Aebelskivers

This is a traditional Dutch breakfast that we enjoyed before going gluten-free.  We found a recipe that is GF, and now it is a favorite breakfast.  The only problem is that it takes a long time to cook them.  Also, you need an aebelskiver pan, shown above.  But, in the end, I think all the trouble is worth it.  If you plan to make aebelskivers often, you can make a "dry mix" jar with all the flours, baking soda, etc.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup rice flour
1/4 cup almond flour
1/8 cup potato starch
1/8 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 Tb sugar
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, separated
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup milk, warmed
jam or fruit or apple butter for filling
powdered sugar for garnish (optional)
skewers

Directions:

1.  In small bowl combine dry ingredients. Set aside.
2.  In small saucepan, warm milk and butter until butter just melts.  Add egg yolk, but be sure milk is cool enough that egg won't cook.
3.  Beat egg white until stiff.
4.  Stir the dry mix and the milk mix together.  Fold in egg white.
5.  Heat aebelskiver pan over medium low heat.  Put about 1/2 teaspoon or 1 teaspoon oil in each cup. Place about 1 tablespoon of batter in each well, add 1 teaspoon of filling to the center of each, then cover with about 1 teaspoon more of batter over the top.  Cook until lightly brown on the bottom, and then get the skewer and use them to turn it over.  It takes some practice and is pretty hard to do.  Make it so the uncooked side is underneath.    Cook until light brown all over.  Serve with fresh fruit, powdered sugar, or fruit syrup.

"Meat Lumps"

This unfortunate name comes from my little sister who took one look at the tray coming out of the oven and asked, "What are those meat lumps?"  The real name is something like Mexican Miniature Meatloaves.  Though it has an unappetizing name, it is actually really good!

1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. ground turkey or pork
2 eggs
3 big handfuls of gluten-free tortilla chips
1 can of diced green chiles (4 oz.)
1/2 cup onion
1/4 cup canned or 1 small homemade roasted red bell pepper
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp coriander

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.  Put the chips in a food processor and grind them up until small.  You should wind up with somewhere around one cup of these crumbs.  Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.  Dice the onion and bell pepper.

In a big bowl, mix everything together well.  Shape into four little meatloaves on a greased baking dish.  Bake for 25 minutes.  Make sure they are done (meat thermometer should read 155 degrees.)  Remove from oven and let rest for five minutes before serving.

Jelly Doughnut Muffins

These muffins are really good, but they don't taste like doughnuts!  These are some of our best muffins, but I think the name should be "Sugary Jelly Muffins".  Tell me what you think!  The muffins make great quick breakfasts and easy snacks/desserts.  They are VERY sweet and sugary, almost too much for me, but my sister thinks they're "perfect".  If they are too sugary for your breakfast, use them as a dessert treat instead.

Muffins:

3/4 cup rice flour

1/4 cup tapioca flour

1/4 cup potato starch

1/4 cup bean flour (we use white beans for appearance, but any would do.)

1/4 cup millet flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp xanthan gum

1 large egg

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup milk (we use a mix of hemp and coconut milks)

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

about 1/4 cup of your favorite jelly, jam or preserves

Topping:

2 tb sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tb melted butter

Preheat oven to 375.

Mix the dry ingredients in a big bowl.  In a separate bowl, beat the egg, not till stiff, but at least get it a little foamy.  Mix the sugar and milk in with the egg.  Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients.  Have some extra milk or water ready; we usually use about 3/4 cup, but it's always best to start with the minimum amount.  The mixture should be a little thicker than pancake batter.

Line a muffin tin (12 muffins total) with paper cups, or grease with shortening.  Put about 1/2 tablespoon of the mixture into each cup.  Using a spoon, spread out the mixture so that it covers the entire bottom.  Put a dollop (about 1/2 teaspoon, or more if you like them really goopy) of jelly on next.  Top with another 1/2 tablespoon of the muffin batter.

Bake for 20 minutes.  Keep them in the pan, but put the pan on a rack to cool for a few minutes.  Meanwhile, melt the butter and mix the sugar & cinnamon on a plate.  Using a brush, coat the top of the muffins with the butter then sprinkle them generously with the cinnamon mixture.  You might have some of the cinnamon left over--save it because it's good for making gluten-free cinnamon toast!  Normally, you would wait for the butter to dry and the muffins to cool, but my little sister ate one right away and said it was delicious!

[This recipe adapted from Camilla Saulsbury's 150 Best Gluten-free Muffin Recipes.]

Milk: Yes or No?

Since it's been about six months, we decided to start introducing dairy again.  We started with hard cheese on top of pasta and stuff like that.  We also tried Kefir, a weird yogurt-milk thing, but I didn't really like it.  At a fundraising event, I also had a gluten free cheese pizza.  After multiple experiments, though, we don't know what to think.  After having dairy-loaded cheese pizza, I was perfectly fine.  But, having some shredded cheese one time had me in bed with a migraine.  Yesterday, we tried cheese again, and today I have no reaction.  Now, I think that whenever I have cheese I should write down what I ate and if I have a reaction.  That might help us figure out what is going on.  It's pretty crazy!

Gluten Numbers Go Down, Down, Down!

When I was first tested for my active antibodies toward wheat in August, my numbers were 122.  This was bad because the normal was between 0 and 20.  I was tested again recently, and my numbers were 15!  The dietitian says this means that we are doing really good about staying gluten free!  This is really exciting because it means that we are on the right track!

Gluten Free Meatloaf

Not only is this incredible meatloaf deliciously yummy, but it makes the best leftovers ever!  I have been having this meatloaf for lunch for many, many days, and I am still not even close to tired of it!  Even though thiss recipie doesn't have it, if you love ketchup then you can take the meatloaf out of the oven ten minutes before it is done coooking and spread some ketchup on top, and then continue coooking.  This will make a slightly crispy ketchup sauce on top.  We don't do this because my mom and I are not  big fans of ketchup, but I have tried it before and it is very good, at least for ketchup.

dad's comment:

  We weren't sure if GF bread would work as a substitute for wheat bread in meatloaf.  Apparently it does.  Note, this contains eggs and egg replacer would not work.

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef

1 pound mild sausage

2 sliced gluten-free bread, stale or toasted till rather dry, diced

1/3 cup Kellogg's Corn Flakes Crumbs (or equivalent)

1 tsp minced garlic

2 tsp oregano

2 tsp basil or parsley

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp cumin

half an onion, diced

half a carrot, shredded

some spinach, kale or other leafy green (not much, and optional)

miscellaneous other veggies (not much, and optional)

2 eggs

1/2 tsp liquid smoke

few dashes Tabasco (or equivalent)

Directions:

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a big bowl.  You are supposed to do this with your hands, but my dad can't stand the way it feels so he just uses a big fork. Whisk the eggs well, add the liquid smoke and Tabasco, then pour into the bowl with the meat mixture.  Mix very well until mush.

Plop into a bread pan, or form into a loaf-like mound on a baking sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees for an hour, or until the internal temperature reads 155 degrees. Remove from oven, then let rest for 10 minutes.

Fish Wrapped in Banana Leaves

The only thing that makes the dish cool and tropical is the banana leaves.  It is just your everyday, normally cooked fish, but because it is wrapped in banana leaves, it is like opening a present.  Banana leaves are cool; but the fish is just normal.  So, if you like normal fish, you will have no problem at all with the taste of this recipe!


1 lemongrass stalk (or about a tablespoon of the kind that comes in a tube)
2 green onions (chopped)
2 garlic cloves
1 Tb cilantro (fresh, or 1 tsp. dried)
1 Tb ginger (fresh, the wet kind in the jar)
1/2 tsp hot sesame oil
1 Tb lime juice
1 Tb salt
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp pepper
4 fish fillets
banana leaves

Marinade:
Put everything except the fish & leaves into a food processor and blend until fairly smooth.  If using lemongrass stalk, just use the bottom few inches & bulb, tearing away the outer leaves.

Put the fish in a tray (see picture above).  Score the fish, spread the marinade over it, and refrigerate for at least an hour.

How to wrap:
With two pieces of the banana leaf, make a cross, like this: + and then put the fish on top of the cross.  Each of the ends sticking out from under the fish should be about 1 foot long.  Then, fold up the vertical part first to make a little package out of the fillet.  Then wrap that part up in the horizontal sticky-outy parts.  You want to wind up with a package that is several layers thick, so that it's hard for the juices to escape.


Cooking:
Heat a grill to medium-high (whatever that means for your type of grill.)  Cook on one side for five minutes.  Flip over (this can be tricky; we've used both tongs and spatulas--neither one seems better than the other, but the main point is to do it quickly so that you don't spill too much juice.)  Cook for another five minutes.

Unwrapping can be a little messy to do on a dinner plate.  We usually unwrap it in a baking dish (but at the table so people can see how cool the leaves are) and then serve it up.

Daikon Apple Slaw

This was a very flavorful dish!  For those who don't know what a daikon radish is, here is a very simple definition: a special kind of radish that is larger than normal.  I liked this, especially the apple pieces.


1 large red apple
1 daikon radish
1 T toasted sesame seeds
3 T rice vinegar
2 T soy sauce or substitute
1 T sugar
1 T oil
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp hot oil or Tobasco
1 tsp salt
2 green onions

Sauce:
Grind the sesame seeds with mortar & pestle or electric grinder (my dad uses a coffee grinder for seeds like flax & sesame.)  In a medium bowl, whisk together all ingredients except apple and daikon.

Peel and core the apple.  Slice it into sticks about 3" long and 1/4" wide.  Dump these into the sauce as you slice them so that they don't brown.  Peel the daikon and chop it into sticks roughly the same size (or make them different so they are easily identifiable by picky eaters!)  Add to the bowl, stir it all up.  Refrigerate for a while so that it's cold when served.

(adapted from Roots by Diane Morgan.)

Chicken Chichen Itza

This is a really good meal that is made from a lot of leftover ingredients!  It was a little mushy as a leftover, but still very good!


1 chicken, or 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/2 cup rice flour
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
3 tomatoes
1 small onion
3 cloves garlic
1 T oregano
1 T cumin
1/4 cup butter or margarine, plus more to saute
Banana leaves (or aluminum foil)
Rice, brown or wild


Combine the flour, salt and pepper in a plastic bag.  Stick the chicken in and shake to thoroughly coat.

Heat some butter or margarine in a skillet and brown the chicken on both sides.  Cover and continue cooking on low for 20 minutes, until done.

Meanwhile, prepare the sauce.  Heat a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of oil in a pan.  Chop up the tomatoes, onion and garlic, and throw them all in.  Saute for 3 minutes.  Sprinkle with the oregano and cumin, cover the pan and cook over moderate heat for about ten minutes.  Uncover and simmer for 10 minutes.  Finally, put it all into a food processor and blend.

Preheat oven to 350.

Beat 1/4 cup butter into the tomato sauce.

Place a piece of chicken either on a plus-sign shape of crossed banana leaves, or in the middle of a square of foil.  (Foil is certainly less messy, but leaves add a nice flavor and look very cool.)  Spoon at least 1/4 cup of tomato sauce over the chicken.  Wrap it up.  Repeat with the other pieces of chicken, place all of them in a baking pan (in case of leakage), and bake for 20 minutes.

Serve with rice.

Any leftovers are excellent as taco meat for tomorrow's dinner!

Rainbow Salad

This salad was really cool looking!  Also, it tasted good because it wasn't one of the lettuce and one piece of carrot and one olive salads.  Also, if you find something blue to put in the salad, please post a comment and tell us what it is!



RED: Tomatoes & red bell pepper
ORANGE: Orange bell pepper
YELLOW: Canned corn & yellow bell pepper
GREEN: Lettuce & spinach
BLUE: Good luck.
BURGUNDY: Red quinoa, boiled about 15 minutes in 2 parts water for 1 part quinoa.
VIOLET: Red onion
BROWN: beans (these can actually be a variety of colors!)
BLACK: Olives

Dressing: Mix vinegar, oil, Tobasco, sugar, herbs, and bullion powder as desired.