The perfect pastry

Ever dreamed of having the perfect crumbly sweet pastry but can't as you are gluten free, vegan or both?  Hate the horrible rubbery texture created from other recipes?  Here is your answer.  Delicious, light, crumbly sweet pastry that is entirely gluten free and vegan.  Tesco have mincemeat reduced to 30p so fill your boots people.  Embrace summer xmas !!!!!

Vegan gluten free sweet pastry

ingredients

100gm doves farm gluten free plain flour

50gm ground almonds

50gm sugar

75gm sainsburys free from spread

Now first and foremost the most important part, use a food processor.  It blends it into the perfect pastry without having to add much water.  Mix the flour, almonds and sugar together and put in your food processor.  Add the spread and blend on high until it has almost formed a lump.  Add a tiny bit of water (probably around a teaspoon is enough, be very careful not to add to much) and keep blending until you get a nice soft lump of dough.  Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for at least 30 mins.  As it will be quite soft roll the pastry out between 2 pieces of greaseproof paper.  If making mince pies like I did use a well greased and floured tin and cook them for about 30 minutes at 200c.

Enjoy !!!

Thank you tesco!!!!

I never thought I would say thanks to Tesco for actually stocking more vegan products but perhaps they are turning a corner.  I recently found out they have started stocking the Food Heaven lemon dairy free cheesecake which is not only vegan but gluten free as well.  Having just polished off a 3rd of one (I know, you can call me piggy) I can definitely say it is super yummy and at £2.99 I am sure it will be a regular treat.

They have also started stocking the Bessant and Drury chocolate ice cream.  It is vegan and made with coconut milk so nice and healthy.  It is lovely and creamy and to be honest I think its one of the best chocolate ice creams I have ever tasted.  At £4.69 it isn't cheap, but worth it for a luxurious treat every now and then.

Why am I promoting these for Tescos you may ask?  Because quite simply I am being selfish, I love both of these products and if people don't buy them they will stop selling them.  Oddly enough I found both of them in the frozen free from section near the frozen veg and not with the frozen desserts.

Mediterranean risotto

This meal has become one of our favourites.  The chopped tomatoes really help to flavour the rice and the whole thing is just super yummy.

VEGAN AND GLUTEN FREE MEDITERRANEAN RISOTTO

350gm risotto rice
1.2 litres stock (vecon is a good vegan gluten free one)
1 aubergine
1 tin of chopped tomatoes 
100gm mushrooms 
150gm frozen peas
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
olive oil
pure spread
salt and pepper


-chop the aubergine into small chunks and lightly fry in a bit of olive oil. Take off the heat and keep to one side.  Alternatively slice thickly, cook them on a griddle then chop them up.
- fry the mushrooms in a tiny bit of oil or fry lite then set aside with the aubergine pieces.
- finely chop the onions and garlic and fry in about 25gm of pure spread until soft. 
- add the rice and stir well for about 1 minute
- add about a ladel full of the stock and simmer until mostly absorbed. Keep repeating until you have used about half of the stock.
- add the tin of chopped tomatoes and stir well.
- once the juice from the tomatoes has nearly absorbed start adding the rest of the stock a ladel full at a time, waiting for it to be almost all absorbed before adding more. Keep doing this until the rice is tender, you may not need to add all of the stock.
- add the aubergine, mushrooms and frozen peas to the rice mixture and keep stiring on a low heat for about 5 minutes.
- just before serving stir in another knob of pure spread. Top with grated cheezly

The almighty chocolate torte

Chocolate torte is no longer for the diary/egg eaters.  Imagine a lovely gooey chocolate torte, that has no flour and is vegan and gluten free?  Well here it is.

VEGAN AND GLUTEN FREE CHOCOLATE TORTE
Ingredients
200gm dairy free spread
200gm dairy free dark chocolate
150gm caster sugar
100gm ground almonds
1 tsp vanilla extract
50gm cocoa powder
5tbsp ground flax seed

- Grease a 10" round cake tin
- Mix the ground flax seed with 225ml boiling water, stir well and leave to cool
- Melt the chocolate and spread in the microwave then mix in the vanilla extract.
- Add the caster sugar to the flax/water mix and beat well.
- Add the sugar/flax mix to the chocolate mix and mix really well until combined
- fold in the cocoa powder and ground almonds
- pour into the cake tin and cook at 180c for 30 - 35 minutes
- When cool dust with icing sugar.
- serve with soya squirty cream and fresh fruit

I'm dreaming of an even healthier cookie

At the request of a friend who can't have too much oil in her diet, I adapted my healthy cookie recipe to be even healthier.  Still works really well and still yummy.

Ingredients

• 2 cups of fine oatmeal (finely grind up gluten free oats of you are sensitive)
• 1 cup chopped dates
• 1/4 cup chopped nuts
• 1/4 cup dairy free dark chocolate chips (I use these)
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/3 cup soya/almond/rice milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 mashed bananas

This is really easy because you can just pop everything into a bowl and mix together.  No fancy instructions, just mix it really well. 
Line a couple of baking sheets with baking paper and drop cookie size blobs onto it and level out.  This recipe should make around 22 cookies depending on how big you make them.
Bake at 190c for 25 minutes.
Enjoy!!!

Ginger biscuits anyone?

Its been a while since my last post, I have been unwell, and although still not completely better, I am using cooking as my therapy (well that's my excuse anyway).  I really wanted to make some ginger biscuits, both me and hubby love a good ginger biscuit to dunk in a cup of tea but you can't find one vegan and gluten free.  I like playing around with ingredients to see what happens and this one came out great first time.

VEGAN AND GLUTEN FREE GINGER BISCUITS

50gm cornflour

75gm soft light brown sugar

75gm gram flour

75gm dairy free spread (I used pure sunflower)

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 tbsp water

Mix all the ingredients (except the water) together until it resembles breadcrumb consistency.  Add the water and mix to form a dough.  Knead well to make sure everything is mixed in.  This will result in a fairly wet dough but don't worry about that.

Use gram flour to flour your work surface and rolling pin and roll out the dough to about 1/2cm thick.  Use plenty of gram flour to stop it sticking.  Use a biscuit cutter (shape is up to you) to cut the dough into shapes or rounds and place on a well greased baking tray.  Be careful when you are doing this as the dough will still be fairly wet so I use a blunt knife to help it along.

Pop in the oven for 20 minutes at 160 degrees C.

Once cooked leave on the tray for a few minutes to cool, then remove and place on a cooling rack.

WARNING - these biscuits are very moreish.........you have been warned!!!!

I'm dreaming of a healthy cookie

No such thing as a healthy cookie I hear you say?  Wrong.  My delightful little creation is gluten free, vegan, sugar free, butter free and packed full of nutritional goodness.

Ingredients

• 2 cups of fine oatmeal (finely grind up gluten free oats of you are sensitive)
• 1 cup chopped dates
• 1/4 cup chopped nuts
• 1/4 cup dairy free dark chocolate chips (I use these)
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/3 cup sunflower oil
• 10 glace cherries (washed and cut into quarters)
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 of a 360gm jar of organic apple puree 

This is really easy because you can just pop everything into a bowl and mix together.  No fancy instructions, just mix it really well.
Line a couple of baking sheets with baking paper and drop cookie size blobs onto it and level out.  This recipe should make around 22 cookies depending on how big you make them.
Bake at 190c for 25 minutes.
Enjoy!!!

Easter yum yums

Well this was my first easter being vegan and I have to say it breezed past.  I used to love tucking into cadburys easter eggs and dreaded what would happen this year but thanks to some fabulous shop brought dairy free eggs and making lots of goodies myself I can honestly say I LOVE BEING VEGAN

Now hubby wanted to make some eggs at home but we wanted something a bit more special than just shells, so thanks to a slightly adapted caramel recipe in the cake angels book, our caramel eggs were born, and my god were they good.  A little bit fiddly to make but they were so yummy they didn't hang around for long.  I also made some with marzipan in the middle but forgot to take photos.

VEGAN GLUTEN FREE CARAMEL EGGS

Make the shells first.  Use whatever vegan dark chocolate you prefer.  I used tesco 74% dark chocolate as it has a really nice flavour.  To make 10 whole eggs you will need 2 egg trays that will make 10 half eggs.  I used the sainsbugs silicon ones although I am sure plastic ones would work just aswell.  You will need about 200gm - 300gm of chocolate depending on how thick you want your eggs.  Melt 1/3 of the chocolate in the microwave and use a pastry brush to paint it into the moulds.  Chill for 20 minutes, and repeat twice more so your egg shells are 3 layers thick.  Once you have done this leave them in the moulds in the fridge while you make the caramel.

Caramel
- Melt 1oz of dairy free spread in the microwave then pour into a food processor.
- Add 55ml of boiling water, almost 3oz of caster sugar and just over 2oz of dried soya milk powder.
- Blend until all ingredients are combined, transfer into a container and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

- Melt just over 2oz of dairy free spread in a saucepan on a low heat.
- Add just over 2oz of caster sugar, 1oz of agave syrup and your chilled mix.
- Turn up the heat and bring to the boil.  Make sure you keep stirring continuously.  This will take around 10 minutes
- Simmer for around 5 - 10 minutes still stirring continuously until the mixture goes nice and thick.  (if you take off the heat too early it won't set properly)

Let the caramel cool for a few minutes then pour into your egg moulds.  Pop back into the fridge to set.

Once the caramel has set, carefully remove your chocolate egg halves from their moulds and use a little bit of melted chocolate to stick them together.

Last but not least..........ENJOY!!!

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Now I also had one of those moments when I raided my cupboard to find the coconut sugar I purchased a few weeks ago.  Coconut sugar is much better for you than regular sugar and having not used it before I wasn't quite sure what to do with it.  It has a caramel type taste and colour so these little delights were born.

VEGAN GLUTEN FREE EASTER MUFFINS

Ingredients

- 100gm gluten free self raising flour

- 100gm dairy free spread

- 100gm coconut sugar

- 2tbsp fine milled flax seed

- 1tsp of baking powder

- a splash of soya milk

- a couple of handfulls of raisins 

- some marzipan

Method

- Mix the flax seed with 6 tbsp of boiling water and leave to cool.

- Cream the spread and sugar until soft and fluffy

- Add the flax mix a bit at a time and mix thoroughly 

- Add the baking powder to the flour and gently fold into the mixture.

- Fold in the raisins and a splash of soya milk

- Divide the mix between 6 muffin cases 

- roll some marzipan into 6 little balls and push into the muffins.

- Bake at 180 degrees c for around 15 minutes or until they look cooked

Happy Easter

Well it has been a while since I last posted but I have been busy so I am sure you can forgive me.  Since my last post I have now officially become vegan.  Its something I had been thinking about for such a long time and I have finally taken the leap.  As I can tolerate some wheat now, being a vegan has been made that bit easier, however I do still only bake with gluten free and vegan ingredients.
Now onto my easter baking challenge.  Hubby said to me "can you make a simnel cake for easter.........pleeeeeeaaaaaaassssseeeee!!!!!"  How could I refuse?  Now for the tricky bit, making it vegan AND gluten free.  I used the fruit cake recipe in my cake angels book and made a few tweeks, like swapping honey for agave syrup etc to make it vegan too.  Here are the results, and although we haven't tried it yet (leaving that pleasure for easter Sunday) it looks and smells amazing.

I also had a recipe emailed to me for gluten free and vegan easter biscuits, which were also yummy too but as the ganets in the family devoured them before I could take a picture you will have to wait until I make another batch for that recipe.

Happy Easter everyone !!!!

Magnificent Bakewell Tart

I think I can well and truly say this is my piece de resistance when it comes to cakes.   I found a recipe for gluten free bakewell on the Internet but I not only needed to make it vegan it had to be edible too so I played around with it until I got it right.  After many attempts I finally nailed it.

VEGAN, GLUTEN FREE
Pastry
140gm gluten free plain flour
70gm dairy free spread (pure sunflower is good, as is sainsburys free from)
50gm sugar
25 - 50gm ground almonds (I find more gives a better texture)
almond essence

Cake mixture
50gm gluten free self raising flour
50gm ground almonds
100gm sugar
100gm dairy free spread
2 tbsp of fine milled flax seed mixed with 6 tbsp of boiling water
2 tsp almond essence

For the pastry - mix the flour and ground almonds together then rub in the spread until it looks like breadcrumbs.  Add the sugar and 1tsp of almond essence and just enough water to form it all into a dough.  If you add too much water the pastry will go rubbery so its best to add a little at a time until it just sticks together.
Press it into a greased flan tin (I use an 8" loose bottom tin), prick the base with a fork and bake at 190c for 20 minutes.
For the cake mix - Cream the spread and sugar together until smooth.  Add the flax eggs and mix really well.  
Add the flour, almonds and almond essence and mix well.
Spread a thick layer of jam (cherry, strawberry or raspberry are nice) on your pastry base then poor the cake mixture on top.  Sprinkle some flaked almonds on top before putting in the oven at 190c for 40 minutes.  If the pastry starts to brown too quickly put some foil round the edges to stop it burning.
Depending on the size of tin you use you may have some pastry and mix left over, if this is the case take the opportunity to make some mini ones if you have the tins.
For a variation at Christmas I used a layer of marzipan and then a layer of mincemeat instead of Jam and it was delicious.

Millionaires shortbread

Every now and then I crave things I used to be able to eat but that's not a problem any more because I just create vegan gluten free versions.  Now the recipe for millionaires shortbread is not mine, I only followed it and made something amazing.  Anyone who hasn't got the cake angels book yet should buy it.  The recipes are dairy free and gluten free but in most cases any recipes with egg in can be replaced by a "flax egg" to easily make it vegan.

I am in no way associated with the author but after getting it for Xmas and playing around with the recipes it is like my new bible.  

Anyway, here is my attempt at the millionaires shortbread - VEGAN AND GLUTEN FREE

Rice and veg?

My husband often presents me with the never ending challenge at meal times.  I plan a week in advance, decide what meals we are going to have and buy all the shopping at once, great thinking I hear you say?  Err no, because when you are married to one of the fussiest eaters on the planet who would rather feed his "corn thin" addiction than worry about his next meal, I have a problem.  To be fair most nights he is happy with my choice of meal, but occasionally my choice is not the right one for him and I have to get creative to stop him reaching for his next bag of midget gems.  Tonight was one of those nights, his request......."I want veg and rice".  Odd choice, but I can work with that.  Here is what I came up with

Short grain brown rice cooked in Vecon stock in the rice cooker, then topped off with Furikake.  Served with steamed carrots, cauliflower and broccoli and topped with my tomato concoction (quorn, mushrooms, onions cooked in organic basil passata  seasoned with salt, pepper and mixed herbs).  

Still nice and healthy using stuff from the fridge so I was happy and considering hubby downed two plate fulls at the same rate as I downed one, I can only assume he was happy too!!!

For my vegan friends, if you use tofu instead of quorn its vegan and gluten free too.  

"cheese" and chive pasta salad

Today I felt the need to play around with making home made pasta, and here is the result

VEGAN, GLUTEN FREE
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup corn flour
3 heaped tbsp potato flour
1 tbsp paprika
4 1/2 tsp xanthum gum
3 tbsp fine milled flax seed
1 1/2 tbsp veg oil

In a cup or small bowl, mix the flax seed with 10 tbsp of boiling water and leave to cool.
In a separate bowl mix the flours, paprika and xanthum gum.
When the flax mixture has cooled add the veg oil to it and mix together.
Add the flax mix to the flour mix and kneed to make a stiff dough.  You may need to add a tiny bit more boiling water to bring it together.
Leave to sit for about an hour.
Flour a surface with corn flour and using a rolling pin roll the dough as thin as you can get it.  This will take a bit of work as it is tough.  When rolled, cut the dough into thin strips.
Boil a saucepan of water with a bit of salt and oil added then pop in your pasta strips.  These will be cooked in around 10 minutes.

As it was lunch time I wanted to tart it up a bit so once it had drained and cooled I mixed in vegan gf mayo, dried chives and grated cheezly

I served mine with a nice big healthy salad consisting of romaine lettuce, alfalfa shoots, china rose radish sprouts, cucumber, peppers, radish and griddled tofu.

A quick hello

Well here it is at last.....my blog.  Having thought about it for a long time, and being constantly pestered by friends, my food blog is born.  For as long as I can remember I have been passionate about food (a bit too passionate at times, hence the expanded waste line) but after developing a string of health problems I decided to set about getting healthy........through food.  For many years now I have been a vegetarian, but that wasn't enough, something else needed to change.  After a bout of problems with tiredness, bloating and horrendous back pain I decided to try going wheat free to see if it would help, and it did.  My new lifestyle of being vegetarian and gluten/wheat free was difficult, but I stuck to it because it was making me feel better, any slip ups and within a few hours would be in pain again.  All this was great but I still had problems.  After having some tests done last May I found out what was causing me most of my problems.....Milk!!!!  I was allergic and intolerant, so when the Dr had previously told me to "cut out the cheese", I should have listened to him, although not in the way he meant it (he was saying I was fat).  So here I am now, a vegetarian who is gluten free, allergic to cows milk, oh and did I mention I am also intolerant to potatoes and sweeteners?  It gets better doesn't it ;).  I have heard all the jokes about "do you eat cardboard?" and "oh that chicken sandwich was delicious"  but hey who cares.  I started a journey of discovery and to be honest I am loving every minute.  Foods which I had never dreamed of eating before have found their way into my store cupboard and fridge and I find myself spending more and more time in the kitchen getting adventurous creating yummy, healthy meals and treats.  Almost all of my diet is vegan now, I still haven't quite given up the eggs but I am getting there, especially as I rarely have them anyway but if I eat out I choose vegan.
I know now to stay clear of cows milk as my allergy is getting worse.  The other day I was out and ordered a soya milk coffee, unbeknown to me I was given cows milk by accident and within a few seconds of drinking my throat started to phlegm up and my lips and face started tingling.  I don't want to find out what happens next time.
So here I am 9 months on, over 2 stone lighter, feeling healthier, and most importantly happy.  My chronic rhinitis is tons better thanks to the lack of mucous producing milk in my diet, my back pain is minimal and for the first time in my life I can run up a flight of stares and not get out of breath................Happy days!!!!