Tag: food

Review: Awfully Posh Lomo Crisps
food · gluten free · reviews

Review: Awfully Posh Lomo Crisps

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I was kindly gifted a box of new Lomo Crisps by Awfully Posh to try out! No idea what a lomo crisp is? I didn’t know either…

What are lomo crisps?

The word “Lomo” is Spanish for tenderloin, a cut of pork that is often served cured and air dried – think of the kind of cured meats you might expect to be served at a tapas restaurant.

These Awfully Posh lomo crisps are made from Spanish pork loin which has been cured with garlic and paprika. It’s then sliced super thin and air dried until it’s all crispy and crunchy – like a potato crisp, but made of 100% pork!

Because they’re made of pork, they’re also gluten free and high protein – we’re always on the look out for gluten free snacks in this house so I was keen to try them out, as was my gluten-intolerant husband!

Om nom nom

What do they taste like?

First impression: they really are super crunchy! Even though I knew they are marketed as crisps, I think in my head I was expecting these lomo crisps to be more chewy – after all, they look like slices of pork, so I think I subconsciously expected a texture more like jerky or dried meat. But no! They have the proper crunch that you expect from a regular crisp.

The flavour is really nice, very rich and savory – it took me a while to work out what it most reminded me of, but I realised eventually that it’s the crispy bacon that you get on top of the turkey at Christmas. That’s a pretty great association! I’d say that if you’re a fan of bacon, you’ll love these crisps.

How would you serve Lomo crisps?

The crisps come in packets that are the right size for an afternoon snack for one, and the flavour makes them perfect to enjoy with a beer (kind of like pork scratchings, I suppose) or a glass of wine. If it weren’t for all the current restrictions, I can imagine they’d be a big hit in pubs! Lomo crisps would also be a great addition to a charcuterie platter or tapas selection, if you fancy introducing something a bit different into the mix.

I can also imagine using them as a cooking ingredient as well, perhaps for a crispy bacon-esque topping on a dish or even a baking ingredient.

Where can I buy Lomo crisps?

You can buy these lomo crisps online at www.britishsnackco.com and try them out for yourself!

Still hungry…?

Why not check out my review of Ai No Mochi, London’s mochi delivery service? Don’t know what a mochi is? Read on to find out…

Gluten Free Pumpkin Muffins Recipe
baking · food · gluten free · recipes

Gluten Free Pumpkin Muffins Recipe

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It’s autumn! The leaves are brown, the sky is grey, and going outside is starting to feel like a chore rather than a treat. But for me, one of the ways we’re compensated for the chilly weather and the shortening days is the delicious flavours of seasonal autumn cooking. And by that, I mean pumpkin! I absolutely love pumpkin as an ingredient in both sweet and savoury dishes, and I think these gluten free pumpkin muffins are a perfect autumn treat.

They’re made with tinned pumpkin puree, which isn’t always easy to find in the UK – although large supermarkets will often stock it in their international foods section. If you can’t find a tin of pumpkin puree, you can substitute it with homemade puree from a roasted pumpkin or squash – instructions here.

Okay, enough talk. On to the actual recipe!

Gluten Free Pumpkin Muffins Recipe

Ingredients for pumpkin muffins:

You will need the following ingredients for your gluten free pumpkin muffins:

  • 250g gluten free flour
  • 225g sugar (I split this between caster sugar, demerara sugar, and dark muscovado sugar – a mix with some darker sugar is ideal for a bit of extra flavour)
  • 2 eggs
  • 120g butter (salted)
  • 50g oats
  • 1/2 tsp xantham gum
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 can of pumpkin puree
  • 2 tsps cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ginger
  • 1 tsp mixed spice
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence

Method for gluten free pumpkin muffins

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees C and line a muffin tin with cake cases.

2. Melt the butter. You can do this in the microwave in 10 second blasts, stirring in between, until fully melted.

3. Add all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl, and mix until thoroughly combined. Don’t worry if it’s a little bit lumpy though!

4. Spoon the mix into the cake cases.

5. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes. You’ll know the muffins are fully cooked when a skewer or fork inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean.

6. Put the muffins on a cooling tray to cool. Or eat them straightaway – they’re delicious still warm from the oven!

Tips and pointers for your spiced pumpkin muffins:

These bad boys will keep in a tin for 3 – 4 days, although they’re yummiest fresh from the oven! You can also freeze your gluten free pumpkin muffins for up to three months – here are some pointers on freezing muffins. So you can make them now and enjoy them later!

This recipe is gluten free, however if you’re not in need of gluten free muffins, you can make them with regular flour and leave out the xantham gum. They’re just as yummy when they contain gluten, but do be careful not to over-mix the batter, as it will leave you with tough, chewy little cakes. Over-mixing is not such a problem with gluten-free baking, which is one of the few benefits of cooking for the gluten intolerant!

You can also very much get creative with the spices you use in these gluten free pumpkin muffins. I love a pumpkin spice blend that’s heavy on the cinnamon and ginger and light on the clove (by which I mean has NO CLOVES in it, because they’re disgusting). But a traditional American pumpkin spice mix has a good dose of nutmeg and clove in it, so you may wish to go for maximum authenticity there!

More gluten free treats…

Looking for more gluten free recipes? Why not try this amazing gluten free Rocky Road recipe – no baking required! Or check out these orange and vanilla protein bites or these hot cocoa bombs!

My Top Weaning Tips So Far
baby · food · parenting · top tips

My Top Weaning Tips So Far

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We started weaning Little Man at six months, so we’re now about seven weeks in and having two solid meals a day as standard (I’ll be honest, we could be doing three a day, I just can’t be bothered cleaning porridge off the walls that early in the morning). That means it’s time to share my top weaning tips so far, based on what I’ve learned!

We’re following a mix of traditional weaning (where the food is puréed or mushy at first, gradually increasing in chunky textures, and you feed baby with a spoon) and baby-led weaning (or BLW – where baby is presented with solid food options from the start and has to feed him or herself). This seems to be working just fine, despite some evangelists on the BLW side saying it’s all or nothing and you must never mix the two approaches for fear of confusing baby. Maybe some babies are more easily confused than others… Mine just seems to treat all food of all textures and presentations as an opportunity to coat himself in muck from head to toe.

In general, lunch is more of a purist’s BLW approach, where Little Man gets foods he can pick up himself and the time to have fun with them. Sometimes they even go into his mouth. Then at dinner, he sits in his high chair at the table with me and my husband, and there’s more of a concerted effort to get some food in his tummy.

Anyway, I’ve been reflecting on our weaning journey so far, and I thought I’d share some weaning tips that I wish I’d known when we started!

Don’t make assumptions about what they will or won’t like

Little Man has consistently surprised me with what he enjoys eating. The other day, I was eating some very strongly flavoured salt and vinegar crisps. Little Man was on my lap, and he was reaching for them. We don’t normally let him have any kind of junk food, but I let him have a crisp, on the basis that I thought the flavour would be way too strong and acidic for him and he wouldn’t like it. I even thought it might put him off asking for crisps in the future! Predictably, I was 100% wrong and he loved it… Oops.

Other foods that he has liked despite my expectations have included raspberries, broccoli mash (come on though, broccoli is grim… I practically made myself ill from the smell when I cooked it for him!), risotto, Japanese-style pork croquettes, and more. Now, I just let him try whatever and see what he thinks. Fingers crossed it works and we avoid having a fussy eater later on in life!

Help them get started off

I often offer Little Man one or two pieces of his finger food before leaving him to try to eat himself. Giving him a piece straight to his mouth at the start of the meal helps him get enthusiastic about feeding himself the rest. I then often give him one or two pieces to hold, as he often struggles to pick things up initially and it seems to help him get the hang of it for the rest of the meal.

Weaning is tough

Don’t start sweet (unless you mean to go on…)

The other day, I gave Little Man some raspberries to start him off while I made veggie omelette for his main. Oops. He loves veggie omelette, but after the raspberries he was in no way interested. Every time he put a piece in his mouth, he just made a sad face. Now we don’t do sweet things until the savoury is out the way first…

Let him have his own damn spoon

Little Man ALWAYS wants to hold the spoon. He struggles a lot with his teething and loves chomping on our wooden spoons. He’ll take a bite from a spoon, then if his teeth are bothering him, he’ll get very angry if you try to take the spoon back to give him a second bite. So now I have a back-up spoon on hand, and I just let him keep the spoon he wants. It’s much easier all around.

Brace yourself for those first weaning nappies

Little Man has always had trouble with his stomach, but as his tummy had improved by the time we came to start weaning, I have to say I wasn’t fully prepared for the violent and explosive nature of the poops he produced after starting weaning. We went through a couple of weeks where he was routinely experiencing such forceful poops that they completely escaped his nappy and went right up his back. He’s also been quite windy, but fortunately doesn’t seem to have tummy pain like he used to when he was smaller. Luckily for us (and our washing machine), Little Man’s digestive system does seem to have begun to acclimatise to solid foods, and poops are now normally being contained within the safety of his nappy. But I really wish someone had warned me about those first few weeks!

What are your top weaning tips? Share them in the comments!

Review: Ai No Mochi
reviews

Review: Ai No Mochi

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So recently I ordered us a set of mochi from the London-based Ai No Mochi, who supply freshly-made Japanese mochi across the UK. My husband and I love eating fresh mochi when we’re visiting family in Japan, and their flavours looked so exciting, I just had to order! So I’ve written a review of Ai No Mochi and their UK mochi delivery service.

What are mochi?

Mochi are traditional Japanese treats. They consist of a soft and chewy outer layer of rice flour, around a sweet filling (savoury options are also available). They’re typically formed into little ball shapes – although in Kyoto, they go for the frankly lazy option of just folding them into triangles instead.

Mochi are a super common and popular snack in Japan that you can find in any convenience store, although they’re particularly associated with New Year festivities. In fact, they actually come with a health warning, because the glutinous rice flour used can be difficult to chew for elderly people or the very young. Every year people are taken to hospital after choking on mochi. One woman saved her elderly father’s life when he choked on mochi, by literally hoovering it out of his throat. So… You have been warned!

Some of our mochi

Ai No Mochi Flavours

Ai No Mochi are based in London, and they offer an extensive list of flavours, from the more traditional Japanese (adzuki bean, toasted sesame) to the more modern and, indeed, Western (cookies and cream cheesecake, Nutella and Biscoff biscuit). You can select four flavours for your box, so I went for a mix of traditional and new:

  • Raspberry and Coconut – both my husband and I agreed this was the best flavour. Tastes like summer in a mochi.
  • Matcha (Green Tea) and White Chocolate – the matcha used tastes like it’s good quality, and the white chocolate lifts it nicely, as traditional matcha mochi can be rather heavy and cloying.
  • Toasted Sesame – I love sesame flavour so the texture of the sesame seed coating, along with the sweet adzuki bean filling, is very pleasing.
  • Salted Caramel – a yummy chocolatey and caramel-y flavour, but could have done with more salt (perhaps in the rice flour wrapper) to enhance the flavour.

The filling of the mochi is mostly very light and creamy, compared to the heavier fillings you tend to get in Japan. If you like Japanese mochi, you’ll like these – and if you’ve never tried them, they’re probably a good introduction to mochi for a more Western palette.

Our mochi when they arrived

Ordering from Ai No Mochi

Ordering was super easy, I ordered on the website and was emailed with a projected delivery date, which was then confirmed by the courier. The mochi were delivered overnight from London, so they were super fresh and still cool when they arrived. We also got two free mochi on top of what we ordered, as a taster of their new summer flavours (yuzu cheesecake, and mango) which was a lovely bonus. I’m not a cheesecake fan personally, but my husband said the yuzu cheesecake really did taste just like cheesecake!

The packaging was very nicely presented, and each mochi was individually wrapped in cling film to keep it fresh. They survived the delivery from London completely unscathed! Although it looked beautiful, like an expensive box of chocolates, it did feel like a lot of single-use plastic was involved (in fairness, this is pretty consistent with what you tend to see in Japan). It would be nice to see some more eco-friendly packaging being used, even if the overall effect isn’t quite as attractive.

In Summary… My Review Of Ai No Mochi

We really enjoyed our mochi, and it was fun to have a taste of Japan in the UK. I would definitely recommend Ai No Mochi to any other UK mochi lovers out there, or as a fun gift to surprise a friend with something new. I can confidently say that they’re the best mochi I’ve had in London, and it’s exciting to finally have fresh mochi delivery in the UK!

Gluten Free Rocky Road Recipe – No Baking Required!
baking · gluten free

Gluten Free Rocky Road Recipe – No Baking Required!

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Gluten free rocky road is one of my absolute favourite recipes! I don’t make it that often – because (as my husband says) it’s about as addictive as crack, but much more fattening. In fact, I made a batch of gluten free rocky road specifically so I could take pictures for this blog post, and we had already eaten three quarters of it before I had a chance to take photos of the finished product. That speaks for itself!

Gluten Free Rocky Roads – Overview

It’s a super easy recipe. This is a gluten free tray bake, but there’s no baking required! Instead of cooking the traybake, you just need refrigeration – so it’s a great one to make with kids.

It only takes about 10 minutes to prepare from start to finish, and will make about 12 – 16 rocky road bars, depending on how big you cut them!

Gluten Free Rocky Road Ingredients

You will need…

  • 200g butter
  • 6 tbsps golden syrup
  • 200g dark chocolate (you can use milk, but the end product will be VERY sweet)

Then for the filling, you can be super flexible, based on what’s in your store cupboard! You basically want about 350g of dried filling, which needs to be chopped or crushed into small pieces. For the bake in these pictures, I used:

  • 125g Crunchie bars (other chocolate-coated honeycomb is available)
  • 125g gluten-free Viennese biscuits
  • Handful of gluten-free pretzels
  • 3 handfuls of mini marshmallows
  • 2 handfuls of gluten-free cornflakes

Gluten-free Rocky Road – The Recipe

1. First, line a 22cm square baking tin with tinfoil.

2. Take your Crunchie bars or other honeycomb, biscuits and pretzels, put them in a resealable freezer bag, and bash them with a rolling pin until they’re in smallish chunks. Keep back a few pretzels and marshmallows for decoration! Then add the crushed fillings to a mixing bowl along with your marshmallows and cornflakes.

3. Next, put the butter and golden syrup in a small saucepan on a low heat. Heat them together until the butter is melted into the syrup. Mix them regularly and don’t let the mix come to a boil!

4. Remove the saucepan from the heat. It should be warm but not boiling hot! Add the chocolate and stir it in, until it’s melted into a smooth syrupy sauce.

5. Pour the chocolate mixture over your dry ingredients and stir gently until the dry ingredients are all totally coated.

6. Pour the mixture into the baking tray and pat down until the surface is roughly level. Press marshmallows and pretzels into the surface for decoration.

7. Leave the tin out until it’s no longer warm to the touch, then pop into the fridge to finish setting your rocky road mix.

8. Refrigerate for a couple of hours at least. Then you can turn the rocky road out onto a plate, peel off the foil, and slice! Voila, your gluten-free rocky road is ready to serve!

Tips and Hints

The key thing about this is that you’ll want to store it in the fridge. This gluten free rocky road melts in your mouth… But also it melts in your hands, and all over your kitchen! It can be kept out at room temperature for a bit e.g. a party buffet, but I wouldn’t be taking it to a summer picnic.

If you do need it to last longer out of the fridge – or if you want to cut neat non-crumbly slices – the best way to do this is with a pure chocolate coating. Melt some more dark chocolate down and pour half over the bottom of the tin and leave it to set for five minutes before adding the main mix. Then once you’ve smoothed over the main mix in the tin, pour the rest of the chocolate over the top. It just makes it easier to handle.

More gluten free baking recipes

If you enjoyed this recipe and you’re looking for more gluten free cake or cookies recipes, why not check out my gluten free brownies recipe, or this gluten free cookies recipe?

Lazy Mama’s Quick Noodle Soup Recipe
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Lazy Mama’s Quick Noodle Soup Recipe

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I made this quick noodle soup for lunch the other day and thought I should share the recipe. It’s so great if you don’t have much time but you want something homemade, nourishing and pretty healthy! It’s vaguely Japanese-inspired, while being 100% inauthentic, and the ingredients are pretty flexible.

This is a generous single helping for one, and it takes about 5 minutes to cook (yes, it really is that quick!)

Lazy Mama’s Quick Noodle Soup

Ingredients List

If you tend to eat stir fries and cook Asian food, you’ll probably have most of the ingredients in your store cupboard, like we do. However the whole point of this soup is that it’s quick and easy, so I’ve also given some substitutions you can use instead, if you don’t have the right ingredients.

You will need…

  • Sesame oil (you can use regular vegetable oil, but sesame oil tastes best)
  • Soy sauce
  • Teriyaki sauce (if you don’t have this, you can replace it with a dash of extra soy sauce and a spoon of honey)
  • Mirin or rice wine (optional – you can leave this out entirely or use sherry instead)
  • Miso soup made up from a packet or paste, OR bouillon powder OR in a pinch, a vegetable stock cube!
  • 2 spring onions (or a small handful of finely chopped white onion)
  • Vegetables of your choice! I love chestnut mushrooms in this – but pak choi, cabbage, spinach etc. all work great, as would pumpkin or squash. Or you can have it plain with just noodles and soup!
  • One pack of wok- ready noodles. I think udon noodles is best, but it depends what type of noodle you prefer!

How To Make Your Quick Noodle Soup

First, fry your spring onions and mushrooms in sesame oil, in a small saucepan.

Make up about 400ml of miso soup or vegetable stock. When the onions are soft and the mushrooms cooked, add the stock.

Add about a tablespoon of teriyaki sauce, the same of mirin, and a generous dash of soy sauce. Bring to a simmer.

Add the noodles and cook until done, as per the pack instructions – usually a couple of minutes.

And you’re done! It really is that easy. This is my go-to dish when Martin is out, as he’s usually head chef in our household except where baking is concerned.

More easy recipes

Looking for more easy to cook, quick recipes? Why not check out my recipes page! Or for more inspiration for easy vegetarian recipes, take a peek at this yummy tomato soup recipe or this couscous salad – or if you’re a pescatarian, perhaps even this honey soy salmon salad… Yum…

Eco-friendly Weaning
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Eco-friendly Weaning

The Sickly Mama3 Comments
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So now Little Man is six months old, he’s started trying solid foods! Or very mushy food, really. I’m not sure why we talk about weaning onto solids when the foods in question are actually basically liquid anyway. When we started planning for weaning, I realised just how much plastic can be involved in the process, and I decided to try to reduce the amount of plastic we were using and the amount of plastic waste we generate as well. So I’ve thought about how to do that as far as possible, and I thought I’d blog a bit about it so far… My tips for eco-friendly weaning!

Eco-friendly Weaning

Bamboo Tableware

Obviously ceramic crockery is a bad idea for tiny people who like to throw their bowls on the floor, but although I had plastic plates and bowls when I was little, I wanted to avoid this if possible. Instead, I’ve found some lovely sustainable bamboo tableware including plates, cups and spoons. There are some very cute designs from Sass & Belle and lots of other options if you search online.

The flip side of bamboo tableware is that it’s not dishwasher or microwave safe and not as durable as plastic. Currently I’m fine handwashing Little Man’s plate/bowl after his meals, but as he eats more and when I’m no longer on maternity leave I guess that may become more of a drag! So far though, I’ve really loved them. And Little Man seems to find the spoons easy to hold and nice to chomp on!

Some of our new plates and spoons

High Chair

Again when picking a high chair I really wanted a wooden chair rather than a plastic one. I was expecting wooden chairs to be much more expensive than their plastic equivalents, but actually there was a good range available at a similar price to the plastic chairs. I also think the wooden chairs look nicer! As Little Man hasn’t really spent much time in his new chair yet, I won’t recommend the brand we’ve chosen, but I might talk about it in a follow up post! It’s not completely 100% plastic free as there is plastic in the safety harness, but I think that’s probably difficult to avoid altogether and at least it’s a much lower plastic content than most high chairs.

Eco Friendly Baby Food

In general, our aim is to make our own baby food and avoid pre-packaged stuff as far as possible. So far that’s been fairly easy, I can quite quickly make up some simple mashed potato or other veg, and pop leftovers in the fridge or freezer. However, I know that when we travel or go out and about, it will be a bit more challenging, so I’m doing some research on eco-friendly pre-packaged baby foods. Any tips would be much appreciated! I’m also planning to buy some reusable baby food pouches so that it’s easier to take homemade food out and about.

Bibs and More

Obviously one of the big challenges with weaning is just the mess! At the moment, we’re using cloth bibs and just sticking them in the washing machine, but I do feel like this is using up a lot of water perhaps unnecessarily. The alternative is something like a silicone bib which can just be wiped clean and reused time and again. Which option works out as more eco-friendly? At the moment, I’m coming down on the side of using the cloth bibs.

Your Tips For Eco-Friendly Weaning:

How have you made the weaning process more eco-friendly? I’d love to hear about what you’re doing. Let me know in the comments!

More ideas for an eco-friendly home:

I also wanted to share some more great articles for eco friendly living that I’ve enjoyed recently. I like these ideas for bathroom eco swaps and this post on sustainable cleaning products has got me thinking about other ways we can reduce waste and increase our sustainability. As well as reducing waste, I try to support small businesses, so I also really enjoyed this guide to eco-friendly products available on Etsy, the online handmade marketplace – not somewhere I’d previously thought to look for sustainable products.

My Top Teas of Lockdown
tea

My Top Teas of Lockdown

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I absolutely love tea and I have a tea for every occasion. If you’re anything like me, you’ve been drinking endless cups of tea while stuck at home during the coronavirus lockdown. I thought therefore that I should do a rundown of my top teas of lockdown – the teas that have been keeping me sane! I recommend stocking up on these for any future global pandemics…

My Top Teas Of Lockdown

Yorkshire Tea

Okay, the classic English breakfast tea doesn’t get any better than a cuppa of Yorkshire Tea. This is a tea for all seasons. In my office, any other teabags are treated as pariahs and left unused until we run out of all other options (which, to be fair, happens regularly – we’re not that organised). Now, maybe that’s because our head of service is from Yorkshire. But maybe it’s also because Yorkshire Tea is the best…

Jenier Peppermint Herbal Tea

Now, we all know that the best kind of mint tea is fresh mint tea with leaves picked from the garden. But my favourite teabag mint tea is Jenier Peppermint Herbal Tea. I discovered the brand (and the tea) through a subscription to the Tea and Book Club, gifted to me by my father-in-law, and it’s got a great fresh mint flavour for a dried tea. Peppermint tea is my go-to choice for a bloated tummy, which is happening a lot in lockdown as I stuff my face every day.

Pukka Night Time Tea

My husband and I always refer to this as “sleepy time tea”, even though that’s not actually it’s name. Well, frankly Pukka missed a trick naming it. We are constantly tired at the moment thanks to Little Man, but if we want to wind down and chill out before bed, especially if the wee fella has been stressing us out all day (and when doesn’t he), then Night Time Tea is a great choice. Its gentle oaty, floral flavour chills you right out.

Sainsbury’s Hot Cross Bun Tea

Sainsbury’s launched an own-brand Hot Cross Bun Tea this year for Easter and I loved it! It’s a rooibus base, with lots of orange, lemon and spice flavor (light on the clove, heavy on the cinnamon – just how I like it). It’s a great caffeine free alternative to a breakfast tea when you fancy something with a hearty flavour but you’re going to bed soon. Sadly it was only around for Easter so I’m hoping they bring it back next year.

The BEST Gluten Free Oatmeal Raisin Cookies Recipe
baking · food · gluten free · recipes

The BEST Gluten Free Oatmeal Raisin Cookies Recipe

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Today, I’m going to share my gluten free oatmeal raisin cookies recipe. I love baking, and as my husband is gluten intolerant, it’s hard to find fresh baked goods for him in the shops. So, whenever the opportunity arises (i.e. Little Man is in a good mood and happy enough on his play mat), I get baking.

Back at the start of lockdown, I was planning on baking some chocolate chip cookies one day, but asked my husband if he had any special requests. He asked for oatmeal raisin cookies. I’d never baked them before so I researched a bit online and made my own substitutions to make them gluten free. They’re actually an ideal cookie to make GF, because the oats help to bind them and reduce the floury/crumbly texture that you often get with gluten free baking. For the busy mum (or dad) on the go, the finished cookies can also be frozen and reheated later – see instructions further down this post.

Now, onto the important bit…

Gluten Free Oatmeal Raisin Cookies Recipe

The Recipe

Assemble the following ingredients:

  • 200g sugar (ideally a golden caster, or a mix of brown and white sugar also works well)
  • 150ml sunflower oil (or other veggie oil)
  • 1 egg
  • 100g raisins or sultanas
  • 120g gluten free flour
  • 300g oats (make sure they’re specifically gluten free oats if you’re baking for a coeliac)
  • 1/2 tsp xantham gum (not essential if you don’t have it, but helps with binding gluten free bakes)
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Gluten Free Oatmeal Raisin Cookies – The Method

These cookies are super quick and easy to assemble, because the oil base makes mixing them very simple.

1. Pour 50ml of boiling water over your raisins/sultanas and leave to soak.

2. Preheat your oven to 180 C.

3. Line two baking trays with parchment.

4. Mix the sugar, oil and egg in a bowl until well combined.

5. Add the water from the raisins/sultanas, the cinammon and the vanilla extract, and mix.

6. Add the flour, xantham gum and bicarbonate of soda and mix. Then, add the oats and mix.

7. Add the raisins and mix. Your cookie batter is now complete!

8. Dollop the batter into the baking sheets. Gluten free cookies never spread quite as much as regular cookies, so get them into roughly the thickness and shape you want, but still aim to leave a couple of centimetres gap between cookies.

9. Bake for 12 – 15 mins until golden brown, and cool on the trays. Voila! Your cookies are ready.

Freezing and Reheating Your Cookies

These gluten free oatmeal raisin cookies freeze really well! It’s perfect so that next time you can have that fresh baked cookie taste with even less effort. Ideally freeze them on a tray, before transferring into a bag or container for storage.

You can keep the cookies in the freezer for up to two months. To reheat, simply pop them on a baking tray (from frozen) in an oven pre-heated to 140 C, for 10 – 15 minutes. Everyone will think you just baked them!

More Gluten Free Recipes

Looking for more yummy gluten free recipes? Why not try this recipe for (highly addictive) gluten free rocky roads? They’re perfect to make with kids as they don’t even require baking!

Why We’re Trying Lactose Free Formula
child development · colic

Why We’re Trying Lactose Free Formula

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So as regular readers will know, Little Man has been having a lot of tummy trouble recently, and it’s just been getting worse. He’s really windy but struggles to get the wind out, and it’s been keeping him up at night and waking him up regularly when he does manage to sleep. He’s also had a bit of constipation, despite our efforts to keep him well hydrated. We’ve tried everything we can think of – changing his formula, using infant colic drops, making sure to burp him and wind him regularly, etc etc. But nothing seems to make much of a difference.

As a result, it’s been a tough few weeks, especially combined with his teething issues. Little Man has gone from sleeping through til about 3/4am and then having a slightly fitful sleep after that, to more or less having a fitful sleep through the whole night. Some nights I’ve been up with him much more often than every hour. So he’s been super grumpy, and to be honest, so have I!

So we went to the doctor’s and they recommended changing formula. As we’d already changed formula once, they suggested trying a lactose-free formula. Apparently if it does work, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Little Man is lactose intolerant, but the change might be helpful for him. I guess a lactose free formula is about as big a change as you can have!

So we’re crossing our fingers a) that it works, and b) that he’s not actually got a lactose intolerance! Apparently some babies develop temporary lactose intolerance after tummy upsets or if they were born prematurely, and it can be something they grow out of. Little Man did have some issues with some kind of tummy bug which really upset his stomach a while ago, so it’s not impossible that this could have caused a temporary intolerance which just hasn’t settled yet. I’ll keep you updated on our progress and how he gets on with his lactose free formula!