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Okay, it’s not quite so simple right at the very beginning, I admit. There’s a fair number of ingredients in the sauce. But it’s extremely simple once the sauce is put together, and the thing is, this sauce will last in the fridge for up to a month or more, so you could make a big batch and have it handy in a jar for those nights when you’re in borderline-collapsing mode.

We start with a veritable Who’s Who lineup of Asian sauce ingredients: 1 1/2 Tablespoons of rice vinegar, 1/4 cup sesame oil, 3 Tablespoons soy sauce (or a reasonable substitute,) and 2 cloves of minced garlic.

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This is a case where an immersion blender will definitely come in handy, but you can get away with doing it in a traditional blender if that’s all you have. After assembling the first set of liquid ingredients, add some crushed red pepper flakes, depending on your spice tolerance. 1/4 teaspoon is a good average place to start, noticeable in flavor but not too hot. My tastebuds have been dulled by years of Mexican food, so I put in 3/4 tsp for a real kick. But to balance it out, we’ll also add 1 teaspoon of sugar, and 1/3 cup of water.

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Lastly, dump in 1/2 cup of dry-roasted, unsalted cashews. Raw cashews will work too, just make sure you don’t get any that are “honey-roasted” or otherwise coated in junk.

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The cashews are the reason you’d rather use the immersion blender here, because it’s going to get all those tiny nut pieces nice and smooth. Ultimately, we’re going to add some more whole cashews to the meal, so a little graininess shouldn’t be too distracting, but another alternative is to use about 1/3 cup prepared cashew butter instead of the whole cashews.

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Once you’re done blending, your sauce is ready for the plate or the mason jar, whichever you prefer. I vote plate, because I’m not very good at delayed gratification. These here are some Schar gluten-free noodles. They’re made with a mixture of corn and rice flours, so they’re a little starchier and firmer to chew than straight-up rice noodles, which is nice.

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The drawback is, like most blended-flour GF noodles, they release a ton of that starch into the cooking water, so you may find you have to drain, rinse, and refill the pot halfway through the cooking process. But it doesn’t add more than 2-3 minutes to the cooking process.

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While your pasta is boiling, finely chop 1 1/2 cups of fresh cilantro, also known as coriander.

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Mix the cilantro and the cashew sesame sauce into your drained noodles, and stir gently.

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And finally, garnish with another 1/2 cup or so of cashews for crunch. This simple little noodle dish may look light and unassuming, but it is surprisingly filling, and makes great leftovers too, either cold or hot. If you’ve never sent real leftovers in your child’s lunchbox, this might be just the meal to start with.

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Happy Eating!

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Cashew Sesame Noodles

1 1/2 TBS rice vinegar
1/4 cup Asian sesame oil
3 TBS soy sauce
2 cloves garlic
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 tsp sugar
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup + 1/2 cup dry roasted cashews
12 oz. GF spaghetti noodles
1 1/2 cups chopped cilantro

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We start with 3 cups of water in a small pot.

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Next, add 1/4 cup red wine vinegar. Please note this is not quite the same as balsamic vinegar, though you could probably use the latter if you prefer. Both are made with grapes, but balsamic vinegar is made immediately with fresh grapes, while red wine vinegar calls for the grapes to be fermented into wine first, and only then turned into vinegar. The flavor of both varies wildly across brands, so the question of which type you use is probably less important than choosing a quality brand. As always, make sure it is a pure vinegar, and does not contain the word “malt” anywhere on it, as this will indicate the presence of gluten.

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Add 1/4 cup of honey…

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1/4 teaspoon of black pepper…

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…and 1 teaspoon of salt.

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Now add 1/4 teaspoon each of minced garlic and ginger. A real chef would prep their own, of course. My goodness I’m lazy.

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Bring the mixture to a boil, and allow it to simmer for 15-20 minutes, until it’s been reduced to about 1/2 cup. (That’s about one-seventh of what it started out as, if you’re trying to eyeball it.)

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Pour the remaining liquid into a small jar or bottle, and you’re set for any soy sauce recipes that might come your way! This mixture will keep in the fridge almost indefinitely, especially if you close the lid while the sauce is still hot and let the cooling air form a vacuum, just like in real canning. You can strain the garlic and ginger solids back out if you really want to, but I don’t bother. Makes it more rustic and authentic, I think.

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Happy Eating!

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Soy Sauce Substitute

3 cups water
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup honey
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp minced ginger
1/4 tsp minced garlic

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A lot of GFCF families also have to avoid soy, and this Coconut Aminos is a fantastic substitute to use if that applies to you. It tastes just like soy sauce, and nothing like coconut. It’s a magical little nut, I’m telling you. Of course if you do use real soy sauce, you’ll still need to choose carefully — La Choy is one gluten-free option. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!]

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So put 1/4 cup of either soy or not-soy sauce in your bowl, then add 3 Tablespoons of dry cooking sherry. It should be 100% wine, and contain no malt or grain alcohol.

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Add 3 Tablespoons of brown sugar…

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and 1 Tablespoon of honey. Because two kinds of sweetness are better than one!

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Now add 1 Tablespoon of minced ginger, 2 cloves of minced garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon of Five Spice seasoning. Like any spice blend, you’ll want to double-check that your brand is not mixed with flour to prevent caking.

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Next, chop up two green onions. A pair of kitchen shears will take care of that even faster than a knife.

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Now throw the whole sauce plus the green onions into a ziplock bag with your two pork tenderloins, and let it marinate overnight in the fridge. If it only gets a few hours that’s not the end of the world either.

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When you’re ready to cook, line a pan with foil and place your tenderloins on a raised rack. But don’t throw out that little bag of marinade! First, scoop out one Tablespoon of the marinade, and set the rest aside for a second.

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Add 3 Tablespoons of honey, and brush the mixture over the tops of your tenderloins. This will lead to a fantastic carmelized glaze on the surface of the meat that will have you falling out of your seat in flavor ecstasy.

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Stick a fork into the marinade bag and scoop out the ginger, garlic, and green onion solids, spreading them evenly over the meat. You couldn’t do this a second ago because then your honey brush would have just wiped them all off again, you see?

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Pour enough water in the bottom of the pan so that it’s just beginning to creep up the sides, but not so much that it’s touching the bottoms of the tenderloins. Then carefully place the pan in a 450 degree oven, and cook for 30 minutes.

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Meanwhile, pour the remaining marinade into a bowl, and mix in another 1/3 cup of honey. This ratio of honey-to-marinade is much lower than that first little bit of glaze we made, so the final sauce will have a lot more of those wonderful savory flavors.

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Now this step is important: you must sterilize your sauce, since it just spent a very long time hanging out with raw meat. You can either bring it to a boil in a small pot on the stove, or microwave it for a couple minutes, either way. I know which way leaves me with fewer dishes to wash.

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Drizzle across your cooked tenderloin slices, and clear the area of any loose toys or furniture. You wouldn’t want to injure something when you fall out of your chair like I promised.

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Happy Eating!

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Chinese Barbecue (Char Siu)

2 lbs pork tenderloins
1/4 cup Coconut Aminos (or La Choy soy sauce)
3 Tbs sherry
3 Tbs brown sugar
1 Tbs + 3 Tbs + 1/3 cup honey
1 Tbs minced ginger
2 cloves minced garlic
1/2 tsp Chinese Five Spice
2 green onions

Of course, I eventually learned the error of my ways, under identical circumstances each time: I got invited on a date that involved said international cuisine, and I decided I liked the guy enough to suffer silently through a meal of torture. Come to find out, in both cases the food was much better than the gentleman after all! But that’s another story.

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The point is, I defected to the other side, and became a staunch sushi advocate. And it turns out, sushi rolls are surprisingly easy to make at home. First, of course, you’re going to want to start a batch of sushi rice (minus the wakame, in this case.) While that cooks, prepare your other ingredients for assembly. I’m making a modified California roll, so we’ll need a cucumber, peeled and cut into long thin slices.

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Make sure you cut the seeds off of each section, because nobody likes cucumber seeds.

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Also, we’ll need a bunch of avocado slices. (See this post if you need a rundown on how to properly cut up an avocado.)

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Now, traditionally, California rolls use “krab,” a substance that makes both foodies and English teachers cringe in unison. Those brightly-colored, perfectly straight sticks are not in fact made of crab at all, and more importantly, they are made of gluten. If you’re lucky enough to have a kid who will eat sushi, you must remember that all crab on a sushi restaurant menu is probably going to be the fake kind, even if they spell it like the real thing. But if you look in the right place in your grocery store, you will probably be able to find real, actual crab meat, and that’s something we can use.

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This is a sheet of nori, or seaweed paper. You can find it at an Asian market if your grocery store doesn’t carry any, but check your ethnic foods aisle first, you might be surprised. It has a shiny side and a bumpy side, and the shiny side goes face down.

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Spread out a layer of your sushi rice on top of the nori, leaving only a small space around the edge. The rice will be very sticky, so it’s easiest to do this with the back of a wet fork. You can also tell that I was too impatient and started spreading the rice on while it was still hot, thus partially steaming and shriveling my seaweed paper. Try to let it cool as much as you can. Then, line up your inner ingredients along the bottom edge.

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The bamboo mat is an essential piece of equipment for this, by the way. If you try it barehanded, your fingers are guaranteed to stick to everything and tear the delicate paper to pieces. Also, the proper technique would be to use both hands to make sure you’re rolling it as tightly and evenly as possible, but a photography assistant is just a teensy smidge out of my price range, so you’ll have to bear with me. (Truth be told, if I were filthy rich I’d hire a real sushi chef instead and still take the pictures myself.)

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As you inch forward, squeezing the roll tightly the whole way, peel the mat away from the front edge so it doesn’t actually get wrapped into the roll. I wouldn’t normally be doing this with one awkwardly stretched index finger, but again with the one-handed photography thing. Incidentally, there’s this pervasive idea on the internet that you should put a layer of plastic wrap on top of your bamboo mat to keep it clean. I’m here to tell you that’s ridiculous, and it just gets in the way. Use the bamboo mat the same way the Japanese have been using it for thousands of years, and wash it when you’re done; it’s not that hard.

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Slice your roll with a very sharp, wet knife, and voila! (Sorry for the linguistic insensitivity, but I don’t know how the Japanese would say it.) You should get 3-4 rolls out of this quantity of rice, depending on how full you stuff them with other things. I ended up with a little bit of cucumber and a ton of crab leftover, but I’m sure I can find a use for the crab later in the week. And if we’re lucky, it’ll turn out to be something worth documenting and I’ll share it with you!

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Happy Eating!

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Sushi Rolls

1 batch of sushi rice
1 cucumber
1 avocado
1/2 cup 100% crab meat (not krab stick)
3-4 sheets of nori

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The key ingredient here is the rice paper that the spring rolls are wrapped in. My grocery store carries it in the ethnic food aisle, but you may have to go to an Asian market to get it, it just depends. The ingredients should literally be nothing but rice and tapioca starch.

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My shrimp are looking pretty pathetic here, to be honest. They were frozen. They look better by the time they’re cooked, I promise. You’ll want to boil three shrimp for every spring roll you plan to make. They should only need maybe 7-8 minutes to cook, even if you start from frozen.

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The bulk of the spring roll is going to be filled with these tiny white noodles called vermicelli, or cellophane noodles. Often they are made of rice, but sometimes they are made of mung bean, as is the case here. Again, any Asian market will have them.

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Mine come conveniently clumped into single-servings, which will fill two spring rolls each. But if yours are in a big block, just break off what you need. Boil them for about 5-7 minutes, just until the noodles are soft and slippery, then you can turn the heat off and let them hang out in the water while you assemble the spring rolls.

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Fill a huge bowl with warm water. Dip one sheet of rice paper carefully under the water, and hold it there for 30 seconds.

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See? Soggy and floppy! I mean, ah, soft and pliable. Yeah.

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Traditionally, shredded cabbage is the main vegetable of choice in spring rolls. But I’m kind of partial to this random product I found. It’s basically just shredded broccoli stalks. Plus, it’s got this weird carrot-and-broccoli superhero lady on the bag, so that’s something else in its favor. I think. Anyway, just pick something green and slightly crunchy, whatever floats your boat.

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It’s hard to see, but my wet rice paper is laying on the cutting board, and the filling is about two inches from the bottom edge. Lay three shrimp in a line, then top with your shredded cabbage (or broccoli shreds, like me.) I also added some shredded carrots and a thin slice of yellow bell pepper. Really, the fillings are up to you. We’ve filled some with cooked rice and leftover pulled pork before, and it turned out great. Anything you can put in a burrito, you can put in a rice paper wrapper.

That herb I’m topping it off with is cilantro, by the way, also known as coriander. If you hate cilantro (and many people do,) another traditional herb you could substitute is mint.

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By now your noodles will be a tangled mess inside your pot. Take a fork, and twist up a hefty amount like spaghetti, so that the dangling column is about an inch thick. Then just take a pair of kitchen scissors and snip it right off. Instant spring roll size!

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Fold the sides of your rice paper inward…

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Then roll tightly from the bottom upward, making sure the top flap gets a nice wet seal against the rest of the roll. If you let the rolls sit for awhile before serving, the rice paper will have a chance to dry out just a little bit, which will reduce the chances of it tearing. Assuming you can stand to wait that long. These hold up great in lunchboxes, by the way.

And of course, don’t forget the peanut sauce.

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Happy Eating!

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Spring Rolls

8 rice paper rounds
24 small shrimp
shredded cabbage or broccoli
shredded carrots
cilantro
Vermicelli noodles (rice or mung bean)

But wait, not yet! Save your caresses for when the meat is cooked, please. First, we need to build up a little tension, am I right? You can use anywhere from 1 to 4 chicken breasts for this, depending on how much meat you want in the final product, but always use the same amount of marinade, because it’s an integral part of the sauce later and you don’t want to throw the balance off. So start with one Tablespoon of sugar…

And 2 Tablespoons of Thai Kitchen fish sauce. This brand is common enough that you will probably be able to find it in your normal grocery store, and they’re generally really good about not hiding gluten in their various Asian food products. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change recipes without warning. Always check your labels!]

Add 1 Tablespoon of minced garlic, and 1 teaspoon of black pepper. Stir everything together thoroughly, cover the bowl, and stick it in the refrigerator for whatever length of time fits your dinner schedule. If that happens to be first thing in the morning before you leave the house, or no more than 10 minutes before you start cooking the rest of the meal, it’s all good.

Cut up about 1 lb. of smallish potatoes (I think I used 5 of them) into bite-size chunks. I leave the peels on, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’d like to claim I do it because the peels are the healthiest part, but really it’s just because I’m lazy.

Chop an onion into similar-sized pieces (or smaller, if your kids don’t like onions and you’re hoping they’ll accidentally get a few on their fork without noticing.)

Heat up one or two tablespoons of olive oil in a large soup pot, and dump in the potatoes, onions, and a chopped up red bell pepper as well. Truth be told, that’s actually 2 red bell peppers in mine, because I adore red bell peppers (but I absolutely loathe the green ones; go figure.) You’ve got to go with your gut on how many are right for you. Once you’ve settled that conundrum, sautee everything over moderately high heat for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently.

Then pour in your chicken along with all the marinade. Stir rapidly until the outside of the chicken is opaque but it’s not cooked all the way through.

Now for the most important part — the love potion, if you will. (Did I just type that? I’m really having second thoughts about this whole “romance” metaphor I’ve got going on…) Thai Kitchen Green Curry Paste. It comes in a tiny jar, but you only need 1 Tablespoon of it at a time. Normally I’d give you an idea of what’s in it in case you want to approximate, but there’s really no substitute for this complex combination of flavors. Mix it into your pot and cook for one minute, just enough to get the fragrance going.

Now, add one can of coconut milk. Make sure you stir inside the can before you pour, because coconut milk will tend to separate.

Also add 1/4 cup of water…

And 1 Tablespoon of lime juice.

Cover the pot, and let it simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 7-8 minutes.

If necessary, let it simmer uncovered for another couple of minutes to let it thicken a bit.

This is best served over rice. Why is there no rice in my bowl, you ask? Because I’m a doofus and forgot to put it in there before taking the picture. It happens. The peppers and onions may intimidate some kids, but I promise you, they’re going to love this sauce if you can get them to give it a chance. Coconut milk is sweet, and you may also recall we added a Tablespoon of sugar way back when. After cooking in the sauce for so long, all the veggies have soaked up the flavor too, and the result is something you will want to embrace very deeply indeed.

Happy Eating!

The GFCF Lady’s Green Curry Chicken

2-4 chicken breasts
1 TBS sugar
2 TBS Thai Kitchen fish sauce
1 TBS minced garlic
1 tsp black pepper

1 lb. small potatoes
1 onion
1-2 red bell peppers
1 can coconut milk
1 TBS Thai Kitchen green curry paste
1/4 cup water
1 TBS lime juice

It’s a pretty standard culinary concept in Asia to stuff a ball of dough with various fillings and steam the whole thing into a delicious bun. There are over a dozen variations of this, and even though mine aren’t really all that similar to the traditional Vietnamese version that banh bao officially refers to, that’s what I call them because that’s the first name I learned for them.

First the dough, and then the filling. So we start with 3/4 cup sugar in a bowl, and add 2 tsp of salt.

Add 2 Tablespoons of baking powder, and one cup of your milk substitute of choice. Make sure your baking powder is gluten-free. I use a generic brand, but Clabber Girl is one safe national brand. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without notice. Always check your labels!]

Also add in 2 teaspoons of xanthan gum, and mix well to dissolve the sugar.

Now, we’re going to add in a total of 4 cups of brown rice flour, but it has to be added slowly.

Start with two cups, and mix well until it looks like the above. Then add in cup number three and get ready to get messy.

Fold and squoosh everything through your fingers again and again until it’s nice and mixed.

You’ll probably want to have the fourth cup of flour already measured out and waiting, so you don’t have to wash your hands an extra time. After you add the fourth cup it should start to be thick enough that you can’t really squoosh it anymore, you’ll have to start doing more proper kneading. Just fold the far edge towards you…

And mash it down again. Repeat until there’s no more loose flour in the bowl.

It’s still not mixed well enough yet, but at this point I lift the cohesive dough unit out and move it to a cutting board on the kitchen table. I do this because it’s lower than my kitchen counter, and I can get much better leverage for pushing down as I knead.

Just keep folding and mashing, folding and mashing, for a good five minutes at least.

And eventually you will end up with a smooth, even ball of dough. Now, set it aside in a bowl covered with a dishtowel while you mix the filling. I don’t actually know why it needs to be covered with a dishtowel, but my original recipe said to do it, so I do it.

Alright, we’re ready for the filling. That’s a head of baby bok choy up there, which is kind of like an Asian spinach with a very distinct flavor. Chop the leaves off, and throw the stalk away.

The leaves are very firm, so you can chop it up pretty easily without all the bits flying everywhere.

Once you have the baby bok choy in little confetti pieces, add in 2 chopped green onions, and 1 Tablespoon of grated ginger.

Then add 1 teaspoon of salt, and a pinch of white pepper. It’s probably not something you’ll use very often, but I’ve tried making it with black pepper and with no pepper, and the taste just isn’t as good. Use the white pepper.

We’re almost there. Add 2 Tablespoons of water…

1 Tablespoon of cooking sherry (which should naturally be GFCF since it’s made of grapes, but make sure you don’t accidentally pick up something weird like sherry-flavored grain alcohol…)

And 2 teaspoons of sesame oil.

Okay! Now you can mix in one pound of ground pork, and your filling is ready to go.

This being a fancy recipe and all, it does require a bit of special equipment. You can get a bamboo steamer at any Asian market, and it comes as a set of large stackable trays that you can combine to be as tall as you want. The other thing you’ll need to prep is these little squares of parchment paper. Traditionally you would use lettuce leaves to keep the dough from sticking to the tray, but then you just end up with a bunch of wilted lettuce. I mean, if you like super-wilted greens, go for it, but I would just be throwing them away, so I use somehing that’s cheaper and easier to clean up.

Pull off a piece of the dough and roll it into a ball about 1 to 1.5 inches in diameter.

Then roll it out flat on a cutting board sprinkled liberally with more brown rice flour to keep it from sticking. Remember to get yourself a new rolling pin that you’ve never rolled in gluten flours before, or you’ll risk significant cross-contamination issues. If you look at the scale of my hand, you’ll realize this is a teeny tiny rolling pin that’s only maybe 6-8 inches long. Fits right in my utensil drawer with all the other junk.

Now spoon about a tablespoon of meat into the middle of your circle of dough…

And fold all the edges up around it.

Pinch everything together so it holds, and place it on top of a parchment square in your bamboo tray.

Repeat about 20 times. It’s important that the parchment be in small pieces like this and not just one large cover, because the steam has to be able to come up in between the spaces and cook the buns.

Somehow I always end up with more meat than dough, so I roll up any leftovers into little meatballs and toss them in the oven for about half an hour. They make for a great lunch the next day.

Fill a large pan with water, and balance your bamboo steamer on top. Once the steam really gets going, put the lid on and let it cook for about 20-25 minutes.

And they’re done! These typically should be dipped in some kind of sauce, but what kind is entirely up to you. We like a sweet chili sauce that they sell in the Asian section of our grocery store, but you could also do a sweet-n-sour sauce, straight soy sauce (gluten-free, of course,) or even a barbecue sauce.

Happy Eating!

Banh Bao

3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
2 TBS baking powder
1 cup milk substitute
4 cups brown rice flour

1 lb. ground pork
1 head baby bok choy
2 green onions
1 TBS grated ginger
1 tsp salt
pinch white pepper
2 TBS water
1 TBS sherry
2 tsp sesame oil

Our sauce base today is this organic, gluten-free hoisin sauce by Edward & Sons. (They also make great instant potatoes, by the way, as well as all-natural GFCF sprinkles for cupcakes.) [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!]

Note that not all of the Edward & Sons sauces are gluten free, just this one and their teriyaki sauce. And if you look closely at the bottle, you’ll also learn how to say “gluten free” in French! Actually, that may be “without wheat,” I’m not sure. Either way, “bleh” is an appropriate syllable for it, don’t you think? If you want to have a go at making an approximation of this sauce yourself, it’s mostly soy sauce (make sure yours is GF!), apple cider vinegar, sugar, orange juice, sesame oil, and Five Spice. An Asian-y barbecue sauce, really.

So pour out 1/4 cup of the hoisin sauce, and add 2 Tablespoons of honey…

…and 1 1/2 Tablespoons of Lea & Perrin’s worcestershire sauce.

Now, cut up about a pound of beef steak into bite-size pieces, and mix them in the bowl with the sauce. Give them as much time to marinate as you can, but don’t sweat it if it isn’t that long. Usually I end up just letting it sit long enough for me to cook the mushrooms. What mushrooms, you ask?

These mushrooms! Sautee 8 oz. of fresh mushrooms in some olive oil until they’re mostly cooked, a good 8-10 minutes.

While you wait, get out 1/2 cup of dried cranberries, and soak them in some water. I know I use cranberries a lot, but if you don’t like the taste you could always use dried cherries or even golden raisins instead.

Meanwhile, start cooking your rice. 1 1/2 cups of rice is a good complement for the amount of stir fry we’re making, but of course you could do more or less depending on how many people you’re trying to feed.

Man, I always forget how much mushrooms shrink when you cook them. Dump in your meat-sauce concoction and let the meat brown, stirring occasionally. I know it isn’t truly a stir fry unless you have it over very high heat and are stirring constantly, but that’s a bad idea here because it will burn off the sauce too quickly. I won’t tell if you won’t.

And just for a little crunch, let’s toast 1/2 cup of almonds and throw them in there too. I always stock both almonds and cranberries in the pantry, not only for cooking but for sprinkling on salads as well. If your preference is for walnuts, or cashews, or pine nuts, those are all fine and dandy too. It’s a stir fry, do whatever you want! The easiest way to toast the nuts is to microwave them in a bowl one minute at a time, tossing them gently in between, until they crunch when you bite them (instead of squeaking.)

We’re almost there! Drain the cranberries (or other dried fruit of your choice,) and dump them in the pan along with the almonds.

And that’s it! Serve over rice, and sit back and watch the smiles on their faces. Well, don’t sit back too long, you’ll want to eat your own before it gets cold.

Happy Eating!

The GFCF Lady’s beef stir fry

1/4 cup Premier Japan (Edward & Sons) Hoisin sauce
2 TBS honey
1 1/2 TBS Lea & Perrin’s worcestershire sauce
1 lb. beef steak
8 oz. mushrooms
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1 1/2 cups rice

The secret is, instead of rolling it up in seaweed paper, I just sprinkle little bits of the wakame (seaweed shreds) throughout the rice, and the flavor is identical to eating a bite of sushi (well, a bite without any fish in it, anyway.) My health food store carries it, but if yours doesn’t you can certainly find it at any Asian market. This very much counts as a serving of vegetables, by the way. Seaweed is one of the healthiest vegetables out there–not only is it packed with vitamins and omega fatty acids, but it is a highly alkaline food. The human body is healthiest when it is slightly on the alkaline side of the pH scale, and being on the acidic side can lead to a variety of diseases. (Can you guess what the most extremely acidic foods are in the American diet? Bread products, dairy products, artificial and white sugars, and meat. Surprise, surprise.)

Watermelon is another extremely alkaline food, by the way.

Okay, okay, I’m sorry, back to the recipe. I’m getting there, I swear. Anyway, the thing is, even though this bag of wakame is in little shreds instead of big sheets, it still expands a ton when it’s cooked. I find that I have to pulverize it in the food processor before it even approaches a palatable “seasoning” size in the final dish.

My food processor is old and cheap, and it kind of makes a mess on the counter.

Do the whole bag at once and funnel it back in (this one has a little zip-top built into it, but any airtight bag will work,) and you’re set for months. I actually took these pictures forever ago, in anticipation of writing up this recipe someday. Look at my impressive foresight!

Alright, fast forward to today, when we’re actually making sushi rice. (We are, I promise. We’re getting there.) Keep in mind “sushi rice” is an actual kind of rice you can buy, that is shorter and stickier than normal rice. In my ricemaker, that’s one and a half cups of sushi rice, and two and a quarter cups of water, and then I add 1 teaspoon of the shredded wakame.

While the rice cooks, mix 1/4 cup of sugar with 1/4 cup of rice vinegar in a small pot.

Also add in 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Slowly heat it, stirring constantly, until everything is dissolved.

Once the rice is done, pour in only about half of the liquid, and mix it thoroughly. Then add a little bit more at a time until you have a nice consistency and flavor.

I usually end up using about 3/4ths of the vinegar mixture, but it can cross the line into being too wet very quickly, so go slowly. See how the wakame turned a pretty emerald green once it soaked? These pieces are actually still kind of big, but if you grind them small enough, there’s no way the kids will be able to eat around them. And of course if you wanted, you could make the rice and vinegar mixture without the wakame shreds and then roll it up in nori sheets the proper way. That is, if your kitchen is as sanitized as a professional sushi prep station, unlike mine.

Happy Eating!

Sushi Rice

1 1/2 cups short-grain sushi rice
2 1/4 cups water
1 tsp dried wakame shreds
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt

 The stir-fry is one of the most potent tools in your GFCF arsenal. Meat, veggies, rice–all you have to do is verify the sauce, and you’re good to go. You can switch up the base ingredients for an infinite number of possibilities. Plus, a stir-fry cooks up extremely fast, so they’re ideal for those nights when you’ve got no time and only a random assortment of foods to choose from. You know, the nights when any normal family would just hop on over to a restaurant and not think twice about it.

If you want to know the truth, my kids don’t really eat the bell peppers in this, though we usually insist on a bite or two. But I’ve told myself that by cooking it all together, some of the vegetably-goodness sort of seeps into the rest of the ingredients. I’m sure there’s no scientific basis for that, but I’m going to keep living my delusions, thank you. At any rate, they chow down on the pineapple, so at least they’re getting a good serving of fruit.

Now is when my son’s nutritionist would cheerfully remind me that a bell pepper is technically a fruit anyway. But I just can’t hear her over the lovely sizzle of these vegetables.

Once you’ve cut the bell pepper into your preferred size and shape, sautee them for several minutes in olive oil. Some vegetables are better only lightly sauteed, what the cookbooks refer to as “tender-crisp,” but I really prefer my bell peppers nice and done. I think they taste kind of bitter otherwise.

Meanwhile, start your rice. What, you don’t have a rice cooker yet? I don’t know why not. This is 1 1/2 cups of rice here, but I could make up to 6 cups of rice at once, if I had a Little League team to feed.

Cut up 1-2 chicken breasts, again depending on how many people you’re feeding. Make sure you buy the good meat that’s not “injected” with broth, because that broth can often contain gluten. It may say something like “1-2% retained water,” which is okay, or “up to 10% solution,” which is not. Toss them in with the bell peppers and stir frequently. Feel free to add a little more olive oil if necessary to keep the chicken from sticking.

Once the chicken pieces are opaque on all sides (but not necessarily cooked all the way through,) dump in one can of drained pineapple chunks. This is another one of those foods where there’s just no need for extra stuff in the can, whether or not it ultimately has gluten in it. Go for the kind packed in 100% juice, not some chemical “syrup” concoction, and you won’t have to worry about it.

Also add one clove of minced garlic, and give everything a good stir. I can never seem to get my pineapple really drained, so it always takes a minute to boil off the extra juice that sneaks in.

While everything continues to sautee, prepare your sauce. Start with 1/4 cup Kraft Catalina dressing (light or regular version, it doesn’t matter.) [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas at any time without warning. Always check your labels.]

Add to that 1/2 Tablespoon of La Choy soy sauce, and mix well.

When the pineapple is getting soft and the chicken is completely cooked through, pour in your sauce and stir for just another minute or two to get everything nice and coated.

Right about this time, your rice should be ready to serve. See how incredibly fast and easy that was? I especially love this meal because I love cooked pineapple. I wish I could put it in every single meal, but my family would eventually start to complain.

Happy Eating!

Catalina Chicken

1-2 chicken breasts, cut up
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 can pineapple chunks in juice, drained
1 clove minced garlic
1/4 cup Kraft Catalina dressing
1/2 TBS La Choy soy sauce