You can easily make this an appetizer recipe too, if you happen to be lucky enough to have a party to attend. Just put the stuffing we’re going to make into a bunch of small mushrooms instead of 4 big portabellas. Portabellas will need a few minutes of pre-baking, though, so if you are keeping this meal all to yourself, then brush them with a little olive oil, and put them in the oven for 5 minutes at 350 degrees while you mix up the rest of it.

Can’t have crab stuffing without crab, can you? Important note: fake crab, sometimes labeled as “krab” but more often masquerading as the real thing, is made with wheat. Lots of it. Those crab sticks that go in sushi rolls are a prime example, they are jam-packed with gluten. Most of the crab you see in the market these days is going to be the fake stuff, so be very careful to choose a container that is only 100% real crab meat. You’ll want about 6 to 8 ounces of it.

Finely dice half of a red onion. Red onions tend to be stronger than white, which is good if you’re trying to balance a strong flavor like crab. But if you don’t like a lot of onion flavor, you can substitute a white one, or even sautee it before adding it in so it can caramelize a bit. Did you know that process is called pyrolysis? Well it is.

Slice up 2 green onions, and add them to your bowl along with 1 teaspoon of minced garlic, 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, and 1/2 teaspoon of Lea & Perrins worcestershire sauce. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change recipes without warning. Always check your labels!]

Dump in 1 teaspoon of parsely, 1 teaspoon of dill…

1/4 teaspoon of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper.

Now then, mix it all together with 1/2 cup Hellman’s mayonnaise. You can add a little more if the consistency is too dry, but don’t try to take any out because that totally won’t work.

Spoon your mixture into your mushrooms, be they big portabellas or little creminis.

Sprinkle with crushed Rice Chex or your preferred brand of gluten-free breadcrumbs, and bake them at 350 for about 12 minutes. Little ones may be done a minute or two sooner, big ones may take a minute or two longer. Serve them to your guests or eat them all yourself, I won’t tell.

Happy Eating!

Crab Stuffed Mushrooms

4 portabella mushrooms, or about 36 cremini mushrooms
6-8 oz container of 100% crabmeat
1/2 small red onion
2 green onions
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp Lea & Perrins worcestershire
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp dill
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 cup Hellman’s mayonnaise
1/4 cup crushed Rice Chex

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Happy Eating!

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The GFCF Lady’s Roasted Tomatoes

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

First, finely dice 1/2 a medium onion, and sautee it in a little olive oil. You really want to make the effort to dice it as small as possible, because otherwise you’ll have big chunks of onion sticking out of your meatballs, like some kind of headless porcupine.

I bet this page is the number one search engine hit for GFCF headless porcupine.

Meanwhile, beat one egg, and add 1/4 cup crushed Rice Chex cereal. [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 dump in one container of Gerber Organic sweet potatoes. (Does all this sound familiar? That’s because this is what you do with ground meat, y’all. You mix in a few coagulating ingredients to help it stick together, mold it into whatever shape your heart desires, and cook it. That goes for turkey, beef, pork, lamb… you name it.) If you want to get all fancy, you can actually cook a real sweet potato, mash it up, and use about 1/4 cup of that. Me? Not so fancy.

Then add 1 teaspoon each of salt, pepper, and oregano.

Once the onions are done, add them into the pile.

And then gently mix in 1 lb. of ground turkey. Could you use beef (or pork, or…?) Sure. But turkey’s healthier, and the taste goes especially well with the sweet potatoes. You don’t have to mix it in by hand, but you’re about to make the meatballs by hand anyway, so why not?

Now, one thing about turkey is it tends to be a little softer and moister than other ground meat, so sometimes you may need to add a little bit more of the Rice Chex to dry it out a bit. Don’t overdo it though, stop adding as soon as the mixture will hold together well enough in a meatball shape. It’s never going to be firm, but just keep swiping a handful of it back and forth between your cupped hands, and after a few moments it’ll form a ball that sticks more to itself than it does to you.

Lay them out on a sheet of foil sprayed with canola spray. You’re looking for them to be about 1.5 inches in diameter, but anything you might consider normal meatball size is going to be fine.

Then just pop them in a 350-degree oven for about 20 minutes. There will be a lot of liquid in the pan, and that will start to congeal as it cools, so immediately move them off to a plate before they get all gross. At this point, you could easily toss them all in a ziplock bag and freeze them for some future evening when you find yourself with nothing to serve for dinner.

But whether you serve them now or later, they’re going to need a delectable sauce to go with them! And man, is this one good. The ingredients are a tad weird, but just trust me, it is so tasty. Start with half a jar of Classico red pasta sauce.

Then add 1/3 cup of Cascadian Farm organic concord grape jelly. (Grape jelly? Yes, grape jelly. Just keep the faith, it’s gonna be amazing, I swear.)

And then another container of Gerber Organic sweet potatoes. This is especially convenient since they are sold in packs of two, and you used the first one in the meat. I hate trying to use up half a container of this and a few tablespoons of that… it’s just so much easier when a recipe calls for one whole something, you know? Anyway, mix it all up, and simmer uncovered for about 15 minutes to thicken the sauce.

Then add your meatballs. You did choose a saucepan big enough to hold all your meatballs, right? (If your meatballs were frozen, you can toss them in at the beginning of the uncovered simmering to get a head start on the thawing. If you’re making them fresh, the sauce can be simmering while the meatballs are in the oven.)

Stir it around a bit to get everything coated, then cover and simmer for another 15-30 minutes, until the meatballs are heated through.

Mmmf. I’m sorry, it’s so rude of me to post with my mouth full. I just can’t help myself, they’re too good to let sit on the plate for long. You’re lucky I didn’t splatter sauce all over the screen in my mad frenzy.

Happy Eating!

Turkey Meatballs in Sauce

1/2 med onion
1 egg
1/4 cup crushed Rice Chex
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 container (1/4 cup) Gerber Organic sweet potatoes
1 lb. ground turkey

1/2 jar Classico red pasta sauce (about 12 oz.)
1/3 cup Cascadian Farm grape jelly
1 container (1/4 cup) Gerber Organic sweet potatoes

I know, everyone’s got a meatloaf recipe, but this one’s tried-and-true. And more importantly, it has a few subtle alterations that make it GFCF.

Start with 1/4 cup crushed Rice Chex cereal. [As always, manufacturers can change formulas without notice. Always check your ingredient lists.]

Crack in one egg.

And add 1/4 cup of… well, liquid. I’m using water here, because I was out of everything else I might normally use. Seriously, everything. Of course I didn’t realize that until I was at this point in cooking, but I had hungry kids and had to make do. I suppose I could hide my shame from you and re-photograph the meatloaf recipe on a night when I didn’t screw it up, but then you might get some notion that things always work smoothly around here. One of the biggest barriers to starting this diet is thinking that everyone else out there is some Baking SuperMom with a spotless 1950s apron, and you are the only one who can’t hack it, but that’s just not true. Anyone can do it, even those of us who can’t remember to go to the grocery store on a timely basis. 

But normally, I get super-sneaky at this point and use pureed vegetables for my liquid. The kids don’t even know they’re eating them. The store has these perfect GFCF veggie purees in little single-serving jars, all ready to go… stocked in the baby aisle. That’s right–I put baby food in my recipes. Check your brands to be sure, but the majority of them contain nothing but the pureed vegetable and water. Butternut squash or sweet potatoes are the easiest to sneak in, but you can even try for something more hardcore like peas if your kids won’t notice the slight color change. Maybe it’s a disciplinary cop-out, but it is so much easier than fighting with them about how many bites of vegetables they’re going to eat tonight.

I also add a Tablespoon of dried minced onion. This stuff is effectively a spice; it doesn’t count as a vegetable at all. See, says right on the label: THIS PRODUCT HAS NO SIGNIFICANT NUTRITIONAL VALUE. That always cracks me up, I have no idea why.

1/2 teaspoon of basil…

1/2 teaspoon of salt…

And 1/4 teaspoon of pepper to round out the spices.

Then two Tablespoons of Heinz ketchup. Technically, ketchup is a pureed fruit, so you could fairly call this a “fruit and vegetable meatloaf,” if you wanted. But then your kids might suspect you were duping them. Better to call it “Meatloaf with No Vegetables In It, No Sirree.”

I love food that retains the shape of its container. I don’t know how old I was before I figured out that cranberry sauce isn’t naturally shaped like a can. Anyway, this is 1 pound of ground beef, shaped like a little plastic-wrapped tube.

Mix well.

And smoosh it into your meatloaf pan. Make sure you spray it with canola oil first, or you’ll be hard at work scrubbing it clean later. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

The final product isn’t very pretty, but meatloaf never is. The kids are gonna cover it in ketchup anyway, right?

Happy Eating!

Your Basic Meatloaf

1/4 cup crushed Rice Chex
1 egg
1 jar GF baby food (butternut squash)
1 TBS dried minced onion
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 TBS Heinz ketchup
1 lb. ground beef

NOTE: for an oven-baked version, see here.

There is a secret to making great chicken nuggets. This secret has nothing to do with the ingredients, and everything to do with the cooking process. This is great news, because it means that you can still make scrumptious chicken nuggets like the one above, using subpar ingredients — excuse me, ah, I mean GFCF ingredients. I have such a love-hate relationship with my cooking these days. Let’s get started before I offend anything else in my pantry.

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Secret number one: marinate your meat! There are millions of recipes out there that advocate the “wash and dredge” method of breading meat, and it’s a complete travesty. If you soak those little buggers for even 45 minutes, they will come out so much more moist and delicious. (And they don’t have to be little, you could make these large chicken tenders or even whole breasts if you’d like. But I’m cooking for kids here, and they like their food bite-sized.) My bag above contains 10 cut up chicken tenders, 1 beaten egg, and 1/2 cup of rice milk, and it’s been sitting in the fridge for a little over an hour. Not because that’s the perfect amount of time, mind you, but because I live in a madhouse and sometimes I get distracted. We don’t do a lot of “perfect” around here.

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Secret number two: the oil has to be just right. If it’s not hot enough, the insides of the nuggets will be dry and stringy before the outside manages to get golden-brown. Too hot, and it will splatter violently and you’ll spend the rest of the day covered in bandages. You’ll know it’s right when it’s “swimming” — not smoking, and definitely not boiling. The oil will just be kind of swirling around on its own, and you’ll see the movement across the surface if you get down real close like this and check it out at eye-level. So put about 1/2 cup of canola oil in the pan, just enough to cover the bottom, and let it start heating up over medium-low heat.

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Meanwhile, it’s time to mix up the breading. I use 1/2 cup Rice Chex, 1/2 cup instant potato flakes, 1/4 cup white rice flour, 1/4 cup tortilla crumbs, and 1/2 tsp. salt. These tortilla crumbs are basically just corn meal with a teensy bit of lime and garlic flavor added, plain cornmeal will work fine. Be aware that not all potato flakes are GFCF, so check your brands, and most also contain sulfites. If that’s a concern for you, you can just substitute more Rice Chex, or you could use one of my favorite ingredients which is almond meal. Sometimes I replace half the tortilla crumbs with almond meal, just to mix it up a bit. I’d probably bread everything in nothing but almond meal, if the stuff weren’t so darn expensive. [As always, any brand name ingredients I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas--always double-check the ingredient lists.]

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Just toss it all in a bag…

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And crush it up. Make sure to get those Rice Chex nice and pulverized.

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Then toss in the chicken. But don’t pour the whole thing in, you only want the meat. You can sit there and move each piece into the bag with your tongs if you like, but if you want to know the truth, I just do it with my hand. A few slimy fistfuls and you’re done. Still only takes a quarter of the time even when you count washing your hands afterward. But I understand not everyone is as cavalier about this sort of thing as I am, so take your time if you must.

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Mix it up real good. Every time I do this, I can’t help but hear the old Shake-n-Bake ads: “And AHH hey-ulped!” Maybe the little girl only had a Southern accent in the commercials for the South. Or maybe it’s all in my head.

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Make sure you pinch apart any chicken pieces that are sticking to each other so they can get breaded on all sides. Another important thing to remember is that, sadly, not all chicken is gluten-free. Many times you will see things like “up to 10% solution” or “with broth” on the package, and chicken broth is quite often made with gluten as a thickener. You can verify with the manufacturer that the broth they use is gluten-free, but the safer thing to do is just buy organic/unprocessed chicken to begin with.

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Prepare a landing pad. It’s important to do this before you start frying, because those little bite-size pieces cook fast.

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Is your oil swimming? Then it’s time to fry! Notice how there’s a little bubbling action right around the nugget, but it is not splattering onto the stovetop or burning anyone’s delicate hands. My hands aren’t delicate (see earlier comment about shoving them into a bag of raw chicken,) but I hear some people like to take care of their skin.

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Keep dropping them carefully in until the pan is full but not crowded. Again, you can add them with tongs if you feel it’s necessary, but we’re all about quick and easy here at the GFCF Lady’s house.

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After just a few minutes the bottoms should be a lovely golden brown color. (Please note this is the one step you absolutely must not do with your hands…)

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This one’s not done yet, so don’t be afraid to just put it back down for another second while you flip some others over. In an ideal world I would have the organization skills to flip them in the same order I added them to the pan, but then again, in my ideal world I would never have had to learn how to make my own chicken nuggets to begin with. When life gives you lemons, you make GFCF chicken nuggets. Or something.

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Look at that beauty! Who wouldn’t want to just pop that in your mouth right then and there? Don’t do it, though. It’s still extremely hot.

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Then just move on to the next batch. You’ll have some extra bread bits floating around, which is no big deal. But you may want to pull out the big pieces just to keep everything nice and tidy.

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Like so. And these little crispy bits cool very quickly, so you could just snack on them while you keep cooking. You know, if you wanted to.

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I like to be economical with my kitchen space, so I just add another layer of paper towels and stack the next batch right on top of the first one.

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And so on. Think of it like a chicken nugget condominium. Did you know you can grow potatoes stacked vertically like this too? Horizontal is so last season.

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I’d love to show you some artsy photo of these nuggets next to a sculpted dollop of ketchup, but that would be a lie.  The whole point is to make them in bulk ahead of time, and these nuggets are going in the freezer, plain and simple.  You do want to make sure they’re completely cool before you seal them up. If you trap all that steam, it will just turn to ice inside the bag. I just reheat them in the microwave, but you could do a few minutes in the oven instead if you want to make them super crispy again.

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Happy eating!

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GFCF Lady’s Chicken Nuggets

10 chicken tenders (about 2-3 lbs,) cut up
1/2 cup rice milk
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup Rice Chex
1/2 cup GFCF potato flakes
1/4 cup white rice flour
1/4 cup tortilla crumbs (or cornmeal)
1/2 tsp salt