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Of course you’ll want to start with peeling and roughly chopping 4 medium sweet potatoes.

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Boil those suckers for about 25 minutes, until they are very soft.

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After they’re drained, I like to mash them up just a little so that things go easier with my hand mixer later on, but you can skip this step if you don’t mind huge chunks of sweet potato being violently flung around your pot.

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Now the important part. Add in 1/3 cup of Minute Maid orange juice (and sadly, yes, the brand is important. There are brands of orange juice with gluten in them, horrifying as that is…) In general, you may or may not need to avoid orange juice that has been fortified with calcium in the form of calcium lactate. What it boils down to is, most calcium lactate sources in the US are derived from non-dairy sources, but foreign-sourced calcium lactate could very possibly be made with whey, and some food manufacturers in the US do use the whey form as well. The only way to be sure is to contact the manufacturer, and always check your labels!

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The second key ingredient is 1/4 cup of honey. And that’s it! Now all you have to do is get out your hand mixer and whip those sweet potatoes into oblivion.

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Now why, I ask you, would you ever restrict something so scrumptious to just one holiday? Aside from being tasty, sweet potatoes are also very healthy, and deserve to be eaten year-round. Some people prefer to make them a little less healthy and melt a layer of marshmallows on the top. I’m morally opposed to it myself, but only because I don’t particularly like marshmallows. If you go that route, I believe Kraft Jet-Puffed Marshmallows are gluten-free, but like I said, I don’t have occasion to check up on that particular food product very often, so you’ll want to double-check before you buy. 

By the way, you see that other colorful pile in the background? That’s nothing but a bag of frozen “fajita vegetables” (i.e. red peppers, green peppers, and onions) with a couple handfuls of frozen corn thrown into the mix. Instant side dish! I made this post a two-fer to try to make up for my sporadic summertime posting. It’s a busy time of year, and I’m sure some of you out there are looking forward to Back to School time just as much as I am.

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Happy Eating!

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Sweet Potatoes

4 medium sweet potatoes
1/3 cup 100% orange juice
1/4 cup honey

Pepper Medley

1 bag frozen fajita vegetables
1 cup frozen corn

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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

And thanks to everyone who posted about what they’d like to see in the future, I’m going to do my best to provide the most helpful recipes I can. Speaking of, have you ever made your own beans? I avoided it for so long, because it had such an old-school mystique about it, I thought it must be terribly hard. But it isn’t! What’s more, beans are very healthy, and homemade ones cost one-tenth what canned beans do.

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Look, it’s a bag of beans! Everything I’m about to describe goes for all types of beans, by the way, I just happen to be using black beans because they’re my favorite.

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The first thing you must do with real beans is soak them overnight. There are ways you can try to speed-cook them, but the beans don’t come out as well, and what’s more, soaked beans cause less flatulence. That’s better for everyone involved, don’t you think? I find a drink pitcher to be the most convenient way to soak them.

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Fill it most of the way with water and just stick it either on the counter, or in the fridge, before you go to bed. Being at room temperature will speed up the soaking, and help the oligosaccharides break down faster, which is what makes the beans easier to digest and ultimately leads to less gas. But they probably shouldn’t have more than about 12 hours soaking at room temperature. So if I’m going to be slow-cooking them in the crock pot all day, I soak them overnight at room temperature and deal with them in the morning. If I’m going to be cooking them in a normal pot on the stove, I soak them in the fridge, and leave them there all the way until the late afternoon when I’m ready to start cooking them.

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One way or the other, when you’re ready to start cooking your beans, pour your nasty water out (see how handy the pitcher lid is for this?) and cover them again with fresh water.

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Boil them for 2-3 hours on the stove, or 5-6 hours in the crock pot on low. If you have to leave them in there for longer, it’s not really a big deal, they’ll just be extra soft. Make sure you start with at least 3 times as much water as you have beans, because they’re going to absorb and swell a lot.

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The seasonings depend entirely on what kind of beans you’re making, and what kind of recipe you’re going to use them in. I was going for a Mexican flavor this night, so I put in 1 teaspoon each of chili powder and cumin. (After it was done, I kinda wished I’d put some dried cilantro in there too. Oh well, there’s always next time.) Now is when a lot of people like to put bacon or other pieces of pork in with the beans to flavor them. If you do this, make sure you get a gluten-free brand of bacon, and preferably one with no added nitrates or nitrites either, like Applegate Farms. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change recipes without warning. Always check your labels!]

When you store the leftovers — and you should definitely have some, because the whole point of cooking beans is to make a huge batch at once — keep them covered with some of the remaining liquid so they stay moist. They’ll freeze well this way too. When it’s time to reheat them, you can drain them like you would a regular can of beans, or…

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You can dump the whole thing back into a pan on medium-high heat, and shove them around a bit until they mash up and become refried beans. Who knew it was that easy?

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Here we have my concoction for the evening: sorta-refried black beans over Mexican rice, topped with corn and mango pico de gallo (you can find a discussion of pico de gallo in the comments section here, if you’re not familiar with it.) You could also put them in tacos, in a soup, as a side dish… one batch can be used for several very different meals throughout the week, saving you lots of time, money, and effort.

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Happy Eating!

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Oh, you didn’t know there’s a right way and a wrong way to prepare asparagus? Well there certainly is. I mean look at those things. They’re not appealing in the slightest, and right now, they taste the way they look. But we’re going to fix that.

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There are two key steps to making asparagus taste much, much better. First, you have to get rid of the hard, under-ripe part at the bottom of the stalk. To do this, don’t just cut it with a knife and hope you got it right. Instead, pinch the stalk at the very bottom, and bend it with your hands. The stalk will naturally break just where it begins to go soft, which is precisely where we want to separate it. Some may snap very close to the bottom, while others may snap halfway up the stalk, which just goes to show, you don’t want to estimate this stuff with a knife. Unless you like eating under-ripe food, I guess.

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The second key step is to peel the asparagus. That may sound silly, but trust me, it’s important. The outer skin tastes as different from the inside as a potato skin tastes compared to the inside of a potato. If I were a fancy food writer, I’d talk about how the skin tastes “woodsy and bitter,” but instead I’ll just tell you it’s gross. Eating unpeeled asparagus is the main reason most people think they don’t like asparagus.

Anyway, just lay the stalk flat on the cutting board, and run your vegetable peeler down the length of the stalk repeatedly as you slowly roll it along. It goes surprisingly fast.

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Steam them, covered, for about 7 minutes.

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Take a moment to notice the color difference between the cooked and the uncooked asparagus. Isn’t that beautiful? To serve to kids, just cut them into short pieces like green beans, saving the funny little heads for the grownups’ plates. Some of my kids even prefer asparagus to green beans, believe it or not.

A word of warning: if you’re in the habit of squirting lemon juice on your asparagus, you should know that without the tough outer skin, that lemon juice is going to change the color of the stalks, almost like bleach. It will still taste fine, but maybe save the lemon juice for the last second before you eat them so it’s not all splotchy-looking.

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Happy Eating!

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Thankfully, I have this thing called the grocery store that keeps me stocked up year round. I like to use about 10-12 roma tomatoes for this recipe because they’re firmer, but you could use a smaller number of larger tomatoes if you wanted. Cut them in half and scoop out the insides with a knife, spoon, thumb, or whatever you have available.

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Lay them out on a kitchen towel and sprinkle the insides liberally with salt. This will help draw the moisture out a bit.

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Then turn them upside down on the towel so they can drain. Sure, you’ll have to wash the towel after this, but I’m such a messy chef that I have to break out a fresh kitchen towel almost every night anyway.

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While the tomatoes drain, mix up your filling. Start with 1 container of coconut milk yogurt, and add 1 teaspoon of basil, 1 teaspoon of parsley, and 1 teaspoon (or 2 cloves) of minced garlic.

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No need to use a separate bowl, just mix it all right there in the container.

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Turn your tomatoes onto a baking sheet with parchment paper, and liberally brush the herb yogurt mixture into your little canoes. We’re not looking to fill them all the way, because the end result would be extremely messy. Just a thick coating should be good.

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Now crush up about a cup of Rice Chex. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change recipes without warning. Always check your labels!] I used to do this in a ziplock bag, but my bags always got little holes poked in them as I was crushing and then chex dust would leak everywhere. It works much better to just gently punch it in the bowl with your hand.

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If you’re serving these to guests, you might want to be more diligent in your crushing so they don’t necessarily know your bread crumbs are really Rice Chex. But I’ve got nothing to hide.

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Once they’ve all got a good crumb coating, give each tomato a very quick drizzle of olive oil. But be quick about it — I hesitated on this one trying to get the action shot with my camera, and it ended up with too much olive oil. You want less than what’s in the picture.

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Then just pop the tray in a 400 degree oven for about 10-15 minutes. The end result can be served several to a plate as a side dish, or individually as appetizers. Not that we ever deal with that sort of thing around here, but maybe some of you still have a social life that involves entertaining non-relatives in your house. But if not, don’t worry, these things will still disappear from your kitchen like ninjas, even if you’re the only one eating them.

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Happy Eating!

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The GFCF Lady’s Roasted Tomatoes

10-12 roma tomatoes
1 container So Delicious coconut yogurt
1 tsp basil
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp minced garlic
1 cup Rice Chex
olive oil

First we mix the dry ingredients. Stir together 1 cup of white rice flour, and 1 cup of corn meal, being sure to select a brand of corn meal that isn’t mixed with wheat flour.

Then mix in 1/4 cup sugar, 1 Tablespoon of Argo baking powder, and 1 teaspoon of salt. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!]

And of course the magic fairy dust of gluten-free baking, xanthan gum. If you haven’t made the leap yet to doing your own baking, don’t be scared of this stuff. It’s just 1/2 teaspoon of magic fairy dust, that’s all. No biggie.

Now for the wet ingredients. First, melt one stick plus another two Tablespoons of Fleischmann’s Unsalted Margarine (not Original) in a large bowl in the microwave.

Then we’re going to add two cans of corn. But one will be a normal can of corn, drained of its extra liquid…

And one will be an undrained can of cream style corn. Note the word “style:” this is a case where a cheap generic brand will be to your benefit, because it will not actually contain any dairy. Mine is pretty much just corn, water, and salt, partially blended to resemble… something creamy, I guess.

Break two eggs into the bowl. One-handed is not a requirement, it just makes you look cool. (You could also substitute 4 Tablespoons of potato starch mixed into 2 Tablespoons of water, if you wanted to make it egg-free.)

Then mix in one container of plain coconut milk yogurt. Or you could go with soy instead, if that’s what you’re into. But I’m definitely not into that, myself.

And finally, 1/4 cup of honey. See that funky measuring cup I’m holding? It’s part of this awesome set I got for Christmas, which are designed as a collection of nesting Russian dolls. Cool, huh?

Finally, mix the wet with the dry, and stir vigorously.

Scrape it all into a well-oiled 9×13 baking dish, and smooth everything into place. Unlike the majority of gluten-free batters, this one is wet enough that you can just use a spatula instead of pressing it into place with your hand. Lucky you!

Bake for 45-50 minutes at 350 degrees, and you’ll end up with something like this. Firm enough to be cut into squares like corn bread, but richer and sweeter: corn casserole!

Happy Eating!

The GFCF Lady’s Corn Casserole

1 cup white rice flour
1 cup corn meal
1/4 cup sugar
1 TBS GF baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp xanthan gum

1 1/4 sticks Fleischmann’s Unsalted margarine (NOT Original)
1 can corn, drained
1 can cream-style corn
2 eggs
1 container coconut milk yogurt
1/4 cup honey

You’d think boiling the eggs would be a no-brainer, but you’ve got to do it right or they won’t peel cleanly. Start with 18 eggs in a pot of cold water, and turn the heat to high. Once the water reaches a rolling boil (that is, giant bubbles splashing everywhere, not tiny little simmery things,) then start your timer for 15 minutes.

You’re destined to lose a few eggs during the boiling process, like this one that exploded spectacularly underwater right before my eyes. But we can still use the yolk in the filling mixture, and the white can be set aside for taste-testing purposes. I can always find at least a couple that are just not pretty enough to go on the plate, and I have no choice but to eat them right then and there.

Once you’ve drained the pot, set it in the sink and refill it with cold water, then plunge the eggs back in. This will cause the insides to shrink back from the shell, and they will come out nice and smooth when you peel them.

Then cut all those little suckers in half lengthwise…

And drop the yolks into a large mixing bowl. If they’re cooked right, you should be able to just give the egg a little squeeze and it will pop right out.

Mash them up with a fork until you’ve gotten all the large lumps out.

Okay, sure, there can be a few lumps left. We’ll continue to work on those as we add the wet ingredients. First, mix in 3 Tablespoons of French’s yellow mustard. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas at any time. Always check your labels!]

Then add 2 Tablespoons of pickle relish. Most major brands are gluten free, but sadly enough some aren’t, so double check yours. It’s up to you whether you go for sweet or dill relish — generally I would say dill, but this time I’m using a spicy-sweet specialty brand called Wickles. I could eat that stuff with a spoon, I tell you.

Then add 1 Tablespoon of Lea & Perrin’s worcestershire sauce (make sure you use the original flavor, as their lighter “chicken” worcestershire sauce is not dairy-free.)

And 1/4 teaspoon of McCormick’s celery salt.

Finally, add in 2/3 cup of Hellman’s mayonnaise. As a relatively bland ingredient, the mayonnaise’s role is entirely for smoothing out the texture. So to that end, you don’t want to put in too much, or your filling will get runny, and then the only way to fix it will be to boil more eggs and harvest the extra yolks. I personally like to go cautiously and start with 1/2 cup of mayo, and add in more as necessary, but I freely admit that I take my deviled eggs very seriously.

Swipe about a Tablespoon of filling into each egg half with a spoon, smoothing the top a little so it’s at least moderately attractive. If you want to get really fancy, you can scrape the filling into an icing bag and squirt it in all decoratively. But an upside-down spoon’s good enough for me.

Finally, sprinkle the tops with paprika. Such a pretty spice.

And you’re ready to go! This is an especially nice hors d’oeuvre if you’re trying to cook a GFCF holiday meal for extended family members who aren’t used to eating on strange diets, because other than some judicious brand selection on your part, the ingredients are the same as you would find in a traditional recipe. Heck, with the right collection of recipes, your family might even get through the whole meal without realizing it was restricted to begin with.

Happy Eating!

The GFCF Lady’s Deviled Eggs

18 eggs
3 TBS French’s yellow mustard
2 TBS Wickles relish
1 TBS Lea & Perrin’s worcestershire
1/4 tsp McCormick celery salt
2/3 cup Hellman’s mayonnaise

Granted, plain white potatoes are not really that nutritious in the grand scheme of things, but they can be an excellent vehicle for a wide variety of toppings. Like a lot of meals, they aren’t traditionally GFCF, what with all the butter and cheese and sour cream, but who wants to be traditional anyhow? A little creativity goes a long way.

But before we can revel in our topping choices, we have to get our potato into a baked state of mind. First, jab it liberally on all sides with a fork. (If you don’t, you will have yourself an exploding potato instead.)

Then wrap it loosely in a paper towel, and microwave it for 4 and a half minutes. Now, this is important: take it out of the microwave and let it sit for another 5 minutes. It will continue to cook as it rests, so that by the end the middle will be perfectly cooked without the outside being overdone.

If you are making several potatoes instead of just one or two, you may want to do it the slow but simultaneous way, which is to put all of them in a 350 degree oven for one hour. Of course you don’t want to put a paper towel in the oven, but the fork-jabbing step is still quite necessary, believe me.

Now, on to the toppings! Today I decided I was going to go with kind of a modified version of a BLT, because I had some leftover bacon in the refrigerator. “Leftover” is a bit disingenuous, actually, since it’s always part of my plan when I make bacon to cook a few extra slices so I’ll have some ready to use in a salad or whatever later in the week. See here for a description of how I make bacon in the oven with zero effort and very little mess. Unfortunately, this wasn’t destined to be a true BLT, because I didn’t have any lettuce, and I wasn’t convinced the texture would be that good on the potato anyway.

But I did include what I consider to be a vital part of a BLT, and that’s chipotle mayo! The chiles in Sriracha (also sometimes known as Rooster Sauce) are not truly chipotles, but they get the point across. You could mix in real chipotles in adobo, or even dried chipotle spice or chili powder, whatever you have on hand. The proportions are a little fuzzy; start with 1 teaspoon of spicy stuff in 2-3 Tablespoons of mayonnaise, and go from there. Not all mayonnaises are gluten-free, but Hellman’s actually prints it right on the label for us, isn’t that nice of them? [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!] And, if you mix it up in one of these tiny single-serving disposable tupperware things, then you can just pop a lid on whatever you don’t use and save it for a sandwich or GF tortilla wrap later in the week. Efficiency is your friend!

And here we have my completed Bacon-Tomato-Chipotle-Mayo potato. (Read that out loud once or twice, it’s fun.) I was really wishing for some fresh green onions to go with it as well, but my empty refrigerator mocked me in this regard. But what’s important to understand is that anything, absolutely anything, can go on a baked potato. Meats, beans, veggies, GFCF dressings, guacamole… If you’re not up for baking gluten-free hamburger buns, for example, you could just fill a baked potato with ground beef and hamburger fixings. Or rather than always buying the expensive gluten-free pastas, you could fill one with chicken and spaghetti sauce. Why, just a few days ago I even made one with Thanksgiving leftovers:

That’s turkey, cranberry sauce, and some extra deviled egg filling I still had hanging around after I’d already filled all my egg halves to overflowing.  This was one of my favorite baked potato combinations I’ve ever eaten, and believe me, I’ve made a lot.

Happy Eating!

So what’s a GFCF mom to do? Well, making great homemade mashed potatoes isn’t hard at all, if you have a good recipe. And hey, if we’re bothering to make our own mashed potatoes, we might as well make them perfectly, right?

First, peel your pile of potatoes. (And say that ten times fast.) This is approximately 2.5 pounds of potatoes, based on the fact that it’s about half of a standard 5-pound bag. Use the other half for Potato Salad or Tandoori Chicken later in the week. Or, double the recipe and save the leftovers for Shepherd’s Pie. Oh humble potato, is there anything you can’t do?

Chop them into decent-sized chunks, and boil for about 20-30 minutes, until they are really thoroughly cooked. When you stab a fork in to check them, the piece should pretty much just fall in half. This is more cooked than you would want for, say, potato salad, where you expect the potatoes to retain a little firmness.

Drain the potatoes and return them to the pot. See how they’re all falling apart on their own back there? Now add 4 Tablespoons (aka 1/4 cup) of Fleischmann’s Unsalted Margarine. Make sure you do not use the Original flavor; only the unsalted kind is dairy-free. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!]

Stir everything around until the margarine is melted, then pour in about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of almond milk. You’re never going to get exactly the same amount of potatoes in any given batch, and the threshold between dry and soupy can be very thin. So start with a little less and add with caution as needed.

Look at that fluffy, perfectly smooth texture! You’d never believe I managed that with a spoon and a bicep. Actually, that’s because I didn’t, I used the hand mixer like any normal human being. That thing will hunt down and decimate any remaining lumps in no time flat. If you have persistent lumps, that’s a good indication that the potatoes weren’t boiled for long enough. It’s really very hard to overboil potatoes.

You’ll want to add at least 1/2 teaspoon of salt, especially since we used unsalted margarine. Some people may prefer more, but 1/2 teaspoon is a good starting point.

And if you want to be all snazzy, add a teaspoon of parsley and declare them to be herbed mashed potatoes.

You could also add a teaspoon of minced garlic if that’s your thing, but I like them just the way they are: perfect.

Happy Eating!

Perfect Mashed Potatoes

2.5 pounds russet potatoes
4 TBS Fleischmann’s unsalted margarine (NOT Original flavor)
1/3 cup almond milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp parsley

But never fear, the recipe still conforms to its humble origins as a super-fast, super-easy, super-cheap, super-tasty meal! All in all, it’s just a super soup supper.

Forgive me, I have obviously had too many GF cookies this afternoon.

Anyway, here are the ingredients arrayed nicely on my stovetop. That’s Pacific Foods beef broth, a can of cream corn, a can of mixed veggies, Amy’s Fire-Roasted Southwestern Vegetable soup, a small can of Contadina tomato sauce, and a can of plain pinto beans. [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!] For the corn, veggies and beans there are many safe brands–just make sure the ingredient list includes nothing but corn, veggies and beans respectively. Also, make sure you do not use the “Italian Spices” flavor of Contadina tomato sauce, only the unseasoned flavor.

Keep in mind we’re not using the whole box of beef broth–just half of it, or roughly two cups. Pour everything into a large soup pot. Now this is important: don’t drain any of the cans. Just open them and dump them in.

Now add 1/2 teaspoon of salt…

And 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder.

Heat through, stirring occasionally. And that’s it! Instant soup! Well, not instant instant, but you know what I mean. Oh, and you know what?

This soup goes great with cornbread!

Happy Eating!

The GFCF Lady’s Vegetable Soup

2 cups Pacific Foods beef broth
1 can cream corn
1 can mixed vegetables
1 can Amy’s Fire-Roasted Southwestern Vegetable soup
1 can Contadina tomato sauce (NOT “Italian” flavored)
1 can plain pinto beans
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder