For the first time in about 4 years I am actually looking forward to sitting down to Christmas dinner. I have the whole affair mapped out from Christmas eve to Boxing day with military precision. The fact that I will be able to sit down and enjoy a dessert with everyone excites me the most, and yes I will be doing a different dessert for each of the three days. Making puddings is a rare treat for me so I intend to savour every maple sweetened second.

With Christmas wrapped up and firmly under control, my thoughts have turned to New Years Eve. For which I am not prepared at all. Unsure what people typically eat on New Years Eve, I came to the conclusion that it is mostly scaled down versions of regular foods on oversized plates. Finger food, party snacks, bite size morsels on tiny sticks.  I started to compile a list of the mini foods I fancy for the festivities and decided that having had 'make a quiche' on my AIP to do list for some time, mini quiche would make the shortlist. I would be lying if I said I hadnt impressed myself with the result.

I'm so proud of how it turned out that I kept calling my husband into the kitchen to say 'but just look at my quiche one more time'. It's rich, sweet, savoury and creamy without even the faintest sniff of an egg or dairy product in sight. Its also very adaptable for vegetarian or vegan versions and you can play with filling combinations to your hearts content.

I hope to see miniature versions of these popping up at AIP New Years Eve parties everywhere.

Oh, and while I have you, today is the last day to vote for me at the UK blog awards! If you haven't already you can find my competition entry here - I really appreciate your support. And if you have already - huge huge thanks :) Emma

You will need:

A blender
Loose bottomed quiche tin (mine is 18cm)
Baking paper or cling film

Ingredients:

For the custard
1 cup of courgette peeled and cubed
1 cup of swede peeled and cubed
2 tablespoons of melted coconut oil
1 tablespoon of gelatin powder (See my favourite brand below. Sub with agar agar for vegan alternative)
1/2 a cup of water
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
Himalayan sea salt


For the chicken and sage filling
3 free range organic chicken breasts diced into chunks
A generous handful of fresh sage leaves
3 sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 generous handful of chopped spring greens
1 tablespoon of coconut oil (see below)
2 tablespoons of garlic oil
Himalayan sea salt

For the pastry

1.5 cups of sifted tiger nut powder
1/2 cup of arrowroot powder (see below)
1/2 a cup of beef dripping (I bought mine from Waitrose. For vegan sub with coconut oil)
1/4 cup of ice cold water
A good pinch of Himalayan sea salt

Method:

To make your pastry

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees for fan assisted, 200 for conventional.

Add the sifted tiger nut powder, arrowroot and salt together in a large mixing bowl. Add the beef dripping and use your fingers to combine the fat and flour breaking down any lumps as you go. Slowly start adding the ice cold water a little at a time until you are left with a dough. Wrap this in baking paper and chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Remove the dough from the fridge. You can either roll this out and transfer to your tin or, to avoid crumbling pastry press directly into your tin. You want the pastry to be around 4mm thick all over. Prick the base of the pastry with a fork and bake in the centre of the oven for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes. remove this from the oven and set to one side.

To make your 'custard' filling

Steam or par boil your cubed courgettes until tender. Add to the blender with the lemon juice, a good pinch of salt, 1/4 of a cup of water and a tablepoon of coconut oil. Blend on high speed until completely smooth. Remove from the blender and reserve this liquid to one side.

While you are making your courgette mixture, boil the cubed swede in salted water until they begin to soften and you can easily pierce them with a knife. Once soft, add these to the blender with 1/4 cup of water and a tablespoon of coconut oil. Blend on high speed until you have what resembles a thickened custard. Add the courgette mixture back into the blender with the swede. Add a good pinch of salt to taste and leave in the blender as you will return to this later.

For the chicken and sage mix

Heat a tablespoon of coconut oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat and add the diced chicken pieces. Once these have begun to cook add the sage leaves, rosemary and a pinch of salt. When the chicken is about 5 minutes from being fully cooked through, add the chopped spring greens and  garlic oil and stir throughly to combine the flavours. After about 5 minutes the greens will have wilted. Make sure the chicken is thoroughly cooked through before removing the pan from the heat. Remove any stalks from the rosemary and pour this mixture into the pastry case.

To the mixture in the blender add 1 tablespoon of powdered gelatin and blend until everything is fully combined.

Pour this custard over the chicken mix in the pastry case.

Place in the centre of the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes until both the pastry and the custard mixture is golden brown.

Once ready, remove from the oven and allow to cool. You can enjoy this warm and the filling will be soft and creamy. Alternatively leave this to cool then refrigerate to set your custard and serve chilled.

​Enjoy :)

With the official month of indulgence being well and truly underway, I have been on the prowl for festive treats. Unfortunately for myself and many others these days, dairy is strictly off the menu. But as one never to shy away from a culinary challenge, I have been working on ways to recreate some of my milky based favourites.

Enter my (no) Eggnog. Yes, in itself eggnog is a pretty bizarre concept. Often made using raw eggs and thick cream, this is a beverage for those whose digestion is made of stronger stuff than mine. Almost like a cross between a milkshake and a drinkable custard, eggnog is rich in Christmas spices and so creamy you are left feeling like you've just drunk your dessert.

This alternative is so rich and creamy and puts eggnog firmly back on the festive table for anyone following an AIP or low FODMAP diet.

Serves 2

Ingredients:
1/2 cup of sifted tiger nut powder
2 tablespoons of coconut oil
3/4 cup of tiger nut milk plus a separate 1.5 cups
1/4 teaspoon of vanilla powder (see below for an AIP compliant version)
1/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of ground mace
Pinch of Himalayan sea salt
1 tablespoon of maple syrup
1/4 teaspoons of great lakes gelatin (see link below)

You will need:
A food processor with blender attachment
A fine sieve

Method:
To make your tiger nut 'cream', add the sieved tiger nut powder and coconut oil to the food processor and blend on a high speed to form a very smooth nut butter. Transfer this nut butter to your blender and add the 3/4 cup of milk a little at a time. Blend until a rich cream forms and reserve to one side.

To a medium saucepan add the remaining milk, vanilla powder, cinnamon, mace, salt and maple syrup. Whisk the ingredients together over a low heat before adding in the cream. Continue to whisk until all ingredients are combined and the liquid is beginning to simmer. You will know it is ready when the mixture begins to thicken slightly. Do not allow this to boil!

Remove from the heat and pass through a fine sieve into a large glass or serving jug. Sieving the mixture just ensures it is silky smooth.

At this point add the gelatin and whisk immediately into the mixture - this thickens it further.

Leave to cool or briefly refrigerate and serve with a pinch of mace or cinnamon.

The perfect treat to enjoy whilst wrapping the presents!

For me Christmas has always been about food. The unnecessarily over sized roasted bird, eating so many potatoes cooked in goose fat I could barely breathe, sampling every dessert as if they were tapas (but full size portions), after dinner chocolates that you absolutely must eat, even though your stomach reached capacity two courses ago. And then sleep. The kind of sleep induced by your entire body shutting down as it tries to fathom how to process everything you've just consumed. Then an hour later (while grandad is still snoring) the kettle goes on, the turkey sandwiches come out and round two commences.

Since being diagnosed with coeliac disease and embarking on multiple elimination diets, I  have missed this experience entirely. In writing my blog, I have realised that I am not the only one.

With this in mind, I have created an eBook of recipes based on the Christmas classics. All the recipes are gluten free, grain free, nut free, egg free, dairy free, AIP and low FODMAP compliant. Please note that I use a lot of tiger nut powder in my recipes as I do not tolerate any other flour. I believe that in many of my recipes you could adapt/substitute this for other flours that you tolerate.

I won't lie, producing this eBook has pushed me to the brink of insanity on a few occasions. I've lost my kitchen beneath mountains of dishes and clouds of arrowroot powder, I've taken my frustrations out on the sofa cushions when my photos won't upload, I've forgotten to take showers because I haven't moved from the kitchen for hours on end and I've appointed my husband as sous chef when the to-do list began to drown me. BUT it is completely worth it to feel I can be a part of the festivities on Christmas day, just like everybody else.  I hope that my recipes allow you to do the same.

I am not a chef, doctor or dietician. These recipes are simply my creations, taking the classics and adapting them to fit specific dietary restrictions, photographed by me, and tirelessly edited by my husband and family. Before embarking on any kind of elimination diet it is always advisable to consult with your doctor or a nutritionist.

I really hope that these recipes allow you to enjoy Christmas alongside your family and help you get into the festive spirit! I'd love to hear your feedback and thoughts on the recipes too.

I am currently selling the ebook here via blurb.co.uk, which includes a 10% discount code to use when you purchase any tiger nut powder from the lovely people over at The Tiger Nut Company! 

Emma x

Making my own bread has been a long time coming. With so many dietary restrictions in place I often find that with most AIP bread recipes, I will tolerate one ingredient but not the other. But I hands down refused to accept that there was not a bread out there for me. A little while back I had experimented with water chestnut flour to create a warming bowl of porridge adapted from a traditional Indian recipe, and recalled seeing the flour also used to make traditional flatbreads. After a good googling, I stumbled across a few recipes for water chestnut flour breads and pancakes calling for little more than water chestnut flour, water and oil. How delightfully simple, I rejoiced. Now, you may have come across these recipes already. If you have tried them and successfully made them, I salute you. In fact I am in awe. As to how you achieved this I cannot even begin to comprehend. After several attempts at these my entire (and not all that cheap) bag of water chestnut flour ended up in the bin in a hideous gloopy, gungy mess. I've seen the evidence and I've seen the photos. I do not doubt that people are able to produce these gloriously fluffy, light breads with a mere few ingredients, but alas, I am not one of them.

Determined, I continued my search for something a little more robust. That's when I discovered Poori - a puffed Indian flatbread made from water chestnut flour and potato. Potatos are an AIP no no, so my thoughts turned to the humble swede (rutabaga) Surely anything a potato can do a swede can do better? Taking a traditional recipe for water chestnut Poori and applying my own adaptations, my little flatbreads were born. Cue tears of breaded joy.

Water chestnut flour can taste a little bitter but I think these work perfectly as a gluten free bread alternative for anyone on a limited diet.

Makes 8 flatbreads

You will need:

A food processor

Ingredients:

2 cups of water chestnut flour plus extra for dusting (Please see link below)
2 tablespoons of fresh finely chopped rosemary (or any other herbs you fancy)
1 cup of cubed, soft boiled swede
A generous pinch of Himalayan salt
2 teaspoons of water
2 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil or melted coconut oil plus extra to grease the pan

Method:

Add the flour, rosemary, water, swede, salt and 2 teaspoons of oil to a food processor and blend on high speed until a ball of dough is formed.

Remove the dough from the food processor and split into 8 chunks. With your hands, flatten the dough to form 8 flatbreads around half a centimeter thick. Dust these lightly on both sides with more flour.

Heat a little coconut or olive oil in a large frying pan over a low heat. You want enough oil to lightly coat the pan and fry the bread, ensuring it doesn't stick.  You do not want so much oil that it entirely saturates the bread.

You will need to cook the breads in batches. I fry mine on a low heat for 4-5 minutes on each side until golden brown. I prefer to keep the heat low as this cooks them more evenly and prevents the outside from burning.

Suggestions:

Add dried coriander and serve with carrot soup
Add Italian herbs and garlic oil and serve with gluten free pasta
Add spices and dessicated coconut and serve with curry

The bready possibilities are now endless...enjoy.

As the evenings get darker and the days get colder, there's nothing quite like a warming bowl of nourishing soup. What baffles me is how simple it is to make with only a few tasty ingredients.  If I were to stroll into the supermarket and try to pick one off the shelves it would have more ingredients than you can shake a stick at, most of which I can't eat. Making it yourself is so easy though, it almost seems too good  to be true. What's more you can batch cook it and freeze individual lunch portions or even have it for dinner and chuck a few meatballs in (yes that is a thing).

This soup is sweet, spicy, nourishing and full of digestive healing goodness.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

750g of organic carrots, washed and sliced into quarters lengthwise
3 heaped teaspoons of ground ginger
1.5 tablespoons of dried coriander leaf
Himalayan sea salt
5.5 cups of water or bone broth
Tablespoon of coconut oil
Fresh coriander

You will need:

A blender

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees for fan assisted - 200 degrees conventional.

Place the carrots on a large roasting tray with the coconut oil and a good pinch of salt. Roast these until very soft and slightly caramelised - this will take about an hour.

Allow the carrots to cool and transfer to your blender. Add the ground ginger, dried coriander, a good pinch of salt and your liquid. You can use bone broth but I choose to use water as I struggle with the histamine in broth (It still tastes just as good with water  though).

Blitz the ingredients on a high setting in your blender until you have a thick rich, soup.

Transfer to a large saucepan and warm through over a low/medium heat.

To serve stir through fresh coriander.

How easy was that?