Recipe round up

Thought I should post some of my favourite recipe links (all gluten free of course), to make sure I'll be able to find them again when I need them...

These protein balls are delicious. These felafels are cheap, easy and very tasty (and pretty much allergy free). I make these brownies every week to take to church and I don't think I've ever brought any home again! This stir fry is terrific - we're not tofu fans so I usually make it without - works really well with a packet of frozen stir fry veges for a quick lunch.

That'll do for now :)

Dinner tonight

In the slow cooker at the moment I have a big chunk of lamb, a handful of rosemary, a chopped onion, 3 carrots, potatoes, lemon juice and a splash of white wine. Should be good I think, although I never think the slow cooker gives as a good a flavour as the oven / stove.

Last night we had Indonesian style (allegedly) beef in coconut milk. Even Jeremy said he liked it! (J isn't overly critical, he just doesn't normally notice what he eats - this can be a good thing!) I'm trying to use the slow cooker more after my sister told me it would change my life (or something like that).

More cooking

Since Joanna's coeliac diagnosis I spend ALOT of time cooking. Bought gluten free food is hideously expensive (I'm talking about products that use gf flours, not the stuff that just happens to be gf) and not usually very nice.

In a typical week I now cook breakfast 4 or 5 mornings a week (only boiled eggs or pancakes - nothing too exciting!) and try to plan dinner to have enough left over to do lunch the next day. I go through cycles of being ok with all the extra work (extra when compared to my previous gluten consuming life) and cycles of feeling like I would rather gouge my own eyeballs out with a rusty fish hook than cook anything. ever. again.

I try to keep extreme fed-up-ed-ness away by trying new recipes fairly often. I find that I'm particularly keen to find good recipes to replace foods that Joanna might otherwise not get to have.

We had these burgers tonight with the bread rolls from this book (best gf bread recipe I've found, and boy have I tried a few!) and it was great, except that I'm pretty sure I'm not tolerating the xanthan gum in the bread recipe well. Arghh! The bread still tastes good without it, but doesn't have much spring to it. Looks like we'll have to put up with that though.

I've also cooked a few things from the Women's Weekly Gluten and Allergy free cookbook - the banana bread and the pizza scrolls are really great.

I'm always on the lookout for new things to try - does anyone know of anything that's worth a go?

Mmmmmore recipes

Just have to post a couple of recipes / links that have worked a treat lately so I don't forget them later :)

These cinnamon rolls were absolutely terrific - I didn't have cornflour so substituted Orgran GF flour and I used Orgran GfG instead of Xanthan gum. The mixture turned out impossibly soft and I couldn't roll it, but dropped blobs of goopy batter into into the pie dish and it turned out wonderfully! Mmmm definitely a keeper!

This lemon and olive chicken was great too - used lemon juice instead of slices, but otherwise it was basically according to the recipe. Great family dinner :)

Lemon cake recipe

I love lemon, and I love lemon things to be REALLY lemony... this is tangy enough even for me!

125g butter (or Nuttelex)
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 1/2 tbsp grated lemon rind
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups GF SR flour (or 1 cup SR flour, 1/2 cup almond meal)
1/2 cup sour cream or greek style natural yoghurt
1/2 cup lemon juice

Beat butter, rind and sugar with electric mixer. Beat in eggs and fold sour cream or yoghurt through mixture, as well as sifted flour and lemon juice. Mix well to make sure it's all combined. Put mixture in a cake tin greased and lined with baking paper. Bake at 180 degrees C for 40 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.

We like to serve this with partially thawed frozen raspberries and gf vanilla icecream.... yum!

Cooking etc

I've been getting very fed up with the whole gluten free 'thing' lately.... sooooo much extra work and expense involved for frankly not very inspiring outcomes. Last night though I came across a great blog which has links to heaps of fab looking recipes and I actually started feeling slightly keen on cooking again... hooray!

This morning before heading out to our college wives picnic I made these orange creme cupcakes. I made a few changes as I'm not that keen on xanthan gum and I didn't have any egg replacer and some of the ingredients are American brands. So, no xanthan gum, used about 2/3 cup of orange juice in the cake part and then had to add about 1/2 cup of rice flour because the mixture was so runny. I also used 2 eggs instead of the egg replacer, and used mainly Orgran GF plain flour instead of the sorghum flour. Used Nuttelex in the icing too, instead of whatever she specified.

They were really yummy! A bit dense but fantastic flavour :) I think it helps that we're in the middle of navel orange season at the moment - delicious! Next time I think I'd make the Orgran flour SR instead of plain and see if that added enough extra lift.

Bubble fun :)

It's water and bubble day at playgroup on Thursday and I've got the job of mixing the bubble solution. Just thought I'd record the recipe that seems to be working so I can make more later....

2.5 cups filtered water
2 tbsp glycerol
1/2 cup "Morning Fresh" concentrated detergent

It's just mixed, and it's making nice big bubbles. I'll try it again later when it's had time to sit and think.

***ETA it wasn't very good.... I think I'll use "Blast" detergent next time and distilled water.

Best gluten free playdough recipe

I've been searching high and low for a decent gf playdough recipe, and this is the best one I've tried by far....

2/3 cup maize flour
2/3 cup besan (chickpea) flour
2/3 cup rice flour
1/2 cup salt (table salt is best)
2 tbsp canola oil
4 tbsp cream of tartar
1 1/2 cups warm water
food colouring

Chuck everything in a saucepan and stir it until all lumps are gone before heating. Cook over low heat and stir often- this takes a long time! Leave it to sit until pretty cool - it will get less sticky.

* This seems to take more cooking time than "normal" playdough - it needs to be cooked very thoroughly.

Italian Chicken Casserole

... and while I'm on the topic of recipes, here's one of the easiest "having people over, must cook large quantity of food" recipes around. AND it's gluten free and easy on the budget!

Ingredients
Lots of skinless chicken drumsticks or lovely legs
Enough Homebrand Chunky Pasta Sauce to cover the chicken (I use 2 jars for approx 15 pieces of chicken). Homebrand is nicer than Savings in this instance, just so you know.
Pitted Kalamata olives
Grated cheese (check it doesn't have a thickener with gluten in it, or grate it yourself)

Method
Put chicken in a single layer in a big roasting pan.
Tip sauce over chicken
Put in oven (I cook it at 140 degrees for a couple of hours, or 180 for about 45 mins - 1 hour)
Turn chicken when it's nearly cooked, put some olives in the sauce, sprinkle with cheese and crank up the oven to brown the cheese.

Serve with rice and salad or veges.

Yum!

I probably shouldn't have posted this recipe because anyone who comes to my house gets served this dish and I'd prefer them to think I'd spent hours hand roasting my home grown cherry tomatoes for the sauce. Ah well.

Amazingly Yummy Can't-Tell-It's-Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake Recipe

If I say it myself :) Oh, and it's also nut free if you pick the right ingredients! I made this for the kids' birthday party last weekend and it worked out really well. I figure it's easier to share a recipe on my blog than write it out by hand, so here you go Santina:

Ingredients
125g butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup icing sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 cup blackberry jam (or other smooth, seedless jam)
1 1/4 cups Orgran gf SR flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarb
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup plain yoghurt mixed with 2 tsp brown sugar

Method

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees C
• Grease a 20cm cake tin and put baking paper on the bottom
• Beat butter, sugar, icing sugar till light and creamy
• Mix jam well with a spoon to break up any gooey bits, add to butter etc with vanilla
• Add eggs and mix well
• Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder together
• Fold in 1/2 of flour mixture, then milk, then other 1/2 flour etc, then yoghurt
• Pour into tin, bake 45mins or until a skewer comes out clean.
  
• Leave in tin for 15 mins then turn onto a wire rack to cool.
  
• Ice with something yummy (eg vienna cream).
  

I made 4x this mixture for the party and it was huge! Too big for my jumbo mixer, and too big for JoJo to stir (she gave up after one attempt!).

Pancakes

1/8 cup polenta
1/4 + 1/8 cup tapioca flour
1/8 cup brown sugar
175 mL buttermilk
15g melted butter
1 tsp bicarb soda
1 egg

Mmmmmmmm......

I've been meaning to post a recipe that I made tthe other day so I don't forget it, so here goes....

Curried Roast Vegetable Pie
1 onion, in wedges
2 small zucchini, in chunks
2 capsicum, in chunks,
small broccoli florets, approx 1 cup
small potato, in small chunks
tin lentils
med sweet potato, thinly sliced
2 sheets puff pastry
couple of tbsp korma curry paste
oil
milk, to brush pastry

Heat oven to 220C. Put onion, zucchini, capsicum, broccoli, potato in baking tray, add 2 tbsp olive oil and some salt, stir around. Bake approx 35min.

Line square tin with baking paper, put one sheet pastry in bottom - put in oven with veges for about 10 mins, to cook a bit.

Remove veges, stir through lentils and curry paste. Reduce oven heat to 200C. Layer sweet potato slices over pastry in tin, add other veges and cover with other sheet of pastry. Brush with milk and bake approx 30 mins. Yummo!

*I've adapted this recipe from the "Roast vegetable and Hummus Pie" in the April 2008 ABC Delicious magazine.

I took some photos of the pie but they looked foul so I won't post them... I don't think I have a career in food photography ahead of me!