Festive FreeFrom Fare

We like to be prepared for the Festive Season in plenty of time, so were pleased when Sainsbury's sent us a parcel of FreeFrom goodies from their range to try.

There were two types of  mince pies - the 'traditional' pastry topped ones and also a packet of iced pies.  Sous Chef J likes the look of the iced mince pies the best as he's "not keen on too much pastry".

The box of goodies also contained a panettone style loaf cake.  It was a softer cake than we were expecting, but there was a good distribution of fruit and was a tasty treat.

 Also included were two packs of cake slices - both contain 5 slices - one has Iced rich fruit cake and the other Mini chocolate logs.  The Iced fruit cake slices seem to

have a good proportion of cake to icing.  Looking at the Mini chocolate logs, they're more of an iced slice than a log shape but Sous Chef J thinks that won't stop him eating them. All!

It was good to see some products aimed at children included in the range.  Sadly the Gingerbread biscuit man hadn't survived the post in tact but Sous Chef J had a solution for that... and promptly ate the biscuit.

The Freefrom Santa Choc bar is Gluten, Wheat and dairy free and would make a great stocking filler.  Also, the choc selection net, which contains a santa choc bar, choc'n'crispie bar, choc bar, choc buttons and choc discs, looks like a treat that will fill a space in a Christmas stocking nicely.

Whilst it's been nice to get a pre-Seasonal goodie box, we'll be 'monitoring' the goods on sale in store as "reliability of availability" is something we harp on about a lot.  It's great to know Gluten Free Christmas food items exist but is doubly frustrating when you can't get hold of them.

Checking our local store this week, we saw all the items we were sent apart from the Selection net.  We were pleased to see there was also a FreeFrom Advent Calendar, Christmas Cake Loaf and also a Christmas Pudding on sale.


Disclosure - Sainsbury's sent us a selection of FreeFrom items without charge but we have not been paid for this post.

Rhubarb fool with ginger crumble

It seems that quite a lot of the time, shop bought packets of gluten free biscuits are a mass of crumbs when we open them.  Given their cost and being of a thrifty Northern persuasion, methods to use them up are sought.  So, when we found one of our favourite packs of Lazy Days Ginger Snaps were already beginning to crumble it gave us an idea.  We'd had a bundle of rhubarb in the veg box and thought we'd try to make 'something' tasty.  Being the type of 'cooks' that opt for simple stuff with very few ingredients, it was then a question of whether to go with rhubard fool or rhubarb crumble... in the end we went for a 'combo pud' as you will see.

The ingredients were simply - rhubarb, honey, rice milk and custard powder, gluten free ginger biscuit crumbs and some double cream for decoration (for Sous Chef J)... you can leave out the cream if you want/need a dairy free pud.

Preparing the rhubarb was a matter of washing, peeling and slicing.  This was placed in a stainless steel pan together with about a tablespoon of runny honey and a dash of water.  A tight fitting lid was placed on the pan and the rhubarb was cooked over a low heat until it began to soften.  At this point, the heat was turned off and the mix was left to one side to cool.





Meanwhile, the custard was made.  We used about half a pint of rice milk and a tablespoon of custard powder.  A bit of milk was added to the custard powder to make a paste.  Then, having heated the milk to almost boiling point, the warmed milk was added to the paste, then the whole lot was put back in the pan and heated, over a moderate heat, stirring all the time until the custard thickened.  This was also set to one side to cool.





Whilst the rhubarb and custard was cooling, the ginger biscuits were turned from bits to crumbs. Sous Chef J made full use of a rolling pin to assist the crumbling process.

 Finally, it was time to assemble... so we found a few jam jars to use for our 'rustic' presentation and some smarter glasses for the 'posh' puds.

Assembly entailed layering the rhubarb in the bottom, adding some custard (carefully or else it can sink) and finally topping with the ginger biscuit crumble.

For the full 'posh' presentation in the martini glasses the crumble was topped a trio of whipped double cream "eggs".








The end result was clean crockery which is always a good sign.

The rustic presentation in jars would make a good pud for taking on picnics - although ours didn't last long enough to make it out into the sunny UK weather!  A simple free from pud that isn't chocolate or a piece of fruit.