You don't need gluten to make a decent cookie (peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies)

We recently came across two pretty good gluten-free cookie recipes.  I'll just link to them here with a couple notes:

1) Flourless peanut butter cookies
These are good and peanut-buttery.  Watch the cooking time so they don't dry out.  I use half the sugar, and they're plenty sweet.

2) Chocolate chip oatmeal cookies
These are definitely my new favorite cookies.
-You definitely need to really press the batter into the measuring cup, or else the cookies crumble apart after they bake.
-Don't try to make them too thick or the oatmeal will get a little "gluey" before they're cooked all the way.
-I think I made these with 1/2 c of sugar, instead of 3/4 c, because I always cut the sugar.

Roasted carrots, fennel and sausage salad on yorkshire pudding

This recipe is basically just what the name says, but it comes together to something that's a lot more than the sum of its parts.  I originally served the salad with popovers on the side, but we were short on time to make popovers the other night.  Instead we made some individual stove-top yorkshire puddings, and they turned out to be a good base for the salad.

Ingredients:
Carrots
Fennel
Brats or sausages
Salad greens - I used spinach and arugula
Yorkshire pudding (recipe below): egg, milk, flour, salt, butter
Olive oil
salt
pepper
fennel seeds if you want.

Peel and cut carrots for roasting (whatever size you want and have time for.  I usually cut a regular carrot into halves or quarters length-wise, then cut them into 1-2 inch long pieces.  Toss with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper and some crushed fennel seeds if you're feeling fancy.  Put on a baking tray, then throw a little water on top - maybe 2-4 T, cover with foil, and bake for 10 min at 400 degrees.  Remove the foil and continue to roast until the carrots are tender.

Core and cut fennel into 1/4-1/2" wide slices, toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper, then roast at 400 degrees.

Cook some brats.

The basic recipe for a yorkshire pudding that I use is:

1 egg
1/2 c milk
1/2 c = 2.25 oz flour*
1/4 t salt.

This makes a good-sized yorkshire pudding for one hungry person if cooked in a 6" skillet.  I usually do it on the stove top: just preheat the skillet under medium low heat, add some butter, pour in the batter, cover with a lid.  Cook until the top of the batter is just set, about 3-5 minutes.  Flip and cook until the underside is slightly browned - another 1-2 minutes.  *Note: We've had good luck using gluten-free all-purpose flour blends.

To serve, put some greens on top of the yorkshire pudding (or next to your yorkshire pudding if you're not quite willing to take my word on this one).  Top with sausage and roasted veggies.  Enjoy.

Seriously, it blends together so well.  And it's easy.  So, it ranks as delicious, nutritious, cheap, and easy - the quad-fecta that I'm always looking for!

Another note: I'm starting to think that you can put just about any leftovers on top of a yorkshire pudding to make a good post-workout breakfast.  We regularly enjoy them cooked with a sprinkle of cinnamon and some melted chocolate chips and/or berries for breakfast or a snack.  They're also amazing as a base for left-over carnitas tacos, and today I threw some left over cheese and corn on top of one and was pretty pleased with the results.  You can also add cut up cooked sausages to the skillet before adding the egg batter to make Toad-in-a-hole.

Choco-coco balls (no bake)

I was inspired to make up this recipe after tasting a cookie Mark got at the coffee shop the other day.  These aren't too sweet, but satisfy any craving for a little bite of chocolate.  They are, of course, gluten free.  They're also super quick and easy to put together, and I think they taste fancy enough that they can be served with something like fruit for a company dessert.

Makes about 10 1-in balls

75 g ground almonds or almond flour 

60 g finely shredded coconut (unsweetened)

28 g maple syrup

16 g (~2  T) cocoa powder

1/4 - 3/8 t. salt

30 g melted coconut oil

Stir everything together in a bowl.  Let it sit for a minute or two.  Press into whatever shape you want - I tend to make 1-in balls.  Cover with plastic to keep them from drying out.

Notes:

- To make the ground almonds, I just throw a couple handfuls of almonds into the food processor.  I store any extra in the freezer for the next time I'm going to make these.  

- The first time I made these I used 60 g of almond flour and 60 g of coconut.  They were really good, very striking, but in some ways too much.  I think upping the almond flour makes them a bit more balanced, but if you like really strong bold flavors you might prefer it with less almond flour. 

- The amount of salt indicated here results in a "salted chocolate" taste.  So, in the midst of coconut and cocoa, you get an occasional taste of salt, in a pleasant way.  If you don't like that taste, use 1/8 t of salt or less.

Serbian cornbread muffins

A Serbian astronomy friend that we met in Madison made these muffins for us last fall, and they very quickly became my staple cornbread recipe.  They're super moist and healthier than regular cornbread.

They're amenable to lots of variations.  The original recipe calls for the addition of feta, which makes them the most eastern European-like.  The kids like them plain.  I like to mix in a handful of chopped pickled jalepenos and queso fresco if I'm serving them with chili.  It's also been really easy to make them gluten free as there is very little regular flour in them.

Depending on your additions, the recipe below makes about 10-12 muffins

3 eggs
1.5 c yogurt
3 T oil
7.5 T flour*
7.5 T (56 g) cornmeal
1 T baking powder
3/4 t salt

Additions: cheese (feta, queso fresco, cheddar) - 1/4 - 1/2 lb, peppers, bacon, etc

*(for gluten free muffins, I use 4.5 T (42 g) of corn flour + 3 T of a 1:1 replacement flour mix

Stir together the wet ingredients, stir together the dry ingredients, add the dries to the wets and mix.  Fold in any additions that you're using.  Bake at 375 for 18-25 min until a toothpick comes out clean.  Note: these tend to stick to regular muffin liners a lot, for some reason.  I use silicon liners, and they pop right out with no mess.  You can also grease your regular foil or paper liners with a spray oil.

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

Ed gave me a year subscription to Cook's Illustrated for Christmas and it's a game changer.  My goal is to make something new each weekend, so I'm getting good use out of the magazine.  This weekend was chicken and sausage gumbo.  I've never made gumbo before and I'm not even sure I've really had gumbo before, but ya'll...ya need to make this recipe.  I'm telling you...it was so so good.

It takes some time, about 90 minutes, but that's not all active time by any means.  It uses pretty common ingredients.  In fact, we subbed some things because I didn't feel like searching for andouille sausage on this island.  We struck out at Whole Paycheck and decided not to look any further.  Here are the substitutions I made...

chicken thighs - chicken breasts (probably would be even better with thighs though)
andouille sausage - Italian sausage (again, probably awesome with andouille)
fresh thyme - dried thyme
white vinegar - rice vinegar (what the heck, how do I not have white vinegar on hand?)

Despite my lame substitutions, it was great because the secret, I believe, is in the sauce.  It's all about toasting the flour to create a dry roux.  You throw the flour in a cast iron skillet and put it in the oven for about an hour, until it's the color of cinnamon.  That's where all your flavor comes from and holy cow, is it good.  I can't imagine that subbing a gluten free flour would have a negative impact on the final product.  I will say that the gumbo had a velvety texture so it's possible a GF flour would effect that, but I don't know enough about GF to say.

Anyway, here's the recipe.  Give it a shot, I doubt you'll be disappointed.  Oh, one more thing, if you're sensitive to spice, go easy on the cayenne.  I'm pretty sure I measured the cayenne and the final product had some kick to it.  Might be better to go easy and then add more if you need.  Oh and we both thought the addition of hot sauce after serving was awesome.

Ingredients
1 C flour
1 T vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped fine
1 green pepper, chopped fine
2 celery ribs, chopped fine
1 T minced fresh thyme (I used about 3/4 t of dried)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 t paprika
2 bay leaves
1/2 t cayenne
salt and pepper
4 C chicken broth, room temp
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed
8 oz andouille sausage, halved and sliced 1/4 inch thick
6 scallions, sliced thin
1 t distilled white vinegar
hot sauce, to taste for serving

Method

1. Heat oven to 425, adjust rack to middle.  Place flour in 12 inch skillet and bake, stirring occasionally until it's the color of ground cinnamon (approximately 40-55 minutes).  Towards the end it needs to be stirred more frequently.  Transfer to a bowl and let cool.
2. Heat oil in a dutch oven over medium heat until shimmering.  Add onion, pepper, and celery and cook until softened, about 5-7 minutes.  Stir in thyme, garlic, paprika, bay leaves, cayenne, 1/4 t salt, and 1/4 t pepper and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.  Stir in 2 cups of broth.  Add chicken in a single layer (it won't be completely submerged).  Bring to simmer, reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until chicken is fork tender, about 15-17 minutes.  Transfer chicken to plate.
3. Slowly whisk remaining 2 cups of broth into flour until thick, smooth, batter-like paste forms.  Increase heat to medium and incorporate paste into gumbo, making sure each addition is fully incorporated before adding the next.  Stir in sausage.  Simmer, uncovered, until gumbo thickens slightly, about 20-25 minutes.
4. Shred chicken and put in gumbo with scallions.  Remove pot from heat and stir in vinegar and season with salt to taste (I didn't add any more salt).  Remove bay leaves.  Serve over rice with hot sauce.

It's stick-to-your-ribs good!

Enjoy,

Molly

Spam Musubi

Well, ya' go to Hawaii and what do you have to try?  Spam Musubi, of course.  Ya' come home from Hawaii and what do you have to do?  Buy a Musubi press and try it yourself!

Japanese Style Pickles

If you Google "Japanese Pickle Recipes" there are a number which use rice vinegar, salt, and sugar - seems to form the basis of Japanese pickle making and I look forward to a lot more exploration.  But for now, I started with a recipe for soy/ginger pickled cucumber spears.  That's nor what I made, of course but it is where I started.

The recipe called for pickling cucumber spears and fresh ginger slices in a marinade of rice vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, and toasted sesame oil.  I used a sliced seedless cucumber rather than spears and used some pickled ginger strips which we had picked up at the Asian market in Philly.  These are definitely ginger but not really very tasty, useful for adding to other things but not something you would want to eat by itself.  I substituted apple cider vinegar for rice vinegar because that's what I had and honey for sugar because I prefer it.

The pickling brine consists of
1/3 c. vinegar
1/3 c. soy sauce (I used Kikkomen's)
2 T. sugar (I used honey)
1/4 t. Toasted Sesame Oil



Slice the cuc's and ginger as you want them,

1. Put soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar and toasted sesame oil in a bowl and stir until sugar has dissolved.
2. Put cucumber and ginger in a ziploc bag and pour vinegar mix on top. Removed air before sealing the bag. Once sealed, lightly massage the cucumber and ginger, making sure the pickling liquid evenly coats all the vegetables.
3. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours and for no more than 12. Drain pickling vinegar and keep the cucumber and ginger pickles in the fridge.

I saved the brine and used it for another batch.

This is about as easy as it gets and the pickles were awesome!