Gingerbread Pecans

I wasn't quite ready to attempt a gluten free version of my aunt's gingerbread recipe, but I thought I might try making it into a glaze for nuts.  They're tasty and quick to make.

2 T salted butter
4 T sugar
2 T molasses
1 t ground ginger
1 t ground cinnamon
1 t ground nutmeg
1/2 t ground allspice
1/4 t ground cloves
1/2 t kosher salt
1 t lemon extract
16 oz. pecan halves

Preheat the oven to 300F.  Line a rimmed cookie sheet with parchment paper.  Place the pecans in a medium-sized bowl.
Combine butter, sugar, molasses, dry spices and salt in a small saucepan.  Heat until the butter is melted, stirring occasionally.  Stir in the lemon extract. (It's OK if the alcohol in the extract boils off rapidly.  Just stir until the bubbling stops and the extract is mixed in.)   Pour the mixture over the pecans, and stir until they're evenly coated.
Spread the nuts out in a single layer on the prepared cookie sheet.  (Clumps of nuts will stick together.)  Bake 20 -25 minutes at 300.  Allow to cool completely before storing in an air-tight container.

Apple Buckwheat Muffins (Gluten-Free)

When I made Buckwheat-Corn muffins, I loved the texture -- crisp on the outside, crumbly inside.  They tasted great and the frozen leftovers thawed and reheated well.  I know a recipe is a winner when Nick asks if I've blogged it.  I just made a second batch with apples and spice. This recipe is lightly sweet...so you could add a dollop of apple butter or a drizzle of honey.  See the note at the end for the modifications to make a savory dinner muffin.

1/2 c. cornmeal
1 c. gluten free buckwheat flour
4 T sugar
2 1/2 t Baking Powder
1/2 t salt
1 1/2 t Penzey's Cake Spice blend
1 T whole psyllium husk
2 c. of peeled, diced baking apples (Cortland, Jonathon, Granny Smith)
6 oz. plain Greek Yogurt*
1/2 c. water*
2 eggs
1/2 t Penzey's Double-Strength Vanilla
1/4 c. butter, melted and cooled

Grease or line 12 muffin cups.  (I use foil cupcake liners, sprayed with cooking spray.  The pans stay clean, and the liners come off easily for a crispy outside on your muffins.)
Preheat the oven to 400°F, using a convection setting if you have it.

Melt your butter in the microwave and set it aside to cool.   Peel and dice the apples.
Measure the dry ingredients into a bowl and stir to combine thoroughly.
In another bowl, combine the yogurt and water and beat with an electric mixer until it's smooth and lump-free.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and beat in the eggs.  With the mixer running, drizzle in the butter.
Add the apples and dry ingredients and stir until everything is well combined, with no dry lumps.
Fill the muffin cups almost to the top.  (I used ~ 4 T of batter per cup.)  Leftover batter can be baked in greased custard cups.
Bake 14 - 18 minutes, until browned and firm.

* The Greek yogurt and water can be replaced 1 1/4 c. low-fat buttermilk or 1 1/4 c. kefir.  I use the three pretty much interchangeably for quick breads and muffins.

TO make a SAVORY DINNER MUFFIN :  Omit apples, Cake Spice, and vanilla.  Reduce sugar to 2 T.

Unstuffed Pepper Soup

When we stopped a the Sharp Edge Creekhouse near Pittsburgh in 2009, the soup of the day was Stuffed Pepper.  We loved it, and I thought "I could do that."   I now make this soup about 3X as often as I make stuffed peppers.  It freezes well, so it's a good dish to make at the end of the summer when bell peppers are cheap or friends are giving away excess from their gardens.

The local meat market had just started carrying grass fed ground beef, so I tried that for this recipe.  It didn't have the fat content listed, but I would guess it was close to 15%.  Enough fat that I didn't have to add oil to brown the onions, but not so much that draining the meat seemed necessary.

1 pound ground beef
2 small onions, chopped (1 ~ 1 1/2 cups)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 ~ 2 t of Italian herb blend
1/2 ~ 1 t of oregano
1 T Worcestershire Sauce
1 T of Penzey's Pork Soup Base
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 c. water
10 ~ 12 oz of low sodium V-8 juice
15 oz. can chopped tomatoes (plain, low-sodium, or  fire-roasted)
1 c. of brown rice
2 -3 bell peppers (green, red, or a mix).


In a Dutch Oven, brown half of the ground beef and set aside on a plate.  Add the rest of the ground beef to the pot, and when it is cooked, add the onions.  Cook until the onions are translucent, and the beef in the pot is starting to brown.  Stir in the garlic, herbs, black pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and soup base.  (You don't have to completely break up the lump of soup base...it will dissolve later.)  Add the water, V-8 juice, and tomatoes.  Bring the soup to a boil and add the brown rice.  Cook ~ 45 minutes until the brown rice is tender.

Meanwhile, halve the bell peppers and remove the seeds.  Slice the peppers thinly, and then cut the slices in half cross-wise.

Taste the broth and add salt if necessary.  (Depending on the flavor of V-8 and the brand of tomatoes you use, you may not need any.)  Stir in the peppers, and cook for ~ 10 minutes.

If you store leftovers in the refrigerator, the rice will swell to make it more of a porridge than a soup.

Gluten Free Sandwich Bread and Faux Pumpernickel

I made this lovely loaf of sandwich bread using the recipe from Shauna James Ahern's book Gluten Free Girl Every Day.  I'm not going to post the recipe because she makes her living developing recipes, but I am going to rave about it. (Pardon the exclamation points.)

The finished product is light and crusty, slices beautifully (when cool) and toasts up beautifully.
It's >50% whole grain!
It's faster and easier to make than any of the GF bread mixes I've tried!
The loaf released from a pan that had merely been sprayed with olive oil!  Most of the bread mixes I've tried create an adhesive-like batter, which sticks unless I use solid fat (butter, coconut oil, or shortening) to grease the pan.

OK, raving over.   To provide a full and fair review, I will warn you that this recipe contains 3 eggs and 1/4 cup of butter, so it's not suitable for a vegan, low-fat, egg-free diet.  It's also a batter bread, and came out looking like it had been baked in a Pullman pan.

I made the loaf in the picture using buckwheat flour for the whole grain, and my  All Purpose blend, which is a recipe I got from the Shauna Ahern's blog, Gluten Free Girl and the Chef.  I sprinkled the top with golden flax seeds.  I also used my 4" x 10" bread pan, because the narrower, longer pan seems to work better for GF loaves.

The bread was so good that I immediately made a second loaf, adding 1 T of instant espresso, 1 T of cocoa powder, 1 t of caraway seeds and ~ 1 t of molasses.  It was a wonderful faux pumpernickel (faumpernickel?) for pastrami & Swiss cheese sandwiches.

Smoky Green Bean Soup

About once a week, I need to make a fast dinner for two, so we've been having a lot of soup and sandwich suppers.

Since the sandwiches cover the protein and carbs, I want the soup to provide at least a serving of vegetables.  Unfortunately, most canned soups throw in half a day's worth of salt with 1 serving of vegetables, so I decided that I needed to start making some homemade vegetable soups.  Over the summer, I saw a recipe in Eating Well magazine that suggested that you create the smoky flavor of green beans and potatoes cooked with bacon by using smoked paprika.  That seemed like a great combination for a soup.

We ate 2 cups of this soup with our lunch, and had 8 cups to go in the freezer.

Green beans can be very green or they can be very tender.  In soup, you really need to accept that tender is more important.

2 ~ 3 T extra virgin olive oil

2 medium onions, chopped

2 t smoked Spanish style Paprika

1/4 ~ 1/2 t Hungarian Half-Sharp Paprika (optional)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

24 oz. frozen Italian cut green beans

1 quart unsalted vegetable broth

12 oz. V-8, original or Spicy
3 medium Yukon gold potatoes
Salt to taste (may not need any)

Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat and saute the onions until they're translucent.  Stir in the smoked paprika, half-sharp paprika, and black pepper and cook until you can smell the spices.

Stir in the green beans and vegetable broth, and increase heat to high.  Bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat to low.  Cover and simmer for 25 - 30 minutes, until the green beans have turned to a dull olive.

Remove any deep eyes or blemishes from the potatoes, and cut into half inch cubes.  Add the V-8 and potatoes, return the soup to a simmer.  Taste the broth and add a little salt if it seems flat.*

Simmer until the potatoes are tender.

*A note on salt --  You will probably need to add at least a little. A 12 oz. bottle of original V-8 is 975 mg of sodium (the spicy hot is 720), but you have 10 cups of soup in the pot.  The quart of unsalted stock contains about 600 mg of sodium, so your soup is about 157 mg of sodium per serving. (The onions,green beans, and potatoes also contain traces of sodium, which add about 10 mg per cup of soup.  I looked those up in the USDA Nutrient Database.)  Even if you add a whole teaspoon of kosher** salt, you're only up to 269 mg of sodium per serving.  I find that when I make soup using low-sodium canned goods and broths, I need to add some salt to make it taste good.  On a few occasions, I've needed to add a *lot* of salt, but when I sit down and work up the total sodium in the batch, I realize that it's only about 250 - 300 mg per cup of the final product.

** If you care enough about sodium to read the first note, you really should be using kosher salt, which is less dense than table salt because it has a different crystal shape.  The Serious Eats Food Lab has a good article explaining it here.  http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/ask-the-food-lab-do-i-need-to-use-kosher-salt.html

Gluten free pizza crust

I avoided pizza for the first year of baking gluten-free, but I finally gave up and started trying various crust mixes and recipes.  So far, none of them was anything I wanted to eat -- even adding garlic and herbs to the dough resulted in sort of disappointing crusts.  But this crust can be rolled very thin, bake up crisp on a pizza stone, and be chewy and satisfying.  I think it can still be improved on upon, but it's good enough to serve to guests.

This dough seems to taste a lot better if you give it a long rise in the fridge.  I make this dough on Thursday night to make pizza for dinner on Saturday.

This recipe makes four 12 ~ 14 inch thin crusts or three 16~17 inch thin crusts.  I make a big batch of dough every 3-4 weeks and freeze 2 or 3 extra pizza crusts.  You can halve the recipe if you don't want to have extra crusts in the freezer.

600 grams 40/60 Gluten Free All Purpose flour

300 grams chickpea flour (aka besan) or garfava flour

3 T whole psyllium husk

2 t sugar

2 t yeast 

1 t kosher salt

1 1 T flax meal

3 T boiling water

6 T extra virgin olive oil

2 1/2 ~ 3 cups warm water

Parchment paper for rolling

Cooking oil spray

Measure the 3 Tbsp of water into a microwave safe container, and boil.  Stir in the flax meal, and allow to rest.

Place the dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer, and mix on low speed to combine. With the mixer running, drizzle in the olive oil and the flax mixture.  Then drizzle in the water.

Use at least 2 1/2 c. of water... the dough will be more of a batter, but it will dry out a lot in the fridge.  Scrape the dough into an oiled 3 quart bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 24 ~ 48 hours.

1 1/2 ~ 2 1/2 hours before you want pizza, remove the dough from the fridge and let it rest on the counter to warm up.  It's also a good idea to preheat your oven and pizza stone now, so the stone is really hot when the pizza goes in.  I have a convection oven, and find that the crust burns a little by the time the cheese is browned if I heat it above 450.

After the dough has had at least an hour to warm up up, tear off 5 pieces of parchment paper.  Place one piece of parchment on the counter and give it a light spray of cooking oil.  Form 1/4 of the dough into a flat disk and set it in the center of the parchment.  Spray one side of another piece of parchment and lay it oiled side down over the dough.  Roll the dough into a 12 ~ 14 inch circle with a rolling pin.  Peel off the top sheet of parchment.  The edges may be crackly and split -- press them in with your fingers to form a smooth, round edge. You want to roll the dough about as thin as you'd roll a pie crust.

Set aside the first crust on a cookie sheet and let it rise.  Place the top parchment paper, oiled side up on the counter, and repeat, adding another sheet of oiled parchment on top.

To freeze the crusts : slide the crust and parchment paper on the pizza stone and bake for 5- 8 minutes, until set, and lightly browned on the bottom.  Cool completely.  Store the crusts, with the parchment in between, in a large plastic bag and freeze.   I usually thaw the crusts and bake them on a pizza stone, but you could probably top the frozen crust and bake it directly on the rack.

To eat the pizza now :  top the crust with sauce, cheese and toppings to the edge.  Trim the excess parchment paper away from the corners so it doesn't burn in the oven.  Slide the pizza and the parchment paper on to the pizza stone and bake for 18 ~ 25 minutes, until the crust and cheese are as brown as you like them.

Chicken and Spinach Sandwiches

This filling would be good rolled up in a pizza crust to make a calzone, or layered on top of a pizza crust and baked.  You can leave out the chicken for a vegetarian...or leave out the mushrooms for someone who doesn't like them.

For 4 servings :

Olive oil
6~8 oz of mushrooms
6~ 8 oz of cooked chicken breast, shredded

10 oz. box frozen chopped spinach
2 T chopped parsley (6 Dorot cubes)
2 cloves garlic, minced (2 Dorot cubes)
2 T Parmesan, Romano, or Italian Cheese blend
1/4 ~ 1/3 c. crumbled feta cheese
salt and pepper
hot sauce (optional, to taste)

1 c. shredded mozzarella
4 brown rice tortillas

Remove the stems from the mushrooms, cut larger caps in half, and slice.  Warm 1/2 Tbsp of oil in a non-stick skillet, add mushrooms.  Season with salt, and cook over medium heat until the mushrooms have given up their moisture.  Pour off the liquid to cook the mushrooms dry more quickly.

Meanwhile, thaw the spinach in the microwave, and press out as much water as you can with your hands.  Remove mushrooms to a plate, and add the spinach, garlic, and parsley.  Cook until heated through, season generously with black pepper.  Stir in Parmesan and feta, and season with salt and hot sauce to taste.

Spread 1/4 of the spinach mixture over half of a tortilla. Top with mushrooms and chicken.  Sprinkle 1/4 c. of mozzarella over the filling.  Fold the tortilla over, and toast both sides in a skillet or on a griddle.  Slice each sandwich in half for easier eating.

Chocolate Rice Chex Treats

You can make crispy rice treats with Cocoa Krispies, but it just ends up being too sweet.  I prefer to replace some of the butter with unsweetened chocolate.  (Yes, you can use margarine.  It will taste better if you use butter.)

The picture shows a double batch made with the smaller amount of chocolate.  If you want a dark chocolate taste, use 1 oz for every 10 oz. of marshmallows.

You can try different cereals, but avoid cereals that have more than 3 or 4 grams of sugar of per serving.  You get all the sugar you need from the marshmallows.  I sometimes replace 1 c. of the Rice Chex with Crunchy Flax.

3 T salted butter, plus extra for pan
1/2 ~ 1 oz unsweetened chocolate
10 oz. marshmallows
1/2 tsp vanilla (optional)
6 ~ 6 1/2 cups Rice Chex

Butter an 8x8 or 9x9 pan, and save some of the softened butter for finishing.  (I usually leave it sitting on the piece of the wrapper that I cut off.

Melt 3 T of butter and the unsweetened chocolate in a large sauce pan over medium-low heat.  Stir in the marshmallows and continue to heat until fully melted.  If you're using extra vanilla, stir it in before adding the cereal.  Use a folding motion to mix in the cereal until everything is covered with the chocolate marshmallow, and then pour the mixture into the prepared pan.

Use some of the reserved butter to grease either your fingers or the bottom of a clean measuring cup, and press the cereal mixture firmly into the pan.  You'll need to re-butter the fingers or cup 2 or 3 times to keep the cereal from sticking.

Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature before turning it out onto a cutting board and slicing into squares.  Store in a container with a tight lid, or take to a party where they will all be consumed before they go stale.

She can make a cherry pie, gluten-free

We found sour pie cherries at the Traverse City Farmer's Market, so I brought a quart home to make a pie.

The pie crust is best if you make it 4-24 hours before, chill it in the fridge, and let it rest at room temperature for 15-20 minutes before rolling.  But it also worked just fine with a 45 minute chill before rolling.  I think if it had been colder, I might have been able to do a better lattice top, but it was late, and I was tired and gave up easily. Cutting the dough recipe in half and making a crumb topping might work better.

I pitted the cherries while they were cold from the refrigerator, stirred in the sugar, cornstarch, and flavorings and then let it come to room temp, stirring occasionally.  The sugar helped break up the lumps in the cornstarch and bring out the juice from the cherries.


Pie Dough
420 grams 40/ 60 All-Purpose Gluten Free Flour Blend
3/4 t salt
8 T salted butter, cold, cut into 1 T chunks
8 T vegetable shortening, cold, cut into 1 T chunk
Ice water

Filling
4 ~ 4 1/2 c. sour cherries, pitted
3/4 ~ 1 c. sugar
1 T corn starch
a drop of vanilla (< 1/8 tsp)
a drop of almond flavoring (< 1/8 tsp)

Place the flour and salt in a food processor with a metal blade, and pulse until the flour is fluffed up.  Drop the butter and shortening over the flour, spacing out the chunks so they touch as little as possible.  Pulse 10 - 14 times, until the butter is cut in, leaving some larger pieces.  Drizzle the ice water into the chute of the food processor, pulsing until a ball of dough comes together. I make my GF pie dough slightly wetter than a wheat pastry, without gluten you can't make it tough, and it helps soften the grittiness of the flours (especially if you leave it to rest in the refrigerator overnight).

Pit the cherries.  Stir in the sugar, cornstarch, vanilla and almond flavoring.  If the cherries are cold, allow the mixture to come to room temperature, stirring occasionally.

Divide the dough between two pieces of plastic wrap, pat each half into a thick disk, wrap tightly and chill in the refrigerator at least 45 minutes.

Remove one disk from the fridge.  (If it's been refrigerated more than 2 hours, give it 15 minutes to warm up before rolling.)  Unwrap the disk, place it between 2 sheets of parchment paper, and roll it out.  Remove the top parchment paper, and use the bottom sheet to help support the pastry as you transfer it into a glass pie plate.  Tears, breaks, etc can easily be pressed back together.  If you don't have enough dough to make a good edge on one side, trim off a piece from somewhere else and squish it together.  Gluten-free pastry is more like play dough than wheat pastry, and can be treated as such.

Pour the room temperature cherry filling into the pastry.

Roll out the top crust, cut it into strips, and attempt a lattice top.... or just make half batch of pastry and find a crumb topping recipe, substituting your GF blend for the wheat flour.

Line a rimmed cookie sheet with aluminum foil, and place the pie pan in the center.  Bake at 350 F until the filling is bubbling and the pastry is brown and crisp.  Mine took 45 minutes with the convection fan running.  The pastry looks very brown because of the teff flour in my all-purpose blend.

Buckwheat Pancakes - Gluten Free

2 1/2 c. kefir, unsweetened
4 T butter
1/4 c. sugar
2 eggs

125 grams 40/60 all purpose gluten-free flour blend
125 grams buckwheat flour
  15 grams psyllium husk powder
2 t baking powder
2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
Fresh blueberries (optional)
Sliced banana (optional)

Sometimes my weekend shopping trip is to the Natural Foods store, which has a great selection of gluten-free pasta and flours, but doesn't carry buttermilk.   They do carry kefir, and I've found that this makes a good substitute for muffin and cake batters.

If you're only feeding 2 people and don't want leftovers, you may want to cut the recipe in half. We freeze the leftovers and toast them for breakfast sandwiches or snacks.

Preheat a non-stick griddle or skillet over medium heat.

Place 1 c. of the kefir and the butter in a microwave safe container, and microwave on medium power (or in short bursts, stopping to stir every 30 seconds) until the butter is melted.  Pour the butter and kefir into a bowl, and whisk in the rest of the kefir, the eggs, and the sugar.  Add the dry ingredients and stir until everything is well blended.  Remember, you can't make gluten-free pancakes tough by over-developing the gluten.

If your batter is thicker than you like, think it with a little water.

Wipe the skillet with a paper towel soaked in vegetable oil.  Measure out 3 - 4 T of batter for each pancake.  I you wish, you can add banana slices or berries on top of the pancake batter while the first side cooks.  When the edges are set and bubbles are breaking in the center of the pancake, flip and cook until the pancake feels spongy and set when you press on the top.

To freeze, cool the extra pancakes on a wire rack.  Cut strips of wax paper or parchment to layer between the pancakes so you can remove one or two without defrosting the entire package.

Red beans, rice, and sausage

1 lb. fresh Andouille sausage
1 medium onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, diced
1 green bell pepper chopped
4 - 5 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 t. dried thyme
2 t. chili powder
1/4 t. cayenne
2 T. sweet rice flour

1 1/2 t. Penzey's Pork Soup Base
2 c. water
14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes (with celery and onions, if you can get it)
3 c. brown Minute Rice
Two 14.5 oz cans red kidney beans (preferably low sodium), drained and rinsed


Place the sausage links into a non-stick 5 quart Dutch oven over medium-high heat. (Use a couple tablespoons of oil if you don't have a non-stick pan.) Add 1/2 c. of water to the pan.

Boil the water, and stir in the soup base with a small whisk or a fork.  Keep the water near the stove, and stir it occasionally to make sure that soup base is dissolved.
When the sausage links are browned on both sides, remove it to a cutting board and slice, returning the slices to the Dutch oven as you work. (By this point the water should have boiled off.) Cook until the sausage is browned, and then add the chopped vegetables.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables start to brown.
Stir in the garlic, thyme, chili powder, and cayenne and cook until fragrant.  Stir in the sweet rice flour until it's evenly distributed, with no dry white patches. Stir in about 1/2 c. of the broth, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the skillet.  Add the rest of the broth and the tomatoes.  When the liquid is boiling, stir in the Minute Rice and beans and reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for 5 minutes.  Stir, cover, and cook an additional 5 - 10 minutes, until the rice is tender.

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

I make chocolate chip cookies pretty frequently, experimenting with nuts and whole grain flours.  Tonight I just wanted something sweet, so I quickly threw together a batch - and produced the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever made.  They're light and crisp but still chewy.

I think it was the coconut flour....or maybe the butter and coconut oil were warmer and softer than the last time I tried this combination.  In any case, I'll be trying another batch soon, to make sure I can recreate it.

4 oz. salted butter, softened4 oz. virgin coconut oil, room temperature

3/4 c. dark brown sugar

3/4 c. granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp double-strength vanilla

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

25 grams golden flaxseed meal

50 grams coconut flour

50 grams sorghum flour

50 grams teff flour

150 grams 40/60 All Purpose Flour Blend

12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 c. walnuts, toasted (optional)

Cream together butter, coconut oil, and sugars.  Beat in eggs and vanilla.  Scrape down bowl.  Add the dry ingredients and stir on low speed until combined.  Scrape down the bowl, and stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

Scoop onto parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake for 11 minutes at 350F, using the convection setting if you have it.

Spicy Goetta

On Easter, Nick's cousin treated us to a breakfast of goetta and scrambled eggs.  We had never heard of goetta and were immediately smitten.  Tastes like sausage with the creamy mouth feel of oatmeal? And it can be made at home?!

After reviewing various online recipes, I approached the kitchen with the following thoughts:

1.  Despite the whole grain oats, goetta is not health food.  The whole point is using the oats to soak up the fat from the meat.

2. I'm going to start with a "half" batch.  Even if it freezes well, 1 lb of meat and 1 1/4 c. of steel cut oats is a *lot* of food for 2 people to eat, and first attempts are not always tasty.

3.  More spices!  When we have sausage with breakfast, it's Hot Italian Sausage, and so we wanted more spices in our homemade goetta.  Penzey's Italian sausage seasoning is salty, so I reduced the amount of salt I added to the oatmeal.

4.  I'm curious to find out how finely the meat will break up if I just stir it into the cooked oatmeal, but Nick lobbied for the extra flavor of browning the meat separately.

4.  Use a mix of ground beef and ground pork, mainly because that's how goetta was described to us.   Lots of the recipes call for only ground pork, or chunks of pork shoulder and a meat grinder.

So I assembled

8 oz. of ground pork

8 oz. of ground sirloin

1 1/4 c. steel cut oats

4 cups water

1 tsp salt

black pepper - 5 cranks of the mill

1 small onion, finely chopped

2 bay leaves

1 t dried savory

3/4 t Penzey's Italian sausage seasoning
3 shakes of red pepper flakes (optional)
Cooking spray

Season the water with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil over medium heat.  Stir in the oats, cover the pot, and reduce the temperature to low.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until thickened and tender (40-50 minutes).

After about 25 minutes, heat a large skillet over medium high heat and add the pork and sirloin.  Break the meat up with spatula.  Then break it up some more.  Keep on chopping... you want the meat in the teensy, tiny crumbles you see in a cheap taco.  I used a Pampered Chef Mix 'N Chop, and pretty much chopped continuously until the meat was cooked through.  Keep cooking the meat, stirring occasionally, until it's a lovely shade of brown.  Stir in the chopped onion, bay leaves, savory, and Italian sausage seasoning, and cook until the onions are tender (4-5 minutes).  Turn off the burner under the skillet.

When your oatmeal is fully cooked, stir in the seasoned meat.  Continue to cook the mixture over low heat until it can be pulled away from the side of the pan when you stir.  Spray one or two loaf pans with cooking spray.  Spread the goetta in the loaf and and smooth it out with a butter knife or spatula.   Allow to cool on the counter for 30 minutes, and refrigerate overnight.

Loosen the goetta with a spatula, and turn it out onto a clean cutting board.  Cut ins slices a little more than 1/2 an inch thick.  Heat about 1 Tbsp of oil or butter (or some of both) in a frying pan, and fry the slices until crispy and brown on both sides.  Brownier and crispier than the picture below....the goetta looked so tasty that my camera "ate" the pictures I took before plating it.

I divided the goetta between two 8 inch x 4 inch loaf pans, and cut eat 8 inch loaf into 12 slices.

Our conclusion was that the recipe could still use a little more seasoning.  The next time I make it, I plan to add a clove or two of minced garlic and double the amounts of savory, Italian sausage seasoning, and black pepper.

Almost Crustless Kale Quiche

I bought a 4 pound bag of frozen kale at Costco, so I was excited to find  this recipe on Serious Eats.  Since all the rinsing and chopping was done for me, I figured it would be a snap.  I'd read the recipe a couple of times, and planned to substitute the cheese that I had on hand.  However, I'd also read a lot of other kale recipes this week and consulted a friend who subscribes to a CSA that buries her in greens for half the year. Apparently the sauteed onion, garlic and red pepper flakes from another recipe migrated into my image of kale quiche.

The breadcrumb "crust" provided a nice clean release from the pie plate, but there's no pastry to "ruin" when I reheat slices in the microwave.  I rather liked the caraway flavor of the Hearty Whole Grain bread along with the eggs and kale, but any sort of bread crumb would do the job.


1 slice  Bob's Red Mill GF Hearty Whole Grain Bread, frozen
softened butter

3 ~ 4 cups frozen chopped kale
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 ~ 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
~ 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
~ 1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
~ 1/4 tsp turmeric

6 eggs
1/4 c. half and half
3/4 c. milk (I used 2%)
3 pinches coarse sea salt
4-5 cranks of freshly ground white pepper
~ 1/4 c. crumbled feta
~ 2 oz. of Wensleydale, crumbled


Preheat oven to 350 F.  Thaw the kale in the microwave.

Break the bread slice up and pulse it in the food processor until the bread crumbs are quite fine.  I had to open the lid and stir mine a couple times to get the bigger chunks to break up.  Generously butter a glass pie plate, and dump the bread crumbs in.  Carefully spread the bread crumbs over the butter and pat them down.

Saute the onion in olive oil over medium heat until tender.  Add the garlic and spices, and saute until fragrant. Stir in the thawed kale, and set the pan aside to cool.

In a medium sized bowl, beat the eggs.  Add the half and half, milk, salt, and pepper, and beat until thoroughly combined.  Stir in the kale mixture and crumbled cheeses and pour into the prepare pie plate.

Bake 40 - 45 minutes, until the edges are brown, and the center is set.

Triple Corn Cakes

I wanted to make cornbread waffles this morning, but I can't remember where the waffle iron went when we moved....so they turned into pancakes instead.  The flavor and texture of these were wonderful - corny, crisp on the outside, tender and light.

These browned beautfully without any added sugar, and tasted wonderful with butter and maple syrup.  They're also pretty sturdy -- I've frozen the leftovers to make breakfast sandwiches.


2 eggs
3/4 c. buttermilk
1/2 c. water
8.5 oz can creamed corn
2 T olive oil
12 grams (2 Tbsp) psyllium husk
100 grams medium grind cornmeal
100 grams Bob's Red mill corn flour**
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 T sugar (optional)
1/2 t salt


**This is whole corn, ground into a golden yellow flour.  In some countries, the pure white starch made from corn ("corn starch") is called "corn flour"


In a medium sized bowl, stir together the wet ingredients.  Weigh and measure the dry ingredients and add them to the bowl, and stir until completely combined.  Allow the batter to sit for 15 minutes so the cornmeal can soften a little.

Heat a non-stick griddle over medium heat, and lightly grease the surface with oil or bacon fat.
Pour 1/4 c. ladles of batter on to the griddle, leaving room for them to spread.  The bubbles breaking in the center weren't really noticeable with this batter, so I turned them when the edges looked dry.  They cooked more slowly than most pancake batters, so I kept the heat at medium.

Chick Peas in the Slow Cooker

If you like chickpeas but have always used canned, you absolutely must find some fresh dried chickpeas and cook them at home.  The texture of beans is always better if you cook them slowly from dry, but in the case of chickpeas it's like an entirely differently food.  Home cooked chickpeas are creamy in the center -- a bit like the fluffy center of a perfectly cooked steak fry.

When you're cooking dried beans, the freshness is important.  Dried beans will keep indefinitely, and will cook up into a digestible and nutritious product, but once they've been around for more than a year, they tend to remain a bit dry and gritty, no matter how long you soak them or cook them.  Look for brands that date their beans (e.g. "2012 Harvest") or find a store whose customers buy a lot of beans.  Hippie-dippie co-ops are good.  I usually stock up on beans when I visit the Indian grocery -- while most of their customers are buying 20 lb bags of various beans and lentils, they do carry 2 and 4 pound bags, and I've never run into old, gritty legumes there.

You can cook dried beans without soaking them, it just takes longer.  America's Test Kitchen recommends soaking dried beans in brine overnight to reduce the number of split skins, and it has worked when I've tried it.  I usually start chick peas on a weekend morning, when I can wander by the crock pot and check on them occasionally.  I always cook up 2 lbs, and freeze 2 cup containers, for creamy slow-cooked chick peas in quick week-night meals.

Today I decided to try flavoring the chick peas with smoked turkey wings.   I haven't entirely figured out whether tonight's braise (Swiss chard and tomatoes) or tomorrow's soup will get the meat from the wings.

2 lbs of dried chickpeas
2 smoked turkey wings (1 1/2 to 1 13/4 lbs)
4 bay leaves
3 quarts of water
Salt to taste

Working in good light, pour about 1 cup of the chickpeas at a time onto a clean plate.  Pick out any broken or discolored beans, and transfer the keepers into the colander.  When all the beans are in the colander, rinse them well with cold water.  (The beans I buy in American supermarkets appear to be pre-washed, and I never get any starch off of them, but the lentils and beans from the Indian grocery often need rinsing.)

Place the chickpeas in a 5 or 6 quart slow cooker.  Place the bay leaves and turkey wings on top.  Add the water, cover, and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours or on high for 4-6 hours.  If the lid of your slow cooker is loose, you may need to add water.  After the minimum time has passed, stir the chickpeas and taste one.  Keep cooking until the chick peas are tender with no grittiness  when you chew.

Remove the turkey wings to a plate to cool for shredding.
Scoop the chickpeas into freezer containers or bags with a slotted spoon, cool, and then freeze.

Bean cooking liquid is often discarded because it's full of the starches that cause flatulence....but this is so nicely flavored with the smoked turkey that I'm saving it to make a soup.

Fast and dirty chicken chili

My usual chili recipe is one I got from Penzey's Spices.  After the onions and garlic are tender, you stir in the chili powder, cumin, and other spices so that they get to bloom in the oil before you add the liquid and tomatoes.  The chili should simmer for 3 hours to develop the best flavor.  I use that technique for both beef and vegetarian chilis.

Years ago I developed a chicken chili recipe that's made thick and rich with a can of refried beans.

Last night I opened a package of boneless, skinless chicken thighs and started dicing them to make a sort of fried rice dish.  Since I had cooked 4 servings of rice, I wanted about a pound of chicken, and there were 2 lbs in the package.

I decided I might as well cook all the chicken, and freezer or refrigerate the leftovers.  As I finshed the chicken fried rice I had planned for dinner, I threw the extra chicken and onion into a saucepan and made what I thought was a sort of half-assed chili.  Not enough spices.  Needed more veggies.  Maybe I'll pick some stuff up at the grocery store and make it into a sort of tortilla soup...

But the roads were awful tonight, and we ended up having the half-assed chili all by itself.  It was pretty good.  This makes 4 rather small, but filling, servings.

1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs
1 small onion, diced
1 T olive oil
10 oz. can Ro-Tel tomatoes and green chiles
15 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
3 oz. tomato paste
2 tsp Penzey's medium-hot chili powder
~ 1/2 tsp ground cumin
White pepper to taste

Trim the chicken thighs of any large blobs of fat and cut into 1/2 inch or smaller pieces, removing any stringy tendons or membranes as you work.  Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat and cook the onion until translucent.  Add the chicken and cook, stirring occasionally until the surface is browned in patches, and opaque everywhere else.  The chicken will cook through in the next step.

Meanwhile, pour the Rotel into a 3 quart saucepan with a lid, and heat over medium until it begins to simmer.  Add the chicken, chili powder, cumin, beans, and tomato paste.  Stir until the tomato paste dissolves.  (Don't taste right now -- the chicken might still be raw in the center.)  Bring the chili to a boil, reduce the heat, cover the pot, and allow it to simmer for approximately 20 minutes.  Add pepper and taste -- you probably won't need any salt.

Serve with tortilla chips and shredded cheese.

A Pumpkin Muffin worth sharing

My pumpkin muffins took a few tries.  You can't make a gluten-free muffin tough by overbeating, but you can make it tough if you make the batter too dry.  This was my third attempt, and the first worth sharing. 

I like to make a cinnamon cream cheese sweetened with honey or brown sugar to go with these muffins, so they're only lightly sweet.

14.5 oz. can solid pack pumpkin

2 eggs*

  70 grams oil (I used grapeseed)

185 grams lowfat buttermilk

  30 grams golden flax meal

  75 grams light brown sugar

  75 grams sugar

1 1/2 t double-strength vanilla

125 grams 40/60 All Purpose Gluten Free Flour Blend

100 grams teff flour

  75 grams sorghum flour

   2 t baking soda

   2 t baking powder

   1 t kosher salt

   2 t Penzey's Cake Spice

   1 c. walnut pieces or pumpkin seeds (aka pepitas)

If you're using walnuts, break each walnut half into 6-8 pieces.  Spread the broken walnuts or whole pumpkin seeds on a foil lined sheet, and toast in an oven or toaster oven until lightly browned and fragrant.

Preheat the oven to 350F, on the convection setting if you have one.

Weigh or measure all of the first group of ingredients into a mixing bowl.    Weigh or measure the second group of ingredients into a separate container.

Beat the contents of bowl thoroughly with a spoon or dough whisk until everything is smooth and uniform.  Stir in the dry ingredients gently at first, and then beat with the dough whisk.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula, and fold the batter over to make sure there aren't pockets of unmixed wet or dry ingredients at the bottom of the bowl.  Stir in the nuts or seeds.

Spray the cups of two non-stick muffin tins with 100% oil cooking spray.  Fill each muffin tin about 2/3 full.  You won't have quite enough batter for all 24 cups.  Wipe the cooking spray out of the empty cups, and wipe off any over spray on top of the pan.

Bake at 350F until the muffins are lightly browned  firm enough to spring back when you gently poke one with a finger.  This took me 18 minutes with the convection setting on -- it will probably take a little longer in a conventional oven.

Remove muffins to a wire rack too cool.

After they're completely cool, you can freeze leftover muffins and reheat them in the microwave or toaster oven.

*Egg sizes vary.  Since I had been tweaking this recipe, I was weighing everything, and my 2 eggs totaled 115 grams.

Chicken and Black Bean Soup

1 lb dried beans, soaked overnight in brine
2T olive oil
1 large onion, diced
4 ~ 6 cloves garlic, chopped
1 ~ 1 1/2 chipotle peppers in adobo, finely chopped
1 tsp dried oregano
pinch of salt

8 ~ 9 c. water

4 chicken thighs, skin removed

1/2 c. finely chopped carrot
1/2 c. finely chopped celery

1 1/2 ~ 2 T. Penzey's Chicken Soup Base

1 red bell pepper, diced into 1/4" pieces
1 green bell pepper diced into 1/4" pieces
15 oz. can petite dice tomatoes with celery and onions

Did you notice the "small dice" theme in the ingredients list?  I wanted every spoonful of this soup to contain a couple beans and something else.

Cooking bean soup from scratch is not quick... I started the beans around 10:30 am, and declared the soup done at 2:00 pm.  I was doing other stuff in the kitchen off and on, so it was easy to keep an eye on it.  If you don't have other pots to watch, you and increase the heat after each ingredient is added, to bring the soup back to a simmer faster.

The black beans give the chicken a purpley-black tinge.  If you find that idea unappetizing, you could probably make this much faster using 3  - 4 cans of rinsed black beans, in which case it will look more like a chicken soup with the occasional purple bean floating by.


Drain your soaked beans and rinse them.

In a large soup pot, heat the oil over medium heat until shimmering.  Add the onions and a pinch of salt.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are tender and just beginning to brown.  Add the garlic, oregano and chipotle and stir to combine.    Add your water and beans and turn the heat up to high to bring to a boil.

Once the pot boils, turn the heat down until the pot is just barely simmering. I've started using the small burners on my stove for simmering.  Cover and cook until the beans are tender about halfway through.

Remove the skin from the chicken thighs and trim off any large pieces of fat.  Nestle the meat into the bean pot.  Cover and wait for it to return to a simmer (you can speed that up by turning up the heat), and then reduce heat so it just barely simmers for 30 minutes.  Remove the chicken and place on a plate to cool.

Test your beans and make sure they're almost tender and creamy all the way through.  If not, cook a little longer.

When the beans are almost ready, stir in the carrots, celery, and 1 1/2 T soup base. Simmer until the vegetables and beans are tender.

When the chicken is cool enough to handle, shred the meat into bite size pieces.  Discard the bones and any tough tendons.

Add the peppers, chicken, and tomatoes to the soup and stir.  Taste the broth and decide if you'd like to add more soup base or salt.    Cook until the peppers are crisp tender.

Investment Cooking on a Sunday

Today I chopped onions before I had my first cup of tea.

For several years, my sweetie and I had separate houses, so a lot of meals were made in my kitchen, and then re-heated/assembled and served in his.  I started devoting my Sundays to making big batches of soups and sauces and pre-cooking things for quick weeknight dinners.

So the first thing I did this morning was cook 2 small onions, 4 cloves of garlic, some dried oregano and a minced chipotle in a little olive oil.  Then I added water, and the black beans that had been soaking on the counter (drained and rinsed).  I brought that up to a boil, and tossed it on a back burner to simmer for awhile.

The hot front burner was turned down and a 10 inch skillet replaced the soup pot. When the skillet was warm, 4 links of hot Italian sausage and 1/2 a cup of water went in.  I covered the skillet and let the water simmer until the links were opaque on top, then flipped them and let them go a few minutes longer.  Those links are cooling on a plate while a second pound cooks.  I've learned to let them cool before butterflying them because you get a smoother, cleaner cut and that smooth surface crisps up nicely when you want to serve it.  2 lbs of sausage will become 14 brown & serve portions in the freezer, and 2 servings for breakfast.

I've sliced some small Yukon Gold potatoes, and those are sizzling in some good olive oil.  Fried potatoes are best cooked low and slow...and normally I don't have patience... but since I'm already puttering in and out of the kitchen this morning, it's a good time to start a batch.  When they're almost done I'll brown up 2 portions of the sausage, and scramble some eggs with spinach and a little bit of feta.

After breakfast is cleaned up, I plan to skin a package of chicken thighs, and nestle them into the simmering beans to cook.  Those will eventually get shredded into the bean soup when I add the rest of the vegetables. I also have a chuck roast thawing, which has a date with a smoking hot skillet, to brown it before it goes into a crock pot with some tomatoes and gets cooked until it shreds apart into a rich pasta sauce.

What do I get from spending half a day in the kitchen?  I get quick sausage dinners where the sausage is really brown and crispy.  I get long simmered pasta sauce in half an hour after work.  And I eat delicious soup for lunch that has 1/2 the sodium and tastes twice as good as anything from a can.

Blender Banana Pancakes - Gluten Free and Multigrain

Using gluten-free flours means that you don't have to worry about making pancakes and waffles tough by overbeating the batter.  Blending helps incorporate air into the batter, and gives you a better texture.   In this recipe, the bananas are completely broken up -- if you like moist chunks of banana in your pancakes, you might want to dice an extra banana and sprinkle some chunks on the pancakes after you pour them.


2 large eggs
4 T of light flavored oil
2 medium bananas, very soft and ripe
~ 1  c. milk

2 T sugar
1/2 t salt

Freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
Dash of vanilla extract (optional)
Sprinkle of vanilla powder (optional)


125 grams of 40/60 All Purpose Gluten Free Blend
60 grams of millet flour
65 grams of buckwheat flour
4 t baking powder


Peel the bananas, break them into chunks and place them in a 2 cup measure.  Add enough milk to reach the 2 cup line with all of the banana submerged.  Pour the milk and bananas into a blender.  Add the eggs, oil, and sugar.  Cover and blend until smooth.  Add the sugar, salt, and optional seasonings, and blend again.

You can weigh out all the flours into a single container.  Add about half of the flour to the blender, cover and process.   If there are dry patches stuck to the side of the blender, scrape it down with a rubber spatula and process again.  Blend in the rest of the flour, and then scrape the sides of the container and add the baking soda.  Blend until thoroughly combined - 60 seconds.  (Remember, you can't make these pancakes tough with overblending!)

Cook the pancakes as you normally would. They're ready to turn when bubbles in the center break and the edges are starting to look dry.  If the pancakes get too brown, reduce the griddle temperature so the center cooks before the outside burns.