Parmesan Garlic Roasted Potatos

I wish I could take credit for this recipe, but I can't. This recipe was originally on the Fuller Brush corporate blog, it is so good I'm posting it here!

Makes 6 servings


Ingredients:
2 pounds red potatoes
1/3 cup olive oil
1  teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1.5 tablespoons minced garlic (0r 4 cloves)
1.5 teaspoons fresh parsley
1.5 teaspoons fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon thyme
1.5 tablespoons parmesan cheese


Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Slice the potatoes in halves or quarters (try to make evenly sized pieces). Place the potatoes in the stoneware dish and mix in the olive oil, salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, parmesan and garlic. Toss until the potatoes are evenly coated and well mixed. Place your stoneware dish in the oven and bake for 30-45 minutes or until browned. Toss once or twice during the baking process. If the potatoes aren't browned enough at the 30 minute mark, remove the lid and bake uncovered. Remove the potatoes from the oven and garnish with parsley. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add a little extra parmesan if desired.

Honey Kefir Bread

A little while back I saw a link to this post by The Restless Chipotle on making Honey Buttermilk Bread.  I pretty much avoid breads due to wheat allergies.  Yeah, I cheat once in a while.  So sue me.

There were a few things I needed to tweak for it to work for me. First, because of a rash on my hands (probably from cheating on the wheat products  - but those cookies were good!) I couldn't knead the dough. So it had to be doable in the bread machine.

Second, I didn't have any buttermilk, but I do make my own dairy kefir so I decided to substitute that instead. I purchased my kefir grains from Cultures for Health. They are very helpful, my first attempt at kefir didn't work and they replaced the grains and gave me some excellent advice which ultimately enabled me to get homemade kefir going.

If your kefir is thick you may want to thin it down a bit with some milk to where it has the consistency of buttermilk.

Back to the bread. It's a simple recipe, nothing exotic, and you can go from Zero-Yum in about 3-1/2 hours. Add the following ingredients to the bread pan in the order listed. This is for a 1-1/2 pound loaf.

1 Cup Kefir
2 Tablespoons Coconut Oil
1/4 Cup Honey
1 Teaspoon Salt
3 Cups Flour

Now stop and smooth the flour out over the liquid ingredients to form a barrier between these last two ingredients and the liquid.

1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
2 Teaspoons Dry Yeast

At this point you turn on the bread machine and go take a nap.  :-)  All bread machines I am aware of have a 3 hour cycle.  In 3 hours your bread should be ready, tap it out of the bread pan onto a wire rack and allow to cool 20 minutes before slicing.

It will still be warm, slather on some butter and enjoy!

Rum Based BBQ Sauce

If you ever have looked, almost everything these days has corn syrup in it.  I don't eat corn because of food allergies. So onto the internet I went, looking at various recipes.  I found one by Steven Raichlen on his Barbeque! Bible website titled RumBullion BBQ Sauce. This was last Tuesday. I bookmarked the page so I could return to it closer to the weekend and make the sauce.  I knew I was going to have to tweak it because he uses soy sauce and I would have to either use corn syrup free ketchup or make my own.  No biggie.

So when I went back to his page on Friday, he had redesigned his website and the link took me to his home page. I used his search feature. No Luck.  Went through page after page of recipes on his site. No Luck.

This wasn't working out as planned.

So back to Google I went.  I typed "RumBullion" in the search box and got several results. None on the first page had the recipe.  But on the second page I found a Boston Globe article with an adaptation of the recipe.  It looked close enough to what I remembered of the original that I went with it.

Here is what I came up with:

1/4/cup Dark Rum
1/4 cup Honey
1/4 cup Granulated Sugar
2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
1 Tablespoon Molasses
3 Tablespoons Worcester Sauce (Lea & Perrin's is gluten free)
Juice of 1 Small Lemon
Juice of 1/2 Small Orange
1 Tablespoon Distilled Vinegar
1/4 Teaspoon Hickory Liquid Smoke
1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
1 Teaspoon Onion Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 Teaspoon Sea Salt

1 Cup Tomato Sauce

This allowed me to avoid anything with corn syrup in it and avoid the soy sauce in the original recipe.

Directions:

Place everything except the ketchup in a medium saucepan and stir well.  Bring it to a boil and reduce heat to allow it to simmer for about 5 minutes.  Add tomato sauce, stir well and return to a boil.  Reduce heat again and allow it to simmer until desired consistency.

Taste it.  To be honest, I thought it was a bit too sweet but decided to allow it to set overnight to allow the flavors to continue to mingle before changing anything.  So I let it cool down and poured it into a jar to refrigerate overnight. I'm not sure refrigeration is needed as everything that goes in it is stored at room temp, but better safe than sorry.

I was making this as the BBQ sauce to add to my BBQ Beans (recipe upcoming) and to use on the burgers we were going to grill.

The next morning I removed the sauce from the fridge and tasted it.  The flavors had mixed together some and it didn't seem as sweet.  So I decided to use it "as-is".

The beans were very good, as was the sauce added on the burgers after cooking. While I don't know if I would use this recipe on beef again, I think it would be great with pulled pork or shredded chicken.

I may have to go get a pork shoulder and whip up another batch of this to test my theory!

Maple Baked Beans

I decided to try something with my Crock Pot Baked Beans recipe. A really simple switch, I subtracted the sugar and molasses, and added 3/8 cup of Maple Sugar. As you can note in the linked article, and as I found out using Maple Syrup in my Coconut Flour Banana Bread, Maple is about twice as sweet as cane sugar. So I dropped the 3/8 cup each of sugar and molasses, and substituted 3/8 cup of Maple Sugar.  It came out very good!  A hint of maple flavor but not too sweet.  I think you could go to 1/2 cup and not be too sweet. I may try that in the future.

I'm not going to reprint the whole recipe here, if you have some maple sugar or REAL maple syrup and want to give it a try, check the basic recipe using the link above and make the substitution as noted.

I bet you like it!

Quick Rolls

If you saw the picture in yesterday's Easter Dinner post, you may have noticed a strange looking dinner roll on the plate.  I am supposed to avoid wheat, but I gave myself a "cheat day" for the holiday.

I had remembered late in the day that while I was avoiding wheat, others weren't.  So I needed a quick recipe for dinner rolls.  I found a couple "30 minute dinner rolls" recipes on Google (like this one), but they didn't exactly strike my fancy.  So what I did was use them with my own twist.

Be warned, this dough rises fast! I had to punch it down twice, and because of that I didn't have enough time after the final punch down to allow it to fully rise again.  They were still very good tasting, with a texture about halfway between a biscuit and a roll.  Had they been allowed to rise that final time I'm sure they'd have had a good roll texture.

Here's the recipe:

3/4 cup water
2 Tablespoons yeast
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup yogurt
1 egg
3 to 4 cups flour

Mix the yeast and water and allow to sit until the yeast hydrates a little (about 10 mins).  Add the sugar and let it sit another 10 mins and look at how it is going to town!  Add the yogurt and egg and mix well.  Add a cup of flour to start.  I'm a bit old fashioned and I add it with a spoon.  Mix it in, then begin adding 1/2 cup of flour at a time until you can't stir it any longer.  Add another 1/2 cup and begin mixing by hand.  When you've added about 2-1/2 to 3 cups of flour you should be able to turn it out onto a floured board.  Once you're working it on the floured board, add flour 1/4 cup at a time until you have a good textured dough ball. Continue working (kneading) the dough for another 5 minutes.

Here's where I was stuck yesterday.  I had the dough ready but was still about an hour from time to put it in the oven. So I put the dough into an oiled bowl, turning the doughball to get it covered with oil.  Had I been closer ready to cook the rolls, I would have skipped this step and went right to forming the rolls.

As I prepped other items for the dinner, I checked the dough.  It was rising fast!  I punched it down once at about 30 minutes, and again at 1 hour as I was ready to form the rolls.

I oiled my hands and pinched off a piece of dough slightly smaller than a tennis ball (about the size of a medium lemon).  This gave me 7 pieces, which was perfect for the cast iron skillet I planned on using. Spacing 6 around the sides of the oiled skillet and 1 in the middle I covered them with a towel while I finished other items (another 10 minutes).  They hadn't risen the way I would like, but it was time to cook!

I cooked them in a 400*F oven for 20 minutes.  They came out good, I just wish I had been able to allow them to rise a little more before cooking.

The roll in the picture is the center roll, and the others were similar.  While these are ready quickly, I wouldn't start them too far ahead of time in the future!

Easter Lamb...with a "Hat Tip" to Uncle Ray

We're having lamb for Easter dinner.  Not the typical whole leg of lamb, or rack of lamb.  I'm making a recipe that is simple and provided by my late uncle, Raymond Dunning.

There is a recipe he used for family BBQs, and he would tell the story every chance he got.  It goes like this:

In the old days of Russia, as the Cossacks traveled the countryside, they would stop at the farmhouses along the way.  The farmers were required to provide them with lamb, onions and lemons, such as they had.  The Cossack would cut the items into chunks and store them in a leather bag.  At night when the Cossacks would get together, they would spear chunks of lamb on their swords, roast it over the campfire and sing songs of battles and "Mother Russia". (BTW, we aren't Russian, but that was probably a story he picked up during his time as a Merchant Marine during WWII.)

While I'm not sure of the truth of the whole story, parts make sense.  Lemons and onions are both anti-bacterial and could very well have kept meat from going rancid.  So that part makes sense.  Not being a student of Cossack history, I don't know about the rest. 

In the story is the recipe.  A boneless leg of lamb trimmed of fat, cut into chunks (whatever size you want, but I usually go for about 1" to 1-1/2", around that size).  Sliced lemons and onions.  Layer the meat, lemon and onions in a bowl or baking dish, and squeeze the juice from an additional lemon or two over the whole thing.  Let it marinate in the refrigerator for at least one day, preferably two days.  Stir it every 4 hours or so.  Before cooking remove from the fridge and allow to come to room temperature.  Lightly salt & pepper about 30 minutes before cooking.

When I was younger, he had custom made skewers resembling straight bladed swords. He would fill them with chunks of lamb and roast them over the BBQ pit.  As he got older and the number of folks at gatherings became less, he would cook them directly on the grill.  Today, I'm going to broil them in the oven on an old Graniteware broiling pan.  I'm going to combine a little of the old and the new.

The final result:

Ham and Easter?

Ham is a traditional Easter dinner (or supper if you're from the south), served all over the country.  That seems like a contradiction to me, since pork is forbidden by Jewish dietary laws and Jesus was a Jew. In addition, it seems weird to celebrate the Resurrection of The Christ by eating a scavenger.

In looking around the web, I noticed many had tied in the Easter ham with various Pagan rituals, many of which have in fact infiltrated the Christian Faith.  However, I think I found the most likely explanation on a page titled "Traditional Easter Foods" on About.com:

"In the United States, ham is a traditional Easter food. In the early days, meat was slaughtered in the fall. There was no refrigeration, and the fresh pork that wasn't consumed during the winter months before Lent was cured for spring. The curing process took a long time, and the first hams were ready around the time Easter rolled around. Thus, ham was a natural choice for the celebratory Easter dinner."

In addition, a ham can feed a lot of people.  When I was younger, we had large gatherings at my Grandmother's house on all the holidays.  Today, we're scattered all over the country and so a whole ham would be overkill.

We're having lamb today, look for a post on that later.  For the record, I did buy a half ham, it is in the freezer and will be done up in the next week or so.  It will provide several dinners and a nice bone for a pot of ham and beans!

Wishing you a Blessed and Happy Easter Day

Coconut Flour Banana Bread

Be sure to read the updates below!

I haven't been baking much lately, having been too busy with this thing called "life".  So today I found myself with 1/2 dozen ripe bananas, and an urge to make it into banana bread or muffins.  Since I am trying to avoid wheat as much as possible, I perused the web for recipes that used coconut flour.  There are several out there that combine various flours but only a few that used strictly coconut flour.  To be honest, none of them appealed to me, so I did my usual of "a little from this one, a little from that one, a little from experience" to see what I would get.

Now one thing about coconut flour is that it is very dry.  It also has no gluten.  So that means more moisture added and to expect less of a rise that you would get from wheat flours.  We'll see if my memory holds true!

Here is what I did:

I took 2 cups of coconut flour and added a cup of kefir I needed to use to give it some moisture.  The coconut flour sucked that up and asked for more! LOL.  But I left it at that amount.  I let that sit for an hour while I watched the end of the baseball game and then got the remaining stuff together.

I mashed the bananas (6, remember?) with a fork until they were nice and creamy.  Call me old fashioned but I like to do this step by hand.  I can find and squish any chunks that try to hide this way.  Then I got out the hand mixer.  To the bananas I added 1/2 cup pure maple syrup, mix, 4 eggs, mix, 2 teaspoons vanilla, mix, and 3/4 cup flaxseed meal and mixed some more.

I then added the coconut flour and mixed it all very well.  Quite frankly, I'm concerned there is too much batter for my loaf pan.  Oh well, wouldn't be the first kitchen disaster I've ever had.

Speaking of the loaf pan, you need to either line it with parchment paper or grease it very, very well.  I was out of parchment paper, so I greased it well with coconut oil.  Let's keep our fingers crossed.

So the recipe looks like this:
2 cups Coconut Flour
1 cup Kefir
6 Ripe Bananas
1/2 Cup Maple Syrup
4 eggs
2 teaspoons Vanilla
3/4 cup Flaxseed Meal.

Summary instructions:

Mix the kefir and coconut flour together and set aside.

Mash the bananas (or use your mixer) until all squished.  Add remaining ingredients one at a time, mixing after each addition.

Pour into a 9X5 loaf pan that's either been well greased or lined with parchment paper.

Bake @ 325*F for 60 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

This is how it looked from the oven:

Let cool in pan for 15 -20 minutes. (I let it cool for about 15 minutes and should have given it a little longer)

After turning out onto rack:

As you can see from the crack running down the side I should have let it cool a bit more before removing it from the pan.  Another thing with coconut flour is the products lose moisture and firm up as they cool.  So a little longer in the pan would probably would have avoided that crack.  If you look at the rear right, you can also see where a small corner of the loaf fell off while putting it on the rack.  It was delicious!  :-)

Gluten free, Grain Free Banana Bread is possible!

Update:

Some 3 hours later and I decided it had cooled enough to try a slice.  The good news is it is nice and moist, the way I like my Banana Bread.  The bad news it is sweet.  Too sweet!  And I am a guy who likes sweet things!

I think next time I will cut the maple syrup to 1/4 cup and add 1/4 cup water or milk.

Crock Pot Baked Beans

This is a recipe I had originally posted on an old blog, I'm reposting it now because I'm going to try something next week to give it a bit of a twist.  So if you want to compare them, make this one now!

1lb white beans (Great Norther, Navy, etc.)

1/2# bacon, cut into 2" to 3" pieces

1 large onion, diced

3/8 cup molasses

3/8 cup sugar

1/2 tsp ground white pepper

1/2 tsp dry mustard

2 Tbs Worcestershire Sauce

3/4 cup catsup

Sort, rinse and soak the beans overnight.  I put them in a 3qt saucepan so that there's about 1-1/2" water over the beans

the next morning dump the beans and water into the crock pot, add everything else, stir it up.  Make sure you have about an inch of liquid over the beans.  Cook for 8 hours on low setting, checking every now and then to make sure the liquid level is still above the beans.  If you're going to be gone you can add a little extra water. The beans should be done in 8 hrs (they always are in mine), if not let it keep cooking until they're done.

There you have it, a delicious pot of baked beans!  Enjoy!!!

Oven Roasted Broccoli Florets with Cheese

Along with the Chicken in Honey Mustard Yogurt Sauce I made today, I had some broccoli and needed to decide how to cook it.  Since I was planning on cooking the chicken in the oven, I wanted something easy, that would also cook in the oven.

After perusing various recipes on the internet, I had an idea of how long to cook the broccoli, but no recipe that looked like anything I would enjoy. So I made my own.  It came out great, especially when some of the sauce from the yogurt chicken was drizzled over it. It is real simple too!

Rinse the broccoli florets in a colander and allow to drain.  Transfer to a bowl and drizzle with good quality Olive Oil.  Toss florets to coat with Olive Oil.  Spread single thickness on a baking sheet that was coated with Olive Oil.  Salt & pepper to taste.  Lightly shake garlic and onion powder on the florets.

Bake for 30 mins at 375*F.

Transfer back to the bowl and place a cup of shredded cheese on the top.  Mix well.  Allow to sit for a few minutes to allow the cheese to melt.

Enjoy! 

Free Range Chicken in Honey Mustard Yogurt Sauce

Updated 3/22/2014

I'm still working on my transition away from anything containing the items to which I tested allergic, here is a recipe I came up with. I used free range chicken breasts, if you do not have allergies you could use any kind of fresh chicken.

The idea for this came recently on a visit with some friends from India. She made chicken with a yogurt/turmeric sauce that was delicious. I like honey mustard and thought I might be able to do something along those lines. I really need to start taking photos. I usually want to wait to make sure I got it right before taking pictures, I think I got this right and while I have a full tummy, I have no photos of what I filled it with. Next time I make this I'll take photos and insert them in this post.

Here's the recipe:

2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 8oz cup of plain or honey yogurt
2 teaspoons Honey (if using plain yogurt increase to 1 tablespoon)
1/2 heaping teaspoon mustard
1/2 level teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
Salt & Pepper

Wash the chicken breasts and pat dry with paper towels. Place them in a glass baking dish (one that has a cover, or you can use foil) and lightly salt & pepper.

In a small bowl, mix the remaining ingredients. Pour over the chicken breasts and cover completely. Flip the breasts a couple times to get them covered all around.

Note: I mixed this up around 10 in the morning and let it marinate in the fridge until 4 PM.  I then removed it and let it come to room temp for 90 mins before cooking.  Make sure your glass dish is at room temp before placing in the oven! If you use a metal baking dish you should still allow it to come to room temp for more tender chicken, but if it's a little cold you don't have to worry.

Cover with oven safe lid or foil and cook for 45 minutes or until done. If you use smaller breasts decrease the cooking time accordingly.

To serve, place the chicken breasts on a plate, pour a small amount of the sauce over them. Place the remaining sauce in a gravy boat. Serve with rice, drizzling more sauce on the chicken as needed and over the rice.

Enjoy!

All Natural Wellness Juice Shot

I've been slowly making the switch over from the Standard American Diet (SAD) to one that has less emphasis on meat and more on fruits and veggies.  In addition, I've also been buying less at large supermarkets and trying to get more organic produce at Farmer's Markets.  Fortunately, here in Placer County, CA there is an abundance of Farmer's Markets close by.  

One everyday of the week, except Monday.

I've also been reading up on natural cures and treatments as I've dealt with food allergies and other seasonal illnesses.  

Today, an item at Herbs and Oils World referenced a January post at Lexie's Kitchen for an "All Natural Wellness Juice Shot".  

Looking at the ingredients (no, I won't list them here, you have to check out her page) it is different from other "wellness shots" I've seen.  Everything in it is healthy (unless you're allergic to a particular item), so it should be a good thing even if you're not sick.  I wish I had seen this back in January when I was dealing with a bout of H1N1 flu!  

There's a couple items on the her list I need to pick up, once I do I'm going to give it a try!

 

GMO Chocolate?

According to this story at naturalcuresnotmedicine.com plans are underway to make 70% of the global cocoa trade from genitally modified trees.  I guess cocoa and chocolate are the next items that will have to be paid with a premium to get non-gmo.  :-(

Grain Free Muffins

If you read my post on recently diagnosed food allergies you can pretty well guess breads, cookies, muffins, etc are off my eating list.  In addition, I was told I should probably avoid using almond flour, milk, etc since my reaction to black walnuts may indicate a broader nut allergy.  At least until further testing.

So I bought some coconut flour and proceeded to search the internet for a muffin recipe.  I found one, and followed it carefully.  The best thing I can say about it is I made a great batch of Coconut Flour Sawdust Tasting Muffins! Back to the drawing board.

One of the "factoids" I read repeatedly about coconut flour was that it was much dryer than wheat flour and needed additional moisture.  The it hit me. I have a recipe of moist Applesauce Flax Bran Muffins that I enjoy.

What if I tweaked that recipe?

One time I had substituted protein powder for half of the flour in a banana muffin recipe and enjoyed them. What if I did the same here and upped the moisture?

That is just what I did.  Since I was still in the experimental phase I didn't take any pictures.  This muffin recipe is good as is, but there are a few tweaks I want to try.  I do think this recipe, as is, would make a good loaf bread recipe, another item I plan on trying.

Since I am in the middle of a very busy stretch over the next few weeks I am posting this now and will keep you updated with the tweaks as I try them. If they work.  LOL!

Here ya go:

3/4 Cup Coconut Flour
3/4 Cup Whey Protein Powder
3/4 Cup Flaxseed Meal
1/2 Cup Sugar
2 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder

3/4 Cup Applesauce
3/4 Cup Whole Milk
1/4 Cup Molasses
2 Large Eggs
2 teaspoons Vanilla

Put dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix well with a wire whisk. I put the wet ingredients in a blender and blend them to make sure the eggs are completely incorporated throughout the mixture.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix very well.  Unlike wheat flour instructions where you are told not to overmix, you want to mix these very well.  You cannot overmix coconut flour! if you undermix it, you'll have dry coconut flour throughout your muffins.  Even mixing it very well, you still may have the occasional spot of coconut flour in your muffins.  It's ok (unless you're OCD), it doesn't affect the taste.

Preheat oven to 375*F
Grease a muffin pan with coconut oil.
I used one that makes 6 large muffins.
Divide the batter as equally as possible between the 6 cups.
Bake for 30 minutes or until a knife (or toothpick) inserted into the center of your muffins comes out clean.

Let cool for about 10 minutes on a wire rack. Run a knife around the muffins to loosen, if necessary, and place muffins on a wire rack to finish cooling.

Enjoy with butter, jelly, whatever type of spread you enjoy on a muffin!

Food Allergies....Uggghhhhh!

Off and on for the past several years I have been dealing with "allergic dermatitis". I've been to my regular doc, a dermatologist, even a homeopathic allergy specialist.  It would come and go.

My regular doc at the time said it was seasonal allergies (the first time it happened was in the spring).  

When it popped up in the winter I was referred to the dermatologist who said it was from soaps and shampoo, to try different hypo-allergenic brands. That was after he had his nurse give me a shot of some type of steroid (in the butt no less - OUCH!)

When it still didn't go completely away a family member told me about the homeopathic allergy specialist.  While I am a believer in homeopathic medicine, I think this guy was a quack.

It flared up again about 6 months ago.  My current doc wanted to try a cream rather than oral or injected steroids.  That would seem to work, then it would come back.  Talking to her, she was surprised I hadn't had a blood test for allergies.  So off to the lab I went.

I'm going to divert here and tell you about a few of my favorite things:

• Favorite Candy - Reese's Peanut Butter Cup
• Favorite Fast Food - Panda Express
• Favorite Beer - Alaskan Summer Ale
• Favorite Drink - Manhattan

In order of sensitivity, my blood test showed reactions to:

• Peanuts
• Sesame 
• Wheat
• Corn
• Soy
• Walnuts

Compare that list to the first list.  Ick.

I guess I can still have a glass of wine and if I want a drink it'll be a "Dark and Stormy". I hope I like a "Dark and Stormy".  Sounds kind of like an ex-girlfriend of mine. 

Anyway, as I learn to cook new things I'll be sharing them here.  Wish me luck.