In the seemingly never-ending cold evenings that we are having I am finding that I really crave comfort food. So when watching a food show last night I was inspired to cook a spaghetti carbonara - gluten-free of course!
Many think that a carbonara sauce is a cream based sauce. Traditionally, it is a raw egg and cheese based sauce and is delicious, rich, creamy sauce that I really enjoy. You have the choice of using either smoked bacon or speck, or you can use pancetta which creates a different flavour. This recipe is very quick to prepare and is a lovely first course in an Italian feast. For this dish I have combined it with vegetables for some added goodness as I am not preparing a main or salad course.
This time of the year I really love the vegetables that the cool weather brings especially kale also known as tuscan cabbage. This deep green vegetable is similar to cabbage but with long dark green leaves that are very reptile like. The taste is very subtle and is rather hardy when cooked. What I mean by this is that it keeps its shape and texture much better than chard or regular spinach.
So for tonight's diner I had a craving for both and thought why not combine the two?
Spaghetti Carbonara
250g gluten free spaghetti - I have used San Remo's Spaghetti
a good glug of olive oil - about 2 tablespoons
a small piece of unsalted butter - about 20g
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed with a knife, no need to cut it up
4 x short-cut rashers of bacon about - 110g if you use pancetta or speck
2 large eggs
1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese - loosely packed
1/4 cup freshly grated pecorino cheese - loosely packed
a pinch of freshly ground nutmeg
salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 leaves of kale - about half a bunch
Put the spaghetti onto to cook - this should only take about 8 minutes depending on the instructions on your pasta packet.
Whilst the pasta is cooking start the sauce straight away without delay. Heat the oil in a fry pan and melt the butter. Add the knife flattened garlic to the oil and butter and fry until it is golden. Once it has reached a rich golden colour, pick the garlic out of the pan leaving the garlic flavoured oil and butter behind.
As the garlic is gently cooking, dice the bacon, include the fat on the meat this will add to the flavour of the sauce. Cook the bacon in the flavoured oil/butter combination, until it is golden and crispy.
As the bacon is cooking you need to get cracking (no pun intended!) on the rest of the sauce.
Break the eggs into a bowl adding the salt, nutmeg and the pepper. Grate the cheeses onto the top of the eggs and the spices. Mix everything up together and set aside.
Wash off the leaves of kale and rip the tough centre vein out of the leaves. Slice the up kale into about 2cm wide strips. By now the bacon should be cooked.
Push the it to one side of the fry pan, add the kale to the other and fry gently in the oil stirring the coat the leaves. Pick the kale of the of the fry pan and set aside - you will use it in a moment to adorn your pasta.
Keep the fry pan on the heat and add the vermouth. The added liquid will spit and splutter but let it cook down a little and mix with the bacon in the pan. Turn the heat off on the fry pan and drain the pasta keeping some of the cooking water in the saucepan.
Now working very quickly, tip the pasta into the fry pan with the bacon and combine the two. Pour the egg and cheese mixture in with the pasta and mix through fast, adding some of the cooking water to the help lubricate the sauce. Ensure that every strand of pasta is coated in the carbonara sauce.
Dish the pasta into a bowl finishing off the pasta with its topping of the cooked kale and a sprinkle of freshly grated parmesan cheese.
Last week a friend of mine, Danny, turned the ripe old age of 30-something and I decided, along with my other half, that it would be a fun idea to bake him a birthday cake with a difference! Hence the Red Rocket Cake.
I got the idea from a couple of kid's birthday cake recipe books, namely the famous Womans' Weekly Children's Birthday Cake book from the early '80s that I know I wanted many a cake from as a child.
Children's birthday cakes these days are far more professional looking than the ones that we all had as kids. Gone are the days of the Vienna Icing coloured with Queen food colouring from the supermarket. These are now replaced with the ready to roll icing that is coloured expertly, using paste colours and a great number of tools.
When investigating these more up-to-date ingredients and methods, I decided that I would stick to the 'old fashioned way of doing things'.
The cake that I baked to shape the rocket out of, was my mother's chocolate cake recipe. This was a tradition in our family where she would bake the cake in a very 1970's ring mould and ice it.
I made a single batch of cake batter which allowed to me to make two small round cakes, these I fashioned into the shape of the rocket. Frankly the icing could have turned out better, but for a first try and really making it up as I went along, I think that it was a pretty good effort. And besides, it was delicious!
My Mum's Chocolate Cake
185g of melted unsalted butter
3/4 cup pure cocoa
1/2 cup of hot water
1 cup of milk
1 & 1/2 cups of white sugar
3 eggs
2 cups of gluten-free self-raising flour
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon of gluten-free baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cream the butter and the sugar, add the eggs one at a time. Add the hot water to the cocoa in a jug and mix until smooth. Add this to the mixture.
Add the salt, soda, cream of tartar to the self-raising flour and sift together.
Add the flour to the mixture alternating with the milk. Remember to finish the alternating with the milk for easy combining.
Bake in two large sponge tins in a moderate oven for 20 - 25 minutes.
I had a template to cut the base shape of the cake out from, then using chocolate ganache, I stuck all of the pieces of the cake together, cutting the shape of the rocket as I went. I then coated the cake in the ganache. This ganache is basically chocolate and cream melted and mixed together. Leave it to cool before using or else it will be too runny.
Once the cake was at this stage, I let the ganache set whilst I made the Vienna Icing with a lot of red food colouring - not one for the kids!
Decorate the cake as desired with the icing and gluten-free goodies and enjoy!
A great alternative to buying takeaway gluten free pizza is making your own. Whilst I do make my own bases from time to time, I am known to use pre-made pizza bases as a shortcut. It is also a great way of ensuring that you have dinner prepared in a flash.
These bases from Old Time Bakery are a great consistency and nice and thin. They are a convenient solution to the 'what to cook for dinner?' question and your can use your own choice of gluten free toppings.
One of my preferred toppings is a homemade tomato sauce, a generous covering of cheese (hard mozzarella of course!), then lots of thin slices of gluten-free pepperoni finished off with a final sprinkle of grated mozzarella. Cook for about 15 minutes in a hot oven and devour.
Check out this link for more information on Old Time Bakery:
http://www.oldtimebakery.com.au/gluten-free-pizza-bases.php
In the cooler months of the year, I like to give in to my cravings particularly for a lovely creamy risotto. I can still remember the first time that I had risotto: it was a Milanese Mushroom risotto. My mum had made it for the first time one Sunday for lunch and we devoured it. It was so creamy and delicious!
I tend to make risotto depending mainly on what vegetables I have in the fridge. The following recipe is for a basic risotto from there you can add any variety of veggies, herbs or meat that you prefer. I have found that it is best to add the more fragile vegetables towards the end of cooking to prevent them from getting over-cooked.
Risotto is great either as a main dish or as an accompaniment.
My Basic Risotto Recipe
a glug of olive oil
1 onion
1/2 leek
1/2 stick of celery
2 cups of arborio rice
2 splashes of verjuice
approx a litre of vegetable stock
3-4 cloves of garlic depending on the size
several pinches of salt
a pinch of nutmeg
20g of unsalted butter
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese - loosely packed
10 small sprigs of fresh thyme
Finely dice all vegetables except the garlic, but peel the garlic at this stage. Aim to dice all the vegetables a similar size to ensure that they cook evenly.
Heat the oil in the fry pan, once the oil is heated add all of the vegetables and a pinch of salt. Cook until the onion is transparent and the other veg have softened a little.
Add the arborio rice to the pan and cook until the rice becomes transparent.
Mince the garlic and the freshly grated nutmeg and stir through the vegetable/rice mix in the pan.
Splash the verjuice into the pan, it will sizzle a bit but stir it though as it will evaporate slightly and go a little cloudy. This is the starch being released a little from the rice.
Once the verjuice has evaporated, gradually add the stock, a ladle full at a time. Or my version: a little boiling water from the kettle and a couple of teaspoons of stock powder will suffice. You don't need to use a homemade or store bought stock the powdered version is perfectly fine, it is entirely up to you.
Ensure that the stock or water is added gradually, allowing the previous ladle full to be absorbed before more is added. Keep stirring the risotto regularly, keeping the heat low - you don't want to boil the rice. The constant stirring is essential to help massage the starch out of the rice which gives risotto its lovely creaminess. I also tend to add a small pinch of salt each time I add the stock, if you are not sure how salty your stock is, don't add the salt at these regular intervals.
After about twenty minutes or so, check the rice is cooked by tasting it. If is it not ready, keep adding the stock until the rice is cooked. Once cooked, add the butter and the grated parmesan cheese, stir both through until melted. These two ingredients will add a little more creaminess but also flavour to the dish.
Check the seasoning and correct as needed - I find that I tend to need more salt, and add the thyme, stripping the leaves off the stalks. Keep one or two tips for a garnish. Stir this through for even distribution.
My final note about risotto is to ensure that the texture is like runny porridge. I prefer my risotto this way. To ensure that this is the case, I will add a little more stock to maintain this texture.
Serve with a quick grating of parmesan cheese and a sprig of thyme for garnish.
A few weeks ago now - too many to recall, I was in Brazil and my husband was raving about this cheese bread that he and his colleagues were having at breakfast. They would have it freshly baked each morning with every morsel being devoured. This was something that he fondly recalls and wishes that he could eat it once, even to this day.
But I now know the secret to this delicious cheese bread and even better, I have now learnt that it is gluten free! I have found a cheese bread mix that is imported into Australia and after baking it tonight and the small rolls being devoured whilst still hot from the oven, I am a convert. This mix is really simple to bake and bakes in 25 minutes.
I found this mix at my local fruit and veg shop however take a look at the website for the Australian importer for more information as it's availability:
http://www.brazilianstylefoods.com.au/Brands/yoki.html
In the seemingly never-ending cold evenings that we are having I am finding that I really crave comfort food. So when watching a food show last night I was inspired to cook a spaghetti carbonara - gluten-free of course! 
