Nosh
My aunt recently told me about a new cookbook that she'd seen. It was for gluten free baking and from the Nosh range. According to the inner flap, they had two other gluten free books: Gluten Free Everyday and a general Gluten Free one. I've always found recipe books can be very hit and miss; generally most of the recipes aren't ones we would eat so I prefer to check through them before buying them. I found that both of these books were available from the library which was ideal so I ordered them. I had a good look through each one, and made a list of the recipes that we could try. There was only half a dozen or so from the Everyday book, but the other one had a much better selection. So I've been trying a couple each weekend and generally they've been not bad. It's been a while since I've shared food photos so here's some of the new meals I've been making.
I hope you're not hungry because you might be a bit peckish after seeing these!
Vegetable risotto with haloumi
This was a bit of an odd recipe. It used basmati rice instead of risotto rice and also didn't cook it in the same manner either. The rice was nothing like a risotto at all, I don't know why it's called that. The recipe also used toasted sesame oil to cook with which was different and possibly added a bit of extra flavour. I think I might have to try that with stir fries. It also used lemon zest which I didn't have and wasn't buying a lemon just for a bit of zest! I just added some lemon juice instead. It was supposed to be made with goats cheese, that was sliced and put on top of the rice before going under the grill to brown. I used haloumi as my mum doesn't like goats cheese. I grilled it separately while I was cooking the rice but it didn't brown very well. I put it in one side of the pan which worked much better. It wasn't a bad meal, but I think it would be better made as proper vegetable risotto, although not with the haloumi.
Spiced quinoa salad
I needed to use up rest of the haloumi and found this recipe in the book. The original recipe was with salt beef and feta but I thought the haloumi would work just as well and just ignored the salt beef. I happened to have a packet of ready to eat red and white quinoa in the cupboard which I'd got ages ago but hadn't know what to do with so that was lucky! It was cooked with ground coriander and ground cumin, flaked almonds, spring onions, coriander, and lemon juice. I used pepper instead of the spring onions and added some leftover babycorn. It was supposed to be put on bed of salad leaves, but I only had romaine lettuce! Finally, there was a dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, honey, and salt and pepper. The dressing was really nice, and definitely made the meal much better. I could probably use that as salad dressing. My portion in the photo is about quarter of the quinoa made, it was an awful lot of quinoa! I wasn't sure I could taste any of the spices in it but it was nice for a change.
Chicken moilee
This was supposed to be prawn moilee but I used chicken instead. It's a popular dish from Kerala in southern India. It had a very mild flavour, but there weren't many spices in it, especially for Indian food - just turmeric, ginger, chilli, and coconut milk. I thought it was nice though and would probably make it again. Apparently it's usually made with fish so I probably shouldn't have put chicken in it! I could make it again with some pollock instead and see what that's like.
Salmon with wholegrain, wild, and red rice, and lemon ginger sauce
This recipe was adapted from one for salmon with pak choi rice and lemon ginger sauce. I had found a packet of wholegrain, wild, and red rice at the supermarket and it seemed like a good alternative instead of the pak choi rice. The salmon was fried in a pan while the sauce was made separately, and poured over at the end. The sauce was quite quick and easy to make: melt butter, fry ginger and spring onions in it (I substituted chives for the spring onions and added them at the end), then add parsley (which I didn't have), runny honey, lemon juice, and cornflour + water to thicken it. It took ages to thicken and I think it was more from the liquid boiling away than the cornflour. It was very nice though the sauce flavours were very subtle. I didn't taste any ginger in it but mum said she did! It was very nice and worked very well together.
Coconut cod kedgeree
For some reason, I didn't take a photo of this! I've never made kedgeree before but apparently this one was different because it used coconut milk. I can't use curry paste as it contains tomato and onion so I used curry powder instead. I wasn't sure how much curry powder to put in and it could have done with a bit more. The fish had to be cooked separately which was a bit of a faff, and it also shrank to nothing so the dish had far more rice than fish in it. It was quick to make but I'm not sure if I'd make it again.
And finally, creamy chicken & broccoli pasta which is actually from BBC Good Food, not one of the Nosh recipes.
A lot of the reviews said that it had far too much liquid - the picture on the recipe looks more like soup! It says to put in 900ml of water which does sound like a lot. I didn't put it all in initially but gluten free pasta needs a lot more liquid so I ended up putting all of that amount in anyway. It doesn't look like it really, there's no sauce to it as such. Still yummy though!
I hope you're not hungry because you might be a bit peckish after seeing these!
Vegetable risotto with haloumi
This was a bit of an odd recipe. It used basmati rice instead of risotto rice and also didn't cook it in the same manner either. The rice was nothing like a risotto at all, I don't know why it's called that. The recipe also used toasted sesame oil to cook with which was different and possibly added a bit of extra flavour. I think I might have to try that with stir fries. It also used lemon zest which I didn't have and wasn't buying a lemon just for a bit of zest! I just added some lemon juice instead. It was supposed to be made with goats cheese, that was sliced and put on top of the rice before going under the grill to brown. I used haloumi as my mum doesn't like goats cheese. I grilled it separately while I was cooking the rice but it didn't brown very well. I put it in one side of the pan which worked much better. It wasn't a bad meal, but I think it would be better made as proper vegetable risotto, although not with the haloumi.
Spiced quinoa salad
I needed to use up rest of the haloumi and found this recipe in the book. The original recipe was with salt beef and feta but I thought the haloumi would work just as well and just ignored the salt beef. I happened to have a packet of ready to eat red and white quinoa in the cupboard which I'd got ages ago but hadn't know what to do with so that was lucky! It was cooked with ground coriander and ground cumin, flaked almonds, spring onions, coriander, and lemon juice. I used pepper instead of the spring onions and added some leftover babycorn. It was supposed to be put on bed of salad leaves, but I only had romaine lettuce! Finally, there was a dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, honey, and salt and pepper. The dressing was really nice, and definitely made the meal much better. I could probably use that as salad dressing. My portion in the photo is about quarter of the quinoa made, it was an awful lot of quinoa! I wasn't sure I could taste any of the spices in it but it was nice for a change.
Chicken moilee
This was supposed to be prawn moilee but I used chicken instead. It's a popular dish from Kerala in southern India. It had a very mild flavour, but there weren't many spices in it, especially for Indian food - just turmeric, ginger, chilli, and coconut milk. I thought it was nice though and would probably make it again. Apparently it's usually made with fish so I probably shouldn't have put chicken in it! I could make it again with some pollock instead and see what that's like.
Salmon with wholegrain, wild, and red rice, and lemon ginger sauce
This recipe was adapted from one for salmon with pak choi rice and lemon ginger sauce. I had found a packet of wholegrain, wild, and red rice at the supermarket and it seemed like a good alternative instead of the pak choi rice. The salmon was fried in a pan while the sauce was made separately, and poured over at the end. The sauce was quite quick and easy to make: melt butter, fry ginger and spring onions in it (I substituted chives for the spring onions and added them at the end), then add parsley (which I didn't have), runny honey, lemon juice, and cornflour + water to thicken it. It took ages to thicken and I think it was more from the liquid boiling away than the cornflour. It was very nice though the sauce flavours were very subtle. I didn't taste any ginger in it but mum said she did! It was very nice and worked very well together.
Coconut cod kedgeree
For some reason, I didn't take a photo of this! I've never made kedgeree before but apparently this one was different because it used coconut milk. I can't use curry paste as it contains tomato and onion so I used curry powder instead. I wasn't sure how much curry powder to put in and it could have done with a bit more. The fish had to be cooked separately which was a bit of a faff, and it also shrank to nothing so the dish had far more rice than fish in it. It was quick to make but I'm not sure if I'd make it again.
And finally, creamy chicken & broccoli pasta which is actually from BBC Good Food, not one of the Nosh recipes.
A lot of the reviews said that it had far too much liquid - the picture on the recipe looks more like soup! It says to put in 900ml of water which does sound like a lot. I didn't put it all in initially but gluten free pasta needs a lot more liquid so I ended up putting all of that amount in anyway. It doesn't look like it really, there's no sauce to it as such. Still yummy though!