Get Forked!
My response on hearing the words "gluten-dairy-sugar free".
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Mains
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Strawberry Apple Snow
Then like sorbet. Perfect for eating straight away and it is so good for you you can eat it any time of the day.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Here to announce the almost everything free muffin.
At least I think they are. If any of you have done what i have and gone from being a regular drinker of good quality coffee, to being a non-coffee drinker you may know this problem. Your standards drop. You loose your palate and while you can still tell a bad coffee you loose your instinct and the line between pretty decent and great gets blurry. You can tell this has happened because you don't mind the taste of decaf where once you spat it out.
So, I baked these (almost) everything free muffins and I don't mind them. I'd probably make a few changes next time but in all they go down pretty well with a cup of tea. In fact probably a little too well. I ate 12. But they were mini muffins, not the whole big teacup sized ones........ just pop-in-your-mouth sized ones. Still. 12. And I'm left wondering if they actually taste OK or if a month of not eating muffins has made me think they taste OK. The test will be when I hand them to friends (if there is any left).
I've discovered a happy coincidence - gluten free flour likes more liquid than regular flour. This means that replacing sugar with fruit works quite well as there is a lot of extra moisture. Which works well if you're going sugar free too, which I am. So it's working well.
Here's how it worked well today.
I made my sugar substitute by poaching up two apples and a pear in a small amount of water and then mashing it up.
I then got to work on the other ingredients.
Bake.
I was quite pleased with the texture. It had enough moistness and wasn't too heavy - thanks to separating the eggs first. With the loaf, I sprinkled rice crumbs on top of the oil when I greased the pan. This gave a nice texture to the edge. It really could use just a little bit of sugar and I will probably do this next time or else add a natural sugar substitute such as xylitol (yes, I have some on order - just waiting for the mail to arrive). Next time I will also sprinkle some cinnamon or grated nutmeg on top.
Recipe - Apple, Pear and Raspberry muffins.
2 sweet apples
1 pear
1/2 cup raspberries
3 eggs - separated and beaten
1ooml goats milk
100gms butter
100gm almond meal
100gm buckwheat flour
50gm gluten free Easy Bake flour
pinch salt
1 tsp baking powder.
Oil for greasing pan
Rice crumbs for dusting pan
Peel and chop the fruit, then poach in a small amount of water until soft. Mash.
Separate the eggs and beat the whites to firm peaks. Then melt butter and beat butter and milk into the yolk mixture. Add the other dry ingredients and fruit (about 1 cup). When mixed well, fold the beaten egg whites through and then add 1/2 cup raspberries (or more if you like it fruity).
Spoon into your desired container (pre greased and dusted with rice crumbs) and bake at 180 C until done.
Now here's a question for you? Does the absence of sugar and flour mean that it will not be as golden when it is done? I noticed the mini-muffins looked a little anemic although they had risen and cracked on top and acted done (didn't shrink when I took it out). They loaf was a nice golden colour on top but was in a lot longer due to being in a large container.
Also, does adding baking powder do anything to gluten free flour? (I just did it because I can't imagine baking without it). Is it the reason for the largish holes in the baked muffin or was that from the egg whites stirred through?
Also, I pretty much pulled this recipe out of my back pocket. While that is quite fun, it didn't make the perfect amount for filling up 12 muffin tins, like other muffin recipes do, so when I've got the amounts adjusted I'll let you know.
Any insights on how to improve this recipe or answers to the above question would be greatly appreciated.
Happy baking.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Something that resembles an everything-free devonshire tea.
Despite saying I wouldn't eat gluten free bread because it's too depressing, I found myself hovering around the gluten free bakery stall at the markets this morning. After lingering around some neat looking lemon meringue tarts, I diligently picked up a some gluten free buns. When I got them home I cut them open and took a little bite. It was quite scone-y in texture.
I'd also bought some lovely Macadamia nut butter (did you know that macadamia nuts are pretty much the only indigenous food product that gets exported from Australia? Oh, that and Roo meat. The Russians can't get enough of it.) Back to nuts. I thought about spreading it on the bread but decided the texture would be altogether too smudgy. "What I need" thought I "is some jam". And believe you me, I have lots of lovely plum jam in the cupboard that I made in summer, and some fab peach, lime and passion fruit jam made with my friend Anthony........ before I went low sugar...... Oh dear.
I did have some rhubarb stalks starting to look a bit straggly at the bottom of the fridge so I cooked them up. I thought the mac nut butter would be nice and sweet to balance the sharpness of the the rhubarb, and the zingy-ness (and wetness) of the rhubarb could deal with the too-much-smudge factor of gluten free bread and nut butter.
So. I quickly poached the rhubarb in apple juice (it only took a few minutes).
While that was going I also cooked up some goats milk chai, sieved it and put it through the milk froth-er and then made up the toast.
Rhubarb poached in apple juice on mac-butter and gluten free bread with goats milk chai.
Recipe
1 bunch of rhubarb cut in chunks.
1/2 cup apple juice.
Macadamia butter (you can just put some macadamias through a food processor if you don't have any as it turns to paste very easily).
Gluten free bread.
Cook the rhubarb in the juice until soft. I think you know how to build it. I toasted the bread first.
As for the chai, well, just make sure you don't use a chai teabag. Mine was 2 tsp tea, 2 tsp sugar (I know, I know, I just can't drink chai without it), 1/2 inch chunk ginger cut in fine slices, 1 cinnamon stick, 3 pods cardamon crushed, a bit of water. Boil it all together on the stove, sieve then froth.
Now the confession. The latest cooking flop.
Listen, unless you are Heston Blumenthal, believe me when I tell you this. If you can't find a recipe for it in 10 min of internet searching, it's because it can't be done. Take for example, my attempt at a black rice tart base. Buoyed on by the success of the polenta tart bases I thought I could do something similar with glutinous black rice. I ground some up and then cooked it in some goats milk like polenta. Unlike polenta, as I cooked it, it became extremely sticky. Gluey, one might say. Never the less, I ploughed on and sure enough, when I got to the stage of pressing it into the tart tins it worked quite fine. I thought I had invented a winner! The colour was quite a fabulous deep purple and I was wondering what would look good on this as a filling. The problem was when I came to baking it. The higher sugar content (I'm presuming?) meant that it lost it's form entirely once heated and dissolved into a bubbling porridgey glug at the bottom of the tart tin. When cooled this became sticky and chewy. I quite liked it in a weird food experiment kind of way, but seriously, there was no way this was going to hold a filling, and in the end, after a few optimistic chews, they went in the bin. Dang. But maybe I could somehow use this mixture to create something with a tuile effect..............hmmm........
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Snack Time
The perfect snack is of course hummus (homous, hommous, whatever). High protein, yadi yada. I've been turning out some great hummus lately. The organic tahini is lovely and smooth and mixed through well (no oily or dry bits). Lots of zizzing in the processor has made the hummous light and creamy with just a little grainy bite in it. Perfect. I followed the advice of a Lebanese friend and did a BIG batch of chickpeas in the pressure cooker then froze them in batches. Easy Peasy ready to go for soups and dips.
But, the other one I've been doing is making my own dukkah (is that how you spell it). Alas, I am, as you will discover, very bad at following recipes. As I result, I could teach you a lot of lessons about what not to do in the kitchen. I've learnt the hard way. I like to think that learning the hard way teaches you about why things do what they do, but I think reading a good recipe book would do more for that. So the following is my recipe which is nothing at all like the recipe I followed but I did record what I did quite well so if it turned out OK I could do it again.
Grind 'em up.
Mix with lightly toasted sesame seeds, smoked paprika and salt.
Ready to go.
I like it stirred into yoghurt for a different dip. And apparently it's good on hard boiled eggs.
150gm lightly toasted Macadamia nuts
100gm lightly toasted sesame seeds
15gm roasted cumin seeds
15gm roasted coriander seeds
10gm smoked paprika
salt to taste.
You can pretty much do everything to taste as it's easy to just add a bit of this or that and keep tasting.
For the yoghurt dip I add about 1tbsp of mix to a 1/3 cup of yoghurt and stir through. Sprinkle some on top if you want pretties.
And for Kami who requested the recipe for delicious rhubarb muffins with sugar AND gluten, they go like this.
150g self raising flour
pinch of salt
100gm caster sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
125ml milk
3tbsp melted butter
1 egg.
3 stalks rhubarb chopped into small chunks
4tbsp caster sugar
1/2tsp cinnamon
Mix, flour, salt and sugar together. Add vanilla, milk, butter and egg and beat until smooth. Mix fruit through. Spoon into muffin trays.
Mix extra sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkle on top of the muffins. Bake at 180 (350F) until risen and turning golden. Let cool slightly before turning onto a wrack.
Enjoy!
Friday, August 27, 2010
The Tart. Polenta Crust with Beetroot and Pumpkin, or Leek with Speck and Mushrroms.
So. Thanks to those of you who have joined me.
I'm sticking with savouries for a while. Yesterday was much more successful with the polenta tarts. I used this recipe for the crust and made up my own fillings.
You start by boiling the polenta with chicken stock and herbs from the garden.
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (I omitted the parsley)
I added some goats milk and a bit of butter too, then you let it cool before pressing into tart tins. The tip for using glad wrap over the top was a winner - no messy fingers.
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These were then cooled and baked for around 40 min before putting the filling in. When boiling the polenta it seemed too thick and 1 added too much extra liquid. This was a mistake and meant that they took a longer to blind bake then they should have.
Once they were a baked I filled them and put them back in the oven. If you have an oven with different settings (as I do in my brand new kitchen) I recommend the strong heat from below to give a nice bite to the bottom of the crust. Mine would have been too wet otherwise.
Here's the leek and speck one. I whisked up an egg, stirred the finely sliced leek and speck through and put it in the shell, added some sliced mushrooms, some hard goats cheese and a drizzle of olive oil.
It's not really burnt, it's the mushrooms!
Here's the roast beetroot and pumpkin one. I par-boiled the beets first to soften them before baking. I topped it with yoghurt mixed with finely chopped garlic and some left over oil from marinated goats cheese, and, a sprig of thyme.
I preferred the beet and pumpkin actually, the sharpness of the yoghurt completed the sweetness of the vegetables and held it together well.
But, I think I have a bit to learn about taking pictures of food. I was in too much of a rush to eat it so it was a quick snap before settling down for dinner.
Recipe. (Thanks to appogiatura)
Polenta Crust
1 cup polenta
1/2 cup chicken stock
2 1/2 cup water
salt
1 tsp finely chopped herbs
pepper flakes (I didn't use these).
Start by cooking the polenta. Bring the liquid to a boil and add stock. Pour polenta in stirring all the while and then cook for an hour on the stove top. You have to stir a lot. It should be soft and quite sticky when done (not gritty). Let it cool until you can handle it. Put a blob in the bottom of your tart tin (previously sprayed with oil) and let sit for a moment so it has a little bit of a skin. Put the glad wrap on it and press it into shape with your hands, then put in the fridge until ready to bake.
Bake until crust is crispy and golden. (She bakes 425 degrees for 25 min) . Add filling and bake again. Wha-la!
Thursday, August 26, 2010
To begin at the beginning.
Kill me now.
What will I eat? More to the point, what will I bake?
Preliminary internet searches confirmed my worst fears. Sprouting granola ??? (I kid you not) No, I do not wish to eat nuts that have been boiled for an hour and what the hell is agave nectar and xylitol?
I have decided instead, to search out recipes from regular foodie blogs and just use the ones which avoid most of the things I need to avoid, or ones where easy substitutes can be found.
It's not actually that bad. Firstly, I'm doing this by choice. (We're trying to be healthy to coax my eggs-of-doom into making a baby that can live). Secondly, I'm sure lots of people do this already and they probably have taste buds too and also like to cook. Thirdly, I'm giving my self a time-frame. There's a light at the end of this tunnel baby. Who knows, I too, will probably turn into a righteous fun-free food freak before you can say amaranth porridge.
++++++
The rules.
NO:
Sugar
Booze
Coffee
Gluten
Dairy (mostly)
YES:
Organic everything
Goats milk and cheeses
Butter (a bit)
Natural yoghurt (cows milk)
Cold pressed oils
Nuts
Eggs
Fruit (3 pieces a day)
Veges (Infinite)
All those gluten free grains and flours I've yet to discover.
Meat
+++++++
I tried not to show my disappointment. And the naturopath kept apologising each time she took away another of my favourite foods. I bit my bottom lip so it wouldn't tremble. I was so ashamed at how upset I was at giving up these foods. A part of my brain was lecturing me about foolish luxuries and gratitude that I can make food choices, but my heart was desperately sad. I love to cook. I particularly love to cook with butter, flour and sugar. My rhubarb muffins, baked for the first time this winter, had been a raving success at both my and my husbands place of work. There'd been requests, duplicate batches dispensed. The softness of the muffin. The perfect balance of sweet and tart and the crust on top of sugar and cinnamon.......In summer it was the blood plums poached in red wine and spices and then sunk into an almond frangipane held in a perfectly thin crisp pastry case...... Friends treasured these and with acts of incredible will power only let themselves eat them one at a time, so, like Charlie with his chocolate, they could spread the love out over the week.
And as sad as I am to be giving up eating these things, I'm equally sad to be giving up baking them. You see, baking and love go hand in hand. A dimpled pie of rabbit and fennel wrapped in layers of buttery filo speaks love in a way quinoa salad simply can't. And I just can't cook these things without eating them - you can taste the bitterness of my torture. It just wouldn't be right at all.
So this is my attempt to find new ways of spreading food love within the parameters set for me by those who know a lot more about nutrition and ovaries and babies then I ever will.
+++++
Walk with me as I embark on this food journey. I'm in the process of an early attempt at a tart case. I'll share this with you when they have been baked, filled and et.