Foodie Friday On A Saturday - What I Ate In December

Hi everyone and welcome to a slightly late What I Ate In December post.  I've really enjoyed writing these posts over the years but lately I think that they've become a little bit repetitive to write and I suspect to read, so for that reason this will be my last foodie review of the month post.

December is one of those months where the majority of us just eat and drink till we burst. I had the best of intentions but the minute the sweet dish appeared they went right out of the window. Unlike in previous years though I did eat a lot of proper meals instead of snacking so it wasn't all bad 

First up is a new recipe for me and something that I adapted from a recipe I saw in Tesco's free magazine. This Courgette, Basil and Ricotta Tart , was ridiculously easy to make. All you need is some puff pastry rolled into a rectangle , I used Genius Gluten Free, Then mix a pot of ricotta cheese with some grated Parmesan or the equivalent, a beaten egg, some pesto, and some torn up basil leaves. Pour it on top of the puff pastry leaving a border, then top it with sliced courgette and bake. When it's just about done sprinkle with pine nuts and a little grated Parmesan and put it back in the over for a few minutes. Garnish with basil leaves and scoff :)

Christmas to me means cheese month and whilst we still have a cheese board left, I ate a hefty amount. including the 3 varieties that went into my Triple Cheese and Onion Strata.

I also made another Pimped Up Macaroni Cheese, some Broccoli and Stilton Soup and a huge batch of my Broccoli, Stilton, and Walnut Pasta

and probably the biggest cauliflower ever, made into a comforting batch of cauliflower cheese.

Sticking with the cheese theme I also made a version of my Creamy Mushroom And Basil Pasta but with some added cherry tomatoes, red pepper, and Quorn pieces.

Cheese also plays a big part in my Christmas Eve foodie routine, as well as dips, and a cheeseboard, traditionally me and Mummy Lou always indulge in a mozzarella, pesto, basil and tomato ciabatta roll sandwich

and of course some homemade gluten free mince pies, 

and some mulled wine.

Christmas dinner is per usually ended up being the meal of the year. This year alongside my veggies, I had homemade gluten free Yorkshire pudding, veggie gravy, homemade gluten free sage and onion stuffing, Quorn Roast, and a The Real Pie Company Gluten Free Nut Roast, which was a nut roast full of cranberries, leeks, mushrooms and huge pieces of nuts all wrapped in fabulous buttery gluten free pastry.

To put it politely I was absolutely stuffed and as a family we all needed an hour or so's rest after our dinners and some pretty decent Aldi champagne before we could move on to our Christmas pudding.

This year, my gluten free pudding came from Sainsbury's and very nice it was too, rich, and dark and full of fruit. I had mine with creamy custard and just a touch of cream for good luck. Apologies for the blurry photograph, it was nothing to do with the champagne I promise ;)

As much as I love my cheese and my chutneys and pickles, for my December 2014 was all about my sweet tooth. As well as the mountain of chocolate that I got for Christmas I also  guzzled my way through most of Starbucks and Costa's festive delights. When it comes to Starbucks Red Cups, I'm usually a Toffee Nut Latte girl. Last month though I branched out and consumed several Eggnog Lattes and towards the end of the month I discovered the delights of the White Chocolate Mocha.

For most of the month I was a creature of habit in Costa and I stuck to my favourite White Hot Chocolate but I did make one deviation for one of their Sticky Toffee Lattes which was yummy. I also bought a mini pack of this years festive Monin syrups so I can make my own Brownie and Chocolate Orange hot chocolates.

Speaking of chocolate I also made up a festive batch of Nigella Lawson's Sweet And Salty Crunchy Nut Bars,

and several portions of delicious Calico Cottage Fudge including the fabulous Salted Caramel flavour.

I also made a batch of Gluten Free Gingerbread (click here to see the recipe),

some of which I used to make a No Bake Gluten Free Raspberry And White Chocolate Cheesecake.

So they were my December eats, there are so many things that I haven't shown you including a massive dish of nachos, a tray full of roasted vegetables and of course my Christmas cake but I'm sure you've seen more than enough see why I'm so terrified to step on the scales on Monday - haha.

Although this series is ending Foodie Friday will continue into 2015, I'm planning on doing more recipe posts, some product reviews, some restaurant reviews and maybe a few What I Ate Today posts, but if there is anything else you would like to see food wise on the blog then please let me know x 

Foodie Friday - What I Ate In September

Ah September and food, where do we start? Well for at least a quarter of the month food was the farthest thing from my memory but we've been through that enough already, but I didn't cook as much as I hoped and I certainly didn't try any new dishes, well apart from the epic cake I made for Mummy Lou's birthday.

It was an epic birthday meal all round, the main course was my immense Gluten Free Mushroom And Basil Lasagne, made with some of my homemade easy pesto sauce.

This is probably the most drawn out, excuse the use of the word again, but epic recipe ever. It's time consuming but so worth the effort for a special occasion.

The lasagne was hard work, but in typical LouLou style, I don't do things be halves and made an even more time consuming dessert.

Yes, it was a cake, a 6 tiered gluten free sponge cake to be precise (I used this recipe 3 times replacing the lemon with a splash of vanilla extract and some food colouring). It was supposed to be blue, yellow, and pink but as you can see the pink food colouring (Asda's) was erm, useless! I sandwiched the layers together with butter cream, and Carnation Caramel, and cut a hole in the middle of the middle 4 cakes to make...

a Pinata Cake! I then filled the hole in the centre with Peanut M&M's and Galaxy Caramel Bits, Before covering it in literally a mountain of vanilla butter cream, and white chocolate jazzies.

OMG it was the most stressful thing I've ever done, first of all there was the problem with cakes, would they turn out? and would they crumble when I tried to cut them? Then there was the food colouring issue - it kind of ruined the look with an insipid beige colour rather than the pretty pink I anticipated. Then of course it was slightly too high so I had to hold it steady with skewers because I thought it might tip over arghhhh. Yeah so by the time it came to cutting the cake I was a nervous wreck, thankfully though the look on my mums face made it worth while and it tasted amazing, but never again - this was a one off - lol

So the birthday meal was by far my September highlight but what else did I eat? Well the rest of the month was mainly spent trying to get my head around food again. I ate a lot of plain stuff for a week or so, a lot of plain pasta, lots of potatoes, and lots of eggs and toast. I'm lucky to have relatives with chickens so over the last month I've probably ate more than I have done in a long time. I'm a huge scrambled egg fan, and this was a version using some leftovers, mainly spring onion, a spare slice of cheddar and some cream cheese, all on top of an Udi's Gluten Free Bagel.

As well as the chickens, I think I've told you before, but both my uncles have a lot of land and last month we received some more bagfuls of homegrown produce.

Onions, parsnips, apples, green beans, beetroot, you name it we got it, things are now either blanched, or stewed and frozen or in a cool dark place for use later in the year. One of my uncles had also been blackberry picking and provided us with this mountain of berries that my mum swiftly converted into several zillion jars of jam.

When I want comfort food nothing hits the spot more than a bowl of soup. Despite the still relatively fine weather in September I've started on the soup early this year. First up probably my favourite, my mum's Leek and Potato.

This was the soup of my childhood, and the warmth and creaminess really takes me back. A newer favourite of mine is of course Broccoli and Stilton, well it would be a newer favourite, up until about 5 years ago I detested blue cheese, it's funny how your tastes change.

Stilton obviously isn't very popular is my little part of Co Durham as my local Tesco nearly always has some in the reduced section. We love it though and in September I also made a variant of my Broccoli, Stilton And Walnut Pasta, only this time I threw in a little bit of vegan chorizo, for a bit more of a kick.

Treats weren't high on the agenda in September but I must include the vanilla cheesecake shots, and the Glo Worm from the recent Candy Rocks Jewellery Event (read my post here to find out more).

Oh and I guess I could count this as treat too - I finally broke my Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte duck. I'm not a huge cinnamon fan but I give in, it is as nice as everyone says and I may have even had another one today :). If you do have one though I would  definitely recommend you get them to use the Guatemala Antigua origin espresso, it's about 25p extra but it has a sweet, warm, spicy taste that really takes a PSL to the next level.

So that was my September food highlights. I was worried that I wouldn't have a lot to show you but I think I managed to make a post out of it. In October I'm going to try and get back on the healthy eating bandwagon, and I'm going to try and experiment a bit more. I've got a few, new recipe ideas that I want to try and I want to play about with some old favourites, so hopefully I'll have some new things to show you soon. Thanks for reading and don't forget to let my know your September food highlights x

Foodie Friday - What I Ate In July

July was a month where I ate what I wanted, when I wanted it. When I look back at some of the things that I ate in July it honestly doesn't look as though I ate that badly, and I genuinely don't think that I did. As I said in Monday's post I think it was more about snacking and portion control. Given the heat I also ate quite a bit of ice cream that I haven't mentioned here and I also make a crucial mistake and discovered the wonder that is Cadbury's Dairy Marvellous Creations Banana Caramel Crisp - bad move! So minus the ice cream and chocolate, here's what I ate in July.

First up savouries and something that I'm having again tomorrow, naughty nachos :) I love nachos so much I make a huge batch of homemade salsa which I pour over tortilla chips, top with grated cheese and bung in the oven for 20 minutes. Not the most healthy dish but quick and easy.

I also made be favourite Double Potato And Halloumi Bake, only using feta and mozzarella instead of the halloumi. Alas no pics because they didn't come out too well but the leftovers were mixed with a bought (sorry!) pasta sauce, and some gluten free pasta, to make a quick pasta dish.

I ate a lot of pasta in July, probably more than I have in the rest of the year put together but I've missed it. I'm a huge pasta fiend! One of my favourite pasta dishes ever is macaroni cheese. When I'm in a rush I love the Amy's Kitchen Rice Mac And Cheese, which you get from must major supermarkets. I'm not a huge lover of ready meals but I would definitely recommend the Amy's Kitchen range of vegetarian and gluten free meals for quality and taste. This time though I fancied making my own, so using Heinz Gluten Free Macaroni, I made a huge batch to see us through a few hot days.

After I posted this on instagram a few people asked for a recipe, well to be honest it's so easy that it doesn't really justify a recipe. All I did was cook the pasta, and whilst the pasta was cooking I made a basic gluten free cheese sauce (just a combination of butter, milk, gluten free flour, seasoning and grated cheddar) which I then mixed into the cooked pasta, and a packet of  Redwood Vegan Chorizio Sausage Chunks. I then poured the lot into a huge baking dish, and topped it with a homemade breadcrumb topping made from gluten free bread zapped up in the food processor and mixed with more grated cheddar, garlic granules, and chilli flakes and then baked in the oven till crispy and bubbly.

Me and Mummy Lou devoured this full baking dish full over the course of 3 days It kept really well the fridge and heated up easily in the microwave. I imagine it would also freeze really well too The only thing was the topping went a touch soggy but it still tasted great.

Something else that I made in July was wrap pizzas. I am seriously in love with the Warburtons Newburn Bakehouse Gluten Free Wraps. I particular love them stuffed with salad and hummus but on this occasion I made them into pizzas, topping them with some veg, some tomato puree, and some cheese.

Yes, it's curry loaf again :) Again I made this with pimped up golden vegetable rice, and baked beans only this time I threw a handful of sultanas into the mix for good measure. Really enjoyable as per usual :)

In July my momma had a meat craving! Bless her she's so good and eats more veggie food than meat these days but sometime she just craves burgers, so we headed to Chiquitos to take advantage of the lunch menu. I had the halloumi salad which is incredible, my love for the squeaky cheese hold no bounds! The one downer this time is that they were out of the cranberry and mint relish so I just had basic salsa, never mind it was still yummy.

Mummy Lou got her usual cheeseburger and salad but I fancied being a bit naughtier so I got a portion of sweet potato fries for us to share - so, so good and something that I will definitely order again. After all that Mummy Lou still wasn't satisfied lol, like mother like daughter I guess so we moved on to the dessert, where we both had a portion of the Golden Nugget Cheesecake (alas not pictured) but it's basically a vanilla cheese cake stuff with chocolate and plain honeycomb - being good I left the base which Mummy Lou was more than happy to eat :)

When it came to sweet things through July I tried to be good but July was the month where I discovered the amazing Gower Cottage Gluten Free Chocolate Brownies..

Mmm so good, squidgy, chocolate morsels that you can't event tell are gluten free. You can read my post on them here, and I'm sad to say that my box is now all gone :(

I was a little bit god as you can see here though and I did have mine with some fresh summer fruits. My mum paid a couple of visits to the local fruit farm and bought a mountain of freshly picked strawberries and a couple of punnets of raspberries.

I may have demolished the raspberries but the majority of the strawberries were for jam. My mum loves making jam and she made about 16 lbs of strawberry jam!!! A few jars will go to friends and relatives but otherwise we are well stocked for the winter :) So far I've had some on top of ice cream and on top of some gluten free digestives with some cream cheese to make my own mini cheesecakes, in August though I can definitely see myself making some scones to have an albeit healthy version of a cream tea.

Speaking of home baking Mummy Lou also tried a bit of an experiment and made a chocolate and vanilla marble cake stuffed full of the lightest, fluffiest, butter cream you have ever tasted! So good!

That's just about it bar a couple of Costa Raspberry And White Chocolate Creamy Coolers, and one of my newest loves the Starbucks Banana Yogurt Frappuccino

So that was my July, I really want to try a bit harder to eat more healthily in August but at the same time I also want to experiment a bit more with my cooking, I really think that mixing it up a bit will make a huge difference diet wise, so if you have any healthy, vegetarian recipes hit me up x Thanks for reading and happy eating x