Planning ahead

We had this pasta dish for dinner over the weekend (big hit by the way, very yummy, read review here) and the pesto recipe made about twice as much as I needed to marinate the chicken.

So, being very procrastinatey and lazy, I froze the leftovers in ice cube trays to have on hand whenever the mood takes me. I'm thinking another pasta dinner, dip with rice crackers, beans and celery sticks, as a sandwich spread, anything really!!!

Anzac Biscuits

Adapted for the Thermomix from Sue Dengate's recipe in Fed Up

Anzac Biscuits

Makes 18-20

125g butter

50g golden syrup

2tsp bi carb

1tsp boiling water

200g rolled oats

150g plain flour

50g sugar

Melt butter and golden syrup together at 50C, 5mins, Sp 2 (or until melted, time will differ depending on room temperature, temperature of butter etc)

Add combined bi carb and boiling water and mix 2sec, Sp 4.

Add in remaining ingredients and mix 5sec, Rev, Sp 4.

Roll into balls and flatten slightly onto lined baking trays. Bake at 160C for approximately 15mins until lightly browned.

Tips:

I have started doubling this recipe as my boys devour it.

You could increase the sugar if your family are used to more processed, packaged foods but as we are coming to Failsafe from a low-fructose, no-refined sugar diet my children are used to their treats being less sweet than the usual.

What the family says:

I made a batch of these biscuits each day on the weekend and neither batch lasted the day!!!

A very popular, easy to whip up biscuit!

Elimination Diet - The first week

So we're now almost a week into our Failsafe elimination diet and it's going well. I've been cooking a lot more snacks, biscuits, muffins etc, as before we started the diet the boys would just go and help themselves to a piece of fruit or two. Before we started the elimination diet a batch of biscuits (Anzacs for example) would last 3-4 days and I'd ration them out. Now I'm lucky if they last one day!!!

I've also noticed a big reduction in our shopping bill, we would easily spend $50 a week on fresh fruit and vegetables. It seemed very strange to be filling the trolley with food we wouldn't normally eat, white sugar (instead of honey or rapadura), wheat flour (instead of coconut flour, buckwheat, quinoa etc), canola and sunflower oil (instead of coconut or macadamia oils).

As I've said before, we're not coming at this from a standard, packaged food diet. We have long been eating whole foods, making most of our foods from scratch and buying lots in bulk through coops (I currently have an unopened 5l bucket of coconut oil sitting in my store cupboard. I've since learnt that coconut products are very high in salicylates ... oops!!).

Behaviour wise, we've had a rough couple of days while everyone detoxes. The boys have been great in terms of not eating the foods they used to eat. No major tears or upsets over not having something (apart from Master 2 crying because he wants sultanas, but he's two and doesn't really get it.)

But about everything else, it's like walking on eggshells around here. Master 6 has been the worst, getting super cranky with his brothers, angry and frustrated with both of us grown ups when we call him out on being mean or bossy. If things don't go his way then it's the end of the world! Master 5 hasn't been too bad, but there have been snappy moments and major tears and yelling.

Both big boys have big, dark circles under their eyes, not sure what that is about, but Master 6's arrived straight after lunch on Day 1 and haven't gone anywhere.

Concentration (which is a big thing with Master 6 at school) hasn't changed much, but it's early days. I'll be having chats with both the big boy's teachers this week to let them know what we're doing and why, and also to ask them if they can keep an eye on any changes they see. I'm confident that they'll stick to only eating the food I send for them as the school has a strict no sharing policy and they are well supervised at eating times.

We only have four more days until school holidays and then the real fun will start - sticking to the diet while attending birthday parties, playdates and movie outings!!!

Recipe Review - Chicken & Pesto Pasta

As part of a regular blog post series I'm going to start reviewing some of the Failsafe recipes I find around the place. I'll let you know how they went, what the family thought of them, how difficult/easy/time consuming they were and any changes I did make or would make next time.

First up is Domestic Diva's Pesto Chicken in the Varoma.

What I changed from the original:

In an effort to save washing up I added more water to the bowl when steaming the chicken (about 1kg, I didn't measure) and then at the end of the 20 minutes steaming, added the pasta to the remaining water in the TMX bowl and cooked on Varoma, 8min, Rev, Sp Soft. This was a bad move as there wasn't enough water left so we ended up with very gluggy pasta.

To salvage the pasta I scooped out the less gluggy stuff from the top and mixed it together with cream and chicken in the Thermoserver.

I used 500g chicken and 300g spiral pasta and it was enough for all of us, plus Mr Failsafe and Master 6 to have two serves each. There is also a small serve of leftovers in the fridge.

What I'd do differently next time:

Next time instead of cooking the pasta in the water underneath the chicken I will cook as per instructions and then once the chicken is cooked through I will put it and the cream in the Thermoserver. While that is keeping warm I'd cook pasta in the TMX as per instructions in the EDC.

What the family said:
It was a big hit!!! It was all eaten without even a thought of getting a photo, sorry!
Mr Failsafe and I loved it, I wasn't expecting to get so much flavour from celery! It felt like a very grown up dinner, but one that the kids loved too.
Mr Failsafe and Master 6 had two serves each, Master 2 ate his whole bowl and Master 5, who is notoriously fussy at dinner time, especially with pasta, ate the whole thing! He cleaned his bowl!!! Very exciting Mummy and Daddy moment!