Merry Glutenless Christmas!

Christmas! A time for family, presents and feasting until your stomach can't take any more. But what about us? Gone are the days I could just eat whatever is plonked in front of me and now I have to plan carefully weeks in advance.

Christmas day itself will involve going tomy boyfriend's parents' and I will be taking along some sort of gravy mix and Mrs. Crimble's sage and onion stuffing mix. I have also found a great gf tarta called Almondy, which is available from the freezer section in Sainsburys. They make an amazing range of gluten free desserts but the one I am particularly interested in has Daim bar pieces in it. Yum!

Boxing day is a whole different kettle of fish, for I am cooking! For no real reason, I ordered a goose from Sainsburys a couple of weeks ago and will be picking it up tomorrow. A goose, for goodness sake! What on earth am I going to do with that? I think I got a bit carried away with the whole romance of a sumptuous boxing day feast, evidence for this is in the fact that I also ordered a venison striploin! I am happy that I have now found a recipe for red wine gravy, which I intend to completely rip off and use rice flour instead of cornflour. I also intend to copy a recipe for profiteroles from Delicious magazine, only using gf flour to make the pastry. I have never done this before and whether I ever will do again will depend on how this goes. There's nothing like experimenting with recipes on the day, rather then doing a "dry" run! The filling should be easy, as they will (should) contain a salted caramel cream. I will post again after the big day with my tales of disaster / success!

Please feel free to share any tips you might have with me. I hope your Christmas day cooking goes well and that you all have a fun, healthy and fulfilling Christmas.

MissC

[FionaGFG Administrator]

Congrats Miss C! I look forward to the next post on how the GF Christmas with Goose and Vension went. Instead I will be seeking help from Mr Jamie Oliver and Mrs M&S. For anyone else not blessed with the cooking gene I can confess that M&S have silently increased their range of gluten free products. Top tips are:

Mini Sausages in Bacon (GF symbol on the front of the pack - nice move M&S!), GF Sausages (that actually taste great), GF Mince Pies (they don't taste like saw dust - result!), Selection of nibbles including stuffing balls.

Luckily my sister will be directing the GF Feast again this year. So I will posting the results here and on our Facebook page... Last year we managed a fine GF Bread sauce and stuffing. Don't ask me how - I was the chief washer up. I will get the secret recipe and post soon. Another top tip is make your gravy either from scratch and use cornflour to thicken. Mr Jamie Oliver showed on his TV Christmas show this week on C4 that you can make this in advance and reheat on the big day. Neat. For those who are cooking challenged like myself I highly recommend Bouillion Gravy from Waitrose. I've tried the Bisto Best one and whilst it is meant to be GF it always makes me feel sick as it's made in the same factory as gluten items. So read those labels like a hawk people and go with your gut.

If I can move after all that good GF food I'll post up from more blogs over Xmas...Have a great one!

jamieoliver.com/forum/viewt...

ocado.com/webshop/product/J...

[Hidden]

profiteroles are one of the few things that work really well with Doves Farm flour. You just need a little more water/less flour. They freeze well cooked or you can freeze blobs of the dough and bake from frozen if this would help.