Carrot cake slice - Nut free, egg free and gluten free

Filling the lunchbox every day is a constant challenge, so I've been told!  I'll find that out first hand this year.  And so given I use nuts in most things I make, it has been a challenge for me to ditch the nuts (during the week anyway!) and to come up with some lunchbox friendly snacks that will still nourish and energize my little man as he takes on each of the days events.

This recipe has no highly processed ingredients, with the bulk of the mix coming from carrots, sunflower seeds and brown rice!  It is also low in added sugar, using dates to sweeten, with just a little help from one of the least processed sugars, rapadura.  Taste the mix before pouring into the tray and if your tastes say 'sweeter please', blend through another couple of dates, some grated apple or sultanas.
I experimented and made a coconut 'icing' to put on top of each slice however you could go more traditional with a cream cheese frosting or even a lemony type icing which would be yummy too!

Of course this isn't just for kids!  Given the ingredients, it would make an energising snack for busy days on the go, between meals, or even with a cuppa and a chat! (or breakfast!).

Carrot Cake Slice - Nut, egg and gluten free

Ingredients

150g brown rice (or brown rice flour if not using a TMX)
30g chia seeds
300g carrots
120g sunflower seeds
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
40g rapadura sugar
6 medjool dates (or 1/2 cup sultanas)
70g butter

Method - Conventional

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.  Line a slice tray with baking paper.
2. Place carrots, sunflower seeds and dates in a food processor and blend until almost smooth.
3. Add remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.
4. Pour into prepared slice tray and place in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, or until cooked through.
5. Cool in tray for 5 minutes then turn out onto a cooling rack.
6. When cool top with coconut icing (recipe below) or desired topping.

Method - Thermomix

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.  Line a slice tray with baking paper.
2. Place rice and chia seeds in TM bowl and mill on speed 10 for 1 minute, scraping down once or twice if needed.  Set aside but no need to wash the bowl.
3. Add carrots, sunflower seeds and dates to TM bowl.  Blend on speed 6-7 for 30 seconds.  Scrape down and repeat.
4. Add remaining ingredients, including rice/chia flour and blend on speed 6 until completely combined (approx 20 seconds).
5. Follow steps 4-6 above.

COCONUT ICING

Place a 270g tin of coconut milk in the fridge for a couple of hours (I use Ayam brand).  Once it's cooled through, place 50g organic shredded coconut and 40g rapadura sugar in TM bowl.  Blend until a rough paste forms.  Open the coconut milk can without shaking and carefully spoon off just the solid part (the liquid will be down the bottom) and add to the coconut/sugar mix.  Add the finely grated rind of 1 lime and 1 tbs coconut oil and blend on speed 7 until creamy (there will still be some texture from the coconut), scraping a couple of times.Place in a piping bag and decorate individual cake squares as in the picture above or spread over the whole slice and cut into pieces.  

Utilising juicing pulp - Ricotta Cakes (gluten free, nut free)

And so it is that I am a huge convert to juicing, if you haven't already noticed on Mellymaks Facebook page!
Earlier this year my hubby and I completed a 3 day detox, created by the team at Food Matters.  It wasn't so much a detox for us but a door which we opened to find the wonderful world of juicing, among other things (such as how much nicer activated nuts are, how little hunger you feel when you actually feed your body with a barrage of nutrients, the deliciousness of chia puddings etc!!).

So back to juicing..... although I had tried it here and there in the past, and actually had a juicer in the cupboard gathering dust (as many of us do!!!) I hadn't felt the benefits of vegetable juice before, and the few commercial varieties that I had tried in the past definitely gave the idea of vegetable juice a bad name for me (think that terrible V8 juice in a can!!).

But a green juice was part of the detox and so we set about buying all the ingredients we needed - cucumber, parsley, lemon, apple, celery, kale and ginger.

Black rice, seed and choc chip cookies - gluten and nut free

My eldest son starts school next year and already I think I have heard more about 'lunchbox etiquette' than anything else to do with school!!!

It seems gone are the days when pretty much every lunchbox consisted of a peanut butter or ham sandwich, cheese stick, Prima (Juice Box for many other parts of the country/world!), pack of chips and piece of fruit!  And that's probably a good thing on the whole!

These days you have to be 'nude food' compliant, 'rainbow food' savvy, cold chain compliant, and must have not a trace of nut in sight!  5 days of the week, 38 weeks of the year, 13 years straight! AAAUUUGGGHHHH.  How ever are we going to get out of the door each morning??!!  And will we be accepted by the lunchbox police? ( :

In all seriousness though, the allergy thing is a big one these days, with so many kids administered with an EpiPen in the case of an anaphylactic shock.  So not only do these parents understandably spend so much time and effort keeping their children safe and avoiding nuts, every parent who has school aged kids really needs to be mindful of the products they are sending to school in lunchboxes.  That can be tough for a family not needing a radar for nuts in their life (or any other allergens for that matter).

So given I use nuts a lot, I really wanted to start exploring the nut free world so that next year we can be armed with some yummy homemade snacks that might just win over not only the lunchbox police, but also the nutrition police (me!) and most importantly, the taste police (being my boys!!).

Nutrient wise, when it comes to bikkies, these little guys not only contain a lot less sugar than probably all store bought varieties and many home baked too, but also actually provide goodness, coming from the black rice, sesame seeds and chia seeds!  As I spoke about on Mellymaks Facebook page recently, 'black foods' are a powerhouse of minerals, isoflavones and antioxidants, helping to strengthen the immune system among other benefits.  And milling the whole grain means that not only do you get those immunity benefits, but the fibre and healthy fats from the bran, germ and endosperm!

I spoke a lot about the benefits of seeds in STEP 3 of Mellymaks STEPS program, and the chia seeds and sesame seeds in these bikkies will certainly boost the kids with energy and nutrients galore!

Apple and Raspberry teacake - gluten free

It must have been the cold rainy weather we had this morning that made me crave this kind of cake!
And who doesn't love a teacake?!
Memories of Mum and I making apple teacakes with caramelised sliced apple laying delicately on top flooded my mind today, as my own son and I pieced together this little beauty!  But if I'm to be honest with you, Jake was far more interested in pinching the raspberries from the middle and licking the bowl!  Well, who can blame him really?!
As most of you know me quite well by now, you would be reading this waiting patiently to discover which injections of nutrients I have snuck into the mix!  Weeeellllll, it was almost a case of my hands working independently of my mind!  Before I even knew it, chia seeds were being soaked in a cup of brewed tea, almonds were being ground into a meal, and yogurt was dolloped into the bowl!  How did that happen??!!! ( ;