4 Ingredients Blog

Think INSIDE the Box with 4 Ingredients!

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 05:37:00 GMT

With three active and growing boys, 9, 6 and 3 lunchboxes are a part of my family’s daily routine! If you are like me, a busy person, but intent on giving your kids delicious, nutritious lunches, here are some great ideas.

I like them most, because they are quick, easy and economical and often help me make use of my leftovers.

Chose a lunchbox with individual compartments, or otherwise use lidded containers, kids loooove little containers of things, there’s no 7 wonders of the world in the eyes of a child, but 7 million … It’s the love of discovery!

Apple slices
Served with peanut, cashew, or almond butter or any of those then sprinkled with coconut or sultanas.

Cheese cubes
With sliced kabana and grapes … A Lunch box Cheese Board!

Crackers
Variety is the spice of life, for young and for old, so buy different crackers each week.

Cottage cheese
Top crackers with cottage cheese, chopped toasted walnuts or raisins

Dips:
There are many, but our kid’s favourites are:

Hummus
Easy Creamy
Cinnamon
Devonshire

Serve the savoury with fresh vegie sticks and the sweet with freshly sliced, seasonal fruit.

Fruit Salad
Is the ideal lunch box solution; it’s colourful, easy to eat and bursting with vitamins. Our favs are strawberries grapes, apple and oranges (the juice of the orange prevents the apple from discolouring too)!

Leftovers
The trick is to think ahead and make a little extra at dinner for lunch the next day. Roast chicken becomes a yummy sandwich when cut and mixed with a finely chopped, dried apricot and mayonnaise, or part of our sensational Chicken Carnival Cones! Turn leftover rice into a yummy fried rice, and Spaghetti Bol Scrolls cleverly uses any leftover spaghetti bolognaise sauce.

Mini-Muffins
With just self-raising flour, cream and a little sugar create any variety of these: Blueberry, carrot & pineapple, choc-chip, raspberry or white-choc and apricot.

Piklets
Oz’s version of a smaller pancake. Take two, spread with butter and strawberry jam and watch the fly!

Salads
Of all kinds make great school lunches. Our favorites are Corn Salad (with bell peppers and scallions, olive oil and lemon)

Yogurts
Add a separate container of wheat germ, granola, toasted coconut, berries, or chopped walnuts for a kid-pleasing crunchy topping.

Must have top 10 kitchen pantry items

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:14:00 GMT

Welcome to the 4 ingredients blog, where we show you how to save time and money in the kitchen. One of the best ways to do this is to make sure you have a well-stocked kitchen pantry. This is so important for a number of reasons. Not only will you have a number of options on hand for cooking at home, but it also saves you money by not having go to the drive thru for takeaway.

Honestly, who enjoys stopping at the supermarket on the way home when you have tired kids in the car and it's been a long day. And If you haven't seen the inside of your pantry lately, its time to get in there and dust off those cans and check some expiry dates, toss out what's expired and lets get the pantry stocked with useful items you can use everyday, not every year!   Here are 10 must-have items for a well-stocked pantry, in no particular order.  

Top 10 Pantry items:

 Puff pastry
 Tomato paste
 Gourmet Garden Herbs and Spices 
Philly Cooking for cream
 Curry Powder 
Arrowroot biscuits
 Condensed milk 
Citrus Fruits (orange,lemons,mandarins,limes)
 Butter 
Can of creamed corn

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Happy Cooking!

CELEBRATE COELIAC AWARENESS WEEK 13-20 MARCH 2011, WITH FABULOUS GLUTEN FREE RECIPES WITH 4 INGREDIENTS OR FEWER

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:20:00 GMT

Coeliac disease affects over one per cent of the world’s population. In Australia, that means that over 218,000 people are living with coeliac disease. It is nearly twice as common as Type 1 Diabetes and on a par with stroke rates. But despite this very high prevalence, diagnosis rates in Australia are very low and there is no cure available.

So what is Coeliac disease?

Coeliac disease (pronounced seel-ee-ak) is an autoimmune disease. Autoimmune means the body mistakenly produces antibodies that damage its own tissues. It is a permanent intestinal intolerance to dietary Gluten. A number of serious health consequences can result if the condition is not diagnosed and treated properly.

Here at 4 ingredients we were surprised at how many requests we received to release a simple, easy to use Gluten free recipe book, and in 2009 we released our 4 Ingredients Gluten Free Cook book.

Here are our top 4 recipes from our Gluten Free book:

Gluten Free Thai Chicken with Cucumber Noodles

•   1/2 cup crunchy GF rice noodles 
•   2 Chicken Breast cut into chunky pieces 
•   1/2 cup GF sweet chilli and ginger sauce 
•   1 Continental Cucumber  

Method:
Place chicken in a non-stick frying pan with 1/4 cup water and cook till water evaporates. Add sauce and simmer for 5 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through Remove from heat. Slice and julienne cucumber to resemble long thin noodles. Add cucumber and noodles to chicken and mix gently. Serve topped with extra cucumber noodles as garnish.

Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies

Makes around 20 delicious cookies
•   1 Cup Raw sugar  
•   1 tsp cinnamon 
•   1 large free range egg
•   1 Cup crunchy peanut butter

  Method:
Preheat oven to 180c. Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Using a tbs. roll the amount into small balls and pop onto 2 paper lined baking trays. Slightly flatten with a fork, crisscross style. Bake for 10 mins or until a thin crust forms on the cookie.  Note: These will harden as they cool

Gluten Free Flourless Chocolate Cake

•   4 free range eggs 
•   1 Cup caster sugar
•   200g butter 
•   250 g dark chocolate  

Method:
Preheat oven 180 C. Separate eggs, add 1/2 the sugar to the yolks and beat well with a mixer. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until fluffy then add remaining sugar, gradually beating until stiff peaks form. Melt butter and chocolate over hot water stirring regularly. Pour into egg yolk mixture and fold. Once combined fold in egg whites. Line a cake tin with grease proof paper and pour in mixture. Bake for 40 minutes in the lower third of your oven.  Note: This cake will collapse as it has no flour to sustain the rise.  

Optional: Can be served warm or cold and is delicious with fresh cream and strawberries.

Gluten Free Beef Stir Fry – Serves 4

•   500 g stir fry beef 
•   2/3 cup GF BBQ Sauce 
•   2 tbs. sesame oil
•   4-6 shallots, chopped  

Mix stir-fry sauce and meat together; allow meat to stand for 15 minutes. Heat Oil in a wok or frying pan. Stir-fry meat in batches for 1 minute, or until cooked on the outside and medium on the inside. Trim the shallots and cut into thin lengthwise strips. Quickly stir-fry in wok. Serve meat on top of a salad (even just shredded ice-berg lettuce is nice) and top with shallots and jus.  

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Citrus

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:38:00 GMT

Having grown up on a Citrus farm in Mundubbera, Queensland I have Citrus coursing through my veins …  I swear when I bleed it’s orange juice that spills forth (my parents made us drink that much of it as kids “It’s so good for you” I still hear my Mum saying).

But why I tell you this, is that I have very excitedly just been appointed the first EVER Australian Ambassador for Citrus 2011 … Yipeeeeee!  

I’d like to share with you how this happened, because there’s a message in it.   It is my gut feeling that Australians don’t view citrus fruits in the divinely interesting light that I do … They are not only sweet and juicy and make a great lunchbox filler, but they are medicinal, they can be used as deodorisers, disinfectants and are extremely versatile; different parts zest, skin and flesh able to be used in a myriad of ways to inject a fresh, modern twist in today’s cooking.

I feel that the market is a little complacent about citrus fruits, and complacency breeds boredom. SO … To expel this myth, I contacted Citrus Australia last year and asked if I could speak at their annual conference which was held in Hervey Bay last October, 2011 … And speak I did; I drove with my Mum, my car loaded with citrus-infused recipes to share and a floral arrangement as big as a tree full of bright, vibrant citrus fruits!   

I closed the conference, the last speaker of a 3-day conference (praying someone would turn up) … and they did “thankyou God!” all 275 of them, and by the end of my 1 hour, it was UNANIMOUS Citrus Australia needed some passion, it needed a voice to share the wonders of a Mandy Bruschetta, a Key Lime Pie and my delcious Orange Chicken, bathed in a sacue of orange juice and brown sugar … mmmm!

I am SO VERY PROUD to wear this badge of honour and invite you on my journey of what the first ever Citus Ambassador does. I want to learn, I want to visit the regions, meet the wholesalers, cook for the Board of Directors, cook for the growers at the Orange & Mandarin Festivals around the country and more than ANYTHING I want to share with you the wonders I discover of using and cooking with, this marvelous fruit we grow right here in Australia called, CITRUS!