You can easily make this an appetizer recipe too, if you happen to be lucky enough to have a party to attend. Just put the stuffing we’re going to make into a bunch of small mushrooms instead of 4 big portabellas. Portabellas will need a few minutes of pre-baking, though, so if you are keeping this meal all to yourself, then brush them with a little olive oil, and put them in the oven for 5 minutes at 350 degrees while you mix up the rest of it.

Can’t have crab stuffing without crab, can you? Important note: fake crab, sometimes labeled as “krab” but more often masquerading as the real thing, is made with wheat. Lots of it. Those crab sticks that go in sushi rolls are a prime example, they are jam-packed with gluten. Most of the crab you see in the market these days is going to be the fake stuff, so be very careful to choose a container that is only 100% real crab meat. You’ll want about 6 to 8 ounces of it.

Finely dice half of a red onion. Red onions tend to be stronger than white, which is good if you’re trying to balance a strong flavor like crab. But if you don’t like a lot of onion flavor, you can substitute a white one, or even sautee it before adding it in so it can caramelize a bit. Did you know that process is called pyrolysis? Well it is.

Slice up 2 green onions, and add them to your bowl along with 1 teaspoon of minced garlic, 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, and 1/2 teaspoon of Lea & Perrins worcestershire sauce. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change recipes without warning. Always check your labels!]

Dump in 1 teaspoon of parsely, 1 teaspoon of dill…

1/4 teaspoon of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper.

Now then, mix it all together with 1/2 cup Hellman’s mayonnaise. You can add a little more if the consistency is too dry, but don’t try to take any out because that totally won’t work.

Spoon your mixture into your mushrooms, be they big portabellas or little creminis.

Sprinkle with crushed Rice Chex or your preferred brand of gluten-free breadcrumbs, and bake them at 350 for about 12 minutes. Little ones may be done a minute or two sooner, big ones may take a minute or two longer. Serve them to your guests or eat them all yourself, I won’t tell.

Happy Eating!

Crab Stuffed Mushrooms

4 portabella mushrooms, or about 36 cremini mushrooms
6-8 oz container of 100% crabmeat
1/2 small red onion
2 green onions
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp Lea & Perrins worcestershire
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp dill
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 cup Hellman’s mayonnaise
1/4 cup crushed Rice Chex

For this salmon we will, not surprisingly, be using a lemon. No fancy prep here, just cut it into several slices.

Then do the same with half of an onion, long thin slices.

Toss your salmon filet onto a large piece of greased foil, laid over a baking sheet for sturdiness. I used Spectrum coconut oil cooking spray if you’re curious, but oil is oil, it all prevents sticking. Then haphazardly arrange the lemon and onion slices all over.

Sprinkle 2 teaspoons of dill and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper over the top, then fold up the sides of  the foil like you’re making a little boat.

If your foil piece is big enough, you might be able to wrap the whole thing up in one package. If not, just get a second piece of foil and cover the top, making sure to pinch tightly around the edges so it isn’t leaking steam. Place the pan in a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, depending on the thickness of your fish filet.

You have probably heard before that fish is done cooking when it flakes easily with a fork. The problem is, this also means it completely falls apart when you carve off servings to put on plates, and I didn’t think to take a picture of it until after I’d done that. So this salmon is sort of raggedy looking. But don’t let that fool you, it tastes fantastic. I mean, as fantastic as fish can taste in my book, anyway — but I find that the easier things are to cook, the better they taste to me, so by that measure it is truly fantastic after all!

Happy Eating!

Lemon Salmon

2 lb salmon filet
1 lemon
1/2 onion
2 tsp dill
1/2 tsp pepper

Indeed, when shellfish are the main course, they can be quite lovely, as I will demonstrate today. First, we have to prepare three bowls. In bowl number one, we will start with 1/3 cup of potato starch (or tapioca starch, or cornstarch, or arrowroot starch… yeah, it totally doesn’t matter.) Then with a fork, blend in 1 teaspoon of salt…

…and 3/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.

Bowl number two should contain 3 egg whites. To separate an egg white from the yolk, just crack the shell over the bowl, and carefully pass the yolk back and forth between the two halves a few times. The white will slip right off and fall into your bowl. Toss the yolks in the trash with the shells, unless you have some other random thing you want to do with them. But please don’t tell me what it is; this is a family blog.

Beat the egg whites aggressively with a fork for a minute or two, until it gets really foamy.

If you did this long enough, you’d end up with a meringue. But it would take a long time, your arm would get sore, and you’d have no lemon pie to put it on anyway. So this right here is foamy enough for our needs.

And finally, in bowl number three we will put about a cup of flaked coconut. I like this kind from Bob’s Red Mill, because it contains no preservatives, added sugars, or anything else gunky, just plain coconut. But you can get the wet kind from the baking aisle too, if you want.

Finally, we’re ready to start cooking! Don’t worry, it goes fast from here on out. The amounts we put in the bowls will cover about 3/4 lb of shrimp, though of course you could do more or less to suit your family’s needs. I bought my shrimp pre-shelled and deveined, because I have neither the dexterity nor the time for such a ridiculous task. Grab one by the tail…

Flop it around in the starch mixture…

Dip it in the frothy egg whites…

And stick a bunch of coconut to it. Make sure you get your hands all messy too, that’s important.

Repeat the tar-and-feathering process, placing each shrimp on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper as you go. Technically foil will work too, but you have to oil it pretty thoroughly to prevent the little guys from sticking. Nothing ever sticks to parchment paper. Then, bake them in the oven at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes, turning them over about halfway through.

Look how golden and crunchy they are, with absolutely no frying necessary! It’s kind of this weird tradition that you’re supposed to eat coconut shrimp with orange marmalade. I really don’t know where that idea came from, but the GFCF Husband considered it important, so I tried to oblige as best I could. I used Cascadian Farms apricot jelly (which I have on hand because I also use it in this fantastic recipe,) and mixed in a few drops of lemon juice for more of a citrus-y tang. It worked well enough I guess, since their plates were almost empty before I even got to sit down.

Happy Eating!

Coconut Shrimp

1/3 cup potato starch
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cayenne pepper
3 egg whites
1 cup shredded coconut
3/4 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined

Optional:
1/4 cup Cascadian Farm apricot jelly
1/4 tsp lemon juice

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It helps to have pre-made sauces to do all the work for you. Tabasco Pepper Jelly is mostly sweet, a little spicy, and requires nothing but a little twist of the lid before it’s ready to grace your fish, pork, chicken, or even alligator if that’s your thing. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without notice. Always check your labels!]

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Just spoon it on like they do in the bayou. I don’t actually know if that’s how they do it in the bayou, but I’m going to assume it is. They do everything with Tabasco down in the Lousiana bayou, so surely spooning must be on the list, right?

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Make sure you use enough. Wouldn’t want to skimp.

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15 minutes in a 425 degree oven, and your fish is done! Obviously the cooking time for alligator is going to be a little different, so adjust as necessary. Throw together a couple of sides (corn bread, sweet potatoes, and black-eyed peas are all suitable Cajun fare) and your dinner is ready to go!

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Happy Eating!

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Sweet Pepper Fish

2-4 fish filets
3 Tbs Tabasco Pepper Jelly

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

The author’s pretty proud of herself, even going so far as to name and patent her “new cooking method.” Who knew that all those frontier settlers using their dutch ovens in the 1800s were guilty of copyright infringement? Anyway, even if her “revolutionary” method is nothing particularly new, it’s still a great collection of very easy recipes, and the vast majority of them happen to be GFCF, or are very easily modified. (Who cooks hulled barley, anyway? Just substitute rice.)

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This is a variation on a recipe in the book called Cajun Fish, which turned out so delicious that it made me rethink my position on sweet potatoes — which prior to this meal had been, at best, indifference. First, peel and cube one sweet potato, and layer it in the bottom of your greased dutch oven.

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This recipe introduced me to another new experience as well: eating whole cooked cloves of garlic. Not for the weak of heart (or kids, for that matter,) but they’re easy to remove after cooking if you want to. I really do recommend trying it at least once though. You might be amazed like I was. Either way, just snip the ends and peel about 6-8 whole cloves of garlic, and toss them on top of the sweet potato pieces.

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Lay 1-2 pounds of fish filets over the garlic, and sprinkle them liberally with McCormick cajun seasoning blend. Do be aware that other brands of seasoning blends might contain gluten as an anti-caking agent, so you can’t just pick one willy-nilly. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning, so always check your labels!]

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Next, cut two roma tomatoes into quarters.

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You can cut the little stem connections off, but leave the insides and seeds, because that moisture is going to add to the steaming factor inside the pot.

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Layer about 1 cup of frozen green beans over the fish, then place the tomato quarters face down on top. Cover with the lid and cook in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes.

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I wish I could do the texture of these sweet potatoes justice with my description here. They are soft, yet not mushy; savory, but still retaining a little of their natural sweetness… and most amazingly, they are completely and totally smooth, not a single string to be found. It’s really quite amazing. Oh, and the rest of the meal’s pretty darn tasty, too.

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Happy Eating!

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Cajun Fish

1 sweet potato
6-8 whole cloves garlic
1-2 pounds fish filets
1 Tbs McCormick Cajun seasoning blend
1 cup frozen green beans
2 roma tomatoes

I know you already know how to assemble your basic GFCF taco, so really this is about the preparation of the fish. Step one is to rinse the slime off your fish filets. Always rinse your fish — for one thing, it’ll help any seasonings or marinades absorb better, and for another, you won’t be eating slime.

Make sure you pat them completely dry with paper towels on all sides. Then slice them into decent-sized chunks for tacos. At this point, of course, you could roll them in GF breading and make fish sticks, but we’ll save that for another time.

Melt 2 Tablespoons of Fleischmann’s Unsalted (not Original) Margarine, then mix in 1/4 teaspoon of cumin…

…And 1/8 teaspoon of garlic powder. None of the appropriately-sized measuring spoons were clean, so I improvised. I don’t have it in me to run the dishwasher more than once a day, or do dishes by hand just because we don’t have any more. If this means I’m serving something like hamburgers in bowls, so be it.

Lay your fish pieces in a greased baking dish, and brush the garlic butter liberally over the tops. Then bake in a 450 degree oven for only about 4-7 minutes, until the fish is flaking apart easily when you poke at it with a fork.

And the rest is just dressing. Or fixins, as we say down here. Corn tortilla, rice tortilla, salsa, guacamole, beans, whatever you fancy. Your fish is ready for it, bring it on!

Happy Eating!

Fish Tacos

2 fish filets
2 Tbs Fleischmann’s Unsalted Margarine (not Original)
1/4 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp garlic
Toppings as desired

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

It’s no secret that I’m a sucker for a good sauce. I especially love a meal where you can reserve a little extra and put it all over your veggies and potatoes or whatnot too. Also, I’m a sucker for honey. Best of both worlds, right here! 

First, lay your fish filets in a baking dish sprayed with canola oil. The GFCF Husband was working late, so I only needed to do two tonight. Plus, for whatever reason I ended up with more smallish filets than normal in this purchase, so I needed to pawn those off on the kids.

Fish is tricky, because on the one hand there’s a concern over mercury content, but on the other it’s chock full of omega fatty acids, which are important for brain functioning. Here’s a list of the highest and lowest mercury-containing fish. Freshwater trout or salmon are the best choices overall, because they are the lowest in mercury ratings while highest in omega-3s. But whatever you do, please don’t construe any of this to be medical advice. I’m not a doctor, I’m just some chick on the internet, you know?

Honey. Mustard. See how easy this is? That’s 2 Tablespoons of each, which will ultimately be enough to cover more than two fish filets, but like I said, I love having extra sauce. I’m using Grey Poupon because it’s my favorite, but if your kids aren’t so keen on the grainier mustards, you could easily choose a different one. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Check your labels, every time.]

Add 1/2 Tablespoon of lemon juice…

1/4 teaspoon of McCormick’s ground mustard…

1/4 teaspoon of McCormick’s dill weed…

And just a smidge of garlic. About 1/8 teaspoon of the jarred kind.

Mix well, and spread over the back of the fish. Keep that sauce bowl on hand so you can put the rest on your plate when it comes out of the oven.

Bake in a 425 degree oven for about 15 minutes, until the fish is cooked all the way through and flakes easily with a fork. That makes this, like, a 20-minute meal total, and it just doesn’t get any better than that. Plus, do you have any idea how good this smells? There’s only one way to find out–well, besides showing up at my doorstep, which I don’t recommend. I’m not sharing.

Happy Eating!

Honey Mustard Fish

2-4 servings of fish
2 TBS honey
2 TBS GFCF dijon mustard
1/2 TBS lemon juice
1/4 tsp McCormick’s ground mustard
1/4 tsp McCormick’s dill weed
1/8 tsp minced garlic (about 1/4 clove)

This is definitely a kid-friendly meal, but only if you don’t let them watch you make it. It looks all fancy and gourmet, and some of the ingredients have a mental gag-factor all their own, but trust me, the final product is to die for.

The basic premise of this recipe is you steam some fish filets, and then you turn the liquid from the pan into a sauce for the fish. As you can guess, we will be steaming them with something a little tastier than water. Here’s what we start with: sugar, white cooking wine, minced ginger, minced garlic, and… clam juice. Seriously, don’t panic. It’s just like fish stock, but it tastes better. They carry it in most grocery stores, over with the canned tuna. You can use plain ol’ fish stock if you really can’t handle the concept of cooking with clam juice, but then you’ll never know what a truly great meal you could have had. Come on, live a little.

Start by putting 3/4 cup of the wine and 3/4 cup of the clam juice in the bottom of a steamer pan. Then add in 1 Tablespoon of sugar.

Mix well so the sugar dissolves, then add 1 Tablespoon of minced ginger, and 1 clove of minced garlic. As you can see, my ginger is just like my garlic: pre-minced and in a jar. I already spend enough time prepping and cooking with ingredients from scratch, so I’ll take my shortcuts where I can get them. Plus, I always manage to grate my fingertips along with the ginger when I try to grate it myself, and while my blood is 100% gluten-free at this point, it’s just not that appetizing.

Get a good boil going, and let it simmer for ten minutes.

Meanwhile, chop up one green onion. (Do you still count it as one if the bulb has two stalks on it? I always do, but that may also be because I like green onions a lot.)

When your sauce has simmered for ten minutes, place the top rack in the steamer pan, and spritz it lightly with canola oil.

Lay in your fish filets, and drizzle them with 1 teaspoon of sesame oil. Just let the extra oil drip down into the pan, it’s cool.

And do the same thing with 2 teaspoons of La Choy soy sauce. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change their formulas without notice. Always check your ingredient lists!]

Then sprinkle on your green onions, cover it with the lid, and steam until the fish is done (when it flakes apart easily with a fork.) I’m using pretty small Tilapia filets, so it only takes about 5 minutes. Now, the one major drawback of this recipe is you can only do two fish filets at once unless you have an unusually large steamer. This was a late night for us, so the kids had already eaten. But if you’re cooking for more than two, you can do everything the same except drizzle half of the sesame oil and soy sauce onto the first pair, and save half for the second round of filets. Most of it ends up in the bottom anyway, which is where we want it for the sauce.

Now, while the fish is steaming, prepare a cornstarch mixture. Check your brands, most but not all of them are gluten-free. Start with 2 teaspoons of cornstarch in the tiniest little container you can find.

Add just enough water to dissolve all the cornstarch into a slurry. We’re talking bare minimum here, a tiny drizzle. (Man, how many times can I use the word “drizzle” in one post?)

Move the fish out onto plates, and toss the steamer tray in the sink.

You’ll see the sauce underneath has changed greatly since we last saw it. Please forgive the abundance of steam in this shot. I was, ah, going for extra realism? Anyway, here comes the part that makes this meal kid-friendly: add 4 Tablespoons of brown sugar to the simmering sauce. I did tell you this recipe was called Sweet Wine Fish, didn’t I?

Pour in your cornstarch mixture, and mix well.

Continue to simmer the sauce for several minutes until it has thickened to your liking. TheGFCFMan likes a pretty thick sauce, but I’m usually starving by this time and very impatient to eat, so we meet somewhere in the middle.

Then all you have to do is… wait for it… drizzle the sauce onto your filets and enjoy. You will probably end up with extra sauce unless you choose to go beyond drizzling into soaking your fish, and I like to save that in a small tupperware for leftovers. It makes a great salad dressing, or a dipping sauce for chicken nuggets, or any number of things.

Happy Eating!

Sweet Wine Fish

3/4 cup white cooking wine
3/4 cup clam juice
1 Tbs. sugar
1 Tbs. minced ginger
1 clove minced garlic
2-4 Tilapia filets
1 green onion
1 tsp. sesame oil
2 tsp. La Choy soy sauce
4 Tbs. brown sugar
2 tsp. Clabber Girl cornstarch in water