We've had a lot of granola bars lately and even though each set has been different, I thought I would do cookies this week for our morning teas. And not just any cookies - these are gluten-free and delicious with the flavours of almond, coconut and of course a little indispensable chocolate. I found the recipe at the A sweet Spoonful blog, which is well worth checking out. As a food blogger, I see kitchen stores in a completely different way to the normal cook. I look for small everything. Cute wee jugs which hold a tablespoon of sauce, tiny pots for a mouthful of mousse, a miniature spoon. You would think we live in a dollhouse but I need props which fit in the photo frame and adult sized objects often mean that the tops get cut off. And anyway, wee is just plain cuter. I am always dropping into our local thrift charity shop where I buy amazing objects for a couple of dollars. The other place I have found some wonderful props is Trademe, New Zealand's equivalent of Ebay. The … [Read more...] about Almond, Coconut & Chocolate Chip Cookies – gluten-free
healthy recipe
Moroccan Couscous – memories of a meal in Paris
This meal has once again thrown me back to a trip I took with Adriano – our very first holiday together. We went to London, which was horrendously expensive in the middle of summer and we rapidly ran out of money so after sleeping in some uncomfortable dives, we realised we had just enough for one more night and decided to spend it in Paris. We caught the ferry and train across to the city of love to stay in another rather suspect lodging. The next day, the train was leaving for Torino, where we lived, in the early afternoon so we tootled off to a Moroccan restaurant to eat a meal of couscous and drank the last of our money in wine. Merry as a couple of jungle monkeys, we looked at our watches and jumped up in horror – the train was about to depart. We set off at a flat run, laughing ourselves silly in a fog of alcohol-induced merriment at our unco-ordinated efforts to get any speed up with our packs slapping around behind us. We puffed into the train station to see the train slowly … [Read more...] about Moroccan Couscous – memories of a meal in Paris
Rack of Lamb – Low Fodmap & Gluten-Free
In New Zealand we have many more sheep than people and lamb is a common meat on our dinner plates and there is nothing more succulent than a sweet rack of lamb. If you cook it properly, there is nothing more delicious. I found the herb crust I used in the latest edition of Dish magazine. Cook this exactly the way I say and you will have success every time with this cut of meat. Serve it with pureed potatoes, a little tomato salad and a nice mint jelly sauce. Rack of Lamb Print Author: Suzanne Perazzini Ingredients 2 x racks of lamb 2 tbsp dijon mustard 1 cup of packed parsley 1 tsp of garlic-infused oil 1 tsp smoked paprika Zest of 1 lemon ⅓ cup slivered almonds ¾ cup fresh gluten-free breadcrumbs 2 tbsp olive oil Salt & pepper Method Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Season the meat. Heat a frying pan with a little olive oil and brown the racks on both sides. Cool a little. For the crust, put the parsley, paprika and zest in a food processor and … [Read more...] about Rack of Lamb – Low Fodmap & Gluten-Free
Vegetable Paella
This is the second of the recipes I’m making from that vegan cooking book. It’s a vegetable paella and I chose it because it brings back memories of a wild holiday Adriano and I took through Spain some years ago. I say wild not because we partied like teenagers but because we thought Adriano’s bright green Renault bomb of a car could get us all the way from Italy, through France, right around Spain and back home again in one piece. It didn’t happen as smoothly as we had imagined. The car betrayed us several times and then we were robbed in a camping ground just outside Madrid so we gave up and limped home. That makes it seem like a miserable holiday and it was anything but. As we cruised down the eastern coast of Spain through the steaming heat in a car without air conditioning, we would stop for lunch at any appropriately cheap-looking, non-touristy eating hole and order paella and the local wine. Laden down like beasts of burden with bellies double the size and a slightly foggy … [Read more...] about Vegetable Paella
Caramel Granola Bars – Gluten-free
You would think by now I had run out of new granola bar recipes and it could definitely happen. There are only so many dried nuts and fruit out there and the binders must be limited too but so far I have never repeated one. Adriano and Dario now expect to have the tins (Tupperware container, actually) full so they can stick their hungry hands in there whenever they want and find something to appease their appetites. Last week I made those granola bars filled with caramel and topped with chocolate. That was a mistake – they were all gobbled up by Wednesday because they were too delicious. I was brought up on a farm where visitors were offered a cup of tea when they dropped by. But never just a cup of tea. The tins were always full on a farm and out would come something sweet to go with the tea. Biscuits, cakes, scones, buns. A cup of tea was never consumed in isolation – unheard of. You might wonder how we weren’t all as big as hippos, but calories are consumed at a much faster … [Read more...] about Caramel Granola Bars – Gluten-free
