Category Archives: Cooking

Gluten-Free Pasta – An Update

Leave a comment

A couple of weeks ago I wrote this post about making my own gluten-free pasta which includes the recipe.

004The fettucine and lasagne sheets were packaged and frozen for later use.

003I made a large dish of lasagne last week and GMan declared that it was really good.  That is high praise indeed, especially since he can happily eat conventional pasta if he wishes.

Tonight was the big test when I boiled the fettucine to add to sliced sauages in a spicy sauce.  I made sure the water was at a rolling boil and I added the frozen bundles of pasta.  Once it had come back to the boil it was only about 2 minutes until the pasta was ready.  My worst fears of a gluggy mass at the bottom of the saucepan were not realised and I will definitely continue to make my own gluten-free pasta.

No Waste

Leave a comment

One of the challenges of growing your own food is dealing with the gluts of produce which invariably occur.

The issue today was passionfruit.  We planted a passionfruit vine about 18 months ago and in now covers a large section of the perimeter fence of the chicken run.  For several weeks now I having been collecting and eating passionfruit almost every day but today I decided to store some for when there are no fresh ones available.

001My efforts yielded 2 trays of passionfruit pulp to be frozen and stored for later use.

The vine appears to have 2 different types of fruit on it.  One of them is a common purple passionfruit but the other are much larger and are yellow when ripe  and the pulp is a very bright orange and has a somewhat different flavour.  You can see the different skins in the compost bucket in the following photo.

002These will go back in the compost and eventually be added to the garden beds to grow more food.

Made from Scratch

Leave a comment

I have previously written a post about making your own pasta from scratch.  Barely 6 months after I wrote this post I made the decision to eat a gluten-free diet for the sake of my health.  The pasta making attachment has languished at the back of the pantry and I keep promising myself that I will try making my own gluten-free pasta.  Well yesterday was finally the day.

After searching the internet and using some ideas gained through making other gluten dough such as pizza bases, I decided to give it a try.

Here is my recipe:

2 cups gluten-free flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
10g psyllium husk
3 eggs
25ml water
25 ml olive oil

2012-01-31 01Combine the dry ingredients, add the eggs and then gradually add the water and oil.  The mixture will not roll into a ball as it does if using wheat flour but it should be damp enough that you can squeeze it together in your hand.  Mix thoroughly for about 3 minutes.  Cover bowl with a damp teatowel to retain the moisture and work as quickly as possible.

Take a small ball of dough and knead well in your hands, press out into a thick disc and feed through the pasta roller on thickest setting.  The dough will crumble but persevere and do it several times until the dough starts to feed through in sheets.  Continue to fold and feed through until you have a good consistency and then feed it through progressively thinner settings.

003Once you have the thickness that you want you can cut it into lasagne sheets or attempt the next step of making fettucine.004It is certainly more difficult to make than conventional pasta but I am hoping it will be worth the effort.  Both the lasagne sheets and fettucine have been frozen so the final verdict will be when they are cooked.  I am very confident that the lasagne will be successful but I will have to wait and see with the fettucine.

Based on what I have done so far, I would say that this has been a worthwhile exercise and I will tweak the recipe further if required.

Watch this space………..

My Turn

2 Comments

Today it was time to clean and tidy up my pantry.

It is really not too bad but was definitely time to check for anything lurking in the background.  I wiped out all of the shelves, decanted a few things into the new jars and generally re-arranged it to work a bit better.

BEFORE

002

001The space on the bottom shelf is where the dehydrator normally lives but I was using it when the photo was taken.  The pack in the bottom right-hand corner of the photo is some gluten-free bread mix which was 18 months past its best before date but I made it anyway and it turned out well.  There is a second pack in the box which I might make up next weekend.

I have moved a few things out of the pantry – a large coffee plunger which now lives on the shelf above the oven with the other coffee plunger and the teapot.  The coffee grinder which we never use is going to the op shop along with a plastic container which belongs in the freezer but I never have it in there as it just wastes space and limits how much I can pack in.  Finally, the pile of plastic plates and bowls (meant to be disposable but I keep washing and re-using them) have been moved from the pantry.  I have kept 2 of each in the cupboard for the grandchildren but the rest will be stored in the sideboard for use at BBQ’s or other events.  One day I may decide to offload them altogether but not just yet.

AFTER

005I did not take a photo of the bottom shelf and the floor but suffice to say they look a bit better, too.

Planning Ahead

2 Comments

On Saturday or Sunday morning I generally make a menu plan of our meals for the coming week.  This based on what is in the fridge, freezer, pantry and garden and is used to create a shopping list for any additional requirements.  I try to incorporate a mix of fish, chicken, red meat and vegetarian meals.

The next couple of weeks are very unpredictable due to family issues and will mean that I am not at home some nights but potentially with very short notice.  So I used a different method today and simply made a list of 20 meals for which we have the ingredients.  We will need some additional fruit and vegetables during that time.

1  Pizza
2  Grilled salmon and vegetables
3  Tumeric chicken and rice
4  Pumpkin soup
5  Chilli con carne and rice
6  Nachos
7  Sausages and vegetables
8  Vegetable pie and salad
9  Hamburger patties and salad
10  Celery soup
11  Beef curry and rice
12  Tuna patties and vegetables
13  Shepherd’s pie and vegetables
14  Scrambled eggs with bacon and avocado
15  Chicken stir-fry and rice
16  Pizza
17  Chilli con carne and rice
18  Pumpkin soup
19  Lasagne and salad
20  Chilli chicken and corn chips

The entire plan is gluten-free.  I make my own gluten-free pizza bases and hamburger patties, buy gluten-free sausages from Aldi, buy gluten free corn chips and lasagne sheets and use gluten-free flour as required.008I intend to work roughly from the top of the list and we had home-made pizzas tonight.  This is how I make them.

Do you plan your meals?  How closely do you stick to a plan?

Eating In – Baked Potatoes

4 Comments

Baked potatoes are one of my favourite meals.  They are probably best wrapped in alfoil and cooked in the coals of an open fire but that is generally not practical so we compromise with what we have.  It is uneconomical to turn on a conventional oven to bake 2 potatoes and for many years I cooked them in the microwave.  While they are not strictly baked it made it reasonably quick and easy meal for a family.

In the last couple of years I read about cooking baked potatoes in the slow cooker.  According to the article, you simply wash and dry and potatoes, rub them with a little bit of oil and put them in the slowcooker on High for 4 hours.  It just seemed too easy but I decided to give it a go as I had nothing to lose – except maybe 2 potatoes.  When I took them out they were cooked to perfection and were even crispy-skinned on the bottom – just like the ones you can buy from the baked potato carts in the street!

Since then I have tweaked the recipe slightly and add a spicy coating.  Black pepper, herb salt, cumin and chilli (just a pinch of each) into a bowl and a teaspoon of flaxseed meal.  I use this because it is gluten-free and it has some nutritional value.  You could just use plain flour (either wheat or gluten-free) if you prefer.

005Rub the potatoes lightly with oil then roll in the spice mixture and place in the slow cooker.  No other oil or liquid is needed. 006I find that 4 hours is perfect for medium-sized potatoes but if you have larger ones you may want to extend the cooking time by another 30 minutes.

I serve these filled with refried beans and topped with a dollop of plain yoghurt and grated cheese.  Coleslaw is a favourite addition and usually some fried mushrooms.  Alternatively, you could fill with a bolognaise mixture or even tuna for variety.  Some salad on the side makes a complete meal.

007

Eating In – Pizzas

Leave a comment

I made a batch of gluten-free pizza bases on the weekend and tonight we are having pizza for dinner.

Here are the partly cooked bases thawed and ready to add the topping.  I find that pre-cooking these for about 8 minutes makes them much easier to handle when assembling the pizzas.

001The dough recipe I use comes from this recipe book.

006If you are looking for good gluten-free recipes I would recommend that you look for it in your local library or you can buy it here.  The updated version has a different cover.

Otherwise just make or buy your favourite bases.

I assembled all of the toppings.

002The ice-cube tray contains frozen basil and you can read about how I prepared it in this previous post.

Once the basil had thawed, I mixed it with a small amount of tomato and spread the mixture on the bases.

003Then the rest of the toppings………

004Pumpkin slices roasted with balsamic vinegar, shredded baby spinach, diced salami, sliced olives, strips of red capsicum and topped off with some grated cheese.  I use low fat cheddar with a bit of strong cheese like partmesan to give a bit of added flavour.

005This is the pizza maker which we use and it takes about 5-6 minutes to cook the pizza to perfection.

008One quarter had disappeared before I had time to grab my camera!

The toppings are never exactly the same.  It just depends on what we have.  This is the first time I have used the basil mixture for the base.  I usually just use a tomato mixture and a sprinkle of mixed herbs.  I have also been known to use mango chutney spread on the base.  The only thing limiting you is your imagination.

Cooking Up a Storm

6 Comments

I didn’t sew today (or this week) but today I cooked.  More specifically I cooked this afternoon and evening as I went shopping this morning.

Last night I cooked pumpkin with vegetable stock in the slowcooker.  This afternoon I cooked potatoes, fried some onion and added the pumpkin mixture.  This made 7 large serves of soup.  I had one for dinner and here are the others ready to go in the freezer.

2015-05-17 01

With the remainder of the pumpkin I sliced it up, brushed with a mixture of oil and balsamic vinegar and roasted it.  I will use the roasted pumpkin slices on pizzas for dinner on Tuesday night.  Two trays ready to go in the oven.

2015-05-17 02Once the pumpkin mixture was finished in the slow cooker I cooked the chickpeas which had been soaking over night to make hummus.

2015-05-17 03The next thing into the slow cooker was honey soy chicken.  8 chicken thigh fillets, 3 tablespoons honey and 2 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce.  Once the chicken was cooked I removed the pieces with a slotted spoon and poured the juice into a small saucepan and thickened it with arrowroot.  4 serves ready to freeze.

2015-05-17 03After the chicken was done I washed the slow cooker then added kidney beans to make refried beans which you can find in this blog post.

I make my own gluten-free pizza bases and normally make enough for 6 bases and freeze them.  There were none in the freezer so it was time to make another batch.  Here is the dough divided into pieces.  The first 2 bases were already in the oven by the time I took the photo.

2015-05-17 04Here are 6 pre-cooked bases ready to be bagged and frozen.  I use opened out cereal packets to separate things that I am freezing.  The dividers can be washed and re-used many times.

2015-05-17 05I picked lemons and made lemon cordial.  You can read more about it here.

2015-05-17 06I also  made more butter mixture and 8 serves of chilli con carne (no photo) as well as dividing up the meat which I bought and packing it into the freezer.

Cooking and preparing meals is a never-ending task but it is good to have a few meals and ingredients prepared to make the job a bit easier each evening.

A Packed Lunch

2 Comments

I pack our lunches (and breakfasts) each day for work but I am usually in a rush so the camera is the last thing on my mind.  This morning I had a little more time and I remembered to grab the camera.

001This is what GMan took today.  Banana, apple, 2 Vitabrits and psyllium husk, 2 slices bread, almonds and raisins, baked beans, grapefruit.

He always has 2 pieces of fruit, dried fruit and nuts for snacks.  Lunch can be baked beans, flavoured tuna, salad, soup or leftovers.  He generally has Vitabrits for breakfast but I had prepared a grapefruit yesterday so the Vitabrits were kept for tomorrow.

Sometimes I feel like I am packing the same old thing every day but we are happy to take our packed lunches and save around $10/day each on bought lunches.  That is $200/fortnight that we can use for other expenses.  The other benefit is that it is all packed in reuseable containers and ziplock bags so we are minimising any waste.

We are lucky that we both have access to refrigerators and microwave ovens at work.

Do you take a packed lunch?

Flashback Friday

Leave a comment

Here is a post from 3 years ago when I first tried my hand at making Tabasco sauce.  It was a great success and the quantity lasted for a couple of years.

Unfortunately, the chilli bush did not survive the changes to the vegie garden area so we bought another one in the middle of last year.

Today I am making more sauce and using just half of the quantity stated in the original recipe.  This has to be one of the simplest preserving recipes around.  I am looking forward to having a bottle on hand so that I can add a couple of drops to various dishes that I make.

2015-03-27 01