Polenta Veggiola: no gluten, no dairy, no cow's milk

This one is for you "Seuss-Seuss", my very OLDEST BFF (yes it's a Dr. Seuss reference and yes, that is what we called eachother when we were little.) She's not really old, we've just known one another since we were in-utero ;-)

A couple of nights ago we were just home from vacation and I needed to whip something up for dinner. My daughter was asking to help cook and wanted to come up with something new. We looked at our inventory together, which was looking pretty low, and found that I had a nice little tube of polenta sitting there in the fridge. "Cheater Polenta" I like to call it. I knew that thing would be there for me when I needed it! I always buy those things to have on hand for quick appetizers. I'll have to post those up here eventually. I do have a container of dry  polenta grits sitting in my pantry. I managed to pick up the kids cold myself so I decided that this was not the week to make everything from scratch. My daughter pointed out peas in the freezer. I pulled out my favorite Italian cookbook and had her look up peas for inspiration. Peas are a really common ingredient in Italian cooking. You'll often find peas sauteed with garlic and onions. Simple and yummy. A veggie here and a veggie there and all of a sudden Polenta Veggiola was born. You can also add sauteed chicken or tofu to this if you'd like some added protien. My daughter isn't eating meat these days, so we left it out.

Polenta Veggiola: gluten free, dairy free, soy free

Ingredients:

1 tube Food Merchant's polenta

1 container home made tomato sauce (2-4 cups) or 1 jar store bought tomato sauce of your choice.

olive oil

1 bag frozen organic peas

yellow bell pepper

1 large carrot

1/2 - 1 small red onion

1 - 2 cloves garlic

fresh cilantro or basil

Pecorino Romano (sheeps milk cheese) (You can use whatever cheese you can have or use no cheese at all)

optional: Trader Joes Almond Meal (for topping)

Directions:

Cut the red onion, garlic, bell pepper, carrot, into small, bite sized pieces.

Chop up the cilantro or basil and set aside.

In a frying/sautee pan, drizzle some olive oil at the bottom of the pan.

Add the red onion to the hot pan and cook over medium-medium high until tender.

Add the garlic, carrot and bell pepper, frozen peas and cook until tender.

Add in your chopped cilantro or basil and stir then turn the heat to low and let it sit while you prepare the polenta.

In a 2.2 Quart or 2 Liter Pyrex dish or comprable, drizzle or spray with olive oil spray.

Cut a small slit in your polenta tube and drain the water in the sink. Remove the wrapping.

Slice your polenta into thin rounds and line the bottom of your baking dish with them.

Add a layer of your sauteed veggies, aka: veggiola topped with a generous layer of tomato sauce topped with Pecorino Romano.

Add a second layer of sliced polenta, if you have enough followed by another layer of veggiola, tomato sauce and Pecorino Romano.

For that top layer of Pecorino Romano, you can also add some almond meal to the top to create a nice cheesy/crunchy top. It helps to combine the Pecorino Romano and Almond Meal for the very top in a small bowl before adding it to the top of your dish.

Bake in a 375 - 400 oven for 30 minutes or so. If the top begins to burn before it's done, you can top it with aluminum foil during the last 15 minutes or so of baking. Remember, all the ingredients are cooked already, you are pretty much just heading up and melting it all together. It sure smells great when it's baking!!!

Here is what the top looks like when I mixed almond meal with Pecorino Romano.

Enjoy!

Oat'n Almond Meal Chocolate Chip Cookies: Wheat/Gluten free, dairy/cow milk free, vegan

Sing it with me, "C is for COOKIE it's good enough for me, hey! and REPEAT!" No wonder why I'm not loosing any weight these days. I'm obsessed with baking things that everyone can eat and will actually enjoy! Besides, it's always nice to have "treat" recipes on hand when you need to bring something special to someone's house for dinner and not have to worry about bringing multiple options for people with food issues. It gets insane, it really does. I'm always happy to bake or bring options, especially since my family are the high maintenance ones. ;-)

The ultimate comfort food for me, and many others I've compared notes with, is the good ole chocolate chip cookie. They are requested by my kids almost as often as pancakes. Years ago I used to love going to PCC (a natural food store in WA) to get some yummy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies. I thought maybe they'd have a recipe for them on their website. With a quick search, I found a recipe on their website for Wheat-free Chocolate Chip Cookies  that I've linked to here. The recipe was originally created by Post-Punk Kitchen. I changed a few thing to add my own nutty/coco nutty/super vanillaee twist and the result are some insanely yummy cookies. I'm actually eating one, um two, while I type this. To note, my recipes will always be heavy on the vanilla since our family motto is "you can never have too much vanilla".

My kids can eat nuts at home (away from the insane amount of kids at school who can't.) I really love the health benefit for nuts but my kids don't like whole nuts baked into their cookies. So, I'm taking a cue from my "Blue Velvet Blueberry Muffins" , I decided to use blended nuts (almond meal) instead. I've been wanting to use some of my Trader Joe's Almond Meal that was sitting in my pantry stash anyway. The taste is so "nutty", go figure ;-) and I love the stuff.  Elana's Pantry, a gluten free site which uses primarily almond flour, recommends using almond flour and not the almond meal because the almond flour uses blanched almonds and the almond meal does not. She's talking mainly about her own recipes.  I like the unbalanced almonds though, so I thought I would just try using it in my cookies, to see what would happen. I decided to use a combination of Bob's Redmill Gluten Free Oat Flour and Trader Joe's Almond Meal as my flour in these cookies, instead of just using Oat flour.

I'm a huge fan these days of So Delicious Coconut milk. At 90 calories a cup and a texture that foams, it's an excellent replacement for cow's milk. It's really smooth and creamy, just like the container says.

 A chocolate chip cookie is only as good as the chocolate chips that are used it them. You can quote me on that. ;-) I've been using the Guittard brand for years since it was one of the only ones, for a long time, that didn't have any dairy derivitaves it them. They do contain soy lecithin in them. There are brands, like Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips, that don't have any ingredients that are known allergens.

Oat'n Almond Meal Chocolate Chip Cookies

(Inspired by PCC's cookies and Post-Punk Kitchen's recipe with my adjustments and personal twist.)

*if you can't have nuts, go with their recipe.

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cup Gluten Free Oat Flour, Bob's Redmill

1 cup Almond Meal, Trader Joes (You can also make your own almond meal if you have a Vitamix.)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon flax meal

1/4 cup So Delicious Vanilla Coconut milk. (I LOVE this stuff, It's so creamy and delicious. It's great to bake with.)

1/4 cup organic brown sugar

1/2 cup organic evaporated cane juice (sugar)

1/3 cup organic canola oil

2 tablespoons vanilla

3/4 cup chocolate chips (check ingredients)

Directions

In a bowl combine all dry ingredients, oat flour, almond meal, baking soda, salt, and flax meal in a bowl with a wisk.

In a mixer or other bowl combine sugars, oil and vanilla until well combined.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix well.

Fold in chocolate chips with a spatula.

Place batter in cookie sized balls, onto a baking sheet.

Bake at 375 degrees for 12-15 minutes or until they look done.

Remove from oven and allow the cookies to cool on a cooling rack.

Enjoy!

Thanks Post-Punk Kitchen for the inspiration! You are truly yummy!

Alton Brown Inspired Graham Crackers: No Gluten, No Dairy, No Eggs, No Soy

My family LOVES Alton Brown, host of the Food Network shows Good Eats, Iron Chef America, Feasting on Waves, and Feasting on Asphalt.

 "My kids have been fascinated with him and his show, "Good Eats", since they were very small. They are a little bigger now and still love him and his show. He's all about cooking and the science behind it. He makes cooking and science interesting and fun with his yeast sock puppets and his interesting camera angles. He's what "Bill Nye The Science Guy" would be if he has a cooking show. Watching his show makes you feel like you can make anything. Even though he hasn't done a lot on gluten or dairy free, his show has really inspired me to get to the point where I'm at now, feeling like I can transform anything into something that my entire family can eat.

October 2009 Lake Forest Park, WA Good Eats: The Early Years book signing tour. My kids get to meet and have a decent chat with Alton Brown.

My son shares with him his idea for a show on dyeing Easter Eggs. Alton thinks it's a good idea, pulls out his wallet, writes the idea on a sticky note and sticks his wallet back in his pocket.

My daughter says that it was her "life long dream" to meet Alton Brown. Look at how she's looking up at him in this picture, priceless!

This week the kids and I decided to try to make graham crackers from scratch that are gluten, dairy, egg, and soy free. We started out with Alton Brown's recipe for homemade graham crackers.

Mr. Brown advocates using a kitchen scale to weigh your flour so you'll notice that the flour is listed in ounces by weight. I also try to estimate if you are using cups. I'll try it using cups next time and will fine tune this if needed.

Here is my take on Mr. Brown's Graham Cracker recipe to make it gluten and dairy free.

Graham Crackers: No Gluten, No Dairy, No Eggs, No Soy

(Inspired by Alton Brown)

Ingredients:

8.4 ounces sorghum flour (try 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 cup) 

1.8 ounces Bob's Redmill All Purpose Gluten Free Flour (try 1/2 cup)

3 ounces dark brown sugar (you can use raw sugar, turbinado sugar, organic pure cane sugar, honey or whatever your favorite non-chemical sweetener is.)

3/4 tsp aluminum-free baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

3 ounces  Earth Balance Soy Free

2 1/4 ounces molasses

1 1/2 ounces rice milk

1 tbsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Add your flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon into the bowl of your food processor, Kitchenaid or Vitamix, which is what I used. You could probably do this by hand in a regular bowl too, if you need. :-)

Add the Earth Balance and pulse or blend until the mixture is combined.

Add molasses, rice milk, and vanilla extract and mix until dough forms, about 1-2 minutes.

Mold the dough into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes or more.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Take the chilled dough out of the refrigerator and place it on a big piece of parchment paper and then put a second sheet of equal size on top. You can put all this on top of a sheet pan for easy transport to the oven later.

 

Roll the dough out until it's about 1/8 inch thick.

  

Remove the top sheet of the parchment paper and cut the dough, using a knife or pizza cutter into 2 inch or so square pieces by using vertical and horizontal cuts. You can trim off any excess and roll any extra dough out on another sheet, if desired.

 

Using a fork, poke holes all over the top of the dough. Leave the crackers on the pan and bake on the middle rack of the oven for 15 - 20 minutes or until the edges start to darken. I baked them for 20 minutes and they were a little more crispy than I wanted on the edges.

Remove from the oven and slide the parchment with the crackers on them onto a cooking rack. You can later remove them off the parchment to test coolness. You can store them in an airtight container for a few weeks. My kids backed these for their snack at school the next day and then finished them off for snack after school. They said that they reminded them of gingerbread cookies. I'm sure they would be amazing used as smores, with marshmallow and chocolate! Alton Brown even has a recipe for homemade marshmallow!

Enjoy!

The Completely GREEN Dinner. Pea and Basil Soup: gluten free and dairy free

We had a completely GREEN dinner that was first and formost quick, free of gluten, cows milk, eggs, soy, and vegetarian this evening and the kids were thrilled!

One of my most favorite things to cook with and eat is basil. Naturally, one of my favorite recipes is one by Giada De Laurentis that I link to below. It contains olive oil, onion, peas, chicken broth, cream (which I replace with almond or rice milk), salt and pepper. I replaced the butter with olive oil and pecorino romano instead of mozzerella. I mixed some pecorino in the soup as well as put it on top. It's like pesto soup really. It tastes very fresh, clean, and yummy. I've used dried peas and frozen peas with this recipe. I served it up with Asparagus with Shallots (see below).

All very healthy, and very green.

Pea and Basil Soup linked here.

Recipe courtesy Giada De Laurentiis
I top the soup with Pecorino Romano, sheeps milk cheese.

Asparagus with Shallots

by Kendra Hubbell

Ingredients:

a bunch of asparagus

a shallot

olive oil

salt and pepper

Directions: 

Wash your asparagus. Cut your asparagus in little circles and cut up your shallot. Put some olive oil in a saute pan on your stove on medium - high heat. Add your shallot to the pan and cook a bit, then add in your asparagus and sautee until just slightly crispy still.

Today, my six year old son and I made my Pumpkin Muffins: Gluten, dairy, egg, soy, citrus and nut free. together. I read him the ingredients and he measured, poured, and mixed the ingredients together. He really did most of it himself. I am so proud. They turned out so good. This time we used Bob's All-purpose gluten free flour instead of what I usually use and they turned out great!



Newbie Frustration

Let me introduce myself...I'm the other BFF. I'm the newbie to gluten/egg/dairy free cooking.

We discovered last month that my oldest son is highly sensitive to wheat, gluten, rye, spelt, dairy, eggs, citrus and garlic. Am I forgetting one? I might be. I will just start by saying that so far I find this process extremely frustrating. We are a foodie family. I love cooking. I love mastering family recipes and creating new ones. I love finding a recipe that sounds irresistible, shopping for the ingredients, working magic in the kitchen and watching my family enjoy the end product. I love to cook with butter. I love to make savory cheesy dishes. Over the last year I have taught myself how to cook eggs in every way imaginable (perfectly scrambled, perfectly hard boiled, perfectly soft boiled, perfectly poached, etc.). Two months ago I finally found a pie crust that was simple, fun & easy...and made for a killer chicken pot pie.

My incredible, inspiring, funny and creative BFF has been there for me through thick and thin for almost 15 years. So I was not surprised at all to have her full support and enthusiasm when I called her about DS's new found food issues. She has started this blog to post her favorite tips and recipes...and she answers countless questions when I'm standing in the grocery store aisle or in my kitchen totally overwhelmed and confused.

Right now I just feel frustrated and annoyed. It is very discouraging to spend almost $5 on a bag of gluten-free flour to have a recipe completely fail. Or when I thought I'd buy some "mozzarella style shreds" so DS could feel like the rest of us on pizza night....only to discover none of us could stand the taste or texture.

But I am determined to keep trying, failing and succeeding. And hopefully, someday soon, cooking and baking will feel fun again. I'm starting small and making sure I open a bottle of wine or brew a pot of coffee before I start. My goal for now is to try at least one new recipe a week. My first was egg-free citrus-free mayonnaise. This week I tried a banana bread recipe and next week I think I'll tackle homemade bread...again. I'll update when I can about how things are going and how our family is adjusting to so many dietary changes.

I hope reading about my journey (challenges, successes and everything in between) will help you if you are just getting started.

Bon appetit!

Almonds, Almonds Everywhere! Almond Meal, Almond Flour, Almond Milk

BFF calls me today and says, "I found a gluten free recipe that called for almond meal on Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and I found Almond Meal at Trader Joes!" I hadn't seen that site before (I need to check it out further) but I HAD discovered almond meal, especially at Trader Joes. That's a good one to get.

Almond meal was one of the first flours I started to work with after finding out that Little D couldn't have gluten, almost a year ago. It is also one of my favorites as a "main flour". A post is to follow on my favorite flours and how I use them. Almonds are a great source of magnesium, vitamin E, monounsatuated fat, and fiber amond other things. If you or someone you cook and bake for has trouble with tree nuts, don't use almond flour. 

My mom actually is the one who told me about it. She is a total Vitamix Addict and was able to make her own flours among other things. Since then she was amazingly generous and bought me my very own Vitamix and I've joined her at Addict Status ever since I opened the box. Thanks Mom! xoxox

Almond flour is made by grounding up blanched almonds, or almonds without the skins. Almond meal and almond flour are great baking alternatives to wheat, if you aren't allergic or intollerant to nuts. I have to remember not to share my almond flour treats with those friend who have kids with nut allergies. I can't pack anything for my son at school that contains nuts or dairy because of kids with major allergies to those specific ingredients.

Almond meal can be made both with whole or blanched almonds and is more dense like cornmeal. To blanch almonds you basically put almonds in a bowl, pour boiling water over them, until they are covered,and let them sit for a minute or so. Then drain and peel off the almond skins. You can use this stuff in baking, and cooking. You can use it in cookies, breads, and even as a topping on casseroles and lasagna. Use it in place of bread crumbs when called for in a recipe.

Almond Milk is one of my most favorite substitutions for cows milk next to Rice Milk. Use rice milk, soy, or coconut if you or someone eating your food is allergic or intolerant to almonds or other nuts.

Here is a great website for recipes using the stuff that helped me get started:

You can use Almond Flour or Meal in most recipes that I post. When subsituting wheat flour for a gluten free flour in any recipe, say 2 1/2 cups flour, simply try replacing with the flour of your choice (such as almond flour), or make a mixture. For example: 1 1/2 cups almond flour, 1 cup tapioca flour. The one flour that I found is a bit more challenging is the Coconut flour. Bob's Redmill says, "You can replace up to 20% of the flour called for in a recipe with Coconut Flour, adding an equivalent amount of additional liquid to the recipe." Use more than that and it is dry as wood chips! Coconut Flour tends to soak up more of your liquid ingredients, which is why they say to add an equal amount of additional liquid to the recipe.

You will always need to add xanthan gum to any recipe where you aren't using a flour with gluten in it. It is recommended that you ad 1/2 tsp xanthan gum per cup of flour in your cakes, cookies or muffins and 1 tsp xanthan gum per cup of flour in your breads. I find I mostly go with the 1/2 tsp per cup in most everything.

Elanaspantry

Elana gives great information on how she uses Almond meal. I bought the brand she suggests on Amazon.com. She doesn't seem to get the same results using the Bob's Redmill Almond Flour. Elana also just came out with a gluten free cupcake cookbook: Gluten-Free Cupcakes: 50 Irresistible Recipes Made with Almond and Coconut Flour.  Check her out!