Pumpkin and Noodles

I got given some pumkin by a friend yesterday which is not something we have really used much so we decided to try soup. I cooked off some onion, pumpkin and garlic in a little oil, added some fresh curry paste and then covered it all with veg stock and let it cook down. When everything was soft I thought I'd add some rice noodles to make it a little more substantial. What actually happened is the noodles soaked up all the liquid and we ended up with noodles in pumpkin sauce.

Worked really well and I couldn't have come up with it if I tried ! Probably helps that the pumpkin has flavour this time unlike the only other time I tried. Moral of that story is the ones they sell in the super market to carve may look similar but they are not woth eating!

Gluten free list of Blogs

Gluten Free Goddess has set up a list of gluten free blogs. If you are interested or want to add yourself to the list click the I blog gluten free button in the right hand column.

Kitchen wish list

I said I would post up a wish list of things we want for the new kitchen for those who care. This is to allow those who want to give us presents to give us things we want not things we already have.

1) Cooking book stand.
Ideally one which protects the pages as well. Something that stands fairly slimly would goods so it can be at the back of the worksurface and still leave room in front. Mum had a great one years ago which was just a piece of perspex bend so it came up in front of the book and was bend under and back to stand it up.

2) Denby
We have some of the discontinued Reflex range.

We plan to mix and match with Imperial blue though more pieces of Reflex would be nice too. We might add some plain white china as well (possibly replacing our current everyday black set).

Currently have
7 all blue dinner plates
7 pasta bowls (these are really nice to use)
7 all blue side plates
6 all blue cups and saucers

It would be nice to get an 8th of the plates and pasta bowls.
plus
Imperial blue teapot and possibly a milk jug
other than that we will want more plates and some pudding/cerial bowls but we haven't decided which shape yet. We have got quite picky about shape, how much rim and the like!

3) Deep edged frying pan with a handle that goes in the oven (preferably largish and with short handles on both sides not one long one so it fits in the oven properly). Our new grill is meant to work with the oven closed so we can't just leave the handle sticking out when finishing dishes off for instance. We can't remember if any of our current pans are oven safe and don't want to risk damaging them.

Will add more as we remember.

Stilton Soup

We have a lot fo food left from an event we ran at the weekend. As usual there is lots of some things and nothing of others. One thing we have lots of is stilton, not sure why they bought so much but hey. So what to do with silton, baring in mind most here arn't that keen on it.

I decided to try this stilton and walnut soup recipe and it was really good. Tom loved it too. Not to agressive as they can be but still defiently silton taste. We ate it with drop pancakes becouse they were nice and quick. Look wise very bland but taste was great.

Brandy snaps

We were doing sewing and chatting and brandy snaps were mentioned. I haven't had them since well before i went gluten free. My dad made them when i was a kid. Suddenly I had to have some and we had cream which needed using up so what more excuse is needed.

One trip to the shop by other half later and I have the ingrediences. They turned out well if a bit mis-shapen. the rest seemed to like them too but I forgot how eating more than one or two will make you feel sick!

Toffee Apples

Made an apple tart which was OK though the pastry turned out rather solid. I haven't got shortcrust pastry sorted yet. Dove farm flour doesn't always work though if it is left in the fridge for an hour or so it seems to help. Needless to say I didn't do that this time.

However we did discover something else. slices of apple dipped in a toffee syrup are divine. Much better than a traditional toffee apple which is hard to eat and is too much toffee followed by too much apple.

I think it might become a common pudding served with vanilla ice-cream though I may have to think of something else to serve them with for the lactous intolerant among those I feed.

Gluten Free

I have been on a Gluten Free diet for several years now. I found out by accident how badly it was effecting me but now I have more energy, my hands work better than they have since I was 18 and I don’t fall asleep after lunch!

When first cut gluten out of my diet it was quite hard to work out what I could eat. These days it has improved a lot. Food labeling has improved so much and many companies now have allergy flashes under the ingredience listing to more common allergens if they contain them. Most supermarkets do free from ranges which do gluten, wheat, dairy etc free items. Most are expensive but give you more options. So are better than others but that is always the case

I like Dove Farms plain flour for everyday use but want to try using other flours for some things. For some reason soya flour and chocolate brownies go together very well.

I also regularly cook for someone who is lactose intolerant plus someone who can’t eat tomatoes or eggs though she can have eggs in things like pastry.