Wednesday 28 January 2009

Dal and chapattis

I'm a big fan of dal and used to love mopping up leftovers with chapattis - before I knew I was Coeliac. Since then have just been having dal with rice - but found and tried out a great recipe for g-f chapattis today... really simple and very quick.

I used this recipe only I didn't have any ground rice so I just used rice flour and that seemed to work OK.

I've got a lot of Ayurvedic cookbooks which is where I get all my dal recipes from - my favourite is moong dal which is basically just moong dal (available from any local shops which stock Asian/world foods), spices and water. There are lots of recipes online too so just try some out!

The bread would be good with some spices/herbs etc in too - or maybe even nuts or something - will give some varieties a go and let you know!

Tuesday 27 January 2009

Apologies and mueslis...

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted - I was away a lot over Christmas and New Year and, due to the ever-foreboding 'credit crunch' I just haven't been able to afford to go out for meals, to be honest. I had seriously good intentions of doing a massive Christmas blog about all the good g-f stuff I'd tried - mince pies, M&S stuffing (three out of four of theirs were g-f this year - bonus), Christmas pudding etc etc, but then I didn't. I shall endeavour to do better in 2009. And if I can't go out, I'll put up some more recipes and things I've found in supermarkets etc.

Ooh - one thing I did try that I was very disappointed with was Muddy Cook - bespoke muesli. It was seriously expensive, but I thought I'd treat myself before Christmas and try it out as I love muesli. I make my own sometimes but at the moment I've run out of storage jars to keep all the stuff in...!

Anyway, you choose a base (they have a g-f one) then add whatever ingredients you want to it from a massive list. It arrived promptly and everything but I was SERIOUSLY disappointed with the texture. The base is SO powdery that it literally turns into sludge as soon as you add milk, and to be honest, I tried twice and then rather gave up. So now it's just sitting in the kitchen taking up space and making me annoyed that I spent so much money on it every time I look at it... It might be OK to make bircher out of or something, but I was not impressed.

However, I went to Fresh & Wild the other day and picked up some new granola - also expensive but half the price of the Muddy Cook and I had been given some vouchers so was getting nice things anyway. It's called 'Perfekt' (Perfekt Nutrition) and is made by someone called Karolina Gardiner. There were about four to choose from and one was g-f. Am happy to report that it's REALLY good - YAY! I love granola and have yet to find a good g-f one. I quite like the Southern Alps one but it's very chewy and this is only about 50p more. I didn't want to get through it too fast so I had some with some Dove's Farm Cereal Flakes (if you haven't tried these, they're great - a really good new addition to their fantastic range) and it made for a delicious bowl of cereal! Also had some sprinkled on my rice porridge this morning - it just added something a bit different and tasty so definitely a good investment.

If anyone else has found a great muesli/granola, please do post and let me know...