Category Archives: gluten free

Dec6

Spiced Cashews (or mixed nuts) with Rosemary

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2012-12-05 010

I just saw a note in the corner of my screen and it was from WordPress wishing me a Happy 1 year blogging anniversary!   I had totally forgotten.  But Yay!   1 year.

Here is a great recipe to share with you today as we are in the thick of the Holiday Season.  This is the perfect thing to bring to holiday parties.   It only takes about 20 minutes tops- and 15 of those minutes are the nuts baking so you can do something else…like take a quick shower.

I prefer this with just Cashews because I think they taste better and looked nicer,  but they were good with mixed nuts too.   I am a little ticked at myself for not taking a picture last week before I brought the Spiced Cashews to a party.    The dish was an Read the rest of this entry →

Nov13

Artichoke Soup with Polenta Croutons

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I have decided to let go of my goal to exercise in the early morning before the kids wake up.    I am tired of being disappointed in myself before I have even stepped out of bed.   Who am I kidding?     It’s hard enough for me to get up at 5:30 or 6am with a good night sleep so it’s highly unlikely when I have been up with my daughter half the night.

About a month ago, we stopped letting Cecilia crawl into bed with us in the middle of the night and instead I bring her back into her room, half asleep, bumping into furniture and mumbling things I shouldn’t be.    She used to climb into our bed and we would hardly realize she was there but then she developed a kicking, whining 3 year old habit that just wasn’t working for us.   So the rules changed.  Now it feels like we have a newborn and sleepless nights make mommy very unproductive and forgetful and not as sweet as I want to be.    I think my kids slept better as babies than they do now.   Last night (for maybe the first time) I was in bed last night at 7:55pm and asleep by about 8:05 which meant that I got a solid 4 hours of sleep before my daughter woke me up for the first of 3 times starting at midnight.   And that is why I am able to write today 🙂

Cecilia says things like, “Mommy, I’m little.  I’m not a big girl.  I can’t sleep in my room all night,” and  typical things like “I scared” and  “Just lay with me a little bit and sing one song.”   But her excuses are becoming more creative.   She has decals of little pigs and birds in her room and her latest reason for not being able to sleep in her room is that the animals on her wall are talking too much.   I moved one of the pig decals away from the head of  her bed so the pig wouldn’t be so loud.   She’s a funny one!

I think (desperately hope) things are going to start to look up.   Mostly thanks to a clock.  The clock and my constant talks with her throughout the day about sleeping, plus a little bribing and a sleep chart with fun stickers and a trip to the toy store if she sleeps in her room for 7 nights in a row.   Oh my goodness.  I told Cecilia that a  nightlight clock was coming in the mail for her and it would help her sleep.   I thought the clock would arrive the next day but it took a whole week.   So everyday she would ask if her clock was here and said “Mommy, when the clock gets here I can sleep in my room alllllll night.”  But that meant that since the clock wasn’t here yet, she wouldn’t be sleeping in her room all night.  It was a long week anticipating that clock.   And now we have had the clock for about a week and I have thankfully seen some improvements.   But it’s baby steps.     She earned a couple stickers on that chart but let me tell you, she did not like it when I put an X on the chart.   Although I like how early my kids are going to bed now with daylight savings, my five year old, Max now wakes up at about 5:30 every morning.   Oh boy.   The 8pm bedtime for Mom might become regular.

It’s been a while since I have written and now you probably know why.  Here is an Artichoke Soup that I hope you enjoy!

And if you have any tips for me regarding kids sleep I am all ears!

It’s pretty easy and quick to make.

Artichoke Soup with Polenta Croutons- 4-6 servings

adapted from Giada De Laurentiis

2 TBSP Coconut Oil

2 Celery Stalks – chopped

1 medium onion – chopped

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

3 Cups Vegetable Broth

1/2 Cup Coconut Milk

12 oz. package of frozen artichoke hearts (or use canned artichoke in water)

1 Cup Kale or Spinach -chopped

2-3 garlic cloves -minced (only if you like garlic!)

For the Soup- Heat Coconut Oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.  Add the celery, onions, salt and pepper and cook for about 4-5 minutes until soft.  Add the Broth, Coconut Milk, and Artichokes and bring to a boil.  Cover and cook on low heat for about 10 minutes.   Pour the soup into a blender one cup at a time and puree.  Add the chopped kale or spinach last and pulse a few times.   Return Soup to the saucepan and add addition broth if it’s too thick.   In a small saucepan with a 1/4 tsp of Coconut oil, saute the garlic for several minutes.  Add to the pureed soup.   Serve with Polenta Croutons.

Polenta Croutons

1 Cup Polenta

3 Cups Water

1 tsp Salt

Prepare polenta according to package- 1 cups of Polenta in 3 cups of boiling water (or broth), stirring continuously until cooked.

Spread prepared polenta onto a greased baking sheet so it’s about 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick.   Bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes, until it is golden and crispy.  Cut with a pizza cutter and put a few pieces in each bowl.

Sep24

Tomato, Green Chili and Corn Tart

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Eric and I bought a bunch of Hatch roasted green chilies from a women on the side of the road in Taos, New Mexico thinking we would freeze most of them for later use.    Now we are wondering why we didn’t buy more!   First I made a batch of Green Chili Sauce and used it for a quick meal one night with a package of premade polenta, green chilies, cheddar cheese.  I had to go to a meeting that evening so I prepared the dish and left Eric with instruction to bake it for about 30 minutes.  I got home at the tail end of dinner to an almost finished baking dish.   It tasted somewhere between an enchilada and a tamale and had plenty of heat.

This week I made a tart using cherry tomatoes, roasted green chilies, and fresh sauteed corn.   I did cut a corner and used a frozen pie crust.  I know it’s shocking.   But true.  It was gluten free though which is really neither here nor there, but if you are GF, it is good to know that there are frozen pie crust options at the store.

I brought this to a friends house that night and actually finished baking it there because I was running late.   When I took it out of their oven, my friend starting digging in with a tortilla chip and eating it as an appetizer.  Not quite how I imagined it going down… but it worked.   And it disappeared pretty quickly.   So you could forgo the crust and make this into more of an appetizer/dip kind of dish. Read the rest of this entry →

Jul14

Avocado and Orange Salsa

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Here is a fresh take on chips and salsa or chips and guacamole.    It’s sort of like gualsa, but that just doesn’t sound right.  Call it what you will.

It is a great dish to bring to parties and has a burst of orange sweetness in every bite with some heat from the jalapenos.

Avocados are another food that I didn’t really eat until after college, which seems so weird now.  My son Max was eating guacamole when he was a year and a half.   But he also eats edamame which, again, I didn’t even know about til maybe ten years ago.     My friend Hillary really got me hooked on avocados when we moved to Crested  Butte after we graduated.  I was skeptical but it didn’t take more that a taste of her guacamole to turn me into a fan.   Avocados are a great source of healthy monounsaturated fat, are the best fruit source of Vitamin E, and studies show certain compounds in avocados help to prevent certain diseases like cancer and heart disease.    Eat ‘um up folks!

This is another recipe I adapted from the amazing cookbook Ripe by Cheryl Sternman Rule.   The photography is enough to make each dish look truly delicious and this recipe is just that.

The hardest part to this recipe is segmenting the orange.  But once you know how to do it, it’s actually pretty quick.   I use a serrated paring knife and cut off the rind on one end to make a flat area.   Then from top to bottom, I cut off the rind.    After all the rind is off,  I cut segments in between the white pith.   Many of you probably know this already but for those who don’t, here is the play by play- Read the rest of this entry →

Jun12

Polenta-Stuffed Swiss Chard with Roasted Garlic Tomato Sauce

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Here is one for all you garlic lovers!

Walking into a house to the smell of garlic roasting in the oven is so pleasing and comforting.

Garlic is said to have many healing properties and it is my go-to remedy when I start feeling a cold coming on.   My mom gave used to give it this to me as a kid and I still use it today.   You chop up a clove of garlic, put it on a spoon with a little raw honey on top and swallow it down.   I swear by it.   If you are worried about garlic breath, just have your significant other do it too.

This is such a great meal and not too time consuming.  I love polenta (as  you may have noticed) and how versatile it is.  You can eat a bowl of it like porridge with raisins and nuts, or with melted cheese and basil,  you can put it in the fridge so it gets hard and  make polenta cakes or fries, or as you will see here, you can use it as a stuffing.    This is another recipe I adapted from RIPE by Cherly Sternman Rule.  I have tried this with Chard and with Kale and while both taste great, the Chard leaves are bigger and make for easier burrito wrapping.  You could top if with your favorite tomato sauce if you don’t have time to make mine.  One night I was in a hurry and I used a spicy salsa and that tasted great too.  So do what you have time for.

Happy Eating!

Polenta-Stuffed Chard(serves 4-6)

3/4 Cup of Polenta-   the cooked polenta needs to be refrigerated for at least 1 hour

1 TBS Butter

1 tsp salt

pepper

1 Cup grated Parmesan  -divided

6 Large leaves Swiss Chard

Garlic Roasted Tomato Sauce (makes about a cup and a half)

1 Onion,  thinly sliced

4 Large Tomatoes

2 whole, unpeeled Garlic Cloves, top 1/4 inch chopped off

1/8 + Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

3 TBS Vegetable Broth or Water – or more

salt and pepper to taste

To Make Tomato Sauce: Preheat oven to 375 degrees.   On a baking pan, lay out a sheet of parchment paper (for easy cleaning).   Lay out the onions.  Core and quarter the tomatoes and lay on top of the onions.  Place the garlic bulbs around the tomatoes and drizzle olive oil on top, and sprinkle with salt.   Bake for 45 minutes or until tomatoes look shriveled.    Squeeze out the insides of the garlic cloves into a blender.  Put the tomatoes and onions in the the blender and all the juices.  Blend until smooth.

To make the Polenta-Stuffed Swiss Chard: In a medium saucepan, bring 3 cups of water and 1 tsp salt to a boil.  Whisk in the polenta and reduce heat.  Cook until thick, about 10 minutes, whisking occasionally.  Remove from heat, stir in the butter and 1/2 cup of  grated parmesan cheese and a pinch of pepper.     Let cool for a 10 minutes.   Meanwhile, coat the bottom of a square pan.  Pour the polenta into the pan and smooth the top.  Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and boil some water.   Remove the thick stem on each piece of Chard by making  a v-shaped cup down the middle.  Put leaves in a large bowl and cover with boiling water.   This makes the leaves easier to work with.  Remove after 3-4 minutes and pat dry.     Cut the Polenta into about 8 rectangular pieces.   If the piece is too big for the Chard, just make it smaller.

Spoon 1/4 cup of tomato sauce on the bottom of a baking pan.  Lay a piece of chard on a cutting board and place a piece of Polenta horizontally on the bottom part of the leave.  Fold the leave on each side over the polenta, encasing it as you would make a burrito.  Transfer to the baking pan, seam side down.  Repeat until finished.   Pour another 1/4- 1/2 cup of sauce over top the chard burritos and then sprinkle the top with the remaining cheese.

Bake for 10 minutes, the put under the broiler for another 1-3 minutes to brown the cheese.  Serve hot.

May30

Black Bean Veggie Burgers

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I don’t know about you, but there have been times in the past when I am heading to a BBQ and  just because it’s quick and easy, I run into the grocery store and pick up a box of Frozen Veggie Burgers.   They are never very satisfying and almost make me want to take a bite of a burger, almost.   Hmmm…is that grass-fed beef?  Well, those days are over.     Summer season is almost here, the weather is warming up and I have a delicious veggie burger recipe to share with you.  These are delicious and nutritious, and they won’t fall apart in your hamburger bun. This recipe makes about a dozen burgers and you can make them ahead, freeze these and you will be all set for the next party.

My one complaint with the homemade veggie burgers I have tried is that they are mushy and fall apart easily. II have tried cooking vegie burgers  in a pan as well as baking them but I think what works great with this recipe is doing both.  Fry them in a pan with a little coconut oil and then bake them for about 10-15 minutes.   If you had to choose one th0ugh, I would bake them.


The main ingredients are black beans and red rice. The red rice has a really great nutty flavor but if you don’t have red rice, don’t throw the recipe down and think you can’t make it. Just substitute brown rice or quinoa. I soaked dry black beans for 24 hours and cooked them the next day. You can skip this step and use canned beans, but the flavor won’t be quite as rich. I added Nutritional Yeast to these burgers, which gives it nice flavor, almost a cheesy flavor. It is also very nutritious- which I guess is obvious by the name nutritional yeast. It is rich in B vitamins, including B 12, which vegans need and it is one of the few NON- animal foods that is a complete protein, meaning it contains all nine essential amino acids that make up a protein. And it is not the same yeast that causes candida.


Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Black Bean Veggie Burger (makes 12-14 burgers)

1 Cup dry Black Beans soaked for 24 hours (equals 2 1/4 cups soaked beans) Or use Canned Beans

1 Cup Red Rice (cooked)
2 Farm Eggs
1 small Onion, chopped
1 small red pepper, chopped
2 garlic cloves
1/2 Cup Parsley, chopped
3 TBSP Nutritional Yeast
1/2 Cup breadcrumbs ( I used a GF breadcrumb)
1 tsp Paprika
1/2 tsp cumin
couple pinches of cayenne ( if you like spice)
1/2 tsp salt
Olive oil or Coconut Oil
TO MAKE- If you are using canned beans, jump to the rice. Otherwise, soak the bean for 24 hours, changing the water a couple times. Cook for an hour in a pan covered with boiling water, until soft. (OR use a pressure cooker). In a saucepan, cook the rice- use directions on package.
Heat oven to 300 degrees. In a food processor, add rice, beans, chopped onion, red pepper, garlic, and eggs. Pulse several times until ingredients combine well. You don’t want the mix to be totally smooth so don’t overdo it. Add parsley, nutritional yeast, breadcrumbs, paprika, cumin, salt, and cayenne. Pulse a few more times. The mixture will be pretty wet, but that’s okay.
Form mixture into patties. Pan fry about 4 patties at a time for 4-5 minutes on each side over medium heat. Repeat with the rest of the patties. Transfer the cooked burgers to a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes. I find that both pan frying and baking helped hold the burgers together, but you don’t have to do both.

Serve with lettuce, avocados and mustard!

Apr23

Green Curry with Vegetables and Tofu

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I am married to an incredibly organized man.  It seems like he has an excel spreadsheet for everything from doctors visits for each member of our family, to expenses, to how many miles he drives his car for each appointment.   It’s amazing.   We even had a spreadsheet for our wedding guest list, which  really came in handy for writing thank you notes and looking up someone’s  address.   And he has folders nicely labeled..    Thank goodness one of us is organized!

I admire his organizational skills and am SO grateful that he is diligent with updating all those spreadsheets.   Sometimes I will walk into Eric’s closet to put something away and think,  wow, even his shoes are nicely put away, his shirts are hanging in the same direction, t-shirts nicely folded and stacked.   And then there is my closet.    Read the rest of this entry →

Apr11

Farinata (chickpea flour flatbread) – 3 variations

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Last week I looked in my pantry and I noticed a glass canister full of Chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour that had sat there unused for a while and I wasn’t sure what to do with it.   I have added some of it to cookie recipes and other baked goods but was not happy with the flavor.  And I didn’t feel like making falafals.   So I googled “chickpea flour” and what I found was Farinata (aka Cecina or Socca).   I am half Italian and spent a year studying in Italy but I (shamefully) had never heard of Farinata, which is a chickpea flour flat bread.    It was in.   A naturally gluten free flatbread was right up my alley.  I feel like maybe I am the last to know about such a thing but am glad to add it to the mix and will certainly be making more of this soon.  Traditionally, all you need is chickpea flour, olive oil and water.

Farinata comes from Liguria, which is in northwest Italy, an area I have never been. My internet research taught me a little history of farinata.  The story goes that in the 1200’s, Genoa and Pisa were at battle- The Battle of Meloria.   Geneo defeated Pisa and were at sea heading home.  A violent storm hit the ship breaking open huge bins of chickpea flour.   Then next day there was a mixture of chickpea flour and salt water on the decks.   The soldiers didn’t have a lot of food so they gathered the batter and let it dry out on the decks, in the sun.  The heat of the sun turned it into a focaccia-like bread the next day and everyone ate it.  Ceci is pea in Italian and Farina is flour in Italian. Liguria borders France and in France they call this food, Socca.  It is a popular street food and also is served in pizzerias.   Farinata reminds me of something called “baba” that I ate when I was traveling with my brother in China.   We were in this remote town called LiJiang and we would pop into tiny hole in the wall rooms where elderly women were making these breads called baba.   Probably my favorite food in China…but my food palette wasn’t that broad when I was there.

You can eat farinata alone or make it into a pizza dough or add different herbs or spices.   I have made it 3 different ways and I think they are all delicious.  I made it with fennel seeds and then enjoyed it with avocado, olive oil and salt; I made it with fresh rosemary and topped it with a fresh spinch pesto; and I made it into a pizza adding a sweet potato to the batter and then topping the pizza with caramelized onion and roasted red pepper.    Last week I made this the traditional way and it was very good, although I made the batter too thick.   It should be thin, no more that 1/4 inch thick.

I love extra virgin olive oil, but it is not as food for you when heated past it’s smoke point ( over 250 or 300 degrees F) because the monounsaturated fatty acids (oleic acid) gets compromised.   You can read more about that here.   I experimented with butter and coconut oil and I think they both worked great.   You just have to check the oven and watch that they don’t burn.   I drizzled some Olive Oil over the bread after it was baked.   Traditionally farinata is cooked in a wood stove but I it is still really good cooked in a regular oven.  Although I look forward to trying the real thing one of these years in Italy!

This bread had a nutty flavor to it and there are a lot of ingredients you can add to flavor it -kalamata olives, cheese, garlic, sage or you could try to make a sweet flatbread with currants and orange zest.  Let me know if you have a good farinata recipe.

Here are a few recipes to work with…

Farinata with Fennel Seeds topped with Avocado, Olive Oil, and Salt

1 Cup Chickpea Flour

1 Cup plus 2 Tbsp Water

3/4 tsp Salt

2 Tbsp Butter or Coconut Oil – Melted

1 tsp Fennel Seeds

Mix all ingredients and let sit for an hour of two (or more if you want).  Preheat oven to 425 F.  Pour the batter into a greased 10-12″ pan (spring form, cast iron pan, pizza pan, copper pan or whatever you have).  Or bake in two batches- you don’t want the batter much thicker than 1/4 inch.  It should be a crisp bread.  Bake for about 20- 25 minutes- until it is golden brown.

Topping-

1 Avocado, sliced

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Salt

 Farinata with Fresh Rosemary topped with Spinach Pesto

1 Cup Chickpea Flour

3/4 tsp Salt

1 Cup plus 2 Tbsp Water

2 Tbsp Butter or Coconut Oil – Melted

1 tsp fresh rosemary -chopped

Mix all ingredients and let sit for an hour of two (or more if you want).  This could be made the day before.  Preheat oven to 425 F.  Pour the batter into a greased 10-12″ pan (spring form, cast iron pan, pizza pan, copper pan or whatever you have).  Or bake this in 2 smaller forms.  You don’t want it to be much thicker that 1/4 inch.    Bake for about 20- 25 minutes- until it is golden brown.

Sweet Potato Farinata Pizza with Caramelized Onion and Roasted Red Pepper

1 Cup Chickpea Flour

1 Cup plus 2 TBSP Water

1/2 tsp salt

1 Sweet Potato (peeled and steamed)

1 Tbsp Butter or Oil

Preheat oven to 425.  Mix together the flour and water and oil and salt and let it sit.   Meanwhile, steam the sweet potato for about 10 minutes or until  you can easily stick a for in it.   Mash it and add to the flour mixture and stir well.   Let this sit for an hour or two.   Bake for 30-35 minutes in a greased 9″ spring form pan or a cast iron skillet, or pizza pan.

Topping

1 Red Onion, Diced

1/2 Cup Roasted Red Pepper, sliced in small pieces

1 Tbsp Butter

Goat Cheese (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 F.  In a medium saucepan, saute the onions  in the butter over medium to low heat to caramelize.   Cook about 15 mintues.    Take half of the mixture and in a food processor, pulse til it forms a paste.  It can be a chunky paste.  Spread the onion paste on the baked farinata, add the rest of the onion on top and then sprinke the red onion on top.   Add Goat Cheese if you want.   Bake for about 5 minutes.


Mar8

Sweet Potato Cakes

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These are so delicious.  Really.  They are.  They are the perfect appetizer to bring to a party or would make a great lunch with a salad or soup.

I was looking at some food blogs a couple of months ago and I tend to be a little tab crazy. Oftentimes there are a dozen tabs open on my browser and I can’t even remember what linked me to where,  But somewhere along the way, someone recommended a cookbook that interested me and next thing I knew, I was ordering it.

It is a beautiful vegetarian cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi from his column ‘The New Vegetarian’ for London’s The Guardian’s Weekend magazine.   I looked at it for a month or so before I actually tried one of the recipes mainly because I couldn’t decide which to try first.   I think I made a good choice.  It was one of the less complicated recipes and since my kids love sweet potatoes, I thought they would love them.

My hopes were a little to high in that regard.   On the plate below, the only thing the kids ate, besides a fly size taste (and that might be too generous)  of the sweet potato cakes, were the carrots and peppers.   Followed by more carrots and peppers.  Followed by whole wheat toast with butter, sprinked with ground flax seed,  It’s one of the few things I can get away with!  Followed by another piece of toast with jelly – and some peanut butter hiding under it.   Oh well.   Just gotta keep trying I guess.  Eric and I talk the talk about being firm with the kids and saying, “if you don’t eat this, then you can go to bed hungry.” but we don’t walk the walk.   We cave.    After they took the ” try it bite” aka the “no thank you bite,”  they had worked themselves up to an intensity far beyond what you would think would be the normal scope for trying a bite of a new food.  It really would have been cruel not to give them something else to eat.

If you are making this for kids who don’t like spicy food  I would take out some of the mixture before adding the red pepper.  And if you don’t want to fry the cakes, I am sure they would taste great baked.  Let me know if you try that!

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as Eric and me.

RECIPE:  makes about 16-20 small cakes

(adapted from Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi)


2 medium Sweet Potatoes, cut into chucks

2 tsp Shoyu soy sauce

3/4 cup flour ( I used a gluten free blend, but use your favorite)

1 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp sugar

3 Tbsp green onions, chopped

1/2-1 tsp finely chopped red chili (OR NOT, if you are serving to kids or don’t like spice)

2 Tbsp butter, for frying

Sauce:

2 Tbsp mascarpone (sour cream or plain yogurt)

Juice from 1/2 a lemon

1 tbsp chopped parsley

1 Tbsp Olive oil

Steam sweet potatoes chunks for about 15 minutes, or until they are soft all the way through and you can easily stick a fork in it.    In a mixing bowl, mash the potatoes with a fork or potato masher.  Add shoyu, green onions, flour, salt, sugar, and pepper( if using) and mix.   Form into patties.

In a large pan on medium heat, melt 1 tbsp butter (or oil) and fry half of the cakes.  Fry for about 6 minutes on each side, until lightly browned.  Place in between two sheets of paper towel to soak up the extra butter. Repeat with the rest of the cakes

For the Sauce, mix all ingredients well and add a dollop on top of each sweet potato cake.