Category: Recipes

Almond & Cranberry Slice

A post with nothing at all to do with chooks… products or anything to do with the shop – except that I make it.  It doesn’t even have eggs in it. Jeff does call it ‘Bird seed slice’… if that is sightly bird related 🙂 I keep getting asked for this recipe and this is a handy place to store it. Being gluten free, diary free, egg free and sugar free the first question I get it ‘What is in it then?  What’s left?’  And of course the first ingredient is ground almonds.. so if nut free is necessary for your household, this is not the recipe for you.

The slice started life as one of my favourite gluten free bloggers breakfast slice[https://elanaspantry.com/breakfast-bars/ ] Elana Amsterdam’s website is wonderful, full of amazing gluten free recipes.  But has been modified over time to my tastes and what ingredients I can get.  Feel free to make your own changes and please send in suggestions.

Ingredients:

Method:

  • Preheat Oven to 170°C
  • Line or grease a 20 x 20cm cake tin or a slice tin
  • In a bowl, combine almond flour, salt and baking soda
  • Measure olive oil, honey/rice malt and vanilla – I use a ½ cup measuring cup and tip the lot into the dry stuff
  • Mix in pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, coconut and cranberries
  • Press the dough into the tin – you may wet your hands with water to help pat the dough down evenly or just use the back of the spoon as I do.
  • Bake at 170°C for 20 minutes

Cool in pan for 2 hours, then serve – if you can wait that long. If you do cut it before it is cool, it is more likely to crumble.

** Instead of all Almond Meal I often use some LSA (Linseed, Sunflower & Almond Meal) in the 1 ¼ cups to bring down the cost, as LSA is about half the price. Half and half works well and tastes fine.[http://2brothersfoods.com/flours/lsa-linseed-sunflower-almond-meal]

Bird Seed Slice

I’ll add some more photos, next time I  make a batch…

The mixture:  mixing the slice ingredients  The result:   Cooked slice

Food Dehydrator and my flaxseed cracker recipe.

2020:  Sorry we no longer stock these dehydrators, but I’m leaving the recipe here 🙂

Anyone who has been into the shop to look at food dehydrators will probably end up hearing my stories of what I use mine for.  The majority of customers buy them for jerky or fruit leathers but I’m a huge flaxseed cracker and kale chip fan.

Kale in the dehydrator

Our Novital food dehydrator has 5 trays – as pictured above with my yummy cheesy kale chips – the yellow stuff is nutritional yeast. (Not as good as this recipe https://chefambershea.com/2012/08/13/practically-raw-recipe-pizza-kale-chips/ which is one of my favourites)  You can can control the heat by turning on one or both heat elements.  With one it is just around 50°C and both makes it closer to 60°C.  Being slack I throw my soaked nuts and crackers in before bedtime (on the lower heat) and turn it off in the morning. Yes it is quiet enough to run in the laundry overnight without keeping anyone wake.

Novital Food Dehydrator Cabinet

 Helens flaxseed cracker recipe:

1 cup total of LSA, flaxseeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds – usually I have abit over 1/3 LSA, 1/3 flaxseed and the rest made of the other seeds. (This is where I get my seeds, nuts etc and they deliver really quickly in Perth http://2brothersfoods.com/ )

1/4 cup nutritional yeast (this the one I use http://www.iherb.com/Now-Foods-Nutritional-Yeast-Flakes-10-oz-284-g/688 )

1 teaspoon crushed/minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon salt – I love pink himalayan, use less if you are using a ‘salty’ processed salt

Optional extras: Lemon pepper, pulp from juicing, grated hard cheese to taste.

Mix all of the above in a bowl and add Water to mix… probably close to a cup – start with 1/2 cup and work on feel.  It does soak up alot of water.

I usually leave mine on the bench soaking for at least 30 mins plus – up to a few hours while I’m doing other chores before spreading in the dehydrator shelf.  You may find yourself adding more water as the mixture sits as it gets thicker.  Its easier to remove/turn/flip the crackers if you use baking paper as in the picture below but the shelves clean very easily.

Yes you can make these in the oven – but you need to watch them so they don’t burn.

**I’ll check these measurements again in a few days on my next batch – it’s become very much throw everything in the bowl recipe at home. And yes Mr 5.5’s gluten free (and non gluten free) friends do eat these 🙂

Tested on 28th Jan 2015 and they worked perfectly and tasted yum.  A single mix of the recipe ended up making enough cracker blobs to fill 2 trays.

Dehydrator nuts    Dehydrator full of crackers

Making Pasta -using our Pasta Machine

What does making pasta have to do with a Poultry Equipment and Trap shop you ask?  Well we actually have a amazing array of interesting items, I refer to the shop as ‘abit of an Aladdin’s cave’  and one of my favourite sections is our kitchenware items – which I’d love to extend.  We sell pasta machines, mincers (and sausage funnels), food dehydrators and even ‘apple’  peeler/corer/slicers – much loved by my nieces. On the weekend  I made my gluten free lasagna. I love making pasta, and since having to go gluten free over a year ago have been struggling with fresh pasta.. but finally I think I’ve got it.  I loosely based my dough on this recipe from Gluten Free on a Shoestring – see recipe here https://glutenfreeonashoestring.com/fresh-lasagna-pasta-how-to-with-a-pasta-machine/  Cheating by using whole eggs – yes laid by our own beautiful speckled hens and made up the 3 cups of flour by using 1 cup of buckwheat, 1 cup of arrowroot and 1 cup of macro plain gluten free flour.  I mixed it up in my Kenwood with the dough hook – so much easier than kneading by hand, esp with my arthritic hands, and left it to rest in the fridge. A few hours later and quick kneed with a buckwheat/arrowroot flour mix, I rolled it through my new (only ever used for gluten free dough’s) pasta machine – yes the same one we sell in the shop 🙂  I did use a thicker – around 6, thickness setting but the dough held up really well.  We won’t talk about my first gluten free pasta dough attempts but they did fall to pieces and didn’t roll 🙁

Pasta Machine in Action        Pasta on bench

I did make lasagna but couldn’t resist cooking up a few left over pieces of pasta for a quick lunch – just lemon juice, freshly cracked black pepper and sprinkle of parmesan cheese – yum.

Cooked pasta                            Homemade Lasagna

So that’s the results and if you would like the pasta machine that rolled it, here is a link to our on-line shopping cart. http://www.wapoultryequipment.net.au/products/pasta-machine

25th July 2018:  The kitchen equipment is here now

https://wapoultryequipment.net.au/product-category/kitchen-equipment/