Turkey Green Posole

Since we were about to move, the Thanksgiving turkey's carcass went into the chest freezer instead of into a stock pot.    I'm off work this week, so I thought it was about time to make some stock.  When I mentioned making turkey stock, my boyfriend asked if I could make turkey posole.

Why yes, I can....


Disclaimer : I make no claim that this is "authentic Mexican posole".  I'm of European descent and none of my ancestors have lived any closer to Mexico than Ohio.  I had never eaten any version of posole before I found a recipe on the web -- and I still haven't tried posole made by anyone else.  (Obviously Columbus, OH needs more ambitious Mexican restaurants.)

I made the turkey broth the way I normally do : turkey carcass, water, onions, carrot, celery, peppercorns and dried parsley flakes (in a little paper tea bag).  Simmer until it looks like stock and the meat is almost ready to fall off the bones.    Salt to taste (it takes a lot). Strain and save the liquid.  Discard the veggies.  Pick the meat off the bones and set aside.   I leave a good bit of meat on my turkey because I usually make at least 2 batches of soup from it.  Today I got almost 5 cups of shredded meat and 14 cups of stock.



4 cups turkey carcass broth
2 - 3 cups leftover turkey shreds

2 poblano peppers

2 Tbsp oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3-5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 ~ 2 fresh jalapeno or 1 Tbsp canned diced jalapeno
1/2 t freshly ground black pepper
1/2 t ground cumin
1/2 t ground cloves
7 oz. canned diced green chiles
28 oz. canned hominy (yellow or white)

Preheat the broiler.  Cut the poblano peppers in half and remove the seeds.  Flatten the peppers and place them on a foil line cookie sheet.  Place the peppers under the broiler until the skin is bubbled and blackened.  Remove the cookie sheet from the oven, and place it on a trivet or hot pad.  Carefully grab the corners of the foil and fold it up around the peppers, crimping it into a packet, to trap the steam around the peppers.

Chop the onion and slice the garlic.

I prefer to use a fresh jalapeno, because I can control the heat level a little more easily.  Today I had 1 very large pepper - over 3 inches long - so I decided to remove the seeds from 3/4 of the pepper before mincing it.

Heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium heat.  Add the onions and cook until translucent.  Add the garlic and jalapenos, and cook until fragrant.   Open your diced chiles, so they're ready to go in the pot, and then add the dried spices.  Stir until you can smell the spices, and then dump in the chiles (to cool the pot so the spices don't burn).    Add the turkey broth and meat.

Drain and rinse the hominy, and add it to the pot.  Bring the soup to a boil and reduce the heat.  Simmer for 1 hour to blend flavors.

This makes a soup without a lot of broth.  If you like a lot of broth, you might want to increase the amounts of dried spices and broth.

Gluten-free pizelles

Pizelles are another Italian tradition that I got from my boyfriend's family.  I bought a pizelle iron and made a few batches in December 2010, but in November 2011 I cut wheat out of my diet.  After a year of experimenting with wheat free baking, I realized that a lot of the texture and structure of the pizelle comes from the beaten eggs, so I decided to try a basic recipe, using one of the commercial gluten free flour blends.  The resulting pizelles are very delicate and crumbly, but absolutely delicious.

I substituted the flour by weight, but increased the vanilla content, since GF baked good seem to need a little more vanilla to taste right.


3 eggs
3/4 c sugar
3/8 t salt
1/4 t vanilla powder
3/4 t vanilla extract
220 grams King Arthur Flour Gluten-Free Multipurpose Flour
2 teaspoons  baking powder
1/2 c butter, melted

Beat the eggs and sugar until thick and lemon yellow.  Add the vanillas, and then beat in the flour and baking powder, scraping down the bowl as necessary.  (You don't have to worry about overdeveloping the gluten and making the pizelles tough!)  Stir in the melted butter.

Cook according to the instructions of your pizelle iron.  The finished pizelles will be light tissue paper while they're warm -- I slid them onto a wide plastic pancake turner to transfer them to a cooling rack.

Braciole in the Slow Cooker

Several years ago, my boyfriend asked me if I knew how to make braciole.  He hadn't had it since his mother had passed away.  I read a few recipes, prepped one, and brought it over to his house to pop in the oven on date night.  It was very, very chewy.

"My mom always cooked it all day," he said.  "It's not really a weeknight thing."  As soon as I heard that, I knew that this was a job for the Crock Pot.   This takes significantly more prep than your average Crock Pot recipe, and I usually only make it for family gatherings.  The flavor is similar to meatballs, but the flank steak is more intensely beefy than ground chuck or ground sirloin.

If you don't have a meat tenderizer and food processor, you can still make this dish, but it will take more time and effort.  See the note at the end of the recipe.

I can fit 4 flank steaks in my 5 quart oval crock pot.  If you have a round crock pot, you might want to cut each flank steak in half before rolling and tying.

Sorry for the lack of measurements, but this is one of the things where I really don't measure anything, but go by feel.  The stuffing isn't a thick layer -- it's a line of green down the roll that makes infuses the meat with flavor.  You have to have some fresh herbs to get that green bulk, but I usually use a mixture of fresh and dried to keep the cost under control.

2 flank steaks (a total of 2-3 lbs)

Filling
2 - 2 1/2 small slices bread (to make ~ 1 c. fresh bread crumbs) -
1/3 ~ 1/2 c. shredded Parmesan, Asiago, Romano or any other hard cheese (pre-shredded tubs OK).
3 -4  cloves of garlic
1 bunch flat leaf parsley
3/4 oz packet fresh oregano, divided
Dried basil
Dried thyme
Fresh or dried rosemary
Freshly ground pepper
Kosher salt
2 ~ 3 Tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
1 egg

Butcher's string for tying


Sauce
1 onion finely chopped
4-5 cloves garlic, chopped or pressed
5 oz (1 "glass") Cabernet Sauvignon or other red wine that goes well with beef
3 oz of tomato paste14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes (fire roasted if possible)
14.5 oz can crushed tomatoes (with basil if available --  or add an extra teaspoon of dried basil)
Dried thyme
Fresh oregano (the rest of the packet)
Fresh or dried rosemary (optional)
Fresh, dried, or frozen basil



On a clean cutting board, pound each flank steak until it reduced to about half of the original thickness.  The pounding is faster and easier if you use a 45 blade meat tenderizer first.  I pierce each side of the steak about 30 times before I start pounding, and usually go back to pierce the center a few more times to get it to flatten out.  If you overdo it with the tenderizer, it will pound into hamburger, so it's better to err on the side of piercing too little than too much.

If you have a round slow cooker, cut each steak in half before setting it aside on a plate or cookie sheet.  Wash your hands to prevent covering all of the your tools with slippery beef fat and juices.

To make the filling, drop the garlic cloves into a running food processor fitted with a metal blade, and process until the garlic is all stuck to the side in little bits.  Turn off the food processor and add the bread.  Pulse until the bread is chopped into uniform crumbs.  You may have top open the processor and reposition pieces to get it all evenly chopped.  Fresh breadcrumbs are much coarser than the ready-made ones you buy in a can.

Scrape the bread and garlic into a medium sized bowl.  Pull the leaves off of about 1/3 of the bunch of parsley, and half of the fresh oregano and pile them on the cutting board.  Add any other fresh herbs you're using, and chop them finely with knife or mezzaluna.  Add the fresh herbs and shredded cheese to the filling, along with any dried herbs you like.  I usually use about 1 tsp thyme, 3 tsp dried basil, and a little rosemary.  I sometimes toss in dried parsley as well.  Drizzle a couple tablepoons of olive oil into the filling, and break in an egg.  Stir until everything is evenly mixed.  The filling should be moist but crumbly.  Press the filling into an even layer in the bowl, and score it in half if you're leaving the flank steaks whole.  (Quarters if you cut them in half.)

Set your butcher's twine next to the cutting board, and have a small sharp knife handy -- or cut yourself eight  to ten pieces 8-10 inches long.

Return one piece of steak to the cutting board, with the grain running from left to right.  Season the meat lightly with salt and generously with pepper.  Using your hands, scoop a portion of the filling onto the flank steak.  Spread and pat the filling into a thin layer cover the steak from the edge nearest you to the about 1 inch away from the far edge.  Starting with the edge nearest you, carefully roll the steak up like a jelly roll.    Tie the string around the roll about every 2 inches with a square knot. (4 or 5 ties per flank whole flank steak)   Trim off the dangling ends of string with a sharp knife or scissors.

Fill and roll with the other flank steak.  At this point you can put the braciole in the fridge overnight, or go ahead and cook it.

When you're ready to cook the braciole, assembly all of the ingredients for the sauce.  Open the cans, and chop any fresh herbs you're using now, so they're ready to go.

Heat a 12 inch skillet over medium-high heat, and add a thin coating of high smoke-point oil or bacon fat.  Place the braciole into the hot oil, and turn them occasionally to get as much of the surface brown as possible.  If some of the filling leaks out, scoop it out of the oil and toss it into the slow cooker.  You'll have time while the meat is browning to finely chop the onion and garlic for the sauce.  (Again, I usually use the food processor here, to get a fine texture that melts into the sauce.)

When the meat is brown on all sides, transfer it to the slow cooker.  If you have a lot of oil in the skillet, drain some of it off -- a good bit of fat will come out of the meat as it cooks.  Add the onion and garlic to the pan, and stir occasionally to pick up all the browned bits.  Stir in the wine, and allow it come to a boil. Pour one can of tomatoes over the meat in the crock pot.  Pour the other can into the skillet, and add the herbs and tomato paste.  Stir until everything is evenly combined and cook until the sauce starts bubbling, and carefully pour it into the slow cooker.

Cover the crock pot and cook until you can pull shreds off the meat with a fork -- but no so long that the meat has fallen apart into the sauce.  To get a double-batch fully cooked, and falling-apart tender in 6 hours, I usually set the Crock Pot on high for 2 hours, and then reprogram it to low for the next 4 hours.

When the meat is tender enough to pull shreds off with a fork, turn off the crock pot. If there are pools of fat floating on top of the sauce, skim most of it off with large spoon. Remove the braciole from the sauce and set it on a cutting board or platter. Tent it with foil, and allow it rest / cool for a few minutes.  Use a sharp knife and tongs or a fork to cut the string and remove it, and then cut the braciole into 1 1/2 ~ 2 inch pieces with a sharp knife.  The ends probably won't be very pretty, but you'll get some picture-perfect spirals out of the center.   If you're going to serve pasta with the braciole, toss it with some of the sauce.  You can pour the rest of the sauce on a serving platter and arrange the meat on top of it, or pass sauce separately in a large gravy boat or bowl with a ladle.

You don't have to serve this with pasta -- polenta (either freshly cooked or sliced and fried) or mashed potatoes also go well with this dish.

NOTE:  If you don't have a food processor, you can chop, press, or grate the garlic -- or even used frozen garlic cubes.  I don't recommend jarred garlic ever for anything, but if that's what you normally use go ahead.
You can make fresh bread crumbs by grating the bread on the coarse side of a box grater.  I find this a little easier to do if the bread is frozen.

Roasted sausage and cauliflower

I used half hot Italian sausage and hot paprika for a dish with bite.  Tonight I ate it plain with a spoon.  I think tomorrow the leftovers are going to be tossed with some cooked pasta and a little tomato sauce.

3/4 ~ 1 lb Italian sausage (mild, hot, or a mix of the two)
1 head of cauliflower
1-2 Tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 t. paprika (sweet or half-sharp)
1 1/2 t. Italian Seasoning blend

Preheat oven to 400F.  Line a half sheet pan (13 inches x 18 inches) with aluminum foil.

Remove the sausage from the casings, and cook in a skillet over medium heat just long enough to break it up into crumbles. Do not let it brown -- in fact, it's best if you pull it off the heat while there are still a few pink spots.

Trim the leaves and core from the cauliflower, and cut into pieces that would make two bites when raw.  It will shrink a lot in the oven.  Rinse under cold water.

Combine the crumbled sausage and damp cauliflower in a large bowl.  Sprinkle with paprika, Italian seasoning and olive oil.  Toss until the cauliflower is light pink.  Spread on the prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes.  Continue baking until you see dark brown edges on the cauliflower, 10 -20 minutes longer.

Rotiserie Chicken Chowder

There are only two of us, so we get several meals out of a jumbo rotisserie chicken.

When I removed the meat from carcass, I tossed the bones into a 2.5 quart sauce pan with an onion, two stalks of celery, 2 carrots, and some peppercorns and rosemary in a tea ball.  I simmered it until bedtime (about 2 hours), salted it to taste, and strained out the solids.  (I saved the bones in the refrigerator since there was still some meat to be picked off.)  I used the resulting stock for this chowder.

2 T butter (or fat from the top of the chicken stock)

1 small onion, chopped

3 small carrots, chopped

3 stalks of celery, sliced

1 ~ 2 cloves of garlic, grated on a microplane

1 large baking potato (~ 8 oz), peeled and diced

2 t Penzey's Fox Point Seasoning

4-6 c. stock, from a carton if you didn't get a chance to boil the carcass

1 1/2 ~ 2 c. of chopped chicken

Freshly ground black pepper

11 oz. can of corn, drained

1/2 ~ 1 c. instant mashed potato flakes

5 oz. can evaporated milk

Heat the butter or chicken fat in a large pot over medium heat.  Add onion and cook until translucent.  Add carrots, colery and garlic.  Cook stirring occasionally while you peel and dice the potato.  Add the potato to the pot, sprinkle the Fox Point over, and season generously with black pepper.  Stir in the seasonings, and add the stock and chicken.  Increase the heat to high and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer until the potatoes are tender.  Stir in the drained corn and 1/2 c. of mashed potato flakes and the evaporated milk.   Add more potato flakes if you would like a thicker chowder.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

The instant potatoes will make the leftovers thicken up in the refrigerator.  Add a little water, stock or milk before reheating.

One teensy mistake...

At our last trip to Costco, I picked up a six pack of ripe bell peppers and 5 lbs of pork tenderloin.  I had some vague intention of making a dish to be served over a creamy polenta, but when I googled for recipe inspiration, I found this.


I had everything I needed for a double batch.  But I varied from the recipe in a few critical ways.  I rubbed my pork tenderloins with a mixture of Penzey's Tuscan Sunset, kosher salt, and red pepper flakes before browning them in my Dutch oven.    I wanted a fairly deep pan since I was doubling the sauce recipe, but I browned the tenderloins 1 at a time so they didn't start to steam.

The pork went into a ceramic lasagna pan drizzled with olive oil, and then into the oven.  I would definitely recommend chopping all the peppers (or at least 2/3 of them) before you start cooking if you try to make a double batch.  Browning 4 large pork tenderloins took less time than chopping 6 peppers.

I tossed the peppers into the pan as I chopped, and gave them the occasional stir.  The peppers were tender, and picking up brown patches by the time I was done chopping the onions, so I turned them out into a bowl while I browned the onions.  Then I stirred in the garlic, added the peppers, and deglazed the pans with 2 cups of cheap Pinot Noir.  That wasn't quite enough liquid to use an immersion blender, so I added the tomatoes, whizzed it into a sauce about the texture of crushed tomatoes, and tossed in the bay leaves.

The sauce was wonderful -- red pepper sweet with just a little acid from the wine and tomatoes.  I added some salt and black pepper, and served it over the pork.  After dinner, I realized that there was supposed to be a lot of smoked paprika in there.  I'm sure that would be lovely.  I may even add some smoked paprika to the leftover sauce when I pull it out of the freezer.  But just peppers, onion, garlic, wine, and tomatoes was a nice change from the marinara rut.

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies, a recipe in progress

My chocolate chip cookies have always spread a little more than I would like, and when I started baking gluten-free, the "cookie brittle" incidents grew worse.  I've read up a little about the science of baking and recipe conversion and figured out some of the places where I've gone wrong, but I still haven't quite found a standby chocolate chip cookie recipe.  Possibly because I keep losing the little slips of paper where I write down what I did last time.

So I decided to start blogging the iterations.

I like whole grains, and I like fiber in my baked goods, so this recipe has a good bit of whole grain flour.  The stevia is more an attempt to correct texture than to reduce the sugar content.  My GF cookies tend to spread out into sheets of cookie brittle, even when the dough has been refrigerated overnight.  Adding more flour didn't seem to help, so I decided to try replacing some of the sugar, since artifical sweeteners tend to lead to drier baked goods.  (I've seen recipe conversion advice that recommends that you think of sugar as part of the liquid in your recipes.)

3 7/8 oz. expeller pressed coconut oil
4 oz. salted butter
3/4 c. light brown sugar
stevia sweetener equivalent to 3/4 c. sugar (the volume will vary by brand)
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp double strength vanilla

1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
25 grams golden flax meal
50 grams sorghum flour
75 grams teff flour
150 grams 40/60 All Purpose Blend

12 oz. chocolate chips
1 c. walnut pieces, toasted (optional)

If you're using nuts, take the time to toast them in a toaster oven or a dry pan -- it greatly improves the flavor.  I store my raw nuts in the freezer, and find that the "medium" toasting cycle in my toaster oven gets them perfectly warm and brown if I spread them on a foil covered pan and pop them in to the cold oven.

I also weigh out the flour and measure the soda and salt on top before I start mixing.

Let the butter and coconut oil come to room temperature, and cream them together with the sugar and stevia using an electric mixer.  Start on the lowest speed so you don't spray light, fluffy stevia powder all over the kitchen.  Scrape down the bowl, and beat on medium until light and fluffy, and everything is a uniform color.  (No white blobs of cold coconut oil.)

Add the eggs and vanilla, and beat until well combined.  Scrape down the bowl, and then add the flax meal, flours, baking soda and salt.  Scrape down the bowl once or twice and mix until well combined.  Then mix in the chocolate chips and toasted nuts (if using).

Scrape the batter into a smaller bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 8-12 hours.  (I occasionally mix up cookie dough before breakfast so it will be ready to bake at dinner time.)

Scoop onto a parchment lined baking sheet, and bake 11 minutes at 350F.

40/60 All Purpose and 70/30 Whole Grain blends

I first got the idea of making my own gluten free flour blends from Shauna and Danny Ahern's recipes on Gluten Free Girl & The Chef.

They recommend a 40% whole grain / 60 % starch blend by weight as an all-purpose flour, and a 70% whole grain version for times when you want more whole grain taste/nutrition.  I had big containers of both mixed up when I realized that if I mix a 40/60 blend with equal parts of whole grain, I get a 70/30 blend.

I've been making up my all-purpose blend 5 lbs (80 oz) at a time, so my recipe for it is in oz.

12 oz. sorghum flour*
12 oz. millet flour*
8 oz. teff flour*
12 oz. potato starch (not the same as "potato flour")
16 oz. sweet rice flour
20 oz. tapioca starch

* These are whole grain flours.  If you can't find / don't like the taste of one of these flours, you could use more of any other whole grain, legume flour, or nut flour, as long as you keep the total weight of nut/legume/whole grain to 32 oz. in the batch.   I usually avoid brown rice flour because I think even the superfine stuff gives a gritty texture to the finished baked goods.  The remaining 48 oz. have to be the light, fluffy pure white starches : potato starch, arrowroot, tapioca, sweet rice flour, or white rice flour.

Mushroom, Quinoa and Chicken Soup

This soup was inspired by coupons for mushrooms and baby carrots.  I had hoped that the quinoa would cook up so soft and light it would float like noodles, but the black and red quinoa I used settled to the bottom of the soup.  I guess I'll try white quinoa next time.

1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs
4 c. water
1 1/2 tsp Penzey's Chicken Soup Base

3 T olive oil
1 c. chopped onion
1/2 c. diced celery
5-6 cloves garlic, chopped
1 rosemary stem (4" long)
3-4 thyme stems (4" long)

16 oz. button mushrooms, chopped
5-6 white pepper corns
32 oz. unsalted chicken stock

16 oz baby carrots, chopped into small pieces

1 c. quinoa (I used half red and half black)

~ 1 c. tomato puree  (I had some leftover from another recipe)

Place the water, soup base and chicken thighs in a large soup pot (at least 5 qts) over medium heat.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and cover until meat is cooked through, and shreds apart.

Remove the stems from the mushrooms and rinse if necessary.  Cut medium-sized caps in half, and large caps into thirds before slicing.  Set mushrooms aside in a bowl while you chop the onion, celery and garlic.

 Remove the meat to a cutting board or plate and let it cool.  Pour the cooking water through a strainer into the bowl.  If there is any chicken fat sticking to the bottom of the pot, wipe it out with a paper towel.  Return the pot to medium heat, and add the olive oil, onion, and celery.  Cook, stirring occasionally until onion is translucent and just starting to brown in spots.

Remove the rosemary and thyme leaves from the stems.  Discard the stems, and chop the leaves.  You should end up with about 2 tsp of chopped herbs.  Add the garlic and chopped herbs to the onions and cook, stirring frequently, for 1-2 minutes.  Pour the stock and reserved cooking liquid into the pot.  Add the mushrooms and peppercorns.  Chop and add the baby carrots.

Taste the broth and add salt if needed.

If your quinoa isn't pre-washed, rinse it thoroughly in a fine mesh strainer, and add it to the simmering soup.  Stir, cover, and allow to cook until the quinoa is tender.  Stir in the tomato puree.

Gluten Free Cauliflower Mac & Cheese

I'd seen a lot of recipes using pureed cauliflower instead of roux for a macaroni & cheese and wanted to give it a try. The bright yellow color of corn & quinoa pasta is sort of nice  I have trouble convincing myself to buy and chop fresh produce to make a puree.

This puree did kill my blender -- the heat caused the rubber pad on the base to soften and break apart, so the motor no longer can spin the blades.  I'll be using a stick blender in a pot the next time I want to puree cauliflower.  Or possibly putting it through a potato ricer.



2 slices of gluten free bread (~2oz), grated into bread crumbs
1 1/2 Tbsp butter


16 oz. corn & quinoa macaroni elbows
24 oz. frozen cauliflower florets

11 oz. medium sharp cheddar (such as Tillamook medium sharp)
5 oz. processed cheese (such as Velveeta Queso Blanco)
2 oz. grated Parmesan
2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
White pepper (20 cranks of the pepper grinder)
3 dashes of Tabasco
Salt to taste


Put a large pot full of hot water over high heat, and add about 2 Tbsp of kosher salt.

It's a little easier to grate fresh bread if it's frozen.  Use a food processor fitted with a coarse disk, or the coarse side of a hand grate to turn the bread into breadcrumbs and set it aside.  Wipe your processor/grater and then use it to grate the cheddar and Parmesan.  Process cheese is too soft to grate -- cut enough chunks to get the weight you need, and then break it into little chunks with your fingers.

When the water is boiling vigorously, dump in the pasta and stir so it doesn't stick together.  Wait for it to come back to a boil and cook for 3-5 minutes.  The pasta should be a little firmer than you want because it's going to be baked.   After the pasta is cool you can hold it in your casserole.  I used a 9x9 stoneware pan.

When the pasta is done, drain in a colander and rinse with cold tap water.  Put 3 cups of water into the pasta pot, and return it to the stove over high heat.  When the water is boiling, add the frozen cauliflower and stir.  Cover until the water returns to boiling, then remove the lid, reduce the heat to medium.  Cook, stirring occasionally until the cauliflower is too tender to be picked up by piercing it with the tip of a sharp knife.   Reserve 1 c. of the water, and drain the cauliflower.  Allow the cauliflower to cool if your blender can't handle hot foods.

Puree the cauliflower with about 1/2 a c. of the cooking water, adding more as needed.  Put the cauliflower puree back into your larger pot, and add the remaining ingredients.  Cook over medium heat until the cheese is melted.  Taste the sauce by dipping a piece of macaroni in it before you decide whether it needs more salt & pepper.  Usually cheese and the salt in the pasta water are enough for me.

Turn off the heat and stir the macaroni into the pot.  Wipe your casserole pan dry, and brush or spray with oil.  Spread the macaroni & cheese in the prepared pan, and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

I'm taking this to a potluck tonight, and I didn't want the cheese sauce to overflow in my friend's oven, so I under filled the pan a little, and saved about 2 servings in smaller dish for another night.

Bake in a 350 F oven until the top is crisp and the cheese sauce is bubbling.

Sunbutter Oatmeal Bites

A friend recently shared pictures of no-bake cookies made with cocoa nibs and some dark chocolate in addition to the usual cocoa.  They looked really good, but I couldn't bring myself to put the stick of butter and 2 cups of sugar into a sauce pan.  I debated making a half batch, and then decided to try to do something with less fat and sugar.


1 c. Sunbutter
3/4 c. sugar
1 c. old-fashioned rolled oats
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp double-strength vanilla
1/3 c. cacao nibs
1/3 c. salted roasted sunflower seeds
1/3 c. raisins




Preheat oven to 350 F and line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Mix everything together until uniform.  Scoop into 1 Tbsp balls and place on parchment.  Flatten each ball to about 1/2" thickness with a fork or your fingers.

Bake 8-10 minutes.  Cookies will be brown on the bottom but still quite soft & puffy when they come out.  The cool to delicate, crumbly bites, quite filling.

Chickpea bread recipe drift

A few months after giving up wheat, I decided to give away my bread machine and my copy of Beth Hensperger's Bread Machine Book.  I vaguely remembered seeing something about gluten-free in there, so I checked the index, and copied down one recipe before I let the book go.

I picked up some besan (aka chickpea flour) at the Indian Market and tried the recipe.  My boyfriend observed that it was like his mom's Easter Bread - sweet and eggy.

I wanted to try and make an every-day toasting bread out of this recipe.  Over the course of 4 months, I eliminated the maple syrup, and replaced some of the eggs with flax meal.  I also replaced the xanthan gum with ground chia seed and converted to baking by weight, since it's easier to experiment with flour substitutions when you're weighing everything.

The bread still tends to be a little soggy in the center, and is very heavy.  I plan to experiment with reducing the oil (since flax meal and chia seed both contain fat) and try baking it in a narrower (4.5 inch x 10 inch) loaf pan, so there will be future revisions.  Here's the latest.


Chickpea Bread r4

1 1/4 c. water, slightly warm
2 1/4 t. SAF yeast
2 T brown sugar

1 large egg
5 T golden flax meal
water

3 T olive oil
1 1/2 T ground chia seed (measured after grinding)
1 t kosher salt

120 g. chickpea flour (aka besan)
  58 g. teff flour
100 g. brown rice flour
  40 g. tapioca starch
126 g. sweet rice flour
  60 g. Baker's Special Dry Milk


Add the water, yeast, and brown sugar to the mixing bowl and stir to combine.
Break the egg into a measuring cup and beat in the flax meal.  Add enough water to total 3/4 c.
Add olive oil, chia seed, and salt to egg/flax slurry and stir well.

Weigh all the dry ingredients into a lightweight bowl or container.
Grease a loaf pan with butter or solid shortening.

When the yeast begins bubbling, beat in the contents of the measuring cup, and then add the flours.  Beat for about 2 minutes.  Pour into prepared pan, and level the top with a wet spatula.

Allow to rise about 35 minutes before preheating the oven to 350F.
Bake for 15 minutes at 350 F, and then set a sheet of aluminum foil over the top of the loaf.
Continue baking for 30 -40 minutes, until internal temperature is over 200F.

Lots of dishes with a little sausage

My boyfriend's family never bought the sage-heavy or sweet "breakfast sausages" when he was growing up. When his mother cooked sausage for breakfast, it was a link of Italian sausage, cut in half and butterflied open to provide lots of brown crispy surface.  He made this sausage and eggs for me and then taught me how to butterfly.

Since our favorite brand of sausage is sold in packages of 4 links (which total 1 to 1.2 lbs), whenever I cook a new package I end up with 8 butterflied pieces.  Sometimes when we find a manager's special, I cook 3 packages up, and toss big bags of butterflied, cooked sausage in the freezer.  Thaw it in the microwave, slice it up into half-rounds and it turns into a dozen different dishes.  OK, they all taste strongly of our favorite Italian sausage, but you can still mix it up.

Today we sausage, browned with a little olive oil.  Then I stirred in 2 chopped tomatoes that were a little too hard to be appealing raw, and sprinkled in a little salt and pepper.  When the tomatoes had softened and given up their juice, I cracked into two eggs, sprinkled an ounce of crumbled feta and the leaves from one sprig of fresh oregano over them, and covered the pan until the eggs were set on top.  We had this for lunch with toast.

Sometimes the chopped sausage goes into a big pot of sauce for pasta, or gets sauteed with zucchini and eggplant and then tossed with pasta. It seasons hash browns, or adds some chew and spice to a veggie frittata.

A butterflied section can thaw and brown in the skillet for sausage and eggs when we're camping, or go on the grill with oiled vegetables for dinner.  When we have a lot in the freezer, I might use 8 oz. to make a big pot of bean soup.

We eat a lot of sausage, but only a little bit at a time.

Sausage Mustgo Soup

Odds and ends go into a pot and are magically converted into soup. While the vegetables soften, the sausages lend their spice to the broth and some beans dissolve to give the soup body.

BEFORE

1 link hot Italian sausage (4~5 oz)

1 link mild Italian sausage (4-5 oz)

8 oz smoked kielbasa

1 medium onion (~2 cups), chopped

3-4 stalks celery, sliced 1/4" thick (~ 1 cup)

1 large (approximately 16 oz.) red skinned yam, peeled and diced into 1/2" chunks

1 quart chicken broth

3 cups cooked small white beans

black pepper, to taste

5 oz. baby spinach

Squeeze the Italian sausage out of the casing into a Dutch Oven over medium heat.  Stir occasionally, breaking the meat into small clumps.  

Slice the kielbasa 1/4 inch thick, and cut the pieces into half-moon shapes.  Chop the onions.  When the sausage is cooked through, stir in the kielbasa and onions, and continue to cook until everything is starting to brown.

Stir in sweet potato and celery.  Add chicken broth and beans.  Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.  Skim any scum that has risen to the surface, cover and cook until sweet potatoes are tender.  Taste the broth and add pepper to taste.

Gather the spinach into clumps, and roughly chop.  Stir the spinach into the soup and cook until wilted (less than 2 minutes.)

Chocolate Cereal Treats (Gluten-Free)

Crunchy-chewy marshmallow treats aren't just for Rice Krispies anymore.  This batch used a combination of two gluten-free cereals that have great crunch and more fiber than Rice Krispies or Rice Chex.  If you can eat gluten, regular CheeriOs are also great in marshmallow treats.


3 Tbsp butter, plus a little extra for pan
1 oz. Baker's semi-sweet chocolate, chopped (or 1 oz. chocolate chips)
10 oz. miniature marshmallows
1/2 tsp vanilla
3 oz. Enjoy Life Crunchy Flax cereal
9 oz. Nature's Path Organic Whole O's cereal

Butter a 9 inch square pan.
Melt 3 Tbsp of butter and the semi-sweet chocolate in a Dutch oven or a large non-stick stir-fry pan over medium heat.  When the chocolate is fully melted, stir in the marshmallows.  Continue to heat, stirring occasionally, until the marshmallows melt.  Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the vanilla and cereals.
When the cereal is evenly coated, pour into the buttered pan and smooth the top, pressing down.  I find that it won't stick to my fingers if my hand is wet.

Allow the mixture to cool completely, and cut into chunks.

Spring Turkey Meatball Soup

I had a 20 oz. package of ground turkey, so I made a big batch of meatball mix.  24 little meatballs made 4-6 servings of soup for lunch, and 20 larger meatballs are in the fridge, waiting to be cooked for dinner.  You could double the soup recipe, and use all the meat balls in it, but I'm going to brown the leftovers and serve them with pasta and tomato sauce.

I used scarified wild rice, which is scratched so it cooks faster than plain wild rice.  It cooked in about the same time as the thinly sliced carrots.  If you want to use regular wild rice or brown rice, give the rice a 20 minute head start before adding the carrots.  I like the aspargus to have a little crunch.  If you like it very tender, cook a little longer at the end.

This recipe did take advantage of two special kitchen toys : a fine microplane, and a Microplane 35009 Medium Ribbon Grater.

For the soup:

1 quart unsalted chicken stock
1 1/2 c. water
1/2 cup scarified wild rice
12-18 green onions
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
4-5 small carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
salt and pepper, to taste
1 bunch of asparagus (~ 1 lb)


For the meatballs:

20 oz of 93% lean ground turkey
1/2 c. golden flax meal
1/2 c. grated Parmesan, Romano, or similar hard cheese
1 c. grated, zucchini (~ 3/4 of a small zucchini grated with the ribbon grater)
1/2 c. grated carrot (1 small carrot grated with the ribbon grater)
1/2 tsp Aleppo pepper
1/2 tsp freshly ground white pepper
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 egg

Pour the chicken broth and rice into a 4 - 5 quart pot.  Place the pot over medium heat while you clean and slice the green onions.  Set aside the green parts of the onion aside, and add the white parts to the pot.  Using a fine microplane grater, grate the garlic into the pot.  Peel the carrots, and slice them thinly.  Add them to the pot.  When the broth begins to simmer reduce heat to medium low and cover.  Snap off the tough bottoms of the asparagus, and slice the stalks into 3/4 inch chunks.   Keep the tips separate -- they cook faster and will be added to the soup last.

Now you have time to make the meatballs.  Put the ground turkey in a medium sized bowl.  Measure the flax meal and cheese into the bowl.   Grate the carrot, and measure 1/2 a cup into the bowl.  Grate the zucchini and measure 1 c. into the bowl.  Discard any extra carrot or zucchini.  Add Aleppo pepper, white pepper, salt and egg.  Have 2 large plates, and scoops or tablespoons ready to hold the meatballs.  Mix all the meatball ingredients until thoroughly combined.   Make 24 one tablespoon meat balls for the soup.  Roll the remaining meatball mixture into whatever size you'd like for the leftovers, and refrigerate.

Wash your hands and taste the rice in the soup.  Depending on how fast you work, it might already be tender.  If not, give it a few more minutes.

When the rice is tender, turn the heat up to medium-high, and carefully place the meatballs in the broth.  Cover the pot, and reduce the heat to medium.   Cook 5-7 minutes until meatballs seem to be cooked through.  Uncover the pot, and add the asparagus stems and green part of the onions.  Cook for 5-7 minutes, and then add the asparagus tips.  Cook 2 minutes, remove from heat and serve.

Homemade Chorizo

I first tasted chorizo at a restaurant in San Diego when I was on vacation.  Well, actually it was "soyrizo", but it was pretty good.  A few of the Mexican restaurants in central Ohio offer chorizo as a taco filling, or use it to amp the flavor, but I haven't been able to find a Mexican style-chorizo in the stores that isn't bland or incredibly fatty. I did find the following recipe for spicing chorizo while googling, so I've been making my own.

For 1 lb of ground pork or ground turkey (85% or 93% lean) add

2 T chili powder (I use Penzey's Regular Chili Powder)
1 T sweet paprika
1 t ground cumin
1 t table salt
1 t garlic powder
1/2 t ground coriander
1/2 t dried oregano, crushed
1/4 t red pepper flakes
1/8 t ground cloves
1/8 t ground black pepper
1/4 c. cider vinegar

Mix everything together, and refrigerate overnight to let the flavors blend.
When you fry this, the meat will fall apart into tiny crumbles.  I think that's the action of the vinegar -- and the secret behind the finely crumbled ground beef in Mexican restaurants.
I usually vacuum seal 4 oz. packages, which are perfect for making breakfast for 2 people.
A whole pound can be used to make great stuffed peppers.  This morning I cooked 5 pounds for a Super Bowl party I'm attending.  I'm going to reheat it in a small crock pot for a nacho bar.

Chicken ala Waffles

I had been planning to make multigrain waffles for a couple of weeks, and I had some cooked chicken legs in the  freezer.  "Chicken and waffles!"
I know, I know -- the chicken is deep fried and the waffles are sort of a side when you get chicken and waffles in a restaurant.  But Chicken ala King is served over toast points...and my waffle iron makes round waffles that break apart into quarters.  So Chicken ala Waffles it is.

To me, Chicken ala King is sort of an deconstructed pot pie, with chicken and veggies in gravy, poured over puff pastry or a biscuit.  I was surprised to discover that the classic dish is mushrooms and sherry.  No peas & carrots?  The most intriguing thing that turned up was finishing the sauce with one or two egg yolks, tempered and stirred into the chicken gravy.  That sounded worth trying, and it was fabulous.

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 c. chopped onions
1 1/2 c. carrots, peeled and chopped
8 oz of mushrooms, stems removed and sliced thinly

2 Tbsp butter
1/2 t. paprika
1/2 t. white pepper (optional)
3 t. sweet rice flour
2 c. chicken stock
3/4 c. half and half
2 egg yolks, beaten
1 1/2 c. frozen peas
2 c. cooked chicken (I used all dark meat)
2-3 dashes of tabasco (optional)
dash of habenro salt (optional)

Heat the olive oil in a 12" non-stick skillet over medium heat, and add the onions.  Cook, stirring occasionally, while you peel and chop the carrots.  Add the carrots and stir.  Rinse and slice the mushrooms, and add to the skillet.  Cook, stirring occasionally until the onions and the mushrooms are both soft.  Add the butter and wait for it to melt.

Sprinkle paprika, pepper, and sweet rice flour over the skillet, and stir well to coat all the ingredients.  Cook 2-3 minutes so you won't have a raw flour taste.  Pour in about half of the chicken stock and stir to dissolve the flour and fat from the veggies.   Add the rest of the stock, stir, and continue to cook over medium heat until the gravy begins to bubble and thicken.

Stir in the half-and-half, and heat until you see steam coming off the gravy.   Scoop a 1/2 c. of the sauce over the egg yolks, and beat.  (Don't worry if a mushroom or carrot gets in there.)  Add another 1/2 c. of the warm gravy, stir it in and the scrape the egg mixture back into the skillet.  Stir well, and add the chicken and peas.  Reduce the heat to medium low, and cook until everything is heated through and the sauce is thick and silky.  I waited until the mixture was steaming again, and then turned the heat to low.

Taste, and adjust seasonings.  I added 3 shakes of Tabasco and a touch of habenero salt because we like a little heat.

I served about 1 c. of the mixture over two quarters of a waffle, with the other 2 quarters set on the edge of the plate for dipping or gravy mopping.

I made the waffles in advance, so I only had to break them into quarters and reheat in the toaster oven when the chicken was ready.

Sticky Chicken and Cabbage Soup

1 quart unsalted chicken stock
1 15 oz. can chick peas, drained and rinsed well
2 T olive oil *or* 2 T chicken fat saved from Sticky Chicken
1 c. chopped yellow onion
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 a medium cabbage, core removed, cut into 4 wedges and thinly sliced crosswise
10-14 oz cooked chicken, skin and bones removed and chopped (2 leg quarters)
Drippings saved from the bottom of the sticky chicken crock pot
11.5 oz. can of low-sodium V-8
Tabasco sauce, to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste

Place the chick peas and chicken stock in a blender.  Blend until the chick peas are liquefied.
Place a Dutch oven over medium heat.  When the pot is hot add the oil or chicken fat.
When the fat is heated, add the onions and cook until translucent and tender.
Add the garlic and cook until fragrant.
Add the cabbage and cook until it's tender and starting to brown.
Remove any extra fat from the drippings and add the rest to the pot.Don't worry about any spices that settled to the bottom -- they'll add great flavor to the soup.
Stir in the chopped chicken, blended broth mixture and V-8.  Bring to a simmer, and reduce heat.  Cook for 30 minutes to blend the flavors.
Taste the broth, and season with salt, pepper and Tabasco.