Dairy-Free – Page 27 – The Food Wife

Puttanesca

23rd July 2019
by thefoodwife

Serves 2

Puttanesca, a Neapolitan pasta dish that originates from the last century, means lady of the night. Why? There are various theories, one is said that because it is so quick to make it can be eaten between customers. It has become a classic dish, and here it is made with store cupboard ingredients, making it perfect for a weeknight meal.Â Â

It is a quickly made sauce, packed with punchy flavours, which can pretty much be cooked in the time it takes to cook your pasta.

It can easily be adapted to be gluten-free and suitable for vegetarian or vegan diets (by omitting the anchovies).Â Â

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

4 anchovy fillets (leave out if making this vegetarian or vegan)

3 cloves of garlic, finely choppedÂ

1/2 tsp dried chilli flakesÂ

1 tin of cherry tomatoes

160g pitted black olives (half kept whole the other half sliced)

2 tbsp capers

Pepper

To serve: 150g dried pasta, cooked according to the packet instructions (gluten-free if required)

Step 1: Heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium high heat. Add the anchovies and cook for one minute, moving around the pan so they break up. Add the garlic and lower the heat slightly. Continue to stir. After another minute add the chilli.

Step 2: Add the tinned tomatoes, along with the olives and a pinch of ground black pepper. Cook out for five minutes. Add the capers and cook for another couple of minutes. Check the seasoning and serve, tossed through freshly cooked pasta.

Roasted Peppers

10th July 2019
by thefoodwife

Make 8

These are such a joy to eat in the summer, they are great as part of a lunch with salads and also make an excellent filling for a sandwich (although donâ€™t make it too far in advance as it can go soggy, and no-one likes a soggy sandwich).Â

I quarter the peppers and would suggest this quantity would serve 2-4 people. Theyâ€™ll keep a few days in the fridge too so perfect to make in advance. These are both vegan and gluten-free.

Ingredients:

2 large bell peppers (any colour but green)Â

8 cherry tomatoes, halved

16 small basil leavesÂ

(Garlic-infused) oil

Salt and pepperÂ

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 175c fan.

Step2: Prepare the peppers by slicing each in half down the stalk. Carefully remove the stalk and seeds. With a knife carefully cut out any fleshy white pith. Slice each half in half again (top to bottom) and lie on a baking tray.

Step 3: Put two tomato halves in each piece of pepper along with two basil leaves.

Step 4: Drizzle a tiny amount of (garlic) oil over each pepper and a little salt and pepper.

Step 5: Carefully transfer the baking tray to the oven (make sure nothing falls off the peppers!) and roast for 45-55 minutes. They should be soft with a slight char at the edges. Delicious hot or cold.

Baked Rice with Broccoli

1st July 2019
by thefoodwife

Serves 2-3 as a side dishÂ

I made this as an accompaniment to my daal recently. It was the vegetable and rice in one dish which needed hardly any prep and even little interference from me as a cook. Perfect for when you are on bedtime duty but want to eat soon after the kids are in bed!

I decided to add garam masala to my rice, but this is optional. You can also mix up the veg you use; cauliflower would be good too.

Baking the brown rice results in fluffy gains and a crispy top (my favourite bit) and makes the rice go further too. Normally I cook 75g of rice per person but have found that cooking the rice this way, only 50g is needed, unless you are particularly hungry.

Ingredients:

150g brown basmati rice

200g broccoli, cut into florets

700ml hot stock (gluten-free if required)

2 heaped tsp garam masala (optional)

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 180c fan.

Step 2: Spread the rice evenly over the base of a baking dish (it needs to be deep enough to hold the stock too).

Step 3: Spread the broccoli out over the top and sprinkle everything with the garam masala (if using).

Step 4: Pour the hot stock over everything (if the stock is unsalted, add a pinch of salt now).

Step 5: Transfer to the oven and bake undisturbed for one hour. Remove from the oven and serve.

Love Your Leftovers

25th June 201925th June 2019
by thefoodwife

This week Iâ€™m focusing on transforming leftovers into something delicious. One of the key lessons I learnt from my grandparents was â€˜waste not want notâ€™. Nothing would be wasted from a meal. Anything that wasnâ€™t eaten would be used the next day. Iâ€™m a big fan of leftovers, less so when they are termed as â€˜scrapsâ€™ which is my parents word of choice; â€œwhatâ€™s for dinner, mum?â€ â€œBaked potato and scraps!â€ Hmmmm…

Anyway, on Sunday we had a roast chicken. I was going out for the day and prepared the potatoes in the morning, peeling them and leaving them in cold salted water ready to be par-boiled that afternoon. I was left with a large pile of potato peelings. I left them too, in a large bowl of cold water and went out for the day. Waste not want not. When I got home I drained them and then dried them in a clean tea towel, tossed them in a drizzle of garlic infused rapeseed oil, salt, pepper and smoked paprika and then spread on a lined baking sheet. I popped them in the oven for 30 minutes. I started at 200c for the first 15 minutes and then jammed it up to 220c for the final 15 (just check them every now and again to check how theyâ€™re getting on). The result? Potato peelings transformed into a pre-dinner crispy snack!Â

Now what to do with the leftover chicken? Well Iâ€™ve revisited a couple of my recipes; starting with my Thai-style Chicken and Mango Noodle Salad. So refreshing now the weather is heating up! And to finish up the remaining chicken I will be using my Instant Pot to make a Mexican Rice Bowl and will incorporate the shredded chicken breast at the end.

And finally donâ€™t forget to use the carcass of the chicken to make a wonderful stock, perfect for soups. Boil up the bones in water with an onion, carrot, celery, bay leaf and peppercorns for a couple of hours. Drain the liquid off and allow to cool before storing in the fridge for a few days (or once cool pop it in the freezer for another day). So love your leftovers and remember to waste not want not!

Sunshine Kebabs

7th June 201910th June 2019
by thefoodwife

Serves 2-3

Weâ€™re moving into summer and with it (hopefully) barbecue weather. Here is a recipe that is gluten free, and can be made with chicken or halloumi, suiting meat eaters or vegetarians.Â Â Using the chicken keeps them dairy free too.

A little prep, a couple of hours marinating and then ten minutes cooking and youâ€™ve got some pretty tasty kebabs. These arenâ€™t just for the barbecue though, and work well under a hot grill, so not to worry if the weather lets us down, these can be cooked easily in the kitchen!

Iâ€™ve called them sunshine kebabs because they taste wonderfully summery and the orangey red colour of the marinade makes me think of the summer. Coupled with colourful peppers itâ€™s sunshine on a stick!

Ingredients:

1 heaped tsp smoked paprika

2 tsp garlic-infused oil (or 2 tsp oil with 1 clove of minced garlic)

1 tsp dried oregano

Juice of 1 lime

Salt and pepper

2 chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch pieces or 1 block of Halloumi, cut into 1 inch cubes

Yellow and/or red pepper, deseeded and cut into 1 inch pieces

You will also need 4 wooden skewers, soaked in water for a couple of hours.

Step 1: Two hours before cooking, begin to soak your wooden skewers in water and prepare the marinade. Make the marinade by combining the paprika, oil, oregano, lime juice and a pinch each of salt and pepper in a bowl. Toss the chicken or halloumi pieces so they are well coated, cover and leave in the fridge to marinate. If using chicken aim to remove it from the fridge 20 minutes before assembling the kebabs to bring back to room temperature.

Step 2: Just before cooking, assemble the kebabs by skewering alternate pieces of pepper and chicken/halloumi carefully onto the skewers.

Step 3: Cook under a hot grill or on a barbecue for a few minutes on each side until cooked through and scorched slightly from the heat.

Serve with fresh salad and freshly pickled red onion (thinly slice red onion and drizzle with fresh lemon/lime juice or a little red wine vinegar and a pinch of salt and leave for an hour or two). Great stuffed in a pitta or in a wrap!