Thermomix has released a new cookbook “Vegetarian Kitchen” which also includes lots of gluten free options, after all vegetables are gluten free!   The cookbook is suitable for both the TM5 and TM31.   The pictures are beautiful with a range of recipes with colourful vegetables.   I chose to trial the Vegetable Bake with Goats Feta which is actually in the breakfast section and can be served with poached eggs.   I made it as a vegetable side dish for dinner and it was delicious with the lemon chilli dressing.   It is listed as a Nut Free recipe but it is also Gluten Free as long as use pure gluten free cornflour.   Some of the recipes such as the Mexican Stack can easily be converted to gluten free by using gluten free corn tortillas instead of Lebanese flat bread.

Happy New Year and apologies once again for the lack of posts!   I made this gluten free version of a Tiramisu twice over the holiday period as I loved it so much.  You can use different fruit like strawberries as well.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups cream
1/2 cup espresso coffee
1/2 cup Kahlua
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 cup caster sugar
250g block of Philadelphia cream cheese, softened
250g gluten free sponge finger biscuits (Dr Schar)
250g raspberries
50g flaked almonds
Extra cream and crushed Flake for decorating

Method:
Beat together the cream cheese, cream and sugar until smooth.
Fold in the vanilla and almonds.
Dip the sponge fingers into the coffee/Kahlua quickly on each side.
Place a layer into the base of a baking paper lined 21cm x 10cm bar tin.
Top biscuits with half of strawberries and 1/2 of cream cheese mixture.
Repeat the layering process twice again finishing with layer of biscuits.
Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.
To serve turn out onto a plate and decorate with extra piped cream, raspberries and crushed Flake.

Once again another busy year and I apologise for the lack of posts lately for recipes, food or places to eat!  I hope you have all had Happy Gluten Free Christmas!

I have some time off work so had a go at baking my own gluten free gingerbread cookies for Christmas.   I followed a recipe I found on the Food Daily website and you can find the details at the link here.  I used my Thermomix on speed 4 to mix the wet ingredients and then use the dough cycle to add the dry ingredients.

My first batch of cookies I did as gingerbread people but as they were rolled quite thin the cookies were a little hard, tasted delicious with icing, but hard on the teeth.   The next batch I made more like a melting moment biscuit rolling balls of cookie dough and pressing flat with a fork.   Plan to add some ginger buttercream icing to these cookies.   Cookies taste best with a iced mocha served in my new favourite mason jar glasses!

At the airport on way back from Melbourne I spotted a new gluten free magazine Gluten Free Life, check out the website here.   Issue one is available now and features a delectable Red Velvet Cake on the cover.   I cheated and bought a Melinda’s gluten free goodies Red Velvet cake mix and made some cupcakes with cream cheese frosting – yum!   Check out Melinda’s website here.

My Quirky Cooking Thermomix cookbook by Jo Whitton arrived and the first thing I made was the
Raw Macadamia Lime Cheesecake.   It was yummy and a big hit with all at work.  You can make one large cheesecake or mini cheesecakes.  Check out the recipe here and order the cookbook here. 

I don’t find gluten free pastry the easiest thing to work with!  Give me challenge re gluten free bread or pizza dough and not a problem.   I was never any good with normal pastry before being diagnosed with Coeliac disease.   So it was with some trepidation that I was given the challenge to try out Simply Wize gluten free puff pastry sheets.   You can buy the sheets from Woolworths for about $9 for a pack of 4 sheets.   I followed the recipe below from Simply Wize but even after leaving the pastry out to defrost wrapped in plastic I still could not manage to roll out the pastry sheet to be 26cm square.

I am not going to put a photo up as they don’t look the best, not puffy and golden and filling spilled out a bit.   But will say they still tasted delicious – pastry crispy on the outside and soft (but not puffy) on inside and the filling tasted delicious – very nice warm but could take them to picnic lunch cold.   Feel free if have any tips on what went wrong for me and why don’t look like the picture.

Ingredients

2 x Simply Wize Puff Pastry Sheets

2 bunches spinach washed and roughly chopped

100g feta, crumbled

1 sliced onion

1 clove chopped garlic

1 egg

Egg wash: 1 egg, lightly beaten with 1 tablespoon of water

1 pinch salt and pepper, to taste

Method

Separate Simply Wize Puff Pastry sheets while frozen and thaw for 40 minutes in a plastic bag at room temperature. Return unused sheets to freezer.

Preheat oven to 210°C, and line 2 baking trays with baking paper.

Sauté sliced onion and chopped garlic in frying pan. Add spinach until tender.

Whisk 1 egg in bowl and stir in spinach, feta, sautéed onion and garlic, with salt and pepper to taste.

Dust bench with gluten free flour and roll out Simply Wize Puff Pastry sheets to 26 x 26 cm then cut into 4 equal squares.

Divide the filling among the 8 pastry squares and brush edges with egg wash (1 egg and 1 table spoon of water beaten). Fold in half diagonally to enclose filling and pinch edges to seal.

Place the turnovers on prepared tray and brush with egg. Bake for 20 minutes or until puffed and golden.

Thank you very much to Adrienne at my work for the gluten free birthday cake she made for one of our staff this week!   I was very impressed and the presentation made the cake extra delicious.   I am very impressed to have employed someone who loves to bake and can bake gluten free.   Birthdays only though or will be piling on the kilos!

Gluten Free Chocolate Loaf

• 180g butter, softened
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 4 eggs, separated
• 100g 85% cocoa dark chocolate (Lindt brand), grated
• 1/2 cup almond meal (ground almonds)
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1/4 cup gluten free cocoa powder
• 1 cup gluten free plain flour
• 1 teaspoon gluten free baking powder

Chocolate Icing

• 1 ½ cups of gluten free icing mixture
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 125g butter (softened)
• 2 tablespoon gluten free cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line base and sides of a 7cm-deep, 10.5cm x 20.5cm (base) loaf pan with baking paper, allowing a 2cm overhang at both long ends.
2. Using electric beaters, cream butter and sugar for 5 minutes or until pale and creamy. Add egg yolks, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Using a large metal spoon, fold in grated chocolate, almond meal and milk. Sift cocoa and flour together over chocolate mixture. Gently fold to combine.
4. Using electric beaters, beat egg whites in a bowl until soft peaks form. Stir one-quarter of the egg whites into batter. Gently fold in remaining egg whites. Spoon into prepared pan. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool loaf in pan for 10 minutes. Lift onto a wire rack to cool completely.
5. Make icing. Beat butter until it is a pale colour. Add icing mixture, cocoa and milk until light and fluffy. Spread over a well cake and decorate.

Thank you to Springhill Farm for letting me sample their new Real Bread Mix varieties.   I have been a huge fan of the original Real Bread Mix mainly to make excellent homemade gluten free pizza bases that all the family love not just me as the gluten free one!   I decided as it has been very wintery to bake the Fruit Real Bread Mix and use it to make a Bread and Butter pudding for dessert on the weekend.   I used my dough setting on the Thermomix to make the dough as per the instructions on the packet and baked it in a high sided loaf tin that actually bought via Springhill Farm stand at the Gluten Free Expo on year.   As you can see from the photo it makes a lovely loaf of bread and I could not resist when it cooled trying a slice with some apricot jam before I made the rest of the loaf into the pudding.   It tasted delicious and had great texture as fresh bread but would be nice toasted later on as well.

You can find the recipe for the Wintery Gluten Free Bread and Butter pudding here at the Springhill Farm website.  I used a gluten free apricot jam and vanilla bean paste instead of a vanilla bean pod.   I was also short on eggs so only used the 4 eggs and not the extra 4 egg yolks, it still turned out OK but the egg mixture did not set and was a bit runny still after baking.   It still tasted delicious served with some Weiss Vanilla Bean ice cream.   I think it would have tasted nice with a splash of Cointreau liqueur added.

I have been meaning to try more of the recipes in the TM gluten free cookbook but my 10 year old can be a picky eater so while he was away for school holidays decided to give some recipes a try.   This soup was delicious and I added some gluten free Slim Pasta to the soup rather than serve with a side of jasmine rice but that would have been tasty as well.

Coriander & Basil leaves
1cm piece of Ginger peeled
25g Lemongrass
1 medium Red Chilli deseeded
2 x 400g cans Light Coconut Milk
20g Fish Sauce
6 Kaffir Lime leaves
1 tsp Brown Sugar
500g Chicken breast cubed
1/2 red & green capsicum cut into strips
80g Brocollini
1 packet Slim Pasta Angel Hair pasta (prepared as on packed and cut with scissors)
2 tsp Lime Juice

Place coriander and basil into the TM bowl and chop for 4 seconds on speed 7 and remove and set aside for serving.
Place ginger, lemongrass and red chilli into the TM bowl and chop for 4-5 seconds on speed 7.
Add coconut milk, fish sauce, lime leaves and brown sugar and cook for 10 minutes at 100 degrees on speed 1.
Add cubed chicken and cook for 2 minutes at 100 degrees on Reverse + Soft speed.
Add sliced capsicum, brocollini and Slim Pasta angel hair pasta and continue cooking for another 7-8 minutes.
Add lime juice and stir through for 3 seconds on Reverse + Soft speed.
Transfer to serving dish and sprinkle coriander and basil on top.

I had some over ripe bananas so decided needed to make some banana bread.   After the success of the Anzac biscuits from The Healthy Chef website I decided to give the banana bread recipe a try, you can find the recipe here.   I ground my own almond meal and flaxseed in the Thermomix and set aside.   You then whip up the rest of the ingredients like a smoothie on speed 5-6 for 20 seconds.   I then added the almond meal and ground linseed and mixed for another 20 seconds on speed 5-6.   The mixture pours into the loaf pan like a batter.   I sprinkled the top with walnuts, cinnamon and some organic raw sugar before baking for about 60 minutes on 160 degrees celsius.   I did oil and flour the pan but had some trouble getting it out and some of the base stuck to the bottom, think maybe needed to cool a bit more before removing from the pan.    Served it with ricotta, blueberries and drizzle of organic maple syrup, made a delicious brunch with coffee, I think my cat Peppa agreed!