Marks and Spencer Cheese puffs - gluten free crisp light cheesy bubbles

These small puffs are crisp bubbles of cheese and potato.  They are very moreish..and if you have been missing the tender crispness of baked wheat goods these will be a treat.  They are made with Gouda cheese.

They have a long shelf life, are suitable for vegetarians, and are 445 kilocalories per 100g pack.  They quote a figure of 150kc for one third of the pack but it is difficult to stop munching them, so it is probably best to open them when there are a few of you around to share them.


They contain cows milk and eggs.

Aloo Gobi using Bhaji Man kit

When we spent six weeks travelling in our campervan around Italy, France and Spain we started yearning for curry.  There were plenty of interesting foods available, but the more exotic ones are based on the areas colonised by these countries and didn't include curry.  I could carry jars of curry paste - I like Patak's, but don't want to carry heavy and breakable jars if I don't have to.

I bought some curry kits when I bought my last batch of urid lentils for my flour.  They come as sachets of spices in a packet, and include all the recipe instructions and a shoppping list.  Normally I would look at these and think, what an expensive way to buy a few spices, and what a lot of air - big boxes, little sachets.  However, for travelling these might be perfect. The Bhaji Man packs come with a reasuring big label on the front saying gluten free.  One might assume that spices don't have any gluten in but it is good to know that the packaging and processing of these spices hasn't contaminated them.

I made the aloo gobi - potato and cauliflower curry.  The pack contained three sachets, which have to be added at different stages.  One spices in one sachet needed crushing, so I rolled the sealed bag with a tin can - there is usually something solid available that would work.

The curry took longer to make that the recipe said, but I usually find potatoes take a long time on the stove.  I served it with basmati rice, with a pinch of garam masala in the cooking water.

The curry was delicious.  It didn't taste like the aloo gobi we eat in restaurants, but it would certainly beat those curry cravings.  Not having to measure spices, not having to carry individual jars of everything I might need, make these little kits an excellent option.  I suspect I would repackage the sachets and the instructions into a smaller bag to save space/

gluten-free gnocchi

An idle few minutes in front of the TV and suddenly I want to try making gnocchi.  I don't know anything about these little potato dumplings, so spend a few minutes looking at various recipes.  They vary a lot- some have potato, flour and egg, some have potato, ricotta and egg, some have potato and flour...and the proportions of the ones with the same ingredients vary enormously.  This is obviously a dish to make and remake until you find one you like.

Somewhere I read that originally these were made with potato and buckwheat.  That makes sense if you lived in Northern Italy where wheat didn't grow and you lived off potatoes.  Buckwheat is a good flour to use if you want to add cohesion to things, but it does have a strong flavour of its own.  A potato and buckwheat gnocchi would give a change from potatoes and buckwheat pancakes as a staple starch.

I made these with one large potato, microwaved until soft.  I slipped the peel off and mashed it thoroughly with a fork and then beat it with a wooden spoon.  I gave my potato ricer away as part of the moving house  tool reduction.

This potato was about 200g.  I added 50g flour and then added beaten egg until I had a dough that was soft but could be handled.  This used about half the large egg.  The last recipe I looked at said add egg to the potato and then add flour to get to the right consistency - so if you can't bear the idea of having egg left over work this way around or make bigger quantities.  This served two with left overs but we don't eat large portions.

The dough feels very pleasant to handle, soft and quite easy to control (though of course it isn't being rolled thin).

Roll the dough into sausages shapes with a little extra flour.  Cut into 1-2cm bits and press with a fork on the top.  The instructions I read said put on your thumb and press with a fork, and I couldn't figure out what that meant.  However, when eating these, it occurred to me that what they had been suggesting would give a depression on one side and ridges on the other, ensuring that any sauce served with these would cling and fill the hollows.

Boil these in water until they rise to the surface.  Drain and serve with whatever amuses you.

TT has always been a bit dismissive of the very idea of gnocchi, but he enjoyed these stirred into frizzled strips of pepperoni and served with rocket salad.