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All of which is to say, your onions need not be quite so thoroughly sauteed as mine are here. If you’ve got the luxury of leaving your diced onion on the lowest heat setting for upwards of 20 minutes (or if you, too, have bleeding offspring to attend to,) then have at it. But normally, you’d just want to sautee this onion in a little olive oil until it’s just starting to turn translucent, nothing major.

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Meanwhile, warm up 3 1/4 cups of gluten-free chicken broth in a small pot. Pacific Foods is one safe brand. Just keep it at a simmer until we’re ready to use it. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change ingredients without warning. Always check your labels!]

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After your onions get to somewhere between translucent and sauteed-to-death, add 1 teaspoon each of basil, parsley, and minced garlic. (That’s roughly two cloves for those of you who do your garlic the real way.)

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Also, dump in an 8-ounce container of sliced mushrooms…

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…And 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt.

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While the mushrooms start to soften, measure out 1 1/2 cups of arborio rice. As you can see, my funny little measuring cup indicates this is approximately 16,000 grains of rice. The other side is even funnier, with things like “volume of the brain of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.” I don’t get to use it as often as I’d like because it has a hairline crack in the bottom and is no good for liquids, but I love it just the same.

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Now, add 3 Tablespoons of oil to the pot. Because we’re putting in so much, I’m actually using grapeseed oil here, because it’s got a milder flavor than olive oil. Any oil will do, really, but a healthier oil is always preferable to basic cooking oil.

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Now pour in your arborio rice, and stir everything thoroughly. This species of rice is what makes a risotto a risotto, by the way. Could you make this recipe with another kind of rice? Yes, but then it would be a rice casserole instead of a risotto, and that doesn’t sound nearly as impressive. If you do substitute, you’ll definitely want to use a short-grain, stickier rice rather than a long-grain dry rice.

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Now, there is a type of chef out there who will tell you that in fact, to properly make risotto, you have to add the boiling liquid a tiny bit at a time, and stir quickly and constantly for as much as 45 minutes straight to get it all absorbed. But I firmly believe that this type of chef has only fooled himself into believing that his food tastes better just because he worked harder for it. Me, I can tell that it tastes just as good this way.

The reason they say you have to do all that stirring is that arborio rice is so soft, if you throw it in a rice cooker it will just congeal into one large mass. What we’re doing here with the oil is similar to what we do with Mexican Rice: we’re sealing each grain of rice by cooking it in hot oil before boiling it. With regular rice, this makes each grain dry and distinct. With arborio rice, this gets it to a sticky-but-separable consistency, without all the stirring.

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After the oil in the pan has been mosty absorbed, pour in your chicken broth, which should still be happily simmering away in your side pot.

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You can also toss in about one cup of frozen peas if you want. I love peas, so I always want to add them to things.

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Put on the lid, and place the whole thing in a 350-degree oven for 30 minutes. If you don’t have any ovensafe cookware, you can also do everything up to this point in a normal pot, and then pour the whole mixture into a 9×13 glass baking dish and cover it with foil.

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Doesn’t that just look so warm and inviting? If you can’t convince your family that a meatless item counts a main dish, you can also place some boneless chicken pieces right on top of the whole thing before putting it in the oven, and it becomes that great family classic, chicken and rice casserole. But you and I will know it’s really a risotto.

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Happy Eating!

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Easy Mushroom Risotto (aka Chicken and Rice Casserole)

3 1/4 cups GF chicken broth
1 medium onion
1 Tbs olive oil
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp basil
2 cloves minced garlic
8 oz. sliced mushrooms
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbs grapeseed oil
1 1/2 cups arborio rice
1 cup frozen peas
boneless chicken pieces (optional)

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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

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

That there’s a dutch oven with some olive oil in it. You could technically do this in a crock pot, but I just can’t imagine why you would want to. Number one, a dutch oven distributes the heat more evenly than a crock pot, and number two, the heavy lid makes a tight seal and keeps all the moisture inside, while every crock pot I’ve ever seen lets the steam escape, sometimes splattering all over the counter in the process. And that’s just not cool.

Peel and quarter two onions. This is my absolute favorite part of the recipe, by the way. When they come out of the pot, all golden and soft… but wait, that’s not for hours yet, don’t let me get sidetracked.

Now, a lot of pot roast recipes out there will tell you to season the meat with a “ranch dressing packet.” There are lots of descriptive words I could use to tell you what I think about those things, but we’ll keep it family-friendly and go with “not GFCF” for now. Suffice it to say, it’s both cheaper and healthier to use real spices. All you need is one Tablespoon each of celery salt (which is just salt and celery seed mixed together, if you happen to already have the latter in your spice drawer,) parsley, and chives.

Mix the spices on a plate and just lay the roast right on top of them. I usually do about a 2-3 lb. piece of meat, but you could certainly choose a bigger one if you wanted. Rotate it around on all sides, and press the spices in firmly so they stick.

Now, sear each side of the meat on high heat until it’s browned. You may feel kind of silly holding a huge piece of meat up on its end for a minute or two, but it’s important to get the edges too, and try as I might, I’ve never had a roast that would balance on its own.

Then set it aside on a plate, just for a second.

Measure out 2 cups of Pacific Foods organic beef broth, which is gluten-free. (But don’t take my word for it, always double-check your labels.)

See all those brown bits that stuck to the pan when we were searing the meat? We don’t want to waste them because they taste awesome. So pour just a tiny stream of broth into the pot to deglaze it. (It’s always seemed to me that we’re creating a glaze, not de-glazing anything, but those fancy chefs on the TV all tell me I’m wrong.) It’ll boil and spatter for a minute, and then the bottom of the pot will be magically clean.

Then set your meat back in the pot, pour the rest of the broth in, and place your onion quarters in around the sides. Mmm, cooked onions…

Top with carrots, put the lid on, and cook in a 275 degree oven for 3-4 hours. Normally people use baby carrots for this sort of thing, but we just love the matchsticks. Any shape will work, even those cute little flowers they cut them into at fancy restaurants. But don’t expect that kind of artistry out of me.

Just take a look at that deliciousness! Sure, sure, the meat’s good too, but do you see those onions? I could seriously just eat all the onions out of the pot and leave the rest for everyone else. But that would be a bad idea. Still, it’s tempting.

A quick tip: if your meat is tough, that does not mean it’s overcooked–it actually means it hasn’t been cooked long enough. The longer you cook it, the more of that connective tissue will break down, which is precisely why tough cuts of meat like this are always slow-cooked. I lived through many a tough pot roast, cooking them for less and less time, until I finally figured out I was going in the wrong direction.

But the onions were always good!

Happy Eating!

The GFCF Lady’s Pot Roast

2-3 lb. beef roast
1 TBS celery salt
1 TBS parsley
1 TBS chives
2 cups Pacific Foods beef broth
2 onions
1 cup carrots

I make this in pretty small batches, but you can double it for a more reasonable quantity. Start with 1/4 cup of finely ground almond meal. You could use cashews or sunflower seeds if you prefer, but then you’d have to grind them yourself in a food processor. I already have this stuff on hand, so that’s what I use.

Then, 1/2 Tablespoon of potato starch. I don’t recommend substituting corn starch here, because it just doesn’t get as smooth, and this recipe needs all the smoothness it can get. Actually, I often end up using potato starch in my recipes that call for corn starch for this very reason. It’s one of the few specialty ingredients that costs about the same as its mainstream counterpart, so why not?

If you want, you can blend it a little at this point, just to see if you can get that almond meal any smoother. I can’t really decide if it helps or not, since I’m usually not the one eating it. Then add 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Please note that this photo is not incredibly washed-out, it is actually an artistic statement on the blinding simplicity of our most fundamental seasoning. I did it on purpose, I swear.

Then 1/2 Tablespoon of canola oil…

And about 1/2 cup of water. I tend to leave it a little on the short side, because you can always add more later if it’s too thick, but you don’t want to have to cook it for too long trying to thicken a mixture that’s too thin.

And 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder.

And blend away!  (Man, my kids and I could spend all day watching videos on that site. Brutal destruction of objects never gets old.) You could also do this in a food processor, it’s your choice. Blend for at least a few minutes on the highest speed, in order to get it as smooth as possible.

Pour the resulting mixture into a small pan, and cook over low heat while stirring constantly.

Okay, not quite constantly, you can take a few seconds to add in the seasonings. This is 1/4 teaspoon of parsley.

1/4 teaspoon of dried chives…

And just a pinch of dill. Or a couple of shakes, or whatever. A really tiny amount.

It will look like too much seasoning at first, because everything will be floating on the top. But don’t worry, as the sauce thickens the little green flecks will settle into the middle and bottom of it too, and have a more balanced appearance. And speaking of thickening, it should be starting to do that already, so make sure you keep stirring. Burning the bottom of this is the last thing you want to do.

Once it’s nice and thick like Ranch dressing ought to be, pour it into a container of your choice and chill it in the fridge. This little plastic tub actually came from a specialty food store in my neighborhood, and I tricked my kid and just kept refilling it after I figured out how to make this stuff myself–at a much cheaper price, I might add. You know how much that original container cost me? $9.00. … Nine. Dollars. I had no choice but to learn how to make it myself, after I ran out of arms and legs.

Happy Eating!

GFCF Ranch Dressing

1/4 cup Bob’s Red Mill Almond Meal
1/2 TBS potato starch
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 TBS canola oil
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp parsley flakes
1/4 tsp dried chives
pinch dried dill