Gluten Free Friday: Alycake

Alycake (and Aly, the Vigilante) was the main inspiration behind GFF. I thought that it would suck to not be able to eat gluten, so originally I was going to do gluten-free week to challenge myself to make things that were tasty and quick and non-glutenous. Then I was like, OR I can do something every week. In retrospect, a lot more (continuous) work, but it's fun! Also now that the Uber-Blonde is GF as well, its nice to know that I can always steal recipes from her blog to replicate if I have an uninspired week. Heh.

So guys, this is Aly, eating her Alycakes at Tim Minchin last weekend.

Actually, before I introduce you, can I just take a second to say OH MY GOD TIM MINCHIN WITH AN ORCHESTRA BLEW MY MIND. And that here is a photo of me and Miss Italia dancing (he hadn't even started by this point, we just decided to get our groove on).

Ok, carry on.

ALYCAKES
Makes 12 small cakes
Total time commitment: 40 minutes
Adapted from recipe on the Xylitol website

2 eggs
75g almond meal
75g sugar
Pinch of baking powder
Vanilla essence (see note below)

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Beat eggs and add other ingredients. Mix until smooth, pour into cake tin and bake 15-20 minutes.

TADA.

But seriously, flavour these however you want. I tried orange, as in the original recipe, but it didn't really do it for me. I've done them with no flavouring in the mixture but lemon zest grated on top. Its a pretty stock-standard gluten free recipe, which just means you can keep adapting it to your (or your lucky gluten-free buddy's) tastes! Bravo, recipe. Bravo.

Coconut Bread

Good morning pumpkins! I hope your week has started off splendidly. I overslept and now I'm a bit grumpy (not that I missed anything, but its true that when you turn off your alarm and fall back asleep you feel worse when you eventually get up), but I'm going grocery shopping soon and then working through my massive to-do list before Panto starts up again tonight! Its Scooby-Doo themed, and we find out the casting tonight. Fingers crossed my Velma-esque haircut swayed the casting panel a bit :P From what I've heard so far, the script is hilarious so I am mucho excited.

I was also mucho excited to make this Jamie Oliver recipe coconut bread, because I thought it would be a good breakfast food, and gosh-darn was I right! My only problem was that there was a lot of sugar (luckily after reading the UB's post on Jamie Oliver sorbet, I had the foresight to halve it when I thought the measurement was excessive) and it was kind of cakey in consistency as opposed to bready, but I also undercooked it a little so the middle was still a bit doughy and that could be why. Regardless, it was a nice breakfast and snack food while it lasted!

COCONUT BREAD
Serves 8-10
Total time commitment: 1 hour 30 minutes, most of which is baking
Adapted from Jamie Magazine, Sept/Oct 2010


3 eggs
400ml milk
300g self-raising flour
100g caster sugar
180g dessicated coconut
1 vanilla pod, split, seeds scraped/1 tsp vanilla extract/1 tsp vanilla essence
100g unsalted butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 180C and grease a loaf tin with butter. Whisk eggs and milk together.

2. Combine dry ingredients (flour, sugar, coconut and vanilla) in a bowl. Make a well in the centre and gradually add egg mixture, then butter, mixing until smooth.

3. Bake for one hour.

Notes:
- The original recipe calls for 200g each of sugar and coconut
- Recommended loaf tin size is 22x8cm
- You are pretty :)

LOOK AT HOW DELICIOUS THIS PIZZA LOOKS.

JUST LOOK AT IT, FOR GOODNESS SAKE.

Ignore the quality of the photo, focus on the deliciousness of the pizza and how evenly spread the toppings are. It was possibly the best pizza I've ever eaten, ever.

Gluten Free Friday: Leek and Parmesan Risotto

I don't want to constantly "resort" to rice as a staple of my GFF meals, so I'm trying to avoid it entirely, but this was too good to pass up. I bought a bunch of leek on a whim at the farmers' market (goodness knows why, because its a winter vegetable and we're in the middle of a darn heatwave, so it was expensive) and had to find a way to use it all up once it was cooked. This ticked all the boxes for a weekend meal - quick, easy, not too many ingredients, delicious, and I didn't have to think too much to cook it. Perfect, no?

If you've read my previous risotto recipe, I found a rather ingenious way to cook risotto on Not Quite Nigella that doesn't involve slaving away over a hot stove for 40 minutes. Just for funsies, I actually made risotto the *proper* way for the Vigilante one night, and it didn't taste markedly different. Actually, I hated that risotto, but thats another story for another day.

LEEK AND PARMESAN RISOTTO
Serves 4
Total time commitment: 45 minutes (including 20-30 minutes cooking time)


2 leeks
Parmesan
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
4 cups stock, heated

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Place rice and stock into a large baking dish, cover with alfoil and bake for 30-40 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, wash the leeks carefully and cut into discs, discarding the root and dark green leaves.

4. Cover the leeks with water in a large pot. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes.

5. Combine leek and rice, serve and top with cracked pepper and parmesan to taste.

Cooking Basics: Rissoles

Get all of the ingredients together. You'll need an onion, a carrot, breadcrumbs, tomato sauce, salt and pepper, basil, oregano, and mince. 

Dice the onion and put it in a bowl with the mince

Grate the carrot into the bowl

Don't forget a dollop of tomato sauce for sweetness and that extra tang

(Name that song!)

(...)

(... anyone?)

Season with salt, pepper and herbs as you see fit. 

Add breadcrumbs. These help to absorb some of the fat in the meat. So it follows that the fattier the mince, the more breadcrumbs you use.

Fry them in a little oil, and try not to cringe at the blurriness of this photo...

And serve!

You can add an egg to help bind them together a little better, if you so wish. 

RISSOLES

1kg mince

1 onion, finely diced

1 carrot, grated

Tomato sauce

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

Salt, pepper, basil and oregano, to taste

1 egg

1. Combine mince, onion and carrot in a bowl.

2. Add salt, pepper and herbs to taste, a dash of tomato sauce, egg and breadcrumbs. Combine. 

3. Shape into patties and fry in a little oil until cooked through.

Daring Bakers: Panna Cotta

You should have seen my face when I read about this month's Daring Bakers. I was fuming. If there's anything I hate in this world, it is panna cotta. Heck, I'd even eaten an awful panna cotta on a camp not three days before!

Luckily for my tastebuds, though, I stuck with it, because this was delicious. And if you look at the ingredients, why wouldn't it be? It's essentially cream and honey. The Florentine biscuits were a little too chewy for my taste, almost a sub-par Anzac biscuit (and I do love a good Anzac biscuit), but they all got eaten.

You can find the recipe for this month's Daring Bakers challenge here.

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

Chickpea Salad Dressing

Have you checked out Shutterbean? I have me some ridiculous amounts of love for that blog, you don't even know, and it all started out with the link to some biscuits. I was like, cool, I'll bookmark that, you know, maybe even check out the archives a bit. BAM! Hours of life gone, loads of recipes bookmarked, lots of smiling reading through Tracy's posts.

As you have *probably* guessed from that intro, this is one of the aforementioned recipes.

I must admit, I'm not really one for salad dressings, but this one really bumped up the salad from a simple, chucked-together side dish to something a little fancier. Because I was literally scraping the jar of Dijon mustard to get the required amount, I poured the leftover dressing into the jar and shook it up so I didn't waste any Dijon. Resourceful, eh?

CHICKPEA SALAD DRESSING
Original recipe from Appetite for Reduction, adapted by Shutterbean
Serves 8 as a side salad or 4 as a main meal
Total time commitment: 15 minutes


SALAD:
400g chickpeas
2 cups pearl cous cous, cooked
Other salad ingredients

DRESSING:
1/4 cup cashew pieces
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tsp Dijon mustard

1. Place cashew pieces in a food processor & blend until chopped. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth - as you can see from the photo, I didn't have that sort of patience!

2. Toss dressing with salad ingredients and serve.