Spring Rolls

Well as I thought I might by Monday night I'd change my mind about what to eat. I've been meaning to make spring rolls for ages and had a couple of packets of rice wraps that needed using up.

So we finely sliced some carrot, cucumber and leek then chopped some bacon finely and cooked of some fine rice noodles. The rice wraps turned out to be rather ripped but I manage to make rough parcels with a bit of everything and a sprinkle of soy sauce in each. This were then brushed in butter and cooked in the oven an idea I picked up in Super Natural Cooking. This had the advantage of helping keep the parcels together as I don't think they would have survived deep frying.

They tasted great, possibly not very asian partly because of the bacon but we didn't mind that.

Weekly Menu 19th to 23rd May

Where has the month gone? I suppose that's having a small baby for you! Rather behind on the allotment, I think this year is going to be mainly doing things like putting up shed and greenhouse and growing anything we get given plant wise rather than much from seed. We have a good start on the fruit bushes though and the strawberry plants should turn up soon too.

On to cooking and the pink mash never happened as I managed to burn the beetroot by boiling it dry! Oh well.

Menu this week is based round using up the vegs that have been building up from our veg box faster than we are using them so I think I'll be cancelling it this week. We have a LOT of cauliflower but also plenty of root vegs, onions, greens and various other vegs.

This week the Gluten Free Menu Swap is hosted by M-Elle over at Cooking and UNcooking and her ingredients is avocado about which she has some great facts. This was one of my gran's favourite foods and when she was in hospital and could order what she liked she asked for it most days. I like avocado but don't get it often as they are never cheap here but if I see one this week I might treat myself.

The weather is rather changeable at the moment so things might change if the weather does. We had nearly a week of real hot summer type weather all of a sudden but it has now gone back to being much greyer and colder and my menu rather reflects that.

Monday - Chops with curried caulifower fritters

Tuesday - stirfry with rice noodles

Wednesday - Chicken and apricots with greens

Thursday - Creamy cauliflower soup with brazil nut pesto from Super Natural Cooking

Friday - veg and bean stew or Red Onion Risotto

Weekly Menu 12th to 16th May

Didn't manage the pink mash last week but I still have the beetroot so I am going to try again this week.

Another late shift week so easy stuff most nights due to lack of hands to help till after Small's bedtime.

This weeks Gluten Free Menu Swap is hosted by Terri at Faking it Gluten Free style and the ingredient she has picked is strawberries.I don't have any in as yet but will be checking out the local greengrocer later in the week, I'm hoping with the recent sun there should be some local ones starting to appear rather than imported ones from Spain or similar. If there is Small and I will probably just eat them as is.

Monday - meatloaf, pink mash and veg.

Tuesday - cauliflower cheese (generally has more vegs than just cauliflower and sometimes bacon too)

Wednesday - veg curry and some form of dhal.

Thursday - pre-made chicken kievs and rice (roleplay night)

Friday - omelets or tomatoes and eggs

Candy Melts

Until I read a recent post on Bakerella I'd never heard of candy melts but the flowers she made looked so fun that I thought I'd go look for some.

I have found a couple of UK sites that sell them and am now being tempted by other cake and chocolate making items but I can't find out what candy melts are made of and if they are gluten free. I have emailed one of the companies as they sell additive free sprinkles of various sorts which do have the ingredients listed (and are on my shopping list) but not for the candy melts. So anyone out there know?

weekly menu 5th - 9th May

We pretty much stuck to the menu last week except we had roast chicken instead of bean stew on Friday. I did a post about the chicken pie with scone topping as several people commented on it.

This week's featured ingredient is potato and the gluten free menu swap is being hosted at Cooking Illustrated. Potato is such a staple here I can't imaging not using it several times a week even if it's just a microwaved baked potato for a quick lunch or frozen hash browns or smiley faces at tea time when it's just me and Small. However I am very tempted to try pink mash this week, we often have cheesey mash but I've never tried this version before.

On to the menu
Sunday and Monday we have a friend staying who is vegetarian. As I'm not sure what we are doing I have several alternative dishes penciled in. Monday is a bank holiday here so everyone is home.

1) nut roast (I've never made nut roast before but have been getting very fond of cooking with nuts recently), pink mash and oven roasted veg.

2) Broccoli and cauliflower cheese.

3) butternut squash soup and scones

The rest of the week there will be just me and the kids till after bedtime so I want very quick and easy recipes. We have alternate weeks where Tom is at work late and the other week he is home just after I pick Small up from school.

Tuesday - pasta and sauce, mince based.

Wensday - sausage and either mash or chips with mustard cabbage

Thursday - we have friends over for a roleplay night so will be ordering in pizza (i have GF ones in the freezer)

Friday - possibly one of the dishes we didn't have earlier or stew of some sort.

Baking - Apart from the possible scones, we will be making biscuits (there is so dough in the freezer). I'd also like some brownies or muffins or similar for snacking this week.

If you haven't spotted it my favorite recipe site for this week is www.vegbox-recipes.co.uk I think I will be referring back to them regularly from now on.

Chicken Pie with Scone topping

I put this down on last weeks menu and a couple of people commented on it so I thought I would report back on how it went.

I decided to do it on a whim after seeing a recipe somewhere, though that was a gluten based one of course and had the chicken part made with chicken stock and so forth. I'm getting a bit more time and brain power than before but it's still very limited and I didn't have time to sort any stock so the pie filling became white sauce based.

I cooked off some leeks in butter till soft, added chicken chopped into bite size chunks to seal and then added some peas. Finally I made a sauce with butter, gluten free flour (Dove Farm Plain flour) and milk, once that had thickened I seasoned it and poured it over the vegs and meat in a deep casserole dish.

Then I pulled out my scone recipe and started to mix it up. At this point the baby woke up and needed feeding, how do they sense such things? His brother always woke just before I was ready to eat myself so I ended up with cold food all the time! I passed the making of scones to himself which went fine, he cut out scones and put them on top of the mix then put it in the oven.

By the time I'd finished feeding he was dishing up it was only when I went to eat mine I realised there was a bit of a problem. He had based the cooking time on the normal scone recipe and of course being on top of the chicken mix they hadn't cooked all the way though and the bottom half was mush. You may be able to see the uncooked part in this picture.

Luckily there had been a spare one that he cooked off separately so I quickly removed the uncooked ones off Small's plate and gave him the cooked one as the chicken itself was fine. The rest went back in the oven and a little while later us adults could eat to.

All in all the pie was really nice but think when I do it again I will replace the gram flour in the scones with something more neutral. While I love the depth of flavour it gives the scones on their own with butter or more cheese that same flavour is a disadvantage in this situation because any bits that don't fully cook are very obvious and distract from the quite mild flavours of chicken and leek.

a quick note

Because I am officially mad I thought I'd have a good at Allsorts's a post a day in May challenge. To be fair I end up sitting with the computer near me a fair bit feeding the baby so as long as the wireless doesn't flake out like it has been this evening I should be able to do something. However it may not be on this blog every day as I am planning to do it either here OR on my craft blog. I could of course have one blog that covers both subjects but I prefer to split them up as different people are interested in the two subjects plus it helps me find things too !!