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!

Cooking adventures

So I've discovered the "Good Taste" Magazine, and thought I'd take on the challenge to "Cook the Issue" - Gluten Free of course. So some were success, others failures - but I guess along the way I'm learning about good and bad replacements.

Some that worked:
* Pea and Ham Soup - easy!
* Indian Feast - hmm - not as easy - Vegetable Bhaji were a gluggy disaster and though I liked the Cauliflower dish - the boys thought it was disgusting.
* Pork Parmigiana - I replaced the bread crumbs with polenta and a little bit of gf plain flour - this was a HIT with the boys!
* Chicken Curry pies with Sweet Potato - a "pot" pie - no pastry - also a hit
* My personal favourite - Chickpea & prosciutto minestrone - yum!
Some photos are attached - sorry presentation ain't my thing!

More experiments to come!

Happy Australia Day

I spent the morning in the Brisbane Entertainment Centre at the Australia Day Citizenship Ceremony with the Navy Band. I always love this gig as there are always many excited faces full of hope and pride in the audience. During the break talk turned to what we were doing for the rest of our holiday. Having kids naturally rules out cockroach races at the local pub so I decided to do a spot of cooking. While not traditionally Australian fare - I chose to cook a Berry cake - which is really just a big friand baked in a tray then cut up and served in slices when it's cooled. The recipe is on http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/9326/berry+and+almond+cake - just use G.F. plain flour instead of the normal plain flour. Really yummy and sweet and a great way to use up egg whites. My only problem is my vicious oven - which necessitates me turning the oven down 20 deg. and watching it carefully throughout the cooking to make sure that it doesn't burn. Roll on the house renovations, hopefully starting in a couple of weeks! I'm so looking forward to a new kitchen with new appliances. That self cleaning oven sounds awesome!

Well, my boys have discovered meat loaf. I never thought I would make one - it's something I remember with horror from year 8 Home Economics classes - but I managed to find a very nice recipe from my July edition of Notebook: magazine which incorporated fennel seeds, pistachios and caraway seeds. I just whizzed up some left over crusts from our home made gluten-free bread for breadcrumbs and 20 minutes later - dinner! I cooked them in a tray that was broken up into little individual loaves. Didn't quite look like a Master Chef presentation, but definitely better than the thick slices I remember from home ec. There's a thought - how about a Master Chef challenge to cook all gluten free one night. Let's see them turn out a great gluten-free cake or pastry.

Blogging....

Well - the one thing that I've learnt about blogging - you actually have to do it. Very remiss of me to write one post then disappear as I try to organize my life! Unfortunately my world has been turned topsy-turvy over the last couple of weeks - the most significant change of which is that I may have to move back to full time work due to performance opportunities being removed thanks to budget cuts! I love being a musician and playing, but unfortunately it doesn't always pay the bills, and once accounts start looking at how much it costs to maintain a band, well..... the rest I'm sure you can work out. Anyway - that's in limbo, so house renovations are in limbo (thank goodness we hadn't signed with the bank yet!), so extra work...also in limbo - but if you know of a school looking for a brass teacher - then I'm your (wo)man.
A gluten-free challenge this week - Son no.1 just had braces put on - gluten free mush for a week (no he won't eat Elizabeth's mushed up baby food like I suggested!). We managed to find a few soups "La Zuppa" brand which are gluten free - we had to go on a special shopping trip to find sloppy gluten free goodies as apparently mashed potato and pumpkin for a week wasn't his idea of food. Still we are managing, as long as I cook lots of Spaghetti Bolognaise and supply copious amounts of ice-cream he thinks he will live!

Hello

Well, here I am, doing what everything else is doing and starting a blog. I turned 40 on the weekend and have decided that it must be time to try something new in my life. What could possibly be interesting about my life, that would interest anyone else, I wonder. Well - I guess what I've spent a lot of my time doing is preparing food and eating it. Why is that a challenge - well two of my children and my husband are coeliacs. To complicate matters, my husband is also a late onset type 1 diabetic - so lots of potato and pasta are out of the question. Even if noone reads my blog - it'll be a chance for me to record my experiences so that I can find recipies again without retrawling through cookbooks for the one that worked.

Where should I start with my Gluten Free adventure - well how about my birthday on the weekend. With 4 children, one still breast-feeding having a huge night out on the town was out of the question. So we did breakfast. Off we trotted with our gang and friends who cared enough to get up early on a Sunday morning to "James Street Bistro" in the Valley. My Coeliacs were happy as they do gluten free bread as well as other yummy options. My husband (Tony - coeliac) had a huge Omlette stuffed with spinach and goats cheese - yum, while Grandma & Steven (coeliacs) chose from the create your own breakfast menu. By the way - Tony had a cappucino - did you know that not all of the chocolate that they sprinkle on the top is gluten free. He always avoids it just in case. So we were all happy - particularly me who had my favourite Eggs Benedict. We stayed long enough to be served a celebratory glass of champagne. Lovely!

Of course we had to have the obligatory birthday cake. My children were disappointed that I wouldn't put 40 candles on the cake. However I was fortunate enough to have an excuse from this daunting task. Grandma brought I beautiful Tiramisu from "Bonjour Patisserie" in New Farm. Due to the copious amounts of cocoa on the top I explained that I couldn't blow the candles out for fear of spreading cocoa across the room. This accepted, we proceeded with the singing of "Happy Birthday" and proceeded to devour this most beautiful cake. I wish now that I'd taken a photo of it to show you. If you haven't been to Bonjour - head there straight away - gluten free pies, cakes and pastries. So many that only the non-gluten free food has stars on it. How fabulous is that!

Well, must go and tackle the washing. Have a great day.

Karina