What does Rachel eat?

The Tuna Mayo Sandwich Fiasco

2011-09-19T06:53:00.000-07:00

It is a truth universally acknowledged that anyone who finds themselves on a strict exclusion diet will crave something they're trying / supposed not to eat.

For me, it's the simple pleasure of a tuna mayo sandwich.The other day I decided to try out the Orgran white bread package mix. (The previous week I'd had a real success with their cornbread mix.) They're an Australian company and their products are all gluten free, wheat free, egg free, dairy free, GM free, yeast free and nut free - perfectly Rachel Friendly (I thought).

Oh if only I'd taken pictures - the mess, the mess, the terrifying mess. It was like trying to cook with a substance slightly more unwieldy than Polyfilla. Mixing it together in the bowl was hard enough, trying to transfer it to the baking tin was nigh on impossible. In the end I resorted to scooping it from one receptacle to the other with my hands, my hands then stuck to each other, I resembled a yeasty swamp-creature.

Once transferred the goop resembled a mountain range, or a meringue topping. We don't have an airing cupboard so I set it to rise in the bathroom and, after 15 minutes the dough had indeed risen above the rim of the tin.

Half an hour or so in the oven and the smell of fresh bread wafted through the house, disrupting my meeting with our new stage manager.

After letting it rest for a while I cut a little slice off and tasted it.

And that's where the trouble started.

It was delicious.

I mean, maybe not for my normal bread-eating friends and relations.

But, as far as I, having not eaten 'safe' bread for years, was concerned, this was heaven.

After my meeting I set about making my first tuna mayo sandwich in a very long time.

I had, previously, been conducting some serious and scientific taste tests into the various brands of egg-free mayonaise on the market. Mr A threw the Plamil rice-based alternative away as it was impossible to eat without retching, the Granovita one was OK - though did give the impression of being able to strip paint as well as make lettuce taste nice, but the clear winner is the Life Free From one from Waitrose, as recommended by my brilliant, and knowledgable on more than just the subject of egg free mayonaise, acupuncturist.

So, I fought my way into a tin of tuna, mixed it with some of the mayo, a few sliced spring onions, some wholegrain mustard, a pinch of salt and pepper, and a spoonful of capers. Sliced open an avocado and cut some wafer thin slices and assembled the sandwich with some baby spinach leaves.

I'm telling you - it was better than a meal from a michelin starred restaurant.

For desert I cut another slice, spread on some dairy free Pure spread and pushed some dairy free chocolate chips into the soft bread.

Heaven!

I carried on noshing at bits of the bread for the rest of the day.

By the evening I was quite poorly.OK - I was very poorly in the stomach department.

I think it was surfeit rather than intolerance as there's nothing much in the bread which I could have reacted badly too. At least, I hope so. I'm rather reluctant to try again though.

So - perhaps my first and last tuna mayo sarnie for a while.

The Scone Disaster

2011-08-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

My lack of blogging does not reflect a lack of cooking experiments over the past month. More a reflection that all has gone unamusingly well. The last month has seen some very tasty sunflower seed biscuits, some awesome carrot and beetroot muffins, and a delicious fig and date thing (which resulted in me eating far too many figs and dates - a surfeit which, lets just say, I won't be repeating in a hurry).

I also made some (less successful) muesli bars, which turned out to be just muesli, but very good smashed up in a bowl with some rice milk.

On holiday recently I found myself craving a scone and so I've just attempted a recipe with one or two (fatal) substitutions.

On the recipe's website various people had posted about how delicious these were. These people were wrong.

I made them with very little fuss and surprisingly small amount of mess - possibly a little over-floured the surface on which I kneaded and patted out the dough - but other than that my cooking process was as flawlessly 'Delia' as you could wish for. I sat on my haunches and watched them rise and turn a tantalising golden brown colour. I waited for the cooker clock to chirrup its merry beep.

I opened the oven door and a delicious smell wafted out. Waiting just long enough for them to be cool enough to eat without ending up in a burns unit, I broke one in two - the texture was perfect.

Then I ate it.

Oh dear.

That can't be right.

The scones were bitter and completely inedible.

I tried the whole of one and a bit of another - just to be sure.

Then I ate a pickled cucumber to take the taste away.

What on earth do you do with a batch of 14 inedible scones?

I'm waiting for Mr A to come home - he's good at throwing things away.

Postscript:

Mr A came home.
I told him not to eat them, honestly I did.
Then he ate one - just a little bit.
Then he threw them away for me.

The only thing I can think of that could make them so disgusting was the soya yoghurt I used instead of the natural yoghurt the recipe called for.
Either that or the addition of pieces of dates - but they tasted fine on their own.

Ah well, at least they looked nice!

In which we encounter ladybirds, soup, experiments and the difficulty of transferring a sticky mixture from one bowl to another

2011-07-03T13:06:00.000-07:00

So. First experiment went well.

Beetroot leaf soup. Recipe below:

Wash the leaves
Find a ladybird
Put ladybird outside (due to love of all insects since co-creating a show called 'The Bug and The Butterfly')
Cut leaves in half
Cut thumb
Put leaves in saucepan
Take leaves out of saucepan and chop up a bit more
Cut thumb
Wash walls down from pinkish splatters
Wash mud down from sink
Find little tiny snail
Put little tiny snail outside
Saute an onion
Saute leaves
Add in a pint(ish) of stock
Add in a bit more stock
Google 'herbs that go well with beetroot'
Add in some bay leaves and some thyme
Leave to simmer for 20 minutes or so
Start making very complicated muffins (see below)
Liquidize soup
Burn hand
Transfer to smaller saucepan
Dribble brownish soup mixture down sides of liquidizer
Put lid on saucepan and leave until friend arrives to drink soup.
Soup tastes nice - think it would be improved with a dollop of cream - but not for me.
It's quite brown.

Rice bran sultana and sunflower seed muffins. Recipe as follows

Whilst soup is bubbling receive call from friend (talented composer with whom writing an opera) invite round for soup and muffins.
Panic
Start making muffins
Recipe calls for molasses - think to replace with prune puree - bung prunes into saucepan with the end of some orange juice - set to boil
Cream brown sugar and margarine - use spoon not handmixer due to lack of available plugs and remarkably limited workspace in kitchen - this is the last easy moment of the recipe
Friend texts to ask house number
In reaching for the phone, knock the liquidiser off the microwave into the bowl with the sugar and margarine, nearly loose everything, wish for a larger kitchen
Whip up some egg replacement stuff - looks a bit like frothy white cuckoo spit - worry - box says to use quickly and get in oven or else it stops being effective
Add in 8.5 fl oz of soya milk - taste a bit, think, 'hmmm not too bad' - mixture very sloppy
Open rice bran packet, feel disappointed at small amount of rice brain inside box
Look for 'cup' can't find 'cup' - look on top of cupboard - bang head on ceiling - estimate cup size using mug, then add a little more for good luck
mixture a little less soggy - but still not really 'cake' consistency
prune puree not ready but still no molasses in cupboard so mix up some runny honey with some baking powder (recipe says 'baking soda' but don't have any of that.) Try to get honey mixture into main bowl - not easy - it's very sticky - it's honey - it's meant to be sticky.
Add a little more baking powder
Add in a full mug (2 cups) of rice powder - and then a little more (for good luck) - consistency looking quite 'raw cake mixture' like - eat some - bit grainy but none of the usual fear of salmonella poisoning that comes with eating uncooked cake mix.
Toss in the end of a packet of raisins (I would have added saultanas but I can't spell them) and some sunflower seeds
line muffin tray with fairy-cake cases, they're too small so expect major sticking issues later
spoon mixture for 18 muffins into 12 cases - overfill cases - eat the rest raw - bits of the rice bran stick in my throat
put in oven
put oven timer on for 30 minutes
liquidize soup (see above)
survey destroyed kitchen
wash up
friend arrives
timer shows 10 minutes remaining
muffins look done
take muffins out
they're done
burn hand taking muffins out of muffin cases and placing onto wire wrack (however they slide out very easily and no mess on baking tray - hooray)
share muffin with friend
make prune puree - add some vanilla essence a dash of water and a load of cinnamon, use stick blender to whush up a bit - realise it looks disgusting, tastes delicious
eat prune puree with muffin
celebrate first gluten free cooking experiment

Mr A comes home - eats soup, eats cupcake, refuses prune puree.

Pictures to follow

The very first blog

2011-07-03T07:23:00.000-07:00

So. Last week I visited a doctor who told me, conclusively, that I am allergic to wheat, gluten, dairy, eggs, and tomatoes. Add that to beans, pulses, nuts and all manner of other things that I will continue to avoid and the question is raised, 'What does Rachel eat?'

And so, I've set off on a journey of discovery - yesterday the supportive fella took me to the incredibly exciting Whole Foods shop in High Street Kensington and bought various types of gluten free flour, egg replacer, xanthum gum, rice bran, quinoa, cornmeal, linseed and so on, all of which Mr A carried home without (much) complaint.

As I use them up in the aim of making yummy things to eat I have set myself the challenge of blogging about them - and posting pictures too - partly to document what works and what doesn't, partly to reach out to the online community of people who can't eat stuff like what I can't eat, and partly (as the last clause shows) because I once considered myself a writer and rarely find the opportunity to write anymore.

So - let's give this blogging thing a go.

First on the agenda - beetroot leaf soup and rice bran muffins!