Gluten Free Sausages in Tomato Sauce

This is a really easy and tasty variation on the standard meat and veg meal meal made from whatever was in the fridge and cupboard at the time.  The only problem is I cooked this at least a month ago, so what was it I actually did...

Recipe: Sausages in tomato sauce
Special Needs Categories: gluten free, fructose free
Special Needs Translated: no gluten, no onion

Ingredients:

• sausages, go for some nice ones (make sure they are gluten free and don't have onion)
• celery
• garlic
• tomato puree (make sure it is just tomato as many have onion and some have gluten)
• favorite herbs, think Italian, oregano, rosemary, basil, thyme
• broccoli/beans/corn/carrot (whatever veg you have & like)
• tomato paste if you like it to be rich (check for gluten)

Method:
Start with a fry pan that will be able to fit all the sausages and sauce you are making, it helps if it has a lid.  If it it much bigger than the sausages then you'll need a lot of sauce to cover them, if it's too small then obviously it won't fit.
Simply fry of the sausages and as they are almost cooked, add the chopped celery and garlic.  Fry this off while the sausages finish cooking then add enough tomato puree to cover the sausages.  Add your herbs and any veggies and cook on a slow simmer for 10-20 min or until the veggies are cooked.  Serve with mashed potatoes or some toasted bread, gluten free of course.

Gluten free chocolate self-saucing pudding

Everyone loves a good chocolate pudding, but those that know me know I'm don't do a lot of 'sweet' cooking.  Thankfully I can follow a recipe so here's a yummy recipe for a gluten free chocolate self-saucing pudding.

This pudding is gluten free, fructose friendly and (obviously) vegetarian, plus, if the milk and butter were swapped out for soy milk and Nuttelex then it would be vegan too (though I've never tried).  Anyway it's really easy, most of the ingredients can be found in the pantry (and fridge), and it's really really tasty.  Enjoy!

Food allergen and intolerance fact sheet

If you are ever cooking for someone with a food allergy then this fact sheet this is worth reading.  It's aimed at food businesses but is written in plain english and includes examples for things to watch out for and even has a section on cross-contamination.

Allergen and intolerance - Fact sheet for food businesses

This is just one of the documents put out by the Victorian Department of Health, there is heaps of other information under the Food section of their web site.

Fructose Friendly Gado-gado

This one is always popular, healthy and works well for large groups since everything is cooked separately and combined at the end.  Having the sauce over the top of steamed potatos and a salad was shown to me by a Tasmanian friend's dutch mother who lived in Indonesia for many years, she didn't give up her sauce secrets but I reckon this one is pretty good!

Recipe: Fructose Friendly Gado-gado (peanut sauce)
Special Needs Categories: gluten free, fructose free, (vegan variation possible)
Special Needs Translated: no gluten, no onion, (no fish or egg)

Sauce ingredients:

• peanut butter (I like crunchy) (check if gluten free)
• gluten free soy sauce
• chili
• garlic
• fish sauce (don't use for vegetarian/vegan)
• chinese five spice (Check if gluten free)
• coriander (dried)
• water

Method:
Really simple, combine all ingredients together in a saucepan over low heat.  I usually microwave the peanut butter to soften it a little and help get it out of the jar, then heat it a little on it's own before adding other ingredients.  When you add the water it usually doesn't look like it will mix in but just keep stirring.  Add the water till you get your desired consistency.  Make sure there's plenty of flavour in there as this is what really makes the dish.  (If I wasn't making this fructose friendly I'd have onion in the sauce too, semi-fine chopped and fried a little before you add the other ingredients.)

now the rest of the dish...

Ingredients:

• steamed rice
• steamed potato (& sweet potato if you like)
• chinese cabbage
• cucumber
• bean sprouts
• snow peas
• other assorted salad ingredients
• hard boiled egg (not for vegan dish)
• fresh coriander

 simply combine on a plate (rice then potato then salad with eggs on the side) and pour over the gado-gado sauce!  You can make a salad with the fresh ingredients or just allow people to pick and choose.

Tasty Baked Zucchini's (Gluten Free)

I don't really like zucchini's, and I know a few ppl in the same boat so I thought I'd attempt a recipe that makes them taste good.  So, here's a gluten free, fructose free, vegetarian recipe (with vegan variations) that's cheap, quick, easy to prepare and even I think is really yummy.

Recipe: Baked Zucchini
Special Needs Categories: gluten free, fructose free, vegetarian (vegan variation possible)
Special Needs Translated: no gluten, no onion, no meat (no cheese for vegan)

A non-fructose friendly version before
the cheese was added.

Ingredients:

• zucchini's (biggish ones, room enough to stuff & be a meal but if too big they don't taste good)
• celery
• corn (take off the cob)
• grated sweet potato
• tomato
• garlic
• herbs of your choice (I think I had basil & oregano)
• salt & pepper
• grated cheese

Method:
Split your zucchini's in half, length-ways and scoop out the seeds to create a hollow down the middle.  Take some of these insides and fry them off with the chopped celery, corn, sweet potato, tomato, garlic, herbes and salt & pepper.  Once the veggies have started to soften place the cut zucchini's onto a baking try and spoon the mixture into hollow.  Cover the tray with foil and cook in the oven for ~30 min at 180 deg C.
Once the zucchini's have softened remove the foil, cover with grated cheese (or not for vegan version), place back in the oven and increase the temperature for ~220 deg C for 5 min till the cheese is melted and starting to brown.
Serve on a bed of steamed rice, polenta, potatos (or couscous for non GF version).

Filling variations:

• Onion instead of celery (not fructose free)
• Parmesan cheese stirred through the filling mixture
• Top the zucchini with prosciutto (not vegetarian)
• anything else you want to throw in the filling!

The end product, YUM!  (Again, this is the non-fructose friendly version)

Notes: Often I struggle to get baking trays properly clean (particularly muffin tins), often there's a bit of a residue left behind.  While I think it's just an oil residue, when I'm cooking for someone who is is very gluten sensitive/allergic I'll line the tray with tin foil just to be safe.

Gluten Free Cheesecake

I've made this cheese cake twice now with two different flavours and two different bases.  The first one I made was a honey flavoured cheese cake as part of a passover themed meal to represent the 'land flowing with milk and honey', an old family favourite tradition, but with a gluten free pastry base (rough cut puff pasty) that I've used before.  But this recipe will actually be for the second one I made which was a more traditional cheese cake.

Recipe: Gluten Free Cheesecake
Special needs Categories: Gluten free, low fructose, vegetarian
Special needs explained: Gluten free, no honey

Base ingredients:

• Rice cookies
• Butter

Filling ingredients:

• Creamed cottage cheese
• an egg (or two)
• Lemon zest
• Lime zest
• lime juice
• sweetened condensed milk
• home made raspberry jam

 Method:
 Crush rice cookies in a plastic bag and mix in a bowl with butter till it holds together.  Push this mixture into the base of a baking tray/dish/springform pan.

Next take add all the filling ingredients except the jam into a bowl and mix together.  If you want the filling to be smooth then the cottage cheese needs to be passed through a sieve.  Once evenly combine and it tastes right pour the mixture into the baking tray of choice.  Then drip some jam ontop (we had a very runny jam/sauce that worked really well).

Put dish in oven and bake until it sets, about 30 min @ 180 deg C I think.  If you are worried about it burning then start with the dish covered with tin foil and remove it after 10-15 min.  Don't forget to let it cool before you eat it :)

Mini asian meatballs

These were a little hors d'oeuvre I came up with for a wine night, really easy and really popular, and now here's a gluten and fructose free version.  No more onion or ketchup manis  :(

Dish: Mini asian meatballs
Special need categories: gluten free, fructose free
Special needs explained: only use gluten & fructose free sauces, no onion

Meatball ingredients:

• mince meat. I typically use pork, chicken or turkey mince, whatever is on special.
• gluten free soy sauce
• brown sugar
• chilli
• coriander
• tamarind paste
• chineese five spice (check the packet, some spices contain gluten or onion)
• garlic

Dipping sauce ingredients:

• gluten free soy sauce
• sweet chili sauce (check it's gluten & fructose free)
• coriander
• tamarind paste
• brown sugar
• lime juice
• corn flour (make sure it is made from corn or maize)
• chineese five spice (check the packet, some spices contain gluten or onion)
• garlic

Method

Nice and easy, mix the meat ball mixture together and put little balls of it on a greased baking tray.  Bake in the oven at about 180 deg C till they look ready (maybe 20 min).  Mix the sauce in ingredients together and serve in a bowl along side the meat balls and don't forget the toothpicks.  See easy.

The meatballs and sauce could be made up ahead of time and simply cooked when they are needed as well.

If you are not making it GF then you could use ketchup manis instead of the brown sugar and some of the soy sauce.  If you are not making it fructose free then you could also put some finely chopped onion or onion powder in the meatballs.

Stir-fry sauce

One of the big problems with gluten free asian cooking is that almost all sauces have wheat based soy sauce and/or onion powder for those fructose free. I have found a gluten free oyster sauce, but that doesn't work if you are vegetarian or allergic to seafood, there are also vegetarian 'oyster' sauces, but I haven't found a gluten free version. So anyway, I've come up with a bit of a stir-fry sauce the I reckon tastes pretty good, it's only had a few iterations so I will continue to play with it a little.

Dish: Stir-Fry sauce
Special need categories: Gluten free, fructose free, vegetarian, shellfish allergy
Special needs translated: no gluten, no onion, no animal products, no shellfish

Ingredients:

• gluten free soy sauce
• little olive oil
• brown sugar (this is a substitute for palm sugar which looks to be high in fructose)
• corn flour (check it is gluten free, i.e. made from corn/maize)
• garlic (contain fructose but usually safe in small quantities)
• ginger
• chili
• tamarind paste (I don't think this is a high fructose fruit)
• chinese five spice (check the packet, some spices contain gluten or onion)
• rice vinegar, just a little
• a little water to make it less rich and go a bit further

Method

Basically it is just a matter of combining everything in a bowl and tasting it to see what you think. I use the brown sugar because I can't use ketchup manis like I normally would and the corn flour is a thickening agent. The tamarind paste is just a fruit paste that give a bit of a 'tang' to the dish, the vinegar does a little of the same. Chinese five spice is a great spice for just about any asian dish, the actual mix of spices varies but typically it is something like fennel, cloves, cinnamon, star anise, cassia, ginger and/or peppercorns. The rest is about as expected I would think. You could also add some onion powder to fill out the flavour a little if it didn't have to be fructose free.

I usually mix this up in a bowl before I start cooking, make it easier to get the flavours right (I used to put my individual ingredients straight ontop of the stir-frys before). When I'm cooking with unflavoured tofu I marinade it in the sauce for a while and just tip it all in together.

Otherwise I think that's about it, mix, match, add/subtract ingredients and flavours till you find something that works. Asian cooking has lots of gluten free options however it often means you have to go back to base ingredients because in many cases, you can't use pre-prepared sauce. Have fun with it!

'What's in the fridge' eggy rice

I've been experimenting with some different ways to cooking rice recently after my girlfriend cooked a tasty risotto in the oven in a casserole dish, I'd only every used a saucepan or frypan and had to stir the whole time. Anyway been trying out doing some hybrid steamed rice risotto which have worked pretty well but I had an egg left in the fridge so I thought I'd try and asian inspired variation.

Dish: Eggy rice dish
Special need categories: Gluten free
Special needs translated: No gluten, check all packageing, have included notes for the important ingredients.

• long grain rice (I used basmati)
• an egg
• stock, vegetable or chicken (check it is gluten free, use Massel 7's for fructose free)
• onion (don't use or substitute for celery for fructose free)
• chinese five spice (check it's gluten free)
• sweet potato finely chopped
• potato finely chopped
• carrot finely chopped
• soy sauce (check it's gluten free)
• tinned tuna (mine was flavoured with lemongrass and wasabi)

Method

Ok so the basic theory is, fry the onion, steam the rice, steam the potato and add the egg at the end.

So, start by frying the onions in a bit of oil, add some garlic if you like.  Once softened add the rice and water till it's twice the depth of the rice, put in some stock (was using powdered), give a quick stir and bring to the boil (adding boiling water will make this happen faster).  Then put a tight lid on, set the stove to lowest heat and set a timer for about 8 min.  The rice will take 20 min to cook, I guessed the potato would take just over 10.

After 8 min throw in the potato and sweet potato, put the lid back on and set the timer for another 12 min.
Once cooked lightly mix the egg, soy and some chinese five spice in a bowl, add the rice and stir through till the rice if fully coated, the hot rice will cook the egg.  The add the carrot and tuna and serve (mix through if you like).

As the title suggest, this is what was in my fridge/pantry, any other veggies could be added or subtracted, for the cooked veggies it's a matter of guess work as to how long they will take to steam.  Some other ingredients to try could be snow peas, beans, chicken, capsicum.