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I hate writing recipes I know Denise can’t eat, but that’s one of the things we deal with with food allergies — I almost feel guilty eating things someone else can’t. But I also know not to push that guilt on them. So sorry, corn-allergic friends and readers, but this one isn’t for you.
With our CSA share, we are currently getting a ton of corn — about 6 ears a week. And I get all of it (which, I think works out — Denise has taken all the lettuce because I don’t eat it.) Corn on the cob is awesome (if you’re not allergic), but frankly, it gets boring quickly. Using up all the leftover corn gave rise a few variations to this recipe, a corn stew, though I’m not entirely sure about calling it a “stew.” It’s not primarily broth, like a soup, but it’s not a chowder because there is no cream or milk in it (though if you stir in the cashew sour cream suggested as a topping, BAM: chowder!). So we’ll go with stew. English. So imprecise sometimes.
If you’ve never taken corn off the cob, here are some ideas about how to do this. I just use my largest cutting board and a long thin knife and clean up the mess.
This stew is completely vegan, but depending on the toppings you choose, you might alter that. I suggest considering, as toppings: avocado, crumbled bacon, scallion greens, cashew sour cream, cheese (vegan or not, as you decide), and cilantro. You sure don’t need all of these, but this stew kind of begs for a topping or two. In any case, it highlights the sweet corn that says “summer” to so many people.
Fresh Corn Stew is Versatile: with bacon, vegan, and with cashew sour cream
Fresh Corn Stew
about 2 T oil or fat of your choice (if you are going to top this with bacon, consider using the fat!)
2 leeks, chopped (about 3/4 cup)
1 Italian pepper, chopped (about 1/4 cup)
3 ears of fresh sweet corn, cooked and kernels cut off the cob (between 1.5 and 2 cups)
1 teaspoon dried basil (or about 4 leaves fresh, chopped)
3 small fresh tomatoes, cut into chunks (between 3/4 and 1 cup)
Toppings, all optional:
scallions
cashew sour cream*
fresh cilantro, chopped
bacon, cooked and crumbled
cheese or cheese substitute
avocado
In large pot, heat oil over medium heat. When hot, add leeks, stir well, and then add chopped pepper. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until soft.
Add corn kernels, stir well, and then add basil, salt, and pepper. If you are using commercial broth, go light on the salt until you’ve tasted the broth. Stir seasonings in well.
Add broth and bring to a low boil. Add tomatoes, and when low boil is again achieved, turn down the heat to low and simmer about 10 minutes.
Top as desired, and enjoy. This soup is great the next day.
Cashew Sour Cream (modified from oh she glows!) (obviously this makes it not nut-free)
1/2 cup raw cashew pieces, soaked overnight or in hot water for a few hours
3 Tablespoons water
2 teaspoons lime juice
pinch salt (to taste)
1 teaspoon chives
Add cashews, water, and lime juice to blender. Blend until smooth. Stir in chives and salt. Refrigerate for an hour to thicken.
Zesty Mexican Style Bean Salad – Photo by J. Andrews
I modified this recipe from a recipe in an old Weight Watcher’s magazine. The original had raw green bell pepper and Great Northern beans in it instead, but back in the day before food allergies, I preferred it with roasted red pepper in a jar and garbanzo beans, and with some added spice enhancement. (Shocker, I know.) These days I can’t buy roasted red peppers at the store because of the citric acid, and I’ve been meaning to can my own so I could make this, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet with everything else on my plate. So when Mary Kate and I decided to have a cookout, a light bulb went off that I could grill the red peppers and make this again. You could also broil the red peppers in your oven. (Not sure why that did not occur to me until I went to type up this post; I could have been making this all along. Sigh.)
Zesty Mexican Style Bean Salad
1 – 15 ounce can of black beans (Find a safe brand for you. I pressure can my own from dry beans.)
1 – 15 ounce can of garbanzo beans (Find a safe brand for you. I pressure can my own from dry beans.)
1 1/2 cups of chopped tomatoes
1 cup grilled or broiled red bell pepper (about one and half peppers)
1 cup of sliced green onions
1 cup of salsa (Make sure you use a safe for you brand. I used my home canned salsa.)
1/4 cup of red wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons of fresh chopped cilantro
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
1 teaspoon of Adobo seasoning (If you don’t have Adobo seasoning or you don’t have a safe version, mix 1/8 cup of paprika, 1 1/2 Tablespoons of ground black pepper, 1 Tablespoon of onion powder, 1 Tablespoon of dried oregano, 1 Tablespoon of ground cumin, 1/2 Tablespoon of ground chipotle, and 1/2 Tablespoon of garlic powder, this makes half a cup of seasoning)
hot sauce to taste (Use a safe for you brand. I used my own homemade version of Sriracha.)
Cut your red bell peppers into quarters and seed and de-stem them.
Quartered and de-seeded peppers – Photo by J. Andrews
Place the red bell pepper quarters on a hot grill or under the broiler in your oven on a rack with a cookie sheet under it, and grill/broil them until they have a bit of char and are tender. When they are done, take them off the grill or out of the oven and let them cool a bit.
Peppers on the grill – Photo by J. Andrews
In a large bowl, place the chopped tomatoes, sliced green onions, salsa, red wine vinegar, cilantro, salt, black pepper, and Adobo seasoning. Drain and rinse the black beans and garbanzo beans and add them to the bowl.
All ingredients except the grilled red pepper – Photo by J. Andrews
Now that your red bell pepper has probably cooled down a bit, either give them a quick spin in a food processor to chop them into small pieces, or chop them up finely with a knife, and put them in the large bowl.
Mix everything in the bowl together very well with a spatula or spoon. You want to make sure that none of the spices are clumping up. Taste it, and then decide how much hot sauce to need to add. Mix in the hot sauce really well.
Mix all ingredients together – Photo by J. Andrews
If you have safe chips, feel free to eat this with them. I don’t at the moment, but I’m happy just eating it with a fork or spoon. It also holds up very well in the refrigerator if you have leftovers.
Grilled Chimichurri Pork Chops. Photo by J. Andrews
A few years ago my friend Liz was up in the Boston area and we went out to dinner somewhere north of Boston. I think it was an Argentinian restaurant, but I’m not 100% sure. This was pre food allergy apocalypse, but I was in a phase of not eating much beef. For whatever reason I ordered pork chops, which, I think, is an odd choice for me — I can’t recall ordering them out before or since. But these were amazing. They were marinated in chimichurri sauce and then grilled. This recipe is my attempt to recreate that meal, but also just to make chimichurri.
Chimichurri sauce, as the internet has well-educated me, is a traditional Argentinian condiment that the non-South American internet has fallen in love with, and, as the internet is wont to do, bastardized. Yes, you can add all sorts of ingredients to all sorts of recipes, but then they are no longer that thing, right? So far as I can tell, this is a reasonably traditional chimichurri. From what I can tell, it doesn’t really need anything else — it’s really good as it is.
The other thing that internet writers rail against is the claim that, in Argentina, chimichurri is used “like ketchup” or “on everything.” Now, I do have one friend who does use ketchup on everything, but overall, ketchup is not all that universal in my opinion. But I do think that the reason writers may say these things about chimichurri is that it really is amazing and, if you make it, YOU might want to use it on everything. And because I’m me, I’m frying my breakfast potatoes in it now. I may need chimichurri in my life forever. See, internet, that’s just projection.
I pulled the parsley apart, measured it, and scaled the recipe to the amount of parsley I had. I’d suggest you consider doing the same unless you are way better at using up leftover parsley than I am. I’m pretty sure that traditionally, fresh oregano would be used. I couldn’t find any. I used dried. I also used a food processor. Tradition only goes so far. This recipe does make way more than you need for a recipe of pork chops, unless you’re cooking for a mob, so make plans for the leftovers. (Breakfast potatoes.)
Chimichurri Sauce Grilled Pork Chops
4 cups flat leaf parsley, leaves removed from stems (one bunch of parsley)
2 Tablespoons dried oregano
6 cloves of garlic, or about 1/4 of the head
2 pinches red pepper flakes
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (or you know, “enough.” Do people measure freshly ground pepper, really? I never do.)
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1.5 cups olive oil
This is what herbs look like when “ground” in a food processor
With your S-blade in your food processor, pulse the parsley down a bit.
Add the oregano, garlic, salt, and red and black peppers. Pulse until ground.
Scrape the ground herbs and spices into a bowl. Stir in the vinegar, and then the oil — use a fork to get the best mixing.
Let this sit at room temperature for 2 hours to let the flavors meld, and then bottle up and store in the fridge. I’m assuming this will last a few weeks. To use, spoon herbs up from the bottom and use as a marinade, condiment, or anything else you can think up.
For the pork chops:
thick, bone-in pork chops, however many you need.
In a glass dish, spoon a layer of chimichurri into the bottom of a glass dish. Place pork chops on top of this layer, and top with thick spoonsful of chimichurri. Cover and refrigerate overnight or up to 12 hours or so.
Marinated pork chops. Photo by J. Andrews
Grill by the “piled” method — put all your charcoal to one side (or turn on half the burners). Place the meat over the hot side of the grill to sear the outside, both sides, and then move to the cool side of the grill (which really isn’t cool) and cook until done. For pork, that’s 145°F, remembering to rest the meat for at least three minutes after cooking before cutting into.
Add some extra chimichurri before serving. Then proceed to prove the internet right and use chimichurri on all the things.
(P.S. to my friend Cathy, yes, this is just like when I discovered lefse and put “inappropriate” things on it.)
Hot Dog with Ketchup, Mustard, Relish, and Red Cabbage Sauerkraut, and a bad attempt food styling using the sauerkraut juice – Photo by J. Andrews.
When I was diagnosed with the dairy allergy, I could still have Pearl and Boars Head hot dogs. And then came the corn allergy, and wiped out both of those choices too. So I was left with trying to make my own. The thing is you really need a KitchenAid Mixer with the Food Grinder attachment and the Sausage Stuffer accessory or a sausage stuffing machine (they have those, seriously, who knew?) to make this. Or you can just make them into patties and fry them. We did that with a bit of the leftover filling and it tasted hot dog-like.
You can get a beef collagen casing from LEM Products, which is what I did (I’m not saying it’s not corn contaminated, it probably is, but I seemed to tolerate them okay, and I only plan to do this once in a great while) or you can get someDeWied Natural Sheep Casings.
By the way, we have no affiliation with Amazon, the above links are just so that you can see the product and look at the information.
I didn’t grind my own meat but you could. I decided to cheat and get some ground beef because this was going to be a big enough process all on its own without getting all Denise crazy. You may also want to use a food processor, as discussed below to get a better texture in the filling. This recipe does take two days, so please read the whole thing.
Also before anyone asks, the hot dog bun pictured is not gluten-free or otherwise safe. I don’t have a safe hot dog bun yet, but I thought the pictures would look stupid if it was just a hot dog on a plate with condiments. Don’t worry, we fed it to my husband who has no food allergies.
Homemade Hot Dogs:
Again, this recipe does take two days, so please read the whole thing.
2 1/2 pounds of ground beef (don’t get any leaner than 80% or you’ll have really dry icky hot dogs)
1 Tablespoon and 1 teaspoon of kosher salt
1 cup of ice water
1 Tablespoon of ground mustard
1 Tablespoon of paprika
1 teaspoon of ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon of ground black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons of garlic powder
2 Tablespoons of cane sugar syrup (You will need to make it ahead of time – there are two good recipes and I’ve used both before. The one from thekitchn.com makes about a quart, and the one from justapinch.com makes about two cups.)
hot dog casings (see notes above for your choices)
On the first day, take the ground beef, the kosher salt and the ice water and put it in a bowl. Knead the ingredients together with your hands until everything is well incorporated. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge overnight.
Ground Beef Mixture
On the second day when you’re ready to start stuffing, place the mustard, paprika, coriander, black pepper and garlic power in a small bowl and mix well.
Spices before mixing
Take the ground beef out of the fridge and pour the spice mixture and the cane sugar syrup over the ground meat. Knead the spices and cane sugar syrup into the meat until everything is well incorporated.
Knead spices and cane sugar syrup into ground beef mixture
If you do not have a food processor, place the ground beef mixture into your KitchenAid mixer bowl, use the flat beater attachment and turn the mixer to high and beat for several several minutes. Just understand that the texture may be a bit more rustic than if you used a food processor. If you do have a food processor, in batches, process the ground beef mixture with the regular chopping blade and process into a fine paste.
Ground beef mixture in mixer
When you have finished processing the ground beef mixture either in the food processor or the mixture, spread a piece of parchment paper, or cling wrap out on a cookie sheet. I like to lay a sheet of parchment paper down first, just for ease of cleaning and it makes it easier to remove the paste later to put in the food grinder to stuff the casings. Spread the paste out on the cookie sheet so that it is a even layer across the cookie sheet. Place it in the freezer for 30 minutes.
Ground beef mixture spread out on cookie sheet
While you are waiting for the ground beef mixture to chill, set up your KitchenAid Mixer with the Food Grinder attachment and the Sausage Stuffer accessory. Depending on the size your casing you’ll need to choose the larger or smaller nozzle. I needed to use the smaller nozzle with the casing I chose, and I used very little of it. I probably have enough casings left to do 5 or 6 more batches. Slide the casing on the nozzle.
KitchenAid mixer set up with Food Grinder, Sausage Stuffer and with casing on nozzle
When the ground beef mixture has chillled, take it out, and place small-ish meat ball sized blobs of ground beef mixture in the food grinder. Slide a bit of the casing forward and tie the end closed before you start the mixer. Put the mixer on speed 4, and as meat comes out, hold the casing on the nozzle so that more casing does not slide out until the casing has been filled by the meat coming out. It’s easier said that done, and I found that it was helpful to have my husband assist me at this point, as I needed the two extra hands. Make sure you shut off the mixer just before the last bit of casing is filled as you’re going to want to have room to tie it off. Add more casing if you have more ground beef mixture and repeat this process to fill the casing. I will say that is easier if you have one person run the Food Grinder and one person deal with the casing.
Holding casing while mixture fills it
Once you have filled the casing, you are going to want to portion off your hotdogs by twisting the casing. Be careful, I broke one strand open trying to portion them off.
Twisting filled casing to portion hotdogsHot dogs after portioning
Preheat your oven to 225ºF and place your hotdogs on a rack on another sheet pan.
Hotdogs before cooking in oven
Place the hot dogs in the oven and cook until their internal temperature is 150ºF. This could take 40 minutes to an hour. Check them with a meat thermometer occasionally.
Hotdogs after coming out of the oven
Transfer them to a bowl of ice water, and when cool you can store them in the fridge or freezer to use later.
Cooked hotdogs cooling in ice water bath
We saved out a couple from the ice water bath, and fried them up immediately. After all, all that hard work had to be rewarded right?
Homemade Hotdogs fried in a skillet
We froze the remainder and took them to a cook out and grilled them.
Hot Dogs on the Grill – Photo by J. Andrews
Hot dog with ketchup, relish and mustard – Photo by J. Andrews
Mint Lemonade Rocket Pops with raspberries. Photo by J. Andrews
The frozen fruity goodness of popsicles is pure summer magic — so much so that in the middle of winter, when I’m starting to believe summer is a myth, I crave popsicles. Many popsicles are safe for people with allergens, though I’d be concerned personally if I had nut anaphylaxis, but reading the ingredients list on your average box is an education in chemical compounds. We had plastic molds as kids, and my brother and I dreamed up all sorts of combinations — many of them were juice and Sprite, as soda carbonation leaves fun holes in a frozen pop. But this summer, I wanted to make something slightly more suited to an adult palate.
So with the aid of some fun new Tovolo molds from our local kitchen store (Things Are Cooking, on Main Street in Concord), I’m working on making my own. The molds are kind of amazing, and it’s hard to choose, but I am me, so rocket pops were a given. I also ended up with the twin pops, which do break apart just like the ones we occasionally got as kids. That’s probably one of the few things my brother and I were good at sharing.
Making ice pops can be super easy — just find a juice you like, pour, and freeze. But I wanted something different. Lemonade would be the other thing I’m really hung up on this summer, and it’s also hard to get it right — so I figured I’d make my own and make a fancy pop out of it. What I decided on was a tart lemonde with mint in the sugar water, and raspberries added to the pops. The result is a bit tart, a bit sweet, with a refreshing hint of mint and the surprise of bits of berries inside it. These took a little over 4 hours to freeze, so plan accordingly.
Rocket Pops Vs. Twin Pop. If you ever played 1980s video games you can imagine the sounds Denise and I were making while poor Jack asked us to just hold the pops still so he could take the photograph. Photo by J. Andrews.
Raspberry-Mint-Lemonade Rocket Pops
5 lemons, freshly squeezed (3/4 cups juice)
1 cup boiling water
1/4 cup sugar
1 sprig of mint (10 or so leaves)
1/2 a carton of raspberries
Squeeze the lemons and strain out pulp and seeds.
Put the sugar in a heat safe bowl and mix in the mint leaves. Pour the boiling water over the sugar and mint, and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Let the mixture cool to room temperature.
Mix the lemon juice and the sugar-mint water. Add the raspberries and lightly crush — you don’t really want to make raspberry-lemonade so much as you want a bit of essence of raspberry in the juice and some flattened raspberries that will be frozen into your pops.
The molds I have have a pretty solid base, but the openings aren’t huge. A measuring cup with a pouring spout worked perfectly. Be careful not to overfill them, as that gets messy, and you still need to insert the sticks.
Unmolding may require running the mold under hot water for a minute. The nice thing about these molds is that they are individual, not all one piece, which makes them easier to take apart. Do whatever your molds require, then sit in the sun and enjoy a pop.
If you’re looking for new molds, can I highly suggest rocket shapes? Too much fun. This recipe makes a full 6 rocket pops and a full six (so 12) twin pops. Cut it down if you’re only doing one mold. My original recipe made enough for 4 molds, but I don’t have them and don’t have near enough freezer space either for that many. If you have the small molds that are most commonly sold, this recipe may also make too much juice. If you have leftovers (you might) you will need to add a bit more water to make a drinkable lemonade; this is more like a concentrate.
Rocket pop flying solo, to the Top Gun theme. Photo by J. Andrews
If I was going to a cookout B.F.A. (Before Food Allergies), one of the things I’d pick up is a bag of marshmallows to toast. With the corn allergy, that’s pretty much not an option these days. I’ve been pinning recipes on how to deal with this for about a year, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet because there were other things that were much more high priority. Plus it was going to be a significant effort because I’d have to make the cane sugar syrup to replace corn syrup and the powdered sugar (stuff at the store generally has corn starch in it) from scratch and that seems like a lot of steps in advance for so little a thing. But I’m going to a cookout in a week, and it seems like it’s finally time. Normally I’d list out the ingredients in the order that you’re going to use them, but since you’re going to have to make some ingredients ahead of time, I’ve listed those first.
Our friend Fred M. makes beautiful, ethereal, fluffy, light marshmallows, but I wanted these to stand up to getting stuck on a stick for toasting at the cookout so I upped the gelatin amount a bit in the recipes I found and tweaked. These marshmallows are a bit sturdy, but if you want them to be lighter with a little less structure, knock back the amount of gelatin by a tablespoon.
Marshmallows:
Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup of cane sugar syrup (You will need to make it ahead of time – there are two good recipes and I’ve used both before. The one from thekitchn.com makes about a quart, and the one from justapinch.com makes about two cups.)
1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar (You will need to make it ahead of time – here’s a recipe from glutenfreegigi.com on how to do it. I used tapioca starch.)
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract or another extract might be fun, such as cinnamon (Here’s a bunch of recipes for vanilla extract, make sure to use safe alcohol if corn or wheat are an issue for you. I used Luksusowa Vodka because it’s made only from potatoes, where some vodkas may also use grain or corn. Also you can make cinnamon extract by using whole cinnamon sticks instead of vanilla beans. It’s totally killer in coffee.)
4 Tablespoons of unflavored gelatin powder (Knox or Great Lakes are generally regarded as being okay if you’re not super sensitive to corn, again no affiliation with Amazon, just linking for reference)
1 1/4 cups of cold water, divided
1 1/2 cups of cane sugar (make sure you use a safe-for-you brand)
1/8 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup tapioca starch (You could also use potato or arrowroot starch, whatever’s safe for you)
safe-for-you-oil for greasing the pan or you can use the oil in an oil mister as well
Kitchen Stuff you will need:
Stand mixer with the whisk beater attached
candy thermometer that will clip on the side a saucepan
3 or 4 quart saucepan
9 x 13 baking pan or another flat container to spread out your marshmallows
a pizza cutter or a sharp knife
the normal assortment of bowls, measuring cups, spatulas, forks or whisks and so on
Grease or spray your baking pan with the oil. Use a paper towel to wipe the pan and make sure that every surface is coated in a thin layer of oil. Put the baking pan and a spatula next to your stand mixer, which should already have the whisk beater on it and your splatter guard ready to go.
Mix a 1/2 cup of cold water in a measuring cup along with the vanilla. Put the gelatin into the bowl of the stand mixer, and pour the water and vanilla mixture over it while whisking it with a fork or a small whisk. Mix until there are no lumps. Put the bowl back into your stand mixer and attach it.
Gelatin, water, and vanilla extract well mixed
Place your saucepan on the burner and clip your candy thermometer to the side of the saucepan. Add the rest of the water (3/4 of a cup), and add the cane sugar, cane sugar syrup and salt. Don’t stir it up.
water, sugar, cane sugar, syrup and salt with candy thermometer
Place the saucepan over high head and bring it to a rapid boil. Boil until the sugar mixture measures some where between 245ºF and 250ºF. Don’t let it go any higher than 250ºF. Take the saucepan off the burner and remove the candy thermometer.
Sugar mixture at a boil
Turn on the stand mixer to medium and CAREFULLY pour the sugar mixture down the side of the stand mixer bowl. There will be some bubbling, so go slowly. Also it will freaking burn and hurt if you spill it on yourself, so please don’t.
When all the sugar mixture is in the mixing bowl and is mixed to together, make sure your splatter guard is down and increase the mixing speed to high. Continue to mix on high for 10 minutes. Make sure you do the full 10 minutes.
Whipping marshmallow mixture
Once the ten minutes is up, do not dally, get the marshmallow mixture into the baking pan as fast as you can as it will start to cool really fast, and you want to be able to spread it out in the pan. Use a spatula to scrap out the bowl, but it’s really think and sticky, so you won’t get every bit out. Once it’s in the pan, spray or coat your hands with your oil and spread out the marshmallow evenly.
Marshmallows spread evenly in baking pan
Let the marshmallows sit uncovered and at room temperature for 6 or more hours. Don’t let it go any longer than 24 hours though. Once they have cooled, mix your powdered sugar and tapioca starch in a bowl.
Powder sugar and tapioca starch mixture
Take a large cutting board or cookie sheet and sprinkle some of the powdered sugar mix on it. Then sprinkle the top of the marshmallow in the pan with the mixture and smooth it out over the surface. Flip the pan over onto your cutting board. Once you’ve got them out of the pan, sprinkle more of the mixture over the top of the marshmallow layer that was previously on the bottom of the pan.
Marshmallows powered before cutting
Cut your marshmallows using a sharp knife or a pizza cutter into small squares.
Marshmallow pieces cut by pizza cutter
Put each square in the bowl with the powdered sugar and tapioca and toss it until coated thoroughly. (If you have extra marshmallow coating afterwards, put it in a jar and use it the next time.)
Marshmallow being tossed in marshmallow coating
Store them in an airtight container at room temperature. They’ll last for a couple weeks if you don’t eat them right away. Take them to your cookout and toast them. If you can’t wait you can use your stove burner and a bamboo skewer 🙂
Denise and I both love sushi, and, with a little care, it’s something we both seem to be able to order out in relative comfort. But I could eat sushi a lot more often than I go out to eat. You can make sushi at home, but mostly, I’m too lazy to roll my own maki*, and I don’t trust my own judgement on sushi grade fish. When I do sushi at home, it’s always vegan.
So my solution to weeknight laziness and/or heat is a sushi salad — flavors on the order of a California roll** or a veggie roll, which differs from restaurant to restaurant. I’m going to give a menu of options — the rice, cold avocado and cucumber, and dressing are necessary. Everything else is optional — I’m including some roasted veg, as an option, and some additional vegetables I’ve used and liked.
This recipe makes one sushi rice bowl. Increase as needed to feed more people. The roasted veg will make enough mushrooms for one, but I would just roast the whole bunch of asparagus and use the leftovers for snacking the rest of the week.
The recipe calls for sesame in the form of seeds in the dressing and toasted sesame oil in the rice and roasted vegetables — this is optional. It adds a nice bit of flavor, but if you’re allergic or just don’t have it, don’t worry about it; your sushi bowls will still be good.
*(Side note: Want to learn to roll sushi? The internet has tons of videos, but the one I learned from is part of the sadly short-lived Post-Punk Kitchen video series: Episode 1: Sushi and Cupcakes, which I used years ago when living in Bismarck, North Dakota before they got a sushi restaurant — they have one now. If you can eat soy, try the tempeh “spicy tuna.” It’s so good.)
**(Side note 2: Regarding California rolls, beware the imitation crab sticks. They can be rife with allergens, including dairy, soy, egg, and gluten, and likely they have corn derivatives. It would be generally safer to avoid it.)
Vegan sushi rice bowl with just raw vegetables: cucumber, avocado, sugar snap peas
Vegan Sushi Rice Salad
Rice:
1/2 cup sushi rice
1 cup water
1 Tablespoon rice wine vinegar (set aside for after rice is cooked — and check this for additives!)
1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil (optional)
Cooked option veg:
3 or so shitake mushrooms, washed and stemmed
1 bunch asparagus, ends broken off and discarded (you will likely have leftovers of this, which is good!)
1 teaspoons toasted sesame oil (optional)
1 Tablespoon olive oil
salt (optional) and pepper, lightly applied
Raw veg (use these with or without roasted vegetables):
1/2 cup cucumber, cut into sticks or cubed
1/2 avocado, cubed
1/4 sheet nori, cut into thin strips and then into bits (use scissors for this)
Additional raw veg options:
carrots, finely shredded
sugar snap peas, strings removed, cut in half
Dressing:
1 Tablespoon gluten-free tamari or soy sauce replacer, or coconut aminos (I have not tested coconut aminos in this recipe)
1 teaspoon rice vinegar (check this for additives!)
1 pinch of garlic powder
1 pinch of ginger powder
1 pinch of wasabi powder (optional)
1 Tablespoon sesame seeds (optional)
If you’re going to roast vegetables, preheat the oven to 425ºF.
Start the rice. I always use a rice cooker, but if you don’t, you can do this on the stovetop. Just don’t ask me how. I can’t cook rice on the stove at all.
Roast veg: Toss mushrooms and asparagus in oils, and sparingly sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place on a parchment paper-covered baking sheet, and bake for 15-20 minutes, until tender.
While the rice is cooking, prepare your raw vegetables.
Prepare the dressing by mixing everything together.
When the rice is done, toss the rice with rice wine vinegar and toasted sesame oil, if using. If using raw carrots, I like to toss them in with the hot rice to soften them.
Scoop the rice into a bowl. Top with the roasted and raw veg, sprinkling nori on top, then add the dressing.
So recently I’ve become concerned that I may be reacting to maple syrup. It stands to reason that with the number of types of tree pollen to which I am allergic that the sap of the tree might be an issue as well. I’ve noticed some correlation, but there were other potential issues during the same time frame, so I need to do some food challenges to verify whether it’s truly an issue or not. However, in the meantime, I need some syrupy stuff for waffles while I wait to do a challenge. As some you know, I’ve been canning to beat the band so that I have convenient, shelf stable, safe food and condiments, so I took a look in my canning books to see what I could find.
Now I’m not suggesting that you can this recipe, as I know that that’s a lot of work for most of you, and you might not be into the canning thing. But if you wanted to do that, the recipe is here. I’ve cut this down to a manageable amount for immediate use and made a suggestion for thickening it for a more substantial syrup. The recipe still makes 3 cups of syrup. Since that’s still kind of a lot, you can freeze a portion of it before you thicken it. Be aware that the pictures are some what deceptive because the batch I made was three times this size so that I ended up with 12 half pints of canned blueberry syrup. Also because there’s so much blueberry pulp left, I’ve provided you with some ideas for using it in other recipes at the end of this post. When food is so hard for many of us, we don’t want to waste anything.
Blueberry Syrup
Makes about 3-4 cups of syrup.
Ingredients:
4 cups of blueberries
3 cups of water (used divided, as described below)
1 1/2 Tablespoons of grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cups of white cane sugar
1 Tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice
1-2 Tablespoons of arrowroot or tapioca flour (optional)
1-2 Tablespoons of water (optional)
Necessary equipment:
Stainless steel or other non-reactive (ceramic or enamel, do not use aluminum or cast iron) pot
Potato masher or large spoon
Strainer or colander
Cheesecloth (look in grocery stores where the utensils are, or in hardware stores or department stores where the canning stuff is)
Candy thermometer
Wash your blueberries and pick out any squished or yucky berries or any stems or leaves. You need to crush your berries. Place a thin layer of blueberries in a large stainless steel stockpot (the pot needs to be stainless steel or another non-reactive surface), and mash the berries with a potato masher or the back of a large spoon. Make sure they are all squished. Then add another layer and mash them, repeating until all the berries are mashed to bits.
Once the berries are all mangled, add 1 cup of the water and the lemon zest, and over medium heat, bring the mixture to a gentle boil. Allow the mixture to continue to boil gently for 5 minutes.
Set up your strainer so that it hangs over a deep bowl or other non reactive pot so that the strainer does not rest in the bowl or pot, but so that all of the blueberry mixture will drip into the bowl or pot, without coming out the sides or making a mess. The bowl or the pot should also be deep enough that the strainer will not come into contact with the liquid as it drips out of the strainer. Line the strainer with several layers of dampened cheesecloth. You want several layers so that it prevents any seeds or pulp from dripping into your juice. The reason for dampening your cheesecloth with water is so that the cheesecloth doesn’t absorb as much of your precious juice. Once you’ve got your strainer and the container for the juice to drip into properly situated, add the mixture to the strainer. Let it drip for at least two hours. If you’re a purist and you want a clear syrup, you let it drip undisturbed for at least two hours. If you’re like me, and not a purist, you let it drip for at least two hours and then you use a spatula to get as much of the juice as you can. (Keep the pulp, I’ll talk about what you can do with it later.)
Blueberry Mixture in Strainer
Wash the stainless steel stockpot you used to cook the blueberry mixture, and in the now clean pot, add the sugar and the remaining 2 cups of water.
Sugar and water mixture before boiling
Over medium high heat, bring the sugar mixture to a boil and cook until it measures 230ºF (you may need to adjust for altitude, we don’t have an altitude issue here). Add your blueberry juice, and increase the heat to high, and bring it to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Once your five minutes is up, remove the pot from the heat, and stir in your lemon juice.
Blueberry Syrup after cooking
At this point, if you’re going to put any of it in the freezer to save for later, pour that amount off into freezer safe and heat safe container and let it cool to room temp before sealing it and putting it in the freezer. If you’re satisfied with the syrup as it is, great, use it for pancakes, waffles, desserts, you name it.
(SAFETY NOTE: You CANNOT thicken the syrup if you are planning to can it, unless you use Clear Gel, which contains corn. No other thickening method is safe for canning, so if you are allergic to corn, just thicken it after you open the jars and when you are planning to use it.)
If you’d like to thicken the syrup, place the syrup back over medium heat. Mix 1 Tablespoon of tapioca or arrowroot with 1 Tablespoon of water to form a paste, and then whisk it slowly into the syrup. Continue to whisk until the paste is well incorporated with the syrup and the tapioca and arrowroot has cooked. If this isn’t sufficiently thick enough for you, repeat the process, until the syrup is the right consistency. Yay! You have blueberry syrup!
Now, let’s chat about that leftover pulp. There are a few ways you could use it:
(1) Put the leftover pulp in your pancake or waffle batter for blueberry overload. Yum!
(2) You can make yourself some blueberry butter/jam. Put the leftover pulp in a sauce pan with a cup of sugar and a tablespoon of lemon juice, and bring it to a boil over medium high heat, stirring frequently. Once it’s boiling, reduce the heat to medium, and stir frequently until the mixture thickens and holds its shape on a spoon. Store it in the fridge until you want to use it on toast, on ice cream, or just eating it with a spoon, haha!
(3) Make blueberry vinegar. Mix the pulp with 4 cups of white wine vinegar and put it in a glass jar, covering it with cheese cloth or a coffee filter and securing it with a rubber band. Let it sit on your counter top for a week or two, stirring it once a day to prevent any mold. Strain out the blueberry pulp, and you’ll have blueberry flavored vinegar to use for salad dressings or marinades.
