Rhubarb, Almond and Polenta Cake (gluten free)

It's been a whole year since I last posted on here, and I feel rather guilty about that. My absence can be partly blamed on my having to change the way I cook and eat thanks to IBS. I've had to cut out gluten and dairy and thus lots of my favourite foods, but over the past year I've gradually tested things out to the point that I now know I can tolerate a small amount of spelt or rye bread, can occasionally treat myself to things made with plain flour (as opposed to strong bread flours) like pastry and cakes and - perhaps there is a god - halloumi. A lot of avocados have been consumed, gluten-free breads have been tasted and rejected while gluten free pasta has been embraced whole-heartedly. Rice has been eaten in all its myriad forms and has always been scrumptious. My new favourite thing is polenta, which I'll talk about more some other time, because the other reason for my absence is also the other reason for this recipe: we bought a house and got a new allotment which, aside from an abundance of bind weed and couch grass is also rich in rhubarb.

I love me some rhubarb. I've yet to make a savoury dish from it, though I've seen plenty of good recipes, but aside from the obvious crumbles it also makes excellent ice-cream and fool and is delicious roasted with brown sugar and served with a meringue nest and some frozen yoghurt. The Guardian has a great sounding recipe for rhubarb tiramisu in their '10 Best...' collection that I really need to try, but a good old cake is often all you really need, and the texture of the polenta makes this seem lighter but way moister than your average sponge. I don't think I made this recipe up entirely, I'm sure it's come together from lots of different sources, and those quantities probably came from somewhere other than my little noggin - but I'll be damned if I can remember where. But enough piffle, here it is, rhubarb polenta cake, with ground almonds for extra moistness and lemon zest to enhance the all round rhubarbiness.* You don't have to use the xanthan gum if you don't want to, but it does help bind things together a little better than just the eggs alone. If you do want to use it and you've never heard of it before, it's a powder that you'll find in a small tub in the free-from section of supermarkets or health food shops.
*definitely not a word

Rhubarb, Almond and Polenta cake

For the rhubarb
350g rhubarb, chopped into approx 2-4cm chunks
50g soft, light brown sugar

Toss the rhubarb and sugar together in a bowl and leave to marinate for at least 30 minutes.

For the cake
225g caster sugar
225g butter
200g ground almonds
125g polenta
3 eggs
zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp xanthan gum (optional)


Heat oven to 180C, and line a 20cm cake tin with greaseproof paper (I always grease the paper but lots of recipes say to grease the pan, do what you will).
In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar together until creamed then beat the eggs in one at a time with a little of the polenta to help prevent curdling.
Stir in the rest of the polenta, the ground almonds, lemon zest and xanthan gum if using.
Drain the liquid off the rhubarb - this can be retained to use as a drizzle later if you wish - and fold the rhubarb into the cake mixture.
Spoon the mix into your cake tin and bake in the centre of the oven. Check after 40 minutes and if the top looks a little dark cover it with foil, otherwise, replace as it is and cook for another 20 minutes or until a knife inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Leave to cool in the tin for at least half an hour before turning out onto a wire rack.

Minty Broad Bean 'Pesto'

As it's so sunny here in Italy right now, it seems appropriate that my first post should be something summery and fresh. I love broad beans. The first meal of the year to use fresh broad beans is always a treat that heralds summer and bears the promise of more homegrown delights to come. Any normal year we'd have eaten tonnes of the fat green beauties by now, but this year is not normal. If you follow my illustration blog or any of my social media you'll know that my partner and I recently moved out of our house in Leicester, where we've been for the past four years, and are currently travelling in Europe before a move to Nottingham. That means we've had to give up our allotment, and I miss it far more than I imagined, but fortunately my in-laws gave us a load of their broad beans before we left, so we didn't miss out completely!

We took such a large bagful from their veg patch that I found myself having to find ways to use them up before they went off, thus this minty 'pesto' was born. Not only is it perfect when you've got a glut, it's also fabulously fresh-tasting, gloriously green and incredibly moreish. I'm usually firmly against the peeling of broad beans, but as this recipe is so very simple it doesn't seem such a pain and I felt it really needed it - not only does it enhance the wonderful green colour, but it also makes the sauce good and smooth too. There are a gazillion different methods for shelling broad beans, so use whichever method you think best, but I steamed them until they were soft and the skins were starting to burst, ran them under cold water until they were cool enough to handle and then a gentle squeeze popped them out easily.

I used this as a pasta sauce, but it would also make a delicious dip and was just as tasty cold as leftovers for lunch. Good for approx 250g dried pasta.

                                                          (c) Becca Thorne 2014

Ingredients
Approx 400g podded broad beans, steamed and shelled 
2 decent-sized garlic cloves, roughly chopped
Good handful of fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped
Small handful of parsley, roughly chopped (optional)
Approx 25g nuts (eg. hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews), roughly chopped
Approx 25g parmesan/pecorino style cheese, grated
Juice of 1 lime
Good olive oil (this recipe uses a lot of it, so use the best oil you can as the flavour will come through)
Sea salt flakes (eg. Maldon)



Put all the ingredients except the salt and olive oil into a bowl or blender. Add a good slug of olive oil and blend until smooth, adding more oil if necessary. The mix will be probably be a bit stiff and sticky, so keep stirring in more olive oil until it reaches a nice, pesto-y consistency; you want it to be loose, smooth and everso slightly oily (if you're using it as a dip it can be left stiffer, but if you're making a pasta sauce it needs to be able to coat the pasta without becoming dried out - you can always add more oil later if in doubt). The flavour should be fresh and lightly minted with a hint of lime and the salty tang of pecorino. Add sea salt to taste and eat as soon as possible.