Wedded bliss

This time, last year, I was surrounded by all my favourite people, getting ready to marry a particularly wonderful man. I have a très romantic rendezvous planned with him at a lovely little restaurant later this evening, as we have lots to celebrate.

If the dress fitted, I could do it all over again...

Photos by Gorgeous Day Photography

Pregnancy pickle

No tuna, no prawns, no soft cheese, no sushi, no Caesar sauce, no pâté, no vino, and don't do deli meat... The list of food to steer clear of while you have a bun in the oven is enough to warrant an afternoon nap once you've reached the end of it. I'm sure I've put an extra frown line in my forehead examining cheddar and yoghurt labels to make sure they're good to go.

The wonderful thing, though, is that this all makes you so much more aware of what passes your lips, knowing that it's not just for you. Being inspired to whip up super-healthy snacks in between nausea and naps, however, is a different story. So I thought I may as well share some of the things I come up with in a moment of craving (it really is a good source of creativity).

The first being good old toast. Let's face it, it's one of the staple foods of anyone who's ever suffered from morning, afternoon or evening sickness. Now that I've finally got the hang of baking gluten-free bread (Dove's g-free bread flour works brilliantly), things are starting to get interesting.

One thing I've really missed is hot-buttered raisin bread, and we finally had some this weekend - with walnuts and flax seeds thrown in for good measure.

Raisin, Walnut and Flax Seed Bread

400g g-free bread flour

10g milled flax seed (one way to get those Omega-3s in)

½ tsp salt

2 tsp instant yeast

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2tbsp sugar or date syrup

325ml warm milk (use soya or rice milk if you can't have dairy)

2 eggs

1 tsp vinegar (I use cider vinegar)

6 tblsp oil

75g chopped walnuts

70g mix of raisins and sultanas

Mix the flour, flax, salt, yeast and bicarb together. In a large bowl mix the warm milk and sugar/syrup together, then beat in the eggs, finally adding the vinegar. Pour the dry ingredients into the milk mixture and stir until combined, then add the oil, continuing to stir until you have a smooth, sticky dough. Note: It will not come together into a ball like normal bread dough does. Add the walnuts and raisins and stir these in well. Spoon the dough into a greased loaf tin and leave to rise in a warm place for an hour (I leave mine in an oven that has been warmed to 50C then turned off). Once risen, bake covered with foil (g-free bread tends to brown much quicker) at 200C for 40 minutes. Another tip when baking with g-free flour is to have a tray of water in the bottom of your oven, which stops the loaf drying out.

This loaf is perfect with cheese and any crazy pickle that takes your fancy.

Hey baby!

No, I didn't eat all the mince pies! The real reason my blogs have been so few and far between lately is that a certain someone threw my life in the kitchen a bit off course over the last three months. All-day nausea sent any recipe planning out the window, and the tiny person behind all this is demanding! Olives one day... mangoes another day... bags of nectarines the next. It's tiring work, but I could not be happier.

Gav and I got our first proper peek at our little one last night and can't stop looking at the pics they managed to capture when it wasn't wriggling around.

I have another little heart beating inside me and I can't put into words how awe-inspiring, and what a privilege, that is. We can't wait for our little boy or girl to join the family in July.

Asian Chicken Wraps

I like fast food. Not fast food in the double-whopper-super-sauced-stuffed-crust-I'll-have-that-with-cheesy-fries-thanks sense, but food that's fast. Simple Asian stir-fries are brilliant in that sense... and healthy.

My Dubai housemate Andrea introduced me to these nifty wraps a few years ago, and, they're now a fave g-free light dinner. The ingredients always change slightly depending on what's in the cupboard, so they're never boring.

500g chicken mince (you could try pork mince, or do a combination of the two)

1 red chilli chopped

1 clove of garlic chopped

About 10 water chestnuts

A handful of sliced bamboo shoots

A dash of rice wine vinegar

Enough tamari soya sauce (the g-free version of soya sauce) to season

1 spring onion sliced

Sesame oil

Olive oil

1 iceberg lettuce (choose a nice round one so the leaves can be used as cups)

Heat a little olive oil and a dash of sesame oil (not too much as this has a really strong flavour) in a pan/wok. Add the garlic and chilli and sautée, then add the mince. When the mince is cooked, add the rice wine vinegar and tamari sauce to taste. Toss in the spring onions right at the end. To serve, spoon some of the mince mix into a leaf, fold it up and start eating. I'm sure they steam the lettuce leaves slightly in Asia so they're easier to fold, but I prefer the contrast between the crisp lettuce and hot, spicy filling. Soggy, warm lettuce is not really my thing.

You could also add a little chopped ginger, sprouts and coriander.

Christmas past

Gav and I took the Christmas tree down this weekend and I'm so sad that the holiday's over - and the family have flown back south - I could sit and eat a dozen mince pies (if I had any left!)... washed down with a cup of tea or two.

I know these recipes are a bit late (okay about 16 days late!), but I've been in the kitchen mastering crispy, flakey gluten-free mince pie pastry with my sister, cooking the famous Christmas ham with my mom, and coming up with a gluten-free version of the Kidger sherry trifle that is so good you want to do a Nigella Lawson sneaky in the middle of the night and demolish what's left of it. I'm afraid the ham and the trifle recipes (absolutely NO red jelly or horrid canned fruit in this one!) are trade secrets, but I will share my mince pies and date snowballs. I'll be bringing them out again next Christmas.

Date Snowballs

Simple cocoa version

½ cup finely chopped dates

1 tsp g-free cocoa powder

Smoosh these very complicated ingredients together, roll into 6 balls, dust with cocoa powder and eat.

Adult version

½ cup chopped dates

1 tsp cocoa powder

¾ tsp Brandy

5 tsp powdered almonds

Follow the above steps and dust them with almond powder.

Coconut treats

½ cup dates

1 tsp cocoa powder

4 tblsp sweet shredded coconut

Follow the first steps and dust these with desiccated coconut. These are a brilliant snack even when it's not Christmas.

Mince Pies

This pastry recipe was the result of many attempts. Too hard, too heavy, too crumbly, too gritty. Gordon Ramsay would have fired me months ago. But, I've come up with a flour blend that works and I used it in the "May Kidger/Lucy Field Soda Water Pastry" recipe. For those of you who don't know, May was my grandmother and Lucy one of her dear friends, and we will never know whose recipe it really was :)

110g gluten-free flour blend (I used Dove's)

45g white corn meal

35g rice flour

10g glutinous rice flour

3ml salt

½tsp salt

100g cold butter

50ml soda water (use more or less depending on how well the dough comes together)

25ml brandy optional

1 jar g-free fruit mince (Robertson's is said to be gluten-free)

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Cut the cold butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the soda water (and brandy) and work to a soft dough. It will seem a bit wet at first but the gluten-free flour quickly absorbs water. Roll into a ball, cover with cling film and refrigerate for an hour.

Preheat your oven to 180C. When rolling out gluten-free pastry, the trick is to do it between two sheets of cling film. Roll out to the desired thickness (this pastry mix can go quite thin without falling apart when you cut it) and cut out your pastry rounds. Fill the pies with fruit mince and top with a pastry star or disc. Brush with a little milk and bake for 30 to 40 minutes until golden brown and bubbling.

Reaping the rewards

I've been slack this month. Too much good eating and not enough blogging. But I'm back and have to share some of the fruits of our veggie garden efforts. It took a while, and I even considered the fact that the melon plant might just be a Little Shop of Horrors mutant preparing for take over, but the wait was worth it and this is what appeared... before the plant sadly gave up.

I sound terribly competitive, but they were the sweetest melons ever, fact! And the last one ripened just in time for our first festive season breakfast with mom, dad and Ames.