Eggplant Cannelloni - Gluten Free.

We're finally and truly back. Eventually !

Summer has kept us really busy; I spent several weeks in Thailand visiting my family with my boyfriend; then Kama and I went to London aka the city we cherish so much. Time went by and without realizing it, it was time to come back to the old routine. The one point that makes me (and Kama won't disagree) enjoy the routine is that we have time to cook and blog. To be honest, I haven't really cooked during summer and I've actually missed it so it's high time we spent hours in the kitchen.

One more thing about summer. I've finally found the reason of my health issues. I'm gluten intolerant. Yeay ! I was suspecting gluten to be the cause of the issues for a long time now but after all it's not terrible news because I enjoy cooking gluten free recipes. It makes me learn more about food, nutrition, and health. Besides it arouses my cooking imagination, and this can only be beneficial for the blog. 

Now let's talk about this new recipe. 

I love quinoa and I was looking for a new way to eat it when this idea came up. I love cannelloni but I didn't want to eat wheat flour, the fridge was full of veggies, so I decided to choose some veggies and make a recipe out of it. The result is quite tasty and autumnal and it's a good way of recreating cannelloni or lasagna (indeed you can make this recipe lasagna style by layering the quinoa stuffing and the eggplant slices)

Here I'm giving you an example of quinoa stuffing recipe but you can substitute the veggies in it according to your taste.

Ingredients:
for 4 servings

- 200g grain quinoa, cooked
- 1 1/2 eggplant
- 150g Portobello/Paris mushrooms
- 3 celery branches, without leaves
- 400g peeled and diced tomatoes with juice (I use canned tomatoes)
- 2 shallots
- 2 garlic gloves
- olive oil
- pe- 1 tp fenel grains pper and salt
- emmental cheese (as you like)


Directions:

1) Cook the quinoa. Meanwhile, dice the shallots and garlic gloves. Cut in thin strips the mushrooms and finely dice the celery branches.
2) In a frying pan, heat some olive oil. Brown the shallots and the garlic gloves for 5 minutes. Add the celery. Stir. When the celery comes gloden, add the mushrooms. Stir.
3) When the mushrooms turn golden, incorporate the tomatoes and their juice. Season with pepper, salt, and fenel grains. Cover and cook low heat for 15-20min (the preparation must look like a pasta sauce).
4) Add the quinoa. Stir and remove from heat.
5) Slice the eggplants in length, coat with olive oil and grill. When done, remove from heat.
6) In a pan, stuff the eggplants slices and shape rolls like cannelloni. Top with grated emmental cheese and bake until the cheese is golden.
7) Serve immediately.

Enjoy,

B.

Red Bell Pepper, Goat Cheese, and Arugula Mini Quiches - Gluten Free.

Usually, I never make nor eat quiches. But I couldn't resist give a try to these ones.
This recipe is adapted from Réinventez vos tartes salées, sucrées by Catherine Kluger, Marabout ed. (in French).

Ingredients :
Make 6 mini quiches or a large one + 2 mini quiches

for the dough
- 200g rice flour
- a pinch of salt
- 90g cold butter, diced
- 2cl water
- 1 whipped egg (add another one if the dough is too floury)

for the filling
- 2 large red bell peppers
- 150g goatcheese log
- 50g raw almonds
- 60g arugula
- 15ml balsamic vinegar
- 25ml olive oil
- 2 garlic gloves
- some basil leaves
- 15cl rice milk
- 2 eggs
- 5cl whipping cream
- 15g cornstarch
- salt & pepper

 Directions:

for the dough
Preheat the oven at 220°C
1) Sift together the flour and salt;
2) Add the butter dices and crumble the mixture;
3) Incorporate the whipped egg and the water and mix with your fingers/blender until getting a homogenous dough;
4) Fridge the dough for an hour;
5) Dust the dough as needed and roll it out. Fit it to the moulds. Prick the dough with a fork. Allow the dough to rest for another hour.
6) Line the moulds with parchment paper and add pie weights on top. Bake for about 25min until the crust is golden but not overcooked. Remove from the oven.

for the filling
1) Slice the red bell peppers and put then on a grill for about 15 to 20 min until you can remove the peel easily (you can also bake them for 25-30min to remove the peel, I just like the first option best);
2) Mix half of the red bell peppers slices with the raw almonds, the balsamic vinegar, the olive oil, the garlic glove until getting a homogenous pesto;
3) Mix together the eggs with the rice milk and the whipping cream. Incorporate the cornstarch. Season;
4) Fill the mini quiches with dices of goatcheese, the rest of the red bell peppers, and some arugula and basil leaves. Pour the dairy mixture (appareil à quiche in French) on that and bake for 35-40 minutes at 200°C (depending on the size of the quiches, large ones will require 55 minutes to an hour);
5) Serve either cold or hot, as an appetizer or with salad as side.


Enjoy,
 B.