Accidental Low-Allergy Cooking: Banana Pancakes and Two Eggless Biscuits

Pancakes that are outrageously simple and also nutritious, dairy- and gluten-free?  These are a breakfast staple in our household, for The Daddy and I as well as the children.

For these Banana Pancakes, per person (approximately three small pancakes), mash a large, ripe banana and beat in one egg.  Add a tablespoon of buckwheat flour, mix to combine.

We usually also add a scant teaspoon of LSA meal, and a good shake of cinnamon as well.

Heat a non-stick pan over medium heat, and cook for a few minutes on both sides until cooked through.  I recommend sticking with small pancakes (around 12cm diameter or smaller), as they are easier to flip that way.  You can also make them with just egg and banana, but the buckwheat adds flavour, body and makes for easier flipping.

I love Bob's Red Mill organic buckwheat flour.  I get it at my local independent supermarket - they carry a dizzying array of specialty flours - but Bob's Red Mill products are also available from lots of healthfood stores and online retailers.

Tabitha and Zachary have their banana pancakes with fresh strawberries or blueberries.  The Daddy and I love them with maple syrup, and bacon on weekends!

The other day, I made two batches of biscuits which were both, by pure coincidence, egg free.  So I thought I'd post the recipes here.  I am not normally a good 'something-free' cook, as most of my recipes contain lots of butter, milk, eggs, flour or all of the aforementioned, but it is handy to have a few such recipes up one's sleeve, as more and more children are allergic to various things these days.

The first recipe is for homemade arrowroot biscuits.  Similar in texture to a shortbread, but much lighter in flavour, these are an incredibly versatile biscuit, perfect for icing and decorating, or for an 'everyday treat' sort of biscuit for small people.  They are also delicious served alongside a cup of tea - three or four small biscuits is just about right.

Little Arrowroot Biscuits

150g plain flour

60g arrowroot flour or tapioca flour

70g icing sugar

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

50g thickened cream

60g or a little more canola oil

Sift the dry ingredients together into a bowl.  Using a fork to mix, slowly add the cream, then the oil.  You will need to mix very firmly and for a reasonably long time.  The mixture should be very crumbly, and only come together when you pinch some together with your fingers.  You may need a little more cream or oil, but first try mixing for longer to make sure the liquids are thoroughly worked through.

Using your hands on a sheet of baking paper, press out about 1/3 of the mixture at a time, to a uniform thickness of around 3-4mm.  Use a small cookie cutter, and cut out shapes, re-pressing down the remaining mixture as required.  You will get around 50 small cookies - my cutters are around 3cm across.  Place the cookies on a baking tray lined with baking paper (you can put them close together, as they will not really spread) and bake at 180 degrees for around 8 minutes, or until they are just slightly changing colour.

Let them cool on a wire rack, then store in an airtight tin.  They will happily keep for a good week or so.  They are a good little biscuit to ice, as well.

The second biscuit recipe is one I have posted here before - here - but I am posting the recipe again, for the purposes of having both eggless biscuit recipes together in one place.  These are delicious little chocolate chip cookies made with condensed milk.  They are most delicious when fresh from the oven, but perfectly acceptable for a day or two afterwards as well.

Highlander Biscuits

Cream together 115g softened butter with 55g caster sugar, until light and fluffy.

Beat in 2 tablespoons of condensed milk (note - these are NZ metric tablespoons, so only 15ml each), and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Sift together 170g plain flour and 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and work into the creamed mixture, along with 60g of milk or dark chocolate chips (or chopped chocolate).  Once you have a crumbly mass of dough, tip it onto the bench and lightly knead it together into a rough ball.

Roll teaspoonsful of the dough into balls, and place them, spread apart, onto a baking tray lined with baking paper.  Press each ball down to flatten somewhat with a fork.

Bake for 12 - 15 minutes at 180 degrees.  They should be lightly golden on the bottoms, and barely coloured on the tops.

Cool in a rack, and store in an airtight tin.  This makes around 25 - 30 small cookies for me.

One final sweet dish, which contains egg and dairy and gluten, and is incredibly quick and delicious - my golden syrup Hasty Pudding.  Recipe here.  We've been eating it quite often lately, in the cold evenings of Melbourne winter, and it really hits the spot, with plenty of cream or ice cream.  Make it tonight - it's a one-bowl, melt-and-mix kind of affair, perfectly manageable to throw together after dinner on a chilly night.

A new pair of Baby Legs leggings for Zach - these are really handy for babywearing, as you can slip them on and off according the temperature (for example, if you are going in and out of air conditioned places on a hot day) without disturbing or unwrapping baby.  We're off overseas next week (more about that soon) and I think Baby Legs will be brilliant for all the on-off-on plane action.

Also a few mini pots of CJ's Butter - truly the best and most delicious smelling range of nappy cream / all purpose moisturising balm.  I am never without a little pot of it - current favourite scents include Narwhales and Unicorns, Warm Vanilla Cake and Blueberry Crumble.  The little sample pots are the perfect size to throw into a handbag or nappy bag.

My Birthday and Zach the Eater

Last week was my birthday - just two days after Tabitha's.  I turned 29.  I had a great day - started with presents and a cup of tea in bed, then spent the morning with the kids, then my mother and The Daddy came home for lunch and birthday cake.

Tradition dictates that I have some sort of chocolate birthday cake from Laurent.  Preferably with crunchy bits and cakey bits.  This one was gorgeous - crunchy praline bits, chewy nougat bits, brownie fudgy layer, a light mousse layer, and incredibly rich ganache.  With crunchy biscuits around the edge. 

Zach was entranced by the candle.  I wish I had have thought to dry my hair before photos!

Birthday presents from The Daddy and the kiddie winkies.  What is more exciting than a blue box?  A blue box and an orange box!

The Daddy picked out the scarf while in Hong Kong for work earlier this month.  He said he thought I needed a pale one, as I have lots of bright and dark scarves.  Clever man.  It's cream, lemon, apricot and lilac in a geometric design.  The necklace is a Paloma Picasso design, 15mm beads in all sorts of semiprecious stones - it has Amethyst, bloodstone, blue lace agate, chrysocolla, dumorierite, green aventurine, hawk's eye quartz, garnet, jasper, lapis lazuli, green jade, red jasper, rhodochrosite, rhodonite, rose quartz, sodalite, tiger's eye and yellow chrysoprase.  Whew!  Anyway, it's incredibly pretty, appeals to my inner hippy, and looks lovely with a plain black dress.

Very large bouquet of flowers from mum, from my favourite florist, Camberwell Market Flowers.  They are just a little stand at the market but they do weddings and events and the most spectacular pomanders and gift arrangements.

After Zach and Tabitha were in bed, The Daddy and I went out for dinner, to Ocha, one of my favourite Japanese restaurants in Melbourne.  As soon the food started to arrive, we received word from home that Zach had woken up, but he was quite content to get up and play with our babysitter until we got home!  He's such an easygoing baby.  We finished off the rest of the cake when we got home.  I would say I ate at least half of the cake over the course of the day!

Cheeky Tabitha.  She has taught Zach to climb the stairs - she stood there for ages, "come on Zachy!  I know you can do it!"  He can climb a few, which was enough for me to organise a stair gate, quick smart.

Made some brownies.  It's a rare week in which I do not make brownies!  They are just so easy, delicious and they even freeze beautifully.  They also go down a treat with the neighbours, and we have lots of lovely neighbours.

Brownies and apple cake.  The apple cake has apples, you see, and wholemeal flour.  Which makes it practically a health food...

Tabitha cannot be trusted alone with an apple cake:

Godmother Sophie read The Jolly Postman to Tabitha - she was enthralled, thoroughly excited by all of the letters.  If you loved it as a child, I'm sure you have already shared the love with a small person, but if you haven't read it, grab a copy for your own family or a little friend.

Zach had a few days off solid foods last week (he had a bit of a cold, so I wanted to get as much breastmilk into him as possible, to help him get better).  Now that he is back to full health, he has plunged back into the world of Solid Foods with gusto.

What does Zach eat on a typical day?  And yes, these photos are all from today - I find it easier to just change his top than bother too much with bibs!

Bananas are popular for breakfast:

For lunch, some steak and mushroom pie with roasted sweet potato and roast potatoes:

For dinner, fish with green beans and cauliflower cheese.  Cheeky grin below - and covered with bits of fish and cauliflower!

Tabitha off for a ride on her balance bike.  With her new Ballerina Barbie, naturally.  Ballerina Barbie was a 3rd birthday present (belated, from moi).  I saw her in her pink box on the shelf and couldn't resist - I received my own first Barbie when I was 3, and it too was a Ballerina Barbie.  I still have her.  I don't believe that classic Barbies are damaging to little girls.  This one has a pink tulle tutu with glittery bodice, sheer pink stockings with seam backs (!), ballet shoes with tiny real ribbons, and a silver tiara.  I think I love her as much as T.

Yes, Tabitha owns lots of clothes that are not pink.  More than 50 per cent of her wardrobe.  Do I have a hope in hell of getting her into any of these non-pink clothes?  Rarely.  It makes me laugh, really, her pink obsession - we deliberately started her out limiting gendered toys, clothes and activities for the most part.  She took soccer lessons, wore blue jeans, loved her toy cars.  Fast forward to around two and a half, suddenly a switch seemed to trip, and she is All About the Pink.

Christmas.

Christmas is so busy.  I'm sure you know that!  So I've had a mini blogging holiday for a couple of weeks, and have come back refreshed.  Sadly, I was so busy and overwhelmed (in a good way) with food and cooking, that I didn't photograph most of the fantastic meals I've enjoyed.  Suffice to say, I am happy to go a few weeks without ham, stuffing, gravy and custard, no matter how good they are!

Here is a great big post of photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day...

My little sister and Tabitha in their 'Christmas costumes' on Christmas eve.  Q is a Christmas Fairy, Tabitha is a plum pudding fairy:

On Christmas eve, I bottled up around a dozen glass jars of homemade roasted almond praline powder.  It's so easy, delicious, and makes a nice gift.  I'll post instructions one day soon, but basically you just make a dark caramel (sugar and water), pour it over roasted almonds, then blitz the whole thing to a powder in the food processor.  It's delicious over ice cream, or sprinkled over the top of muffins, in cakes, added to ganache, with yoghurt and many other uses:

We had people over for dinner on Christmas eve - my parents, sister, and aunt and uncle (who are around my age).   I just did a nice basic meal - a couple of roast chickens with homemade stuffing (sage, onion, pine nut and bacon.  I'll post the recipe on the blog soon), gravy, roast potatoes and pumpkin, roast garlic and shallots, lovely sourdough bread and salted butter (for mopping up the gravy).  To finish, Christmas pudding with homemade custard and homemade ice cream.

You can get the pudding covered and ready in the morning, or even the day before.  Then you pop it onto steam an hour before the chooks go into the oven, and you don't need to think about it for a few hours, until serving (you might need to top the water up once or twice):

You can also get the potatoes ready - cut into small cubes, tossed in olive oil, lemon juice, salt and rosemary.  I never peel potatoes for roasting.  So much of the flavour (and almost all of the nutrients) are in the skin and just below.

Shallots and garlic ready for roasting.  For 8 people, I do around 30 shallots and a few heads of garlic.  People seem to eat loads, and they are delicious squished onto sandwiches, cold, if there are any leftovers.

2 large chooks (size 15 or so) with veggies and pudding is ample for 8 people.  I get gorgeous organic chooks from the market, and find they have so much flavour that you don't need to eat quite as much.

With piles of crispy roast potatoes, and plenty of sweet, soft roast pumpkin, everyone had third helpings.  This makes me happy.

This is a 4.5kg pudding.  Between the 8 of us, we ate well over half - with rivers of warm vanilla custard and homemade vanilla ice cream (I was generously gifted with an ice cream maker, from my Godfamily, for Christmas, which I have already put to good use a few times.  I'll post on it soon).

Last thing before bed on Christmas Eve, Tabitha's stocking was filled and hung on her door handle.  This is the same stocking I used as a child - it is quite small and simple compared to stockings sold nowadays, which I find pleasingly nostalgic:

In the morning, Tabitha was thrilled to find her stocking, and her new table and chairs!  What do you think her favourite present from her stocking was?  A toothbrush.  What can I say?  The kid loves to brush her teeth!  This one had pink and purple cats on it:

Once we were awake, the stocking was unpacked, and we were dressed, we drove straight to my parents' house, which is where most of Tabitha's gifts were.

You may recall, last Christmas (Tabitha's first) I decided to follow an American tradition, and choose four main gifts:  Something You Want, Something You Need, Something To Do and Something To Read.  Along with this, I fill a small stocking with a few little gifts.

I reasoned that this would prevent me from going overboard (I start Christmas shopping in October, and knew I'd keep getting 'just one more thing...' for Tabby unless I set a limit).  I also wanted to keep the gift-giving relatively modest, to allow her to appreciate her presents (and knowing that she would get lots, lots more from other people).  Finally, I liked the idea that, long term, this strategy allows you to remain relatively fair when shopping for more than one child - each child gets the same number of gifts (four plus some stocking treats).

This year, the Something You Want gift was a little pull-along wooden cat (Janod Crazy Cat) which Tabby has seen and clutched at our favourite toy store, Jasper Junior, many times in the past months.

The Something You Need gift was a wooden table and four chairs - she's at an age where she often prefers to eat her meals at a little table, and it's great for tea parties, colouring in etc.  We bought the set online from Nanny Annie - I looked at quite a few sets around the place, Ikea has some good ones as well, as does Windmill Educational Toys.

The Something To Do gift was from Windmill - a fantastic wooden toy

The Something To Read choice was a copy of the divine book Sally's Secret by Shirley Hughes (of the Naughty Little Sister books).  I love, love, love Shirley Hughes, and this is one of my favourites.  The illustrations are beautiful and detailed, and the story is sweet and inspires creative play.  I recommend this book as part of every picture book collection!

Here is a snap of some of Tabitha's presents - you can see the pull-along cat, the book, the table-and-chairs (they are sitting on the table), the hammer-ball activity.  You can also see the brilliant 'Wheely-Bug' leather pig ride-on from my parents, the beautiful tin tea set from my friend Amy, a pair of 101 Dalmatian PJs from Peter Alexander from my parents,  a colourful silk 'balloon ball', and at the bottom right, the items from her stocking...

Here is a closeup of her stocking contents (minus the toothbrush, which she clung to) - a t-shirt with milk and cookies, a little box of gingerbread baby cookies, a few little dog figurines, a harmonica, and a few hair clips:

Here are the presents for our family and my parents and sister, under the tree in their living room:

Tabitha and I wore white.  We even managed to stay clean all day - it's a Christmas Miracle!

Here is our little family:

Tabitha followed by little sister around like a shadow all morning - and my sister's tiny dog, Posie, in turn followed Tabitha around (she has learnt that Tabby often leaves a trail of delicious crumbs behind her).  Q was so excited to receive both a bicycle and a skateboard!

Tabby was thrilled to bits with her ride-on pig.  Mum and dad have plenty of roomy wooden floors for riding around on, so she had a ball:

Posie looked on with interest - she was a little alarmed by this sliding, gliding pig-person:

Her face is so excited here - she really loves tearing paper off and finding out what is underneath:

Taking her pull-along cat for a walk:

Doesn't she have the most beautiful hair?!  So soft, straight and shiny.  It doesn't need any brushing, and always smells delicious.

With grandpa Gra.  Loves him, she does!

Offering one of Posie's rawhide chews to her toy dog:

Q and T were both bursting with excitement all morning!

Concentrating hard on her hammer ball game:

It is tradition, for us, to all have a big breakfast of plenty of croissants, jam, juice and tea.

I love Tabitha's little white dress so much.  Would you believe it's Target?  Probably the cheapest dress she owns, but without a doubt one of the nicest:

We had Christmas Lunch at The Daddy's aunt's home.  Tabitha slept right through the whole thing!  In her porta-cot from 12 until just after 3.  This gave us a chance to enjoy a nice leisurely lunch.  I brought the pudding and also the ham (8kg free range, which I glazed with maple syrup, Dijon mustard, brown sugar, orange marmalade and studded with cloves, then glazed sitting in a tray with an inch of apple cider).

After Tabby woke up, we dressed her in the little Plum Pudding Fairy outfit.  She looked too cute for words.

We had a really brilliant Christmas - Tabitha was in fine form, dancing and laughing and singing and really loving all of her presents.  I think 18 months is a lovely age for Christmas!

In milestone news, I started keeping track of Tabitha's words last month, and was really shocked to learn that she had over 50 words at 18 months!  I don't know if this is average, above or below, but it seems like a lot to me!  Of course, most of them are pronounced very strangely (and some would only be understood by myself - I know that Bobble means Bottle, for her water bottle).  And now, only a few weeks later, I have had to stop keeping track - there would easily be over 80 words, I'd say.  Every day there seems to be a few new ones.  All sorts of funny things like 'rough' and 'smooth', and of course the standard toddler classics such as 'mine', 'more', 'cake' and 'poo!!!'