Moog's meanderings

Tonight we tried making gluten free corn pasta.

A little history: For my birthday in January my grandfather gave me some money. I used it to buy a pasta maker attachment for my Kenwood Chef. It arrived on Saturday and we used it that evening to make gluten free pasta using Dove’s Farm gluten free plain flour and using the Dove’s Farm gluten free pasta recipe (which is in the free recipe book you can get by sending a stamped addressed envelope to the address on any of their gluten free flour packets). It was really nice – we made taglietellle and just mixed it with pesto and cheese.
My favourite gluten free dried ‘pasta’ is the corn pasta you can buy in Sainsbury’s, so I spent ages the other night looking for corn pasta recipes on the internet. I didn’t really find anything useful (except a reference to a cookbook which I don’t own) so decided to make it up. Here’s what happened…

I lobbed

200g fine cornmeal
50g cornflour
2 large eggs
1 tbsp olive oil
some salt

into the kenwood chef and mixed it for about 2 minutes on setting 1 (scraping down the sides about half way through). Then I put it through the ’spaghetti’ screen on the pasta attachment.

Meanwhile, hubby chopped 4 (homegrown) cloves of garlic and fried them with some diced ham in a few tablespoons of olive oil. He then beat about 100ml of double cream, 2 large eggs, 1 egg yolk and 50g grated parmesan cheese together and added the ham/garlic/oil when it had cooled a bit.

We boiled the ’spaghetti’ for about 4 minutes, drained it and added it to a hot frying pan with a bit of olive oil in it. We then added the sauce mix and cooked it all for about 1-2 minutes.

Once served, we topped it with freshly ground mixed pepper and freshly grated parmesan.

Yum!

Comments: The pasta mixture appeared to be a little on the brittle side. Not sure whether you can tell but it didn’t come out as long pieces of spaghetti, rather it was quite broken up. I think we’ll add a bit of water to the pasta mix next time.
It was quite tasty although possibly not quite as ‘corny’ in flavour as the sainsbury’s version. Maybe next time I’ll use 100% cornmeal and not add any cornflour.
I think it would be nicer using bacon rather than pre-cooked ham cubes as the juices from the bacon frying would have added to the flavour of the sauce.

Edit: The carbonara sauce is based on the BBC Good Food version

I was walking along the canal the other day (something I do often) when I surprised a very dark brown furry creature down by the water. We stared at each other for a moment or two and I managed to get a photo before it disappeared under the fence the other side of the canal path. I have looked it up in our ‘field guide to mammals’ and it would appear to be an American Mink. Not what I was expecting at all!! Anyone know how common these are? Is it likely to be something that lives nearby or has escaped from somewhere??

One of the groups I go to with Munchkin at a local church has started a monthly Saturday morning group for dads. Today is the first one so my boys have gone off for the morning. Apparently it involves bacon/sausage sandwiches so Hubby didn’t take much persuasion!! I’ve been told that I am under no circumstances allowed to wash up, cook or clean while they are out. So far I have walked up the road to get the Saturday paper and I am now planning to read (some of) it before they get back. Yay! )

The trip went really well. Flying with Munchkin wasn’t a problem either. I had been worried about the take-off and landing because of ear-popping, but he slept through the second take-off and both landings so apparently not an issue. The service was really nice; a celebration of life rather than a mourning of death. The weekend gave us a chance to catch up with my cousins and particularly my half-sister who lives in Canada and had never seen Munchkin. It also brought back lots of memories of my childhood as the four of us (Mum, Dad, Brother and I) spent a fortnight there each summer.
We spent Saturday morning at the Cliffs of Moher. Windy but gorgeous!!

Mr Moog and Munchkin

Grandad’s doing ok. He’s staying with family and is getting support. The actual replacement went fine and things are ok with that but his foot isn’t quite right. Apparently it should sort itself out over a year or so, but he’s a bit down about the whole thing so prayers are still very much appreciated.

We’re all off to Ireland at the end of the week for the memorial service for my Godmother. We’ve never been further than a 3 hour drive somewhere with Munchkin so flying seems rather daunting… But lots of other people do it, so it must be ok – right?