Cowboy Pie

Apparently, this is a well-known recipe to a lot of people, but I had never heard of it until sometime last year! Anyway, I thought I would share one of many versions because it's really simple to make especially gluten-free!

Cowboy Pie - serves 6

4-5 large potatoes, peeled and chopped

Butter

Olive oil

350g gluten-free sausages - I used the Co-op's 'Truly Irresistable' chipolatas as all of this range are gluten-free

1 large onion, sliced

1 tin of baked beans

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

2 finely chopped garlic cloves

1/2 tsp dried sage

1 gluten-free beef stock cube

handful of grated mature cheddar cheese

salt and pepper

Boil the potatoes until tender. Mash with butter and seasoning and leave to cool in the pan.

Fry the onions with garlic and herbs in a large frying pan and add the sausages. Cook until the onions are soft and the sausages are brown on all sides.

Add to the pan the whole tin of baked beans and tomatoes and the stock cube. Season to taste.

Empty the pan into a large casserole dish and top with the mashed potato. Sprinkle the cheese on top and bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 200 degrees.

"Bakewell" Cookies

This is a 'happy accident' recipe for some lovely cookies using a basic shortbread recipe and some experimentation with things I already had in my cupboard. The resulting cookie tastes a bit like a bakewell tart, hence the name!

Bakewell Cookies

150g Butter or margarine

90g caster sugar

100g rice flour

100g cornflour

50g ground almonds

4tsp almond extract

100g dried or glacé cherries

100g white chocolate chunks

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees.

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add almond extract, ground almonds, cherries and white chocolate chunks and mix together. Sift flour and cornflour in gradually and mix to form a dough. Line a baking tray (or two!) with greaseproof paper and shape approximately 50g balls of dough, flattening on to the baking tray until about 1/2cm thick, spaced apart enough to allow for a little spreading. Bake for 12-15 minutes until lightly golden.

Leave to cool and store in an airtight container.

"Allie's Mum's Dumplings"

What do you normally have with your gluten-free stews and casseroles? Do you have bread? Yorkshire puddings? Chips?! I used to love dumplings before I was gluten-free and I believed that you needed suet to make them. To my knowledge, you can't get gluten-free suet (though correct me if I'm wrong and then tell me where to purchase it!) so I figured I'd just have to let them go and keep them as a memory instead.

That is until I learned that you don't need suet at all, and I just so happen to have a recipe to make gorgeous dumplings, courtesy of this lovely lady who shares her mum's family recipe on her blog. They're easy to tweak so they're gluten-free!

Allie's Mum's Dumplings

1 cup plain gluten-free flour

2 tsp gluten-free baking powder

1/2tsp Xantham gum

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk

2tbsp vegetable oil

(optional) 1/2 tsp your choice of herbs - sage and thyme work well with chicken, for example

Sift the flour, baking powder, xantham gum and herbs (if you're using them) into a bowl. Stir in the milk and oil until just mixed and sit spoonfuls of the dough on top of your stew. Cover and place in the oven for 15-20 minutes.