How to make gluten free pasta and the rest of my day.

Hello Dear Reader,

What a day! Housework, library, salon for a tidy up, and a bake off. I've made pastry for the freezer so I can just pull it out when I need it. I've also made pasta, some we had for supper and some I've frozen in readiness to defrost and roll out when needed. I have no idea if gluten free pasta and pastry freezes well or if it's edible once defrosted. I'll test it so you don't have to......oh go on then, I'll take one for the team.

I used my food processor as any pastry or pasta I make by hand turns out to be in-edible, I can only assume I have hot hands or I am heavy handed. To make the gluten free pasta you will need:

Serves 6 - next time, I will halve this recipe.

300g of plain gluten free flour
1 tbsp of Xanthum gum,
1 tsp of salt (I thought the pasta tasted salty so you could experiment with none)
5 eggs
1 tbsp of olive oil.

Add the lot to a food processor, pulse until a dough.

Chill for at least 30 minutes.

Roll on a well floured board.

The secret of rolling:

• flour, then roll
• flour, fold and turn (normally you would fold over and run through a pasta machine over and over)
• repeat six times until paper thin.

Roll into a tube as if you were rolling up a towel. Trim off the untidy ends (sounds like my trip to the salon!) 

Cut into strips as wide as you need, from pappardelle to linguine. Separate by tossing in flour in a gentle movement.

My finished result is a bit rustic but it was fun to make and I know the egg content so it's full of protein.

Drop into boiling water in small batches, then drop each batch into your pasta sauce. We had a carbonara sauce.

Carbonara Sauce.

150g of cooking bacon - finely diced
3 garlic cloves - finely diced
1 tbsp of gluten free flour
100g cheddar or any hard cheese - grated
500ml of skimmed milk - or any milk

• Heat the frying pan and fry off the bacon (I also added five chopped mushrooms)
• Add the garlic - fry until soft
• Add the flour and stir through
• Add the milk and blend through and then add the cheese
• Heat until thickened and keep warm until needed.

I just dropped the pasta into the boiling water for little more than a minute. Two minutes cooked.....three minutes soup! So be careful!

Drain the pasta by lifting a portion at a time into a sieve and then add to the sauce, toss around and then serve.

There are 'real' Carbonara sauce recipes which require Parmesan, egg yolks and cream but my version is certainly cheaper and a bit lighter.

I also thought I would share my recent Approved Food acquisition. I bought GF bread mix for £2 a bag and from my experimentation, can make five loaves from one bag - so GF bread for 40p each. Much better than the £3.50 a loaf that I have been paying!!! 

It has an unusual structure. I followed the instructions but used my bread machine instead. I added one more spoon of the mix when it seemed a little runny. Even the instructions on the pack describe the mix as a 'batter' instead of calling it a 'dough'. I left it alone and it came out ok in the end and I can testify that it tastes great. I have four bags of this in my zombie apocalypse cupboard which will keep me going for a while. I'm building up quite a stock of reduced price AP GF stock cupboard ingredients.

And finally, I've been quilting away in between it all. My scrappy mountain majesties quilt, all made from old shirts in coming along quite nicely.

That's my day! Hectic, I'm now off to read by the fire. This week I've read Good Vibrations by Tom Cunliffe, and A street cat named Bob by James Bowen and I've been working on using all the crumbs to make a crumb quilt from all the bits and pieces I have left in my fabric bin. 

Tomorrow.............will probably be full of busy things that I will come back and share with you.

Over to you Dear Reader, hands up if you are a pasta maker? Who else can testify how fun and easy it is to make? Anyone else out there made a crumb quilt, again............isn't it fun!

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxx