Fluffy Cornbread

I came upon this recipe by mistake. I misread the recipe for Bette Hagman's Feather-Light flour mix you use in the "Cornbread recipe" from "Life Tastes Good Again". I used 1 Tbsp Potato Starch instead of Potato Flour. You would think that 1 Tbsp won't matter much one way or the other, but it does. I used this messed up flour mix to make cornbread and loved it. A while later I used it to make biscuits and they came out like hockey pucks. They didn't rise at all. I was so disappointed. Well, now I know why.

I liked the cornbread so much that I have of bag of the mix just to use for cornbread. My version of the mix is:
1 c. Rice flour
1 c. cornstarch
1 c. tapioca starch
1 Tbsp. potato starch
Mix well.

The cornbread recipe is:

Preheat oven to 425 deg F.

For the cornbread you mix  1 cup corn meal,1 cup cornbread flour mix, 1/2 tsp. xanthan gum, 2 Tbsp. sugar, 1 Tbsp. baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt together in a bowl.

Then mix 1 cup milk, 1/4 cup oil, and 1 egg in a separate bowl. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients slowly while mixing. Mix together on high for 1 minute until well blended.

Pour into a greased pan.

Bake 20-25 mins (8x8 pan) or 12-15 (9x13 pan).

Enjoy.

Italian Pot Roast

The first time I tried this recipe was a sunday and my husband was going to be in a meeting until about 5pm. That left me all alone for about 6 hours. So I decided to keep myself busy by making a traditional sunday dinner (something we had not had since we moved away from family). I looked through the freezer to see what meat we had and then through cookbooks to see what recipes looked good. I came across the recipe for Italian Pot Roast in Carol Fenster's cookbook "1,000 Gluten-Free Recipes". It used meat I had and did not have any weird ingredients, like orange rind. (Please don't put orange in my food. Not in cookies, on chicken... I just don't like the taste.) The recipe called for boneless chuck roast, but all I had on hand was bone-in and I wasn't about to go to the store. So I used what I had and it was delicious.

Last Sunday my husband had another long meeting so I decided to make Pot Roast again.

Preheat the oven to 350 deg F with the rack in the middle postion. Rub the roast with 3/4 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper. In a large stock pot, that is all metal and has a lid, heat 1 Tbps oil on medium and sear the meat on all sides.

Add 1 finely chopped onion, 2 minced cloves of garlic, 1 cup water (the recipe calls for wine, but we don't like the wine aftertaste and water works just fine), 1 undrained 14oz can petite diced tomatoes, 1 Tbps basalmic vinegar, 1 tsp sugar, 2 tsp Italian Seasoning, 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper, and 1 bay leaf.

Cook over medium heat until the sauce starts to simmer. (I don't know why, but when I uploaded this photo it got flipped and I can't figure out how to unflip it.)

Cover pot and place in the oven. Cook for 2 hours.

Remove from the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes. Transfer the roast to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm. (When handling the pot remember that it is extremely hot. Use hot pads when removing the lid and moving the pot. I didn't think about it and tried to treat the pot like I usually would and I burned my fingers.)

 

 Remove bay leaf and skim any unwanted fat from the sauce. Heat the sauce on medium heat. Make a slurry of cornstarch and cold water. Add the slurry slowly to the sauce while stirring until the sauce thickens. (The recipe says to discard all but 2 cups of the sauce, but it is so good that I thicken all of it and use the leftover sauce on chicken, etc.)

Slice the roast and serve with the sauce.

We had it with Garlic Mashed Potatoes. I ran out of energy at this point so I didn't make any other veggies to go with it.

When we had it again Monday night I looked in the fridge and found some leftover veggies. I heated them to add to the meal. There was only enough leftover Garlic Mashed Potatoes for maybe one serving so I made some instant potatoes. You know a meal is good when your husband says, "That sauce makes even Potato Pearls taste good." Too bad that was our last chuck roast. I guess I need to watch the grocery store ads so we can buy some more.

Garlic Mashed Potatoes

I was making Pot Roast for Sunday dinner and wanted a yummy side to go with it so I made Garlic Mashed Potatoes from Carol Fenster's cookbook "1,000 Gluten-Free Recipes".

1 pound potatoes, peeled and cubed. 2 gloves garlic, peeled.

Combine in a  pot and cover with water by 1 inch. Cover pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and boil until done.

 Drain. Mash. Add 2 Tbps olive oil, 3/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper.

Add one cup chicken broth slowly until the mixture reaches the desired consistency (you might not need the entire cup worth). 

Serve immediately, garnish with parsley. 

I don't know what I did but this recipe still tasted like raw potatoes. With the sauce from the pot roast over them they tasted fine, but it was a little disappointing. I think that next time I make these I will use red potatoes instead of russets. Maybe even the Yukon Gold potatoes like the recipe suggests, if I remember to pick some up before hand and have the extra $$$.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Last week my husband was sick and I was not feeling well myself so I decided to make Chicken Noodle Soup. This recipe comes from a gluten-free cookbook called Life Tastes Good Again.

Peel 2 carrots. Dice carrots, 2 stalks celery, and 4-5 green onions. (I didn't have any green onions so I used 1 med onion.)

Dice 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts. In a medium skillet, heat 1-2 Tbs oil. Add the chicken and saute over medium heat. Set aside.

While the chicken is cooking, combine 5 cups chicken broth, 1 bay leaf, 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil.

Add the vegetables. Boil until the vegetables are just beginningto soften. Stir in the chicken. Break spaghetti noodles into 3 to 4" long pieces and add them to the soup. Boil until the noodles and vegetables are soft.

Serve Hot.

The authors of the cookbook say to use a quick cooking noodle, but I don't have any so I used Tinkyada's spaghetti noodles. They take longer to cook and as they cook they release a lot of starch so I have to add extra water (about the same amount as the broth, 5 cups) or the soup is more like a condensed soup you would get out of a can.

All in all a pretty good soup.

Ah, a fast food burger.

Yesterday when my husband came home from work he said, "Get your stuff we are going for a drive." He had been craving a hamburger for weeks. There is a McDonald's about 15 minutes to the south of us, but my husband prefers Burger King. I quickly got on the internet and looked up what is GF at both restaurants. I was surprised to find out that BK had a better GF menu than McDonald's. I was shocked to find out that McDonald's Southern Style Crispy Chicken Breast Fillet has wheat in the seasonings they put on it. So the Chicken Bacon Ranch Salad that I thought was safe isn't.

We decided to go to Burger King which is not quite an hour to the west of us. I have not quite recovered from all the salads I ate when we were preparing to move 6 months ago so I ordered a Whopper with cheese without the bun. The ladies at the counter were great. They put it in what I assume is a side salad container topped with all the fixings they would have put on the burger (sans the condiments, but they were easy enough to add). The first bite was a reminder of simpler days. I don't know why I let all those people who bad-mouthed having to have their hamburgers bun-less keep me from enjoying one. It was a great drive.

Sun Flour Mills Sugar Cookie Mix

The first weekend in February my brother got married. On the way "up north" for the wedding my husband let me stop by the Health Food store that is the store closest to where we live that sells a decent variety of GF foods (it's about an hour away). I had forgotten that they were doing samples of a new GF line (Sun Flour Mills) until I walked in the door and was greeted by free food. The items I liked most were the bread and the cookies. So I picked up a bag of their bread mix. When my husband was "up north" for work he got me a bag of the sugar cookie mix. I haven't tried making the bread yet, but I did make the cookies. They were as good as I remembered.

Their texture reminds me of Keebler's Sandie's Shortbread cookies more than a sugar cookie, but they taste like a sugar cookie. My husband says that there is an aftertaste. I think it is more from the shortening than anything, but if you are expecting a GF cookie to have the same taste as one made from wheat you are mistaken. After a year of eating GF I guess I have forgotten what wheat-based foods taste like.

The Sugar Cookie mix cost $6.00 and makes 24 3inch cookies which is not bad, but is more expensive than I want to pay on a regular basis.

Why is it that homemade GF food tastes ssooo much better than the store bought??? (I would not touch a store-bought cookie with a ten foot pole. I have not found a single store-bought cookie that I like.)

To Tortilla or Not to Tortilla?

Tonight we had tacos for dinner. This is what my taco looked like:

I have yet to find tortilla shells that I actually like eating. I have tried some teff tortillas which tasted more like flavorless crepes. I bought some brown rice tortillas but they went moldy in the freezer before I even got a chance to use them (two different times this happened, I'm not wasting any more money). So in my tacos I use Lightly Salted Frito's. Regular Frito's are just too salty. I hope that the Lays company keeps making them. They only became available recently (within the last year). In fact I had to ask my local grocery store if they would stock them. I originally found them when we lived "up north". The sleepy little town where we now live doesn't have much variety and to get them I would purchase them in bulk when we would go "up north".

I have not given up, but for now the answer is: not to tortilla.

Fettucine Alfredo Recipe

While visiting my sister, we made this fabulous recipe that was adapted from "On Cooking". "On Cooking" is the textbook from the culinary arts class I took in college (I have the second edition). It is a great resource. It has information on just about anything you want to know about cooking basics in it, but since it is a textbook it is fairly expensive. Sorry there are no pictures to go with this recipe.

  
Fettuccine Alfredo

1 pint cream

1/2 cube Butter/Margarine

4 oz Parmesan Cheese (2oz Parmesan, 2oz Romano - optional)

1 Tbsp Cream Cheese

1 tsp garlic (or 1 glove garlic)

Salt and Pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients and simmer until thick, stirring often. Serve over Fettuccine Noodles. 

Optional sides are: Chicken Breasts cooked with garlic, Mushrooms sauteed in butter, Tomatoes sauteed in butter, Bell Peppers sauteed in butter, Garlic Bread, Mixed Vegetables, Salad.

Marinara Sauce

One of our favorite meals is homemade Marinara Sauce and Garlic Chicken. We were introduced to this recipe by my husband's friend. It is fairly easy to make but it takes a while to cook. Our favorite pre-Celiac way to eat it was in Pitas with an Italian 6 Cheese Blend. I have not tried to make GF Pitas yet, but I might just have to since this recipe makes a lot of sauce.

The recipe is:

Finely dice 1 onion, 2 carrots, 2 stalks celery, 2 gloves garlic. Heat 2 Tbsp oil in a stock pot, add diced veggies. Sweat the vegetables (which is another way to say saute on low until the onions are clear, stirring often).

  
Add 3 (15 oz) cans of diced tomatoes, 1 tsp kosher salt, 1 tsp ground black pepper, 1 bay leaf, 1 Tbsp oil.

 Let simmer for 1 hour. Stirring occasionally.

 

We had the sauce with diced chicken cooked in garlic, Italian six cheese blend, and toast. It can also be served over noodles like a spaghetti sauce. Find your own favorite way to eat it.


Marinara Sauce

2-3 Tbsp oil
1 onion, finely diced
2 carrots, peeled and finely diced
2 stalks celery, finely diced
2 gloves garlic, finely diced
3 (15 oz) cans crushed tomatoes
1 bay leaf
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp ground black pepper

Heat 1-2 Tbsp oil in a stock pot. Add diced vegetables. Sweat the vegetables (which is another way to say saute on low until the onions are clear, stirring often). Add 3 (15 oz) cans of diced tomatoes, 1 tsp kosher salt, 1 tsp ground black pepper, 1 bay leaf, 1 Tbsp oil. Let simmer for 1 hour. Stirring occasionally. Serve warm. Yields about 5-6 cups of sauce.