Cheat's Paella

This is a great little recipe for those days when you want a reasonably healthy meal in a short amount of time. It might even work cold for lunch if you made it the night before.

Cheat's Paella

1 packet of dried rice
cold water
butter
1 tin of oily fish
Vegetables

1. Cook the rice in the water and butter according to the instructions on the packet
2. Add vegetables to the cooking rice
3. Stir in the fish
   

I used Asda's own paella quick cook rice and added asparagus and baby sweetcorn at the start of cooking. I then added mackerel fillets in tomato sauce towards the end of cooking.

Within 10 minutes I had a tasty, satisfying meal!

Plantain with Chicken and King Prawns in a red wine sauce

I am aware I haven't yet finished posting about France, I'll get there eventually!

I've just spent a few days with my lovely boyfriend. This involved a trip to Cadbury World, Birmingham and lots of chocolate!

After a day of chocolate I planned to cook something savoury. I spent a month last summer volunteering at a health centre in Ghana and became very fond of West African food. Recently I found both yam and plantain in my local Asda store. These are both naturally gluten free and used as a rice/potato substitute in Ghana.

I decided to buy some plantain (from the banana family but less sweet) to form the basis of our evening meal. I decided to fry it, first peeling 2 green plantains then chopping them before shallow frying for about 5 minutes.




This was then served with chicken and king prawns in a home-made red wine sauce. I coated the chicken in GF flour and fried it with a red onion. I then added some chicken stock (Kallo stock cube) and cooked the chicken. Finally I added the prawns with some red wine (brought back from France) and Bisto Best. This was served with the fried plantain and a mix of boiled vegetables and was delicious!

Plantain is so easy to cook and so versatile and tasty! I highly recommend experimenting with it.

"Children's" GF Soft Rainbow Cookie Recipe

This is actually a very similar recipe to the Adult GF Soft Cookie Recipe below but thought it deserved its own post (partly because it has its own pretty picture!) The basic recipe is the same but I substituted the chocolate chips/chunks for children's sweets. In this batch I used skittles and snowies. I guess M&M's or any other GF coloured sweets would work too.

Children's GF Soft Rainbow Cookies

125g soft margarine
150g soft light brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence
150g GF flour
1 teaspoon GF baking powder
1 teaspoon Xanthan gum
A splash of milk
2 packs of GF sweets

1. Cream the margarine and sugar together
2. Beat in the egg and vanilla essence
3. Fold in the flour, baking powder and xanthan gum
4. Add the milk and stir in
5. Stir in the sweets
6. Make small blobs and spread out
   
7. Bake at 200C for 15 mins
   

Leave to cool on the baking tray for 5 mins until cool

The skittles melt and burn a bit around the edges but I quite liked that!

"Adult" GF Soft Cookie Recipe

It's a rainy Saturday afternoon in Birmingham. I finished my exams yesterday and am feeling free! So I decided to bake. I had a few ideas but had a request from a good friend of mine for cookies so that's what I made!

One thing I miss being gluten free is soft cookies so I decided to play with a few non-gluten free recipes in the attempt to make a GF alternative.

I'm quite impressed with the outcome!

Adult GF Soft Cookies

125g soft margarine
150g light soft brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence
150g GF flour
1 teaspoon GF baking powder
1 teaspoon Xanthan gum
A splash of milk
half pack of white chocolate chips
half a pack of milk chocolate chips

1. Cream the butter and the sugar
2. Beat in the egg and vanilla essence
3. Add the flour, baking powder and xanthan gum
4. Fold in with a metal spoon
5. Stir in enough milk to make into a smooth slightly runny dough
   
6. Mix in the chocolate chips
7. Divide into blobs and bake at 200C for 15 mins

I made 8 quite big cookies but I think I'd go for 12 medium size ones next time.

Make sure you spread them out well as they expand a lot on cooking.

Leave them on the baking tray to cool for 5 mins before transferring to a cooling rack.

Enjoy!

Tiffin Recipe

I seem to have a problem finishing packs of biscuits! I open a pack, have a few, and then forget I've opened the pack! Then a week later I re-find the pack complete with soft biscuits. And as gluten free biscuits are so expensive I am reluctant to throw them away. So I came up with a solution!

My Granddad (affectionately known as "Beck-Beck") has always loved tiffin - a chocolately, biscuity tray bake. To me it has always been a comfort food reminding me of good times and safe places. So I decided to try a gluten free version of it to use up my half eaten packets of (now soft) biscuits.

Tiffin

200g dark chocolate
50g margarine
50g sugar
crushed GF biscuits
dried fruit

1. Melt chocolate and butter in pan
2. Stir in sugar
3. Remove from heat and stir in crushed biscuits and dried fruit
4. Set in fridge
   

I used Kinnerton chocolate - free from gluten, dairy, eggs and nuts. But any GF chocolate would do.

The amount of biscuits and fruit depends on personal taste (and how much biscuit you've got!) I just added the biscuits I had left.

Traditionally my mother and grandmother have always made this with raisins and glace cherries. I had neither of these so I added some tropical fruit mix.

You could also try adding marshmallow pieces and making a product similar to Rocky Road but I think I'd omit the sugar if I tried this.

Happy baking!

My Favourite Bread Recipe

My latest gluten free bread!

GF White Bread

Wet Ingredients:

3 cups water (luke warm)
3 eggs
25g melted butter/oil
5ml GF vinegar

Dry Ingredients:

2 cups Dove's Farm GF White Bread Flour
2 cups GF rice flour
2 tablespoons Xanthan Gum
2 teaspoons GF baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup dried milk powder
1 teaspoon of salt
1 sachet of yeast

1. Add the wet ingredients to your breadmaker
2. Place the flour on top of the liquid so it completely covers liquid layer
3. Add Xanthan gum. baking powder, and dried milk powder on top of flour
4. Place sugar on top of flour, followed by salt and finally the yeast
5. Cook according to breadmaker instructions
   

This loaf rises really well and tastes great. Its a little bit sticky but works well for sandwiches without being refreshed first for the first couple of days.

I have made the dough in my breadmaker before and allowed it to rise, then removed it and made burger buns in the oven.

This rises right to the top of my breadmaker.

I cook it on the basic white bread setting as a 1lb loaf with a medium crust. I'd like the crust to be crispier so may try it on a darker crust setting next time or even try cooking it on the timings for a 1.5lb loaf.

As always these things need some experimenting to perfect. Still I love this bread.

Warning it is a little sweet. I'm reluctant to change the sugar content as it seems to be vital to the success of the recipe. If I find a way of reducing the sweetness while still producing such a nice loaf I will let you know!

Choosing Dry Pasta and Fresh GF Pasta Recipe

I used to hate gluten free pasta! I found it sticky and awful! I soon realised that rice pasta (for me) was a poor replacement. My mum bought me some Orgran Corn and Vegetable Pasta when I went to visit and I loved it. It was more tasty than wheat pasta and the texture was similar to that of 'normal' pasta.

I then discovered Sainsburys Free From Corn Pasta. Again the texture was less sticky and closer to what I was used to. I find this better for pasta bakes as it has a less distinctive flavour than the Orgran one.

So for me corn pasta was definitely the way forward!

I was then bought a pasta machine for Christmas last year. This enabled me to make fresh pasta with eggs and also opened up the possibilities of making filled pasta. (like ravioli.) I used the recipe from my pasta machine with an extra egg and a mix of cornflour and Doves Farm GF plain flour. I later added the Xanthan Gum as the first batch was too crumbly to put through the machine.


(This was the first successful pasta I made with my machine, drying)

Fresh GF Pasta

350g Plain GF Flour
150g Cornflour
1 teaspoon Xanthan Gum
4-5 eggs
2 tablespoons of oil

1. Mix the flours together in a big bowl
2. Add Xanthan Gum
   
3. Beat 3 of the eggs in with the oil
4. Add the liquid to the flour bit by bit, mixing in between
5. Add more egg as required to make the mixture come together into a ball of dough
6. Wrap dough in cling film and place in fridge for 30 mins
7. Remove cling film and split dough into 8 similar size pieces
8. Take a piece at a time and follow the pasta maker instructions to make pasta shapes of your choice!
   

You can freeze this as dough or as pre-made pasta shaped as long as you use it within a month of freezing.

Splitting the mixture into 8 should make it manageable sized to put it through the pasta maker - it stretches a lot during the process and can get quite difficult to handle if the pieces are too big.

Just a word of warning - making pasta this way is reasonably time consuming as each section is put through the machine up to 10 times to get the desired thickness and shape.

This pasta can be kept in a sealed tub in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Cook it by placing in a pan of boiling water for 2-3 mins. Spaghetti shaped pieces also make a good replacement for egg noodles with oriental meals.

Try making filled pasta parcels by leaving the stretched pasta as long strips (like lasagne) and cutting into squares. In the past I have made mixes of mascapone and cooked spinach (gorgeous) and soft cheese, salami and smoked ham. Seal them with any left over egg. These need cooking for a bit longer to ensure the filling is heated through.

Banana Breakfast Omelette

(Don't knock it til you've tried it!)

One of the biggest problems I've found since diagnosis is what to eat for breakfast. I've never been a fan of cereal (except Weetabix and porridge, both of which became off limits.) So although there are some pretty nice GF cereals around it's just not what I want in the morning.

Although I'm a student, I am in uni 9-5 most days as pharmacy is pretty hard going so I need something to keep me going until lunch time. I also am not great at getting up and like to stay in bed as long as possible so don't have much time for breakfast.

Two things I've always found both appetising and filling in the morning are bananas and eggs. So in my normal cooking style (mix things together and see what happens!) I decided one morning to mix these two. It's a simple idea but the results are great!

Banana Breakfast Omelette

2 eggs
1 banana

1. mash the banana and beat the eggs
2. mix together
3. heat some oil in a frying pan (I use an oil spray)
4. add the mixture and cook on a low heat for a few mins
5. when sufficiently cooked turn one side into the middle
6. then slide a spatula underneath the fold and roll the omelette over again so you get a sausage shape without any visible folds
7. cook for another minute or so
8. serve immediately

I usually drizzle it with honey as soon as I put it on to the plate but have also been known to spread Nutella on the top for a chocolatey treat.

Yum!

Basic Gluten Free Cooking Tips

If you remember nothing else about gluten free cooking there is one golden rule that never seems to fail me.

If you are trying to use a recipe using wheat flour and replacing it with gluten free flour:


Always use more liquid than the recipe says!



That's it! That's the number one rule. How much depends on what you are making and what flour you are using. But experiment! That's part of the fun of baking!

For example if I'm making a GF sponge cake I add a bit of milk after the flour. The mixture looks more runny than it would if it wasn't GF but the cake comes out much more moist.

Also, again if you are trying to transform recipes that you used to use before diagnosis, if the recipe calls for self-raising flour either:

1) Use normal GF flour and add a teaspoon of GF baking powder per 100g of flour. Supercook do one but be careful - it looks like their non-GF one and I find supermarkets often mix them up.

2) Some companies actually make self-raising flour (Orgran do) but these are quite expensive if you can't/don't get them on prescription.

I personally go for option one.

Also buying some Xanthan Gum was a lifesaver. This is a naturally gluten free product that can be used to replace gluten in GF products. It adds some of the stickiness and versatility lost by using GF flour.

I use it mainly in bread (or use GF bread flour which already has it added) but also find it useful in muffins and sponge cakes. (recipes to follow!)

Peanut Goo Recipe

This is my take on flour-less Peanut Butter Cookies but I find it works better as a tray bake. Its a quick and easy recipe so good for those times when you are craving something sweet.

Peanut Goo

1 jar crunchy peanut butter
2 medium eggs
50g sugar

1. mix peanut butter and sugar together in a bowl
2. beat the eggs and then add bit by bit
3. grease baking tray and spread mixture over the bottom
4. Cook at 200°C for about 10-15 mins until the edges begin to come away from the side of the tin.
5. Leave to cool in tin then cut into squares and enjoy!

By adding the egg bit by bit you should avoid the mixture getting too sticky but if you put too much in, add a little GF flour until its manageable again.

Try glazing the bake with any left over egg mixed with some milk.

You should end up with a sweet, gooey but crunchy tasty treat!

Mince pies

Might be a bit late for this year but I was given an awesome sweet pastry recipe by someone on the Gluten-free message board

Gluten Free Mince Pies

250g unsalted butter
550g flour
100g icing sugar
2 eggs
GF mincemeat

1. beat butter and sugar together
2. beat in eggs
3. blend in flour
4. chill in fridge for one hour
5. roll out, use a pastry cutter to make round cases
6. fill half the cases and cover with the other half
7. Cook at 180°C for about 15 mins until golden brown

For regular pastry use ordinary butter and leave out sugar

(Ok so these aren't mine. I forgot to take photos of them! But the post is prettier with a picture!)


I glazed them with egg and milk and then sprinkled them with demerara sugar and cinnamon.

So good! It was great to have gluten free pastry which didn't just fall apart when you tried to shape it.

I found I had to add a little bit of water to the mix to make it come together.

I also made some jam tarts from the same pastry...yum!