Best Ever Dairy-free Macaroni and Cheese

I gave up dairy cold-turkey in December 2013 and honestly it was really hard. Not just giving up a food I loved, but the fact that dairy hides in so many foods that you wouldn't expect!

It was the right thing to do for the sake of bub's reflex and dairy intolerance (and for my health too) but I was completely addicted to dairy and ate loads of it - milk, cheese, cream, ice cream, you name it.

At first I just completely avoided it and didn't look for alternatives but as time went on, I started really missing the creaminess that only dairy gives. I  perfected dairy-free ice cream and dairy-free lasagne a while ago, which brought macaroni and cheese to the top of the list. It's one of my husband's favourite meals and he has mentioned it often over the past few years.

After a bit of experimentation, mac and cheese is back on the table!

So while this is not exactly the same as the original it is creamy, full of flavour and has a delicious cheesiness from the nutritional yeast. It is the ultimate comfort food and the kids will never know there are hidden veggies.

We LOVE this dish and it's become a regular feature on our meal plans.

If you're dairy free give it a go and let me know what you think!

Best Ever Dairy-free Macaroni and Cheese

2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
375ml rice milk
3 tbs spelt flour
2 tbs nutritional yeast flakes
1/2 ts garlic powder
1/2 ts onion powder
1/2 ts turmeric
140 diced sweet potato
140g diced pumpkin
500g macaroni, cooked per packet instructions
Crispy bacon and fresh parsley to garnish

Put the water on to boil for the macaroni. Add the macaroni and cook as per packet instructions while the sauce is cooking.

Place the sweet potato and pumpkin into the bowl and chop for  8 secs / SP 8 or until very finely chopped.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add all remaining ingredients. Cook for 12 minutes / 100 degrees / SP 4.

The sauce should be smooth but if it's not, puree for 30 secs / slowly increasing from SP 3 - 9.

Drain the macaroni and return to the pot. Pour over the sauce and mix well.

Serve topped with crispy bacon and fresh parsley.

Serves 4-6

Garlic Chicken with Polenta (SRC)

Well, where has June gone?? I didn't mean for the blog to become a ghost town this month but between exams and assignments and just daily life with 3 children I've been really stretched this month!

But there is no way I would miss out on my Secret Recipe Club post! Each month members are assigned a blog in secret to peruse and choose something to share on the reveal day. This is my second month as a member of Group C and I am loving discovering all these new blogs!

This month I was assigned Where is my spoon? by Adina. Adina is Romanian but has lived in Germany for the past 10 years with her husband and 2 young children. Her recipes really reflect this European heritage and I spent many happy hours on her blog. There were literally dozens of very European recipes I would love to make - German Schnitzel, Transylvanian Yeast Cake and Linzer Torte just to name a few. But then I also loved her kid friendly recipes like homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter and the delightfully named Magical Soup for Children.

As Winter has finally arrived here I was looking for some serious comfort food and Adina's Garlic Chicken with Polenta ticks all the boxes. A simple but intensely flavourful meal, nothing fancy or complicated but so delicious that everyone is licking their fingers and asking for seconds. Adina describes it as a typical Romanian dish and something that her grandmother would have made. Perfect.

These photos really don't do it justice (it was pouring rain and very dark) but this was SO DELICIOUS! I made a few small changes to the sauce, just reducing it down a little and cooking out the garlic a little more to suit my kids' tastes.

I love simple food like this that when cooked with a little care become so much more than the sum of its parts.

Garlic Chicken with Polenta
Slightly adapted from Where is my spoon?

For the chicken:
8 chicken drumsticks
2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 cups chicken broth
1 ts sweet paprika
1/2 bunch flat leaf parsley, divided
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbs butter
salt and pepper to taste

For the polenta:
1 litre water
1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
250g polenta
1 ts salt

Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

Heat the oil in a large, heavy based frying pan.

Fry the chicken pieces until browned on all sides.

Pour over the chicken broth, sprinkle on the paprika and half the chopped parsley.

Bring to the boil then lower the heat and simmer with the lid on but just ajar slightly to let some of the steam escape. Turn the chicken in the broth several times while cooking for about 30 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.

(Start the polenta now).

Remove the chicken pieces to a dish and cover with foil to keep warm while you prepare the sauce.

Add the crushed garlic to the pan, increase the heat and simmer rapidly with the lid off for about 10 minutes or until it has reduced by half. Add the butter and stir to combine. Strain the sauce through a sieve into a jug, then return the sauce to the pan along with the chicken pieces.

Coat the chicken in the sauce, sprinkle over the remaining parsley and serve with polenta.

To make the polenta:

Bring the water and salt to the boil in a large heavy based pot. Once boiling add the polenta in a steady stream, along with the oil and cook over low heat, whisking often for 30-40 minutes or until cooked through.

Thank you for a wonderful month, Adina – this recipe is a keeper!

An InLinkz Link-up

One-bowl Banana Bread

When I first got into cooking again as an adult I was all about trying new things, sourcing new ingredients and making every meal spectacular. I now have 3 young children and while I still want delicious food, my priorities have definitely changed!

What I look for now is - how long is this going to take me to make when I have a dozen other things I need to do right now? how many ingredients do I need to search for in the supermarket when I have a fussy, whingy toddler in the trolley trying to grab everything off the shelves? will my kids actually eat this or am I wasting my time?

One-pot dinners and one-bowl bakes - those words are music to my ears!

While I have made a hundred different banana breads this one is my simplest yet. Real ingredients, nothing fancy and just one bowl. Hallelujah.

I did this in the Thermomix (which to me is the epitome of one-bowl cooking) but a large bowl, a fork and a spoon will do the job just as well.

My husband scored a 15kg box of bananas for just $7 on the weekend so we have bananas coming out our ears at the moment. Most of these have been peeled and frozen so I am down to the last couple of bunches which are getting nice and brown and spotty, perfect for banana bread.

So here you go, the simplest wholefood banana bread around. This recipe is a keeper!

One-Bowl Banana Bread

3 ripe bananas (250g peeled)
2 extra large eggs
1/3 cup oil (coconut, macadamia or olive oil)
1/3 cup sweetener (rice malt syrup, honey or maple syrup)
1/4 cup milk (rice, almond or coconut)
1 1/2 cups wholemeal spelt flour
3 ts baking powder
1 ts cinnamon
pinch salt

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius / 150 degrees fan-forced. Grease a loaf pan and line with baking paper.

In a large bowl mash the bananas, then add the eggs, oil and sweetener and beat together until smooth (TMX - 10 secs / SP 6).

Add the remaining ingredients and fold together until just combined (TMX - 10 secs / SP 3 - scrape down the sides and repeat if you need to).

Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake for 40-45 minutes or until it is golden brown and the tops springs back when you press lightly.

Remove from the oven and leave in pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Delicious still warm from the oven or cold in lunchboxes.

Have you scored any amazing fruit and veg bargains lately?

What would you do with 15kg of bananas??

~ Susan

Meal Plan Monday (30th May)

Is it cold where you are? Winter weather has well and truly arrived which means one thing around here ... comfort food! But winter warmers don't have to be heavy and loaded with carbs. Slow cooked meats, soups and hearty vegetarian dishes packed with warming spices all hit the spot perfectly.

Last fortnight was cheap for us as we used up some of our stash of freezer food. This turned out to be a good thing because we had a bit of a disaster and discovered our chest freezer in the shed had been accidentally turned off after a power surge and we lost bags full of food. So frustrating! Not to mention costly.

We're still keeping things simple this fortnight and our only meat purchases are a whole organic chicken (bought from Woolies for just $15 on special), 2kg of gravy beef and some bacon. The mince and sausages are from our freezer stock we buy in bulk every few months (luckily we hadn't gotten around to transferring all this meat to the outside freezer or we would have lost the lot).

Have you ever had a freezer disaster?

On the menu ...

Monday - Vegie-loaded Spaghetti Bolognaise with zucchini and beans

Tuesday - BLTs on homemade spelt rolls

Wednesday - Slow-cooked Beef Madras with veg

Thursday - Vegan macaroni cheese

Friday - DIY

Saturday - Pumpkin soup and hash browns

Sunday - Spelt Pizza

Monday - Lasagna (gluten and dairy free)

Tuesday - Sausage and veggie bake

Wednesday - Dhal with rice and greens

Thursday - Chicken and sweet potato bake

Friday - Brinner

Saturday - Veggie soup with foccacia

Sunday - Roast chicken with veg

What's on the menu for you this week? Do you have some favourite winter-warmers?

Curried Tuna Mornay (and how to choose the best tuna!)

We're going retro with this one! Is there anyone who didn't eat tuna mornay sometime growing up int he seventies or eighties? It was a staple at my house but mum always made it with canned cream of celery soup in it which is not something I choose to eat these days.

(If you're interested Rachael Ray has a delicious homemade cream of celery soup recipe - it is loaded with dairy though - must experiment with a dairy free version!).

I haven't made mornay for the kids for ages so it was high time to bring it back into the rotation.

How to choose the best canned tuna

But before we get to the recipe, let's talk about tuna.

Do you have canned tuna in the pantry? And importantly, do you know how that tuna was caught?

According to Choice there are 2 things to think about when buying tuna.

1. Look for a sustainable species of tuna:

Read your labels carefully and look for skipjack tuna, which may also be called Katsuwonus pelamis. Avoid the commonly seen yellowfin tuna which is considered by Greenpeace to be 'near threatened.'

2. Look for sustainably caught tuna:

You want to look for 'pole and line caught' tuna, which should be noted prominently on the label.

Check out this Greenpeace guide to tuna brands in Australia. While I have never seen the number one pick (Fish 4 Ever), it is nice to see Safcol and Coles brand tunas rounding out the top 3. Are you surprised about which one is in last position?

So check your pantry. What brand is your tuna? Have you ever actually read the label on a can of tuna?

Oh and make sure you choose tuna in spring water, in order to avoid the vegetable oil most tuna is packed in. Because even the brands that mention olive oil on the front of the tin also contain a large proportion of vegetable oil. Yuck.

Back to the mornay and I decided to mix things up a bit and add some curry powder. This was largely to please my curry-loving husband who also happens to hate 'mushy' food (and yes he would include tuna mornay in that category).

The result? An easy and delicious dinner that (just about) everyone gobbled up in record time. Still can't convince Mr 5 to have either tuna or any sort of sauce on his pasta but ... 

My Curried Tuna Mornay

1 onion
1 clove garlic
1 carrot
2 zucchinis
100g butter or extra virgin olive oil
50g white spelt flour
350ml rice milk
1-2 ts curry powder
1/2 ts salt
425g can sustainable tuna in springwater

Place onion, garlic, carrot and zucchini in mixing bowl and chop for 4 secs / SP 6.

Scrape down the sides, add the butter and cook for 8 minutes / 100 degrees / SP 1 / measuring cup off.

Add the flour, milk, curry powder and salt and cook for 6 minutes / 100 degrees / SP 1.

Puree 20 secs / SP 8.

Add the tuna and cook for 3 minutes / 90 degrees / SP 1 / Reverse.

Mix through cooked pasta and serve.

No thermomix? Prepare your sauce in a medium saucepan. Melt the butter and sauted the grated vegetables. Once tender, sprinkle over the flour and cook until it is dry, about a minute or so. Add the remaining ingredients, except the tuna, and cook stirring continuously for a few minutes until a smooth sauce forms. Add the tuna, turn down the heat to low and let simmer for a few minutes or until everything is cooked and warmed through. Add your pasta and enjoy!

Do you have a favourite dish from your childhood?