This week my Five on Friday mostly revolves around food. It has been cold, wet and grey recently with few spells of sunshine. I'm still enjoying the Movement to Music group, I've persuaded my neighbour to join in, so we travel together. You need your wits about you as the start up exercises wake up your brain. When the music starts, it gets easier each week as you remember the routines. I have the songs on Spotify, so can play / practice odd bits during the week ha ha.
2) Mackerel Pate - Having IBS and also wanting to eat less processed food, I tend to make a lot of my own simple creations. Though I like mushroom pate and course peppercorn pate (from when I worked for Waitrose around 30 yrs ago), I don't like the idea of making traditional liver pate. I do eat liver, I just don't want to blitz it all up.
I found this very simple recipe of Mackerel Pate that mixes very quickly with a fork. The chives can be swapped for the green tops of spring onions, also extra lemon juice instead of the vinaigrette if wanted. It keeps for a few days in the fridge and can be used up, on top of a jacket potato.
3) Sourdough starter - Fed and fermenting ready for Friday's pizza. After rising to over double its height, it's now mixed up as a dough and the starter put back in the fridge. It has had 4 'lift and folds' in the large covered bowl and will now sit in the warm lounge until the morning. Then be placed in the fridge until I'm ready to divide it between 2 pizza plates, topping it with ingredients after an hour. It will be delicious.
The book that I follow is The Sourdough Whisperer by Elaine Boddy link to see inside. Elaine Fodbod on Instagram is very helpful, any queries, she is sure to help if she can.
4) Hot Chocolate in my special mug - Not a homemade recipe but a tasty instant hot chocolate drink, free of gums and other UPF (ultra processed food). It may still have one ingredient that others object to, but I'm happy with it. It's all about reducing processed food, not making life difficult.
A few years ago I bought myself a crochet mug from the yarn shop - for my Christmas stocking. Last December I bought the matching crochet tin. You could store anything inside of course, a biscuit or maybe some clips to hold your work together whilst you sew up your work. I chose the later.
I'm finding that many Gluten Free recipes use Xanthan Gum including Dove Freee recipes. I'll let you google how these Ultra Processed Food ingredients affect some people. Also it's interesting to note that they aren't actually food either, It's shocking!
For gluten free baking, I can of course understand how all the gums and other ingredients can mimic gluten, stopping that crumbly texture... but I actually like the crumbly texture in cakes and biscuits/cookies. Regular cakes can stick around teeth, after years not eating gluten and now limiting it considerably, that's how I prefer baked goods.
Ttfn (ta ta for now).
Cathy x
