Delicacious | A Gluten-Free Blog
Gluten-free cooking, baking and living
I have not been blogging very judiciously since starting a new job and my toddler starting a new school. The poor girl has been sick for more than a week and now my poor husband has gotten the flu bug too. Oh flu bug shoo! Don’t you hate it when the flu bug passes from one family member to another? Time to dose up on Vitamin C.Continue Reading
The June Daring Cooks’ challenge sure kept us rolling – meatballs, that is! Shelley from C Mom Cook and Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to try meatballs from around the world and to create our own meatball meal celebrating a culture or cuisine of our own choice.Continue Reading
My daughter loves noodles. Whenever we ask her what she would like to have for lunch, the answer would be either noodles or pasta. Rice would never be mentioned. It’s a pity that she does not like rice very much because for us Chinese, it is often a staple at dinner. Hence, I usually try to vary what she has for lunch.Continue Reading
First thought that comes to mind when someone mentions oatmeal muffins? Do the words dry, bland, gummy come into mind? Well I was not quite a fan of oatmeal muffins, but THIS oatmeal muffin is very different. For one, it does not use oats whole, but uses toasted ground oatmeal. It has a distinct taste of oats with a fragrance likened to popcorn. Intrigued?
I came across this article on my Cook’s Illustrated magazine on oatmeal muffin. Those of you who read Cook’s Illustrated will know that they spend extended time testing recipes and refining them. They suggested that toasting and grinding up the oatmeal allows it to absorb liquid quickly, while giving it flavour. Who would have thought of doing that?
Since I had an unopened packet of oats sitting around, I decided to give the recipe a try. Although muffins are typically fast to prepare, this one does take time. So if you are intending to make this muffin for breakfast, plan ahead! I didn’t and so my starving family had a late breakfast. Also, the original recipe calls for a streusel topping which I find sweet. I removed the streusel topping and added some raisins instead to sweeten up the muffin a little.
The resulting muffin was fragrant and moist. It went very well with jam and my family enjoyed it. This was baked in conjunction with Cook For Family‘s event which ends today.
My husband’s favourite foods are pizza and baguette. Yes, he will survive very well in both France and Italy. Whenever the question of “what shall we eat today?” surfaces, his answer will likely be pizza. Our family may well be eating pizza every other day, if he has his way around things. Fortunately, he doesn’t.
So, he has been on a “I want to eat pizza” mood for a couple of weeks, and since the family wasn’t quite well (the flu bug has been going around), he hadn’t had his pizza fix. He signed up for cook for family event, I suggested to him to kill two birds with one stone – have his pizza fix AND cook for the family. He gamely took up my suggestion and we had fun making pizza!
We modified a Jamie Oliver’s basic pizza dough recipe and had enough dough for four medium size pizzas. One of the pizzas was made with a tomato base and the other with a pesto base. We even had a splitza! Half ham, mushroom and peppers and the other butter chicken.
It was all hands on deck for pizza night! Yes, even my two year old toddler had fun adding ingredients to the pizza. Here in this picture, she is adding her favourite mushrooms to the pizza. I love this candid shot!
I made the above pizza with a pesto base, using a good ready-made pesto sauce. Spread the pesto as a base, heap on the ingredients to your liking, sprinkle with mozzarella and in the oven it goes!
And this picture brings me to the discovery of the day: Butter chicken pizza. Ok, I know what you must be thinking. This gooey mess of red? Are you kidding me? Well, we did go overboard with the butter chicken sauce, but trust me, this is the most delicious combination we have had on a pizza in a long while. Perhaps, it would have looked prettier if we had remembered to spread butter chicken sauce on the base, heap on chunky pieces of butter chicken with added onions and peppers and topped it with mozzarella cheese. But no, I forgot to spread the pizza base with sauce so I decided to drizzle it most liberally on the pizza. The result? This messy looking pizza that tasted every bit delicious.
So are you sold yet? What is butter chicken, some of you may ask. It’s this tasty chicken dish that is sold at most tandoori food stalls and it is a fantastic accompaniment to naan. I say, it is even better on pizza.
The next time you are wondering what to do for dinner, consider making pizza and having fun with your family! Pizza making is one of the the things that is sure to engage everyone, from the oldest to the youngest. No real recipe, just your favourite ingredients mixed and matched the way you like it. After all, dinner together as a family is supposed to be fun!
The idea of making granola came the day after I accidentally bought a second pack of rolled oats, thinking that my box of rolled oats had expired. My helper reminded me that those were rather new too, and so being stuck with two packs of rolled oats, I knew I better be using them rather quickly.
So yesterday, it being the first day of the school holidays and I having to entertain my easily-bored two year old toddler, I decided to involve her in making granola. She had great fun scooping and pouring the rolled oats with this very cute whale measuring cup that I bought earlier from ToTT, stirring the mixture and sticking in her grubby little fingers every once so often. Sensory play for her perhaps?
Perhaps the only troublesome thing about making granola is having to check the oven quite frequently to stir up the mixture so that the granola bakes evenly. I neglected to check it for just a tat bit longer and it browned more in certain regions. Still it was delicious, definitely much more delicious than store-bought granola. The bub couldn’t wait for it to come out of the oven, declaring that it was hers.
Today’s breakfast? Granola, served up with cold milk.
| Step 1 | |
| Preheat oven to 170°C. Position two racks near the middle of the oven. | |
| Step 2 | |
| In a large bowl, stir together rolled oats, almonds, flaxseed, coconut and brown sugar. | |
| Step 3 | |
| In a small bowl or measuring jug, whisk together oil, maple syrup and honey. | |
| Step 4 | |
| Pour honey mixture into large bowl with oats and mix well with a spatula. | |
| Step 5 | |
| Spread mixture onto two baking pans and bake for 20 minutes, stirring often to ensure even roasting. | |
| Step 6 | |
| After 20 minutes, rotate pans and bake for another 15-20 minutes till evenly golden brown. | |
| Step 7 | |
| Allow to cook before stirring in raisins and cranberries. | |
| Step 8 | |
| Store in airtight containers. | |
I woke up this morning at 6am with the realisation that I had not prepared anything for my toddler’s lunch box. In fact, I had no idea what to prepare. You see, three weeks ago, my two year old started pre-school at a Montessori that required them to bring their own lunchboxes. Since then, the mornings have been more “stressful” than usual. This is because as a teacher, I have to leave for work early too and that gives me very little time to prepare her lunchbox!
A quick glance in the fridge and I realised I had a couple of vegetables and ham. So I decided to modify a baked frittata recipe that I saw somewhere, sometime ago and came up with this. When it finished baking, I had just enough time to throw two into a lunchbox for my own snack and another two for my hubby. Two went to the little one of course.
The good news? Despite the rushed preparations, the frittatas must have tasted good to her because she finished both of them (I think, judging by the empty lunchbox). So this goes into my list of lunchbox ideas. More to come!
Note to self: Come up with a weekly menu……….
| Step 1 | |
| In a skillet, sauteed garlic, zucchini, potato and carrots in olive oil for 3 minutes. Add ham and sauteed for another 2 minutes. Season with some pepper and salt and set aside to cool. | |
| Step 2 | |
| Preheat oven to 180°C. | |
| Step 3 | |
| In a large bowl, beat eggs with milk and cheese. Add cooled ingredients and mix to combine. Season with more salt and pepper if necessary. | |
| Step 4 | |
| Spoon into prepared muffin cases and bake at middle rack for 20 - 25 minutes. The tops should be puffed up and golden brown. | |
| Step 5 | |
| Serve warm, with a salad if you like. | |
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