Mama bella!

Being half Italian means I really do enjoy a homemade pizza. I have childhood memories of my family making and eating the most wonderful pizzas that were authentic. One of the things I have missed the most since going gluten free is a good pizza, homemade that is. I tried a shop bought pizza base mix and it was so terrible, we scraped the toppings off and ate those. Never again!

Last Friday, I really felt like pizza and had all the necessary toppings but no base so I did a long and rather arduous search (getting hungrier and hungrier by the minute) and finally found a recipe I was willing to try. It is so simple and quick. All you need is:

1 & 1/4 cup tapioca flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1/2 cup of grated cheese

2 eggs

1/4 cup of melted butter

I added all the ingredients together in a bowl and just used a wooden spoon to mix it all up! I also added some Italian herbs and basil to the mix. It is quite sticky but I spread the mixture on a baking tray with a tablespoon and built a pizza as per usual. The oven was preheated to 230 degrees C and the pizza took about 10 minutes to cook to perfection. It was divine, so much so I made more on Sunday. After all, isn’t that what weekends are for? Don’t be fooled by the seemingly little amount of dough-it is filling and holds up the toppings just as well as normal pizza dough. It was even better the next day.

The recipe itself is adapted from Brazilian Poa de quejo (cheese bread) — a naturally gluten free recipe using tapioca flour. I shall soon be feeding this recipe to one of my oldest and dearest friends who also is gluten free.

This is my kind of gluten free living, simple yet delicious!

Ciao xx

When life is difficult, chocolate.

Sometimes when things are not as easy  and you seem to be existing rather than living, a wee bit of self care is required. Yes, exercise is the best thing for you at any time but I am talking about a bit of decadence and deliciousness!

Being gluten free means my penchant for delicious cupcakes can no longer be satiated, so I have been exploring other options. I found a delicious yet unbelievably easy recipe for chocolate souffle. Very easy and mine came out great. Instead of raspberry sauce though, I used strawberries to make a sauce.

I pureed about 250g of fresh strawberries using my hand held blender, and as I love spices, added cinnamon, nutmeg, a pinch of cardamom and some chilli flakes along with just a teaspoon of sugar. The bright red sauce complemented the dark chocolate of the souffle and the spices just added some extra excitement.

I had enough strawberry sauce left over that I used it on Greek style yogurt for breakfast and  a dollop of it gave a fantastic twist to my summer Gin and Tonic! I will be making that again especially as winter starts to creep into Cape Town and a bit of extra decadence never goes amiss.

I am off to indulge a bit on this cold, rainy day!

Ciao

Spices and all things nice

I’ve just sat down to write after having a quick slice of toast despite the incredible heat here in Cape Town. The smell of toast permeates the house and I’m garnering up the courage to go for my running club this evening. The slice of toast more to ensure I have some fuel for the run rather than an desire to eat-this heat is terrible.

But, I want to chat about my favourite gluten free bread recipe. Even better than the one I posted last week (although it is still divine). I wanted a recipe using chickpea and tapioca flours as I really don’t like rice flour all that much. Being an anthropologist and new to Cape Town, I explored the area known as the Bo-Kaap. An area of the city known as the Cape Malay quarter with a rich socio-cultural and religious history. The famous houses in Wale Street are brightly painted and the streets bustle with the activity of the residents as they go about daily life. Atlas Trading is a wonderful spice shop where the smell of spices greets you before you can see the doorway. For anyone who enjoys spices, this is a must. Huge bins of ginger, various masalas, cinnamon, curry leaves, fresh chillies and any other spice you can think of! They also stock rice, potato, tapioca, chickpea, buckwheat and corn flours as well as corn starch and potato starch (potato starch is not the same as the flour but tapioca flour and starch can be used interchangeably). The flour prices are so cheap and you can get the exact amount of flour you need. I won’t be going anywhere else to get spices of gluten free flours in Cape Town I can assure you! I love going to Atlas and the staff there are friendly and helpful.

I found a recipe using chickpea flour at Gluten Free on a Shoestring and I make it in my bread maker. In my first few attempts at this bread, I substituted the corn starch with potato starch. The bread came out just fine but was a little dry even when fresh. It made fantastic toast however-no crumbling and very tasty. On a trip to Atlas, I bought some cornstarch and tried the recipe as is. What a HUGE difference. Freshly cut, the bread is soft and spongy but nice and firm and is perfect for a sandwich. This is my go to bread to keep in the freezer or time the bread maker so I wake up to fresh, hot bread for breakfast.

I decided to experiment a little further this weekend. I made up the loaf and added calamata olives and fresh rosemary. The loaf was consumed before it had time to cool! I made no changes to the basic recipe except to only use 1 cup of water-so slightly less as the olives contributed some liquid to the mixture. So, get creative when you try this loaf and let me know how it comes out!

I’d love your feedback.

Until next week x

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The smell of toast is hard to resist!

I jokingly banned anyone from making toast in my house and so someone delightful surprised me with a bread maker for my birthday. And so began months of experimenting in the art (and it is an art!) or gluten free bread making. I made loaves that were harder and drier than a brick, some tasty while others still were just a disaster. We tried making rice flour with a blender. This worked well enough actually especially if you use a softer rice like jasmine and I found brown rice was easier to grind to a flour. I just don’t particularly like the taste of rice flour.

I got frustrated the more I could not replicate a decent slice of toast and the websites and information I found were overwhelming and so far from my South African reality. Frustration, it seems, it part of the process of gluten-free living and eating but the good news is that is does get better. And I am here to help try alleviate some of that burden.

I now use 2 recipes which are delicious and an excellent substitute for normal bread. They don’t crumble, are not dry as bricks and actually taste great! In fact, I even know someone who now prefers the gluten-free bread I make to normal bread. Today, I will share the first recipe with you, a sorghum flour bread that is similar to rye– dark with a lovely chewy crust but is soft inside, very much  like a ciabatta. I found the recipe at Gluten Free Goddess’s website. I can’t find sorghum flour so use Maltabella which you can buy in any Pick and Pay or Checkers (SA readers will be familiar with this brand). Instead of millet flour, I use tapioca flour for this recipe and use balsamic vinegar instead of lemon juice or rice vinegar for a darker colour.

The result: a bread I can eat fresh, or freeze and this makes an excellent substitute for Bunny Chow, which I love. I also can eat this in a typical Italian way: with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, along with a glass (or two) of red wine. Delicious! If you give it a go, let me know how you like it. Next week, I share the other recipe and let you know where I source my flours in Cape Town.

Have a great week

Ciao

 

Adventures in Gluten free

I’m half Italian, I live to eat and I like to eat. A lot. So, imagine being my being told I cannot eat pasta, bread and pizza due to gluten intolerance? I’m half Italian! Food is central to my life and those know me well will tell you that a hungry me is NOT an option worth exploring. What kind of runner is not able to carbo load before a race? Not that I ever needed an excuse but it is part of the ritual after all.

I went straight into denial mode. Until, I could no longer deny that gluten was not doing my body or my moods any good. I entered the world of gluten free eating and living and it was a maze of ingredients I’d never heard of nor could I get in the small Eastern Cape town I was living in and all the label reading was a nightmare to say the least. The textures and tastes of gluten free food in general were alien to me and quite frankly I was frustrated and overwhelmed and of course I periodically gave into my desires for glutenous food. And promptly regretted it.

The convenience that bread and crackers were for a busy working girl’s lunch or pre-run/workout snack left me wandering around the shop getting hungrier and more frustrated. Don’t get me wrong, I love salads and fruit. My sister and I used to eat the salad meant for the whole family between the two of us. But, they just don’t fill me up and between my metabolism and the amount I love to exercise, well- I don’t think of them as food per se, rather delicious additions to food. I have struggled, fumbled, spent a small fortune on gluten free food that tastes like cardboard, gone hungry at functions and faced the sneers of people who assume I am being a fussy or picky eater.

Having recently moved to Cape Town, a whole new variety of options has opened up. Two minutes from my house is an Italian restaurant that has gluten free pasta and pizza options. Gluten free bread is available more readily too-at a price of course-and fewer waitrons look at me sideways when I order a burger and ask them to leave the roll behind. The internet, once you figure out where to look is an amazing resource for ideas and recipes but often the ingredients are non existent here, difficult to get or really expensive.

So, in a rare moment of inspired creativity I decided to begin a blog-based around issues of gluten free eating and living, especially for those who love to exercise, with a  South African slant. Watch this space as I share my insights, recipes and experiments with food, spices, cocktails and whatever else tickles my freckled fancy. Or yours should you care to share your pearls of wisdom with me!

Ciao, I’m off for a run xx