gluten free cooking

New Orleans Dirty Rice…Quick Version

 

I confess to a love of Cajun food, not too spicy though, for my tummy’s sake! I love gumbo and jambalaya and try to make them each at least once or twice a year. But sometimes, you get too busy for the time and effort of a big scratch meal production. Like during the holidays. For a quick change up in the meal routine I made some New Orleans style dirty rice using a Zatarain’s mix.

Before you freak out about salt or gf issues in processed foods, I did use their reduced sodium version and it is clearly labeled gluten free. It still has quite a bit of sodium so I wouldn’t make this every week but in a pinch; darn sure I will use it again. The box says it is 6 servings but I think it is more like 4-5 as a main course. dirty rice

Do like I did: jazz it up. I used a package of ¾ Italian sausage and ¼ hot sausage instead of the ground beef the recipe calls for. I added green pepper and onion too. Mission accomplished! Easy, tasty and gluten free. The meal trifecta at my house! But this recipe came with one added request: not too spicy. To tone down the hot I added an extra ¼ cup of brown rice and more water. Don’t get me wrong, it was a bit spicy but not really hot. You can leave out the extra rice and water if you want to breath a little fire. It is purely a matter of personal taste.

This is not one of those showstopper looking entrees but it has lots of flavor considering it is based on a box mix. Great weeknight supper choice; quick, easy and very tasty.

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Angie’s Dirty Rice

1 box Zatarain’s Dirty Rice Mix, reduced sodium
1 pound mixed sausage; mostly Italian links and a couple hot ones, casing removed (could use loose sausage)
1 green pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
¼ cup quick cooking brown rice; Uncle Ben’s has some that cooks in 20 minutes

Directions: Heat half the oil in a ten inch deep fry pan, I used a cast iron one and add the sausage. I used a wooden spatula and chopped the meat up as it cooked. Once it is getting browned on both sides add the pepper and onion. Keep stirring so nothing burns and all cooks. Add the other tbsp. of oil, the rice and the rice packet from the box. Stir, add 3 cups hot water, cover. Heat to a boil, turn down to simmer and let cook on low for 25 minutes. Turn off and let stand 5 minutes before eating.

Notes: I think a red pepper might be nice variation in this recipe. I bet you could add another ¼ cup brown rice and another 1/3 cup water if you want it even milder and you will have more of the dish to enjoy. If you dislike brown rice, just use white rice but not instant rice; cooks too fast for this recipe.

Eggs Benedict – DIY Hollandaise Sauce

Eggs Benedict is kinda old school elegant – but if you enjoy egg sandwiches you will definitely want to read this post. We love eggs benedict for brunch or Sunday supper. Since I went gluten free due to celiac disease I had to find gf English muffins that were more than just edible as the muffin is the base for the layers that create this tasty dish. I have made three different recipes. First two were just “okay.” This most recent one is from America’s Test Kitchen’s “The How Can It Be Gluten Free Cookbook” published in 2014. It uses their make-it-yourself flour blend. There is no need for muffin rings unlike the other recipes I have made. The dough is very sticky; a stand mixer is pretty much required. You form it into balls using wet hands, let the dough rise an hour on baking sheets sprinkled with corn bread. They are briefly cooked on the stove top in a frying pan and then baked in the oven for 30 minutes. The flavor and texture are outstanding for gf bread. They remind me of homemade wheat flour muffins I used to enjoy years ago. I highly recommend this recipe. Fairly easy and I was thrilled with the flavor and texture. I am not sure what I will do with those darn muffin rings I bought a year ago…  cranberry tartlets 006 cranberry tartlets 007

I am not going to provide the muffin recipe today; you could consult the ATK cookbook for that, or use another gf muffin recipe or buy some gf English Muffins. But I will give my recipe for the easiest and best hollandaise sauce ever. It is a cherished family recipe my mom always used and although I have tasted other sauce versions I always come back to this one for its outstanding flavor. My family loves it over broccoli for our favorite side dish.

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Mom’s Hollandaise Sauce

Makes about ¾ cup.

1 stick salted butter
2 egg yolks (from large eggs)
Juice of ½ a lemon

Please, no substitutions of any kind will work for this recipe and you MUST make it in a Pyrex measuring cup placed in a pan of hot water; just below the boil and going no more than ½ the way up the sides of the glass measuring cup. pyrex measuring cupThe glass insulates the contents and allows for a slow measured melting of the butter and an equally slow and almost alchemical blending of these three ingredients into a smooth sauce. Unsalted butter gives a pale unbalanced sauce and not enough lemon makes the flavor insipid. Any leftover sauce can be gently reheated in a microwave or over water; stir a lot and you can add ¼ tsp. hot water if it separates. Beat it with a spoon until it comes back together.

Anyway, back to the recipe! Cut the stick of butter into 8 chunks and place in a Pyrex glass measuring cup; one cup size please. Add the yolks and the lemon juice, no pits either! Place in a sauce pan half full of hot water. Do not let the water boil or go more than half way up the measuring cup. Stir often with a spoon; I leave the spoon right in the cup. It will be hard to stir at first as the butter is still solid but the stirring will get easier. Stir almost constantly until the sauce thickens to coat the spoon and then continue stirring it to an almost custard like thickness. Take the cup of sauce out of the water bath and cover it with aluminum foil while you poach the eggs.

Egg Directions:

4 eggs
2 English muffins
4 slices Canadian bacon (round thin slices)

Eggs: get the best and freshest quality eggs possible. Old eggs spread out as they poach and you will have the perfect shaped poached eggs with really fresh ones. I got mine from a friend who raises chickens; far superior in flavor and freshness to anything from a store.

Spray a frying pan with cooking spray. Fill it with warm water. Bring the water to an active bubble, add a tbsp. vinegar. Break each egg into a short cup and gently tip into the hot water. Do not boil the water. Poach them 3 minutes for a soft squishy egg and 4-5 for firmer eggs. Some like lots of egg yolk liquid and others like a firmer textured egg. Do not overcook them or they are just hard boiled eggs. They should not be firm when you remove them. Lift out with a slotted spoon and drain briefly on a paper towel.

While those eggs were poaching gently heat the bacon in a small frying pan with a tsp of butter. Cook about 2 minutes and flip, cook 2 more minutes.

Muffins; split each open with a dinner fork and toast in toaster; pale tan; not really browned.

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My sauce was leftover from the day before; slightly separated. Still tasted fantastic.

Assembly: place two hot muffin halves on each plate. Top with a slice of Canadian bacon and then a poached egg. Pour a big dollop of sauce on top. We like them served with briefly steamed asparagus spears in the spring and steamed broccoli spears the rest of the year.  Dig in!

Perfectly poached eggs make the best eggs benedict! Messy but yummy!

Perfectly poached eggs make the best eggs benedict! Messy but yummy!

Roasted Swordfish with Red Peppers and Onions

Fall is red pepper season; green all summer…done ripening at last! They were on sale last week at the grocery store. They are a decent value right now because red peppers are ripe peppers and produce is always cheaper when plentiful. So I was thinking about making something with them. I wanted to create a special fish dish; as close as I could remember to something I enjoyed many years ago at a Hispanic restaurant in northern New Jersey. Big homey place, no one spoke English on the staff but the food was incredible and we had the best time there. I enjoyed a roasted swordfish with peppers that was so moist, a huge steak and really tasty. Been wanting to replicate it for a long time. Finally I tried and succeeded the first time!

I know, swordfish is pricey and some folks think it isn’t as good a health choice as say, wild salmon, but I like to vary my seafood. It isn’t like I eat swordfish that often; maybe once a year. I served this for a Sunday supper for my mom and she really enjoyed this meal. I loved the veggies and the flavor they gave to the fish. Delicate and moist; no dried out fillets for us! The lower oven temperature helps keep it from sizzling up. I allotted 4 ounces for each of us; not that pricey when you don’t serve over-sized portions. Bought it frozen and just defrosted it in cold water (vacuum sealed by the seller) – no marinating or other tricky stuff.

The lemon slices and potatoes are my additions to what I remember from that restaurant meal. I used my own homegrown fingerling potatoes: great flavor and they make the dish seem so elegant. Simple and delicious for a memorable dining experience for not that much money.

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Angie’s Swordfish with Peppers
Serves 2

1 swordfish steak; about 8 ounces
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 big red pepper cut in half and then thin strips
1 large yellow onion cut in long strips
6-8 fingerling potatoes
½ a lemon sliced thinly

1-2 Tbsp. white wine

Directions:

Sprinkle the swordfish steak with sea salt and pepper; about ¼ tsp salt and a good grind of pepper. Heat half of the olive oil in a fire proof pan that can go straight into the oven. Add the pepper and onion let them cook at a middle flame; stir occasionally. Cook until softened; 5-6 minutes. I like to add half the lemon slices and let them start to cook as well. Remove veggies from the pan to a covered plate, add the other Tbsp. EVOL to the same pan, let it heat until fairly hot but not smoking and add the swordfish, brown for 5 minutes on each side; until getting some decent color. Once the fish has been flipped add the fingerling potatoes to start cooking. If they are small potatoes, leave whole, cut larger ones down the length into two halves so they roast faster.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees while the peppers/onions/fish cook. Using a big spoon, heap some of the half cooked red peppers and onions on top of the fish and the rest around it in the pan. Sprinkle the lemon slices over the top of it all. Drizzle the wine over top.  Can use broth if you don’t like to cook with wine. Put the lid on tight. Bake for 25 minutes or so until the potatoes are done. Cut the fillet in half and serve on warmed plates. A green salad or some sliced cucumbers/tomatoes make an excellent side dish to this entrée. Enjoy!

Spaghetti Eggplant Turrets (Towers of Yumminess)

Spaghetti is an American classic.  I don’t make it enough, especially since going gluten free.  That may change since I started to read Mario Batali’s newest cookbook “America Farm to Table”.  I cooked up a storm this past weekend making his eggplant and angel hair turrets.  What’s a turret?  A tower of yumminess!farm to table cookbook

Having a surfeit of eggplants I was diving into all my eggplant recipes to determine the best way to utilize my crop of purple beauties. This one is a winner.

We devoured it by candlelight on my back porch the other Saturday night, bees wax candles to be exact.  I thought for a moment that my man was going to lick his dinner plate! It was rewarding to see him so enraptured by my cooking.

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I made a few changes so this is an adaptation of the recipe.  I advise reading it through twice so you don’t screw it up! I used less red pepper flakes than the original recipe; up it to a tsp. if you dare!  Yes, it uses instant potato flakes and they work fantastically to coat the eggplant.    I used my own tomato sauce I had made the night before from the last of my fresh tomatoes.  This recipe serves 4.

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Eggplant and Pasta Turrets

4 tbsp. EOL

2 large eggs

1 cup instant mashed potato flakes

1 large eggplant or 2 medium ones

½ cup onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, sliced

2 oil packed anchovy fillets plus 1 tbsp. of the packing oil

1 28 oz can of tomatoes, crushed by hand plus all the can juice or your own homemade tomato sauce, unseasoned

½ tsp. red pepper flakes

Kosher salt

1  12 oz package gf spaghetti

½-2/3 cup shredded whole milk mozzarella cheese

Fresh basil leaves

Eggplant: Place the eggs in a wide shallow bowl, beat well.  Put the potato flakes into a second shallow bowl or a wax paper covered plate.  Slice the eggplant into 1/3 inch slices.  Dip into the eggs, let excess drip off and dredge in the potato flakes.

Heat a large Teflon pan, add 2 tbsp EVOL.  Let heat to medium hot, add the eggplant slices, cook 2-3 minutes a side.  Place cooked eggplants on a paper towel lined plate.  Do a second batch of slices.  I put my cooked slices on a small baking sheet and put them into a 350 oven which I then turned off.  They stayed hot and I felt a tad more sure that they were fully cooked.

Make the sauce: heat the remaining EVOL in a large pot, add the onion, sauté until slightly softened; 2 minutes, add the sliced garlic, red pepper flakes, mashed up anchovy fillets, oil of fillets and the tomatoes.  Cook, stirring often; 12-15 minutes.

Pasta: Cook the pasta in a big pot of boiling salted water. Drain it one minute before the package directions say it will be done. Save a cup of the pot water to thin the pasta.

Use the eggplant fry pan (wipe out the brown bits of crust) and ladle in 2-3 big scoops of the sauce and the pasta.  Cook one minute, turn off the stove and add the cheese, stir well.

Construction of the turrets:

Place a big spoonful of sauce on each plate.  Top with an eggplant slice (I used my biggest slices for the bottom layer) and then top with a big twirl of the pasta mixture.  Top with another eggplant slice and then another pasta twirl.  Do this again.  Top with a dab of the red sauce.  You can also top it with some hot pepper jelly which is a surprisingly good addition!  I did sprinkle our towers with a few torn basil leaves.

Dive in!  And check out this cookbook; chock a block full of great relatively healthy recipes. This was one of the more complex ones; most seem fairly straight forward and sound darn delicious.

Originally published in my blog October 2014.  I made this the other weekend and decided I just had to share it again.  Do use the red pepper jelly if you have any; it is amazing!

Sassy Sweet and Sour Pork

Eating out at Chinese restaurants is nearly impossible for me. No PF Changs has arrived in the Valley so that great choice for eating gf Chinese is not available…. Soy sauce is generally unsafe unless you bring your own, ditto for a few other sauces and the eggroll wrappers, wonton wrappers and steamed buns are wheat based…sad news for us celiacs.

Still, there is an alternative to Chinese takeout: home cooking. I make some rocking good Chinese foods to satisfy my cravings.  My latest is sweet and sour pork over rice.  A classic; my mom used to make it long long ago!  I hadn’t tried it since I went gf but have felt a yearning for that incredibly addictive sweet and sour sauce.  So I went to my reliable source; Betty Crocker…and modified from there to make it gf for me.

I used baby bok choy, red pepper and brown rice; can use green pepper if you prefer, big ribs of bok choy and white rice.  Your choice.  I was out of chunk pineapple so I used a can of rings.  If rings, use a knife to cut them up while still in the can into about 6 chunks by cutting down vertically with a long knife. Be sure to use pineapple canned in its own juice not syrup.

The sauce flavor is excellent;if you have any leftovers – makes a great lunch. Best of all it is easy to put together and you can be flexible with the ingredients. Win!

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Angie’s Sweet and Sour Pork

Ingredients:

¼ cup gf flour mix: I used my standard mix; recipe below

2 tsp. ground ginger

1 lb pork shoulder or boneless pork chops, cut into ½ inch cubes

3 tbsp. mild olive oil

1  13 oz can pineapple chunks or rings in juice.  Drain, reserve juice

¼ c apple cider vinegar

¼ c. gf soy sauce

1.5 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

¼ cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

¼ tsp. pepper

1 medium onion, diced

1 red pepper cut into fat strips and then across into 3 sections

1 can bamboo shoots or sliced water chestnuts; drained,

2-3 baby bok choy cut into 1 inch sections or cut up 3 ribs of bok choy

½ tsp siracha sauce or chili sauce (1-2 tsp)

2.5 cups hot cooked rice

Directions: Mix the flour with the ginger in a bag and toss the pork cubes with it until they are all coated.  Heat a large frying pan, add the olive oil.  Heat to medium hot and add the pork cubes.  Fry stirring occasionally until the cubes are browned. If you have too many to brown; use two frying pans. Add the onion after the cubes are at least half browned. Add about 1/4 cup water to the reserved pineapple juice to make a cup of liquid.  Add the flour/ginger remains to the pan of browned pork cubes.  Stir for a minute.  Add the juice, the soy sauce, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce; heat until it boils, stirring constantly.  Boil a minute, turn down heat, add sugar, salt, pepper. Cover and cook at least 20 minutes, preferably 30 minutes.  Add more water if needed.  Add the pepper chunks and bok choy, cook 5 minutes, add the bok choy, bamboo shoots and siracha sauce.  Cover five more minutes.  Serve over hot rice.  Five servings.

Brown Rice Flour Mix
2 c brown rice flour

2/3 c potato starch

1/3 c tapioca flour

Or for a quick flour dip mix try ½ cup coconut flour and ½ cup white rice flour.