naturally gluten free -- garlic

How I love garlic. There is something about it that just makes everything better, maybe not strawberry milkshakes but almost everything else. I also love Costco. You put the 2 together and you get me buying a bag with 20 heads of garlic in it at a time. It works great! If you put it in the fridge and store them there they last for the 3 months. BUT if you mistakenly put them in the pantry they will start to go bad. oops... so what to do? I found this "recipe" for roasting garlic in a cook book by Lance Roll, "It's Not Just Camp Food Anymore". Good book. So I thought I would give it a shot.

So I begin...

I started by peeling 5 heads of garlic, it left me with about 100+ cloves of garlic to peel. I was listening to my son do his math so I had some time.

To make it worth your while you want to have at least 2 cups of peeled garlic cloves. I this point I should say that the pre-peeled garlic would be much easier and is recommend.

Then all you do is put them in a sauce pan and cover them with good quality olive oil.

Cook them over medium-low heat until soft. Mine took about a half hour. Don't try to rush this. You want the oil to be infused with the garlic and you don't want the garlic to burn.

What you get is goodness in a pan.

You can store the oil separately and use it on pasta, to saute veggies, as a salad dressing oil, bread dipping...mmm goodness.

The garlic itself has lots of uses also, chop it up and add it to veggies, spread it on toasted GF bread, add it to mashed potatoes, salads, anything you can thing of really. Try it!

Gluten-free Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Pre GF days these cookies were my favs, second only to snickerdoodles (know a good gf version?). Anyway back to the Oatmeal Chocloate Chip cookies, I thought these were a thing of the past but now that they have certified GF Oatmeal I am rocking the OCCC's. The cookie was soft and delicious. With the evaporated cane juice I like to think they are almost healthy.


3/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 tapioca flour
1/4 sorghum flour
(or 1 1/4 cup GF flour blend)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 T potato flour (NOT potato starch)
1/2 tsp xanthan gum

1/2 cup margerine or butter
1 cup evaporated cane juice
(or 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup brown sugar)
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs

1/2 cup GF chocolate chips
3/4 cup GF oatmeal

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine dry ingredients except chocolate chips and oatmeal. Cream margarine and evaporated cane juice together (I used a food processor for this, it was the only way to get the ECJ and the margarine together) add eggs and vanilla and whip well. Add in the flour mix and blend to combine. Transfer mixture to a mixing bowl and mix in oatmeal and chocolate chips by hand.

Drop by spoonfuls or a cookie scoop onto a greased cookie sheet for 10-12 minutes until lightly brown. These cookies did not spread when I made them so I flattened them out to make the more of a cookie shape. Let cool or if you can't wait like me eat them warm!

Product notes : I used Bob's Red Mills flours, Potato flour by Ener-G, and Smart Balance for Margarine.

If you try this recipe and get different results please comment and let me know what product you used and what the result was.

Gluten Free Crispy Chicken Coating

Gluten Free Crispy Chicken Coating

This recipe was enough to cover 4 large boneless skinless chicken breasts cut in to large chunks
1 cup gluten free flour blend
1 cup gluten free seasoned bread crumbs
**(see below)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

Take chicken that has been marinated over night in butter milk or dairy free substitute (ie 1 cup dairy free milk and 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar) roll the chicken in the coating and either bake at 350 until done or fry in oil on the stove. Either way is yummy.

**To make seasoned bread crumbs I toast 3 pieces of GF bread (Glutino FiberBread)
Process and add in:
2 teaspoon GF Cajun Seasoning (with salt)
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon garlic powder

Whirl all that around in the food processor until it resembles bread crumbs. If the mixture
is still damp pour it out on a baking sheet broil briefly to toast and dry out mixture.

Swanger Chili

I make this chili every fall and winter. It was a staple in my house growing up, my mom always served it with saltine crackers, we like it with flour tortillas or cornbread. In my effort to cut the red meat I have exchanged the hamburger with ground turkey with no complaints.

Swanger Chili

1 lb ground turkey
1 28oz can whole tomatoes
1 medium onion
2 15 oz cans kidney beans
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Brown turkey and onions and 1/2 teaspoon (or to taste) in a large pot until there is no liquid in the bottom of the pan and turkey begins to caramelize. While that is cooking, blend the tomatoes with a hand blender, or food processor until smooth (my kids and I hate the tomato chunks!) When the meat is done add tomatoes, 2 cans of beans (with the liquid), chili powder, sugar and remainder of the salt. Let cook on the stove top on low heat for an hour and a half to two hours or throw it all in the crock pot and cook on low all day. Serve with saltine crackers, tortillas or corn bread. (serves 5 Velardes)

GF Cornbread

My favorite GF bread to make the bread is very dense and moist. It is super simple, using only brown rice flour and corn meal, anyone can make it. The Xanthan gum is important but the bread will work without it, it will be rather crumbly though. Xanthan gum is worth the $, the $10 bag I bought last year is still going strong. Even if I were a more zealous baker it would still last for several months...break down and buy it!

GF Cornbread

DRY INGREDIENTS:
1 cup brown rice flour (or your favorite flour blend)
3/4 cup corn meal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 scant teaspoon xanthan gum

WET INGREDIENTS:
1 cup milk (rice, soy or cow) plus 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup honey
3 tablespoons melted margarine, butter or canola oil
2 eggs beaten

Preheat oven to 425 degrees, grease an 8X8 baking pan. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and whisk together. Combine wet ingredients in a small bowl and whisk together. Add the wet mix to the dry, stir to combine well. Let sit for a minute. Pour in to a prepared baking pan and place in preheated oven, bake for 30 minutes. Let cool to warm and serve.

Frittata

OK so since I am OBVIOUSLY never going to take the time to post menu plans here I thought I had better do something. So how bout a recipe?

Frittata (aka open faced omelet) is a super easy supper or a great breakfast. Paired with potato (for H) or some yummy bread and it is a complete meal.

Here is what I do:

2-2.5 eggs per person (no not half an egg just calculate and round up if needed)
1 half medium onion
1 small zucchini grated
2 cloves garlic minced
1 lb turkey sausage
6 mushrooms (chop fine if you have little ones)
1 medium red pepper
5 florets of broccoli
2 tsp dried basil (or more to taste) OR
a few sprigs of fresh basil chopped
Salt
Pepper
1 cup soy cheese (or whatever you like)

First saute onion for a few minutes over medium heat add a pinch of salt, add sausage, mushroom and garlic and cook until sausage is no longer pink, add the rest of the veggies at this point. Salt the veggies, about a quarter of a teaspoon. Cook meat is well browned and cooked through. (optional: deglaze the pan with white wine or chicken broth)

At this point you have to judge for yourself based on how many people you are serving, for 3-4. I would add about a cup and a half of the veggie and sausage mixture to 8-10 well beaten eggs.
Freeze any extra for another time. How much or little of the mix is really up to you.

Heat a large non-stick skillet on medium heat add 3 tbs olive oil. Once the oil is nice and hot add the egg mixture. Cook for a 3-5 minutes over direct heat, lifting the sides up as they firm up and allowing the runny eggs to flow down. Turn on oven broiler, low if you have the option. Place pan under hot broiler to set the top of the frittata, poke the middle to check for doneness. Add cheese when almost set and broil until melted, that should do it.


I really struggled to write down this recipe since this is one of those dump recipes, just dump what you have in there and cook it up. One of my other fav combinations is turkey bacon, onion, tomato and fresh spinach. It is a great way to use up leftover veggies and breakfast meats. We do use turkey products and soy cheese so that is what I will write in to the recipes but you can of course substitute.