Posts tagged as:

dairyfree

Easy Summer Salad Recipe

by Emilia on July 14, 2010

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.

Popularity: 39% [?]

Potato Salad Recipe

by Emilia on July 20, 2009

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.

Popularity: 60% [?]

Gluten-Free Clafoutis

by Emilia on June 25, 2009

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.

Popularity: 41% [?]