But Edinburgh is a mad god’s dream
Fitful and dark,
Unseizable in Leith
And wildered by the Forth,
But irresistibly at last
Cleaving to sombre heights
Of passionate imagining
Till stonily,
From soaring battlements,
Earth eyes Eternity.

by Hugh MacDiarmid

For me Edinburgh will always be associated with dark alleyways, magnificent architecture, endless cups of coffee, spending hours in book shops, scattered autumn leaves, friendly people, getting lost on the narrow streets of old town and most of all falling head over heels in love with a city.

It was many years ago when I first visited Edinburgh having no expectations at all; the beauty of the whole place caught me by surprise the first evening walking down the old cobbled streets, there was no people any more on the streets because we arrived so late and everything was quiet. You could feel the age of the old town, see the dark coloured buildings sweeping down the Royal Mile from the castle to Holyrood, the wind was blowing a bit scattering falling leaves - it was magnificent. No place had captured my heart like that ever before.

Every day I spent there that autumn just made my feelings for Edinburgh grow a little bit stronger. I can easily understand what this one American said at the breakfast table “I feel like every place I look at is even more beautiful than the one before, I think to myself that this must be what Heaven looks like”. Maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but easily understandable if you happen to like Edinburgh.

Eating Out

As far as eating out in Edinburgh goes I found it almost as easy as here in Finland - which just happens to be one of the easiest places if you can’t have gluten - people usually understood what no gluten meant, and at some places, like Vittoria, they have the no gluten sign on the menu.

I tend to be a creature of habit when it comes to eating, so in Edinburgh I eat lunch at the Baked Potato Shop, which has a magnificent range of baked potatoes. The potatoes themselves are a work of art; crisp on the outside and soft on the inside with delicious fillings. They have always understood what no gluten means, so just ask, if you are unsure eating there. The fillings are vegetarian and it’s a very vegan friendly place, but more protein rich choices like the egg mayonnaise one are on the menu. I must mention though that the potatoes are huge and even I can’t finish the medium one.

Vittoria on the Bridge is one of the most gluten-free friendly restaurants in Edinburgh, they have everything marked on the menu and they even have gluten-free pasta. The food is delicious and the service deserves a special mention; it is very professional while maintaining friendliness. It is usually very busy so book a table in advance, especially during the high season.

For some dining in a romantic setting and excellent French style food made with local ingredients I would recommend The Grain Store. We had a fantastic evening there and the scallops were to die for.

You will find the best steaks - do try some local beef while in Scotland at least once - at Wildfire on Rose Street. You will probably need to book in advance here too, during high season especially.

Thai Orchid is also a place worth a visit, the setting is very enjoyable, the staff is attentive and the food is excellent. It is right next to the castle, so do book in advance when dining during the evening.

I usually drink coffee several times a day whenever in Edinburgh - for some strange reason I don’t do much coffee drinking at home - and Has Beans on the Royal Mile is one of my favourite places, the service is friendly, the coffee is excellent and they have Orkney ice cream there too which is a huge plus. Starbucks at Waterstone’s on Princes Street is worth visiting because of the view. There is also a tea room which has a very old fashioned charm to it on the Royal Mile, Canongate, called Clarindas, if you are not indeed someone who has to avoid gluten, go for the cream tea there.

Chocolate Soup is the place to visit if you like chocolate and a sugar shock. It has very filling hot chocolates made with melted chocolate and they also have these chocolate shots which are too sweet, but for the sugarholics they must be heavenly - I can imagine. It is located on Hunter Square; you will find it walking down the Royal Mile.

Edinburgh is filled with excellent restaurants, cafes and pubs; these were just some places that came to my mind writing this. Leith is of course also worth a visit if you are “gastrotraveling”, no need to stay around the Royal Mile and Princes Street area.

Don’t be afraid to ask about gluten-free foods, or information about the food you are about to have, the people are very helpful and friendly at most places.

Having just a quick bite can get a bit difficult, if you don’t know where you are going, I have usually had a quick snack with me for situations like that and I would advice any gluten-free travelers the same, so that you don’t get stuck into a situation where you need some food and all you find is places selling sandwiches. Pret A Manger is of course a given for situations like that, you can even find the nutritional info on each food on their website, but there are only three Prets in Edinburgh and they are all located in New Town.

Places to visit, things to do

The deeply historic ambiance of Edinburgh makes it an ideal travel place for people for are interested in history, you will find almost endless places to visit around the city and also a bit outside of Edinburgh too if your interests lie within history in general.

My favourite tourist attraction is Mary King’s Close; it is basically an old street which lies underground and it has many paranormal stories attached to it. The most interesting thing about it is seeing the way people lived back then in Edinburgh, and it doesn’t hurt that the guides are usually very entertaining (thank you Ian for the great tour!). It’s a very touristy kind of place, but the place is real and the guides, although very funny, are telling real researched facts.

Arthur’s Seat is the main peak at Holyrood Park and it reaches up to around 800 ft, the views are worth the hike, but if you have a fear of heights like I do, I suggest you don’t go up; I was literally trembling with fear up there. You will also need to be in good condition to hike all the way up.

Edinburgh is closely connected to paranormal events and ghost stories, which is why many people take one of the ghost tours when visiting. I would say that the ghost tours are mostly full of inaccurate stories and fluff; the historical tours have more substance and are in the end more interesting. If you are really headstrong on going on a ghost tour, Mercat Tours is the best choice in my opinion.

Greyfriars Cemetery is definitely worth a visit, although the Covenanters Prison is closed. It’s basically a regular graveyard, but an old one with many stories attached to it.

One of my favourite places is also the ever so popular Rosslyn Chapel, it is of course famous because of the Da Vinci Code, but it’s still worth a visit even if the book didn’t get you interested in it. The atmosphere there is very spiritual and the architecture interesting, also the mysteries within Rosslyn would most likely interest many. You can also walk down to the castle ruins from there and see it.

The castle is something that almost every tourist goes to see and it is interesting, you can also get to Stirling castle easily from Edinburgh.

Dunbar’s Close is a sort of “hidden” garden which I like to visit, it’s always quiet there and it’s the perfect place to rest for a while. You will find it on the Royal Mile at Canongate, on the left hand side walking towards Holyrood, if I remember correctly.

There are many places to visit and see in Edinburgh, but please don’t go running from destination to destination, but rather take it slow and enjoy the city in general.

General stuff

Always be prepared for almost any kind of weather, dress in layers and keep an umbrella with you. Take comfortable shoes with you because Edinburgh means walking, walking and more walking if you are seeing it as a tourist.

I would suggest visiting Edinburgh during autumn and spring, the festival in August for example is really hectic and nice in its own way with all the shows, but you will get more of a feel of the place during the low season.

The buses only accept exact amounts of money, which is 1,20 £ one way, they won’t give you change, so keep coins with you and when you step on the bus have the money ready.

Some places don’t accept credit cards - I really have no idea why - therefore keep some cash on you along with your cards when seeing Edinburgh and especially if you are going outside Edinburgh.

The buses are not as reliable as they are in Scandinavia for example, so when going to Stirling, or Rosslyn etc. be prepared that the buses might be (very) late.

People in Scotland tend to be friendly and they are indeed very proud of Scotland. The flags and thistles you start to see everywhere when going to Scotland act as a hint of how Scots feel about their country.

I have usually been staying at the Novotel hotel at Lauriston Place, I like the fact that it’s quiet, efficient and clean, also the coffee they serve at breakfast is beyond good. For a more personal touch when staying in Edinburgh, I would recommend a Bed and Breakfast of some kind.

Although traveling is nice, nothing beats coming back home, especially when the temperature is still near 30 + Celsius and you can go straight to the sea for a swim. I wish that this summer would not end.

Before closing this post I wanted to recommend a new blog I found on gluten-free health stuff, it is written by a doctor from New Zealand and the posts have already been interesting, the blog is called Gluten-Free Planet.

For me Eton Mess is definitely a favourite summer dessert; it’s creamy, sweet, cooling and fresh all at the same time. It consists of meringue, berries and cream - that’s all it needs.

My first introduction to this one came when living in Britain during -97 and I was totally smitten at once. I was having some afternoon tea with dreamy fresh scones, some regular cake and then came the Eton Mess; you people who have had fresh warm English scones with jam and clotted cream probably know that almost nothing beats it, but I have to say that the Eton Mess was in fact a little bit better and that is saying a lot!

I’ve never had a proper afternoon tea moment with gluten-free baked goods, but I do hear that they exist; I just have no idea if the cakes and scones match their wheat filled cousins. I do believe that they do not, but with something like Eton Mess, you are not losing anything even if celiac, since it is naturally gluten-free, just as long as the meringue is gluten-free too.

I could go into endless blabbing about how much I love British foods, the UK in general (especially Scotland) and afternoon tea etc. but I think not, I am anyway going there in just a few days and I thought that I might write something of a travel post after it. I don’t think I’ve done any posts of my travels, so maybe it’s time for one.

Eton Mess Recipe

serves 2 as a larger portion and 4 as a very small portion

-1 cup/2,5 dl cream

-4 small meringue nests

-fresh berries (usually strawberries are included, but I think any kind of berries goes, I used wild blueberries and strawberries here)

Whip the cream, crush the meringue nests in and fold very gently. Then fold the washed and diced berries in gently.

I sometimes add a bit of vanilla extract too, but never sugar since it’s so sweet with the meringue, but do add some tablespoons of sugar if you have a big sweet tooth.

Eating head to tail has been something of a revelation to me after I quit being a vegetarian; bones, offal and all things edible in an animal are now something that I frequently eat.

As a child my favourite foods did include reindeer bones, the yellowish greasy marrow was sucked out of them after a long cooking, and a sort of reindeer jerky which was made from the heart of the reindeer, it had been dried outside until it was tough, salty and just very delicious. I couldn’t get enough of these foods, but somehow I still held a deep aversion to things that included liver, heart and parts not so often eaten.

I do realize now that it is a cultural thing; I was happy to eat the dried hearts for example because everyone around me enjoyed them when we visited my mother’s family in Lapland. But at home in the southern parts of Scandinavia everything else than the plain muscle meats were considered something not so tasty and it really rubbed onto me too.

Then came the vegetarian years which played a number on my thinking in many ways, I felt like all foods from animals were not so tasty, something I never wanted to have anything to do with. It was only vegetables, beans and grains for me. As years progressed my aversion towards meat grew stronger and I once thought that I would faint when I saw someone bite into some pink charred liver in a restaurant. It all seems so ridiculous now.

This only tells the tale of how deeply the ideas of suitable foods to eat are embedded into our minds even though reality might differ from what we believe.  The culture around us dictates much of what we believe is something safe and good to eat, as a vegetarian I was surrounded by others who also believed that every part of an animal was something not to be eaten. People would call minced meat for example as slaughter waste; the language we used reflected the morality of what we thought was right, it felt like an affirmation.

In many ways offal has had the same fate as meat in general has had with vegetarians; it is not eaten and it is not usually appreciated.

But all of this seems to be changing; even the prices of kidneys, liver and ox tail for example have gone up - at least here. There are more and more restaurants serving bone marrow, heart, sweetbreads etc.

For me starting to eat bone marrow for example has been something of a learning experience, at first I had to close my eyes when eating them even though I enjoyed the taste -who wouldn’t enjoy the incredible richness - the sight of those big cooked bovine bones on my plate was so strange. My first times eating liver were difficult, I smothered them in lingonberries, the taste is like that of a slightly rusty nail, I thought.

Now days there isn’t many foods I enjoy more than lamb kidney, liver and bone marrow. I say it was worth it, adjusting my taste buds to these new things.

For some more reading I would recommend this book, The River Cottage Meat Book and about the health aspects of bone marrow Mark’s Daily Apple

Two Bone Marrow Recipes

Basic Bone Marrow

-Bones

-Salt

Put the bones into a dish of some sort, keep in mind that the fat will start dripping when they cook, so something with higher sides is essential.

Cook the bones for approximately 30 minutes at 400F/200 C, the bones are done when there is no more pink in them.

Scrambled Eggs and Marrow

serves 2

-4 eggs

-the marrow from 4 already cut and cooked bones

-1-2 tbls creme fraiche

- some chopped chives (optional)

Scramble the eggs with the creme fraiche, be thorough so that no clumps remain.

Put your pan on medium heat, add a little bit of olive oil and butter. Pour the eggs in, start by moving a spatula towards the center from all around, just gently move the liquid towards the center until the eggs start to get more firm. This movement will give you a soft scramble, not a tough and rubbery one. When they are almost done add the marrows into them.

Top with chives.

The creme fraiche will give you the best scrambled eggs ever and the marrow adds richness to them.

This can of course be done without the marrow too.

Getting Lost

What better to do on a really hot and humid day, when the temperature rises to over 30 C, than getting lost when hiking in the forest.

This is exactly what we did with my boyfriend. I don’t know how it happened and luckily we were in no real danger since the woods are not all that big at the place where we were, but it was still hard on the feet and the soul also. Imagine walking on endless forest paths when it’s so hot that you can’t even think straight, it will start eating you up after the first couple of hours.

I might be inclined to start taking a map with us from now on.

It wasn’t so bad when thinking of it afterwards, we got to swim in the above forest lake, which was lovely, we found a bunch of wild strawberries, bilberries and lots of raspberries in the forest.

I don’t know what wild strawberries are called in English, but here they are called metsämansikka which translates to forest strawberry. They are extremely sweet and full of flavour, much more sweet than a regular strawberry. One of my favourites when it comes to anything sweet.

The bilberries are all ripe and bursting with flavour. I was very surprised when I ate my first bilberries straight from  the forest this year, they are so much sweeter than usual, it must be the hot weather.

My next post will have to be something with berries.

Let’s get this blog back into action for a change, shall we. I think that I’ve rested enough after the renovation we did to our home, it was surprising how hard it was and how long it took for us.

I have been wondering what to eat here now that the weather is so hot and humid that you feel a lot like melting, except when you swim in the sea, after that you are cool for about 10 minutes until you feel like you are in a sauna again.

We here in the North are not used to this kind of weather, so it really can take a toll on you. Some days ago it was reported that it was the hottest day in 50 years - can you imagine. I spent most of that day swimming in the sea, tanning on the beach was impossible for more than half an hour, that is, if you didn’t want to feel like you’re melting away into the sand.

Thai foods are a given when the weather gets really hot, curries and the likes are filled with veggies and spices, so you feel good when eating dishes like that. Salads are also a godsend when you feel like you just want to eat something light. I’ve been incorporating both of these things with Thai flavoured salads which are a lot like regular salads, but I flavour them with chillies, lime, coriander and fish sauce - it’s really easy, filled with flavour and it feels cooling in the heat.

Easy Thai inspired summer salad

serves two

-a head of lettuce

-a couple of tomatoes

-a couple of onions

-a bunch of coriander

-two grilled chicken breasts

for the sauce

-3 tbls fresh lime juice (or from the bottle)

-3 tbls thai fish sauce

-1-2 red chillies, seeded and cut into thin stripes (or some dried chilli flakes)

This is so easy and fast, if you have the chicken breasts ready. If you need to cook them, just add some spices to them (I use this dry rub I make, some paprika, oregano, thyme, salt, chili flakes, garlic powder and onion powder). Then cook them in the oven at around 300 F until done.

You can use fish too, some shrimp, beef, almost anything.

You can of course use any kind of veggies basically in this; the idea is in the fish sauce, the chillies, the coriander and the lime juice.

Mix the lime juice with the fish sauce and the chillies.

Wash and tear the salad, cut the onions and the tomatoes, mix them together, cut the coriander and add it.

Pour the sauce on top and add the chicken on top of the salad.

I get a lot of questions on where to buy quinoa flour, psyllium husk, things like that which I use in the recipes. I really never had an answer for this, until some time ago when I started ordering form Iherb. Some of you probably know it already, but I thought that I’ll mention it here too in a post and I will put up a notice in the sidebar about Iherb.

Iherb has an simply amazing variety of products for sale, I for example order all my hair and skin care products from there, some foods that are hard to get by here, and also all my supplements.

This is by the way not a paid advert for Iherb; I don’t think they know that this blog even exists. I have been very happy with them and I do think that it’s worth to mention how good Iherb is.

The site is not easy to navigate at first, at least for me it was not, but you can search for psyllium husk for example by simply adding the words into the search box, you can also search for gluten free products in the same way.

Something worth mentioning for celiacs is their range of probiotics for example; you can find them by searching with the term probiotics. The same goes for multivitamins, fish oil etc.

Using code JUH901 will get you 5 dollars off your first order.

It’s been almost a year since I last wrote something here, so I thought it would be time for a small update on where this blog is going in the future. I have gotten a lot of e-mails on the subject and I haven’t unfortunately had time to answer all of them.

I have been really busy this last year, renovating our home etc. so I decided to take a break from blogging for a while, then that break just seemed to last for a longer time than I had imagined. I still don’t know if I’ll ever start blogging here again, just because it has been really nice taking a break and I am feeling maybe a bit lazy on the subject still. Of course summer is also coming and I intend to just read, relax, swim and maybe travel a bit.

So, there’s my thoughts on the subject, nothing really profound has happened that made me stop blogging (at least for a while), just circumstances like my work and renovating, also not feeling like blogging.

I am however going to keep this blog open still; you’ll still be able to use the recipes here as before. If I close this blog at some time, I’ll make sure to announce it here before I close up, so that everyone will have time to print the recipes they need.

I have also had some dreams of doing a sort of recipe index. I think a recipe index would be useful for me and all of you who are still using the recipes. My original intention for the blog was to have an archive for myself whenever I thought of a recipe and wanted it to be easily found somewhere, I am really bad with keeping things organized, so this solution was ideal. Then things just grew from there, I found out I liked taking photos and blogging in general etc.

The comments are still going to be closed because I can’t keep up with the spam. I am still saddened with having to shut down the comments, because they have been so useful, but the spam was just too overwhelming.

I wish everyone reading this a really great summer, let’s hope it’s a hot one with lots of sunshine (there are some fears here about a cold summer because of the volcano thing). And thank you everyone who has sent me e-mails, I might not answer all of them, but I always read them.

]]> http://glutenfreeday.com/?feed=rss2&p=633 http://glutenfreeday.com/?p=627 http://glutenfreeday.com/?p=627#comments Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:03:13 +0000 Emilia http://glutenfreeday.com/?p=627

It’s all about the bilberries here right now; the forests are filled with them.

We call them blueberries, but they are actually bilberries as I learned not so long ago, they are smaller than blueberries and the taste is not as watery as in blueberries. The taste of them is really intense and a little sour - delicious if you ask me.  Bilberries happen to be my favourite berry.

I have been thinking about a bilberry cake for a couple of weeks now and luckily I stumbled across this recipe just when we had been out picking up some berries. The recipe sounded so decadent and lovely that I had no other choice than to try it, I am not someone who can say no to a recipe which uses crème fraîche and lots of butter. The cream cheese icing was also just perfect, it is not common to ice these kinds of cakes here, so to me the icing sounded a bit exotic and different.

The cake itself was very easy to make, I used some almond flour and white rice flour in it and that worked out well. I loved the taste of it, this is just the kind of cake I like, dense and moist, not too sweet and a little bit tart, but not too tart.

I would highly recommend trying this recipe.

I used almond flour and white rice flour, but the original recipe uses wheat flour (of course!), so if you are not celiac you should use just wheat flour instead of the almond and rice flour. Some quinoa flour instead of rice flour would also work out; I have been just very determined to try out some other flours than quinoa, at least for a while, and that’s why I used rice flour here.

I used only 1 dl/1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar in the icing, but the original recipe uses twice that amount.

The cake can be served when it has cooled down; it is very moist, so it will not hold itself together all that well when it is warm.

Bilberry Cake Recipe

The recipe was adapted from Ruoka Pirkka.

Serves 10, takes approximately 10 minutes to make and 45 minutes to bake.

The Cake

-150 grams/5,3 ounces soft butter

-1,5 dl/ 3/4 cup sugar

-3 eggs

-1 dl / a little bit less than 1/2 cup crème fraîche

-1 cup almond flour

-1 dl /a little bit less than 1/2 cup white rice flour

-2 tsp baking powder

-2 tsp vanilla extract

-200 grams/7 ounces blueberries or bilberries

Preheat your oven to 175 C/350 F.

Line a springform pan with baking paper and then grease it with some butter.

Mix together the butter, sugar, crème fraîche, vanilla extract and eggs. Mix together the flour and the baking powder.

Mix the dry ingredients together with the wet ingredients, but leave a little bit of the flour in the bowl and then gently mix the blueberries with the remaining flour.

Gently fold the berries in with the rest of the batter.

Pour into the pan and bake for 30-45 minutes until the cake is done. Let the cake cool down and make the icing.

The Icing

-200 grams/ 7 ounces cream cheese

-0,5 dl/ 1/5 cup crème fraîche

-2 dl/ 3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar (I used just half of this amount)

-2 tsp lemon juice

Mix everything together and then spread the icing on top of the cooled cake.

]]> http://glutenfreeday.com/?feed=rss2&p=627 http://glutenfreeday.com/?p=624 http://glutenfreeday.com/?p=624#comments Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:16:19 +0000 Emilia http://glutenfreeday.com/?p=624

Potato salads are something I always associate with summer, maybe because they can be refreshing and cooling when they are not made with mayonnaise.

This recipe is something I make quite often during the summer, I love taking it with us when we go hiking, or to the beach, and the best thing about it is that I can make a lot of it – it only gets better after a day or two.

The lemon juice and the basil together give a nice refreshing quality to the salad. Potatoes on their own are creamy in my opinion, so they need something like fresh herbs and the tanginess of the lemon juice to bring the flavours together in a nice contrasting way.

A potato salad like this - cold, cooling and fresh - is my idea of a perfect summer meal when served together with some hot spicy chicken.

Potato Salad Recipe

The vinaigrette here is not a regular one, this one is really very lemony, and I would suggest using less lemon juice if you are not a friend of a very tangy salad sauce.

If you are using new organic potatoes, I would suggest leaving the skin on them.

The recipe is naturally free from gluten, soy, dairy and eggs.

Potato salad

serves 6

-1 kg/ 35 ounces potatoes

- 4-5 spring onions

- 6 tbls fresh lemon juice

-12 tbls good quality olive oil

-3 tbls finely minced fresh basil leaves

-3 tbls capers

- salt and pepper according to taste

Cook the potatoes and then leave them to cool before cutting them.

Mix together the olive oil, lemon juice, minced basil leaves, salt, pepper and capers.

Cut the potatoes and the onions, then mix with the sauce.

Leave to sit for at least one hour before serving.

This is my contribution to this months Go Ahead Honey, It’s Gluten Free hosted by Shirley at Gluten Free Easily.

The theme this month is Make Me a Happy Camper.

I don’t like recipes.

Usually when I cook I do it not only because I am hungry and want something to eat, but also because it serves as a creative outlet for me. I find it to be relaxing and inspiring. Writing down recipes when cooking, or looking at a recipe at the same time, is not as nice, it adds a whole different level of stress to the whole operation in my opinion and just basically ruins it for me.

This is why I have mostly kept this blog about desserts, I don’t mind writing down what I am doing when I bake. It is not as stressful since when I bake I am anyway focused in a different way than when I am cooking.

Of course, there are exceptions to this. There are some recipes I know by heart and I don’t improvise much with them, I thought that I might post some of those during this summer. My desserts have anyway been something along really good fatty cheeses made with goat’s milk and ripe, juicy organic Italian peaches with some whipped cream. Those cheeses and peaches have become something of an obsession lately and they wouldn’t make all that great posts in my opinion - and because I’m not planning on abandoning them anytime soon, I thought that I’ll post regular food for a change.

Besides eating peaches, I swim a lot during these summer months and this is the main reason why I turn to simple, fast and familiar food during summer. It would be an understatement to say that I am hungry as a wolf when I get home from the beach (anyone who has been doing a lot of swimming probably knows what I am talking about); this means that we eat fast pasta dishes, stir fry dishes and Asian noodle soups during summer. Something fast and filling is a must for me and Carbonara is perfect in that way.

The recipe is very simple, but I do like the taste of it, maybe because I layer different fats into it – first the butter and the olive oil, and then the pork fat which dissolves into them. Layering fats into foods is something I like doing because it’s an easy way to get great taste into a dish. I usually use Pecorino Romano here, sometimes it’s Parmesan, but in my opinion Pecorino is much better. I love, love using Pancetta in anything and I do prefer it here.

I think that I wrote about using brown rice pasta as my main gluten-free pasta sometime before; I am not used to the blandness of regular pasta since I always used to prefer whole wheat pasta before going gluten-free. Brown rice pasta was a natural choice for me because of that.

Those of you who miss regular white pasta might want to check out The Gluten-Free Gourmand blog, since Gina there has been doing interesting and thorough reviews about different gluten-free pastas and she does prefer the whiter kind of pasta. You might find some brand you like by following her reviews.

Carbonara Recipe

serves 2, will take approximately 10 minutes to make

-170 grams/ 6 ounces (rice) spaghetti

-100 grams/3,5 ounces pancetta cut into pieces

-3-4 egg yolks, use 3 if you are using bigger eggs

- grated Pecorino Romano cheese according to taste, I don’t use very much of it, it will drown the other flavours if used too much

-2 tbls olive oil

-2 tbls butter

-fresh black pepper according to taste

-salt according to taste

Start by heating the water for the pasta and then proceed by cooking it according to instructions.

Cut up the Pancetta.

Heat a pan on medium heat and add the olive oil and butter, then cook the Pancetta in it.

Separate the egg yolks.

Grate the Pecorino.

Take the pasta when it is ready and rinse with cold water; I can’t tell you how many times I have had mushed up rice pasta because of skipping this.

The saucepan you cooked the pasta in will still be hot after rinsing the pasta, I usually pour the spaghetti back into it and place the saucepan back on medium heat. Mix the Pecorino with the egg yolks. Pour the egg yolks and the cheese into the spaghetti and stir them constantly for half a minute, the heat will cook them fast. Then place the spaghetti onto a plate and place the Pancetta and on top, lastly spoon the remaining fat from the pan on to the pasta. Top it with some fresh black pepper and a tiny bit of salt.

]]> http://glutenfreeday.com/?feed=rss2&p=619 http://glutenfreeday.com/?p=614 http://glutenfreeday.com/?p=614#comments Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:10:47 +0000 Emilia http://glutenfreeday.com/?p=614

A clafoutis is a truly delicious French dessert which is made by baking a batter together with some fruit. I haven’t had much luck with my gluten-free clafoutis experiments; the taste has been something terrible at times and at other times edible, but not anything spectacular.

This changed when I first opened up Gordon Ramsay’s book Just Desserts and I saw the clafoutis recipe in it. The recipe used almond flour instead of all purpose flour - I somehow just knew that this was the way to make a wonderful gluten-free clafoutis and I could not wait to try it.

My feeling had been right and I am pleased to say that this clafoutis is not only edible, but it is in fact better than one made with regular flour. I think I died a little bit when I first tasted it.

So do try this, if you love clafoutis.

Almond Clafoutis Recipe

This recipe is adapted from the book Just Desserts which is one I would recommend to everyone, even to celiacs; it has a lot of delicious gluten-free recipes and it also describes basic techniques for making desserts. Of course it has some recipes which use regular flour, but there are surprisingly many naturally gluten-free recipes. Gordon Ramsay might be an extremely annoying Tv-personality, but he knows his food, in my opinion anyway.

Some people like to use whole cherries in a clafoutis - the taste will be much stronger this way - I would recommend using them whole if you don’t mind the trouble the pits give when eating.

The Recipe

serves 4

Dry ingredients:

-30 grams/0,4 cups/1 dl almond flour (do not pack the flour tightly if you are measuring it with dl or with a cup)

-1 flat tsp flour (I use white rice flour)

-a pinch of salt

-50 grams/0,4 cups/1dl sugar (I like to use unrefined sugar here, it tastes better than white sugar, brown sugar is fine too)

Wet ingredients:

-1 egg

-2 egg yolks

-1 tsp vanilla extract

-1,5 dl/3/4 cup cream ( or coconut cream for a dairy-free version)

-200 grams pitted cherries, or 250 grams un-pitted cherries (approximately a bit over one cup/2,5 dl of cherries)

Mix the dry ingredients together and then mix the wet ingredients together. Combine them into a rather loose batter. Let the batter rest for 12-24 hours. You can of course bake it straight away, but it will not be as good.

Heat an oven to 175 C/350 F.

Grease a baking dish or individual baking dishes. Place the cherries in them and then cover with the batter.

Bake for 30 minutes. The time differs because ovens are different, keep an eye on the clafoutis while it is baking.

]]> http://glutenfreeday.com/?feed=rss2&p=614 http://glutenfreeday.com/?p=607 http://glutenfreeday.com/?p=607#comments Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:17:13 +0000 Emilia http://glutenfreeday.com/?p=607

I haven’t been making cupcakes in such a long time, but this all changed the other evening when I felt a passionate cupcake craving raising its head; I felt like I needed to bake and also I needed to have something with chocolate and mint.

Initially it started because I remembered one of the desserts I ate at Näsinneula restaurant, which was voted as the 8th best restaurant in Finland some time ago. The restaurant is located inside Näsinneula tower and so the dining is rather interesting because you have fantastic panorama views all over Tampere and the lakes surrounding the city. It was actually scary at first because it is so high and I could feel the tower moving a bit, but after a while I got used to it and could focus fully on the food. We ordered the Ninth Heaven menu and thus we got to taste some really good gluten-free chocolate cake with a milk chocolate mousse, ice cream and a truly fantastic mint sauce. The mint sauce was so good with the dark chocolate cake that I needed to try making something at home with those same flavours and I ended up with trying out these mint chocolate cupcakes.

The gluten-free part was no problem at the restaurant and I can highly recommend it to anyone wanting a lovely dinner when visiting Tampere - which a city in the south of Finland. Usually eating gluten-free here in Finland is always easy, but the staff at Näsinneula took it to another level with their care and professional manners. The food itself was just really so good, with all the different elements melting together into a perfect and very balanced mixture of tasty local flavours. The menu had nine different elements in it - green asparagus with hollandaise, scallops served in two ways, jerusalem artichoke soup, pike perch,  blackcurrant sorbet, Finnish Charolaise beef served in two ways, local cheeses served with some cloudberry jam, chocolate cake and finally the meal ended with some local strawberries. The pike perch, the asparagus and of course the chocolate cake were so fantastic that these have stayed in my mind afterwards rather hauntingly.

The other night was one of those times when I remembered the chocolate cake with the mint sauce and couldn’t take it anymore without baking something; I started to go through a Finnish blog called Kinuskikissa -which is by the way very beautiful- and found a cupcake recipe which used cocoa powder and mint chocolate as flavourings. I didn’t have many ingredients at home, no quinoa flour for example, so I decided to use almond meal and white rice flour and it worked out well; the cupcakes weren’t exactly as good as the dark rich chocolate cake with a fresh and tangy mint sauce at the restaurant, but they were nonetheless very tasty.

After the baking I have been wondering if I should use more white rice flour; the flour behaved so well and the cupcakes were delicious. I used a chocolate candy called Pätkis, which is basically a chocolate mint truffle, in the cupcakes, but I am sure that any kind of mint chocolate would work here. The frosting is just regular unsweetened whipped cream;I don’t think that buttercream would be very good here.

Gluten-Free Mint Chocolate Cupcakes

-140 grams/5 ounces mint chocolate

-150 grams/5,2 ounces soft butter

-1dl/ 1/4 cup sugar (or more depending on the chocolate, use more if the chocolate is darker)

-2 eggs

-1,5 dl/ 0,6 cup milk or cream (I used full fat milk)

Dry ingredients:

-2 dl/3/4 cup almond meal (ground almonds)

-1,5 dl/ 0,6 cup white rice flour (0,6 cup means a little bit over half a cup)

-2 tsp (gluten-free) baking powder

-2 1/2 tbls cocoa powder

Preheat an oven to 170 C/340 F.

Chop half of the chocolate into really small pieces and leave half of it as bigger pieces which will later be inserted into the cupcakes.

Mix all the dry ingredients together. Cream the butter and the sugar until they are pale and light. Add the eggs one by one. Add the milk and then mix the dry ingredients into the batter, remember not to over mix. Finally gently fold in the finely chopped chocolate.

Line a cupcake tin with cupcake papers, or grease the tin. Start adding the batter one spoonful at a time, when you have added one small spoonful of batter into the tin, then place a piece of the chocolate which was not chopped so finely into the batter, and finally place another spoonful of the batter on top of the chocolate piece.

Bake for 15-25 minutes, this depends on your oven. Let them cool before serving.

Serve with some whipped cream.

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