Choc-Chip

I'm going to share with you, my Choc-Chip Cookie recipe, gluten-free style. I've found when I bake my new Simple Bread, I can slot my cookie making in, after I've kneaded the bread. Because this recipe requires refrigeration for about an hour, before baking.

I like to find ways I can double up my baking in the oven. The bread hogs it first, then the cookies get their turn, last. This way, I only have to clean the bench ONCE after everything is done!

One bowl wonder

What I also like about my cookie recipe is, its not such a tough dough, I can do everything in one bowl, mixing by hand. I'm not trying to be a purist, or anti-technology. I'm just plain, lazy! It's that simple. If I only have to clean one bowl, one bench and one spoon afterwards, I'm extremely happy.

I might have to use my arm muscles a bit, but once you're over forty, that's actually a good thing! Because if you don't use it, you lose it, quicker than any time in your life. It also makes that first warm cookie out of the oven, all the more rewarding too.

So onto my cookie recipe. Any gluten free flour can be used in this recipe. All except for coconut flour, as that's a real moisture sucker. Besides, it already has desiccated coconut in it, to give the cookie texture.

Ingredients:

125g softened butter (I use, regular salted)
1 cup sugar (half raw, half castor - use whatever you've got)
****  ****  ****  ****

2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
****  ****  ****  ****

1 cup white, Gluten Free plain flour (I buy mine from ALDI)
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
optional 1/8 teaspoon xanthum gum
****  ****  ****  ****

3/4 to 1 cup choc chips (to taste)


(I find the cookies don't really need the gum, so try it without, at first. If you want extra congealing factor, add the gum)

1. Place first part of ingredients, above the asterisk, into a bowl. Beat.
2. Add second part of ingredients to bowl and beat again. (Image above).
3. Add dry ingredients in the third section, and mostly combine.
4. Finish by adding choc chips and mix until all dry ingredients are combined.
5. Place in the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour.

Ready to go

6. When oven is free, set to 160 degrees celcius, fan forced. 180 if not.
7. Grease and line 4 baking trays.
8. Use a teaspoon to take about a walnut size of dough and roll into ball.
9. Position on trays so they are not touching, as they will spread when baking.
10. Fill all oven racks with trays (3 in my case) and bake for 8 minutes.
11. Turn trays and also alternate top to bottom, bake for another 8 minutes.
12. Keep setting timer for 8 minutes and rotate trays. Total cooking time will be approximately 32 minutes, but all your trays won't stay in that long. Add your extra tray when space becomes available, because you will remove trays as each top one, reaches a nice golden brown colour. Like below:

Done and delicious!

13. Leave to cool on trays for five minutes then transfer to rack.
14. Makes between 38 to 42 cookies.

My kids love to eat these straight, or their favourite is dunked in a cup of hot chocolate. I pack these in my daughter's lunch box for school, and I also like to take some if we journey into town. If you're an active person or child, these are treats worth having in the house on a permanent basis. They're a little bit sweet and a little be filling, so you won't be reaching for worse things during the day.

If we go longer than a few days without these in the house, we crave far sweeter things. Because we're active people. We eat proper meals too, these are just handy if you've been extra active. Which we always seem to be.

2015 Christmas reveiw

There is such anarchy that comes with every Christmas. I keep telling myself not do so much, and to plan better. To be honest, I don't actually write this stuff down though. So I've decided to start documenting on my blog, what worked and more importantly, what didn't, this Christmas.

To what did work though, and I'm quite proud of these, because it has to do with food. Presents, are secondary in the line of importance, as you really want to feed your guests food they will remember at Christmas. Not stuff which will leave a bad taste in their mouth, and a belly ache.

Gingerbread

I wrote about the gingerbread men and summer holiday loaf already.  But here is where they worked in particular for us. The gingerbread men were the first gluten free ones I've made, in the past eight Christmases, we've had here. I only missed one year of making them. Being gluten free now, however, meant I could enjoy a treat with everyone else, without suffering. This was important, because making gingerbread men has become a tradition - something I really didn't want to be saying "no" to eating, when everyone else could say "yes".

Pull apart loaves, ready to bake

While I couldn't eat the gluten filled bread, everyone else enjoyed it. Plus it used the excess tomatoes and basil, we went to the trouble of planting in winter/spring. Which brings me to another deed which worked this Christmas. Planting food in the garden, to be eaten at Christmas.

I cannot tell you the relief of not having to buy a stack of "fresh" fruit and vegetables. Especially things like tomatoes, which often lack taste and come to you hard. Mine just sat in the garden, getting more tasty, until I needed them.

 Fresh tomatoes

Not only did we use cherry tomatoes and basil in the bread, but we also used regular sliced tomatoes for our steak burgers. We also found a way to use our excess zucchini, believe it or not! We made vegetable skewers on the barbeque, using our own zucchini, mixed with other bought vegetables (including peaches). If you've never tasted barbequed mushrooms with peaches, you don't know what you're missing!

So making skewers really worked on the barbeque. We made prawn skewers and vegetable ones. We would have made chicken ones too, only another family member offered to bring cold roast chicken, instead. Just add sausages and steak, some salads, and you've got a Christmas feast. One that tastes good, and shouldn't sit in your guests stomachs for hours!

 Healthy fridge - 5 days, post Christmas

Which brings me to our final thing which worked this Christmas - reducing our food offerings. We deliberately wanted to cater small, because we wanted to avoid food waste. It also ensured our guests weren't bamboozled with too many selections, and risked over eating.

This year was the first year, we didn't have oodles of food to eat as leftovers, after Christmas. It covered Boxing Day, lunch and dinner only, then it was gone! Well, mostly. Which brings me to where we went wrong this year.

Still left over from Christmas

We purchased too many convenience desserts. We should have just stuck with the pavalova. We didn't need two Christmas puddings (one gluten free) and also a gluten free Christmas cake. We didn't need two litres of convenience custard to go along with them either. Not to mention the waffers and mince pies, which mostly got eaten by my crew. There was way too much and it was completely unnecessary. We would have been better saving the money in the bank, instead of saving it to our waistlines.

After all, it adds no further enjoyment to Christmas, once you've had your fill.

 

 Gluten free fruit cake

Also on this point, I want to declare not to purchase gluten free desserts again. The Christmas cake was dry and tasteless. It will be thrown away because it was so horrible. That's $22 down the drain. There are certain tricks to gluten free baking, which if not done properly, lead to dry bricks. I'd rather have spent the money on our own ingredients, and baked something edible myself.

The reason I haven't attempted to bake our own gluten free, Christmas cake before is, to be honest, I'm not a big fan of them. I'd much rather eat a fresh pavlova, with whipped cream, fruit salad and Dutch chocolate-sprinkles.

Muesli takes a walk on our nearly finished wall

Another thing which went wrong was organising an involved project, too close to Christmas. Deciding to start such a hefty project at the end of October, meant we were scrambling right into December (up to the last week before Christmas) to get it done. Something I suspected would happen.

Everything else had to be crammed in around this project, and it felt like we were constantly running a race with the clock. I'm such a plodder by nature, and get less enjoyment from having to race. But as we had something big happening in early January, David took the opportunity to start the wall project, late 2015 instead.

 New retaining wall

In hindsight, if you don't want to be scrambling like a mad chook at Christmas, leave those large projects until the new year - or whenever you can fit them in next year. Because it's stressful to stretch yourself between fixing up your house/yard, which you pull apart to complete the project - while also preparing your house/yard for receiving guests at Christmas too. Both are important tasks. Both require time and forethought to complete. Doing them at the same time, means one (often both) are compromised on.

Problem is, I'm a perfectionist and won't compromise on details. So inevitably, I'll burn the wick at both ends to get things done to my satisfaction. Exhaustion isn't exactly a fun place to start celebrating from. We managed to pull it off this year (and have fun too) but I don't fancy doing this particular balancing act, as a Christmas tradition.

So this is what I wish to aspire towards, for Christmas 2016:


- Gluten free gingerbread men
- Our own gluten free desserts
- Reduced dessert selections on the whole
- Fresh bread, using offerings from the garden
- Limited food range for lunch, with quality food
- Growing more fresh produce in the garden
- Don't start large house/yard projects, past September

I didn't write in depth about these, but also want to note them:

- Look for gifts throughout the year, especially from local businesses
- Make our own gift tags, from old Christmas cards, instead of buying them
- Start cleaning the house and yard in December, not the last week!
- Note storage issues throughout the year and address them. Don't put it off until Christmas, to sort all the storage issues!!
- To this end, start de-cluttering in Spring, to find new homes for items no longer used.


A lot of the work we had to deal with at Christmas, was stuff we put off throughout the year. So if we keep on top of it early, we should avoid the bottleneck, by the end of the year.

Do you have anything you did well or wish you didn't do, this Christmas?

Convenience food

There was once a time; when I didn't feel like cooking and we'd order a pizza. We didn't do it very often, but it was still the quickest form of convenience food I could think of. Now however, I have a new way to use an old piece of equipment to whip-up a quick meal. How old is that piece of equipment? Try as old as our marriage - it was a wedding present, over eleven years ago.

One pot to feed them all!

It's our very simple and cheap rice cooker. You basically follow the instructions of how to cook the rice (refer to manual) and then I just add my own leftovers of meat and vegetables. It can all cook within the hour, and takes under 5 minutes to throw in the pot.

Mix 'n match leftovers

We used our leftover roast the night before, in this particular meal. I also sliced half a leek to add and a handful of frozen beans. The jelly and fat leftover from the honey-mustard chicken went in there too.

Purchased from Aldi

Instead of run-of-the-mill white rice, I used a very yummy rice and grain blend which is gluten free. Throw it all together, flick a switch and dinner is cooking while I get on with other stuff. This tastes much better than pizza and uses leftovers in a way that tastes new and delicious. To save money on electricity, I even switch it off ten-minutes before its meant to be finished, and let it sit until the moisture is absorbed.

I'm glad I decided to try experimenting with our rice cooker, because I use it more often now. This is one wedding present that just kept on giving - apart from my wonderful husband, that is. ;)

Have you found a different use for your specialized kitchen equipment?

Gluten Free Pancakes

Can a pancake really taste just like an apple turnover pastry? In my world of experimenting with Gluten Free baking, I've found a wonderful combination which does it's best to try. It was a serendipitous accident frankly, as I was looking for a gluten free donut recipe.

The one I found, worked brilliantly, but it was rather too fiddly for the few donuts baked. I thought eighteen would be plenty, but I underestimated how far they'd go for four people! It's a brilliant tasting donut recipe though, I just wanted a simpler way to use it. I also didn't want to use some of the ingredients. I'll put the pancake recipe down below, but first, the apple turnover bit!

Cook your pancakes as you would normally on a hot skillet. We like to use them when they're freshly cooked and slightly warm, but there are plenty left over to stick in the fridge and reheat in the microwave or oven, the next day.

Next, put some cooked and chilled diced apple down. Spread it around. I haven't used too much because of how I'm going to roll the pancake at the end. You can make your own apple filling or buy it in a can, but be sure to add a little sugar and cinnamon for sweetening and flavour. Don't go overboard with the cinnamon though.

Whip some cream and add a dollop to the pancake. Again, don't use too much or it will come out the pancake when rolled. When whipping the cream I add a little icing sugar, which I make from processing white sugar. Most store bought icing "mixtures" contain gluten fillers, so steer clear of them.

Spread the cream around the pancake, then you want to sprinkle it with some cinnamon sugar. This is what gives the texture of the pancake, that subtle pastry crunch of an apple turnover. You just need a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar from a dispenser.

I make my own cinnamon sugar from quality ground cinnamon. Most supermarket cinnamon doesn't even come from the cinnamon plant, but a cheaper substitute plant. I sourced my cinnamon from a bulk supplier of natural ground cinnamon and I can't go back to the supermarket stuff. It's lasted me years and still smells like real cinnamon.

I reuse an old spice jar with a dispenser lid, by combining white sugar and ground cinnamon, then shaking together.

The last step to complete, is simply rolling the pancake up. When eaten, it will taste ever so much like an apple turnover. If you want more filling, don't roll the pancake and just layer the apple, cream and cinnamon sugar on top of the flat pancake. Eat it with a knife and fork. I ate it both ways, and they both tasted incredible. I liked the flat way best, but by rolling the pancakes it made the fillings go further and is probably better for the waistline!

This is a once in a while treat, when we've been working hard in the yard.

Time for the pancake recipe. Bear in mind to use your own judgement with quantities. I've used a rough approximate for the list of ingredients, but you'll need to add what liquid to flour ratio, gives the correct consistency for pancake batter. I like my consistency easy to pour, but not water thin. I like to be able to pour it on the skillet, but use the back of a spoon to push the circle out a little further.


2 eggs
1-2 cups apple juice
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup to 1 cup gluten free flour
pinch of xantham gum if not already in the flour
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
pinch ground cinnamon
splash of vanilla essence


Mix all together in a one litre pouring jug. I use a stick blender with blending attachment, because its better at mixing in a jug without spilling over the sides. Cook on the skillet until golden brown on both sides. Stack on a plate with a cover, until all the pancake batter is cooked.

If you don't want to use the xantham gum, I recommend adding extra eggs...1 or 2 depending what size the eggs are.

The bicarbonate soda and apple cider vinegar, make the pancake batter lighter and aerated as they react to one another. Try your own experimentation with fillings, with whatever you have around.

A touch of bliss

Life has not all been sick patients around here lately. There has also been Gluten Free chocolate cake and Apricot Bliss Balls to be had. I will share the cake recipe another time, but for now, enjoy the Dairy & Gluten Free Apricot Balls.

Mmmm.....bliss!

I made these in the past, with the traditional recipe I'm sure many people are familiar with. It tends to involve a can of condensed milk. But over the years of reducing my sugar intake and enjoying the flavours of real food, I must say this new recipe is a better combination of simple ingredients. I was so glad to find it.

Food you can recognise!

There are very few items to mix together. I love when I can snap the list of ingredients, all on one plate! The only technical side involved, is the use of a food processor.

I followed the recipe in the link provided, only I modified the amount of coconut to one cup - which gave the right consistency. Plus I used desiccated (fine) coconut rather than shredded. Otherwise it was the same method and list of ingredients.

You should try this recipe, if only to know what a "non" overly-sweet Apricot Ball tastes like. If you're like me, you'll wonder why a can of condensed milk ever seemed like a good idea?

Gluten Free Shortbread

I love a good shortbread recipe. Being gluten-free, doesn't mean you should miss out either. This recipe for shortbread is very simple - just the way I like it! All the ingredients should be found at your local grocery store.

~ Ingredients ~

1/2 cup cornflour

1/2 cup rice flour

1/2 cup almond meal

1/2 cup icing sugar

1/2 cup butter (125g)

Sift all dry ingredient into a bowl and then cut cold butter into small cubes. Rub together until you get a soft dough.

Roll dough into a ball first (it's easier) then gradually roll into a sausage. Roll the sausage to about 5cms in diameter. Cover, and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

Remove from fridge and cut into approximately 1cm pieces with a large chef knife. Place shortbread on greased and/or lined baking tray. These will spread with cooking so give them space.

Bake at 160 degrees Celcius for 20 minutes. Edges should be very lightly browned. You don't want to burn these or they won't be as light, and melt in your mouth.

Cool completely and store in an airtight container. Made 16.

When Sarah and Dave came home in the afternoon, Sarah wanted to call them Pancake Surprise, because "surprise" they're not pancakes! Dave said after one, he wanted to go all Cookie Monster on them.

Not bad for a gluten free shortbread.

Gluten Free Spring Rolls

I found myself in a bit of a dilemma recently. I've had cravings for those large fried Spring Rolls. I never eat them normally but pregnancy is changing that!

The problem with Spring Rolls however, is they are full of gluten. I am not friends with gluten, or rather, it is not friends with my body. It likes to make me feel irritable, sore in my ligaments and gives me piercing headaches. So my dilemma became the occasional torture session while eating Spring Rolls.

That was no fun, so I went in search of gluten free spring rolls I could make at home.

Served with a side of "bubble and squeak"

Oh yes, these were really delicious. Made with rice paper wrappers I avoided the gluten in regular pastry. These don't have the same texture as normal Spring Rolls, but the filling still gave me that tang I was craving.

This recipe doesn't use meat at all and still tasted great!


Onto the recipe.

1/2 head sugarloaf cabbage - shredded
2 carrots grated
1 onion finely diced
1 bunch fresh coriander chopped
1 clove garlic crushed
1 inch piece fresh ginger, finely grated
approx 1 cup vermecilli (rice noodles)
pinch ground white pepper
pinch cayenne pepper
2 tabs gluten free soy sauce
2 teas rice wine (check to make sure it's gluten free)
oil for frying
{1 pkt rice wrappers}

~ substitute apple cider vinegar if no rice wine~

Prep fresh ingredients

I like to cook my filling a day ahead, because it can take about 4 hours before frying those lovely morsels. Most of that is fridge time, because you need the wrappers to dry after rolling. They are very tacky otherwise.

I made my filling in a wok. Turn up the hotplate to high and drizzle wok with a little oil. Fry onion (stirring) until transparent and slightly caramelised, but not burnt. Keep adding oil if it starts sticking to the base. Add garlic and ginger and stir.

Caramelised onion, garlic and ginger

Next add  your shredded cabbage, carrots, and stir with tongs until cooked a little. Add your gluten free soy sauce, rice wine (or apple cider vinegar) and both types of pepper. When nearly ready, add chopped coriander and stir through.

 Adding fresh coriander

The last stage is to add your vermecilli (rice noodles) and you need to prepare them at least 10 minutes before hand. I cut my vegetables then put the kettle on to boil, so I could add the water to the vermecilli in a bowl. Strain water out when you're ready to use. Add the vermecilli to your cabbage and it should look like this...

Finished filling

Let cool then refrigerate for rolling in rice paper wrappers the next day. I found my rice papers in the local Woolworths, but I'm sure other supermarkets or Asian grocery stores would stock them also. I got about 20 wrappers in the packet, and it turned out to be plenty for three people, including leftovers for lunch the next day.

Products made with rice are generally gluten free

Time for the fun part! Get a bowl of warm to hot water (I used a big metal mixing bowl) and dunk a single wrapper into the water. Depending how hot it is, depends how long you leave it in the water. I found a quick dip on both sides is all I needed at first, but as the water cooled, it needed slightly longer. You then stretch the wrapper on a plate gently and fill with about a tablespoon of filling.

Fold up the end...

Then fold in both long sides of the wrapper...

Roll tightly until you have neat rolls and place on a clean plate. I had a larger plate filled, but these were the last three. You don't want your rolls touching one another because they're now going to be put in the fridge for a few hours (uncovered) to dry out a little.

When it comes to frying, use a frying pan and turn your heat up until oil is ready. I used olive oil. You then turn your heat down to medium, as rice wrappers are quick to cook. Use tongs to place rolls in the hot oil. Only fry about three at a time, because they'll wobble around at first and threaten to touch one another. Once they do touch, you're going to end up with a split wrapper when you try to turn them, and cabbage will go through your oil.

My first batch did this, but when I reduced the numbers down to three, it went amazingly well. And that's it! Best eaten fresh but still lovely the next day.