tonight's supper: toad in the hole

if it turns out as badly as my previous suppers this week, it will be renamed tail between the legs.

i am not holding out much hope for a culinary success...mainly because the flour (one of the main ingredients) is gluten-free. eeeek. every gluten-free product i've ever eaten has been revolting. suffering from a wheat intolerance for several years, my mother would bulk buy rice flour/milk/pasta. all vile. nasty textures and always disappointing results. after my rejection of all things rice related, she moved onto corn - pasta primarily. absolutely VILE. then along came products labelled gluten-free and i was filled with relief. someone had actually put time and energy (and their tastebuds) into creating flours, biscuits, breads etc that i would finally enjoy. wrong wrong wrong. i suppose the lack of gluten is bound to have an effect on the end product. without gluten in breads or pastries, where does all that wonderful texture come from? it doesn't, in my humble opinion. cakes and breads are dry and crumbly rather than moist and springy. pasta made without gluten is chalky.

back to tonight's supper...

the marketplace store where we get our groceries has a limited stock. some days it has fresh vegetables and fruit, butter, juice - other days it has run out. it can be a bit hit and miss. as a trip to Safeway was inconvenient today, i had to rely on the marketplace for tonight's ingredients.

gluten-free flour (it says it's perfect for baking etc - yeah right, we'll see)
sausages (the only kind they had was pre-cooked in apple or garlic; i went for the garlic ones, god help me)
eggs (ok you can't go wrong with these)
milk (they only sell organic milk which is fine - if you're a millionaire)

sugar - so i don't need this for the recipe, but it's a necessity in our household. the first packet i bought - without looking properly - turned out to be organic evaporated palm sugar, blonde. for some reason that i can't explain, i only saw the word palm, got confused with cane and bought it. it wasn't very blonde - it looked like ground up toasted breadcrumbs in shape, size and colour. although it's not totally disgusting, it does give a slightly weird aftertaste. we persevered, not able to bring ourselves to trash a packet of sugar that cost $8. yes, i forgot to look at the price tag too. on returning to the store to find real sugar, they told me they only carried the palm variety. nice. so, rather than buy another packet, i have been knicking packets from the breakfast room. what a cheapo.

to give you an idea of how outrageous the prices here are:

2 pint carton of milk $6 (i actually don't know if that's good or bad)
1lb of weird hippie sugar $8
mini bottle of instant coffee (you can get around 8 cups of coffee out of it) $7
small jar of honey $14 (and i mean small)
500ml of olive oil $19
packet of pancake mix $15

all the above are the cheapest option too. i could have gone all out and chosen a bottle of olive oil for $88 or a pancake mix with chocolate chip cookies included for $17, but felt they were a touch over-priced.

okay, back to the oven...pictures and update later.