A Healthy Gluten-Free Apricot Slice Recipe

* Gluten free | egg free | dairy free | no added sugar *

I wanted to make some healthy gluten-free lunchbox snacks today and came across this recipe - which is "free" of a lot of other things too - only to remember that my kids can't have either nuts or coconut at school. #damn! 

But I'm still making it - it won't last til Monday anyway cos it looks so yummy :)

Recipe: 

+ 250g dried apricots 
+ 1 cup desiccated coconut 
+ 1 cup almond meal 
+ 3 cups coconut oil 
+ 1 tbsp chia seeds (I used white) 

Soak apricots for 1 hr. Drain. Pulse all ingredients in a food processor until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Press into a lined slice tray. Chill for 3 hrs. Slice. Serve. Eat.

Voila!

Do you have any new fave recipes to share? 
Amber. XO

p.s. I have a new facebook like button at the bottom of each post! 

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Merci beaucoup! xx

Recipe: Gluten Free Spinach Scrolls.

So, you might remember that I bought some lovely spinach at the farmers market on Saturday morning. I also had a box of frozen gluten-free puff pastry I wanted to try and well, it seemed like an obvious combination to me! I googled "spinach scrolls" and adapted this recipe from Souvlaki for the Soul. I omitted the walnuts because my boys' school has a nut-free policy but I would include them [ or maybe pine nuts, yum! ] if I was just making them for home-eatin'.

To start you need some kick-ass BEAUTIFUL fresh spinach. Okay, I lie - you *could* make this with frozen spinach [ I like to keep some frozen spinach in my freezer for smoothies and easy pizza toppings ] but the thing is that you feel like a super-mama when you buy a big head of green goddess goodness to feed your family so that's what I'm recommending ;)

INGREDIENTS:

+ 1 head of fresh Spinach [ wash + chop ]

+ Puff Pastry [ lay out to defrost if frozen ]

+ 250g Ricotta Cheese

+ 125g Danish Feta Cheese

+ 1 large free-range Egg

+ Salt and Pepper to season

* this mix was actually twice what I needed for the amount of pastry I had so you could halve it if you wanted - or do what I did and freeze the remaining spinach/cheese puree mixture in the freezer for another batch!

METHOD: 

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees C. 

2. Blanch your spinach in a pot of boiling water. It only takes about 5 minutes. 

3. Defrost your puff pastry [ or make your own if you can! ]

I had been wanting to test this gluten free puff pastry from Simply Wize [ you can buy it at Woolworths if you're shopping in Australia ]. It's a bit expensive at about A$8 for five small-ish sheets but I was making these for Kingsley's school lunches and he misses out on so many bakery items so I thought it worth the splurge. I do however think I'll try my own gf puff pastry in the future!

4. Drain the spinach. You want to press out as much water as possible. Use a wooden spoon.

5. Add everything [ spinach, cheeses, egg ] straight into your food processor bowl. Blend til smooth. Season to taste. It's a bit of a pain to wash up the food processor but it makes this step super-easy!

6. Wow - Look at this glorious green puree you should now have! Spoon it onto your prepared pastry and spread it without getting too close to the edges. Now, roll up your pastry and then cut each roll into smaller pieces. This pastry was kind of small so I only got three mini-scrolls per sheet.

That step sounds trickier than it is - but you do need to be careful not to press too hard or you'll lose your filling!

7. Place all of your mini scrolls onto a non-stick baking tray and brush on a milk &/or egg wash [ we had left-over french toast mixture from breakfast so I used that! A little over-vigourously ;) ].

8. Pop your scrolls into the oven.  Sit back and clean up your mess enjoy yourself for the next 15 minutes. I found mine took a little longer to be perfectly brown so add a few minutes if you think they need it. 

Voila! 

Super-cute, yummy, healthy, lunchbox-ready spinach scrolls :) 

Take a bow.

If you make them - gluten-free or not - leave a comment and tell us how they work out! 

XO

46/365 Eat

Dreamy-creamy gluten-free fettuccine with pan-fried salmon and zucchini (it rhymes! err, sort of).

This was my go-to meal when we were staying in (I WANT to say "living in" - hee-hee;) Paris. It's super-easy, delicious and the entire family loved it so they were happy to see it resurrected back home. I'm rather random in the kitchen. I might google something to get a general idea but then I freewheel it... which is great - until you want to cook it again! Lol.

But this is what I did last night:

* Gently panfry your salmon fillets (I bought mine fresh, pre-boned and skinless but the skin is yummy too) in a tablespoon of butter. I used 2 fillets or a little over 500g for 6 people. Turn as you go.

* Boil a pot of water, adding your pasta of choice when it's ready. Cook as directed. We used the San-Remo gluten-free fettuccine last night but Hug tells me that I was using Penne in Paris. Who knew?! ;) Oh, and it obviously doesn't need to be gluten free. 

* Remove your salmon from the heat when the centre of the fillets is still a little pink and set aside, leaving the butter in the pan.

* Add a couple of fat-sliced zucchinis to the pan. The secret here is the butter that is now all salmon-y and yum but add some chopped garlic and plenty of salt too. Cook these babies until they're golden and seared (I like the almost black around the edges but only do that if you like that BBQ-esque touch). Remove from pan.

* I actually forgot this step but its nice to softly-fry a red onion to kick-off the sauce. I served it raw on the side instead which was a nice touch for a Summer meal.

* Next up is the sauce (same pan): 1 carton of thickened cream, bring to a light boil and add pesto to taste. Let it thicken a little and then remove from heat. Season as needed. Flake and add the salmon. 

* Hopefully your pasta is magically ready about the same time! Drain and stir in prepared sauce. 

* Voila! Serve with fresh cherry tomatoes and basil. Roast the cherry tomatoes if you're cooking it in Winter. Yum. Hug refuses to eat zucchini (madness!) so I serve it separately and the rest of us zucchini-lovers can pile it up on top of our own. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of this yumminess. Maybe I can add a pic next time. 

What are your fave go-to meals? x

A quick gluten-free lasagne | Recipe

This is what we were eating for dinner last night. Lasagne! 

If you're feeling inspired here is my simple weeknight recipe:

1 pack of frozen chopped spinach (or fresh of course! but I like to have a stash of this in the freezer)
1 packet of feta cheese (I use sheep or goat's feta because one of my boys doesn't tolerate A1 milk protein which is the predominate protein in typical dairy products)
500 grams of organic beef mince (ground beef)
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
1 jar of tomato pasta sauce (I used a yummy one with lots of herbs and garlic)
1 packet of gluten-free pasta sheets (how cute are these mini frilly ones!)
1 fresh tomato
200 grams of cheese (for my Australian readers: Nimbin Natural is our cheese of choice)

1. Combine spinach and feta
2. Cook mince with tomato paste & sauce (and a little water so it doesn't dry out)
3. Start layering: lasagna sheets / spinach / mince & repeat
4. I like to add some fresh tomato on the final layer
5. Smoother with grated cheese (or don't. You can see in my photos than a quarter of my lasagne was left cheese-free, not counting the sheep's feta, because it doesn't suit L).
6. Wrap in tin foil. Bake at 200 C for about half an hour before removing foil and then keep cooking until layers are soft and top is brown.
7. That's it :) Eat. Yum.

What are your favourite weeknight meals? A. x

Cherry Tomato Love (with easy Goat's Cheese Quiche)

 Serendipity brought me to these cherry tomatoes.

Well, serendipity in the form of that-hassle-of-needing-to-buy-something-at-the-grocery-store-and-get-cash-out-so-your-son-can-have-the-dollar-he-wants-to-hire-a-dvd-on-One-Dollar-Thursdays. That.

So there I was. Browsing the produce, wondering what exactly we were going to eat for dinner. When I saw these beauties.

Love at first site. And their fate was sealed.

The plan? A simple quiche with roast cherry tomatoes.
If you would like the recipe follow along... and excuse me while I model them ;)

1. Buy the cutest cherry tomatoes you can find. Tick. Wash and wrap them in tin foil with a few generous glugs of olive oil and a nice balsamic vinegar. This was about 400 grams of cherry tomatoes.

If you're like me and a bit clutzy you may need to check for leakage and add another layer of foil. Whoops. 

2. Heat your oven to approximately 200C / 390F. Place the wrapped tomatoes on a baking tray and pop into the oven for about 20 minutes or until they are tender and juicy.

Okay, time for the quiche.

2. Beat together 8-12 fresh free-range eggs (depending on how many people you are serving ~ I used 8 eggs for 4 people) and add a dash of milk.

3. Prepare a pie dish with a sheet of baking paper (by the way, this is a completely unnecessary step but sometimes we all need to take a few shortcuts and this is one I particularly like when it comes to simplifying cleanup. Forgive me ;)

4. Crumble cheese and add to your dish. I used about 150 grams of Sheep's Milk Feta but you can vary this to taste. Pour egg mix over the top.

This was the bit where I thought that a bunch of baby spinach leaves thrown on top would be perfect. But I didn't have any baby spinach leaves. So the job went to broccoli. Thanks broccoli, you've saved us again.

4. Add some greens. Baby spinach leaves can just be washed and thrown in. A head of spinach can be washed, chopped into reasonably small pieces and added raw.

5. The tomatoes will probably be ready about now so pull them out (leave them in the foil to stay warm), turn your oven down to 180C / 365F and replace with the quiche. Expect the quiche to take somewhere between 25-40 minutes to cook depending on your oven and how many eggs you used. Keep an eye on it, it's ready when the egg has set and it's a little puffy and brown.

Now is also the time to apply a bandaid to the finger you almost cut off slicing the broccoli and drink some wine :)

Before you know it... Voila! Quiche ready.

Aaaand, a clean pie dish! Ta da.

6. Slice. Serve. Enjoy.