Cathy

2 cups rolled oats 1 cup puffed buckwheat (or wheat) 1/8 cup white chocolate chips 50g butter, divided 8 giant marshmallows

In a cold frying pan, add 1tbsp of the butter (aka, a good bit) and the oats. Turn the heat up gently, and toast the oats until golden.

Take the oats out into a large bowl, and mix in the wheat and chocolate chips.

Put the rest of the butter in and the marshmallows. Melt over a low heat until an even consistency (just like rice crispy treats).

250g sugar (use 1 cup if you don't have scales) 250mL water (ditto) 1 tsp natural vanilla essence

Mix the water and sugar in a small saucepan. Put it over a low heat, stirring gently until all the sugar dissolves (but only just!). Take it off the heat, and let it cool for a minute. Then stir in the vanilla.

Pour into some kind of bottle or jar. You want about a finger thick in the bottom of a glass for a non-fizzy drink, but add a bit more if adding sparkling water.

250g sugar (use 1 cup if you don't have scales) 250mL water (use 1 cup if you don't have scales) 1 tsp citric acid 1 tsp ascorbic acid

Mix the water and sugar in a small saucepan. Put it over a low heat, stirring gently until all the sugar dissolves (but only just!). Take it off the heat, and let it cool for a minute. Then stir in the acids.

Pour into some kind of bottle or jar. You want about a finger thick in the bottom of a glass for a non-fizzy drink, but add a bit more if adding sparkling water.

½ cup white sugar ¼ cup carob powder A pinch of salt ¼ cup cold water ¾ tsp vanilla

In a small saucepan (on the bench), whisk the sugar, carob, and salt to get rid of any lumps. Add in the water and whisk until evenly wet. Then turn on the heat, but go gentle if you've got a hot gas stove. Bring it up to the boil, then take it off the heat. Stir in the vanilla.

I keep this in an old salsa jar in the fridge.

To turn it into hot chocolate:

2 tbsp carob sauce boiling water milk of choice

Put the sauce in the bottom of your mug. Pour freshly boiled water on it, until about 3/4 full. Stir to make sure the sauce is mixed in. Then top off with milk.

1 egg ½ tsp salt 2 tsp 5% citric acid ½ cup canola oil

Using a stick blender with a whisk attachment, blend everything except the oil. I do this in an old pickle jar.

Put the oil in something with a pouring spout. Then pour the tiniest stream of oil you can, into the mix. Keep blending! You will need three hands, if you don't have three hands (I don't) then just be very gentle moving the blender around and stop the oil often to get your jar back in place.

This makes a mayo about the thickness of kewpie mayo. I'd guess it makes about a cup? I just leave it in the jar I made it in. Seems to last about 2 weeks in the fridge, but I don't really know anything about food safety so ymmv.

@miloscat has been going through a food sensitivity diet, so I've been trying to make nice stuff for them to eat with a limited set of ingredients. I thought maybe this might help someone else so I'm going to try and post the recipes I've used/adapted/made up.

Please don't take any of these as diet advice! This is being done with a licensed dietician. But if you're going through something similar, these might be useful for you?

Background & Weird Ingredients

I've been using the immersion blender's beater attachment for the first time. I've also had to buy a few odd ingredients, so I thought I'd document that.

Carob powder. Got this from a health food shop online, used to make carob / chocolate sauce which is used as a base for hot chocolates but could also be put on icecream

Ascorbic acid powder. Got this from a health food shop online too. Not the sodium or potassium salt, but the acid. Adding this in to cordial to make it more "healthy" and to try and cram as much vitamin C as possible in to life.

Citric acid powder. This you should be able to find in the baking isle of the supermarket. Make into a 5% solution for a lemon juice sub, and also used in cordial.

Eggs. Okay, this isn't weird, but we're going through so many more eggs.

Textured vegetable protein. I got this before the diet started, but it's been super helpful. The stuff we have (from the supermarket) is un-flavoured and unseasoned and unpreserved (It's just soy protein), which means it actually works with the diet which is great because most mince meat doesn't.

So much garlic. We get it in jars, if we were using fresh the garlic press would just live in the sink.

Green onions. These grow really well where I live, all year around. It just so happens that about six months ago I bought a bunch of green onions and planted the white bits, and they've been going gangbusters. Really great when you want to add just a little green onion.

Links

Mayo

Carob Sauce / Hot Chocolate

Lemon Cordial / Lemonade / Lemon Syrup / Lemon Soda

Vanilla Cordial / Creaming Soda

Oat Treats

Coming Soon (Hopefully)

Lentil, potato, cabbage soup

Scrambled eggs

Creamy chicken pasta with leek

Dumplings

Lemon garlic roast chicken breast with brussel sprouts

Okonomiyaki

Burgers