Sunday, 30 October 2016

Rule of Crumb Garlic Bread

We'd been keeping an eye out for Rule of Crumb part-baked bread for some time... finally found it at Ocado and ordered some (it came frozen - £2.75 a loaf)

Yesterday was the day to try it... as we were having a "pasta based evening meal". 

The bread comes in a cook-in-the-bag wrapper.

It was then baked according to the pack instructions (hot oven for 15 mins) and was smelling great by the time it was removed... noting the packing is HOT when baking's done, we took care in releasing from the wrapper.

The garlic bread is pre-cut and filled with butter lengthwise.  It was lovely and crunchy and there was the perfect amount of garlic butter for our tastes.

We cut it into three chunks and shared it between us.  It was a really great accompaniment to our pasta meals and, best of all, Sous Chef J loved every crumb... even eating the crust.  We'll be re-stocking asap to have as a freezer standby!

Sunday, 25 September 2016

Speedy "Danish" Pastries

Having bought some Silly Yak ready made Gluten Free puff pastry, and looking for some breakfast ideas to tempt Sous Chef J, I hit on the idea of a sort-of Danish pastry.  We've also been blackberry picking this week and had made some stewed Blackberry and Apple... a plan formed.  A very SIMPLE plan.

Ingredients -

Silly Yak Gluten Free puff pastry (half a pack)
Four tablespoons of stewed fruit
a little beaten egg

To decorate/drizzle - two tablespoons of icing sugar and a small amount of warm water (make this as thick or runny as you like... it's your choice!)

Starting with the pastry block, it was rolled out to about 5mm thickness (we do this on a silicone sheet dusted with gluten free flour). 

The pastry was then cut into four squares.

An Lshaped cut was made to opposite sides of the square, the inner square's edges were brushed with egg and the cut section was carefully folded to line up with the inner square.

The pastry shapes were then put onto a non-stick baking sheet, brushed with egg and put in the fridge to chill whilst the oven reached baking temperature.

Once chilled, about a tablespoon of the stewed fruit mix was placed in the middle of each pastry.



Baking the pastries in a preheated oven at 180ÂșC for 8-10minutes, we checked them and turned the sheet, baking for a further 2 minutes before removing and cooling on the baking sheet.














The pastries were then drizzled with icing as decoration, just before serving. 

Tuesday, 16 August 2016

Summery Sausage Salad

We heard from Sainsbury's that their Taste the Difference sausages are now all gluten free and were asked if we'd like to try some.  Of course, we said YES, please!  

Having gone into store, it was easy to see the great new packaging for the TTD sausages and made a selection of the ones Sous Chef J will eat (thin ones... aka chipolatas or cocktail sausages).

As it was a sunny weekend, we decided an 'all-in-one' sausage salad dish would be a good meal to create. Pairing the sausages with some freshly cooked charlotte potatoes, a few salad onions and a homemade dressing/sauce, we thought we'd have a simple and tasty meal for eating outdoors.

The dressing was made using store cupboard standbys -

2 Tablespoons tomato ketchup
2 Tablespoons cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon grainy mustard
1 Tablespoon honey

All this was mixed together and half of the sliced salad onions were added.

The sausages were separated and added to a hot frying pan to cook through.

Adding half of the sauce to the sausages and cooking to make it sticky...
.... whilst the sausages were cooking, the charlotte potatoes were boiled.  Once cooked and drained, the potatoes were put in a bowl and the remainder of the sauce was poured over and stirred through.
Finally, the sausage and sauce mix was added to the potatoes, stirred and the remaining onions were sprinkled over.
The sausage salad was delicious!

We'll definitely be adding TTD Sausages to our shopping list... and particularly liked the "snap and keep" packaging - allowing half the sausages to be saved for another day/frozen.

DISCLOSURE - we were sent a gift card by Sainsbury's to be used for buying sausages and ingredients for this recipe.  The recipe and opinions in this post are our own.