eggs - Sainsbury's/Waitrose own (dairy but not gluten free). Baby will probably enjoy a few of these.

2) Falafels with Hummus. You can make your own - Pippa Kendrick, 'The Intolerant Gourmet' has a good recipe for falafels, on her blog, however, if you want to pick up some that are ready made, I found these in the chiller cabinet in a large Sainsbury's near me, just the other day.  Gluten and dairy free, they taste quite acceptable, as a mini bite, but there's not many, so they're not very filling, on their own!

Sweet Potato Pakoras & Hummus

3) Sweet Potato Pakora with Hummus. I found these in the same place as the falafels. They're a bit spicy, but very yummy! A small pack won't go very far, especially if you find you like them! You may find that you've got some hummus left over, so make sure you take some carrot or bread sticks with you too! 

4) Breadsticks with hummus/guacamole. Waitrose mini breadsticks are dairy free, but I've recently found some, by Nature's Store, that are gluten free too.

5) Carrot/veg. sticks with hummus, guacamole or salsa dip (always check the  ingredients, in dips, if bought from a supermarket). Fun to dip and crunch (unless you're Baby - she won't eat them). Some preparation required - unless of course you buy those little packs of prepared veggies, from the supermarket!

What else?

Well, there are a few things I've missed, that might also make good picnicky snacks!

1) Itsy Bitsy bears - small bear shaped biscuits with tiny chocolate chunks, by Orgran. Baby likes these. They are vegan and free of so much (gluten, dairy, egg, yeast, soya, nut) that it leads one to wonder what exactly is in them! 

2) Orgran also make 'Mini Outback Animals.' Baby is not so keen on these, but they are handy as you buy them in large packs that contain small hand-sized packs. You can find these in Sainbury's, but I think we get ours from Ocado.

3) Rice cakes. Baby only eats the plain ones (when she's ill) but I know other children like 'em! You could coat the plain ones with hummus and add a few char-grilled veggies on top, such as courgette and red pepper (don't thank me for that one, I saw it on a packet) but just a splodge of hummus, or even guacamole would also do!

4) Organix Goodies - Mini Oaty Bites. They make bars too, but those are really too big for Baby at the moment, so I get these instead. They come in two flavours: 'Carrot Cake' and 'Apple and Orange.' They are individually wrapped, which makes life a little bit easier! They don't contain wheat or dairy, but unfortunately, it says they contain gluten and may contain traces of nuts.

Yummy Strawbs!

5) Fruit - for Baby and me, it'll probably be either apple or banana, cut into chunks. Although I love strawberries, she won't touch them and grapes she spits out too! However, I'm sure you'll have plenty of your own ideas! 

Drinks 

Well, I'm sure you can sort your own out, but as for me, it'll probably be a bottle of water or sprite. If I'm really pushing the boat out, a small bottle of Bottlegreen or Belvoir Sparkling Elderflower would go down really nicely!! If you feel like making your own, why not try this recipe for Elderflower Cordial, but count me out, I'm off to the nearest supermarket - life's too short!!

What about you? What would you take on your picnic?

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We're all going on a... dairy free summer holiday!

Baking with Baby - Flapjacks

Hurrah! Got home from my Monday mum's group, this morning, to find my latest acquisition poking through the letterbox - my new dairy free and gluten free cookbook. Although, as I often explain, I'm no 'Nigella' I was 'sold' this book the other day by an online review from 'Pig in the Kitchen.' 


'Pig' in case you don't know posts lots of yummy recipes online, which I honestly like the look of but have not been brave enough to try... yet! For now, I just follow her posts and drool!! However, I took a sneaky peak at 'The Intolerant Gourmet' online, at Amazon (having read Pig's review) and thought I might just give it a go - particularly as it contained a recipe I thought would suit even me!

'Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!' I thought, after ordering the book.' Even I can make flapjacks.' With that thought in mind, and not able to wait until the new book arrived, I grabbed my old faithful cookery book off the shelf and dug out the flapjack recipe. Yep! Everything I needed I had in the cupboard and there was stuff that Baby could do too - Baby LOVES cooking!

"Let me! Let me!" squeaked Baby, so we got out the baking tin and rubbed margarine round it. I put the oven on and got out the saucepan. Baby helped scoop out margarine (150g/6oz) and put it in the pan. Having set that on a gentle heat to melt, we weighed out the demerara sugar (150g/6oz) and we added it to the pan. Once the sugar and margarine had melted and been mixed together, we added the oats (200g/8oz - gluten free) and mixed them in too, with a wooden spoon. It really took no time at all. 'Wow! I thought, 'I'd forgotten quite how easy they are to make and pretty quick too!'

As we emptied the mixture into the pan, it really didn't look like it was going to cover the bottom of the tin and even if it did, it looked as though it would only make wafer thin flapjacks. I looked back at the recipe. The lovely pile of flapjacks pictured there looked nothing like those that we were making. 


Just then, I noted that the recipe actually said that for a moister flapjack, you should use half the amount of sugar and use golden syrup instead. 'Rats!' I thought, 'golden syrup would make it yummier and a moister flapjack would be much nicer!' At that point, I had my first brainwave! I decided to make a second batch with just golden syrup  (1 tablespoon = 1oz) and combine the two. That way the mixture in the tin would look more generous and we would have more to eat as well!

That done, we put the flapjacks in the oven and I set my new baking best friend (my kitchen timer) to the right time (30-35 minutes). My timer has made all the difference in the world to my cooking (along with my other new baking best friend which is my oven thermometer). Before I had these, my cakes came out very badly indeed - partly because our the temperature of our (inherited) oven doesn't seem to match with the thermostat and partly because I wasn't keeping a close enough eye on it. 

My new BFF

The only problem, was that I should have turned the oven down (to 180 degrees C/gas mark 4) earlier. I had put it on high as the oven takes so long to heat up and as a result my flapjacks came out looking  somewhat overdone. 'Oh dear!' I thought, 'I can't even cook flapjacks any more!' 


However, I consoled myself with the recollection that whenever my mother had a baking disaster, when we were kids, we had eaten it and enjoyed it anyway. 


It was then that I had my second brainwave of the afternoon - to pick off the most burnt looking bits and use the wedding anniversary chocolate from Hotel Chocolat.


Originally, this had been intended for a bit of romantic 'a deux' fruit dipping, but those plans had been rudely overturned by Baby. However, this was now melted and drizzled 'artistically' over the top of my flapjacks. Et voila! Not only did they look quite good (by now) they also tasted quite good too (even better the next day, I discovered). 

Et Voila! (Try and ignore the overdone bits!)

'Maybe I have the makings of a domestic goddess after all,' I thought. 'After all I bet Pippa Kendrick never drizzled chocolate over her flapjacks.' And indeed, I found (as I studied her book, with glee) she hadn't. However, as I perused her book a bit more, I realised that indeed I still have along way to go. 'Pippa,' I decided, 'you need fear nothing from me. I am far from being a gourmet of any description, never mind an intolerant one!'


Mind you, bet she's never come across Mrs Watkin's Yum Yum cake - more on that another day! In the meantime, there's a few intolerant recipes that I might have to try... rhubarb streusel looks yum and so do some certain chocolate brownies!

Baking with Baby 2 - Banana Bread Muffins

A sample of our wares

Well, I've only got myself to blame, really. I should have stopped myself, this morning, when, as baby munched happily on her breakfast, I eyed the ageing bananas in the fruit bowl and stupidly uttered my thoughts aloud. "Those bananas are going off, I really ought to do something with them. Maybe we could make some banana bread." The Hub said, "Oooh! That sounds like a good idea." Baby immediately seized her opportunity, jumped on the bandwagon and that was it! It was all arranged. The Hub made his getaway and I was left to my fate!

I think I've mentioned this before, when we made Flapjacks - Baby LOVES baking!! Me, less so! Washing-up will be waiting for me at the end of a long, dark tunnel, fraught with potential for mishap, due to an over-eager Baby! But still, I have to do it. I've sweetened it for myself, by buying a few new baking accessories, I love my new measuring spoons (bargain from TKMaxx) but sadly, fancy new baking aides do not a baker make!!

First up was locating the recipe. I contemplated searching through Pippa Kendrick's new book, or her recipe blog, The Intolerant Gourmet, I love her stuff, because it's allergy friendly and looks (to a shaky baker, like me) 'do-able'. However, in the interests of saving time (Baby doesn't do patient) decided on a recipe I've tasted before. 

It's a recipe with good memories attached - we holidayed in a cottage in Devon with some friends the other September. These friends came armed with dairy free food and recipes, one of which was some rather delicious banana bread! I had the feeling it was a Nigella (our friend bakes a lot of Nigella's recipes) but not being able to locate it online, I printed off the recipe that our friend had sent me after our holiday.

Recipe out, we got stuck in. Baby was safely installed (incarcerated for minimum destruction?) in her highchair, with a bowl of bananas to mash (3 medium ones, just in case you're interested. The oven was switched on to 200 degrees to heat up (190 degrees, for those whoe ovens actually work) and I got on with measuring. 85g Pure Margarine, 340g of ... sugar. It's at this point, I realised that I didn't have the right sugar, but I had demerara, so demerara it had to be! Does it matter? I don't know!

Baby was bored of mashing bananas by now, so creaming sugar and marg together with a fork became her next job, whilst I finished mashing before rushing off to measure out the next  lot of ingredients. Hmm! The  next realisation was that I couldn't locate the proper vanilla essence. 'Did we use it up?' I wondered, as I surveyed my badly-in-need-of-sorting baking cupboard. I couldn't remember. Old bog standard would have to do.

My Matroyska Measuring Spoons

So, 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence, 3 teaspoons of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda,  1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg (bought for my yet-to-be-cooked rice pudding) later, I realised my cupboard was sadly lacking - not just in the muscavado department, but also in the spice department - all spice and mixed spice this time. I decided to innovate. 


No idea if it was right, but I added 1 teaspoon of ginger and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon instead. Actually the ginger is kicking in as I write, so maybe I should cut down on the ginger to 1/4 teaspoon next time, and see if that works better. Or maybe I should just get the right ingredients!

More innovation was to follow - 1 teaspoon of salt seemed too much to me. Baby shouldn't have too much. I decided to halve it. I stuck to the flour though, well sort of - 340g Doves plain flour it should have been. Ho hum! Remember it next time!

I did remember our friend's advice about the bananas though - adding the mashed banana at the end. That's where I ran into difficulty - his recipe ends with, 'this usually makes enough to fill...' Oh! Looking at the amount in the bowl and my one remaining loaf tin (somehow I thought I had another older one somewhere) I decided more innovation was required - cue muffin cases! I guessed it was meant to be two loaves, so plumped on nine muffin cases, for roughly half the mixture.

Cases filled, there wasn't as much left as I thought, for the loaf tin, but it was too late by then! Inspecting my tin, I realised the instructions on how to prepare the tin had also been left out. No problem, I consulted Nigella, online. She greased and lined. So did I. 

All in the oven, it was timer time. Which was when I encountered my next problem - no baking time included in the instructions!! 'Next time,' I thought to myself, 'I'm going back to Pippa, from whom I know I'd get a full set of instructions!'

Our Banana Loaf

Quickly consulting Nigella, all her Banana Bread seemed to take about an hour! Hmm! Remembering previous encounters with muffins, I set my timer for 20 minutes (I'm sure I've heard somewhere that you should leave an oven for 15/20 minutes, when baking cakes, to make sure they don't sink). 


Twenty minutes seemed to do the trick for the Banana Bread muffins. I turned the loaf tin around and gave it another 5/10 minutes more, before that too seemed done. I pressed the tops and inserted a skewer (which came out clean) just to make sure. Hey presto! Job done!

Correction! Baby thought the job wasn't quite done - until she had tasted. That was her morning snack. Now, she doesn't often eat fruit (hence the aged bananas) so does that count as one of her five-a-day? I dunno!!


I'm getting the hang of this innovation thing, though. Having sampled our loaf, I'm coming back for more! And I'm considering adding walnuts next time. Hang on a minute! Next time??

Just in time for Baby's morning snack

Baking Tip Addendum: The loaf is a bit on the small side, maybe I should just chuck all the mixture in the loaf tin next time, bar maybe three muffins (for quality control purposes of course). 

Oral Allergy Addendum: I sometimes get reactions to raw banana (and other fruits too). The first muffin I ate (fresh out of the oven) affected my lips. The second one, eaten sometime later (they're only little, really) didn't, so take care if oral allergy syndrome is a problem for you too!

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Baking with Baby - Flapjacks