Hi there its Me....on my Essentials Store Cupboard Food items Saturday, 22nd February 2014.

Well, here it is, my Essential food items for gluten-free and regular cooking and eating...

Essential Store Cupboard Food Items – Gluten-free & Regular

Gluten-free Baking Powder

Bi-carbonate of Soda

Dried Yeast

Fresh Yeast

Corn flour

Xantham Gum – a natural binder, reduces crumbling in g-f. baking & improves crumb structure

Butter and unsalted Butter

Lactofree Milk and Cream

Allinson Strong White Bread Flour – for my Sourdough Starter and bread

Doves Farmgluten-free White self-raising flour blend – for cakes and pastry

Doves Farm Gluten and Wheat Free Plain flour for coating, sauces and dusting

Doves Farm Gluten and Wheat Free White Bread flour)

…………………………………………………………………………. For bread

Doves Farm Gluten and Wheat Free Brown Bread flour)

Doves Farm Wholegrain Buckwheat flour – pancakes, flatbread wraps, griddle cakes – this is not Gluten Free but I am able to use it – no significant side-effects

Doves Farm Gluten-free Rice flour – for cookies, sauces, baking English Muffins

SPELT

Doves Farm Organic White Spelt flour – for bread and cookies

Doves Farm Organic Wholegrain Spelt flour – for bread and cookies

Wessex Mill Wholemeal Spelt Bread Flour – for bread and biscuits

Spelt was grown and used world-wide ‘til beginning of 20^th century when it was abandoned for bread wheat, in all places where it had previously been grown and used.  Spelt has a different make up  to ordinary wheat; the growing plant needs less fertiliser, making it acceptable to the Organic farming community and likewise with the health food industry.

NB. My resources for info on Spelt are Wikipedia and two online blog sites, namely Nature’s Legacy – Purity Foods, Inc. and The kitchn – www.thekitchn.com

Doves Farm Organic Pasta

Polenta Valsugana Express – Pre-Cooked Maize Meal for coating, as a vegetable and use to thicken

Sainsbury’s Block Polenta sliced for frying

Olive Oil

Rape Seed Oil

Sunflower Oil

Cider Vinegar

Balsamic Vinegar

Sainsbury’s Taste The Difference Oak Aged Balsamic Dressing

Kikkoman Tamari – Gluten-free Soy Sauce

Geo. Watkins Mushroom Ketchup (its Barley content is not a problem for me)

Marks and Spencer Made Without Wheat Breads, Crumpets, & Crackers – wonderful for when I’m too busy writing to bake!

 

Lemons

Sea Salt

Black Peppercorns

Herbs and Spices

Daisy xxx

IMG 5058 Hi there its ME......on my Essential Store Cupboard Food items

Hi there its ME......making a Quick PC Beef & Veg. Stew - Thursday, 20th February 2014

It's been a busy day, we're hungry and tired and needing a good midweek meal that's quick and easy to cook and ...delicious to eat!

And here it is, my very quick beef and veggie stew made in my Prestige High Dome Pressure Cooker in about sixteen minutes plus prep. time for veggies, which must have taken about six to ten minutes.

Quick Pressure Cooker Beef Stew – Margaret Makes Beef Stew

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. Olive Oil

450g. diced British Beef

1 onion roughly sliced

3 carrots washed, topped and tailed and diced

1 parsnip washed, topped and tailed and diced

1 leek – outer skin removed topped and tailed, cut lengthwise & diced

4 potatoes – washed, cut in half and diced

4 Garlic cloves – skinned and roughly chopped

1.1/2pt boiling water + 1 Beef Stock cube + 2 tsp. dried mixed herbs + (more mixed herbs for dusting stew once plated up) +…

2 Bay leaves for stock

Good squeeze Tomato puree

2 tbsp. Mushroom Ketchup

2/3 tbsp. Beef Gravy Granules

Seasoning

1 small tspn. Chilli powder (optional)

How to make:

1.  Sear meat in hot oil briefly

2.  Make stock pour onto meat, add 1 handful of prepared veg. & bring to 15lb pressure in Pressure Cooker, cook for approx. 8 minutes

3.  Release steam quickly under cold running water.  Remove lid

4.  Add remaining vegetables + remaining ½ pt. stock to pressure cooker, close lid, bring to 15lb. pressure and cook for 4 minutes.

5.  Reduce pressure quickly as before, remove lid, and return pan to hob.

6.  Add gravy browning granules to small quantity of hot stock mix well and add to beef stew; bring to boil and stir well to amalgamate for required thickening.

7.  Check for seasoning and serve with warmed baguettes, rice or pasta.

This quantity will feed four hungry appetites with the addition of baguettes and peas or a green vegetable, or creamy potato mash.

Or be sufficient for four meals, with two being frozen for a future use.

Daisy

Hi there its ME....briefly on Spelt - Sunday 16th February 2014.

I have been eating my new Spelt bread all week and I've noticed only the slightest suggestion of usual side-effects from eating a wheat product - great!.

Yesterday, I decided to make a batch of Spelt muffins using Elizabeth David's recipe for English Muffins 1973 on Page 353 to 355 from her brilliant book - "English Breads and Yeast Cookery" ISBN 07139 1026 7.  Her recipe states a strong plain flour so I just substituted  Spelt flour from Wessex Mill of Wantage, Oxfordshire www.wessexmill.co.uk/‎-

Elizabeth David's books and recipes are very well documented and therefore easy to follow and I always get good results from cooking with her.

The dear SO imagined that muffins cooked very easily and quickly and had no idea that English muffins were a yeasted batter product, requiring two proving times and slow, top-of-stove griddling.  They are really very easy but the process is a bit lengthy, as with most yeast foods but very well worth the effort.  If you can arrange to cook other items whilst your muffins are cooking, that's good, and

Cooking my muffins

the generated warmth will assist with the proving of the batter.

I cooked spicy chicken fillets and my potato kale cakes which we ate for supper with the warm muffins.

2nd Proving of muffins

Cooking my crumpets

Crumpets cooling down

Daisy

IMG 4969 Hi there its ME....on Spelt Flour on Monday, 10th February 2014

Hi there is ME........thinking orange is the colour for January - 5th February 2014

It's official, for me at any rate!  The colour orange is the colour for the first month of the year as far as I'm concerned, as seen for Seville oranges, tangerines, easy-peel Satsumas and apricots.

And Seville Oranges are the most important fruit of the winter, that is from January every year, when these wonderful fruits flood into our stores from Spain.

My aunt used to mince all her fruit and make a very easy, quick marmalade.  I've made a three-fruit marmalade, grapefruit marmalade and an orange and ginger marmalade and always found the same delight in the preparation and cooking.  Particularly, when the temperature is rapidly rising to the "rolling-boil" stage.  A light, creamy white head of froth sits on top of the boiling mass beneath, the combination of deep orange plus a creamy head of whipped cream, shot through with peachy-apricot- cream-orange shades, which is utterly delicious.

This year I used my pressure cooker to cook and soften the fruit, as opposed to slowly cooking the fruit for the usual two hour session; the pressure cooker softened the fruit in just twenty minutes, which was utter bliss.  These days, cooking must be organised so that it is done quickly and efficiently, for there are so many other interesting  activities to occupy me!

There are two  remaining batches of fruit to be marmaladed, which really must be dealt with.  I want to begin a Sourdough starter and the dear SO keeps reminding me of my promise to try my hand at crumpets and muffins, which I've not made for too many years. So as usual, there is much to be made and tested and, well tasted of course!

Spelt Soda bread too.  Yeasted Spelt flat bread as well and this year I really do want to try making those beautiful coloured macaroons - goodness me I can't wait!

Perhaps I could make peach or apricot coloured ones or beautiful orange ones with a nutty chocolate cream filling - now wouldn't they be scrumptious?

Happy cooking!

Daisy

Hi there its ME....on Day 1 Post-exercise class thoughts! - Wednesday, 22nd January 2014.

We slept fitfully because my 'phone kept pinging with unneeded messages in the middle of the night.   He's feeling ill with 'flu like symptoms, sleeping badly because of said 'phone so we wake up late...eek! it's 8.30 am.......

Oh dear....I've just discovered this draft blog, written a few days ago now, since when I've been busy getting myself organised and trying to sort out a ton of papers, which had accumulated, somehow without any real effort on my part, recovering my equilibrium and myself after Christmas....and trying to write!

During this trying time, I've been cooking with Spelt flour, making cookies as per  the recipe found on the packet of my store-cupboard's Doves Farm Organic White Spelt Flour.

Before that, I was making Flatbreads out of Pippa Kendrick's book "The Intolerant Gourmet" ISBN 978-0-00-744864-7 Page 220 & P 221, eating them for breakfast spread with my lovely Very Berry Merry Jam and then eating them with my Kale Pesto - Mmm! delicious!

Now today, 5th February, I've used my Spelt Flour to make a similar flat bread and creating my own recipe for a flat bread...which is delicious,  really lovely, eaten hot with my own kale pesto spread lightly on top.

Now Spelt  is a wheat  and in today's world, something of a rarity since, from the beginning of the 20th century, this flour was mostly,completely dropped, in favour of bread wheat; but Spelt has been grown widely since Roman times, was "known in Europe from the Bronze Age to medieval times" - this information helpfully found on Wikipedia, and now viewed as an historic crop.  We in Britain have been able to buy Spelt Flour from "health food shops" another Wikipedia quote, for some time now and apparently also bread too, via an online source, I see.  It seemed rather expensive for me, I'm afraid, so I will just have to make it myself and soon! Spelt grain is grown and ground into  flour by Doves Farm Foods of Hungerford, Berkshire and sold at Sainsbury's Supermarket from where I buy my supply, "and health food shops" too, which is another quote from Wikipedia.  It makes lovely biscuits or home-made cookies, may be used in soup making, "especially in Provence" and "its nutritional value is comparable with soft wheat and it does not need rich soil." - both comments from my copy of  The Concise Larousse Gastronomique ISBN 0-600-60009-2 see Page 1211 and Page 1212

As for Seville Orange marmalade well, that's another story altogether and one I explore in my next post..

See you soon...

Daisy

PS now, having attended three exercise classes, and its getting better and easier, I'm not quite so exhausted, thank goodness, but now I can't ever stop again.....oh dear me!!!

PPS - I've just checked my Concise Larousse Gastronomique for information on soft wheat, finding on Pages 1388 that "soft wheat is ground for flour of varying degrees of whiteness, depending on how much of the husk is removed" - OK so I just wanted to check this out

 Quote Sources are as follows and I hope all are OK with my utilising their information for my blog-post?

Wikipedia on Spelt
The Concise Larousse Gastronomique on Spelt Pages 1211 and 1212; and on Pages 1164 and 1165 for Seville Oranges - ISBN 0-600-60009-2; and on Page 1388 for Soft Wheat under "Wheat"
Pippa Kendrick's "The Intolerant Gourmet" - ISBN 978-0-00-744864-7