Dairy Free Chocolate Dessert

Dairy Free Chocolate Treat

When I was young I never really understood all the fuss about Christmas food.  Mince pies were OK but the pudding and cake were awful.  I didn't like the dried fruit, the funny spices, the thick, sickly icing or the cream.  To me Christmas dinner was one big roast dinner with the unwanted addition of smelly, mini-cabbage and dodgy looking beige gloop on the side.  Don't even get me started on trifle!  

Then one day my Mum bought Delia Smith's Christmas cook book and my outlook on Christmas changed forever.  Interesting starters appeared and on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day there was chocolate puddings.  First up was the Squidgy Chocolate Log and then there was the Chocolate Truffle Torte.  Oh my goodness, I was in utter heaven.  Best of all there were leftovers for days.

Fast forward a few year and it slowly dawns on me that the reason I grew up not likely anything with milk in was because milk disagrees with me.  However my Mum was not having me grow up with rickets and growing old with brittle bones.  Close on two decades of compulsory dairy products has left me with a learnt love of cream teas and a deep, psychological need to always have cheese in the fridge.

Sure, truffle torte made my stomach sound like a bubbling kettle but it was worth it for the shear heavenly taste.  Then I had kids and it is very obvious that they seem to be having issues with milk too.  I can't play fast and loose with their digestion and so I needed a dairy free alternative to my favourite Christmas treat and I needed it fast.  This is the result, a mix of chocolate, coconut and rum.  It doesn't have the depth as the Delia recipe but give me time and a few more tries and I will manage it.  In the meantime, please try this recipe and let me know how it goes, I think it is very nice indeed, if a little rich.

Recipe

200g dark chocolate (I use the really cheap, supermarket versions, feel free to be more generous)
100g creamed coconut block,
80 g boiling water
1 dessert spoon of run (or other favourite alcohol.  Or use a teaspoon of flavouring)
1 grated orange rind.
Melt the chocolate in a bowl over boiling water
Finely chopped the creamed coconut
Mix the creamed coconut with the boiling water and stir well until you get a creamy paste
Stir in the orange rind and the flavouring (if using)
Stir the cocnut mix into the chocolate, mix well
Pour or spoon into a a suitable container.  You can use just about any heat proof container for this.
Leave to too and then pop in the fridge to finish off

This cools to quite a solid dessert.  I am experimenting with using a little more water each time, an extra 10g, until I get a more creamy finish to the dessert.  At the moment it is like a chocolate bar left in a warm room.

Coconut and Cherry Chewy Bites

These little treats are chewy, sweet and easy to make.  They are also made without flour so are gluten free.

Ingredients

2 eggs, well beaten

4 oz desiccated coconut

4 oz caster sugar

4 oz glace cherries, chopped small

Method

Chop the cherries, beat the eggs and mix all 4 ingredients together.

Oil a baking sheet

Use two large teaspoons to make neat dollops of mixture on the tray.  This mix is wet and sticky but does hold its shape well when baked.
Bake at 180 degrees C of 15 minutes.
Allow to cool slightly before moving onto a cooling rack.  This gives them time to firm up a little, if moved while hot they are more likely to break.

Quick pizza ideas

Stottie pizza

Stotties are wonderful bread rolls and loaves (depending on the size) found in North East England.  They are dense and chewy and have a shelf life of less than a day.  Once they are a bit elderly though they make great pizza bases.

Cut stottie in half.

Spread with your favourite pizza toppings, 

Grill and eat.

Pizza topping idea.

This recipe is really easy

1 to 2 tablespoons each of red pesto, tomato puree and olive oil.  Mix well and use on the pizza, stottie, french bread roll etc.   

This would also be a good way to make red pesto go a bit further if you don't quite have enough to make it go around your pasta.

I have also fried up a chopped leak and some red peppers to add to this pizza.

Dairy Free Fish Pate

Hello, it's been awhile since I posted anything here, the time just seems to get away from me at the moment.  Anyway, this is more of a record for me but below is a rough recipe for dairy free fish pate.

My little boy can't really eat much dairy and lately I have been looking at ways of getting more fish into our diet.  Like a lot of English people I really am not that confident at cooking with fish.  I can take a large salmon, stuff with ginger and butter etc and produce a very nice dinner indeed.

In fact this general recipe of fish, stuffing, cover in pastry or wrap in paper and heat in some way is a good, basic recipe for a lot of fish I suspect.  However for those days when I don't want to spend most of the weekly shopping budget on one meal, I needed some new ideas.

So here it is:

1 tin of cooked butter beans
2 fillets of smoked fish (the kind you get vac-packed in the supermarket)
lemon juice
black pepper
olive oil or other oil

Blitz in the food processor.

That is really it.  I fond that I needed about 2 tablespoons of oil because the beans are so dry.  Be generous with the lemon and black pepper as well but leave them out if your family don't like them.

Spread on toast or stuff into pitta bread with some sliced cucumber and off you go.

Original recipe

1 small tub of soft cheese
smoked fish
black pepper
lemon juice

Blitze in food processor.

Both versions are delicious but the cheese based one is really creamy.

The bean based version is a bit lower in fat, dairy free and probably has a longer shelf life if stored in the fridge.

No photos today but the Cheese ones looks a pale cream colour and the bean based version looks a lot like humus.  It isn't very photogenic but my family just ate a lot of it.

Try adding your favourite combination of herbs to change the flavour.

Allotment Pie

Introduction
This random assortment of food all started out with me wanting to cook something where I could say, "I grew this, well all the bits that are grown."  The result was a new take on an old favourite.  I have seen it called homity pie in Devon and Cornwall where it is made with potatoes, cheddar, friend onions and (optionally) bacon in a pastry case or some  people just call it cheese pie.

Ingredients
Boiled potatoes
Beans, peas or both (cooked)
Any other veg you fancy throwing in
Fried onions
A block of feta cheese
Dried mint, if you like it.

Instructions
Mix the cooked veg
Crumble up the feta
Sprinkle over the mint
Stir it up a bit but you want a good bit of the cheese near the top 
Pop into an oven at 180 degrees for around 15 minutes until the top is a nice crispy brown in places and the rest it nicely heated through.
If you are sure that all your ingredients are hot when you mix everything together then you can get away with putting it under the grill.

Other Ideas

You might have noticed that this is a great left over meal. Prepare and cook extra veg with a meal one day, mix with fried onions, feta and herbs for a second meal the next.

It would also work using some frozen mixed veg and tinned sweetcorn.

Frozen spinach or kale could be crumbled in as well, if you are trying to increase you veg quota.  Both work really well with feta.

Feel free to use the veg that you like!

Lastly, let me know if you try it out and what you think please?

Easy Home Meals

Introduction

The world is full of cake recipes, nearly as many as there are posts on the evils of sugar.  Some days I feel like my lively hood is based on peddling poisons and contributing to net world unhappiness.  So I thought it was time for a new series of recipes and posts, this time focussing on a subject that is much closer to my heart and much better for my own state of mental well being, namely, quick, easy and healthy dinners.

In these recipes I want to inspire people to cook real food from scratch.  In a time when most people get home late, often with hungry children in tow, it is easy to understand why we all reach for pre-prepared food that just needs popping in the oven.  Don't get me wrong here, I am not some sort of domestic goddess, I personally think that every house should keep some instant food in the freezer as a sound basis for stress free living.

However, there are also some things you can cook and the secret to doing this is being brave enough to throw away the recipe book.  Seriously, most foods do not need a recipe book or scales.  Half the time you don't have the right ingredients anyway or you family hates some key aspect.

I am hoping that people will take these recipes and make them their own.  If nothing else this will serve me as a list of "things I can cook" for days when I run out of ideas as well.

Lastly, before I start a new post with some actual recipe in it, please send me your comments and recipes too.  We all need inspiration sometimes.