Dairy Free

Creamy Garlic Salad Dressing

0 · Oct 22, 2005 · Leave a Comment

3 Tablespoons minced fresh basil
1-3 medium cloves garlic
1 Tablespoon prepared Gluten Free mustard
1 Tablespoon honey
½ tsp salt
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
4 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup sunflower seeds (without the shells, obviously)
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Put all ingredients in the blender and give it a whir! The original recipe was from Whole Foods Market and it included tofu. We left out the tofu, because, well, tofu in salad dressing? Go figure. The sunflower seeds give the dressing a nice creamy quality.

To serve food to gluten-free friends, check carefully with the manufacturers, or on the reputable internet-based gluten free food lists, making sure that all ingredients are gluten free. Or, ask your friends which brands are safe for them to eat. They will appreciate your concern!

Coleslaw

0 · Oct 22, 2005 · 2 Comments

A medium sized cabbage
2 carrots
1/2 cup of gluten free mayonnaise
Gluten-free seasoned rice vinegar to taste (you will need at least a half cup)
2-3 teaspoons of prepared gluten free mustard
freshly ground pepper

Clean the cabbage and shred using the food processor or a good knife and chopping board. Clean, peel and grate the carrots. Mix the cabbage and carrots with the mayo, seasoned rice vinegar (already has salt and sugar in it), mustard and pepper. If your guests like onion, you can grate a small onion and add this too!

This coleslaw will keep in the fridge for a day or two. After that, it begins to look disturbing and should be discarded.

If you are serving food to gluten-free friends, check carefully with the manufacturers, or on the reputable internet-based gluten free food lists, to make sure that all ingredients are gluten free. Or, ask your friends which brands are safe for them to eat.

Tangerine Salad Dressing

0 · Oct 22, 2005 · Leave a Comment

1/4 cup fresh tangerine, clementine or orange juice
1/4 cup gluten free rice vinegar
1 teaspoon gluten free dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
salt
freshly ground pepper
gluten free cayenne pepper
Minced scallions, to taste – one or two

Use romaine lettuce for the salad, mix all the dressing ingredients and pour on the salad. Toss and serve. You can add more scallions if the guests are onion lovers!

If your friends are not eating oil, omit the oil. If they prefer not to have onions, omit the onions! This dressing is great made with citrus and seasoned rice vinegar, all by themselves.

Corn Salad – Southwestern

0 · Oct 22, 2005 ·

3-4 cups of cooked corn (you can use frozen or fresh)
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
1 cup of cooked lima beans, edamame beans or other beans (or leave them out)
1/2 cup diced red onion
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of gluten free red chile powder
1/4 cup gluten free cider vinegar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
freshly ground black pepper

Mix it all up, refrigerate it and let the flavors mix for a couple of hours. This simple corn salad is delicious, and very colorful! If you are making this for a gluten-free friend, make sure to use gluten free spices, and tell your friend that you took the trouble. There are some spice purveyors that promise to include all ingredients on their labels, but some of them don’t and this makes the GF community wary and nervous about the possibility of fillers that may have been added to the spices!

You can add tomatoes to this recipe, and you can add 1-2 minced jalapeno peppers if you want a little heat in your salad.

Mushrooms or Green Beans, Vinaigrette

0 · Oct 22, 2005 · Leave a Comment

Steam 1 1/2 pounds of green beans, or slice a couple of 12 ounce packages of mushrooms (cleaned really, really well, because after all what is all that dirt on those mushrooms anyway?)

Make a dressing of:

2-3 large cloves of garlic, minced
6-8 fresh basil leaves, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
3 Tablespoons GF red wine vinegar
salt
pepper

Marinate the beans or mushrooms in this dressing. You can add roasted red pepper strips, diced red onion, fresh spinach leaves (add spinach just before serving). Enjoy!

Mango Salsa

0 · Oct 22, 2005 · Leave a Comment

1 cup of diced ripe mango (try a champagne mango – they are yummy!)
1 cup diced ripe tomato
1/2 diced red onion
1/4 cup minced scallion
2 Tablespoons minced cilantro (use scissors for mincing – it’s quicker)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoons lime juice
1 seeded jalapeno pepper, minced (careful – these are spicy!)
salt
freshly ground pepper

Prepare all the ingredients, mix, adjust the salt, pepper and sweetness, and serve.

Lemon Olive Oil Salad Dressing

0 · Oct 22, 2005 · Leave a Comment

6 Tablespoons of olive oil (make sure it’s fresh!)
juice of one lemon
1 teaspoon of sugar
salt
freshly ground pepper
1 scallion (green onion), cleaned and minced (use all the white part and about 1/3 of the green part)
1 teaspoon of gluten free prepared mustard of your choice

Mix this all together with a whisk, and serve with Boston lettuce or red lettuce, or a mix of baby salad greens.

Honey Mustard Salad Dressing

0 · Oct 22, 2005 · Leave a Comment

1/4 cup vegetable oil
4 teaspoons of your favorite honey
4 teaspoons of gluten free prepared dijon mustard
1 teaspoon of minced fresh chives, shallot or scallions
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon minced fresh dill (you can mince a lot and store dill in the freezer)
1/4 teaspoon gluten free paprika
1 clove of garlic, grated or minced
3 Tablespoons gluten free red wine vinegar or cider vinegar
1 teaspoon of fresh lemon juice
salt and fresh pepper

Mix it all up, and serve with your salad!

Salad Dressings, in general

0 · Oct 22, 2005 · Leave a Comment

When the gluten-free person makes that trip to the grocery store, they enter like a cart-horse with blinders on – seeing only the 25% of the product aisles that have gluten-free food in them. Naturally, we gravitate towards the produce section, where the vegetables are neatly sealed in gluten-free packages by their allmighty maker – not even the food industry could introduce a “solution” into a potato, or add a modified food starch to lettuce. So, we are always happy to see our colorful vegetable friends! A safe oasis of green, orange and red in a desert world of wheat.

The salad course is a favorite, so we collect a variety of healthy vegetables, but then we wander over to the dressing shelf and have to get out those reading glasses to see what creepy ingredients the manufacturers have added to the products. We are ready to present to you here, on the gluten-free Gf-Zing! website, a selection of salad dressing recipes that will make your vegetables sing!

Check the Salads and Dressings link in the menu on the left for some salad dressing recipes.

Banana Raisin Bread

0 · Oct 20, 2005 ·

A friend at work gave Gf-Zing! an excellent recipe for banana bread – it is from the specific carbohydrate diet. It is truly a fine quick bread. We used half almond flour and half GF flour mixture, and some super ripe bananas, and added a teaspoon of GF vanilla and upped the salt to 1/2 teaspoon – just great! You can slice this bread quite thinly and it is indistinguishable from wheat-based bread, possibly a little better. This bread does not crumble into bits, and it is not dry like the Sahara desert either!

BANANA RAISIN BREAD
*Ingredients*

2 1/2 cups almond flour (we used half almond flour and half GF flour mix – see below)

2 mashed super-ripe bananas

1 Teaspoon GF vanilla

3 eggs

1/4 cup melted butter or margarine

1/4 cup honey

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cider vinegar

1/2 – 3/4 cup raisins.

*Instructions*

Mash bananas and vanilla thoroughly with a potato masher. Add eggs and beat until
smooth and creamy. Add melted butter, honey, salt, baking soda and mix well. Add almond flour, GF flour and vinegar. Stir in raisins and mix well.

Grease a loaf pan, then line bottom of loaf pan with baking paper and grease again. Pour dough into pan. Bake 350 F. for about 50 to 55 mins until toothpick or knife comes out clean.

Cool for 10 minutes, more or less, in the pan, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Here’s the GF Flour mixture we used for part of the almond flour:

2 c brown rice flour
2 c white rice flour
1 1/2 c sweet rice flour
1 1/3 c tapioca starch or tapioca flour
2/3 c corn starch
1/2 c rice bran or rice polish
2 tsp xanthan gum

Shrimp with Amontillado and Garlic

0 · Oct 19, 2005 ·

1 pound large raw shrimp, peeled and prepared
olive oil – about 1/4 cup
6-8 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly
1/4 cup flat leaf Italian parsley, chopped coarsely
1/2 teaspoon chili flakes, or 1/2 teaspoon GF vietnamese hot sauce with garlic
salt
pepper
juice of half a lemon
1/2 -3/4 cup good quality Amontillado sherry
1-2 Tablespoons butter or margarine
mangoes, peeled and sliced
Brown rice or GF bread

Heat up the oil in a large heavy pan over medium heat until hot. Add the prepared shrimp and cook them stirring until they are somewhat pink – a couple of minutes. Then add the garlic, hot peppers or hot pepper sauce, salt and pepper. Stir fry for another minute or two. Add the parsley and the lemon juice and sherry and saute until the shrimp are done. Then add 1-2 Tablespoons of fresh butter to “refresh the sauce” as the French say and stir-fry the sauce until all the materials are amalgamated. Serve with sliced mango on the side, a stir-fry of chinese cabbage, ginger, garlic and snow peas, and with brown rice or GF bread for a starch.

The sauce is excellent and very rich, so your guests will be full when they finish eating this dish.

Homemade Pork Breakfast Sausage

1 · Oct 17, 2005 · Leave a Comment

2 egg whites (or 1 large egg)
1 Tablespoon of GF dijon-style prepared mustard or other GF mustard
1 pound of pork rib roast (boneless) or boneless country-style ribs
1/4 cup of GF bread crumbs (GF rolls, or GF bread of any kind will do – 2 end slices of Udi’s for example)
2 Tablespoons water
2 Tablespoons minced fresh sage
1 or 1.5 teaspoons of salt
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper (or more, to taste)

Put everything in the food processor and process until smooth. Make into patties of the size you prefer and fry in 2 Tablespoons of hot oil for 3-5 minutes on each side until cooked through. Use a non-stick pan.

These gluten free sausage patties are delicious and so much better than the store-bought sausage!

Note: if you don’t have fresh sage then use 1 Tablespoon of dried sage. If you want to use turkey or chicken in place of the pork, you can. Turkey or chicken sausage made this way is quite good, not too dry, due to the egg whites and mustard.

Roast Pork or Chicken with Garlic, Sage and Rosemary

0 · Oct 17, 2005 ·

4 Tablespoons extra-virgine olive oil
6 cloves of garlic, minced or grated finely
1 Tablespoon minced fresh sage
2 Teaspoons minced fresh rosemary
salt and pepper
4 pounds pork rib roast (don’t use the center cut – it will have no flavor and be dry)

12 ounces or 1 pound of dry flageolet beans, cooked, or small white beans, canned
1 large onion, or 2 medium
butter
3 large Yukon gold potatoes
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
pepper

For the meat, mix the first 4 ingredients and the salt and pepper, and rub them on the pork (you can use a large roasting chicken if you prefer). Put the meat in a roasting pan.

If you are cooking pork, cover the pan with foil and roast for 2 hours at 375 degrees. If using a chicken, do not cover with foil but use a vertical chicken roaster (sort of like a chicken chimney).

Fry the chopped onion in 2 Tablespoons of butter until golden, then add the drained beans, and the potatoes. Set aside.

After one hour of cooking the roast, remove the foil (if you are doing the pork) and place the cooked beans and the potatoes (peeled and cut in half), the bay leaf and parsley in the bottom of a roaster under the pork or chicken. Add 1-2 cups of chicken stock or water to the pan. Give the beans and potatoes a good stir, then roast for another 1-2 hours, until everything is cooked to your liking. Check from time to time and give the beans a stir. Add more stock if they are getting too dry. Salt the beans and potatoes to taste (it is best to salt beans after cooking so they don’t become tough).

Remove the roast to a platter to slice it, and dish up the beans and potatoes into a bowl.

The drippings from the pork or chicken will season the beans and potatoes, relieving you of the disheartening task of making GF gravy. The beans will be so delicious you will wonder why you ever used to make gravy to begin with.

Notes: If you are not familiar with the fabulous flageolet beans of France, please see if you can obtain some. They can be pressure-cooked for 25 minutes and used in this recipe. If you don’t use a pressure cooker, then soak them over night and cook as you would cook dry kidney beans. If you don’t have access to flageolet beans, then use canned small white beans but it won’t be as delicious.

It is best to grow your own fresh herbs for fall and winter cooking, but if you don’t have fresh sage and rosemary then use half as much dry herbs. So, if the recipe calls for 1 Tablespoon of fresh sage, use 1 and a half teaspoons of dry sage.

Alice’s Buckwheat Blueberry Pancakes

0 · Oct 11, 2005 · Leave a Comment

1/2 cup dark buckwheat flour – you can get it at a natural grocery store – and buckwheat is NOT wheat!
1/2 cup Namaste white vanilla cake mix (this might work with other gf cake mixes too)
2 teaspoons GF baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 Tablespoons melted butter or other butter-like GF product
2 large eggs
1 cup gluten free almond milk
frozen blueberries

Mix everything except the blueberries with a whisk. If you add the blueberries to the batter, the batter will turn purple. It is best to sprinkle the berries on the pancakes while the pancakes are cooking.

Heat a heavy pan to medium high, melt some butter in there and fry up some pancakes – sprinkle the frozen berries on top of the pancakes while the batter is still cooking. When the pancakes show bubbles that are popped on the top of the pancakes, they are ready to flip. These are a little more tricky to flip than a wheat pancake, so be dextrous and be patient – don’t try to flip too soon!!!! Cook the other side, then serve with grade B maple syrup in vast quantities!!!!

This is a tender, gluten-free pancake, without a strong buckwheat taste – We were actually hoping for a more buckwheat intensive experience – but it is a fine pancake which will satisfy even your non-GF friends. Because of the sugar in the cake mix and the recipe, the pancakes will brown nicely.

Chicken with Peas and Shitake Mushrooms

1 · Oct 11, 2005 ·

4-6 slices of bacon
6-8 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
3/4 cup dried shitake mushrooms, soaked in boiling water for 30 minutes and drained
1 large onion, or 1 bunch of scallions, diced
3 cloves of garlic
2 -4 cups of chopped romaine lettuce (or other lettuce)
16 ounces of frozen peas
1/2 cup of GF broth, water or mushroom soaking liquid
2 teaspoons of GF ketchup
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves or 1/2 teaspoon dried
1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

Chop the bacon, saute it until crisp, drain away the grease and set the bacon aside. Fry the chicken in the same pan until golden, and put the chicken pieces into an oven-proof casserole. In the same pan where you fried the chicken, fry the onion until browned, then add the garlic, lettuce, peas, mushrooms, ketchup, sugar, salt, pepper, thyme and parsley. Add the broth or water, stir to get all the tasty bits of things that are stuck to the bottom of the pan mixed in with the vegetables, then put all of this material – the vegetables and the juices – on top of the chicken. Cover the casserole and bake for 25 minutes at 350.

This is very tasty served with jasmine rice. The recipe is based on one from Paula Peck in The Art of Good Cooking, which was published in 1961. The original recipe had much more fat, from chicken skin and a whole half a cup of butter which I have omitted here. Also, the original included soy sauce which is often not safe for the gluten-free community. I have updated the mushrooms to shitake mushrooms, but you could use regular button mushrooms without any diminution of flavor.

Beef Braised with Chianti and Coffee

0 · Oct 2, 2005 · Leave a Comment

Beef Stew – Gluten free recipe!

2 pounds of beef chuck
olive oil
2 large Spanish onions
1-2 cloves of garlic
fresh oregano leaves and fresh rosemary
salt and pepper
Chianti
Black coffee
water

While your friends are adding flour to thicken the gravy, you will be reading a book with your feet up, waiting for a really tasty beef stew that contains no thickeners. To make a good stew, make sure to use high-quality stewing beef – the kind that will get tender with cooking! Beef chuck is the right cut. The meat must have some fat and connective tissue if you want a tender stew.

This recipe may sound unlikely, – braising beef in red wine and coffee – but it is just delicious. Serve it with braised potatoes and garlic.

First, brown 2 pounds of beef chuck, cut in large cubes – 1.5 inches – in 2 Tablespoons of good olive oil. Remove the browned beef cubes to a stew pot.

Next, chop up 2 large onions and brown them in the drippings in the pan – about 8 miutes on medium heat. Then add 1-2 cloves of garlic, minced, and 1/2 tablespoon EACH of minced fresh oregano leaves and fresh rosemary, and 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and frshly ground pepper. Deglaze the pan with 1 cup of Chianti (Italian red wine) , 1 cup of black coffee and 1 cup of water. Pour all of this mixture in with the beef. Put a top on the stew pot and cook over low heat for about 2 hours – you will want to be checking to make sure the stew does not burn, and adding extra water as needed. Keep checking from time to time.

When the meat is tender, (check by sticking a fork in it), take the top off and reduce the sauce to the amount you like – some people like a lot of sauce, some people don’t.

This recipe is based on one from Tastes of the Pacific Northwest by Fred Brack and Tina Bell, 1988.

Roasted Beets

0 · Sep 28, 2005 ·

Two pounds of fresh beets
fresh thyme
Olive oil
Black pepper
Sea salt

You will need two pounds of fresh beets – red and yellow beets are pretty when cooked together! Fresh beets are not pretty to start out – they usually look like what they are – root vegetables. This recipe will make a real beet enthusiast happy, and it will turn the beet skeptic into a member of the beet lover’s club!

The beets must be washed, peeled and cut in slices. It doesn’t really matter how big the slices are, but I generally cut the beet in half and then make 1/2 inch slices. Put the slices in a single layer on a silpat lined cookie sheet, or in a ceramic or glass oven-proof dish. Sprinkle them with the leaves from 3 branches of fresh thyme (that’s 1/2-1 teaspoon of dried thyme depending on how much you like thyme), 2 Tablespoons of olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon of fresh ground black pepper and 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt. Cover the pan with foil. Bake the beets for one and a half hours at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Then take off the foil and stir the beets around before serving.

This beet recipe turns out a very sweet roasted beet, and it makes enough for a family of four people who like beets. For those who love beets, it would serve three people. If you like the beets a little sweet and sour, you could sprinkle a little gluten free wine vinegar or other vinegar that you are confident about on top and stir them around.

Green Beans with Shallots

0 · Sep 28, 2005 ·

2 pounds fresh green beans
2-3 shallots
vegetable oil
1/4-1/2 cup of broken nut meats or pine nuts
salt and pepper
water

Grab either two pounds of fresh green beans, or a bag of the frozen haricots verts (the little skinny french green beans), prepare them for cooking and make sure you have some shallots and some pecans or pine nuts on hand.

In a heavy skillet, stir-fry 2-3 shallots, peeled and sliced, in 1 Tablespoon of vegetable oil until they begin to brown. Shallots brown very nicely. Then add 1/4-1/2 cup of broken nut meats or pine nuts – your choice! Pecans and pine nuts have a slightly sweet flavor and are the best for this purpose. Stir fry for another minute, then add the green beans and some salt and fresh pepper. Stir fry until the beans are cooked to your liking, adding 1/3 cup of water to the pan to loosen the tasty shallot material that is stuck to the bottom.

This dish goes well with almost any meat course, and of course it goes well with rice!

Baked Potatoes

0 · Sep 25, 2005 ·

Baking potatoes
vegetable oil
coarse salt
scallions
cooked, crumbled bacon

For many years, we bought in to the idea that by using a microwave oven we could obtain a good baked potato in less time, but that is not true. Using the microwave to “bake” potatoes produces a cooked potato, and it is speedy, but that is all. You can stick a fork in a microwaved potato, but is that enough? If you are not satisfied with speedy, uninspired microwaved potatoes then you will want to go back to the old ways, and bake the potato in an oven – that is where the baked potato earned its reputation as one of the great foods!

The baked potato is the staple restaurant starch for the gluten free community, and we always want to reproduce that excellent baked potato at home. Here’s how!

First, obtain some really excellent, large potatoes – Prince Edward Island (PEI) potatoes are that kind of potato, but a nice big russet baking potato will work also. Scrub the potatoes with a brush and clean water, remove any imperfections on the potatoes, and all of the larger “eyes” on the potatoes, with the point of a sharp paring knife. Oil the potatoes with vegetable oil – we use safflower oil. Then, sprinkle them with coarse salt, and be generous about the salt. If you haven’t had to carve out any parts of the potatoes, then prick them each in several places with your knife or a fork. Put the potatoes on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees – a hot oven – even hotter is ok – for 2 hours! That’s right, cook them for an hour longer than the cookbooks tell you to!

This long-roasting recipe will give you a beautiful baked potato experience with a crispy tasty skin that you will want to save for last – it is that good. You will be wanting to skip the rest of dinner and just have that baked potato as the main course! Serve your perfect potatoes with butter or margarine or sour cream, some chopped scallions and some freshly cooked bacon crumbled up in pieces, and pass the salt and pepper.

Plum Pie

0 · Sep 24, 2005 ·

Plum Pie

Filling:
2 pounds ripe Italian prune plums, stoned and cut in quarters (you don’t have to peel these plums)
1/4 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons gluten free orange liquer
1 tablespoon tapioca starch
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 sugar for the top of the pie

uncooked two-crust pie crust

In a large bowl, mix all of the filling ingredients except for the sugar that goes on top.

Make a 2-crust pie crust such as the Dream Pie Crust from Bette Hagman’s cookbook The Gluten-Free Gourmet Makes Dessert. Line a 9″ glass pie plate with a single crust, fill with the plum filling, place the top crust on top. Cut holes in the top to allow steam to escape. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until done. The juices that are bubbling out of the sides of the pie and through the steam holes should be slightly thickened, and the top should be golden.

You can also make a crostata, placing one crust flat on a parchment lined baking sheet, loading it up with the fruit mixture (not quite to the edges of the dough), roll the edges up to cover some of the filling; sugar on top and bake!

Note: you can obtain tapioca starch at health food stores or Asian food stores.

Serve warm.