Yet More Goodies

I'm slowly cooking my way through Gluten-Free Girl Everyday, and boy, is it good. This time around, I made half a recipe of pizza dough. Half of that made two "personal" sized pizzas (they were just a tad big) and the other half made flatbread.

The pizza was topped with garlic butter (instead of tomato sauce) mozzarella cheese, cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, bacon, and scallions. The crust was crispy on the outside, and chewy on the inside. Just the way I like it.

There was just enough left over for four smallish pieces of naan, something I thought I'd never have again. (At least not that tasted good.) It needed just a touch of salt once it came off the skillet, but it too was excellent.

Like most gluten-free baked goods, these really taste good when they're warm. But boy, are they good.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I know a thing or two about chocolate chip cookies. They've always been my favorite, so when I went gluten-free, that was the first recipe I mastered. I found a decent recipe, and tweaked it over and over again until it was truly my own. (I've even changed it more since then, to add more flaxseed meal.)

So I wondered what all the fanfare about the chocolate chip cookie recipe in Gluten-Free Girl Everyday was all about. Sure, her recipes are amazing, but a chocolate chip recipe is a chocolate chip recipe. Or is it?

There are a million ways to think about gluten-free baking. I'd always thought you needed a gluten-free starch like cornstarch or tapioca starch, or at least white rice to balance out the lower amounts of starch in gluten-free flours. But clearly, I was wrong.

Using equal parts teff, millet, and sorghum (I was fresh out of buckwheat so used sorghum instead), this chocolate chip cookie recipe needs nothing, and I mean nothing to balance it out. It's great. Even though I had to omit the hazelnuts due to a tree nut allergy, these cookies were a-maz-ing.

My only complaint? I could eat them all day.

I think I'll put my recipe on the shelf for a bit and enjoy these.

Kitchen Diaries

It seems like there are so many excellent food books coming out right now. I'm cooking my way through Gluten-Free Girl Everyday bit by bit, I can't wait to read Cooked, and I'm learning how to grill with Where there's Smoke.

Even so, I stumbled across an article about Nigel Slater's writing and decided to pick up a copy of Kitchen Diaries. I don't know how I missed his writing before, but I'm hanging on every word. It's wonderful to know I'm not the only one who gets down when there's no fresh produce, or who takes pleasure in a picnic of odd food on occasion. 

If I hadn't already blown my book budget for the month, I'd have each and every one of his books on order right now. I guess it's a good thing though - I've spent all my money on truly great cookbooks, without a dud in sight. There are worse things.

Rice Crust Quiche

 I'm loving Shauna James Ahern's newest cookbook, Gluten-Free Girl Everyday. She and her husband seem to cook by the motto, "Try every recipe once as it's written. Then you can play with it." Great advice, but something I'm not that great at, truth be told.

Luckily for me, this recipe still turned out great. I've been making quiche for a while, so I've got the jist of it. But I've never made a rice crust for a quiche. It's pretty basic, and a heck of a lot easier than making pastry. If I'm honest, there are weeks where I skip the quiche altogether because I simply don't feel like going to the trouble to make the crust.

Not anymore.

I didn't make the quiche from the cookbook (or even the crust recipe as it was written), but I benefited all the same from the recipe. I'll try it exactly as written sometime. I promise.

Here, I used dirty rice that had been sitting in the fridge all week. And since there wasn't that much of it left, I only used one egg to bind it together instead of two.  I cooked up some spinach and onions, threw in some cheese, and used only about one cup of cream for the quiche filling. 

It's delicious. And easy (even if it does take a long time to cook, it's pretty light on the prep work).

And Again

 She's done it again - a cookbook I couldn't wait to read cover-to-cover. As soon as I got my copy of Gluten-Free Girl Everyday, I sat down and read the whole darned thing.

 For a while now, I've been doing everything I can to save time in the kitchen. It's not that I don't love cooking. I do. It's one of my favorite things to do, but a girl can only spend so much time in the kitchen until her clothes stop fitting. Plus, there are a million other things to do, like play with the dog, work in the garden, hike with Mike, knit, read...the list is endless. So I've been cooking up meal components on the weekends to make meals on the weekdays come together in a snap.

Shauna's been doing the same thing so she can spend more time with her beautiful family. Lucky me, because the result is a cookbook filled with recipes I can't wait to try - like the vegetarian chili, the rice-crust quiche, the chocolate chip cookies, and all the different rice and beans recipes.

Dinner at Our House

Dinner at our house right now is, well, hectic.

Last winter, I wasn't working quite as much as I am now, so I was home to make an exquisite dinner every single night. Dinner was a lot more relaxed then.

Now, thankfully, I'm working quite a bit, but that does put a cramp on dinner. Meal planning is essential - otherwise we'd be eating eggs and toast every night. I sit down on Friday, plan out dinners for the week, and do groceries. Then, over the weekend, I prep as much as possible. There's always a list on the refrigerator that goes something like this: cook onions, cook broccoli, make cookies, roast beef...and so on. Everything goes into little pyrex dishes, and when I'm really on top of my game, each dish gets a label. Last but not least are the directions. I type up the meal plan and the directions to assemble each meal and post it on the fridge. That way, Mike can fix dinner while I'm on my way home since he usually gets home before me.

Sometimes it works like a dream. When I walk in the door, there's a glass of wine on the kitchen table waiting for me and Mike is just finishing plating the food. On those days, it's amazing. I don't have to think. All I have to do is sink down into my chair and enjoy dinner with my love.

Other days, it's a disaster. The directions aren't clearly written, or I haven't explained what a ramekin is, or where the water goes, and eggs en cocotte turns into mushy green scrambled eggs. On those days, we laugh. I'm so lucky to have found a man who can laugh at himself, although we're always laughing together.

If all this weren't enough, we've finally found a rental house that suits our needs. In fact, it's a bit big, but we're going to enjoy stretching out after being cramped in a tiny apartment. I can't wait to use my kitchen for real (I did use it to make mint chocolate chip ice cream the other day). But all that means is that we're in the midst of a crazy move, there's not enough time in the day, and I can't find the damn frying pan.

Still, wherever we are, we eat some dinner together. Whether we're sitting on the couch, at the kitchen table, or out on the patio, we find some time to sit together and relax. Sometimes it's a fancy treat, like lobster, or a quick and simple meal like pasta primavera. Wherever we are together is home.

Did I mention all our meals are completely gluten-free? They are. It took me a while to get into my groove where I could throw any old thing together and call it dinner. It took me even longer to adapt my old standby dinner recipes to be gluten-free. I have Shauna and Danny Ahern to thank for that.  Reading Shauna's first two books and her blog helped me realize that food is just food, something to be grateful for, something to enjoy. And her writing always keeps me glued to the page. Then there are the recipes - often a joint collaboration - that speak to my sensibilities about food and just plain make my tummy happy.

So I'm thrilled that they have a new cookbook. I can't wait to sit down and read it, cover to cover. I know new dinner ideas are just waiting for me, and when all the dust settles, we'll be sitting on the porch, enjoying our little family dinner.

Collection or Obsession?

I have a cooking magazine habit. It's bad. I have stacks and stacks of them. But as I leaf through them, I realize that I only ever cook one or two recipes out of each one.

It started in college, when I was working part-time at a shoe store. I know, a cooking magazine habit at a shoe store. A little odd. But we had loads of free time when the store was slow, and as long as we had done all our chores, we were free to do as we pleased. So I would often clock out and wander over to the bookstore, grab a cooking magazine, and while away the rest of the day at work dreaming about the wonderful things I might cook for dinner.  Later on, it just became a habit to buy a magazine when the cover caught my eye, even though I knew I would never cook Over 250 Fast and Easy Recipes! or 30 Ways to Fix Dessert from One Recipe! Sure, I learned a lot from these magazines and developed my own cooking style, but more often than not, I found I was disappointed by the empty promises on the covers.

I tried to counter the clutter years ago by tearing out the recipes I thought I might try and pasting them into a notebook. The number of recipes I thought I would actually try was sobering - only two to twelve per issue. And after a year or two, I realized that all the issues started to look exactly the same. Recipes got shamelessly recycled year to year. I cancelled the two subscriptions I had as quality spiraled downwards. (From those two magazines, I had maybe 30-40 magazines total, cooked about 25 recipes, made about eight recipes more than once, and found three regular dishes that I continue to make to this day.)

Even with all the cutting and pasting and discarding of fluff, I still have tones of food magazines. This one promises that if you buy it, you'll have a gourmet dinner on the table in thirty minutes or less and lose weight and your family will worship you. Number of recipes actually cooked from five magazines: 16. Number of recipes I make on a regular basis: 0 (unless you count roasted garlic, which is more of a technique I happened to learn from this magazine). This magazine's biggest downfalls: cheap paper, not enough pictures.

Next up - seasonal, local, gourmet magazines. These have pictures for almost every recipe, at least, and do a better job at laying out techniques. And much better photography. Number of recipes cooked from six magazines: eleven. Number of recipes I make on a regular basis: four. This magazine's biggest downfall is it's price, and I don't cook as many recipes from it as I thought.

Next up - allergy-friendly magazines. Live a full and happy life with [insert allergy/food intolerance here]. Delicious food without the allergens. Number of recipes cooked from eight magazines: one. Zero regulars. Caveat: these magazines have more information than recipes, and I've learned a lot from them,  and found tons of resources and gluten-free products. But their biggest detractor is that reading them makes me cry. Can't tell you why, but they do.

Last category: these magazines promise that if you follow the directions, your food will come out perfectly. They explain why each recipe works. They have pictures for every single recipe. They recommend certain brand based on focus group studies. Number of recipes cooked from eight magazines: fifteen. Number of recipes I cook on a regular basis: three. This is by far my favorite magazine, and I think the only one I will continue buying (but only as a very special occasion treat).

So why do I have so many magazines? They're cheap and quick and easy to pick up at the grocery store or airport, that's for sure. There's no commitment with a magazine, and I don't feel much guilt if it turns out to be awful and I throw it away.

But in the end, I think I much prefer cookbooks - the kind with lots of pictures and a good story to tell. I don't think I've ever seen a magazine that really told a cohesive story. That story is what brings me back, time and again, to the recipes. That story is what leads me to cook a recipe in the first place.

So now the only question remains - what to do with the pile of magazines?

Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making

I love a cookbook with a story. And I love a cookbook with good pictures. Even better is a cookbook that has both. What's more, Alana Chernila's sensibilities about food speak to my own. Food doesn't have to be expensive to be delicious, and food made from scratch with love is almost always vastly superior to the store-bought kind.

I stumbled across Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making through another blog I read, and instantly put it on my "books to buy" list. (They're almost all cookbooks. The rest I try to check out from the library.) My little brother gave it to me for Christmas, and I immediately read the entire thing from cover to cover.

Homemade Pantry contains a lot of recipes I have down pat, or similar to those in other cookbooks I own. And I will have to tweak many of the recipes because they call for wheat flour. But that's not the point. The point is the approach to cooking, how food relates to everyday life in so many ways, how it can nourish our bodies and relationships with each other. As an added bonus, there are plenty of recipes I have tabbed that don't require any modification, like the oven baked potato chips that have my mouth watering just thinking about them.  Plus, Chernila walks you through difficult spots (she calls them "tense moments") that might come up in cooking the recipes, and gives tips on what to do with scraps you might otherwise send to the landfill. She knows nobody really lives that perfect at-home life so many bloggers portray, so she also tells you how long each dish keeps in the fridge and freezer for those nights when you wish dinner would make itself.

The entire book is infused with Chernila's family memories as they relate to food and life in general. Not only do I see myself cooking from this cookbook for years to come, I see myself re-reading the stories too.

Gluten-Free Flour Tortillas

Adapted from Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making

I'm sick and tired of the gluten-free "flour tortillas" I buy at the supermarket. They're strange, pasty things that don't brown. They taste awful, and worst of all, they're so brittle I can't bend them at all without breaking them. What's the point of a tortilla you can't bend?

These tortillas, on the other hand, taste pretty darn good. When they're warm, you can actually roll them all the way up for burritos, enchiladas, whatever you like. And they even get those little brown spots the way tortillas are supposed to. A word of warning, though - they don't keep. Make right beforehand if you want them to be flexible. Otherwise they dry out and get almost as brittle as the grocery store ones.

This recipe is for 8 tortillas, but you could easily double it.

• 1/2 cup quinoa flour
• 3/4 cup sorghum flour
• 3/4 cup potato starch
• 1 tablespoon psyllium husks
• 2 tablespoons flaxseed meal
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons vegetable shortening
• 3/4 cups warm water, plus an extra 1/4 cup
• Rice flour or other gluten-free flour, for dusting

Combine the dry ingredients. Cut in the butter and shortening using a pastry cutter until the fat is broken down into pea-sized lumps and is well incorporated into the flours. Slowly add 3/4 cups water, mixing as you go. Add the remaining 1/4 cup a tablespoon at a time if you need it. The dough should look wet and sticky but not slimy. Cover and let sit about ten minutes.

Using the rice flour, flour a large flat surface. (You can use your counter but I use an old tea towel.) Shape the dough into 8 balls, then cover and let stand about five minutes.

Working on your floured surface, shape the balls into flat discs, using your fingers or a rolling pin. work from the center outward, and stop when the disc is about eight inches in diameter and no thinner than 1/16". 

Heat an ungreased skillet over medium heat, then fry the tortillas about a minute on each side, or until they begin to puff up a little and get little golden spots on them.

Gluten Free Girl and the Chef

Creamy. Cheesy. Buttery. Amazing.

Do you know the gluten-free girl? You should. Her website has incredible food, mouthwatering photographs, and wonderful stories. And she has two great books, with another one on the way.

I'm a sucker for a cookbook with a story, and Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef: A Love Story with 100 Tempting Recipes is just that. When I first got this book, I couldn't put it down. Never mind that I was studying for the biggest test of my life. I just had to read every.single.word in this cookbook.  I followed Shauna (the gluten-free girl) and Danny (the Chef) as they told their stories about falling in love through food.

And the recipes. Oh boy. Get out your grocery list, because you'll want to make recipe after recipe after recipe from this book. I'm working my way through it, from veal stock to fresh gluten free pasta to crackers to creamless corn chowder. All absolutely delicious.

Last night, I made the baked eggs with taleggio. Oh. My. Mike approached it with a bit of trepidation, but he does love eggs. And when I told him there was a grand prize of cheese at the bottom, he dug right in and I didn't hear another word from him for the rest of the meal. That good. Every recipe is like that.

Breakfast for dinner - baked eggs with tallegio, bacon, and teff English muffins

An Everlasting Meal

The Salt Lake City Public Library has something called the "Lucky Day Collection" - recent books that are highly sought after, and which can only be found by going to the library. They're not even listed in the library's online catalog. My mother the librarian (yes, really) thinks this is an incredible idea. And I like it because I know I can walk in the front door and find an absolute gem.

The Country Cooking of France, by Anne Willan

The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.

-Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste

This cookbook is far more than a new dish, or a new star. It's a little bit of both. If I could sum it up in a nutshell, I would call this cookbook a modern and slightly condensed take on Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  (In fact, Willan is known for starting a cooking school with Julia Child and James Beard.) Besides the recipes and techniques, which focus on country cooking (as opposed to Parisian cuisine), The Country Cooking of France is complete with breathtakingly mouthwatering photographs of many of the recipes contained within its pages, as well as scenes of life in the French countryside.

Besides gorgeous photographs, this cookbook has several vignettes in each chapter - about types of food, chefs, locations, and agriculture in the French countryside. I learned a lot from these little accounts, like the reason cheese gets stringy - the protein and fat get too hot.  Or that some cheeses have AOC status - just like wine - and the requirements for the prestigious labels are stringent, like requiring the cows' diet to consist entirely of summer grass and no grain-feed. No wonder the French are obsessed with cheese!

Starting on Sunday, and with the exception of Monday, we've eaten one new recipe from this cookbook every day this week. I was even inspired to have French-style fruit and cheese plates for lunch, complete with a single square of dark chocolate. I haven't fixed tonight's meal yet (Tian de Courgettes), but so far every single meal has been nothing short of spectacular.

How do you follow a recipe when you cannot eat one of the main ingredients (wheat) the cookbook celebrates? Well, first of all you choose recipes carefully, unless you're an expert. I picked recipes where I knew I could make substitutions, or where none were required at all because all of the ingredients were naturally gluten free. The Boeuf Bourguignon, for example, used flour as a thickener. Instead, I used an all-purpose gluten free flour blend, which did the trick just fine. Just to get in the mood for the week, I made gluten free French rolls, which I used for bread whenever it was called for in a recipe.  And for the Quiche Lorraine, I found a recipe for a gluten free pie tart elsewhere. It may be a little bit of extra work, but in my mind it's well worth it. 

Here's a recipe I made which is loosely based on a recipe in the cookbook. Give it a shot! It's excellent for a light meal, or as a first course.

My French Cooking Week Bonus  -  Salade au Gambas Grilles (Salad with Seared Shrimp) 

Adapted from The Country Cooking of France by Anne Willem

Let me make a confession: somewhere along the way, I lost my love of shrimp. When I was a kid, I lived for steamed shrimp, fried, shrimp, shrimp scampi, shrimp salad ... you know, I just loved shrimp. At some point though, shrimp lost their magic. So when I stumbled across a recipe for seared shrimp, I hesitated. But the pictures were so tantalizing, and there was shrimp in the freezer, so what did I have to lose?

Oh, boy, am I glad I gave this recipe a try. As I'm wont to do, I made up some twists along the way, turning simple shrimp into a whole salad for dinner.  Try your hand at it, and let me know how it goes for you! 

2 tablespoons butter, divided

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

2 tablespoons vegetable oil, more if needed

1/2 cup cherry tomatoes

1/2 red bell pepper, diced

10 baby onions, peeled

2 cloves garlic, crushed

5 ounces lettuce

Juice of half a lemon

1 pound jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails on

1/4 cup cornstarch (Argo is gluten free, but be sure to double check)

1 tablespoon coarse sea salt

1/2 ounce Parmesan cheese

Freshly ground pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine tomatoes, peppers, onions, and garlic in a shallow baking dish. Toss with one tablespoon olive oil. Cut one tablespoon of butter into quarters, and tuck in to the dish. Cook for an hour, or until the tomatoes are bursting and the onions and garlic are soft. Remove from the oven and set aside.

Divide the lettuce among four plates. Spoon the tomato mixture evenly among the plates, reserving any cooking oil in the bottom of the pan. Whisk the reserved cooking oil with the lemon juice. 

Add the remaining butter and oil to a large skillet. Combine the sea salt and cornstarch in a bowl, and toss in the shrimp to coat. Heat the skillet over medium heat until nearly smoking, then add the shrimp in a single layer. Weight the shrimp with a heavy pan and cook for a minute or two. Remove the weight, turn the shrimp, reweight, and cook another one or two minutes. Remove from heat.

Divide the shrimp equally among the four plates. Top with shavings of Parmesan cheese, the lemon vinaigrette, and the pepper.

Serve immediately.