Tomato Confit Sauce (GFCF, vegan)

Mmmm….

This is my favorite sauce.  Truly, I could just ladle it into my mouth with rude slurping sounds, but I usually restrain myself and put it ON something.  It works as a pasta sauce or a topping for steamed veggies, baked fish or chicken, or just about any meat.  Or tofu.  It would make tofu taste good, I’d bet, which is an admirable feat for any sauce!

You can serve it straight up, but since it is concentrated and PACKED with flavor, I will sometimes sauté chopped veggies on the side — zucchini or other summer squash, mushrooms, and red bell peppers are good choices — and stir it into the confit, with perhaps some canned (or fresh) diced tomatoes, to extend the sauce.  The result of this recipe is somewhere between a sauce and a condiment.  I think it would make a fabulous topping for bruschetta, and the other night, when I served this, my husband (who is much more keen on presentation than I am) said, “You could just make a schmear of this across a clean plate, and serve the fish on top of it.”  Good idea, especially as this highly-rated flounder recipe didn’t turn out quite as flavorful as I had imagined.

The ingredients are fairly flexible, depending on how much you have on hand, but here are the non-negotiables:  Tomatoes, onion, garlic cloves, fresh herbs, olive oil, and sea salt.  What transforms these usual suspects of the culinary arts is ROASTING them.

A reader, who is also a Facebook fan, suggested — oh, about a year ago, I think — that I try making “confit” from my tomatoes.  I had not enough to make paste from, but too many to just use in salads and sandwiches.  She said she got the idea from Martha Stewart, who does indeed have a Tomato Confit recipe.  However, I have tinkered and perfected, and now what I do hardly resembles the original, so I think it is transformed into something NEW, and even better.  Although I might hesitate to label this as a true confit — that is, I really do not know how long this would last, as a preserve — it still bears its confit roots.

The best part is:  IT IS SO EASY, and it makes your home smell like a pizzeria, without the actual pizza.    Speaking of, this sauce doubles as pizza sauce that is to die for!

So, here we go!

Tomato Confit Sauce

click here for printable PDF

makes about 3½ cups

• 1½ – 2 lbs of fresh, ripe, small tomatoes.  Halve and remove the area around the stem, but no need to seed, peel, or core
• 3-4 Tbsp fresh, finely-chopped herbs (I like rosemary and basil), divided
• ½ large onion, cut in slivers (a regular brown or yellow onion would work best — something with some zip to it)
• 6-8 cloves of garlic, halved
• ¼ cup olive oil, divided
• 1 tsp sea salt
• a generous pinch raw sugar

1. As you prepare the ingredients, preheat oven to 325°F.
2. Into a 11″ x 7.5″ (or similarly-sized) glass or glazed stoneware baking dish, drizzle about 1 Tbsp of the olive oil and sprinkle 1 Tbsp of the fresh herbs.
3. Place tomatoes, cut side down, shoulder to shoulder in the baking dish.  They can overlap somewhat, but it’s best if they are all skin-side up, cut-side-down.
4. Sprinkle the tomatoes with the rest of the herbs, the slivered onion, and garlic.  Drizzle with the rest of the olive oil, then sprinkle on the sea salt and very lightly sprinkle all with a pinch of sugar.
5. Bake, covered with foil, in a 325°F oven for 45 minutes on a mid-to-low oven rack.  Then, remove the foil and continue to roast, uncovered, until everything is soft, and about half of the liquid has evaporated.
6. It should look like this:
   
7. Cool to room temperature (or until at least not-hot), and transfer all to a food processor or blender.  I use a Cuisinart Mini-Prep, and pulse back and forth on chop and grind (I have to do it in two batches, as the bowl doesn’t hold the whole recipe).  Process until the sauce is mostly-smooth, but not uniformly so.  You want to be able to see the flecks and small bits.
8. Taste, and decide if it needs more salt or even some pepper (I’m not a big fan of black pepper), then restrain yourself from eating all that concentrated deliciousness, right there.
9. Enjoy!

Cranberry-Almond Stickybread Recipe (GFCF, refined-sugar free)

Mmmm....

I came up with this recipe for a friend whose husband has been put on a really restrictive diet.  At first, I was disappointed, because my intention was to make a dough for rollable cinnamon rolls, but the dough was too wet so I had to glop it all in the baking dish.  My husband, however, vetoed my plans to rework the recipe.  “It’s perfect,” he proclaimed, stabbing his fork into the air as an exclamation.

Usually I make a recipe a number of times to work out the kinks… but after excellent results on the second time making it, I decided to go ahead and post the recipe.  I’m thinking I’m going to make this for Christmas morning.  I read up on Monkeybread, and I think the recipe would work in that style, too — in a Bundt pan, maybe even starting with frozen dough.  I’ll have to work on that, though.

This recipe uses no refined sugar:  honey and/or agave syrup are the only sweeteners.  I used egg whites, as my friend’s hubby can’t have yolks;  I think it would work without eggs entirely — if you try it without eggs, up the water content and leave a comment to let me know how it worked.  I used sweetened, dried cranberries, but any dried fruit would work (and would be necessary to make it truly sugar-free).  I used almonds, but pecans would work fine, too.

Last caveat:  The flours.  I use my favorite trio of gluten-free flours in this recipe, but you may find others that work just as well or better.  Post a comment if you alter the flours and let me know the result!

• Garbanzo flour is made by Bob’s Red Mill, or you can find it in any Asian market as besan, chana dal, chickpea flour, or gram flour.  Expect to pay about $5-6 for a 4-pound bag of garbanzo flour at the Asian market.  My favorite brand is Brar, which is a product of Canada (and which used to be labeled as gluten-free and is no longer… though there isn’t any cross-contamination warning on it).
• Mung bean starch is very common in Korean cooking;  most Asian markets are organized by nationality/region, so you’d find it on the Korean aisle.  Or Chinese.  I’ve purchased it from both.  It’s also known, cryptically, as green bean powder or green bean starch, since mung beans are small and green.  Mung bean starch is a bit pricey, at around $2.50 – 3.50 per pound in the store, and about double that online.
• You can find gluten-free oat flour in many well-stocked grocery stores, or mill your own in a blender, sifting it through a wire sieve afterward.

 

Cranberry-Almond Stickybread (click for printable PDF)
About an hour and ten minutes from start to finish
Makes 15 servings

• Grease a large baking dish (I use a 9″ x 13″ Pyrex, though size is flexible.  I also use Spectrum Organic non-hydrogenated Shortening to grease my pans.)
• Turn on your oven to 350°F for only 2 minutes.  Turn off.  This provides a warm location for dough to rise.

1¾ cup warm water
1 Tbsp yeast
2 Tbsp honey

• Gently combine water, yeast, and honey, and let sit (proof) for ten minutes

1½ cups garbanzo flour
1½ cups oat flour
1½ cups mung bean starch
¼ tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp sea salt
2 tsp xanthan gum

• Whisk together these dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Set aside.

4 egg whites

• When the yeast mixture is done proofing, whisk in 4 egg whites, stirring briskly to combine.
• Add the yeast and egg mixture to the flour mixture, whisking quickly and thoroughly to combine.  Set aside to rest about five minutes.

½ – ¾ cup honey OR agave syrup OR a combination of the two
2 tsp cinnamon

• Warm the honey to liquefy using a microwave for 10-15 seconds, or setting the container in a pan of very warm water.
• Stir briskly to combine the cinnamon with honey.

½ cup almond meal
½ cup blanched, slivered almonds (or other chopped nut)
½ cup sweetened, dried cranberries (or other dried fruit)

• Stir the dough, then with two spoons, drop spoonfuls of dough into the baking dish, using half to two-thirds of the dough.
• Drizzle about half of the honey-cinnamon mixture over the lumps of dough, then top with about 1/3 cup of the almond meal and all of the slivered almonds and dried cranberries.
• Drop the remaining dough in small lumps over the first layer.  Drizzle with remaining honey mixture and sprinkle with remaining almond meal.
• Place into slightly warm oven or other warm place and let rise for 20 minutes.
• Remove baking dish, cover with a clean kitchen towel, and preheat oven to 375°F for about ten minutes, for a total rising time of 30 minutes.  Dough will have doubled in size (or just a little less-than-doubled).
• Bake uncovered for 25-30 minutes, until top no longer feels spongy when touched lightly, and top is a nice, golden brown, and honey is sizzling along the sides of the dish.
• Cut into 15 servings.  Serve warm, with a side of dairy-free ice cream, or topped with whipped cream if you can have dairy.  (Tastes good cold, too, on the off-chance that there are leftovers.)

 

GFCF Turkey Stuffing (a sort-of recipe)

A friend just asked me for a recipe for stuffing. I don’t have one written down, but here’s what I do, and it is SO tasty.  I always get compliments on this stuffing, even from those who don’t have to be gluten-free:

1. Cook up some quinoa.  Use 2 c. quinoa and about… three cups water, I believe. I always use less water than the package suggests. Set aside.
2. Sautee lots of veggies: onions, garlic, mushrooms, celery, and sometimes other veggies, too, using a lot of olive oil (about 1/4 cup) and a fair bit of salt (1-2 tsp).  This is just a suggestion, but I would use a whole, chopped onion; 6-8 cloves minced garlic; 5-8 oz sliced fresh mushrooms; and 1-2 cups chopped celery.  Light-colored root veggies like rutabaga or carrots work well, too, as do cubed firm winter squash, like butternut.  Steam those veggies — 2 cups or so — on the stove or in the micro until half-cooked, and stir into the sauteed veggies.
3. When the veggies are almost done, add minced fresh herbs (often, around Thanksgiving, you can find combo packages that have several herbs inside) like sage and thyme….  Use at least 3 Tbsp minced herbs.  Remove from heat.
4. Then, combine quinoa with the veggies & herbs, and stuff that inside the turkey. You’ll probably have to lace up the turkey, because the quinoa stuffing falls out more easily than “normal” stuffing.
5. For vegan stuffing, or for any stuffing that won’t fit into your turkey, bake in a well-greased bowl, covered, in a slow oven (325°).  Bake at least 90 minutes.
6. Keeps well for a long time in a warm oven, until you’re ready to serve!

Super-Simple GFCF Wholegrain Sandwich Bread (vegan, rice-free, potato-free)

In nearly nine years of almost daily gluten-free baking — both my recipes and countless others’ — this is the closest to bread perfection I’ve ever achieved.

• This recipe consistently produces a slicing bread that is fabulous right out of the oven.  Go ahead and slather butter (or your spread of choice) onto a fresh, steaming slice;  the bread does not gum up when trying to slice it when it’s still hot.  (For honest disclosure, if you want VERY THIN slices, like ¼” thick, it is best to wait until the bread cools.)
• No more collapsed loaves!!  The bread rises great and only falls/shrinks a VERY SMALL bit during baking.
• No more brick-like loaves:  The top is actually ROUNDED!
• This recipe produces a nicely-browned, crusty, chewy crust.
• The taste is excellent — no overwhelming, odd taste.  It’s subtle enough to use for both sweet and savory.  Yet, it’s complex enough to not taste bland or dull.
• The texture is both sturdy and elastic:  It stands up to spreading, but does not readily fall apart whilst eating the sandwich.
• The interior of the bread is moist (but never gummy), and not crumbly.
• The bread is also great for toasting (though unlike many other g.f. loaves, does not require toasting).
• It is 2/3 wholegrain, high in fiber, but is light in color.
• This recipe also produces a bread that is higher in protein than most gluten-free breads, more equivalent to wheat-based bread.  The only starch used in this bread is mung bean starch (see the simple flour mixture recipe here), which is remarkably low-glycemic, due to its very high amylose content (32% amylose in mung bean starch, compared to 0.5% in corn starch).

Does this sound too good to be true??  Fair reader, it is not.  I have churned out dozens of these loaves in the last couple of weeks, and have yet to be disappointed (unless I veered from the recipe in order to tinker with it, unsuccessfully).

Rising dough. This is actually a large loaf; it rises even BETTER in a small loaf pan.

Finished loaf.

Sliced bread. I like the top a bit more rustic, like this. If you smooth your loaf out more thoroughly, prior to rising, the top of your loaf won't be quite as irregular.

I have not tried to freeze it;  we eat it too fast.  I’ve only eaten it when the bread is up to two days old, so I really don’t know how long it lasts, long-term.  If you make the bread and have any comments about preserving it, do let me know.

Another note:  This bread works best in a smaller loaf size.

Super-Simple GFCF Wholegrain Sandwich Bread

(click here for a simplified comment-free PDF of the recipe;  the following recipe is notated with suggestions)
Requires about 90 minutes’ time from start to finish.

• 3¼ cups Simple Sandwich Bread Flour Mix
• 1 tsp sea salt — not any less
• 1¾ cup water, heated to 95° – 110° F
• 1½ Tbsp granulated sugar (that is, 1 Tbsp + 1½ tsp)
• scant Tbsp active dry yeast (that is, about 2¾ tsp)
• 1½ Tbsp olive oil (that is, 1 Tbsp + 1½ tsp)
• Spray olive oil, or about an additional ½ tsp

1. In a glass or glazed pottery container, add sugar and yeast to the warm water.  Stir gently to moisten the yeast.  Set aside to proof for ten minutes.  At the end of 10 minutes, the mixture should have a fairly thick layer of small bubbles on top.
2. Put the oven rack in the bottom third of the oven.  Turn the oven on to preheat to 350°F for ONLY TWO MINUTES.  Turn off oven.
3. Line a small loaf pan (4½” x 8½”) with nonstick foil.
4. With a whisk, combine flour mix with salt.
5. To the proofed yeast mixture, gently mix in 1½ Tbsp olive oil.  Add to flour and salt mixture.
6. With a whisk, very quickly mix liquid mixture with flour mixture.  Whisk briskly until well-combined and mixture thickens.  You may still see some very small clumps.
7. Set the bowl aside to rest for five minutes.  After five minutes, whisk again until smooth.  (Without the resting period and additional whisking, you will likely end up with small clumps of garbanzo flour in your finished loaf.)
8. With a silicone spatula, turn batter into the lined loaf pan.  Tap the pan on countertop to help it settle.  Spray top of loaf with olive oil (alternately, lightly drizzle the loaf with oil).  Using a clean silicone spatula, pat and form the loaf until the batter is evenly distributed and slightly rounded.
9. Set the pan in the (pre-warmed) oven, uncovered, and close the door.
10. Let rise for 20 minutes, remove loaf.  Set aside, uncovered.  (If your home is really cold, place the rising loaf in a protected area, like inside the microwave.)  Turn oven up to 400°F and preheat for ten minutes.  Place loaf into heated oven, on a rack in the bottom third of the oven, bake at 400°F for 30 minutes until nicely browned.  (For an extra-brown, crusty crust, bake an additional 5 minutes.)
11. After baking, immediately remove the loaf from the baking pan — place it on a cooling rack or a wooden cutting board.
12. Enjoy!
13. Store lightly covered on the countertop for up to two days.  Beyond 48 hours, refrigeration or freezing is recommended.

NOTES:

• Using the prescribed Flour Mixture, which includes mung bean starch, is an absolute MUST for the bread’s success.  I have tried nearly countless variations of potato, tapioca, and/or corn starch, in addition to numerous other flours — two kinds of millet, sorghum, three kinds of rice flours, potato flour — and NOTHING works like the combination of mung bean starch, oat flour, and garbanzo flour to allow the loaf to rise, and to produce the finished texture of both the crust and the interior of the loaf.
• Due to variances in humidity in both the air and in your flours, you may find that you need to increase or decrease the water used in the recipe.  If the loaf does not rise well, increase water by 1 Tbsp.  If it rises so much that it spills out of the pan and doesn’t hold a rounded shape well and/or if it caves in or flattens out a little either during or after baking, decrease water by 1 Tbsp.
• I have tried this recipe using raw milk (both cow and goat) in lieu of water, and it just works best with water.  If you want to try milk, decrease the liquid by at least 1 Tbsp.  The milk will make the loaf brown even more;  keep a closer eye on the time.  It also lends to a more yellowish color in the interior of the loaf, the color of potato bread.)
• If you want to use a large loaf pan, the bread simply won’t keep its loft as well while baking.  However, it still is a serviceable, tasty loaf.  Use 4¼ cups flour mix, 1½ tsp sea salt, 2¼ cups water, 2 Tbsp sugar, 2 Tbsp olive oil, 1 T yeast.  Let rise and bake for an additional five minutes each.  All other instructions are identical.

If you try this loaf and have questions or comments — positive or negative — PLEASE comment below or e-mail me at karenjoy@onlysometimesclever.com.  I truly love feedback.

Karen the Farm Lady tantalizes you…

I have been Farm Lady the last few days, barefoot in the kitchen, and I really love it. I’ve decided that I would gladly do a swap with someone: They can come daily and clean my home, and I will do all their healthy grocery shopping and cooking and baking, accommodating all their dietary needs or restrictions. I’m sort of joking, because I think in order for it to REALLY work, that person would have to live very close to me. Still. One can dream, right?? If interested, apply below in the comments.

It tastes as good as it looks!

I’m finally 100% happy with my bread.  Yes, it’s gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, rice-free, potato-free, vegan, made with this homemade flour blend.  Now, I just need to post the recipe.  But that takes a while.  Saturday, maybe??  Monday??  Stay tuned.  My friend Kim (of Gluten Free Real Food) sampled the bread yesterday, and she said it was really good. 

Yesterday, I turned all this basil (about ¼ of what I could have harvested from my garden) into little ice cubes, made by chopping washed leaves with a bit of olive oil in a food processor (a delightful, free hand-me-down from the afore-mentioned Kim), putting 1 Tbsp of the mixture into ice cube trays, and topping it with filtered water.  It made 40 “ice” cubes, which I will happily add to soups, stews, sauces, etc., in the dead of winter, and think happy thoughts about my garden.  I’m going to make some more this afternoon.

I look like an aging goober with really yellow teeth. Oh, well. At least I can grow some good basil.

I worked this morning in my garden, staking my tomatoes, weeding, and making a general assessment of overall garden health…  I was going to plant more carrots, but Fiala, my almost-three-year-old “planted” the seeds in the family room carpet yesterday.  I have determined that all — or at least most — of my garden problems were simply from the intense heat.  The days are still hot — usually hitting 105° daily — but the nights are relatively cooler — in the 70s or at least the low 80s.  Now,

• my Mexican Grey Squash are growing very nicely.  I still haven’t harvested any mature fruit, but there are about six squash growing healthy and strong…  At least 2-3 of them should be ready to eat in another week or so.
• My pole green beans have recovered from serious heat stress and are growing fresh green leaves and blossoms.
• There are a total six green tomatoes on my eleven plants — don’t laugh!  Up until now, I have harvested ONE tomato, and it was really small.  So, I’m really delighted about my tomato plants — growing more robustly in the last few weeks than they have all summer.
• I also have 7-8 volunteer tomato plants sprouting up… I’m not sure if I’m going to have room for all those tomatoes!  We’ll see.
• My green chile plant is blooming nicely.
• My Hopi Pumpkin plant is absolutely taking over the world — it’s about 10′ x 10′, and now it is finally producing some green pumpkins which are NOT dying, but actually growing bigger.  I hope I get to reap some before I grow terribly annoyed by the prolific/invasive grower and root it out.
• I have carrots that are growing nicely.
• Red chard growing nicely, too, though it seems like the bugs REALLY like it, so I’m going to have to spray it with some organic pesticide…  (I bought Raid Earth Options chrysanthemum-pyrethrin-based pesticide because I had a buy-on-get-one-free coupon.  For the record, it discourages bugs for about three days, and you can’t let any overspray hit bees, or it’ll kill them.  And, a garden needs its bees!!)

I’ve put up ten quarts of pickles in the last week or so, using cucumbers from the CSA/farm share to which I belong.  Four in the first batch, six in the second batch, which I canned this morning.  The first batch was WAY TOO SALTY, because of some vague wording in the recipe I was following coupled with me not being sharp enough to figure out the error.  The best part of the too-salty pickles is the cloves of fresh garlic I threw in.  YUM.  I’m going to have to pickle me some garlic!!  In the new batch, in each jar, I used ½ tsp dill weed, ¼ tsp each brown mustard seed, coriander seed, and black peppercorns.  No garlic this time — not enough to spare!  I look forward to eating my not-too-salty farm pickles.

This last bit isn’t really farm-y or even food-y.  BUT, I’m pleased with myself, because it is a cheap way to make my home more pleasant.    My sister, who teases me unmercifully on topics ranging from my horse teeth to my hairy toes to my crunchiness and everything in between (I love her dearly and she keeps me humble), bewailed my sadly scentless laundry.  I explained that we couldn’t do scented detergents or fabric softener because of Fiala’s skin issues.  When she mourned for me, it really got me thinking about ways I could make my laundry smell pleasant and fresh without hurting Fiala.  A few weeks ago, I was at Trader Joe’s and noticed their filter-paper enclosed lavender dryer sachets.  Voila!  Perfect.  The $3.99 price tag made me grumble, but four packets which each last 6-10 loads… I figured the package would last me a month.  Well, my local natural foods market (Sprouts, which is taking over the West — you may see one near you soon!  It’s a good thing.) is running a 25% off their bulk products this week.  They have a lovely wall of half-gallon jars full of spices and herbs, and I thought, “I wonder if they have dried lavender flowers?  I could make my own dryer sachets!”  Turns out, they DO carry lavender!  Even on sale, it was $13-something per pound, so I tentatively filled up my little plastic ziploc baggie with what I figured was more than enough to make four sachets to do a little price comparison.  The total cost???  FIFTY TWO CENTS.  That’s it.  And when buying lavender as an herb, it was taxed at the grocery rate (1.8%) instead of the general merchandise rate (≈9.8%, depending on the municipality).  And, I already have a little cotton drawstring bag that I’m planning on using.  So, I’ll have my gently lavender-scented laundry now, at 1/8 the cost.  Ha!  I feel pretty good about that one.  Because I get excited about weird stuff like that.

And now, this post is so long, I guess I could have used the time it took creating it to have done the bread recipe.  :\

Simple Sandwich Bread Flour Mix (gluten-free, rice-free, potato-free)

Mung beans.

I know, you’ve always wanted to try them.  You have a deep-seated curiosity about them.

No?

Well, let me pique your interest.

Have you ever made gluten-free bread that looked like a brownish brick?  If you’ve done any g.f. baking and you answer, “No” to that, I’ll know you’re lying. 

I accidentally discovered the secret to lofty, round-topped, well-rising gluten-free bread, and it arose (ha!) from me trying to make a bread for my nearly three-year-old daughter, Fiala, who is still highly allergic to just about everything on the planet.  The only grain she can tolerate is oats.  I’ve known for a couple of years that she can handle most legumes, and I’ve long been making farinata and other quick breads from garbanzo bean flour.

Recently, though, on one of my frequent forays into a local large Asian market, I noticed a package of mung bean starch.  I’d seen mung beans elsewhere in the store.  You can buy them in their tiny, green-skinned natural state:

Mung bean, Vigna radiata

Or shelled and split:

They look like smaller, oval, split yellow peas.

Have you ever bought bean sprouts?  They were probably from a mung bean.  Have you ever eaten cellophane noodles (also known as bean threads or saifun)?  Those are made from mung bean starch.

Mung beans are used a LOT in Asian cooking.  The Wikipedia article is quite interesting, noting the many cultures who use mung beans, and the wide variety of foods made from mung bean — whole, husked and split, flour, starch — from savory to sweet.

So, anyway.  I picked some up, and with fairly low expectations, crafted a Fiala-safe bread using little more than oat flour, garbanzo bean flour, and mung bean starch.

Surprise!

It rose very well, browned amazingly, sliced PERFECTLY — even right out of the oven, and tasted great.

I haven’t quite abandoned the idea of making bread from my other all-purpose flour mix, but for now, I’m very satisfied with the tasty bread made with this simple mix.  And the bonus is that EVERYONE in my family — all seven of us — can eat this bread.

Since this is already so long, I’ll have to post the actual bread recipe sometime in the near future.  In preparation for the recipe, though, whydontchya make the flour mix?

Mung bean starch (also known as green bean starch) can be a bit hard to find online…  I buy it for about $2.10 at a local Asian market for a 1 lb package.  Here it is on a site called Grocery Thai for $5.95 for a 500 gram (17.64 oz) package, almost triple the price of my local store.  If you find a better supplier at a better price, PLEASE leave the URL in a comment.

So, the only bummer about this mix is that, as one of the ingredients is a bit obscure, if you don’t live somewhere close to an Asian grocery, it may prove to be cost-prohibitive. 

Without further ado, here is the flour mix recipe:

Simple Sandwich Bread Flour Mix
makes approximately 12 cups

4 cups mung bean starch
4 cups garbanzo flour
4 cups oat flour
2 Tbsp xanthan gum

Whisk to combine all ingredients thoroughly.  Store in an airtight container in the pantry (no need to refrigerate).

One more note about ingredients:  I can find ALL of my flours at the Asian market:  Garbanzo flour is also known as besan or chana dal and is widely used in Indian cooking.  Oat flour can be found in the African foods section, called oat fufu (don’t laugh!).  Both area also produced by Bob’s Red Mill, which probably has better standards regarding cross-contamination for gluten concerns, and are produced in the States.  Inexplicably, the mung bean starch (made in China) is found in the Middle East aisle in my local store, but you may find it in the Korean section.  If your local Asian grocery has English-language-challenged employees, you may want to print out what you’re looking for in several different languages, so you can ask for help.    Bob’s Red Mill also makes xanthan gum, though I buy mine in bulk at a natural foods grocery for about half the price of Bob’s.

OK.  A second “one more note”:  This flour would be considered corn-free, if it wasn’t for xanthan gum, which is usually made from a specific bacteria that is cultured on corn sugar.  So, if you’re corn-allergic, depending on your sensitivity, you may be able to use this flour mix and the bread.  I haven’t tried the mix with guar gum (made from a legume/seed).  If you do, let me know!

Summer Garden Beef Pot Roast (GFCF) recipe

I must say that after about nine months of composting, it is still very satisfying.  It’s satisfying to mix in homemade compost into my garden, and satisfying that those veggie kitchen scraps are going to good use, and not just thrown in the trash.

I was thinking about that this morning as I was peeling carrots. 

I was also thinking about a recent visit to allrecipes.com, a site which I really like, and seeing “recipes” for chicken whose sole ingredients were:

• A chicken
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tsp paprika

That’s it.  The recipe in question has received more than 1,000 reviews (average of 4.5 stars, out of 5), and nearly 71,000 people have saved it as a favorite. 

Call me a snob, but I just don’t consider that a recipe.

My sweet friend Daja blogged about this cultural phenomenon recently:  Recipes that aren’t, which she entitled They just don’t make ‘em like they used to, in which she contrasted old fashioned recipes with newer “recipes”.

Or how about this gem: specific instructions on spreading marshmallow cream and peanut butter on bread.  Silly me, I thought that was something we didn’t admit to eating, not something we outlined in great detail.

Lots of good, fresh recipes on the site from which this pic was taken! The Seasonal Gourmet. Perfect.

So, anyway.  I was thinking about all of this, considering whether or not what I was making this morning qualifies as a true recipe.  I decided that, yes, it does, even though I almost never actually use recipes for dinner.  I pretty much just buy what’s on sale and in season (and now, what I can reap from my garden, or what was in my weekly CSA basket), look in the fridge and assess what I have, and come up with a plan that matches what I have on hand.  That’s what I did, this morning.  Since it’s summertime, I used ingredients that I probably wouldn’t have on hand in the winter, like red bells, fresh basil, and zucchini.  And, of course, if you’re going to make a pot roast in the summer, you must use a Crockpot.  Heating up the whole house just makes no sense.

Here ya go:

Summer Garden Beef Pot Roast

serves 6-8
(click here for pdf:  Summer Garden Beef Pot Roast pdf)

• 3-5 lb beef chuck roast, bone-in
• 8 medium carrots (about 1 pound)
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 large onion
• 1 large zucchini (about 1 pound)
• 4 stalks celery, with leaves
• 1 – 28 oz can diced tomatoes OR about 3 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
• 2 Tbsp sweet California chili powder OR paprika
• 1 tsp dry, rubbed sage
• ¼ cup chopped fresh basil (about 10 – 15 large leaves)
• 8 cloves garlic, rough chopped
• 2 tsp sea salt
• ½ tsp fresh cracked pepper
• IF you have a very large (8+ quart) Crockpot, 3 lbs Yukon gold and/or red-skinned potatoes.

1. Place the roast in the bottom of a 6 or 7 quart Crockpot (usually oval-shaped, rather than round).  No need to cut it up.
2. As you prepare each veggie, just throw it in, atop the roast.
3. Peel the carrots and slice lengthwise.  Cut each “stick” into 3-4 pieces.
4. Core and seed the red bell pepper, cut into pieces approximately 1″ x 1″.
5. Peel and slice the onion into about 16 sections.
6. Cut the zucchini lengthwise into quarters and chop into pieces about ½” wide.
7. Chop the celery into pieces about ½” wide.  (Leave the leaves.  They add more flavor!  Or, just do what I do:  Cut off the dried ends of a bunch of celery, then chop from there until you have about 1 cup of pieces.)
8. Add the tomatoes, chili powder (or paprika), sage, basil, garlic, salt, and pepper.
9. If you used canned tomatoes, add some water to the can to rinse out the remaining tomatoes and add to the Crockpot.  If you used fresh tomatoes, add 1 cup water.
10. If you still have room remaining in your Crockpot, cut each potato into 4-6 pieces and continue adding until Crockpot is full.
11. Gently stir contents of the Crockpot with a wooden spoon (or just plunge your hands in and mix).
12. Cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 6-7 hours until meat is fall-apart tender.
13. If you added potatoes, you have a complete, one-dish meal.  If you did not add potatoes, serve over mashed potatoes or rice.
14. Enjoy!

Cranberry-Orange Scones (GFCF)

I made these last night — our family’s fave, either for Saturday breakfast or a midweek breakfast-for-dinner.  I went onto OSC’s Facebook page to link to it and rejoice over our excellent meal, and was extremely surprised to find that I’ve never posted this recipe.  Here I am, rectifying the situation. 

(click here for a pdf of this recipe)

• 3½ cups Best Gluten-Free Flour Mix Ever

• OR
• 1 cup sweet rice flour
• 1 cup sorghum flour
• 1½ cup starch(es) — either corn or a mix of tapioca and corn or whatever you have on hand
• 2 tsp xanthan gum

• ½ cup sugar

• ½ tsp salt

• 5 tsp baking powder

• 3/4 cup shortening (I use Spectrum organic non-hydrogenated)

• 4 eggs

• 1 tsp pure orange extract

• zest from one orange

• ½ cup nondairy milk (or regular milk, if your family isn’t dairy-free)

• 3/4 cup sweetened, dried cranberries

• 2 Tbsp raw sugar

1. 

   You can buy this at Walmart, though I get mine at a local Asian market -- same brand, different packaging, much cheaper.

   Preheat oven to 400°F.

2. Combine flour mix (or flours and xanthan gum), sugar, salt, and baking powder with a whisk in a large bowl.
3. With pastry blender, combine shortening and flour mixture until it resembles small crumbs.
4. In a small bowl, lightly beat four eggs.  Set aside about 1 Tbsp eggs to brush on top of scones.  To eggs, add extract, zest, and milk, and whisk to combine.
5. Add egg mixture to flour mixture, and stir thoroughly with a wooden spoon.  This will give you a stiff dough that, when thoroughly combined, does not stick to the sides of the bowl.
6. With a wooden spoon, mix in the cranberries.
7. Turn dough onto a large, round pizza stone (or a large, insulated cookie sheet — pizza stone is best!).  Pat dough into a circle, approximately 1 inch thick, leaving at least 1 inch of the pizza stone as a border.
8. Pour reserved Tbsp of egg onto the top of the scone, and brush across the top, to the edge.  With a pizza wheel, divide into 12 wedges.  Sprinkle evenly with raw sugar.
9. Bake for 20 minutes at 400°F until top is nicely browned.
10. Enjoy!!

VARIATION:  Cranberry-Almond Scones

• To flour mixture, add 1/3 cup almond flour (or grind raw almonds in the blender).  Omit orange extract and orange zest, add 1 tsp almond extract.  Along with raw sugar, sprinkle sliced or slivered raw almonds on top of scone, pressing in lightly before you bake the scones.

Please Name This Recipe!!

I make this recipe (or an incarnation thereof) once every 2-3 weeks.  It’s yummy, and as always, gluten-free.  Currently, I have a crock o’ pinto beans simmering on a back burner of the stove top to accompany dinner tonight, and I’ll make some white rice, as well, to go with.

This dish is Mexican-inspired, but just saying “Mexican Crock-Pot Dinner” sounds really lame, so will someone please help me with a better title?  I should probably offer a prize for naming this recipe.  I don’t have one to offer.  Maybe you could suggest a prize, too.    Once named, I’ll add this to my permanent page of GFCF recipes.

A note on the meat:  As with most Crock-Pot dishes, a less expensive, fattier cut of meat works best for slow cooking.  For best flavor and extra nutrition, I like bone-in meat, but then, you’ll be fishing the bones out as you serve it.  I suggest chicken thighs or drumsticks (not chicken breasts), or just about any cut of pork, except sirloin.  If the bones bother you, stick with boneless pork country-style ribs (which are not ribs at all) or boneless, skinless chicken thighs.  I have also made this recipe with beef, but I think chicken or pork works best.

“Mexican Crock-Pot Dinner”
serves 8

• 3 – 4½ lbs. chicken or pork (see note above)
• 2 medium or 3 small onions, cut into eighths
• 

  I cook with Mexcian Grey Squash every week. Use like zucchini, but Mexican Grey has none of the bitterness that zucchini often has.

  3 medium or 4 small Mexican Grey Squash or zucchini, quartered lengthwise and cut into ¾” pieces

• 8 cloves garlic, diced
• 1 – 28 oz can petite-diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 – 7 oz can diced green chile peppers
• 1-2 tsp sea salt
• 2 Tbsp dried Mexican oregano (MUST be Mexican)
• 1 Tbsp ground cumin
• 1/8 – ¼ tsp ground red pepper (cayenne)
• Optional:  4 oz crumbled Mexican Cotija cheese

In a medium or large Crock-Pot or other slow cooker (mine is 6 quarts), combine all ingredients except meat.  Add the meat, gently tossing to coat meat with some of the spices and juices.  Set cooker to “low.”  Gently stir once per hour, if possible, until the mixture has cooked 6-8 hours, or until meat is tender and falling off of the bone.

If you care to go through the trouble, you can use a slotted spoon to remove bones before serving.  Or, just do what we do, and plunk the removable crock onto the dinner table next to the “bone dish.”

Serve over cooked white rice, sprinkled with Cotija cheese (or feta), if desired, with a side of pinto beans.

Other suggestions:

• For a Cuban twist, add the zest and juice of one orange before cooking, and serve with rice and black beans.
• If you have a very large Crock-Pot, add 1-2 lbs of soaked pinto or black beans to the bottom of the slow cooker.  Mix the veggies & spices in a separate bowl and gently spoon the mixture on top of the beans.  Top with the meat.  The moisture from the meat and veggies should provide plenty of water in which the beans can cook, but if you want to be on the safe side, add an extra 1-2 cups of water.
• For added heat, try adding 1-4 minced canned chipotle peppers.

Simpli Gluten-Free Instant Apricot Oatmeal — Review

Simpli Gluten-Free Apricot Oatmeal

First, the good news: 

• Simpli Gluten-Free Instant Oatmeal is delicious. I loved it, as did my 9 year old son, Wesley, and my 4 year old daughter, Audrey.  All of us have to be on a gluten-free diet, due to celiac disease.  Some gluten-free products can run on the odd/nasty side, unfortunately.  Not so with this one!  For taste, it gets a hearty thumbs up from all who sampled it.
• I am in full support of the company’s aims to produce completely gluten-free oats, from seed to packaged product (more on that, later).
• And, with only four ingredients DONE RIGHT, Simpli Gluten-Free Instant Oatmeal is CLEAN food, which is important to me.  
• The product is stellar.

However, I’m not sure I’m the best person to review it.  Here’s why:

• I’m too cheap, and I want to buy locally. Currently, Simpli products are available online, through their website — www.livesimpli.com.  Perhaps the ONLY good thing about living in a large city is the ready, local availability of just about anything I could want or need, gluten-free items included.  I virtually NEVER purchase food items online, especially ones that are $4.95 plus $3.95 shipping ($8.90 total) for one 8.4 oz package of five packets of oatmeal.  No matter how stellar a product, I absolutely cannot afford — even for a special occasion — to spend $1.78 for a small bowl of oatmeal.  Although I rarely eat instant oatmeal, my children, when they eat it, use two packs at a time.  So, realistically, you’re looking at a $3.56 bowl of oatmeal.  Buying a bulk pack of nine boxes is slightly more economical — it works out to $5.70 per box, including shipping, or $1.14 per serving ($2.28 per double serving).  Still.  I would just never pay that. If Simpli was carried it locally, at my local natural-foods store, Sprouts, had their biannual 25% off of all gluten-free items, which would make it about $3.70 per box… I might consider that for a special occasion, like packing food for a trip whose destination may not have g.f. foods readily available.
• I like thick-cut oats. I’m just not a fan of the gooey consistency of any instant oatmeals.  I like some chew and heft to my oats, which is why I love Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Rolled Oats, a pantry staple of mine.  However, those take (according to the way I make it, not according to package specifications) eight minutes to cook, after the water has boiled, so a good 12 minutes cooking time, plus about five minutes of sitting time… so, 17 minutes or so, from start to finish, versus about four with Simpli Apricot Instant Oatmeal.  In other words, I understand that, given the nature of instant oats (thinner cut), they’re just not going to turn out the way  I like them… so it’s not a flaw in the product;  it’s just a difference of opinion, values, and texture.  Also, returning to the “I’m too cheap” mantra, I buy Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Rolled Oats locally for about $5.50 per 2 lb bag.  That works out to $0.34/oz for Bob’s vs. $1.06 per ounce for Simpli — THREE TIMES THE COST — when Simpli is purchased online.  And Bob’s Gluten-Free Oats aren’t cheap!!!

With those caveats, let me reiterate that Simpli Gluten-Free Instant Oatmeal is delicious.  As stated above, I like my oats with a little more heft, so I don’t prefer the texture of any instant oats, and don’t regularly eat instant.  However, that’s not Simpli’s fault.  Judging by taste — it’s perfect.  “Bright” is the adjective that comes to mind.  The apricot flavor REALLY shines through beautifully.  With only four ingredients — Oats, apricots, sugar, and salt — I was wondering how they would be able to make the apricots tender enough.  Simpli’s solution?  Mince them.  Mince them teeny, teeny, tiny.  That way, they rehydrate perfectly, and the apricot flavor is broadcast through each bite.

Also, Simpli Gluten-Free Instant Oatmeal is not too sweet.  I think it’s perfect.  There are only 10 grams of sugar per 48 gram packet, and much of that, I’m sure, comes from the apricots themselves.

The instructions on the box call for 2/3 cup boiling water, stir, and let sit for one minute.  I knew I was reviewing the product, so when I made a bowl for myself, I made sure I followed the instructions to a “T”, including using a measuring cup for the boiling water (something I would never normally do), and setting the timer for that one minute.  Based upon that, I would suggest that, unless you want some soupy oatmeal, you should EITHER use less water (say, 1/2 cup), OR you should let your bowl sit for a good 4+ minutes, to let it thicken.

About the gluten-free aspect:  Simpli takes it seriously.  I’m slightly bummed that this oatmeal is a product of Finland, but perhaps that’s the only place where they could ensure that the oats would grow and be processed according to their exacting specifications.  Although I can occasionally be somewhat lax about cross contamination, I’m a stickler for g.f. oats.  I get asked frequently about why, if oats are technically gluten-free, does one need to buy GLUTEN-FREE OATS.  I explain that there are so many chances for cross contamination in the grain-growing, harvesting, storing, and processing process that unless a producer is intentional about maintaining the gluten-free aspect of his oats, you, as the gluten-free consumer, are almost guaranteed to consume gluten if your oats, if they’re not certified gluten-free.  This graphic, from Simpli, illustrates it so well:

SO!

All of that to say that Simpli Gluten Free Instant Apricot Oatmeal is a fabulous product.  But, I hope it’s coming to a store near me, because I will almost certainly not be buying it, otherwise.

Maybe this is the opposite effect of what Simpli anticipated, sending me a free package to review, but this product has inspired me:  I think I’m going to purchase a package of Bob’s Red Mill Quick Cooking Gluten-Free Oats, and make up my own packets of instant oatmeal, and just place them in Ziploc sandwich bags.  If Simpli can create a simple instant packaged oatmeal, so can I!!