Category Archives: gluten free

Vegetable curry

Posted in food, gluten free, healthy eating, meat free, Uncategorized, vegetables by

Preheat oven to 180c / gas mark 5

Ingredients:

Curry paste- 2tsp ginger puree, 2tsp garlic puree, tsp curry powder, 1tsp turmeric powder, 1tsp chilli powder and a splash of water.

1 onion chopped

1 pepper coarse chopped

1 potato diced into small cubes

3 carrots diced

1 courgette  cubed

Small cauliflower

Tin of chopped tomatoes

Method:

Sauté onion, pepper and potato cubes in a casserole dish. Add curry paste and tomatoes. Add carrots and courgettes and stir. Place cauliflower in the centre and bake in oven until vegetables are cooked.IMG_20160425_201046

One week…

Posted in food, fructose free, gluten free, meat free, specialised diet, Uncategorized by

So…one week has passed and I have not eaten any meat at all (I have had some fish) and I cannot believe how much better I feel. The sluggish feeling has gone completely.

It has however made me realise how ‘alternative’ diets are still not readily catered for and I wonder if they ever will be. Let me explain what I mean. Yesterday, I spent a glorious day  helping out at a function with several people. All the helpers had lunch provided – a picnic. A picnic with standard fayre – an assortment of tasty looking sandwiches, crisps and delicious looking cake. It wasn’t an event ahead of which you would state you are gluten-free, fructose free and meat free – so having helped at previous functions I knew to take my own food.

The point I’m trying to make is that I couldn’t eat any of this ‘normal food’.

When my husband and I go out for dinner it can be quite disheartening when I look down the menu to see only a couple of items that I can choose from and a few more for him because he is only gluten-free..

Now I know, and I’ll say it before you do, that these diets choices I have made are from personal choice not a medical directive so maybe I should suck up and shut up. But, there are millions of people out there for whom a change of diet is a necessity to stay well.

I wonder when the balance of ‘normal’ food to ‘different diets’ will shift?

 

 

 

 

 

Roasted vegetable and cauliflower cheese tart

Posted in food, gluten free, healthy eating, Uncategorized, vegetables by

Preheat oven to 200c / gas 6. Prepare a 20cm loose bottom tin.

Ingredients:

Shortcrust pastry:

80 g rice flour, 140 g buckwheat or chestnut flour, 70 g ground almonds, 2 pinches of salt, 2 tsps ground linseed, 1/4 tsp xanthum gum, 100 g salted butter – chilled and diced, 2 eggs 3-4 tbsps cold water.

Method:

Mix all dry ingredients, rub in the butter with your fingertips until  it resembles  coarse breadcrumbs.

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Stir in the beaten egg with a fork. Add small amounts of water as you toss the crumbs together. Continue until dough is formed. I find that a gluten free dough takes up more water than a wheat dough and is quite a sticky dough.Knead briefly to bring to a ball. Wrap

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in parchment and chill for at least an hour.

Roll out and place in the flan tin. Prick the base with a fork ( I trim of the excess pastry after cooking to allow for shrinkage).Line pastry with parchment and baking beans.  Bake blind for 10 – 15 mins.

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Filling

Ingredients:

Carrots, peppers, parsnips and sweet potatoes prepared and roasted in olive oil

Halved mushrooms  – sauteed

1 onion sliced in to rings – sauteed

Tomato sauce: chopped tomatoes, 1tsp of chilli, handful of chopped basil leaves and small carton of passata – simmered to reduce the water content

Cauliflower -cooked

Cheese sauce

Basil leaves

Assembly:

1. Lay roasted veg around the cooked cauliflower
2. Spoon the tomato sauce over the veg and arrange mushrooms, onions and basil on top
3. Drizzle cheese sauce over the cauliflower

Finally put back in oven to heat through – 15-20 minutes (moderate temperature).

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