Strawberries and Cream is such a simple Summer dessert yet it's the most perfect, in my opinion. But when you're following a dairy free diet what's the best alternative to cream? Vanilla cashew cream ticks all the boxes and it's quick and easy to make so long as you have a blender. Since we're still in the midst of strawberry season, I decided this recipe would be ideal for my contribution to the Suma Blogger Network this month.
My memories of rhubarb crumble go back a long, long time - back to my childhood and farm holidays in the south-west of England. Every year my parents would take us to Somerset, Devon or Cornwall and we would spend the first week on one farm and then pack up to go to another for the next. One of my clearest and fondest memories is being woken up at half past three in the morning to find my father at the bedroom door announcing it was time to get up and go on holiday, we were so excited. In those days there were no motorways and the journey could take anything from 12 to 14 hours in our little salmon pink Triumph Herald.
This crumbly, crunchy dairy free and grain free crumble topping is perfect for sprinkling on top of fruit whether it's fresh or stewed or even to eat with dairy free milk as a breakfast cereal. It's very simple to make. Made from almonds, coconut and sunflower seeds it's both nutritious and delicious.
Since it's Good Friday today and surprisingly a beautifully warm and sunny day in West Yorkshire, I thought I would share a few recipes from my archives in case you're still planning your holiday meals and treats.
Did you know that almonds are one of the world's healthiest foods? For years I avoided them like the plague, that first taste of marzipan was enough to put me off eating almonds forever. When I first started to cook with almond flour I expected everything to come out tasting of commercially made marzipan but no, I was quite taken by surprise!
When roasting pears, I've always taken out the core as well as the stem but apparently you can make the pears look much prettier if you just use a melon baller (I couldn't find mine) to take out the core and leave the stems intact. Doing this will create a more "impressive presentation". That said, these are much easier to eat!
Autumn is my favourite season of the year. Aren't the colours spectacular! It sounds a little bit crazy but I find myself longing for root vegetables, freshly picked apples and blackberries as well as the dark nights ahead long before Autumn is even approaching. So when Emily of Recipes to Nourish contacted me to see if I would like to contribute a guest post for her Seasonal Real Food Blog Series, I was excited and delighted to participate and I also felt very honoured since I've admired her blog and what it represents for some time now.
I strongly believe that the variety of fruits and vegetables growing on this planet were put here to help cure and prevent major disease. Now blackberries, for example, are little nutritional powerhouses and wild blackberries are high in Vitamin B17 which many believe can help in the fight against cancer. Most of the fruits and berries containing B17 are the sour ones - those that your grandparents used to eat when in season. They are the fruits least likely to be available easily, fruits such as quinces, wild crabapples, gooseberries and elderberries and if you're interested in finding out the other foods containing B17, check out the list here.
Cranachan is a traditional Scottish dessert originally made with Crowdie (a type of cream cheese), toasted oatmeal, honey and whiskey. Raspberries were added in the Summer months as they became available. These days it tends to be made with cream and has become quite a luxurious dessert.
For the first time in years we're having Summer weather in the UK and I LOVE sunshine and hot weather. Having enjoyed a fantastic couple of weeks in Canada this year coming back to the same climate was such a treat!
Pears are notoriously difficult to store. Trying to catch them when they're perfectly ripe is probably one of the reasons why they're not as popular as they should be. They're either too hard or too ripe. But one of the ways around this problem is to cook them.
I chose conference pears for this recipe but you can use any variety, just ensure that they are ripe AND still firm. I made these to eat straight away but if you leave them in the liquid overnight the colour will be much deeper and richer. The ones below were left for 24 hours.
Poached Pears with a Raspberry Reduction GF SCD
4 - 6 pears
400 g frozen or fresh raspberries
1½ pints filtered water
2 tblsps honey (or other liquid sweetener)
½ - 1 tsp vanilla extract or 1 split vanilla pod
Tip the raspberries into a pan. Peel the pears carefully.
Place in a pan on top of the raspberries then add just enough filtered water to cover them.
Add 1 tablespoon of honey or other liquid sweetener, bring to the boil then simmer very gently for about fifteen to thirty minutes depending on the size of the pears. Test to see if they are soft by inserting a sharp knife carefully into the pear. Using a slotted spoon, carefully remove the pears from the pan. They will be pink. If you want them to be a richer colour just let the pears cool in the pan, then chill overnight. This will intensify the colour and flavour as in the picture above.
Strain the raspberries then pour the liquid into a clean pan. Add the sliced vanilla pod or the vanilla extract and another tablespoon of honey (or chosen sweetener) to the pan. Bring to the boil and reduce the liquid by at least half to thicken it. I used just over half a teaspoon of vanilla extract but taste the sauce and add a little more vanilla extract and/or sweetener if you wish.
Remove the vanilla pod if you used one then pour the sauce over the pears.
“When You’re Grain Free and Feeling Like A Nut, But Can’t Eat Tree Nuts or Peanuts!” - this is the theme for the "Go Ahead Honey it's Gluten Free" event hosted by Shirley of GFE - Gluten Free Easily this month. I'm always ready for a challenge and this recipe came about by accident when some cookies I'd created failed! I adjusted the recipe and created a crunchy cereal or topping or snack which is rather addictive so be careful you don't eat too much!
It was my husband's birthday yesterday and I decided to make my Ginger and Lemon Tart in a glass instead of a birthday cake. It was delicious.
Did you know that a kiss on Valentine's Day is said to bring good luck for the whole year and I was fascinated to read that the flowers given on Valentine's Day all have different meanings. Red roses mean love, yellow roses mean friendship, and pink roses mean friendship or sweetheart. Red carnations mean admiration, white carnations mean pure love, red chrysanthemums mean love, and primrose means young love.
The buffets I've made for the family gatherings in the past have always included the lemon pie I first made at school when I was 14 years old. It's a family favourite. I decided to create a grain free version suitable for the SCD with dairy free and vegan options and unbelievably, this tastes just as delicious as the original.
Peaches, who can resist these velvety, orange, red, plump, juicy and sweet fruit. An excellent source of Vitamin C and moderate source of Vitamin A and β-Carotene, peaches also provide the diet with potassium, phosphorus, magnesium and copper as well as the flavonoid poly-phenolic antioxidants - lutein, β-cryptoxanthin, and zeaxanthin. These compounds help scavenge harmful oxygen-derived free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS) from the body that play a role in ageing and various disease process.
I've rarely cooked plums before, no sooner bought than eaten in our house. So, I thought I would take advantage of these early season plums being on offer and try to develop a dessert we would all enjoy.
Vanilla is the world's most labour intensive agricultural crop and because of this, it is the second most expensive spice next to saffron. It is the only edible fruit of the orchid family, the largest family of flowering plants on earth. The vanilla orchid, vanilla planifolia, grows wild on the edges of tropical forests and can grow over 100 feet.
Fresh coffee frozen yogurt cream is a favourite of ours. It's mild coffee flavour and creamy texture is mouth-wateringly delicious! The addition of roasted hazelnuts and homemade chocolate chips gives this simple flavour some extra pezaz!
Followers of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet are sadly not able to eat chocolate nor are they able to eat cacao powder. BUT happily they are allowed to eat cacao (or cocoa) butter which is the pure fat extracted from the cacao bean. White chocolate is surprisingly easy to make. I'm not going to say that this recipe is perfect by any means but it works for sprinkles.
