Showing posts with label FreeFrom Food Awards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FreeFrom Food Awards. Show all posts

Wednesday, 8 January 2014

2013. The Best Bits

Happy new year! I do hope you're all getting used to writing 2014, instead of 2013. I'll still be getting it wrong in April, but that's nothing new! Before I rush, head first, into the brand new year ahead, I thought I'd take a moment to look back at the highlights of 2013. Predictably, my favourite bits are all food related.


The absolute best bit of 2013, for me, was my trip to River Cottage for their gluten free cookery course. As well as completely changing the way I approach my baking, it showed me how removing the gluten from something doesn't automatically require me to add loads of rubbish in its place. I've embraced many more grains and different gluten free flours than before, and I've even made my own sourdough starter! I'm dropping serious hints to my family about the advanced course that's running in August (coincidentally, just after my birthday)!


The most moreish cake of the year was Honeyrose Bakery's Banana Cake. They sent me a sample back in April and I'd eaten the entire thing before I had a chance to photograph it! In fact, I've bought many more banana cakes since then, and they all seem to magically disappear in a matter of minutes. The Husband doesn't even like banana, so I can't blame him - this cake really is good! Actually, all of the free from products I've tried from Honeyrose Bakery are excellent. I particularly love their individually wrapped brownies and macaroons, I can pop a couple in my bag for peckish moments when I'm out and about!





Back in Spring, I started to notice that Asda's distinctive yellow and black free from packaging was being used for non-gluten-free products, and wondered what was going on. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I work for Asda, but until 2013 I had very little in the way of praise for their gluten free offerings.) I was delighted to discover, however, that they were phasing out the old packaging to make way for an extended range of free from products, in new purple packaging! As well as their own-brand products (of which, the cheese sauce mix and cous cous are my personal favourites) they have introduced an increased range of products from other producers, like Isabel's and The Good Little Sausage Company. Well done, Asda! Now when people ask me what I think about my employers' own gluten free effort, I don't have to change the subject.


Eating pizza has never been better for us gluten free types, has it? Pizza Express and Pizza Hut showed the rest how it should be done, and Dominos did all they could to encourage us to eat our pizza at home! I don't know what 2014 holds for Coeliacs eating out, but the brand new Free From Eating Out Awards are sure to reveal a few gems.

Speaking of the Free From Food Awards (at least, indirectly), one of the highlights of last year's awards ceremony was the opportunity to try the Indian Coeliac's fabulous parathas. They are available to order, and I really do recommend you try them too. As the judging starts soon for this year's awards, I'm excited about what brilliant products I'm going to discover this time!


So, what were your free from highlights of 2013? Was it the chance to eat a decent bagel again? Maybe it was gluten free pasta turning up in the fresh food aisle of the supermarket? Could it have been the much discussed quarter final of The Great British Bake Off and its free from elements? Or, was it something else altogether? Let me know in the comments section!

Monday, 14 May 2012

Fria Gluten Free

The Holy Grail of gluten free bread is one that has a soft, but slightly chewy, texture and tastes like 'real' bread, not that generic, bland starchy flavour that many of the usual suspects have.  Oh, and one that doesn't disintegrate when you dip it in soup or a boiled egg.  Well, such a bread exists!  Fria Gluten Free have achieved, in my opinion, the ultimate in gluten free bread.

Fria products come pre-frozen so you can store then in your freezer and only defrost what you need, ideal if you are the only Coeliac in the village because you'll never have to contend with the age-old race to finish the bread before the mould gets it.


A couple of weeks ago, I received a huge box of goodies from Fria Gluten Free and I have been dutifully greedily working my way through the products ever since...

The breads I received were, Limpan, Vita and the award winning Grova, and all were outstanding.  All defrosted at room temperature within 30 minutes and made fantastic, soft sandwiches.  


Limpan is a light brown Swedish style loaf that has the most delicately sweet hint of orange that makes a great addition to the breakfast table.  Vita is a white bread that is better than any other white bread available, (and high fibre!) it is so soft that it seems a shame to toast it, but it does make brilliant toast, too.  Grova, winner in this year's bread category at the FreeFrom Food Awards, contains linseed and caraway seeds, so it's packed with flavour and has a texture that would fool any non-coeliac!


The Minibaguette and Grov Minibaguette are just like those part-baked baguettes you probably remember from your pre Coeliac days.  Warmed in the oven, the crust becomes crispy, combined with the fluffy insides, these are the best gluten free rolls I have tried yet.


If you fancy something sweet, Kladdkaka, the chocolate brownie cake, thoroughly deserved it's commendation in the FreeFrom Food Awards!  Oh, and thanks to Caroline from Sweetcheeks for recommending Kanelbulle, the delicious cinnamon buns.

You can buy Fria Gluten Free Products at:

Scandinavian Kitchen, 61 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 7PP
TotallySwedish, 32 Crawford Street, London W1H 1LS
TotallySwedish, 66 Barnes High Street, London SW13 9LD
GFF Direct (delivered nationally) – www.gffdirect.co.uk
TotallySwedish (delivered nationally) – http://www.totallyswedish.com/en


Friday, 20 April 2012

FreeFrom Food Awards 2012


I could tell you all about the winners of this year's FreeFrom Food Awards, but you've probably already read about it on the FreeFrom Food Awards Winners page.  I could tell you all about the awards presentation evening, but Alex Gazzola has done so with more eloquence than I could.  Instead, I want to tell you about some of my own personal highlights and discoveries from the judging process, and the awards evening.

Steve, from Foodamentalists

I was delighted to meet Steve of Foodamentalists, who makes some truly excellent products (hence the commended Black Pudding and Caramelised Red Onion Pork Pie and Brown Bread Mix, the highly commended Golden Batter Mix and the winning Gluten, Wheat and Dairy Free Frangipane Mince Pies) and is deeply passionate and committed to developing gluten, wheat and dairy free products of quality.  I was introduced to Catherine of Sweetcheeks, who was joint winner in two categories, cakes and sweet treats, whose ethos of natural ingredients without all those strange additives usually found in gluten free cakes was clearly something that was important to her.  I checked out her webpage when I got home and was instantly drawn to the beautiful cakes, donuts, macarons and whoopie pies that she sells on Marylebone High Street on Saturdays.  I will be heading there soon!  I (briefly) managed to chat to Liz, from The Cake Crusader, to discuss our wardrobe choices after our exchanges via Twitter, earlier in the day whilst trying to find something to wear!

Cake Crusader, Liz and Sweetcheeks' Catherine

As one of the judges who tackled the mammoth 'ready meals' category, I was delighted by the quality and variety of dishes available.  As much as we all might strive to cook our meals from fresh ingredients, sometimes we need a bit of convenience in our lives and it appears that we have quite a choice on offer.  So large was this category, that it was finally split into two separate awards, meat based meal centres and savoury pies, pizzas and ready meals.  The winners, The Co-operative's Truly Irresistable Minted Lamb Burgers and The GlutenFree Kitchen's Ovencrust Chicken and Bacon Pie are two great examples of the many great products we tested.

The pasta and pizza bases category was won by Farabella Acini de Pepe, imported by Drossa.  As I listened to the judges opinions on these pasta grains "Delicious in a salad, excellent as a couscous or bulgar alternative, lovely in soup with nice separate grains, a good bite and a great flavour…", I realised that I have a bag of this in my kitchen cupboard and I haven't tried it yet!  I will be digging it out of the depths soon, I promise.

The winners with Antony Worral Thompson who presented the awards

I met many fantastic people throughout my involvement with the FreeFrom Food Awards and I have enjoyed every moment, from the lively debate of the judging, to the nettle beer and networking of the awards presentations.  Who else is looking forward to what 2013 has to offer?


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Wednesday, 18 April 2012

Gaelic Coffee Cakes

It's been quite a week...

I was at the BBC Good Food Show at Glow, Bluewater, on Friday.  The highlight was a fantastic live Masterchef cook-off between this year's champion, Shelina Permaloo and 2011 winner, Tim Anderson.  John and Gregg are far more entertaining in real life than they are on the TV show, funnier and less intense, and the two chefs cooked stunning dishes.  The competition was very close but, Tim's smoke filled mozzarella ballon was the clincher!  I came home laden with goodies, including smoked rapeseed oil and Anila's Spicy Korma Curry Sauce.  

On Saturday, I visited friends who have a new baby girl and a brilliantly energetic two-and-a-half year old.  We have been friends since our first year at university and they are such warm and funny people (who share my slightly weird sense of humour) that spending time with them is always enjoyable.  I took some of my White Chocolate Rocky Road, which their wee girl described as "too nice", probably the best compliment I could have hoped for!

Monday was the Husband's birthday so the day was filled with much food, including a homemade brunch and a dinner at Wagamama in Canterbury!

The FreeFrom Food Awards presentation took place yesterday (Tuesday).  The evening itself was spent catching up with fellow judges and bloggers, as well as meeting some of the shortlisted producers.  When I have had time to organise my thoughts I will write a post about the many well-deserving winners and more than a few exciting (and mouth-watering) discoveries I found along the way.  You can see a list of the winners, highly commended and commended entries on the FreeFrom Food Awards winners page.

Today, I returned to work for the first time since my surgery.  I was anxious about going back, I hadn't worked since the end on January and although I was keen to get back to normality, I felt like I had forgotten everything I knew about how to do my job.  My fears were unfounded and everyone was very welcoming, making me forget about the all the worrying I did before I got there! It feels like the final step towards normality, like I'm getting on with my life sans colon and it feels great.

Oh, and somewhere in all of the above, I baked many birthday cakes for the Husband and his colleagues!  



Gaelic Coffee Cakes
The cake part is actually the same as my Mocha Cupcakes but without the cocoa powder (just add 10g more flour instead).  The exciting bit is the Swiss meringue topping, you'll need a kitchen blow-torch to make these.

12 coffee cupcakes (see my mocha cupcake recipe)
30ml Drambuie (or other whisky liqueur)
3 egg whites
150g caster sugar

  • When the coffee cupcakes are still warm from the oven, poke a few holes in the tops of each.  Trickle 1/2 tsp Drambuie over each cake and let it soak into the cakes.  Leave to cool.
  • Put the egg whites and sugar into a heatproof bowl and place over a saucepan of just simmering water.  Do not let the bottom of the bowl touch the surface of the water.  Whisk the eggs and sugar together for 5-7 minutes, until the sugar dissolves and the egg whites warm up.  Remove from the heat and whisk until the mixture forms stiff peaks (if you have an electric hand-mixer it will save you a lot of arm ache).
  • When the cakes are cool, fill a piping bag with the meringue and pipe a blob of meringue on to each cake.  Brown the meringue tops with a blow-torch, taking care not to set fire to the paper cases, if used.  
  • (That final tip may, or may not, be down to personal experience.  I'd rather not confirm it either way.)



Friday, 24 February 2012

FreeFrom Food Awards 2012

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

Ok, at the start of February; in London (It just feels an age ago, since the whole ileostomy/colectomy thing happened in the meantime.) I was lucky enough to be a judge for this year's FreeFrom Food Awards. Founded and run by Free From Foods Matter, the FreeFrom Food Awards are in their 5th year and celebrate those food producers who create product that are free from one or more of gluten, wheat, dairy, soya, egg, yeast or sugar.  

Coincidentally, I have been Coeliac for 5 years, so the FreeFrom Food Awards have been guiding me since the beginning of my journey!  I have bought products on the merit of being shortlisted in previous FreeFrom Food Awards and I look forward to the list being published each year, so it was a huge honour to be invited to take part in the judging process this year.

As the various judges arrived, I started to feel completely out of my depth; all the other judges were established food writers, journalists and bloggers with far more experience and influence than me.  Once the judging was underway, however, I started to relax and enjoy myself and Michelle was very warm and made me feel that my opinion was just as important as everyone else's.  I was excited to be involved with some really interesting categories, (bread, ready meals, desserts and beer) and made some very inspiring discoveries in the process.  Two of my favourite discoveries turned out to be from the same producer, Butterfly Snacks, who make the gluten free roti and gluten free spring rolls that I was thoroughly impressed by.  Also worth a mention, I think, are Dietary Specials tortelinni (filled gluten free pasta!) and The Food Resource's Fusilli al Funghi, both would make a quick and tasty lunch and are made with pasta with a decent bite to it.

The shortlist was published at the start of this week and you can view it on the FreeFrom Food Awards website  


I am very much looking forward to the awards ceremony on the 17th April and I will fill you in on all the winners then.


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