I often do not leave myself time in the kitchen to play and decided that today was as good a day as any to whip up an entire meal from scratch.  First up: lentil soup.  And then: gluten free white bread.  Mmm… mmm… good.  We just finished dinner and just as I was packing up leftovers to bring to my honeyman’s folks, we had an unexpected guest at the door, who ended up eating the rest!

Sometimes I’m amazed when things turn out.  I didn’t really use a recipe for the lentil soup.  I’ve seen my mum make it a thousand times so I guessed at quanitities and ingredients and I’m happy to say it was FAB!  I guess the cooking angels were smiling on me today!  Must be my lucky day!

Lucky Lentil Soup

1/2 whole red onion, diced
1 whole clove garlic, minced
3 stalks celery, diced
1 tablespoon oil
2 liters chicken stock
1 1/2 cups dry lentils
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon oregano
salt and pepper to taste
1 whole green pepper, diced
1 whole red pepper, diced

Heat oil over medium heat in a stock pot.  Add onions, garlic and celery.  Saute until softened (about five minutes).  Add chicken stock to pot.  Rinse lentils and drain.  Add to pot along with tomato paste, paprika and salt and pepper.  Boil on medium-low heat, stirring occassionally, for one hour.

Stir in diced peppers and simmer for 30-45 minutes longer.  Serve in bowls with warm bread.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Wheat Bread

Confession time: I used a bread machine.  First time in my life!  I grew up in an Italian kitchen.  The only machine we had was a pasta machine – one of the old ones that you crank by hand.  I learned how to make bread by hand: kneading the dough until it felt just right.  It didn’t occur to me to do it any other way.  Well my honeyman has one that was gathering dust.  I tucked it away in a cupboard when we moved in together a few years ago and it hasn’t been seen since!  He’s been bugging me to pull it out for a few weeks so I decided to give it a whirl.  It sure made clean up easy.  We have black floors in our kitchen (why anyone would put black tiles in a kitchen is beyond me LOL) and any time I make dough, flour ends up everywhere.  But with the bread maker, it all ends up in the bread machine!  I still prefer to knead things by hand, black floors notwithstanding.  There’s a lot more love in dough that’s been brought to life by hand.

But the bread still turned out and it was yummy!  We had an unexpected guest stop by and I served him up a bowl of Lucky Lentil Soup and Gluten-Free Bread and he said that it was the best meal he’d had in weeks.  When we told him it was gluten-free bread, he said “I can’t believe it’s not wheat!”

1 whole egg
1 1/3 cups water (I used almond milk instead)
1/4 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon liquid honey
1 cup tapioca flour
2 cups rice flour
1/2 cup potato flour
1/3 cup almond meal (I didn’t have any but a quick Google search revealed that it’s just ground almonds)
1 tablespoon xanthum gum
1 1/2 teaspoons powdered gelatine
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar
4 tablespoons powdered milk
1 tablespoon dried yeast

In a bowl whisk the egg and the water together. Add to the breadmaker. Pour in the melted butter, lemon juice and the liquid honey. In a bowl combine the flours, xanthum gum, powdered gelatine, salt, sugar and the powdered milk. Add to the breadmaker. Sprinkle the yeast on top. Set breadmachine to basic and 2 lb . After the bread is cooked allow to cool in the breadmaker for 10 minutes before removing.  Cool on wire rack if you can stand the wait or dig in!

Oh any by the way, mystery dinner guest, I can’t believe you’re not Gene Simmons.