Cauliflower Cheese is one of my mans favourite dinner foods. He specifically requests it for his birthday dinner. It’s is a classic side dish that works great with chicken schnitzel, steak or a gold old fashioned roast. Or if you are like my partner, you could just eat the dish whole!
I used to love eating tabbouleh. It is fresh and a perfect side dish for summer. The only problem is that since becoming gluten intolerant, I can’t eat cous cous, which is one of the main ingredients in tabbouleh. For years I have had to say no to the delicious mix of tomato, onion and parsley. But a while ago I saw the idea of using quinoa as a substitute… Whilst I always have quinoa in my kitchen, I never tried this recipe… Until recently.
My street has a regular Christmas street party BBQ and we all bring along some meat and a side dish. I wanted to bring along a dish of something that was different, but fresh and delicious summer dish. Quinoa tabbouleh seemed like the perfect dish to bring!
It is a little time consuming to make, but I thought it was well worth the preparation.
1. Rinse quinoa under cool water before cooking. Cook in boiling water until quinoa is light and fluffy. Rinse and set aside to cool. Stir quinoa with fork to keep fluffy and speed up cooling process.
2. Dice onion. Place onion into a small bowl. Cover onion with water and let it sit for 15 to 20 minutes. This will soften the onion and make it more pleasant to eat.
3. Dice tomatoes and place in large bowl. Mince garlic clove and finely chop parsley, and place in bowl. Once quinoa is cooled, add to bowl as well. Drain onion from water and also add to large bowl.
4. In another small bowl, mix olive oil, lemon juice and salt. Add oil and lemon mixture to large bowl with all other ingredients and stir thoroughly.
5. Allow tabbouleh mixture to sit for a hour or two in the fridge. There may be some excess moisture from the oil and lemon juice – this will eventually be soaked up by the mixture.
6. After an hour or so, season with salt and pepper. Stir again before serving and garnish with lemon wedges and parsley leaves. Serve as a side for barbecued meat. This tabbouleh mixture will keep for a few days in the fridge.
You can also add a tablespoon of finely chopped mint leaves to this mixture to give it an extra freshness kick! I didn’t have any mint so I decided not to use it and I think it turned out great without the mint, but other people may find that the mint gives it the little extra something it needs.
What do you think of my Quinoa Tabbouleh? Do you have a similar recipe or a recipe for Tabbouleh? Share your thoughts and links in the comments section!
Bye for now,
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I love taking my baked goods into work to share with everyone. I love trying out new recipes at home, but sometimes I don’t want to eat the whole batch for myself. The alternative is to take the treats into work, which is always nice for my work colleagues. 🙂
I have been wanting to make rocky road for a while, so I figured that making it for my work colleagues would be a good idea. I tried out one batch but decided it didn’t work out – I used too much coconut, and no where near enough chocolate… no one should ever have to hear the words “not enough chocolate”!
I decided that this previous recipe wasn’t good enough for work. Frankly, I was a bit embarrassed (although my partner and my sister seemed to enjoy it!)
So I tried the recipe again over the weekend. This time I used plenty of chocolate. I used a lot less coconut too. I also decided to mix it up a bit and use a pack of four flavour/colours of marshmallows as well as some soft jubes. Looks like it turned out well because everyone came back for a second (or third) piece of this batch of rocky road!
My recipe uses a lot of chocolate – half a kilo to be exact. And whilst this sounds like a lot at first, remember that you mix it in with other ingredients, so it’s a good idea to have a lot of chocolate so the taste chocolate isn’t lost in all the other ingredients.
When I mixed in my marshmallows, I let them sit on top of the chocolate as I was taking photos… In the meantime they melted slightly… When I mixed them into the chocolate they were a little gooey but I think this actually worked in my favour as they were mixed in just right.
The best part about this recipe (other than the chocolate and sugar hit) is that it’s super easy to make – just melt, mix, set, cut and eat! It really is that simple!
Ingredients
500g milk cooking chocolate – you could also use a mixture of milk and dark cooking chocolate
250g salted butter
2 cups of marshmallows – I chose a four flavour mix
1 cup soft jube lollies
1/2 cup glacé cherries – optional but recommended to use anyway
1/2 cup chopped macadamia nuts – You could also buy whole and roughly chop up
1/4 cup desiccated coconut
Method
1. Cut the marshmallows in half and set aside. Roughly chop the macadamias if using whole macadamia nuts. Measure out all other ingredients and set aside.
2. Melt the butter in a large saucepan on medium heat.
3. Break up the chocolate and allow it to melt in with the melted butter. Mix butter and chocolate around with a wooden spoon (or large plastic ladell if you don’t have a wooden spoon). Ensure chocolate is fully melted.
4. Poor in the remaining ingredients. Mix around until all ingredients are completely covered in chocolate.
5. Grease a small baking tray with butter or oil and line it with baking paper – the butter or oil will help the paper stay in place. Poor in mixture. Ensure mixture is evenly distributed in tray.
6. Place in fridge for a minimum of four hours. I recommend leaving it in there overnight.
7. When mixture is set, remove from baking tray and remove baking paper. Use a sharp kitchen knife to cut strips of the mixture. Then cut the strips into bite sized pieces.
Store in a plastic container in the fridge.
Optional: you can sprinkle with icing sugar before serving
Do you have a rocky road recipe?
Don’t forget to tag me in your pics if you make this recipe!
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I love this recipe because it’s a great way to use fruit before it goes off and needs to go into the bin. It makes for great afternoon tea, and there is no electric mixer needed. The mixture becomes quite thick and chunky with the end result being a rustic looking muffin with that traditional baking smell.
The fact that they are rustic means they don’t need to be perfect. I love cooking perfectly imperfect treats as it means that the mistakes can easily be disguised!
When slicing and dicing the pears, there is no need for precision. Just chop into small pieces that will work well in the muffins.
This recipe is an adapted version of a similar recipe on My Little Lunch Box – click here for original recipe. I changed it to use some almond meal as well as gluten free flour. I also decided not to use vanilla bean paste because, well I just didn’t have any in my pantry! I substituted for vanilla essence, and it seems that this did the trick.
This seems to be a winner with both kids and grown ups alike. I took these to work for afternoon tea recently and it seemed like everyone enjoyed these delicious treats.
They tend to last a few days, but they are best fresh or eatedn the day after cooking.
Ingredients
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Place muffin papers in the tin.
2. Roughly slice and dice the pears into small “cubes”.
3. Sift flour into a large bowl. Add the almond meal, cinnamon and sugar and stir in. Create a well in the centre of the dry ingredients.
4. Combine the Greek yoghurt, oil, eggs and vanilla essence in a medium sized bowl. Whisk together for a few moments until all items are completely combined.
5. Pour wet mixture into the well in the dry ingredients bowl. Softly mix with a wooden spoon until ingredients are combined.
6. Add diced pear to mixture. Carefully fold diced pear in with a wooden spoon.
7. Line a muffin tray with paper muffin cases. Spoon a tablespoon full of mixture into each muffin case. Sprinkle flaked almonds on top.
8. Bake for 25 minutes. Check that muffins are cooked by poking a wooden skewer into the middle of one. If it comes out clean, they are ready to be pulled out of the oven. If it comes out with raw mixture, keep in for another 5 minutes.
9. Once muffins are cooked, pull out of oven. Sprinkle a small amount of extra sugar over the top of each muffin. Allow muffins to cool.
10. Enjoy with a cup of tea or pack them in the kids lunchboxes for a delicious school day treat!
Hope you enjoyed this recipe! If you try out this recipe, let me know and share your comments!
Do you know the times when you’ve walked into a house and you can smell something divine being baked in the oven? The smell just wafts through the house and makes you feel warm inside… It often brings up memories of childhood, creating a nostalgic feeling towards the place and food. A lot of people would think back to when they were a kid and their mum or grandma baked something special for the family. The fact that it is something you don’t have so much as an adult makes it seem even more special.
I think that’s how my partner feels about Koek. When asking him what his favourite dessert is, he replied black forrest cake and koek. I had no idea what this ‘cook’ was so I had to look it up.
The next weekend we went to visit family and funnily enough, his mum had just baked some fresh koek. The smell of ginger and spices lingered in the house and made it smell like an old country home. I didn’t get to eat this one as it wasn’t gluten free, but I knew that it would taste fantastic.
I thought it was worth having a go at a gluten free version when I returned home. I searched the net for recipes and so many came up with different versions. I know from speaking to my partners mum that it traditionally needed to have self-raising flour, ground ginger and all spice. But that was all I knew. I was on a mission to figure it out and make my partner his favourite afternoon treat.
Here is my version of the cake:
Ingredients
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup gluten free plain flour
1 cup gluten free self-raising flour
1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp Dutch cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp all spice or mixed spice
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup milk
Method
1. Preheat oven to 180 deg. Cel.
2. Place all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl
3. Add milk & egg to dry ingredients and mix with whisk. Mix until the mixture is thick and runs slowly off a spoon.
4. Place in loaf tin and cook for 40 mins or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cake.
5. Serve cake sliced and warmed up with a layer of butter. I’ve also eaten it plain with some fresh strawberries, or for an extra treat, with two scoops of ice cream – Yum!
For a more traditional loaf, double the ingredients and use a donut or bunt cake tin.
Do you have a recipe for Koek? Have you eaten koek or a similar spice cake before?
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