Thursday 29 August 2013

Sprout Cooking Course Part 1



Here in Adelaide, there's a cooking course called Sprout Cooking. It is run by Callum Hann and Themis Chryssidis. Themis is a local Adelaide dietician who is happy to help replace the bad food in your life with slightly better food, just by using different ingredients. Callum is a bit of a local celebrity here; he starred and came runner-up in Season 2 of Masterchef Australia, then went on to win Masterchef All-Stars last year.

Their class, Sprout, is all about making healthy food easy and affordable and within that, they run numerous different types of classes. I went to a Gluten Free one with my mum in February, then when the chance came to go to another one a couple of weeks ago came up, we jumped. It was a lot of fun. For $90ish, you learn to cook a 3 course meal, get 3 glasses of wine (if you so desire all three) and guidance from Callum and Themis. The beauty is that every season, they change the recipes to adapt them to what is fresh and available.


Entree was Ricotta and Spinach Cannelloni. As you can see, the filling was Ricotta, wilted Spinach and Parmesan. In order to make it more healthy, cheaper and Gluten Free, we used thinly sliced and grilled Eggplant as the Cannelloni and rolled it around the filling.


The sauce was a basic tomato Passata with with sliced Chilli, Garlic and spinach stems. When I make this I will put in no where near as much chilli - these still had the seeds in them! Talk about a bit of heat!!! Haha but it went well with the coolness of the fillings :)

Part 2 and Main Course coming up soon...

Friday 16 August 2013

Flourless Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies

In all my time in being Gluten Free, I've been hesitant to try out these Gluten Free flour mixes - I've gotten it in my head that they'll never be as good, so I just won't try them. That means that whenever I find a good looking flourless recipe, I'm eager to try it. Enter these Chocolate Chip Cookies...


These are just amazing and chewy and wonderful! They taste a lot like a chocolatey chip meringue...slightly crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside. They were incredibly simple to make and made so many - if I made them smaller, I could definitely have made more. 


Flourless Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yields about 40 Cookies

Ingredients

3 Cups Icing Sugar
2/3 Cup Cocoa Powder
1/8 Teaspoon Salt
2-4 Large Egg Whites, room temperature
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
1 1/2 Cups Dark Chocolate Chips

Directions

1. Pre heat your oven to 175°C/350°F.

2. Set aside 2 baking trays covered with Baking Paper.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together the Icing Sugar, Cocoa Powder and Salt.


4. Whisk in Vanilla and Egg Whites, starting with just 2.

5. Beat until the batter is moistened. You're looking for a brownie-like, thick and fudge batter consistency. If it seems too thick, add another Egg White, then a 4th if need be*.


6. Stir in the Chocolate Chips.


7. Scoop the batter by the tablespoon on to trays, leaving enough space for the batter to spread.

8. Bake for 12-14 minutes, or until the tops are glossy and slightly cracked. 


9. Let the cookies cool completely on the baking sheet. Enjoy!




*I ended up using all 4, but I reckon it was because my eggs weren't large enough, so keep that in mind. 


Wednesday 7 August 2013

Throwback Thursday

Today's "Throwback" is reminiscing on my first good meal after going Gluten Free. I'd been on the diet for just over 2 months and during that time, I'd been planning my 21st. I had decided to do something with my friends and something with my family/family friends. I had done the whole party piss up and get blindly drunk for my 18th, so this time around, I wanted to remember it all.

I ended up settling taking 20ish friends out to do Laser Skirmish. At that stage, I was heavily in love with How I Met Your Mother (still am, but more so then...), so that swayed my decision slightly haha

                                                                All of us afterwards.

It was a truly wonderful night and I'm so so happy I went down that route :) Anyone looking for a different sort of celebration for any birthday - consider it, you won't regret it!

The following day, I had my celebration with family and family friends. I hummed and ahhhhed about this for a while and what to do...in the end, I decided to go out somewhere for a high tea. I decided to go to the Stamford Plaza in the Adelaide CBD. It was more worthwhile (money-wise) some of the other hotels I looked at and was more central than Glenelg. I ended up choosing the Indulgent High Tea. It was fantastic!! We got a glass of champagne upon arrival and had too much food to know what to do with haha. The were incredibly helpful with everything gluten free...they were able to do food for me and my coeliac mum and allowed us to bring our own cake (more on that later though).


This was what I got - Vanilla Panacotta, some finger sandwiches (bread wasn't amazing, but I give them points for trying), lemon curd muffin, vanilla ice cream and chocolate wafer stick. Overall it was amazing and the staff we incredibly helpful. Mind you, when everyone else is getting this....


There is a certain amount of jealousy you feel :( But, everyone enjoyed it and had fun, so that's what really mattered!

The cake, however, was the biggest highlight (apart from having everyone I love in the same place) for me. We went with a local South Australian company, Heidelberg Cakes. We'd heard good things about them, plus the owner's daughter is Gluten Free, so they were very careful with making Gluten Free cakes, so much so that they have an entirely different bakery for them. They're also very welcome to changes. So I wanted this cake, but I wanted it round, so they did that. They have numerous gf cake flavours and I went with the Baci flavour. This is what the end result looked like....


I'm so so happy with it!!! And with the whole weekend actually - was the most incredible celebration and I'll always remember it :)


My absolutely wonderful family - they made it that much more special <3