Steeliac

Author: steeliac

  • Coeliac mince pies

    Coeliac mince pies

    IMG_0034-4This is my first coeliac Christmas and it’s taken me by surprise. Nine months in and I thought I was getting used to the change in eating habits. But Christmas is really an added challenge, isn’t it? Things I tend to forget about from year to year seem to keep popping up to taunt me: stollen, German lebkuchen biscuits, mince pies! I do feel like I’m missing out.

    My 6 year old LOVES mince pies and in our family we tend to make them with a macaroon topping, which gives them a slight crunch and makes them look very pretty. I haven’t seen them in the shops so I agreed to make some. I’m still trying to stay low sugar, so I made mini ones.

    I used Doves Farm gluten free plain flour for the pastry and followed their very simple shortcrust pastry recipe, which you can find here. This pastry doesn’t work so well with cutters so I pressed balls of pastry into the (greased) mini muffin tray and shaped them with a dibber. The set was one I got from a Pampered Chef party BC*.

    I filled them with some nice shop-bought mince meat, and topped them with the macaroon mix, which is made as follows:

    2 egg whites
    100g ground almonds
    100g caster sugar
    1tsp cornflour
    2tsp water
    1/2 tsp vanilla essence
    Sliced almonds

    Lightly beat the egg whites. Fold in the caster sugar and ground almonds. Stir in the cornflour blended with water and vanilla essence. Easy! This mixture topped about 20 mini mince pies.

    Spoon the mixture on each of the mincepies instead of using a pastry top. Pop a single almond slice on each mince pie, and pop them in the oven at 190C for about 20 mins. They rise into beautiful little domes and go lovely and brown.

    Cool the pies on a wire rack. They freeze nicely and can be defrosted either at room temperature or in the oven.

    I have no idea of the origins of this recipe, but it’s become a firm family favourite.

    * Before Coeliac

  • The Gluten Free Bloggers Network

    The Gluten Free Bloggers Network

    Gluten Free, Bloggers Network
    The Gluten Free Centre Bloggers Network

    I was really pleased to be asked to join the Gluten Free Bloggers Network. This is run by The Gluten Free Centre, who advise on gluten free products and services in the UK, and are bringing together a number of UK based gluten free blogs. I’ve had to work out how to get their badge on my home page, which I think I’ve sorted, and with only a few growls at the screen.

    I’ve also written them a short piece about how I found out I was coeliac, which you can read here.

  • Things that would only happen to a coeliac: #1

    I went round to a new-ish friend’s house last night for drinks. Although lovely, I get the impression she’s not going to be the accommodating kind as far as my diet is concerned.

    In hindsight, I should have taken my own snacks. None of the array of crisps and chocolates looked suitable for coeliacs, so I resolved to use the opportunity to smugly avoid the extra calories. Obviously, that only lasted for a couple of glasses of wine, at which point I was getting peckish.

    I then found myself in the tragically undignified position of rifling through my friend’s kitchen bin to find the crisp packets so I could check the ingredients. Unsurprisingly, they were not gluten free, so I sat back down and poured another glass of wine…

  • Hui Wei: Restaurant review

    Hui Wei: Restaurant review

    IMG_1912-0.PNGHui Wei, 221 Glossop Road, Sheffield S10 2GW

    Hubby and I took our two boys (aged 4 and newly 6) and my mother in law to Hui Wei, which is the only Chinese I’ve come across in Sheffield that advertises gluten free food. Anglicised Chinese food really isn’t the kind of food I like to eat frequently, but it is the sort of thing I’d be secretly rather miffed about being off the menu now I’m coeliac. And it was the birthday boy’s choice in any case.

    Hui Wei did really well right from the start because they have a separate gluten free menu. Psychologically, I like this, because it’s more about telling you what you can have than what you can’t, as in so many other places. And it’s infinitely better than sit there decoding the regular menu with a ringbinder full of laminated allergen sheets. There was quite a lot of choice, and many of the usual Cantonese suspects are on it.

    To start, we all had chicken and sweetcorn soup. I was reminded we now live in Yorkshire, as the portions were huge! The kids loved it (once it cooled down – it’s always molten, isn’t it?) Unfortunately, I had to sit and watch everybody eat prawn crackers, which of course, aren’t on the GF menu, but it was my kiddo’s birthday, after all.

    (While I’m on starters, one we had from the GF menu another time, but that I’d thoroughly recommend, was the lettuce wraps – the filling is deliciously moreish, and because the wraps are made from lettuce, they don’t fill you up too much.)

    For mains, we had chicken sweet and sour (well, you have to, don’t you?), king prawns with cashews, scallops with broccoli, and some egg fried rice. It was all lovely, and plenty for 3 grown ups and two tiddlers.

    The service was friendly and reasonably prompt. The boys enjoyed watching the starry lights in the ceiling change colour in between courses, and they loved sitting in a private C-shaped booth.

    The kids had some lovely Movenpick icecream for dessert, but I didn’t find out if that was GF, as I was too full to eat anything else! A lovely birthday meal. 🙂

    No photo – silly me – so the pic on my main page is off their website.

  • Courgette spaghetti (pasta schmasta)

    Courgette spaghetti (pasta schmasta)

    IMG_1856.JPGHaving been a pasta snob, I’m yet to find a gluten free version I find acceptable, so this is a great, and very healthy, substitute. And guess what – it doesn’t all stick together in the pan like GF pasta does. It’s also quick to cook and it’s a one pot dish. What’s not to love?

    This has been an autumnal favourite for hubby and I, and I’ve finally got round to taking a snap of it. We usually manage to grow a fair few courgettes in the garden (novice veg grower, starting with the easy stuff) and this makes great use of them.

    I have a julienne peeler that makes light work of creating courgette spaghetti (I’ve heard it called courgetti but that grates on me!) or you can use a mandolin and a knife for more of a linguine shape.

    So, to make this, slice an onion and while it is softening in olive oil, julienne four small courgettes. Add a little veg stock to the softened onions (1/4 pint-ish) and when it’s reduced a bit, the courgettes can go in. Once they’ve wilted, add in some chopped smoked salmon, double cream, dill and lots of black pepper. Thicken with cornflour & water if necessary. Serve with a generous helping of Parmesan, and preferably a large glass of white – or in my case, fizzy water seeing as it’s only Tuesday.

  • The christening of a languishing pie dish

    The christening of a languishing pie dish

    IMG_1838.JPGHubby and I put in a joint effort to create a rather tasty, autumnal game pie last week. It was a big moment for me as I got to use, for the first time, a beautiful pie dish I got for Christmas last year. I was diagnosed coeliac in February, and as said pie dish had been languishing in the cupboard still in its box, it wasn’t far off being ebayed. (Is that a verb?) But we always did love the comfort of eating a good pie, so although my preference is to go gluten free naturally most of the time, I have succumbed to experimenting with some pastry.

    For the filling, we used venison, rabbit and pigeon, each cooked separately, along with shallots and carrots. We made a gravy using the meat juices and some home made chicken stock, with a (very) generous glass full of port and plenty of the celebrated Sheffield ingredient, Henderson’s Relish, locally known as Hendo’s. (It’s vegetarian and gluten free as well as being local and delicious – what’s not to love?)

    This is the first time I’ve made gluten free pastry but I have to say it was a roaring success, thanks to this incredibly simple recipe from Doves Farm. It was easy to make and rolled out nicely between two pieces of cling film. A top tip for gluten free pastry is that you don’t need cold hands, apparently.

    The pie needed only enough time in the oven to cook the pastry, so we didn’t have to wait long to tuck in.

    And the pie dish lives on. And I have accepted that while it’s not naturally gluten free food, it’s wholesome and home made, which has to be equally good. Chicken & leek next….

  • Roarrr!

    Roarrr!

    IMG_1826-2.JPGI’m not normally one to post my birthday cake efforts on the web but I really wanted to share this recipe, as it’s not really written as being gluten free. It’s a classic Delia recipe for a flour-less chocolate cake. It’s light as a feather and deliciously squidgy. I’ve made it for grown ups and kids and it’s never failed. As with the best gluten free recipes, in my opinion, it’s not made out of substitute ingredients.

    Normally I make a grown up version with Delia’s dark chocolate filling, but for my now 4 year old, I adapted the recipe slightly and added a rice crispy volcano, swamp, dinosaurs etc. Same cake ingredients but with chocolate frosting instead of the 70% Green & Black’s. It went down a treat with the revellers.

    Recipe can be found here: www.deliaonline.com
    You need to use gluten free cocoa and chocolate, but I’m sure that goes without saying…

    God bless Delia.

  • 48 hours later…

    48 hours later…

    IMG_0006.JPGWasn’t that a film title? I’m sure I remember watching something with a name like that.

    Anyhow, I’ve been on a no sugar regime for a couple of months and I’ve seen quite a lot of improvement. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever tried cutting out. Sugar is just everywhere. And I’m not just talking about added sugar, here – this is serious, I’m really going for it to see how much improvement I can get: so fruit, honey and anything ending in -ose is out. The intention is to cut it out as far as possible to begin with, then maybe I’ll be able to find a level of intake that is ok.

    I find it quite ridiculous that I need to avoid fruit and dried fruit to make myself better – things that I’d always known to be healthy are now off limits! It seems irrational and I still can’t get my head around the fact that fruit can be bad for my body.

    It’s been quite revealing to see how much sugar I was consuming. I didn’t think I was eating that much to start off with – I don’t really drink fruit juice as I tend to have water or fizzy water, and puddings are generally a treat in our house. But I was having fruit yoghurt or granola for breakfast – both packed with sugar. A snack might be dried fruit: raisins, dates, prunes, apricots. But we’d often have a bit of chocolate in the evening and as well as drinking wine, I’m rather partial to a gin and tonic or a Pimms and lemonade in the summer.

    And what I’ve noticed since I’ve been sugar free is that barely a week passes without it being somebody’s birthday (almost obligatory to eat cake) or people come for Sunday lunch so I’d make a dessert.

    So I cut it all out, and began to reap the benefits. But sometimes I slip a bit, particularly at weekends – it’s just not Friday night in my book without a glass of wine! But sometimes that one glass would turn into 2 or 3 and I’ve accidentally had a load of sugar. Or somebody at work brings some gluten free treats just for me and I feel obliged to have one (I’m not ready to tell my colleagues I’m off sugar as well as gluten – I can’t face the inevitable questions).

    Eventually I began to notice something. I found out that when I have something sugary, it actually takes 48 hours for it to show up in my skin. Two days later, I get a breakout. That’s quite a long time. But I had a look online and I’m not alone! members.irosacea.org

    Also, I find it strange that sugar isn’t featured on any of the rosacea support lists of food to avoid: www.rosacea.org

    I bet there must be other people out there who haven’t yet discovered that sugar is their skin’s nemesis, and the fact it sneakily takes 48h to show up only makes it harder to figure out. If you know anyone suffering with rosacea or acne, please ask if they’ve considered sugar as a trigger – it was only by chance that I figured it out and I’ll be forever grateful to the lovely lady who suggested it to me.

  • A French revelation – les galletes sont sans gluten!

    A French revelation – les galletes sont sans gluten!

    IMG_0023.JPGSo, I’m just back from a two week camping holiday in the Vendee. Food-wise, it was a tragic shame to miss out on the French bread and patisserie but the holiday was saved by two wonderful surprises.

    The first was at a creperie in Bretignolles-sur-Mer called Mille Sabords. My two boys were keen on the idea of a crepe for lunch, so we sat down at a sunny outdoor table and ordered them some food. As a preface to getting the patron to allow my mum and I to discreetly eat our own picnic at the cafe table, we asked if they happened to serve any gluten free food, knowing full well that the answer would be no. But to our shock and delight, the patron responded that all their galettes (as opposed to the sweeter, pancake-like crepes) are gluten free, as they are made with ble noir or sarrasin (which later transpired to be buckwheat flour). She was completely familiar with gluten free dining and 10 minutes later I found myself unexpectedly tucking into a delicious French galette with coquilles de saint Jacques (scallops) et crevettes (prawns). And it tasted all the better for being completely out of the blue. I wish I’d taken a picture of it, but in the excitement, I forgot to.

    And the lovely lady even gave me a bag of sarrasin flour to take away with me, explaining that you can mix it with just water and a bit of salt to make a simple galette. So we had not only a stress-free eating out option (creperies were very easy to find) but we also had a nice, cheap breakfast alternative. It’s fair to say, I definitely need to fine-tune the recipe and technique before I share it. Watch this space…

    The second surprise was that we were also able to tuck into les moules whilst out and about, as many of the recipes for mussels are naturally gluten free: moules mariniere or moules a la creme – without the bread or the frites, of course. We even bought a moules pan and cooked our own at the campsite, with just onions, herbs, vin blanc and cream. Delicious!

    Bonnes vacances!

  • Raw brownie

    Raw brownie

    20140707-174522-63922799.jpgLooking for a sugar free pudding for some friends coming to tea, I stumbled across this truly fabulous recipe for a raw brownie. I’m not particularly into raw – I have enough dietary restrictions as it is – but this has certainly made me think about raw food a bit more.

    My two boys think it’s a massive treat to get a piece of this. I have to be a bit careful as the dates contain a lot of sugar – but I treat myself to a piece every now and then.

    I played around with the recipe a bit – here it is:

    Raw brownie:

    2 cups whole walnuts
    2 1/2 cups Medjool dates
    1 cup raw cacao (Sheffielders can get this from Zed’s on Nether Edge Rd)
    1/4 tsp sea salt
    3/4 cup macadamia nuts, roughly chopped

    1. Food process the walnuts on high until finely ground
    2. Add the cacao and salt – pulse to combine
    3. Add the dates one at a time through the feed tube. The mix should appear like cake crumbs but when pressed will easily stick together. If it doesn’t, add a few more dates
    4. Take the mix out of the whizzer and mix in the chopped macadamias
    5. Press into a lined mould – Tupperware or similar clippy plastic boxes work well
    6. Store in the fridge until ready to serve, then cut into pieces

    They last a few weeks in an airtight container in the fridge – well they might if you keep them a secret! Enjoy…