Gluten free cheese & spinach rolls - gluten free picnic part 2!

There was so much deliciousness at this picnic, I got nowhere near trying everything.  My highlights were Craig's potato cakes of deep fried amazingness & caramel slice - I have no idea who made this but it was so good!  I used to love caramel slice & haven't eaten it for a very long time, now I definitely want to try making it myself.

I changed my mind so many times when trying to work out what my savoury food was going to be for the picnic.  I had originally planned to make a layered mexican dip with one of the layers being a cheesey queso, then changed my mind to cheese & pesto scrolls & then at the last minute decided on cheese & spinach sausage roll type things.  Bec had previously mentioned that you can buy a gluten free, vegan frozen pastry & even though it is really expensive (3 sheets for $10) it is super easy so I found some at Coles in Coburg & used this.

For the filling I pretty much made it up as I was going but the approximate recipe is:

• 2 boxes frozen spinach (thawed & drained)
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 packet silken firm tofu
• 3/4 tub tofutti cream cheese
• 1/2 - 3/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 cup grated mozzarella cheezly
• 2 sheets Pastry Pantry pastry

Preheat oven to 220 degrees 

Defrost pastry sheets

In a food processor blend the cream cheese, tofu & nutritional yeast

Transfer to a mixing bowl & add spinach, garlic, cheezly - mix well & season well

Cut each pastry sheet in half, add filling & roll up

Place on oven tray & cook until browned - I think mine took about 20 minutes

Gluten free carrot cupcakes for a gluten free picnic

Friday night was a gluten free potluck picnic (Steph has blogged here) which was originally cheese themed so I decided to make my food gluten free & cheesy.  For my savoury food I changed my mind heaps of times when trying to decide what to make but right from the start I thought that for my sweet food I wanted to make gluten free carrot cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting.

The first batch of cupcakes I made were these from A Gluten Free Day.  I made them earlier in the week before the picnic planning to freeze them since I like to be organised.  When they were freshly baked they were beautifully light & fluffy but because they don't actually have grated carrot in them (which I didn't realise until I started making them) they were not what I wanted.  So I left them for us to eat but they were incredibly stale by the next day.

 

So it was the night before the picnic & I started worrying about how I was going to have time to prepare anything, especially given that Thursday nights are a struggle for me because I go to prenatal pilates in the evening.  But for some reason I managed to have an amazingly productive thursday the day before the picnic - worked a completely hectic 10 hour day, did 2 days worth of dishes, got dinner ready & made a new batch of cupcakes all before I went to pilates. I was hoping that these cupcakes would work because I really did not want to be making a second batch later that evening & luckily they did!  These were really nice - full of chunky bits due to the walnuts & raisins & really tasty.  Unfortunately they had started to go a bit stale by the next night but apparently that is just the way it seems to be with gluten free baking.  I based these cakes on a recipe from recipezaar which is apparetly from Gluten Free Goddess but I did change quite a few things so my recipe is below.

Ingredients

Carrot Cupcakes

• Orgran egg replacer equivalent to 3 eggs)
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1/3 cup apple sauce
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 cups orgran self raising gluten free flour
• 3/4 cup dessicated coconut
• 1 1/2 cups carrots, shredded (about 4)
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup walnuts

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees
2. Prepare cupcake liners or grease a muffin tray
3. In a mixing bowl, beat the egg replacer & oil and beat; add the brown sugar and beat until smooth.
4. Beat in the apple sauce, vanilla, cinnamon and spice.
5. Add in the flour and beat until combined. (The batter should be a bit thicker than wheat flour batter.).
6. Add in the coconut, carrots, raisins, and nuts; stir with a wooden spoon to combine.
7. Put the batter evenly in the cupcake liners or muffin tray and place the pan in the center of a pre-heated oven.
8. Bake until the cakes are firm, and a wooden pick inserted into the center emerges clean, about 15-20 minutes (or longer if necessary).
9. Cool on a wire rack and frost with cream cheese icing.
10. For cream cheese icing, beat tofutti cream cheese with icing sugar

 

Muffaletta

I have been dying to go to a potluck forever so was very excited to be invited by Cindy to a potluck in Princes Park. I wanted to make something very picnicky & had no idea, so did a bit of googling & came across great advise such as "don't wear a fur coat to a vegan potluck" (seriously!) & in the end decided to make a muffaletta.

I bought an enormous loaf of bread from La Panella, in hindsight I brought the wrong bread because it was quite chewy, but it still tasted ok. I filled the loaf with:

• homemade basil & cashew pesto (spread on one side)
  
• roasted red capsicum
• grileld eggplant
  
• artichoke hearts
• kalamata olives
• baby spinach & rocket
• tofutti cream cheese with semi dried tomatoes mixed in (spread on the other side)

I made it the night before, wrapped it tightly in cling wrap & weighed it down with a big wooden chopping board & a baking dish.