It is constantly surprising how many things contain wheat, barley or rye. There are obvious things that you cut out straight away—bread, pasta, beer, cakes and pastries—unless they’re specifically marked “gluten free”. But there are a host of less obvious things as well, turning you into an expert in reading food contents labels. Things to check carefully on a gluten-free diet include:

• chocolate and lollies
• cereals
• biscuits and crackers
• French fries—these can be coated with flour before deep frying
• gravy mixtures
• processed meats and sausages
• salad dressings
• sauces, including soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, Hoisin sauce
• seasoning mixes, including rice and noodle flavourings
• seasoned snack foods, such as potato and corn chips
• soups and stocks
• spreads, such as Vegemite, peanut butter, Anchovette paste
• yoghurts—some of the flavoured ones are thickened with gluten.

To anyone attempting a gluten-free diet, making the change seems daunting—“what am I going to eat?” being the primary concern. Our diets are often so loaded with breads and cereals that you can’t have any more, it can be a real challenge to find alternatives. There are plenty of delicious things that you can eat, it’s just about making sure you eat enough to fill you up.

Gluten-free fillers

Our favourite gluten-free fillers are:

• chickpeas, lentils, beans (kidney, cannellini, butter, fava, black)
• quinoa, buckwheat, polenta
• seeds, nuts
• corn, rice, potatoes
• eggs
• plus a host of other fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and fish.

Gluten-free substitutes

If you’re really struggling to fill up, here are some of the things that we’ve substituted into our meals to make them gluten free.

Tasty gluten-free meals

Gluten free doesn’t mean flavour free! We make some delicious gluten-free meals. Once you learn what you can and can’t eat it makes it much easier to adapt your recipes to suit. Check out some of our regular dishes:

Soups

• Zucchini, potato and feta soup
• Dhal
• Chestnut soup
• Pumpkin soup

Salads

• Witlof, apple and walnut salad
• Quinoa tabouli
• Asparagus and pea salad
• Orange and fennel salad
• Coleslaw
• Caramelised pear & fennel salad with gorgonzola

Mains

• Herbed rissoles
• Coconut chicken curry with banana chutney
• Pasta with cauliflower, peas, mint and quinoa
• Coconut, chicken and banana curry
• Thyme and lemon lamb with zucchini and chickpea
• Lamb and haloumi skewers
• Beef tacos
• Fish with charred Mediterranean vegetables
• Tuna with bean salad

The types of comfort foods we eat are different for everyone. For me, I associate things that are loaded with calories—some sweet, some savoury—with comfort and feeling better. I know I’m not alone in that. I mean, realistically, has anyone ever come home from a bad day at work and said, “I’ve had such a bad day, I really need some salad to cheer me up”? No, it’s things like chocolate, ice cream, or potato chips that we crave…

So what are the key qualities of comfort food? As I see it:

• nostalgia—some of my favourite comfort foods, the ones more like a meal than a snack, are the dishes that take me back to nana’s kitchen or special family dinners. For me, that’s things like roast lamb with mint sauce or pumpkin soup
• a treat—if something in my life isn’t going quite to plan I like to give myself a little boost with a sweet treat. Chocolate caramel slice anyone?
• pleasurable to eat—the sheer enjoyment of eating something decadent and delicious, even if it may not quite fit in with the healthy eating plan. I make a very simple dish that I class as comfort food—it’s the creamy sauce of garlic chicken majestic. I just love it!

Looking back over some of my previous posts it seems I have quite a few comfort foods. In addition to the ones I’ve already mentioned, take a look at:

• ‘stralian beef curry. Who doesn’t love a good curry?
• scrambled eggs. Best…brekkie…ever!
• herbed rissoles served with creamy mashed potato. Two comfort foods on the one plate—heaven!
• savoury beef roll. It’s like a giant sausage roll…need I say more?

Hmmm, nothing healthy in that list. I would love to hear from you if salad really is your comfort food. And if so, what’s the salad recipe? It’s gotta have bread or potato or creamy mayonnaise, right?!

Until a couple of years ago, I’d never made bircher muesli. I had this idea in my head that it was complicated. Then I stumbled upon a great recipe for bircher muesli and refined it to suit my own tastes. It takes about five minutes to prepare, but then has to be left for a while to allow the oats to soak up the fruit juice and yoghurt. I like to leave my bircher muesli overnight so the flavours really infuse and the oats become really soft.

If you love a healthy breakfast that will keep you going all the way until lunch, bircher muesli is definitely worth trying. This recipe makes enough for two serves.

Ingredients

1 apple (your choice of variety depending on your tastes), cored and grated
1 cup rolled oats (or quinoa flakes for a gluten-free alternative)
½ cup Greek style yoghurt
½ cup pure apple juice or milk
1–2 tbs sultanas
A pinch of ground cinnamon, to taste
2 tbs pepitas
¼ cup whole blanched almonds
¼ cup walnuts

Method

Combine the grated apple, oats (or quinoa flakes), yoghurt, apple juice or milk, and cinnamon in a bowl. Cover with cling film and leave for at least an hour but preferably overnight.

When ready to eat, add the pepitas, almonds and walnuts, and stir through. Serve immediately.

Note: you can replace the apple juice with pineapple or orange juice. Instead of sultanas you could try dried apricots, currants or cranberries. The pepitas and nuts can be substituted with your choice of seeds and nuts—your aiming for a bit of crunch. Also consider adding toasted shredded coconut.

Fruit mince parcels are a wonderful Christmas treat, and not quite as sweet as fruit mince pies. You could make your own fruit mince (well in advance of Christmas Eve to allow the fruit to soak in rum), or you could keep it simple like I do and buy a good fruit mince (I use Robertson’s Traditional Fruit Mince).

What’s beautiful about fruit mince parcels is they are made with filo pastry rather than sweetened shortcrust pastry, so they are really crunchy when you bite into them. The buttery filo is the perfect foil for the rich sweetness of fruit mince.

Ingredients

410g jar of Robertson’s fruit mince
375g filo pastry
3 tbs melted butter

Method

To make the fruit mince parcels, pre-heat the oven to 200°C.

Lay out on the kitchen bench (or large cutting board) one sheet of filo pastry and brush it with melted butter, lay another sheet straight on top and butter it. Repeat until you have six buttered sheets of filo pastry. Note: Allow your filo pastry to completely defrost before using it. It should be a room temperature before you try to spread it out otherwise the pastry will crack.

Cut the pastry into approximately 12cm x 12cm squares (adjust the size of the squares depending on the size of your pastry sheets; I end up with six squares from each of mine). In the centre of each pastry square place 1 tbs of fruit mince. Gather up the sides of the filo pastry and pinch in together just above the fruit mince so that it is enclosed in the pastry. The filo pastry above the fruit mince should resemble the gathered cellophane around the top of a chocolate truffle.

Butter the outside of the fruit mince parcel and place on a lined baking tray. Repeat until you’ve used all the fruit mince. The quantities should make between 15 and 20 fruit mince parcels.

Place the tray of fruit mince parcels in the oven and allow to cook until golden brown, approximately 10 minutes. Once golden, remove from the oven and allow to cool—the fruit mince will be bubbling furiously while baking. These should be served warm with a dollop of double cream.

If you wanted give fruit mince parcels as little festive gifts in the lead up to Christmas, allow them to cool completely and tie thin green and red ribbons around the gathered section of pastry.

Part of cooking a roast turkey is finding a delicious stuffing, for us that’s chestnut stuffing. Chestnuts have an incredible richness that is simply beautiful with roast turkey (and it would work very well in a roll of beef as well). We use some of the chestnut stuffing inside the turkey cavity to flavour the meat and bake the rest of the stuffing separately to serve as a side dish. That way there are two different textures—soft and moist from inside the turkey, and a crunchy side dish.

Be warned, there is a ridiculous amount of butter in this recipe, but the chestnut stuffing tastes so good it’s worth it. And it’s Christmas, so hang the calories.

Ingredients

2 x 425ml tinned chestnuts, drained, rinsed and roughly chopped
2 cups butter
2 onions, finely diced
6 stalks celery, finely diced
1 x 375g packet dried breadcrumbs
1¼ cups fresh herbs (rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano—choose the blend that suits your tastes, for us it will be homegrown sage), finely chopped

Method

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in the onion and celery, and cook until soft.

Add in the chestnuts, breadcrumbs and fresh herbs, and combine thoroughly. Set aside until you’re ready to stuff the turkey.

Note: This can be made the day before and refrigerated. Before stuffing the turkey with it, make sure the chestnut stuffing is at room temperature—cold ingredients going into the turkey will slow down the cooking process.

Once the turkey is stuffed, spread the remaining chestnut stuffing in a layer 1½–2cm thick across a shallow baking dish. Avoid pressing the stuffing into the dish, you want rustic chunks of stuffing. Bake in a moderate oven (180°C/350°F) until golden and crunchy, approximately 20–25 minutes.

Summer is here and the weather is really heating up (today is 33°C and the forecast for tomorrow is 39°C!) so it’s the perfect time to be tucking into a great crunchy salad. For me, when it’s this hot the thought of not only cooking but eating a hot meal is just too much to bare so last night I whipped up an old favourite from last summer—witlof, apple and walnut salad with honey mustard dressing.

This recipe is based one by Matt Moran with some variations. What I love about it is the tartness of the apple and the crunch from the witlof and roasted walnuts. The radicchio gives a delightful slightly bitter twist. Combined with a dressing that has a hint of sweetness, I just can’t help going back for more…and more and more.

Ingredients

Leaves of ½ a radicchio (or you could use 1 red witlof)
Leaves of 1 white witlof
1 handful of rocket
1–2 green apples, sliced approximately 4mm thick (I like apple so I generally use 2)
70g walnuts, roasted

Dressing

20 ml chardonnay vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard (I like to use Maille)
1 tsp seeded mustard
2 tsp honey
70ml grapeseed oil
salt and pepper to taste

Method

In an oven pre-heated to 180°C, roast the walnuts for 10–12 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

While the walnuts are roasting make the dressing by whisking together the vinegar, mustards and honey. Still whisking, slowly pour in the grapeseed oil and combine. Season with salt and pepper.

Rinse the witlof, radicchio and rocket well and combine in a bowl with the apple slices. Drizzle with the honey mustard dressing and toss to coat. Move the leaves onto a serving platter and sprinkle the roasted walnuts over the top. Serve immediately.

I think this makes a beautiful accompaniment to a whole roasted chicken.

Note: The makes four large serves. if you want to make a smaller quantity, simply leave out the radicchio and only use 1 apple.

Herbed rissoles are a meal from my childhood, a real comfort food. Back then herbed rissoles were regularly served for dinner with creamy mashed potato and steamed greens, or as beef burger patties with salad, cheese and tomato sauce on a crunchy bread roll.

Herbed rissoles traditionally have bread soaked in milk added to the mix to fill them out and help keep them moist when cooked. They are also usually lightly dusted in plain flour before frying to help develop a golden brown crust on the outside. Now that we’re trying to eat less gluten this is a no–no so I’ve played around with the herbed rissole recipe and managed to reinvent a really tasty mix. I actually think it’s better than the original.

The secret of perfect herbed rissoles, or any burger patties, is in how vigorously you combine the ingredients. It’s important that the mixture holds together when cooked and to achieve that you need to massage the ingredients into each other so that they bind together thoroughly. The salt and milk help by acting as a kind of glue that binds the rissoles. As you work the ingredients together with your hands you’ll feel the texture of the minced beef change. Once it starts to get sticky it’s ready for the pan and won’t fall apart while cooking.

Cooked over medium heat, the resulting herbed rissoles are golden brown on the outside and dense but tender and juicy on the inside. I like to use a mix of fresh and dried herbs—the fresh herbs add lovely subtle leafy green flavours, the dried herbs pack a bit more intensity into the meat. Here’s how to make my herbed rissoles:

Ingredients

30g butter
1 onion, finely chopped
¾ cup mixed fresh herbs, finely chopped
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
1kg lean minced beef
½ cup milk
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
2 tbs olive oil

Method

Melt the butter on low–medium heat and fry the onion until it’s soft and golden, approximately 10 minutes.

For the fresh herbs I use a mix of parsley, oregano, basil, thyme and rosemary. I choose whatever is looking the best from my herb garden—sometimes it’s all five, other times not. By trying different combinations you’ll find one that best suits your tastes. My favourite is parsley, basil and oregano. The dried herb blends then supplement the fresh ones with some additional flavours and a much stronger taste. Note: if you’re not able to find good quality fresh herbs, you could use only dried herbs (approximately 1–2 tbs).

When the onion is cooked, combine it with the fresh and dried herbs, salt, pepper, milk and minced beef. Mix the meat together using your hands and combine it until the texture become sticky. Shape the mixture into patties that are about 2cm thick and set aside. Note: This raw mixture freezes well in zip lock bags if you want to separate some for cooking later.

Heat the olive oil in a large frypan over medium heat. When the frypan is hot add the herbed rissoles and cook through, turning occasionally, for approximately 8 minutes. To test they are done, cut into the centre of one and ensure the meat is no longer pink. Serve immediately.

For me, quinoa tabouli is the essence of summer. It’s light and very refreshing. The simple dressing means that the flavours of the raw vegetables are allowed to shine through and it is very clean on the palate. I feel good after eating it.

Quinoa tabouli not only tastes great, it is also very healthy for you—parsley being a source of antioxidants, folic acid, and vitamins A and C, and quinoa a source of protein, dietary fibre, phosphorus, magnesium, iron and calcium.

Quinoa tabouli takes a lot less time than the more traditional version with burghul (cracked wheat), but none of the delicious flavour is lost and it’s gluten free.

Serve with a bit of ham and hommus, barbecued lamb, or grilled chicken.

Ingredients

1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
3 cups curly parsley, chopped
2 cups baby grape tomatoes, halved
1 Lebanese cucumber, deseeded and diced
4 shallots, finely sliced
¾ cup mint, chopped

Dressing

⅓ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
¼ cup olive oil
1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
freshly ground salt and pepper to taste

Method

Rinse the quinoa well in a colander to ensure there is no grit. Once rinsed, place it into a small saucepan with the water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes, or until the water has been absorbed. Remove the quinoa from the pan and place on kitchen towel to drain.

Meanwhile, place the lemon juice and olive oils in a small bowl. Add a pinch of salt and pepper to taste and whisk to combine. Set aside.

Place the cooked quinoa into a large salad bowl and add the parsley, tomatoes, cucumber, shallots and mint. Toss to combine. Pour in three-quarters of the salad dressing and toss to coat. Taste and add additional dressing if needed.

The fresh banana chutney is critical to the dish. It takes a simple tasty curry to the next level—being sweet, spicy, tangy all at the same time. A brilliantly refreshing summer dish.

Ingredients

For the coconut chicken curry:

1kg chicken breast, diced into 2–3cm pieces
3 tsp turmeric
2 tbs peanut oil
1 onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
5cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1–2 birdseye chillies, seeded and finely chopped
3 tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 tsp mild curry paste (I use Korma paste)
1 cup chicken stock
400ml coconut milk

For the fresh banana chutney:

2–3 fresh bananas, diced
½ a small purple onion, finely diced
1 birdseye chilli, seeded and finely chopped
¼ cup fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped
2 tbs freshly squeezed lime juice

Method

Heat 1 tbs of the peanut oil in a large saucepan. Add the chicken pieces and turmeric, and stir to coat. Cook the chicken over medium heat until golden brown and cooked. Remove from the saucepan and set aside.

Heat the remaining 1 tbs of oil in the pan and add the onion, garlic, ginger and chillies. Allow to cook over medium heat until the onion is starting to soften. Add the curry paste and tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes so the tomato starts to break down. Return the chicken to the saucepan and add the stock and coconut milk. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down to low and allow to simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour or until thickened to your liking.

When the curry is just about ready, make the banana chutney. Place the onion in a bowl with the lime juice and allow to sit for 2 minutes. Add the banana, chilli and mint and stir to combine.

Serve the coconut chicken curry on a bed of rice with a couple of spoonfuls of the fresh banana chutney.

I have a guilty snack that I like to indulge in—cheese scones. While cheese scones don’t rate highly on the health scales, they are full of flavour and perfect with a cup of tea for a mid-morning snack. The ones in our household are gluten free, using a mix of maize and brown rice flour instead of wheat flour.

Ingredients

1 cup maize flour
1 cup brown rice flour
30g cold butter, cut into 1cm cubes
1 cup milk
1 cup grated cheddar cheese (or your preferred blend)
¼ cup grated parmesan cheese
1 tsp gluten free baking powder
Tiny sprinkle of pepper
½ tsp dry mustard powder (optional)
Sprinkle of dried oregano or mixed herbs (optional)

Method

Pre-heat oven to 220°C.

Sieve the two types of flour, mustard and pepper into a large bowl. Rub the cold butter into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add in the grated cheeses and gently mix through completely, ensuring there are no large clumps of cheese. Add ¾ of the milk and mix through with a knife using a slicing action to combine all the ingredients together into a dough. Judge the consistency of the mixture—it should be firm but not crumbly—and add more milk if needed.

Form the mixture into a ball with your hands. Place it on the floured bench top and pat it into a 2cm thick layer. Using a small round cutter (approximately 5cm), cut out the scones and place them on a tray lined with greaseproof paper. The scones should rest immediately beside each other with no gaps between. Sprinkle with dried herbs and place in the oven for 12 minutes.