Gluten Free Underground Restaurant  

In Memoriam

I have been debating whether or not to publish this blog post. It is very personal and very sad and I was afraid of “lowering” the tone of the blog which, after all, is meant to be about our supperclub and kitchen and the food that we prepare.

However, as regular readers know, the whole reason I started the supperclub is very personal and built on tragic circumstances.  I also need to write it so… read it or skip it, I don’t mind – this post is for me.

In November my Mum developed severe pain in her hip which, combined with persistent unexplained anaemia, led to urgent CT scans to see what was going on.  These scans not only revealed that she had lost all the cartilage in her left hip socket but also a 5cm tumour on her pancreas.  There followed two months of endless tests, delays, mix-ups, investigations, transfusions etc until finally on 31st January she was given an operation date for an operation to remove her pancreas on 27th February.  During all that time she was increasingly immobile resulting in phone calls throughout the day and night when she got stuck in her recliner chair, or stuck on the stairs or in the toilet, meaning a frantic 10 minute drive over to her house to help her out.

The operation was a success and the good news was that the tumour was NOT cancerous.  Mum made an impressive recovery physically from the operation and came home on 14th March.

With a downstairs toilet in place, a carer coming in of a morning, myself doing meals, my Brother went over every evening to help Mum with her bedtime routine and my amazing husband went over at 2am every morning to help her out of bed, to the toilet, and back in to bed.  All of us were waiting on her recovery and her appointment for a pre-assessment for a hip replacement.

On 8th April Mum rang me very distressed.  She had gone to get out of her chair and could not support her own weight.  I went over there and was unable to work out why Mum couldn’t stand. Her leg was at a very funny angle. It took me 20 minutes to get her along the hallway to the toilet but just as she got in there, she collapsed.  We were both trapped – Mum was a dead weight in my arms, the zimmer frame was wedged between the basin and the toilet, and I couldn’t move, drop her, get her onto the toilet seat or anything.

In near hysterics I managed to get my mobile (thankfully in my back pocket) and call my husband. He rang my Brother and told him to come straight over.  For 10 LONG minutes I held my Mum up. I still have no idea how I managed to hold her for so long. I was hysterical by the time my Brother got there.  Between us, with huge difficulty and a lot of tears, shouting and panicking, we finally managed to manoeuvre Mum to sit on to the toilet seat so we could let go.

We phoned an ambulance – which took an hour to arrive.  With terrible bad timing this all occurred at the same time as the Prince Royal University Hospital in Locksbottom had a major crisis resulting in A&E being closed three times during the day.  It was statistical blip, the like that the ambulance crew said they hadn’t seen in a decade of working in the service.  Once we finally got to A&E we waited for four and a half hours IN THE CORRIDOR with Mum still on the ambulance trolley and the crew unable to leave. Eventually she was seen and admitted.

The doctors then spent 10 days running lots of tests trying to establish what was going on.  At one point they considered bone cancer but it turned out to be an aggressive infection that had totally destroyed the bone in her hip resulting what was called a “spectacular collapse”.  On 20th April she had an initial operation to remove all the infected bones and prepare the area.  The plan was for 3 months of antibiotics to ensure there was no infection left leaving it safe to carry out the hip replacement.

The op went well but Mum then spent 5 days being very sick and unable to keep even water down.  As she had already lost weight from the pre and post pancreas operation this was not good.  In total she’d lost over 2 stone since December.  They believed at first that the sickness was due to the massive antibiotic dose that she was on.  Anti-sickness medication slowly took affect and she was finally able to keep something down.  By that point though, understandably, depression had set in and Mum couldn’t FACE the idea of eating and her weight continued to plummet.

Her bowels weren’t opening and they began to suspect a blockage.  A few days later the sickness returned.  They put her back on the anti-sickness meds and managed to get the nausea under control within a further 48 hours.  By now Mum was just skin and bone and frankly exhausted.

On 13th May Mum’s heart-rate suddenly rocketed – up to 160 – and she was put on yet more medication to stabilise.  Artificial feeding was started to try to get nourishment in to her and stop any further decline. They stabilised her within 24hrs.

Overnight on 16th May her heart-rate dropped and by 8.30am the hospital called me to say that she was asking for me – her blood pressure went down to 72/45.  The surgeon said they had discovered she had a bowel blockage which had led to the bowel perforating but she was now too ill to survive an operation to remove the bowel.

For the next 10 hours my Brother and I sat by her bed.  Once her blood pressure got down to 59/30 they turned the machine off and transferred Mum to palliative care.  At 9.25pm in the evening of 17th May she died.  Finally reunited with the love of her life.

We are devastated.  Just 7 years 4 weeks and 12 hours (to the minute) after losing Dad, and with a similar shockingly quick decline, I’m now an orphan.  Mum was only 71.

Life goes on.  The practical, bureaucratic nightmare that one has to go through following a death has to be dealt with.  The funeral will be on 11th June – I’m still going ahead with our next supperclubs on 14th and 15th June though.  Mum would expect nothing less.

The theme for the evenings are “Retro Night” and the menu I had already drafted is ironically based on my parents’ favourite dishes.  Throughout the 70s and early 80s we would go out as a family regularly to eat – the foundation for most of my food memories.  I’m looking forward therefore to recreating those dishes – with an Annie’s flair – in honour of Mum and Dad.  Whilst it will be hard, it is the right thing to do.

If you have read this this, thank you. It was a personal indulgence, something I needed to do for myself.

Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Polenta, Ricotta & Olive Oil Cake

It has been AGES since I’ve posted a recipe – which is daft because I spend most days, every week, inventing, tweaking and creating recipes.

Running a home-based food-related business means that we always have interesting left-overs lying around.  Our work is bespoke rather than mass/bulk retail so it is often the case that we will buy an ingredient for a particular dish but do not need to use all of it.  In order to make sure we keep costs down and avoid waste I have become somewhat the Queen of Leftovers.

It also means my children are growing up exposed to a very wide variety of tastes ;-)

Following on from our Italian supperclubs at the weekend I have been working through the leftovers, mainly for breakfast and lunch (as my  Twitter followers have seen) but today I realised I still had some ricotta to finish as well as plenty of polenta.

The polenta we use in our sweet and savoury dishes is imported from Italy and is the real deal.  No “easy cook” here, this is the sort of thing that Italian mammas spend 40 minutes developing strong arm muscles stiring a dangerously erupting saucepan of hot polenta.  It makes for a wonderful crunch when used in cakes and I recalled seeing a pseudo-Italian cake made with ricotta and polenta.

Most of the recipes were relatively similar.  Some used dates, others sultanas, some soaked in water, some in wine or Madeira, and the ingredient amounts varied slightly.  As is my usual style I read well over 20 recipes before letting the general principles sink in and deciding what MY version would look like.

As one of the leftovers in the fridge consisted of some 789 di Mondelli Pinot Grigio that I’d used in the langoustine sauce, I decided to go with sultanas soaked in the wine.  I warmed the wine through in the microwave first as I didn’t have time to leave the fruit soaking for long.

I put all the dry ingredients into the bowl of my Kenwood mixer and use the K hook to ensure they were throughly mixed.

Meanwhile I emptied the ricotta into a bowl and added the olive oil.  Every recipe I’d seen used butter but I liked the idea of using olive oil as this is a staple cake ingredient in a lot of Mediterraean baking and I love the soft moistness that it brings.  It also means if you made a dairy-free ricotta for the cake you could make this for someone who was dairy free.

I beat the oil and cheese together and added them to the mixer.  I used warm water and added that to the mixer and beat the mixture on a low speed until I had a smooth batter.

I then drained the sultanas RESERVING THE WINE and added those to the bowl, folding them in by hand.

As I knew the cake would be soft, almost pudding like, I decided to use a springform cake tin which I lined with a greaseproof paper cake tin liner.

Don’t worry about dipping the mixture in the middle – as there are no eggs in the cake you don’t get a high rising, domed cake.

The cake didn’t take as long in the oven as I’d seen in other recipes which had cooking times of anything betwee 60 and 90 minutes!  Mine only took 50 minutes – maybe that was down to the use of oil instead of butter?

 

Polenta Ricotta & Olive Oil gluten free, egg free cake

The cake looked great and I had a hard time waiting for it to cool down.  Well, ok I’ll admit, I didn’t wait until it was COMPLETELY cool…  Even though I cut the cake warm it was still fine.  The texture is light and very springy which is what makes it reminiscent of a steamed sponge pudding texture.  Nothing dry about it!

I don’t think anyone would know this was gluten free and egg free cake.

Look at that soft crumb!

I used the reserved soaking wine and made a quick simple syrup with it that I brushed over the top of the cake when it came out of the oven.  To be honest I’m not sure it added anything (other than making it sticky to eat!) but it made me feel like I hadn’t wasted the wine.

The cake doesn’t need any frosting but I’m sure you could serve this with cream or custard to make a great pudding.

 

RECIPE: Polenta, Ricotta & Olive Oil Cake

Ingredients

150g sultanas (you could substitute other dried fruit)
250ml soaking liquid (I used white wine)
200g polenta (ideally not the quick cook variety)
200g Dove’s Plain Gluten Free Flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder (make sure it is gluten free) – mine weighed out at 12g
3/4 tsp xanthum gum
250g caster sugar
250g ricotta (one tub)
60ml olive oil
200ml warm water

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/350°F/Gas No 4.

Soak the dried fruit in your soaking liquid for half an hour, or at least 10 minutes if you warm the liquid first.

Place the polenta, flour, xanthum gum, baking powder and caster sugar in the bowl of a mixer and mix on a slow speed until well blended.

Meanwhile place the ricotta and olive oil in a separate bowl and beat until the oil is fully incorporated and the mixture is smooth.

Add the warm water into the bowl of the mixer and continue to mix on a low speed until the dry ingredients are all wet.  Add the ricotta and olive oil mixture and mix on a medium speed until you have a smooth batter.

Tip the batter into a prepared 9″ springform tin and place on the top shelf in a preheated oven.  Bake for approximately 50-60 minutes – start checking from 45 minutes.

Allow the cake to cool for 15 minutes in the tin before removing it to a cake rack to cool completely.

If desired you can brush to cake whilst warm with a simple syrup or top with sugar crystals.

Coeliac Awareness Week

This week is Coeliac Awareness Week and the whole point of an “awareness week” is to reach people who don’t know about coeliac disease because, by doing so, you could change their life and even save their life.

Coeliac disease is an auto-immune genetic disorder.  It is estimated that 1 in 100 people have the disorder – yet only 1 in 8 of those will have a diagnosis (which on average takes 12 years to get!).

Symptoms of the disease can vary widely from person to person, with as many “atypical” symptoms as typical ones.  They range from the most common such as diarrhoea, prolonged fatigue, bloating, IBS, abdomial pain and unexplained anaemia, through to joint pain, migraine, infertility, skin disorders and many other conditions arising from nutrional deficiencies.

This week we are asking people to “listen to their gut” and to go to the doctor if you recognise yourself as having any of the above issues.  It is easy to check – a simple blood test will be done in the first instance – so there really is no excuse.

Read Dad’s story

Still not convinced this is serious?  Can I ask you to take the time to read my Dad’s story, then maybe you’ll book that appointment.

If you have any questions, please comment on this post as I would love to talk the issues through with you.

Please share this post amongst your friends. If when you read this someone came to mind, someone you thought of who you know has a “dodgy tummy”, getting them to read this and take action could be the best thing you could ever do for them.

Italian Night 2013

This past weekend saw us hosting two Italian dinners.  Italian cuisine seems to have become a bit of a speciality for us – we have had four private supperclubs where they requested an Italian menu and we currently supply our Annie’s Larder gluten free pizza bases to Sapore Vero – an Italian pizza restaurant in Beckenham!

I apologise in advance (as usual!) for the poor quality of the photos. With just myself in the kitchen and Roarke front of house, service can be hectic and we don’t have time to stop and take photos of the food, so these are quick snaps with our smartphones!

Antipasto

AntipastoWe started the evening with a selection plate to get the tastebuds woken up.  We served homemade Peperonata (sweet stewed peppers), melanzane grigliate (grilled aubergine), Polpette di Ricotta e Zafferano (ricotta & saffron balls) and Cipolle ripiene al taleggio (onions stuffed with taleggio cheese).  On the second night the onions split during baking and so we had a “deconstructed” version baked in individual ramekins!  That was one of several “Masterchef moments” on Saturday (you know, the bit where something goes wrong and Greg or John look at the contestant and ask “So, what are you going to do now?”!) which led to a slight hysteria developing during the afternoon’s preparation.  We dealt with it by blasting out some 80′s tunes and becoming ever so slightly hyper by the time guests arrived!

We baked baguettes each evening and there was plenty of bread out on the table for guests to mop up the juices (and dip into their cheese on Saturday!).  One guest on Saturday commented that they felt the bread was indistinguishable from real French bread so I was VERY happy!

 

Gluten Free Fettuccine with langoustine and cognacPrimo Piatti
Our second course was Fettuccine scampi e cognac (fettuccine with langoustine and cognac). I spent about 4 hours on Thursday making fresh egg gluten free pasta and cutting it.  That is not including the gap in the middle after the pasta machine broke and we had to rush out to Argos to buy another one!  We had some beautiful langoustine from Simsons Fisheries.  I made a stock from the shells which I reduced down along with white wine, added some cream and tomato puree and cognac and then warmed through the langoustine meat fresh for service.

The sauce clung beautifully to the pasta and whilst being flavourful it was light enough to allow the delicate langoustine to still be the star of the show.  I was very pleased indeed with how it came out!

Secondo Piatta
Our main course was advertised as Spezzatino di manzo al vino rosso (beef braised in red wine).  I was a little bit disingenuous with that description as I had actually decided to use ox (beef) cheeks.  We sourced these from our award winning butcher.  Jones’s Butchers in LLangollen are a family run business that we first used for our Welsh Black beef featured on our St David’s Day menu in March.  We fell in love with the beef, and with their service and we have used them ever since (they also make great gluten free sausages for us!).  If I was going to trust anyone to provide cheeks, it was them!

Ox cheeks braised for 12 hours in red wineI marinaded the cheeks in red wine (2 bottles per 8 cheeks!) and aromatics for 12 hours.  They were then slow cooked at just 100°C for 12 hours.  The word “tender” doesn’t really do justice so the state of the cheeks after that treatment!  The Welsh Black Beef is already an amazing piece of meat and cheeks are definately packed full of that flavour.  The slow treatment brought out every scrap of flavour and it really was a most delicious thing to eat.

We reduced the braising liquor down from 2 litres to just 500ml, letting it bubble away gently over 4 hours.  The resulting gravy was the sort of thing you just want to drink from the gravy boat (or is that just me?!) and was naturally glossy, requiring no butter to finish it off.

We served the beef on soft baked polenta that had been enriched with Parmigiano Reggiano DOP Superiore from Vallebona.  It was the perfect match to the deep rich beef.  We garnished the dish to cover the other flavour bases – salty, crispy pancetta, bitter radicchio and sweet slow baked onion.  Heaven on a plate!

Dolci
gluten free Tiramisù Talking of heaven on a plate, for dessert we served Tiramisù della casa (homemade tiramisu).  We use pan di spagna for our sponge rather than an almond-based sponge which meant it was perfect for one of our guests who was nut free.  On Friday we also made a lactose free version for one of our guests who was lactose intolerant (as well as having made other tweaks to their dishes throughout the evening).

I was recently complimented by an Italian chef on my Tiramisù so I am really rather proud of this dessert!  We had made one small change as – under instruction from our local EHO – we ensure that the egg yolks are pasteurised before using instead of the classic raw egg version.  Whilst I find this alters the consistency of the cream slightly, it doesn’t affect the taste and it remains a great dessert.

Caffè
Along with teas and coffee Tozzetti & Biscottini al caffè.  Tozzetti (sometimes called cantucci) are a biscotti-style hard biscuit perfect for dunking.  Some versions are made with just almonds, some with almonds and hazelnuts, I chose a version made just with hazelnuts.  I hadn’t made them before Friday so I was pleased and relieved that they came out perfect gluten free!

The second type of biscuit are a coffee flavoured small biscuit.  We made these dairy free so they were probably softer than if made using butter (we also made them on a different day to the tozzetti so that there was no risk to our nut-free guest).  Again, perfect for dunking!

We were delighted by the reaction of our guests.  Over the two nights we had almost 50/50 old and new diners which made for two great evenings.

Some of the comments from the visitor’s book:

“I literally cannot believe I just ate Tiramisu! Thank you! x”

“Best meal yet. Every course impeccable”

“Gluten free goodness (love the tiramisu) & a most enjoyable evening!”

“Amazing! Annie you exceeded all our expectations! Fabulous meal, great company”

“Amazing food and brilliant hosts, thank you and I think we’ll be back!”

St George’s Day 2013

Next weekend sees our ever popular St George’s Day dinners.  As always, we will be featuring traditional “English” flavours and dishes – served slightly untraditionally!

We have a few places available now (due to a cancellation) for Friday 26th so hurry if you want to grab them.

 

MENU

First Course

English “Fry Up”

(including bacon, sausage, egg & tomato)

Second Course

Fish & chips

(Battered Fish, Chips, Onion Rings & Mushy Peas)

Third Course

An English Roast Dinner

 (Beef Wellington, Roast Potatoes & Yorkshire Pudding)

Fourth Course

“Golden Cap Pudding”

(sponge pudding served with custard)

Fifth Course

Coffee or Tea

with  home made clotted cream fudge

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Upcoming Events

Friday 14th June Retro Night
Culinary blast from the past!
** 8 PLACES AVAILABLE **

Saturday 15th June Retro Night
Culinary blast from the past!
** FULLY BOOKED **

Friday 12th July Mexican Dinner
Authentic Mexican dishes old and new
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Saturday 13th July Mexican Dinner
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** 1 PLACE AVAILABLE **

Click here to see the rest of our 2013 dates or make a private booking enquiry

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