Back from the land of the roses.

Sorry it's been over a week, I had no idea how hectic my holiday would be!
To say I need a holiday from my holiday is an understatement. We packed a lot in, especially food.
Before we left to visit my parents in Bulgaria, a friend of mine asked me if I ever worried about my food restrictions when I go abroad.
I'll be honest when I say that, at first, I was a little concerned but with the help of my family it has been quite easy to navigate.


Before my first trip away from the UK I spoke to some of my family who also have problems and asked their advice. One of my Uncles has severe coeliac disease and hasn't eaten the bread made here in the UK for many years, but when he travels to Turkey he can eat as much Turkish bread as he likes. As daft as it sounds the species of wheat they grow is totally different to ours and he's found that he can tolerate it quite easily.
 With this in mind I decided to try the bread in Bulgaria ( Turkey and Bulgaria are quite close to each other) and I found that, in small quantities, I can enjoy a piece of bread with little difficulty at all. I was nervous about it but as it turns out, if I'm careful my digestive system is able to cope.
 Not that I'm saying this is appropriate for everyone, but it has certainly proved the case with me.
 Of course there are some things I just cannot eat, things that are the same there as they are here.
The way I found to get around guess work and trying to decipher labels written in the Cyrillic language of Bulgaria was to lean on good old Google translate and find out what the word for corn was ( my only real problem food).
This helped me avoid it when buying any food, pre-packed or otherwise, but to be fair the Bulgarians don't fill their food with added unnecessary ingredients like we do.
Aside from all that, when eating out in any country the obvious rules apply:

1. Don't order anything in restaurants that has a sauce with it.
2. Don't eat pre-packed wheat products - Even if you can tolerate the local wheat that doesn't mean the pre-packed pasta and stuff is made from the same wheat, most countries import dried pasta.
3. If in doubt stick to plain meat, fish or vegetables.                                                                           And lastly, although not related to food intolerance but to food poisoning:
4. Whatever you do DON'T EAT THE RICE in restaurants. You can't guarantee it has been re-heated properly and trust me, no matter which country you go to they never cook it from fresh, just for you.

The only way to really make sure you can enjoy your holiday abroad is to opt for a self-catering apartment and take as much food with you as you can. I was lucky enough to be visiting family who, not only know my limits but also know directions to the nearest Lidl supermarket - they have rice cakes there :)

The point I am trying to make though is don't be afraid to travel abroad because you have a restricted diet. With a little bit of research and some common sense, you can enjoy a sunshine holiday just like everyone else.

It's nearly jolly holly time!

Well we're winding up for our summer holiday in our house this week so it's a bit hectic right now. I have had time to get into the kitchen though and I have two new recipes to share with you all.
 The first came out of boredom.
 I'll be honest I'm so rushed off my feet I can barely bring myself to cook a full meal when I get home from work. Ordinarily this would mean turning to my trusty slow cooker and living on one pot meals but it's a little on the warm side weather wise for that sort of thing. So we've developed what my Mum would term the " kill it and cook it yourself" approach. In other words it's every man for himself, so my kids are living on beans on toast, bless 'em. I wish I could do the same!
 Anyway, using what I had left in the fridge and freezer I came up with this little ditty:
Saffron Noodles
Serves 1
Ingredients

• 1 portion of rice noodles ( dried or the straight to wok kind)
• 100g (approximately a large handful) of prawns or diced chicken.
• 100g of frozen mixed vegetables
• 1 tsp saffron strands
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3 tbsps of goats/cow's milk butter
• 1 tbsp of rice flour.

1. If using dried rice noodles put them into boiling water to soak.
2. Peel and crush garlic and add to a medium pan with the prawns/chicken, vegetables and butter. Fry on a medium heat, stirring frequently.
3. Once the prawns/chicken and vegetables are heated through add the rice flour to the pan one spoon at a time, stirring vigorously. This is to make a butter sauce.
4. Finally add the saffron strands and turn the heat low. Allow to bubble for 2 minutes until the sauce turns yellow, then add in the noodles and mix well until they're coated with the sauce .
 Enjoy!

My next adventure was making dairy free ice cream. I did a little research first of all and found that most recipes are egg custard based ( Gack!). Not good when you can't eat eggs, so I pressed a little further and found several that were based on coconut milk.
I found one particular recipe that works quite well but there were a few kinks in it.
Firstly, it contained gelatine and I'll be honest there's absolutely no need to add it to the mix at all so I'll be leaving that one out next time around. The second was, being an American recipe, the coconut milk in this country is a little different so the result although good wasn't as fantastic as I'd hoped. Anyway here's the basic recipe, it does make a nice creamy dessert although the ice crystals tend to be a little big, so maybe this would be good in an ice cream maker.
Coconut vanilla ice cream
Serves 8
 Ingredients

• 3 cans of thick coconut milk ( keep one in the cupboard and put two in the fridge over night)
• 150g sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

1. Using the can of coconut milk from the cupboard, add it to the sugar in medium sized saucepan. Cook over a medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring frequently until it has thickened and reduced. Set this aside until it is completely cold.
2. Empty the two cans of milk from the fridge into a large bowl and whisk with an electric mixer until it is light and creamy and then place in the fridge for an hour.

3. Once the condensed coconut milk is cold and the creamy mixture has been refrigerated combine the two and add the vanilla. Mix once more with the electric whisk and then pour into freezable containers.
4. Freeze for 3 hours and then mix thoroughly to break up the ice crystals before returning to the freezer for another 3 hours.
5. Serve with fruit or on it's own. If it is difficult to scoop leave in the fridge for 30 minutes to soften.
 I hope that'll keep you going for a week. Next week I'll be looking at eating abroad when you're on holiday and how to avoid your "banned" foods.

Vibrant veg!

I've been messing about with vegetarian recipes this week. Don't get me wrong, I love a good steak or sausage casserole, but sometimes I just want something light.
Late last week I picked up some aubergines while on my shopping travels, with no real idea about how I was going to use them. My first thought was ratatouille but that seemed a little obvious. I wanted something different!
 Searching through my cook books I came across a copy of Barbara Cousins Cooking Without.


I'd be lost without this book. When I've began changing my diet this was my go to book. It's full of simple recipes that you can make and adapt to suit your own requirements and tastes.
One of these recipes made good use of my aubergines!
Here it is:

Stuffed Aubergines
Serves 4
Ingredients:

• 2 large aubergines
• 1 onion
• 1 clove of garlic
• 5ml/1 tsp olive oil
• 4 medium tomatoes
• 12 black olives ( you can use green if you prefer)
• 5ml/ 1 tsp tomato puree
• 3ml/1/2 tsp dried majoram
• 3ml/1/2 dried oregano
• 10ml/1 dsp fresh chopped parsley
• 10 ml/1 dsp fresh chopped coriander
• black pepper
• 55 g/2/oz cup of cooked rice
• 55g/2 oz ground almonds ( you can omit these and just add a little more rice if you are allergic to nuts)
• olive oil for drizzling on the surface
• optional: goats cheese or feta if you can tolerate dairy.

1. Cut the aubergines in half and scoop out the flesh leaving 2cm/1/2 inch around the edge next to the skin. Dice the flesh finely and place in a large bowl.

2. Finely dice the onion and press the garlic clove. Sweat the onion and garlic in 5ml/1 tsp of olive oil until they soften and brown. Add these to the diced aubergine flesh in the bowl.

3. Skin the tomatoes and dice the flesh. Quarter the olives. Add to the bowl along with the remaining ingredients (and cheese if using) and mix.

4. Place the aubergine shells on a baking tray or gratin dish.

5. Pile the stuffing into the shells, pressing down firmly.

6. Drizzle the surface with olive oil, cover with foil and bake at 400 degrees F/ 200 degrees C/ Gas Mark 6 for 1 hour or until the aubergines are quite soft.

These freeze quite well and make an excellent starter or light lunch.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. I served mine with new potatoes and salad and I also took some to work for lunch. Yummy!

Next week my adventure will take me on a dairy free ice cream journey, wish me luck!

The bakers return!

Well, it's been a good old while since I last posted. Life can kind of get in the way sometimes!
Well in the 3 years since my last post I've developed several nasty intolerances and an allergy to corn of all things. This had made things particularly tough.
 Nearly everything on our shelves contains corn in some form, even certain types of mouthwash.
 
The problem of course, is that the UK is not as up to speed as other countries when it comes to labelling and it took me a solid week of feeling like death before I realised my new mouthwash was the problem. I mean, Come on! It's mouth wash, why on earth does it need corn oil?
Any hoo, that aside, now I know my problem I can be even more vigilant. The trouble is some of my most favourite treats relied on corn flour so you can imagine how that's shoved a spanner in my culinary works.

Still, I've tried various other thickeners for my gravies and custards with varying results.
 To help anyone else like me, who does enjoy a custard or two, here's my top 3 thickening alternatives:
1. Potato flour/starch.
Although it screams savoury, potato flour is just about the best thing I tried so far. You do need quite a bit of it though and it's not terribly cheap.
2. Arrow root powder.
Good thickening quality but it does tend to make everything seem a little bit like goo rather than sauce.
3. Rice flour.
Nice and cheap if a little grainy. It does have a tendency to suck up all of the liquid in any dish though.
So there you have it. I feel great now that I know exactly what was causing my horrible health problems but now I'm on a new improved mission to develop recipes to allow me to enjoy my food.

Speedy Snacks.

Well, its been a hectic week in our house. My 8 year old has developed a passion for singing and dancing and as a result he's enrolled in all sorts of out of school activities. This doesn't really leave much time for foodie experiments.
So, the quest for this week was quick meals or snacks for days when you don't really feel like standing in the kitchen for hours peeling and chopping.
I have tried some of the prepacked stuff that our local health food shops have to offer but they're usually chock full of salt or other such preservative nastiness. Not nice.
So as usual I've been dabbling with bits and pieces and I've come up with two quick snack like dishes that could also be used as side dishes.

Orgran Risoni is wonderful stuff. Admittedly I only remember it exists when it appears in the bargain bin of the health food shop but that doesn't take the shine off how good I've found it. I've made quite a few things with it, including paella and a tuna rice salad ( tastes just as nice cold). What I've found it most useful for, this week is savoury rice. My lot love savoury rice and cous cous which usually leaves me abit stuck for what to have myself. But I boiled up some Risoni and mixed it with mushrooms fried in olive oil and garlic and it was gorgeous. There really is no end to the different stuff you can add to it, its definitely a good store cupboard buy.
 The same can't be said for the packet Gluten Free pasta in sauce you can find in the supermarkets and health food shops. I've tried several different sorts and they've all been far too salty. Now I make my own.
I accidently discovered an easy way to make pasta in sauce while on holiday last year.
It was the last day of the holiday and I was trying to use up the food we had taken with us. I put on a pot of gluten free pasta to boil and I let it cook for too long so that there was only a little water left (oops!). Then hit by inspiration I just started throwing things into the pan and came up with this:

Cheese and Tomato Pasta

About 50-100g of Gluten free pasta

3 tablespoons of Tomato Puree

Half a vegetable stock cube or 1 teaspoon of boullion powder

half a diced onion

1/2 teaspoon of mixed herbs

1 large garlic clove

any veg or meat you might want to add, the meat should be already cooked.

handful of grated cheese, any will be good but Parmesan is really nice.


1. Cook the pasta in the usual way with plenty of water. Once the pasta is tender drain 2/3 of the water away, whats left will make the sauce.
2. Put the pan back on the heat but turn it down. Add the stock cube/ boullion, tomato puree , onions, garlic and herbs and stir well.
3. Cook gently for a few minutes stirring occasionally to stop it sticking.
4. Next add any veg or meat you'd like to the mixture.
5. Continue to cook until the sauce is thick then add the cheese, stir well and serve.

Unfortunately, this is a dish that needs to be eaten straight away. It doesn't keep very well and it can't be frozen.
ENJOY!!

It's all about the dough!

Like everyone else, I'm feeling the financial squeeze. Although this month its more like the financial bear hugging crush. So with money on my mind I decided to avoid buying gluten free bread and to perfect my one breadmaking recipe instead. Its a recipe i found on the internet a few years ago for a rice flour bread.
 My first attempt with it, many months ago, left me with a slab of what can only be described as partially edible glutenfree rock. To quote Neil from the Young ones, it was "Heaveeeee man!". But as times weren't quite so tight then I left that recipe at the back of my book and decided to go on a quest to find a decent supermarket loaf that didn't disintegrate when toasted ( I'm still looking!).
I've recently discovered that as well as the usual gluten free bread brands, Warburtons have now jumped on the special diet bandwagon with their own brand of gluten free breads. "Brilliant!" I said to myself, an actual baker that's making Gluten free bread. May be I'll finally be able to have toast and marmite that doesn't turn into cat litter sized pieces the second it leaves the toaster. So the next time I was in Tesco's (or Fiasco's as my friend Jo has renamed it), I made a point of looking for it. Well, I think you can guess the next bit........
I found it...... and I nearly died of indignation. £2.89!!!!! for a 200g loaf. I think the other shoppers in Tesco thought I was a mad person and I'm sure I was heard in the next county when I almost screamed " HOW MUCH?????".
It does beg the question, if the alternative flours they use are cheaper than high grade wheat ( most of them are) then how can they get away with such extortionate prices?
Well, it certainly spurred me on to re-try that recipe I'd left gathering dust on my book shelf. With renewed determination I tried again.
This time, i put in more liquid, added abit of cornmeal to give it abit more of a bread like taste ( it was abit yeasty before) and I mixed it by hand before putting the dough in the bread maker. I switched from the medium crust setting that the recipe suggested and I set it to light crust.And I abandoned the idea of Rice flour all together in favour of Doves Farm G.F Bread Flour.
Then, like a moron, i watched it through the window in the bread maker. Yes I'm mental, but I love toast and marmite, so that kinda says it all.
Success!!! It rose twice as high as before and it felt more like bread than my last attempt. You couldn't make sarnies with it though, its just not that kind of loaf but when you toast it, its the closest thing I've had to traditional bread in a long time :)
Its good base recipe to mess with and tweak to your hearts desire. Its measured in cups  because its an American recipe. i picked up a set of measuring cups from the Pound shop but you could just use the one that comes with your bread maker.

Toasting Bread

1 Large egg

2 cups of milk ( I used cows milk but I expect it would work with any kind)

3 teaspoons of oil

3/4 teaspoon of salt

1 Tablespoon of Honey/Golden syrup/Agave Nectar/Sweet Freedom Syrup

2 cups of Gluten free Bread flour

1/2 Cup of fine Cornmeal

1/4 cup of Hot Tap warm water ( I filled the cup from the hot tap just before it got scorching)

1 sachet of bread making yeast.

1. In a large bowl, beat the egg and milk together then add all of the other ingredients in list order.

2. Mix until it forms a sticky dough adding more warm water if necessary.

3. pour the dough into the bread maker. Set to 1/12lb loaf, light crust , Basic setting.

4.when finished open the lid on the bread maker and let the bread stand for 10 minutes, before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Enjoy!!

Cake cravings!!

I have been so bad this week. I've had such terrible sugar cravings that avoiding the chocolates left over from Christmas has been very difficult. In an attempt to avoid falling off the food wagon and giving myself a food hangover I've made a couple of my standby recipes, the ones designed to satisfy my cravings with minimal damage and only a small dose of guilt.
Banana bread was something I made regularly with my mum when I was a kid. It was  the best way to use up squishy bananas and the blacker the skins the sweeter the fruit, that way you can get away with leaving out the sugar. I put dried apricots in mine as well to give abit of sweetness. Not the nasty bright orange ones though, they're just unnatural, nasty things covered in sulphites guaranteed to give you a jippy stomach (Bleugh!).

 Brilliant Banana Bread

8 oz Rice Flour ( sometimes if I run out of rice flour I use doves farm gluten free self raising instead)

4oz vegetable margarine

2 eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder ( don't forget to add this, I forgot once and ended up with a spongy biscuit!)

5 or 6 dried apricots, chopped quite small (unsulphured, I buy crazy jack organic ones, expensive but worth it)

3 tablespoons of sweetened soya milk, you might need abit more depending on the consistency of the mixture, don't add to much though or it'll take ages to cook in the middle.

Set the oven to gas mark 4 or the electric equivalent, and grease and line a 2lb loaf tin.


1. Sieve the flour and baking powder into a bowl.

2. Add the margarine and mix together using chopping motions until you get rough breadcrumb sized pieces.

3. Next stir in the apricots followed by the two eggs.

4. Finally add the soya milk and stir really well to mix thoroughly. Pour into your loaf tin and bake for between 45 mins and an hour. Test the middle with a skewer or cocktail stick to check that the middle is cooked.

5. Turn out onto a rack to cool. This cake is perfect for freezing, that's if it lasts long enough!!

I spread margarine or fruit spread on mine, it is very moreish though so expect it to disappear very quickly!!

My other guilty pleasure this week has been Bakewell tart. Its one of those things that I didn't realise I missed until I couldn't have it anymore. I found a recipe for it in a book I borrowed from a friend of mine but it was quite bland to be honest so I fiddled with it. Now I can make it with only a little sugar by increasing the amount of almond essence that I put in the frangipan mixture and by spreading morello cherry fruit spread in the pastry case first. The original recipe didn't incorporate any raspberry or cherry filling and I'll be honest the chickpea flour pastry it featured tasted like frozen peas!!! I make it with gluten free flour and a touch of mixed spice, its much nicer. It can be hard adapting recipes sometimes, especially when you have quite a few intolerance's but its not impossible you just have to persevere through the disasters.

Well, i'm back on the wagon now, lets hope i can spend the next week avoiding "junk" and cracking on with some new foodie experiences.