Pad Thai

Hey guys, both me and Jess here today,

This is a dish I've made a few times, it's one that I've adapted slightly to suit my tastes but is based on a recipe you can find all over the internet and in all thai restaurants. However, when I've looked on the internet, almost every recipe seems to differ and there is little in common. This is a recipe that can be easily adapted to have meat, or to be vegan, and to be gluten free or gluten...full (?) noodles. This time I'm making it vegan, gluten free and without tofu as Jess isn't too keen on tofu yet, and I've only just got her into thai food so yeah, baby steps. Anyway, I'll mention times where you can include different things if you want too. I'm using spring onions here instead of regular white onions so I add them later, but if you're using a white onion then add it earlier on. Also all of the vegetables are changeable, these are the ones we wanted/what asda had to offer, you can pick your own! Traditionally (as far as I can gather) Pad Thai uses both chicken and tofu, and coats the noodles in egg to give a thicker consistency, feel free to add an egg if you prefer, you can substitute this for 1/4 cup of silken tofu, but I don't think this gives quite the same effect so I prefer just to leave it out.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

For the Pad Thai Sauce:

1 tbsp Tamarind Paste (this sounds like something no one has ever heard of but the Sainsbury's in fallowfield sells it so I'd imagine most do)
1 tbsp Peanut butter (if it's not crunchy, it's not worth it.)
3 tbsp gluten free Soy Sauce (or normal, I use dark because I prefer the colour and flavour it gives but as ever, you're the boss!)
3 tbsp Brown Sugar
1 tsp Crushed Chilis
1 tsp Ground Pepper (ish)
1/3 a cup of Stock (I used boiling water with 1/4 of a Kallo cube in it)

For the veg:

1/2 Courgette (sliced)
1 Pepper (chopped into sticks)
1/2 cup Mushrooms (sliced)
1 Carrot (thinly sliced)
3 Spring Onions (sliced into rings)
Handful of Mangetout
Handful of Sugarsnaps
1 hot Chili
1 large handful of crushed Peanuts
1/2 a pack/1 1/2 cup Beansprouts
Large Handful of Spinach

For the noodles:

4 cakes/a 4 person portion of whatever noodles you want (we're using a pack of tesco's fresh rice noodles as they are both nice and vegan/gluten free but anything will work, I would usually flat wheat noodles as I like the texture)
1 pan of Boiling water

Salt and Pepper to season
1 Lime
A dash of oil to fry in

Optional: 1/2 a chicken breast per person, marinated in soy sauce, stock and garlic beforehand, or 1/2 a block of diced firm tofu (don't use silken here) marinated in the same way. You can use other meats if you'd like but you'll probably have to adjust the cooking time for this, try to shred whatever you're using so it cooks quickly. Pork and beef would both work well I imagine.

Method:

First cook the noodles (if you need too) place in the boiling water and leave for 5 minutes to soak until soft, or if you're using large noodles and you think they need simmering briefly then simmer then, then strain and leave in cold water so that they don't stick together.
Mix the sauce together, the boiling water should help with this.
Heat the oil in a frying pan (you'll need a large one, we ended up splitting into two pans) over a high heat
Now add the onion if you're using one, and chicken and/or tofu, fry until just browning and the onions are sweating.
Add the chili - if you're following this recipe exactly and this is the first thing you're adding just fry the chili on its own for a minute or so before adding the rest of the vegetables.
Add the vegetables - all except the beansprouts and spinach (these will go in right at the end), if you like you can stagger them to get an even cooking, I'd add the courgette, carrot and pepper first and brown and then the rest, but honestly I generally like the crunchy vegetables crunchy and the softer ones softer so I chuck it all in and cook for the same amount of time.
Add in about 1/3 of the sauce mixture and toss through, as the vegetables start to cook you might need to reduce the heat slightly to prevent burning
Toss in the peanuts as well
Fry everything until it's starting to look cooked
Now add your noodles and all but a couple of spoonfuls of the sauce - use a spatula to break the noodles up a bit so the veg and noodles mix well (otherwise you get all noodles on top and all the veg at the bottom) - now is when you would add a whisked egg
when the noodles are heated through and everything is well combined, add the spring onions (if you're using them) beansprouts, spinach and the remainder of the sauce (just to coat the last few things)
Make sure the sauce is properly reduced (i.e. not just a runny mess at the bottom and has given everything a nice coating)
Serve and enjoy!

This recipe can be easily adapted to any different combination of meat, vegetables and noodles. I like to add red cabbage to my stirfrys at the last minute so there's something with a nice crunch as you eat it, but again this is just personal preference. Let us know any changes you make at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com

NB// these go exceptionally well with the Cherry Bakewell Monkey Bars we made for afters! http://twocooksoneblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/update-cherry-bakewell-monkey-bars.html

Christmas themed recipe soon to come!

Update - Cherry Bakewell Monkey Bars

Quick one today!

Tom and I decided that as the dark chocolate and cranberry monkey bars we made were so good, it was definitely time to make them again with a variation. So I had the ingenious plan of making cherry bakewell monkey bars. And they were good - so good they deserved their own blog post.

The ingredients are pretty similar, but obviously a few changes
2 cups rolled or jumbo oats (gluten free if needed)
1/2 cup flaked almonds
1/4 cup milled flaxseed
1/4 cup oat bran
2tbsp maple syrup
2tbsp golden syrup (you can use 4 tbsp of one of these but we decided to try a bit of both)
1/2 cup almond butter
1/4 cup honey
1 large banana, very ripe and mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon almond flavouring
 1/2 teaspoon salt
Glace cherries, halved
Morello cherry jam
Icing sugar and hazelnut milk (didn't measure, but make sure it's quite thick - the icing can look quite...unfortunate if it's too thin!)


So, as before ( http://twocooksoneblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/monkey-bars.html ) , mix the oats, almonds, flax and oat bran with the syrup and toast this mixture for 10 minutes. Mash the banana and place in a saucepan with the honey and almond butter and melt until you have a runny mixture. Add the vanilla and almond flavouring and the salt to this mixture, then add the two mixtures together. No need to wait for this one to cool down as it doesn't use chocolate so there's no risk of anything melting. However, this time, only put half of the mixture in the dish you are baking it in. Flatten this mixture out so it is a smooth covering for the bottom of the dish, then add a generous layer of morello cherry jam on top. Then layer the other half of the mixture on top and bake for 25 minutes, until golden. Then, add the halved glace cherries on top, and drizzle the icing over the top.

This makes more of a dessert than the original recipe - a bit more of a treat with the icing but it's a really good variation. The flaked almonds give it a lighter texture than the cashews did in the original, and the almond butter goes really nicely with the cherry jam. Morello cherry jam is amazing. I cannot stress to you how important it is to have a jar in your life. It also goes really well on a salted rice cake with a bit of almond butter (not that me and Tom were trying this whilst making these...).

These are becoming a bit of a favourite for us so we will let you know of more variations - and let us know what you try too!

Press the first layer down well so the jam stays on top!

We served ours with pomegranate. Don't ask why, it just worked...

Baked Aubergine

Tom today,

I have been feeling rather uninspired lately, hence a lack of blogging. This recipe isn't really a reversal of that, it's not exactly an inspiring recipe, but a simple, healthy and low calorie one that you can make quickly after work without much brain function left (as I am now). I'm making these with some oven roasted new potatoes as well.

This makes two portions (with a bit of stuffing left over)

Ingredients:

1 Aubergine
1/4 Courgette
3 small Mushrooms
1/2 Red Pepper
Handful of Sugarsnap Peas
1/4 cup shredded Red Cabbage
1/2 an Onion
3 large cloves of Garlic
1 and 1/2 Cans Tomatoes
3 tbsp Red Lentils
1 tsp Bouillon
1 tsp Mixed Herbs, Thyme, Rosemary, Paprika
Salt and Papper to taste
6 small New Potatoes (approx 300g)
2 tsp Olive Oil
Pinch Sea Salt Flakes

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celcius.
Chop up and par-boil the new potatoes for 5 mins or so.
Halve the aubgergine.
Scoop out an inch of the aubergine flesh to make a well, save the flesh to use in the sauce.
Place upside down on a baking tray, toss the new potatoes in 1 tsp of oil, sprinkle salt on top and place next to the new potatoes.
Place in the oven to roast for 20 minutes while you make the stuffing.
Chop everything up (including the aubergine flesh).
Fry all the vegetables (everything except for the tomatoes, bouillon, lentils and herbs) in a deep frying pan until browned.
Add all the leftover stuff plus 200ml of boiling water.
Simmer and reduce until the sauce is thick.
Take out the aubergines and give the potatoes a quick shake around.
Flip the aubergine over and fill with the sauce, place back in the oven for cook for another ten to fifteen minutes.
Wash-up, tidy, wipe down and generally do everything that you need too.
When the potatoes are browned and the stuffed aubergine is crispy round the edges, plate up with a small portion of salad.
Serve and enjoy!

I like my stuffed aubergine to be more like a sauce, but that's just personal preference so feel free to reduce the amount of tomatoes (and water) as you like. This works with literally any vegetables, these are just ones I generally have in the fridge.

This is also very easily adapted to suit your tastes, and works with a wide variety of vegetables (I often do this with butternut squash as well!)

As always, we love to hear your comments and ideas, email them to us at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com

Soon to come: Pad Thai!

For the Baked Aubergine (calculated using www.myfitnesspal.com):


                      Calories   Carbs     Fat     Protein     Sodium     Sugar
          Total:     105          16        3           4            377           8

The potatoes add another 225 calories, plus say 12 for a small salad giving a very nice total of 341 calories for this quite filling meal!

Gluten Free Christmas Stuffing

Hi, Jess again.

Firstly, apologies for the lack of blogging recently. Since the beginning of December, a truly horrific amount of food and wine has been consumed, leaving me very little time to do anything other than eat and drink (and pass out at 8pm). Oh, aside from working, having exams and assignments and travelling up and down the country for interviews. All of which I have definitely not been hungover for.

So anyway, my flat had a christmas dinner this week. I'm not going to patronise you with instructions of how to cook a christmas dinner, we all do it differently. We had seasoned roast chicken and potatoes and roasted the carrots and parsnips in agave nectar - amazing. And all gluten free. But my biggest issue with roast dinners is stuffing, I love the stuff but obviously it's not gluten free. So this year I decided I would make it myself, rather than cheat with one of the gluten free packet mixes (which I'm sure are nice, but I can't blog about a packet mix). The following recipe is adapted from the dietary specials website, and uses their gluten free brown ciabatta rolls (fellow gluten free people will understand that these are the best). It makes 8-10 stuffing balls so perfect for 3-5 people.

100g gluten free bread/2 gluten free brown ciabatta rolls
1 onion, chopped
1 apple, chopped
50g ready to eat apricots, chopped
2 tbsp cranberry sauce
10-15g butter, melted
50ml (or more or less, whatever you need) orange or cranberry juice
Sprinkling of nuts (I used pine kernels)
Mixed herbs to season

Crumble the bread/rolls until they resemble breadcrumbs. Chop the onion and apple, and fry until soft and slightly browned. Add the butter, onion and apple to the breadcrumbs and mix. Add the apricots, cranberry sauce, nuts and seasoning, followed by the fruit juice. Mix together, ensuring everything is evenly spread and you have the right consistency. Use the amount of juice you need, I didn't really measure it out, I just added what looked right (wine's fault, sorry). Use the herbs you want to use - I didn't want a particularly strong taste so went for mixed herbs but some fresh sage or parsley would go nicely too. Roll the stuffing into small balls, place on a baking tray and bake at 180C for about 15-20 minutes or until golden.

This recipe is so easy and goes really well with christmas dinner. The different fruits make it quite sweet, which makes a nice addition when you roast the veggies in agave or honey. You can substitute different juice or nuts depending on your tastes, but less us know how it goes and what you change when you make it!

Christmas dinner, served on a plastic plate, student style.

The most important part of any meal.

Gluten Free Chocolate Baileys Cake

That's right guys, the highly anticipated full fat chocolate cake post.

I made this to go with my flat christmas dinner. Nobody likes christmas cake, or christmas pudding. Or stollen. Or cheeseboards. Or anything other than chocolate cake, right? I have been waiting for an excuse to make a chocolate cake for ages, because I really can't justify making one for myself, so I figured christmas dinner was the perfect time. I jumped at the chance to make dessert and forced chocolate cake on my flatmates once we'd all already eaten a disgusting amount of food and drank our body weight's in wine. This cake is quite light, and stays fresh for a good few days afterwards. The original recipe contained a teaspoon of xantham gum, but I didn't have any. It would probably improve the texture but it can be made without. Don't ask me for nutritional information, I refuse to acknowledge the fat, sugar or calories in this. It will make me cry. But it's good, and calories don't count in December, so just don't think about it.


200g gluten free flour
2tsp baking powder
200g demerara sugar
175g unsalted butter
4 eggs, beaten
50g cocoa powder
75g ground almonds
1-2tsp vanilla extract
200ml milk
50ml Baileys

For the topping
Some butter
Some icing sugar
Some dark chocolate
Some baileys
Some milk

Heat oven to 180C and grease a cake tin (I used a 20cm one). Sieve the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder into one bowl. In another, cream together the butter and sugar (I used an electric hand whisk). Beat the eggs, and gradually add the eggs and vanilla to the butter and sugar mixture. Alternating between a tablespoon of each, fold the flour mixture and milk into the mixture, until you have a smooth mixture. Add the Baileys. Then fold in the ground almonds. By this point, you should have a smooth, chocolately mixture that falls off the spoon. Spoon this into the cake tin, and bake in the oven for about 40 minutes. It may take longer, the original recipe said 50 minutes but mine was definitely ready in 40 so check then and judge by what yours looks like.

Baileys buttercream

Melt about 50g butter with 100g dark (at least 70% cocoa solids) chocolate in a saucepan. Keep the heat low, you don't want it to burn. Add some icing sugar, add some milk, add some Baileys, add some more icing sugar, add some more Baileys....keep going until you have buttercream. I didn't measure quantities, I was drinking wine at the time, sorry. But it doesn't have to be precise. Just keep adding and tasting until it seems right. Once the cake has cooled, pour the buttercream over the cake and leave to set. And there you have it, gluten free chocolate baileys cake. Beautiful.

Look how pretty it looks with cherries on top...

And yeah, I smudged the icing when I put more on top because I'm greedy.

PS - I apologise for the imprecise nature of some of these recipes. Wine takes over...

Gluten Free Porridge

Jess' turn!

This is essentially the antithesis to Tom's muesli post. Me and Tom will have to eternally agree to disagree on the way to eat oats. Personally, the idea of eating oats soaked in cold water is not appealing. Oats should be eaten hot! Porridge is the way forward.

Firstly, I implore you to not buy 'instant porridge'. It is overpriced and really not great. Yes, there are lots of wonderful flavours out there but in my experience, they never taste as good as you expect them to and it would be a LOT cheaper to make the flavours you fancy yourself. There are so many ways to make porridge more exciting than just hot milky oats, I will never understand people who say porridge is boring. It's great, filling comfort food and only needs to take a few minutes to make!

So anyway. Please buy plain oats. I would recommend Scottish oats (I don't know why they're nicest, they just are). I don't buy gluten free oats because they are exceptionally expensive compared to normal ones and I've never had a problem with oats, probably because I'm wheat intolerant not coeliac. But if you are coeliac and need gluten free oats, don't buy the instant packs, just buy the oats in a bag. Trust.

This post isn't going to result in an exciting recipe to try - it really is as simple as this:

Put 40-50g oats in a bowl. Add 200-250ml milk or water or a mix of both (depending on how creamy you want it to be). Microwave on full power for 2 minutes, stir, microwave further if needed. There you go. Porridge.

That's what I do when I have work or uni to attend in the morning. Add some fruit on top and you're sorted. There is no need for sugar. However, there are variations that make it more exciting. Making porridge with 1 part oats to 1 part oat bran makes a slightly creamier texture and since oat bran is great in lowering cholesterol and is generally recommended in weight loss plans (eg. Dukan diet), I like to think it's healthier even if the calories are the same. I use no-fat skimmed cows milk for my porridge, usually half milk and half water, but using hazelnut or almond milk makes a nice change sometimes.

One thing i always always always add to porridge is cinnamon. If you don't like it, sorry. But cinnamon makes everything amazing. I tend to add it once the porridge is already cooked, and just stir it in on top with fruit. Cinnamon porridge with raisins and hazelnut milk - please tell me if anything has ever sounded more appetising! Chop or grate an apple into cinnamon porridge and you have a bowl of apple cinnamon goodness for breakfast. Adding a bit of maple syrup to porridge is lovely too. As is honey. And jam - morello cherry flavour is a favourite at the moment. Blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, strawberries, chopped banana, all wonderful additions. A tablespoon of milled flaxseed on top adds omega fats and protein. A handful of nuts and seeds also works. Literally anything goes.

Except instant porridge and sugar. Enjoy!

Pan-Fried Cabbage

A quick one from Tom today,

Whilst making a thai red curry, the internet (I have absolutely no clue where I found it) suggested this as a nice side for the meal. However, it was so freakin tasty I felt it deserved it's own post, and I will definitely be putting this on the side of many more things! This would also work well with white cabbage if you prefer (or a mixture), I'm not sure about savoy or chinese but I think they would be okay.

This makes enough for a small side for two

For the Pan-Fried Cabbage:

1 tbsp Olive Oil
1 cup of shredded Red Cabbage
2 cloves Garlic
1 tbsp Soy Sauce (I used dark)
1 tbsp Saki (optional, I thought it added a nice flavour)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a frying pan.
Add the cabbage, garlic, saki, soy sauce and fry on a high heat for just a couple of minutes so all the liquid is gone and the cabbage is nicely coated but still crunchy.
Once off the heat, season as you like.
Enjoy!


Nutritional Information (calculated using myfitnesspal.com) -


                      Calories   Carbs     Fat     Protein     Sodium     Sugar
          Total:      201         13        14          2            625           5
Per Serving:       101           7         7           1            313           3