Review: Gluten free rice based breads

There are three gluten free breads available in Brisbane that do not contain corn or maize, that I can recommend:

SOL Gluten Free Rice & Pumpkin Loaf (Sliced) – by Sol Bread

Sol Bread’s rice and pumpkin is good, but it seems to be always dry. It’s best for toasting and doesn’t keep so well. You sometimes get the odd pumpkin skin or seed. The sliced version is so much easier to use. It is available from the markets, many health food shops and their Sol Bakeries. It is popular with cafes that sell gluten-free bread.

It contains: Filtered Water, Organic Rice Flour, Arrowroot, Pumpkin, Buckwheat, Sunflower Oil, Sea Salt, Cultured Rice, Xanthan Gum.

Rice Chia bread – by Dovedale Bread

Dovedale’s Bread is my next favourite. I love the addition of the chia seeds, which actually are pretty tasteless so you don’t even notice them. Best toasted again. The fruit and rice chia bread is also great. It is available from Mrs Flanneries.

It contains: Certified Organic Rice Flour (White and Brown) (50%), Filtered Water, Chia (12%), Certified Organic Rice Starch, Vegetable Gum (412), Sea Salt.

Gluten free rice bread - by Britt’s Organic Bakery

This is my current favourite gluten free bread. It is best toasted twice and tastes exactly like normal bread. It is available from Mrs Flanneries.

It contains: White rice flour, rice sourdough starter, potato starch,tapioca starch, rice bran, organic Non-hydrogenated palm fruit oil, rice malt, unrefined sea salt, guar gum, filtered water.

We have found it best to buy two loaves at a time, and place one in the freezer for the second week. Gluten free bread is also best kept in the refrigerator.

Review: Tetley for Soy

Tetley for soy is a new product which is  ‘specially blended for Soy Milk’.

I prepared my cuppa of tea the usual way and dunked in the tea bag. The tea still ‘splits’ if you leave it standing as it normally does with alternative milk. The taste is less pronounced and smoother, so it compliments the soy milk resulting in a milder flavour.

It surprisingly works and I wonder why it took this long for someone to come up the idea. Recommended for soy and rice milk drinkers.

Tetley for soy
Cath Kidston strawberry crush mug from Peters of Kensington

Seasoning with salt

George on Masterchef goes on about the importance of correctly seasoning with salt and pepper. I’d argue that it’s more important to always taste your food, before you season your dish as everyone’s tastes are different.

Normal table salt has been refined to remove impurities, which unfortunately also removes all the good minerals. Common table salt is also known as sodium chloride and these are the two minerals left.

Why not try some of these alternatives:

Murray River pink salt – Removing salt from the ground water in Mildura is one way of helping to prevent salinity in Australia. This is the salt you’ll often find at restaurants were you can add a pinch yourself. I only hope when you are served salt on a plate or a bowl that it’s a fresh batch each time!

Himalayan Crystal Salt – The salt is mined by hand from the Himalayan region of  Kalabagh. It contains 84 minerals and trace elements, which are in a form that is easily assimilated by the body. The colour varies from white to pink to peach.

Celtic sea salt – Little did I know that this salt comes from the North West coastal region of France. 

These alternative salts will be available from your local health food store. Coarse salt will need to be ground up or dissolved in hot liquid. Fine ground salt is better for adding at the table. Celtic and Himalayan salt may contain moisture so they are better stored in a clay or wooden container.

Review: Wild Sugar

I couldn’t wait to take this raw dessert home from Sunday’s Northey Street Organic Markets to try it. I would have tried it on location, but we arrived near closing and the seller had run out of spoons.

This looks as good as it tastes! It was a beautiful soft light strawberry and chocolate mousse on a macadamia base. Full of lots of organic goodness and divinely delicious. And guess who it was made by? None other than Masterchef contestant, Skye Craig from Wild Sugar.

I was too shy to talk to Skye, maybe next time. I feel like too much of my life is taken up by Masterchef. One of the guys at work thought he had become too obsessed when he noticed that he was sitting on the couch waiting for the show to start, and he looked over at his partner who was reading the first edition of the Masterchef magazine and down in his lap was the second edition!

Next week, I’m going early and I want to try all the other desserts I missed out on.

Parsnip wars

Don Burke has come out swinging at the humble parsnip after Donna Hay (Australian’s Martha Stewart) published some recipes in the local rag. Yesterday legendary Margaret Fulton came out defending them. We love them roasted, but probably not every week.

I know many people dislike Brussels sprouts. I agree, they taste terrible when they are boiled to a soggy death in water (as do most vegetables). I can eat them roasted or stir-fried in soy sauce. Don also has a distaste for chokos, which I can sympathise more with. I’ve never liked mushrooms – they taste like dirt to me, and sometime they make my throat all tickley. I suspect I’m intolerant to them. I didn’t like olives growing up, but I love them now. Although there is a world of difference between the salty black ones on a cheap pizza and good quality plump olives. I know broccoli and cauliflower are disliked by many people, but because these vegetables are sprayed 16 times I wonder if it’s not the pesticide taste they don’t like. Organic ones tastes a thousands times better.

Why do we develop these prejudices against such a harmless vegetable?

Inside your cupboards

It was time for a winter clean of our kitchen, which included emptying out our cupboard and fridge. It wasn’t too bad since our recent weevil infestation and we had already thrown out many unwanted boxes and bottles. Although, we did find a roll of marzipan that expired 2 years ago (from my cupcake decorating faze).

Enjoy seeing what other people eat (and try to spot the snake):

• Hungry Planet: What the World Eats provides an illustrated look at how different families around the world eat. I’m going to admit that I didn’t read much of the text in the book, because comparing the photos from each country was more fascinating. Peter Menzel, the photographer, has provided an illustrated preview [PDF 9.6MB].
• Mark Menjivar has taken some very telling photos of fridges in the US.  (Select ‘portfolio’ > ‘you are what you eat’ >’ images’)
• Video of Meghan Telpner (nutritionist)
• Video of Renegade Health snooping on David Wolfe (raw foodie)
• What’s that in your fridge? (Flickr group)

What kind of skeletons do you have in your cupboards?

Mini food

A few years ago I stumbled on Callahan Catering’s website and was blown away by the creative and adorable mini food ideas. I also fell in love with the miniature burger, fries and soft drink on craftster. Ever since then I have wanted to host a mini food party.

Bite sized food is ideal to serve at a cocktail or kids party. If you choose your dishes well, you might even be able to do away with cutlery. Decorate the room with small posies of flowers. Serve food with plenty of cocktail forks and napkins. If you have a vegetable garden you’ll have the added advantage of being able to select small leaves, fruit and vegetables.

Here’s a list of food that would be suitable for a mini food party:

Meat dishes

• Pigs in a blanket
• Sausage rolls made with cocktail sausages and filo pastry
• Lamb cutlets
• Mini quiches
• Swedish meatballs
• Meatloaf baked in mini loaf pans
• Devilled quail’s eggs
• Tiny sushi
• Baby eel, octopus and sardines

Sides

• Cherry tomatoes and micro greens
• Baby carrots, gherkins, cocktail onions, and radish
• Baked baby corn on the cob
• Baked new potatoes with bacon
• Tiny pasta salad

Breads

• Mini bread rolls
• Mini muffins
• Mini toasts

Sweets

• Dollar coin sized pancakes
• Tiny pies
• Mini ice cream cones
• Mini smores using mini marshmallows
• Petit fours
• Single serve cheeses and small biscuits

Drinks

• Mini kegs and half bottles of wine
• Small sized soft drink bottles and kiddie sized juices

There are some small sized cooking equipment that you might find useful: mini muffin tin, and petite loaf pan.

If you are looking for more ideas and inspiration there’s a whole flickr group dedicated to mini food (note: some are not edible). And if you still haven’t got your fix stop by the Mini Food Blog.

Magic beans

Ever since our trip to Kingaroy (peanut and navy bean country), I’ve been trying to make baked beans from scratch. We stayed in a gorgeous little self contained cabin, and breakfast was all prepared in the fridge. The delicious home-made baked beans held their shape and they tasted nothing like what you get in tin.

First I wanted to try Maggie Beer’s recipe, but we couldn’t find any pork speck.

A few months later, I wanted to try Delia Smith’s recipe, which also appears in her new book Frugal Food. But I couldn’t find any streaky belly of pork as required. Big M suggested Kasseler (German ham) could work.

The biggest stumbling block is that beans take for-ever to cook, so there’s no way we can eat them for Sunday breakfast without planning ahead. By the time I decided I want to make them and read the recipe, I ended up disappointed that I should have started the day before.

For my third attempt, I bought some navy beans and shredded coconut (for biscuits) from the health food store. They sat together in the sun on our dining room table for about a week. When I added the beans to a bowl of water for soaking, they shriveled up and sprouted before our very eyes. It was the strangest thing!

Aside – I’m officially retiring from my short baked beans career and going back to tinned beans. (Big M loves Heinz – British recipe only, and I like the organic ones).

Natural whole foods swaps

As we have been moving towards eating more home-grown fruit and vegetables, I’ve been interested in cookbooks and recipes that feature natural and whole foods. It’s opened up a new world of different food products that you may only find in your local health food store. Produce that is organic, locally grown and seasonal.

Julie Blerau defines wholefood as:

“food that is eaten as close as possible to its natural state, without unnecessary processing and refining.”

Type	Natural whole food
Meat and eggs	Organic, free range, wild or lean
Milks	Almond milk, brazil nut milk, coconut milk and cream, hemp milk, oat milk, rice milk
Grains	amaranth, buckwheat, corn, mesquite, millet, quinoa, rice, teff, wild rice	Gluten: barley, couscous, farro, kamut, oats, rye, spelt, wheat
Bread	Corn tortilla, millet roti, nori rolls, pumpernickel bread, rice paper	Gluten: rye bread, spelt bread, whole-wheat bread
Cereal	Buckwheat, millet, quinoa, sprouted buckwheat	Gluten: granola, muesli porridge,
Pasta	Raw veg, rice noodles	Gluten: whole-wheat pasta
Drinks	Herbal tea, green tea, freshly squeezed vegetable and fruit juices, water
Fats and oils	butter, clarified butter and ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, sesame oil, sunflower oil
Accent oils*	almond oil, hazelnut oil, linseed (flaxseed) oil, macadamia oil, peanut oil, pistachio oil, pumpkin seed oil, walnut oil
Sweeteners	agave nectar, barley malt syrup, blackstrap molasses, brown rice syrup, date sugar, honey, natural cane sugars (barbados, demerara, muscovado, rapadura, sucanat, and turbinado), maple sugar, maple syrup, pomegranate molasses, Stevia
Salt	Miso, sea salt, seaweed flakes, tamari
Dessert	Coconut macaroons, coconut ice cream, raw chocolate, rice pudding
Snack food	Dried fruits and leathers, raw nuts, raw chocolate hazelnut spread
Spreads	Guacamole, hummus, olive tapenade

*best used uncooked in salads and smoothies

Save the Bilby chocolate

If you are buying any dark milky products to get you through Chocolate-Lovers weekend, try to buy a Darrell Lea Bilby. These cute little marsupials are endangered in Australia. Buying a chocolate bilby goes towards a fund to help reestablish the population in protected areas and provides money for research.