Sweet banana crumpets

Let me start by stating that I am not a crumpet person. I don't think I've ever had one homemade. I vaguely remember trying a store bought one at the home of a child whose family I used to provide respite care to, twenty or so years ago.

When I saw this recipe for Sweet Banana Crumpets, this was what caught my eye:

"They are delicious warm from the oven as shown-- but truly sublime when sliced in half and grilled in a touch of olive oil till golden."

Gluten-Free Goddess knows how to eat :-)

I bought these muffin rings to make this recipe. I like cute gadgety things...and I love these.

Beautiful.

These crumpets were easy to make. They are cooling now and tomorrow, I plan to serve them grilled with homemade strawberry soy ice cream. Yum :-)

Sloppy lentils

Once a month, my friend, E, hosts Sacred Singing at her house. It is a wonderful gathering to sing sacred songs and to break bread together. It was at Sacred Singing that I was introduced to E's Sloppy Lentils.

I have very fond childhood memories of Mrs. Kasuga's Sloppy Joe's. I don't remember anyone else ever making them for me...maybe my mom once or twice. If I close my eyes, the memory of her Sloppy Joe's are multi-sensory. I loved them.

I think my kids would probably like Sloppy Joe's. They love the meat sauce I make for spaghetti, which is made with ground meat. But, because I have yet to venture into baking burger buns, Sloppy Joe's hadn't entered my mind.

These Sloppy Lentils are so good, they have me seriously pursuing the baking of burger buns. I came close to making them today, but I'm in the midst of a lot of cooking and just didn't have the energy and time.

So, tonight, we will enjoy the lentils over rice. This batch came out quite salty. I'm not sure why, though I am certain the fault lies with me and my 'eyeballing' style of cooking :-)

E's Sloppy Lentils

(...as modified from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker cookbook...with some tweaks by me)

2 Tbsp safflower oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 1/2 cups dried brown lentils, picked over and rinsed
14.5 ounce can crushed tomatoes (I prefer Muir Glen fire roasted
tomatoes for the extra smokiness)
5 cups water
2 Tbsp Bragg's liquid aminos
1 Tbsp prepared mustard
1 Tbsp light brown sugar
3-4 Tbsp honey mustard (if I don't have any around, I just put in 2
Tbsp honey and 2 additional Tbsp prepared mustard)
1 tsp salt
freshly ground pepper

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet (I use the saucier, but sometimes
resort to a soup pot) over medium heat. Add the onion, cover, and
cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the chili powder, stirring
to coat.

2. Add the rest of the ingredients, turn up the heat until it comes to
a boil, then turn it down to a lively simmer and cover it. It takes a
solid two hours to cook, sometimes longer. Check it every half hour
to stir and make sure it has enough water.


I've adjusted the amount of cooking time and water to make this with
navy beans or kidney beans, too -- not quite as perfect to pile into a
crusty roll when I use the larger beans, but still quite tasty. With
the beans it takes at least an extra hour cooking time, and additions
of water for the last hour or hour and a half.

Clean Food

It has been a long time, years, since I have been inspired enough by a cookbook to buy it.

We have a lot of cookbooks. We used to buy them for fun. And when GFCF Kid came along, we bought them out of necessity. But, somewhere along the line, we stopped buying them. Between diminishing shelf space, coming down on spending, and the advent of the blogosphere, my modus operandi shifted.

I began borrowing cookbooks from the library and photocopying recipes here and there. I discovered that most books were not worth buying for the couple of recipes that sounded good. Some books had helpful tips about cookware, organizing one's kitchen, and cooking. This information I took in without having to buy the book, thanks to libraries. I also learned that I liked reading food/cooking blogs and that they were a fertile source of recipes. For free!

BFF Knitgirl recently recommended I check out a book called Clean Food. What really piqued my interest was that I thought she mentioned a recipe for kombucha. So I requested the book from the library, it didn't have a recipe for kombucha, and I kind of fell in love with it anyway :-)

I believe all the recipes are vegan. Most are gluten-free and most of the recipes that do use gluten offer gluten-free substitutes right in the recipe. I really like how she offers tips on maximizing the nutritional values of staples like grains. I like how many of the recipes use seaweed and sea vegetables. I like how recipe after recipe, I thought, "that sounds yummy", "I could make that with my regular pantry items", and "I think the kids/partner would not only eat that, but like it, too".

Yes. Inspiring.

It is a hefty 45% off cover price at Amazon. I bought it and eagerly await its arrival!

Chili garlic sauce

Took the kids and some friends to H Mart today. We needed more seasoned nori! We went to a different store and I'm glad we did. Though this one was further as the crow flies, because less of the journey was on surface roads, it ended up taking close to the same amount of time to get there and back.

They had the chili garlic sauce I used to love when we lived in Sacramento! I was very happy to place that in my bag. We picked up a lot of the nori and I also bought some baby bok choi kimchi.

This store also had a ton of free food samples, yummy smells greeted us at every turn! The Omnivore tried some ice cream he really liked so we bought some of that, too. GFCF Kid found the sushi section and we briefly debated buying the nice looking piece of sushi grade salmon. We decided we'd come back on a day of planned sushi making.

I had a delicious lunch, an okonomiyaki sandwich. The bread is my homemade sandwich bread, the GFCF okonomiyaki was made by Miki yesterday (we didn't stay for the campfire backyard dinner but she gave me some of her always tasty food to take home), mayo and chili garlic sauce.

Super yum. No, yum extraordinaire :-)

Korean pickled radish

pickled radish, vinegar, salt, sugar, sesame seeds.

Maybe someday I will make my own pickled veggies on a regular basis. But, for now, I am enjoying these, found at H Mart last weekend. I was looking for kimchi with no preservatives, something simply GFCF. It was interesting how so many of the kimchis contained shrimp paste, which Red Sox Daddy cannot have (he is severely allergic).

I ended up buying the pickled radishes because I coildn't find a jar of kimchi I was happy with...and frankly, was too shy to talk to the kimchi monger about their house kimchi, which was being sold, without labels, in large plastic bags.

The radishes are good. Fresh, with great texture and flavor. I've been eating them with white rice.

And, incidentally, I learned of an online kimchi shop yesterday. It's a small business, family-run, and very hands-on. My inquiring e-mail about whether their product was gluten-free was answered promptly and in the positive. I placed an order and eagerly await my kimchi sampler trio :-)

Interesting fact: before my pregnancies I could not tolerate spicy food. It didn't taste good to me, at all. Now, I experience hot peppers and spice very differently. It is as if I stepped into an alternate dimension. It feels like a connection has opened up and makes me happy.

Seasoned nori

Until fairly recently, I had no idea that nori had the nutritional richness that it does. (Huh, it contains protein?!)

I grew up eating the stuff and the kids have been eating it since they were wee, mostly as a wrap for sushi or onigiri.

I remember eating ajitsuke (flavored) nori when I was a kid. The seasoning changed the quality of the nori experience, for sure. Japanese seasoned nori is flavored with soy sauce, which contains wheat. So, GFCF Kid has not been able to try this savory treat.

About a month ago, we were over at Melody's house and she made us lunch. She served us Korean seasoned nori and I was delighted to see that the ingredients were just nori, sesame oil, corn oil and salt. I tried it and loved it. I can't remember if the kids tried it or not. They tend to not eat very much when we are at someone's house. They want to get back to playing.

Last weekend Cap and I had some kid-free time and we used part of it to make our first trip to H Mart, a Korean supermarket. One of the items I was on the look out for was seasoned nori. And I found it :-) The kids cannot get enough of it, they absolutely love it. They've been wrapping rice with it and eating it unadorned as a snack in the car.

Cooking vessels

I didn't really cook before GFCF Kid became, well, a GFCF kid.

My mom is a great cook and I always enjoyed eating her food growing up. But, I was never interested in learning how to cook myself.

In college, I ate food service food quite happily. Back then, we were only required to buy a meal plan our freshman year. But, I always had money on my ID card (thanks to my parent) and often ate my meals on-campus even after I moved out of the dorms.

During college I did start to dabble in home cooking. My circles happened to have like-minded folks when it came to food and we began having co-op meals where we would cook for each other, somewhere between a dozen and two dozen of us. I got to know the Moosewood cookbooks well.

After college, I moved to Hiroshima for a year and lived alone for the first and only time in my life. What did I eat? A lot of canned tuna. And toast with butter. And convenience store onigiri. And I ate out. I was a regular at Mitchan, an okonomiyaki place. I took off a lot of weight that year.

What I remember most about cooking in Cambridge, the time before GFCF Kid came along, was that when I cooked, it was almost always scrambled eggs. They were just about the only thing I cooked, but they also became my specialty. I became curious about improving my technique and taught myself a few things.

But, then came GFCF Kid. Our firstborn, who changed everything. When he was about three months old, I went on an elimination diet to try to ascertain what in my diet, which he was getting via breastmilk, could be causing his bloody stools. Suddenly, it became very difficult to have our staples or any take-out. A month later, I was down to eating rice and some veggies and fruit. I was also back to work full-time and newly parenting not only my first baby, but also a baby who had bloody poops (though he was, thankfully, fat and happy and didn't appear sickly at all).

By the time GFCF Kid started eating food (he was switched from breastmilk to hypoallergenic formula at 4 1/2 months), we knew he was very allergic to cow's milk. We didn't discover he needed to be gluten-free, as well, for another year or so. For awhile there, he was also allergic to soy.

Between having a toddler with multiple food allergies and the arrival of a second baby within eighteen months of the birth of the first, and working an incredibly rewarding yet equally demanding full-time job, something had to give for me.

So I quit my job. And we moved in with Red Sox Daddy's dad. And began the journey of figuring out how to live on one income while nourishing each other and ourselves, trying to be as independent as we can, but also relying, as gracefully as we could, on the help of our family and friends.

Something I have learned over the years is that, as much as possible, it is worth it to spend more money/time on purchasing certain kitchen/cooking items. It takes time to figure out when you are simply paying more for a brand, as opposed to finer workmanship or more quality base material.

And it definitely takes time to figure out which are the tools of the trade you will use and depend on for years and years, as opposed to the ones which seem nifty at first but turn out to be redundant because something you already have can perform the same trick (which is really cool).

This hasn't been easy for me. But, having been at it for seven years or so in three different states, I have a lot of experience under my belt. I never anticipated that this would be such a big part of my life, but this is what I have spent much time and energy on. First, there was learning the ingredients, then there was learning the resources, then learning recipes, then streamlining (time), streamlining (cost), and streamlining (tools/space) some more.

As I have moved away from novice status, I have felt quite a drive to make more and more efficient the process and the life of being a GFCF parent.

All this front story for a post about a rice cooker and Dutch oven.


I have wanted a Le Creuset Dutch oven for years. I love color and Le Creuset is colorful. I am drawn to heirloom pieces. Things that are crafted to last for generations to come. Le Creuset fit that bill, too. Then, I began seeing recipes that called for the use of a Dutch oven. And I learned what a Dutch oven was. (That's me...wanting something before I even know what it's used for...or that it could be useful to me. I love beautiful things, unreasonably sometimes.)

I never bought one because they are really expensive. I could somehow never justify it. A quirk of the brain since I have justified spending a lot of money on other things in my life.

I am also not one for delaying gratification. It is very unusual for me to be able to wait comfortably for something that doesn't have a definite arrival date. So for me to have waited years...that's something.

Recently, one thing led to another and I bought a Dutch oven. It's made of cast iron and coated in enamel. Like Le Creuset. It was not made in France and I was disappointed that it was not made in the U.S.A., but at a fraction of the Le Creuset price tag (I bought mine from Amazon), and the personally known reliability of their other cast iron products (which are American made), it was a no-brainer.

I was very happy to find our new Dutch oven, made by Lodge.


The timing of buying the Dutch oven coincided with the search for a new rice cooker. Our old rice cooker was sixteen years old and had served us so well. But, the heating elements were going awry and the rice was coming out soggy in spots and crunchy in others.

I spent some time doing research and some time mourning the demise of ol' faithful. And chose the Zojirushi 10 cup mid- price range rice cooker. It cost nearly $200. But, we have been using it almost every day since its arrival, it makes perfect rice and keeps it warm for 24 hours (they say 12, but it's been fine for 24), and I am betting we'll have it for a good 15 years or so.

I know not everyone lives a culture of rice like I do, but if you like rice, I recommend looking into getting a rice cooker if you don't already have one. It makes streamlining easy.

Natto

Natto is one of those foods people either love or hate. Natto is fermented soybeans and you can read about them here.

I hated the way natto looked, more than anything, when I was kid and my parents would eat it. But, somewhere along the line, I tried it again as an adult and discovered that I really liked it. The added bonus of its healthful properties push it over to a must-eat food.

Because I eat it uncooked, and soy is not on-list, I have not been drawn to eating it during this semi-Dragon's Way time. But, I did have some the other day. Partly because we've been eating a lot of rice thanks to our new rice cooker, and partly because I was in the mood for having a pastured egg raw.

My favorite way to have natto is with a raw egg, soy sauce (I tried it this time with coconut aminos but didn't love it...will go back to Braggs next time), grated daikon pulp and chopped scallion. Sometimes I add shredded nori. Yum.

Natto freezes really well. I usually buy a bunch whenever I go to an Asian market and toss them in the freezer. They defrost overnight in the fridge or in about an hour on the counter.

Teriyaki-ish chicken

The photo is not very appetizing. This was one of those instances where the magic of what I was doing removed any thoughts of archiving from my mind. By the time I realized I wanted to take a photo, all the nicely browned pieces were eaten and the day's natural light was fading fast (I much prefer shooting in natural light than the flash.)

I'm sorry to say that there isn't much of a recipe to speak of in this post, either. I wing this dish, based on experience. I hope you can give this idea time and repetition, too. It's worth it. Promise.

Ingredients:

* skinless boneless chicken breast (no reason you couldn't use skin-on chicken here)
* safflower oil
* garlic powder, salt, pepper, sugar
* Bragg's or coconut aminos (soy sauce substitute)
* mirin

Heat a pan that you will be able to cover, add oil.

Slice into the chicken breasts, but do not cut through. Alternately, you could pound the chicken. (The point is to allow the chicken to cook through in less time.)

Season the chicken with garlic powder, salt, pepper, sugar, to taste. I usually season just one side and let loose with the garlic powder, in particular. The sugar is critical for that teriyaki flavor.

Once the oil is hot, place chicken in pan. Tongs work nicely to place them gently, minimizing hot oil splash.

Add mirin (about 1/4 cup for about 1 lb. of chicken) and soy sauce substitute (2-3 Tbs) over the chicken, into the pan.

Cover and steam/braise/cook over a medium to medium-high for 5 minutes. The liquid in the pan should be bubbling merrily.

Uncover, flip the chicken over, cover and cook for an additional 5 minutes.

Turn off the heat and let sit for about a minute or two.

Serve sliced, with rice of choice and a veggie.

The chicken should be remarkably tender and moist, the flavor yummy. Tweak your seasoning and cooking time/stove top heat to your liking next time, if it doesn't quite do it for you the first time.

Gluten-Free Pantry French Bread

There's a Gluten-Free Goddess recipe for sweet banana crumpets that I want to try to make at some point. When I was at Nature's Pavilion last month (or the month before...whenever that was...) I bought a box of Gluten-Free Pantry's French Bread and Pizza Mix thinking that was what the crumpets recipe called for. It wasn't. So, the box sat in the pantry for a few weeks.

Then, one day, the box provided a needed shortcut in making a loaf of sandwich bread. (Either I was missing ingredients to make my usual loaf or I was feeling enervated by hormones or the dullness of routine, I can't remember the exact circumstances.)

This first loaf was close to inedible for me, but the rest of the fam liked it.

While doing the weekly food shopping the week after I made the first loaf, I noticed that the mix was on sale, buy one get one free. So I bought another box and a box of the muffin and scone mix (for those banana crumpets).

One of my strengths as a learner is that I revise well, and easily. I had found the first loaf on the dry side so I boosted the liquids in the second loaf: more water, more oil, and bigger eggs (I had my wonderful pastured eggs on hand). I was out of safflower oil so I used olive oil for this loaf.

The second loaf was delicious. Really yummy. The unbelievable egg yolks gave this loaf a warm yellow color. And the olive oil masked the flavor that really turned me off of the first loaf (likely the xanthan gum).

Which brings us to this week. I still haven't made the crumpets, but I did put two more boxes of this bread mix on the shopping list. It's a great pantry item to have handy. It's cheaper than a store bought loaf of GFCF bread and much tastier.

The loaf I made Monday morning was gone by Monday night. This morning, I made another loaf. I had both the rice cooker and the bread machine going within 15 minutes or so. There was warm rice available for breakfast and sandwiches on soft, fresh bread for lunch. Yum.

Cole slaw

Cole slaw was a side I could take or leave for most of my life. If there was potato salad around, then forget it, I always chose that over the chopped cabbage.

This all changed the day I had Jamie's mom's Cole slaw. It completely redefined the food for me. That's some kind of special.

Jamie's mom generously shared her recipe with me and I was delighted at its simplicity. I have made it many, many times since and it has yet to let me down. (That's a definite upside to uncomplicated...it's easy to replicate.)

Tomorrow night we are hosting common meal. We had hoped for a picnic and I immediately thought of making Jamie's mom's Cole slaw. The forecast is calling for a wet Wednesday, but this dish will bring the picnic indoors with its unmistakable seasonal signature.

Jamie's Mom's Cole Slaw

Shred 1 head green cabbage (cored, outer leaves peeled) and grate 2 medium carrots (peeled) in a food processor.

Combine 1 cup mayonnaise with 3 Tbs oil (I use safflower), 2 Tbs white vinegar (I use apple cider), 2 tsp sugar and dashes of salt and pepper (to taste) in a small bowl (I use my 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup with its handy spout).

Toss everything together in a large mixing bowl. Transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate overnight.

Enjoy, people, I do...every single time :-)

Granola

I made granola for the first time today. A newly GF friend and I went in on a bulk order of GF oats. I'd thrown the bag out awhile ago (the oats went into an airtight container and then into the fridge shortly after its arrival) so I can't say what the company name is.

Since buying these oats, I've discovered that the super Whole Foods near us sells Bob's Red Mill rolled oats (certified gluten-free) for a comparable price so next time I'll probably just get those.

I used Stitch Marker's recipe which can be found here.

This was very easy to make. I did buy peanut oil (Whole Foods didn't have corn oil) and almond extract...neither of which is a usual pantry item for us. Everything else, I had on hand.

I used parchment paper rather than oiling the pan which worked fine.

I couldn't pinch mine into clusters so well. But once the granola was cooked and cooled, it broke apart into clusters easily.

My batch tasted bitter at first. But then it was as if my tongue adjusted and I no longer tasted the bitterness. Strange.

I would like this a touch sweeter. I'll probably add more brown sugar next time.

It's tasty, the almonds go well in it (I stuck with just almonds mostly because I knew walnuts would really turn the kids off) and makes a great snack.

Choc and pb

A quickie sans photo:

A scoop of your favorite non-dairy chocolate ice cream and a dollop of peanut butter. Combine and enjoy.

And, yes, I am PMSing ;-)

Veggie scramble

Our pastured eggs come every two weeks and this latest batch is gorgeous. Red Sox Daddy made corn bread last night and the color of the bread was completely different, deeper and brighter, due to the yolks of these amazing eggs.

This morning, I couldn't resist the siren song of the eggs.

I decided to make a veggie scramble because something from the Dragon's Way book has been reverberating. Something that never has before (the benefit of doing anything more than once is you really can and do pick up and learn something new/different every time).

The healing foods are healing no matter what. So, if you choose to go off-list, try to do so in addition to eating healing foods, not instead of.

This morning's scramble:

3 scallions (white and some green parts, chopped)
1/2 zucchini (chopped pretty finely...they cook faster this way)
1 plum tomato (chopped pretty finely...see above)
safflower oil
1 lovely pastured egg
salt
pepper
sugar

Heat oil in small pan. Sauté the scallions, then add the zuke, then add the tomato. Once it looks wonderfully melded and smells really good, crack the egg in. Stir and stir to scramble the egg. Season to your liking, with seasonings of your choice. I almost didn't use sugar figuring the tomatoes were sweet, but am so glad I did. It pulled the flavors together gently and nicely.

I had my scramble on toast with mayo.