Gluten Free Gozleme

Sometimes inspirations strikes, that and hunger. So tonight I decided to attempt making some gluten free Gozleme because I saw it being sold at the markets today and had nothing else at home for dinner but some spinach, feta and other salad stuff in the fridge and was tired of salad. Just one leetle problem I had no yeast and while the bus does run an extra hour and a half on Friday nights there was no way I was leaving the house to go and buy yeast and importantly yeast means kneading and I am too tired to knead. So I would give it a shot and if by 8:30 I had nothing edible I was going to get out the menu of the Chinese place down the road and order Kung Pao chicken. Yes I would have to walk and pick it up but by then I would be hungry enough to chew my arm off so…

This is the combination of ingredients I came up with (I wrote them down with great hope I would have something to take pics of)

• 1.5 cups of self raising gluten free flour (I was out of the non self raising kind)
• ½ xantham gum
• ¾ c greek yogurt
• ½ tsp salt
• Feta cheese – here is where things fell down. I just drained the water off what remained of it and broke it up with a fork
• Spinach – it was a bunch of English spinach, no idea what it weighed
• 1 tbp olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
• Salt and pepper

Preparation

I mixed the flour, gum, salt and yogurt in the food processor and pulsed a few times till mixed. It did not form a ball like it does when it is flour, butter and ice water but it looked like tiny bread crumbs.

Oh what to do I wondered.

I dumped the mixture out into a bowl and started to feel it with my hands and it was damp enough and just formed into a ball really easily. So I set the ball aside, washed up everything and decided to cook the spinach.

I think if I had pre packaged baby spinach I may not have washed it but this was the grandma spinach that said “cook me”

I love my spinach cooked with garlic sautéed in olive oil then the spinach gently wilted, salt and pepper then a dash of fresh lemon juice. So that is what I did and set it in a colander to drain any additional fluid.

All of this was so exhausting and I still had no idea it would work as my ball did not look any bigger. Did I mention I was starving? So off to the couch to check Facebook I went because well what else does one do when they are starving and dinner is an uncertain prospect?

Eventually I went to have a piece of fruit (I have been eating healthier) and decided to cut the ball open as time was ticking by and to my surprise it looked like dough inside. Cue the music as I did my happy dance in the kitchen. This might just be OK

My past experience with GF dough is that I have to roll it out between plastic so I got 2 sheets of cling wrap and put a quarter of a ball and rolled it out till fairly thin.

Meanwhile the skillet was heating up with some cooking spray. I gently flipped the dough from the plastic into the skillet put the fillings in flipped the other side over.

Would it be heavy, doughy, tough, would I be going out for Chinese? I waited with baited breath and growling stomach

No it was perfect – slightly crunchy on the outside from the high heat and cooking spray but soft and gooey with the melted cheese and garlicky spinach inside. I was in heaven; I stared at them in awe. Definitely no kung pao tonight or tomorrow either.

Served with a side of Tzatziki that I made earlier in the week for something else

Trying to Go to Margaret River

A plan was hatched – lets go to Margaret River for the Labor Day weekend, we will see some wineries, get some chocolate and cheese and spend the weekend.

The first problem – we waited till Friday afternoon to book a hotel and by that time everything was booked up. I could only find 2 hotels available in Margaret River and they were in the $500 a night range; no way Jose – I have a bed at home that I am still paying for.

So we decided instead to start off early in the morning and make it a day trip instead. By 10 we were at Bunbury having coffee at Dome which overlooks the beachy industrial area below

We then decided to drive up to another beach and look at the rocks

Then the lookout tower from which you could see the entire town of Bunbury

We next headed to the Cheese factory where I picked some cheddar with truffles and one with chives and onion.

By this time we were getting hungry and decided to head for Busselton in search of fish and chips. We had an incredible lunch at a café on the beach. The fish and chips with mixed greens dressed with balsamic vinaigrette took at scant 8 minutes from order to come out. The fish tasted fresh from the ocean and the chips like only the Aussies can do chips – crispy outside, tender inside. (forgot to take a pic) but here is the Busselton Jetty

After Busselton we visited the Happs and Three Hills winery where we got 3 bottles of the Eva Marie Semilion 2008 – they only had 15 left and I thought the owner was going to cry to part with 3.

Next up the Gabriel Chocolate Factory – really amazing chocolate that they make from beans from different regions of the world. I came home with a Venezuelan Milk, an Ecuadorian 58% dark and a 65% Ghanaian dark.

Then we hit the Windows Estate winery which was lovely and modern and I enjoyed all of their whites but purchased only a 2010 Mousseux and a 2010 Chenin Blanc which I had never heard of before but was delightful. Unfortunately by time I paid for them it was 5pm, and everything was closing so it was time to head back to Perth.

We took at stop at a beach something that started with a G then decided to try and make it 3hrs without a bathroom break. A daunting task for two tiny bladdered people. One stop to stretch our legs and do the pee pee dance in the woods and we finally made it back to Perth by 9pm where my grateful bladder was happy to see my own toilet.

Everything here in Western Australia is FAR and it takes a lot of driving between places to get anywhere – going to Margaret River is not like going to Napa. You cannot get there in 45-60 mins its more like 4-6hrs. We never even made it all the way – we only got as far as Dunsborough

Perth, Friends and Singlehood

I was single when I lived in San Francisco but I was never so keenly aware of my lack of marital status as when I moved to Perth.

Let me explain what Perth is like; it is a quiet, clean city where the shops close at 5pm, most do not open on Sundays, there are lots of little parks, trees and tons of suburbs. Most people live in the suburbs and commute long distances via bus, car or train into the city for work each day. At 4:55 each day when I look up from my desk it is to the sound of the mass exodus as everyone heads for the door at 5pm (Granted they do start at 8pm so I do not blame them for getting out of there) but what is interesting is that they are all rushing home to families.

See Perthites marry, or get into relationships really young. So far the only people over 30 who I have met that are never married, have no children and not or have not been in a long term committed relationship are those like myself who have moved from another country. I wager there are more baby faced engaged, married or relationshiped 20 somethings than there are people in that age range with four year degrees in Perth.

And if you have lived here your whole life you also have the same 20 friends you had since kindergarten and Perth is a very cliquey town so most people I have met that are from Perth are not at all interested in making new friends. Don’t get me wrong they are very friendly people and you will enjoy working alongside them, interacting with them in the store, church etc but they have a partner, children and the afore mentioned 20 friends and thus no room to add a new person – you.

So my new strategy is to grab them while they are still fresh off the boat/plane like myself and as such I have met a couple of lovely girls I hope to get to know better. I am still open to getting to know the locals but now that I know how Perth works it no longer bothers me. Plus, I am lucky that I have always enjoyed my own company.

Now that I have the friend thing figured out (fresh off the boat), I have been given random, unsolicited advice by male colleagues on how to go about finding a man. See on Monday when everyone is reciting their family and spousal weekend activities mine are usually solo so one day I have the following conversation:

Male Colleague (MC): “You need to get a boyfriend”

ME: puzzled, what vibe I am giving off “I do?”

MC: “Yeah don’t you want one?”

ME: “Yeah if the right one came along”

MC: “Well get out there and find one”

ME: “Ah So where do people meet other people here?”

MC: “Online, Bars, Clubs, getting drunk”

ME: chuckle “None of those are really my thing”

MC: “You just need to get out there get drunk and meet someone”

ME: “So tell me how did you meet your wife?”

MC: “Oh we were both drunk in a bar”

ME: “Ahh ha how’s that working for you?”

MC: “Great it’s been 10 awesome years, 4 beautiful kids”

ME: “Oh my wow”

I knew so many beautiful, fabulous, single friends in San Francisco so that being single was just a part of life and I will confess that when everyone else in the prayer group was praying for husbands I was praying for a killer body and tons of money. So far God has not seen it fit to answer either of those prayers and now I live in Perth so even if I started praying for a husband now I suspect it will take a miracle and I am still really holding out hope for the killer body and the tons of money too.

Mexican Food in Perth

Dear citizens of Mexico it is time for you rethink you emigration strategy. See what you are doing right now is no longer working all that well, not for you and certainly not for me. This whole running, walking, crawling, digging a tunnel, hitching a ride across the US border is just getting you shot, caught, dehydrated and lost to death in the desert and with those crazy Texans arming themselves well, we all know you will be target practice. Not to mention the drug cartels…yeah I can’t decide what’s worse either – crazy armed Texans or drug cartels hmm.

Anyway I have a better idea for you, one that has worked well for thousands of people from Iran, India, Afghanistan, Iraq, Thailand, and many other countries…come to Australia…on a boat. See these guys turn no one away and sent no one back as long as you show up claiming to need political asylum. And with all your corrupt officials owned by the cartels well you have a case for asylum if I ever heard of one. And oh not only do they not send you back, they house you, educate you (English and school for the kids) even if it takes 7-10 years to sort out your paper work. And I have it on good authority that the housing for the boat people is better than the housing for the welfare people.

What? You have a problem with boats? How do you think the Cubans, Haitians, Santo Domingans, Jamaicans and the rest of my Caribbean peeps have done it going to the US all these years? On boats mis amigos on boats so off to find a boat you go. There are just a few conditions:

1. Make sure you bring Abuela’s recipes with you
2. make sure you bring a few people in the boat that can cook said recipes (the more the merrier), and
3. make sure whoever is carrying the recipes has them wrapped in oil skin (water proof) and can swim

See last Saturday night I went out to what has been touted as one of the ‘best’ Mexican places in Perth – it’s so hot you needed a reservation in advance to get in and there was a line of the non reserved waiting and hoping for a seat.

I ordered a small margarita ($12.50) boy was it small and had zero alcohol in as far as I could tell and was SUPER sweet and came from a spinning frozen machine I later found out

No chips and salsa for free so I ordered the sampler ($16.50) and it came with 3 dips: salsa, guacamole, and chili con queso (I skipped the chili and got just the queso). For my main meal I ordered the shrimp enchilada ($12.00)

Everything came out together (pet peeve)

The chips were from a bag – yup they were store bought with very little corn in the corn chips. Doritos makes a plain ‘corn’ chip for the Aussie market and I swear it was that. The good news is that the guacamole had fresh avocado (not the powder stuff) but that seemed to be it, I did not taste any garlic, onion, cilantro, lemon or jalapeno. But it did have a dollop of sour cream on top of it. Hmm the salsa I am not sure what it was it was a runny red liquid that tasted as if it might have been ancho chili from the jar purred with a tomato. And the cheese was just you just cheese from a can that 3 chips in made me feel queasy so I had to stop.

The Enchilada was a single corn tortilla with 4 small tough shrimp inside the outside was covered in Enchilada sauce and cheese and the whole thing was (I believe) microwaved. The cheese stuck to the plate and came up in a whole crunchy piece - the best part of the dish (who doesn’t love hot crunchy cheese), the tortilla had dried out and cracked and there was some shredded iceberg lettuce and 6 pieces of finely diced tomato. (No beans, no rice and not a cilantro in the house)

I decided to investigate to creators of this gastronomic delight and took off to skulk around the back of the restaurant and peer into the kitchen. See what I failed to mention many paragraphs ago is that NONE of the wait staff in the restaurant were Mexican or of Mexican descent. In fact looking around I would said I was the closest thing to Mexico there. Working there were Caucasians, Asians, Black, and some Mixed but no Mexicans. So there was I at the back door peeping in when I saw two people one was male dark hair, dark skin one was female skin lighter than mine with lots of dark hair in a bun. Those two were working together but the owner was an older Caucasian guy. So I don’t know. Maybe they are Mexican but we all would admit it’s not every Mexican that can create great food.

The others I was with really enjoyed their meals so I was not about to burst their bubble by telling them that it was not even Mexican food. See I have had good Mexican food from the Americanized version to the ‘we know you just crawled across the border but don’t care because this is so good’ version.

I got home feeling queasy and sick, spent Sunday going to the toilet every 2hrs and today Thursday my system still has not fully recovered.

So until my dear Mexican friends get here by boat and get processed and start a real restaurant or hand deliver Abuela’s recipes to me so I can start the restaurant and hire them. I am going to back to what I have been doing for the past 7 months – making my Mexican at home. It’s fantastic!! If I do rather un-humbly do say so myself, I have never made myself sick and my guac brings all the boys to the yard (perhaps only in my own mind but still...)

Check out the pictures below – one is the back of the tee-shirts the wait staff were wearing and the other was from one of the dining rooms. I am telling myself it has to be a deliberate joke (the manyana misspelling)

Gluten Free Caribbean Black Cake

I decided to pick up the unspoken challenge laid down by my childhood friend Cleo when she tagged me in a photo of her black cakes which is a traditional Caribbean fruit cake made with fruit that had been soaked for months in rum/sherry then baked with molasses and more rum poured on top. It has been at least ten years or more since I last made one of these and given my stomach problems I would now have to make it gluten free.

The Aussies – bless their hearts love fruit cakes so locating the supplies was quite easy: mixed dried fruit already mixed and in packages are sold at Woolworths as are dark brown sugar, molasses, rum, rice flour, and the standards – eggs, butter, baking powder, butter, mixed spice, vanilla. I did have to go to Coles to get the xantham gum though.

Since I did not have months to soak my dried fruit in alcohol I decided to cheat and boil them in some rum instead, about 10 minutes of boiling and they were nice and plump and had absorbed all the rum and could be removed from the heat.

Lacking a hand or stand mixer (not yet replaced from my move) I decided to try to cream the butter and sugar in the food processor – if anyone tells you this cannot or should not be done laugh in the face of their negativity and whip out the Kitchen Aid. I have never had such beautifully smooth creamed butter and sugar ever!

I added the molasses, then eggs and in another bowl sifted my rice flour added the baking powder (opps just realized when writing this that I used unsalted butter and forgot to add salt but it turned out great anyway). I looked it up online how much xantham gum to add – for cakes the rule is ½ tsp per cup of flour http://glutenfreerecipebox.com/xanthan-gum-how-much-use

Combined everything together – it was a little moist so I added another ¼ cup of sifted rice flour and a pinch of xantham gum which gave it the right texture. I preheated the oven to about 160 C and put it in using parchment paper to line the tin.

I think over all it took about 90 mins to bake, I cannot be sure as I did not have a recipe with a time stated and was going by ear but I cleaned up the kitchen, mopped the floor, called my Mom and took out the trash.

Here is the recipe I came up with

·         2 ¼ cups of rice flour

·         1 1/8 tsp xantham gum

·         1 ¼ tsp baking powder

·         ½ lb butter

·         1 cup dark brown sugar

·         1 jar molasses  ~ 1.5 cups

·         Vanilla

·         1 tsp mixed spice (nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice)

·         5 eggs

·         20 oz dried fruit (boil in rum)

·         Rum

After I took it out of the oven I poured 3 more capfuls of rum over the surface and covered it with foil and went off to the gym while it cooled down.

The texture was amazing!! Moist and flavorful the fruit plum and juicy with rum when you bite into it, even I could not tell that it was not made with rice flour. However, my stomach can and I will not be waking up in the middle of the night with crippling stomach pain. Tonight I get to have my cake AND eat it. Hmmm now how to get rid of the rest.

First Apartment Inspection

I recently had and survived my first rental inspection. What is that you wonder? Well here in Australia the majority of the property market is controlled by Property management agencies and rental agents and as part of their duties and as I suspect to convince the owners that they are doing a good job they inflict upon the tenants inspections every 2-3 months. I received a letter in the mail that I would be inspected in a week and a half and that I needed to have the property in tip top shape, I should also not try to reschedule or change the date as that was the only date I was going to get. Like the telephone, UPS and cable guy they gave a wide window 9am to 4pm so naturally I could not sit around all day waiting for them just to find out what it was going to be about.

So since I did not have any pets and pet paraphernalia to hide to I cleaned nonstop for 3 days and hoped for the best despite being really annoyed about it. I kept thinking – “I have been renting for the past 12 years how dare these people inspect me and question my house keeping skills?” See when you get that letter in the mail it feels really truly, deeply personal but it really is not personal. It has nothing to do with me as individual it’s just a really odd system. But I suppose with regular inspections you do not have the problem of people renting out houses to then turn into indoor pot growing farms as we have seen in some areas of California J

A week later the inspection report came in the mail and is below for your enjoyment (or NOT)

There were also pictures of almost everything/area in the apartment but it will be quite a bit of work to get them out of the PDF and attached to the blog. So the area I was digned in like the patio I have to remedy before the next inspection - I am not sure what happens if you just ignore the warnings but I will let you know if I find out :-)

Things Western Australians like

1. Chicken Sushi - One of the most popular items here at "sushi" restaurants is the Chicken sushi; teriyaki and karaage. They consist of the chicken, rice, mayo and seaweed in a roll. You will be hard pressed to find raw tuna, raw salmon, hamachi but you will find plenty of chicken rolls being consumed on a daily basis all across Perth.

2. Cooked Tuna from the Can in/as sushi rolls - while we are on the topic of sushi the other item you might find 'odd' on the menu is the cooked tuna rolls. They are not seared tuna but tuna from the can mixed with mayo (like a salad or sandwich) then put in the center of a roll. I recall eating with a group and asking a girl what she was ordering and she said tuna rolls, I perked up and said oh they have raw tuna here? She made a eww face and said "it had better be cooked"

3. Canned Tuna - Keeping with the tuna theme there is a HUGE selection of tuna in the store and boy oh boy do WAers love their tuna. Not a day goes by at work that someone does not pop open a can of tuna at their desk. There are as many flavors as there are kangaroos and some of them are not bad (TMI warning - some of them have sent me to the bathroom with runny bum). There are flavors like tuna and sweet chili, tuna and rice, tuna with onion and tomato, tuna with lemon and garlic etc. I even saw a can of tuna paella the other day. If you can think it up there is a tuna for it.

4. Large unattractive Christmas decorations - that could possibly fall or revolt and kill you

5. Coffee - Perthites love their coffee and the coffee here is rather excellent for some people though it borders on a bit of snobbery as with anything else e.g. wine, cheese. When I first moved here I did hear about how Starbucks was shitty coffee and you will never find a Starbucks here. The good news is there are plenty of excellent coffee shops to choose from and since I still cannot remember what a flat white and other local names are I stick to mochas - the bad news? Its EXPENSIVE - a tiny cup of coffee will easily set you back $4.50. My next problem with coffee shops other than the price is the speed - they are sloooow. When I first moved here I used to walk out of coffee shops because I couldnt handle my life passing by waiting to order a cup of coffee while the barrista lovingly made the coffee of the one person ahead of me. Now I am no less impatient and cranky but I take a book and my blackberry - catch up on my emails and reading. Today the wait for my mocha was 13mins.

6. Milo and Instant Coffee at work - Every company I go into there are jars of instant coffee and milo in the kitchens/breakrooms. Some provide machines that have beans but others just rely on instant which makes item 5 above so confusing - and explains why so many people go out several times per day to buy coffee at coffee shops.

7. Dressing well - Perth chicks are among some of the best dressed women world wide and they make it look effortless. I would love to know how they afford it too as given the price of clothing and shoes here it is not cheap to look great. One client I go into the Receptionists and Assistants are all Gucci, Prada and Birkin'ed out. I might need one of those jobs because clearly they are paying their receptionist more than my company is paying me. But over all the average Perth chick puts herself together well and just standing at the bus stop each morning I feel incredibly shabby. They make me want to try harder.

8. Fries aka Hot Chips - other than your Asian restaurants most restaurants here will serve an entree with Fries better known here at Hot Chips. You can also get them at lunch spots etc. And they so are good, in fact Perth has some of the best fries I have had anywhere as the junk in my trunk would attest. Oh and some vendors get all testy when you call them fries and say "they are not fries they are chips" so I call them fries just because LOL

stay tuned........more to come as the journey continues