Hot, Sweet and Sour Orange, Carrot and Ginger Soup

I've always liked orange carrot soup much more conceptionaly than in practice. I've even had a Covent Garden Soups version with carrot, orange and ginger, which I thought I would love, but didn't. To me, the flavours needs balancing and more punch, and what I love about Chinese food is the concept of balancing all the taste dimensions: sweet, sour, salty and acid.

A cold has been doing the rounds at work and in this little abode, so while I'll write up the 'Feed-a-cold Chicken Fusion Soup for Him' soup that we did on over the weekend later, today will be about my 'feed-a-cold soup for Her', which is the above.

Just a heads up: we'll be roasting the carrots first to get them nice and sweet.

This soup makes just enough for two bowls with leftovers for next day lunch. Double up if you want more.

Ingredients:

• half a red onion
• 2 cloves, ground
• 2 'petals' of star anise, ground
• quarter teaspoon powdered ginger
• half an inch fresh ginger, peeled and chopped fine
• quarter teaspoon nutmeg
• kallo (or other gluten free brand) vegetable stock cube
• 100 ml orange juice
• 3 cloves garlic - chopped. oh yeah, this cold is going down!
• 3 carrots, sliced in half
• 1 potato, diced.
• 1/4 cup of pink lentils, washed and rinsed very well
• sprig rosemary

After soup is made:

• Balsamic vinegar - to taste
• honey- to taste
• Tabasco sauce or scotch bonnet pepper sauce, to taste

Method:
First, toss the sliced carrots in olive oil in a metal tray and place in a pre-heated oven for 20 minutes at 180 degrees to roast.

When the carrots are ready: fry the onion, garlic and ginger gently in a frying pan in a little olive oil for 2-3 minutes. Into a pot add this and the diced potato, rosemary, and other ingredients except the vinegar, honey and Tabasco sauce. Add a cup of boiled water and cook for 20-30 minutes of medium-low heat.

After the time is up, let the soup cool a little, then use a hand blender to get everything smooth.
Now add a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar and a little honey to taste, then pepper sauce. The result is a beautifully deep soup that hits your taste bugs in all their erogenous zones!

(I did this in my thermomix for 20 mins at 100C, then blended at speed 7 for about a minute)

Autumn Layered Polenta Bake

Ready-made polenta is one of those great standbys to keep in the fridge.
A low fuss, low effort dinner could be some grilled or stir fried veggies and some fried polenta chips, but since I'm trying to cut the cholesterol, I googled 'baked polenta recipe', hit 'image search' and clicked the images I liked the look of. This recipe is the love child of those recipes.

You can change the ingredients around based on what you have at hand and add more polenta layers if you have more than one pack. In essence, you want to make a sort of chunky stew and then sandwhich it between two layers of polenta which you'll bake in the oven until crisp. The difference in texture between those layers is what makes this meal.

I use nutritional yeast and salt mixed together to give it a crunchy, cheesy topping, but for the dairy or soy-cheese enabled, please feel free to cover the top with the melting stuff.
Ingredients

• Ready-made polenta, sliced
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 1 stick celery, chopped
• 1 can chopped tomatoes
• 2 carrots, sliced
• half a can of puey lentils (leftovers from another a previous night’s dinner)
• 3 marks and spensor 100% meat sausages (leftover from Mr Umami's lunch), sliced
• 1.5 cups peeled and diced pumpkin (I used a potato peeler) OR sweet potato, diced and peeled.
• Quarter teaspoon dried oregano
• Sprig of fresh rosemary
• Dash of balsamic vinegar
• Sea salt
• 1-2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• Extra virgin olive oil

For the topping:

• Nutritional yeast flakes
• Salt
• Olive oil

Method
Preheat the oven to 190c. This recipe will use the hob and the oven. On the hob, in a large frying pan, fry chopped onions, garlic and celery on medium heat for 3-4 minutes until the onions soften. Add carrot, pumpkin, herbs and a little salt, and leave on the same medium heat, stirring occasionally to get colour on all sides of the veg until the pumpkin starts to soften, about 10 minutes.

Brush a baking dish with a little olive oil and leave in the oven to heat for ten minutes.

Return to the hob: add the tinned tomatoes, hot water, lentils, sausages and a dash of balsamic vinegar, then tun the heat up and leave on the hob for another 10-15 minutes until the pumpkin is fork tender.

Remove the tray from the oven and arrange polenta slices on the bottom layer, then add the stew on top, then arrange another layer of polenta slices on top. Brush the top polenta slices with olive oil, sprinkle liberally with nutritional yeast flakes and grind some sea salt all over the top (cheese is actually quite salty). Put in centre of oven for 20 minutes.

Baked Spanish Meatballs and Potatoes in Tomato Sauce

They tell you to never shop for groceries while hungry, and that applies doubly for people with allergies; you will see things that you want to eat but can’t. This recipe was inspired by a Marks & Spensor 'Gastropub' ready meal. For the non-allergy prone, you could run off and buy the plastic tray version, but I encourage you to try meatballs spiced my way at least once. It's fast and easy to prepare and the results are perfect for an autumn evening.

You can use either (low fat) beef or pork mince for the meatballs, or a mixture of both. You could also add some chopped chorizo, although we’re going to spice our meatballs chorizo style anyway so it’s not necessary and I didn’t use it in my recipe.

I decided to skip a little oil by steaming the meatballs in my Thermomix varoma tray and used the Thermomix’s internal basket to boil the potatoes at the same time (why make life any harder?), but boiling the spuds the old fashioned way, in a pot, and browning the meatballs in a frying pan before putting both in the oven to cook through works just as well, although I'd reduce the boiling time a smidgen since you'll need to bake the meatballs in the oven just a tiny bit longer to cook through and don't want mushy spuds. You can use any tomato based pasta sauce for this recipe. I found a great tomato and basil one at Marks & Spensor which had no nasties in it.

Note: if using frozen meat, pour a little white vinegar on them to help tenderize the meat while it defrosts. This results in softer meat. 

Ingredients:

• 400g beef or pork mince
• 1 clove garlic (or two smaller cloves. I like mine big and chubby!)
• Quarter teaspoon smoked paprika (mine is hot, otherwise I'd use more)
• Teaspoon oregano
• Salt and pepper, to season
• 1 egg 
• Gluten free breadcrumbs
• 1 jar tomato pasta sauce
• New potatoes, sliced in half or regular potatoes cut into chunks.

Preparation:
In a large bowl, combine mince, oregano, chopped garlic,paprika, salt and pepper and egg. Add enough breadcrumbs to make the mixture non-sticky. Form into meatballs and add to varoma tray. Mine filled the bottom tray and a little of the second tray too. Since they’re going in the oven after, it's ok if they’re a little undercooked.

Chop potatoes and add to the thermomix’s internal basket. Add 3 cups boiled water to the Thermomix, place the varoma tray on top, set to 15 minutes, varoma temperature, speed one. Switch on oven to 200c to warm. When the spuds are done and the meatballs steamed (or pan fried) drain and place into a large baking tray. Coat meatballs and potatoes with tomato sauce and leave it to bake for 15-20 minutes (a little longer if pan frying. Steaming cooks them all the way through better).

Serve into bowls and enjoy!

Vegan Corn Chowder Recipe, Two Ways

This is an extremely comforting and filling soup, perfect for counteracting windy and wet commutes. Corn is very high in fiber and antioxidants, and cooking it for longer releases more of the good stuff.

We're in corn season so I'm using fresh corn in this recipe, although canned works just as well and apparently has a better amount of antioxidants, just less vitamin C. You could skip pre-boiling the corn and cook the soup longer, although when doing this recipe in the thermomix, which usually cooks roots and pulses tender in 20-30 minutes, I found that even at 45 minutes, the corn was still a little crunchy. I don't know how long uncooked corn would take to get soft in the slow cooker, and think it would probably be easier to pre-boil it first rather than overcook everything else to get it to the right texture.

The slow cooker recipe is a set-and-forget easy but takes 7-9 hours and needs another 30 mins to get the coconut milk hot. it's perfect for setting up before work, or if you'll be working at home and don't want distractions.

The thermomix is much faster- 35 mins- and doesn't need a hand blender, but you'll need to cook the onion and garlic for a few minutes ((puts-hand-on-forhead-to-feign-horror)) before adding the other ingredients in. Once the coconut milk is addd, it's really fast to warm that up in the thermomix. Today Mr Umami will be deep in the countryside of Thames Valley for much of the day, so this will be a thermomix day.

Ingredients:

• 2 ears of corn, kernels removed and boiled for 15 minutes
• 2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes
• 1 large carrot, cut into cubes
• little pinch of smoked cayenne pepper- it's easier to add more later if not enough.
• pinch of nutmeg
• little bit of thyme
• 1-2 cloves garlic. (I like it garlicky!)
• 1 onion, chopped fine
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 chicken stock cube
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• fresh grated pepper to taste
• 2 measuring cups boiled water

(add these before serving)

• Half a can of coconut milk
• olive oil to taste (dairy free butter would actually be better, but we're out!)

Slow cooker recipe (takes 7-9 hours plus 30 mins)
Put ingredients except olive oil and coconut milk into the crock pot.
Cover and cook on LOW for 7 to 9 hours. Before serving, puree using hand blender. Check the consistency: it should still show some chunks. Stir in coconut milk and olive oil, and heat on HIGH for 30 minutes. (or you can nuke in microwave to get the milk hot)

Thermomix Recipe
Add onion, garlic and a little olive oil and cook at speed spoon, 100c for 2 mintues.
Add other ingredients except canned coconut milk, cook at speed spoon 100C for 25 minutes. If the corn is still a little crunchy cook at varoma temperature for 2 mins.
turn to speed 5 for 15 seconds. Check the consistency. it should still show some chunks.
Add coconut milk and cook at speed spoon, 100c. for 5 minutes.

Sultry Carrot, Lentil and Aubergine soup

Why sultry? It has an unexpected twist- a quarter teaspoon of star anise and pink and white peppercorns that don't announce themselves, but gives this soup an air of mystery and depth.

I've written this recipe up for the thermomix since that's what I used to make it, but it's easy to do this with a frying pan, a pot and a hand blender, just leave it with some texture!

Ingredients:

• 2 carrots, chopped
• Half an onion, chopped
• One clove garlic
• 1 cup chopped tomatoes
• Half cup pink/red lentils, washed
• Half a cup chopped baby aubergines
• 2 small potato diced (or one larger one)
• 300 ml boiled water or same amount of vegetable stock
• Vegetable stock cube
• Quarter teaspoon star anise, powdered
• A couple twists of mixed peppercorns (pink, black, white)
• Quarter teaspoon (hot) smoked paprika - don't worry, it won't be a hot soup!

Sauté the onions and garlic at 100c for 2 mins at speed spoon. Then add the chopped carrots and chopped aubergines and cook again at same temperature and speed for another 2 minutes.

Add the rest of the ingredients and cook at 100c for 20 minutes (speed spoon). When time is up, blend at speed 4 for 20-30 seconds. This gives is a slightly chunky texture and you can still see flecks of aubergines.

Sea Maiden Salad: Raw Vegan 'Seafoody' Sea Vegetable Salad

I've started Kriss Carr's Crazy Sexy Diet, and am on day 4 of the 21 Day Cleanse, which is a low glycemic, no refined carbs, no sugars, no meat, no coffee or black tea, no junk, all vegan, high raw, low inflammation diet. It sounds hard-core, but I've been eating vegan at least twice a week and can't eat dairy and seafood anyway, and most importantly of all- I keep hearing people rave about how their assorted ailments improved on this diet. It's worth a shot!

So far, I'm loving it!
This Salad is so good! I had to write it down now before I forget what when into it. It started of as leftover lemon-kale salad which I added wakame to and then thought I'd make taste a bit more 'seafoody' with chlorella powder.

Ingredients:

• Half a cup chopped kale, stems and hard spines removed.
• Raisins, rinsed and soaked in hot water for 10-15 minutes, then drained
• Juice of half a lemon
• Salt, to taste
• 1 tablespoon Arame, soaked in a little warm water (this will expand)
• 2 tablespoons broken off bits of Wakame (mine were in long strands) soaked in warm water for 10-15 minutes
• Half an avocado, chopped
• 1 teaspoon chorella powder
• 1 tablespoons sprouted sunflower seeds (optional, but I love the slightly nutty creamy taste these add)
• olive oil or flax seed oil, to dress

Toss the Kale with the lemon juice and salt and leave to wilt a little while the seaweeds are soaking, then add the raisins, seaweeds, sprouted sunflower seeds (if using) avocado and chlorella. Toss to coat the leaves with the chorella powder - this is where a lot of the seafood taste comes from, along with the sea weeds. Taste, and add a little more salt and oil if you like. The avocado gives the salad creaminess and texture and the raisins add sweetness to offset the kales bitterness. If you don't have or don't like raisins you can add some sugar but I'm avoiding sugar for my 21 Day Cleanse so raisins it is for me. 

Easy Sweet and Sour Chicken

I confess, I've been cooking on autopilot a lot lately: cycling through my own recipes for weeks and reverting to my standby favourites (rice and beans, veggie rice, gluten free pasta, soup..so much soup!) when I'm really tired. It's been comfy! In the beginning, I felt I needed to put down a showstopper on the table each night, to prove to myself and my boyfriend that allergy food wasn't drab, but now that I know what's out there, chilling with the beau or having some time to read seems more important most nights.

Then we went away on a short break in Scotland and I mostly lived off my home baked gluten free bread, chorizo, and baked beans for four days. It was fun, but I really did not want to see anything tomato, bean, or sausage based when I got back. I wanted fresh, and lots and lots of veg. And easy to put together cos we were still unpacking. I kept thinking 'fennel' ..and then 'pineapple', so sweet and sour it was!

The following recipe for sweet and sour sauce comes out at around about the same thickness and taste as Uncle Ben's sweet and sour. Make of that what you will. Yes, it's not like in the Rice Box (Rice Box, I still miss you!), but it's still nice and doesn't require a box of pineapple juice and another of orange juice like some recipes ask for. it does require a can of pinapple chunks but you probably figured that since those are visible in most sauces anyway. Toss in whatever veg you have at hand, and serve over brown rice.
I know this list of ingredients seems long, but they are mostly things your likely to have at hand (they were what I had!). Probably the only things you'll need to get from the store are the actual pineapple and five spice powder. :)

Ingredients:

• 420g (or similar, that was the weight they had in the store. I could have used less) Pinapple chunks in natural juice. Don't drain the juice! We'll use it in the sauce.
• 2-3 tablespoons of orange marmalade. I used a 'no sugar added' brand cos I react to glucose syrup (which is often derived from wheat in Europe) but any type will do if your less sensitive. The marmalade has it's own sweetness, so it replaces both orange juice and sugar in other recipes. It's also something I had handy, and vow to keep handy!
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar (or soy sauce if you're ok with soy)
• 100 ml sherry (sweet or dry)
• 1 inch fresh ginger, chopped fine
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 3-4 tablespoons ketchup
• Quarter teaspoon fennel seeds
• 2 teaspoons five spice powder. I actually had no five spice powder so I pounded 2 cloves, a quarter stick of cinnamon, and a star anise in my pestle and mortar, then added coriander and lots of black pepper. I have a lot of herbs :)
• Cornflour, to thicken.  I always use Doves, cos they have gluten free facilities so I don't need to worry about cross contamination. 
• Red pepper, chopped into 1 inch chunks
• Garlic
• Onions
• meat and veggies of your choice
• Salt, to taste

Method:

1. Chop onions, garlic, and ginger, then fry the onions and garlic for 1 minute, then add the ginger for another minute. If using meat or meat replacement, add now and season. If using had veggies like carrots or cabbage, add this now too. All other veggies should be added later. 
2. Add the sherry, and let boil for 30 seconds.
3. Add everything else except the veggies. You added the pinapple juice too, right? Good! Stir well to get those the jam, ketchup, tomato paste and spices all mixed. You can add a bit more sherry to add liquid, but remember meat and many veggies give off water when they cook. 
4. Now add your veggies, and cook until soft. In a separate small bowl, add a tablespoon of water and a tablespoon of cornflower and mix to get a smooth paste, add to the sweet and sour sauce to thicken. If it's not thick enough to your liking you can repeat this step. I added about 3 tablespoons of cornflower to mine. 

I served this with brown rice because I was craving simple, unrefined foods (I ate many, many refined rice cakes on the road), but sticky or egg fried rice would also be amazing with this. Here's a simple egg fried rice, and here's a more fancy one that would work as a quick meal on it's own, or accompaniment for a special dinner. 

Lemon Broccoli Pasta

Simple and quick but so yummy.

Ingredients:

• 100ml soaked cashews (I pour the cashews into a measuring jug to soak so use the ml marks), This is to make cashew cream, you can use another non-dairy cream if you prefer.
• 2 heads of broccoli
• 1 Lemon, mine was already zested for making Limoncello on a previous day, but if yours isn't, go ahead and zest it for extra 'zing'!
• Vegetable or chicken stock cube
• Pasta (I use Doves Gluten Free Brown Rice Pasta) or noodles
• 1 teaspoon crushed black peppercorns
• 1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar (if not using cashew cream, omit)
• salt, to taste

Method

1. Blend cashews and 100ml of water in a high powered blender for 1 minute at highest speed to make cashew cream. Add 400ml of water to make 500ml of cream. Pour out and set aside.
2. Cut up the broccoli and steam for 10 mins. At the same time, boil the pasta. They should roughly come out the same time. (I did this in my thermomix so I could chill out a bit.)
3. In the meantime, cut and juice the lemon. If you like, you can zest it and add the zest to the steaming veggies for more zing.
4. When the pasta and veggies are ready, chop the garlic and fry gently in a medium-high heat. Add the cashew cream, lemon juice, stock cube, pepper corns and salt and vinegar. The vinegar is there to add the kind of acidity you get in dairy milk so you can omit this if you like. Heat for 1 minute until it thickens slightly, then add the veggies and pasta and stir through.

Pri Pri Sauce

I'd repeatedly heard from my coeliac support group that Nando's sauce was gluten free, and craving some of that Nando's taste, included a bottle in my online grocery shopping only to find that it contained 'lactose' (the bane of the lactose intolerant, and an extract of milk for all out allergic people, like me) and was made "in a factory that handles everything your allergic to, why didn't you read the label?!".

So, no matter what anyone tells you, always read the label.

Fortunately, it's pretty easy to make pri pri sauce. The following is adapted from various online recipes and tweaked to resemble the Nando's label recipe, which adds some extra herbs, tomato paste and uses molasses instead of sugar. I've used vinegar instead of lemon juice since I had that to hand and the majority of recipes called for it, but if you're trying to duplicate Nando's, use the same quantity of lemon juice.

Ingredients: 

• Red chillies. This is a very personal taste, so use your best judgement for how hot you and your guests can handle it. I used some pre-chopped chillies which are a lot less hot than fresh so felt ok to use half a teaspoon, which was still not hot enough so I tossed in some Cayenne pepper later. 
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• half a teaspoon of molasses
• 1 tsp kosher salt (chunky sea salt)
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1/2 basil
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tbsp sweet paprika
• 1/4 tsp smoked paprika - this also adds heat. Factor this in when adding your chillies! You can skip this if you like, I just added it to give the sauce more depth.
• 100ml olive oil
• 50ml cider vinegar, or red or white wine vinegar.

Method:
Heat olive oil in a frying pan and gently fry the chillies, garlic and onion, then add the paprika. Add the tomato paste, and all other ingredients and simmer for 5 minutes, then allow the mixture to cool and put into jar. This recipe develops more flavour if it's left a day or two to mature but it can also be used straight away as a marinade.

Sweet Moorish Pilaf

This is an easily convertible recipe from veggie to non-veggie depending on your mood or diet preferences. I try and make sure I have at least two meat free days a week so I like the option of beefing up the protein content with nuts for meat free days, or chicken for meat days. You could go all out and add both if you like, but I usually try and not over-use nuts in case I become sensitised to that too, so I probably won't be doing that too often.

This recipe is taken from the lovely book Quiet Food, which generously considers it's contents copyright free.

Ingredients:

• 250 ml white rice
• 25 ml butter replacement or olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 600 ml vegetable stock
• 1 star anise (whole)
• 5ml tumeric
• 250 ml peas, fresh or frozen
• 125 ml chopped dried apricots (or peaches)
• 125 ml chopped dates
• 15 ml lemon juice
• 5 ml sugar
• 30 ml chopped fresh mint
• (optional) cashews or toasted almonds
• (optional) 2 chicken breasts, sliced thin
• salt, to taste

Method:

1. Gently sauté the onion in the butter until soft
2. If using chicken, fry gently until brown and set chicken aside
3. Add the crushed garlic and cook for another two minutes while stirring
4. Add the rice, stock, dates, apricots, turmeric and star anise (add chicken back back to pan now, if using)
5. Simmer for 10 minutes until almost dry
6. add the peas and steam until there is no more stock in the bottom of the saucepan
7. garnish with mint and serve

Chickpeas also work well in the vegetarian version of this recipe to add texture alongside the nuts.

Hemp Cream of Celery Soup (Thermomix)

The following is adapted from the Cream of Celery Soup at the thermomix forums. I've changed it so it's dairy free and uses less coconut milk drink in making the roux. I've partially done this by adding hemp seeds to the soup mix before blitzing to give creaminess and omega 3's and protein. Pumpkin or sunflower seeds would also work and are cheaper than hemp seeds, although I find they need soaking beforehand or they taste a bit strong. You can follow the original recipe using either real, soy or coconut milk drink if you prefer, this is just a little thriftier if you need to use specialist non dairy, non soy milk.

Ingredients
1 bunch celery, chopped
1 onion, quartered
1 small carrot, chopped
1 small potato, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
boiled water up to thermomix half mark.
100ml shelled hemp seeds (add later)

For the Roux
1 heaped tablespoon dairy free spread
2 tablespoons gluten free flour
100ml Kara Dairy Free Coconut Milk drink (or soy, almond or other high protein non dairy milk. Rice milk won't work for this)

Making the soup:
Put the soup ingredients, minus the hemp seeds, into the thermomix bowl, and cook on 100C for 20 minutes on speed spoon.

In the meantime, make the roux as follows:  Melt the butter in a pot on the hob on medium heat (you don't want the spread to fry, just melt), when that's done, add the flour and stir gently with a whisk. Add the coconut milk and keep whisking. Turn the heat up to medium high and keep whisking until a thick sauce develops (the roux should coat the back of a spoon) then switch off the heat and move the pan off the heat source.

When the soup is done cooking in the thermomix, add the hemp seeds, then cover the lid with a tea towel (to prevent any splashes) and slowly move the dial up from 1 to 9 for 1 minute. The thermomix will shake about a lot and the tea towel will feel hot, so maybe use two. carefully remove the lid, then add the roux mixture to the soup, cover again and mix on speed 3 for 10 seconds.
Season to taste, and enjoy! This is a very creamy, comforting soup and you'd never know it was dairy free.

White Bean Pasta

This is one of my go-to budget midweek meals. Cannellini beans don't have a strong taste, so are perfect for absorbing the flavours of the herbs and stew they are cooked in, and yields a simple, tasty and comforting dinner served over some white rice, or brown rice gluten free penne pasta.  Since it's my go-to midweek meal, brown rice pasta hits the sweet spot of being high in fibre, but fast to cook.

Now, while the meal itself is a doddle to put together on the evening, it does require a bit of prep and foreplanning, but since I'm a mealplanner, that's ok!

This recipe feeds four, or 2 with plenty for leftovers the next day.

Ingredients:
1 cup cannellini beans, rinsed and soaked overnight.
3 cloves garlic.
1 bay leaf
A good swig of dry white wine or white sherry (optional)
1-2 tablespoons tomato paste (or a can of chopped tomatoes if you prefer)
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon basil
salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Wash and soak the beans overnight. In the morning, they need to be boiled for 10 minutes.
Now, if you're not using a slow cooker, it'll get interesting, cos they need to be simmered for 1.5 hours. It's a lot easier to put the beans, bay leaves, herbs, boiled water and garlic into the slow cooker for 3 hours on low, using an electric timer.
That way when you come home, you can tip out the water and they're ready to use in your recipe.

Important note on slow cookers and quantity:
Make sure you fill the slow cooker between halfway and three quarters full, or use a small heatproof bowl inside a too large slow cooker to contain the beans so that the slow cooker doesn't cook too fast. If you don't have a suitable container or a smaller slow cooker, don't despair, just adjust the cooking time either longer (if the slow cooker is too full) or shorter (if it's too big).

That evening: Pour a little olive oil into a frying pan and add the drained contents of the slow cooker. Add the sherry, tomato paste and add more herbs as well as salt and pepper to taste and simmer on medium heat. I like to put the pasta on at the same time, as they are both ready in about 10 mintues.

Slow Cooker Lamb Tagine

I used to make tagine from a pre-made paste I'd buy in the co-op and my housemates would act like I'd lovingly re-created grandma's tagine. I hate to tell you this, but people in the Gulf don't cook tagines. But I liked the taste of the meal and since it was a hit I decided to learn how to make "the real" thing. The following is the adaptation I like the best so far. I think apricots balance the tartness of the black olives and impart a lovely sweetness to the rich, slightly spicy sauce.

I have a tagine pot (a gift brought back by one of my loveliest friends), but you know by now I like dumping things into the slow cooker so I can forget about it. Unless you forget to check that the slow cooker plug is switched on and come home to a still raw meal, in which case I can recommend you:
a) laugh
b) pour yourself a big glass of wine
c) put the mixture into a lidded pot or tagine in the oven for an hour, starting at 200c for the first 20 mins and then lowering to 180C for the rest of the time.

The wine/olive oil and balsamic vinegar act as a marinade so the meat will still be tender. Since this happened during an English January and our apartment is cool during the day, it wasn't a big deal that the meat was on the counter all day.

You can buy harrisa paste pretty easily in most supermarkets now. Barts do a blend, or you can check out your local ethnic store for the more fiery type, or you can get adventurous with your blender and make your own.


Ingredients:

• 500g lamb, diced
• glug of olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic
• half a jar of olives, drained
• 1 onions, sliced in rings
• half a cup of chopped dried apricots/peaches (rinsed and soaked in a little boiled water for ten minutes) 
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp corriander seeds
• 1 tsp ginger powder (fresh ginger is better if you have it, about half an inch, chopped fine)
• 1 cup red wine. I like shiraz, for the spiciness and body.
• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• 1 beef stock cube, crumbled.
• 1 teaspoon harissa paste.
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• half a cup of chickpeas, soaked overnight and boiled for ten minutes first.

Method:
Coat the meat with the harrisa paste and a little olive oil and the balsamic vinegar. Then add everything else and stir. Put in the slow cooker and cook on high for 4 hours.
At the end of cooking time, add about a tablespoon of gluten free flour to the sauce to thicken. Serve with rice or millet (for a couse couse substitute)

It seems like a lot of ingredients, but once your used to what goes into this dish it all comes together really fast. You can use dates instead of apricots if you prefer. This is one of my favourite meals ever. I find the tastes of sweet, tart, fragrant, and meaty balance out so well.

Gluten and Soy Free alternative to A1 Sauce

Sunday is more like a Day of Prep in this house :-/. However, I remind myself that getting stuff ready on a relaxed Sunday is better than than doing them when I really need them in the middle of the week. When I'm invariably starving, sleepy and cranky. So since once of this weeks recipe's calls for A1 sauce and I can't find out without soy sauce in it I hit up google for the following recipe, which I've adapted based on what I have in my fridge and to exclude soy. Clue: I'm out of O.J.

This recipe looks really far off the linked recipe, but this is because I'm creating a soy-less alternative to soy sauce at the same time. 

"Almost A1 Sauce" Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons cranberry suace
• 1/2 cup raisens. Rinsed very well 3 times. 
• 2 tablespoon dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons heinze ketchup
• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon tamarind paste (this gives it that slightly sour taste)

Soy alternative Sauce:

• 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 2 teaspoons molasses
• 1 cube beef stock (shitake stock would also work well
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 clove crushed garlic
• 5 drops ume plum seasoning
• 100ml hot water

Method:
Add  all ingredients above into a sauce pan and simmer gently for 5 minutes. When time is up allow to cool, then blend, then pour into jars. Of course if you have a thermomix, you can heat and blend it up while it's still hot.

Pork Chops and 'Creamy' Mustard Leeks

It was one of those days where I'd forgotten entirely to check my oh-so-cleverly worked out meal plan, and the day I decide the "prep" column would be added to future meal plans. I'd forgotten to soak the cashews for making cashew cream.

Quick Cashew Cream:
Pour freshly boiled water over the cashews, and cover with a lid to keep the steam in. You'll see some small bubbles arise as the cashews absorb the hot water. Leave for 20 mins and go about the other steps for the recipe then follow the usual cashew cream method.

Ingredients:

• glug of olive oil
• 2 pork chops (no bones)
• 3 leeks
• 1 tablespoon Jam (I used apricot)
• 2 tablespoons dijon mustard (always check it's gluten free)
• 1/2 teaspoon dried sage
• salt and pepper
• white sherry or cider (check it's a brand that is gluten free) or apple juice. I found the co-op have a good own brand sherry that's gluten and casien free.

Cut the leeks so that the white and green parts are separate. Then slice very finely so you have half moons of the white and finely chopped green parts. Put a glug of olive oil into a frying pan on medium high heat and add only the green parts of the leeks along with the sage and a little salt. Stir every once in a while until it gets soft.
Now add the white parts of the leek and turn the heat down a little more and leave to soften, string gently from time to time. When they're soft, add the dijon mustard and the jam to the leek mixture with the heat off (the pan will be hot enough). Stir to combine everything, and set the mixture aside, covered.

Season the pork chops, turn the frying pan back on to medium high heat and fry on each side for 7-8 minutes on each side. While this is going on, it's a good time to blend the cashews into cream.

When the pork chops are looking like they're cooked through, add a glug of sherry (about 100-200ml) or cider/apple juice into the pan to deglaze. This will create a brown sticky gloss over the pork chops. Let it cook down to a sticky texture and turn the pork chop over to glaze the other side. Remove the pork chops from the pan and switch the heat off, then add the leeks back to the still hot pan, along with the cashew cream and stir everything together so the leeks are coated in cream (which will brown with the remains of the glaze). I find that cashew cream tends to boil down much faster than soya or real cream, so I prefer to work with the heat switched off since it's still pretty hot. If you're using soya cream, feel free to proceed as usual.

Serve pork chops over a bed of the creamed leeks. We served this with rice and instantly knew the recipe was a keeper! The jam really helps add sweetness to the leeks and offset the dijon perfectly.

Allergy Cooking: Reducing Time and Costs

I've recently surrendered to meal planning for the week ahead. With multiple food allergies, it takes me longer to put together than my guru in organisation, but the benefits are that I don't need to spend time each day googling ingredients I know we have and considering which of the results is:
a) cheapest in terms of ingredients we may need to buy
b) most nutritionally balanced for me
c) least repetitive flavour wise.

Writing up a weekly menu is also an easy way for me to know what needs to be added to the grocery list and stops us from buying items 'in case we need it'.

Here's an example of this weeks menu plan 'in draft' . In one column are the recipes and their sources (book title and page number or urls) and in the other are items this recipe will need. This second column forms the basis of our shopping list, which once completed I paste into mysupermarket.co.uk's 'quicksearch'.

Mysupermarket compares prices per gram on all items including those on special offer, and shows you which items you can save on if you're happy to make a substitution. Now, I may not  be willing to swap the calcium enriched orange juice for regular for example (I need all the Calcium sources I can get!), but I'm more than ok to swap brands of olive oil or herbs or chicken thigh brands, so overall, this is a great tool to help you stick to a budget.

Once that's done, I re-edit my draft into a three column meal plan. The columns are now "recipes", "prep", and "groceries". The prep column is usually for reminding me (or mr Umami) to soak beans or nuts when they are called for. You can see that the dried chestnuts need a lot of prep before showtime and we definitely don't want to forget that until the day of cooking! The last column is for items bought during the week. Again, this helps us plan the groceries better and keep tabs on costs.

I like to share mine on Google docs with Mr Umami so he can  put his 2 cents in on the menu, add items to the midweek grocery expenses or get dinner ready on days I'll be home late. It also helps me to be able to look in on 'the plan' from time to time.

Factors I consider when planning my meal plan:
A good tip to save on meal costs is to try and include more veggie meals or use beans, legumes and pulses to pad out meat. We aim to have two veggi meals per week and to use the slow cooker as much as possible since our OWL monitor has worked out that even with the slow cooker on for 4-5 hours on low, it's still cheaper than running the oven for 1.5 hours AND it allows Mr Umami to focus on his writing instead of having to get up and check that stuff isn't burning. Another important factor in my meal planning is to have enough lefotvers to take to work for lunch the next day. I don't want to be making two meals an evening.

Think this could work for you? Try These Resources:

• I'm an Organizing Junkie: menu planning. This site has downloadable templates for menu plans and grocery lists. What I especially like about the grocery list is that it's divided up by supermarket section. Nothing's more dangerous to your budget than wondering aimlessly around a supermarket! 
• Google Docs templates: you can find templates for meal plans and shopping lists here.
• A Year of Slow cooking: I have both Stephanie's books since her family are gluten free and her recipes helped me so much when I  was starting out my gluten free life. It's so much easier when the recipe has a built in substitute for things like hoisin sauce. I still prefer to link to her blog articles in the meal planner though. 
• Able and Cole recipe: un-facy but very delicious ideas for use of veg in our vegbox, from parsnip soup to lovely rosties or butternut squash curries. Veg is always allergy free for me and getting a box delivered means I won't just stick to what I consider to be 'superfoods', which means I'm less likely to develop intolerances to veg. Over xmas, I lived off my veg box alone, making soups and rosties every day. I didn't feel bored at all. Just happy with how little cooking I was doing for a change. This year I'm trying to include two soup days in the meal plan to give myself a break. 
• Nutrition data: This is where I found out that mushrooms, even simple white ones, are packed full of protein and other important minerals and make a totally great protein source in meals, and that black eyed peas, in addition to being a thrifty fiber rich protein, are also a source of calcium and high in iron. Since I need to watch my nutrition quite closely, this site really helps.