Category Archives: gluten free

Orange polenta cake

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Gluten free – if you use gluten free baking powder

Vegetarian

cake
cake ingredients
serving

 

This excellent cake is based on one we tasted and enjoyed at a branch of Jamie Oliver’s restaurants. He describes how to make it on his website. We increased the amount of polenta and reduced the quantity of ground almonds. Being naturally lazy, we also just put everything into one bowl so it super-easy to make.

The texture is soft and moist yet has a crunch. Really worth a try

 Ingredients – for the cake

  • 200 g unsalted butter , at room temperature, plus extra for greasing
  • 200 g demerara sugar
  • 3 large free-range eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
  • 100 g ground almonds
  • 200 g coarse polenta
  • 2 oranges , zest of
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder

Ingredients for the syrup

  • 200 ml orange juice , (from about 2 to 3 oranges) You can use the oranges used for the zest
  • 125 g sugar

Method

  • Preheat the oven to 160°C/320°F/gas 2½.
  • Grease a 20cm tin, line the bottom and sides with baking

paper.

  • combine all the the ingredients in a bowl and mix. Providing the butter is not too cold, this is easy to do with a power whisk. If it looks a little too stiff add a slurp of orange juice
  • Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 40–50 minutes, until the surface is light brown and the cake is coming away slightly from the sides of the tin.
  • Remove the tin from the oven, leave to cool for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a plate. This cake will be quite moist and a little fragile, so handle carefully as you remove it.
  • To make the syrup, put the sugar and orange juice in a saucepan and simmer over a low–medium heat until reduced and thickened slightly, it should take about 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.
  • Prick the cake all over with a skewer, then brush generously with the syrup.

 

Serve in slices with a dollop of crème fraîche, yoghurt or ice cream.

Freya and Hermione’s gorgeous gluten free cup cakes.

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Vegetarian

Gluten free

This is a basic sponge recipe, enlivened by creating whatever you want to celebrate! Freya was making cakes decorated for Easter with some plainer ones for her dad. All were delicious and, gluten free flour, made these tastier than their gluten full counterparts.

Ingredients

  • 3 eggs
  • 170g self raising gluten free flour
  • 170g butter
  • 110g caster sugar –170g if cakes are not iced to avoid sugar overload
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • splash of milk

Bung in bowl and mix. I usually have to add a splash or two (technical kitchen language) of milk because the GF flour makes a drier mixture.

Line a cupcake tin with pretty colour cases. Dollop (more jargon – hope you can understand) about a desert-spoon of mixture into each case.

Place into a preheated oven at 180C (gas mark 4) for about 15 minutes until risen, lightly golden and spongy (keep up, now!) when prodded.

Even if small people are desperate to ice these cakes they must wait until they are cool or else the icing will melt and run away. These will be the longest minutes of your life (listen to the mantra – are they cool yet? are they cool yet? are they cool yet?).

Make the icing. This is not a true butter icing – we only use a bit of butter to make the icing soft – the kids are not keen if it tastes too buttery. This comes down to personal taste: you might prefer to use loads of butter and to cut down on the icing sugar! Anyway…

Place a generous knob of soft butter in a bowl. Add in loads of icing sugar (remember that when you add water in a minute it will magically shrink to no icing sugar at all!) using a spoon if you just want to get the job done, or with a sieve if you like a thin layer of sticky snow over your kitchen. Don’t forget kids have to suck in the icing smoke around the bowl!

Use the back of a spoon to press the butter and sugar together until it looks like breadcrumbs. Add a few drops (or more!) of the craziest colouring you can find and a drop or two of vanilla. Add in some hot water A TEASPOON AT A TIME and mix after each addition.

If you are going to pipe the icing then it needs to be thick enough to hold its shape. If you are going to drizzle then you can add more water. Here is the magic part. Leave the children in the kitchen with the icing, the cakes and a selection of sweets and sprinkles. Go and have a cuppa where you can’t see. When you return there will be the most creative, delicious cakes you have ever seen (worth a quick count to see if they are all there) and a kitchen that you just won’t believe!

Hermione’s Child Friendly Veggie Chilli with spicy potato wedgies

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This is a family recipe for children and adults that can be easily adjusted to cope with individual tastes. You can use whatever peppers take your fancy, red, green or orange. Don’t like peppers? No problem. Substitute courgettes, aubergines or simply leave out altogether. The carrots and sweetcorn will do the trick!

Vegan

Gluten Free (check baked beans – Heinz are OK)

Serves 4-6, depending on greed factor

Ingredients – for the chilli

  • 1 medium onion – finely chopped
  • 1 red pepper – finely chopped
  • 3 medium to large carrots – grated or mix of grated/chopped
  • 1 cup of sweetcorn – tinned or frozen (we used frozen)
  • 1 400ml tin/pack passata
  • 1 400gm tin baked beans
  • 1 tbs olive oil
  • 1tsp chilli powder – mild probably but feel free to up the heat if pain threshold permits
  • 1tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp oregano
  • splodge of tomato purée
  • salt

Ingredients for the wedgies

  • 4 Medium to large potatoes – cut into wedges
  • 3tbsp plain flour – use Gluten free (ordinary plain flour works too if Gluten is not an issue)
  • tsp salt
  • tsp ground paprika
  • olive oil – to drizzle

Method

For the sauce:

  • Add 1 tbs olive oil to a pan with a splash of water.
  • Add all chopped veggies and sweetcorn to the pan over a low heat and sweat for 15 minutes – veggies, not you!

Meanwhile……for the wedgies

  • Parboil the wedgies.
  • In a bowl, mix flour paprika and salt
  • Remove parboiled wedgies with a slotted spoon and coat in the flour mixture
  • Line a baking tray with parchment or just use the tray as it is and suffer the washing up. Drizzle with olive oil and fill with coated wedgies, adding a further drizzle of oilive oil over the top.
  • Place into the pre-warmed oven, 200°C for about 30 mins

Back to the sauce…

  • Add chilli powder and cumin to veggies
  • Pour in passata, beans and purée
  • Sprinkle with oregano and simmer for 20 minutes.

Serve with the wedgies and maybe some couscous and tortilla chips. Enjoy!

 

Tarka Dal

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Side Dishes
Vegan

Vegetarian

Gluten free

This is a recipe from Monisha Bharadwaj and is one that always delights as a component of a curry meal – a star in its own right.

Ingredients – for 2 as a main

  • 300gm red lentils
  • 2 tbs sunflower or olive oil
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds
  • I large onion, sliced
  • 1 tbs tomato purée
  • 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped or crushed
  • thumb size piece of root ginger, peeled and finely chopped
  • ½ tsp dried chillies
  • 1 tsp turmeric powder
  • god pinch of salt
  • 1 tsp garam masala powder
  • chopped coriander leaves (if available)

Method

  • Simmer lentils in a large pan of water for 20 mins and drain
  • Heat oil in a pan and add cumin seeds until they begin to pop. Add onion and fry, stirring until slightly crisp. Remove half the onions for use as topping later.
  • Add tomato purée, ginger, garlic, chilli and salt, heating and mixing through.
  • Add mixture to cooked lentils and warm through.
  • Serve in a bowl with the reserved fried onions piled on top, spinkled with coriander leaves.

This is great with plain boiled rice and a spoonful of yoghurt or naan bread but also makes a great side dish as part of a more elaborate meal.

Mushroom Miso Broth

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Vegetarian

Vegan

Gluten free 

This is another modified Jamie Oliver recipe from his great new book ‘Superfoods’. I am a great Jamie fan and he makes a chicken and mushroom miso broth – which is delicious – but we found this simplified veggie version to be just as tasty. Curiously, I think the way the onions are cut into quarters is a key element in achieving a more authentic taste. No idea why.

I use large breakfast mushrooms here but you could experiment with a mix of mushrooms, adding rehydrated, porcini or wild mushrooms.

Ingredients for two people seeking a modest meal 

  • Sliced mushrooms – quantity to suit desired waist size, 300g is fine
  • 1 or two onions, depending on size – red if possible but white works too.
  • 1 tbsp Sesame oil
  • 1 x 5cm piece of ginger – peeled and cut into matchsticks
  • 1 heaped teaspoon miso paste
  • 800 m stock – water at a pinch
  • 1 good handful of curly kale – essential goodness
  • Basmati rice – wild rice might be better. 175g is about right

Method

  • Peal the onions and chop lengthways into quarters or eighths.
  • Heat the sesame oil in a medium pan and add the onions. Cook for a few minutes stirring occasionally.
  • Stir in the chopped mushrooms to coat with oil and continue frying gently.
  • Then add the ginger, miso paste and stock and simmer gently for 20 minutes.
  • This is the time to get your rice on. Plain boiled is best
  • Tear the kale into small pieces, removing any tough stalks and add to the broth, simmering for a further 5 minutes or so.

Serve and enjoy

 

Meat option

If you want to include chicken, use skinless boneless thighs/breasts and cook in the sesame oil before adding the mushrooms. With this meat option, chicken stock would add even more flavour.

Crunchy Coleslaw ‘Lite’

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Texture in food is, I think, just as important as taste. This coleslaw has both crunch and taste. Because it uses a yoghurt mayonnaise it is super healthy too.

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This is a great side-dish for a range of foods but we love it with baked potatoes , or even beans on toast

Vegetarian

Gluten free

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Ingredients

I have not shown quantities here as how much you make really depends on what you are going to do with it. As a guide, one slice of cabbage with one medium carrot and ¼ of a smallish white onion, makes enough slaw for two.

 

For the slaw:

Red cabbage – slice across the cabbage and chop the ‘disc’

Carrot – coarsely grated

White onion -1/4, finely chopped

 

For the mayo, use the proportions of:

2 tbsp organic natural yoghurt

½ tsp English mustard – for gluten free, make this with mustard powder and water

Lemon juice – ½ lemon, squeezed

1 tbsp olive oil

salt to taste

 

method:

Simplicity itself – mix the chopped veg. Whisk the mayo ingredients with a fork, pour over and mix with the veg.