Indian Latkas

So this recipe was born out of a total KITCHENFAIL!!11!! but the end result was amazing none the less.  I had started out trying to make samosas, but as I've previously chronicled, baking and I were not on speaking terms when this recipe came about.  Gotta get creative.  These were the filling for samosas, revamped.

I have been told by several of my chosen friends that calling these latkas is a stretch, mostly because of the peas.  Whatevs. I do what I want.

Indian Latkas

3 sweet potatoes
1 onion, thinly sliced and diced
1 1/2 cups of frozen peas
EVOO
1 tablespoon of butter
3 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 tablespoon mustard seed (start with a tsp if you don't want these to be spicy and keep tasting/adding)
1 tablespoon coriander / cilantro

Chop potatoes into small cubes.  Cover with water and bring to a boil, checking every 5 - 10 minutes to see if you can spear the potato easily with a fork.  When you can and the potato is just about falling apart, pour potatoes into a strainer.  Mash with the back of a large fork. and set aside.

Add butter and onion to a large skillet. After about 2 minutes, add garlic and sautee until fragrant.  Add all your seasonings.

While the onion finishes cooking, add in the peas to defrost (which takes under a minute) and sear a bit. When peas are thawed and onion is sufficiently softened, add the contents of the pan (scraping the yummy bits off the bottom) to your potato mixture and blend well.  Taste and continue to season until you get it right.  I added more coriander and curry at this point.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Brush EVOO on two cookie sheets.  Add heaping (and I'm talking HEAPING) tablespoons to your greased cookie sheet. Flatten with the back of the spoon.  Drizzle with EVOO and bake until browning. Flip over to brown the other side, pushing down a bit with a spatula and drizzling again with EVOO when you flip.

Perfect global addition to any holiday party menu.  Serve with a blend of goat cheese and sour cream, sprinkled liberally with cilantro. Mmmmmmmm.

Baking: Revisited plus THREE cookie recipes

I write this triumphantly.  I give you... COOKIES !  Baked with gluten free flour (sweet rice flour or white rice flour, to be exact, I know the recipes say white rice flour, but I swear I had sweet rice flour. Whatever.).  That taste delicious.  In that mix we have peanut butter cookies, butter cookies and sugar cookies. All delightful and exactly what I've been craving of late.

Sugar Cookies (perfect for cutting out into pretty shapes!)

( I used the two egg whites that are left over from this to make coconut macaroons - recipe to follow)

 

1. Beat until creamy

            1 stick + 2 tablespoons of butter or margarine ( earth balance margarine works fine for dairy free)

            1/2 cup of white sugar

             teeny pinch of salt

2. Add and continue beating

             2 egg yolks

             1/2 teaspoon lemon peel

             1/2 teaspoon vanilla

3. Add 1 1/2 cup white rice flour and mix

 

Refrigerate dough for a little while so it firms and makes rolling easier. If you have it, roll this out on parchment paper sprinkled with white sugar.  

 

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes and cool in the pan for five minutes before removing.

 

Basic Cookie Dough (you can do so much with these...)

 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees ( if your oven is as terrible as mine... 375 might suffice).

 

Mix-

1 stick + 2 tablespoons of butter or margarine

1/2 cup white sugar

pinch of salt

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla

1 1/2 cups of  white rice flour

 

You can make a drop type cookie by rolling the batter in sugar before baking - use  parchment paper.

or

You can sprinkle sugar on  parchment paper and roll the dough out and make cut outs that beg to be frosted.

or 

You can add 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and mix in the batter. Then  drop by teaspoonfuls on parchment paper and bake.

 

Bake for about 10 minutes  and check.  I let them cool a minute or two before removing  from the parchment paper. 

 

Coconut Macaroons

 

Whip 2 egg whites and 1 teaspoon vanilla ( or almond if you have it) until frothy.

 

In a separate bowl mix 1 and 1/3 cup of coconut (flake or shredded), 1 cup sugar, a pinch of salt and 3 tablespoons of white rice flour.

 

Optional - add 1 and 1/3 cup of mini chocolate chips as you combine the two bowls.

 

Bake at 325 for about 20 minutes. 

Shout out to my cousin Lisa for dropping the peace sign in the above picture. Nothing more hood than baking with Grandma.

UGH and other tales of gluten free baking.

I have had it, friends.

The holidays are practically here.  I need to bake some cookies.  Except the last three things I've baked have been capital A Awful. With my family's annual cookie baking fest happening at my Grandma's house this weekend, I feel resigned to watching them bake delectable treats while I pout.  I'll help, mostly because I find baking cathartic if nothing else. But I need to figure out GF baking and FAST.  Not even because of the holidays.

There are few things I love more than surprising someone I love with freshly baked cookies.  I recently started tackling cupcakes to great success too.  All of this has halted come August when my celiac diagnosis was revealed.

I did have ONE attempted recipe turn out great.  But it was formulated specifically for the Bob's Red Mill GF All Purpose Flour Mix that I keep on hand. Is this the only way to do things?  I see baking recipes that literally have 4 or 5 different types of flour.  Hiiiii - I live in New York City.  I barely have space to store wheat flour, GF flour and xanthan gum, let alone 5 different types of flour.

What is a city celiac to do?

To keep things from being totally bleak, I give you the ONE recipe that turned out well.  Not so sticky it adhered itself to my food processor. Not drier than a dessert despite how much liquid I dump in. This recipe yielded some delicious cookies.  Icing recipe follows.

Bob's Red Mill GF Sugar Cookies: http://www.bobsredmill.com/recipes_detail.php?rid=122
(for some reason the recipe won't copy/paste aaand I'm lazy.)

Perfect Sugar Cookie Icing:
(The amounts below should leave you a little extra making the above cookies.
For cupcakes or a cake - double it at least. More is less when it comes to frosting!)

2 cups confectioners' sugar

1/4 cup butter or shortening

2 - 3 tablespoons milk or half and half

1/2 - 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

food coloring if needed

Bust out your hand mixer and go to town. Voila.

Italian Pussy.

This post is dedicated to the person who found this blog today by googling "italian pussy." Love.

EAT IT, FRENCH'S.

AKA HAPPY GLUTEN FREE THANKSGIVING to all.

I had been dreading the holidays even more than usual.  And even more than my birthday, which must be a record of some kind. 

I wasn't particularly concerned about Thanksgiving, though.  I don't really like stuffing. Give me my mashed taters and I'm a happy woman.  Italians must eat pasta before the meal on every holiday, naturally, which ups the ante on the dread, but Mom will make me some GF on the side. And then I realized that  OMGGREENBEANCASSEROLE is in no way, shape or form gluten free.  Not okay.  As I learned the hard way when attempting to make tuna casserole, gluten free, cream based soups pretty much don't exist. And French's fried onions aren't either. BOO.

I did see an awesome recipe for green bean casserole on General Mills' Live Gluten Freely newsletter that pointed readers in the direction of a gluten free creamy mushroom soup from Progresso (Thanks Progresso!).

But it lacked the fried onions.  What the hell is the point without fried onions? And then I thought to myself - "Hey dumbass, you have a food blog.  It's about time you learned how to fry."

Yes, that's right.  I have never fried anything.  My mom is a dietitian after all.

So, with some fat free half and half and Bob's Red Mill All Purpose GF Flour Mix, I went to town.  I tossed the shallots in the half and half and then put them in a bag, added 1/2 - 3/4 of a cup of the flour mix and shook it like a polaroid picture.

We have the below, pre baking:

Not bad for a first attempt at frying.  Recipe below!

1 can (18 oz) Progresso® Vegetable Classics creamy mushroom soup

1 teaspoon gluten free soy sauce

Dash ground black pepper (or, if you're me - a small handful)

24oz frozen cut green beans, thawed

1.   Heat oven to 350°F. In ungreased 1 1/2-quart casserole, mix soup, soy sauce, pepper and green beans.
2.   Bake about 40 minutes or until hot and bubbly.

     shallots, sliced as thinly as possible and broken up
     ~ 1/2 cup half and half/milk
    ~  1/2 - 3/4 cup GF flour mix

1. Pour milk into bowl. Toss thinly diced shallots (I used three) well in liquid, letting them sit for 1 minute.
2. Shake extra milk off shallots, adding them to a gallon sized ziploc bag.
3. Add flour and shake it until shallots are coated well.

Add to about 1/2 cup of oil and fry in batches, being sure not to overcrowd.

    

MORE SQUASH

I am legit obsessed.  I warned you. MORE SQUASH.  I have one more squash recipe that I'm going to throw at you all and then I'll lay off. I swear.

Squash Risotto

1 squash skinned and diced (acorn or butternut, 1 prepped package from the supermarket is a-okay)
1 cup arborio rice
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon EVOO
1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced and diced
1/2 cup dry white wine (though I used red the first time I made this and it tasted amazing)
1/2 cup grated parm + more for serving/garnish
4 - 6 cups of GF vegetable or chicken stock, room temperature or slightly warmed if possible
kosher salt
pepper
ground sage
thyme
nutmeg

Heat a medium sized saucepan over medium/high heat.  Add 1 tablespoon of EVOO and 1 tablespoon of butter.  When butter melts, sautee onion and squash for a few minutes, until onions are transluscent and squash are almost tender, poked easily with a fork.  Add rice and stir to coat in butter/oil.  Add a teaspoon of ground sage and wine and stir frequently until all liquid has evaporated (about 2 or 3 minutes). Reduce heat and add in stock, no more than a cup at a time.  As you begin to add stock, add a large pinch of nutmeg, another teaspoon of ground sage, a tablespoon of dried thyme and pepper per your taste. A pinch of salt is often needed to bring everything together. Stir frequently.  Add more stock once the rice has absorbed it all. After  about 25 minutes of this (aka when the rice is almost cooked), stir in parmesan.  All total, it should take the risotto 30 - 35 minutes of cooking.  Be sure to have extra stock on hand (water is fine if you run out), as arborio is some thirsty rice.

Serves 4.

Awesome winter meal alert

My name is Lauren, and I am addicted to squash from October - February every year.  And then I promptly forget about it, until I see it featured in a seasonal veggie display and get far too excited while meal planning in my head.

There are so many great uses for spaghetti squash, my fave of the gourdy bunch.  I love it tender and tossed with fresh mint, cilantro, lemon juice and EVOO.  I also love the recipe I am about to share with you.  For spaghetti squash bolognese.  Its as if it was designed for gluten free italians like myself.  It has this great SNAP to it, like a super al dente noodle, that I can't get enough of.  It's really nature's gluten free pasta.

I don't eat alot of meat.  I've been going back to it more now, just to give myself the illusion of more food options, but this is amazing with eggplant in the sauce instead of a meat. 

To use eggplant, dice it into small squares, discarding the ends.  Toss eggplant with 2 tbls of kosher salt and place in a strainer with a plate and a 28oz can of tomatoes on top to weight it.  After 30 minutes, the bitter juices of the eggplant will have mostly drained out.  Preheat your oven to 375. Wipe off as much salt as you can and wring out the eggplant in a kitchen towel or paper towel. You'll be surprised by how much liquid comes out.  Then, put it on a greased baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes.  The eggplant should be browned.  Add it to the sauce when nearing completion to infuse it with the herbs and flavors of the sauce.

Spaghetti Squash Bolognese

1 lb ground turkey
28oz can of crushed tomatoes
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 - 4 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup red wine
oregano
basil
parsley
thyme
black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Slice the spaghetti squash in half lengthwise.  Try not to slice off a finger while doing this.  I came close multiple times, because my knives are le suck.  Remove the seeds.  Place both halves of spaghetti squash cut side down in ~ a cup of water in a pyrex/baking dish.  Poke holes in the sides now facing up.  Bake for about 35 minutes.  You can test if its done by poking it with a knife or fork.  If it punctures easily, you are good to go.

While the squash bakes, get your sauce going.  Add about a tbsp of EVOO to heated, medium sized sauce pan heated on medium-high heat. Add diced onions.  After 2 - 3 minutes, add garlic, chopped as finely as you prefer.  I have a garlic press that I adore.  Sautee garlic and onion for 1 minute.  If you are going to use eggplant, skip to the next paragraph. Add turkey, breaking up with a non wooden spoon.  Start stirring in your italian seasonings.  Turkey usually needs a pinch of salt and a liberal sprinkle of black pepper at minimum, but I like it tossed with thyme, oregano, basil and parsley.  A few shakes of each. Let the turkey begin to brown.

Add tomatoes, red wine and more herbs - tsp of each plus more thyme.  Lower heat to medium low and simmer, stirring regularly.  Taste frequently and add herbs as you see fit.  I also like a pinch of nutmeg and a pinch of salt.  If the sauce is too bitter, add a pinch of sugar or a whole carrot that you can remove later to sweeten it up a bit.

When the squash is done, the sauce should be too. (Once the squash is cool enough to handle...) With the cut side facing up, use a large fork and comb through the squash, making "spaghetti."  Scoop it directly into the sauce, stirring to evenly distribute the sauce.  A dash of parmesan, or even some goat cheese goes great on top too.

One of the many reasons why Autumn is my favorite season.  Tasty.