Lactose Free Pizza

HELLO :D

So after being dairy (well, lactose) free for a while now, I started to really crave pizza.. it was certainly one of my favourite foods before this. (As an added note I foolishly tried some cheese in a restaurant and was poorly after it.. so I knew I deffo couldn't chance a normal pizza..)

My main problem was that I knew that even if I were able to find the lactofree cheese in the supermarkets (never seem to be able to find it in our usual one!) it might be completely disgusting... I had resigned myself to life without cheese... my verdict on it however, is this:- The texture is WEIRD. But the taste is good. Well good enough. So if you grate it, or melt it, it's pretty much like normal cheese. Eating it in a block isn't reccommended because you get the bizarre texture and it isn't really strong enough to make up for all the CALORIES. And of course it's nothing compared to wonderful mature cheddar, but there you go. It is perfectly fine for pizza. Also as an added side note I did use it in a cheese sauce but it was nothing very special, however it worked well in homemade pesto. (which is well worth making and it really did need some cheeseyness to sweeten it!)

On a trip to a large Tesco we discovered the cheese, positively hiding between two other delicious looking lactose-containing cheeses in the cheese aisle. Yes.. we had to walk up the lovely and so tempting cheese aisle to get it.. but in hindsight it was worth it.. for PIZZA!

So I made the base using Jamie Oliver's recipe and it made masses (I halved it and still got enough for 4 pizzas! So there are currently two balls of pizza dough in the freezer and we've had pizza for lunch twice in a row O_O) Incidentally you can check out his recipe here - http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pizza-recipes/pizza-dough
It looks a faff but if you're used to breadmaking then it's not so different and since it makes so many it's really not too bad as once you've got them you can just get them out the freezer/fridge. And so worth it :>

Once I had my base I rolled it out nice and big and thin and added my toppings leaving a space of about 2 inches all round ^_^ The lactofree cheese grates really easily so that was nice and simple (I hate grating cheese usually...), and I found some parma ham and mushrooms in the fridge so I put those on aswell. I also did a stuffed crust by putting cheese on the space I'd left and folded it over.. I personally think that was the best bit so try it :D Even if you don't stuff the crust fold it over into a crust because it looks more like a real pizza then. For the tomatoey stuff I used tinned chopped tomatoes, just be sure not to get too much liquid as it can make for a soggy pizza (not lush :(). It also seems to be a good idea to put your cheese on last so the toppings are a bit covered and less likely to catch int he oven.

Then into the oven at I guess 180 for you guys or as I have a fan oven I had it on 150 - 160 for 15 - 20 minutes until your cheese is bubbling and the toppings are cooked :D

Yummy! I like mine with rocket personally :'D

Also as a side note I made Nigel Slater's lamb and beetroot patties the other day and they are really, really nice so I'd reccomend:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/lamb_beetroot_and_bulgur_03270

Here it is, and again it makes loads so you'll probably end up freezing some. But it's really yummy! And beetroot is easy to grate - my Mum found some in Waitrose but not Sainsburys.

Chloe
xxxx

Two Yummy Summery Salads

Ok so these are both kinda summery ... but maybe you want to bring back a taste of summer for the winter? O:)


First one is a Roast Vegetable Salad which I experimented with as I've been counting calories so not much room for baking (boo!)It's very nice and about 300 calories per person I figured.


Ingredients:

Vegetables for roasting, you can use whatever you've got, but I like parsnips, red peppers, onion, tomatoes, mushrooms etc.

Apples - these are lovely roasted too ^^

Olive oil

Pepper/salt

Basil or other fresh herb of your choice

Crunchy salad (carrots, lettuce etc)

Rocket

ready to eat Beetroot, sliced

Salad dressing (the kind with oil and stuff not the weird creamy stuff)

Nice good quality ham





Cut the veg and apples into largish chunks and put in a glass dish which is ovenproof, put into the oven at about 160 for 45 minutes, turning every so often. Remove them when they're soft with yummy roasty edges. It might take a bit longer to get them all soft if you use squash or parsnips etc.


Meanwhile put the crunchy salad and the rocket onto a plate and cover with the salad dressing (only need about a tablespoon to be honest so don't go overboard) Slice the beetroot and add to the top and then add some ribbons of the ham on to this.

When the veg is done, take it out and serve on top of the salad :D IT IS VERY YUMMY




Salad two: lemony tuna pasta salad

You will need:

Pasta, about 100g will serve one very hungry person or 2 medium/small portions

tinned tuna (2 small tins)

Lemon juice (fresh or not)

Rocket (about a handful)

Cherry tomatoes

salt/pepper

Sweetcorn (you can use fresh frozen or tinned)

Mayo


Cook the pasta until cooked for about 10 mins ish adding the sweetcorn about 5 mins before the end so it is still a bit crunchy when removed.

Meanwhile mix together the tuna, mayo, rocket, salt and pepper and a good splash of lemon juice. Slice the tomatoes and add those in too!

When the pasta and sweetcorn is done, drain and mix in, then you leave it int he fridge for a little while til it's cold :D

Lactose Free Condensed Milk

Hey! So as you may know I set myself the task of baking some millionaires shortbread that was dairy free. The main problem here is the condensed milk, and here is my condensed version of how to make it :D


So CONDENSED MILK

You will need
1440ml of lactofree milk (or oat milk or whatever milk you drink)
200g of sugar
a tablespoon of vanilla essence


That is a lot of milk, but you have to boil it down so if you're measuring it out and you're like, woah! milk overload don't panic. If you're not dairy free, you can just buy your own condensed milk in a tin from the supermarket and save all this effort of course!

Put your milk and sugar in a pan, and bring to the boil stirring constantly.
Keep stirring and boiling the milk, it will gradually boil down to about 400ml of "condensed milk". This might take quite a long time, it took me about 45 minutes!
Don't forget to keep stirring to avoid burning.


Once the milk measures about 400ml, you can add the vanilla flavouring and it's ready for the next stage.

Then I believe this can be kept in the fridge like any normal food for 3 days, and used as condensed milk in any recipe :>

Lovely Vegetable Soup with Lemon Croutons & Parma Ham

So I made a soup tonight I was really pleased with, and I wanted to get it down as quicky as possible so I'd remember how I did it. I've done the pic now - sorry it isn't exactly the best one ever, I was in a rush to eat it! :D I won't make this as long winded as my marshmallows post - soup is not difficult to make at all! The great thing about making your own soup is that you can use up whatever vegetables you've got, and if you're dairy free you don't have to be wondering if they fried the veg in butter or if there's milk in it! Quite often soup is out in restaurants for us dairyfree-ers, but it's really easy to make your own homemade soup.

Ingredients
Note: You can use whatever vegetables you have really, but this is what I used

For the soup:

1 large leek, sliced (including the green)
1 courgette, chopped into small pieces
1 carrot, chopped into small pieces
3 medium potatoes, chopped into medium pieces with the skins still on
juice of 1 lemon
1 green pepper, chopped
1 stick of celery, chopped
a bunch of spinach leaves, remove the stalks
some little tomatoes, halves
chicken stock, made up according to instructions (or vegetable if you're vegetarian - please check you buy one which hasn't got lactose in it, or milk if you suffer from a milk allergy. We use Knorr, the chicken one is alright but some of the others are not. Also it's worth noting the MSG in some stock cubes can make you feel ill, so avoid)
celery salt

seasoning (salt/pepper)
Lactofree milk, or if you don't mind the taste (or can't tolerate lactofree milk) you could use oat milk, rice milk or soya milk.

For the topping:

parma ham, sliced or 'shredded'
Basil leaves (fresh)

For the lemon croutons:

Olive oil
4 slices of white bread, without crusts (I used some fresh bread bought from a farm shop, but any will do)
1 lemon
seasoning (salt/pepper)




1. Place the potatoes, leeks, courgettes and pepper in a large saucepan with some olive oil and lemon juice from half a lemon. Stir and coat in the oil. Cook until they have softened, probably will take about 10 - 15 minutes.(potatoes can be partially softened - the reason I am placing the potatoes in now is to try and get a big of a yummy/crispy skin on them, which explains why I left those on)

2. Get your chicken stock and add a tiny dash of celery salt and lemon juice from the other half of the lemon. Put in the halved tomatoes and then add all this to the saucepan. Bring to the boil, and then simmer on low until all the vegetables are softened.

3. Meanwhile, you can make the lemon croutons. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan. Pull apart the white bread with your fingers and make small pieces of bread. Make sure they are all relatively small.

Once the olive oil is very hot (test by dropping some bread in - does it sizzle?), you can add the pieces of bread. Stir them to coat in the oil, and then continue stirring every so often, making sure not to let it burn. Once you have got a crust/toasty edge to each piece of bread, you can squeeze in the juice from the lemon and stir. Remove from the heat and place in a bowl.


4. Once the vegetables in your soup are tender and soft, add some of your chosen milk (probably about 200ml) until the soup goes a delicious yellow colour. Add your spinach leaves and stir them in to wilt. Season to taste, and serve into soup bowls immediatley.

5. Serve top with shredded parma ham, the lemon croutons and a little basil leaf.


^_^
Total time to cook and make: approx 1 hour

Homemade Marshmallows

Hey everyone
So this is my first recipe post to a blog, hope you enjoy it!

They're squishy.. gooey... delicious... toast them or put them in hot chocolate.. what could it be but marshmallows? Wait til you try them homemade, you'll never want to go back to shop bought ones again! I love these and I really enjoyed making them.

This is a recipe from The Guardian but slightly adapted and I'll be giving you more advice because it is a rather sticky job to carry out!
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/nov/04/recipes.dessert is the address of the original recipe if you are interested.)

You will need...
Quite a lot of icing sugar

Quite a lot of cornflour

Vegetable oil

25g gelatine granules (about 2 sachets)

2 egg whites (I used powdered egg whites)

vanilla flavouring (I have some really nice vanilla stuff with bits of actual vanilla in, get some of this, it's lush)

500g granulated sugar

A dot of red food colouring (if you want your 'mallows to be pink :D Which is really much nicer)

You'll also need some scissors, bowls etc, and a shallow flat tin. It says 20cm square in the original, but I just used whatever one I had. So long as there's enough room for them to spread out you'll be fine. You might want an assistant when it comes to the marshmallow pouring into the tin. (I used my Dad :D)


OK, so time to get started! :D Make sure you've got your sink clear and a sponge you don't want to use again (lol) because you are going to want to get that sticky bowl washed right away before before it turns into superglue!

1. Sift together equal amounts of icing sugar and cornflour, then put some oil on your tin and coat it in this sugar/cornflour mix. I think it could actually do with quite a lot because the mix is very sticky and this will help when you try and get it out.

2. Get 120ml of hot water in a little jug and sprinkle in your gelatine packets. (It says on the packet to add them this way, not the other way round) Then stir it up 'til it dissolves. Put this somewhere out the way.

3. Get your powdered egg whites and follow the instructions on the packet to reconstitute your egg whites. I'd never used these before and thought they smelt weird, but they don't end up affecting the final flavour so don't worry about it. I added about a teaspoon of vanilla essence at this time because I was concerned about the egg white flavour, and I think now is as good a time as any to add it!

4. Get out an electric whisker (you really do need one of these) and whizz it until you get 'stiff peaks' (In other works, when you lift the mixer out of the bowl (turn it off first!!!) the mix goes up into little mountains, and it stays there!). This takes a century and a half so be warned that you might want to find some unsuspecting victim to take turns with so your arm doesn't fall off.

5. Put the sugar in a saucepan with 250ml of water, stir over a low heat until dissolved. Raise the heat and boil until it turns into syrup. This is really important, you have to leave it long enough that if you drop it into cold water, it goes into little hard balls. I found the whole thing suddenly seems to change consistency and look too, it can take a little while, but it'll get there. If you don't do this for long enough you might have trouble getting your marshmallows to set (not good). Alternatively if you have a sugar thermometer (which I don't because they don't seem to do them in tesco -_-), you can check it out because it's ready when it gets to 122ºC.

Now add your gelatine mixture and stir it in. The mix will bubble and go a bit crazy but it's all good.

6. Now is the time to get your helper/unsuspecting victim from before/Dad to come and help. You need to stand by the egg whites and keep whisking them, while the helper pours in the syrupy mix. This is really impossible to do alone unless you've got a standalone mixer.

7. Keep whisking until the mixture goes pretty thick, but you can still pour it in your tin. I think basically it's just setting as it goes thick and you're trying to get as much air as you can in before you put it in the tin.

8. Pour it into your prepared tin and leave it somewhere cool (not the fridge)
I put it in my garage. It took about 2 or 3 hours to set for me, but it was a really hot night so it might be quicker for you.

9. Now get all your stuff washed up. yes I told you it was stickorama :(



***when it's set***

10. Get your tin out, it should be set to the point that you could contemplate getting it out the tin without disaster occuring O:)
So, get a chopping board and cover it with the cornflour/icing sugar stuff. (just a note, you'll want to have a lot of this cornflour/sugar mix on hand)

Cover the marshmallows (still in the tin) with the cornflour/sugar mix so they don't stick to you when you're getting them out.


11. Now this is quite tricky, so don't worry if you can't do it first go. Loosen one end of the marshmallows with a knife (coated in oil and then the dusting mix) and the sides to a point and then carefully roll it back. Now quickly get a load of the cornflour/icing sugar mix under there so it doesn't stick back to the tin. Keep rolling out and adding the mix underneath. If all goes well, you should get to a point where you can loosen it and take it out the tin. (You'll probably have to keep loosening the sides too with the knife) Get it out and put it onto your prepared board.

The alternative is to cut it out every time you roll up a bit, which works just as well, but means you don't get it all out at once. Make sure to coat all the sticky bits with the dusting.

12. Now you get to cut it into the shapes you want! You can make them any size you like. They suggest using a knife in the original recipe, but I found it works a lot better to cut it up with scissors. So get some scissors, coat with oil and then the dusting, and cut into squares. Roll each square in the dusting on the board or put some in a bowl and roll it round so there are no sticky parts, and put on a plate.


You can eat them now :D If you like, toast them over a tea light ^______^

Hello ^^

Hiya!

My name's Chloe, I enjoy baking and cooking so I decided to make my own blog to share my recipes. I adapt quite a lot as I am following a dairy free diet, and I also enjoy inventing and adapting recipes for my own tastes rather than any diet need!

I also enjoy photography (which ties in nicely with my food photographing!) and art!
Hope you like my blog, here are a few examples of recipes I will be writing about in the future, in pictures!