Allergy free olive and rosemary bread recipe

Ingredients

• 3 cups Orgran self-raising flour
• ⅓ cup Orgran gluten free gluten
• ½ cup sliced black olives
• Pinch of salt
• 80g Nuttlex
• 1⅓ cup goat’s milk
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsps sea salt
• 1 sprig rosemary, leaves picked

Method

• Preheat oven to 200°C.
• Grease and flour a baking tray. 
• Combine the flour, gluten free gluten, olives and salt in a large bowl.
• Use your fingertips to rub the Nuttlex into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
• Add the goat’s milk to the flour mixture and use a round-bladed knife or a spoon in a cutting motion to mix until the mixture just comes together, adding 1-2 tbsp extra water if the mixture is a little dry.
• If needed, use your hands to bring the mixture together. Mixture should be sticky but thick.
• Do not knead the dough, as there is no gluten. Merely roll and press (don’t fold or stretch) until the dough is soft and slightly springy.
• Dust your hands with flour and remove
• Shape the dough into a ball and drop it onto the baking tray from a ½ metre up. Press the dough down until it is wider and mostly flat on top.
• Press your thumb gently into the dough a few times to make dints.
• Brush top with tablespoon oil.
• Sprinkle with rosemary and sea salt
• Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes or until the bread is cooked through.
• Transfer to a wire rack for 5 minutes to cool slightly.

Allergy free Thai tamarind chicken stir fry recipe

Ingredients

• 2-3 tbsps olive oil
• 1 double chicken breast, sliced 
• 8 shiitake mushrooms, sliced
• ½ red capsicum, sliced
• 1 shallot, sliced
• 1 purple onion, sliced
• 2cm fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into matchstick-like pieces
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• ¾ tsp chilli flakes
• 1 tsp cornflour dissolved in 3 tbsp allergy free soy sauce replacer
• 2 tbsps sherry
• 1 handful fresh basil

Tamarind Sauce

• 2 tsps tamarind paste
• ⅓ cup chicken stock made from a Massel salt reduced chicken ultracube
• 2½ tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tbsp sugar

Method

• Place the sliced chicken in a bowl and pour over the cornflour and soy sauce replacer mixture.
• Stir well to coat the chicken then set the chicken aside.
• Make the tamarind sauce by mixing all sauce ingredients together in a cup.
• If the paste is very thick, heat up the stock to help dissolve it.
• Set aside the sauce.
• Heat a wok over a medium-high heat.
• Drizzle in the oil then add the garlic, ginger, onion, shallot and chicken with the marinade.
• Stir-fry for about 2-3 minutes.
• Add the sherry 1 tbsp at a time as you stir-fry, particularly whenever the pan starts to become dry.
• Add the mushrooms, capsicum and chilli.
• Start adding the tamarind sauce 2-3 tbsps at a time.
• Continue stir-frying for 4-5 minutes or until all the sauce has been added and the chicken and mushrooms are cooked.
• Remove the wok from the heat.
• Taste-test and adjust the seasonings to match a sweet and sour/pleasantly tangy like flavour.
• If needed add up to 1 tbsp fish sauce (not salt) and another tbsp or two of sugar in order to balance the sour edge off the tamarind flavour.
• Serve with rice and fresh basil.

Christmas movies for Grinch-like adults

Pre-watched at Christmas and approved for the full Grinch effect

Silent Night, Deadly Night, 1984

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, 2010

The Nightmare Before Christmas, 1993

Die Hard, 1988

Die Hard 2, 1995

Lethal Weapon, 1987

To be watched (or re-watched) at Christmas

Jack Frost, 1996

To All A Good Night, 1980

Silent Night, Bloody Night, 1974

Santa Claws, 1996

Don’t Open ‘Till Christmas, 1984

Santa’s Slay, 2005

Gremlins, 1984

Black Christmas, 1974

Christmas Evil aka You’d Better Watch Out, 1980

Sint (Saint), 2011

Silent Night Zombie Night, 2009

Elves, 1989

One Hell of a Christmas, 2002

Tales from the Crypt – The Robert Zemeckis Collection, 1989

Child's Play, 1988

The Ice Harvest, 2005

Behind Enemy Lines, 2001

Allergy free sweet cherry and vanilla pikelets recipe

Ingredients

• ¾ cup Orgran self-raising flour
• 2 tsps caster sugar (optional)
• ¾ cup goat’s milk
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 50g glace cherries, chopped
• 1 tsp Orgran No Egg
• Olive oil cooking spray or Nuttlex

Method

• Whisk the goat’s milk and vanilla essence together and set aside for half and hour.
• Sift the flour and No Egg into a large bowl.
• Stir in the sugar.
• Make a well in the centre.
• Add the goat’s milk mixture to the flour mixture.
• Add the cherries.
• Combine until smooth.
• Lightly spray a non-stick frying pan with oil or melt over some Nuttlex.
• Heat a frying pan over a medium heat.
• Using ¼ cups of batter at a time, cook each pikelet for 2 to 3 minutes or until small bubbles start to form on surface.
• Carefully turn each pikelet over.
• Cook for 1 to 2 minutes or until golden and cooked through.
• Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Allergy free Thai lemongrass chicken stir-fry recipe

Ingredients

• 2 tbsps olive oil
• 2 shallots, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 double chicken breast, thinly sliced
• 1 carrot, sliced fine
• Approx. 150g mushrooms, sliced
• Up to 1 tsp chilli flakes (optional)
• 2 white inner stems fresh lemongrass, thinly sliced
• ½ red capsicum, sliced
• ¼ cup coconut milk
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 2½ tbsps fish sauce or 1 tsp salt mixed with 2½ tbsps water
• 2 tsps of Massel salt reduced chicken style stock powder
• 1 pinch ground white pepper
• 25 fresh Thai basil leaves
• 1 tbsp kaffir lime leaves, thinly sliced, or lime zest
• 1 tsp lime juice

This week's guest - all week that is - is Shirin. She has an Asian anything food deficiency
from travelling all over Europe that needs to be addressed.

Method

• Preheat a wok over a medium high heat and add the oil.
• Add the shallots and garlic.
• Sauté the shallots and garlic until light brown, making sure to stir constantly to prevent burning.
• Add the chicken, carrots and mushrooms.
• Stir and separate chicken slices.
• Add the chilli, lemongrass and capsicum.
• Continue to stir.
• Just before the chicken is cooked through stir in the coconut milk, sugar, fish sauce, stock powder and white pepper.
• Toss in the basil, lime leaves and lime juice.
• Serve immediately with steamed rice.

Rosy's Christmas fiction gift recommendations

Here are some new, some old, some series, some stand alones and some untested but interesting looking for Christmas gift ideas and Boxing Day shopping madness.

Fiction

Moral Life of Soldiers by Jerome Gold

Live By Night by Dennis Lehanne

Man in the Empty Suit by Sean Ferrell

Romance

Karen Chance's Cassandra Palmer series

Nalini Singh's Psy-Changelings series

Ilona Andrew's Kate Daniels series

Detective

Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series

The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

JD Robb's Eve Dallas series

Science Fiction

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The Eternal Flame by Greg Egan

The Aylesford Skull by James P. Blaylock

Fantasy

Eileen Wilks Lupi series

Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series

Jonathan L Howard's Johannes Cabal series

Horror

The Complete Works Of H.P. Lovecraft

World War Z by Max Brooks

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Classics

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Kids

Doctor Who: Where's the Doctor? of the Dr. Who series

Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series

Jasper Fforde's The Last Dragonslayer