Too many cherries....

I've always loved to bake, but baking in the summer is not for the faint of heart.  On top of that gluten free baking is always an adventure, even if you are using a mix.  However, we had a relatively cool night this week and I had some cherries that we needed to use up.  The traditional way to use up cherries is to make a clafouti.  It's a rustic French dessert that is like a custard, but it has a little flour in it.  Traditionally, the French didn't pit the cherries to add more flavor, personally, I pit my cherries first.  I've adapted my recipe to make it gluten-free.  I don't use the pre-mixed all-purpose GF flours for clafouti because the texture comes out wrong, too mealy.  The recipe does call for a small amount of xantham gum.  It's expensive (about $11 - $13) for 8 oz.  However, it is vital that this be included.  Without the xanthum gum the other flours just won't have the elastic qualities you need. It will almost last you forever!  Just for fun, this morning I weighed my bag of xanthan gum.   I was shocked to see that after 18 months and a lot of baking that I've only used 3 ounces of xanthan gum. Inconceivable!!! Based on that, I'll be throwing out almost half a bag when it expires - eeek!

Since I was turning the oven on and heating up the house on a summer night, I also baked some bread for us wheat eaters, a double batch of GF banana bread (froze one loaf) and GF peanut butter brownies.  I cut up half the brownies into individual square sizes, wrapped them into plastic and froze them too.  The clafouti doesn’t freeze well, but it’s great cool for breakfast/brunch or warmed up w/ vanilla ice cream.

One other general baking note; we don’t use the common non-stick sprays for pans.  They don’t seem to be GF.  However, we did find a spray that is 100% olive oil or 100% canola oil, so we either use those or if they run out, we use wax paper & butter just like the old days!

GF Cherry Clafouti

-          2 cups cherries

-          2 tbsp slivered almonds (optional)

-          3 eggs

-          1 cup sugar

-          1 tbsp brown sugar

-          1/8 tsp salt

-          ½ cup sorghum flour

-          ½ cup millet flour

-          1 cup milk (easy to substitute soy or coconut milk if there's a dairy allergy)

-          ¾ tsp almond extract

-          1½ tsp vanilla

-          Powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter a 9 x 9 dish.  Toss cherries and almonds into pan -- cherries should almost cover entire bottom of pan.   Whisk together eggs, sugar, salt & flours.  Add milk and extracts.  Bake 50 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean in the middle -- sometimes takes 70 minutes but I'm at high altitude and use a glass pan.  It should be lightly browned on top and wiggle slightly.  It will be poofy and will deflate while cooling.

You can also use other fruits, like blueberries, peaches, etc. but I would leave out the almond extract.  If you are making with apples, I would put in a little cinnamon and/or nutmeg. I really like the edges, so this would be a great thing to make in individual serving size dishes as well.

GF Peanut Butter Brownies from Pamela’s Mix

I don’t normally make brownies from mixes…but we found some Pamela’s brownie mixes at 50% off!  Woohoo!!!  I made the ultimate recipe off the side of the package w/ sour cream in the mix.  Then I swirled in my peanut butter goo:

Peanut Butter Goo 

-          1/3 to 1/2 cup of GF peanut butter

-          Up to ¼ cup of milk or cream or buttermilk

-          ¼ to ½ cup of powdered sugar

-          Dash of vanilla

As you can see, it isn’t really an exact science.  I start with the peanut butter & vanilla, then I start adding milk (or cream) and powdered sugar until I get a goo that is batter consistency.  I put blobs on top of the brownie batter in the pan and swirl it about.  You don’t want it to completely mix into the batter.  The brownies will take longer to cook & if you have PB lovers, they will disappear faster.

Spaghetti night....sigh!!!!

Here's the thing....BC (Before Celiac) Rob was the only one who was easy to feed in our house.  I'm actually a very finicky eater.  I'm not allergic to anything, I just have "textural" issues with things, so there are things that I find revolting and the list is longer that you want to know about and it's kind of random.  Then there's Peter and he doesn't like squishy food, but he's getting better.  And Jeremy doesn't like crunchy or spicy food, again getting better.  Literally a couple of years ago, there was only a handful of items that both kids would eat; chicken nuggets, pizza, fries, hot dogs & corn dogs.  Oh, AND spaghetti -- bonus -- if I got whole wheat noodles it's HEALTHY!!!!  Man oh man did the wheels come off AD (After Diagnosis).

Let's start with noodles.  There are GF noodles.  Be very, very careful.  Just because they say GF in large letters on the front doesn't mean it's 100% GF.  I bought two of these packages at the supermarket at a price not much more that regular noodles and thought I got a great deal.  That night I plopped a bunch of noodles in the boiling water and while they were boiling read the back of the package and got boiling mad as I read: "processed in a facility that also processes wheat."  !?!?!??!!!!!  Yeah -- so there are different levels of GF -- and this particular product didn't contain any glutenous ingredients and passed certain test levels, but it wasn't completely GF.  So, if you have a not so sensitive celiac it might be OK, but for Rob, it's not OK.  The kids ended up eating those noodles and they weren't that tasty either.  Argh!  So, what GF noodles do we like?  The quinoa (keen-wa) noodles are good.  Quinoa is tasty and it's a perfect protein.  But, it tends to be a little pricey. 

The other noodle option that Rob really likes is spaghetti squash instead of noodles.  Just slice your squash in half, scoop out the seeds, oil a cookie or baking sheet and put your squash on it cut side down.  Cook until tender at 350 - 400 degrees depending on how much of a hurry you are in.  By cooking it this way it will keep the moisture in and steam itself.  I like it with just butter, salt & pepper.  Rob puts sauce & cheese on it though.

Let's talk sauce.  The days of buying your favorite sauce, the sauce on sale, the sauce with a coupon or the sauce the kids like are gone.  There are GF spaghetti sauces in the store.  However, by the time we figured out which ones they were, I figured out how to can my own and that it was cheaper to can my own.  So now we don't buy sauce, we make it.  Recipe below. 

You can use any recipe you want, but if you are using Grandma Jane's recipe from 100 years ago, you'll need to update it.  Current canning standards say that you should not include oil in sauce recipes to increase shelf life because the oil tends to go rancid.  You should add lemon juice to the bottom of each jar to ensure the acidity levels of the tomatoes, 1 tbsp per quart or 1 tsp per pint.  And if the recipe includes garlic, leave it out.  Garlic continues to get stronger while its in the jar on the shelf, so add your garlic after you open the jar.  A lot of sauce recipes expect you to have a pot the size your lunch lady at the high school used.  I don't have one of those and I don't buy or grow tomatoes by the bushel, so I make sauce in smaller batches.

And then there's the cheese to go on top.  No more pre-grated cheese in the green canister!  However, we have found that the American Parmesan tastes just as good as the "real" imported stuff.  I know that seem blasphemous, but it's a whole lot less expensive.  It is worth investing in one of those wheel cheese graters for your Parmesan -- whatever kind you are buying.

Spaghetti Sauce Recipe -- canning

12 lbs tomatoes (I fill up eight 32 oz 7-11 cups as my measure)
1.5 lbs onions
1 tbsp basil
1 tbsp oregano
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup canning or pickling salt -- not the same as any other kind of salt!
24 oz tomato paste

Prepping tomatoes -- to peel -- blanch in boiling water for 30 - 45 seconds, then drop in ice bath, skins should peel off. Slice off the tops & then quarter them.  Cut up smaller if they are huge.  You want the tomatoes to be chunky, but they don't have to be diced.  They will break up during cooking and more during canning.  To measure the tomatoes I used a plastic drink cup that I got from 7-11 years ago.  It's 32 oz and I fill it up eight times.  I put the tomatoes into my big pot that I use to make jam.  Add to that the onions that got chopped in the food processor, and everything except for the tomato paste.  Bring everything up to a boil, reduce to simmer and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.  Add tomato paste.  Bring to a boil again.  Can according to directions in the latest Blue Book of Canning or another similar reference guide using the appropriate standards for your elevation.  Makes 10 pints.  I can in pints.  We almost always open 2 or 3 pints on spaghetti night, but it's easy to open 2 pints if you need 1 quart.  However, you can't open 1/2 a quart if you need 1 pint.  And if it's pizza night, we only use 1 pint.

We also use this sauce for homemade pizza.  There are some frozen GF pizza crusts that Rob likes.  We also like the quinoa lasagna noodles.  Now, I refuse to heat up the house in the summer with the oven in the middle of the day, so I either have to make lasagna at 2 am when I'm making bread, or I have to BBQ the lasagna, or make it in the crock-pot.  What?  You don't use your crock-pot for lasagna?  Break out that sucker -- here's your crock-pot lasagna recipe:

Crock-pot Lasagna (not an exact science)

Quinoa lasagna noodles - 2 boxes
hamburger
2 - 3 jars spaghetti sauce -- see above
garlic
GF ricotta cheese -- sigh read the whole label
GF mozzarella cheese -- ditto
GF Parmesan cheese -- ditto again


Brown hamburger & drain fat.  Add sauce  -- how much depends on how much you think you are making.  Add crushed garlic -- if you like garlic, add a lot - if you don't just a little or none.  Add a small amount of water to thin the sauce.

Spray your crock pot with GF oil spray or oil/butter your crock-pot.  (PAM is NOT GF).  Spoon a little sauce in the bottom of your crock pot.  Spread a little ricotta onto each quinoa noodle and then put it into the bottom of the crockpot.  Spoon some meat sauce over the bottom layer of noodle & cheese.  Add some mozzarella on top of that.  Add layers of noodle w/ ricotta, sauce, mozz until the pot is almost full, then top w/ Parmesan.  Pour any extra sauce into crock-pot.  Cook in crock-pot high for 2 hours or on low for 4 hours.  Super tasty, feeds 4.  Seems like it should feed 8 - 12, but trust me, it only feeds 4.

So you want to take a road trip....

Let's face it life as you know will never be the same, but even the basic road trip gets complicated.  Sigh, the rule of thumb we use is that 75% of pre-packaged foods are not safe.  So, if you are stopping for snacks in a small C-store with already limited options, you now have really limited options.  On top of that, brown fountain drinks are out of the question.  Why? It's the evil caramel color, which could be wheat.  So, if you are looking for a fountain drink, it's got to be clear, orange, purple, yellow, etc and therefore probably sugary.  In any case, you really can't plan on having a decent selection of gluten-free snacks or drinks at any stop and those that you find will most likely be very high in either sugar, fat or both.

Even if you are in the mood for candy, you have to be very selective.  Try the gluten free free candy quiz -- which of the following do you think are gluten free?

   - Plain M&Ms
   - Peanut M&Ms
   - Pre-packaged Rice Krispies
   - 3 Musketeers
   - Any flavor licorice

..........and...none of the above!  I left out the obvious "can't haves" that have a cookie like thing in them.  What candy is GF?  Snickers, Skittles, plain Hershey bar, Mounds, Almond Joy and a few others...

What else is out of the question that we used to like for snacks?  Jerky is a big one....it's all the soy sauce -- generally not GF.   We could make our own and use GF soy sauce -- it just hasn't happened yet.

It's summer-time and we've gone on a road-trip already and there's probably more happening.  So, here's the new strategy.  We took water bottles and Crystal Light singles, fruit, homemade banana bread, muffins and Skittles.  These aren't the choices we would have made a few years ago and each item was chosen with a specific purpose.   Water and Crystal Light because it makes for something interesting to drink without being a million calories.  Fruit, especially bananas because adult celiacs probably need extra fiber in their diets.   Banana bread because we had half a loaf handy and it's high fiber.  The muffins are good travel items, individually portioned and all.  Skittles don't melt in the hot car.

Now, when baking for your celiac at home, you can either use GF mixes, GF flours mixes or you can make your own mix.  The GF mixes are the easiest to use, but the most expensive.  We like Pamela's and Bob's Red Mill mixes the best.  There are more and less expensive mixes, we've tried them all but those are the ones we like the best.

We usually go to mixes for cakes, cupcakes and Rob's favorite, shortbread cookies...mmmm.  For banana bread we've used the recipe on the packages for either the Bob's Red Mill GF Flour or Pamela's GF Flour.  Both turn out good enough so that he and Jeremy eat both loaves.  The big difference between Bob & Pamela is that Bob includes bean flour in his mix and Pamela includes nut flours in hers.  That means a lot if you have nut flours and the other major differences have to do with fiber content (Bob's has more) and whatever you do don't eat the batter if you are using the Bob's flours or mixes!  The bean taste cooks out, but the first time you use it the smell is somewhat formidable.

Mixing your own flours is not that difficult, but at least at first, I would definitely start with the mixes.  Each of the GF flours has a definite characteristic of wheat flour but no one GF flour has all of the qualities of wheat flour which is why wheat flour is the preferred flour for breads, cakes, etc.

My favorite muffin recipe includes pomegranates.  Fortunately, I've watched way too much Food Network and I saw this nifty way to get the seeds out:  cut the top off the pomegranate, then cut it in half.  Take a bowl of water and start ripping the thing apart in the bowl of water.  The seeds will sink and the waxy things float.  You'll need at least 1 and 1/4 cups of seeds for this which is about 2 pomegranates -- more is better.

Pomegranate Ginger Muffins -- from Best of Sunset (I found it on About.com) -- modified so that it can be GF or made w/our milk & butter (for Ben.)

2 cups GF flour
2/3 sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2  tsp salt
1/3 cup minced crystalized ginger (not powdered ginger or fresh ginger)
1 tsp grated lemon peel
1 1/4 pomegranate seeds (or more)
1 cup milk or coconut milk
1 large egg
1/4 cup cooled melted butter or coconut oil

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.

Mix together everything except for the milk & eggs and make a well in the center.  I melt the butter in a glass 2 cup measuring cup, add in the milk, egg & whisk it all together.  Then you add the liquid in the center of the well.  Mix in until the batter is just mixed up but just barely.  It will still be lumpy.

Always use muffin liners for GF stuff -- it's another layer of protection.  Fill the cups 2/3 full.  Bake for 16-ish minutes.    These are really tasty as-is, but if you are using them for a party, or something fancy, then a then lemon glaze will put a nice finish on them.  They also freeze well.

Are small amounts of flour, wheat, gluten really a problem?

So Monday, Memorial Day, we made one of our favorite dishes, a bell pepper, coconut curry sauce which can be served with fish, chicken, rice, rice noodles, vegetables, shoe leather – pretty much anything. I like to have a fresh fruit salad with mangos and pineapple in it also – of course, I always like that! Our fish of choice this time – salmon that we found in the freezer section at our local warehouse club store.

The salmon tasted great! It looked harmless enough. Frozen in individual packets, salmon was the only ingredient, no breading, no broth, just the fish. Well, it was the only new food Rob ate on Monday and he definitely had a reaction Tuesday am. What do I mean by "reaction"? Well -- digestive issues that you don't want described, which impact his sleep and therefore energy, plus he had a fever & chills, then he was numb in his arms and fingers, plus he was a little light-headed. He came home early from work and slept for 9 hours straight.

Why do we think it was the salmon? Well, because here's how a Celiac tries new food: He tries one new item at a time. Just the same way parents introduce new foods to babies -- never two new items at a time. The ONLY new item Rob ate that day was the salmon.

Are we really THAT careful? Are we really sure we didn't cause cross contamination? Well, theoretically anything is possible. Let me tell you the methods we take to prevent cross contamination in our kitchen. First of all, when we are cooking gluten free foods we use Rob's pans, Rob's utensil's and Rob's cutting boards. Rob even has his own butter dish. When we are getting jam or peanut butter for toast, we need to get enough on our knife or spoon the first time. If you don't, you have to get a 2nd knife or spoon, because once your knife/spoon touches your wheat bread it can't go back into the jar because it will contaminate that jar. So yes, we really are that careful. Even the kids know that they have to be THAT careful. They know which cutting boards are GF and which are not. The same with the pans, utensils, etc. We also sanitize the mixer, food processer, blender, counter-tops, etc if they come anywhere near flour.

Come on now, how is it even possible that fish could have gluten in it? Well, the package says that it is just salmon. However, if it is processed in a facility which also produces breaded fish, then it would be virtually impossible to get the processing equipment wheat-free between batches. This is why the allergy information is so important -- the key piece at the end that says "processed in a facility that also processes _________."

The salmon package didn't have a phone number, the web-site didn't have a phone number. Grr. I called my warehouse club customer service, they didn't know how to contact the distributer, but they took my info. My niece works for the warehouse club in question at the corp office, so I asked her who to talk to & she put me in contact w/ their fish buyer. He knew exactly who to talk to. I got a call at home this am from the distributer in San Diego -- funny, but the package says Florida. She doesn't think that there would be an issue with the salmon and gluten, but admitted that they haven't had it tested for that for a very long time. She's got the info from our salmon package and says that they will be doing a gluten test on the salmon from that processing facility. We'll just have to see.

Ah -- so what did we eat with this problematic salmon? Well, a while back we found a really tasty Thai style bell pepper, coconut, curry sauce that is one of our favorites. Now, when we make it, we make a double, triple or quadruple batch & can the extra.

Yummy Coconut Curry Sauce

• 1 tsp sesame oil 
• 2 tsp minced or grated fresh ginger 
• 2 crushed garlic cloves 
• 1 c finely chopped bell pepper (red gives you the best color -- any color tastes good) 
• 1 c chopped leeks (can substitute chopped green onion, or chopped sweet onion or regular onion) 
• 1 tsp curry powder (there are different types -- whatever kind of curry powder you like) 
• 2 tsp red curry paste (our natural grocer carries a GF brand) 
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin 
• 4 tsp GF soy sauce (again the natural grocer is the place to go for this item -- there is a GF soy sauce at the big grocery store but it tastes like crud!!!! As a matter of fact, I call it La Crud!) The stuff at the natural grocer tastes like Kikkoman, but Kikkoman is NOT GF. 
• 1 tblspn brown sugar 
• 14 oz can light coconut milk -- again the natural grocer has the LIGHT coconut milk in a GF brand. The big grocery store has coconut milk, BUT 1) no GF label and 2) it isn't LIGHT which means that it has 3 times the calories because it's all fat! Great for texture but bad for the hips! 
• 2 tbls cilantro (optional) 
• a lime or two (optional) 

We do this in Rob's cast iron skillet (it was seasoned to be GF and so nothing goes in w/ flour/barley/rye). Start with the oil. Once it's hot add in the oil & ginger and garlic for 30 seconds just to flavor the oil. Quickly add the pepper and leeks/onions. Cook for 1 minute. Stir in curry powder, curry paste & cumin & cook for another minute. Add soy sauce, brown sugar, coconut milk & bring to a simmer.  Add cilantro at the very end.  Serve w/ a slice or two of lime.

To cook the fish or chicken to go along with this crazy sauce: - Fish is generally one of the safe proteins - Thaw it out, lightly spray it w/ oil, lightly season w/ salt & pepper - Broil for 2 - 5 minutes on each side depending of the thickness of the fish. - Serve w/ sauce and rice.  It's really tasty with pretty much any kind of fish, chicken whatever.

I can the extra in half-pint jars -- water bath for 35 minutes because I'm in a high altitude.  My theory is that it's mostly peppers and onions which makes it a high-acid food.  I've done this several times and it seems to have worked fine, however the jars never last for more that 2 - 3 weeks in my cupboard because we eat them.

My Simple Tasty Fruit Salad

• Mango
• 1/4, 1/2 or whole pineapple
• 2 - 4 pieces or fruit that you like such as apples, bananas, peaches, orange, pear, kiwi, strawberries -- whatever you have hanging around that you need the kids to eat
• Jicama is good in here too
• Blueberry syrup -- we found some agave blueberry syrup that is GF @ Wal-Mart!

If you don't have any citrus in your fruit, start with a little splash of lime or lemon juice to keep your fruit from turning brown.  Cut your fruit into bite size pieces.  Add 1 tsp of blueberry syrup for each piece of whole fruit & stir.  I cut up the fruit while the fish is cooking.  This gives the fruit just a little bit of time to macerate in the syrup and the natural sugar in the fruit will mix with the blueberry and make a more complex sauce.

If your kids are eating the tasty coconut pepper sauce, that's a ton of vegetables, so instead of giving them another side of vegetables, give them a fruit side.  Also, remember that kid's palates are more sensitive and little especially kids might fight the curry spicy and curries are a cumulative heat.  The sweetness in the fruit should help calm that down.  A glass of 2% or whole milk will go a long way as well.  Fat absorbs spicy heat on the taste buds.

Oh, if I didn't make this clear, Rob is feeling better after his contaminated food attack.  It's been about a year since he had one really bad like this.  When he was first diagnosed, man oh man, it was like a roller coaster ride.  We had such a hard time figuring out how to keep our kitchen GF, there were so many things he couldn't eat, he was sick a LOT and lost a LOT of weight fast, we just couldn't find food to feed him.  We were both really surprised with this one, but he's back to normal now.  The good news is that he recovers faster now because his digestive system has had 18 months to heal, when he was first diagnosed it would take a week or so to recover.  This episode was trying, but definitely not as bad as a lot of things were last year.