Cinnamon raisin walnut bread (2)

Tweaking the original recipe from a year ago, I made a loaf of cinnamon raisin walnut bread to take to my in-laws over the holidays. 

Cinnamon raisin walnut bread

Courgette loaf (2)

It dawned on me recently that even though I like courgette bread, I've only made it a couple of times and never without grain flour (the previous ones were with spelt). So I thought it would be fun to experiment with a wheat-free, grain-free loaf. 

Courgette loaf

Spiced cranberry bread

Here's another variation of the basic bread with sweet mixed spices (coriander, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, fennel, cloves, and cardamon) and dried cranberries.

Spiced cranberry bread

Cinnamon raisin walnut bread (1)

Ever since I made the basic walnut bread, I'd been itching to try making a variation using cinnamon, raisins, and walnuts. And after a trip to Holland & Barrett to pick up a few missing ingredients, I got to working.

Cinnamon raisin walnut bread

Basic bread (with walnut)

On the heels of my success with the chocolate-frosted yellow cake, I tried out another 'base' recipe from the Wheat Belly Cookbook, the Basic Bread. I had tried making loaf bread before using only coconut flour but it came out too dense for my liking (hence even though I have the recipe written down, I haven't posted it). This basic bread recipe called for garbanzo bean, or chickpea/gram, flour. I couldn't find ready-made chickpea flour in the shops here (I didn't try very hard, only looking at the usual shops I go to), so I got a bag of dried chickpeas and proceeded to make my own.

It was actually quite easy to do, as long as one had the tools - food processor, or in my case, a mini chopper, a coffee/spice grinder, and a sifter - good sound insulation in the kitchen (or whatever room you're working in), a bit of time, and lots of patience. I made two batches, using one for this bread and kept the rest in a air-tight jar for future use.

Basic walnut bread

Aubergine lamb rolls with tzatziki

We were on holiday in Abu Dhabi for 10 days in late June. The hotel was lovely and the food wonderful, fresh and very high quality. After returning home, I wasn't in any mood to cook, so we lived on shuǐjiǎo (boiled dumplings) for a few days. Even though they were tasty, the wheat used to make the pastry didn't agree with me (I don't need to say more...).

When I finally put in an order for grocery, I decided to extend the holiday feel a bit and make tzatziki, something that was available at breakfast and dinner in the hotel, to go with lamb. And the resulting dish was grilled aubergine rolls stuffed with lamb and feta, drizzled with tzatziki. 

Grilled aubergine lamb rolls with tzatziki

Baked cheesecake with almond biscuit base

Baked cheesecake was a firm favourite of mine till I went wheatless. I hadn't tried baking any cake/pie base/crust using nut flours as I wasn't entirely sure how it would work out. After making several batches of chocolate chip cookies using almond flour with great success, I felt confident enough to give making a wheatless cheesecake base a go. So this experiment is really about the base.