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!!!!