Thursday, January 24, 2008

gluten free strawberry muffins




I modified a basic rice muffin recipe found in The Best-Ever Wheat and Gluten Free Baking Book by Wenniger. These things are pretty tasty! I freeze them until I'm ready to stick one in my bag on my way out the door to school.

Ingredients:
2 T. butter or oil
2 eggs
1/2 c. milk
1/2 t. vanilla
1 1/2 c. rice flour
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 t. salt
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. cream of tartar
handful of frozen strawberry pieces (or whatever fruit you like)
some nuts to sprinkle on top if you feel like it

Preheat oven to 350. Grease muffin tin or add those liner thingies. Cream sugar and butter, beat in eggs. Mix flour, salt, baking powder and cream of tartar in a bowl. Add to the egg mixture alternatively with milk. Don't mix too much. Stir in the strawberries and vanilla. Bake for 20 minutes or so.

Mine look extra festive because all I had were Christmas liners, and of course I drizzled some glaze because I think everything's better with icing. [some powdered sugar with a dash of vanilla, thinned with water]

Monday, January 21, 2008

"Cold Weather" Chili, gluten free

This is a good recipe, really easy to make. Just dump everything in a pot and let it simmer for a while. Gotta give props: I found it in a cookbook by Carol Fenster: Gluten-Free Quick and Easy. This book has been very helpful for a lot of things, btw.

This recipe makes a lot for one person so there were plenty of leftovers to freeze. I even stuck some in my boyfriend's freezer, so I can have an hot gluten-free meal when he decides to order pizza. It's cold and rainy here, so I reheated some that I had frozen and it was delicious. I usually eat it plain but when I was a kid my mom used to put it over elbow noodles and my friend Dayna said that she puts it over rice.

Southwestern Chili

Ingredients:
2 lbs ground round
1 c. chopped onion
2 cans (15 oz) pinto or kidney beans
2 cans (15 oz) canned, peeled whole tomatoes
2 cans (4 oz) mild diced green chiles

2 T. chili powder
1 1/2 t. dried oregano
1 t. ground cumin
1/2 t. ground coriander
1/4 t. ground cloves
1/4 t. garlic powder
1 1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. sugar
2 c. water

Brown the onion and meat in a big pot over medium heat. Add everything else, cover and let simmer over low heat for at least 2 hours.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

gluten free beer and stir fry

Sitting here drinking a beer and eating some delish stir-fry with a kick.
Life's good.

I read about this beer, Redbridge (made from sorghum), from gluten free goddess [link to the right]. It's not bad! I prefer the taste of the darker beers but this is pretty good for the first beer I've drank in a while.

And... I'm in love. With stir-fries, that is. I've never made stir fry and I am amazed at how quick and easy it is to whip up a hot yummy meal. I heated up a dab of oil in a pan, threw in some frozen "stir fry" veggies, stirred every once in a while, stuck a dab of La Choy Teriyaki sauce and poured it over rice. Bam. Dinner. I am going to have fun experimenting with this. It won't be that hard to add some meat to it, either.

Time to finish my beer and do the dishes.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

bagels + what to do with them



So I made these bagels and it was the first time I'd ever tried making anything even remotely similar to this. Yes the picture is crappy but I am an amateur at a lot of things.
Anyway it was actually kind of fun and they even turned out slightly bagel-like! They tasted pretty good, too. I had to convert the recipe from metric measurements, so these amounts are as close as I could figure.

Ingredients:

a little less than 1 c. rice flour
appx 1 1/4 c. tapioca flour
2 T. dry milk powder
1 3/4 t. xanthan gum
1 t. salt
1 T. sugar
2T. butter or margarine (other butter substitutes worked fine)
3 T. hot water
2 large egg whites
1 t. sugar for later

For yeast:
appx 6T. warm water
1 t. sugar
1 T. yeast
(the particular packet that I used was 2 1/4 t. yeast and called for 1/4 c. warm water but it still worked this way. I think next time I'll try it the way it is on the packet and see how it turns out)

Mix the flours, milk powder, xanthan gum, salt and sugar.

Dissolve the butter in the hot water. (I thought this was pretty dumb wording since oil does not dissolve in water and lo and behold-- it didn't! I combined the butter and water, then microwaved it at about 15 seconds at a time, stirring after each blast, until the butter was melted.)

Add the sugar to the warm water, then sprinkle the yeast on top. Let it sit for a few minutes until it's foamy.

Add the hot water/ butter mixture to the dry ingredients. They won't combine that well but do the best you can.

Add the egg whites, then the yeast mixture.
If you're using one of those fancy mixer things, set it at high for about 4-5 minutes. If you're like me and using a wooden spoon, mix it all real good for about 4-5 minutes. You will see a definite change in the texture as the lumps go away and it starts to look like bagel batter.
At this point, check the consistency and make sure it's not too runny or too dry. Add small amounts of rice flour or water until it's good.

Shape the dough into 6 or 8 bagel-shaped blobs of dough onto oiled and [rice] floured or parchment-covered cookie sheets. You will probably need liberal dustings of rice flour on your hands and the dough to keep everything from sticking. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and a dish towel and let them double in size (about an hour).

When they're ready, boil a saucepan full of water and add 1 t. sugar.
Boil the bagels for about 30 seconds on each side, place them on a cooling rack until they've dried a little, then put them back on the cookie sheet. Bake at 425 for 20-22 minutes.

I made one bagel into a pizza bagel by adding pasta sauce, some cheese and pepperoni and stuck it under the broiler for a few minutes. This morning I cooked up an egg, fried some ham and stuck that on a halved and toasted (very slightly or it will dry out) bagel with some cheese. You could always smear some cream cheese & jelly or that stuff called "lox" that I've heard is good on bagels. Quick and delicious.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

awesome gluten free chocolate cake

I think for my first entry I'm going to post the recipe for the divine chocolate cake that rivals this. I actually haven't tried substituting a gluten free flour mix in that recipe, but this one is delicious enough. It was one of the first recipes I tried because of its lack of unfamiliar ingredients and it turned out WAY better than I expected. I made it for my birthday and everyone loved it. I froze some to defrost and eat later, but it becomes slightly grainy when I reheat it. Here's the recipe:

CAKE:

Boil:
1/2 c. butter
1 c. water
1/3 c. cocoa
1/2 c. oil

Sift and pour over mix: (I just mixed in a bowl with a whisk instead of "sifting")
2 c. cornstarch
2 c. sugar
1/2 t. salt
1 t. baking soda

Add: 1/2 c. buttermilk and 2 eggs

Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes in a 9x13 pan.

ICING:

Boil:
1/4 c. butter
1/4 c. cocoa

Add: (I used a hand mixer)
1/3 c. buttermilk
1 t. vanilla
1/4 t. salt
3-4 c. powdered sugar

I couldn't wait for it to cool to try it because it smelled so wonderful, so I iced it hot and it made the cake extra moist.