Tuesday 30 November 2010

Menu - week starting 29th Nov 2010

This week's gluten free menu swap is hosted by Gluten Free Goodness and they picked sweet potatoes as the ingredient of the week. I really like sweet potatoes but they aren't a desperately common veg here as they are too tender to grow in our climate without extra heat, however if I get time I may well pop into the market where there are normally some being sold and sometimes more than one variety of similar root veg as we have a reasonable sized African community here.

I have been very busy recently as I signed up to train as a climate change champion or as it should be called a climate change awareness champion as I have no plans to champion climate change :)  This takes a day out a week plus homework and I'm busy doing all the normal things as well as trying to blitz our house so we can host a big family get together at Christmas.

I also have a new toy!  I have final succumbed to all the good reviews on the various preserving groups I'm on and got an Excalibur dehydrator and it is everything people say! I love it. I'm still in the trying things out stage but I am in awe of those people who run more than one of these things at a time, it takes a lot of prep to fill all 9 trays!  I have done several different types of apples friends have given me and it is interesting to see how the flavours differ both between apples and between the fresh and dried of the same apple. 

The Boys think fruit leathers particular apple/pear or banana are fantastic !

I have also been making a few preserves including one called compost jelly from the River Cottage Preserves book which is made from the peeling and cores of the apples I've dried along with orange skins from oranges I juiced !  Very nice it is as well, though my first batch hasn't set as well as I'd like so I'm trying to decide between using it as a syrup or reboiling to thicken it up !

On to the menu for the week.

Monday - lamb chops, peas, baked potatoes served with garlic egg flans from Gluten Free girl and Chef (watch here for a review later this week)

Tuesday - Class day unless it is called off because of the snow currently falling! So pasta and sauce (nice and simple probably just a pre-made tomato and basil sauce)

Wednesday - Bean casserole.

Thursday - I'm at a low carbon conference all day so again something simple - tomato and eggs

Friday -  Fish pie  (mixed fish and sweetcorn in a while sauce topped with mashed potato and oven baked)                                       
Baking - Thinking of trying a treacle tart but replacing the golden syrup with compost jelly syrup.