Rice Paper Rolls

Rice Paper Rolls (sorry...  photo reminiscent of the skinless chicken sausages)

We haven't had Rice Paper Rolls for a while.  Just not that kind of weather here in Southern Australia.  We've been having hearty, Winter-type meals.  Soups, stews, one-pot-stick-to-your-ribs-wonders.  But... I'm a bit souped out and Ms C has been nagging me for Rice Paper Rolls for ages... so I decided to give it a go.  The big difference this time for us is the sauce.  I wanted something *like* a dipping sauce or something to add some tasty wetness to the left-over roast chicken I planned to cut into teeny pieces...  and I remembered Domestic Diva's highly acclaimed Cashew Cream.  (Tasty wetness??  Is that a recognised cookery term you think?)  I had no idea if this flavour combo would work.  After all,  I am doing an Asian-style dish and Domestic Diva's was a Middle-Eastern one.  But..  it works!  Completely.  I've now got a nice lot of cashew cream in the fridge and I'll be looking for more places to use it in the next few days.  Watch out.

Ingredients:

• A selection of Failsafe Vegies,  grated and julienned to your heart's content:                          
• Celery, Mung-bean Sprouts, raw Choko, Iceburg Lettuce, Cucumber*, Carrot*
• Vermicelli Rice Noodles and Rice Paper Rolls are both in the Asian aisle of your local supermarket. ( Read carefully,  the ingredients should be rice and water,  nothing else.)
• Left over cooked chicken or even Deli Chicken
• Small bowl of Cashew Cream

Method:

• Arrange all the food in the centre of the table.  This is a help-yourself type meal
• Boil the kettle for the water needed to soften the noodles and the paper rolls.
• Beside an adult,  or even better,  on a separate table,  have a dish of quite hot water sitting there in which to dip the Rice Paper Rolls.  Dip quickly, lay out on your plate and quickly layer in your sauce, meat, vegies and noodles.  Figuring out how much you need is half the fun.  
• To roll it up,  make sure the food is compact in the middle of the paper.  Fold the closest side over the filling and tuck it over,  sort of rolling backwards to 'tighten' it as you go.  Now fold over each side 'flap' and then continue rolling the whole thing away from you.  You should have a nice tight roll...  but you probably don't and now you have to hold it all together and shove it in your mouth.  Again...  half the fun.  
• This is a fun meal to have with your family,  but best not on a night where time is an issue.  It can be a long, slow and messy meal.  Half the fun.... wait...  that was 3 halves.

*Moderate Salicylates

Verdict:  Enjoyed by all...  with various success at rolling.

Tweeks:  I'm going to have to experiment with more sauces.  Any ideas? Suggestions?

Do read the comments for some more ideas and suggestions from those in the know.

We start all pretty like this...
(Cucumber (sals), choko, lettuce,
rice noodles, chicken, cashew cream)

Then we get into a bit of this...

and then we end up more like this.

Magic Bean Carob Cake - DELICIOUS

Magic Bean Carob Cake

IT'S A CELEBRATION!  

Today I am celebrating 101 posts on Real Meals and 500 likers on the Facebook Page.  If I made money from this I'd be doing some sort of give away...  but instead,  WE SHALL HAVE CAKE!!



If you have a Thermomix you might have already seen this one doing the rounds.  I certainly am late coming in with this one.  If you don't have a Thermie,  then a food processor will happily do the job.  Just purée and mix in the order given.

I took some convincing to try this cake.  I mean....  kidney beans?  That's disgusting!  but.. no!  There is no 'bean' flavour.  Make sure you purée it well and you're not picking skins out of your teeth either.  (Oh, icky.)   The frillypantii adore this cake and since we're now into amines, we can use cocoa instead of carob.  (I use Woolworth's 100% Cocoa... no added flavours or anything.) 

Mmmmm,  love this cake!

(Written at 2:30  Edited at 4:20 to add.  Well,  when I wrote this,  I was sitting on 499 likers and I was waiting for that last 1 person to hit 'like' and then I was going to post this.  Then I went out for pick ups and came back to find we had TOPPED 700... and climbing!!!  This is the work of Jo from Quirky Cooking.  Great healthy gluten-free Thermomix recipes.  I am feeling giddy every time I refresh the page and see a larger number pop up.)

Here's the website I pinched it from:  Thermomix Recipe Community

Ingredients:

• 420 g can of Kidney Beans,  drained and rinsed
• 1 heaped tsp (or even 1 tab) of Decaf Coffee, dissolved in 20mls water  (or just water)
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract (no preservatives)
• 5 eggs
• 125g softish Butter
• 180g Brown Sugar
• 70g Carob Powder
• 1 tsp GF Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp Sodi Bic
• 1/4 tsp Salt 

Method:

• Put Kidney Beans, Coffee, Vanilla extract and 1 Egg into bowl and purée on Speed 7 for about 5 seconds,  scrape down and purée again.
• Set Bean mixture aside
• Add Butter and Sugar and beat on Speed 5 for 30 Seconds
• Add remaining 4 eggs and beat Speed 4 for 20 Seconds
• Add Bean Mixture and mix on Speed 4 for 5 Seconds
• Add Cocoa, Baking Powder, Sodi Bic and Salt and mix well on Speed 5 for 10 Seconds,  scrape down and make sure it's really well combined and give another whizz if it needs it.
• Pour into a well buttered (or lined) ring tin and bake for 30-35 minutes on 180ºC or until a skewer comes out clean (Or 20-25 minutes if making cupcakes)
• Serve alone, with cream, with fruit, with ice-cream, with a ganache, sprinkled with icing sugar....  very versatile

Verdict:
Wonderful!  This cake is not only delicious...  but also high in protein and gluten-free and YUMMEH.  I usually do cupcakes for the kids to eat at school or afternoon tea.  I have even fronted up to a FOODIE GROUP with this cake,  with my head held high.
I forgot to tell you...  STOP EATING THE BATTER.  It's delicious,  I know.  But leave some to cook! 

Tweeks:
If you google around,  you'll find many (non-failsafe) adaptions.  Like lemon and coconut with cannelini beans.  Wow!!
This week I had to use Cannelini beans...  I did a double batch and really,  I couldn't tell the difference!  

Failsafe Felafels

Failsafe Felafels

Ms C is on the 40-Hour Famine this weekend,  she hasn't tried this one yet.  But she's loitering in the kitchen.  Was that mean of me?  As she's only a little woman,  she is going without food for only 8 hours and without furniture for the whole 40 hours  (it sure has changed since I did it in the 80s!!)  ...so she can have some with her dinner tonight.

If you would like to donate to World Vision via the 40-Hour Famine,  click here.  If you would like to do it under Ms C's name,  her Famine ID is 60099193.  Thank you!!!

This recipe is by Diane H. from the facebook page: Failsafe Eating Support Group.  Check their recipes tab.  This recipe can easily be done in any food processor,  just purée/process it all in the order shown below. I'm not totally sure how many I ended up with because people kept eating them!  Let's say 30-40 depending on the size you make them.


Ingredients

• 2x400g cans chick peas, drained & rinsed

• 1/4-1/2 leek, roughly chopped
• 
2-3 cloves garlic

• 1/2 cup parsley, chopped (or dried)
• 2tbsp SR flour  (GF flour works well also)
• 1 egg
• 
salt

Method

• Place chickpeas, leek, garlic and parsley into the Thermomix and purée on Speed 7 for about 10 seconds,  scraping down as needed
• Add flour, egg and salt and purée again on Speed 7 for about 10-15 seconds until it is quite smooth,  using the spatula through the lid to keep it down on the blades.
• Put into another bowl
• Roll mixture into balls, about heaped teaspoon lots and lightly flatten to make into 'medallions' or larger to make burger-size patties. (If your mixture is too 'wet' to handle, add flour and lightly mix through until you can use it.  I also found dropping the balls of mixture into some more flour, coating them, made them easier to handle.)
• Shallow fry in failsafe oil, flipping over half way when golden. (Or bake in Moderate Oven 30-40 minutes)
• Drain on kitchen paper

Verdict: 
Delicious!!!!!!  I just had mine in a Pita Pocket with some salady bits.  Add some Mighty Mayo.  Yummeh!  Add them to a meal to replace the 'meat' portion.  Also great for finger food,  with hommus or pear ketchup to dip into...  and school lunch boxes!  Gosh,  why haven't I included these earlier?!?!

Tweaks:
I am thinking lemon.  Next time I might add a tsp of citric acid with a little water to carry it.  As it was,  I put a little 'lemon juice' (citric acid and water, made to taste.) on the felafels I used in my Pita Pocket.

Pita Pockets

Pita Pockets. Beautiful bag of nothing....  fill it up!

Today was a Full-on Failsafe Frenzy of Pita Pockets.  It all started on the Sue Dengate Failsafe Facebook page.  Kath P. posted a recipe for Pita bread and asked if it was Failsafe.  Well!!  Suddenly,  Failsafers everywhere cottoned onto the fact that Pita Bread is DEAD EASY and were rolling their dough before even updating their statuses.  Here's hoping Kersten manages to get a GF version in the next few days as well.  Fingers crossed!

!!!!STOP PRESS!!!!  Kersten has done it.  Gluten Free Pita Pockets. 

The original is from this blog and use this if you want non-Thermomix instructions.   I made 8 medium-sized Pita Pockets and then did another batch with Wholemeal flour and made 16 smaller pockets.  They both worked quite well.  The uses for Pita Pockets are many.  We had them for lunch,  with cream cheese and salady bits inside.  You can fill it anyway you like!  Or tear it up to use it to eat dips like hummus.  I even mixed together some cream cheese and No-Tomato sauce and got a whole new sandwich 'condiment' spread!  Another Failsafer said she planned to use them for tacos.  I was impressed!!

Ingredients:

• 310g Warm Water
• 10g (1 tab) Yeast
• 550g Plain flour 
• (OR  140g Wholemeal Flour, 10g Psyllium Husk, 400g Plain Flour)
• 1 tsp Salt

 Method:

•  Put warm Water and Yeast into TMX and mix Speed 2  for 5 seconds and then leave about 5 minutes.
• Add 250g of Flour and the Salt and mix on Speed 4 for 5 seconds.
• Add remaining Flour and Knead on Interval speed for 4.5 minutes.
• (If doing the Wholemeal option,  add the Wholemeal Flour, Psyllium husk and 100g of the Plain Flour first and then the rest of the Plain Flour afterwards.)
• On a floured surface, divide dough into desired number of pieces (Just keep halving or thirding) and roll each into a ball
• Then flatten each ball with a rolling pin (I actually used one of my children's toy rolling pins and it worked very well) until about 5mm thick.  Do try to keep the thickness consistent.
• Put them aside for 30 minutes to puff a bit (Mine had no discernible puff,  but worked anyway)
• Heat oven to 220ºC
• Using a large spatula,  carefully flip each round onto a line cooking tray and bake for about 8-10 minutes,  until puffed up and golden.  (Watch this bit,  it's fun!)
• Alow to cool on a rack and store in an airtight container or bag.  May be frozen.

Verdict:
Our lunch time ones just disappeared.  One benefit is that the bits don't fall out of them while being handled by the 2-y.o and the same 2-y.o has no trouble getting his little mouth around it.  At dinner I served them spread with some melted garlic butter.  Gone in a flash!!

Tweeks:
No tweeks, apart from the wholemeal angle.  And, as I mentioned,  I hope Kersten manages to do it GF.