Author: Angela Drake

Angela Drakehttp://AWorldWithoutWheat.wordpress.comElementary school teacher, circulation desk clerk at my local library, mother of Kasey, Nonna to Aiden and Liam, volunteer at Musikfest, gardener, potter in stoneware, quilter, gf baker, hiker, camper, birdwatcher and addictive reader.......
Angela Drake's avatar

Fastnacht Day is Here!

donuts 022

Happy Fastnacht Day! How ever you spell it; there are several versions out there: also spelled Fasnacht, Fausnacht, Fauschnaut, or Fosnacht. Anyway, today is Shrove Tuesday which is Fastnacht or donut Day in Pennsylvania.  A true fastnacht has some potato in it and the texture should to be light yet substantial and moist. It can have a hole or not but no filling or fancy sprinkly crazy donut flavors.  It is a basic old school donut and people around the Lehigh Valley love them.  I can guarantee you that hundreds, no thousands, of fastnacht donuts are being munched on as I type this!

I pretty much gave donuts up a number of years ago and only ate them on Fastnacht Day. They are so fattening and oinky plus I never eat many so making a batch, even a half batch, used to leave me with a lot of donuts to give away. When I went gluten free exactly 2 years ago today I gave them up totally.  It wasn’t the biggest food sacrifice I made (there are too many choices for that award to even mention here!) but I do miss that treat on this special day.

Yesterday I looked at recipes, wanting to find a donut recipe for which I had the ingredients and could make within the time frame of the day, meaning no 12 hour to 2 day rise recipes.  The best looking and sounding recipe had just that; a minimum twelve hour rise.  Nixed it and went for a version that was made from extra flaky buttermilk biscuit dough.  No yeast, no rising. Some freezing and a lot of folding and rolling was part of the deal. No sweat, just make sure you have two cups of the special gf pastry flour recipe made up plus some for sprinkling on your bread board.

donuts 020

I can’t share the recipe; created by Nicole Hunn of Gluten Free on a Shoestring fame, she does not allow recipes of hers to be shared in blog posts like mine.  You can get it right from her website: http://glutenfreeonashoestring.com/gluten-free-biscuit-donuts/.  The dough goes together fairly easily.  I found it best to use my pastry cutter to blend in the flour properly.  I froze most of it rolled and cut into round and rectangular biscuits for later use.  I only made 4 donuts and 4 donut holes.  Containing my donut possibilities down to something manageable! I probably should have smoothed my dough more; it is a bit craggy, reminds me of sour cream cake donuts…. Next time….

donuts 021

I made one change to my donut finishing; I added a good sprinkle of nutmeg to the granulated sugar and thus gave them some of the flavor of my mom’s lovely yeast donuts.

donuts 022

Next Fastnacht Day I will create Nicole’s yeast raised donuts – just have to plan a few days in advance so her amazing dough has time to organize itself properly in the cold raising phase in my fridge. Do check that recipe out in her book, Gluten-Free on a Shoestring Bakes Bread, along with many other tempting breads.  It is not too late to whip up a batch of oinky donuts that are gluten free and yummy.

Happy Fastnacht Day to all my donut loving friends! Time for my fastnacht!

Italian Peasant Soup…Winter Tummy Warmer

Yet more snow, high winds, and frigid cold….perfect soup weather.  Yeap, I have another soup to share: rib sticking winter fare – on my menu today. I’ve been making this recipe for a long time; it is a favorite for me.  This Italian Peasant soup hits the spot. chocolate heart cake 016 It is full of flavor but is fairly cheap to make: doesn’t have any meat or pricey ingredients.  If you use vegetable broth your soup can be vegetarian. It isn’t tricky either to throw together and it is naturally gluten free.

Do make sure your broth is safe; most of the brands out there are not suitable for use by anyone with celiac; they somehow seem to have some small measure of gluten in it rendering the soup uneatable for those of us with celiac disease.

I strongly suggest that you make your own beans from dried ones; much more flavor than canned already cooked beans, cheaper and really not much trouble.  Savoy cabbage, located right next to the usual green cabbage: it is a bit pricey than regular cabbage but the green crinkly leaves are a big part of the flavor appeal of this soup so get a small head for this recipe if at all possible.  Oh and, you really need the Arborio rice as it won’t be right with regular rice; Arborio rice soaks up liquid and is creamy with a different texture than long grain rice.  arborio rice

This recipe makes a lot of soup and is great leftover for lunch.

chocolate heart cake 008

Italian Peasant Soup

1 cup dried navy beans

2 quarts chicken broth

1 bay leaf

¼ cup EVOL

1 cup red onion, diced

1 cup carrot, diced

2 garlic cloves minced

2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley; flat leaf

1 lb Savoy cabbage

1 cup Arborio rice

1-2 tsp. sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper.

Directions

Soak 1 cup dried white beans in water to cover; I use the quick method; bring to boil, boil 2 minutes, let stand 60 minutes.  Rinse really well and clean the pot too.  Then return the beans to the washed pot and cover with fresh filtered water.  Cook beans with the bay leaf for 1-2 hours until tender but not mushy. Puree half the beans in a blender or food processor.  I have used either; both work.

In a big, heavy bottomed soup pot heat the olive oil, add the onion and carrot, stir a minute, add the garlic and stir a minute.

chocolate heart cake 009

Add the parsley. Cook 5-6 minutes.  Add the cabbage which you have diced fine.chocolate heart cake 010

Stir well for a minute or two, add 1 cup chicken broth. chocolate heart cake 011

Cover and cook 10 minutes.    Add the rest of the broth, bring to a bubble; add the pureed beans and whole beans.

chocolate heart cake 012

Cook 10 minutes, stir 2-3 times as it cooks.  Add the Arborio rice and cook 12-15 minutes; until tender but al dente. Stir it 3-4 times so the rice stays blended and doesn’t stick to the bottom and burn.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Let rest 15 minutes before serving. Serve with a drizzle of EVOL on top.  Great with a slice of hearty bread, gf of course!chocolate heart cake 016

Sandwich Bread Worth Baking

Gluten Free bread is not generally known for rising high in the pan.  Nor does it often taste good enough to enjoy once the first day has passed.  Worse yet, it is mostly terrible in sandwiches, all crumbly and messy. I have tried a few recipes and, especially in the sandwich bread area, nothing was worth mentioning much less putting in this blog.  Until I baked the sandwich bread from the How Can It Be Gluten Free Cookbook, created by the America’s Test Kitchen team.  This cookbook promises “revolutionary techniques and groundbreaking recipes” right on the cover.  What I love about it is the discussion on how they came up with the final recipe; all the changes and reasons why things were added/subtracted or changed to create the best possible final result.  I guess it is the science teacher in me but those discussions are my favorite part of this book.

chickpea soup, salad, bread 014

A tall handsome loaf!

The bread recipes use one extra ingredient which put me off, I’m sort of getting tired of excessive ingredients and so many flour mixes after only two years of living gluten free.  Anyway, the ingredient is powdered psyllium husk.  The cookbook says psyllium husk powder is critical to building a stronger protein network that traps gas and steam, key to producing a taller loaf (pg171).  It took me a while but finally, I got a bag of it at Frey’s Better Foods right here in town, $6.75 in a twist tied baggie; bulk packaging lowers the price quite a bit from the commercially packaged versions.  It is a brown/gray powder.  Doesn’t look magical.  But apparently, it is!  My loaf rose and rose, to the top of my special tall sided 8 ½ x 4 inch pan.  And it stayed tall through the baking process, no shrinking or sagging either as it cooled.  It is found on page 171, classic sandwich bread.  I thought it tasted sort of like multigrain bread, not as white as I expected, which is fine by me.  The creating is typical of gf breads: mix the dry ingredients and in a separate bowl the wet ones, mix and beat well.  You do have to make up their flour mix: a blend of white and brown rice flours, potato starch, tapioca starch and non fat dry milk powder.  Not too fancy but yes, another big jar of flour mix to store somewhere…

sandwich bread, winter salad 001

Cuts nice, lots of slices for sandwiches or toast.

Anyway, it was tall and handsome and sliced easily into individual slices to enjoy now and to freeze for later.  There are lots of other recipes in this book that I plan to try. If you are serious about gluten free baking this recipe and this book are well work a good look.  I am having a sandwich today for lunch and I am excited, bread that looks normal and holds together, no more crazy crumbling sandwiches!

chickpea soup, salad, bread 015

Still slightly warm, buttered and ready for my first taste!

Classic sandwich bread

2 cups warm water, about 110 degrees

2 large eggs, room temp

2 tbsp butter melted

3 cups plus 2 tbsp ATK flour mix (recipe below)

1 1/3 cup oat flour

½ cup non fat dry milk powder

3 tbsp powdered psyllium husk

2 tbsp. sugar

2 ¼ tsp. dry yeast

2 tsp baking powder

1 ½ tsp salt.

Directions:

Spray an 8 ½ by 4 inch loaf pan with cooking spray.

Wisk the wet ingredients in a small bowl.  Mix all the dry ingredients in the large bowl of your stand mixer. Slowly pour in the wet ingredients, mixing slowly; scrape bowl sides down as you go; takes about a minute.  Increase the beater speed to medium and beat for 6 minutes, it should look very thick; sort of like a cookie dough. Glop it into the prepared pan, trying to fill the corners well. Then, smooth the top with your dampened fingers and spray with a bit of water.  Make a foil collar for your pan; if you have the tall pan like I do such a collar is not necessary.  The recipe says you can use a stapler to secure it around the pan. Cover the dough with a piece of plastic wrap and let rise at room temp until doubled. I heated my oven to 100 degrees and turned it off – popped the bread in and this gave it a nice warm temperature as my kitchen’s room temp is much too chilly for bread dough.  It took about 55 minutes for mine to rise; recipe says an hour.

Spray the loaf lightly with water before popping into the oven to bake at 350 until golden and firm and it sounds hollow if you tap on it. Although how you can tap on a hot loaf of bread is sort of beyond me!  Try to remember to rotate it half way through the time, I forgot…. Mine was done at an hour and 15 minutes; recipe says 1 ½ hours.  Let cool in pan ten minutes, cool on wire rack for two hours before cutting.  So don’t be diving into this bread warm; not happening.  If you cut gf bread too soon it can collapse and or get gummy in texture.  I hate the gummies so I resist the temptation to cut early and so should you!  This makes good toast too and great gf crumbs.

Two Fantastic Winter Salads

Winter is not known as the season for great salad but it could be! I am giving you two salads for this post. Try your own blends but it is best not to throw everything in the fridge in it.  Try to be selective and highlight one or two ingredients.  Simple ones I like have only three – five ingredients and I mostly use my homemade vinaigrette dressing.   Salad can be pretty healthy and fairly low in calories yet high in nutritional value if you avoid fatty dressings.  These are basic recipes which you can tweak depending on the ingredients in your fridge.   Here are two February versions of my winter salad. Avocados are really good for you as are the celery and pomegranate seeds.

hass avocadopomegranate

Super Winter Salad (serves 1)

½ an avocado

1 celery stalk

3-4 leaves of green loose leaf lettuce

2-3 tbsp. fresh pomegranate seeds

sandwich bread, winter salad 008

Or try a very different but still yummy winter salad which shows off citrus flavor and color:

Citrus Fennel Salad (serves 1)

1 inner stalk of celery cut in 1/3 inch rounds

1 navel orange

¼ cup fennel bulb, cut in ¼-1/3 inch slices

cara cut

Peel the orange, either by hand or using a paring knife.  Cut across into rounds about ¼-1/3 inch across.  Cut again across into halves.

winter salad, apple pie 007

Fennel has a sweet crunch to it, faintly tasting of licorice, kinda sort of and it marries really well with citrus.  I also like to use blood orange or cara cara navel oranges in this recipe.  Even grapefruit slices are great.  Cara cara oranges have an interesting orange-pinkish cast to the fruit and a lovely sweet flavor.  The local Giant grocery store has them on display right now.  You can also mix two citrus in your salad; a navel and a blood orange.  Fantastic!

cara cara orange blood orange

Finishing directions for both salads:

Place the salad ingredients in your salad dish; I have some very low sided ceramic bowls I got a long time ago that I love for salad. Then sprinkle the salad with vinaigrette which you just shook up one last time! Please don’t add too much salad dressing or you will have soggy salad.

Margie’s Vinaigrette

I named this after my older sister who passed away nearly two years ago.  She made fantastic vinaigrette.  Mine is not quite like hers but close enough to masquerade as it.  She would approve….

My preference is to use one of those Good Seasoning’s salad dressing jars but I add my own ingredients, if you don’t have one, use a pint jar; the main thing is a tight fitting lid.  Fill it to the vinegar line with red wine vinegar, not the cheap store brand (skimpy 1/4 cup).  Then some filtered water to the water line (about 1/3 inch more or two tbsp.). Next I add ½ tsp Dijon mustard, ½ tsp sea salt, ¼ tsp dried oregano, a sprinkle of dried thyme, one garlic clove (peeled and mashed down a bit to release flavor), 1 tsp mayonnaise, ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper and ½ tsp sugar. Then add extra virgin olive oil, stop a bit before the oil line and finish it with lighter olive oil (1/2 cup plus one tbsp of combined olive oils).  Shake it up really well. Then shake it some more, you need to get the mayo to blend in as completely as possible. It tastes best at room temperature and plan ahead – let it rest for at least an hour before you use it the first time.  Keep it in the refrigerator if there is any left over, lasts like a month in there. The mustard adds snap and the bit of mayo helps the dressing stay emulsified (fully blended) longer than it would without the mayo.  If your salad is delicate and you don’t want as much olive oil flavor use only mild olive oil and skip the EVOL.  If you chill the dressing you will need to let it warm up before using it; ten seconds in the microwave can help with that process.

Note: You could up the nutritional value with a few almonds or walnuts if you like nuts in your salad.

More thoughts: I make any number of salad combos.  Two of my favorite ingredient combinations are: shredded carrot, sliced radishes, chickpeas, romaine and half rounds of European cucumber or a mixture of torn kale leaves, shredded raw Brussels sprouts, scallion rounds and julienned raw summer squash.  Both mixtures are great with this vinaigrette.

Last thought: I avoid tomatoes in winter although some of the grape tomatoes are pretty tasty; use them if you feel the need for tomatoes.

So, go get your healthy green on and enjoy a fruity salad, even in the winter.

Cross Contamination…A Serious Issue for Celiacs

I believe a little information is necessary on this issue as it seems like many people do not realize that the problem of cross contamination is huge for celiacs.  Hence this post to try and clear up this issue for the general public. Cross contamination is when minute amounts of gluten get in food that normally does not contain gluten.  Like in my hash browns cooked on your grill in the same area you recently made wheat based pancakes.  It means that we celiacs can get really ill from that dusting of flour on your counter that gets on the bottom of our gf pizza slice, those crumbs left in the lettuce when you yanked the croutons off my salad or the sunflower seeds in my granola; which seeds were processed on equipment that also processes wheat, barley, or rye.

Even a tiny amount of gluten is enough to cause major health problems for people with the severe gluten allergy which anyone with celiac disease lives with every day of their life. For many celiacs it is a lot like if you got a severe stomach virus.  This is not a pretend illness nor is this is not a diet we are on for losing weight.  For those of us with celiac it is serious and important and we need you to understand why we have such concerns about cross contamination.

A great explanation of cross contamination is near the start of a well written article posted by an engineer with celiac: https://blog.safaribooksonline.com/2015/02/01/gluten-free-celiac/. I suggest you read what he has said on cross contamination.  The rest of his article is very good too.  He and his child both have celiac and his articulate description of celiac and how to live with it are worth the few minutes it will take to read.

This severe reaction to even a tiny amount of gluten is no exaggeration.  I had trouble getting it at first.  When I went gluten free due to my diagnosis with celiac I just didn’t understand cross contamination.  I thought that as long as the ingredients in my food did not include wheat, rye or barley I was safe.  I found out otherwise the hard way, several times, in several ways.

I recently had to give away a huge batch of homemade granola because the sunflower seeds I added for extra flavor were cross contaminated.  Even the few seeds in my sprinkling of granola over yogurt were enough to bring on major symptoms this Christmas season. The peanuts I bought at Giant, store brand, the label says – processed on equipment that may process wheat.  I didn’t know notice or think about that sentence until I got ill and read the fine print on the label.

download

Until those several incidents within one week, I had kinda pooh paahed cross contamination as an exaggeration or maybe just pretty rare to deal with.  Nope. It happens frequently and it is serious.  Getting ill from gluten poisoning causes damage to the small intestine. It can lead to a number of diseases and health issues including MS, diabetes, cancer and rheumatoid arthritis. None of which I want to contract.

So I will continue to read the fine print and be skeptical of a number of food items that are often processed on equipment that handles gluten containing grains.  A while ago I threw away some oat flour as it made me ill, not sure why at the time but now I realize it is the cross contamination.  Ditto for oatmeal.  I have been buying oatmeal that is labeled gluten free.  oatmealThat label gives me peace of mind, that I am safe and that I will not have to throw away or give away cookies or granola made with my oatmeal.  I nearly got sick from food prepared at a Panara restaurant, someone forgot to change their gloves and wipe down the area before they made my salad.  When I inquired about it the staff decided they needed to re-make my salad so it would be free of any possible cross contamination.  I was really thankful they made a new salad after cleaning up the salad area and putting on fresh gloves.

panara

The basic facts are: food that should be safe and gluten free sometimes is not, due to cross contamination like being prepared in same area as food made with/out of wheat or other gluten containing ingredients or your food might have been processed on equipment that also processes gluten containing foods.  So it is just not enough to know a food doesn’t have gluten in the list of ingredients, we celiacs have to be constantly vigilant as to how/where our food was processed, baked, mixed or stored.  We are not exaggerating.  The risks of cross contamination are very real and very serious for someone with celiac disease.  Please take this issue seriously if you know someone with celiac disease.  Or, if you have celiac  you can show this post to someone who doesn’t understand the concept of cross contamination and it might give them some insight.  Be safe and read those labels!