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.

Warm veggie salad

Needed a quick meal and was craving veggies so this is what I came up with. I know my mother has made a broccoli and cauliflower salad but I really don't recall what's in it. Anyway here's mine...

Dish: Warm veggie salad
Special need categories: Gluten free, low fructose
Special needs translated: Gluten free, no onion

Ingredients:

• broccoli
• cauliflower
• green beans
• Gluten free pasta (I used shells)
• pesto (Note: Check ingredients)
• wholegrain mustard (Note: Check ingredients)
• rice wine vinegar
• olive oil
• salt & pepper

Method:

Start by putting the pasta on to cook. Then cut veggies into bite sized pieces and start them steaming. Now for the dressing. Add remaining ingredients into a small bowl and mix well, add some water if you want the dressing to be a little weaker.

When cooked tip veggies and drained pasta into a serving bowl and add dressing. Done.

The pasta helps turn this into a meal but I've also made it without before.

Yummy quick GF quiche

So I'm sitting at work on Thursday morning wondering what savoury, GF, low fructose dish I could take to a picnic that night when I have 1 hour to prepare it. My brain eventually got onto pasty (coz I had some in the freezer) and then I eventually thought of quiche, that's a picnic food! So I did a few quick web searches and got a feel for the general method/cook time and wend shopping for the remaining ingredients. On arriving home I went into a mad rush trying to prepare the quiche (having never made one before) and a loaf of gf bread in 65 min and this is what I came up with, even if it took me 75 min . . .

Dish: Yummy quick quiche
Special need categories: Gluten free, low fructose
Special needs translated: Gluten free, no onion

Ingredients:

• gluten free pastry (I had a rough cut puff pastry)
• eggs 4-5
• milk 1-2 cups
• bacon (check it's gluten free)
• celery
• mushrooms
• tomato
• grated tasty cheese
• frozen spinach
• parsley
• oregano
• garlic
• salt & pepper

Method:

Start by pre-heating the oven to around 190 deg C. Then lightly oil your baking dish and lay the pasty inside. Cover with foil and bake in the oven for about 10 min.

While the crust is being pre-bake, cut up your solid ingredients and fry the bacon, celery and mushroom a pan, add the defrosted spinach, parsley and tomato to the pan right at the end to combine and heat through a little.

Whisk the eggs and mile together in a bowl and add the salt and pepper and oregano (this could have been added to the fry pan instead).

Next to assemble. Empty the pan into the baked crust, sprinkle some cheese over the top and then simply pure the egg mixture on top into the crust. I found I didn't quite have enough so whisked another egg (5th) with some soy milk (was all I had) to top it up.

Now I started baking without foil over the top and added it later but the other way around is probably a better idea. So, cover with foil and place in the oven. Bake for approx. 25 min, then remove foil and continue for another 10-20 min.

Now remember these are best guesses (as all my cooking is), I was fiddling with the temperature and time to try and speed things up a little and then left it covered in the heavy dish while in transit to try and continue the cooking a little more. Anyway, in the end, there was a small section very slightly under done but it was more than edible and tasted fantastic. It's also worth nothing that I ended up with a fairly deep quiche (fried up too many yummy fillings) and this would have affected the cooking time too.

Anyway in the end I headed out the door 10 min late with a quiche and a fresh baked loaf of GF bread, not a bad effort I think. Stay tuned for a quick review of the bread mix I used too!

Lamb marinade - GF

One fine day we were planning a family BBQ at the holiday house when we suddenly realised, that there weren't enough chops and sausages for everyone! :s Then I remember I had a boned half leg of lamb and got to work.

Dish: Lamb marinade
Special need categories: gluten free, low fructose
Special needs translated: no gluten, no onion

Ingredients:

• Lamb (I had a boned half leg)
• Lemon juice & zest
• Rosemary
• Lemon thyme
• Garlic
• Olive oil
• Water
• Salt
• Pepper

Method:
Combine all ingredients in bowl and add the lamb (or add to the lamb). Now to get your hands dirty. Massage the marinade into the meat and make sure the lamb is well covered, including non-liquid pieces. Allow the meat to marinade for at least an hour, longer would be better.

The water is basically used as a filler to allow the marinade to cover the lamb a littler better however most of the liquid came from the lemon juice. Before I marinaded the lamb I made a few extra cuts to allow it to sit flat on the BBQ because that's how we were cooking it. This marinade could be used for roasts or lamb fillets or chops.

Don't forget that you can put your cooked meat back in the marinade or use it as a dressing but only if it has been cooked. This could be either with the meat (i.e. roasted) or separately (i.e. in microwave or saucepan).