Spicy Chicken Meatball Stir-Fry

My fixation on tiny chicken meatballs continues. These ones are made of ground chicken thigh meat; far juicier than breast meat. I buy this freshly made at Valley Farm Markets. Great meats, poultry and produce. Plus decent prices.

Actually; these meatballs are sort of medium-small sized. They are simple to mix up in a mixing bowl, glop out with a big dinner spoon and bake on a big rimmed pan lined in parchment paper. Baking is so simple and time saving compared to frying while turning them constantly. Easy clean up if you do the parchment paper.

Meanwhile, I make a somewhat spicy sauce and then cut up veggies and saute for a mini stir fry. Blend it all together… Delish! You can alter it to make it spicier or even milder; add more or less hot sauce.

meatball stir fry 2

meatball stirfry 1

Chicken Meatball Stir fry

Ingredients
1 lb ground chicken; preferably thigh meat
1 egg; beaten a bit
1-2 Tbsp. finely chopped red onion or shallot
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
¼ tsp. garlic powder
½ tsp. sea salt
1/3-2/3 cup gf breadcrumbs

Mix all in big bowl. Line rimed sheet with parchment paper. Glop on the meatballs with a dinner spoon; mine are about 1 1/3 inch in diameter. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. Let cool.
What they bake make a sauce
Mix in a heavy bottomed saucepan
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp. mild olive oil
1 Tbsp brown sugar; packed
1 big garlic clove minced
¼ tsp. red pepper flakes; scant for me; 8 year old doesn’t like spicy
1/4 to 1 tsp. hot sauce; I used 1/4 tsp., decent heat level for a delicate tummy
1/8 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
½-3/4 tsp. fresh ground ginger root (I keep mine in the freezer)

Cook 2-4 minutes on medium

Heat pot of water; make half a box of gf spaghetti.

Veggie Stir-fry

Ingredients
3 stalks celery sliced in ¼-1/3 slices
½ small red onion cut in inch long thin strips
1 large garlic clove minced
½ can of bamboo shoots
2-3 stalks kale torn off ribs
2 large or 4 smaller radishes, 6 if tiny; sliced 1/8 inch thick
1 Tbsp olive oil

Melt oil in mini wok or fry pan. Add celery; cook a minute, add onion, cook another 1-2 minutes, add garlic, stir and cook a minute, add kale and radish slices, cook 1-2 minutes, stirring add bamboo shoots and then stir. You want a bit of crunch still in the radishes and celery. Add the sauce, stir well, add half- 2/3 of the meatballs, stir around well. Add cooked spaghetti and stir. Serve hot. Enjoy. Now that’s a spicy meataball!

PS: I used the rest of the meatballs to make Italian Wedding Soup; Manga!

Holiday Wrap Up

I’ve been busy celebrating the holidays including baking lots of cookies and cakes. A delightful cranberry crackle pie, a pumpkin pie, a lemon poke cake…. Great meals, lots of delish treats. Not finding time for writing posts. But tasty foods came out of my kitchen most mealtimes. Made muffins the other day; chocolate chip pumpkin muffins, more Russian teacakes to give to a friend and an amazing orange chiffon cake for my birthday that no one remembered to photograph. It was scratch, no mix used, and utterly divine….from my Annalise Roberts Heritage Baking Cookbook. Worth all the effort of grating orange zest and the beating of many eggs!
cranberry crackle pie

We have indulged in waffles a few times and chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. Chicken pot pie, Caesar salad, roasted chicken, shrimp scampi, and baby back ribs. Oh-my-goodness, the yummy gluten free foods that I produced over these past 2.5 weeks.

It is not difficult to cook gluten free especially if you eat foods naturally gluten free; potatoes, rice, beans, unprocessed proteins and lots of vegetables that are cooked from fresh without the need for falling back on expensive and not-that-tasty processed foods.

pie bag OXO

My wrist has improved somewhat and I got a great new pie rolling out device; pie bag from OXO; slithery smooth clear plastic, non-stick and hugely helpful: I was able to finally roll my crust thin enough to satisfy my own standards as to pie baking. It was the lid on the chicken pot pie and it was flaky, tender and so delish my guy was thieving bites of it an hour later when he walked by the pot pie pan! He is not gluten free either! Apparently, he just loves a delicious pie crust.

Simply-Nature-Brown-Rice-Crackers

Got some great crackers at Aldi’s the other week; brown rice flour ones; nice snappy flavor and only $2 a box so definitely a find.

I bought a bag of their gf tiny pretzels and dipped them in melted chocolate. Amazing flavor! Super cheap compared to the small bag of them at Giant for $4.50. I am a fan of their organic whole milk; I use it to make real yogurt in my Instant Pot. It is rich and creamy with a wonderful subtle flavor; tastes great even without jam! Lots of tasty chocolate that is marked gf and usually made in Germany. I especially love the dark chocolate with hazelnuts. I am waiting for them to bring back the gf hot pockets made with pepperoni and pizza sauce; so so miss that product.

I searched for my favorite brats; none to be found. Darn; they were so delightful. Maybe they will get some in soon. Happy shopping there if you are gf; best prices in my neck of the woods!

Holiday Cooking for GF Friends and Family

Holidays are a joyous time but they are also a stressful one for those of us with celiac or gluten allergies. We have a difficult road dealing with holiday work parties, festive outings, dinners with family and or friends. Some people make it easy for us to participate and some try but make errors that cause upset digestive systems. I myself am rather leery of all those situations except my family gatherings. My sisters and brothers understand my dietary restrictions really well and never cook stuff on the table that I cannot eat.  They try had to find safe places to eat out, which isn’t easy in my geographic area. They don’t want to go far and close by my home there are extremely limited choices. All that said, if you need to cook for someone who is gluten free there are a number of great choices of what to serve and there are some simple protocols to follow. cherry sunrise pie

Cherry Sunrise Pie; can  use a premade gf crust. No baking then!

apple pie done

Gluten is in all wheat-based ingredients; from all purpose flour, to rye flour, whole wheat, spelt, farro and barley grains/flours. So, I have to avoid them completely. Even a quarter teaspoon in your dessert or sauce is enough to cause major digestive pain.

One easy way to go is to make a meal that is all naturally gluten free; baked potatoes, steak, roasted or grilled chicken, fish without breading, pork chops, fried or mashed potatoes, rice: all safe. Beware of breading on proteins unless you are creating it with gf flour or gf breadcrumbs.  Veggies are safe unless they come with a crumb topping or other fancy stuff; read the label! Be careful with spice mixes; sometimes they have flour in to facilitate flow; stick to McCormick; their single spice containers are generally very safe.

You might want to focus on a gluten free dessert like a cake,pie or cookies for your company. I have some advice below for you for each of these categories and there are many options for gf desserts on my blog; just type in what you want like cake or pie or cookies and see what comes up!

chicken with broc

Stir fry; I used cornstarch in a slurry to thicken the sauce.

First some entree and sauce advice: no regular flour can be in that gravy or sauce. No way! An easy substitution is either white or brown rice flour in the same proportions as regular flour stirred into the gravy or sauce. I have gone with each of them several times. I slightly prefer the brown rice in gravy. Other gravy thickener choices are cornstarch, sweet rice flour, potato flour or arrowroot. It should function pretty much identically to the all purpose flour in your recipe for these items of gravy or sauce.

Most proteins are naturally gluten free but be careful of injected broth or marinades; often have some small amounts of flour which renders them uneatable for folks with celiac or a wheat allergy. This happens in turkeys and often hams. Read the labels! I look for a GF stamp/sign.  FYI: Fake crab is the one seafood I cannot eat; it is wheat based. Eat the real deal!

Be careful making soups or stews; many canned broths have a small amount of gluten/wheat in them. Read that label. Aldi’s has some great gf broths at excellent prices.

choco tart in pan

Chocolate silk tart ready for embellishment and devouring!

Now desserts: If you are making a dessert it is a different ball game going gf. A mix that you add eggs, butter and milk to is a great starting place. If you buy a gf mix for a cake I suggest you also buy some throw away aluminum pans to use; your pans may have tiny amounts of food particles from past baking. Better safe than sorry as even that tiny amount would be problematic. If the dessert requires a graham cracker crust just buy a readymade one in the gf section; the ones I make with gf crackers cost just about as much as a readymade one and it is a real time and labor saver.

choc pavlova minus choco

Chocolate pavlova: if you can make meringue in your mixer you can make this awesome company dessert.

If you want to make cookies; there are gf mixes out there. You might even find readymade gf dough. Just be sure to lay down some aluminum foil on the baking sheet to keep any stray tiny crumbs of old cookies at bay. May I recommend Russian teacakes; easy to make the dough; then form balls and bake; lots of powdered sugar on top after they are cooling. Delicate and delicious; my family says they are even better gf than when they were wheat based. The recipe is on my blog. I have a gf holiday baking cookbook as well as a Christmas gf cookie cookbook and some in my favorite Annalise Roberts cookbook.

My stollen recipe is off the King Arthur website; they have a great selection of gf baked goods including cookies and pastries. And there is always pinterest; I have found great things there.

stollen baked

Christmas stolen breads; super yummy; look on King Arthur’s website. Pretty easy too!

In summary; read labels, try to cook naturally gf and don’t try to make too many gf items your first time or two; think one new recipe at a time!  You will be rewarded with gratitude from the person who has to be gluten free and you will feel great for your efforts. I will be posting and reposting holiday baking recipes in the next 2-3 weeks so you may find some awesome gf holiday treats. There are even more in my large catalog of blog posts so use the search feature to see what I have available to shine for your holiday gathering.  Best of luck to you in your holiday gluten free adventure!

Alsatian Apple Tart; Deliciously Creamy

 

I bought a great gf cookbook a few  years ago.. I have been too busy to do much fancy baking plus my wrist has made it impossible to roll out pie crust; this is my first rolled out crust since last June. Annalise G. Roberts wrote my favorite gf cookbook “Gluten-Free Baking Classics”.  In “ The Heirloom Collection” she re-creates many classic recipes we all love but in a gluten free version. Eighteen cakes, thirteen muffins, scones and quick breads, sixteen cookies, twenty breads as well as eleven tarts. And some other misc. baked goods. SO many yummy looking things to bake. All gluten free. And knowing Annalise Roberts, all yummy!  Of all I have made from it this is possibly my favorite recipe. I know you will enjoy it too.

She starts with a section on how to take a wheat flour based recipe and make it gluten free; very interesting: I have a few cherished recipes I would love to convert.  She is such a reliable and careful baker; all her recipes turn out exactly as promised. With so many great looking recipes and if you have any of her other cookbooks you will definitely want this one.

Anyway back to my tart: I was looking for an apple recipe that only needed a few apples, cause that’s all I had and this tart caught my eye. I had everything I needed and I remember how delightful it was last time. My brother ate two slices and his wife ate my crust happily; apparently she never does that.  Aiden loved it as well.  Definitely a hit.

It was a very easy recipe; make the tart shell and while it pre-bakes, peel and slice the apples and mix up the custard. Arranging the apples took me 3-4 minutes and another 30 seconds to pour over the custard and carefully place it in my oven for a transformational baking.alsatian apple tart 002

This tart has a lovely texture; the apple slices are soft but held their shape and the custard is silky and subtle. The long baking makes the crust very crisp. No ice cream needed; this is perfect just by itself.

alsatian apple tart 007

After making this tart the first time I noticed that this is the baked good featured on the back cover of the book; a place of honor for a fantastic apple treat. So freaking good; you must try it even if you use a wheat crust. Alsace-Lorraine is an area in Germany close to France; over the years it has been passed back and forth a few times. One of my ancestors is from this area so I was thrilled to find a recipe my great great grandmother might have baked!alsatian apple tart 004

Alsatian Apple Tart
6 large slices or 8 skinny ones

Crust:
1 c plus 2 tbsp brown rice flour mix (at bottom of recipe)
2 tbsp sweet rice flour
1 Tbps. granulated sugar
½ tsp xanthan gum
¼ tsp salt
6 Tbps. cold butter cut into 6 chunks
1 lg egg
2 tsp fresh orange, lemon juice, even lime juice works

Spray a nine – ten inch tart pan that has a 1 ½ inch side with cooking spray, set aside. I use a ceramic ten inch pan but if you have one of those tricky deep tart pans with a removable bottom that would work perfectly.

Mix dry ingredients in bowl of a stand electric mixer. Add butter and mix until crumbly and resembling coarse meal. Add egg and juice. Mix until it comes together into big chunks. Shape into a ball with your hands. Put it on a crust sized piece of wax paper (14 x 14 inches more or less), flatten the crust ball some; put on top of it another piece of wax paper and chill it all in your fridge 15-20 minutes.

Roll out the flattened ball into a pie crust in a pie bag or between the two sheets of wax paper, try to get the thickness even, no thick middle! I like to sprinkle a bit of my flour mix on the crust as it gets thinner so it doesn’t stick to the pie bag/wax paper. Peel off one side of paper and place in the tart pan, be sure to center it. Remove other slice of wax paper. Crimp edges all around. Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes until light brown.  Let cool.

Filling:

3-4 medium to large sized apples, yellow delicious work particularly well as they don’t squish down too much. I have used Fuji in the past as it also doesn’t get too mushy.

Peel apples, quarter, cut out core, slice into 1/2 inch thick slices (8 for a medium apple)

Mix in a medium mixing bowl with:

6 tbsp. sugar
2 eggs; stir well
Add 1 cup heavy cream, 1 tbsp. milk, 1 tsp. vanilla extract, ¼ tsp. cinnamon.

Arrange the apple slices in the warm/hot tart shell, squash them close together. Pour the custard filling over the apples.

Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 50-55 minutes until the custard is set and the crust is light brown

Cool the pie at least 1 hour before serving. You can sprinkle the slices with confectioner’s sugar if you like to gild the lily; not really necessary in my mind.

Brown Rice Flour Mix (same as King Arthur GF Flour mix)
2 c brown rice flour, finely ground
2/3 c potato starch (Not potato flour)
1/3 c tapioca flour

This recipe is from Annalise Roberts’ great cookbook: Gluten-Free Baking Classics – The Heirloom Collection.

Originally published in November 2015, minor changes to text.

Banana Custard Pie, 2.0

 

My mom used to make a similar banana custard pie when I was in my thirties and I moved back to PA – lived close enough to come home some weekends; for some reason she never made it for us as kids.  I remember cutting up and setting the banana rounds in the baked pie shell for her.  The contrast of the rich custard, the flaky crust and the fluffy cream with the delicate banana flavor is just so memorable.    Today I used a shortbread crust for first time and it was very well received.  My grandson said it was my best pie ever! Easy as can be too!

Notes: I will freeze the egg whites to make angel food cake this winter. Waste not want not!!  In a past version I used a slightly different egg custard – both are delish!  This one might be slightly easier to construct and it sure got firm; I have had one or two failure custards that never did fully gel. I suppose you could use a box custard but this is infinitely superior.

Nonna’s Banana Custard Pie

Make the custard first as it takes a while to cool down. Next do the crust.  Don’t do the bananas until you are ready to pour the custard. The whipped cream should be make right before you use it.

This is an old shot from last time I made it; slightly different crust but I wanted you to get the idea of the sliced bananas.
Another older picture; lots of creamy custard with banana treasure in there!

Filling:

4 egg  yolks

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup corn starch

½ tsp sea salt

2 cups whole milk or 2 percent, no lower fat than that

1 tbsp. butter cut into small cubes.

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

2 large ripe bananas

Directions: Beat the egg yolks until thick; add the sugar in a slow stream. Heat the milk in a 1 ½ qt sauce pan, add the cornstarch and salt to the egg/sugar mix; then add the hot milk in a slow stream beat/stir with a metal whisk as it heats. Pour it all back into the saucepan and cook on medium low heat, stirring constantly with a wire whisk. Once it reaches a boil; turn heat down to low and time it for one minute, STIRRING CONSTANTLY.  Add the butter and stir as it melts, then the vanilla, stir.  Pour into a mixing bowl, let cool a bit and then put a film of plastic wrap on the top; press it down onto the custard.  Chill at least an hour before using. Do not use until cold.

CRUST: I am still not rolling out pie crust;  so I made a crumb filling like shortbread cookies using my stand mixer:

1 cup KA all purpose gf flour

¼ c sugar

1 tsp. xanthan gum

¼ tsp. cinnamon

Mix in stand mixer and add 5 Tbsp. cold butter cut up in 6-7 pieces; blend until crumbly and press in pie pan

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 17-18 minutes until the crust is light brown.  Cool at least 30 minutes.

Cut peeled bananas into 1/3-1/2 inch rounds and cover the bottom of the pie crust with them close together.  Pour the custard over the sliced fruit and smooth the top.

Chill pie 1- 4 hours before slicing and serving cold topped with a big dollop of whipped cream.  Note: I confess we didn’t do this step of chilling it; we ate it right away as there was no time for chillin.

Whipped cream: Beat cold whipping cream with an electric mixer until it holds soft peaks; add 2 Tbsp. powdered sugar and ½ tsp. vanilla.  Do not beat any more, just stir the sugar in. I didn’t bother with vanilla; made this part in my mom’s assisted living room; left the vanilla bottle at home. Still great.  banana custard pie

I think it is best served the same day you make it, or no more than 12 hours after baking for optimal flavor.  The crust will get soggy if too much time passes. Mine was still very good the next day; just not as great as when really fresh.

Note: I froze my egg whites for later use in a cake. No wasting them, that’s for sure!

Brown Rice Flour Mix (Same as King Arthur GF All purpose blend)
2 c brown rice flour (finely ground)

2/3 c potato starch – Not potato flour!

1/3 c tapioca flour