Vanilla quinoa and almond pancakes

Quinoa is a funny little grain - a seed in fact, highly nutritious, and a good wheat-free alternative to couscous for me. It has a distinct fresh nutty flavour though, so I've been a bit wary about including it in sweet recipes. The vanilla and honey in this recipe balances the quinoa flakes quite nicely, though. Served up with cinnamon-raisin apple compote, it is good eats!

On to the recipe, then - pretty simple, and with almond flour (ground almonds, here) to make 'em moist and delicious, and only a little honey to sweeten them. I also recently picked up some cup measuring gadgets, as my actual cups and mugs I was using are a range of sizes and not much use for anyone else to go by - so the below should measure up nicely!

Vanilla quinoa pancakes

There's no starch acting as a binder in this, so little drop pancakes work better than full sized ones. I'll leave it to you to experiment, though.

1/2 cup quinoa flakes
1/2 cup thin coconut milk (unsweetened almond and rice milks also work here)

1/2 cup almond flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla essence (if you can find vanilla bean extract, that is the best)
2 tsp light honey (orange blossom or acacia works well)
1 medium egg
Coconut oil for frying (else grapeseed is okay, and less coconutty if you don't care for that)

First measure out the 1/2 cup quinoa flakes into a mixing bowl, then add the 1/2 cup coconut milk and leave to soak for 5 - 10mins. (Use this time to make some compote - apple recipe as below!)

Measure out the 1/2 cup of almond flour and stir into the now softened quinoa flakes.

Tip in the 1/2 tsp of baking powder, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. Mix in.

In a separate bowl, lightly whisk the egg with the vanilla essence and the honey. When combined, tip into the mixing bowl with the other ingredients and stir together.

Heat up a small frying pan over a medium heat. Add 1/2 tsp of coconut oil, let it melt and swirl it about the pan. Drop in the pancake mixture as 1 - 2 dsp dollops, smoothing slightly to form about 5mm thick little pancakes, measure 3 - 4" across. They should be lightly sizzling straight away, with little bubbles starting to form in them. If not adjust the heat accordingly.

After 1 - 2mins they should be lightly browned on one side - carefully use a fish slice or wide spatula to flip them. They'll be a little delicate but should hold fairly well. Cook the other side for 1min or so, until also lightly golden. Shimmy it off to a warmed plate, and repeat until you have the batch of pancakes you're after, adding another 1/2 tsp of coconut oil every two batches.

Serve up with some fruit compote, and if you have it a dollop of creme fraiche and a little dab of maple syrup. Or a big dab! It is delicious stuff, after all.

Cinnamon-raisin apple compote

2 dessert apples (I used royal gala)

1/8 cup of raisins

1 dsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

First core and then dice up your apples into fairly small pieces - these will remain whole after cooking. Leave on the skins! I wasn't convinced by this the first time I heard it, but for dessert apples it works really well. If you're not sure, do half and half.

Put the apple into a small pan over a medium-low heat, add the lemon juice, and toss the fruit until it's all lightly covered. Add the raisins and cinnamon, stir them in, and lastly tip in a little splash of water, just to prevent the apple at the bottom of the pan from scorching. (Just 1 - 2 dsp.) Cover and leave to cook for 10 - 15mins, stirring occasionally.

After this check on the compote, and cook for longer if you prefer it softer and more compote-like. If the mixture isn't sweet enough from the raisins for you, add a sprinkle of brown sugar. The red skin of the apple should have turned this a faintly peachy colour by now, and be lookin' pretty.

Serve up over pancakes! Enjoy. :)

Wholegrain tagliatelle (gluten-free) with mushroom crème fraiche sauce

Pasta is one of the foods that has fallen by the wayside since I discovered I needed to go wheat-, dairy- and various-other-free. Dairy has crept back a little, but wheat is far less forgiving. So I went looking for wheat-and-gluten-free pasta. There is a fair amount of choice, but after some experimenting I found that many simply go from sticking-in-your-teeth hardness to a squashy softness in mere seconds, and few withstand being mixed with a few ingredients in the manner I like to serve it. Brown rice spaghetti is one of the few that stand out, but its taste is more of a plain noodle.

Recently I happened to go looking for various recommendations once more, having spent some resigned minutes in an Italian delicatessen selling delicate little yellow nests of fresh pasta. So it was that I came across the intriguing idea of making my own. From scratch. It even looked simple!

The original recipe is taken from gluten-free girl's website, and adapted a little for the sizes of egg I had and confusion over garbanzo-fava flour. (Translated into UK English, that's chickpea-broad bean flour, and I just had chickpea.) But after kneading and peeling dough from between my fingers, and rolling it out and slicing it up (it rolls out! It doesn't stick or tear!), we had pasta. Real pasta, with a delicious wholegrain taste to it and a hearty chewiness that I've not had in years. I had that rare experience (although it's becoming more common) of a stomach that felt it was glowing - not a single twinge, bloat or gurgle. It's possible the garlic, mushroom and crème fraiche sauce we mixed into it had something to do with it too. My cohort, something of a durum wheat pasta lover, was happily telling me how good it was for most of the meal. I think we'll be making this one again. Pasta! At last!

Tagliatelle

This is pretty close to the original, but you may wish to go see the unaltered recipe to make this part. Unless you, too, want to know what to do when XL eggs are nowhere to be found and fava bean flour is an unknown novelty.

2oz brown rice flour
1oz chickpea flour (plus a little extra - 3 tsp or so)
3oz millet flour
3oz potato starch
1 heaped tsp psyllium husk powder
A little fresh grated nutmeg (I think I put in 3 - 4 swipes on the grater, about 1/8 tsp)
1 tsp salt
3 large egg yolks
2 large eggs
2 tbsp water
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil


Whisk up your flours, starch, powder, nutmeg and salt, ensuring there are no lumps and everything's looking a little fluffy.

Mix up your eggs, then add the water and oil and whisk it a bit. (There's a lot of egg, but it works. The original recipe uses XL eggs, but I couldn't find those - after using large eggs, adding all the suggested water and oil, I had crumbly dough. Realised the liquid deficit, and added another egg. Had overly sticky dough.
Added brown rice flour (some 4 - 5 tsp in the end) until it all came together, and then it was fine.)

Once you have a nice supple ball of smooth dough, wrap it in cling film and set it aside on the counter for half an hour. Set the largest pan you have (or at least, a reasonably large one) on to a medium heat, having filled it with water and a good few teaspoons of sea salt. Bring it to the boil for half an hour's time.

Take the rested dough, form it into a cylinder and slice into four parts. Sprinkle potato starch over a counter top or rolling board, and roll out the dough as thin as you can. Keep it moving with each roll, adding a little extra starch to the rolling pin occasionally. You should be able to get it to at least 2mm thickness, but try for as thin as you can go. My second, didn't-get-stuck-to-the-counter and much thinner batch definitely made for better eating.

Using a (bluntish, paring) knife score the sheet of dough into long thin strips. If you kept the dough moving when you were rolling it out these should now lift easily and onto a waiting plate. Each quarter of this lump of dough forms about one portion, so keep going until you have the desired amount.

Tip your prepared pasta strips into the ample bubbling water. They will be cooked in 2-3 mins - try one and drain as soon as it's done. Toss with a little olive oil before serving.

Tagliatelle sauce

6 medium-large chestnut mushrooms, thickly sliced (5mm or so)
Extra virgin olive oil, butter
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
Crème fraiche
Few handfuls of baby leaf spinach
A little more nutmeg, fresh grated
Black pepper
Sea salt
Fresh grated parmesan cheese

Bring some olive oil, and a little butter if you care for it, to a light sizzle in a large wide pan.

Stir in your sliced mushrooms, and sauté for a few minutes until just softened - but still with some bite.

Mix in the spinach leaves, just wilting them. Turn off the heat.

Add a few heaped teaspoons of crème fraiche, add the nutmeg, pepper and salt, and stir together.

Serve up your tagliatelle, and spoon over the mushroom sauce. Allow everyone to mix it together as they like, at the table.

Leave out a small bowl of grated parmesan, salt and pepper, for seasoning.

Enjoy the feeling of a deeply contented stomach.

Chilli bean and pak choi stew

It's been a little while since I posted last, but the cooking has continued off and on. (There was an extended recent period of salads and toasted cheese sandwiches - I'd rediscovered Red Leicester cheese, and found a deliciously fruity stout-based pickle to go upon its toasted self.) Sometimes notes are taken, more often I'm convinced I'll remember them for later only to find myself staring at a photo of something I definitely made, but cannot recall.

Just before that happens again then, a recipe or two.

It had been a while since I'd played around with quinoa, and wanted to try making it fluffier. Then I thought that perhaps I should eat something with it other than cheese and pickle. There had also been a 15C temperature drop within a few days, and a cold rain had rolled in. Chilled leaves weren't quite going to cut it for this night's dinner.

Quinoa

Soak 1 cup of grains for an hour to overnight. It may well sprout a bit - apparently this is Healthy and Good For You without compromising on taste. Also it will cook more quickly.

Bring 2 cups of water to the boil and tip in drained quinoa. Let it return to a simmer, add some sprinklings of sea salt and a small splash of extra virgin olive oil (or a piece of butter, if you prefer.) Clap the lid on and leave it on a low heat. Turn off heat once all the liquid is absorbed and before it scorches. (About 15mins, usually.) Fluff it up. Marvel at the fluffiness.

Chilli bean and pak choi stew

This is possibly the work of having an odd assortment of vegetables courtesy of an intermittent vegetable box. The pak choi was the size of a full head of kale, so I thought I'd take its peppery crunchy self and use it to liven up some spiced bean-ness.

Extra virgin olive oil
1 medium shallot, finely sliced
1/2 aubergine, cubed into 1cm^3 pieces
2/3 yellow pepper, cut into 1" squares
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1 cup chickpeas/beans/lentils (can use mixed pulses in spiced tomato sauce too)
3 - 4 tsp tomato purée
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 stock cube in 2 cups hot water (beef or vegetable works nicely)
Three large pak choi leaves, stem sliced into 1" pieces and leafy part cut into 1" x 3" pieces
Sea salt
Black pepper

Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil over a medium heat. Drop in the shallot, stir, check it's sizzling lightly and cover.

After a few minutes add the pepper, aubergine and garlic. Stir well and cover once more.

Once the vegetables are slightly softened, add your chickpeas/pulses of choice.

Now add the tomato purée, thyme and assorted spices. Mix them all in, and then pour in your stock to just cover the contents.

Add black pepper and sea salt to taste, stir, and let the mixture simmer for 20 - 25mins.

Just before serving fold in the pak choi stem and let simmer for another 2-3mins. Add the pak choi leaf and then turn off the heat. Let it stand for a few minutes to wilt the leafiness.

Serve up with some of your delicious quinoa, adding chopped grilled halloumi to the quinoa if you happen to have some handy (and care for cheese in all things.)