Remedy for a Rainy Day

With all of the rain we've had lately here in Brisbane, we're all in need of a lift. It's tragic to hear that yet another town has gone under water today, just over a month since the last lot of floods. So with a bunch of summer fruit such as nectarines, peaches and plums needing using up in the fridge, I decided that it was time for a pie.

Pies are not often a feature in our coeliac household. I approached this attempt with trepidation, as even normal pastry scares me, let alone gluten free! I followed Sally Wise's recipe for a Free Form Summer Fruit pie. (From Her "My Kitchen to Yours" cookbook. Free form sounded good as it meant I didn't have to have a perfect looking pie top! The pastry recipe seemed a little gooey to do anything with, so I added more flour to the mix and subsequently made it too crumbly. I remedied this with an extra egg. The resulting pastry turned out to be a nice short, crumbly pastry which melted in our mouths. I served the pie warm with ice-cream. Yum! By the end of our indulgence, a little sun was peeking through the clouds and the showers had stopped, so maybe the pie lifted more than our personal gloom. Certainly a good reason to make pie again!

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!

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