Join the webchat with Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and quiz him about dairy-free and wheat-free cookery, Friday 12 September, 1-2pm

[RachelMumsnet]

Award-winning cookery writer, broadcaster and founder of River Cottage, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is dropping into Mumsnet Towers on Friday to tell us about his new book, River Cottage Light and Easy. Hugh last joined us in 2011 when he shared some delicious recipes from his book River Cottage Veg Everyday.

This time he's back with more recipes, all of which are dairy and wheat-free and he'll be on-hand to answer your culinary questions and offer advice and suggestions for rustling up brilliant, healthy dishes to feed and nourish your family and friends.

River Cottage Light and Easy features 170 dairy/wheat free recipes which include: savoury buckwheat galettes, wheat-free spinachy wraps, easiest ever storecupboard fishcakes, lamb and cashew curry, beetroot burgers, rhubarb, apple and ginger pie, peach and orange sorbet, chocolate and avocado mousse and life-loving brownies. Hugh says: 'Reducing your dependence on wheat and dairy turns out to be a delicious voyage of discovery. New grains, new oils, new tastes, new combinations: it all adds up to a new zest for life.'

Join Hugh on Friday at 1pm and if you're unable to make that time post a question in advance on this thread.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is here and ready to answer your questions! Welcome to Mumsnet Hugh...

Hello Mumsnet! I'm here. Sorry I'm a little bit late. Traffic, obviously. But I'm here now and really looking forward to chatting with you

That's great that you're going out in to the hedgerow and foraging for some fruit, it's such a satisfying way to get cooking. Crab apple jelly isn't' that hard –it's a bit of a palaver but a fun palaver! You will need a jelly bag to strain the pulp because you want a nice clear juice to go into your jell.y You might as well do a big batch, because it doesn't take much longer. I can't resist the chance to recommend Pam the Jam's fantastic preserving book – one of our River Cottage handbooks. It should give you lots of ideas to go with the crab apple jelly!

It's great o hear about your black elderberry tree. I've got one too. The pink flowers have just as much flavour as the normal white elderflowers and they make a brilliant cordial, which has the extra delight of coming out a bit pink. The berrys can be used too for elderberry recipes, but they're not as juicy as the hedgerow ones from the normal eldertrees, so you might be better off using these. Elderberry wine is a great country tradition, but not everybody's cup of tea!

@eragon

its there any way to make pesto without any dairy or nuts?

There are three pesto recipes in the new book, and they are all dairy free, but they are not nut free. However, if you are ok with pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds, you could easily swap these in for the walnut and almonds, and you would have yourself a nut free dairy free pesto with no trouble at all.

I'm really interested in going dairy-free - what can I do to make it as easy as possible, so I don't miss the things I love like cheese and chocolate?

@CMOTDibbler

I'll not be around for the chat, but Hugh, what have you found hardest to make gluten free? And do you have a really nice bread recipe for making wraps? The gluten free ones I've tried making are either like pancakes or cardboard

The gluten-free bread question is a challenge but I always say don't try too hard to make something that seems like regular bread, because you'll always be disappointed. It's more exciting to explore new tastes and textures with different grains and flowers and to accept them as they are. Rye flour is very useful –it's not gluten-free so not suitable for coeliacs, but it is very low in gluten and a good alternative if you are wheat intolerant.

My buckwheat galete on page 77 make great wraps and there's a nice spinachy wrap, too on the next page. See how you get on with these and let me know!

I'm cautiously optimistic that this might work for me. We're also nut-free and egg-free in our house, and in my experience the dairy-free, gluten-free options tend to feature nuts/eggs. Still yet to find a cake recipe that works for us (Doves Farm gluten free is no good - we have issues with maize flour, ditto buckwheat). Hopeful that coconut flour might come up trumps. It's a struggle to not be too healthy, despite the allergies and intolerances!!

I LOVE the Veg book, BTW! Great recipes that I come back to time and time again.

@Gileswithachainsaw

Oooh those recipes sound lovely I'm very interested in the new book I have to say.

Do you find you feel better cutting out dairy and gluten or do you not really notice a change. I'm really interested in dairy free ice cream. Any recipes you found worked particularly well?

I think it's important to be clear that I haven't gone gluten free completely, but I do cut out the wheat and dairy for quite long periods and go back to them when there are specific reasons I want them in my cooking. What I'm trying to resist is the idea that they have to be in all our cooking all the time. We just don't need to be so dependent on them.

I've loved putting dairy free ice cream together for the book, and I've found homemade cashew cream is the best alternative to get that creamy base. It makes a lovely strawberry ice cream, banana ice cream, all sorts really! And of course pure fruity sorbets and granitas made from tart fruits like peaches and plums are always dairy-free and very delicious.

I love squid (for breakfast, lunch, supper or whenever) and one of my favourite ways of cooking it is stuff them with a chorizo and tentacle risotto and then casserole them in a provencale sauce. Yummy, but I would love some new ideas. Have you any suggestions?

@MagratsHair

Hi Hugh, welcome to Mumsnet & thanks for coming to talk to us.

Do you have a good recipe for a dairy free vegan sponge? (wheat is not a problem) I can do great vegan chocolate & carrot cakes but have always failed at sponges.

Also oils, I tend to use the usual olive for cooking & sesame or olive for drizzling as I'm not sure which oils are good for which purposes. Could you please tell us your favourite types of oils & what you use them for?

That's a really good question about dairy-free cakes –it really isn't hard as you have lovely cold pressed oils like rapeseed that don't have a strong flavour and can be used instead. All the cakes and treats and biscuits in the new book are both dairy and wheat free and they have been triple tested for sheer deliciousness! They don't turn out the same as traditional versions, but to me it's their differences that make them interesting and fun.

My ultra choc brownie has replaced our previous favourite recipe at River Cottage on all our menus, so we can offer a lovely pud to those who don't eat dairy and wheat, and it seems to be going down a storm!

@MagratsHair

Also, (& this is a question from my vegan friend as I've just told her you are here tomorrow, so its not my question & therefore does not count as a multiple :) )

My friend has mentioned the time that you climbed up a ladder to the rookery in some trees, took every single baby rook, broke it's neck and put them in your pockets and made a pie from them. You didn't even leave one. Her question is, how can you think its OK to do that & how can you justify it...?

Tough question about the rooks from way back when I was doing Cook on the Wild Side. It was a challenging sequence and it was meant to be provocative. I wanted people to question the assumptions they make about meat and where it comes from. Every chicken you buy in the super market has lived a shorter life than those young rooks, and a far less natural one. Personally, I feel comfortable eating meat from animals I have killed myself. I know that's not for everyone, but we do all need to think about the systems we are supporting when we make our choices in the supermarket.

@SundayGirl79

Ooh, just the person I need. I have a group of family coming over tomorrow which incorporates my 100 year old Grandmother and a gluton free sister-in-law. I'm feeding them at around 4pm but won't have an awful lot of time to prepare - any ideas (it has to be fairly traditional - grandma won't go near spicy food!)

How about a main course of what I call my Spring Chicken on page 254 – it's a really easy oven-baked dish full of lovely veg and it worked in the Autumn too. You might want to follow that up with the brownies served with some warm stewed plums and cashew cream. I hope your granny will enjoy all that!

Hello.

I love watching River Cottage

There's a big blackberry bush in my garden - any suggestions on what to do with them?

Thanks.

@everytimeabellrings

Hi Hugh, I try to stick to a food budget of about £20 for a weekly shop (it's just me!) so it definitely pays to batch cook. I don't miss meat, but I do struggle to find veggie recipes beyond soup that are easy to freeze. Which would you recommend??

Cooking in bulk and freezing is a brilliant way to beat the household budget, but I know what you mean about some veg recipes being hard to freeze! Actually, I've found that big beany stews and rooty roasts do freeze ok. They don't always look their best after defrosting, but they perk up with another trip through the oven. Try, for example, Roast Beetroot and Potatoes (you can drop the anchovies!) on page 293, or Oven Baked Shallot and Mushroom Risotto on 301, or the Squash Roast on 302. You can bake massive trays of them and freeze them. The pestos freeze really well too.

I made a fabulous dairy free ice cream with ground macadamias! Expensive but delicious!!

@Amelia92

Hi Hugh,

Have you got any suggestions for making dairy-free yorkshire puddings that actually rise? I can never get the proportions right meaning that the batter always ends up too heavy.

Thank you!

Gluten-free yorkshire pudding is a real challenge –but dairy free shouldn't be too much of a problem. I would just use almond milk instead of regular milk, and stick to a tried and trusted recipe. You should be ok.

thanks Hugh!

am skipping to the supermarket to look for sunflower seeds without a nut trace warning! wish me luck!

Will there be a show about this new book? Would love to watch!

Why do you think it's so important that we do reduce our dependence on wheat and diary?

@ppeatfruit

Hello, I follow an interesting Blood Type way of eating also the Hay diet and I noticed on your fruit programme you recommended eating fruit BEFORE a meal, on an empty stomach. Which I do and notice how ill I feel if I forget!!

You then talked about adding fruit to meat etc. recipes which would give me and my husband heartburn ! I wonder what the reason was?

There are lots of ways to get more fruit in your diet and I am a big fan of starting the day with a mainly fruity breakfast, but different people react in different ways and I wanted to show in my fruit book, that fruit is a very versatile ingredient, that can be incorporated into salads and meat and fish dishes, too. It might not work for everybody from a digestive point of view, but it is a good way of getting people to embrace more fruit in their diet.

@ClaraSky

Hi Hugh,

I love crumble - delicious and easy to make - but, as nice as it is, I get a bit bored of the standard apple filling. Which other fillings can you suggest and what is your favourite?

Thanks

Who doesn't love crumble! I have a nice oaty, nutty version of it without wheat or dairy in the new book. You can actually bake crumble on it's own until it's crispy and perfect, then sprinkle it over all kind of fruit compotes.

Plum crumble is my favourite, and perfect at this time of year. Adding blackberries, abundant right now, to an apple filling, makes it more filling. Basically any tart, juicy fruits can make a crumble. You can even use a pre-baked crumble on top of fresh fruits like strawberries and blueberries.

I enjoyed your Fish Fight show.

I have noticed there are now messages at the end of television shows like MasterChef advising to check the sustainable fishing list. Should this kind of thing be included in all food media that mention fish?

Do you think enough is being done to maintain global fishing practices? Do more farmers and fishers need to work on their organic policies?

@fallenempires

Hi Hugh! Do you think that you can just adapt baking recipes to make them gluten free or is there more of an exact science to it? The reason I ask is that I made my usual lemon drizzle traybake with GF flour but found that when it was sliced it fell to pieces.

I think you'll have more success with your gluten-free cooking if you chose recipes that have been tested from scratch without wheat flour, rather than simply swapping in a gluten-free flour mix.

The baking recipes in River Cottage Light and Easy are all designed to work with the specified flours, such as buckwheat, rice flour or maze flour. They are designed around the tastes and textures of those particular ingredients. They are not meant to imitate 'other cakes and treats', but to be delicious in and of themselves.

woohoo ! We've just been given a signed copy of Hugh's Light and Easy. Everyone who joins the discussion today will be entered into a draw to win. We'll announce the winner at the end of the webchat.