So I’m busily living in sweat-laden denial, and that includes getting into the mood for all these great autumn foods that are coming down the pipeline. Heck, it’ll probably still be swelteringly hot on Thanksgiving Day anyway, so why not start enjoying them now? Anachronistic food is not a crime.

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It should come as no surprise that this recipe contains apples, specifically the Granny Smith variety. I really like them with the peels on, but I understand if you have to take them off. Either way, cut three apples into wedges (minus the cores) and set them aside.

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Peel two sweet potatoes, and cut them into rounds about 3/4 inch thick. Then cut each round into fourths, so you end up with a bunch of little pizza-slice shapes.

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Does the shape honestly matter? No, but it makes arranging them easier if they’re all the same. And while we’re being honest, this alternating-line arrangement isn’t really necessary either. But it sure does look pretty, doesn’t it? Note that I did grease this pan with a little coconut oil before going all Martha Stewart on it.

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Next, take 1 cup of apple juice (the cloudy kind that comes in a glass jar is best, it means it’s the least-processed) and gently pour it into the baking dish among the apple and sweet potato pieces.

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Now, measure out 1/3 cup of brown sugar, and mix in 1 teaspoon of cinnamon…

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And 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg. I just eyeballed half of a quarter teaspoon for this one, rather than go hunting for my tiny measuring spoons. Close enough for government work.

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Blend the three together, then sprinkle your sugar mixture evenly over the baking dish. You can’t sprinkle such tiny amounts of cinnamon and nutmeg over such a large dish, see, that’s why we mixed them into the sugar first.

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Now, layer about 1/2 cup of pecan pieces over the top. Have I mentioned before how hard it is to photograph plastic bags? I swear I must have taken a dozen shots before I got one where the flash wasn’t reflecting awkwardly off the bag and making it unreadable. But because I love all of you, I persevered.

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Bake uncovered in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour. Then crank up your A/C and pretend it’s jacket weather out there.

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Happy Eating!

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Sweet Potato and Apple Bake

3 Granny Smith apples
2 sweet potatoes
1 cup apple juice
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup pecan pieces

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

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

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Add 3 Tablespoons of brown sugar…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Happy Eating!

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Chinese Barbecue (Char Siu)

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

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But I’m getting ahead of myself. The important thing about real baked beans is you have to plan ahead, because they have to soak overnight the day before. In theory there are some quick-cook methods out there that call for partially boiling the beans as a sort of speed soak, but to me that actually ends up being more work, because I have to monitor a boiling pot for an hour or two during the day instead of just dumping the beans in a pitcher and going to bed.

Either way though, first measure out 2 cups of navy beans, and give them a quick sort, picking out any rocks or broken beans. I just transfer them one handful at a time from the bowl into the pitcher, checking as I go.

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Here’s the junk I pulled out. It’s not a lot, but you will notice it does include a couple of little black rocks. Trust me, you do not want to bite into one of those, and they are likely to be found in even the highest-quality bean packages. Always pick over your beans even if it seems like a tedious task; your molars will thank you.

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Now we fill the pitcher with water. These beans are going to absorb a ton, so make sure you fill it almost to the top even if it looks like overkill for such a small pile of beans. Leave it on the counter (or in the fridge if that makes you more comfortable,) and have sweet dreams!

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Check it out, they’ve doubled in size!

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You’ll need about 1/2 pound of bacon for this, or 8 ounces, which is usually less than a full package. But since it’s morning now, you can just peel off a couple of strips and cook them up for breakfast while you chop up the rest. Remember to use gluten-free bacon — the one I use most often is Hormel Natural Choice, but there are plenty of fancy organic brands that are safe as well. Also, dice up an onion, and be sure to forget to take a photo of it just like I did.

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Using a slotted spoon, remove the beans from the pitcher and layer them with the bacon and onion in a crock pot. It’s not strictly necessary to layer them, but the bacon and onion are going to tend to float at first, so it helps to use the weight of the beans to keep them mixed down in there while it’s cooking. Make sure you don’t throw out that leftover bean water in the pitcher, because we’re going to use it in a minute.

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Now we’re going to make a fabulous sauce for our beans. If you want to be totally lazy, you can just buy a bottled GFCF barbecue sauce and use about 1 cup of that instead. But this homemade sauce is pretty easy to make, and believe me, the flavor’s worth it. Just mix together 1/2 cup Heinz ketchup, 1 Tablespoon Lea & Perrin’s worcestershire sauce, and 3 Tablespoons of 100% pure maple syrup in a small saucepan. [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!]

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Add 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1/4 teaspoon black pepper…

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2 teaspoons of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon McCormick ground mustard. Ground mustard is one of those spices that is often mixed with flour to help it pour better (instead of clumping like you see my flour-free spice doing here,) so watch your brands.

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Heat everything just until the sugar is fully dissolved, then pour your sauce directly into your crock pot and stir to get it all nice and coated.

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Now pour in enough bean liquid from your pitcher to completely cover the beans. Add fresh water if you don’t have enough, or just use fresh water entirely if you don’t like the idea of using something called “bean liquid.” Put the lid on, and cook it on HIGH for 10 hours.

If you’re going to be at work all day, you’ll want to put in an extra 2 inches of water, or if you’re going to be home, just check on it every few hours and add water as needed to keep the beans covered.

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You can take the lid off for the last hour or so of cooking to help the sauce thicken if needed. But be careful, the aroma might tempt you to start eating them straight out of the pot. You wouldn’t want to burn your mouth.

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Happy Eating!

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The GFCF Lady’s Baked Beans

2 cups dried navy beans
1/2 pound Hormel Natural Choice bacon
1 onion
1/2 cup Heinz ketchup
1 TBS Lea & Perrin’s worcestershire
3 TBS 100% maple syrup
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp pepper
2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp McCormick ground mustard

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First, take a 2-3 pound pork roast, and place it in your dutch oven (or a crock pot, if you must.) This particular cut of meat is called a Boston Butt, so excuse me while I snicker like an 8-year-old. You should always place slow-cooked meat fat side up, by the way. I like to put a sliced-up onion in there as well. It’s not really to eat, it just kind of adds flavor to the vapors as the meat cooks. I’m convinced it makes a difference, anyway, but you could skip it I guess.

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I used to have this whole dry spice rub procedure, but it always ended up making a kind of crust on the meat — which is great, if you’re slicing it, but we’re shredding this meat, and a stiff outer layer just gets in the way. Better to cook the meat plain, and put the spices in the sauce. So just give it a liberal splashing of Lea & Perrins worcestershire sauce for now. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!]

Now add 1/2 cup of water in the bottom, put the lid on and stick it in a 300 degree oven for 3-4 hours. (Or set your crock pot to HIGH for 3-4 hours if you’re doing it that way. But make sure that crock pot lid is on tight, or all your moisture will escape and your meat will be tough and chewy.)

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A few minutes before your meat’s ready to come out, prepare the sauce. Now, this is a traditional Kentucky barbecue sauce, which means it’s vinegar-based. If you’d rather just slather yours with a Southern style (i.e., thicker and sweeter) barbecue sauce, that’s your call. I’m a fence-sitter in the great barbecue sauce debate: I prefer Southern style for brisket, and Kentucky style for pulled pork.

Start with 1 cup of apple cider vinegar. Please ignore the really ugly label; this is the good stuff, I assure you. It tastes better than the processed kind, and it’s better for you too. But if you do get another brand, be sure that it’s not “apple cider flavored” vinegar, because that might contain gluten.

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Add in 1/2 cup of Heinz ketchup…

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1 Tablespoon of white sugar…

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And 2 Tablespoons of brown sugar.

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Then add 1/2 Tablespoon each of salt and white pepper. You could substitute black pepper, but the white pepper is more subtle.

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Will you look at that beauty? It’s still in the dutch oven in this shot because I couldn’t even get it onto a serving plate in one piece, that’s how tender it is. Falling apart!

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This is what’s become of my onion, by the way. On the one hand, no, you wouldn’t want to eat this slag formerly known as a vegetable. But on the other hand, that little pile used to be an entire giant onion. Where did the rest of it go? Flavoring the pork, that’s where!

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Scrape at the chunks of meat with two forks until it’s all nice and shredded.

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Then pour in your sauce. Depending on how large your roast is, you may not need all of it. I start with about 2/3 of the mixture and then add more as necessary. You want everything coated, but without a large puddle at the bottom of the bowl.

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It’s time to warm up our gluten-free buns! Our store started carrying this Kinnikinnick brand, and it immediately became our new favorite. I have served these to people who didn’t know they were gluten-free, and they honestly had no idea. Like most other prepared gluten-free breads, you just store them in the freezer and then microwave however many you need when it’s time to eat.

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I think this picture speaks for itself. If you’ll excuse me, I have some chowing down to do.

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Happy Eating!

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The GFCF Lady’s Pulled Pork Sandwiches

2-3 lb. pork roast
1 onion
2-3 TBS Lea & Perrins worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup water

1 cup Bragg apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup Heinz ketchup
1 TBS white sugar
2 TBS brown sugar
1/2 TBS salt
1/2 TBS white pepper
Kinnikinnick hamburger buns

An apple a day keeps the doctor away! Seriously. Apples are healthy in a lot of ways, but they are particularly good for digestive health, which is what this diet’s all about. So here I have my four organic gala apples, looking all posed and pretty.

And now I peel their skin off! Good thing apples don’t have feelings. Also, that’s not some weird angle of the camera, my pinky fingers really are that crooked. What can I say, I’m an odd duck.

Here’s the fastest way I’ve ever found to core an apple. It sure beats cutting the whole thing into slices and then trying to curve the knife around the core in each slice. And don’t even get me started on those useless kitchen gadgets where you can supposedly press the large round thing down over the entire apple and core and slice it all at once. They totally don’t work unless you have the strength of Hercules, in which case you can just intimidate someone else into coring your apples for you.

Slice the two big pieces…

…nip off a few bits of skin, and you’re done!

Toss them all into a large saucepan with a lid, and sprinkle on 2 Tablespoons of brown sugar. Truth be told, you can easily cut the amount of sugar by half or even more, because real apples are pretty sweet all on their own. 2 Tablespoons will get you to that dessert-level sweetness.

Then sprinkle on 2 teaspoons of cinnamon.

Turn the stove to medium-low, and put the lid on. Just like that? Just like that.

See, as they cook, the apples will start to release liquid, which will turn the sugar and cinnamon into that gooey sauce we all associate with cinnamon apples. Let them cook for about 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

And that, my friends, is pure joy on a spoon. There’s really nothing more to say about it.

Happy Eating!

Cinnamon Apples

4 gala apples (organic, if at all possible)
2 TBS brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

What was I saying? Oh yes: meat. A basic, well-seasoned piece of meat is such a rarity these days, people will think you’re some sort of brilliant gourmet for serving it, and marvel at your minimalist elegance. This here is about 2 pounds of beef brisket, with a dry rub of spices pressed into it. What spices you ask? Well, it’s brown sugar, paprika, chili powder, salt, and pepper. 2 Tablespoons each. What I like to do is mix all the spices on the surface of a large plate, and then just lay the meat down on the plate on all sides. I really should have gotten a picture of this, I know, but my hands were all covered in meat juice, and then one of the kids needed something, and somehow I got distracted and forgot.

Anyway, if you’ve got the time to let your meat sit with the spice rub for a few hours, great; if not, don’t sweat it. When you’re ready, place the brisket in a dutch oven or crock pot (but really, a dutch oven is better. I won’t quibble about the color, they have red and brown, too, if for some strange reason you don’t agree with me that my blue one is the most beautiful thing ever. The important thing is that enamel surface on the inside.) Make sure you lay the meat fat side up.

Pour in about 1 1/2 cups of Pacific Foods beef broth. [As always, my brands were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without notice. Always check your labels.] If necessary, add some water to the pot until the liquid is at least an inch deep, and make sure to lift the edges of the meat a bit so it can flow underneath. Then just put the lid on and stick it in a 325 degree oven for 3-4 hours (or set your crock pot to high for that amount of time, if you insist on doing it that way.)

Man, I wish I could tell you how good my house smells right now. When it’s time for dinner, just drench the top of your meat in Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce. There are other GFCF barbecue sauces available too, but as a Texan, I have to tell you: this stuff is the real deal. If it’s available in your area, this is the product you want.

See? That is some fine barbecue brisket right there. Serve this with smashed potato salad, and you’ll have a positively mouth-watering meal that no one will even suspect is GFCF.

Happy Eating!

Brisket

2 TBS brown sugar
2 TBS McCormick’s paprika
2 TBS McCormick’s chili powder
2 TBS salt
2 TBS pepper
1-2 lbs. beef brisket
1 1/2 cups Pacific Foods beef broth
1 cup Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce

Start with two butternut squashes, about 3 pounds total. If your children see you cooking them, tell them that they’re just “funny-shaped pumpkins.” Kids are dumb, especially if they think they’ll get pie out of the deal. The top stem is the hardest to cut through, so I always start along the side, then rotate it up on its end to get the most leverage.

Scoop out all the seeds and gunk.

Lay two halves on a plate, and cover them in saran wrap. Make sure to get around the bottom too, or else the skin will leave this waxy residue on the plate that is nearly impossible to get off. Cook it in the microwave on high for about 8-9 minutes. You can’t do all four at once, unless you have a gargantuan microwave, and even then, the cooking time would be off. So just get the second one ready and waiting.

Meanwhile, add 1/3 cup sugar to a large mixing bowl, and 1/4 cup almond milk.

Crack in two eggs, and try to ignore the creepy face that’s staring back at you now.

This is my newest discovery at my grocery store: powdered vanilla extract. The key here is that extracts are usually suspended in alcohol, and often these are grain alcohols; i.e. gluten. I don’t know how they magically make it into a powder, but the taste is exactly the same, and you use the same amount of it as you would regular liquid vanilla. I’d already hunted down a liquid extract that was gluten-free, but you know what? This one says it right on the label, and I like to support companies that do that. So I’ve switched. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your ingredient lists.]

So on top of the egg mixture, that’s 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, and 1/4 tsp salt. I don’t know what was up with my camera focus in this shot, but it’s apparently the only one I got of this step, so you’ll have to live with the disappointment.

When your microwave beeps at you, take a look at the squashes. See the brighter yellow circle in the middle there? That’s not cooked all the way through. This one needs another minute or two, at least.

Once they’re an even, dark orange color, scoop out the insides and add them to your mixing bowl. This should take no real arm strength if they’re cooked properly, but they will be extremely hot, so you’ll probably want to use an oven mitt.

Mix everything together thoroughly, making sure it’s nice and smooth. Then scrape it into a 9×9 baking dish sprayed with canola oil.

Now, prepare the crumb topping. That’s 1 Tablespoon of melted Fleischmann’s unsalted margarine (not salted original), 1/2 cup (firmly packed) brown sugar, and 2 Tablespoons of Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour blend.

Mix well…

And sprinkle evenly on top.

Pop in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes, just enough to warm everything through and melt the sugar on top a little. And then tell your children that since they were so good today, they can have dessert on their plate right with their meal. Ha ha ha…

Happy Eating!

Butternut Crunch

2 butternut squash (about 2-3 lbs.)
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup almond milk
2 eggs
1 tsp Adam’s Best vanilla
1 tsp McCormick cinnamon
1/4 tsp McCormick nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1 TBS Fleischmann’s unsalted margarine (not salted original)
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 TBS Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose flour blend

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

This is my favorite chili recipe of all time. You can use ground beef if you really want, but give the turkey a try at least once. It tastes better, it’s healthier for you, and it’s cheaper. How much more could you ask from a humble meat?

First, dump 2 pounds of ground turkey into a big soup pot with a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Check out those beautiful blue handles–that’s my Lodge dutch oven, and I’ve been in love with it since the day I got it. The inner surface is this sealed enamel stuff, and it cleans easier than any Teflon-coated pan I have. Plus, you can throw the whole thing in the oven, lid and all. Which means you’ll be seeing it again whenever I get around to posting my pot roast recipe.

While the turkey starts browning just a bit, dice an onion. I’ve seen some official definitions of “dice” that are pretty ridiculously tiny for the amateur chef to achieve, so perhaps you may choose to say I am merely “chopping” an onion. Whatever, just get it into the smallest pieces you can manage without cutting off a finger.

Add your onions to the pot, along with 3 cloves of minced garlic (or 1 1/2 tsp of the jarred kind) and 1 Tablespoon of chili powder. You can add more if you like it spicy, but don’t make that decision yet until you check out the next step.

This, my friends, is chipotles in adobo. It sounds fancy, but really it’s not–a chipotle pepper is actually just a jalapeno pepper that’s been roasted. The “adobo” part is where the real flavor comes from, and that’s what that red sauce is. Recipes vary, but it’s generally a mixture of tomato paste, apple cider vinegar, garlic, oregano, cumin, and black pepper. Think of it as a spicy Mexican barbecue sauce. Anyway, you buy this stuff in a little can in the ethnic foods aisle, but check your brands for gluten. I can’t even remember the name of the brand I get, because it contains whole peppers, which are kind of a pain to work with, so what I do is throw the entire contents of the can in a blender, and store it in a tupperware in the fridge–so that can is long gone. 1 Tablespoon of the blended sauce is equal to about one chili pepper. In this big recipe, 1/2 a Tablespoon will still leave it mild enough for the kids, or if you’re really worried you can just use the sauce without the peppers blended in. Don’t omit it entirely though, because that wonderful smokey flavor is really essential to the final product.

Okay, enough with the chipotle pepper lesson. Mix it all up and let the meat brown, stirring occasionally.

When the meat is cooked, drain a can of Bush’s red kidney beans and dump it in the pot. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without notice. Always check your labels.]

Add a can of crushed tomatoes. My generic brand is probably not available in your area, but really, all a can of tomatoes ought to have in it is tomatoes, water, and maybe a little salt. Don’t even waste time with brands that put extra crap in their cans, whether it’s ultimately gluten-free or not. It’s a can of vegetables, for pete’s sake, it doesn’t need anything else.

Also add in two cups of GF chicken broth. This is another ingredient you have to hunt down a suitable brand for, and in my experience you usually have to spring for the organic brands before you get one that’s safe. As a side note, another thing you have to watch out for is that packaged chicken breasts will often be injected with broth (the package will say something like “Up to 10% solution.”) Take the time to verify with the manufacturers that the broth they’re injecting is gluten-free, or pay more for organic, it’s your call.

Now, give the chili a good stir and let it simmer for about 20-30 minutes. In the meantime, it’s time to make the corn cakes! The number of ingredients can seem daunting, but if you lay it all out in front of you it’s not so bad.

This is 3/4 cup rice flour, 1 cup of cornmeal, and 2 TBS brown sugar.

Then 1 tsp of salt, and 1/2 tsp of xanthan gum. I resisted buying xanthan gum for a long time when I started gluten-free cooking, because the name was just too weird, and I didn’t even know what it looked like, and I just didn’t want to deal with something so foreign, you know? But eventually I figured out it’s just another white powder in a Bob’s Red Mill bag, and hey, I already have like 3 or 4 of those in my kitchen already, so what the heck. And it really does make a difference in these recipes. It adds that fluffiness and stretchiness back in, the things that used to be taken care of by gluten in your old life.

Then 3 tsp of gluten-free baking powder, and you’re done with the dry ingredients.

Then the wet ingredients: 2 eggs, 4 TBS Fleischmann’s margarine, and 1 cup of almond milk. Don’t put that milk away just yet; we’re going to need it again in a second.

Melt the magarine in the microwave, and whisk in the eggs.

Then add the almond milk…

And work that bicep. My great-grandmother must have been super buff, whisking stuff like this every single day.

Now you want to add just a teensy bit more almond milk, to get the batter to the right consistency. It’s usually about 2-3 Tablespoons.

It will still be thick, like all gluten-free mixes, but you want it so the batter stretches, rather than tearing into chunks.

Ladle it into your preheated pan (oiled with Canola cooking spray or dabs of margarine,) and give it several minutes before flipping. You won’t see any bubbles surfacing like there would be with a normal pancake batter, you just have to test the underside every once in awhile and see if it’s easy to slip the spatula under yet or not.

Because the batter is so thick, sometimes an air bubble will get trapped underneath and you’ll end up with strange designs on your corn cakes. This one looks like a key to me, or maybe a guitar, I can’t decide. I’m still waiting for the day I hit the jackpot and get one that kind of looks like the Virgin Mary, and then I can sell it on eBay for a ton of money and hire someone to make all my corn cakes for me.

Right about the time you’ve cooked all your corn cakes, the chili should be ready to serve. You could, of course, serve the cakes alongside the chili, or even forego the whole cake shape in the first place and make them muffins or something instead.

But what I like to do is serve it underneath the chili. You get a bit of corn cake in every bite, and it’s a fun surprise, like fruit at the bottom of your yogurt. Except we can’t have yogurt anymore–all the more reason to adapt the food-hiding-within-food presentation to new and exciting dishes, am I right? Plus, it’s a corn cake, which makes this final product remarkably close to Frito Pie. Truth be told, when I’m running short on time I actually serve it over Fritos to begin with.

Happy Eating!

Turkey Chili with Corn Cakes

2 lbs. ground turkey
1 med. onion
3 cloves garlic
1 TBS chili powder
1 TBS chipotles in adobo
1 can Bush’s kidney beans
1 can crushed tomatoes
2 cups GF chicken broth

1 cup corn meal
3/4 cup rice flour
2 TBS brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
3 tsp GF baking powder
2 eggs
4 TBS margarine
1 cup plus about 2-3 TBS almond milk