Baked Brown Rice

Brown Rice ready to be covered and put into the oven

Tonight for dinner I made Alton Brown's Baked Brown Rice recipe, one of my favorite foods in the world.  If I didn't have to serve it for dinner, I would probably sit and eat the entire 9 x 9 inch pan in one sitting.  It could not be easier to make brown rice, I always feared brown rice a bit knowing it took twice as long as white rice to cook on the stove.  We cook a lot of white rice in our little half Asian/gluten free household, so some days we like a break from it.  Tim and I are huge fans of anything Alton Brown, I'm pretty sure the man could film a show about how to use a can opener and I would watch it.  We saw this episode where he baked brown rice, and it was unreal!  It took a while before I got around to downloading and printing the recipe, but once I did it found a permanent home on the refrigerator.  Right now the fridge is overtaken with small character magnets, and crayon drawings, so the 1/4 of a scrap of paper with the recipe found a new home in the recipe box.  Today I realized I wanted it back out as a simple side for a simple dinner, rotisserie chicken, spinach salad, and brown rice, what's not to love??

Finished version, DELICIOUS!!

The brown rice comes out perfect every time and there is no stirring or babysitting the pot.  It's fluffy, tender, sweet, and has that tiny crunch that brown rice should have.  It goes with absolutely everything, I just realized this whole time we could have been throwing fresh herbs in at the end right as the rice comes out of the oven, maybe I will try that next time.  Maybe you will try it with some herbs or other twists and let me know what you come up with.  Enjoy!  I hope you love this as much as we do!

Alton Brown's Baked Brown Rice

• 1 1/2 cups brown rice, medium or short grain
• 2 1/2 cups water
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Place the rice, water, butter and salt into an 8-inch square glass baking dish.
Cover the dish tightly with heavy-duty aluminum foil. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 1 hour.  After 1 hour, remove cover and fluff the rice with a fork. Serve immediately.

Gluten Free "White" Irish Soda Bread

Finished White Soda Bread

I made this recipe last year for St. Patrick's day and fell in love with it, so much that I made it a few more times after St Patty's day, last year and enjoyed it.  I had the recipe card tucked away in my recipe box this whole time waiting for this year when I blinked and almost let the holiday slip by me.  When I checked the fridge the other day to start making the bread I was totally out of unsalted butter, never mind I forgot about needing buttermilk.  A quick trip to the grocery store this morning solved both problems.

Yesterday at work one of our patients, a true Irishman, asked how I would be celebrating St. Patrick's day, and laughed when I told him I was making Corned Beef and Cabbage, and Irish Soda Bread.  He informed me that is not what you eat in Ireland, I can't say we got so far as discussing what they do eat, because the conversation turned to what color of soda bread I would be making.  Silly me had very little idea that there were different kinds.  I told him I think I was making white, he said brown was always his favorite and far more popular in Ireland, so he said he would "ring his Mum and ask for his Granny's brown bread recipe." I love it!  Sadly he won't get it to me until the 18th, so a little late for me to convert over to GF, and post, so in the mean time we can all enjoy this white version I worked up last year.

I was really excited to make this bread with Ceci, we need lots of projects around the house now that she seems to have given up her nap.  Part of me finds the lack of nap very distressing, while a larger part finds a new freedom in not being tied to the house at a specific hour of the day.  Ceci seems to find a great joy in helping me bake lately, the other day she helped make chocolate cookies and managed to help with every step of the process.  Today was no different, she helped measure flours, and quickly climbed up on the island to help knead the dough too.  If I haven't said it lately, I should, I love this age!  2 and a half is, and has been so much fun, she is busy all the time and needs constant stimulation, and cooking and baking seems to fit the bill.

Gluten Free "White" Irish Soda Bread

1/2   Cup Soy Flour
1      Cup Brown Rice Flour
1      Cup Sweet Rice Flour
1 1/2 Cup Tapioca Starch
1 1/2 tsp Xanthan Gum
4      Tbs Sugar
1      tsp Baking Soda
1 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
4      Tbs Cold Unsalted Butter, cut into 1/2" pieces
1 3/4 Cold Buttermilk
1      Egg, lightly beaten
1      Cup Golden Raisins

Preheat oven to 375 degrees (F).  Line a sheet pan with parchment, or silpat

Combine flours, sugar, baking soda, and salt in bowl of mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.  Ad the butter and mix on low until butter is mixed into flour.

With a fork lightly beat buttermilk and egg together in measuring cup.  With the mixer on low, slowly add liquid to flour mixture.  Add Golden Raisins to dough, mix until distributed through.

Dough will be very wet, dump dough onto a well floured surface and knead a few times into a round loaf.  Place loaf onto prepared pan, and cut a shallow X into the top of the bread.

 

Bake 45-55 min, or until a toothpick inserted into the top of the loaf comes out clean.

Let cool, and eat immediately, or smear with cold butter and enjoy!

Gluten Free Scallion Pancakes

Homemade Gluten Free Scallion Pancakes

Apparently I inspired my husband with my cooking the other night because he sat down and wrote a guest post for me.  Isn't he the cutest?!?!  I guess he liked the pancakes.




From Tim:


I am of Chinese descent, despite living in New York my whole life. That being said, I grew up with family members who knew how to cook authentic Chinese, in multiple styles. Most notably, my grandmother would make dumplings from scratch.

When neither she nor my mother was cooking, we'd enjoy going to get dim sum, a tradition we adopted now, with Andrea and Ceci. The problem is, some of the best morsels are gluten filled.  Aside from shrimp dumplings and roast pork buns, one of my favorites is the scallion pancake.

I'm not sure what motivated Andrea, but she suggested making them from scratch. We located a whole host of recipes online, which seemed simple in ingredient list, but somewhat complex.

She came up with an amazingly simple method, and so, I picked up some scallions. She basically used GF Bisquick, but with hot water, and made a batter mixing in some salt, white pepper, and of course, diced scallions. Mixed it all together until well blended.

She heated a thin layer of canola oil on high, and pan-fried the pancakes, flipping once. And that was it. Not entirely authentic, but damn good flavor. The texture of the authentic is more like phyllo dough, but I think that that is much more difficult to pull off as gluten free, and much more time consuming.


Gluten Free Scallion Pancake Recipe


1   Cup GF Bisquick
1   Cup Water (instead of milk)
2   Tbs Vegetable Oil
1   Egg
1   Bunch of Scallions, finely slice the green parts only
Salt and White Pepper  (dash of each)




Blend all ingredients in a medium mixing bowl until smooth
Pour a few Tablespoons of vegetable oil into a pan and heat on stove, when oil is Really hot, carefully pour in about a 1/4 cup of pancake mix and let it fry up.  Flip and cook second side until golden brown.

Gluten Free Bierocks

Gluten Free Bierocks (German meat pies)

Before I met my husband, in his bachelor days he used to throw huge New Year's Eve Parties, he tells stories of people getting locked out of the house over night in the snow, someone sleeping on the stereo cabinet, countless tales of horrifying hook ups (won't detail those here, we do need to discuss food later and I don't want people losing their appetite.)  Suffice to say it was a huge sloppy mess of a party for a few years in there.  Then he met me, and had to change his life because I do not enjoy cleaning up other people's messes (besides my child's), you want to party like that get a hotel room and tip the maid!  Over the last few years the parties have toned themselves down anyway without me laying down the law.  Last year was our first year having kids at the party and in October I started worrying about keeping several toddlers up till midnight, I started brainstorming.  I realized that New Year's Eve is celebrated around the globe, why are we locked into celebrating it at 12:00am EST.  So last year we started a new tradition of celebrating the midnight of a different country so that we can still toast, spend time with our friends, and get the kiddos in bed at a decent hour.

Last year we celebrated Italian New Year's Eve, with (admittedly Americanized) Italian food, and a toast at 6:00pm EST.  We had a great time and all our friends told us they loved it for all the reasons we did, particularly getting kids to bed on time.  So we realized we had a hit on our hands, and we are fortunate that a good portion of Europe is in the same time zone so we can pick a new country every year and have a new theme.

This year we decided on a German theme, and for a while couldn't figure out what to serve beyond beer, brauts, and sauerkraut.  Then I started remembering a dish that my dad used to talk about from his childhood.  I recall him talking a lot about eating Bierocks that his "Little Grandma" used to make for his family when he was a kid.  Now that Dad eats gluten free, and Little Grandma is long gone he hasn't had a Bierock in years.  I thought it would be a great idea if I could test run a Bierocks recipe while we were out visiting my parents over Thanksgiving, in preparation for this year's New Year's festivities.  Plus Dad would be able to tell me how close the Bierocks were to the real thing, and if I needed to research a new recipe.

We scoured several cookbooks, and even asked around to find out if Little Grandma's recipe was ever written down anywhere.  No luck on Little Grandma's version, but we did find a suitable stand in.  Fortunately my parents keep a huge barrel of Bob's Red Mill GF All Purpose Baking Flour, so it was less work for me to convert over the recipe.  It's certainly not a simple recipe, in fact I would suggest that you plan on starting to make these about three days before you want to eat them.  It is not only a long process because it's a yeast dough, but it is incredibly labor intensive, I needed a nap halfway through making them, but it was worth it.

Two days before New Year's Eve I was here at home making a full batch of Bierocks, and opted to mix my own flours.  What a disaster!  It was as if changing out the flours made a totally different product, the original recipe called for 10-11 cups of wheat flour.  I think I used at least that if not more of different gf flours, my whole kitchen was covered in a fine layer of tapioca starch that took two days to clean.  And the final product of Bierocks looked like they were made out of dried play dough.  They tasted really good, but I was not at all happy with the dough portion.  As a result I will provide my first recipe which was a huge hit, Dad loved them and said I got it right, I was so excited!

Cute little dough purse full of yummy meat and cabbage.

Gluten Free Bierocks

2   Cups Bob's Red Mill GF AP Baking Flour
1   Tbs Xanthan Gum
1 1/4 tsp Active Dry Yeast
1/4  Cup Sugar
1   tsp Salt

1 1/4  Cup Water
1/2     Cup Milk
1/4     Cup Butter

1   Egg

1 lb   Ground Beef
1  medium Onion (chopped)
1  tsp Salt
1/2  tsp White Pepper
1 lb bag Coleslaw Mix (without dressing)

Dough

• Mix Dry ingredients and set aside
• In a sauce pan, heat water, milk and butter just until butter melts.  Remove from heat and let cool to 120-130 degrees (F).  Combine with flour mix and add egg
• Using Kitchenaid (or other heavy duty mixer) blend on low speed until moistened, then beat on medium for 3 minutes.
• By hand gradually stir in enough extra flour to make a firm dough.
• Knead on a lightly floured surface for 10 min.
• Place in a greased bowl, turn once to grease top.  Cover with a damp tea towel and let rise in a warm place till doubled, about 1 hour.
• Punch dough down and let rise again until almost doubled, re-wet tea towel and cover again.

Filling

• Start making filling while dough is rising so you will be ready to assemble when after dough is rolled out.
• Brown Beef and onion in a large pan, add salt and pepper
• Pour in bag of cabbage, and cover pot until cabbage softens and wilts

Assembly

• Spoon 1/3 - 1/4 Cup of filling onto each dough square
• Bring the four corners up over filling and pinch together and seal
• Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and Bake at 375 degrees (F) for 30 min

One batch all ready for the oven.  My folding and sealing process needs a little practice

Pasta Sauce, with hidden vegetables

Ceci enjoying one of her favorite meals, at The Old Spaghetti Factory, this kid LOVES pasta and sauce!

I've mentioned this before, but my darling sweet daughter Ceci, refuses to eat vegetables.  I'm lucky if I can get her to willingly eat 1/8 of a baby carrot per day, so I have to get creative and hide veggies in foods that she is willing to eat without noticing.  One of her most favorite meals is noodles with sauce, she will eat it until she explodes, and then have another bowl.  She also refuses to eat beef, I don't force it on her at all, most days we give her some sort of chicken if we are eating beef, but apparently pasta sauce is an acceptable way to consume beef in her opinion.

Last week I made a huge pot of Pasta sauce for dinners, we don't mind left overs here and try to get a few dinners out of each meal to ease our schedule.  I managed to hide a zucchini and a half and several baby carrots shredded and ground up in the sauce, and Ceci was none the wiser, and happy to have her favorite meal for several days in a row.  I was happy to have something that she would gladly eat, and to not have to cook multiple nights in a row.  The fact that she got some veggies in her just made it that much better.

I can't say that it was a very remarkable Pasta sauce, but it tasted good, was filling, and had extra healthy stuff in it.  Can't go wrong with that combination.  Here's how I did it, and you should read this more as a guide than a true recipe, feel free to add in different veggies or spices.

Pasta Sauce with Hidden Vegetables

2   lbs of Ground Beef
1   large Onion, chopped
1-2 small-medium Zucchini, shredded
15  Baby carrots, shredded
2   22 oz cans Crushed Tomatoes
2  tsp Kosher Salt
2  tsp Pepper
1   tsp Dried Oregano
1   tsp Dried Basil
1  Beef Bullion Cube

Directions:

Delicious veggie mush!

In a large stock pot, brown ground beef, if using low fat beef, add a tablespoon or two of oil to prevent burning.  When the beef is cooked, remove it from the pan and set aside.  Place Onion, Zucchini and Carrots into pot and saute until softened.

Place cooked veggies into food processor and grind up to a thick slurry, this will allow it to blend into the sauce better and be less perceptible to picky eaters.  If you don't mind the shreds and chunks of veggies, you can skip the food processor.

Return the veggie mix to the pot along with the ground beef, and pour in the cans of crushed tomatoes, and stir to combine.  Add in the herbs and spices, stir and let simmer.  Use a clean teaspoon and taste, add more seasoning to taste.  I tend to be very light handed with the seasoning while my husband Tim is very heavy handed, some how we find a balance.  You will have to taste because some canned tomatoes are pre-seasoned while others are plain.

Boil Gluten Free noodles according to package, and drain off water.  If Pasta sauce seems to thick you can add some pasta water to thin it down.  Then pour a heaping ladle full of sauce over a bowl of pasta, and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.  You can also serve with garlic toast if you like, I'm lazy and toast a slice of bread, butter it, and sprinkle with garlic salt.  Definitely a favorite meal for all in this family, I hope your family enjoys it too.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Roasted Brussels Sprouts!

I know what you might think, Brussels Sprouts Ewww!  And to that I say, then who ever cooked the Brussels Sprouts you ate was mean.  Tim and I found the deliciousness of Brussels Sprouts last year, I had seen more and more TV chefs using them and we were very curious why so many trained chefs would be using a veggie with such a bad reputation.  I got a small pack from the grocery store and Tim sauteed them and they were sooooo good!  I kid you not they taste like veggie candy to me!  Toasty and almost sweet, but with the salt and oil on them, I guess they might be the kettle corn of the vegetable world if I had to describe it.  When sauteed or roasted their natural sweetness comes out and they are just amazingly good.  We prefer ours a little underdone so they still resemble Brussels sprouts, you can cook them longer, but then they start to have an acrid burned taste to them which I can't stomach.

This weekend I found a huge bag of sprouts at Costco, 2 lbs to be exact, and brought them home.  Usually when we find them in the regular supermarket they are a 10-12 ounce package, which is fine if you only want to eat 4 sprouts each.  So finding this huge bag was great!  Usually Tim does the sauteing and since he does such a great job, I'm afraid to do it now.  I'm such a chicken when it comes to cooking.  I love baking but cooking drives me wild.  Then out of no where Food Network posts a roasted Brussels sprouts recipe on facebook yesterday, as if they knew I needed it.  I did tweak it a little to suit our tastes better.

I couldn't have been happier with how they came out, if I hadn't had such a delicious Shepard's pie to eat, I could have eaten a whole bowl of these Brussels sprouts.  One exceptionally important bit of information about Brussels sprouts, no matter how you choose to cook them, NEVER EVER Reheat them!!!  We tried heating leftovers one time and I gagged.  This may be why some of you think you don't like sprouts, they are AWFUL when reheated I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that they are in the cabbage family, and all the gasses they release, I couldn't say definitely.  Just a word of advice for you, don't boil them or reheat them, those are the horrible flavors that everyone thinks of when they hear the words Brussels sprouts.  


With all that said, if you cook them right they are delicious, and down right addictive.  So here goes, I adapted Ina Garten's recipe yesterday and came up with this.


Roasted Brussels Sprouts


Brussels Sprouts (Enough for one meal, with no left overs, about a handful per person)
Olive Oil
Kosher Salt
White Pepper


Preheat oven to 400 degrees (F).  Prep Brussels Sprouts by trimming off the base ends just enough to get the dried or browned portion off, and remove any yellow or damaged leaves, and cut in half.  Place halved Brussels sprouts on a rimmed sheet pan, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with kosher salt and white pepper.  Use your hand to stir the sprouts around on the pan to mix and coat them.  Place pan in oven for 22 min, shake pan half way through roasting if desired.  Remove from oven and serve immediately, giving a few minutes so they don't burn your mouth, but certainly don't eat them cold.

Brussels Sprouts on the cookie sheet just after being removed from oven

Try them tonight and rethink your opinions of Brussels Sprouts!

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Gluten Free Croutons

Very thick Butternut Squash Soup with Gluten Free Croutons

Now that fall is here it's time for all the wonderful comfort foods, and soups.  One classic fall soup is Butternut Squash, rich, thick, hearty and delicious.  I also love, that it works with so many spices and herbs and can take on so many permutations of flavor.  For this go around I kept it simple, just some salt, pepper, and a little nutmeg.  I was able to get a ton of flavor out of roasting the squash before mashing it into soup, I also used chicken stock and milk to add flavor and liquid to the soup.  The croutons were a yummy crunchy addition to the velvety warm soup.  I used such a big squash that we had to put some soup away in the freezer for another dreary rainy day.

I should let you know that I find these "cooking" posts the hardest to write, as we say in our house "cooking is art, baking is science."  I'm really good at the math and science stuff, it makes sense to me, but the whole pinch of this and dash of that, just confounds me.  So it is even harder for me to sit down and not only remember what I did but try to quantify what I did so you can be inspired in your own kitchen.  I guess my best information for you is just to keep tasting things and see if you like it, if not, throw in some more seasoning.  Sadly I'm horrible at seasoning things and usually have to rely on my husband to do so, he is excellent at seasoning and cooking, but doesn't even attempt baking.  Somehow I managed to season this soup all by myself, I was pretty proud of myself.

Please take this recipe as more of an inspiration than a list of instructions and season the soup to your own personal tastes.  Now get out there, buy a nice big Butternut Squash and get to work!

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

1 Large Butternut Squash
Olive Oil

Roasting Directions:

Halve Squash, remove seeds, coat with a thin layer of olive oil and place flesh side down on baking sheet.  Place in 400 degree (F) oven until squash is fork tender, probably 40 minutes for a medium size Butternut Squash.  Let the squash cool a little bit, so that you can handle it without burning yourself and then scoop out the roasted flesh into a pot.


Soup Directions:
1 medium apple, peeled, and cut
1 small to medium onion
Olive Oil
Kosher Salt
White Pepper
Nutmeg
Cinnamon

Before you put the squash in the pot saute some diced onions and apples, once the onion and apple are done add the squash. Use a potato masher to break down the squash in the pot, add a liquid of choice to the squash in the waiting pan (I use chicken stock, water, milk, or apple juice depending on my mood that day, or combinations of the liquids), add 4-5 cups of liquid.  Cook on medium to low heat and season to taste with salt and pepper, and anything else you think smells nice with it, nutmeg, curry, cinnamon, anything, see what you have in the pantry, and taste as you go to see if it needs more of anything.  Add more liquid if you think it needs it, soup is a very subjective thing, and can be as thin or thick as you like.  Serve in a nice big bowl with a garnish of choice, I used toasted gf bread cut into croutons, next time I might try some toasted pecans.

Gluten Free Corn Bread

I love when the weather starts to get chilly here, it means I can finally start making soups, stews, chilli's, and abusing my poor crock pot.  All the things no one wants to think of eating in the summer with the warmer weather, particularly with the excess humidity we have here in NY.  One of our favorites here is a big pot of Chili, which I make different every time based on what we have in the house, or what I find on sale at the supermarket.  One huge suggestion I can offer for the chili, is to dump in a bottle of gluten free beer, you will be shocked at the depth of flavor this can add to the dish, I hardly go without it now.

Obviously when you have a great pot of Chili the one side dish you need without question is Cornbread!  Sometimes I make chili just so I have an excuse to make cornbread, I'm not sure why I couldn't just make a batch of cornbread and get my fix.  I suppose I should start making it when I make my BBQ pork shoulder in the slow cooker too, see, one more reason I need to make cornbread.

My husband and I agree this is our favorite cornbread recipe, moist, and perfectly airy, just right for soaking up honey, or cleaning the chili bowl to get those last bits of spicy goodness.

Gluten Free Corn Bread

1    Cup Yellow Corn Meal
1/4 Cup Soy Flour
1/4 Cup Tapioca Starch
1/2 Cup Sweet Rice Flour
1/2  tsp Xanthan Gum
1/4 Cup Sugar
3    tsp Baking Powder
1    tsp Salt

1/4 Cup Butter, melted
1    Cup Milk
1    Egg, beaten

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl, stir in melted butter.  Mix egg and milk together and add to dry ingredients with only a few strokes (over mixing the batter will result in a tougher, flatter corn bread).  Bake in a greased 9x9x2 inch pan for 20-25 minutes at 425 degrees (F).

I usually stage it so the cornbread is coming out of the oven no more than 10 minutes before we sit down to eat so it's piping hot.  Tim eats his with butter and dips it into his chili, I personally like to soak mine with honey, oh and I always cut my piece just a little bit bigger than his, not enough so that he notices, but just a little, I'm pretty greedy about the corn bread around here.

Gluten Free Grilled Pizza

You may have noticed I love to eat pizza, I think I must be making up for all the pizza I missed growing up, which was a lot.  Needless to say I have a good amount of catching up to do.  This weekend at our friends the Lockhart's house, Walt mentioned they had seen gluten free frozen pizza dough at the store and if he had time he would have made grilled pizza for us.  I realized I had that exact dough in the freezer and had been waiting to use it, for what I don't know, but now I knew.  Walt explained the basic details of how-to for grilling a pizza while my husband and I both started thinking, me about the ingredients I had in the house and what I would need to add to the grocery list to make this work.  And Tim was thinking about how to make all this happen, tools, grill temperature and such.  

Upon arriving home, I opened the freezer to find it was a package of Gillian's Foods Frozen Pizza crust, the instructions were pretty simple, defrost in the fridge over night and roll out on a floured surface.  Seemed pretty simple to me, and with Walt's instructions and the back up of a few online recipes we were ready to go.  I had picked up some mozzarella at the store to go with the tomato paste and pepperoni slices I had waiting in the fridge, we figured keep the toppings simple on the first time through the process to decrease the chance of failure.  

I used a mixture of cornmeal and tapioca starch to kneed and roll out the dough on my tupperware pastry mat (I love that thing!)  We transferred the dough to a cookie sheet for transport to the grill, and prepped cheese and pepperoni.  I put a few tablespoons worth of tomato paste into a bowl for Tim to season as he saw fit, I can tell you salt, pepper, dried oregano and dried basil went into it.  Tim grabbed his heavy duty griddle to use on the grill so that we wouldn't end up with a fire scorched slab of dough.  He used olive oil to grease the griddle before we put the dough on, and let it heat through until it started to bubble up.  At that point he oiled the uncooked side and we flipped the dough, which came out gorgeous!  Beautiful grill marks and it just looked crispy.  We then got to work spreading a thin coating of the tomato paste over the entire dough and I quickly placed the cheese and pepperoni on top.  After that Tim closed the lid on the grill to allow the toppings to heat up and melt a bit.  It was probably all of 10 minutes from the time it went on the grill to the time it came off, including oiling, and flipping.  

It was DELICIOUS!  The crust was perfectly crunchy and tender at the same time.  As I said earlier, the toppings were simple and reliable, nothing terribly notable there.  But the crust was fantastic, the grill was a perfect was to heat this up nicely, no more oven for us.  I may even forgo a few of my take out pizzas to have more grilled pizzas.  Now we just have to dream up some more exotic toppings for our next attempt.  Which if my pizza appetite continues it won't be long now.  I just have to remember where I got that crust from.....hmmmm.....  I'll let you know when I find it again.

Ceci's 2nd Birthday Mac and Cheese

Gluten Free Shells, with Cheese sauce

My sweet baby turned 2 this year and we decided to celebrate at home with friends.  We decided since it was Ceci's birthday we would make food that she loves, the menu consisted of Hebrew National Hot Dogs, Mac and Cheese, cookies, and cupcakes.  All Gluten free without question!  There were of course chips, and veggies, but Ceci wasn't too worried about those.  If I haven't mentioned it before I should, Ceci Dislikes all vegetables, she loves fruit, but will not touch any kind of veggie, if I get her to put it into her mouth, she takes it out and hands it back to me, Thanks!  So we kept it simple, so that children and adults could enjoy the cuisine together.

For dinner we served Hebrew National Hot Dogs, and Chicken Apple Sausage, and my husband marinated two different concoctions of chicken drumsticks.  All of which were devoured by kids and adults.  For a side dish I made a huge batch of cheese sauce for Mac and Cheese, because we had such a large population of gluten eaters we made two pots of noodles and just dispersed the sauce accordingly.  My husband was able to warm the mac and cheese on the side burner of his massive grill so it was wonderfully cheesy warm for all to enjoy.  I love making my own roux for cheese sauce, since I have mastered this, we can't stand the thought of eating mac and cheese from a box.  Don't get me wrong I still have a box in the house for a rainy day, but if I can plan ahead I prefer to have home made roux and cheese sauce.  I think I have figured it out sort of, the biggest ingredient that I have to include is patience, which is unreasonably difficult for me to remember, but I'm getting better at it.  Here are the other physical ingredients you will need to make yummy Mac and Cheese.

Mac and Cheese Sauce


1  Tbsp butter
1  Tbsp Cornstarch
1  Cup Milk (warmed)
2  Cups Shredded cheese  (we prefer 1/2 Monterey Jack, 1/2 Sharp Cheddar)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Melt Butter in a medium sauce pan, add in Cornstarch and stir until cornstarch blends into butter, now wait for cornstarch to start to brown within the melted butter.  I find this gives it a bit of a nutty taste and allows the cornstarch to develop to it's proper ability.  While waiting for the cornstarch, place the milk into the microwave and warm for 1-1.5 min, adding cold milk to the roux will take longer for the cornstarch to reach the point where it "works", by warming the milk you do not shock the warm mixture, you coax it to work together.  The milk does not need to be hot, just no longer cold.  Add the warm milk to the mixture and stir frequently, once the sauce begins to thicken, add all the shredded cheese.  Allow the cheese to melt and mix into the sauce, add salt and pepper to taste, I prefer to add these at the end because some cheeses are saltier than others.  Serve over warm noodles and try not to eat the entire pot yourself!

Melted butter and cornstarch

Finished cheese sauce 

Pesto.... mmmmmm

If you read the previous post "Sheri's Garden" you know that I was given a gigantic shopping bag filled with fresh basil sprigs from my friend Sheri's garden.  I used them to make an enormous batch of Pesto, one of my now favorite summer dishes, partly for the easy prep, and mostly for the delicious flavorful taste.  I found a very easy recipe sometime last year, most likely off the food network website where I access many of my recipes.  I keep this one posted on the fridge so I don't have to hunt for it when I need it, although I think I almost have it memorized.
This time I had Ceci sitting at the table eating her dinner when I got out the food processor to start making the pesto, and Ceci had a fit.  She demanded that I get her down from the table and let her help make the pesto.  She loves to run the food processor, to the point I often have to unplug it while she is helping to keep her from turning it on.  I should also mention that lately she climbs right onto the island counter to help with any and all projects I am working on.  This day was no exception, she climbed right up and grabbed a basil sprig and started very carefully picking leaves off and placing them into the food processor.  I have to say she was probably more selective than I was, maybe I should just let her cook our dinners from now on and take a break.  She also decided to control how much olive oil I used while we were running the food pro, by placing her hand at the bottom end of the bottle and not letting me retract it when I felt there was enough in already.

I hope you enjoy the pesto as much as we do over a bowl of nice warm noodles.

Pesto
2 cloves of garlic
1/4 Cup Pine nuts (or walnuts)
1/2 Cup grated Parmesan Cheese
2 Cups fresh Basil leaves
1/3-1/2 Cup Olive oil Drizzled in

Place all ingredients, except the olive oil into the food processor and turn on, drizzle olive oil through top of processor as it's working.  Mixture will loosen up as the olive oil incorporates, mix until desired consistency and turn off food pro.  Open up and eat IMMEDIATELY over warm fresh cooked noodles. The Pesto will oxidize very quickly making it look brown and unappealing, this has no bearing on the flavor and should be totally ignored.
If you would like to enjoy Pesto outside of the summer time, you have a couple of options, you can freeze the leaves and then defrost them and make the pesto when you want.  Or you can make the pesto without the Parmesan cheese, and freeze, defrost when ready, and add Parmesan before you eat it.

Sheri's Garden

  


This weekend I attended a professional conference and my husband had to go out of town leaving us in deep need of childcare.  I am fortunate enough to call an amazing woman my friend who took Ceci for two days of the weekend.  Not only did she care for and love Ceci, but she also fed us a very delicious dinner, on Sunday night, but gave us enough left overs and pickings from her garden to have more fantastic dinners for the next couple of nights.  
  Lets start with Sheri's baked ziti that we ate on Sunday night, one of Ceci's favorite meals in the world.  Have I ever mentioned that this child would live on pasta and sauce with a little cheese if I would let her?  This version was a light red sauce over Tinkyada brown rice penne with melted cheese on top, baked in the oven to finish.  After Ceci and I both polished off a big bowl each, we had some very happy tummies.  And if that wasn't enough, we were also treated to bread related treats from Bare Naked Bakery and Cafe, including a pepperoni roll, a chicken roll, and a baguette, which Sheri doctored up with some garlic, butter, and herbs.  Sadly many of Bare Naked Bakeries products retain a very over powering flavor/after taste of yeast, which was the case again here.  I can say that the spiciness of the pepperoni in the roll was enough to cover up the yeast based crime, but the chicken could not hide the flavor.
  When dinner was over Sheri invited me to her small but over productive garden to take home some veggies and herbs.  She sent me home with a shopping bag filled with basil, 4 good size tomatoes, 1 huge cucumber, and a handful of cherry tomatoes (that are not the size of cherries, but rather apricots).  
  I sliced up one tomato for my lunch sandwich and realized I had forgotten how good veggies SHOULD taste.  This gave me inspiration for tonight's dinner, I already knew the basil was destined for a huge batch of pesto, which has become a favorite dish of my husband and I.  But the fresh tomato and cucumber intrigued me.  I decided to chop them into large bite size chunks and toss them together, which was delicious in it's own right.  You will find as you follow this blog, that I'm mildly incapable of seasoning food on my own, so I leave this to my husband Tim.  He added Kosher Salt, ground Tellicherry pepper, and dried dill.  The tomatoes took on a sweet velvety texture, while the cucumbers became more lemony, and retained their crunch.  I probably could have eaten the whole bowl by myself, but I managed to control myself and eat only a big portion.  
  It was sooooo good!  And so super simple to make.