Going Gluten Free?

by Liz Child

It is Gluten Free day on the 13th of January. Check out our gluten free section here.

Coeliac disease affects 1% of the population, however it is estimated that only around 30% of those people are diagnosed. There’s a big difference between people with coeliac disease and people who are gluten intolerant. When a person with coeliac disease ingests gluten, even just a small amount from accidental cross contamination, their immune system will attack its own body’s digestive tissue causing pain and serious problems including the inability to properly absorb nutrients. Whereas, if a person is gluten intolerant, the consumption of gluten will cause short-term bloating and belly pain. Unlike coeliac disease, gluten intolerance doesn’t usually cause long-term harm to the body. Either way, if you are avoiding gluten, perhaps just to try and improve your gut health, here’s a quick summary of what to look out for and some tips. All the images in this post are gluten free, organic products that we stock alongside our fresh produce to make your gluten free journey a little easier.

What is Gluten?

Gluten is a general name for the proteins found in wheat, rye and barley. It acts as a glue and helps foods hold their shape. It’s what makes bread and pasta dough stretchy and bouncy. Luckily there are other natural ingredients which can be used as binding agents in place of gluten. Of course it is not quite the same but yes, you can still eat biscuits, cakes, pasta and breads with a little know-how.

What to Avoid

If you are avoiding gluten, it should be clearly labelled on packaging. But you should know this list of gluten containing ingredients to make sure you know exactly what to avoid.

  • Wheat (including spelt, durum, semolina, emmer, farina, farro, graham, einkorn, wheatberries, KAMUT® khorasan wheat)
  • Rye
  • Barley
  • Triticale
  • Malt in various forms including: malted barley flour, malted milk or milkshakes, malt extract, malt syrup, malt flavoring, malt vinegar
  • Brewer’s Yeast
  • Regular Oats (although oats are technically gluten free, they are usually cross contaminated in fields and factories with wheat so look for gluten free oats!)

What To Eat

The good news is that if you are avoiding gluten there are loads of things you CAN eat! So let’s focus on those.

  • Fruits
  • Vegetables
  • Nuts and Seeds
  • Beans and Lentils
  • Certain Grains and Flours (including buckwheat and buckwheat flour, corn and it’s flours eg cornstarch and polenta, potato and it’s flour, rice and rice flour, amaranth, quinoa, millet, tapioca…oats, when labelled gluten free are fine too…)

You just need to avoid gluten which is found in certain grains and flours. Generic oats usually have been cross contaminated with wheat in the fields, whereas gluten free oats are grown carefully to avoid cross contamination and processed away from gluten containing products. This explains why gluten free oats are a little more expensive than regular oats.

Easy Alternatives

Ready made gluten free products are getting better and better. We stock a range of gluten free pastas, bread and even pizza dough in our shop. We also have gluten free oats available. Unfortunately a lot of ready made gluten free products contain lots of strange ingredients to help bind things together and imitate wheat gluten, so we recommend always reading the label, or looking into ways to make your own alternatives. We try to source the best, organic and natural products to make your choices easy. If you are avoiding eggs, be extra careful to read the labels as a lot of ready made gluten free products contain eggs to help things bind together.

Make your own

We stock many of the raw ingredients necessary to create your own gluten free alternatives. Research tried and tested gluten free recipes online and please do share your successes (and failures) with our supportive community facebook group here. There are loads of gluten free recipes, or recipes which can be tweaked to be made gluten free on our recipe blog here. In fact most of the recipes are naturally gluten free! Do you have any top tips on being gluten free? Do share them in the comments.

Easy, Low Waste, Apple Cake

by Liz Child

We know this recipe off by heart. It turns out perfectly every time with a sweet and tangy fruity bottom and a soft and tender sponge top. It’s the perfect pudding served warm with custard, cream or ice cream or served cold in slices with a cup of tea. This is our favourite low waste cake recipe because it’s the easiest and most delicious way to use up both the aquafaba from a tin of chickpeas (which is usually discarded) and apples, or any excess fruit really! We just often end up with too many apples in our fruit bowl, and so, before they go bad, I like to chop them up and put them in boxes or jars in the freezer, so useful for quick cakes and crumbles. We do the same thing with berries, pears and bananas (for smoothies and banana bread). Let me know if you give this simple cake a try.

Liz x

Ingredients

  • 1 tsp butter (for greasing the flan dish, I use Naturli)
  • 3 tsp sugar
  • enough chopped apples to cover the base of your dish (or any fruit you like eg berries, chopped pears, pineapple, plums, apricots…)
  • aquafaba (the liquid from a tin of chickpeas) around 150ml
  • 100g sugar
  • 200g flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp cinnamon (or vanilla or other flavourings of your choice)
  • 3 tbsp milk (I use oat milk)
  • 4 tbsp good oil (I use olive)
  • 1 tsp icing sugar to dust at the end, optional

Method

  1. Preheat your oven to 175C and find a large flan dish or cake tin. You can even use a small roasting dish if you like, there’s no law to say your cake has to be round.
  2. Grease your dish by rubbing butter all over the base and up the sides. Then sprinkle over 3 tsp of sugar.
  3. Arrange your fruit over the butter and sugar as neatly or rustically as you like.
  4. In a mixing bowl, whisk the aquafaba until frothy, then add the sugar and whisk until creamy.
  5. Add the flour, baking powder and cinnamon and stir to combine. Careful not to over-mix here! Don’t worry if the batter looks a bit lumpy.
  6. Now add the milk and oil and mix again, briefly, to just combine into a thick batter.
  7. Spread the batter over the fruit, don’t worry if it looks a little thin and doesn’t quite reach the sides, it is supposed to be quite rustic and pudding like rather than a neat cake, and besides, it will spread and rise a lot in the oven.
  8. Now bake until the cake is risen and golden and springs back when you lightly press on the top. This should take between 30 and 40 minutes but ovens, fruit and dish sizes vary so just keep an eye on it.
  9. Drench with icing sugar and serve it warm in puddingy scoops with dollops of cream, custard or ice cream. Or let it chill and serve in neat slices with a cup of tea.

Spaghetti Bolognese

by Liz Child

Lentil Bolognese is a store-cupboard staple. Lentils are full of nutrients, most notably fibre, protein, B vitamins, iron, magnesium, zinc and potassium. These humble and inexpensive seeds are well worth including in your diet regularly, and they make a great mince meat substitute.

Liz x

Ingredients

  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 white onions, diced
  • 5 cloves of garlic, diced
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 3 carrots, diced
  • 1 tbsp chopped dried mushrooms
  • 200g dried lentils (a mix of green/red/brown is nice for different textures)
  • 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 2 tins chopped tomatoes
  • 1 glass red wine
  • 700ml+ water
  • salt and black pepper to taste
  • pasta and nutritional yeast to serve

Method

  1. Sauté the onion, garlic and bay in the olive oil over a medium high heat until it’s soft and golden.
  2. Add the carrots, mushrooms, lentils, vinegar and tomatoes. Stir then cover with the water and season well.
  3. Simmer until the sauce is rich and thick and the lentils are cooked through. Test them after 15 minutes and add more water if necessary.
  4. Taste and adjust the seasoning with more salt and pepper as you like. Then serve.
  5. Stir some of the sauce through the drained spaghetti and loosen it with a little reserved pasta water. Then serve in bowls with extra sauce on top. Finish with a sprinkle of nutritional yeast flakes for a salty, cheesy topping.

Back to Basics – Vegan Swaps

by Liz Child

These days it is easier than ever to make plant based swaps. Here’s a quick summary of simple switches to help you on your Veganuary journey. We stock the best organic groceries in our vegan section to make it easy for you.

MILK is one of the easiest switches to make. There are lots of delicious options out there. Our favourite is oat milk as it has a fairly neutral but gorgeously creamy flavour and texture. It also happens to be the most environmentally friendly option.

BUTTER is easy to switch too. We have a few organic options which (unlike most dairy free spreads) do not contain palm oil. A couple of soft, spreadable ones, Cocovit and Natruli, and the most amazing Naturli Butter Blocks.

CHEESE is a little trickier but not impossible. Dairy cheeses contain casein, an addictive property which makes cheese very hard to give up. But there are more and more delicious vegan cheeses on the market and we are proud to stock some of the best in the world. Have a look at our range here. We also stock nutritional yeast flakes which are tangy, salty and delicious! sprinkle them over pasta like parmesan or over popcorn, or stir into a vegan béchamel sauce for that essential cheesy favour.

EGGS are tricky, but not altogether impossible, to replace if you want them boiled, poached or fried. But scrambled silken tofu is surprisingly similar to soft scrambled eggs. It’s all in the seasoning. Replacing eggs in baking is easy. Follow tried and tested vegan cake and pancake recipes on our blog. Sometimes eggs are simply replaced with raising agents and plant milks, sometimes they are replaced with mashed bananas, apple sauce, milled chia or linseeds. Egg whites can be replaced with aquafaba, the liquid from a tin of chickpeas.

MEATS won’t be missed if you make sure your meals are well balanced with proteins and fats from beans, lentils, nuts and seeds. Meat isn’t missed at all if you cook traditional meat free recipes of course, but we all crave the food we have grown up eating. So replace mince with green or brown lentils and crumbled walnuts to make your bolognese sauces, shepherds pies, chillies etc – it’s all in the seasoning. Replace diced meat in stews and curries with beans and chickpeas or diced tofu. For pulled pork try replicate the texture with jackfruit, pulled mushrooms or aubergines. If you’re craving a steak, try a juicy vegetable steak made from a thick slice of cauliflower or celeriac or a couple of big, roasted, meaty portobello mushrooms. For roasts, burgers and sausages try making nut loaf or beetloaf and shaping it to your needs. For fish try firm tofu, score it thinly and marinade in lemon juice and seasoning, wrap with some nori seaweed, dip in batter or breadcrumbs and fry or bake. 

Build Your Own Brunch Burritos

by Liz Child

This breakfast is one for a lazy weekend morning. It’s what we’ll have for new year’s day morning this year and we’ll be repeating it often as it was so popular in our home. Everyone is happy because they can build their own to their taste. There are sweet and savoury options and it’s such fun for the little ones in your life. Luckily it’s a breeze to put together too, especially great for those mornings when you need some extra sustenance and are not feeling 100%. Fill them with traditional breakfast foods and why not add a Mexican twist to the savoury options as a nod to the burrito with avocado, jalapeños, refried beans, salsa etc?

Liz x

Ingredients

  • tortilla wraps 
  • bananas (& other fruits)
  • chocolate spread
  • peanut butter
  • a selection of cereals
  • savoury breakfast foods eg:
  • scrambled tofu with spinach
  • roasted potato cubes/hash browns
  • roasted mushrooms & tomatoes
  • avocado, jalapeños, black beans…

Method

  1. Pre-heat your oven to 200C and find two baking dishes, line with baking paper.
  2. Chop potatoes into cubes, drizzle them with olive oil and season them with salt and pepper. Add extra spices too if you fancy eg ground coriander or smoked paprika. Tumble the potatoes into one side of one baking tray. 
  3. Cut tomatoes into wedges and add them to the other side of the tray with a drizzle of oil and a sprinkle of seasoning. Alternatively make them into a simple salsa by dicing them and adding sliced scallions, seasoning and chopped coriander?
  4. Slice portobello mushrooms into thin strips and give them a smokey bacon    treatment? Toss them in a bowl with a drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkle of salt, pepper and smoked paprika (or liquid smoke), a little maple syrup brings some sweetness. Spread them out in the other roasting dish.
  5. Get the dishes into the oven to roast the vegetables for 20 minutes or so while you set the table and make scramble. Heat up a frying pan to a medium heat with a knob of vegan butter, add silken tofu, season well with salt, pepper and a pinch of turmeric and break up the tofu into curds with a spatular. Stir and warm through then add chopped or baby spinach and cook until the spinach is wilted. 
  6. Keep everything warm while you set the table. Place a stack of soft tortilla wraps on a plate. Put out the sweet options, chocolate spread, peanut butter, cereals, bananas etc for people to make sweet burritos (we like to spread the wrap with chocolate or nut butter, sprinkle over cereal for added crunch, place a peeled banana in the middle then roll up and slice). Bring out the roasted vegetables and scramble for the savoury burritos and the optional extras like jalapeños, avocado, etc. 
  7. Assemble as you wish and enjoy! 
A deliciously messy, overstuffed, savoury breakfast burrito

Beetloaf

by Liz Child

This is a really delicious and hearty veggie main for your festive feast, made with ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen. A great option if you need an alternative to a nut roast, this beetloaf is nut free, can easily be gluten free if you use gluten free oats, and is full of healthy fibre and protein from beans, chickpeas and oats. Make is Christmassy as I’ve done here with a cranberry sauce glaze, or use it for another occasion and switch the cranberry sauce for barbecue sauce, apple chutney or a mustard and maple glaze. Make it your own with your favourite herbs and spices. Happy Christmas!

Liz x

Ingredients

  • 400g cooked beetroot
  • 1 tin of chickpeas plus the liquid in the tin
  • 2 tins black beans, drained
  • 1 tbsp each: smoked paprika, sage, rosemary and thyme
  • 2 tbsp tomato purée or ketchup
  • 2 diced onions and 4 diced garlic cloves cooked in olive oil
  • 150-200g porridge oats
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • cranberry sauce to glaze (around 6 tbsp)

Method

  1. Pre-heat your oven to 200C and line a loaf tin with baking parchment.
  2. In a food processor, blend the beetroot, chickpeas and their liquid, herbs and spices, seasoning and half the black beans into a thick purée.
  3. Add the onion/garlic mix, 150g of oats and remaining black beans and pulse together to retain some texture.
  4. Scrape the mixture into a bowl, taste and adjust the seasoning if needed and add more oats if a little wet.
  5. Scrape into the lined loaf tin, cover with cranberry sauce (or any glaze you prefer eg barbecue sauce, mustard and maple…) and bake for around an hour or until cooked through.
  6. Serve in slices with all the trimmings. Gravy, roast potatoes, greens…

Simone’s Festive Apple Loaf

by Liz Child

Our farm photographer (farmtographer?) Simone has kindly shared her families festive apple loaf recipe with me. This is a delicious German cake, full of fruit, nuts and spices. It’s just the thing, thickly sliced and spread with butter on a chilly afternoon with a big mug of tea. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. It tastes very Christmassy and I’ll definitely be making it again. If you have lots of apples to use up, then this recipe will certainly help! And the recipe just happens to be egg, dairy and fat free (that is, until you spread your slice with butter of course!)

Liz x

Ingredients

  • 500g peeled and grated apple
  • 200g sugar
  • 125g raisins
  • 6 dried apricots, chopped
  • 70g almonds, chopped
  • 1 heaped tsp cocoa powder
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp ground cloves
  • a pinch of salt
  • 40ml rum (or fruit juice)
  • 250g plain flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder

Method

  1. Mix the apple and sugar in a large mixing bowl and allow it to sit in the fridge overnight or for an hour or so at room temperature.
  2. Pre-heat the oven to 175C. Line a loaf tin with baking parchment.
  3. Add the rest of the ingredients to the apple and sugar mixture (which should now be very wet) and mix to evenly combine the ingredients into a thick, spoonable batter.
  4. Spread the batter into the lined loaf tin and bake the cake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or so until it is risen and set. It should still be moist but when you insert a skewer it should come out mostly dry with a few damp crumbs.
  5. Allow the cake to cool in the tin then remove and slice it thickly. This cake stays fresh for a week in the fridge if tightly wrapped.

Quick Pickled Red Cabbage

by Liz Child

Red cabbages are one of those festive vegetables that often get wasted. Food waste is a big environmental problem which is exacerbated over Christmas. Instead of braising the whole cabbage for your Christmas dinner, why not pickle some of it? It makes it last a lot longer and tangy, crunchy, pickled red cabbage is the perfect festive accompaniment to cheese boards, leftovers sandwiches, and to even top currys, chillis, tacos etc. It’s quick and easy to do. All you need is vinegar, salt and sugar, a clean jar or two and some optional spices.

Liz x

Ingredients

  • 1/4 of a red cabbage
  • 300ml apple cider vinegar (we LOVE Clashganny Farm’s organic ACV)
  • 300ml water
  • 2 tbsp salt
  • 2 tbsp sugar (optional but really nice)
  • optional flavourings of your choice eg juniper berries or pickling spices

Method

  1. Start by finding a big jar or a few small ones, enough to fit in the cabbage. Give the jars a really good clean and hot rinse. Or you can sterilise them to be extra safe. Put the washed and rinsed jars in a clean sink then fill them with freshly boiled water from the kettle. Wait a minute then carefully empty the jars (use oven gloves or a folded tea towel so you don’t burn your hands). Let them air dry while you get on with chopping the cabbage and heating up your vinegar solution.
  2. Measure the vinegar, water, salt and sugar into a small pan, add the optional juniper berries or pickling spices to the jars and slice the cabbage.
  3. Then thinly slice the cabbage and stuff into the jars. Lightly press the cabbage down into the jars to pack them in neatly. You should leave a cm of room in the jar.
  4. Heat up the vinegar solution and as soon as it comes to the boil, take it off the heat and pour it into the jars. The solution should cover the vegetables, if you need to make more vinegar solution, then do so. You can halve or quarter the recipe of course if you only need a little more. Give the jars a light tap on the work surface to remove any air bubbles that may be trapped between the layers of cabbage. Then screw on the lids whilst the jars are still hot.
  5. Allow them to cool on your kitchen work surface, then refrigerate. The pickled cabbage will be ready to eat in two days and will last in the fridge for 2 months.

Potato Peel Crisps

by Liz Child

We very rarely peel our organic potatoes. It’s not just about being lazy, potato skins are delicious and very high in nutrients and fibre. Also, food waste is not just a waste of our hard earned money, it’s actually a huge emitter of green house gases. But sometimes, especially for Christmas dinner, we want ‘proper’ roast potatoes that are fluffy in the middle, golden and crispy on the outside. So we peel.

No need to waste the peels though! It makes no sense to throw out all that delicious, nutritious potato. I bet your granny had a good way of using potato skins up? This is my favourite way. What’s yours?

Liz x

Ingredients

  • Potato peels
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and pepper (or another seasoning you like eg: garlic granules, paprika, chilli, rosemary, lemon zest, nutritional yeast, onion powder…)

Method

  1. Pre-heat your oven to 200C. Scrub your potatoes and then peel them directly into a large roasting dish.
  2. Drizzle over some good olive oil, a little goes a long way here.
  3. Season with a little salt and whatever else you fancy. Be careful with the salt, a tiny pinch is usually enough, you can always add more salt after but you can’t take it away. Mix well to ensure each peel is coated in the oil and seasoning.
  4. Bake in the oven until the peels have turned into crisps. Usually around 15 minutes. Keep an eye on them and take them out to stir every 5 minutes or so to ensure they are not sticking and they are cooking evenly.
  5. Allow them to cool then enjoy!

Roast Potatoes, Sprouts & Clementines

by Liz Child

This is my favourite way to make really Christmassy roast potatoes. When the oven is full for a big roast dinner, it’s a great way to double up in one dish too. Brussel sprouts are best when roasted or sautéed rather than the traditional boil and flavouring them with red onion, sage and clementines just screams Christmas! Don’t forget to save the potato peels and make crisps! There’s a lot of flavour, nutrients and fibre in those organic peels.

Liz x

Ingredients

  • Potatoes – think X amount per person
  • Brussels sprouts – 6 or so per person
  • Clementines – 1 between 4 people
  • Red onion – 1 between 4 people
  • Sage – 3 leaves per person or 1 tbsp dried between 4 people
  • Vegetable oil – a generous slick in the roasting dish plus a drizzle for the bowl of sprouts
  • Salt and Pepper to taste

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Peel your potatoes and leave them whole if they are small, or cut them into large, even chunks. Place the potatoes into a large pot of water and bring it to the boil.
  2. Boil the potatoes until par-cooked. They should just be soft on the outside but still firm in the middle. Meanwhile pour a generous slick of vegetable oil into a roasting dish which will comfortably accommodate your potatoes and get it in the oven to heat up.
  3. Drain your potatoes into a large colander. Give the colander a good shake. This will rough up the outsides of the potatoes which will make a gorgeous crispy exterior in the oven.
  4. Carefully remove the roasting dish from the oven and tip in the roughed up, par-boiled potatoes. Use a spatular or tongues to turn the potatoes in the hot oil then pop the dish into the oven to continue cooking the potatoes while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
  5. Cut the ends off the sprouts and cut them in half. Remove any damaged outer leaves as you go. Put all the cut sprouts into a large mixing bowl.
  6. Slice the clementines into rounds and peel and slice the red onion. Add both to the bowl with the sprouts.
  7. Season the bowl of sprouts, red onion and clementines with salt, pepper and sage and mix well with a drizzle of vegetable oil.
  8. Keep an eye on the potatoes in the oven and turn them regularly to ensure they are cooking evenly. Once they are beautifully golden and crispy (after around 20-30 minutes) remove the dish from the oven. Carefully tip in the prepared sprouts, red onion and clementines. Mix carefully then return the dish to the oven.
  9. After around 15 minutes, the sprouts and onions should be cooked through and the whole dish should smell amazing. Enjoy alongside your other roast dishes and gravy. Merry Christmas!