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Welcome to the March 2017 edition of our Newsletter!

This edition we are preparing for Easter. When on the Failsafe diet it pays to plan ahead and be prepared. Lots of chocolate and treats flow freely around Easter time. Knowing where to purchase suitable treats is handy so you can have a few things up your sleeves for yourself or your family. Anything to help make this time of year less stressful. Next month we will include more recipes you can make at home for Easter.

March 17th is St Patrick's Day. We have included some tasty recipes to help you get into the Irish Spirit! One thing that the Irish and failsafe have in common is lots of potatoes! We are featuring the humble potato, I hope we can inspire you to try something new with this lovable staple.

Have a wonderful weekend.

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Preparing for Easter

There are two great online sites you can purchase your failsafe Easter eggs and treats from. Allergy Train and Carobana.

Unfortunately the cut off date for Orders on the Carobana website has only just past on the 1st March. Although you could always try contacting them to check if they will take orders a few days past it. Otherwise if you live in or near Coffs Harbour you can pay them a visit yourself. Allergy train also stock some Carobana eggs if that option fails.

Allergy Train: "So many different brands and types of chocolate available. Dairy free, gluten free, egg free, nut free, elimination diet, Failsafe and soy free options available. Don't forget all our products contain natural ingredients." If you are on strict elimination diet, you can narrow your search to just that.

MilkyBar is is considered failsafe, but the actual Easter egg from the same brand contains Cocoa butter (Amines). Always check your labels.

Another option is to buy failsafe lollies and little trinkets to fill plastic eggs with them.

Easter is the perfect time of year to do an Amines Challenge. Just make sure you double check the ingredients of the eggs you purchase to ensure there are no added flavours.

St Patrick's Day

There are a lot of potatoes on the market. Below is a guide to help you sort through the many varieties.

Irish Potato Bread

Cooking for Oscar: "While this is traditionally eaten at breakfast as part of a big fry up, we ate it with dinner as an alternative to plain potato and the left overs were also nice the next day, warmed up in the microwave for lunch. There are lot of recipes for potato bread (also called Farl or Fadge) on the web, so I chose one that could be baked in the oven."

Traditional Irish Colcannon

A traditional Irish mashed potato dish, Colcannon is a hearty and comfort food classic in Ireland.

Colcannon is a year-round staple side dish, although it also makes special appearances at holidays, including St. Patrick’s Day.

Traditionally Colcannon most often incorporates cabbage or kale (very high in salicylates, amines and glutamates) into the mashed potatoes.

This recipe is not from a failsafe blog although if you use your usual failsafe potatoes, shallots and cabbage (leave out the kale and pepper) and you have yourself a delicious easy dish.

Mince and Tatties

Failsafe Foodie: "It is a savoury mince stew which is cheap and filling and is one of my comfort foods."

Potato & Leek Soup

Real Failsafe Meals: Soups are so quick and easy to make any time of the year, especially leek and potato!

Failsafe Sago & Potato Fritters (saboodana wada)

Jejune's Place: "This is my adaptation of the Indian saboodana wada recipe from Mr Todiwala's Bombay cookbook. These are sago and potato fritters, with peanuts, cumin seeds, coriander leaves, lime, and chilli. Naturally those ingredients are out on a failsafe diet, so I created this adaptation.

The fritters have a great texture, sort of glutinous and chewy, with a crispy shell. Very moreish!"

Chipped Potatoes

Cooking for Oscar: These chipped potatoes are a great way to serve the failsafe staple.

Poppyseed Skordalia (Potato Dip)

This dip recipe is from Skinnymixers. I have tried it and the family loved it. You just need to use Failsafe Foodies Lemon substitute to replace the lemon and use rice bran oil for the olive oil.

Whiskey Cream Liqueur

One for the adults from Domestic Diva, Whiskey Cream Liqueur to warm the cockles of your heart!

"I have tried a number of different recipes to find the perfect liqueur that satisfies my taste buds using whiskey. I personally don’t like the smell or taste of whiskey, but since it’s one of the 3 beverages that are suitable for the failsafe diet, I was on a mission to find a way to like it. This recipe is the one that did it for me! Oh it’s so good, wonderful to have as a little nip before bed, straight or on ice."

Irish Mocha Cheesecake – Failsafe and no-bake

Donestic Diva: This delicious cheesecake uses the Whiskey Cream Liqueur above.

Growing Potatoes

There are many different ways to grow potatoes, a simple search on Pinterest will tell you that! You can grow them in the ground, in buckets, hand made towers constructed out of timber or chicken wire, old tires and raised garden beads. There will be a method out there to suit you and your needs. Yates Australia has some handy information on how to grow potatoes.

Preparing Seed Potatoes for Planting: Since potatoes don’t have seeds, growing them is a different process than is used for other vegetables. Pre-sprouting, or chitting, is not necessary but will get your potatoes growing earlier in the garden, and will give you higher yields. [read more]

Petition

Please help reject a new way of hiding MSG in foods.

Sue Dengate has started a new petition to FSANZ (Food Standards Australia New Zealand) asking them to not approve a new enzyme because it considerably increases the level of free glutamates (MSG) in your food and will never be shown on the ingredients label because it will be classified as a “processing aid”.

Did you know that MSG (monosodium glutamate and other free glutamates) may cause a wide range of symptoms like migraines and headaches, sleeplessness, rapid heartbeat, tachycardia and arrhythmias, foggy brain and poor memory, arthritis, cravings and weight gain?

MSG will be added to your food and hidden, not shown on the ingredients list, if a new food industry application is approved.

A1136 is a food company application to FSANZ for approval to use a new enzyme Protein Glutaminase as a “processing aid to improve protein functionality in baking, noodle, dairy, meat, fish and yeast products”.

Please follow this link and sign the petition.

Thank you for reading our newsletter. We hope you now have lots more ideas and inspiration for your families. Don't forget, if you liked the newsletter you can subscribe to have it sent to your inbox every month.

You can find more great recipes at Cooking for Oscar, Domestic Diva Unleashed, Failsafe Foodie, Real Meals and Failsafe Decorated Cakes.

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Rona, Sandra, Trish and Frilly Pants