GF SCOTCH EGGS! from Marks & Spencer's :)

Hello :)

I have had this in my drafts for over a year and just realised I haven't posted it! So apologies that its no longer a new product, but still worth a shout out even though I am now vegetarian :P so here you go...

So I bet condemned to life as a coeliac you all thought you could never enjoy a scotch egg again?
Or at least that's what I thought before I found out M&S have started doing GLUTEN FREE SCOTCH EGGS!

I'm not joking when I say it made my day, probably even my week when I found out!
they have been doing them for a while now and the novelty has not grown old with me. 


Where: Marks & Spencer's

How much: £1.20 for a packet of 2 eggs
.
Value: I think they are pretty good value, considering normal free from prices, and the fact that M&S 'normal' scotch eggs are a similar cost for a packet of 2.

Taste: I mean I hadn't had a scotch egg in 6 years, but these have been one of those weird things I have craved throughout my time on a GF diet, so there was always a fairly large possibility I would be disappointed when I finally had one. But I am happy to say these taste amazing and were certainly not a disappointment! They are the big scotch eggs and I always preferred the small ones pre-diagnosis, but these have changed my mind (and I would have continued to eat them had I not have become vegetarian!)

Overall score: 
*****
So, moral of the story, at least now when i crave them I can feed the cravings with these delicious, fairly good value, fairly unhealthy (worth it :P) scotch eggs. 

Although now all I need is veggie GF scotch eggs... am I asking for too much?!

Enjoy :) xx

NEW PRODUCT! Mini toad in the holes! GF of course!

Hello :)

I have exciting news if you haven't already seen them...

Marks & Spencer have a new party range for Christmas, and lots of the range are gluten free! 

Online you can buy the 'Gluten Free Party Selection' for £30, which includes "12 mini chicken kievs, 12 Sottish Lochmuir™ Smoked Salmon and prawn Appetisers, 18 BBQ pork belly squares, 12 sticky Asian style chicken lollipops, and 12 Mini Toad in the Hole with caramelized onion chutney" or you can get the products
individually, and they are currently 3 for 2.

We got 3 for 2 on:

2 sets of mini toad in the hole
1 set of pork belly squares.

They were £12 for the 3, so expensive I know without the offer, but worked out to be £4 each with it - and let me tell you they were worth it!!

Online the packs are more expensive, but this is because you get more pieces .

They have bacon and sausage rolls too which I've had in previous years and are tasty too!
I can't wait to try the chicken kievs! They sound amazing :)

My review:

Toad in the hole:
It may be because we slightly overcooked them, but they were a little dry, however it comes

with a caramelized onion chutney and this really helped. 
Nice pastry, tasted like real Yorkshire puddings! Yummy sausages too :)

So long story short I really enjoyed them. And would completely recommend them to any coeliacs or people on a GF diet, I don't think you can tell they are GF!!  



Pork belly squares:

We had these last Christmas and they were as good as I remembered.

Negative: They are quite fatty, which may be alright for some people but if, like me, it puts you off, these are not a total write off because it is easy to remove the fat.
Positive: The meat is so tender (making the fat easy to remove if you choose to). 
Also it is in such a tasty sticky sauce you can't believe it's GF!

So I would also recommend these too! :)

I swear I can be fussy sometimes, one day I may post a negative review... but for now... get buying, because these are yummy! I can't wait to have them both (and the chicken kievs and pigs in blanket!!) again at Christmas.

Enjoy :)

NEW PRODUCT INFO! John West Tuna Mayonnaise with sweetcorn is gluten free!

Hello :)

I have GF news!!

So recently I noticed John West Tuna Mayonnaise with sweetcorn appears to be gluten free, however I had always though it contains wheat flour.

Turns out after inquiring with John West that they have changed their recipe this year to takeout the wheat. It states it contains mustard but this is GF mustard. This means that NEW tins are gluten free - old tins stating 'tuna IN mayonnaise with sweetcorn' are NOT GF.

They have been conducting tests to check if they can write 'gluten free' on the tin and it appears they will start doing this from next year.

If anyone's still unsure, I asked online and got this lovely reply:

"Dear Miss [_].
Thank you for your mail.


The mustard used is free from gluten. Earlier this year we adjusted the recipe removing both Egg and Gluten. As part of the work we have been carrying out analysis to verify Gluten Free status and all results have indicated this to be the case . We have also reviewed the controls for ingredients so we can start to put a Gluten Free claim onto the pack too which I hope to do next year at the next artwork update.


Please however do check labels each time you purchase as retailers sometimes have problems with rotation and I have recently seen retailers with both on the shelf even though we shipped the last of the wheat containing recipe quite some time ago. Just look out for the egg free logo.
 
Hope this helps
Yours Sincerely
[_]
UK Intake Manager
John West Foods"

** Please note it is ONLY the RE-BRANDED TINS are GLUTEN FREE, so check each time you buy them that they are not just old tins **

I bought the tins for £1.50 each from co-op (I think), they were reduced from £2.08.
But I would say they are worth this as they are an easy way to make a quick meal.

Meal idea: 

Tuna pasta - cook pasta, when done mix with half a tin (serves 1)
Or the same but with a portion of rice. 


Yummy :) enjoy x

Triple-layer EASY (and tasty!!) gluten free coffee and walnut cake

Hello :)

I'd like to start by saying a massive thank you to anyone viewing this and if you've viewed my other posts/pages, it motivates me to post and just makes me really happy! :)

So back to the point of this page....

I made this coffee and walnut cake for my Dad's birthday.

I personally like the fact the icing is a bit of a mess, but you could make it cleaner if you wanted!

I adapted the recipe from the original 2-tiered cake here, and this blogger adapted it from Nigella to make it GF.

The differences I made to the recipe in the above link are that I had no xanthan gum, so I just left it out - it didn't seem to matter. And I also used a half extra of each ingredient obviously to add the extra tier, this meant that I used:

75g walnuts

263g caster sugar

75g light brown sugar

338g butter

6 eggs

338g gluten free plain flour

3 and 3/4 tsp baking powder

1.5 tsp instant coffee

3 tbsp milk

I actually doubled the amount for the icing as I planned to put it round the outside, but in the end decided it didn't need this and so I had lots if icing left over - it may be best to work it out the same as above instead.

Of course I realise the numbers above look complicated, but with digital scales its no problem to calculate or even not using digital it won't matter if not accurate to the gram. I just want to stress how easy this recipe is, all ingredients go in together after the walnuts are blitzed - that is the most complicated bit of the recipe (although its really not just to blend some nuts) which I think demonstrates it's ease.

Also it is worth any effort as I think it tastes delicious and definitely got my family's (and Dad the birthday boy's!) thumbs up. So give it a go and see what you think!

Enjoy :) xx

(ASDA) GF Chicken nuggets and (home made) sweet potato chips

Hello :)

So today I was really craving the chicken nuggets I had been saving in my freezer. And then (of course!) felt the need to have chips with them, which I didn't have so decided I would attempt to make from a sweet potato.

The result:

I know it all looks a bit orange but it tasted pretty good!! 

The chicken nuggets were the 'Georgia's Choice chicken bites' from the free from frozen section in ASDA:    






Chicken bites review:

Where: ASDA

How much: £2.40 for 20 bites (which are average chicken nugget sized!)

Value: £2.40 feels fairly expensive, especially as it works out at 12p a nugget, but then again a meal of 5 nuggets is 60p and with a cheap side this is probably a fairly standard meal price... it's just the student in me that resents paying that! Although ASDA's own 'normal' chicken bites are £2.20 for 250g, and these are £2.40 for 300g so it's not actually too bad.

Taste: Taste YUMMY to me!! I don't know if it's just because I was deprived of nuggets for a few years post-diagnosis but now they are one of my favorite foods... I don't know what that says for my taste buds :P But anyway as a chicken-nugget-lover these have my approval for sure :D


Sweet potato fries recipe:

I don't know if this is the best recipe to follow as they weren't exactly the crispy chips I was hoping for but the general taste was good enough for me so may be worth a try, just perhaps a bit more oil and at a higher heat next time.

1 sweet potato
a few sprays of fry light
salt to taste

1. Preheat oven to 200°C
2. Peel sweet potato and cut into chips
3. Spray the chips in a bowl and using your hands (or utensils if you would rather) ensure all the chips are coated
4. Spray the baking tray with oil (or use actual oil if you prefer) and then I used a silicone pastry brush to make sure this created an even covering over the tray
5. Place the chips in a single layer on the tray
6. Sprinkle with salt or other condiments (e.g pepper) to your taste
7. Cook for 25 minutes plus, depending on the size you have made your fries, and to your taste. Turn the chips/loosen them on the tray about half way through cooking.

Hope you enjoy 

:) xx

Mmmmm homemade gluten free carrot cake

Hello :)

So I love carrot cake but have never made it before (side note M&S do a yummy GF one) and thought I'd give it a go.

The result:

I can take no credit for the recipe which I got from here & the cream cheese icing adapted from here (see below).

But just thought I'd make a new blog post to let you know how easy it was to make. 
When looking up recipes I found so many that needed loads of ingredients but the one I eventually chose (thank you BBC good food!) needed only carrots, soft brown sugar, self-raising flour (obviously use GF s-r flour here), bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, 1 orange, eggs and sunflower oil. So all of these ingredients are pretty standard store cupboard essentials, I had to buy the cinnamon but at 49p it didn't feel too excessive!

My only adaptation of the recipe was with the icing; as you can see, Mary Berry's recipe stated needing 250g full-fat cream cheese, for this I actually used a 200g pack of soft cheese (FYI this is the same as cream cheese, maybe it's just me who hadn't realised this!). I used 50g less cream cheese to avoid buying another pack as I would not eat it other than in the frosting, but also to avoid the icing tasting 'too cheesy', to aid this I also added another 25g ish of icing sugar.

So there you have it, pretty easy GF carrot cake, I like the taste of mine, its a little dry but is fluffy and made more moist by the icing. My non-GF housemates have all enjoyed it too and it has certainly gone down pretty quickly since I made it 2 days ago!

:) xx

2 ingredient - 5 minute gluten/dairy/egg/yeast free bread!!

Hello :)

So shout out to my housemates for giving me a way to make bread with just 2 (kinda 3) CHEAP ingredients, they make it with normal flour but thought I may as well give it a go, and wasn't disappointed! The recipes exact measurements are adapted from here.

1 flat bread is about 12p, making it 48p a batch, rather than £2.00 for a shop bought pack of 4 gluten free pitta breads, so I know which I would choose!
(Based on 1kg Doves farm gluten free self raising flour at £1.70 - 1 bag would make 16 flatbreads, 1 bottle of frylight at £2.20 is meant to have 950 sprays)

I make a batch of 4, freeze the ones that aren't needed and eat 1 warm with hummus, but you could also make them bigger as pizza bases :)

To make 4 flat breads:

250g gluten free self raising flour
About 3/4 cup water, but judge it as you go
Oil for frying, I use frylight sunflower oil to save the calories!

Feel free to add salt or pepper

Simple as...

1. Mix the flour and water, then knead with your hands in the bowl. Add a little more water if too dry, flour if too wet - it needs to be able to form into a ball for you to make into flat breads without sticking to the pan and without falling apart.
2. Split the mixture into 4, or however big you want the breads to be.
3. Oil a frying pan, about 2 or 3 sprays of the oil will do, or a drizzle from a bottle, and heat. You don't need oil really, which is why i have said this only uses 2 ingredients, but if your dough is really wet you definitely do need oil to stop it sticking.
4. Flatten 1 of the 4 lumps of dough to your desired thickness (I make them about 1cm thick) either by using your hands, against a floured work surface, or I do it by pressing into the frying pan, take care not to burn your fingers!
5. They take around 2 minutes on each side, but judge by looking at it and for your taste.
6. Repeat for the others. 

And there you go, hope you enjoy!

:) xx