Chicken stew - winter warmer

This one has worked out better then I planned. I used home made stock for the base however I did cheat and use a gravy powder. Still, won't argue with results. It tastes yummy!

Ingredients:

Flour (gf if needed)

2 chicken breasts, diced

1/2 cup of gravy powder (again gf if needed)

1 cup diced leek

4 cloves diced garlic

Italian herb mix to taste

Salt to taste

3 medium potatoes, diced

3 carrots, diced

2 parsnips, diced

For stock: 

Reserve of chicken bones and off cuts

Water

Directions:

1) Flour the diced chicken and brown in a well oiled pot (preferably the base of a steamer). Removed chicken from heat and place pieces in a bowl. Keep oils/juices in pot.

2) Place the bones and off cuts in the base of the steamer. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Place the carrots, potato, and parsnips in the second level of the steamer and place over boiling stock. Leave to boil until veggies are soft.

3) Remove veggies and place to the side. Seperate stock from chicken leftovers and left stock to cool in a bowl.

4) Using the now empty steamer based brown the garlic and leek.

5) Add the stock back to the pot with the browned chicken and bring to a simmer on a low heat.

6) Mix the gravy stock with some cool water, blending well.

7) Add veggies to chicken and stock, and then the gravy mix. Add water to cover veggies if needed and then bring to a boil.

8) Add herbs and salt to taste.

The cheaters guide to homemade flapjacks

Home made flapjacks the easy way.  All you need

- a 500g box of muesli

- 2 cups gluten-free flour

- 1/2 sugar

- enough water to combine

Stir all the dry ingredients, mix in water, then whack in the over at 220 celcius or gas mark 7 until cooked and you have hassle free flapjacks

Allergen friendly batter

This must seem like an odd choice to devote a whole post to.  However batter is an important fashion of preserving meat flavors in all sorts of cooking methods.  It can also be used to add a unique taste to your dish with simple additions to a basic recipe.

The only ingredients you need for batter are flour and a liquid of some form.  Below I have listed some unique batter flavours you might like to try.

Plum batter - excellent for dishes that benefit form a sweet kick

1 cup flour, 1 tbs plum jam, and enough water to make a thick batter

Lemon batter

1 cup flour, 1/4 lemon juice, 1 tbs sugar, and enough water to make a thick batter

Herbed batter

1 cup flour, 1 tbs mixed herbs, as above

These are just a few varieties.  The actual combinations really depends on your tastes.

Lemon drizzle crepe

Today's brekky as featured above - crepe with lemon drizzle.  Was soooo yummy.  *drools*

Ingredients

Crepe

1 cup Gluten-free flour

1 1/2 milk or alternative

1 teaspoon golden syrup

1 teaspoon all spice

Lemon drizzle

Golden syrup

lemon juice

Directions

Heat milk so that is warm, but not hot, and stir in golden syrup.  Blend flour and all all spice in a mixing bowl.  Mix milk into flour, stirring well.

Heat up oil in a frying pan.  Pour batter into pan.  Flip when almost done.  After browning both sides plate up the crepe.

While the crepe is still hot drizzled golden syrup and lemon juice onto on side of crepe.  Roll up the pancake and your crepe is ready.

Ramen

  Today's food experiment was Chicken ramen.  I neglected to even take a photo of the finished product.  Needless to say it didn't turn out anything like the picture,  I didn't have some of the more traditional ingredients and I refuse to taint it with an egg.  Still making it from scratch was worth the effort cause this a simple dish that is gentle on the stomach being that is compromised entirely of broth, veggies, noodles and a little meat.

Recipe

Stock - home made or seasoned stock of choice
Noodles
cooked, seasoned Chicken
Veggies of choice


Directions:

The idea with ramen is that all the items are combined after having already been cooked - ie. fry off the chicken and cook noodles before combining with stock.  Essentially you should really be putting together.

Boil your noodles, add to the hot stock and garnish with slicked chicken and veggies.

Coconut chicken curry.

First night in Oxford and ended up on autopilot cooking dinner for my aunt. Made a yummy simple curry. Very easy recipe for beginners.

Ingredients:

3 Chicken breasts
Spinach, 2 handfuls
Runner beans, a handful
Carrots, 1 large
Coconut cream
Onion, 1/2 medium
Ginger root, tablespoon.
Tandoori Curry powder, 2 tablespoons
Soy or almond milk
Rice
Olive oil
Salt
Cornflour, 1tsp

Directions:

Peel and finely dice your ginger and onion. Peel, quarter and finely slice your carrots. Small triangular shapes are perfect. Cut the ends of the beans and slice into small pieces. Lastly dice your chicken breast into small chunks.

Through cooking you will want to keep at hand the milk, coconut cream and tandoori curry powder as this cooks a bit like a stew so the liquid will boil off. Before you remove from the stove and during cooking you may want to add more of these ingredients.

Sprinkle some oil and salt into a pot of water and bring to a boil. Add rice, and simmer till cooked.

Place the ginger, onion, carrots, beans and chicken in a cold pan. A wok would be perfect but a large pot would suffice. Pour some oil onto the mix and sprinkle salt to taste. Mix so that the oil covers all the ingredients. When everything is covered in oil place on the stove at medium to high heat. Stir while the onions become clear and the chicken browns. When the chicken is par-cooked and onions turn clear add 1/4c coconut cream, 1c milk and 2tblspoons of curry powder. Stir until a light boil and then reduce heat to simmer. Cover pan and stir frequently until carrots are soft. At this point you may need to add more coconut cream, milk and curry powder. Add spinache and stir until wilted. If the sauce is not thick enough add some cornflour and simmer until thicker.

Serves 2.

Lemon teacake, gluten free recipe

Hey, it's been awhile since I posted an allergen friendly recipe. This one my grandmother just sent to me. It's very rare she sends me recipes so this one must actually taste good. :). Also being lemon flavoured cake it's probably dirt cheap to make.

As always to convert it a egg/dairy free recipe substitute your milk and egg alternatives. I reckon that almond or hazelnut milk would compliment the lemon flavour really well.

Edit:  Sorry about that.  For some reason the resolution of the photo has gone bad where I've uploaded it.  It was perfectly legible in the email i was sent. So  I will just have to type up the ingredients and instructions myself.

Ingrediendt:

6 eggs (separated) or 6 tablespoons of Orgran egg replacer.
1 cup caster sugar
2 tsps finely grated lemon rind
2 cups almond meal
1 tblsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp almond essence
IF you are using an egg substitute you will need some liquid. 1 cup of water or milk should suffice.

Cream cheese frosting

25g butter (or dairy free margarine)
60g cream cheese (or dairy-free substitute)
1 tsp finely grated lemon rind
1 1/2 cups icing sugar

Method

Cake

1) grease or line your baking tray and preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius.
2) a)  Using eggs - beat the egg yolks with the sugar and rind in a mixing bowl until fluffy.  Add the almond meal, juice and essence and stir together.
In a seperate mixing bowl beat the egg whites until peaks form and then gently fold the almond meal mixture into the beaten egg whites.

B) Without eggs - mix the almond meal with sugar and lemon rind.  add the milk, juice and essence and mix well.

3) place prepared mixture in baking tray and place in an oven for 45mins or until cooked.

Frosting

Beat your butter, cream cheese (or their dairy free substitutes) and rind in a bowl until light and fluffy.  Gradually mix in icing sugar until completely combined.  Smooth over cold cake.