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First — I mean primarily, we poach the peaches. You can peel, pit, and partition a whole peach, or you can take a shortcut and use 8 frozen peach slices, like I did. Cover them with 1 cup of 100% apple juice. The best apple juices will come in a glass bottle and be a little cloudy, incidentally. That’s how you know it came straight from the apple to you.

Heat the pot to boiling, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes while you work on the rest of the meal.

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Liberally paint your pork pieces with pepper (plus salt) on both sides, then sautee them over medium heat in a pan with little olive oil.

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Don’t flip the pork chops until the underside is starting to brown. Around the time the second side is browning, they’ll be close to being done, but the best way to tell is with a meat thermometer. Pork is perfectly done at exactly 165 degrees. Do it the scientific way, and you’ll never be left guessing. Once they’re ready, pull them out of the pan and place them on a plate.

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Pour the extra liquid out of the pan, and place it back on the stovetop, keeping the heat on low. Pouring meat fat directly down the sink drain is not the right thing to do, but I’m justifying it by pretending that it’s mostly leftover olive oil rather than grease.

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Strain the peaches out with a slotted spoon, and put them on your waiting dinner plates.

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Now pour the peachy-apple liquid directly into the still-hot pork pan.

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It’s going to sizzle like mad for a moment, and part of that process will be prying up all those delicious brown particles from the bottom of the pan. You can help it along by scraping a bit with a wooden spoon, if you want. This is what’s known as “de-glazing” the pan, in case you’ve always wondered what those fancy TV chefs are talking about. Aside from creating amazing and deeply-flavored sauces to accompany whatever meat you just cooked, it helps reduce washing time considerably as well. Even if you’re not making a sauce with a particular meal, do yourself a favor and toss a quarter cup of water into your hot pan after you’re done cooking the meat, and you’ll have a lot less scrubbing to do after dinner.

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Now add 1 Tablespoon of balsamic vinegar (real balsamic vinegar, that is, never anything “flavored” like balsamic vinegar.)

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And also 1/2 teaspoon each of thyme, rosemary, and oregano.

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I actually measured the spices out beforehand and kept them in a little side cup, because I didn’t really have anything to do while the pork and peaches were cooking. Which is rare, let me tell you. I probably did have something to do, but was avoiding it. Some people cook with love, but I prefer the taste of denial.

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Spoon your sauce over both the peaches and the pork. You’ll be pleased with the payoff, I promise.

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Pleasant Partaking!

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Pork Chops with Poached Peaches

2-4 pork chops
1 peach, or 8 slices frozen peaches
1 cup 100% apple juice
1 TBS balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp rosemary
1/2 tsp oregano

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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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The best thing about avocados is their simplicity. I’ve even been known to peel them from the top and eat them straight out of my hand with a little salt, just like a giant green hardboiled egg. Recipes with avocado somehow always manage to be exquisitely delicious without overcomplicating things, and this one is no exception.

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Start by mashing up one medium avocado in a bowl. (Don’t know how to deal with that giant pit? Take a brief detour here.) Then mix in 1/4 cup of Grey Poupon. [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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Next, we’re going to blend 1 clove of minced garlic, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper into our odd little not-guacamole bowl.

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Lay your pork tenderloins out on a rack with foil underneath. They always come in packs of two, at least at my store, but I promise you these are leftovers worth having. Spread the avocado mixture evenly over the top of the meat, and roast them uncovered in a 400 degree oven for about 45 minutes. I highly recommend checking them with a meat thermometer; pork will be perfectly done at 170 degrees Fahrenheit.

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Look how fast and easy that was! Besides tasting great, this fatty layer on top serves to trap the moisture in, and the result is one incredibly tender loin. (See what I did there? I crack me up.) Slice vertically into fancy little medallions, and just see how long it can stay on the plate before it gets devoured.

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Happy Eating!

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Avocado Pork Tenderloin

1 medium avocado
1/4 cup Grey Poupon
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 pork tenderloins

I hereby apologize for getting that stuck in your head like it’s stuck in mine. Misery loves company. We’ll leave aside the question of whether my compulsion to sing that song with this meal constitutes a form of echolalia, and get right to the recipe!

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I happened to get these pre-cut “fingerling” ribs, but the procedure is exactly the same for an uncut rack of pork ribs. Lay them out on a baking sheet covered with foil, and give them a decent sprinkling of salt and pepper.

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We’re going to be cooking these at a relatively high temperature so that we don’t have to leave them in the oven all afternoon. But in order to do this, we have to trap the moisture in around the meat so it doesn’t dry out. So make a foil tent over the pan, sealing it around all the edges but leaving an inch or so of airspace above the meat. Then just throw the pan in a 400 degree oven and walk away for an hour. Surely you have something else you want to do besides stand in the kitchen for an hour, right?

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When the timer goes off, carefully remove the foil tent, and take a moment to marvel at how well foil reflects heat. Once it’s off the (dangerously hot) pan, you can ball that sucker up with your bare hands to throw it away. Amazing!

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Now it’s time to baste the ribs in your favorite GFCF barbecue sauce. We like this brand called Sweet Baby Ray’s, but there are a number of options out there. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change recipes without warning. Always check your labels!]

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Brush the sauce liberally over both sides of your ribs. (I mean your pork ribs, not your your ribs. Put your shirt back on.)

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Put them back in the oven, uncovered, and after about 20 more minutes you’ll have this awe-inspiring collection of tender, juicy ribs. This is one of my favorite meals to make when I’m super-busy, because while it’s an hour and twenty minutes in the oven, it’s only maybe 5 minutes of actual work. It doesn’t get much shorter than that.

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Happy Eating!

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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

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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

First, of course, comes the honey. 1/4 cup of it, to be precise.

Then, 1 Tablespoon of orange juice. Can orange juice contain gluten? Why yes, yes it can. How sad is that? Minute Maid is one safe choice. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change their formulas without notice. Always check your labels!]

Then add in one Tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.

And this trio of spices! 1/4 teaspoon each of garlic powder and thyme, and just a pinch of cayenne pepper.

And a half teaspoon of salt. Isn’t it interesting how the garlic powder spreads all over the surface and avoids the oil, while the thyme just sinks and sits there in a mound? I’m sure there’s an elementary school science project in there somewhere.

Ruin the aforementioned science project by vigorously stirring all the substances together, then marinate your pork chops in your sauce for anywhere between 30 minutes to a few hours, depending on how your schedule works out. (Of course make sure to place the marinating bag back in the fridge while it sits–I’d be so sad if any of you died of trichinosis on my watch.)

When you’re ready, just dump the whole bag into your pan, extra marinade and all, and sautee them until they’re cooked through. You’ll need anywhere from 5-10 minutes per side, depending on how thick your pork chops are cut. My little digital meat thermometer is one of my favorite kitchen tools. No guessing, no cutting the meat to check… just stab it in, and when it reads 165 degrees, they’re perfectly done. If only all cooking were that easy.

And hey, by that time your marinade will have reduced to this awesome glaze. Man, I think I’m going to cook these again tomorrow night…

Happy Eating!

Honey Orange Pork Chops

2-4 pork chops
1/4 cup honey
1 TBS Minute Maid orange juice
1 TBS extra virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp thyme
pinch cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp salt

It’s a pretty standard culinary concept in Asia to stuff a ball of dough with various fillings and steam the whole thing into a delicious bun. There are over a dozen variations of this, and even though mine aren’t really all that similar to the traditional Vietnamese version that banh bao officially refers to, that’s what I call them because that’s the first name I learned for them.

First the dough, and then the filling. So we start with 3/4 cup sugar in a bowl, and add 2 tsp of salt.

Add 2 Tablespoons of baking powder, and one cup of your milk substitute of choice. Make sure your baking powder is gluten-free. I use a generic brand, but Clabber Girl is one safe national brand. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without notice. Always check your labels!]

Also add in 2 teaspoons of xanthan gum, and mix well to dissolve the sugar.

Now, we’re going to add in a total of 4 cups of brown rice flour, but it has to be added slowly.

Start with two cups, and mix well until it looks like the above. Then add in cup number three and get ready to get messy.

Fold and squoosh everything through your fingers again and again until it’s nice and mixed.

You’ll probably want to have the fourth cup of flour already measured out and waiting, so you don’t have to wash your hands an extra time. After you add the fourth cup it should start to be thick enough that you can’t really squoosh it anymore, you’ll have to start doing more proper kneading. Just fold the far edge towards you…

And mash it down again. Repeat until there’s no more loose flour in the bowl.

It’s still not mixed well enough yet, but at this point I lift the cohesive dough unit out and move it to a cutting board on the kitchen table. I do this because it’s lower than my kitchen counter, and I can get much better leverage for pushing down as I knead.

Just keep folding and mashing, folding and mashing, for a good five minutes at least.

And eventually you will end up with a smooth, even ball of dough. Now, set it aside in a bowl covered with a dishtowel while you mix the filling. I don’t actually know why it needs to be covered with a dishtowel, but my original recipe said to do it, so I do it.

Alright, we’re ready for the filling. That’s a head of baby bok choy up there, which is kind of like an Asian spinach with a very distinct flavor. Chop the leaves off, and throw the stalk away.

The leaves are very firm, so you can chop it up pretty easily without all the bits flying everywhere.

Once you have the baby bok choy in little confetti pieces, add in 2 chopped green onions, and 1 Tablespoon of grated ginger.

Then add 1 teaspoon of salt, and a pinch of white pepper. It’s probably not something you’ll use very often, but I’ve tried making it with black pepper and with no pepper, and the taste just isn’t as good. Use the white pepper.

We’re almost there. Add 2 Tablespoons of water…

1 Tablespoon of cooking sherry (which should naturally be GFCF since it’s made of grapes, but make sure you don’t accidentally pick up something weird like sherry-flavored grain alcohol…)

And 2 teaspoons of sesame oil.

Okay! Now you can mix in one pound of ground pork, and your filling is ready to go.

This being a fancy recipe and all, it does require a bit of special equipment. You can get a bamboo steamer at any Asian market, and it comes as a set of large stackable trays that you can combine to be as tall as you want. The other thing you’ll need to prep is these little squares of parchment paper. Traditionally you would use lettuce leaves to keep the dough from sticking to the tray, but then you just end up with a bunch of wilted lettuce. I mean, if you like super-wilted greens, go for it, but I would just be throwing them away, so I use somehing that’s cheaper and easier to clean up.

Pull off a piece of the dough and roll it into a ball about 1 to 1.5 inches in diameter.

Then roll it out flat on a cutting board sprinkled liberally with more brown rice flour to keep it from sticking. Remember to get yourself a new rolling pin that you’ve never rolled in gluten flours before, or you’ll risk significant cross-contamination issues. If you look at the scale of my hand, you’ll realize this is a teeny tiny rolling pin that’s only maybe 6-8 inches long. Fits right in my utensil drawer with all the other junk.

Now spoon about a tablespoon of meat into the middle of your circle of dough…

And fold all the edges up around it.

Pinch everything together so it holds, and place it on top of a parchment square in your bamboo tray.

Repeat about 20 times. It’s important that the parchment be in small pieces like this and not just one large cover, because the steam has to be able to come up in between the spaces and cook the buns.

Somehow I always end up with more meat than dough, so I roll up any leftovers into little meatballs and toss them in the oven for about half an hour. They make for a great lunch the next day.

Fill a large pan with water, and balance your bamboo steamer on top. Once the steam really gets going, put the lid on and let it cook for about 20-25 minutes.

And they’re done! These typically should be dipped in some kind of sauce, but what kind is entirely up to you. We like a sweet chili sauce that they sell in the Asian section of our grocery store, but you could also do a sweet-n-sour sauce, straight soy sauce (gluten-free, of course,) or even a barbecue sauce.

Happy Eating!

Banh Bao

3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
2 TBS baking powder
1 cup milk substitute
4 cups brown rice flour

1 lb. ground pork
1 head baby bok choy
2 green onions
1 TBS grated ginger
1 tsp salt
pinch white pepper
2 TBS water
1 TBS sherry
2 tsp sesame oil

We start with two cans of pears in 100% juice. Drain the first can into a glass and set it aside, because we’re going to use it for the sauce. The other one can go down the sink, unless you feel like making your kids drink pear juice at breakfast or something.

Start sauteeing the pears in 2 Tablespoons of Fleischmann’s unsalted margarine (not the “original” flavor.) [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change their recipes at any time. Always check your labels!] Give them a good 5-7 minutes on each side, until they start getting a nice brown color.

Meanwhile, dice up two shallots. If you’ve never used shallots, they’re like the illegitimate love child of onion and garlic. Little clove shapes like garlic, with layered insides like an onion, and the taste… well, it’s like onion and garlic together. It’s amazingly delicious, is what I’m saying.

Once the pears are golden, set them aside.

In the same pan the pears came from, add another two Tablespoons of margarine and the shallots.

Sprinkle in a rounded teaspoon of thyme, and sautee everything together until the shallots are softened, about 2-3 minutes.

Meanwhile, start your pork chops in a second pan. (You could also do this with chicken breasts instead, if you want.) Just salt both sides and sautee them over medium heat in a little olive oil, nothing fancy. We’re saving all our fancy for the sauce, you see.

Add 1/4 cup of sweet white cooking wine to the pan of shallots, and let it boil off for a few minutes until it’s reduced to a glaze.

Once it’s nice and gooey, then add in 1/3 cup of the pear juice you saved…

…and also 1 cup of almond milk.

Don’t forget to flip your pork chops, by the way.

Keep simmering the sauce until it thickens. You should be able to drag a spoon through it and leave a hole.

Now I will be the first to admit, this meal is not particularly visually appealing. The three colors are each fine by themselves, I guess, but put together they look terrible. I blame the almond milk; it just makes for an ugly sauce, every time. But please don’t let that stop you from trying this, because the taste–oh, the taste is heaven. The shallots, and the sweetness of the pears, and… seriously, eat the first bite with your eyes closed and try to tell me I’m wrong. You won’t be able to, because you’ll be too busy cramming bites 2, 3 and 4 into your mouth one after the other. It’s that good.

Happy Eating!

Pork Chops with Pears

2-4 pork chops
4 TBS Fleischmann’s unsalted margarine
2 cans of pears in 100% juice
2 shallots
1 rounded tsp. thyme
1/4 cup sweet white cooking wine
1 cup almond milk
1/3 cup pear juice from can