Tag Archives: gluten free

Oh yeah…Toasted Super Seed Power Bread!

23 Sunday Nov 2014

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Hoo doggy this is some GOOD BREAD, everyone.  Wholesome awesomeness and gluten-free too!  Yep, I’ve discovered yet another wonderful vegan cookbook – Yum Universe, by Heather Crosby.  As many of you know, I am not vegan (nor am I gluten-free necessarily) but I do love experimenting and there’s no doubt those two eating styles make me feel super energetic.

I love to grocery shop, and when I see a recipe with a few ingredients I’ve never cooked with before, I grin big.  THIS is going to be an adventure.

  • 1/2 C sesame seeds
  • 1 C rolled oats
  • 1/2 C pumpkin seeds
  • 1/2 C almonds
  • 1/4 C sunflower seeds
  • 1/2 C chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour
  • 1/2 C poppy seeds
  • 1/4 C chia seeds
  • 3 T psyllium husk powder (use 1/4 C if you can only find the husks)
  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • 1 T Sucanat (dried sugar cane juice)
  • 2 T coconut oil
  • 2 C water

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Place the sesame seeds, oats, pumpkin seeds, almonds and sunflower seeds on the sheet and toast them in the oven for 7-10 minutes, then transfer to a large bowl.

Add the remaining ingredients to the bowl and mix well (feel free to use your hands).  Form the dough into a ball and cover with a towel.  Let sit overnight, about 10-12 hours.

The next day, preheat oven to 325 degrees F and line a loaf baking dish with parchment paper.  Allow 1/2″ of paper to exceed the top edges of the loaf pan so you can easily lift it out once baked.

The dough will be very firm.  Using your hands and a little effort, shape into a rectangle and press the dough into the parchment-lined loaf pan, making sure it reaches all four corners.

Bake for 30 minutes and remove from the oven.  Lift loaf out of the pan by the parchment paper and set onto a baking sheet.  Flip your loaf, making sure parchment paper is flat underneath, and bake another 45-50 minutes.  Allow to cool.  Slice and experience heaven. Store in an airtight glass container in the fridge.

fivenineteen notes: oh man, that won’t be the last time I make this bread!  Puts all others to shame!  I hit my local food co-op and loaded up on seeds!  Actually, “loaded up” is probably not the right term here.  They sell most of their seeds in the bulk foods section, so it was a snap to purchase only what I needed.

Given my 40-something eyes I didn’t notice a lot of the recipe notes when I read through it.  So if you didn’t notice to add 1/4 C psyllium husks if you can’t find them in flour form like me, your dough might be a little watery after adding the water.  But not to worry; in a few hours the dough absorbed all of the water and it was easy to scoop into my parchment-lined loaf pan and pop into the oven.

Your coconut oil will be in solid form at room temperature (unless you live in a hot climate).  Scoop a couple of tablespoons into a small glass bowl and microwave a few seconds to melt it before adding to the dough.

It’s easy to cut your parchment paper to size with kitchen shears.  Cut two strips – one to fit the pan horizontally and one to fit vertically.  Be sure to leave at least a 1/2″ extra so you can lift the baked loaf easily out of the pan.  Hooray for parchment paper!

Top your slice of bread with salad, your favorite spread and a pinch of salt or try it toasted.

Buon appetito!

Crowd-Pleasing Tex-Mex Casserole! (Vegan)

18 Sunday May 2014

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Holy crap!  When I typed the title to this post I typed “Crows”…and somehow published the post with just that one word!  That lasted for about 5 seconds until I could navigate back to the dashboard and remove it.  Any followers out there receive a single world “CROWS” post from me?  Hilarious!

And my apologies as we’re in fog brain mode today.  Some of you might recall that in my current job my team works overnight one weekend a month.  And last night was that weekend.  So I’m propped upright and a little woozy.   But bravely attempting the keyboard today…with yet another amazing VEGAN recipe to share!  Yes, I’m going to post a recipe today…normally this weekend is extra special as it’s my birthday weekend so I like to do something memory-related.  Tomorrow, May 19, is the actual day, hence this blog name.  But today it’s going to be a yummy recipe…so good that even meat lovers out there won’t miss the meat. Nor people like me who are not vegan, but who love to load on the cheese and sour cream something fierce with anything slightly close to a Tex-Mex dish.  Not needed here at all!  Lots of flavor and comfort – very similar to a burrito in a bowl.

Serves 6.  This recipe is gluten-free, nut-free, soy-free and sugar-free

Tex-Mex spice blend

  • 1 T chili powder
  • 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika OR 1/2 tsp regular paprika
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, plus more as needed
  • 1 1/4 tsp fine grain sea salt
  • 1/4 tsp ground coriander

For the Casserole

  • 1 1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 red onion, diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 orange bell pepper, diced
  • 1 red bell pepper, diced
  • 1 jalapeno, seeded and diced
  • Fine grain sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/2 C fresh or frozen corn
  • 1 14 oz can diced tomatoes, with their juices
  • 1 C tomato sauce or tomato puree
  • 2-3 C chopped kale leaves or baby spinach
  • 1 15 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
  • 3 C cooked wild rice or brown rice
  • 1/2 C vegan shredded cheese (I skipped this as I don’t care for the taste)
  • 1 or 2 handfuls corn tortilla chips, crushed
  • Optional toppings – sliced green onions, salsa, avocado or more corn chips

Combine the Tex-Mex spice blend ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Oil a large 4 to 5 quart casserole dish

In a large wok, heat the oil over medium heat.  Add the onion, garlic, bell peppers and jalapeno and saute for 7 to 8 minutes, until softened.  Season with salt and black pepper.

Stir in the spice blend, corn, diced tomatoes and their juices, tomato sauce, kale, beans, rice and 1/4 C of the vegan shredded cheese (if using).  Saute a few more minutes and season with more salt and black pepper, if desired.  Pour the mixture into the prepared casserole dish and smooth out the top.  Sprinkle the crushed chips over the casserole mixture along with the remaining 1/4 cheese.  Cover with a lid or foil and bake for 15 minutes.

Uncover the casserole dish and cook for 5 to 10 minutes more, until bubbly and lightly golden around the edges.

Scoop the casserole into bowls and add your desired toppings.

Fivenineteen notes:  this casserole is INCREDIBLE.  And you won’t even notice you’re getting a whopping dose of your veggies either!  The wild rice can take some time to fully cook, so I recommend getting that going while you’re chopping the veggies at the same time.  Don’t get weirded out by the somewhat-long list of ingredients – about half of them are just “open a can and drain/rinse/dump.”  Easy.

Buon Appetito!

From the Oh She Glows cookbook, by Angela Liddon

General Chang’s Chicken…Gluten Free!

12 Wednesday Jun 2013

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Who ever said chicken has to be boring?  With so many ways to prepare it and how it shows up in just about every kind of ethnic cooking…what’s not to love?  This is a gluten-free (GF) recipe and it’s super quick, easy and full of really great flavors.  And it has a nice ‘after burn’ with the spices which I love.  You can taste and adjust the spiciness up or down to your taste.  I eat GF occasionally and mostly by choice, not by necessity…a few in my family are gluten intolerant and I’m experimenting with different recipes to cook for them and to also learn how to adjust non-GF recipes to accommodate. So for any of you skeptics out there…try this recipe!  You won’t even know it’s GF.

Best advice for a GF lifestyle:  cook from scratch…that way you’ll know exactly what’s going into your food!  This recommendation is from Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking by Kelli and Peter Bronski.

And this recipe is for General Chang’s Chicken, a hybrid of Chang’s spicy chicken and General Tso’s chicken.  Chang’s spicy chicken is a popular GF dish at P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, which is a version of General Tso’s chicken, combining sweet and a fair amount of heat in a heavily Americanized version of Hunan-style Chinese cuisine that grew out of NYC in the 1970s.

Serves 4

  • Olive oil
  • 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed
  • Cornstarch
  • 3 to 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 3/4 C orange juice
  • 3/4 C cranberry juice
  • 1/4 C rice vinegar
  • 3 T tamari wheat-free soy sauce
  • 3 T brown sugar
  • 2 T ground fresh chili paste
  • 1/4 C water
  • Chopped scallions for garnish

Heat 4-5 T of olive oil in a skillet or wok.  Meanwhile, dredge the cubed chicken breasts fully in the cornstarch.  Add the chicken to the oil and cook, turning, until cooked through, lightly browned and crispy on all sides.  Transfer to a bowl lined with paper towels.

Add the garlic to the remaining olive oil in the skillet (add a little more olive oil if needed) and cook until fragrant.  Add the orange juice, cranberry juice, vinegar, soy sauce, brown sugar and chili paste and stir to mix well.  Mix 2 tsp of cornstarch with the 1/4 C water and stir into the sauce.  Bring to a boil.

Return the chicken to the skillet and cook until the sauce thickens and the chicken is heated through.  Garnish with chopped scallions and serve.  Serve over rice.

Fivenineteen notes: As with other recipes calling for minced garlic, I used minced garlic from a jar.  1/2 tsp is about 1 clove of garlic equivalent, and it’s a huge timesaver.  Take the extra time to really shake off the cornstarch after dredging the chicken in it by using a colander before transferring it to the hot skillet.  I admittedly was hungry and in a hurry making this dish and I carelessly transferred the chicken cubes coated with cornstarch into the skillet with tongs, a little too thickly coated.  I used a green curry chili paste from a jar and it turned out great; I’m excited to try this same recipe with a red curry chili paste as well.

Buon appetito!

Gluten Free Bread from Scratch – the Experiment

02 Sunday Jun 2013

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ingredAnd now for something completely different…bread made from scratch!  Gluten free!  This is definitely going out on a limb in here, for I rarely keep any kind of breads in my house, and while I love to cook I can’t remember making bread from scratch ever.  Maybe a pie crust or cake awhile back, but not a loaf of bread!  And certainly not gluten-free.

Oh boy…gluten free eating.  There is so much information out there about gluten intolerance, Celiac disease and on and on.  So many stories about the benefits of cutting gluten out of our diets.  I am no expert in diet or nutrition.  But I love to cook and thought…why not try a GF recipe?  Maybe try eating GF for a while and see what happens?  I haven’t been diagnosed intolerant, but I haven’t specifically been tested for it either.

One thing to note about GF eating…it can be expensive.  I don’t know the exact reason for this, but one seems to be that the best selections of GF foods are in specialty grocery stores where prices are going to be higher in general.  Now this isn’t always the case 100% of the time – remember this is amateur hour GF blogging in here today.  I’m learning…and enjoying the journey!

Personally I don’t have a problem with spending a little more on food.  Eating out, cooking and even grocery shopping itself are all huge pleasures for me.  Adventurous and fascinating!  I like to say that what we put in our bodies – our fuel – is so essential, so why not make it the best?  And if that means spending a little more, why not?  Now if I was married and raising 5 kids I might think differently about grocery shopping.

I recently picked up a copy of Artisanal Gluten Free Cooking, by Kelli and Peter Bronski.  And I really hit the jackpot with this book.  It’s beautifully written and easy to understand.  It’s very warm and welcoming – not snooty or pretentious.  As you might expect, the first part of the book talks about gluten – what it is and what intolerance means.  It also provides tips on how to navigate the grocery store and how to read ingredient labels.  Gluten is not always going to be called out as “gluten” on a label.  It can be hidden in things like soy sauce or yogurt.  The authors even go on to recommend NOT buying GF things like potato starch or brown rice flour in the bulk food section of the store to save money.  There is risk of cross-contamination with the containers and scoops.  Yikes.

So this weekend I went in a completely different cooking direction and baked a loaf of bread.  I was intrigued by the GF flour recipe that is the foundation of so many of the recipes in this book – breads, cookies, waffles, cakes and pasta.  The authors recommend making a large batch of it (meaning, quadruple their recipe) and storing it in an air-tight container in the fridge.  I made the batch as-is (about 3 cups) and used all of it in the bread recipe.

But first, a trip to the grocery store was in order.  I’m familiar with a few specialty ingredients, and knew the best place to start was the PCC in my neighborhood.  The staff is super friendly and knowledgeable.  If they don’t have something you need, they will go to the ends of the earth to find it for you!  So in this picture we have about $30 worth of ingredients.  See what I mean about pricey?  Much more $$ than your everyday garden variety plain ol’ white flour.  The topper was the 8 ounces of xanthan gum – $12!  What the hell is xanthan gum, you might be wondering?  Well, it basically is the substitute for gluten.  It binds ingredients together like gluten does.  So don’t leave it out trying to save a few bucks!  You won’t be very happy how your recipes turn out.

The one thing that stumped me was potato flour.  I had no problems finding the potato starch, but couldn’t find potato flour anywhere.  So I asked one of the guys for help and he returned with another guy in tow.  They explained that potato starch and potato flour are exactly the same thing.  Hmmm…I wondered…is this true?  I told them that the recipe I’m going to do calls them out distinctly as two separate ingredients.  So they recommended using dried potato flakes and pureeing them in a food processor into a flour.  Sounds good to me!  I don’t know if this is what the authors intended, so I still want to research this further and see if other stores carry potato flour. Or I might just have to poke around online.

I used the bowl attachment of my Cuisinart Smart Stick Blender and it worked beautifully for this basic recipe – about 3 cups total.

Artisan Gluten Free Flour Mix

  • 1 1/4 C brown rice flour
  • 3/4 C sorghum flour
  • 2/3 C cornstarch
  • 1/4 C potato starch
  • 1 T + 1 tsp potato flour
  • 1 tsp xanthan gum

Combine all ingredients and store in an air-tight container in the fridge.  Now for the BREAD…this recipe makes 1 loaf – about 12 servings:

  • 2 1/4 C milk
  • 2 T sugar
  • 1 T salted butter
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3 1/4 C of the GF flour mix (above)
  • 1 tsp xanthan gum
  • 2 1/4 tsp (1 package) active dry yeast

Grease a 9 x 5″ loaf pan.  Heat the milk, sugar, salt and butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until warmed and the butter is fully melted.  If the milk heats too quickly before the butter fully melts, remove the saucepan from the heat and finish melting the butter.  Mix the GF flour, xanthan gum and yeast in a large bowl.  Add the warm milk mixture, stirring to combine.  The dough will be very sticky.  Spread the dough in the prepared loaf pan.  Cover and let rise in a warm location free from drafts for 30-60 minutes or until doubled in size.

breadPreheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  Bake the loaf for 40 minutes, or until firm to the touch.

Here’s what my loaf looked like just before popping it in the oven – yum!  I had covered it loosely with a kitchen towel.  My cooking time was a little longer than 40 minutes.  Test by inserting a toothpick in the loaf.  If it comes out clean, the bread is done.

And the verdict?  Wonderful!  The bread turned out very moist, not crumbly.  I tried a slice plain, and while it’s OK on its own I would recommend using it for sandwiches or for dipping in soups.  Great news – it’s a blank canvas!

I’m very excited to try more recipes in this book…buon appetito!

Crazy, Delicious (gluten free) Meatballs! And Laptop Drama…

23 Tuesday Apr 2013

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Well dang, what a roller coaster few days it’s been!  Starting off with a major blue screen crash of my beloved 7-year-old (!) Dell Inspiron, tricked out with Windows XP, 1 GB RAM and Office 2003.  2006 anyone?  Hey, back in the day she was a pretty decent machine.

So I shouldn’t be surprised that I was running on borrowed time.  I knew Microsoft was going to pull the plug on Windows XP support in 2014, and I knew that that old laptop couldn’t hold much more than what she already had on board.  Outdated IE, outdated Office, painfully low RAM…it was a flashback every time I came home!  But she was fabulous…and I’m hoping I’ll be able to recover data and move forward (the nice people at Dell are sending me an XP CD with hopes we’ll be able to do an OS reinstall).  Serves me right that I danced on the tightrope, so to speak, with no safety net such as an external hard drive.  Nope, I rode hard and fast.  Someone even told me, “Fivenineteen, if you got seven years out of your laptop, that’s like driving 500,000 miles on your car and never needing it repaired.”  Wow, that puts it in perspective alright!

Now I am the proud and happy owner of a Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook, sporting 8 GB of RAM and a solid state drive for starters.  With Office 2013 and Windows 8.  Wow, I need a seatbelt she boots up so fast!  One gotcha I discovered right away is that this Ultrabook does not have any Ethernet ports.  So until my docking station arrives, I purchased a USB-to-Ethernet adapter and it’s working great.  Another gotcha:  this machine is completely wireless.  So if you were like me with no wireless router in the house (the old Inspiron was too clunky to be portable) it was off to Best Buy to purchase one and fiddle around getting it configured.  Which I’ve now done – hurray!  I had to completely power cycle my cable modem – unscrewing the cable connection and reconnecting it after a few minutes, not just powering it on and off by unplugging the power supply.

First World Problems, I know.  I have much to be grateful for…I wasn’t in the middle of crucial job hunting, what data I’ve lost is just “stuff” and I’m not in financial hardship making this new purchase.

Now…how about a switch to food, anyone?  At my new job my whole team has to work overnight one weekend a month. See last month’s post on how my debut weekend went!  We were mentally preparing to work overnight last Saturday into Sunday, but we got an emergency notification Saturday evening that our work was postponed; things were too unstable already to justify any additional changes being introduced into the environment.  WOW!  Given what I heard, I think it was a completely appropriate decision.  But now, what to do?  I’d basically written off my Saturday evening and Sunday socially and now I was free!

J to the rescue! How wonderful he was around and wanting to meet up spontaneously!  I was painfully low on groceries (food is provided when I go to work late at night so I had not stocked up on anything), but he showed up ready for a wonderful, late dinner and breakfast too!  How fabulous is this?

Honestly, I’ve not made meatballs in what seems like forever, but we dove in, got our hands dirty and winged it something fabulous with this recipe!  I’ll loosely call it a recipe…the ratios of what we threw into the mix were not measured, but I was able to recall what we used – take a look!

Meatballs (gluten-free).  All spices are dried (from a jar).  Preheat an oven to around 325 or 350 degrees F.  Line the bottom of a broiler pan with tin foil.

And…go for it with random amounts of the following!

  • Equal parts of ground beef, ground pork and ground sausage
  • Red wine
  • 1 egg
  • Jack Daniels (whiskey)
  • Olive oil
  • Worcestershire sauce (I use a wheat-free, vegan version)
  • Tomato Paste
  • Minced fresh onion – yellow or white
  • Minced garlic (from a jar is great, or mince fresh garlic)
  • Turmeric
  • Oregano
  • Marjoram
  • Paprika
  • Basil
  • Onion Powder
  • Garlic Salt
  • Chili Powder
  • Chipotle Chili Powder
  • Salt and freshly-ground black pepper
  • Allspice

Plop everything into a large bowl…wash your hands…and DIG IN!  Mix with your hands like crazy.  Form small meatballs (around golf ball size) with your hands and place onto the foil-lined broiler pan.  Bake until done (could be 20-30 minutes…honestly I didn’t keep track).  ENJOY!

I hear that gluten-free meatballs can be challenging without stuff like breadcrumbs, but these held together wonderfully.  I’d probably skip the Allspice next time, as it’s more suited toward recipes for coffee cake or other sweets.

Breakfast was Cowboy Style…broiled steaks with spices, scrambled eggs and hash browns.

Buon Appetito!