My Favourite Superfoods - Walnuts

Monkey nuts were one of my favourite snacks as a child but walnuts only ever made an appearance at Christmas in the bowl of mixed nuts on the table. I remember that they were the easiest nut to crack! But what a mess they made, tiny bits of shell flying all over the sparkling white tablecloth. Actually, walnuts aren't nuts, they're drupes. Drupes are fleshy fruits where the fruit surrounds a shell with a seed inside but unlike other drupes like cherries and peaches for example, we eat the seed of the walnut fruit instead of the flesh itself.

Spicy Candied Walnut Pieces GF SCD

Since the festive season is approaching, I thought I'd share with you our recipe for candied walnuts which feature in my Waldorf Salad recipe. We use the walnut pieces because they're quite economical but if you prefer to use walnut halves, they will look much prettier!

My Favourite Superfoods - Apples

I don't really care for the popular buzzword "superfood" which is used to describe foods appearing in ever growing and ever changing lists promoted by the media and bloggers. Some of these are foods I'd never heard of before - foods which you wouldn't have had access to in the past.

Remembering the Food We Ate in the 60's and 70's

Over the last few years there has been a huge amount of focus on "healthy" eating and on how to solve the rapidly increasing food related illnesses and their impact on the National Health Service and the general health in society. My Facebook feed is flooded with recipes for "healthy" foods, sweet and savoury. Just recently I've been looking back and reminiscing about the foods we enjoyed to eat while I was growing up - when we had nobody telling us what is good and what is bad for us to eat, when we never considered "going on a diet" (that started to happen in the mid-70s) and when most of us were of a normal weight and certainly not hung up with body image as young teenagers. We lived in a world without the internet and with very little to watch on TV. A world where Chelsea Girl and C&A were the only large stores selling fashionable clothes and where people in Bradford could open an account at Brown and Muff's and be allowed to take home clothes on approval without paying for them first!

Recovering from my Hip Fracture Operation

Six weeks ago I did a very, very silly thing!  Juggling preparing dinner with collecting the washing from the garden I was in a hurry and somehow, as I was going back for the last item of washing, I tripped over the clothes prop, twisted awkwardly around it and fell slap-bang on my side. I tried to get up but it very quickly dawned on me that I'd either broken something or twisted my leg extremely badly. Unfortunately, there was no-one around!  I tried shouting for help but only the cat came. Eventually, stupidly or not (I was starting to get very cold), I slowly and carefully crawled on all fours to the side door with the cat calmly trotting alongside me. Remarkably, I managed to pull myself up a step and rattle the letterbox.

The SCD for Autism and ADHD

In the last 9 years since we started the miraculous Specific Carbohydrate Diet which, I can honestly say, has healed my son's Crohn's Disease, I've noticed that awareness of this diet for treating IBD has grown quite significantly. However, the fact that a completely dairy free version of this diet has been hugely successful in treating children (and adults) who suffer from autism and ADHD is less well known.

Vegan Tuck Box

Have you ever tried snack boxes? They're becoming incredibly popular and they're so much fun, you never know what you're going to get inside! It's a little bit like buying your own surprise birthday or Christmas present. But one of the downsides of these schemes is you usually have to take out a subscription so it was great to discover that you can buy a single gluten free (or regular) vegan snack box from Vegan Tuck Box without subscribing, whenever you want one! And you really don't have to be vegan to treat yourself to one of these! 

Eating Gluten Free and Vegan in Toronto

This post follows on from my first post this year about Toronto - IMO the most amazing city for finding gorgeous gluten free and vegan cafés and restaurants. Eating out is easy, there is so much choice. We only actually travelled into the city twice on our three week holiday and on the second occasion there were two places I just had to visit - the new Bunner's bakery shop in the Kensington Market area and Fresh (for chips!).

Suma Blogger's Network - Chocolate Coated Almond Flapjacks GF

I haven't been able to discover why the British call oat bars "flapjacks". All I know is that these sweet and utterly moreish bars made with oats, golden syrup, sugar and butter become incredibly popular in the 1920s following the long period of rationing during the First World War. It is believed that they became known as "Flapjacks" in the 1930's sometime but in the US, the word "flapjack" refers to a pancake and these are nothing like a pancake!

Gluten Free & Vegan in Toronto - Kupfert & Kim

We've just returned from a fantastic holiday in Canada, visiting family and enjoying the incredible Summery Weather (compared to the UK). I thought I would share with you some of the places where we ate when we visited Toronto. I've already written about a couple of them before but we revisited them this time and the food was still awesome! The lunch we ate on our first visit to Toronto was so delicious I couldn't wait to tell you about it so I've written a short post about the place today and I'll be writing another post about the food we ate on our second visit to Toronto soon.

Rucola Cream Soup - Guest Post from Jona of Oh Wholly Vegan

One of the most gratifying outcomes from writing a blog is friendship! I've been fortunate to meet many, many amazing and talented people from all over the world and I'm excited to introduce you to one of these awesome and inspiring people, Jona Friedri of Oh Wholly Vegan. Jona is currently living in Prague and set up her blog in January of this year to share her delicious vegan recipes, many of which are gluten free. Pictured below are just a few of her creations, the brussels sprouts recipe is one of my favourites!

Roasted Sweet Potato Wedges with Black Garlic, Chilli & Rosemary GF

Have you ever cooked with Black Garlic? I  tried this black garlic from Sainsbury's but I had to do some on-line research first to find out what it was and what best to use it in. Initially I used it in some hummus - big mistake!  It tasted awful! So, intrigued to find vegetables that would compliment the strong bitter-sweet flavour, I reckoned that sweet potatoes or butternut squash might be a good bet!

Salted Roasted Almonds GF SCD

This is one of my favourite snacks and it's the simplest of recipes. I LOVE almonds and they're so good for you - good for your immune system, good for your bones, good for your brain, good for your skin and good for your heart!

Grain Free Lemon Birthday Cake GF SCD

We enjoyed having visitors to stay this weekend and we celebrated my son's birthday with a simple to make birthday cake. Simple because I didn't really want to spend all my time in the kitchen given the limited amount of time we would have together. That said, as you probably know if you're on the SCD, a considerable amount of time is always spent cooking!

Stove Top Vegetable French Cassoulet - Suma Bloggers Network GF SCD

I was going to bring you a slow cooked Vegetable French Cassoulet this week for my second contribution to The Suma Blogger's Network but when I reached into the cupboard and brought out my casserole dish I noticed it was cracked so I decided to prepare it on the stove top instead. All is not lost though since one legend of this historical French dish states that it was originally cooked in a cauldron on top of an open fire so perhaps this stove top version has turned out to be authentic after all.

My February 2015 TVK Box

I took these pictures on the same day I received this Vegan Kind box because I didn't trust myself not to open everything in one go and eat them on the very same day! Such an awesome selection this month, I just couldn't wait to get stuck in!

Savvy Spreads and Coconut Chocolate Cream Biscuits GF

Award Winning company Savvy Spreads recently contacted me to ask if I would like to taste test their range of 100% natural ingredients spreads. Based on traditional Mediterranean preserve recipes and made with only the finest pure, natural ingredients (and organic where possible), I was happy and curious to try them out. Curious because I wondered just how these sweet spreads would taste like when one of the main ingredients is tahini!

Roasted Cauliflower with Paprika and Oregano GF SCD

I made roasted cauliflower for the family recently and it was so delicious. Cauliflower is trending. Apparently, in 2015, it will become the new kale and deservedly so, I think! For the past few years I have seen cauliflower made into pizza crusts, mashed instead of potatoes, puréed for sauces and roasted whole. It's such a versatile vegetable!

Freezing Herbs and Other Uses For Ice Cube Trays

Sainsbury's are currently promoting and encouraging people to get the most out of their freezer and have assembled some great ideas, inspiration and practical tips for simple freezer solutions as well as some recipes to help you get the most out of your freezer.  All this information is over at Sainsbury's Love Your Freezer Hub. Here there is a section called "8 ingenious uses for an ice cube tray" and I'd like to add another idea to this section ... freezing herbs in an ice cube tray.

My January 2015 TVK Box

As usual, my box from The Vegan Kind arrived bang on time and was opened with huge excitement. You'd think that after all these months I would be in less of a frenzy but no, the hysteria is still present! So what's inside the first box of the year?

Brussels Sprouts with Chestnuts, Red Onion and Mushrooms GF SCD

This is a perfect Thanksgiving or Christmas side dish. Low in calories, Brussels Sprouts are packed with nutrients. High in Vitamins C and K, they also contain generous amounts of Vitamin A, Vitamin B6, folate, potassium and manganese. The perfect flavour combination of the chestnuts and mushrooms and the sweetness of the red onion when combined with these wondrous little green vegetables creates a dish which isn't just OTT healthy, it's fabulously tasty too.

A Vegetarian SCD Christmas

I thought a few of you may be interested in some of the food that was eaten over the Christmas fortnight this year when we were catering for someone on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. It was interesting to see some of the food he created too.

Stuffed Peppers with Cauliflower Rice - Suma Bloggers Network GF SCD

I'm so excited to have been asked to be part of the Suma Bloggers Network and delighted to be able to share my first recipe as part of this network with you. Since I love to experiment with grain free cooking so that as many of my recipes as possible are suitable for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, I've used cauliflower rice in this recipe instead of ordinary rice. I've been making cauliflower rice for some time now but apparently, cauliflower rice is going to be one of the trendiest foods of 2015, have you tried it yet?