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.

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.

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)”.

We’ve made our meal for tomorrow, to take over to Gabe’s family gathering. I’m excited! I look forward to sharing our food, and to hunting for something of theirs I can eat. Amidst the turkey and ham and stuffing and rolls, I’m not expecting to find much to forage… except maybe some cranberry sauce. I hope it still has the can ridges in it. I like that.

Here are the fruits of our evening, two of my family’s recipes — Potato Salad and Fantasy Fudge — and one yummy new one that’s going in our permanent cookbook — Mushroom and Lentil Stew.

Adapted from this recipe.

Mushroom and Lentil Stew
prep time: 35 minutes; cook time: 30-40 minutes

2-3 teaspoons olive oil
2-2.5 cups diced cremini mushrooms
1 cup diced onion
1 cup chopped celery
4-5 cloves of garlic, minced
1-1.5 cup chopped carrots
2.5 cups peeled, chopped potato
1/2 teaspoon dried savory
3/4 cup brown lentils, sorted and washed
4 cups vegetable broth

1. In a large pot, use oil to saute mushrooms, onion, celery and garlic until softened.

2. Add all remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30-40 minutes, or until lentils are tender and stew has thickened.

The original recipe called for adding 2 cups chard at the end, and letting it wilt. We couldn’t find chard and bought spinach to add… and then forgot. It’s still absolutely yummy.

Potato Salad
(Special note: This is a longtime family recipe, so all concrete information is entirely made of approximation. The actual answers are along the lines of “cook until done”, “enough to fill the pot”, etc.)
prep time: 20 minutes; cook time: 30 minutes; assembly time: 10 minutes

8-10 cups potatoes, peeled and diced
6 eggs
4 heaping tbsp dill pickle relish
8 green onions, chopped
2 cups mayonnaise to taste
3 heaping tbsp prepared mustard
salt and pepper to taste

1. Boil potatoes until tender; time will vary depending on their size. Drain.

2. Boil eggs. When done, squish or dice or otherwise make small (make sure they’re cool first if you squish them).

3. Mix all ingredients in clean, dry bowl.

Eat hot or cold. Also good with barbecue sauce on it.

Fantasy Fudge
(This is a recipe we’ve been making in my family since I was a kid. The fact that it’s EXACTLY like the recipe that’s been on the back of Kraft Jet-Puffed Marshmallow Creme that long is a complete and total coincidence. Oh yes.)
prep/cook time: 25 minutes

3 cups sugar
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 tiny can (9 oz) evaporated milk
1 bag (12 oz) chocolate chips of your choice
1 jar (7 oz) marshmallow creme
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup nuts (optional)
*Special item required: candy thermometer

1. Spray 9″x9″ pan with cooking spray.

2. In a heavy saucepan, combine sugar, butter and milk. Bring to full rolling boil on medium heat, stirring constantly (and I do mean constantly — but don’t be tempted to cook at too low a temp, as that will make the final product grainy. Better to have a smidge of a scorch or two.)

3. Keep stirring! Continue boiling until temp reaches 234 degrees F. Remove from heat.

4. Quickly add remaining ingredients and mix completely.

5. Quickly pour into pan, smooth, and let cool thoroughly before cutting.

(The vanilla frequently gets left out of this recipe, to no ill effect.)

This favorite recipe of ours also predates our romance. It’s in the “long recipes” section of our personal cookbook. It doesn’t take much prep time but, like any good chili, it needs to simmer slowly. Gabe found a similar recipe online ages ago and adapted it to his personal taste.

I think you’ll like it.

Gabe’s Chili
prep time: 30 minutes; cooking time: 2 hours

1 cup TVP, reconstituted (see below)
2 cans red beans, drained
2 cans black beans, drained
4 stalks chopped celery
2 green bell peppers, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp chopped parsley
1 tsp oregano
1-2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp paprika
1 LARGE can tomato sauce (28-30 oz, depending on brand)
8 oz water

To reconstitute TVP – Combine 1 cup dry TVP and 1 cup hot water in a bowl. Let sit 5 minutes or so.

1. In a large pot, saute everything except the beans, tomato sauce and water over medium heat, until onions are translucent.
2. Add the remaining ingredients and stir thoroughly.
3. Simmer 2-3 hours, stirring every 15-20 minutes.

Good by itself, or: with cheese on top, with cornbread, over a baked potato, over tortilla chips.

This is certainly the most appropriate place to begin our recipe collection. I consider this one the ur-recipe of my shared culinary life with Gabe. Long ago, he found and adapted the recipe from somewhere he doesn’t remember. Once upon a time, in between becoming friends and becoming partners, he shared it with me and it quickly became a comforting staple in my life. We now eat it about once a week. It never gets old.

The recipe experiences shifts over the years in its tomato-to-bean ratio. Here’s where it is now. Feel free to take it and run with it; it would make a fine base for a more complex dish. We’ve considered adding both kidney beans and mushrooms, but just haven’t gotten around to it yet. It also expands to fit larger dining parties very easily — your only limit is the size of your pan.

Curried Chickpeas
cooking/prep time: 20 minutes

1-2 tbsp oil
1 small diced fresh onion (or frozen equivalent)
3-4 cloves garlic (to taste)
curry to taste (we use A LOT, and usually mix red and yellow)
2-3 cans drained chickpeas
1 can diced tomatoes (plain, NOT Italian or Mexican)
1-2 fresh diced tomatoes, optional
cooked rice

1. In a medium saucepan, warm oil and saute onions and garlic, until onion is unfrozen or translucent. 2. Add curry to coat the other ingredients and make a oniony, garlicky paste.
3. Add chickpeas and all tomatoes and adjust curry levels.
4. Simmer 10-15 minutes.
5. Serve over rice.