Mrs Crimble's Cheese Bites

I just made a trip to our big Sainsburys to look at the new items in their Free-From range - more on that later.


While I was there I found these Mrs Crimble's Cheese Bites. They are heaven! Made with Edam Cheese but baked so they aren't ridiculously unhealthy, they are hollow cheesy pillows.

Absolutely delicious!

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!

Revision Snacks

I am currently revising for my third year (of a Masters degree) University exams. As every good student knows revision snacks are an essential part of revision.

Having got through my Easter eggs and the vast amount of Milka I bought from France I went in search of new snacks.

My best friend and I have revised together for the last 4 years and each year we share a 1kg tub of Jelly Belly jelly beans. They last us for the 8 weeks or so we spend revising. Luckily they are gluten free so I can still eat them :D

This week I am in Reading visiting my boyfriend, who works down here. I didn't have much food to bring with me so yesterday I paid a visit to Waitrose. I found Riceworks gourmet brown rice chips on buy one get one free. They are THE BEST savoury gluten free snacks. I'm tucking into a bag of the sweet chilli flavour as we speak.

I also found Kelkin Mini Milk Chocolate covered Rice Cakes. These are a nice chocolatey treat without just being a chunk of chocolate and go really nicely with a cup of tea!

Well that's enough of a break for me! Back to the revision

New GF finds in Tesco

I paid a visit to our local Tesco this morning, to buy a birthday card and cake for my housemate, and as I was also procrastinating from revision, I decided to look round. I found four products that I hadn't seen before that were gluten free.

I had been informed by a fellow coeliac that Tesco Onion Bhajis had a new recipe and were now gluten free. While I was looking for them I found Tesco Simply Cook Swedish Style Meatballs which are GF. I then found the bhajis which were indeed GF.




I then went to pick up some tinned tuna and found tins of Tuna and Vegetable Salad and Tuna and Mixed Bean Salad. These looked perfect for mixing with cooked rice or pasta and making a salad for lunch.

Finally to the freezers where I found Tesco Crispy Potato and Mediterranean Vegetables along with a Crispy Potato, Bacon and Cheese. I couldn't believe these would be suitable for coeliacs but they are also GF.

So my procrastinating from revision turned out to not be completely wasting time!

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.

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.