Forks over Knives.... have you seen it yet?

Hey everyone!  I just wanted to share this movie trailer with you of the latest film Forks Over Knives.  Hollywood director James Cameron (the dude who directed the Titanic film) praised the film and has said it is what inspired him to follow a plant based diet and change his lifestyle.

...The film basically documents how the food industry is spoiling all our healthy fun.  Just watching the trailer will make you want to change your lifestyle and think hard about what you put in you and your family's mouths today.

Read more about it here and the shocking facts revealed > Forks Over Knives.

A new season!

Pulling on my boots last night and an extra pair of socks marked the end of British Summertime and reminded me that Autumn is really here.  Feeling all 'wintery', I visited one of my favourite country pubs, The Green Dragon in Cowley, Gloucestershire, with my bestie-mate Sarah and sat by this gorgeous open fire. We ate fresh fish, drank hot chocolate and gossiped like pros.  Perfect evening, don't you think?!

Open fire at the Green Dragon in Cowley Gloucestershire.  No dragons allowed.

After a bit of a busy few weeks, this weekend I got back down to business,  put on my oven gloves and had a bit of a bake off.  The first of which was a recipe from my famous recipe swap with Vegetarian Ventures supremo, Shelly!

This recipe was a great treat to use up the last of the summer seasonal fruits.  Full of blueberries, peaches, vanilla and buttermilk - so moist and flavoursome, there was something very magic about it indeed.

I adapted it slightly to be Gluten Free, which was so easy do and worked wonderfully. You can also adapt the cake to be Vegan friendly too, just like Shelly did - use Almond Milk and a vegan butter like Earth Balance.  It also didn't contain any egg, again making it great for vegan diets.

I won't keep you waiting any longer - here's the recipe and I beg you to make this cake for yourselves and enjoy it just like we did today.  Grab those blueberries and peaches while they're still ripe!

Ingredients


1 cup (236 ml) milk
one lemon
2 cups (250 grams) Doves Gluten Free Plain Flour (or use regular flour if you're ok with Gluten)
1/3 cup (71 grams) caster sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons Gluten free baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon ground all spice (or you could use 1/2 tsp cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
6 tablespoons (85 grams) cold butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
about 1 1/2 cups of any summer fruit or berries, chopped if whole (I used two nectarines)
1/4 cup brown sugar (for sprinkling on the top to create the crusty bit!)
1 cup blueberries
1/2 cup chopped peaches

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Line and grease a square pan and set aside.

- Put the lemon zest and half the lemon juice into a bowl. Then add the milk. Stir briefly and set aside. (This makes buttermilk!  Yes, really, it's amazing. No buttermilk. No problem :)

- Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, ground all spice, baking soda, and a pinch of the lemon zest. Whisk briefly to combine. Add the butter to the flour, toss each piece so that it is coated, rub together in your hands and get a 'crumble' sort of mixture going.

- Add the fruit to the flour mixture and toss to combine so each piece is coated. Stir the vanilla into the milk mixture then quickly add the liquid to the flour/fruit mixture (through a sift to catch the lemon zest bits).

- Stir but do not overmix!  Just combine.  Leave it.  Don't be tempted to mix anymore. Step away from the batter and put the spoon down!

- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.

- Sprinkle well with the brown sugar sugar.

- Bake for 30 minutes. Or until the top has gone into a golden sparkly crust and a skewer or knife comes out clean.

Try not to eat the whole thing when it comes out of the oven. Willpower.  Willpower.   And I got to eat lots of it because it's GLUTEN FREAKIN' FREE!

Check out more of Shelly's awesome mid-west inspired vegetarian and vegan dishes and deserts over at Vegetarian Ventures.

Kitchen Thinking...

Hey food fans, sorry there's been a bit of silence from the blog these past few weeks! I've missed you all, but rest assured that I haven't been far and I've busy been doing lots of exciting things behind the scenes.

I recently had the pleasure in visiting Barnwood Park Arts School in Gloucester to demonstrate some delicious, simple gluten free dishes for their year 11s.

...Then I visited Adrian Malpass on his Saturday Sunshine show on Winchcombe Community Radio together with Rachel Browne from the delicious company Relish the Taste.  We had a great morning chatting about all the amazing food produced in Gloucestershire and hoped to have tantalised the tastebuds of listeners for a few hours.

And last but not least, I had a wonderful day filming the new M&S promo for their Simply Food Range where I got to bake a delicious Lemon and Poppyseed Drizzle Loaf Cake - which cast and crew devoured in seconds :)  Yum.

Photos of all these events will be posted on the blog soon, just as soon as I catch up with all the other exciting new things planned for Dishes Undressed.  I can't wait to share them with you.

In the meantime here's some very cool kitchen ideas I stumbled open on Pinterest.  Enjoy!