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Breakfast – Page 5 – surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)

surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)

Category: Breakfast

Breakfast [brek-fuh st], noun: the food eaten at the first meal of the day. These recipes will not contain dairy, eggs, gluten, wheat or hazelnuts. If we use a top 8 allergen, we will use a tag warning of its use.

Latkes
latke

This season seems to be full of tradition on so very many levels, including food, food, and food. I think this can make the holidays difficult for adults with newly diagnosed food allergies. This was me last year — going to holiday gatherings where I could not safely eat anything. Missing traditional foods, wanting to indulge, not wanting to ruin the holidays by eating the wrong thing and getting sick. ARGH.

Lucky for me, our only real family tradition is trying new things for the holidays. Doesn’t mean I don’t miss some of the traditional cookies, but it does mean that I don’t feel left out of the traditions — in fact I now get to drive them

How many foods are traditional celebratory foods that are also, in and of themselves, a reason for celebrating? Well, if potatoes are your personal proof that there is some order in the universe? Latkes are that food.

Also, they are amazing.

Traditionally served for Hanukkah, the symbolic importance of the latke is the oil in which the potatoes are fried, not the potatoes themselves. Also traditionally, the potatoes are mixed with onions, flour, and eggs (though the flour doesn’t appear in every recipe, so traditions vary. Here’s your primer, if you are interested in Chanukkah. (See, even the spellings differ!) Hanukkah is not as major of a holiday in the Jewish calendar as those who are not Jewish often think or assume, but it may have my favorite food traditions.

The substitutes for the allergenic ingredients in latkes are pretty easy. Instead of flour, potato starch works just fine. Instead of eggs, ground flax or ground chia seeds, mixed with water, make a good stand in. Ground flax gel will mix in easily. Ground chia seeds require a little extra work, as the gel is a bit stiffer; massage it in and around the potatoes and you’ll be fine.

Serve with applesauce, and you’re set. I know this should likely be considered a side dish, but I eat it as a main dish because that’s the way I roll.

This recipe is for a small batch, but double, triple, make as many as you can manage.

latkes

Latkes
- 2 medium baking potatoes potatoes
- 1 baseball-sized onion
- 3 Tablespoons potato starch
- 1 Tablespoon chia seeds or flax seeds, ground, and added to 3 Tablespoons water (4 if using chia)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- canola oil, enough to thickly coat bottom of skillet
- applesauce for serving
Shred potatoes and onion. The photo to the left includes the Sharpie for scale. I’d love to tell you how many pounds of potato to buy, but I hate those recipes as I never remember to weigh the potatoes and I don’t have a scale at home.

Shredded, you should have 4 cups of vegetable matter. If your food processor is like mine, pick out any big chunks of onion that somehow get through.

Place the shredded veg in a colander lined with a large, thin clean dish towel. This step is extremely annoying and extremely necessary. Fold the towel over the top of the potatoes in the colander and press down with as much force as you can muster, multiple times. When that seems to be done, twist the top of the towel and pick up the bundle and squeeze out more liquid. Do this until it’s not very effective anymore (or, in essence, until you’ve squeezed out as much water as your strength allows). I find that my hands aren’t extremely strong, so I push against the divider in my sink.

Put the oil in your skillet over medium heat about now. Also turn your oven on to 200F so that you can keep the whole batch warm.

Dump your well-squeezed shreds into a bowl, add the potato starch and chia egg (add a touch of water if you need to to get the chia gel mobile again), and salt. Mix this really really thoroughly, making sure the starch and chia are spread all throughout the veg shreds.

ground chia gel

potato and onion shreds

Now start making latkes. Taking about 2 Tablespoons, make patties in your hands, flattening them out, and not worrying about the raggedy edges. DO, however, worry about the tendency of hand-made patties to dome in the middle — work on making yours FLAT so they cook all the way through. The mound-shaped ones are still edible, but not as good. This does take practice, however, so be kind to yourself and remember that fried potatoes are fried potatoes and they are good.

Lay patties down in the oil carefully. If you’ve squeezed well, there won’t be a splatter of oil caused by water meeting the hot oil. Watch the edges and when one side is browned, flip ’em. Rinse and repeat. When you get to the last batch or so, the mix will be wet. Take your patty scoops and squeeze the water out before throwing them in the oil.

Latkes

Put the cooked latkes on a sheet pan and throw them in the oven until you’re done. Serve with applesauce.

Honestly, each time you make these, they get better. The ingredients are so simple that their awesomeness is based on your technique, so keep practicing! Only about a third of my latkes come out awesomely golden brown all over, evenly. I blame my stove, but likely it’s at least partially my fault. Guess I’ll have to keep practicing. OH THE HARDSHIP! (This is where a sarcasm font would come in handy).

Do you have any tips for great latke making?
December 3, 2012
Awesome Cake Doughnuts — yes, gluten-free
Mini Powdered Sugars

Now so far, gluten-free baking is still new to me. I’ve had some utter disasters, so I’m still sticking pretty close to the recipes of other people. So far, the majority of the recipes in this cookbook have been overwhelmingly winners. I can highly recommend it as a good starting cookbook for gluten-free baking — it doesn’t teach you all the science, but the recipes are straightforward and (best of all) WORK.

Doughnuts were one of the family food traditions that center on my dad, not my mom. No matter where we were for vacation, my father somehow managed to drive past a doughnut place on the way into town. Now, if you live in the Northeast where there’s a Dunkin’ Doughnuts at least every mile, that’s not all that impressive. We didn’t, and it was a skill. Incapable of moderation, he always bought at least a dozen doughnuts our first morning of vacation, for three people — because, again, my mother didn’t like them. We spent a lot of family vacations on a total sugar high.

Now, even if you aren’t gluten-free, if you have food allergies, most doughnuts are off the table. Most bakeries use nuts, eggs, and dairy, and don’t use allergen-safe food practices, so they’re danger zones. If you’re lucky, and live in NYC, LA, or Orlando, you have access to a Babycakes bakery. If you live elsewhere, you have their cookbooks, including Babycakes Covers the Classics, which includes doughnuts.

Plain Cake Donut, from Babycakes Covers the Classics

First: You MUST have doughnut pans for this! I have one large doughnut pan that makes 6, and a small one that makes 12. This is perfect for one recipe of doughnuts. The cookbook will tell you to grease your pans with melted coconut oil. I use Pam for Grilling (does not contain soy) for all my pan greasing needs, for lo, I am lazy. Also, I always miss spots otherwise.

Mise en place

Whisk dry ingredients together.
- 1 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup white rice flour
- 1/2 cup gar-fava flour (blend of garbanzo bean and fava bean flours — Bob’s makes this, and it is absolutely worth finding)
- 1/2 cup potato starch
- 1/4 cup arrowroot
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
Add wet ingredients and mix until just combined thoroughly. A note about measuring — Erin McKenna uses ONLY dry measuring cups for all recipes, so you might want to do the same.
- 1/2 cup melted coconut oil or canola oil (they both work, but if you can do coconut, do — it adds flavor)
- 1/4 cup vanilla (yes, 1/4 CUP)
- 1/2 cup hot water
Spoon batter into doughnut pans. This recipe makes 12 doughnuts, or 6 large and

Raw Doughnut Power

12 small. Which is perfect. Smooth out your batter, and bake for about 15 minutes, until doughnuts are golden. In my (not extensive) experience, browning is not a good sign of “done” for gluten-free baking, so use a toothpick to test.

Let them rest in the pan for 5-10 minutes and then cool. If you’re going to use a granulated sugar topping (like cinnamon sugar), do it when the doughnuts are still mostly hot.

Naked Doughnuts

I prefer powdered sugar, and it seems to stick best when the doughnuts are just barely warm. Chocolate ganache and sprinkles are also a big winner.

These are fine hot, but what makes this my favorite recipe is that I think they actually taste best if you make them the night before you want to eat them.

Chocolate with sprinkles
October 22, 2012
Somewhat Germanic Potato Salad
Somewhat Germanic Potato Salad, Vegan

I am not a religious person, but if there is one thing that makes me believe there might be some grand design to the world, it’s potatoes. They are a wonderful, versatile, almost perfect food (only “almost” because they don’t greatly lend themselves to dessert, Grand Forks’ chocolate-covered potato chips notwithstanding). I feel as though I could do a pretty good Irish potato-lover’s version of the Forest Gump shrimp monologue, and I’ve prepared potatoes about a hundred million different ways.

But for picnics, for the upcoming Labor Day festivities, for an end-of-summer celebration? Potato salad is where it’s at. Potato salad is the one socially-acceptable way to eat cold potatoes; it’s perfect for a hot day, travels well, and in a mayo-free version, is both allergen-free and pretty temperature stable. As an added bonus, this one fries up into amazing home fries if any makes it to the next morning.

I developed this recipe in my friend Cathy’s kitchen, adapting the random ideas in my head to what happened to be in her pantry at the time, and it turned out better than all my previous attempts. This is definitely a tweakable recipe (ask my mother, who asked for the recipe and then proceeded to make it with nearly none of the same ingredients. She’s like that sometimes).

Somewhat Germanic Potato Salad, Two Ways!

A note on notations — I use the “~” to indicate approximate measurements, indicating that exact measuring for these ingredients is not necessary. Actually, exact measuring is not necessary for this recipe, but this is how I’ve made it.

Somewhat Germanic Potato Salad, Bacon Lover’s Edition
- ~ 2 lbs. potatoes, your choice, washed
- Water to cover
- ~1 Tablespoon of salt
- 4-6 strips of bacon (whatever fits in your skillet, adjusted to how much bacon you like)
- 1 Tablespoon of bacon fat, reserved
- 2-4 Tablespoons onion, chopped
- One bunch of scallions/green onions, chopped and separated (greens from whites)
- 2 teaspoons dried mustard or 1 Tablespoon prepared mustard
- 3 teaspoons dried dill or up to 1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
- 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
- Olive oil as needed
- Salt and pepper as needed
Somewhat Germanic Potato Salad, Vegan Version
- ~2 lbs. potatoes, your choice, washed
- Water to cover
- ~1 Tablespoon of salt
- 1 Tablespoon of vegan margarine (I’ve used Earth Balance soy-free)
- 2-4 Tablespoons onion, chopped
- scant 1/4 teaspoon liquid smoke
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- One bunch of scallions/green onions, chopped and separated (greens from whites)
- 2 teaspoons dried mustard or 1 Tablespoon prepared mustard
- 3 teaspoons dried dill or up to 1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
- 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
- Olive oil as needed
- Salt and pepper as needed
Step 1: Cook potatoes. This step is the same no matter which version you’re going to make. Now there are many types of potatoes out there, and any one of them will work for this recipe. Some will just work better than others. I personally prefer a more waxy potato for salads, as I think they hold together better. The local fingerlings that are coming in now are just about perfect. Red potatoes are probably the best out of the “typical” finds in a grocery store.

Fingerling Potatoes

Don’t peel your potatoes unless you really really hate potato skin or maybe are using the thick-skinned Idaho russet potatoes (baking potatoes). There are lots of vitamins and fiber in the skin, plus it adds texture. Just wash and scrub the potatoes and boil them in salted water. I’ve never measured the water or salt I use for this step — cover the potatoes with water, plus about another inch. For this batch of two pounds, I probably used a tablespoon of salt.

Cover and bring this to a boil on high heat, turn down to medium or low, depending on your stove, but make sure the water keeps boiling. How long the potatoes will take to cook depends on the size of your potatoes. Cooking them whole retains more nutrients, but it’s harder to give you a time. Smaller potatoes take about 15 -20 minutes, larger baking potatoes could take 40 — you might want to cut those in half.

Drain and cool the potatoes, then chop them into bite-sized chunks.

Step 2: Here’s where things diverge into two tracks — the bacon lover’s edition, and the vegan version. The final effect is mostly the same, but how you get there differs.

Bacon Lover’s Edition, step 2:
Cook bacon. Chop or crumble. You could chop the bacon ahead of time, but I think it turns out crispier if I cook it in strips and then crumble it.
Dump out most of bacon grease, leaving about 1 T.

Vegan Version, step 2:
Melt about 1.5 T of Earth Balance (I use their soy-free version, but whatever works for you) in a skillet. Wait until it gets a little sizzle to it.

Back together again, steps 3-6:

Step 3: Saute onion in your chosen fat. If making the vegan version, add the salt and liquid smoke once the onion has started cooking.

Add white part of scallions when onion is translucent, cook another few minutes.

Step 4: Sauce it up.
Turn off the heat but leave the skillet on the burner.
Add mustard and dill. If using prepared mustard, add the vinegar before mixing (trust me). If using just dry spice, mix before adding vinegar and let the mustard and dill soak up the oil.
Stir in the green parts of the scallions (1/2 cup or so, depending on your bunch).

Add a dash or two of olive oil if needed. You want the end result to be a bit saucy, as the potatoes will soak up the vinaigrette. I’ve added about 1 Tablespoon in the photo.

Add potatoes, stir, taste — add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve warm. Or chill and serve, up to you.
Eat. Re-fry leftovers and call them “George.” No, really, call them home fries. They are awesome.
August 27, 2012