Butter chicken with red lentil dhal and rice.

Hello friends 🙂

Yesterday I made a rather delicious meal for our tea.  I actually found it in the state newspaper (The West Australian) in the recipes pages. This recipe was compiled by one of the duos that appeared on the MKR (My Kitchen Rules) TV show and I have to say it turned out very well for a first time try.

This amount will serve 4.

First assemble your ingredients.

For the Marinade,

400gm can of crushed tomatoes

190gm yoghurt (I used Goats milk yoghurt)

4 garlic cloves

90gm ground almonds

2cm piece of ginger, grated

6 cardamom pods, bruised

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons garam masala

1 cinnamon quill

1/2 teaspoon  ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon chilli powder

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 pinch saffron threads

salt and pepper to season

1 kg boneless, skinless chicken thighs, halved

125gm Ghee

1 onion, diced

For the Red Lentil Dhal,

2 teaspoons vegetable oil ( I used Ghee again as I am in love with it!)

1 onion, diced

1 long green chilli, chopped

1 + 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds

1 + 1/2 teaspoons black mustard seeds

1 + 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 + 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

3 curry leaves

1 tomato, diced ( I forgot to use it so I make this optional :D)

200 gm red lentils, rinsed, drained

400ml can coconut milk

250ml water

To make the marinade, combine all of the ingredients down to and including the salt and pepper in a six cup capacity baking dish.

Add the chicken and rub marinade all over it.

(Trust me, there is chicken in there!)

Cover and refrigerate for one hour to marinate.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Melt ghee in a small frying pan over medium heat, add onion and cook, stirring for about 3 minutes or until softened.

Add to chicken mixture, cover dish tightly with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Remove foil and bake for a further 15 minutes or until chicken is very tender. I like cooking till those yummy caramelized bits form on top of the chicken 🙂

Meanwhile, to make the dhal, heat oil/ghee in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and chilli and cook, stirring for about 3 minutes or until softened.

Stir in seeds and spices. Cook for a further 1 minutes or until fragrant.

Stir in remaining ingredients and the water.

Bring to a simmer, then simmer, partially covered and stirring occasionally, for 25 minutes or until lentils are cooked and have absorbed all the liquid. Season with salt.

Divide rice between serving plates and top with chicken. Spoon dhal to the side and tuck in!

That is my appreciative husband Jason 😀

This recipe is completely gluten free, including that Naan bread you see in the picture. So happy to have found that the local supermarket (Coles) stocks the Livewell brand for Coeliac sufferers.

Bon appetit!

Tis the Season!

I do  love Christmas. I love that families can come together to celebrate on the day, or they can be apart and drop in over the weeks surrounding the actual day, or they can just phone up on the day. Most of my immediate family is scattered now. My sister Fronkiii of “The road to Serendipity” blog fame lives over 4000km away in Tasmania to the East, my brother Jim lives in the next town to my west, Denmark, and I live in Albany Western Australia. We used to have massive Christmases back when I was young. Whole families and their hangers on would all congregate at either one of my Aunts Alice or Margarets houses or my Grandparents places and eat, drink and be very merry. It was a lot of fun and a time to catch up on long lost rellies and welcome the newborns. Gifts would be exchanged and many plates of food eaten.

What I remember most fondly is the making of the Christmas cakes. Mum used an old recipe that her father and brother had gotten from Arnotts cake factory when they worked there back in the late 40s and 50s and had cut down to a useable size. As children we used to love helping peel the almonds and mix the fruit in and the prize of licking the spoon or bowl was most fought for! Mum passed away a couple of years ago now and we all surely miss her baking. She used to keep us all well supplied with fruit mince pies and fruit cakes and chocolate brandy truffles and savoury dishes. It’s my turn to keep up this tradition and I have offered to make my brother and daughters Christmas cakes this year. Like me, they will one day want to make their own and I look forward to helping them find their own special recipe. The recipe that follows is one I’ve used over the past 2-3 years and it is extremely versatile by way of being able to be eaten as a pudding as well as a cake with custard, cream or ice cream or all three! I’ve made it gluten free and you cannot tell the difference 😀

Rich Christmas fruit cake with Muscat.

Ingredients.

200g raisins

200g sultanas

180g dried apricots, diced

150g dried cranberries (Craisins)

100g pitted prunes, chopped

100g glace cherries

100g mixed peel

250ml liqueur muscat

5 eggs

1/4 cup treacle

1/4 cup ginger marmalade

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond essence

Finely grated zest and juice of 2 oranges

300g Gluten Free plain flour

3tsp gluten free baking powder

2 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp fine salt

250g unsalted butter

300g dark brown sugar

125ml brandy

One of the first things I do is to combine all the fruits and the Muscat into a glass bowl, mix well and cover with cling film. Then they are refrigerated for 2 days or until the fruit has absorbed all of the alcohol and is nice and plump.

Assemble all the rest of the cake ingredients. Grease and line a 24cm cake pan, either round or square with baking paper. Preheat your oven to 140 Celsius.

 

Combine eggs, treacle, marmalade, vanilla, almond essence, orange zest and juice in a large bowl and whisk until smooth.

 

Sift flour, baking powder and mixed spice and salt into a large bowl.

Put butter and dark brown sugar in the large bowl of an electric mixer and beat for a good 5 minutes or until light and creamy.

 

Add egg mixture to butter mixture and beat until smooth.

Fold in flour mixture and then stir in fruit mixture.

Spoon batter into tin, put tin on wire rack set on an oven tray and bake rotating every hour, for 3 hours or until cooked when tested with a skewer.

Pierce the top of the cooked cake several times with skewer then sprinkle with brandy.

Set aside to cool completely in the tin. When cold, remove cake from tin and wrap tightly in cling film. Put in fridge to mature for 1 week.

This cake keeps really well due to its liberal amount of alcohol. I tend to keep mine in the fridge.

This is a wonderful cake and I hope you all have as much joy as I do in making and eating it.

Sweets for my sweet, sugar for my honey….

I follow a most sublime blog called “GF and me” which was created by a wonderful lady with her husband when he became a coeliac sufferer. I  eagerly await each of her posts as she has created wonderful recipes and gluten free pastries that have bought me back from the brink of despair at ever making decent gluten free pastries ever again for my partner who is also a coeliac sufferer. Here is a link to her blog and her delightful recipes 🙂

http://gfandme.wordpress.com/2013/10/05/pumpkin-pie-cheesecake/

Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake

For the base.

1 1/2 cups of Gluten Free biscuit crumbs

( I used a packet of Butterfingers Gluten Free Macadamia Shortbread and a half packet of Freelicious brand Frollini Italian milk cookies)

1/4 cup Butter (or non dairy equivalent if you need)

1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

Mix the biscuit crumbs and spices together and add the melted butter and mix till combined. Press into a 9 inch (I used a 22cm) spring form pan. Refrigerate base whilst making filling.

 For the filling.

750gm Cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup of sugar (I used Raw caster sugar)

3 Eggs

1 cup of Pureed Pumpkin

1/8 teaspoon Nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit ( Equals 170-176 degrees Celsius)

Blend cream cheese and sugar till lump free. Blend in eggs, one at a time, then spices and pureed pumpkin.

I took the step at this point of fitting my whisk attachment to my Kenwood Chef and gave the mix a good whipping to eliminate any white lumps and then poured the filling over the top of my crumb base. The cheesecake rose up like a souffle on cooking and was extremely light and fluffy on eating 😀

Bake your delicious cheesecake for 50 minutes or until just set.

Yes, it will crack on cooling but only a little and it certainly didn’t affect the taste in any way.

Leave it to cool completely before refrigerating. Tastes great left till next day but we couldn’t wait that long 😀

This is even better served with Pecan nuts either toffee or just roasted and a dollop of cream but we like it just as is.

Bon appetit!

Gluten Free Coffee and Pecan Cake.

I have always had a fondness for a nice coffee cake. Especially with walnuts. I went shopping for walnuts the other day and could only find pecans at the local IGA so I jiggered this recipe around (wasn’t hard) and used walnuts and made it gluten free for my beloved who is gluten intolerant.

First thing is to assemble all your ingredients.

2/3 cup (70gm) pecan nuts

125gm butter, unsalted and chopped

1 cup (220gm) raw caster sugar

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons instant coffee powder (use a nice one)

1 1/3 cups (200gm) Gluten Free Self Raising flour

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 eggs beaten lightly

Pre-heat your oven to moderately slow  (160degrees or 140 degrees celcius fan forced) and grease and line a 11cm x 25cm loaf pan with baking paper.

Chop the pecans reserving half. Combine the butter, sugar, milk and coffee in a small saucepan;stir over low heat until melted. Remove from heat.

Sift the flour and cinnamon into a bowl; stir in beaten eggs, butter mixture and half of the chopped pecan nuts.

Pour mixture into prepared loaf tin.

Bake in moderately slow oven for 15 minutes. Carefully sprinkle cake with the rest of the pecans then bake for a further 30 minutes or until cooked when tested with metal skewer. You could also just pop the reserved nuts on at the beginning and bake for 45 minutes as I don’t believe there would be any difference in the end product.

Allow cake to cool on a wire rack whilst you make the coffee icing.

For the coffee icing;

1 tablespoon boiling water

2 teaspoons instant coffee powder

1 cup gluten free icing sugar mixture

10 gm soft butter

Combine water and coffee in a cup. Sift icing mixture into a small heatproof bowl; stir in butter and enough of the coffee mixture to form a firm paste. Either place bowl over small saucepan of simmering water or zap it in the microwave at 10 second intervals (check every 10 seconds) until icing is of a thin consistency. Drizzle icing over cooled cake and allow to set befroe slicing.

Very enjoyable cake and it lasted about 1/2 a day 😀

Mix and match your nut preference or leave them out if you have a nut allergy and replace them with raisins soaked in coffee liqueur. I will try that next time.

Enjoy friends.

Spiced Crackle Cookies.

These yummy little morsels are Spiced crackle cookies and I found the recipe in the Better Homes and Garden magazine. They could easily be made gluten free by simply substituting the Plain flour with gluten free plain flour. I’ll be making a batch of these for my gluten intolerant partner on the weekend but these were for my work colleagues so I used the real mccoy 🙂

First assemble all the ingredients and do use a set of scales to weigh things with.

Spiced Crackle Cookies.

125gm unsalted butter

350gm brown sugar

1 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

75ml milk (I used pouring cream :D)

75gm dark chocolate, melted (I used Lindt 75% Dessert choc)

350gm Plain Flour (or Gluten Free plain flour)

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 teaspoons Baking powder (gluten free)

1 teaspoon mixed spice

100gm walnuts, chopped

1-2 cups icing sugar (Pure, gluten free)

Pre heat your oven to 180 degrees celsius. Line 2-3 oven trays with baking paper.

Put butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat on medium, using paddle attachment for 5 minutes or until pale. Beat in vanilla, eggs and egg yolk.

Beat in milk and melted chocolate. Sift in flour, cocoa, baking powder and mixed spice. Fold in walnuts. Chill the mixture in the frideg for 30 minutues until firm.

Shape tablespoonfuls of the chilled mixture into balls and roll in the icing sugar.

Arrange on the baking trays spaced evenly apart and bake for 20 minutes or until well risen and firm.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Enjoy these. They are very hard to stay away from!

I actually had a really healthy Thai beef salad made by my beloved for my tea.

Bon appetite!

Get your laughing gear around this!

It has finally become the cold winter I’ve been longing for. All those red sky sunrises (red sky in the morning-shepherds warning) have come to fruition and given us cold wet days as well. I know they’re not as cold as Tasmania or other cold areas of the world but they are nice and chilly. I figure, what with all the shivering I’m doing, extra calories are being used up just to keep this bulk of mine in warmer pastures so what better for a calorie burning season than a rich and luscious Baked Lemon Cheesecake? It’s baked, thus it fits into winter with all the other baked goodies we eat 😀

Gluten Free Baked Lemon Cheesecake (with a twist)

Ingredients

Here’s my twist, I used a whole jar (1 cup, 250mls)of my homemade Lemon Curd. Use the juice and rind of one lemon instead if preferred.

1 1/4 cups of crushed biscuits. I used a gluten free mix of gingernuts and macadamia nut shorbread.

1 tablespoon of gluten free flour. I tend to choose Orgran brand but any would do.

2 x large eggs, lightly beaten

3/4 cup of caster sugar

70gm melted butter

750gms of Cream cheese, softened

Recipe

First assemble all your ingredients.

Then process and combine the biscuit crumbs with the melted butter and press into base of prepared tin.

Beat the cream cheese and sugar using an electric mixer until smooth. Add Eggs one at a time and beat till smooth. Fold in gently the lemon curd and tablespoon of gluten free flour.

Poor mixture onto prepared base and bake at 150 degrees celcius for 45 minutes or until slightly wobbly in the centre. Allow to cool in oven with door ajar, then chill.

I serve this with a dollop of thick cream and it is divine!

Don’t be concerned if the top cracks on cooling. It wont affect the flavour at all and you can cover any cracks with a good dollop of cream anyway 😀

Just the thing for a cold winters day.

Enjoy!

Mondays little Gluten Free sweetie.

I think we all need a little sweetening up today being Monday and I have just the thing to do it for you. As my beloved Chucky (Jason) is gluten intolerant, he misses out on a lot of the stuff we used to chow down on when in the need for a snack. Now, we have to put a bit more of a thought into what goes down the hatch as the side effects of Coeliac disease are not pretty when any gluten is taken into his system. I found one of his most favorite of all slice recipes and decided to tinker with it a bit and the end result was fantastic. You wouldn’t know it was now gluten free and I’ve fooled many of my workmates with this one.

Gluten Free Caramel Nut Slice

Ingredients.

BASE DOUGH

200gm unsalted butter

140gm caster sugar

1/2 vanilla pod,seeds only

300gm Gluten free Plain flour (I use Orgran brand)

1/2  teaspoon Gluten free baking powder

CARAMEL FILLING

130gm unsalted butter

400gm tin condensed milk

4 tablespoons of Golden Syrup

TOPPING

200gm raw, chopped macadamia nuts and grated base dough set aside, (see my method)

Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius

Line a 20cm x 30cm x 4cm slice tin with baking paper.

For the base dough, cream together the softened butter, sugar and vanilla seeds until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes in an electric mixer.

Sift in dry ingredients and mix until combined.

Take out one fifth of the dough and chill in the fridge in a rough cylinder shape.

Evenly press the remaining dough into the base of your slice tin, making sure it reaches into the corners. Put into oven and bake till firm to touch and slightly golden, not too cooked.

Make the caramel while the base is baking.

Put a metal bowl over a pot of boiling water and add all the caramel ingredients into it, stirring till all melted together.Set aside.

Remove base from oven and pour the caramel over the top, spreading evenly.

Grate (on a big sized grater) the remaing saved dough into the chopped macadamias and mix together gently. Sprinkle this over the top of the caramel.

Pop this back into the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until the outside of the caramel starts to darken. Remove from oven and allow to cool in the tin. Pop in the fridge for an hour to chill before cutting into slices.

Is this slice not calling from the shadows, beckoning you to eat it?

We cannot resist it’s gluten free charms at all.

My gluten free sweetie who’s charms I can’t resist either. Love him xoxoxo.

Bon appetite!