Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Gluten Free Bread



Recently our little family has gone (for the most part) gluten free.

The first challenge you face (or the first thing you miss) is the bread. Soft, crusty, yeasty, wheaty... mmmmmmmm.... need I go on.

To make it worse every evening we drive home past a major bakery and the smell fill the air (and the car).

...but somehow we have managed to crack it...

The bread mix we use is called 'Simply Wise'. According to the directions you're meant to make the GF dough, roll it out and roll it up like a scroll, and then cook. Not bad if you like scrolly bread full of gaps.

Then I tried the loaf baking pan. GF bread tends to work better in smaller pans, so I used the smaller one, but that didn't quite work out 100%. The bread didn't rise enough and had a strange looking hold all the way through.

Finally I opened the pack of french-bread pans I was given some time ago (thanks to Auntie D for those!).



What a fantastic result! Crusty, soft, fluffy, no weird holes.


One of the best part was the yeasty bread smell the kitchen filled with during cooking. The 'bread' toasted very well, and oh yes there was the bacon on the side.


Happy (gluten free) cooking!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Garlic and Pepper Tiger Prawn Spring Rolls

From Spice by Christine Manfield page 257



Another one of those dishes that proves 'simple is often best'. The recipe for the paste that goes over the prawns is quite straight forward but adds this slight pungency to the dish.

The flavour of the prawns are not overpowered but there's enough to complement and enhance.

But the best part of this dish seemed to be putting it together. Lots of help from little hands:

Peeling...


















Pasting...




















...and Rolling...



Happy cooking!