Tuna Bake

Today we set about making another longterm family favourite recipe into a Gluten Free version. The original recipe called for condensed chicken soup but that all seems to contain gluten so we made a substitution using mayonnaise and got cooking to see if it would work.

What we were going to use was 2 tins of tuna (drained), one tin of chopped tomatoes, 2 packets of Burt's sea salted crisps, some grated mature cheddar, some frozen peas and sweetcorn (from a can or frozen - works well with either) and some mayonnaise.

 

Having drained the tuna, it was added to a pyrex casserole dish and flaked using a fork.  The peas and sweetcorn were added to the dish and it was mixed through.











Next, we levelled the tuna, mayo, veg mix and added the tin of chopped tomatoes.

Then, it was over to Sous Chef J to break the crisps into little pieces before adding grated cheese to the bags and giving them a shake to incorporate the cheese into the mix.  Finally, the cheesy crisp mix was added to the dish as the topping.

The dish was then placed in a pre-heated (170ºC) fan oven and cooked for 40 minutes until it was bubbling throughout.

It's an easy meal that we all loved... there were no leftovers to bother with!

Mince Starts

Sous Chef J always likes the look of jam tarts when we're out in the supermarket.  However, we rarely buy them (even when offered in a gluten free range like Waitrose have) but we do try to make 'something' at Christmas time.  This year we thought a sort-of-mince-pie would be a fun undertaking.  Topped with a marzipan star instead of a pastry lid and, thus, the Mince Start was invented!

So, being the convenience cooks that we are, we delved into the depths of the freezer and recovered a long forgotten slab of pre-made, shop bought, gluten free pastry.  This is from G Free and, once defrosted, we were impressed with its pasrty-ness.  Having risked making our own gluten free pastry in the past, which was very crumbly, we tend to steer clear of pastry-requiring recipes.

With defrosted pastry, a jar of mincemeat, some marzipan and a 12 cup bun tray at the ready we set to work.  Sous Chef J used an old butter wrapper to grease the baking tray and I started to roll out the pastry.  Using a little cornflour, it was an easy task to get the pastry rolled to an even thickness (or thin-ness as J calls it).  Then, rounds, slightly larger than the baking tray holes, were cut from the pastry and these were placed into the tray.  Next Sous Chef J dolloped heaped teaspoons of mincemeat into the cases whilst I cut out small stars from thinly rolled marzipan.


One star was placed atop each mincemeat tart before the tray was baked in a 170ºC oven for about 20 minutes.

Having been cooked, the tarts were cooled in their tray for a few minutes before being placed on a cooling rack.

We then added a dusting of icing sugar and the Mince Start was ready to be taste tested...