gluten free cooking

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.

Monk Fish with Ratatouille…Early Fall on a Plate

My mom sometimes made fish for dinner and one of her favorites was monkfish, sometimes called poor man’s lobster. If you google monkfish it is one big ugly black fish. Luckily it tastes pretty good and is a change of pace from the fish I seem to be in a rut of choosing. I can’t remember how my mom made it but I saw this recipe on epicurious and decided to try it with some fresh veggies straight from the garden as a treat for her.  We both love ratatouille so what could be better?

I made a few small changes and cut the ingredient amounts in half for just two (my mom and I).  I was blown away by the rich flavors of the roasted ratatouille and the delicate but meaty monk fish fillet.  I think its nick name is due to the texture which does remind me of lobster, sort of.  It isn’t the most popular of fish (insert salmon her!) but this dish might change your mind and make the list of top ten fish recipes for your family. We ate every bite of the fish and those incredible veggies. I almost forgot to mention; this entree is ridiculously easy to make and is naturally gluten free.  Perfect!

The amounts are flexible; if you love eggplant it could be a bit more and if you have yellow squash instead of zuke that is perfect. I used that skinny Japanese eggplant but any regular eggplant cut in strips and then cubes would be perfect. The original recipe used canned marinara sauce but I chose to use some tomato paste from a tube and the fresh plum tomatoes. I was concerned about having a runny sauce but if you want more liquid add some sauce to thin things down.

I carefully transferred the dish to a glass oven pan and baked it just long enough to get the pan hot before putting on the lid and heading over to where my mom lives.  You don’t have to take that step but this is an easy meal to transport which makes my life a bit easier.

My starch was fire roasted russet potatoes but I am thinking this would be awesome with either gf noodles, gf pasta or rice pilaf.

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I just sprinkled dried basil on top of the veggies. Will stir and add fish before roasting some more. You can add more wine if necessary.

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Capers are on top, in my lidded glass oven dish.

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About to dig in…yes…that’s a paper plate. I am at my mom’s assisted living room……easy clean up. This is just a blog. Not the food network, lol.

Monkfish with Ratatouille

INGREDIENTS

1/2 pound eggplant, cut into 1-inch cubes (1.5 cups)

1 cup sliced zucchini

1/2 large red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 medium onion, cut into thin segments from top to bottom

2 teaspoon olive oil, divided

Vegetable oil cooking spray

2 to 4 tbsp. dry white wine (or red if you prefer)

1 large clove garlic chopped coarsely

2 tbsp. tomato paste.

3 big plum tomatoes cut into chunks

2 monkfish fillets (about 5-6 ounces each)

1 tsp dried basil or 1.5 tbsp. fresh

1 tablespoon drained capers

PREPARATION

Heat oven to 425°F.

Coat a shallow baking pan with cooking spray. Place eggplant, zucchini, bell pepper and onion on the sheet and drizzle with 1 teaspoon olive oil, season with salt and pepper and toss a bit…I used a pancake turner to do that operation. Then spread the vegetables out over the pan so they are in a thin layer and roast until tender, about 20 minutes.

Sprinkle with white wine, garlic and tomatoes. Cover loosely with foil and roast 5-10 minutes more. Remove pan from oven. Stir in basil. Lay fish fillets in the middle of the veggies; push them aside first to make a cleared space; drizzle with remaining teaspoon oil; season with salt and pepper. Cook about 10-12 minutes.  Sprinkle with capers and fresh basil if you have some.

I served this with grilled potatoes but if you are low carbing leave off the starch and you won’t be disappointed by the results.

Corn Chowder, Delightfully Fresh and Delish!

Corn on the cob continues to be tasty if you can source it locally.  I found some the last two weekends and have made some delightful corn chowders.  While both were excellent I chose to share this slightly more traditional version with you. Using just 2 big ears of corn I was able to make 4 servings of hearty soup.  I took a recipe off the epicurious website and made only a few changes – it was very easy to put together. This version met my three qualifications: gluten free, simple and yummy.

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Even if the corn you find isn’t the greatest this late in the season I am betting this chowder will be a hit with your family.  The mixture of veggies adds so much flavor especially since they are not masked by a lot of spices.

Notes: I put in the cobs (I cut each one in half to fit) as my soup broth simmers because they are crammed full of corny flavor that can perfect your chowder. Do not leave out or change the cream; it isn’t that much per serving and it won’t have the right consistence without the heavy cream.  Finally, be careful with the broth; a lot of commercial broth’s are not gluten free; for some weird reason there is gluten in many varieties.  Kitchen Basics is great or Kitchen Accomplice concentrate (used that this time) is very convenient; squeeze bottle in the fridge.

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Angie’s Corn Chowder

Serves four

Ingredients

1 slice of bacon, diced

1 large onion, diced (1 cup)

1 large carrot diced

1 small celery rib diced

1 medium potato peeled, either Russet or Gold Yukon

2 ½ cups chicken broth, low salt or homemade

1 sprig of fresh thyme

2 large ears of corn; cut off the cobs.

¾ cup heavy cream

½ tsp. sea salt

¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
Directions: Sauté the diced bacon in a large heavy saucepan.  Remove the crisp bacon.  Add the onion, carrot and celery.  Sauté ten minutes, until the vegetables are fairly soft.

Add the potato, broth, thyme, and corn cobs; simmer 15-20 minutes until the potato chunks are soft.  Remove the thyme and corn cobs.  Add the corn, cream, salt and pepper.  Cook 3-5 more minutes.  If it seems too thick add up to another half cup of broth. Serve with the bacon sprinkled on top or stirred in.

Optional additions which I didn’t use; half a red bell pepper cooked with the carrot/onion/celery, half a sweet potato diced and added with the white potato and 1 diced tomato and some chives sprinkled on top of the soup.  I might try some or all of them next time, yes I plan on making this again soon before the corn gets too tired; it was delightfully fresh tasting.  You could leave off the bacon if you are meat free; substitute in some good quality olive oil; maybe 2 tbsp. of it and use a veggie broth instead of the chicken broth.

It was perfect just as I made it but I am betting any number of variations would work. Have fun with what you have available and what you like to eat.  Soup isn’t as technical as baking so mix it up! That is my philosophy of cooking with veggies.

Source recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/corn-chowder.