Button Biscuits - {Gluten Free, Dairy Free + Soy Free}

I searched high and low on the net for a good button biscuit recipe. There were lots of cute ones around, but the recipes seemed more complex than I wanted to deal with. So I got out my Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits and browsed it's pages till I found something that I thought I could tweak to suit my needs. (MY Brother is both Gluten and Dairy intolerant, and my nephew is Soy intolerant, so that sometimes makes things a little bit of a challenge). It was actually Little Clam that found the recipe - Hundreds & Thousands Biscuits.

Here are my adaptations:

{MAKE IT!}

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50g Nuttelex Lite
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 teaspoon Vanilla
1 teaspoon (Sanitaruim) Almond Milk
2/3 Cup Gluten Free self-raising flour
1/2 Cup Gluten Free Plain flour
A range of different sprinkles, and coloured fondant**
extra Almond Milk

Round Cutter *

Cream the Nuttelex, add sugar in small amounts till mixture is light and fluffy. Add beaten egg, almond milk, and vanilla. Sift in self-raising flour a bit at a time, followed by the plain flour untill the dough is firm enough to handle. Refridgerate for a couple of hours (while you go off and do the millions of other things that you needed to do today). Roll out dough to a 3 - 4mm thickness (the type of flour we used makes the biscuits puff up quite a bit) between 2 sheets of greaseproof paper. Cut with a floured cutter. Place on a biscuit tray lined with greaseproof paper, brush with almond milk, and sprinkle with hundreds and thousands. Press on slightly. Bake in a moderate oven for 8-10 minutes. Allow to cool on trays.

Tips
* Round Cutter - I made mine from  a strip of a soft drink bottle taped together with packing tape since I didn't have any cutters small enough.

** I only put sprinkles on half of the cookies. The rest I baked without topping them and then cut out fondant circles later with the same cutter. I used a drinking straw to make the two holes in the middle of each one, and glued them on the biscuit by lightly brushing the back of the fondant with almond milk.

*** For ease of putting the sprinkles on neatly, place cutter of biscuit and sprinkle inside the perimeter.

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Nifty Thrifty Sunday

Cottage Cheese & Brown Rice Patties

For Baby Starfish's Cute as a Button first birthday celebrations I whipped up a big batch of Cottage Cheese & Brown Rice Patties. They are my favourite patties to have on hand. They are reasonably low in fat, freeze well and they taste AHH-MAZ-ING. I have even served them before for a family Valentines Day Dinner.

The difference this time was that I made them small. Teeny tiny by patty standards actually. About the size of a twenty cent piece, actually, they were a bit smaller than that. They take forever to shape when they are that small, let me tell you, but they were SO worth it! They didn't last very long on the table and even the birthday boy and his sweet little friend (who is six weeks younger) gobbled them up in a very short space of time.

So whip out your ingredients (or pop to the shop if you need to) and get cooking!

Cottage Cheese and Brown Rice Patties 

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Ingredients:

2 Cups cooked, day old, brown rice

500g (2 cups) cottage cheese

1 packet French Onion soup mix

2 eggs, beaten

1 onion

Olive oil (Just enough to pan fry with.)

1. Pre-cook the brown rice the day before according to the instructions on the packet. I use the absorption method.

2. Quarter an onion and place it in your food processor (you can grate it if you don’t have one). Add the eggs and turn on food processor till the onion is finely chopped and the eggs are beaten (unorthodox, but it’s quick and it works!)

3. Place rice, cottage cheese, French Onion soup, and the egg/onion mix to your mixing bowl and mix till combined.

4. Shape into patties, and roll in bread crumbs.

5. Fry till golden brown. Set aside on a tray lined with kitchen paper to drain any excess oil off.

Enjoy!

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On the Table: Creamy Tomato Gnocchi

In the midst of party planning here again, so I was keen to make something that wasn't too involved or time consuming. I had some gnocchi in the cupboard, but the site of the jars of pasta sauce was about as interesting as licking the gardening fork after a morning session of digging (although if you were my one year old, then the appeal levels go right up when it comes to consuming dirt and sand!!!). Slight dilemma. So off I went further rummaging through the pantry.

Ahhh yes. A can of Campbell's Tomato soup. MUCH better. Enter two carrots, a bunch of tiny broccoli florets, and a dash of cream and this is what I came up with.

Creamy Tomato Gnocchi. Yummm. It was such a hit with the family I thought I'd share the recipe with you.

{Make It!}

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Ingredients:

1 package of Golden Pasta Gnocchi Baby

1 tin of Campbell's Tomato Soup

2 Medium carrots - peeled , quartered and sliced

1 cup of broccoli florets - cut up small

Enough water to ½ fill the soup tin

Dash of cream (up to a scant ⅛ cup)

Parmesan and parsley to garnish.

1. To a pan of salted boiling water, add the carrot and broccoli.

2. Wait till the water comes back to the boil and add the gnocchi. Continue to heat till the water returns to the boil, and the gnocchi rises to the top.

3. Add tin of tomato soup to a separate pan, enough water to ½ fill the the tomato soup tin, and a dash of cream (add to your taste). Stir till it thickens and changes colour (It will get a more translucent look and you will know that the soup is ‘cooked’).

4. When the gnocchi starts to sink again, remove from heat and drain. Add the sauce and stir through.

5. Serve gnocchi with a sprinkle of grated Parmesan and garnish with parsley.

Bon Appetit!

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Mini Cafe-Style Muffin Wrappers

It's taken me a few days to get to this one from the sea of fever ridden brows that have been in my home for the past 2 weeks, but I've finally done it! Yippee!!! I give you (drum roll please)...

It really is so very simple to do. Take one roll of baking paper, either scissors or a roller cutter, a small cup (mine was the one that came with the children's Panadol), and a small dose of common sense. ;)

 1. Cut your baking paper to size. My Baking paper was 30cm across, so I made mine 15 x 15cm to fit my tin with about a 5.5cm overlap of the edge of the hole all the way around. (I figured it out by the diameter of the hole + depth + however much I wanted it to sit above the pans edge).

2. Find a cup of some sort that fits your muffin pan in both depth and shape (Thank you Panadol - you're terrific!)

3. Lay the paper centered over one of the holes in your muffin pan. Press down firmly. At this point it will only really shape the bottom rim of the paper well. On to the last step!

4. Press the folds in around the cup that started to form when you pushed it into the pan. Repeat as many times as needed. Genius!!!

Now all you need is something to fill them! Get your quick and easy quiche recipe here.

Enjoy,

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