Cheap, Lazy, Picky Cooks

Our first recipe from Donna Klein’s The Gluten-Free Vegetarian Kitchen is a great success! We stuck very closely to the recipe as printed… because it already looked awesome and fit our needs.

Southwestern-Style Corn Spaghetti with Chili Beans

1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 (16-oz) can gluten-free chili beans, sauce included
1 (14.5-oz) can stewed tomatoes, juice included
1/2 cup salsa
1/4 cup canned chopped green chilis (I used a full 4.5 oz can, drained)
1 tbsp gf chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
8 ounces corn spaghetti
optional: gf shredded cheddar cheese and/or gf sour cream

1. Prepare a pot of water and set to boil. When ready, cook pasta according to package directions.
2. While that’s boiling, heat oil in another pan over medium heat. Add onions and saute until soft. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer over med-high heat. Cover, reduce heat and simmer gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. When pasta is cooked, drain and add to the bean mixture. Stir thoroughly and enjoy immediately with toppings of your choice!

What intrigued me about this dish was how well the flavors would blend. One of the transitions to make in gluten-free cooking is around the issue of pasta. Traditional pasta sauces were built to be served with traditional pasta, so using straight marinara on rice or corn pasta often doesn’t blend flavors as well as I would like. Building the Mexican-influenced sauce here to go with the mildly corn-flavored spaghetti made for a delightful dish.

This is a dual-purpose post.

First, I want to pass on how the veggie sausage (see last post) worked in leftovers. When we ate the first meal of it, we kept the sausage separate and placed it in our bowls first. Our jambalaya recipe got spooned on top of it, and the sausage held its shape nicely, crumbling a bit in a very sausage-y way. We packaged leftovers the same way — we put a layer of sausage on the bottom of the plastic leftover dish and spooned the rice on top. It kept its original texture nicely for the first two days or so. We made a LOT and froze some, and ate on it over a week. After the first few days, the sausage soaked up more moisture and got a bit soggier than it was, though still a bit chewy, and with the same great taste. I was not slowed down in my nomming.

Second, I’m intrigued by a new organization I’ve found online, and specifically their Vegetarian Food Pyramid. It looks like a great guideline to use on a daily basis, and I love having an image to replace all the food groups and pyramids I grew up with (several of which were thinly-veiled advertisements for the beef and dairy industries). Let me know what you think.

There’s not much fake meat I can eat, as almost all of it depends specifically on wheat gluten for its texture. We’ve just experimented with a great recipe, though, that’s yielded a yummy, firm sausage with a lot of flexibility of seasoning. I’m so excited!

We have an old blender. So to puree, I had to do one ingredient at a time. With a larger capacity food processor, you could mix the ingredients while also blending them all smooth. Pureeing is optional, if you’d rather have a chunkier texture.

We can’t wait to try other seasoning combinations for other dishes. This combination complemented our jambalaya recipe deliciously; Gabe was reminded a bit of the taste of breakfast sausage. I’m told these can be frozen cooked or uncooked.

Here are some cell pics I sent to Gabe as I experimented (these are steps 3 and 4):

Vegan Sausages, version 1 (makes about 12)

(adapted from a recipe found at the Vegan and Gluten Free Yahoogroup)

2 stalks celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 tablespoons wheat-free soy sauce
½ cup water
2 cups cooked brown rice (this in the blender by itself gets rather gummy)
2 cups GF breadcrumbs (I used crumbs made from Whole Foods Flax Seed Bread, chopped fine in blender)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, minced in blender
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon arrowroot
1 tsp sage
2 tsp sweet basil
1 tsp garlic powder
Tabasco sauce to taste
salt and pepper to taste
additional tbsps of flour

1. Simmer onions and celery in water and soy sauce until soft.
2. Add remainder of ingredients. Use hands to mix well. The consistency reminded me of ground beef.
3. I decided on a “wet hand” and a “flour hand”. With my dominant hand I rolled portions of the mixture to form sausages about 1 inch in diameter and about the length of my palm. I moistened that hand before each roll. With my other hand, I rolled the shaped sausages in a bit of flour and rolled it in my hand until there was a thin coat covering each sausage.
4. Fry in a little oil until golden. They will be slightly sticky when they are first put in oil; I held each sausage in the hot oil a few seconds to let the bottom surface cook a bit before leaving them in the pan.
5. Allow to dry on paper towels.

My holy grail of gluten-free living has been to find good pizza. It was a favorite food before, and locating edible experiences of it now consumes a good part of the food lobe of my brain. And let me tell you, friends, about a fabulous ready-made pizza crust.

The brand is Kinnikinnick (www.kinnikinnick.com). This is the first and only product of theirs that I’ve found (at Whole Foods). Here’s the box:

The crust is square, and is about 8″x7″. It has a yummy corn meal spread across the bottom:

With your favorite ingredients on the frozen crust, bake it in a preheated oven at 375 degrees, for 10-15 minutes. It gives a good crunch around the edges, with a chewy texture in the middle. The taste is… well, Gabe and I both agree it’s the best frozen pizza crust we’ve ever eaten, gluten or not.

This year, we had two Thanksgiving dinners that couldn't be beat, and an anniversary day of cooking and eating shortly thereafter. Here's a rundown of what worked!

For the Thursday lunch with Gabe's family, we made this nommy Mushroom and Lentil Stew (seen here last Thanksgiving), because we knew others in the family liked it. This year, he and I decided that the stew was nommy enough that we need to make it more than once a year.

Thursday night, we got the unexpected treat of a friend joining us, and so we looked for something a) big, b) nommy, and c) easy to make. We settled on chili and cornbread! Hey, I’m from Texas, and chili makes perfect sense as a Thanksgiving meal. We had this chili (also seen here before), and used Bob’s Red Mill Cornbread Mix for our cornbread. To the dry mix we added the recommended wet ingredients (oil, eggs and milk, I believe) along with a couple teaspoons of sugar and some jalapeno pieces. Be aware, though, that using a pan smaller than 8×8 makes for a very thick cornbread that does not properly cook through.

Friday was our second anniversary, and our celebration included trying two new recipes! The first came from this very intriguing supper loaf generator: The Magical Loaf Studio. While the maker of the recipe generator can’t vouch for every recipe, we can tell you ours was fantastic.

Lentil Supper Loaf

1/2 cup pine nuts, ground or chopped finely
2 TB olive oil
One onion, diced
One large garlic clove, minced
One large carrot, peeled and grated
2 cups cooked lentils
1 cup cooked brown rice
1/4 to 1/2 cup vegetable broth, as needed (or one cube veggie bouillon and ½ water)
2 TB all-purpose gluten-free flour
1/4 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. dried basil
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 tsp. Tony Chachere’s

1. Preheat the oven to 350º. Spray a loaf pan or 8×8 square baking pan with nonstick spray (an 8×8 pan makes a crisper loaf).
2. Sauté onion, garlic and carrot in the olive oil until soft. Add to all remaining ingredients in large mixing bowl.
3. Mix and mash together well, adding only as much liquid as needed to create a soft, moist loaf that holds together and is not runny (you may not need to add any liquid if the grains and protein are very moist). Add more binder/carbohydrate as needed if the loaf seems too wet.
4. Press mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until cooked through.

The original recipe called for letting the loaf cool in the pan for 10 to 15 minutes, then turning it out onto a plate or platter and slicing. We took one bite, and couldn’t wait that long. Ours had about 50% loaf-staying-together power – we didn’t need a spoon, but it wasn’t really a ’slice’. Perhaps it would have been firmer had we followed directions. Gabe did manage a tasty sloppy joe-style sammich of it. Sorry, it didn’t survive long enough for pictures.

By now, you’ve seen the pie. The pie… was challenging business. Our chocolate pie recipe began its life as one of the easiest desserts there is, which is the only reason why my dad tried making it. He loved it, and we all loved it, and he passed it on to me when I wanted it. But alas, that version of the recipe was filled with both gluten and gelatin, two no-no’s for Gabe and I today. So, I had a lot of adaptation work to do. Thankfully, the chocolate gods smiled that day, and it went very very well. The final adapted recipe is still a relatively easy dessert. We ended up making two pies, and took one to a party Saturday night, where it was a big hit with folks that don’t share our wacky dietary restrictions.

I’ll share with the following asterisks:
*this is the recipe as we made it, creating two pies, but I have a feeling it could easily be halved to make one pie.
*I baked this crust. I debated that decision a lot before doing it, and I don’t know how the crust would behave if not baked. I’m tempted to try, just to see, though it was super nommy this way. It made for a nice solid base after baking.
* Yes, the pudding is made of tofu. Yes, I know, I didn’t beleive it would work either. Really. Have I mentioned I’m picky about my chocolate? And, well, tofu??? Turns out, it’s amazingly good, and very similar to Jello chocolate pudding, only slightly milder in taste.

(Gluten-Free Gelatin-Free) Chocolate Pie

2 boxes Pamela’s Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies
One stick melted butter
4 oz cream cheese
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp milk
One 8 oz package cool whip
2 12-oz packages Silken Tofu, Extra Firm
2 packages Mori-Nu Mates Chocolate Pudding Mix (found at Whole Foods)

Crust:
Crumble all the cookies into very small pieces (the smaller the better). Add in the butter until you have a good paste. Coat bottom of two pie plates with it (if you’re baking it, side crust will not stay up). Bake at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes, or until a bit bubbly at the edges.

Bottom Layer- White:
Mix cream cheese, sugar and milk until relatively smooth. Stir in half of cool whip (about 4 ounces). Spoon into pie crusts.

Top Layer – Chocolate:
Blend tofu in food processor until smooth. Add in mix and blend thoroughly. Pour into pie crusts.

Add additional cool whip on top. Enjoy! Dad says, “Serves 8 (or 2 chocoholics 4 times)”.

D’you like… bread?

I’ve now tried six different gluten-free sandwich breads… not counting some traumatic ones from last year, that put me off sandwich bread for ages and whose name I’ve blocked out of memory. Yes, I’ll share those as a warning, should I recall the name. But in the meantime, here are some much more pleasant reviews.

All of these loaves come pre-sliced, and are found in the freezer section. I get 2-4 loaves at a time, and store them frozen except for the “current” loaf I’m using. I got all of them at Whole Foods. And of course, all of them work better toasted than not-toasted, regardless of what quality toasting capabilities I give them.

Glutino Flax Seed Bread

Taste: Has a sweet-savory taste that can work well as a all-purpose bread. It’s slightly reminiscent of the seedy flavor of Whole Foods Seeduction bread.

Texture: It’s a bit like whole wheat, but lighter-colored, drier and with chewy-crispy seeds. It crumbles a bit easily compared to gluten bread, but is one of the sturdier gluten-free loaves I’ve found. The seeds can get messy though.

Toasted: It toasts a bit, getting crispier around the edges. It works much better toasted than the cakier loaves do. This has been my standby all-purpose loaf for months.

Glutino Fiber Bread

Taste: I found the taste bland – some whole wheat type bitterness, but without the rounded flavor of wheat.

Texture: It looks and feels a lot like whole wheat, and is similar to the flax seed without the seeds.

Toasted: It toasts about as well as the flax seed, but without the crunchy seeds to make it interesting. Though if you have any OCD tendencies, you may prefer this seedless bread to the flax seed (teh seedz, they go evreewar!).

Glutino Harvest Corn Bread

Taste: This is not ‘cornbread’ in the usual sense. There’s a very mild corn flavor that can sometimes be detected, but otherwise the taste is that of a very unobtrusive sandwich bread.

Texture: Very light, white bread-y.

Toasted: This is the best gluten-free toast I’ve ever had. If you want a light piece of old-school toast that is crunchy all the way through, this is what you want (and as a bonus, it actually turns from white to brown in the toaster). It’s done well with peanut butter, jelly and cheese on it (in separate events!), and has held up well even in thick wet sandwiches. This is my new all-purpose stand-by loaf, though I return to the flax seed occasionally for variety.

Glutino Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Taste: Cinnamon! Raisin! Nom!

Texture: Bready, very slightly crumbly, with raisins of course. This has the dense sweetbread texture I remember from gluten cinnamon raisin bread.

Toasted: Toasts a considerable amount, for GF bread. Keeps some crunch with butter melted in.

365 (Whole Foods) Prairie Bread

Taste: This loaf looked a lot like Seeduction, and I got my hopes up. But this is too many tastes, too many sweets and savories and salties all fighting each other. For bread intended to have at least one other taste added, it doesn’t work at all. I didn’t finish the loaf.

Texture: Mealy and heavy. Rather muffiny. Not terrible for a muffin, but doesn’t work as a sandwich bread texture for me.

Toasted: Doesn’t toast.

365 (Whole Foods) Sandwich Bread

Taste: Quite buttery sweet, and worked fairly well with jelly on it. I found it didn’t quite mix well on most savory sandwiches though.

Texture: This loaf’s texture reminds me a lot of pound cake, and feels about as heavy.

Toasted: Browns a bit around the edges, but doesn’t manage any real crunch.

We just finished eating this nommy cheesy goodness. It’s a little more effort than we usually put into one meal, but it’s worth it if you have the time. By itself as is, it’s not quite a full meal for us. We’re playing with the idea of fixing some easy flavored rice on the side, or adding corn and/or mushrooms into the chile dish itself.

Easy Chiles Rellenos
10 canned or fresh poblano peppers
4 cups cheese (mozzarella, pepper jack or Mexican blend)
3 eggs
¼ cup all-purpose flour
¾ cup skim milk
Black pepper to taste
Hot pepper sauce (optional)

If peppers are fresh, roast them first. I do it in my toaster oven – five peppers at a time. I put them on 450 degrees, on one side for 20 minutes and other side for 10 minutes (they will blacken and blister). Let them cool, then skin should peel right off. Remove skin, stems and seeds, with one long slice down the side of the pepper if necessary.

1. Preheat oven to 350. Oil 9×13 casserole dish.
2. Fill peppers with cheese (and corn and mushrooms?). Place them in a single layer in dish.
3. Beat eggs and flour together until smooth. Add milk, pepper and hot sauce. Carefully pour over peppers.
4. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes, until knife inserted into batter comes out clean.

I recently went on a casserole hunt. I long for yummy piles of ingredients glued together and baked to a golden brown. Here’s our recent find. This is an adaptation of a recipe found on SparkRecipes.com.

Smoky Cheese and Mushroom Casserole

1 tbsp olive oil
1 red onion
1 bell pepper, any color
1 cup TVP or veggie crumbles
1 cup broccoli, chopped (fresh or frozen)
1 ½-2 cups sliced portabella mushrooms (cut in half if long)
½ cup water*
½ cup soy milk*
1 veggie broth cube*
2 cups cooked rice
1 can black beans, drained
2 cups cheese of your choice, with some or all being smoked
1 pinch cayenne pepper
Tony’s seasoning to taste
1 tsp black pepper

(Starred items are a substitute for cream of celery soup)

1. Reconstitute TVP (if needed).
2. Saute onions and peppers in oil in large pot for 5 minutes.
3. Add TVP and broccoli. Saute until thawed.
4. Add mushrooms, soup substitute and spices. Allow to simmer a while, until mushrooms are yummy.
5. Add rice, beans and most of cheese. Pour into oiled casserole pan. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top.
6. Cook at 350 degrees, covered in foil for 30 mintues. Remove foil and cook 10 more minutes until cheese browned.

This salad got eaten so fast, I didn’t even have time to take a picture! We were looking for something easy and cold for the sweltering end of summer, and this concoction fit the bill.

Quinoa Bean Salad

1 can chick peas, drained
1 can black beans, drained
1 large cucumber, chopped
1 large tomato, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup low fat feta cheese
3/4 cup onion, chopped
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
3ish cups cooked quinoa
Italian or Balsamic dressing

Combine all ingredients and chill for 15 minutes before serving. That’s it!

(To cook quinoa, follow package directions. It’s very similar to preparing rice, and can be done in a rice cooker. If you don’t have either the cucumber or bell pepper, a couple stalks of diced celery substitutes nicely.)

Hi all! I’ve got two food successes to share with you.

First, my honey and I are closing in on a green bean casserole recipe that we can both make and eat — which means, of course, that it’s as simple as possible for our schedule-addled brains, and that it contains no cream of mushroom soup and no french fried onions. We have a starter recipe that we adapted from the recipes we found, and we found out Saturday night that it’s not a bad start at all… but we’ll be tinkering a bit with the spices and other ingredients before we give it our seal of approval.

Secondly, for said casserole, I found a way to make some great gluten-free breadcrumbs at no extra cost. For a while now, I’ve used Glutino’s sandwich-cut breads, found in the freezer section. I enjoy their cinnamon raisin in the morning and their flax seed for sandwiches; their fiber bread’s not bad either. I’ve gone through bags and bags of the flax seed bread, and have kept all the tiniest heels and broken slices waiting in the back of freezer, in the hopes that I could make this work. I toasted all those in the oven, chopped them up fine with a big knife, and now I’ve got a big pile of bread crumbs for assorted uses!

Coming soon: I don’t believe we’ve shared our enchilada recipe, or our jambalaya, or the fabulous new risotto we’re playing with. Also, I’m collecting reviews of gluten-free patties — anybody have an opinion to share?