Philippa Moore's Blog, page 23

amazing gluten free pizza dough

The amazing gluten free pizza! No words.

I used to think that eating gluten free would be a pain in the arse. But then, two years ago, I was asked to do a blogger challenge on my old web site where I would eat completely gluten free for a whole week. It changed my life.

Not only was it way easier than I thought it would be, but I felt incredible. I felt lighter, less clogged, more balanced. As I reintroduced gluten into my diet in the weeks and months that followed, it was all fine, but I was just more conscious of not eating gluten at every single meal (which is very easy to do) and giving my body the occasional break from it.

These days, I like to eat gluten-free when I can at home. Eating out, I'm not fussed (as eating out is a treat anyway) but I've noticed that my body feels better this way. I'm really lucky that it's not medically necessary for me to be gluten free and I feel grateful to be able to eat this way by choice - I've noticed lately when I eat normal pasta I get a tummy ache, so I possibly do have a sensivity, who knows....but either way these days it's all about paying attention, being conscious and giving my body what it's asking for. Which is often something gluten free.

Yesterday, we were craving a pizza and as I had some gluten-free self raising flour in the cupboard, I thought maybe it was worth giving a GF pizza crust a go. I've eaten GF pizzas and used ready-made GF bases (which can be great but are often loaded with sugar so check the label!) before, but I've never made them myself.

But after this, I think I'll be making them this way from now on!

If you have a bread maker, this is a complete doddle - it barely counts as cooking, really. The dough itself rolls out perfectly; doesn't stick to the rolling pin or the board; cooks, slices and eats like a dream. Let me know if you try it!

Gluten-free pizza dough

Based on a similar recipe on Gluten Free Student Cookbook

Makes 1 large pizza or 2 small pizzas

1 egg
1/2 teaspoon rice malt syrup
3 tablespoons olive oil (plus extra for rolling)
130ml filtered water
225g gluten-free flour (plus extra if you need it) (I recommend a GF bread flour or self-raising flour with xanthan gum added to it, I used Dove's Farm white self raising flour)
Pinch of salt (I use Pink Himalayan salt which is fantastic)
1 x 7g sachet dried yeast
If your flour doesn't have xanthan gum added, you'll also need 1 teaspoon xanthan gum.

If you have a breadmaker, add all the wet ingredients to the bread pan first, then add the dry on top. Select the "pizza" setting on the machine (or a "dough only" setting if you don't have a pizza option, it should be about 45 minutes duration) and watch it get to work. Keep an eye on it at first and add more flour if it looks too wet (I found I needed to add about another 1/4 cup flour). Add a little more water if it looks a bit dry. Then sit back and relax until the machine beeps.

If you're doing it by hand, put the dry ingredients in a large bowl first. Make a well in the centre and add the egg, oil and rice malt syrup. Gradually add the water and mix together with a spoon. It will be sticky but this is normal! Add more flour if it's too wet and not coming together.  Knead the dough on a floured surface for a few minutes until you have a nice medium-sized ball then leave it to rest in a bowl, covered with a tea towel, for 30 minutes. It won't necessarily "rise" the way normal dough does but don't be put off!

Once your dough is ready, preheat your oven to 200 C.

Line a large baking tray with baking paper. I made one large rectangular pizza rather than circular ones, it was just easier as I didn't know how fragile the dough was going to be. I'd really recommend making it this way.

Drizzle a little olive oil on the top of your dough ball, retrieve from the pan or bowl and roll out on a well oiled or floured board to your required thickness. I ended up doing this on the tray itself and then used my hands to push it into the corners to fit the baking tray and it worked a treat.

Some recipes say you should par-bake a homemade GF pizza crust first but I found this was unnecessary.

Spread your base with your desired toppings (we had tomatoes, asparagus, courgette, mozzarella and fresh basil).

Place in the hot oven for 15-20 minutes. After 15 minutes I found the cheese had browned but the crust still looked a tiny bit pale, so I turned the oven fan off, turned the heat down slightly and put it back in for about 7 minutes. Then it was perfetto.

Let it sit a few minutes to cool then slice with a sharp knife or pizza cutter. Then sit back and watch the compliments roll in!

artichoke omelette

Describing the flavours of artichokes and eggs individually could be a parlour game in itself but in this pairing, the green-house scented floral tones of the artichoke cut through the richness of a perfectly fresh egg (cage eggs are an abomination and should not be considered food). There's also something in the almost lemony tang of the artichoke that really lifts the egg's low notes of sulphur.

This omelette makes the perfect light dinner if you've got in too late and fear you may succumb to a terrible takeaway. But don't limit it just to the evening, it's so easy you could make it for breakfast while the coffee is brewing. I have done both.

Drain some tinned artichoke hearts well, then halve, dredge in seasoned flour and fry until golden. Make a three-egg folded omelette as you normally would but put the fried artichokes in the middle, and maybe a bit of dill or parsley if you have them lying around, before folding on to a warm plate to eat immediately.

If the hour is appropriate and you feel like inviting even more floral mineral flavours to the party, this omelette is perfectly matched by a glass of chilled Sancerre.

*This is an exercise I did in my food writing course at Leith's where we had to write a favourite recipe in the style of a cookery writer we admire. I chose Niki Segnit, with echoes of Jane Grigson. Photo by me.

true mirrors: the best TED talk ever

I'm a huge fan of TED talks. When I was freelancing full time, I used to start my working day by listening to one to get myself in the appropriate headspace for the day. They have such a great range of accomplished speakers, not just people in creative fields but in science, business, philanthropy, sport....you could watch a different one every day for a year and still not be all the way through them!

 The way I see it, we're all here to inspire each other. The energy, wisdom and ideas of these TED speakers really fires me up and keeps me going.

This one I watched for the first time earlier this year and I think, despite having watching so many TED talks, it's probably the best one I've ever seen. 

In fact, as I've just noticed, this one technically is a "TEDx" talk - which are, according to TED, programmes of local, self-organised events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience, to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. This one actually took place in Milton Keynes, not far out of London.

Yes, yes, it's 26 minutes but it's so worth it. Go and make a cup of tea or, if it's the appropriate hour, a gin and tonic. Get comfy. Maybe have a pen and notebook handy!

I think the art of being yourself is definitely an idea worth spreading.

revolution by piano

James Rhodes. Photo by Kate Baker. From jamesrhodes.tv

How James Rhodes is making classical music cool again

I can’t quite remember how I first heard of James Rhodes. Perhaps it was this most brilliant piece he wrote on creativity for the Guardian, “Find what you love and let it kill you”, where Rhodes gave a window into his journey from repressed and stressed-out City worker whose life was ruled by his various addictions, to his fulfilling career as a classical pianist but also a champion for the revival of classical music in popular culture and for music education in general.

Rhodes is also a passionate advocate for…well, passion. He thinks it is the reason so many people live unfulfilling lives, because they are not making enough (or any) time to do what they truly love to do. And you don’t have to throw away your day job to do it either. In the aforementioned article, Rhodes says it’s often simply a matter of organising your time better and rather than giving in to the lure of television each night – which, let’s face it, is one of the most passive activities ever – use those few hours to pursue your passions.

“So if only to stick it to the man, isn't it worth fighting back in some small way? So write your damn book. Learn a Chopin prelude, get all Jackson Pollock with the kids, spend a few hours writing a haiku. Do it because it counts, even without the fanfare, the money, the fame and Heat photo-shoots that all our children now think they're entitled to.”

As someone who has been determined to live a life where my passions are a big priority, I have become a big James Rhodes fan, not just for his philosophies but for his music too. My husband Tom bought me some of his CDs for Christmas and I’ve had them on constant rotation. His playing has so much emotion behind it as he has absorbed the story of the piece and the composer who wrote it. I was one of those teenagers who spent far more time listening to Chopin and Schumann than I did Oasis, Blur or Silverchair (in the 1990s, as you can imagine, this made me very uncool) but listening to Rhodes’ vibrant and modern interpretation of composers I have loved for years has given them a new lease on life for me. It is true – knowing a little about the context of the piece infuses it with new meaning when you listen to it.

So when I found out that James Rhodes was doing some concerts at the Soho Theatre at the end of March this year, I knew I simply had to snatch the chance to see him in the flesh. Well, Tom beat me to it and surprised me with tickets! :)

James Rhodes' album Bullets & Lullabies. Highly recommended.

The Soho Theatre was an interesting and, as Rhodes told us through the course of the evening, a deliberate choice. Part of his manifesto as an artist is to take classical music out of the dusty and intimidating concert halls and place it firmly back in popular culture where, indeed, it once was. Beethoven, Schubert, Bach and their contemporaries were, he explained, “rock gods” of their time.

So with his aim to make classical music far more accessible, what resulted was a delightful mixture of classical music and stand up comedy. Each piece, energetically and emotionally performed with a natural ease, was interwoven with Rhodes telling an often amusing story about the next piece he was about to perform. Did you know, for example, that Schubert had the nickname "mushroom face" as he was not the most attractive fellow? This added greatly to the audience’s enjoyment and I think also dispelled fears that we wouldn’t quite understand what we were listening to!

After the first piece, Chopin's Nocturne in C Minor, Rhodes welcomed the audience and announced that the theme of this series of concerts was “when love goes wrong….or ‘the venereal years’, as I like to call them." Sadly, as he wryly explained, many of the great composers spent most of their lives in poverty and often suffered from venereal diseases like syphilis and gonorrhoea, afflictions that not only cut their lives short but left some of them with a restricted ability to play.

Tom and I were torn between our favourite pieces of the night – I was spellbound by Blumenfeld's étude pour la main gauche, a piece to be played solely with the left hand across the full range of the piano (as Blumenfeld contracted a strain of syphilis so severe he lost the use of the right side of his body). James Rhodes placed his right hand on the side of the piano in full view of the audience so we could see he was playing this rich, textured piece with only one hand. It was amazing to watch (you can see it for yourself to the right) and the final notes were utterly triumphant.

Tom, on the other hand, loved Rhodes’ interpretation of Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King where at one point, he began to play at a “wrist-breaking” speed and his hands became a whirling manic blur as he pummelled towards the piece’s dramatic conclusion. It was electrifying to watch.

Despite his enormous talent, Rhodes appeared very humble, unassuming and genuinely thrilled to see a packed house. This is not a man with an ego but one that is purely driven by his passion for music. We left the Soho as the last of the rapturous applause died down, both of us enthusing about the music, but also saying to each other “we should really take up the piano again!”

An hour of listening to this man play the piano is inspiring, emotional and uplifting. If you’ve ever been put off attending a classical music concert because you’re worried you might be bored, or because nothing in your wardrobe even vaguely resembles black tie, then go and see James Rhodes because not only does he perform in jeans and a t-shirt but he is making classical music very, very cool.

But then, for those of us who spent our teenage years listening to some of these original “rock gods”, it always was.

To find out about James Rhodes’ next concert, check out his web site.