Thanksgiving Goodies

Thanksgiving has come and gone and finally the goodies are eaten or discarded. One of the most challenging part of the meal is always the desserts. This year I did go toward some classic desserts that are naturally gluten free - even if they are filled with calories!
 I made a basic white cake mix the day before for a traditional trifle. This cake does not have to be brilliant and does not have to be all light and fluffy either which helps. A few slices of the cake were placed at the bottom of a glass bowl, then removed to spread with strawberry preserve and returned. Next is the liqueur part - I use sherry but you can use red wine or even brandy if you want to. Let this all sit to marinate overnight. Add a  layer of fruit (peaches, strawberries, raspberries etc - fresh or canned) and cover with a layer of red jello.  When this has set, add a layer of cooled Birds' custard. Top off with a layer of whipped cream and decorate with sprinkles, fruit or whatever.
My other main dessert was a pavlova. This uses a 6 egg meringue spread into a circle. Bring the edges of the circle up slightly to form a bowl and cook in a cool over (325) for about an hour until light brown. Remove onto a serving plate. Fill with a mix of freshly whipped cream with fruit incorporated. This does not really  need anything on top but a few pieces of fruit can be used.
As I said not great for the waistline but pretty good for being gluten free - I really should have taken a picture but forgot - gosh darn that means I will have to make another one!

Baking Day

Blueberry

Don't know what came over me today except that I had some blueberries in the fridge, some overripe bananas and some cranberries. Combining them was not an option but within an hour I had made 3 batches or cookies.
Banana Bread: 4oz butter, 1/2cup brown sugar, 2 eggs, 1 tbs syrup 6 bananas (I only used 4) 2 cups Pamela's flour, 1 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp xantham.
Cranberry muffins: 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4cup veg oil, 1 egg, 1 cup orange juice. Then add the flour 1.5cups plus 2 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp xanthan) ;
Blueberry: 4 oz butter, 1 cup sugar, 2 eggs, vanilla and 1/2cup milk. Add 2 cups flour, 2 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp xanthan)

The muffins were standard mix and blend the sugar and fat, add eggs then flour with fruit in it.

Bake 20 mins.

The result was interesting and varied - the blueberry was fine, the banana was rather sweet for my taste and the cranberries needed a bit more sugar or something but might be fine for breakfast!!!
Here are the assemblage - and for one hour of baking it was not a bad deal - the kids think I am in training for the holidays rather like runners train for marathons, I have to train for baking sessions!!

Cranberry and banana 'bread'



Note that if anyone need the exact recipe I can track them down and let you have them. 1 came from Allrecipes.com the other from food.com

A Basic Bread Stuffing Recipe for Poultry

With Thanksgiving round the corner I decided I need to spend some time making stuffings etc so that they would be decent for the holiday. The arrival of Udi's bread since last year has made a major difference and for a basic bread stuffing it works well, particularly if you have fresh herbs in the garden.
I like to use the bread almost frozen - traditionally bread is one day old, but that was before ultra processing and preservatives, and gluten free bread really is not 'fresh' even at its best stage! So at least half frozen does allow the bread to be ground into small pieces rather than sticky clumps.

The other problem with gluten free stuffing vs traditional is a matter or how much do you want to make? Bread is cheap and thus was used to add bulk, gluten free bread is not cheap. So I tend to make just a small amount - maybe just 4 slices of bread.

So trim the crust off the 4 slices of bread and whirl in chopper to make breadcrumbs.
To the breadcrumbs, add a tablespoon each of fresh thyme, sage and parsley.
Add a minced onion (finely chopped).
Mix one egg with a tablespoon of milk and add slowly to the stuffing. If you are lactose intolerant etc, use artificial egg liquid.
The final mix should be moist but not soggy.
Let the mix rest in the fridge for 30 mins then cook in 375 degree oven until fully cooked.
Serve with poultry and enjoy.

Gluten Free BBQ Sauce

The thing with commercial barbecue sauce is that they use 'vinegar'. Some admit that the vinegar is malt vinegar, most do not but I assume that they use malt vinegar as well. For most people that is a problem as the malt tend to be from barley, so making a good barbecue sauce was essential if I was going to enjoy bbq ribs etc on the grill - ribs sans sauce are pretty dull!

So after a few goes, here is what I am now making and the guys all seem to think it is as good as the commercial brands - except that I don't make enough to store in a jar - maybe I should consider that, but I am not sure how long it would keep safely.
The recipe:

About 1/2 cup/ 100ml tomato paste;
1/2 cup/100ml dark molasses;
About 3 tbsp wine vinegar;
Juice of a small lemon;
3 small/2 lg cloves garlic
About a tsp chili flakes.
Mix all together and use to brush onto meat.

Note that the garlic and chili can be changed with your taste. I use some great chili flakes that are very strong, so only a tsp is needed. Adjust this to your taste. Red or white wine vinegar can be used. The consistency is sticky and able to be brushed on.
Let me know what you think.

Pork with Gf herb/wine sauce

I am far from a great cook, but with a family you need to make an effort. Lately we have been in a rut - same things each week - shepherd's pie, sweet sour pork, burgers etc. Yesterday, I needed a change and the pork chops were the target.  Stuffing with a sage/onion stuffing was the first thought but the kids made a face at that idea. I continued with the herb idea though because right outside the kitchen is the herb garden with a rather large sage bush.
The result was a herb/wine sauce:
Start the chops in a little olive oil to brown; add garlic and onion for about a minute then add about a cup of white wine. Deglaze the pan with the wine (ie scrap up all the gunk on the bottom of the pan). I added about a cup of chicken stock (this was gluten free homemade stock that was still frozen so I am not sure what the final amount was!). Then the herbs - I used about a tablespoon of freshly chopped sage and parsley. A little salt and pepper to finish off, covered and it was about ready in 20 minutes. I did uncover and thicken with about a tablespoon of cornstarch before it was finished. Served with minted little potatoes and veg. For a richer sauce a nob of butter and a dollop of cream would be added, but as someone is watching cholesterol and I had no cream, that was out anyway.

- Note this was in the freezer, and had to be quickly defrosted for this picture - forgot last night, so the sauce looks a bit lumpier than it really was.

Labels andIingredients Issues

Having a good list of ingredients is very helpful to finding out what is gluten free and what isn't. Labels that clearly say Gluten Free are an additional help. What I found this week though truly threw me.

1: On a trip to the Kroger store, I passed by the organic freezer section and indead they now have little tags underneath gluten free items that indicate they are gluten free. Every one of the items actually said on the packet that they were GF, but Kroger feels the need to double indicate that. I don't have a problem with this but it become redundant in the cake mix aisle when the little gluten free tag goes almost unnoticed among the plethera of price cuts on other brands. And Betty Crocker does indeed clearly indicate that the gluten free mix can be spotted by the large Gluten Free line on the packet. However most celiacs tend to stay away from processed food and that is where it is most helpful. For instance there are no tags under potato chips such as Lay's Wavy chips that are indeed gluten free and the package says so on the back! Maybe they move the chips around too quickly??? Lea and Perrins also states that it is gluten free on the package, but no mention of that in the store where it would be very helpful. The cream of the crop came when I found a package of chicken - fresh chicken - with a label Gluten Free!! Can we expect the whole fresh meat and veg aisles to be cluttered with gluten free tags too?

2 This was a Walmart problem and I have no idea how these things came into the freezer but they did and I am trying to get things out of the freezer so I cooked them yesterday evening. Now most meat  stock is not gluten free - they add flour for thickeners etc. Some are fine, others, particularly cheap ones, have yeast extract etc as well. So the problem came yesterday when we had two frozen steaks that had a 'marinated with seasoned beef broth' label. The ingredient list states:  Beef, *seasoned beef broth (beef broth [water, beef stock] seasoning, chemicals etc etc.  The problem here is that because it is less then 10% or whatever reason, the ingredients of the stock part of the broth is not mentioned.Stock is not a prime ingredient - it is a combination of other things, yet for some reason it is allowed to be unidentified on the pack. Major gripe point for me.

This blog has certainly been neglected this year! I didn't realize that I purchased though cookies as long ago as February! Maybe part of that is that I have not really done much cooking over the summer and summer was filled with visitors, vacation and 2 large conferences.

This year the conference worked out very well. Not only did the wait staff provide the gluten free meal promptly but they confirmed that it was gluten free as they placed it before me - that is great when you are faced with something that has a sauce or other doubtful dish.

One thing that I did found out was the Steak and Shake fries are NOT gluten free!!!!  I was prompted to ask after I found out our favorite bar/restaurant finally handed me their allergy list and the fries were listed as containing flour. That restaurant is so un gluten free that it will be the star of another blog!