Triple ginger freezer biscuits - gluten and dairy free

This sticky dough is easy to handle if rolled in clingfilm and frozen.  Slice and bake a few biscuits at a time for a warm spicy aroma in the house on a cold winter day and a lovely crunchy treat.

Ingredients:

200g ground almonds
200g flour (40%urid, 40%tapioca, 20% brown rice)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground clove
1 tsp ground ginger (add more if wanted- this gives quite a mild ginger flavour)
100g sugar
120g dark brown muscovado sugar
75ml oil
2 eggs
20g grated fresh ginger
75g crystallised ginger, chopped
belgian waffle pearl sugar or sugar crystals for topping if wanted.  The pearl sugar keeps it shape, is crunchy but not too hard.

Oven 170C fan, ten minutes from frozen, seven or eight from room temperature mix.  Cool on baking sheet for a few minutes before moving onto a baking rack.


Mix the dry ingredients together.  My muscovado sugar was a solid lump so I hacked off the right amount with a large knife and heated it in the microwave with the oil to get a slurry that was easy to mix into the flour.  If you do melt the brown sugar make sure the mixture is not too hot before you add it to the eggs - you don't want scrambled egg at this stage.

Mix liquid ingredients together and add to dry.  I used the food mixer for this as it was quite a lot of work to do by hand. Add in grated fresh ginger and chopped crystallised ginger and mix.

You can bake this in blobs on your lined baking sheet.  This amount of dough will make a lot of biscuits.  The dough holds its height when baked like this so flatten a bit with a damp spoon.

Alternatively lay on clingfilm in a log, wrap, put in freezer on a baking sheet until firm.  Once firm the baking sheet can be removed. There is a risk that the dough would sag around your freezer racks if you put it straight in unsupported and so get stuck in place.

When you want to bake some biscuits just slice off thin layers, sprinkle with sugar if you want to, and bake on a lined baking sheet.

Packing for my holidays.....bagging gf bread flour

I am spending part of the summer in my campervan in Cornwall.   For three days I will be on a painting course in Newlyn, and for a week I will have my sister staying with me.  I thought that bread would be helpful for picnics- which means making sure I have plenty of my own flour available.  I can eat M&S bread as it doesn't have any xanthum gum, but I find it doesn't hold up well for sandwiches.  I did finally find one of their ready-made gf sandwiches at a motorway service station the other day, and bought it even though I had to remove the cheese.  That did seem to hold ok, but it was packed in a protective plastic holder.

So, as part of my summer packing, this morning I ground two kilos of urid lentils, and mixed the resulting flour with two kilos of tapioca flour, and one kilo of brown rice.  I also added 2% of the Solanic 301 potato protein, which makes gf breads work so much better.  It stops them slumping once the get over a couple of inches high, and improves the texture.  My usual supplier of urid lentils is now offering urid flour that has not been packed in a facility that also handles wheat, so when my current supplies run out I think I will switch to ready ground flour.  That would make travelling a lot easier, as well as reducing the need for me to travel with multiple packs of unlabelled powder; having had the campervan stopped and thoroughly searched by French Customs once in the middle of France on our way back from a Surprise 60th Birthday in Geneva  I prefer not to look suspicious.

Once mixed I bagged the flour in 300g packs and heat sealed it.  This will allow me to make a small loaf (1lb tin) with ease by adding a teaspoon of yeast and enough water (about 250ml) to get a sloppy dough, leaving it to rise and baking in the campervan oven.  It will also work for flat breads like pizza, which bakes great on the barbeque.

I had 130g of flour left over so made four pannetone flavoured buns, with the peel and flavouring I got from  BakeryBits.

Lemon Drizzle Cake - gluten free

I used to make lemon drizzle cake a lot for a cafe, but discovered I had never written it up so when I wanted to make on I had to do an Internet hunt.  I based this cake on the BBC Good Food recipe.  Making this cake marks a sad moment for me as it is the last day of my glass course at the excellent shop/training/studio at the Creative Glass Guild in Bristol.  My teacher, Jen, is fantastic, full of expertise and very kind to over-enthusiastic novices. I asked what type of cake to bring and she requested lemon drizzle, so her wishes trump the other students' please for ginger, parkin.....

Slight problem in that I have given away so much flour recently for people to test my bread recipe that I have run out of tapioca.  I thought I had a whole box left - lots of urid and lots of brown rice but no tapioca, and no store in Worcester sells it. I also ran out of baking powder and then forgot to get it when I went into town, so not the best start.  By using the tapioca I keep plain for thickening sauces or making tapioca gloop for flatbreads I managed to make 225g flour, which the recipe called for, but that seemed a bit stingy for thirteen hungry artisans.  Another 75g of almond flour makes this cake more substantial.  I forgot to increase the sugar and had no more butter, so this is a cake which is tangy and not very sweet.  However, my regular taster, who has a very sweet tooth, declared it to be perfect.

Ingredients:
225 g self raising flour (I use urid, 40%, tapioca 40% and rice 20%, with 1 tsp baking powder for 100g flour to make self raising four)
75g almond flour/meal
225 g butter, soft
225 g sugar for cake
5 eggs
Zest and juice of 2-3 lemons depending on how tangy you like your cake.  I used 2.5
100g sugar for topping

Set oven at 175C fan

Beat the butter until light and fluffy, add sugar and beat until fluffy.  Mix in eggs a little at a time, then add the lemon zest (not the juice) and flours, a little at a time, beating well between each addition.

Spoon the batter into a greased/lined baking tin.  I used a square tin as I wanted lots of shallow pieces to make them easier to eat without plates or cutlery.

Bake for 40-50 minutes until the top springs back when lightly pressed and a knife comes out clean.

Leave in tin to cool.  Mix the lemon juice with the remaining 100g of sugar.  Pierce the cake with a fork and slowly pour the lemony sugar over the cake.  Leave in tin to cool completely

The lemon sinks in and the sugar makes a fine crust on the surface.

Seedy bread - sharing the flours with others and the wonders of Solanic potato protein

I responded to a query about bread on http://glutenfreeguerrillas.healthunlocked.com.  I normally don't contribute recipes for bread on this site as I now always use the potato protein I got from a LinkedIn contact, and this is not available in the shops.  If you buy it from the company the minimum order is 15kg - and given you need a few grams/couple of spoonfuls for a loaf of bread this is an enormous amount.  However, I offered to send some samples out to people if they wanted, and a batch of the flour I use, as I want to get feedback on my usual loaf.  

I have been wondering whether to take the step of trying to bring this flour mix to market, which would be a lot of work, so feedback would be useful.  I have also been talking to the company about the possibility of the potato protein being made available in consumer sized portions.  This potato stuff doesn't upset my guts at all - I can't use zanthum/xanthum or other gums, and even have to stay away from flax/chia seed.  It helps gf loaves to keep their shape so they don't slump if you want a full size/high loaf, and give improved texture even to pizzas and other flat breads.


I sent out six batches of the flourmix- enough for a loaf made in a one pound loaf tin, and 30g of the potato protein. I do hope these packages survive the post- I went to bed fretting that I hadn't double bagged everything.  I sealed them in cellophane and built small posting boxes by chopping up a large box and wrapping with lots of parcel tape, so hope the transit is fine.  I thought I should include a photo and instructions, so took the usual plain loaf ingredients and added a little cocoa and pumpkin and sunflower seeds to give a warm seedy loaf.

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This mix is made from urid lentils, tapioca, rice and potato.  The potato protein that I have have included in the small bag should be used at about 2%of the flour for yeast breads.  Makes great pizza and other flatbreads as well as the loaf.   I am thinking about trying to package it or a variation on it so would be glad of your feedback.  I have a gf house and am very sensitive so these samples should be completely gluten free.

The bag has approx 300g of flours, enough for a small one pound loaf tin.  Mix it the yeast- either a teaspoon or two for a quick rise or half a teaspoon if you want to let it rise more slowly to develop a sourdough flavour.  Put salt and sugar in if you like.  Add 250ml cold water. You can also put a little cocoa and some pumpkin and sunflower seeds for a seedy loaf, or other flavours to suit your taste.

Mix the batter thoroughly with a wooden spoon or food mixer.  It will look like a thick  cake batter.  Pour the mixture into a greased non-stick loaf tin.  It should come about half way up the sides.  For a quick loaf put this in the oven with a tray of hot water in the bottom and leave it to rise.  You want to let it rise about one third - not quite to the top of the tin.  When it gets to that point turn the oven on to 175C (fan) and set timer for 45 minutes.  It will rise further in the heat but shouldn’t come over the top of the tin as the batter hasn’t the strength to go up on its own. It needs a slower bake than wheat bread.

If you want more flavour and a slightly more artisan-style texture leave the loaf to rise somewhere cool - if you want to retard it to fit in with your schedule just put it in the fridge.  Then bake as before.

Tip out the cooked loaf and cool on a baking rack. I cool them on their sides to encourage them not to sink.  Don’t try to slice before they are cold or the bread will stick to the knife.

This should be ok for several days, or slice and put in the freezer.

Rinse your dirty dishes in cold water promptly - the batter sets quite hard.

The photo is the loaf I made this morning when I bagged up the flour (at the moment I still grind my own lentils before mixing the flour, so quite an effort).  This has half a teaspoon cocoa and a small handful of seeds mixed into the dough, and a few more seeds sprinkled on the top.  A loaf I left out to see what happened a couple of weeks ago was still ok to slice after a whole week, but I normally slice the bread and put it in the freezer. 

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I'm hoping to get some feedback shortly.  One person suggested that we buy a big bag of the potato protein and share it out between us.  That is a great idea.  If anyone reading this would like to join in and try so of this stuff let me know.

Coconut cashew and citrus cookies - trying out coconut flour

I have tended not to use coconut products as my primary cookie eater isn't really a fan.  However, in an aberrant moment I bought several bags of coconut flour in with my order of brown rice flour, so I need to start using it.  I also had a jar of coconut fat, very useful for tempering an over-enthusiastic hand on the chilli when making curry.

These dairy-free cookies are like shortbread with chunks of cashew and a hint of citrus.  The flavour is mild; I think the coconut products have dampened the flavour of the citrus essence.  The flavour moves from sweet to citrus to coconut as it lingers in your mouth.  The cashew nuts are too similar in texture and flavour to add much to the cookie- if I made a coconut shortbread again I would leave these out, though I like the way they look.

Ingredients
100g coconut flour
100g self raising flour (mine is urid 40%,  tapioca 40%, rice 20%, with 1tsp baking powder per 100g flour)
60g coconut oil - this is solid so melt in the microwave before use, or you could grate it if you had a block and lots of energy.
2 eggs
50g toasted cashews
1 tsp Fiori di Sicilia - a citrus vanilla blend.  Use a little citrus zest and vanilla.

Melt the coconut oil by gently heating in the microwave.  If it gets too hot let it cool before adding the eggs- you want to be able to mix these easily without cooking the egg.
Mix in egg and flavourings.
Mix in flours.  You should have a stiff dough.  Mix in nuts if using.

I rolled this into a squarish log and sliced the cookies. You could also just roll a blob and put on the cookie sheet.

Bake for 12-14 minutes in a medium oven - about 170F. Cool on a rack.

Dhosa - easy quick almost dhosas

I fancied some dhosa today  Dhosas are thin pancakes made from a fermented rice and urid lentil mixture, and are eaten in South India.  There the chefs make spectacular shapes when serving these, including giant rolls and fans.

Last time I made them I did the full process-soak urid lentils and long grain rice separately for a specified number of hours, grind utill smooth in the blender, mix and leave to ferment for several more hours.  Today I didn't feel like doing all of that and so simply mixed my usual flour (405urid, 40%tapioca and 20% cornmeal) with some brown rice flour- and I don't have any idea what type of rice this was.  The protein balance of different rice varies and it makes a difference in how the rice behaves in recipe. .

These dhosas weren't completely like proper dhosa, and the shorter maturing time meant that they hadn't fermented properly.  The acid flavour of the fully fermented dough is too strong for some so this milder version may be more palatable, although the nutritional value will be slightly less as the long fermenting increases bio-availability of some nutrients.

This amount serves two/three with some curry


Ingredients
125g rice flour
70g gf flour mix (40%urid, 40%tapioca, 20%cornmeal)
300g water

Mix until smooth and leave to sit for a couple of hours or more in a warm place.  The dough should be quite thin - like single cream.  If it is too thick add a bit more water.  You should be able to place a ladlefull on a cold crepe pan and swirl it around so that it is covered completely.

To cook
Start with a cold pan.  Place a ladlefull of batter on the pan and swirl so that you get an even thin pancake. Cook on a medium heat until the bottom begins to brown. You will be able to see this without lifting the pancake as it is so thin.

Lift off carefully and roll to whatever shape you want while it is warm.

Cool the pan under cold water until you can touch it without any discomfort.  If you don't let the pan cool between dhosa you will not be able to get the dhosa to be thin.  Instead they will be lumpy and thick.  I read up about making dhosa and this is how they are usually made.

Because the pan is cold at the start of each dhosa they take longer to cook than if you were making crepe in a hot pan.  Be patient.  You may find them difficult to make neat- but they taste just as good.  The one I photographed was about my sixth - I didn't quite believe the necesity for the cold pan to start with.

These dhosa are partially soft and flexible and partly crisp.  I ate mine served with spicy chickpeas.

Tesco FreeFrom gluten free Hot Cross Buns

I know it is only January, but an idle look at the the Free From section in Tesco and I spotted Hot Cross buns, a traditional food at Easter.  They are wheat, gluten and milk free.  They have eggs in and cannot be guaranteed nut free due to manufacturing conditions.  I note that the dried fruit doesn't have any sulphites, so this is good for those of you that can't handle these.

They come in four separate pouches with a shelf life of a couple of weeks from when I bought them.  I didn't stop to check and see if there were any others with a longer best by date.

As usual slice in half and grill for best effect.  The photo of the buns slathered in butter isn't my portion - I kept mine dairy free.  I showed these as I think they have a touch too much clove in the mixed spice if eaten plain.  I suspect the recipe developer assumed people would eat them with some sort of butter-type topping.

These are a good addition to the available food.  My taster with the sensitive palate and love of dairy said it would be hard to tell them from wheat hot cross buns and thought people wouldn't notice if they weren't told.  If I had made them I would have wanted them to be a touch less dense, but they were very reasonable and conveniently packaged for a mixed household or travel.

Tikka cod with lentil curry and mixed rice

This tasty meal is high in protein and easy to make.  Frozen cod fillets coated in tikka paste and lentil and vegetable curry made with Korma paste make this a simple meal to make and full of flavour. Start cooking the curry before you cook the fish as curry is very flexible on how long it can be cooked but the fish needs to be eaten as soon as it is ready.

For two people:

Coat two frozen or fresh cod fillets with  about 1 tbsp of tikka paste. I used Pataks.  Cook according to the fish instructions.  My frozen fish needed thirty minutes in a 180C oven.  Fresh fish could be grilled for a charred finish.  I have given up trying to grill food as the smoke alarm in my new flat goes off everytime I use the grill and the whole block of flats gets alerted!

Curry
1 tbsp oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup orange lentils
1 tbsp Korma curry paste
2 cups water, more as needed
1 tbsp tomato paste

1 large carrot, sliced
2 tbsp peas
1 tomato, cut into large chunks


Cook chopped onion in oil until soft.  Keep the heat low so that the onions don't brown unless you prefer the flavour of the browned onion.
Add the lentils and stir over medium heat until the lentils are coated in the oil.  Add the Korma paste and stir. Add the water, tomato paste and carrots. Stir and cook until lentils and carrots are soft.
Add more water if needed.
Three minutes before serving add the frozen peas and cook.
One minute before serving add the tomatoes.  They should just heat through but not fall apart.

Rice
Use whatever rice you like.  I used a mixed rice with French Red Camargue, Italian long grain and Canadian Wild Rice because that was all I had.  Plain rice would have been more appropriate to go with the complex flavours of the curry and fish.  If I had served the fish with steamed vegetables rather than the curry the mixed rice would have been excellent as the different flavours and textures would have been more noticeable.

Serve the fish with curry and rice.

oreo-style chocolate cookies with white chocolate filling, gluten, corn and tapioca free

Flour mix two, made from a third each of urid, buckwheat and brown rice flours, continues to be a reliable mix for many baked goods.  Here I made a quick batch of oreo-style chocolate cookies for the grandchildren.  These cookies are a little intense by themselves but the frosting balances them well. If you don't want to eat these with the frosting filling you might want to add a bit more butter and cut the cocoa a little.  (The eight year old didn't eat hers. Tortilla chips filled the gap.  This flour mix obviously produces a more bitter result than my usual flour mix.  Cut the cocoa down to 30g unless you want a super intense chocolate cookie.  I was told they would be good with vanilla ice cream)

Ingredients
100g flour
1 tsp baking powder
40g cocoa
100g sugar
40g butter
2 eggs (use only part if necessary)

Filling
50g white chocolate
25g butter
50g icing sugar


Oven 175C fan
2 lined baking sheets

Mix all the cookie dry ingredients together and rub in flour or blitz in a food processor.  Stir in egg until you get a manageable dough.  If you don't mind the cookies being more rough shaped just tip the egg in and spoon the resulting mix onto lined baking sheets.  I did the latter as I was in a hurry, and just tapped errant dough into place with a damp finger.

Cook for 12 minutes in a 175C Fan oven.  This mix will be ok left before baking, or frozen for future use.

Cool on baking sheet.  Don't take the cookies off the baking parchment or tray until they cool slightly as they will tend to go out of shape. I tend to slide my liner onto the cooling rack so I can reuse my baking sheet, and this speeds  up both the cooling and baking.

To make the filling, melt the butter and chocolate together.  I use a microwave on medium heat for two minutes, stirred half way through.  You can use a double boiler.  Just stop before the chocolate is fully melted to allow residual heat to finish the job, or you might over cook the chocolate and spoil the texture.

Mix in the icing sugar.  Don't put all of it in at first.  You want a firm easy to handle wodge of frosting, but not so dry that it cracks.

When biscuits are cool either use a knife to coat the cookies with frosting or, if, like me, you made the frosting too stiff, just make a disc of frosting in your hands and press it onto the cookie.

gluten free spiced apple, cranberry and blueberry cake

This cake is sweet and tart with just a hint of spice.  It has plenty of fruit but isn't a solid wodge of dried fruit like some cakes of the wedding/christmas cake variety.

Many of my recipes happen in a slightly random way, driven by things that need using up.  Today I found I had seven small apples from a batch that hadn't been as crisp as expected, and were beginning to look a bit sorry for themselves, a large mandarin orange that had lost its gloss, and a husband that keeps wanting lunch early as there is no cake to go with his mid-morning coffee.

A large fruit cake seemed the obvious way to solve all of these problems.  I had already cooked the apples, chopped but not peeled, in with the orange juice and zest, before I decided to make the cake.  You wouldnt need to cook them first if you prefer the apple to stay in chunks in the finished cake.

Set oven at 170C fan
Grease and line two large cake tins.  I used a long pullman loaf tin (the lid is handy if the top starts to get too brown) which has a capacity of 3.5l and an ordinary one pound loaf tin (750ml) to fit all the mixture in.  I like to make a small cake for immediate eating and a larger one to mature, though having two different sizes means you have to keep an eye on how cooked they are as they will need different times.

Ingredients
500g cooked/chopped apples
juice and zest one small orange
500g dried blueberries
500g dried cranberries
8 eggs
300g soft brown sugar
250g soft butter (I keep mine in the freezer, so just zapped it on medium heat in the microwave - not so good for the precise temperatures needed for creaming, but fine for just mixing in)
400g flour
5 tsp baking powder
4tsp mixed spice

The flour used in this was 300g of my current flour mix(1/3 each urid lentil, brown rice and buckwheat) and an extra 100g urid lentil flour.  I ran out of flour and didn't want to make a fresh batch - so considering how much fruit there was in this cake just added extra urid as it will help hold it together.  I am sure 400g of the standard mix would have been fine.

Whisk the flour, baking powder and spice together.  Mix all the other ingredients together.  Stir together.  Put mix in greased lined tins and bake.

The smaller cake took an hour to cook.  Test with a  skewer or fine knife.  I use a knife even though I get a bigger hole as I find it easier to see the cake residue.  I turned the heat down to 150C and cooked the larger cake for a further half an hour.

Cool on a rack.

Good immediately; will keep well.

GF seedy crispbread - urid, buckwheat and brown rice

Simple seedy crispbreads made with the new flour.  These crispbreads are made with a little yeast to encourage bubbles; I haven't run trials of different recipes with just plain flour, baking powder as the raising agent, or added oil.  I also don't know how long they will stay crisp.   A good shelf-life on crispbreads is useful so they can be a store cupboard staple.

150g flour (one third each urid lentils, brown rice and buckwheat)
5g poppy seed
5g linseed
10g sesame seed  (vary to taste)
c120ml water
1/4 tsp yeast

Mix yeast with water if needed.  Otherwise just mix all dry ingredients and then add the water.  You should have a firm but pliable dough.  Leave covered in a warm place for the yeast to begin to work.  I like a long slow fermentation for the flavour and digestive benefits, but I left these only a couple of hours.  The dough didn't rise much being so dry, just became a bit softer.

Roll out into whatever shape you want.  I made eight rough rounds about 12cm across. Place on ungreased baking sheets - I needed four to fit all the crispbreads on, but you could make a more space efficient set of crackers if you don't have four sheets handy.  Leave in a warm steamy place to rise a little.  They won't rise much as the dough is stiff and dry.  I put a small dish of hot water in the oven and close the door.

Bake at about 170C until just turning brown - 11 to 15 minutes.  The base of the crispbread that is in contact with the baking sheet will brown before the top.  Keep an eye on them so they don't burn especially if you have an uneven oven.  Put back into the oven if you think they need a bit more crispness.  You can do this anytime if they need crisping.

Cool on a rack and store in an airtight container.

Piecrust; New gluten free flour mix - tapioca free

I have been trying my first attempt at a tapioca and corn free gluten-free flour.  The one I am using at the moment is one third each of urid lentil, brown rice and buckwheat.  It makes good pancakes, but they are very easy with almost any flour.  Pastry is more of a challenge, and I wasn't expecting much from this mixture - I thought it might not hold together and it might not be crisp, or it might taste so strongly of the buckwheat that it would affect the flavour of the fruit filling.

I made a tiny amount of pastry to test, just using the scrap of butter I had to hand.  It made enough for two small pastries, made in a cupcake tin.  One was double crusted, the other open.  The filling was some frozen gooseberries, defrosted and mixed with sugar,

30g butter
60g flour mix (1/3 each urid, buckwheat, brown rice)

Cut butter and flour together then add chilled water to make quite a damp dough.  I thought I had added too much water to start with but after a little further mixing the dough became well behaved.  I didn't even leave it to rest before rolling.  I took slightly more care lifting the rolled dough than my usual recipe, but in general it was well behaved.  It kept its shape well in baking and when cooling, not shrinking away from the tin or the joins.

The piecrust was delicious, crisp and light and suitably complemented by  the tart sweet filling.

For those of you not used to English gooseberries who are shocked by the sight of prickles on the fruit in the first little pie - don't worry, they go soft and so aren't noticeable when eating.

Whole Meal muffins

I have been trying out recipes using flour mixes that do not contain tapioca or corn.  These muffins were made with urid lentil flour, buckwheat flour and brown rice flour.  The first two I ground myself, the third I bought as flour.  I also included quinoa.  This was cooked whole and added to the mixture rather than using the flour.  I find quinoa, whilst excellent in terms of being a complete protein, can give foods a slightly acrid taste.  To avoid this the quinoa should be rinsed before use.  If I really need flour I then dry the quinoa in a low oven before grinding.  In this case the nature of the muffin meant that leaving it whole would be fine.  I have found in the past that if I use uncooked whole quinoa in muffins the texture tends to be coarse, with the quinoa staying too hard.  In a  slow fermented batter this would not be a problem.

I added banana, grated carrot, dried fruit, pumpkin and linseeds to the batter as well as egg and a little oil. These muffins are high in protein and would make a good emergency meal if travelling - hence another reason to call them 'Whole Meal muffins'.  You get your protein, fruit and vegetables in one neat package, with no added refined sugar and very little fat.  I use a little oil as it helps the muffin to keep moist if not eaten immediately.

These were a little denser than I would have like. In future I would add some juice or water to make a sloppier batter, which would aid rising, and add another teaspoon of baking powder.

If you want a sweeter muffin just add a little sugar or syrup of your choice.  To check this you can cook a tiny bit of the batter in a frying pan to see what it will be like.

Makes 12 large muffins
Set oven at 175C

Ingredients
150g flour - 1/3 urid, 1/3 buckwheat, 1/3 brown rice
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice
2 eggs
2 ripe bananas mashed (2 small - 165g)
1 large carrot, grated (100g)
20g linseeds
30g pumpkin seeds
80g cranberries
80g blueberries (or other dried fruit)
50g sunflower oil

Topping
20g pumpkin seeds
10g agave or other sweet syrup

Method
Whisk dry ingredients together

Mix all the remaining ingredients except the optional topping together

Mix wet and dry ingredients together and put in muffin cases.

Put a few sticky pumpkin seeds on top of each muffin.  This gives a crisp burst of sweetness on each muffin.

Bake at 175C for 25 minutes

Freeze when cool and use as needed. I find 20secs in a microwave is adequate to defrost them, or pack in your lunch box frozen where they will keep everything else chilled as they defrost.

Very Easy Turkey Noodle Soup - gluten-free

In the brief gap between when I stopped being a vegetarian and discovered I was gluten intolerant I enjoyed chicken noodle soup.  Yesterday I watched a programme about how Campbells Chicken Noodle Soup was made, so of course today for lunch we had Turkey Noodle Soup.

I am cooking the turkey carcass with lots of water to make a stock, so I simply ladled out two portions of this stock, using a sieve over the soup pan to make sure no bones or other unwanted solids were transferred.  I added a little salt and two slices of left-over turkey, chopped small.  When this was boiling I added some Ko-Lee Rice Vermicelli Noodles, which I crushed into smallish pieces. They are quite sharp so next time I think I would bash them with a rolling pin.

I cooked the soup until the noodles were soft, which took about six minutes.  The soup was very good and very easy.

Can you tell what you are eating?

This morning I got an email outlining the new European Food Labelling legislation about to be submitted for the second reading.  The other day on the Archers (a long-standing Radio Soap Opera about rural life) one of the characters were being dismissive about the other person having been to a lecture on food labelling.  Why am I telling you this?

I bought some rice noodles today.  I bought them even though I wasn't sure what the ingredients were and so therefore did not know if they had gluten in or not.  Those of you who have seen me don plastic gloves to pick up glutened food debris or dishes will think this very strange.

The packaging was transparent and the letters very tiny.  They said Brown Rice Vermicelli Noodles, so I thought they were probably OK.  By hunting for quite some time I found a tiny set of words which looked like they said Ingredients - Thai Brown Rice and Water.  So what was the problem?   In between the word Ingredients and Thai were two more words.  The first looked like Ingredients as well, the second something beginning in Z.  In order to be sure what it said I had to scan it into the computer and blow the image up large.  It turns out it said Zutaten, which also turns out to be the word for Ingredients in German.  The French and German consumers have to read their ingredients in  English.

enhanced and enlarged scan of packaging - Ko-Lee noodles

When I was at school one of my friends wrote an exam question about the properties of gases, solids, liquids and viz.  She didn't know what viz was so invented a whole set of properties for this forth state for matter, whereas it actually means as follows and was meant to show that a list was about to appear.

I had to be sure what this word Zutaten was as I didn't want to eat it if it was dangerous.   Of course, if the writing had been bigger it would have been obvious from the position of the semi-colon that the first three words belonged together and only the last two were actual ingredients.

I carry super magnifying glasses with me when I shop as writing is often small..  One of the worst culprits is actually Doves Farm, who you think would know better since they are in the business of selling foods to people with wellness issues.  One of their most widely distributed biscuits has the ingredients written in yellow writing on yellow paper.

I know it is a nuisance to producers to have to write everything in clear type that is easy to read.  Some have started producing fold out labels to get all the text onto small products - and then you can feel like a vandal if you open them before you buy as they don't stick back down.  However, I am looking forward to a time when I can read what is in things and where all manufacturers and not just a few clearly list the allergens in a separate box.

I'll try these noodles later in soup.  They may be great or they may be revolting.  At the moment they are just a new purchase that has used up about half an hour of my time to be sure what was in them.  If I hadn't fancied fragrant noodle soup I certainly wouldn't have bought them.

Gluten free muesli

You may have noticed that my favorite muesli (Eat Natural) is no longer available in my local shop.  Having looked at the ingredients for the blog where I reviewed the ASDA gf muesli I decided to make my own muesli.  Afterall, I used to make my own granola regularly until I gave up eating oats.

Ingredients
wholegrain puffed rice (Kallo)  225g
whole almonds, chopped  100g
sunflower seeds 60g
pumpkin seeds 60g
raisins 60g
apricots 100g  (used the sulphited ones for a bit of bright orange zing)
cranberries 75g
blueberries  75g
agave syrup 1 tbsp (a good squirt)

I mixed the seeds and nuts with the agave syrup and toasted them in a medium oven until they were just faintly tinted brown.  I mixed these while hot with the rice and fruit and left to cool before storing in an airtight container.

chop the nuts to a size you like in your muesli

dried fruit - chop to suit your taste

toast the nuts and seeds in the syrup

All measurements can be approximate - just grab handfuls of your favorite nuts, seeds and dried fruit and mix them into your puffed rice or  buckwheat or whatever you like the flavour and texture of.  Toasting the seeds and nuts with a little syrup makes them much more enticing for people who aren't too keen on a daily portion of the pumpkin and sunflower seeds which are so rich in good fats.

a bright and tasty muesli - and very easy

This muesli does not taste like sawdust.  Using whole toasted rice avoids that pasty sludge that muesli can turn into if you use flakes.

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We may not have enjoyed the muesli but this fox seemed to like it!

gluten free spaghetti test

Pasta test: Biofair organic fair trade rice and quinoa spaghetti (goodnessdirect.co.uk) and Le Veneziane corn spaghetti (Lavidafood.com)

I made two types of spaghetti to test this evening. I had intended to test three, but the Tesco organic wasn’t available in the shop when I went yesterday (unless I am imagining I have had their spaghetti? I usually buy their penne etc as it works very well). I served both with a Bolognese sauce made with a tub of mince and mushrooms from the freezer and a jar of Seeds of Change tomato and chilli sauce. After baking so many fruit cakes yesterday I didn’t feel like cooking, and I am still struggling to tidy up after the focus on the step-daughter’s wedding last week. My sister, Joy, had complained that her gf spaghetti tended to stick even if she used a bit of oil when cooking, so, of course, I immediately had to set out to find her a suitable product.

The corn pasta is bright yellow. The quinoa and rice psta is a pale brown.

The dishes are a bit splattered - I mixed the pasta in a dish that was a bit too small for elegance.

I know some of you out there can't eat quinoa, and some can't eat corn, but if you have a choice the comparison might be useful.

I followed the instructions for cooking on both packets. The quinoa one said cook for thirteen minutes, the other one three minutes stirring occasionally in an open pan then five minutes with lid on (though it did say turn off the heat and I forgot to). Both were mixed with same sauce and served from the same type of bowl.

Results

Views of Mr Taster, who tolerantly coped with two plates of food and quizzing…

“Both were passable, but the yellow one (corn) just was a little more chewy and took the flavour of the sauce better. The pale one was a little softer and didn’t quite hold its texture in the mouth so much though little difference, and it had a flattening effect on the flavour of the sauce – made it more neutral.”

Considering he usually doesn’t like to eat quinoa products in any form I thought this was remarkably positive.

My opinion

I thought that the corn spaghetti was considerably more bouncy. It didn’t seem to change in texture as the meal progressed, and I could still hold strands from high without any breakage fifteen minutes after the sauce went on. I liked the flavour of both though they were a little different.

The quinoa one definitely had an extra flavour level that seemed less usual for a Bolognese type dish, but it was very mild and you would probably have to be looking for it to notice.

I liked both, but the quinoa one was definitely getting mushier as the meal went on. I will check them later this evening both cold and reheated and give another view.

Preliminary test suggests that the corn retains its shape better and doesn’t stick together at all. This was the complaint I had had about other gf pasta.

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I checked a few hours later. The corn pasta was still firm and soft and could be lifted as full strands. It stayed this way after re-heating in the microwave. The quinoa pasta got steadily mushier, and could only be lifted as short strands particularly after re-heating. The flavour of both was still fine after four hours.