entree

Chickpea Pizza Crust- it's gluten free!

June 30, 2015


I've seen a couple of pizza-but-not-really-pizza recipes in pinterest, and have even dabbled with my own skinny version: The Cheat-za... get it? 

The one that intrigued me the most is the chickpea base because of it's use of alternative flour. Since experimenting with vegan cheese, using soaked cashews and almonds to make various cheeses including feta, mozzarella and ricotta, I've been keen to try out alternatives to traditional ingredients such as flours and dairy products. 

This base isn't as soft and chewy as a traditional base, but if you are more of a thin crispy based pizza lover then this is right up your street!




Ingredients:

1 15oz/425g can chickpeas 
1 1/2 cup chickpea flour
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup water
Salt and pepper

Method:

Add the drained chickpeas to a blender along with the oil, water, salt and pepper.

Blend until smooth. Add in the chickpea flour and pulse until the mixture comes together in a thick dough. 

Scoop out the dough onto a well (chickpea) floured surface and pat together into a smooth ball. There is no gluten in chickpea flour (Yay! For GF peeps!) so there is not need to kneed the dough to like you would with traditional bread dough, just bring it together in a ball.



Keep the surface and a rolling pin well floured, and roll (or pat- your preference) the dough into two 12 inch diameter pizza bases, about 1/3in / 1cm thick.

Bake the bases, without toppings,  at 350F for 15 minutes until lightly golden brown, then add the toppings before returning the pizzas to the oven for another 15 minutes to finish cooking. 


One of my favorite and (pretty) healthy toppings is home made tomato sauce, ricotta (which is an excellent low fat alternative to mozzarella and browns beautifully when it's baked), and a little drizzle of homemade basil pesto (try this recipe made with peanuts in the place of pricy pine nuts).... er, yum.



press

Press: Motif Magazine's Summer Guide: Food Trucks are Rolling in the Streets of Providence

June 20, 2015


I like to cook but I LOVE to eat!

Since moving to America I've certainly learnt one thing:

"When it comes to street eats, the food truck is king."

click to tweet

I spent some time chatting to, sampling from, and reporting back to Motif Magazine's Summer Guide about, the newest food truck on Providence's streets this season.




Find the article online here, or pick up a paper copy fo' free at a whole bunch of places around Rhode Island.

dessert

Chocolate and Coconut Mousse- Eggless Recipe

June 10, 2015


I don't follow any particular diet, other than trying to make good choices overall with the occasional splurge here and there! I do like, however, to experiment with recipes for special diets. 

Whilst I'm not currently in need of cutting out raw eggs from my diet, I know a couple of people to whom this could be a lovely little treat of a recipe- particularly mums to be.

Whilst there are many opinions on the pros and cons of eating raw eggs, this recipe is delicious and about a billion times more simple than it's egg containing counterpart- so even if you've not got any concerns about eating raw eggs, you'll want to give this one a go!


Ingredients: Makes six


  • 7oz / 200g milk chocolate
  • 11fl oz / 325ml coconut cream
  • grated orange zest to garnish


Method:

Snap the chocolate into smaller pieces, about 1 inch square, and melt. Use whichever method is the easier for you, I'm not a massive fan of microwave melting (mostly because I don't like the millisecond transition from solid to melted to blackened mess), so usually use a double boiler.

A double boiler is a fancy name for a saucepan filled with between an inch and two inches of hot water, with a glass or metal bowl on top. I use glass a so I can see how bubbly the water is, and keep the temperature even.


The bowl should not touch the water, even when it bubbles up. You want the bowl to maintain an even but not fierce heat, so that the chocolate will melt smoothly.

Once the chocolate has completely melted, remove it from the heat and set aside to cool to room temperature, so it's still liquid but not hot.

Dollop the coconut cream into the chocolate and whip gently with a whisk until well combined. Pour the mixture into six cups or glasses, then pop in the fridge to set for about 3 hours.

Garnish with freshly grated orange zest before serving.






entree

Carrot and Ginger Dressing (that LOVES avocado!)

June 03, 2015


Charlie has been away this week which gives me free reign to go vegetarian for the week. He loves vegetables, but is a bit of a meatasaurus so gets a bit edgy if there isn't some animal protein on the plate come dinner time. 

It's also been a lovely warm week, with a few muggy days, so honestly a menu of light, bright, vegetarian friendly salads, dips, and snacks is totally up my street. 

I first had this dressing in a Korean BBQ restaurant, whilst everyone was ordering up delicious looking sticky ribs and spicy Katsu curry, I was having a pious moment and chose the avocado salad. 

I assumed I'd get some avocado and some lettuce, but when the bright orange, thick dressing arrived I was completely at sea... it was, however:

one of the best things I have ever tasted. I shit you not.



I've loaded this up on top of all kinds of salad, and it's great but it's never at its peak as when it's dolloped over fresh avocado.

Unlike so many European and American salad dressings, it's not oil based or packed with creamy elements like cheese, butter milk or egg yolk, so there's no need to ask for this bad boy on the side.

It's texture is chunky, almost like a dip, but the colour and flavour are sharp, sweet, and sour which are A.MAY.ZING over creamy avocado.

If you hadn't already picked up on this suggestion: eat it with avocado.

Avocado.


Ingredients:

4oz carrots
2 cloves garlic
1 oz piece of fresh ginger
5 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon honey
pepper

Method:

Peel the carrots and chop roughly so that they will fit into a blender or food processor.

Peel the garlic cloves and the ginger. Peeling ginger can be a bit tricky because of its knobbly surface, I tend to specifically choose fresh ginger for it's smoother, fatter qualities when I'm buying it for this very reason.

There is a little trick to peeling ginger with a spoon, but really it's as easy to do with a vegetable peeler after cutting off any particularly large knobbles.

Chop the ginger in to similar sized pieces to the garlic cloves and tumble everything, including the liquid ingredients into the blender and whizz until smooth.

Smooth is a relative terms- see the picture above for textural reference. You want everything to be well combined, so you don't get any large chunks of raw garlic or ginger all up in your avocado.

To serve, slice up your avocado... or any other salad that you think might taste better than avocado (you'd be wrong) and lay it out on a plate. For a bit more body, tear up some iceberg lettuce, the crunchy, water heavy leaves are also really good with the sharpness of the dressing.

Spoon the dressing generously onto your salad. Keep in the fridge for up to a week, but be sure to mix is before each serving as it will separate out a little as it sits.