I know you’re not supposed to wash mushrooms directly in water, but the whole rubbing-with-a-wet-rag thing just doesn’t get them clean in my experience. Plus it takes way more work, and who wants that? I just make sure I rinse them really fast, so there’s no chance for the little guys to absorb any water.

I like using whole mushrooms and quartering them, but you could buy sliced ones if you’d rather. I’m just too lazy to stab half a dozen mushroom pieces onto my fork with each bite, is what it really boils down to.

That’s 8 ounces of mushrooms in my pan, by the way (just one of those standard pint containers.) Start sauteeing them with a good amount of olive oil, maybe 2 Tablespoons. Don’t worry if the pan is a little overcrowded, because they’re going to shrink a lot.

Meanwhile, prepare the marinade in a little side cup. Mix up 1 Tablespoon of balsamic vinegar with 1 teaspoon of Grey Poupon dijon mustard. [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!] I’m a huge fan of Grey Poupon, in case you couldn’t tell. Sure, they had dumb ads in the 80s, but they had a point: the taste really is superior to those bourgeoisie brown mustards.

It’s also a good time to mention that while most vinegars in general are gluten-free, the one kind that is not safe is malt vinegar, because it’s made with barley. (Balsamic vinegar is made with grapes, rice vinegar is made with rice, etc.) If the word “malt” is ever anywhere in an ingredient list, it isn’t safe unless it specifies that it is corn malt (which is uncommon.)

When the mushrooms are done, just pour in the marinade and continue to cook for another minute or two so it can thicken.

And that’s it! These things have the perfect amount of tang to them, my kids love them. The flavor goes especially well with fresh tomatoes, by the way. If you want to be really fancy you could even cut off the tomato tops and scoop out the insides with a spoon to make a little tomato bowl for the mushrooms. But crudely dicing them up and tossing them haphazardly on the plate works too.

Happy Eating!

Sauteed Mushrooms

8 oz. mushrooms
1 TBS balsamic vinegar
1 tsp grey poupon
diced tomato (optional)

First, some spices: 1/2 teaspoon of ginger, 1/8 teaspoon paprika, 1 teaspoon of garlic powder, and 1 teaspoon of Five Spice. If you’ve never heard of Five Spice, it’s a Chinese blend of cinnamon, anise, ginger, fennel and pepper. There are some traditional regional variations, but it should always include the key flavors of cinnamon and anise. If you’re lucky you might be able to find it at your grocery store, but if not any Asian market should have it. It’s so good, there are areas of Hawaii where it’s just served on the table right alongside the salt and pepper.

Chop up two chicken breasts (make sure they’re not injected with suspect “broth” in the packaging) and toss them with the spices until everything is evenly coated.

Set the chicken aside for a moment while you get out half a cup of dried cranberries. Like chicken breasts, dried fruit is another tricky ingredient that they can sneak gluten into–make sure yours aren’t dusted with flour to prevent sticking. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change recipes without warning. Always check your labels!] We don’t really want them to be totally dried in this dish though, so fill the little cup with water and let them soak while you cook the rest of the meal.

While the cranberries soak, you can start sauteeing the chicken pieces in some olive oil.

Once they’re opaque (but not necessarily cooked through all the way,) add in about 8 oz. of mushrooms. Fresh is better, of course, but when you’re desperate, canned works too. As it turns out, I’m often desperate because I’m really no good at planning ahead.

Then, start to boil your pasta. This is 8 oz. of Tinkyada brown rice pasta, but I forget what cute name the Italians gave to this shape. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t count as penne, even though that’s what the package said, because penne is supposed to be ridged lengthwise and cut diagonally at the ends. But anyway, pretty much anything other than spaghetti will work–macaroni, fusilli, those little twistie shapes that I also can’t remember the name of…

Now! While your pasta is boiling, and your chicken and mushrooms are continuing to sautee, and your cranberries are still soaking over on the counter, it’s time to toast some almonds. Put half a cup of slivered almonds in a bowl, and microwave it for one minute at a time, stirring them around a bit in between. It should be around 2-3 minutes, but you’ll know when they’re done because they will start to smell good, and when you bite into one it will crunch instead of squeak.

This was the part of the recipe I was terrified to try to emulate. Used to be, we’d be pouring in 2 cups of half-and-half at this point. Is it any wonder we loved the dish? How could a milk substitute ever hope to compare? But I’m over the grieving process. I am completely and totally happy using 2 cups of almond milk instead. Mostly.

Fortunately this part didn’t have to change: 1/4 cup of Grey Poupon dijon mustard.

And 2 Tablespoons of honey.

Of course plain almond milk is just not robust enough to make a cream sauce by itself, so add in 1 Tablespoon of potato starch to thicken it up (and like corn starch, you want to dissolve it in a minimal amount of water before pouring it into your pan, otherwise you’ll never get the lumps to dissolve properly.)

Drain your cranberries, and add them to the pan while the sauce thickens.

Only add the pasta once the sauce is the right consistency, or it will continue to cook in the sauce and get mushy.

Toss in the nuts just before serving so they stay crunchy. And there you have it! I will admit, it’s much less visually-appealing than it used to be. Rice pasta just has a kind of grayish tint to it that no amount of sauce seems to be able to cover. But the kids agree that the taste is pretty close to the original, so I put it in the win column.

Happy Eating!

Creamy Penne Pasta

1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/8 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. Five Spice
2 organic chicken breasts
8 oz. rice pasta
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup dried sweetened cranberries
2 cups almond milk
1/4 cup Grey Poupon
2 TBS honey

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)

When cooking for kids, often the texture of a dish is just as important–if not more important–than the taste. And one thing kids are not usually fond of is chunks, especially “chunks coated in slime,” which is how I once heard a particularly eloquent young lady describe potato salad. Mashed potatoes, on the other hand, are always a big hit, at least with all the kids I’ve ever met. Thus, I present to you the best of both worlds: Smashed Potato Salad!

We start with 3 lbs. of medium gold potatoes, cut into quarters.

Boil them until fork-tender, about 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, hardboil 3 eggs. (That’s 15 minutes at a full rolling boil, in case no one’s ever specified. I used to have so much trouble peeling my hardboiled eggs until I discovered by accident that I wasn’t cooking them quite long enough.)

While those pots are going, mix together 3/4 cup Hellmann’s mayonnaise, 1/4 cup Grey Poupon, 1 TBS brown sugar, and 2 TBS lemon juice. [As always, the brand names I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change their formulas without warning. Always double-check your labels.]

Stir until the sugar has fully dissolved, and then add 1/2 tsp Lea & Perrin’s worcestershire sauce, 1 tsp pepper, and 1 tsp salt.

When the potatoes are done, drain them and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process.

See how the peels just fall right off after the potatoes are cooked? It’s so much easier than scraping them all by hand with a vegetable peeler.

After you’ve discarded the peels, mash the potatoes. It’s up to you how chunky you want the final product to be, but I recommend nothing bigger than a half-inch or so.

If I can crack an egg with one hand, you’d better believe I can peel one with one hand, too. I just love action shots with water, they always look so cool. Anyway, as you can see, the eggs are done and now we’re peeling them.

And now we’re using my favorite kitchen tool of all time, the egg slicer. I wish everything were this fun to dice.

Add 1 tsp of minced garlic (or two cloves, if you have fresh garlic lying around, but I never do, so I use this handy jarred stuff.)

Make sure the potato mixture is cool, and then add in the dressing. Stir and stir until it’s completely incorporated. Now, this is one of those dishes that needs to sit in the refrigerator for awhile to let the flavors mellow and blend. Trust me, if you taste it now, you’ll say to yourself, “Ugh! That’s way too overpowering, no child would ever eat that! The GFCF Lady is a fraud!” But let it sit for at least an hour, and the potatoes will soak up all those delicious flavors and balance everything out, I promise.

Oh man, that’s what I’m talking about. I could eat this stuff all day long.

Happy Eating!

The GFCF Lady’s Smashed Potato Salad

3 lbs. medium gold potatoes
3 eggs
3/4 cup Hellman’s mayonnaise
1/4 cup Grey Poupon
1 TBS brown sugar
2 TBS lemon juice
1/2 tsp Lea & Perrin’s worcestershire sauce
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt
1 tsp (2 cloves) minced garlic