First, we’ll prepare the hollandaise sauce. The basic ingredients are butter and egg yolks, so it is not exactly a heart-healthy menu item. But boy, does it taste good. Here we will start with one whole stick (1/2 cup) of Fleischmann’s Unsalted Margarine (NOT the Original flavor, as that contains casein.) Your list of possible substitutes is going to be a bit truncated here, since it will need to be butter-flavored, but some other options include ghee, Earth Balance spread, and Spectrum butter-flavored shortening. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!]

Gently melt it in the microwave, inside a measuring cup. We’re going to need that handle and pouring spout later.

Separate 4 eggs, and place the yolks in a metal bowl. To separate an egg, crack it over a bowl and pass the yolk back and forth between the two shell halves, and the white will just fall off. I throw the whites away, but I guess you could make an egg-white omelette with them, or maybe whip them into a meringue for that pie you just had sitting around.

Add 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice, and whisk the egg yolks very rapidly for a few minutes, long past when your arm starts hurting and you have to switch the other one. They say it’s done when the mixture has doubled in volume, but I’m not a good judge of that sort of thing, so I just do it until I can’t stand it anymore.

Now, this is why it needed to be in a metal mixing bowl. If you don’t have a metal bowl, you can use the top half of a double-boiler, or just a regular metal pot that will fit snugly inside the rim of another pot like we have here. But it’s easier to whisk in something that has a rounded bottom, especially when it’s turned sideways so you can whisk in an up-and-down motion instead of around in flat circles.

That bottom pot contains water, heated to just barely simmering. This way we will gently heat the sauce without allowing it to get above 212 degrees F (the boiling point of water,) and thus not end up with scrambled eggs. And yes, I know my pot isn’t actually on the burner anymore. I was turning the handle around this way and that, trying to get a good angle on the bowl-inside-a-pot for you to see. That, or maybe my super power is getting water to boil without any heat, and I’ve just blown my cover.

Keep whisking — yes, more! — while you gently stream in the melted margarine from the microwave. I only stopped whisking to try to take a quick picture, don’t be like me (unless you, too, have a website with lots of people wondering why you haven’t updated in over two dang weeks!)

Look, more whisking! When the sauce has thickened from the gentle heat and again doubled in volume, you’re done.

Well, almost. Add in a pinch of salt and a pinch of cayenne pepper, unless you’d rather garnish the final product with the cayenne on top. There’s only so far I’ll bother going for presentation, and I’d rather not delay eating for even a moment once these babies are ready. Also, my kids are usually like, “OMG that’s got spices on it, it must be spicy!” and I’d rather not listen to it.

Cover the pot and stick it in a warm spot while you assemble everything else. This is not something you want to make ahead of time and store in the fridge for awhile, since it’s made with raw eggs. (Though before you go freaking out about the thought of eating raw eggs to begin with, remember that fried eggs with even slightly runny yolks are also technically raw.) If you’re really concerned, you could buy those pasteurized eggs they have at the store now.

Okay, so! The rest of the meal. Properly speaking, this should be on English muffins, and there are a few gluten-free brands out there. But they’re harder to come by, so I go for the simpler solution and just put them on O’Dough’s hamburger buns instead, which are appropriately dense. And of course Canadian bacon is a processed meat, so you have to make sure it’s GF as well. This Hormel product says it right on the back of the package, so that’s convenient.

Put several inches of water in a wide pan, bring it to a simmer, and ignore the rest of the photo. The chef who told me to do that thing you see me doing above is a complete liar. It has no quantifiable effect. The man is a charlatan and a scoundrel, and I have told him so to his face. He suggested pistols at dawn, or something, I can’t remember.

If you’re really deft, you can crack the eggs directly into the poaching pan. But I find it helpful to crack them into a little measuring cup first…

…and very gently slide them into the water, which should be just barely simmering by now.

Boy they do look ugly while they’re cooking, don’t they? But you see how the one on the right has a clearly defined central blob of egg white, with the thin skirt around it? That skirt bit is going to mostly fall away and cloud up your pan some more, the blob is the real part of the egg we want.

Cook them for exactly 3 1/2 minutes to achieve soft-set but still slightly flowing yolks, then scoop them out with a slotted spoon. Also, let’s blame the blurriness of this photo on the steam from the pan, rather than my palsied, uncoordinated hands.

Drizzle with hollandaise sauce, and dig in! You might want to serve this with some fruit or something, so you don’t feel guilty about all that extra sauce you know you’re going to put on.

Happy Eating!

Eggs Benedict

4 egg yolks
1 TBS lemon juice
1/2 cup Fleischmann’s Unsalted margarine (NOT Original)
pinch of salt
pinch of cayenne pepper

6 eggs
1 pkg GF canadian bacon
3 GF english muffins (or GF hamburger buns)

This isn’t exactly a complicated recipe, but you know what? Before I was dragged kicking and screaming into Susie Homemaker land, I had never made french toast before, and I have to assume there are others of you out there who never have yet either. And you should! Because it really is a great way to make an otherwise questionable loaf of gluten-free bread into something enjoyable by all. And if you actually start with a good loaf of GF bread, so much the better!

First, blend together 3 eggs and 1/2 cup of almond milk in a dish with relatively tallish sides.

Next, mix in 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Some people like to add sugar as well, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Many milk substitutes are already sweetened anyway, and I honestly have never seen the need to turn breakfast into dessert. Eating sugar all the time is part of what’s turned the average Western diet into the atrocity that it is.

Some people actually like to keep the cinnamon separate and demurely sprinkle it on each bread slice after it has been dipped in the egg mixture. Me, I’m not a fan of additional steps, but it’s not like this whole thing takes many steps to begin with, so do whatever you feel up to.

Just a couple of minutes per side in a greased pan on the stove, and you’re good to go! The problem, of course, is that they’ll be able to eat them just about as fast as you can make them, so make sure you cordon off a few slices as sacrosanct for the chef.

Eat them standing up if you have to, but make sure you get some. And here’s another tip: if you forego the syrup and spread jelly on it instead, you can make a decadent gluten-free sandwich that can make it until midday in a lunchbox without fear of drying out or crumbling.

Happy Eating!

French Toast

3 eggs
1/2 cup almond milk
1 teaspoon cinnamon
8-10 slices gluten-free bread

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If you’ve never tried quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah,) there’s no better time than right now. Believe me, you’re in for a treat. This pearly little superfood is packed with protein and nutrients, yet is as easy and versatile as rice.

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This step is not strictly necessary, but it’s a good idea: toasting your quinoa lightly before the actual cooking will greatly enhance the flavor. You can do this the right way, which is to say in a dry skillet on the stove, but I’m lazy and do it in the microwave. Go for one minute at a time, stirring in between, until you start to smell this nice nutty aroma, usually around 3 minutes for 1 cup of dry quinoa. On the stovetop it will take more like 5 minutes, and then you’ll have a dirty pan to wash. Did you resolve to wash extra dishes in the coming new year? Because I sure didn’t.

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This step, on the other hand, you don’t want to skip, even if you’re pressed for time: rinse the seeds thoroughly under running water. This will wash off the bitter saponin coating that discourages birds and insects from devouring the plant before it ever gets harvested. I won’t tell the birds what they’re missing out on if you won’t.

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The rest is automatic. Add 2 cups of water to your trusty rice cooker…

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…and since I’m making this for breakfast, let’s toss in a handful of dried fruit, too. Think of it as an oatmeal substitute — anything you can put on hot cereal, you can put on this hot pseudocereal. Brown sugar, cinnamon, maple, bananas, it’s all good. I like to sprinkle my sugar over the top once it’s done, but you could add a few tablespoons to the cooking water instead for a more infused flavor.

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Close the lid, hit the button, and go take your shower. Or pack the lunchboxes, or whatever else you do in the morning that doesn’t involve cooking a hot breakfast, because that part’s taken care of.

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Wasn’t that easy? The final product will be light and fluffy, somewhat similar to couscous. Like I said, this stuff is very versatile. Swap out the fruit and sugar for some curry powder and frozen peas, and you have a fantastic dinner side dish. Or chill it with some leftover chicken and dressing for a pasta salad type thing. The possibilities are endless!

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Happy Eating!

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Breakfast Quinoa

1 cup uncooked quinoa
2 cups water
1/3 cup dried cranberries or other fruit
2 TBS brown sugar

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This recipe earns its south-of-the-border credentials right off the bat with a can of diced green chiles. Dump them into a pan with a diced onion and a little oil, and let it all start to get nice and soft. The mild green chiles are definitely kid-friendly; it’s about the flavor, not the heat. Of course you can go with a spicier blend if you prefer, but either way make sure your can has nothing but green chiles in it. There’s really no excuse for any added ingredients with this one.

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Meanwhile, cut up one roma tomato into chunks, and throw it into the pan as well, seeds and all.

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While your onions, peppers, and tomatoes continue to sautee, crack open 8 eggs and scramble them. A drinking glass works just as well as a bowl for this, by the way, and it’s easier to fit into the dishwasher.

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When the onions are translucent, pour in your eggs…

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…and stir them frequently as they cook. They’re going to tend to stick to the bottom of the pan a little more than plain scrambled eggs, so you have to keep them moving.

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When the eggs are about half-set, break up a corn tostada, or handful of 100% corn tortilla chips, and mix it into the pan. The tostada bits will absorb just enough moisture to still be firm like a corn tortilla, but not sharp enough to stab you in the roof of your mouth.

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Traditional migas call for cheese, so sprinkle some Daiya on top of your finished eggs if you want. Serve with salsa and slices of avocado for a traditional Mexican flavor, or a pile of bacon for an American slant. Or transcend the borders and go with both!

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Happy Eating!

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Migas

1 medium onion
1 can diced green chiles
1 roma tomato
8 eggs
1 corn tostada (or six 100% corn tortilla chips)
Daiya cheese substitute (optional)

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Okay, maybe that’s an obvious statement. But sometimes it’s hard to remember a world where food ingredients weren’t mysterious, where “seasoning” was something the average at-home cook was responsible for. Making your own breakfast sausage does not require a factory, it just requires a pound of ground pork and a spice drawer.

The spices we’re going to use are sage, savory, nutmeg, and ginger. There should also be salt and pepper in this picture, but I didn’t have space to fit them in. In fact, after deciding I’d do them in a separate shot, I then completely forgot to photograph them at all. Come back to me in August when school’s back in session, and I’ll be less of a mental wreck, I assure you.

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So that’s 1/2 teaspoon of sage, 1/4 teaspoon of savory, 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg, and 1/8 teaspoon of ginger. Nevermind that my cute little measuring spoon calls it a “dash,” I’ve measured and confirmed that the spoons in that set are 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, and 1/64 teaspoon respectively. (They’re useful for measuring tiny doses of powdered medications as well, incidentally.)

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We’re also going to add 1 1/2 Tablespoons of grapeseed oil to help everything bind together. As always, you could substitute canola, olive, whatever kind of oil you have on hand.

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Then add 3/4 teaspoon of 100% real maple syrup. Please, please don’t use one of those bottles that are nothing but high fructose corn syrup and “maple flavoring.” They are not only terrible for you, but many have gluten as well. Real maple syrup has a completely different taste, and that’s what we’re trying to add to our sausage here, not sugar.

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Toss in 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper, then squish and knead everything around until the seasonings are all evenly distributed.

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I form them into little link shapes, because I already make miniature hamburger patties for the kids out of ground beef, and it might blow their minds to have two foods that look the same but taste different. So sausage gets one shape, beef gets another.

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As each side browns, roll them forward a bit to get the next side. (Or just flip your patties, if your kids aren’t as neurotic as mine.)

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In the proper order of things, these should be served with a full breakfast, which would allow you to sneak maple syrup onto the sausage under the auspices of syruping your waffle. But if you’re not actually having a waffle, don’t be ashamed to just put extra maple syrup right on the sausages themselves. It’s so dang good.

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Happy Eating!

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Maple Sage Breakfast Sausage

1 lb. ground pork
1/2 tsp sage
1/4 tsp savory
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ginger
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 1/2 Tbs grapeseed oil
3/4 tsp 100% maple syrup

You can make your own! Seriously. It’s way easy, and costs about 1/3 as much.

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This isn’t a recipe so much as it is a process, which is to say, having the right kitchen equipment is key, including a yogurt maker. But before we get to that point, you’ll need a double-boiler. (If you’ve never heard of one, that’s a special kind of pot that is actually two pots, one nestled inside the other. You put water in the bottom pot, and this allows you to warm things in the top pot extremely evenly and carefully without scorching. It’s generally used for melting chocolate and other delicate things like that.)

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Anyway, pour in two cans of coconut milk, turn on the heat, and watch the temperature with a thermometer until it gets to exactly 180 degrees. Don’t forget to stir occasionally so you’re getting an accurate reading.

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Meanwhile, get out your yogurt starter. This is the polite name given to the living bacterial critters that make yogurt what it is, also known as probiotics. But be careful! Anything that is officially sold as “yogurt starter” almost certainly has dairy in it. If your kid already takes a good probiotic supplement (and they probably should be,) you can just open up one of those capsules and use it. Or if they don’t, and you’re not sure where to start, Culturelle is a good brand that is gluten- and dairy-free, and comes in individual packets you can use for each batch of yogurt.

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Just as the temperature is right at 180, pull the top pot off of the double-boiler. You just want to graze that upper limit; any higher and it might start boiling, which we don’t want. The only reason we’re heating it up at all is not to cook it, but to sterilize it. Making yogurt involves creating an ideal environment for bacteria to grow, so we have to make sure that there are absolutely no bad bacteria hanging out anywhere near our coconut milk before we start.

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Now it’s sterile, which is great, but it’s still so hot it would kill our good bacteria too if we put them in there, which is not so great. So we have to let it cool down again, to 110 degrees, which happens to be the perfect temperature for making little buggies happy. (The same goes for when we’re baking bread with live yeast, you may recall.) You could just set the pot aside and be very patient, or you could be like me and dip the pot in a large bowl of water to cool it down faster.

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Once you’re back down to 110 degrees, scoop a small amount out of the pot and mix it with your probiotics. Make sure all the powder dissolves thoroughly.

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Then mix the dissolved concoction back into the pot.

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Pour the whole thing into your yogurt maker’s inner container…

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Then close up the outer container around it and let it hang out on your counter for 24 hours. Some instructions might tell you that you only need a few hours, but in my experience that just doesn’t give the bacteria enough time to flourish unless you’re using multiple doses of probiotics. Ideally, when you open that container up, it should be noticeably thicker than it started, and that’s how you’ll know the probiotics have really multiplied. If it’s still completely runny, you may need to use a double-dose of your probiotic, or you may have accidentally killed it at some point, perhaps by adding the bacteria in while the milk was still too hot, or by using a questionable brand of probiotics that was mostly dead to begin with.

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But even the heartiest of probiotic colonies probably aren’t going to result in the kind of yogurt thickness you’re used to buying at the store. To achieve this, you have to strain the yogurt, also known as dripping it. Your yogurt maker should come with a bag of cheesecloth (so named because it’s what you use to make cheese!) Set the bag inside a large bowl, pour the yogurt in, and then lift the bag and hang it by the strings, allowing the clear liquid to drip out.

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I usually tie mine to the microwave door handle. If we were making yogurt out of milk, that liquid would be what’s known as whey, but as it is, it’s just coconut water.

How long you let it drip depends on how thick you want it; at some point enough liquid will come out that you’ll move beyond yogurt into the consistency of cream cheese, which may even be something you want to try to make sometime. I’ve never been able to get it anywhere near a truly firm, grate-able cheese consistency, but I suppose it might be possible if you let it sit long enough. Some people also prefer to drip it in the refrigerator rather than out at room temperature, but my refrigerator doesn’t have nearly enough space for that.

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Ultimately, you’ll have to turn the bag inside out and do a fair bit of scraping to get the yogurt into a storage container. Make sure you make a big mess while you’re doing that. It’s what I would do.

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And I figure, if I’m going to all this work just to have yogurt in the house again, I deserve to be downright decadent in enjoying it. That right there is a banana, topped with coconut yogurt, drizzled with honey. I could eat that for breakfast every single day, y’all.

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Happy Eating!

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Homemade Coconut Yogurt

2 cans coconut milk
1 packet/dose of GFCF probiotics, or more as necessary
banana (or other fruit as desired)
honey (not optional!)

Anyway, that programmer who wanted to be a personal trainer was a bit of a health nut, as you can imagine. He always brought his lunch from home and drank these nasty-looking concoctions in a big insulated thermos. One day I joked about how I could easily be as muscular as he was, if only I drank a protein shake every day like he did. He informed me that it wasn’t a protein shake, it was just a plain old smoothie. (He preferred his protein in bar form, apparently, but that’s beside the point.) I accused him of being a liar (very politely, of course,) since the number one rule of smoothies in my world is they have to taste good, and I could only assume that his tasted like it looked–which is to say, gross.

“Au contraire!” he cried. Actually, I think he just said, “No, seriously, taste it.” And he was right! It tasted just like a regular smoothie. Fruity and frothy and delicious. “It’s only ugly because I put greens in it, but you can’t taste them at all.”

Greens, huh? Huh. Shortly after that, he left to embark on his personal training career, and I went to go have a baby. Haven’t heard from him since. But his weird greens-in-smoothies notion stuck with me, and I ended up trying to make my own during those days when I desperately needed healthy stuff I could eat with one hand while nursing a baby.

I failed miserably. What came out of my blender was nothing but a smoothie with coarsely chopped salad in it, no matter how hard I tried. I abandoned the idea and moved on with my life.

But then! A reader recently alerted me to another awesome GFCF cooking blog called Whole Life Nutrition. One of her signature items is the “green smoothie,” which as you may have guessed is just a smoothie with greens in it like my old coworker used to make. And while reading her writeup about them, I realized the key mistake I’d made with my misguided attempts years ago.

See, a regular blender just can’t cut it, so to speak. What you need is an immersion blender. There is actually a commercial-grade blender out there that can get the job done, but it’s a little pricey. I’ll shell out $180 for a professional waffle-maker, but a $400 blender crosses the line for me. Plus, an immersion blender is great for soups too.

This one came with a handy little blending cup, but any tallish container will work. I cram mine full of as many greens as I can fit, and then add about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of juice.

The less juice you can manage to use, the smoother it will blend. See how there’s no choppy leaves left, only green puree? Immersion blender, baby.

Use whatever fruit you want for your main smoothie ingredients. I’m a fan of the classics, like strawberry-banana. If you’re going to freeze your own bananas, by the way, make sure you peel them first. Frozen peel does not come off easily, and peeled bananas won’t go brown in the freezer.

A cup of frozen strawberries, and we’re ready to…

Pour in our green concoction! Doesn’t that look appetizing? No? Oh, but it will taste wonderful, I promise you. My computer-programmer-turned-personal-trainer friend would never lie to you.

Sure, it’s not so pretty after it’s all blended together. Red strawberries + green lettuce = yucky brown. But there are a few things you can do to get your kids over the visual hump. First, you can put it in a plastic cup with a lid and a straw, or even one of those opaque water bottles. Or, you can use a dark fruit like blueberry or blackberry, and that will mostly overwhelm the green.

Or finally, you can embrace the green. Mine had some red leaf lettuce mixed in, so my green was already a little muted. But a blend of pure romaine, or arugula for example, will give you a really vibrant green color. Pair that with only very pale smoothie ingredients, like bananas, apples, pears, green grapes, pineapple, or coconut milk yogurt, and your final product will be so green that it enters the realm of fun. Call it a Ghost Slime smoothie for Halloween, or a Leprechaun Smoothie for St. Patrick’s Day. Once they taste it, it’s in the bag, because I’m telling you, you absolutely cannot taste the veggies one bit.

Happy Eating!

Sneaky Smoothies

1-2 cups packed greens
3/4 cup fruit juice or coconut milk yogurt
1-2 cups frozen fruit

Imagine how shocked I was to discover that I actually like these gluten-free muffins! I mean, I really like them–I sneak them between meals when the kids aren’t looking, which is the highest compliment I can pay a food.

This may have something to do with it: the recipe starts with 1 cup of sugar. (Actually I know for a fact the sugar plays a big role in my appreciation, because the first time I attempted this recipe I was dumb and forgot the sugar, and they came out inedible. Fortunately I realized my mistake before I threw out the recipe altogether.)

Then mix in 1 cup of applesauce. Applesauce is one of those things that any sane person would want to assume is gluten-free, but as you’ve probably figured out by now, food manufacturers are anything but sane. Check your labels and make sure it’s got nothing but apples in it.

Next, mix up this neato slurry of 4 Tablespoons of potato starch in 2 Tablespoons of water. The result will be this kind of gooey consistency that is a liquid if you are gentle but resists if you try to move it too fast. You may have even played with something like this in school when you were a kid like I did. Anyway, this is actually a basic egg substitute, so if you’d rather toss in two beaten eggs instead, you could do that too. But the potato starch mixture is good for those with egg allergies or concerned about cholesterol.

Then add 1/3 cup canola oil…

And 1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon and ground cloves.

Also, 1/2 teaspoon each of gluten-free baking powder, and baking soda.

Now, mix in 1 1/4 cups of gluten-free flour. Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose Blend is usually my go-to choice, but in this case that’s actually amaranth flour up there. I’ve made it with several different types, and they all come out good, so use whatever you want.

Drop the batter by spoonfuls into muffin cups. I like making mini-muffins, because they make better serving sizes. You can have 2 or 3 at breakfast, or toss just one in a lunchbox… or snack on however many you want between meals, for example. They aren’t going to rise much, so fill them about 3/4 full. I usually end up with about a tray and a half’s worth of these mini-muffin size.

I also smooth out the tops with a wet finger. It just makes them look better, and appearance is important when you’re trying to get a kid to try something new. It might look tedious, but it goes really quickly if you just put a cup of water right next to the tray. Dip, dab-dab-dab, dip, dab-dab-dab… takes 30 seconds. Of course ugly muffins still taste good, too.

Bake at 400 degrees for 22 minutes. If you’re making larger muffins, you’ll need to extend the baking time a bit. They’ll be done when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, just like everything else. Let them cool as long as possible before digging in, because they’re so moist the middles stay hot for a surprisingly long time. They’ll store for several days in a tupperware, or you can go so far as to freeze them for future use.

Also, unless you’re trying to take a picture of them, don’t bother with the kind of restraint I’m showing here. Pop them in your mouth all in one bite. It’s the best way, I promise you.

Happy Eating!

Applesauce Muffins

1 cup sugar
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
4 TBS potato starch in 2 TBS water
       (OR 2 eggs)
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp GF baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 cups GF flour

I don’t know if I buy it, but I’m desperate for approval, so I’ll try to conform in my own lazy way. Let’s cook up some breakfast tacos!

I don’t know about you, but I like potatoes in my breakfast tacos. Ore-Ida also makes a more traditional hash brown product, which would strictly speaking be more, well, traditional here. But you know what you would have if you took a bunch of hashbrown pieces and squashed them back together? A french fry! And by the transitive property, it is therefore completely legitimate to cut these fries up and call the result a suitable potato ingredient for breakfast tacos.

Also, it was what I had in my freezer.

We like the Zesties fries, but you could go with a plain Ore-Ida frozen potato product of pretty much any kind. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change their formulas without warning. Always check your labels!]

Anyway, the whole point of getting the potatoes out first is they have to cook in the oven according to package directions. And toss the bacon in there while you’re at it.

Wait, what? Yes, I said cook the bacon in the oven. A friend of mine taught me this trick, and I’m telling you, it has changed bacon consumption in this house forever. Just spread some parchment paper on a large pan, and lay out your bacon strips. A general cooking guideline for them is anywhere from 15 to 35 minutes at 350, depending on how crispy you like your bacon. But if the oven has to be hotter for the potatoes, don’t sweat it, just keep an eye on the bacon and pull it out whenever it’s done. It will come out perfectly, with far less mess, and then you too will be a bacon-in-the-oven convert. (And for the record, you don’t have to use turkey bacon, regular bacon is fine too, though you will need to stick with a brand that uses no gluteny preservatives, like Applegate Farms.)

Now, grab some Food For Life brown rice tortillas out of the freezer, and pop them in the microwave for about 10 seconds. Then peel off the actual number of tortillas you need from the now not-quite-frozen stack, and toss the rest back in the freezer for another day.

Okay, it’s finally time to cook the eggs. See why I don’t put out this much effort often? Although I will admit that in dinner terms, it’s not as much work as most other meals, so half the time we’re not actually eating these for breakfast at all. But regardless of what the clock says, you’ll need to grease your pan. I use tub stuff for pans because you can use more or less than an exact tablespoon without messing up those handy measurement markers they put on my margarine sticks. Please note that not all Smart Balance products are casein-free–as far as I know, this one “light” flavor that says “Now with Flax Oil” is the only one.

Scramble your eggs in a bowl, and dump them in the heated pan. Resist the urge to shove them around the pan too much while they’re cooking, just let them sit until the bottom starts to set, then scrape it up so more liquid can flow underneath it. Repeat this a few times, and it will naturally create the right texture. Seriously, don’t stir them all over the place the whole time, it messes them up. Scrambled eggs is one of the few things I was really good at cooking before embarking on this adventure (and I lucked into the technique just by ignoring the pan for the most part–see, sometimes being a lazy cook works out for the bettter!)

Finish heating the tortillas, and fill with scrambled eggs, bits of french fries, and a slice of bacon. Feel free to add a GF salsa, if that’s your thing. Down here, it kind of goes without saying: everything gets salsa on it.

Happy Eating!

Breakfast Tacos

Food For Life brown rice tortillas
Ore-Ida frozen potatoes
Applegate Farms bacon
Eggs
GF salsa (optional)

Oh, decadence. How long I spent without thee.

Don’t get me wrong, you can make some GFCF cakes and cookies that are passable, even darn passable. But that gooey moistness they always promise me never seemed to materialize, until I finally figured out that I should just quit trying to make these ridiculous gluten-free flours and milk-free milks do things they’re not capable of doing. There are plenty of foods on this planet that fall into the category of gooey, and it turns out that more than a few of them are good for baking.

Like pumpkin, for example!

We’ll still need flour, of course, we’re just taking the goo burden off its shoulders. I make these with amaranth flour, but that’s only because we’re attempting to rotate our flours around here for food sensitivity’s sake. (Before I started adapting it left and right, the original recipe came from The Kid-Friendly ADHD & Autism Cookbook.) Bob’s All-Purpose Flour will work just fine too, or pretty much any other gluten-free flour you have on hand, because the taste won’t be coming through in the end. Truth be told, the amaranth flour goes in this recipe specifically because it’s apparently “yucky” in everything else I bake with it, but they never notice it here.

Right, so! Two cups of GF flour, and 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum.

Then 3/4 cup of sugar. Like most of the things I make, that’s just the starting amount. Once the kids acknowledged that they liked them, I started scaling back the sugar with each batch.

2 teaspoons of gluten-free baking powder…

1 teaspoon of cinnamon…

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda…

And 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Then 8 Tablespoons of potato starch, and it’s finally time to blend all the dry ingredients thoroughly.

Now for the wet ingredients! Add 1/2 cup of canola oil to one 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree. Make sure you use one that’s just plain pumpkin and not some pre-flavored “pumpkin pie mix,” because you can never be sure what weird gluten-y stuff gets put into that sort of thing.

Then add 1/4 cup of almond milk.

Mix it all together thoroughly, then dump it in the bowl of flour and mix it all together thoroughly some more. If you’re not going to use an electric mixer, be prepared to do a fair amount of work getting it all evenly blended. On the upside, you will end up with massively ripped biceps like me.

And just in case the sugar content wasn’t enough to convince the kids, you can throw in 1/2 cup of GFCF chocolate chips to tempt them. (Enjoy Life and Tropical Source are two good brands.) You could also use GFCF mini-marshmallows, or even your favorite gluten-free crispy-rice cereal for added crunch.

Also, add in 1 Tablespoon of water. Why didn’t I add this earlier with the other wet ingredients? I forgot. Don’t tell anyone.

Spray a 9×13 baking dish liberally with canola oil, and scrape in the batter.

Then use a very wet hand to moosh the batter into place. You will probably need to shove your hand back under the faucet periodically to keep the batter from sticking to your fingers.

I can be pretty neurotic about getting the surface totally smooth. I certainly can’t imagine where my son got his OCD genes from…

Bake in a 350-degree oven for 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Set the pan on a wire rack and let it cool completely before slicing. I like to cut them into long bars, because it helps me pretend they’re more of a snack than a straight-up dessert. Ooh, you know what else these are great for? Halloween treats! Don’t kid yourself, it will be October before you know it.

Happy Eating!

Pumpkin Bars

2 cups amaranth (or other gluten-free) flour
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp GF baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
8 TBS potato starch

1 15-oz. can pumpkin puree
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup almond milk
1 TBS water
1/2 cup GFCF chocolate chips