Coconut Ice Cream and Chocolate Sauce

Coconut Vanilla Ice Cream

1 can coconut milk

2 egg yolks (one of my eggs was a double yolker, so I guess I used three)

1/4 cup sugar

Vanilla essence to taste (or anything else you may like)

Heat your coconut milk in a bowl over a pot of simmering water, until it is hot but not boiling. You can add your flavourings at this stage, so the flavours really infuse with the c/milk.

While the c/milk is heating, separate your yolks and mix with the sugar. Don't leave the sugar sitting on your yolks while you go do something else, because if you leave it sitting unmixed then a chemical reaction will start to take place where your egg yolks start to get cooked. So mix first. Mix until pale and creamy.

When your c/milk is hot enough pour a small ladle of the hot c/milk into your egg yolk mix and whisk together. Add the rest of your c/milk to the egg mix, whisking all the time, then return to the bowl over the pot of simmering water.

Stir the mix until it coats the back of a wooden spoon. This means that when you lift the spoon out of the mix and run your finger along, the mix is thick enough that it doesn't run and the line where you swiped your finger remains. It's ready.

At this point you can strain (helpful if you used something like vanilla pods or lavender) into a cold bowl and leave to cool, or place the bowl that was over the pot into another with ice and cold water in the bottom. This stops your mix continuing to cook and cools it down.

Wait until mix is cool/cold. Can put in the fridge to help once it has cooled sufficiently.

At this point you can put it into your fancy pants ice cream maker machine thing, or do it my way. Old school yo.

Place in freezer until it has just started to freeze around the edge. Then mix with your hand mixer. Repeat for about 3 or four hours (tip: do this on a day where you will be home all day. Don't start at 8.30 at night or when you have school/work the next day).

Freeze over night.

Ice cream!

It might not be as smooth or light/airy as normal ice cream, but that is because bought icecream has been churned constantly while being frozen so has had the air fully incorporated into the mix.

I know it seems super complicated, but really it's easy! Just time consuming!

Super Easy Yummy Chocolate Sauce

1 Tbsp Butter

2 Tbsp sugar

1/2 Tbsp custard powder (I accidently used 1 Tbsp, but I still thought it was super delicious, your choice what you do really)

1 Tbsp cocoa

1/2 cup water

Melt butter in microwave. Mix in rest of ingedients. Cook in microwave until thick (mine took about a minute/a minute, 30 on high).

I then beat in with a fork about a teaspoon of extra butter and some raspberry liqueur. Nom.

CAKES!!!

Sometimes I make cakes for people. They either ask me to, and pay me, or I choose to. Simple.

Here's an example of me going all out:

Four layers of rainbow cake on each tier, filled and covered with cream cheese icing, covered in white fondant. Whole thing = not dairy free, but look pretty good, ya!

In other news, here's my version of a quickie job for an awesome workmate:

Three layers of chocolate cake, filled with chocolate butter icing, covered in chocolate ganache (using Lindt 70% Dark Chocolate, no dairy or soy!, and coconut milk). White chocolate decoration (picked off of my piece when eating because that isn't dairy/soy free!).

About Lactose Intolerance

I'm allergic to dairy.

You've probably heard someone say that before right?

But what exactly do they mean?

There are two "allergies".

1) allergic to the milk protien

2) Lactose intolerant - I'm going to go more in depth into this one.

So being lactose intolerant isn't actually an allergy.

Let's first do a little background.

The sugar in milk is called lactose.

In order to digest lactose you need to be producing an enzyme called lactase.

Most mammals stop producing lactase while they are young, thus becoming lactose intolerant. But, typically *sigh*, humans have to be different.

A large proportion of humans have developed lactase persistence. This is where the body continues to develop lactase, instead of stopping, although adults do have lower rates of lactase production than younger people.

Interestingly, people from African and Asian areas have much lower rates of lactase production. When you think about it, European people, back in the day, continued to eat a lot of dishes that used milk, and other products that included milk. Where as people from Africa/Asia weren't particularly likely to do so.

Another interesting point, human milk is quite high in lactose compared to other milks.

So I guess what I'm trying to get at is you aren't allergic to lactose, it's an enzyme deficiency (lactase deficient). I could theorise that us lactose intolerants are more normal, and more following the natural order like than everyone else.

To aid in digesting lactose, you can eat those slightly pricier yogurts (you know the ones: Acidophilus!, Cultured Yogurt!, Bacteria!, Lactillobactus!). The bacteria in the yogurt (unless you leave it sitting on your bench or in your bag all day, in which case it will be teeming with bad bacteria that will make you sicker) contains lactase or aids production of lactase, so some lactose intolerants can have these yogurts because the bacteria in it helps digest the lactose in the yogurt.

Am I making sense? i get the feeling I'm going in cirlces. I'm sure you get what I mean.

So anyway, I'm onto tub 2/4 of my gut repair vomit enducing powder, then I can start the desensitisation.

NOODLE CANTEEN!!!

So, after a slightly drunk conversation with my boyfriend last night, I realise that I can have Noodle Canteen still!!! There goes my eating out problems!

For those of you that have the misfortune of not knowing about Noodle Canteen, your life is not worth living (slight exaggeration? Maybe? No?). Noodle Canteen is the most delicious, freshest take-away I've found ever (ignore whatever the boyfriend says about Subway).

Because I can have soya bean oil and fermented soy products (eg soy sauce and miso), using my excellent culinary knowledge, I have figured out that I should be able to eat just about anything they serve up!

This little revelation comes just in time as I'm heading to the boyfriends tomorrow and he doesn't cook, and doesn't have anything in the house to cook *sigh*.

Just watch out for the molten-lava-hot temperature of the sauce, that stuff will burn all your taste-buds off so you can't taste the deliciousness.

Lemon and Coconut Loaf

I found this recipe cruising my favourite news website, but changed the milk to coconut milk.

1 x lemon

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup coconut milk

1/4 cup oil

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 cups coconut

1 cup self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 160°C.

Finely zest lemon and mix with sugar (or whizz in food processor).

Add next four ingredients and the juice of the lemon and mix until pale.

Add the last four ingredients and mix until just combined on low speed (or pulse if using food processor).

Pour into loaf tin and bake for 30-40 minutes (this is what the recipe said, it might have been because of me changing the milk, or because my oven is a pain, but I had to cook mine for at least a half hour longer). If it's getting too brown on top you can cover it with brown paper.

Is nice cold with butter, but also while it is still warm with lemon curd (and the rest of the family had cream too).

I thought the flavour was nice, but it was denser than I imagined it would be and I wasn't impressed with how long it took to bake, and the centre of the loaf ended up being not what it should have.

Let's just chalk this one up to experience.

How about you try it, and tell us how it went?

Learning to cook

I read this today here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/recipes/5617901/Why-pudding-still-matters

" "I now feel extremely lucky that my mother was happy to encourage me to cook," she says.

"It distresses me that people have an incredibly limited knowledge of how food goes together. I think that's very disempowering.

"Start children off on baking, don't ask them to clean up because that's off-putting, and encourage them to have fun." "

This is so true. I guess I always enjoyed baking, probably because I liked eating the end product, and did a lot of it during my year at university as a comfort sort of thing. But then I started chef school and it opened my eyes to cookery. Now I can do all sorts, although I admit I do need to practice some things more. But I can still do it.

My little sister can participate in a political debate and hold her own, but not cook. Neither can my boyfriend, his cooking skills go as far as cooking toast. Don't get me wrong, I love him to bits and think he's fantastic, and I like cooking for him, but the response to me being a chef from too many people is "Oh wow that's so cool, I can't cook at all."

Maybe they're stretching the truth a bit, but some basic culinary skills are absolutely necessary in adult life, not the useless sandwiches and smoothie classes in home ec I remember from the first year of high school.

Easy Roast Chicken

A chicken (dead, plucked and defrosted)

paprika

sesame seeds

oil

salt and pepper

a large lemon

Preheat oven to 200°C.

Rinse chicken under cold water, inside and out, or not if you're lazy.

Pat dry with paper towels, even if you didn't rinse it.

Chop your lemon in half. Put both halves up the chickens bum and give them a bit of a squeeze as you do to release some of the juices into the cavity. You could also use orange if you want. This juice will (in theory) turn to steam and you'll get a lemony flavour through the flesh.

Tie or tuck the wings and legs if you want, not necessary though.

Rub oil over your chicken. Sprinkle with paprika, sesame seeds, and season (lightly!) with salt and pepper.

Put chicken breast side up on a tray with a rack on it. If you don't have a rack, don't stress too much, but it's better if you do.

Put chicken in oven and turn down to 180°C after 5-10 minutes. Leave in oven for about an hour and a half. When juices run clear chicken is cooked. If you're not sure, put it back in the oven. Better safe than sorry.

Have with roast veggies, or any way veggies, or make yummy easy chicken salad sandwiches.

Leftovers are good through pasta or in sandwiches for lunches.

Make sure you clean down surfaces and anything the chicken touched. Or if you touched things like drawer handles with chickeny hands, clean them. I use boiling water and disinfectant spray.

Happy cooking everyone.

First time eating out

So I was in a different town over the weekend for my grandmothers funeral.

The fam was going out for dinner to my grandparents favourite restaurant, but I was kind of nervous (is that the right word? worried? apprehensive?) about it. Reason being is because I know a lot of chefs find it a huge pain to have to cater to people with allergies.

I called ahead to the restaurant and they told me to just let them know when I arrived and ordered. When the waitress came to the table I identified myself as having allergies, she said the chef would be out to talk to me.

The chef came out, pulled up a chair and asked me "What would you like off the menu? Doesn't matter what's in it, what would you like?" I chose the ribs. He told me all the seasonings he put on, and brought me out the sauce bottle so that I could read the ingredients on that too. Everything was fine, I could have it, but they were just so accommodating and helpful, I am now much more confident about eating out and not having to worry about my allergies.

Moral of the story: call ahead before you go, if you can. They will tell you straight out if they can or can't cater to your needs.

Find friendly helpful restaurants and remember them, they are worth your custom.

:)