Café Review - Cinema Cafe, Bulimba

On Friday night I was lucky enough to go with my friend Catherine to see the movie "Quartet". It was a fabulous movie, especially if you're a muso like me, all those temperamental artistic types are very true to life. By 9:30 we were feeling a bit peckish and went to the nearby "Cinema Cafe" on Oxford Street at Bulimba. Now I'm not a coeliac myself, but I am greatly tempted by Chocolate mud cake, and the Cinema Cafe's offering happened to be gluten free. It was served warmed with ice-cream and I'm sorry, I did mean to take a photo of the frosting oozing down the sides of the cake, but by the time I remembered I was going to take a photo I found that it was all gone! It was fantastic. I think it was a hazelnut base with a very stiff almost mousse-like centre. And it wasn't the only gluten free cake on offer. There was a home-baked orange and almond cake which looked a lot more rustic and enjoyable than the heavy, mass produced version which seems to be on offer in most coffee shops these days. There were others, but my memory fails me, I think blotted out by the intense chocolate rush!

I did remember to glance over the menu and there was gluten free bread available and lots of gluten free options listed on all the breakfasts, lunches, mains and desserts. I thought that this offering sounded rather good:
Prawn Hot Pot Ala Puttanesca juicy tiger prawns cooked in evoo w cherry tomato, fresh chilli & garlic, capers, olives, served w warm bread 16.9 GF option anchovies optional.

The prices are on the higher end of cafe prices, but it's a nice sounding menu and I guess that's what you expect in Oxford Street. I am definitely planning to head back there with the rest of the family in tow. Sorry about the photo - here's a photo of the cafe so you can find it easily if you want to try for yourself!

Jam Drops - made by Cameron

Today we are busy trying to keep food up to my coeliac, type one diabetic husband who is busy laying down cement floors for our two bathrooms and laundry which are yet to be tiled. (Fun holiday project - not!) It's his third day and he's nearly done - but burning through his sugars really fast. I'm a bit over cooking today as I have experimented with summer fruit pie, different breads and some peach scones in the last few days, so I sent Cameron (11) off to the kitchen to make Jam Drops. We have a tried and tested recipe that we use from the Sally Wise cookbook, "From My Kitchen to Yours", which is full of gluten-free recipes that she devised to help feed her coeliac daughter. Sally is well known for her preserving and slow-cooker cookbooks. Cameron managed to make a really nice batch with not too much help from me, apart from the cleaning up of course....I think that there was more coconut spread over the floor and benches than there was on the Jam Drops!

I came across Sally's book when I was trying to find a recipe for gluten free pasta. She has a blog which you can find at http://www.sallywise.com.au/category/blog/ and there are a whole bunch of recipes there. I've yet to try making her pasta recipe, but am determined to give it a go when things settle down on the renovation front. I was able to find her recipe book in an ABC Store and have been successful with pretty much everything I've tried. (Love the upside down pear cake!). One problem with the Jam Drops - they're all gone!

Bread.....

I have a fabulous mother-in-law who is a coeliac and regularly makes our bread for us - shop bought bread is just far too expensive. Every now and then I do make my own loaf - usually variations on the Coeliac Society's white and brown rice bread with additional flours depending on what I have in the cupboard. The loaf I made today turned out really well, so I thought I should share the recipe with you. The trick is to mix all of the dry ingredients, then add the wet ingredients and mix in your mixer using the dough hook. I always line my loaf tin with baking paper to prevent sticking before turning the mixture into it. I proved the bread in the oven for 40 minutes with the oven at 35 degrees, then baked it for 40 minutes with the oven at 200. It looks pretty good and everyone said it tasted great. Here's the mix I used, I hope it works for you.

1 cup of white rice flour
1 cup of brown rice flour
1/3 cup each of corn flour, soy flour, polenta and chick pea flour - but you can also use potato, tapioca and arrowroot - sometimes we find the soy flavour a bit too much depending on the batch of flour so you might like to exchange that or the chick pea flour if you're not fond of the taste
3 tsp xanthan gum
3 tbsp sugar (I find the bread sweet - but I've tried reducing the amount of sugar and it falls apart)
1 1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup milk powder
2 1/4 tsp yeast
2 tbsp LSA mix (linseed,sunflower, almonds) - for fibre
2 tbsp sesame seeds
3 large eggs
1 tsp cider vinegar
1/4 cup canola oil
1 1/2 cups water

Adventures with Jamie Oliver!

Like many people, I dutifully tuned in Jamie's Christmas Specials with the hope of creating fantastic festive fair. After a few years of preparing lavish Christmas breakfasts which saw me slaving in the kitchen, I watched in envy as Jamie cooked up griddle pan waffle for a breakfast which owing to the decadent hot chocolate it was being dipped in was probably guaranteed to win the hearts of my children on Christmas morning - more so than the cranberry muffins and yoghurt and fruit from last year. Surely it wouldn't work with gluten free flours - I imagined a gooey, stodgy creation which was sure to stick to the pan and end up a mess. However asChristmas drew closer and other preparations took over, the idea of a two pan breakfast stuck with me and I decided to give it a go.

I dutifully followed the recipe, just replacing the self-raising flour with F.G. Roberts self-raising flour - and I liberally coated the pan with olive oil to make sure that it didn't stick. I poured the batter in, and it rose beautifully - I thought it might overflow. The time came to flip the waffle, but I chickened out, it just looked a bit too sloppy on top and I was sure that being gluten free it would stick, so I chucked it under the grill to cook the top. After it turned a lovely golden colour I took it out and flipped it onto a bread board. Guess what - it didn't stick! I couldn't believe it! We sliced it up, drowned it in golden syrup and served it with the really decadently thick European hot chocolate and it was awesome. Nice and spongy and airy - I couldn't believe it was gluten free! Oh, and we still had some beautiful fresh fruit...just to make it healthy!

Happy New Year!

Well, how slack - I just looked at my blog and realized that the last time I blogged was just about a year ago - after planning to be more regular with my blog! I guess it's testament to what a busy year we've had, trying to get the renovations finished, picking up a couple of new jobs and generally looking after the family. Of course this doesn't mean I have stopped cooking, in fact my two eldest boys are now starting to eat us out of house and home and it's tricky keeping up! Jamie Oliver's 30 minute meals have featured heavily, with a bit of tweaking, however I must be doing something wrong as 30 minutes easily stretches to an hour!

However today I put pen to page as I just received copies of the Christmas photos my sister-in-law took with her fabulous camera which made my Christmas dessert look like something from a magazine. Fortunately it also tasted fabulous - Chocolate pavlova dripping with chocolate sauce and covered in chocolate coated macadamias and sultanas. Yum! Please enjoy the photo and I promise to try to be more regular in my gluten free adventures!

Gluten Free Caramel Pear Upside Down Cake

As we're just about to have our old kitchen destroyed and our new one put in, I'm desperately trying to empty the pantry and use up all of our old bits of flour, etc so it's not such a big drama when we have to move out for a couple of weeks.  This morning I took out my Sally Wise "From my Kitchen to Yours" Cookbook, looked at the fruit bowl which had some pears which were pretty much on the edge of being chucked out, and found something to cook.  Caramel Pear Upside down cake.  This was a really easy recipe and was so yummy - we ate it hot (wish we had some vanilla ice-cream in the fridge!).  We turned and looked at each other after the first piece and eyed off the left overs.... and yes - ate it all in one sitting!  Sally has a blog which I'd recommend - she even has a recipe for home made gf pasta.  Check it out: sallywise.com.au

Holidays are nearly over!

Time flies when you're having fun....catching up with family...having Christmas....and...trying to renovate your house! Fortunately we survived the holidays with minimal fuss and without the kids killing each other, helped along by some great food. Christmas was a success - my boys are at the age where they generally measure the success of the day by how full their stomachs are. Christmas Eve was just us, and I cooked a yummy turkey with cranberry and walnut stuffing, recipe courtesy of the Taste website - naturally I replaced the bread with gluten free day old bread. This was served with mini pavlova shells filled with cream, fresh berries and mango - yum! Christmas morning was Cranberry Spiced Muffins and fruit platter with home made passion fruit yoghurt, again both recipes from Taste. The muffins are sweet and moist, and work well replacing the normal flour with gluten free self raising flour. These were a welcome treat after all of the energy expended on present opening!

I had all of the family over for lunch and had the traditional prawns for entree, though the weather was really very pleasant for a Queensland summer's day! These were served with a pistachio tarator (no I didn't know what it was either - but look it up on taste.com.au because it was yummy - and a honey almond dipping sauce. Then I made beautiful chicken breasts stuffed with Brie, pistachios and cranberries for a main course. I learnt to make this at the James Street Cooking School and everyone always loves it. I served this with a mixed bean salad and warm potato salad with pancetta. Yum! Finally - the boys favorite desert - choc cherry tiramisu ice cream cake which was in a Super Food Ideas magazine a few years ago. It uses two 2 lite tubs of ice-cream and we end up eating it for days - but it's a big hit.

Other holiday gluten free favourites have included the wonderful mini mince pies from New Zealand company Jon-Jon - I think we bought out Coles and Woolies at Garden City! A beautiful Gluten-Free Ginger Bread house from the wonderful girls at "My Sweetopia" at South Bank. Fast food recipes from the December issue of Donna Hay magazine which were a hit - particularly the Parmesan lamb cutlets! Finally, a great new discovery, Tasmanian author Sally Wise has a gluten free cookbook called "From my Kitchen to Yours", which has a wonderful Jam Drops recipe in it - I can't keep up with the demand! I hope everyone else had as successful a gluten-free holiday time as we did!