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Gluten-free – Page 29 – surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)

surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)

Tag: Gluten-free

Contains no wheat or gluten.

Pan-fried Haddock
Pan-fried Haddock with Tartar Sauce

My apologies in advance to those of you with fish and shellfish allergies, but I’m from Maine originally, and I love, love seafood. Although I have three confirmed shellfish allergies (crab, scallops, and clams), and one additional positive scratch test in the elimination/challenge confirmation process (lobster, I better not be allergic), I only appear to be anaphylactic with respect to soft-shell crab. I still avoid the other confirmed seafood allergies, because you never know (past reactions don’t predict future reactions) and because the symptoms I do get are bad enough, but I’m stubborn enough to continue eating fish or shellfish that aren’t on my confirmed or positive scratch test list. However, if a medical professional or your symptoms have made it clear that you can’t eat any shellfish or fish, don’t follow my lead because I can be an idiot when it comes to doing what I’m supposed to do for my own personal health, as we’ve previously established on this blog.

With that said, let’s move on to the dish of the day. I’m a shellfish girl primarily, meaning I like(d) crabs, scallops, clams, shrimp, and lobster. For me seafood really doesn’t mean fish, but I don’t mind a good piece of haddock. Haddock has to be cooked right or you get this dried out, tasteless piece of mushy cardboard. Since most of my shellfish favs are off limits these days, and the only way I can have haddock cooked at a restaurant is broiled with some lemon (since I’m allergic to dairy, wheat, and eggs) which tends to result in cardboard, I started buying some and cooking it at home. Haddock is also a standard offering in most fish departments in New England grocery stores.

Haddock can be a tricky thing to cook because it’s really easy to overcook, and over-cooked haddock is, as stated above, a dried-out piece of mushy cardboard. I’ll do my best to explain, but it’s sort of a continuing learning process/practice makes perfect kind of thing.

Pan-Fried Haddock

Serves 4 adults
- 2 pounds of fresh haddock (you can get previously frozen, but it won’t stay together as well and may fall apart as you’re frying it)
- 1 cup of whole grain gluten-free flour mix (see recipe below or use what you like that you have already, or if you can have wheat this works with all-purpose flour as well, as I used to make this before the wheat thing)
- spice mixture for flour (see below)
- 2 Tablespoons of canola oil (or other oil safe for you and suitable for frying)
- Canola oil (or other oil safe for you and suitable for frying), enough to fill the bottom of your skillet to the depth of a quarter of an inch
Whole Grain Gluten-Free Flour Mix

This makes several cups of a whole grain gluten-free flour mix, but you only need a cup for this recipe. If you want, save it for another use, or cut back the amounts proportionately so that you make less. Place the following ingredients in a large bowl and whisk them together thoroughly. Take out one cup for the recipe, and put the rest into an airtight container to store to use for anything that calls for gluten-free flour.
- 100 grams of millet flour
- 125 grams of white sorghum flour
- 125 grams of oat flour
- 75 grams of sweet or glutinous rice flour
- 75 grams of tapioca starch
Spice Mixture for flour

Mix the following ingredients in a little bowl:
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1/8 teaspoon of paprika
- 1/8 teaspoon of ground chipotle pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon of ground black pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon of rosemary (you might want to crunch it up into smaller pieces)
- 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon of garlic
- 1/8 teaspoon of thyme
Spice Mixture for Flour

Take a large gallon ziploc bag, or a large bowl and mix the cup of whole grain gluten free flour and the spice mixture together. I use a ziploc bag because I can just seal and shake after putting the fish in it without having to handle the fish (I use tongs) or get my hands all covered in flour. Put the bag or the bowl aside for now.

Put your skillet on the burned and pour enough oil in it so that there is about a quarter of an inch of oil in the bottom. If you use a thick pan like my cast iron skillet and it’ll take a while to heat up, turn the heat on now to medium (about 5 or 6 on the dial).

Take your haddock fillets, and cut them into pieces about 3-4 inches long. I find that pan-frying a whole fillet is messy, somewhat dangerous (think splashing oil), and doesn’t work well because of the variable thicknesses of the fillet, resulting in either under-cooked fish in some parts or overcooked fish in others. I choose where to cut based on the thickness trying to get pieces that are a consistent thickness. Then I can fry the thinner pieces for less time and the thicker pieces longer so that hopefully nothing gets overcooked.

Place your haddock pieces in a large bowl with the 2 Tablespoons of oil and toss them carefully to coat the haddock pieces with oil.

You can test your oil to see if it’s hot enough by taking a tiny piece of the fish and putting it in the oil to see if it bubbles and sizzles (see the picture below for bubbling and sizzling around the edges of the fish). If your oil is hot and ready to fry, take 3 pieces of the haddock, and put them in the ziploc, and shake it to coat the pieces. (Or put them in the bowl if that’s what you’re using and cover them with flour.) Take the pieces and shake off the excess flour (I use tongs) and place the pieces of fish in the skillet.

Haddock pieces frying in skillet

You should fry them, turning them once, until they are golden brown on each side, and so that the fish is just barely opaque, like this:

Haddock after frying

It should no longer be translucent, but it should not be a bright solid white either, and the haddock should just flake away in layers at a touch as shown above. If it’s overcooked, it won’t do that, it’ll be stiff at the touch and you’ll have to put effort into breaking off pieces with a fork. I’d tell you how many minutes per side, but that’s dependent on how thick your haddock piece is, so I can’t really do that. So again, it’s a practice makes perfect thing. Once the pieces are cooked, put them on a plate or cookie sheet lined with paper towels (this works best, I used paper lunch bags in the photo because I was out of paper towels), and let the oil drain off. (Also, you can take a tip from Alton Brown, as offered by Mary Kate, and put a cookie rack upside down on the paper towels, because it keeps the food off of the oil-soaked paper towels but it still drains the oil. I’ll definitely try this next time.)

Once all your haddock is fried, you can serve it with a little tartar sauce, which I make by mixing some Earth Balance Mindful Mayo, some relish, and a couple of drops of hot sauce. Enjoy!

Pan-fried Haddock with Tartar Sauce
August 5, 2013
Summer Strawberry Spinach Salad
Summer Strawberry Spinach Salad, photo by J. Andrews

So far this summer in New Hampshire, we’ve had sweltering heat interspersed with rainy cool weather. Given the quick changes, it’s been hard to grocery shop effectively — who knows when it’s going to be way too hot to cook? Part of my solution has been to buy things that I can cook ahead, sometime when the heat isn’t too bad, and then use in multiple dishes. Like grilling a bunch of chicken on the indoor grill (which is relatively cool). Or roasting a bunch of veggies to eat all week. Or, sometimes, just buying something someone at the co-op made (they are good about listing ingredients).

This salad started as a “this is what’s left in the fridge” kind of meal, but I loved it and spent some time refining the elements for what I think is a pretty perfect flavor profile. The particular combination of fresh baby spinach, ripe sweet summer strawberries, crisp and fresh cucumbers, and a honey mustard dressing just works for me.

Summer Strawberry Spinach Salad

Make ahead, if you want to:

Grilled spicy chicken
- 1 lb. chicken tenders (or boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips)
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon celery salt
- 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
- pinch or more of cayenne pepper — adjust to suit your tastes, but probably no more than 1/4 t, even if you’re Denise
Mix up the spices, and then sprinkle evenly over the chicken strips, both sides. You may have leftovers, which you can bag and save for another meal. Grill chicken until done. Cut the strips into cubes. You can use this hot, if you’ve just grilled it, or grill ahead and chill it for an even quicker weeknight meal.

Honey Dijon Dressing
- 1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard (I used this), (Denise has made this)
- 1 Tablespoon honey
- 1 teaspoon dried dill
- 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons high-quality olive oil
Whisk first four ingredients together until the mustard and honey are smoothly blended. Then whisk in the vinegar, followed by the olive oil.

Salad Base
- Two large handfuls of baby spinach, roughly chopped
- 1 medium cucumber, chopped
- 1/2 lb. strawberries, stemmed and chopped
Compose your salad by creating a bed of spinach topped by the chopped cucumber, strawberries, and chicken, drizzled with the dressing.

This amount of ingredients makes two generous salads or three slightly smaller salads, with a good bit of leftover chicken that you can use for another meal.
July 29, 2013
15 Minute Salsa
15 Minute Salsa on a Beanito Chip

Since I also cannot buy salsa during this whole elimination torture thing (most have celery and onion, which are two no-no’s at the moment), I whipped this up so I’d have something to eat at my book group, since I’d gotten “regular” allergen-filled food for everyone else. I wasn’t going for culinary genius, but just something incredibly quick that wouldn’t be awful, based on what I had in the fridge and cupboards. And when it was done, I was surprised that it came out so well, and Mary Kate suggested I write it up on the blog. If you are not avoiding onion, you can add an small onion to this and I’m sure it would be lovely. You need a food processor to do this one. I tried it in a blender, but I just didn’t get the result I wanted. This is also a fast one, the fifteen minutes includes washing the food processor (if you have the jar of taco seasoning made up ahead of time).

15 Minute Salsa
- 1 red bell pepper, de-stemmed and de-seeded, and cut into large chunks.
- 1 jalapeno pepper, de-stemmed and de-seeded, and cut into large chunks.
- 4-5 cloves of garlic, peeled with the stem end trimmed
- 5 tomatoes, stem end trimmed, and cut into eighths (I don’t seed my tomatoes because I don’t mind seeds, but if you do, feel free to take them out, but you might want to add another tomato)
- 2 Tablespoons of Taco Seasoning (see recipe from our Taco Beef for Tacos, Salads and Nachos post)
- 1/3 cup of red wine vinegar
- 1 Tablespoon of olive oil
De-stem, de-seed and cut red bell pepper and the jalapeno pepper into chunks. Trim stem ends of garlic.

Red bell pepper, jalapeno pepper and garlic

Core tomatoes and cut them into eighths.

Tomatoes, showing cored and cut into eighths

Put peppers, garlic and tomatoes into your food processor. You may need to do this in batches, I have to because my food processor is on the small size. Have a large bowl read to dump your batches in. Pulse until you get the consistency you like. I prefer it a little more processed.

Salsa in food processor

Once you have all your processing batches in the large bowl, stir it well so that all the peppers, garlic and tomatoes are well mixed through out the salsa. Your veggies may look a little frothy, but that’ll sort out once you add the remaining ingredients. Add the taco seasoning, red wine vinegar, and olive oil.

Salsa before seasoning, vinegar and oil are mixed in.

Mix all the ingredients together with a spatula making sure that all the spice mixture gets evenly distributed. This makes about 5-6 cups of salsa so it’s a great recipe for a party. Enjoy!

Salsa, ready to eat!!
July 22, 2013
Lazy Summer Classic Smoothies: Creamsicle

Dreamy Smoothie Goodness

It’s summer. It’s too hot to cook, but you need a mid-afternoon snack to get you through until dinner. Or it’s breakfast time but it’s 90 degrees in your apartment and food seems, well, heavy. There is a super simple solution to this cooking dilemma: Smoothies, people, smoothies.

I go through smoothie phases. I make them for a while, then get stuck in a rut, and then rediscover them. I’m personally a fan of really simple smoothies that rely primarily on actual fruit, maybe with some yogurt or milk (non-dairy, of course), and generally as few ingredients as possible. I’ve done the green smoothie thing occasionally, and I’ve followed recipes and master recipes. Mostly, though, it’s a way to dump all the stuff in the fridge into a simple healthy creation that just requires a blender.

With this ridiculously simple recipe, a little prep work will give you a snack that taste like the ice cream truck of your childhood just stopped by.

The MANY ingredients

Creamsicle Smoothie

PREPARE AHEAD: Freeze some of your favorite vanilla non-dairy milk* in ice cube trays.**

*Note 1: You can use any non-dairy milk. You can probably even use cow’s milk, but frankly, then, go buy yourself a creamsicle! I have used almond milk, primarily, in the vanilla, unsweetened variety. I am sure soy or rice will work, too. This recipe can be nut-free and soy-free, if you want.

**Note 2: Measure your ice cube trays. I freeze a lot of ingredients in ice cube trays for ease of use later — tiny amounts of leftover broth or stock, sometimes herbs or pastes, fresh lemon or lime juice. All of my ice cube trays hold approximately 1 Tablespoon of liquid. It’s good to measure yours so that you know for the future recipes you’ll make with those ingredients.

In a blender, combine:

4 Tablespoons (4 cubes) of frozen vanilla almond or other non-dairy milk

1 1/4 cup of orange juice

Blend.

Yes, seriously, that’s it. It’s really that easy and that good.

Lazy Creamsicle Smoothie

July 15, 2013
Taco Beef for Tacos, Salads, and Nachos
Taco Beef used in a Taco Salad

So I was going totally nutty because I’ve not been eating much except rice, salad, steamed or roasted vegetables and broiled beef and pork during this whole food elimination torture thing. I’m not good at eating the same thing all the time. And I love spice. I wanted something different to eat. Something that had taste! So I was dubbing around my Pinterest boards and realized that I could make homemade taco seasoning and leave out any onion powder (still waiting to challenge onions to see if I am truly allergic to them). I double checked my chili powder to make sure it didn’t have any onion and I went to town. I made up a large batch of it so I could use it again easily, and you’ll see me use it to make a quick salsa in a couple of weeks.

First, we have to make up the taco seasoning:

Taco Seasoning – Onion Free Version (for a version with onion, see a recipe here)
- 1/4 cup and 1 Tablespoon of chili powder (I used Hot Chili Powder from Penzey’s, has no onion)
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of garlic powder
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of red pepper flakes
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of oregano
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of paprika
- 1/8 cup and 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of cumin
- 1/8 cup of salt (less or more to your taste)
- 1/8 cup of finely ground pepper
Mix the ingredients in a bowl and store in a glass jar.

Taco Seasoning saved in re-purposed Earth Balance Mindful Mayo Jar

Taco Beef
- 1 pound of ground beef
- 2-3 Tablespoons of Taco Seasoning
Brown one pound of ground beef in a skillet. Drain off any excess fat. Mix 2 to 3 Tablespoons of Taco Seasoning and 1/2 cup of water into the ground beef until it’s well combined, and then simmer it over medium heat until there is little liquid left in the skillet.

Taco Meat simmering in skillet

You can now use your taco meat for tacos, nachos, or salads. Enjoy!
July 8, 2013
Cashew-Chocolate Pudding Popsicles
Cashew-Chocolate Pudding Popsicle!

When we were trying to think up something festive for this holiday week, we considered that ice cream seemed the best way to go. July 4th is a barbeque holiday, yes, (though why independence and charred tubes of mystery meat are so closely inter-related I will never understand), but we’ve covered barbeque pretty well up to now, and thought dessert was more appropriate. And it’s summer. So, ICE CREAM!

This was intended, originally, to be an ice cream recipe, but it ended up being more of a frozen pudding somehow. Which, what do you do with frozen pudding? Make popsicles, of course.

This is a plan ahead recipe! There are two pieces that need to sit OVERNIGHT, two separate nights, and then things need to freeze. We just want you to know, because, sometimes, maybe, people don’t read all the directions first. Not that we would ever start a recipe without reading all the directions…

This uses homemade cashew milk (I’m not actually sure there is a commercial version, but if there is, it’s probably expensive), so you will need to soak the cashews overnight. The water will look sort of scummy afterwards. Don’t worry! This is normal, and you’re getting rid of it anyway.

The next overnight is cooling your ice cream/frozen pudding mixture. The last is freezing your pops. So here you go.

What do you do with frozen pudding? Make a fudgesicle. Duh.

Cashew-Chocolate Pudding Popsicles
- 1 1/4 cup cashew pieces, soaked overnight
- 1 1/4 cup water
Blend to death in a blender — seriously, just turn it on and let it go for 5 minutes or so. You will not be straining this, so you want it smooth. This should yield 2 cups or more of cashew milk — you need 2 cups for the recipe. Use the rest for coffee.
- 2 cups cashew milk, 1/4 cup of this set aside
- 1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon arrowroot starch/powder
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 3 oz dark chocolate (check this for allergens)
- 1 oz food-grade cocoa butter
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla
Mix the arrowroot and the 1/4 cup cashew milk and set aside.

In a sauce pan over medium-low heat, mix the rest of the cashew milk, sugar, cocoa, dark chocolate, and cocoa butter. Melt the solids, whisk them in, and cook, whisking often, until the mixture reaches a low boil. Do not turn up the heat to achieve the boil. This takes time!

When the mixture is boiling, remove from the heat. Whisk in the arrowroot mixture and the vanilla.

Cool overnight in the fridge.

Now from here you can go one of two ways. We put this through the ice cream maker, following the maker’s instructions, and then decided it was better as pops. It’s likely that you can skip this step, but let’s be honest — some of us are a little superstitious, and since it worked right the first way (going through the ice cream maker), that’s how we did it.

Now for the pops, we used Dixie bathroom paper cups, 3 oz. each, leftover from a party we had last year, and they seemed to be the perfect size for this rich treat — no one really wanted a larger pop, and they do melt reasonably fast. If you have popsicle molds, give them a try, but we recommend the little cups. Perfect portions, and easy removal — just tear the cup off. Fill it to the top and add a popsicle stick (it’s thick enough to stay standing straight).

Makes about 12 pops, give or take a few, depending on how much of the pudding/frozen pudding you taste first.
July 1, 2013
Red Lentil Dal Burger
Red Lentil Dal Burger

I LOVE dal. It’s almost a perfect food — cheap, easy to make, adaptable, tasty… But it can be difficult, like so many other things, to order out at a restaurant with allergies. Dal is one of those dishes that seems to have a thousand and one “family recipes” so you never know what you might encounter when you order it out, though ghee is the most common questionable ingredient, cream is sometimes used.

The real question is why it took so long for me to learn to make my own.

When we were talking veggie burgers that would be grillable, this was the one of the first things that came to mind. It would be different from your standard Boca (which is soy-based), but wouldn’t even attempt to be like a meat burger. Flavor would be the key. In this case, rather than even attempt to interpret multiple recipes and see what might sound good, I went on instinct, with flavors I knew I liked that I thought would stand up to grilling in a patty shape. The mustard seeds and the chia seeds add a nice bit of texture and crunch, but the key is the counter-intuitive practice of blooming the spices in hot oil and adding them to the beans at the end of cooking.

You will need to cool down the dal and then briefly (an hour or so) refrigerate the burgers, so plan ahead or make these the day before.

Lentil Burgers with Authentic Grill Marks

Red Lentil Dal Burgers

In medium saucepan, mix:
- 1 cup red lentils, washed and sorted
- 3 cups water
Bring to boil and simmer 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the lentils no longer retain structural integrity. Remove from heat.

Spice mix to add to dal:
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon whole mustard seeds
- 1/2 cup finely minced onion
- 3/4 t salt
- 2 Tablespoons microplaned ginger
- 1 Tablespoon chopped garlic
- 2 teaspoons minced cilantro
Heat a small skillet over medium low heat until hot. Add the oil. Let it heat up a minute, until it shimmers. Add the mustard AND COVER THE PAN (ask me how I know this). When the mustard seeds have popped some, quickly add the onion and cover for another 30 seconds or so. Otherwise, you will be finding popped mustard seeds when you move out. When the onion is nicely browned, add the rest of the spices and cook until the garlic is fragrant and cooked, stirring very frequently so as not to burn anything.

Add the spice mix to the lentils along with
- 2 Tablespoons chia seeds, whole (use maybe 1-1/4 T if ground, but you’ll miss the crunch in here)
Mix well and then taste — adjust the seasonings (particularly salt) if necessary.

Chill this mixture until completely cool, and then use an ice cream scoop or large spoon to make patties — keep these no larger than, say, an average coffee mug’s opening, and they will stay together even on a regular grill — go bigger at your own risk.

These are fully cooked, so just singe and warm them on the grill, and serve with lime wedges. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend a bun, but if you need one, maybe check out the not pitas I originally made to go with them.

Summer perfection — the veggie burger
June 24, 2013
Hot Italian Sausage Burgers with Peppers and Onions
Hot Italian Sausage Burger with Peppers and Onions

As we’ve previously discussed, since it’s summer, we need things to grill outside, which means burgers. I made this burger because buying Italian sausage can be a tricky thing now. Sometimes I can get some that’s allergy free and sometimes I can’t. Also, I developed this recipe before the positive result on the allergy scratch test for onions, but since I’m still hoping the challenge will show I’m not really allergic to onions, and since many of you will still be able to enjoy it, here you go.

Hot Italian Sausage Burgers with Peppers and Onions
- 1 pound of ground pork (make sure your pork is not too lean or your burgers may be dry, if it is too lean, see the optional step below)
- 1/4 teaspoon of salt
- 1/2 teaspoon of garlic salt
- 1/8 teaspoon of ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon of paprika
- 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne
- 1 Tablespoon of red wine vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon of anise seed
- 1/4 teaspoon of fennel seed
- 1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
- 2 Tablespoons of canola oil (you will use an additional teaspoon if you choose the optional step below)
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 green bell pepper
- 1 vidalia onion (or regular yellow onion is fine too)
Place the ground pork into a large bowl. Sprinkle salt, garlic salt, black pepper, paprika, cayenne over pork. Pour red wine vinegar over the pork.

Take anise seed, fennel, and red pepper flakes and grind in a spice grinder (or coffee grinder or mortar and pestle). Take ground spice mixture and mix with oil in a small container. Pour spice and oil mix over pork, scraping down container to make sure it ends up in pork.

[OPTIONAL: Take a quarter to a half of the red bell pepper, green bell pepper and the vidalia onion (depending on the size of the onions and peppers, you don’t want to use so much that the burgers won’t hold together) and clean and chop them finely. Saute them in teaspoon of canola oil until the peppers are softer and the onions are just barely translucent. Remove them from heat and let them cool. To hurry this process along, feel free to put them in the freezer for a few minutes until they are cool. When they are, add them to the pork.]

Mix everything into the ground pork until well blended. The only way to do this really is with your hands. Think meatloaf. Cover bowl and refrigerate for 24 hours so the flavors can blend.

On the day you intend to grill the burgers, clean and de-seed the bell peppers and cut them into slices. Peel the onion, and slice it into slices.

Sliced Onions

Sliced Peppers

Wrap them up into a sealed foil packet. Cook them on the grill in the foil packet over indirect heat. (If you want to make this and you don’t have access to a grill, you could also do them in your oven. Preheat the oven to 4ooºF and place the packet on a cookie sheet. Check them after twenty minutes to see if they’re sufficiently cooked. You may need to let them go a little longer, so craft your foil packet so it’s easy to get open and seal back up. And be careful not to burn yourself with escaping steam.)

Cooked Peppers and Onions

Grill the burgers, making sure the pork is sufficiently cooked. (Or fry them in a pan if your’re cooking inside.)

Grilled Hot Italian Sausage Burgers

Serve with buns that are safe for your food restrictions, and the cooked onions and peppers on top. Enjoy!

Hot Italian Sausage Burger with Peppers and Onions
June 17, 2013