Keller Family Blog

We made cornbread similar to how my wife grew up eating it in West Virginia. A good cast iron skillet bread with hearty crust. The other obstacle we faced was that the only type of cornmeal here in Australia we have found is Polenta which is a slightly grainier grade of Cornmeal and we have found NO Self-Rising Cornmeal.  However last nights pan turned out very well. So here is our Australia made USA Southern Cornbread Sans Dairy. Here is instructions/recipe. First you need a seasoned cast iron skillet.

We set our oven to it’s MAX temperature which is only 250C (482F) and let it preheat.

Mix up 1 1/2 cup Darifree Buttermilk and let set on table.

Place 1 heaping Tablespoon of Lard / Solidified Animal Fat in large Cast Iron Skillet (Frying Pan) and place in oven to heat.

While skillet is heating measure and mix the following:

2 cups of Polenta
2 1/2 (2.5) t Baking Powder
1/2 (.5) t Salt
1/2 (.5) cup Orgran Self-Rising All Purpose Flour (which primary ingredient is corn)

When the Skillet is sufficiently hot which takes about 10 minutes, using just a fork or wooden spoon to mix, pour in the Darifree Buttermilk until right consistency. If necessary add a little more Darifree to get right consistency. (This is really where Art comes in instead of science. It may take a couple of tries to get it right.)

IMMEDIATELY pour into the HOT cast iron skillet. You should hear a pleasant sizzle and see it bubbling/frying all around the sides. Place back into oven on lower rack and bake for 15 minutes until the outer edge looks a little browned, the top is dry and has a crack.

Then open the oven move the skillet to the top rack and change the oven to Grill / Broil (ie heat only from top element), leave the oven door cracked open and let it sit in there for 1 to 2 minutes until the top is browned a little more and pull out.  Then within another minute invert the pan over a large plate and the cornbread should fall out easily to the plate. Immediately and carefully cut the bread into pie shaped sections and place on table to eat.

Serving suggestions: Topped with Apple Butter, Eat with a bean Soup, Put Nuttelex or other Dairy Free Margarine on it, Crumble left overs the next moring and top with Darifree Milk like a breakfast porriage

When the skillet has cooled, just wipe it out and put it away. The Lard keeps it seasoned. My mother-in-law and my wife, keep 1 cast iron skillet for cornbread and NOTHING else is ever allowed to be made in it or face a stiff penalty.

This season in Australia as far as food is concerned seems to be all about Chocolate  with the occasional hot cross buns. The stores are loaded with lots and lots of Chocolate. And NONE of it is safe for Jaden. The only one that attempts to be Allergy Friendly has Soy in it. Anyway the girls went to Church yesterday and made Hot Cross Buns and Chocolate molds. Well we did the Jaden-safe Hot Cross Buns yesterday. Today I attempted to make some Jaden-safe Allergy Friendly “milk” Chocolate.  Unfortunately I don’t have a full recipe as I didn’t measure pretty much anything, but here is what I did.

I started out with an Artisse Dark Chocolate bar. I melted it in a double boiler (Pryex bowl over a sauce pan with water in it). I added about 3 Tablespoons of Prepared Darifree and at least 6 tablespoons of powdered sugar and another 1/2 tablespoon of Darifree powder and stirred with a small wisk. I had added a little Olive Oil but it needed something that would be solid at room temp in it like Cocoa Butter, Palm Oil, or Lard. We had the Lard in the house so I added it after the first pour turned out to be a failure.  We also dipped some gluten-free marshmallows in the chocolate to use it up. I did swipe a little Olive Oil on a paper towel and lightly swiped the oil in the mold before the successful pours. So the first pour needed more solid fat and some Olive Oil on the molds. The first pour is the “failure” pic below. Pour is a strong word, I actually spooned it in then tapped them on the counter. I would have made different shapes, but this was the only mold we had and we had borrowed it from someone else. I am considering wrapping the eggs in aluminium foil for presentation to Jaden so it looks more “normal”.

Successful Eggs

Failed to set well. Used spoon to remove which ruined the shape.

Hot Cross Buns cooling

Jaden and I baked Hot Cross Buns….We used Gluten-Free Flour and more or less followed the recipe at http://www.everydaywithallergies.com/2009/03/hot-cross-buns.html. We substituted 1/4 tsp Nutmeg for the 1 tsp Cinnamon. Best thing is that Jaden likes it.

Here is a little better variant on our Pancakes.

2/3 cup Buckwheat flour
2/3 cup Rice Flour
2/3 cup Besan (Chickpea) Flour
1/4 cup Potato Flour
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
1 Tablespoon Baking Soda
1/2 Teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoon Applesauce or 2 Mashed Ripe Bananas
3 Tablespoons Canola Oil
2 Tablespoon Honey
2 Cup Darifree “Buttermilk” http://kellerville.com/2009/02/15/dairy-free-buttermilk/
0-1/4 Cup Water if too thick.

Put griddle / non-stick pan on burner and turn on Med to Med Hi. Mix dry ingredients with Wisk. Mix liquids: oil, applesauce/Banana, honey, Darifree “Buttermilk”. Pour liquid into the dry and mix thoroughly with wisk until everything is mixed well. The soda and baking powder will start working before done mixing. Pour by 1/3 to 1/4 cup on the griddle. (If the pancakes look too thick add a little more water to the batter in the bowl and mix.) Flip when edges are dry or start to lift off pan. (Adjust heat to get the golden color just right on subsequent pancakes.) Top with pure Maple Syrup or Nuttelex and powdered/icing/castor sugar and enjoy.

Variation / Substitutes / Possible Changes that have been tested.

• Sprinkle EnjoyLife Allergen Free Chocolate Chips into pancakes as soon as they have been poured onto the griddle.

We love this recipe from Taste of Home magazine.  Just substitute Gluten Free Self Rising Flour for the flour (we used Orgran) and prepared Darifree for the milk and it tastes great.

http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Chocolate-Cobbler

Time for a Dairy Free, Casein Free, Soy Free Buttermilk recipe. (Also known as Dairy Free Sour Milk)

1 Cup prepared Vance’s Darifree minus 1 T
1 T Olive Oil
1/2 t Xantham Gum
1 T Vinegar or Lemon Juice

Add Oil to measuring cup. Add Darifree to 1 cup line. Add the Xantham Gum and Vinegar/Lemon Juice. Wisk/Mix and let sit for 5 minutes then use.  (OK Don’t know if the sitting is required but that is what you do for normal milk turned to Sour Milk with vinegar or lemon juice.)

Use in recipes calling for Buttermilk or Sour Milk.

YEAH we had Pancakes yesterday and they were not only edible but they were good too! Here is the recipe that I used. I will likely tweak a little more as I play with it some more, but it is very similar to our earlier recipe from the USA, but it was the scratch mix of individual flours instead of using any Australian GF Flour blend. Note this makes twice the normal Pancakes of our previous recipe. We did put the Chocolate Chips in most of what we made. The pancakes are on the thin side, but the inside was not wet as in my previous attempts. Needless to say there were NONE left over.

2/3 cup Buckwheat flour
2/3 cup Rice Flour
2/3 cup Besan (Chickpea) Flour
1/4 cup Potato Flour
2 Tablespoon Baking Powder
2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 Teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoon Applesauce
3 Tablespoons Canola Oil
2 Tablespoon Honey
2 Cup water (need to try straight Enriched Rice Milk or DariFree)
1/4 Cup Rice Milk (just needed a bit more liquid and I grabbed this instead of water figure it was more nutricious.

Put griddle / non-stick pan on burner and turn on Med to Med Hi. Mix dry ingredients with Wisk. Mix liquids: water, oil, applesauce, honey, Rice Milk. Pour liquid into the dry and mix thoroughly with wisk until everything is mixed well. The soda and baking powder will start working before done mixing. Pour by 1/3 to 1/4 cup on the griddle. Flip when edges are dry or start to lift off pan. Top with pure Maple Syrup or Nuttelex and powdered/icing/castor sugar and enjoy.

Variation / Substitutes / Possible Changes that have been tested.

• Sprinkle EnjoyLife Allergen Free Chocolate Chips into pancakes as soon as they have been poured onto the griddle.

So on Sunday evening Jaden ate his first ever Pizza.  We had bought an Orgran Pizza Crust mix several months ago. The kids were itching to make something last night for dinner instead of having leftovers so I mentioned to them that they could make a Jaden Safe Pizza.  Shay and Karlissa jumped on it.

We greased the pan with Nuttelex and sprinkled some Polenta (corn meal) on it.  Then we followed the directions to make the Pizza Crust. The kids did all of the kneading and such.  We rolled it out with a round drinking glass since we don’t have a rolling pin in Australia. Then all four helped pinch the sides, put sauce and meat on it. We used some left over roast chicken, some ham and some Green Capsicum (Green Pepper).  Wish we had had some more veggies in the house we could have put on. Of course there was no cheese put on the pizza as there is no dairy free cheese substitute that is free from Soy (at least not that we have found).

Anyway after 15 minutes in the oven Karlissa pulled out the pizza (and dropped it but we had a great save).   We carried it to the table and fed one very excited boy and an excited family.

Today we made some Allergy-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies. They were great.  I got the recipe from: http://www.mothersclick.com/recipes/kid-favorites/madelines-dairy-free-nut-free-egg-free-chocolate-chip-cookies 
I had to substitute Nuttelex for the margarine, Darifree for the milk and used Gluten-Free and Soy Free flour and of course our favorite Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips as they are truly the only Jaden Safe Chocolate chips on the planet that we know. Too bad the 10oz bag costs $15 at our favorite local Allergy Food store.  I think I will try changing the sugar to all brown sugar.  When I do I think I will have varied the recipe enough to post it myself, right now just make those changes to the link and you will be good.

Summary: Normal Chocolate chip cookies would have had a food cost of $5 or less in America and these would have cost perhaps $8-$9. Here they cost us over $20 for the ingredients.  (Don’t know how often we will be able to afford these, but at least we had some good ones.)  I might try making them with some Australian made dark chocolate that is safe for Jaden to see if they still taste OK.

My wife has made some fabulous smoothies with berries and coconut milk, with some having the consistency of a good American Milkshake / Aussie Thick Shake.  But today we made our first batch of a more traditional tasting Chocolate Ice Cream.  We have some adjustments to do to get it just right but so far it is modified from other recipes we found on the net.  Here it is:

3 Cups Vance’s Food Darifree
1/2 Cup powered Sugar (I wanted it to dissolve faster)
1/4 Cup  granulated Sugar
1 1/2  tsp  GF Vanilla
3/4 Cup Cocoa
1 tsp Sunflower oil (Darifree is like Skim Milk so this was added for fat)

First I made the Darifree according to label directions with cold water in the Blender with lots of leftover for another try in a couple of days or for other cooking.  I think next time I will  use warm water to make the Darifree and then cool it in the fridge overnight.  Then I put all of the ingredients above into a blender.  After it was well blended I added it to a 1.25L/5 Cup Ice Cream maker.  It took about 30 minutes to freeze and then we scooped it out and put it in the freezer to finish hardening.

Analysis: It needs MORE fat and less cocoa.  We will probably use some Coconut milk next time for more fat. Typically we use some Coconut Milk with Rice Milk such as when making Mashed Potatoes to get the right fat content. But I don’t want to use Rice Milk for this as I just think the Darifree is more like the taste of Cow Milk and I will get a bit more picky with my ice cream. I LOVE Homemade ice cream and have grown up on the stuff.  We used to make Homemade Ice Cream in Florida at least once a week a few years ago and have really missed it in the past 3 years.

We probably would have made some ice cream earlier, but we really don’t have much room in the freezer to store the ice cream maker container and just happened to have some room lately.  We really need to get a larger fridge/freezer here.

What does Jaden say: Well he liked it until it melted. It just was melting too fast for him. But all of the family thought it was good though a little too much cocoa in it.