Sunday roast | Rubelle's Moon

Home Alone

I’m going to buy the Home Alone box set and put it on this weekend! I can’t wait to sit and write cards and wrap presents with some proper, Christmas humour – I love this time of year as everything gets a leeeeettle bit ridiculous, but it’s completely acceptable! So, we are on a mission to find it (somewhere HAS to have it? Surely? The supermarket?? Hmm…) Anyway, it’s happening! I’m already going through it in my head and found this picture on the left which made me laugh so much! I love that part of the film! I may even watch Home Alone 4… we’ll see…

Mince Pies

I’ve got my HomeMade Gluten Free Mincemeat ready to be used, and it should be beautiful by now after being sat in it’s little Kilner jar getting all delicious for the past month!

I’m going to make some ‘open-top’, some with pastry topping and some with crushed and toasted hazelnuts on… just for variation and because I’m ‘test-driving’ them for my hamper as I’ll be putting some into it!

Mulled Wine

The plan is to make this and the mulled cider and have it over the weekend and maybe even take a flask for a wintery walk through the park! We’ll see how adventurous we get vs. how many presents get wrapped and cards get written! Otherwise we will be drinking it while watching Home Alone… either way suits me fine! I love Mulled Wine, but I don’t like it to be too heavy, so lots of yummy spices and apple-y goodness for me please! I love this cute picture I put in… but believe me, my wine will not be being tied up with a scarf, it will be being drunk by me who will probably be wearing said scarf!

Mulled Cider

I haven’t had this in a few years – last time I had it was at one of my favourite Christmas Markets – Lincoln. The market takes over the whole of Bailgate and it’s such a beautiful and busy place to be – food stalls, craft stalls, all the shops are open late, the Cathederal is all lit up and the Castle grounds are opened up with more of the market inside… wow… I miss home now! I’ll have to take the boyfriend up their one year for the market as the Castle is beautiful and so magical at Christmas, otherwise, it’s pretty expensive to go on a day-to-day visit and is usually full of school kids (I would know, I was once one of them, running around the castle, filling in various activity sheets in all my 90′s Puffa Jacket madness… yes, I was fat and in a puffa, please do not judge me, I was obviously totally on-trend and V fashion-foreward!) So anyway, the mulled cider not only smells delicious, it tastes it too and I think i’m going to have a go at serving it as it is in this picture I’ve found as the boyfriend managed to pick up some apples he isn’t too keen on (but which I like) and they were BYGOF so I can’t eat that many apples and I thought – why not be a little cup-crazy and make apple cups! I know, i’m completely off-the-wall with my Christmas ideas… i’m not… I just like decorations and pretty things, and these looks super-easy and impressive (win-win in my books!).

Foccacia

So, here I am, really giving myself a challenge here – to make Focacia bread, but not only that, I’ve found this lovely picture and will not have to create something that resembles such a thing of beauty. If not, it will be something to laugh about… ohh why do I do this to myself? I should just find terrible, disasterous pictures, say I’m going to make something similar and then look super-impressive when mine (may/possibly/hopefully/please do) turns out looking like the real deal and not a kitchen disaster worthy of the bin! So… we shall see… most of the time I’m just really excited to make something complicated as a gluten free meal or treat, especially when bread is involved as, removing the gluten can have consequences not worth mentioning (but I will – sticky dough, dough that doesn’t rise, dough that won’t cook, dough that cooks around the edge, rock solid bread… been there, done that, worn all of the t-shirts – they didn’t look good!) so I’m always a little anxious of trying out a new recipe, but for you lovely people and for the love of gluten free baking I will attempt this beautiful bread! What kind of ‘Rubelle’s Moon’s Gluten Free Challenge’ recipe would this be if it was easy straight away?! (A good one? Yes, probably you are right!)

Roast Butternut Squash

This will be one of the recipes I first wanted to try when I began Rubelle’s Moon’s Gluten Free Challenge over a month ago. It is a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe and I think this will be a wonderful alternative to a Sunday Roast. I’m going to serve this with my Brussel Sprout recipe which I’ll be doing as a trial-run for posting up my blog for Caleigh for her run-up-to-Christmas recipes… I can’t wait to see all the treats that will be made! I love the pciture I found on the right… although to me it looks more like a Pumpkin… either way, gorgeous picture and really great colours! Love a bit of sunny orange when it starts getting a bit cold and grey outside (saying that it’s beautiful today!) and the dark nights start drawing in… I haven’t ever cooked a whole squash before, so i’m quite excited for how this will turn out!

Stuffed Crust Goats Cheese and Rocket Pizza

So, I love goats VERY much. I pretty much love all farm animals as it’s what i’ve grown up with living in the countryside! Goats are brilliant and they produce milk that can be made into CHEESE – yay! I know it’s an accquired taste, but if I like it and i’m quite fussy with cheese as I find it a bit gag-inducing and the very word ‘Fromage Frais’ is enough to send me running, so trust me on this one, this is YUM. I was inspired to make a stuffed crust as, after a trip to the supermarket, the boyfriend was hanging his nose over the ‘make-your-own-pizza’ section and saw the stuffed crust… the minute he pointed it out, I knew I had to make a gluten free alternative! So, that’s what i’ll be doing at some point this weekend! Yum! I’m quite excited for this one as I haven’t yet attempted a gluten free pizza with a stuffing in the crust, so this will be a new experiment!

Alongside all the baking and wintery winterness, I’ll be writing up my list of preparations in the countdown to Christmas (cake icing, biscuit making, hamper-putting-together-ing) and putting up some fairy lights and other decorations (no tree as we really have no tree room!) I can’t wait to have room for a ‘proper’ tree!!

Let me know what you think and if you have any ideas to add to my weekend.

Rubelle’s Moon

I’ve been wanting to make a Nut Roast for absolutley ages, so this Sunday I did an alternative to a regular Sunday Roast with this meat free version! So delicious, completely packed with healthy ingredients and it’s vegetarian AND gluten free! This is also a great dish to make up for the week and have cold with salad, soup or vegetables.

Serves 2-4 depending on how hungry you are!

Ingredients

100g Chana Dal

225ml vegetable stock (I use Knorr stock cubes as they’re gluten free)

1 bay leaf

50g Cashew nuts – unsalted

Spray Olive Oil

2 x Chopped Red Onions

2 Small, Finely Chopped Red Peppers

75g Sliced Mushrooms

1 Finely chopped garlic clove

1 tbsp lemon juice

50g Caerphilly cheese, crumbled

50g Gluten Free Breadcrumbs (I used Mrs Crimble’s)

1 tbsp Dried, mixed herbs

1 beaten egg

The Sauce

1 tbsp Tomato Ketchup

1 tsp Smoked Paprika

400g can chopped tomatoes

100ml Vegetable stock

2 tsp Mixed Herbs

2 dashes of Tabasco

To Serve

Brocolli

Carrots

Garden Peas

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 200 C

1. Cook the Chana Dal for 30 minutes, drain, rinse then put back into the pan, pour over the stock (add a little extra boiling water if needed), drop in the bayleaf, cover the pan with a lid and cook for a further 15 minutes. Once cooked, remove from the heat and set aside (this will allow the lentils to absorb the rest of the liquid if they haven’t already during cooking! If the lentils stick to the bottom of the pan, don’t worry, just add a splash more of boiling water and stir it up… If you do burn the bottom, just leave it and use what you have or, cook up some more if you’ve really gone to town on the char-grilling of the lentils!)

2. Meanwhile, roughly chop the cashew nuts and toast in a dry frying pan. Remove the nuts from the pan and place in a small bow/dish/cup/general storage container of your choice (not your mouth, do not eat these nuts! resist!!) for later.

3. Spray some oil into the pan and sautee the onions (cook over a low heat until they look slightly transluscent). Put half the onion mix into another general storage container for the sauce and add the mushrooms, peppers and garlic to the other half still in the pan. Cook for 5 minutes until the mixture has softened. Add in the lemon juice and cook for another 1 minute. Remove from the heat and set aside.

4. Take a large mixing bowl and pour in: the lentils, the pan of vegetables, the breadcrumbs, toasted cashew nuts and mixed herbs. Mix everything up, then add in the crumble cheese and egg. Mix again really thoroughly. Season well and give the whole mixture one final mix up.

5. Tip the mixture into a loaf tin and level out the top with a spatula or spoon to make sure it is really even (I got quite particular about this!) then take a piece of foil and fold it so that it sits on top of the loaf with a little up the sides of the tin. Spray the foil, place on the loaf and place the tin in the oven and bake for 30 minutes.

5. During the first 30 minutes of cooking, you can prepare your sauce: add the reserved onions and all of the other sauce ingredients to a small saucepan. Simmer on a low heat for 20 minutes or so – season to taste by checking every 10 minutes to see how the flavour is developing.

6. After 30 minutes remove the foil and place back into the oven for a further 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and rest for 10 minutes.

7. Warm up the sauce and cook your vegetables while the loaf rests for 10 minutes (this helps it to hold it’s shape and for the flavours to set in.)