A gluten free evening at River Cottage

Last year we visited River Cottage HQ to learn how to cook gluten free.  It was a great day, I had so much fun and learnt so much!  So when we heard that Naomi Devlin, who ran the course, was hosting a gluten free evening at our local River Cottage Canteen, we booked our seats.  We were not disappointed.

Sea salt crackers & roast carrot dip

We started by sharing sea salt crackers and roast carrot dip.  Nice but the crackers were a little hard.  Loved the roast carrot dip.

Buckwheat blinis with smoked beetroot & pickled ewes cheese 

Then the blinis with smoked beetroot and pickled ewes cheese.  This was so nice.  I am definitely going to try making blinis for 'im outdoors, they would make a great alternative to toast in the morning.

Persian spiced lamb with green tabbouleh, winter slaw & yoghurt

Then the spiced lamb and tabbouleh.  This was some of the best lamb I've had!  As you can see I nearly forgot to take a photo, diving straight in. The combination of flavours was perfect.

Honey poached pear, rose ice cream & wafer

And lastly the poached pear.  As 'im outdoors said he could have eaten a box of the wafers, they were so good.  The pear and rose ice cream was good, but I had to steal a fork from an empty table to stop the pear escaping!
It was a great evening, with really good food, but the best bit was not having to worry about if it was safe to eat or not.

The Allergy and Free From Show

Following on from the last post about gluten free cooking, yesterday we went to The Allergy and Free From Show to find ourselves some gluten free goodies. This was at Olympia in London so very easy to get to and jam packed full of stalls with products to help anyone with any allergy.
At the same time there was also the Just V Show and the Love Natural, Love Organic show so lots of interesting things to look at.
We were there just after it opened which meant we got to see quite a lot of it before it got really busy, by the time we left it was getting hard to move around.
But the best bit was that there were loads of food samples and many of them were gluten free, so 'im outdoors quite happily stuffed his face.  There was bread, sweets, burgers, sausages, biscuits, crisps, cake, donuts, energy bars, ice cream and much much more.  Its all very well seeing these products online, but until you've tried them you just don't know if they will be any good or not (gluten free seems to be very hit and miss).  This was our chance to try lots of products, some of which we were aware of, and see if they made the cut.
Some of these things we will end up buying.  I really liked the lentil crisps, and Asda's 'jammy dodger' type biscuits were pretty good but things like the cake mixes I think I can do better myself.
It was a really nice event to attend and although I'm not sure we'd go every year, I think its something you'd want to check out on a regular basis just to see what new things are coming out.

Gluten free cooking at River Cottage

If you've been reading this blog for a while you'll know that a couple of years ago, 'im outdoors was diagnosed as a coeliac. Its been an interesting challenge, but as we make a lot of our meals from scratch anyway it's just meant learning some new ways of doing things.  I've managed to get most things to work, but the one thing I've been really struggling with is savoury pastry.  

As I was looking round on the internet to see if anyone could help I stumbled across the River Cottage cooking classes and the fact they run a gluten free course.  'Doesn't that sound cool' I said to 'im outdoors.  Next think I know I have two tickets for the gluten free class for my birthday.  Six months later and its finally time to use them.

We decided to make a long weekend of it and found a lovely B+B to stay in just 20 minutes away.  The day itself was beautiful, Devon at its best.  We got the tractor down from the car park with great views across the farm on the way down.

The class was run by Naomi who was very knowledgable and un-judgemental about how our baking turned out.  We made Sourdough loafs, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Shortcrust Pastry (which we then turned in to mini Bakewell Tarts) and Sourdough Sea Salt Crackers. 

We also had a chance to wander round the veg garden (where we glimpsed Hugh having lunch!) and had a beautiful two course cooked meal for lunch.

It was a brilliant day.  It probably helps that I'm used to baking so I found it really easy.  All I had to do was listen carefully to everything Naomi had to tell us, then copy her.  All the ingredients were all ready weighed out for us and all our dirty things were taken away and reappeared clean.  If only that happened in real life.

At the end of the day we went back to the B+B with boxes full of tasty treats.  And seeing as we weren't very hungry for dinner, we bought some nice ripe brie and had a picnic on the beach.  Bliss.

Life's little challenges

I've been rather quiet over the last month.  
A wedding to organise, a new computer to purchase and get used to and finally something even more life changing to get our heads round; 'im outdoors has been diagnosed as a coeliac.  This means he can't eat any forms of gluten and requires a huge change to our diets.  
No bread, cake, pastry, sausages, pasta or OXO cubes for us.  Of course there are gluten free versions of these and many foods, but now before anything can be eaten we must be sure of its content, which at home is easy with a little concentration, but more difficult out and about.
So now that these three things have all been worked on, venues nearly booked, computer very happily working, and kitchen cleared out and new gluten free products in their place I can start to think about other things, the most exciting of which starts on Monday.
Papermaking for artists and designers at Central Saint Martins starts on Monday and although I have the usual nerves about being able to find the place and have I got everything I'll need, I'm really exciting about learning a new skill, something I've been wanting to try for a very long time.  Fingers crossed that next week will be a relaxing change from the rest of life's challenges.