Photo Phriday #6

meg-made is now on Etsy!

I am a shop-owner.

An Etsy shop-owner, but a shop-owner nonetheless.

I am SO excited to reveal that meg-made is now open on Etsy!!!!

I have finally taken the leap and decided to start selling my handmade meg-made items. I have started off with hair accessories for little girls, but the list of items I plan on making for sale is endless! 

meg-made Etsy store

To celebrate my grand opening this week, I am offering a discount for all of my blog readers as a thank you for reading my blog, and for visiting my store. As a thank you, enter the code BLOGLOVE at the checkout to receive a 20% discount of your entire purchase! This voucher will be valid until the end of May. 

If you want to keep up with all new listings and special offers on my Etsy store, not to mention keep up with all the other meg-made pursuits that happen in the kitchen, become a follower of the meg-made blog.

I hope you visit my store and hope you find something that you like. If you have any custom requests, please send me an email, I would love to make a little something special for the special girl in your life. 

And here is the special girl in my life, in full on model-mode!

Thanks for the support and encouragement to take this leap!!

Cot railing(teething) guard

A standing baby is adorable. A baby with newly-sprouted teeth is adorable. A baby who can stand and grind these adorable new teeth on her lovely cot, is less so. I'm sure I mostly worry about her teeth being damaged by the wood....but there's a little bit of me that's also worried for the wood that's being gnawed at too! But it's mostly the baby....mostly! 

Whichever it is, there's such an easy (and cute) fix, so that was my project today! 

I had only suspected that Baby M would be gnawing away on the side of her cot because she's been standing for a few weeks now, but I hadn't checked until today! The little monster has been busy!!!

So, I set to work to make a railing guard to attach to her cot to protect both her teeth and the wood. I had purchased this sweet elephant material a few months ago, and as with all my fabrics, waited for a good use. I  wanted something neutral and so thought the elephants would be perfect for the job!! 

I was kind of crafty with what I filled this guard with too. I've been using her old crib mattress for various purposes for a few months now (knee-pad for the bath and a booster pad for her highchair) and have kept the padded cover, thinking that it may come in handy one day. It is a quilted batting that is just perfect for this exact purpose, and I was kind of chuffed to have thought of it!

I made the elephant rail guard complete with grey grosgrain ribbon ties to attach it to the cot (we'll see how long until Baby M figures out how to untie a double knot). I am so happy with how it turned out. I think it looks super cute in her cot and set about putting it to work straight away. 

Baby M seems to like it too!!

Exciting meg-made news....

Will be revealed tomorrow!!

Classic Baked Rice Pudding...and...Apple Crumble Rice Pudding (GF)

The scene is set. Mr M makes dinner. Forgets I can't eat wraps to accompany fajitas. Makes rice. For an entire army. My suspicions are raised when I suggest I use the leftovers to make a Rice Pudding and he gives an all too rehearsed smile, as though this was all part of an evil scheme. 

So what if it was!! We got to eat Rice Pudding!!! 

I hadn't really realised how much I enjoy Rice Pudding, perhaps because the number of things I can eat is dwindling, but also because it reminds me of my brother. He is/was a rugby player and growing up would eat anything that wasn't moving (but as an aside, living in Japan I'm fairly certain this wasn't a pre-requisite) and so our Mum's full time job was trying to get him full. After a full day of eating half a bakery/butchers/fruit stall/rice field/potato farm...we'd be nearly finished dinner when the inevitable question would arise "what's for dessert". Rice Pudding was a frequent option because unlike something dainty like a creme brulee or pavlova, this would actually fill him up (and well, if you're already cooking a few kilo's of rice for dinner, dessert is half done too!). 

Which is where my thoughts came in. If Mr M had cooked the rice already, dessert is half done for me, the least I can do is add some milk and eggs! 

I wanted a recipe that reminded me of the ones we had growing up. I knew what ingredients I was to use, so went in search for whoever else used them. Jackpot. Paula Deen! If Paula Deen has made it, I knew it would be good! I found her classic Baked Rice Pudding recipe and made a few smaller portions, because I had some grand plans for shaking things up a little. 

But firstly, a classic Baked Rice Pudding:

Ingredients

1 cup cooked rice

2 1/2 cups milk

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup raisins (I don't like raisins in mine so left them out)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Method:

1. Lightly beat eggs in a large bowl and add rice, milk, sugar, vanilla and salt. 

2. Grease some ramekins or a baking dish and preheat oven to 160C/325F

3. Pour the rice/custard mix into the prepared dishes. 

4. Place these dishes in a larger baking tray and fill with water that comes a few cm's up the sides of the ramekins. 

5. Bake for an hour and a half or until slightly firm and browning on top. 

And stop here if you want to enjoy a classic Baked Rice Pudding. 

But I wanted to be a little more creative. I wanted to combine two desserts into one, and so may I present....

The Apple Crumble Rice Pudding!!!!!!!!!

Once the original rice pudding has cooked, add some slightly cooked apples (with cinnamon of course) to the top of the pudding, and cover with a crumble mixture. 

Crumble ingredients:

Butter

Demera/Raw sugar

Flour (I used GF self raising flour)

Almond meal

Mix these all together with the tips of your fingers until it resembles a good thick crumble!

It was delicious, sweet, filling, warm and a really fun twist on the classic dessert. I served ours with a cinnamon marscapone, but icecream would go down a treat too!! 

The crunch of the crumble was a lovely contrast to the soft apples and soft rice. The slightly tart apples was a good balance to the sweet custard in the rice pudding. The whole thing just worked! Next time I would have more apples though, it definitely could do with more apples!!! 

Now, excuse me, but cold Rice Pudding is fantastic for breakfast....

GF Fish & Chips....it can be found!

I have finally, FINALLY found some fish & chips that is a) delicious and b) gluten free! Really good fish & chips is something that I miss from home. A lot. Brisbane seems to have an abundance of really top notch fish & chip joints that are top of our "must eat when home" lists, and we haven't even come close to matching any of them here in the UK. Until today that is. It still doesn't come anywhere near A Salt & Battery in St Lucia, but I will say that Oliver's Fish and Chips in Belsize Park, is the best we've had in London thus far.

I stumbled upon them through a Gluten-Free review from a few years ago when they were doing one day a month with a gluten free menu. It was so successful that now every Wednesday is GF day, and so today, I dragged my friend along (we weren't sure whether there would be a regular menu as well, and if not, what on earth we were getting ourselves in for) and we had some lunch. 

I order the Cod Goujons, GF, and my friend was able to order just regular Cod. 

I was so pleasantly surprised to see this arrive:

And as I cut into my Cod, I was even more pleasantly surprised so to see this:

The batter was actually light and crispy and wasn't oily. Our usual experience has been for very thick and oily batter that you leave behind and view as being a vestibule to simply keep the fish warm, not fit for human consumption. But this one was different! It had a lovely flavour, a lovely crunch and if I hadn't of been told it was GF, I would never have known. 

If you are gluten-intolerant and are looking for a good chippy in London (.......on a Wednesday), then look no further! 

DIY Cake Stands

It's our baby's first birthday in a month and so I'm trying to tick off little projects ahead of time to make sure everything is how I pictured it to be for her. And no birthday party is complete without a cake stand or ten!

I sure wish I was the first to come up with this idea. Or even the 20th person, but I'm pretty sure if its featured on Martha Stewart's Craft Department website, I'm probably closer to the millionth person to do this! But hey, I still think they are really cute and so clever, and I'm sure I won't be the last to give this a go either.

All you need is three things:

1) a base, be it a candlestick, eggcup, regular cup, anything at the height you desire

2) a serving platform, be it a plate, mirror, glass dish, upside down baking dish

3) some glue (hot glue gun works the best)

And then, it really is as simple as gluing 1 to 2! Done!

I made one large cake stand using a mirror plate and candlestick, and a small breakable one for Baby M, using a plastic plate and eggcup (which I coated in glitter first).

I traced the candlestick/eggcup onto the mirror/plate and put a rim of glue on the platform as week as the base, but I wouldn't next time, as it was too much glue and is now not 100% flat.

Matching nail-polish...optional!

Don't they look kind of cool? I can't wait to make another few and then continue menu planning for some tasty treats to fill them all with!!

Gluten-Free Cornmeal Crusted Pizza....it can be done!

A few weeks ago I ate at Otto in Notting Hill, who's claim to fame is that they are the first to bring Cornmeal Crusted Pizzas to the UK, hailing from Portland, Oregon. Their regular Cornmeal Crust is not entirely Gluten-Free (although they do have purely GF options) but they have found the amount of wheat to be small enough not to upset those with gluten intolerances. I was pretty excited to give it a go! Pizza was the one thing I was the most sad about when deciding to eliminate gluten, because having had the odd GF pizza in the past, I knew life would never be the same again.

And it still isn't, but I have at least found some pretty darn close alternatives!

Here's my Otto pizza, which was BBQ Pulled Pork (um...amazing), and thankfully it did not make me sick!

After this raging success, I haven't been able to get cornmeal crusts out of my mind, and so i set out to make my own tonight. I found a recipe that I was happy with and gave it a go, and was determined to not be put off by the sloppiness of the uncooked dough!

Ingredients

2.5 cups GF self raising flour

1.5 cups cornmeal

2 t salt

2 t xantham gum

1 t baking powder

2.5 cups warm water

2 T vegetable oil (I used sunflower tHough and had no issues)

2.5 t instant active yeast

I didn't have as much cornmeal (which is polenta by the way) as I needed, so added extra flour, so I think next time it will taste even better!

Method:

1. Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl (flour through to baking powder) and stir to mix.

2. In the bowl of your mixer, combine the water, oil and yeast and stir well to combine. Allow to sit for about 10 minutes to give the yeast time to begin to activate. Mine never goes frothy, but apparently it may!!

3. Pour the dry ingredients into the yeasty water and mix on a medium speed for about two minutes. You are trying to get as much air into the dough as possible. 

4. Allow this "dough" to sit for an hour or two to prove. I say dough, but it really isn't very dough-like at all! It is more like muffin-mix almost!! Very sticky anyway. 

5. After the allotted time the dough will have risen a little and will have air pockets throughout. It is now ready to spread onto a baking tray. 

I used two rectangle trays, lined with al-foil and parchment paper. The recipe suggested spreading the dough with an oiled spatula, but I found the best way was to use oiled fingers! 

6. Bake in a moderate oven for 15 minutes, or until slightly crusty. 

7. Cover with toppings of your choosing. I did one BBQ Chicken (with red onion, sliced capsicum and cheese) and a Ham & Marscapone (with sliced yellow tomatoes, red onions and cheese). 

BBQ Chicken

 Ham & Marscapone

Before eating the finished product tonight I prepared Mr M by saying to forget everything he knows and loves about pizza and prepare for a doughy, yeasty and generally non-yummy non-pizza! Boy was I wrong! I would make it a little thinner next time, but even still, the edges were crunchy, and the cornmeal gave it such a pleasant taste that regular GF pizzas seem to be missing! The toppings were great, I did my two favourites just to give it more chance of success, but I think a simple ham and pineapple would survive anyway!

It is of course more effort than regular bought pizzas, but if you don't happen to live right around the corner from Otto, it may well be your next best way of enjoying pizza again!

We were so happy with this, Mr M said "well now you have your pizza base for life, that's done" and we agreed it was they best tasting GF pizza we'd ever had.

Coeliac Awareness Week '13

I have found a few Gluten Free blogs to follow and love lately, and one of them, Apple & Spice, brought it to my attention that it is Coeliac Awareness Week this week! As someone who is Gluten Intolerant and Coeliac-all-but-with-a-diagnosis, I feel like its an important week in the UK to raise some awareness about what it means to have an intolerance to gluten. 

My story of intolerance (of the glutenous variety) started 6 years ago when I started feeling sick, often. I was on first name basis with all of the staff at my gastroenterologist's office due to the frequency with which I had appointments. Five rather unpleasant exams later, still no diagnosis. It was clear that there was something very wrong with my digestive system, but they couldn't quite put a label on me yet. 

I had bowel resection surgery after about 18 months of all of this, because symptomatically the specialists suspected I had Crohns Disease. After a fairly traumatic surgery and recovery period fraught with complications, pathology reports came back negative. The trouble with diagnosing any of these gastrointestinal disorders is the nature of the diagnosis. So many of these diseases exist in little pockets of infection riddled throughout the intestines, and if those exact pockets aren't biopsied, the results will show negative. The amount of stories of people suffering through countless false negatives until finally a positive biopsy is vast. And frustrating. This article in the Huffington Post 50 Shades of Gluten Intolerance (as linked by My Darling Lemon Thyme) talks about it far more scientifically than I can, and is worth a read. 

I continued on with my journey towards diagnosis, but the journey never seemed to end. I got sick of being poked and prodded and so decided to stop (well, having to go through a colonoscopy in the UK AWAKE & IN AGONY was the final straw for me. Seriously, if you need to have one, do it in Australia, we won't make you feel a darn thing). It was only very recently that I decided to go Gluten Free again to see if it made a difference, and the difference has been, well, life changing. I won't go into it, because, well this is a food post afterall, but lets just say, it has been well worth sticking to for me. 

I love my two new GF recipe books and am enjoying discovering a new way of cooking and baking that still allows the foodie in me to escape!!

Seriously Good Gluten-Free Baking

The Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef

To honour Coeliac Awareness Week, I will only be posting recipes that are Gluten Free, and will link to my favourite other Gluten Free blogs that I currently adore. Its funny the number of people I know who have some form of intolerance to gluten, and apparently it has become quite trendy to follow a Gluten Free diet according to the Harvard Medical School. 

Do you suffer from an intolerance to Gluten? Do you find it to be easy to live with? Do you have any favourite blogs or restaurants who make it easier to handle?