Gluten Free Blueberry Muffins

I've been baking a lot the past 2 days to get everything ready for my birthday get together tonight, so I'll have a few bakes to share with you over the next couple of days. I've had no kitchen disasters and everything has pretty much turned out as planned. There's always some things that need improving and some things to that you can do better, but that's half the fun of baking. Plus everyone's tastes are individual and different so I will not be surprised if people do make some alterations to these recipes.

I made the recipe gluten free by using plain free from flour from Asda.

The muffins tasted quite soft and light, with the taste of cinnamon coming through then you get the taste of the blueberries. This is definitely a recipe that I'd do again, as it literally took me 10  to 15 minutes to put all the ingredients together and get them ready, then 20 to bake them. I did test one  ;-) still warm from the oven and I had to restrain myself from eating them all before everyone came round.

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cup of Plain Free From Flour or Doves Farm gluten free plain flour

2 teaspoons of baking powder (make sure it is gluten free - Dr Oetker is if you are in doubt)

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/2 cup semi skimmed milk

1 egg
1/4 cup of oil

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1  1/2 cups of blueberries

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200 C 
2. I put all of the dry ingredients into a bowl, whisked the egg separately then added the rest of the ingredients apart from the blueberries into the bowl. Mix together with a spoon until the mixture becomes nice and smooth, as soon as it is please stop as you don't want to over stir this.
3. Add the blueberries and  fold these into the mixture
4. Put into greased muffin tins or line with muffin cases and fill evenly between the cases.
5. Bake for about 20 minutes or until you test with a knife and this comes out clean.
6. Leave to cool down for 10 minutes and put onto a wire rack

The originally recipe that I adapted is here.

Why not give these easy muffins a go and let me know what you think?

I hope you all enjoy your weekend.

Chocolate Banana Souffles

I spied this recipe on the Skinny Taste site a while ago and I was a little hungry one afternoon and fancied something a bit sweet and at 131.2 calories per portion, I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to try them and not feel guilty about it!

It was quick and easy to make and resulted in a nice light and fluffy dessert. I think they came out looking pretty good as well and I'd be quite happy to serve these a dessert if I had guests round.

The great thing about this dessert is that you can taste both the banana and the chocolate coming through, but I don't believe that either was overpowering and actually complemented each other very well. It was also just the right balance of sweetness for me, as I have got a bit of a sweet tooth but sometimes it can be a bit too much.

I did make one substitution in this recipe, simply due to the flour that I had in the house. I used rice flour instead of the cornstarch.

You can find the recipe that I used here.

I really enjoyed making this simple soufflé idea, so I think I will start experimenting with some different flavours.

Beef Rendang

As I normally work throughout the week, Saturday morning is the first time that I get the chance to be able to  have a lay in (not that I often do!) and have a relaxed morning. I normally like to have a leisurely breakfast and watch Saturday Kitchen. It was on this programme that I saw Rick Stein make beef Rendang and it inspired me to make instantly to put this on the menu for the following week.

Both myself and my boyfriend love eating different types of foods and cuisines and also making our own curries at home. My boyfriend tends to be the one who cooks the curries, because he does love a bit of spice. So when I did show him the recipe for the first time, he seemed quite keen.

We think the depth of flavour in this recipe was amazing and the fact that it is naturally gluten free and with no substitutes in it is good. It did have a bit of a kick to it, we actually put in a couple of chilli's less in ours, but you can taste this when you're cooking and use as many as you require to your own taste. You can always chop and put more in, but once they're in its obviously difficult to take the heat down. After tasting the recipe, we also decided to add a little sugar as we felt that it was slightly too sour so for us this balanced the taste out a bit more.

Frying the purée in the wok

I think this is a great recipe as it makes use of a cheaper cut of meat, but great taste of the recipe means that it doesn't feel like you're eating the lower cost cuts. Do remember that this means that you do have to cook it out to make sure the beef doesn't come out chewy and is nice and easy to eat. 

Adding the beef to the paste and browning the meat off

 The way the rice was cooked in this recipe was probably one of the best that we have tried, it was easy to do and the rice came out nice and fluffy and wasn't too sticky. The portion size was definitely a good size portion, I think you could potentially bulk the recipe up with less meat and substitute some vegetables in it. I have seen cauliflower and potatoes used in curries, so this is potentially something to think about in the future. 

You can find the recipe that I've used here, I suggest you give this a try if you like a bit of spice or curry as it's one of the better curries that I've tried.

Home Made Oxtail Soup

I cannot tell you enough how much we both loved this recipe, the consistency, the taste and texture were all absolutely spot on. To be honest, I don't think there's much reason to change this recipe. The only thing that we did was sub the flour for Asda's Free From Plain Flour and we used gluten free stock cubes.

This recipe is fairly cheap to make, but is not one of the most inexpensive soups that I have made. Oxtail is still fairly cheap though (I don't think it's quite as cheap as it used to be, but then again I haven't previously bought Oxtail so who I am to talk on how the prices have change ;-) ), but using red wine does bump up the price per serving. If you are looking to decrease the cost of this recipe a little, I personally think that you could get away with only using 1 kg of Oxtail and still get  4 servings out of this, but I think as oxtail is still fairly cheap I'd put in the full amount if you want to experience the full flavour and texture of this dish. There is quite a lot of meat in the soup, so I think this is a good soup to have for an evening meal.

These are the oxtail pieces which have been trimmed and browned in a pan, then removed and put in a bowl to one side:

The vegetables frying in the pan, before adding the red wine and returning the oxtail to the pan:

I also suggest going to your local market, or picking your own vegetables from the loose section in the supermarket rather than buying the pre-packaged bags (unless you have plans to use the rest of them in other recipes), this way you only use the vegetables that you need and do not waste anything.

If you are a fan of oxtail soup from the tins, then you should definitely try this recipe. It has a much stronger, richer and deeper flavour than the tinned kind, so why not give this a try. Most butchers should have oxtail and some supermarkets do stock this.

You can find the recipe that we used here.

Notes:

For those of you that are gluten free, please ensure you use gluten free flour and gluten free stock cubes (unless you use your own pre-made stock for this).

Two Ingredient Pancakes

For a while now, I've noticed a lot of people talking about pancakes with just two ingredients in it: egg and banana. I've seen people raving about these pancakes, saying how good they taste and they are a lighter, skinnier and lower calorie version of a "normal" pancake. So whilst I have more time on my hands today and in a bid to eat a little healthier I thought I'd give these a try.

The mixture was so simple to put together and literally took me minutes from getting the ingredients ready to frying them off in a pan. I think considering how quick they are, I could potentially make these before I go to work in a morning. I used coconut oil to fry mine in, as I've heard that there are many health benefits to using this and also I want to also test out using it as I've not really used it much yet. I was really pleased with how well they fried up and how good the pancakes looked.

The texture is slightly different from your standard pancakes made with flour, but to be honest I actually quite like the texture and given the ingredients used in these pancakes and the ease of making them, I think I will be making these pancakes more often! They're also brilliant for those of us living a gluten free lifestyle, as they're naturally gluten free.

You can put whatever toppings you would like on your pancakes, I think next time I will get some assorted fruit to add to the top of these. I also wonder for those of us who love chocolate, if the pancakes would taste good with some added cocoa powder for a chocolatey taste (I think I'll have to give this a try!).

To take a look at the recipe that I used and to give this pancakes a go, take a look at the following recipe.

Have you already experimented with flourless pancakes? If so please let me know how it went for you and what you think of this type of pancake.

Nutella Banana Ice Cream

I fancied some ice cream last night, as I wanted something sweet but I was really aware that I needed to make sure that it wasn't unhealthy as I have been treating myself a bit more than usual (bringing cake and cookies to work for my birthday). I've seen quite a few people talk about using bananas to make ice cream, so I thought I'd make some Nutella, Banana Ice Cream.

The is the recipe that I used for this, gives you a lovely hard Nutella ice cream, however I prefer soft scoop ice cream, so I decided to freeze the bananas first for at least 2 hours then add the rest of the ingredients to my mini chopper. You then have a lovely soft scoop ice cream, with a nice flavour but the calories in this are a lot less and it is a much more healthy and natural ice cream than one of the sugar laden ones you can buy from the supermarket (I don't tend to eat these as much any more as a lot of these have gluten in them). 

If you fancy trying this, then go ahead and look at this recipe. This gives you a great recipe for hard Nutella ice cream. You can still taste the bananas coming through, which is something that I really like. I urge you to try this, as I think with easy and healthy options like this, it gets much easier to say no to those sugar laden ice creams out on the market now.

I've also made a peanut butter ice cream, which was also nice. You can find the recipe for this here.

For some other takes on this banana ice cream idea, you can find these on the following sites:

http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2012/07/16/chocolate-banana-soft-serve/ 

http://www.skinnytaste.com/2012/11/guiltless-banana-ice-cream.html

I think I'm going to experiment a bit with this type of ice cream and try some different flavours out. If you've already tried this recipe with some other flavours, please feel free to share your recipes.

Cheese, Onion and Honey Roast Gammon Quiche

The day seems to have just slipped away today and my boyfriend wanted to make an oxtail soup for tonight's dinner, as we've eaten a lot this week! It would not be ready until late this evening, so in the end we decided to have some of the quiche I was making this afternoon instead.

This recipe is not a new recipe and is just a variation of my cheese, onion and bacon quiche here. I had approximately 400 g of leftover gammon from my honey roast recipe that you can find here. This was  enough to make 2, one of which will be frozen and brought out next weekend when I have a get together for my birthday! Always good to get a bit of the preparation done in advance.

I also put some red Leicester cheese into this recipe, as we thought the mix of the 2 different cheeses together in this would be good. We didn't want to put too much in though, so only subbed 1/3 of the cheddar from the original quiche.

There is no reason why you can't put sliced tomatoes on the top and in fact I think this actually makes it look a bit prettier. I also like the taste of tomatoes, but again I didn't have any tomatoes so I left these out.

Pastry

175 g plain Doves Farm Gluten Free flour

75 g of butter, plus extra for greasing

A pinch of salt

1 egg, beaten

For the filling:

170 g of cheddar, grated (please select your cheese dependent upon your taste, I used mature)

Approximately 80 g Red Leicester Cheese, grated (you can put slightly more in if you would like)

200 g leftover gammon -chopped

5 eggs , beaten

300 ml of milk

4 slices of tomato (this is optional, I didn't use these as I din't have them available)

A pinch of salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 sprigs of fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon of dried thyme

1/2 onion (optional)

Method:

1. Start by making the pastry; sift the flour with the salt into a large bowl. If you are using a food processor, please put in the food processor with the butter and blitz in short bursts until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs (please do not over mix). If doing this by hand, rub the butter into the bowl with the flour until you get a mixture resembling breadcrumbs.
2. Tip the mixture back into the bowl if using a food processor and put in the egg. Bring the pastry together into a ball and if it is still not coming together properly then use a little water, it should be a firm dough. Rest this in the fridge for 30 minutes.
3. Butter a flan dish, which should be 22cm / 8 1/2 inch in size, then roll the pastry out and place into the flan dish. I rolled mine out on cling film, then put the flan dish upside down on the pastry then tipped the pastry on top. Please place this back in the fridge to chill.
4. Preheat the oven to 190c / 375F / Gas 5.
5. Line the bottom of the pastry with baking parchment, then put in baking beans or if you don't have baking beans you can use rice. Bake it for 20 minutes, remove from the oven and take out the baking beans / rice. Bake for another 5 minutes before removing. Whilst the quiche is in the oven, please be frying off your bacon on a medium heat for 10 - 15 minutes. Chop / crumble the bacon into small pieces.
6. Reduce the oven to 160 c/ 325 F / Gas 3.
7. Sprinkle most of the cheese into the bottom, then place in the chopped bacon. Put the onion in if using.
8. Beat the eggs and milk and pour over the cheese and bacon, sprinkle the top with thyme. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on the top.
9. Trim the edges of your pastry and bake for 30 - 40 minutes until the egg mixture has set.
10. If you are going to freeze your quiche, please wait for the quiche to completely cool, cut into portions and pop into a freezer box and put into the freezer.

We really enjoyed this quiche and thought the addition of the Red Leicester added some extra flavour. The pastry was thin and buttery and the slight hint of the honey and mustard coming through from the gammon.

I'll be making a caramelised onion tart next week, something which I've never made before. So I assume its not much different from this, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'll also be blogging soon about the Oxtail soup, which is currently sending gorgeous smells from the kitchen as I type this.

I'm going to be testing out some healthier recipes next week, so I hope to be able to share these with you soon.

I hope you all enjoy your weekend.

Honey Mustard Roast Gammon Joint

So this week we decided to have honey mustard roast gammon, with the idea that the leftovers can be used for sandwiches and to make a gluten free quiche. I do love using leftovers and with 2 of us, this joint was fairly big so we will have a few!

Ingredients:

1 Gammon Joint - ours was approximately 1.8 KG

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons whole grain mustard

Method:

1. Place the joint in the slow cooker for approximately 8 hours, cover to 3/4 up the joint in stock (GF vegetable, chicken or ham)
2. Preheat the oven to 180 C
3. Take the joint out of the slow cooker, mix the mustard and honey together (it should be in equal parts) and smother the joint. 
4. Put into the oven and roast for approximately 30 minutes.
5. Serve with whatever sides you would like.

We served slices of gammon with fried eggs, but you can serve with whatever side or vegetable you would like. 

Like me if you have plenty of leftovers, they can be used for:

• Pizza toppings
• Used in a quiche, you can substitute the bacon in my quiche recipe for some of the cooked gammon
• Use gluten free tortillas and some salad for a nice lunch recipe
• Ham Hock and Cabbage Hash, this is a great recipe, just ensure you use gluten free stock cubes. The link to the recipe is here.

Chocolate Millet Porridge

Always one for trying something new, when I went shopping at the weekend I decided to buy some millet flakes. I've previously eaten this as part of some of the gluten free cereals which are currently on the market, but I've never tried tried them on their own.

The texture of the porridge is slightly different to normal porridge, so please don't expect this to be a like for like substitute. However, saying that I do think that the porridge took the chocolate flavour on really well. It was also really easy to make and the price wasn't much different to that of normal gluten free oats (At Asda on 07/03/13 on the website the price was £2.60). I bought my millet flakes from Holland and Barretts for a price of  £2.69 (verified on the website 07/03/13). I know there are some people out there that have trouble with oats, so this is a really good alternative that I would recommend giving a try.

I think I will try making some with apple and cinnamon next time, for a different flavour and texture. It can't hurt adding some more fruit to my diet as well!

Ingredients:

30 g millet flakes (I believe this is just over a 1/4 of a cup)

1 cup of milk or water (it should be approx 4 times the volume of liquid to the millet flakes)

1 heaped teaspoon of cocoa powder

2 teaspoons of sugar (you could substitute some maple syrup or honey instead of this)

Method:

1. Add the flakes and the water / milk to a bowl
2. Put the bowl in the microwave for 3 minutes, stirring half way through.
3. Add the cocoa and sugar to the bowl and stir until combined.

As I quite liked millet, I think I will start to experiment with some other recipes. Feel free to share your best ways of using millet if this is something you already use.

Steak, Chips, Coleslaw and BBQ Sauce

On a weekend we do enjoy a bit of a treat and for us enjoying a nice Sirloin Steak and Chips definitely falls into that category. You'd never guess that it wasn't me who did all of the shopping this week ;). I do appreciate it though, as I think it's just what I needed. 

We served it with French Fries, normally we would make wedges but we didn't fancy the fuss and so decided to use some frozen fries. If you're going to do this, please ensure that you check if they contain gluten, particularly if you're Celiac (I am not Celiac, so the effects aren't quite as bad on me) that they do not have gluten in them. I know McCains Oven Chips certify that they are gluten free, if you are in doubt. Some of their other fries and chips aren't though, so don't expect the whole range to be gluten free.

You can find the recipe for home made coleslaw in my Pulled Pork Recipe, we also used the BBQ Sauce from this recipe to serve alongside the steak.

If you are looking for some tips on how to cook steak, then please this site , as I think this gives some handy tips for cooking steak. We just seasoned the steaks, rubbed it in on both sides and cooked in a preheated frying pan according to how you like your steak. Please do remember to rest your steaks before serving.

What treats do you enjoy on a weekend?

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Today I've been shopping in Meadowhall with my friend and amongst other things, spending the vouchers that I got for Christmas in Lakeland. It took much restraint, but I managed to walk out with only a new flan tin, baking sheet and some chocolate shape moulds. My bank balance is thanking me for this though and I may well visit again soon ;) .

Putting the baking sheet to good use when I got home, I decided that it would be a good time to try out a gluten free chocolate chip cookie recipe. They are something that I've not tried to make since cutting out gluten. 

I think if you're looking for a fairly simple recipe with not much effort then this is your recipe. It didn't take long to make and only 10 minutes to bake!  I'm sure you could get your children involved too .

The recipe that I used is here, but I did make some changes to the recipe:

I used Asda Free From Plain Flour

I used milk chocolate chips and chunks of dark chocolate

If you fancy treating yourself, give them a try and let me know what you think.

Lentil and Smoked Bacon Soup

So after reviewing Baxter's Lentil and Bacon soup, I decided that it would be nice to make my own soup. I try not to eat too much convenience food and I always enjoy trying to make something from scratch. The smells coming from the kitchen were also good so it bode well for tonight's dinner.

I firstly looked on the back of the Baxter's tin and took some inspiration from here and I also took a bit of inspiration from this recipe of Delia Smith's. To be honest, I was pretty pleased with my lentil and bacon soup and I put enough smoked bacon in for the taste to come through.

I chopped the onion and bacon first and put these in the frying pan for about 5 minutes, until the onion started to soften and the bacon started to cook through. I don't know what it is, but I love the smell of onion and bacon frying in the pan.

After these had started to cook through, I put the rest of the ingredients in and brought to the boil.

Once you've brought this to the boil, you need to turn the heat down and let it simmer for about an hour. The lentils and the vegetables should all be fully cooked through at this point. I then blitzed mine with a hand blender. You don't have to do this, if you prefer you can leave all of the vegetables in chunks and have a thinner soup, but I blitzed mine and I was quite pleased with texture and consistency.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon of oliver oil

slices of smoked bacon (we used some good quality bacon from our local butcher)

1 large onion - chopped

2 carrots - peeled and chopped

1 medium potato - peel and chopped

2 celery stalks - chopped

1 tablespoon of mixed herbs (Approximately)

1 cup (approx 180 g) of lentils (I used a mix of red and green lentils -  ensure that you wash these)

1.7 Litres of Vegetable Stock (Ensure that your stock cubes are gluten free)

1 tablespoon of tomato purée

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

Salt and Pepper

Method

1. Put oil into a large casserole pan and put onto a medium - high heat.
2. Chop the bacon and add this along with the onions to the pan. Cook for about 5 minutes.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients to the pan and bring to the boil.
4. Lower the heat and bring back down to a simmer, cook for approximately 1 hour. The lentils and vegetables should all be fully cooked through.
5. Take off the heat and blitz with a hand blender (this is optional, you don't have to do this but I prefer this). Make sure that you taste the soup and season if necessary.

Notes: if you want some bacon chunks in your soup, chop up a slice of bacon and fry this off. Chop and add to the soup at the end if you want to blitz. 

Pulled Pork with Coleslaw and BBQ Sauce

For the pork joint that we bought at the weekend, I thought it would be nice to make pulled pork...or I should say the boyfriend made pulled pork, he does make it really nice though ;) . Slow cooked pork in a nice low oven whilst you are busy or at work, then finish it off when you get home. Serve with some crunchy home made potato wedges and home made coleslaw. It's safe to say that we all really enjoyed this recipe!

I had mine with toasted gluten free white ciabatta bread, which were really nice with the pulled pork. 

The bbq sauce was made from our own recipe and with the cooking juices that the pork was cooked in with some added extra ingredients.

I don't think you can go wrong with this and personally I absolutely love leftovers the next day at work. 

Ingredients:

Pork:

Approximately 1 kg Pork Joint (we used shoulder)

Approximately 1/2 cup Dry Smoked Seasoning (We used an american brand oaky and smoky dry rub)

1/4 cup of light brown sugar

1 tablespoon of liquid smoke

1 bottle of cider (500 ml)

1 tablespoon oil

Salt and Pepper

BBQ Sauce:

The cooking juices leftover from the Pork (approximately 1 1/2 cups)

500 g carton of passata

60 ml cider vinegar 

2 tablespoons dijon mustard

4 -5 tablespoons of light brown sugar

1 tablespoon liquid smoke

Coleslaw

1/2 white cabbage

1 large red onion

3 medium sized carrots

1 red pepper

1 1/2 cups of mayonnaise - ensure that you use a gluten free brand

2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard

4 tablespoons of cider vinegar

2 teaspoons of salt

1 tablespoon of ground black pepper

2 tablespoons of paprika

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 140 C 
2. Seal the pork in a large pan over a medium - high heat in a little bit of oil
3. Mix all of the ingredients for the dry rub together (sugar, dry rub and liquid smoke) and cover the pork completely 
4. Place the pork back into the large pan / casserole dish and pour the cider into the pan.
5. Put into the oven and cook for approximately  6 to 8 hours (8 if you can), until the meats starting to fall apart when touched.
6. Drain the cooking juices into a smaller sauce pan and set aside.
7. Shred the pork with 2 forks and cover with foil, which will be finished in the oven later.
8. For the BBQ sauce add the passata to the juices, together with the mustard, sugar, liquid smoke and vinegar and cook on a medium heat for 15 minutes until it reduces by about a third.
9. When you are reducing the BBQ sauce, grate the carrots and shred the carrots, onion and peppers (we do this in the food processor).
10. Tip the shredded vegetables into a large bowl and add the rest the ingredients. Mix well to combine. Leave to rest in the fridge whilst you cook the wedges and pop the pork back into the oven for the last 10 to 15 minutes of the wedges cooking to crispy up and get sticky.

Serve with some toasted gluten free Ciabatta breads, potato wedges, some mayonnaise and BBQ Sauce. 

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did.

Slow Roasted Shoulder of Lamb

On our weekend visit to the market, one of the things we picked up was the shoulder of lamb. We both love lamb so were excited to try out some recipes for this. So whilst browsing the internet, I came across a recipe  that I'd like to try.

I'd like to say that this recipe turned out perfectly and the lamb was so tender it was falling apart, sadly.... it wasn't! Unfortunately I think this was not a great option for a mid week meal, as we both work. The flavours in this recipe were really good, but it just needed cooking for a lot longer than the time we had. I think if I did this recipe again then we would pot roast it in the slow cooker, so it should be nice and tender by the time you get home without any fuss.

If you want to try  this recipe then just make sure that you have enough time to be able to do it justice as it does have potential for a great dish. I'd recommend this for a Sunday Dinner rather than a mid week meal.

Roast Beef with Potato Gratin

So we went to our local market (we prefer to go to the market for our meat and fish wherever possible) and had a really good deal on a pork, lamb shoulder and silverside beef joints. So we went away thinking of some good ways to put these to use.

We decided to make a Sunday roast as this and Potato Gratin and Dauphinoise Potatoes are some of my favourite things. I was really looking forward to our meal, it was even better as it was all cooked for me as well.

The meat was roasted with garlic, herbs and mustard so the flavour really came through. With this particular joint, he did cook it for a little longer as it tends to be a little chewy if you don't leave it in long enough.

We served this with roasted carrots as we prefer the taste to boiled, so these were put in the oven with balsamic vinegar and honey.

The Potato Gratin was creamy, garlicky and had a nice topping of cheese on the top. A really good accompaniment to the beef and the other vegetables.

Serves 2 (with plenty of leftovers)

Ingredients

For the Beef joint:

Approx 650 g beef (silverside / topside or whatever you can afford

2 garlic cloves - sliced

Tablespoon of mixed herbs

2 tablespoons of dijon mustard

2 tablespoons of Doves Farm Gluten Free Flour

Pepper

Potato Gratin:

You can find the full details of the potato gratin here

Roast Carrots:

4 medium carrots

Drizzle of honey

1 Tablespoon of balsamic vinegar

Olive Oil

Method:

Roast Beef:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C
2. Pan fry the meat  on all sides to seal, then take out of the pan and rest.
3. Slice some onions and lay them on the bottom of a roasting tin
4. Insert the sliced garlic in and around the beef
5. Cover the joint in the flour, spread on the dijon mustard, herbs and pepper all over and place on top of the bed of onions
6. Put into the oven and cook for approximately 1 hour, then take out and rest for about 10 minutes before serving.

Roast Carrots:

1. Wash the carrots and drizzle with the olive oil, balsamic vinegar and honey.
2. Place into the oven at the same time as the meat (approximately 1 hour)

Potato Gratin:

You can find the full recipe for this here

Notes:

1. Please ensure that you finely slice the potato to ensure that this cooks evenly.
2. You can start preparing the ingredients for this, just before the meat goes into the oven. It will take 45 minutes to cook, so should be put in around 15 minutes after the joint.

Serving Suggestions:

We also served ours with some peas and used the onions which were roasted with the beef to make onion gravy.

Gluten Free Bread

I decided I was going to give gluten free bread another go this weekend, it's one of the things that I haven't had much success in yet. For those of you who do not eat gluten, you can probably understand when I say it's one of the things I miss the most. There are some pretty good free from breads now out of the market, but I don't really think it compares to baking your own. There's something both comforting and exciting about smelling the freshly baked smell and eating a slice that's still warm out of the oven.

The bread was nice and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. This recipe was adapted from the original, which can be found here . I did change the ingredients slightly, as this was what I had in the house. I was going to make this in the slow cooker as I've seen this being talked about on some other blogs. Sadly, my bread tin would not fit into the slow cooker so I did just stick to the regular method of putting it in the airing cupboard and then the oven.

Ingredients:

475 g of luke warm water

1 sachet of fast action yeast

100 ml of natural yoghurt (I used Lancashire Farm natural yoghurt)

300 g cornflour

150 g Doves Farm Gluten Free white bread flour

1 tsp caster sugar

1 tsp salt

50 g psyllium husk powder

50 ml olive oil

Method:

1. Mix the water with the yeast and natural yoghurt.
2. In another bowl mix the flour, sugar, salt, psyllium husk.
3. Pour in the yeast mixture and the olive oil until a batter starts to form.
4. This should turn into a sticky dough after 5 minutes.
5. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes.
6. Put into an oiled loaf tin for about 30 - 45 minutes and cover with a damp tea towel and put into the airing cupboard. You can also put it next to a radiator or next to a warm oven.
7. Meanwhile, please preheat your oven to 240 C.
8. Put the load into the oven for approximately 40 minutes.

I did like how this turned out and will definitely try again, I may have to play around with the mixture a little and possibly try the linseeds. I may also try making a sour dough, as I believe other people have had some success with this.

**Edit - it does not refreshing in the microwave or toasted on the 2nd day before use again**

Let me know your favourite gluten free bread recipes and if you've had any success.

Pork Loin Steaks with Mushroom Stroganoff Sauce

I found this recipe whilst looking for some inspiration for the leftover pork loin steaks in the freezer. I love Mushroom Stroganoff and haven't had it in a while, so I thought that this was perfect. I'm really glad I decided to make this recipe, because we both really enjoyed this and the flavours in the sauce came through really well.

The recipe was pretty on target with the amount of time this took to cook and I didn't feel as though I was rushing about and really slaving over the stove. The original recipe calls for wine (or broth as a replacement). I used 1 Knorr chicken stock cube to make the stock.

I decided to serve my Stroganoff with trimmed fine beans and white rice (I used long grain as this is what I had in, but normally I would use basmati). The kettle was pre-boiled when I originally started chopping the mushrooms and onions. This way I wouldn't be waiting for the kettle to boil whilst I was making the sauce. 

I tipped the beans into the pan and topped with water from the kettle and salt, brought to the boil and turned down the heat to medium. The beans should take approximately 10 minutes cooked this way, or just until the beans and cooked through to your taste. The white rice should take approximately 10 to 15 minutes to cook.  Please put 1 cup of rice into another pan, along with 2 cups of boiling water and a good pinch of salt. Please bring to the boil, then turn the heat down, put the lid on and cook until all of the water is absorbed and the rice is cooked through.

I then served pork in the Mushroom Stroganoff sauce with the beans and the rice. Next time I think I would actually slice the pork steaks, as opposed to leaving them whole like I did this time. A good recipe, that I would definitely make again.

You can find the recipe here.

Notes:

If you have any leftover rice, please make sure you refrigerate immediately once fully cooled and you can use this for egg fried rice. Just ensure that you use gluten free soy sauce if you are making egg fried rice.

What's your favourite uses for leftover rice?