Blueberry and Chocolate Cookies

Following on from my success with the peanut cookies, I decided it was cookie time again. I'd seen some fabulous blueberry cookies in my local Farmers Market and I've been longing to have one. But oh no I cant do that! I have to devise my own. Then I found the recipe devised by Mike of Gluten Free Blog fame and though I could be onto a winner. I took his strawberry and chocolate cookie recipe from his book, Gluten Free and Wheat Free Gourmet Deserts, and turned it into blueberry and chocolate cookies, then added whole blueberries. You know what .... they taste fabulous! I've used blueberry preserve and whole blueberries to ring the changes, cut down on the butter content and used very low fat cream cheese


Mikes book is fabulous, I've used a few of his recipes now, he has everything in there from an award winning carrot cake to cheesecakes. It is perfect for somebody who is just starting out on the road to gluten free and just as perfect for somebody like me who has been gluten free for about six years and just lost their baking mojo! If, like me, you want Miles book to make life easier and tastier, you can find info on Mikes book here



1/4 stick (2 oz) butter
1 cup sugar
3 oz cream cheese (I used Quark, which is very low fat cream cheese)
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups rice flour (Doves)
1/2 cup glutinous rice flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup blueberry preserve
Handful fresh or thawed frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 190 degrees

Cream together the sugar, butter and cream cheese

Add baking powder, flours and cocoa powder, mix thoroughly

Add blueberry preserve, add mix until you have the consistency of cookie dough, add the blueberries and mix them in

Take small handfulls of the dough and roll into balls a little over an inch in diameter, place on a cookie pan lined with greaseproof parchment, press the cookie down until it is a little less than half an inch thick

Cook the cookies for 15 minutes or until cooked. Leave on the tin to cool for a couple of minutes, then place on a wire rack to cool

Yumyum!

Peanut Butter Cookies, Revisited

A good friend of mine, Mike over at Gluten Free Blog has written a book of gluten free biscotti, brownies, cakes, cookies and a whole host of other confections. The book is entitled 'Gluten Free & Wheat Free Gourmet Desserts' which you can find out about here


I more or less gave up baking following particularly poor results from my early experiences at gluten free baking. I became the expert at throwing out baked goods, which the dustbin man picking up my trash can probably atest to! That was the - this is now! Following on from my success (who could go wrong)with the flourless peanut butter cookies, I decided to try and bake some more cookies, but using flour this time. I have slightly adapted Mike's recipe to allow for local availability and the fact that I'm not a fan of smooth peanut butter although I appreciate that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference in a cookie

Any other differences between mike's cookies and mine are probably down to the fact that Mike used a mixer and I did it the hard way, without a mixer

I was showing two little girls, aged four and ten how to cook and eat cookies at the time. They learnt the creaming method for creaming butter and sugar quickly, ran off to do some art activities and came back when the first cookies were due out of the oven. Little girls of four and ten have little patience for waiting for cookies to cool down .... they were broken into pieces to speed up the cooling process! These cookies had a very favourable report!



1 1/2 cups crunchy peanut butter
2 oz (half stick) butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vanilla sugar
1 tbsp molasses
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup white rice flour
1/4 cup potato flour

In a large bowl, cream the butter, sugar and peanut butter together

Mix in the egg and molasses

Mix in the baking soda and flours - mix really well at this point

Squeeze together in your hands, enough cookie dough to make balls about 1 1/4" - 1 1/2" in size (ensuring the dough is well packed to ensure cookies hold together when cooked). Place coookie balls on cookie pans lined with greaseproof paper, with your fingers press the cookies down to 1/2" thick cookies

Bake for 15 minutes at 190 degrees. They will turn golden brown when done, leave to cool slightly for a few minutes before moving to a cooling rack

These are good! I'll have to try baking again! :)

Peanut Butter Cookies a la Gluten Free

One of the things that I miss as a result of the fluten free lifestyle is cookies. Most food containing gluten I can easily live without, but recently I have been pining for cookies! Add that to my preoccupation with peanut butter and you will understand why I have plumped for peanut butter cookies. I found plenty of recipes .... all of which took about fiftenn ingredients to get the desired cookie!!

Not being much of a baker, I've still been in the thinking process untill yesterday! I saw a post for Sunbutter cookies by Jill of Hey, That Tastes Good, which was an adaption of a recipe for flourless peanut butter cookes by Shauna of Gluten Free Girl. I came late, but I dont mind at all, this has got to be the easiest recipe for cookies I've ever seen

My youngest son, like me, has gluten issues, so I called him last night to tell him about the peanut butter cookies. He's quite a good cook despite his young age, he isnt capable of leaving any recipe alone though, he has to adapt it in some way. He is really excited about these cookies that wont make him ill, taste good and its his preoccupation now, adaptions to peanut butter cookies. ***Watch this space, if he comes up with a good one, it will be appearing here first!***



1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon gluten free baking powder

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees
Cream the butter and sugar, then add the egg and baking powder
Mix thoroughly, then form into balls the size of a 2p iece, roll in granulated sugar
Bake 10 minutes.

:)

Mark's Boxing Day Beef Stew

The original version of this recipe belongs to a friend of mine. We were sat at his kitchen table more than a decade ago and he started to cook a superbly comforting beef stew, which once cooked, was rapidly eaten by all of the people there that day. I have had to adapt it somewhat to make it gluten free but it still feels, to me, like the original Boxing Day Stew, of more than a decade ago

There was no intention to cook a beef stew that day, so the ingredients for a stew werent available. Not to be beaten, Mark flavoured the beef and vegetables with a tin of Heinz tomato soup and a tin of Heinz oxtail soup. I came along and changed that to a tin of chopped tomatoes and a pint of good beef stock with some garlic to add to the flavouring


1 kg braising steak, cut into 1/2 - 1 inch cubes
1 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic
400 g tin tomotoes, chopped or liquidised
1 pint good beef stock (broth)
2 average sized English onions, roughly chopped
4 good sized carrots, peeled and sliced
1 average sized swede, diced into 1/2 inch cubes
4 good sized potatoes, diced into 3/4 inch cubes
Gluten free gravy mix, beef flavour
1 tsp salt
Few grinds black pepper
1 tbsp parsley, chopped

To serve 6 - 8

Heat a large casserole on the hob, add the oil and garlic, add the beef and turn over in the oil and garlic until the edges are sealed

Add the tomatoes, stock and vegetables, salt and pepper. Bring to a slow boil, then reduce the temperature untill just about simmering, add the lid and leave to simmer away for about two hours or untill the beef is tender and the vegetables are cooked

At his point the liquid will be very thin although the potatoes will have thickened somewhat, thickening the liquid. If you want a thickish liquid like mine, add some beef gravy mix untill you get the desired thickness

Stir in the parsley

Hey presto, a gorgeous warming stew!

:)

Poached Haddock over Rice, Bean and Lentil Salad

I've noticed over my years of living gluten free that I've stopped trying to convert food to being gluten free and have, for some time, been using mainly products that are naturally gluten free.

When I cooked this fish dish, I was home alone with the ideo of a fish dish in my head that I wanted to produce, but only had half of the ingredients to hand. Shopping was out of the question. This recipe is slightly different to what I had in mind, but tasty all the same. I'll have to get back to the original idea in my head sometime in the future



2 fillets of smoked haddock
1 cup pre-cooked rice
2/3 cup pre-cooked lentils
2/3 cup flageolet beans
Small handful of parsley leaves, used as a salad leaf
small handfull of parsley, chopped
2 tsp balsamic dressing*

* The dressing consists of equel parts of 2 tbsp good quality balsamic dressing, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 clove of minced garlic and 1/4 tsp gluten free mustard, whisked together to emulsify

To serve 2

Combine the rice, lentils, beans and parsley, ensuring they are warm or at room temperature
Poach the smoked haddock in simmering water in a wide skillet or frying pan
Divide the salad between two plates, drizzle one teaspoon of the dressing over the salad, place the poached haddock over the salad and sprinkle with the chopped parsley

Gluten Free Tabbouleh

I've long been thinking about making a tabboulleh using quinoa. Tabbouleh is a Lebanese dish associated with many Arabic and some European cuisines. It is traditionally made with cracked wheat (burghul), and salad vegetables such as cucumber, tomatoes and onions, dressed in herbs and a dressing usually consisting of lemon juice and oil

Burghul is a fairly difficult grain to replace in my experience, but quinoa is often up for the job! In this case beautifully! I'm in the early days of experimenting with quinoa, having only started to use it recently, but I havent been disapointed yet! Happily I am now seeing it in mainstream supermarkets, and expect to see it more widely used by the food media



To serve 3 - 4

3 medium sized tomatoes, finely chopped
1/2 cup cucumber, deseeded and sliced
2 cups quinoa, cooked according to pack instructions and chilled
2 cups, flat leafed parsley, roughly chopped
1 cup mint, roughly chopped
1 small red onion, chopped
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil

Combine all ingredients, toss to mix
Chill for two hours, to allow flavours to mingle

:)

Cranachan

Damien and Christophe over at 750g are running a blog event for French speaking and / or reading food bloggers to develop a dish which reminds them of thier holidays. Unfortunately, I don't read french although I do speak it a little, I do however read Anne's blog over at A Foodie Froggy

Anne is French, but also writes in English and has invited a number of English speaking food bloggers to develop a recipe which reminds them of their holidays. I have recently been to Scotland, so am slightly changing this original Scottish desert to make it lighter in calories. The original desert consists of double (heavy cream), fine oatmeal and raspberries

A gorgeous (for me) traditional gluten free Scottish dish!



1 tbsp medium oatmeal, toasted
4 fl oz double (heavy) cream, whipped with 1 tsp lemon juice
150 ml 2% Greek yogurt
150 ml Greek yogurt with honey
100g raspberries, crushed
1 tbsp agave nectar or honey
Few raspberries and 1 tsp toasted oatmeal, to garnish

To serve 2

Place all the ingredients, except those being used as a garnish into a bowl
With a fork, mix to combine
Taste, you may want to add more agave nectar or honey
Spoon into serving dishes
Add reserved raspberries and sprinkle over oatmeal