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You know, if you have a good list of allergies, as Denise and I both do, breakfast can be one of the worst meals. If you eat meat, bacon is usually safe, though sausage might or might not be. Take out eggs, gluten for pancakes and waffles… well, you get the picture. I miss going out for breakfast. And as much as I love them, I’m actually getting bored of cereal and hash browns for breakfast.
So why not polenta? I have eaten leftover corn polenta for breakfast (the kind that comes in a nice tube at the grocery store), and it’s great as a savory breakfast, but I started thinking of the millet polenta in Vegan with a Vengeance — that was the first polenta I ever made and the first time I’d eaten millet. We used to buy it for the parakeets we had growing up, and I still sort of think of it as bird food. But it’s really tasty!
This recipe easily doubles into a 9×11 pan, but for one breakfast or one person who doesn’t want to eat it for 9 days, do this in an 8×8 pan. My favorite part is that all the work is done ahead of time, with maybe 10 minutes of work in the morning — and most of those are what some recipes call “inactive” time. I am not a morning person.
Millet polenta with blueberries and maple syrup
Breakfast Polenta
Make-ahead preparation:
In a sauce pan, mix
1 cup millet, rinsed
1 1/2 cups orange juice
1 1/2 cups water
1 Tablespoon oil, shortening, or Earth Balance (use coconut oil if you can)
1 or 2 cinnamon sticks
Bring this mixture to a boil, turn it down, and let it simmer for 30-35 minutes.
In a separate small pan, heat
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1 Tablespoon orange juice
1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut (optional)
When the blueberries are soft, mash them with a fork or potato masher, just until you have a rough jelly.
Into a greased 8×8 pan, put half the millet mixture in the pan, smooth down, spread the blueberry mix on top, and then add the second half of millet mix and smooth it out.
Allow it to cool at room temperature and then refrigerate.
Morning preparation:
You will need
1 teaspoon to 1 Tablespoon of coconut oil, Earth Balance, or other oil of your choosing (just enough to coat the bottom of your skillet)
In the morning, heat a skillet over medium heat. Add your oil — this isn’t absolutely necessary, but it will promote a good browning, which really makes the polenta to me. Pan fry on both sides, 5-7 minutes per side.
Plate and drizzle with maple syrup. Pour it on slowly to allow it to soak in. Oh, and get the real stuff — you’re worth it.
What do you eat for breakfast? Do you rely on the same standards, over and over, or do you mix it up?
Before the food allergy apocalypse hit, one of the things I really liked to do was to make my own Peking Ravioli (aka Potsticker, Wonton, Gyoza, etc.) or whatever you want to call your basic Asian style dumpling. Apparently you only call them Peking Ravioli if you live in the Northeast because that was what Joyce Chen called them in her restaurant in Boston in the 1950’s–the things you learn when blogging. But in the before times, in the long, long ago, I liked to make them by buying pre-made wonton wrappers at the grocery store, which, at least for the grocery stores in New Hampshire, all contain egg. So I thought I’d try to come up with a gluten free vegan wrapper so Mary Kate could eat some too. (I can have wheat, at least for now. More food allergy testing later today. Please cross your fingers for me that they don’t find any more food allergies, and if they do, it’s an easy to avoid one like a fruit.) My gluten free vegan dough attempt was pretty much a spectacular failure, and it’s going to take some more research and some more work, but I’ll keep trying. At the same time, I had decided to try an egg free dough that I had found using all purpose flour (warning: I mean a real wheat flour) and boiling water, because I knew I was going to have too much filling, and I like to do a lot of experiments at once because you’re more likely to have at least one success. The egg-free real wheat flour version worked. Again, I promise to keep trying for a gluten free version.
Anyway, the really nice thing about this recipe is that you can make a bunch of them up, put them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet (this is prior to cooking them), making sure they don’t touch and then throw them in your freezer on the cookie sheet until they are frozen solid. Then you can pop them into a ziploc freezer bag, and you can take a few out here and there to use whenever you want, to steam, to pan-fry or to put in soup, because they’re not frozen together in a lump. It’s labor intensive for an afternoon on the weekend, but then you’ll have lots and lots of dumplings for whenever you want!
1 cup of chicken stock (check the label if using store bought)
2-3 tablespoons of sesame oil
First, if you are steaming or pan frying your dumplings and you need dipping sauce, put all the ingredients for the dipping sauce in a small bowl, whisk the ingredients together until they are well combined, and then put it aside until your dumplings are cooked. (I forgot to take a picture, sorry.)
To make the dough for the dumpling wrappers, I used my stand mixer with a dough hook, but you can just use a bowl and a spatula too. Place the flour in the bowl and mix the boiling water in slowly until the dough forms a ball. If using a mixer, continue on low speed to knead it for a few minutes. If using the low tech method, knead it with your hands for a few minutes. Shape it into a smooth ball and place it in a ziploc bag to rest a bit while you make the filling.
To make the filling, prepare all the ingredients if you haven’t already. I grated the carrot as finely as shown below:
Carrots grated with a Microplane fine grater
The Napa cabbage, I sliced very finely with a very sharp knife, aiming for a width of a quarter of an inch or less, and then chopped the slices into smaller pieces:
Shredded Napa cabbage in bowl with other ingredients
Place ground pork, garlic, carrot, ginger, green onions, Nappa cabbage, water chestnuts, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, chili garlic sauce, cornstarch, and salt in a bowl, and mix throughly using your hands. You might want to put it in your refrigerator while you roll out the wrappers.
Pork Dumpling Filling
Now it’s time to make your wrappers. You can roll out your dough on a very clean counter top, a dough rolling mat, or a cutting board. I used a rolling pin and a biscuit cutter which was three inches in diameter to make the wrappers. Spread some flour over the surface of your work area. This dough is very sticky, you’re going to need quite a bit of flour for dusting, and it’s much easier to do it in small pieces. I only rolled out enough dough to cut out 2 or 3 wrappers at a time, as any larger attempts stuck to the mat too easily. Take a piece of the dough about the size of a plum, and using your flour to dust liberally, roll the dough to about an 1/8 of an inch thick and use your biscuit cutter (cookie cutter, or even a water glass in a pinch) to cut out the wrapper. Take your scraps and a bit more of the dough, and knead them together a bit and roll out a couple more wrappers. Keep doing this until all the dough is gone.
Dumpling Wrappers
Again, this dough is very sticky, make sure you dust them liberally before putting them in a pile. I didn’t and I had several wrappers stick together, which I then had to roll out again when I tried to use them.
Now it’s time to make your dumplings. I just want to say that this is a much softer dough that your usual wonton wrapper you get from the grocery store, and it’s harder to get a “pretty” result. And I’m not an expert by any means. So go check out this video by an expert for different shapes and techniques if you need a better explanation than the one I’m about to attempt. Especially once you see the picture of my completed ones below. Take a wrapper, hold it open in the palm of your hand. Place about a teaspoon or so of filling in the center of the dumpling and fold up the sides of the wrapper, pinching it shut, making little pleats if you have that kind of dexterity.
Dumplings on a sheet pan covered with parchment paper
Now you get to choose how to cook them. I provide three methods below, but the first, Pan-frying, is what I used this time:
Pan-frying Dumplings: Place a little sesame seed oil in a skillet (which must have a tight fitting lid) over medium heat. Add dumplings, but so that they do not touch and have enough room to cook separately.
Dumplings properly spaced in skillet
Fry until golden brown, and then turn to fry the other side to the same golden brown color as shown below:
Dumplings fried golden brown
Once both sides are golden brown, add a quarter cup of chicken stock and put the tight fitting lid on the skillet. Continue to cook over medium heat while dumplings steam from chicken broth for another 3 – 7 minutes (depending on whether they were fresh or if they were dumplings you froze to use later) making sure to test one to see if they are done before serving. You may need to adjust your cooking times. Continue to fry and then steam dumplings in batches until you have cooked all the dumplings you intend to serve. Serve with dipping sauce.
Steaming Dumplings: Use a metal steamer basket or a bamboo steamer in an appropriate size pot with a tight fitting lid with enough water so that it will not touch the dumplings. Place the dumplings in a single layer in the steamer. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium and put the lid on the pot. If the dumplings are freshly made, cook for 5 minutes or so, but test one to see if they are done before serving. If you froze your dumplings to use later, don’t thaw them, but cook them for about 15 to 20 minutes, testing to see if they are done before serving. Serve with dipping sauce.
Dumplings In Soup: You can do a quick wonton soup, using some chicken broth, some green onions, some Napa cabbage, thinly sliced carrots and some of your dumplings. Bring the chicken broth to a boil, add the dumplings and carrots, and then reduce the heat to medium. When the dumplings and carrots are cooked, add the green onions, Napa cabbage and cook for a minute or two more. I like to add some white pepper or Chinese Five Spice to season it as well. This is a really quick dinner if you’re using dumplings you froze to use later, and some frozen homemade chicken stock, or a store bought version (checking the labels of course).
Hope you like these, and I will keep trying for a gluten free version I like to share.
Plate of Chocolate Chipped Goodness — from top left, vegan GF, vegan, walnut
Because it’s Earth Day, and it’s our 100th post, we thought we should make cookies. Because cookies are round, like the Earth. And because making cookies and giving them to people makes you a hero. Or just sharing — you don’t have to give them all away, promise. You can eat them, too. Cookies are happiness, right?
Well, cookies are often not even close to happiness when you’re an allergen sufferer. If you have adult-onset allergies, you might remember making the classic Tollhouse cookie — wheat flour, eggs, butter, chocolate chips that contain milk. The recipe itself is almost a list of allergens. But it doesn’t have to be! We’re here to show you a few ways (but not quite 100).
The following recipes — there are 4 — are all variations on the chocolate chip cookie. The first two are classic; the very first is completely allergen-free — gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free, nut-free, vegan. The rest are also vegan (no dairy, no eggs), but the second recipe contains gluten, and the last two contain nuts. One of these is bound to work for you. Read on for the details.
Vegan Gluten-free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Gluten-Free and Allergen-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies, Version 1
allergen-free.
Makes about 50-60 cookies using approximately 1 Tablespoon of dough for each cookie.
2 Tablespoons of ground chia seed meal
6 Tablespoons of water
315 grams of the Glutenfreegirl’s All Purpose Gluten Free Flour Mix for Cookies (see recipe here, I made a half batch and it was enough for this with 185 grams left over – I don’t know if this would work with other commercial gluten free mixes but if you want to try it, I’m using 140 grams to the cup so if you’re using cups because your mix is a 1:1 ratio, it’s 2 1/4 cups)
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup of Soy-free Earth Balance (if you can have soy, 2 sticks Earth Balance buttery spread)
3/4 cup of brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup of granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon of vanilla extract
2 cups of allergen-free chocolate chips (Enjoy Life chocolate chips recommended)
Preheat your oven to 375°F.
In a small container mix ground chia seed meal and water thoroughly. Set aside until needed to let it gel.
Then measure out the Gluten Free Flour Mix for Cookies, salt, and baking soda and place in a bowl. Whisk ingredients together until they are well incorporated into each other, and set aside until its needed.
Using your mixer (preferably a stand mixer) beat the Earth Balance, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl until it’s creamy, scraping down the sides as needed to make sure that all the ingredients are completely mixed together. The reason that you are using cold Earth Balance right out of the fridge is that (a) if you have a KitchenAid or other stand mixer it’ll take the punishment and beat the Earth Balance when it’s cold anyway, and I am way too impatient to wait to soften anything and doing it in the microwave is always a disaster, (b) Earth Balance seems to have a much lower melting point that regular margarine or butter, so you’re giving yourself a fighting chance to have your dough stay doughy when you’re waiting to bake cookies in multiple batches in the oven, and (c) I think it makes the cookies crispier, but I have no empirical evidence for that really.
Add one half of the chia mixture and beat it well to mix it in completely, again scraping down the sides as needed. Add the second half of the chia mixture and do the same.
Gradually add the Gluten Free Flour Mix for Cookies while beating well, again scraping down the sides as needed, until all of it is incorporated into the dough. Using a spoon, mix in the chocolate chips. (You don’t want to use the mixer because it’ll mash the chocolate chips into little bits.)
Drop dough (I used a scoop that holds one tablespoon) onto ungreased baking sheets. I used Pampered Chef stoneware so if you’re using a metal pan you may need to adjust the baking time. Gluten free baking takes longer than regular baking so even though these cookies are 1/3 the size of the other recipe I did with regular flour, they take just as long or longer to cook. Bake for 15-17 minutes (using the stoneware, I baked them for 17 minutes for the best results, with metal sheet pans, try the lower end of the range, but watch your cookies).
Once you have taken them out of the oven, let them cool on the baking sheet for 2-4 minutes or so to let them set up a bit, and then using a spatula, remove the cookies to a cooling rack to finish cooling. Enjoy!
Chocolate Chip Cookies – Vegan (not GF)
Classic Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies, Version 2
contains gluten.
Makes about 20 three inch cookies using approximately 3 Tablespoons of dough for each cookie. (I like big cookies. If you like smaller cookies, use 1 Tablespoon of dough and adjust the cooking time to about 10 minutes, and you’ll get 5 dozen cookies).
2 Tablespoons of ground chia seed meal
6 Tablespoons of water
2 1/4 cups of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup of Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread Soy Free or 2 sticks of Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks, COLD
3/4 cup of brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup of granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon of vanilla extract
2 cups of vegan or allergy free for you chocolate chips (Enjoy Life chocolate chips recommended)
Preheat your oven to 375°F.
In a small container mix ground chia seed meal and water thoroughly. Set aside until needed to let it gel.
Then measure out flour, salt, and baking soda and place in a bowl. Whisk ingredients together until they are well incorporated into each other, and set aside until its needed.
Using your mixer (preferably a stand mixer) beat the Earth Balance, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl until it’s creamy, scraping down the sides as needed to make sure that all the ingredients are completely mixed together. The reason that you are using cold Earth Balance right out of the fridge is that (a) if you have a KitchenAid or other stand mixer it’ll take the punishment and beat the Earth Balance when it’s cold anyway, and I am way too impatient to wait to soften anything and doing it in the microwave is always a disaster, (b) Earth Balance seems to have a much lower melting point that regular margarine or butter, so you’re giving yourself a fighting chance to have your dough stay doughy when you’re waiting to bake cookies in multiple batches in the oven, and (c) I think it makes the cookies crispier, but I have no empirical evidence for that really.
Add one half of the chia mixture and beat it well to mix it in completely, again scraping down the sides as needed. Add the second half of the chia mixture and do the same.
Gradually add the flour mixture while beating well, again scraping down the sides as needed, until all the flour is incorporated into the dough. Using a spoon, mix in the chocolate chips. (You don’t want to use the mixer because it’ll mash the chocolate chips into little bits.)
Drop dough (I used a scoop that holds three tablespoons) onto ungreased baking sheets. I used Pampered Chef stoneware so if you’re using a metal pan you may need to adjust the baking time. Bake for 15-17 minutes (using the stoneware, I baked them for 17 minutes for the best results, with metal sheet pans, try the lower end of the range, but watch your cookies).
Once you have taken them out of the oven, let them cool on the baking sheet for 2-4 minutes or so to let them set up a bit, and then using a spatula, remove the cookies to a cooling rack to finish cooling. Enjoy!
Almond-based Chocolate Chipper
Almond-based Chocolate Chip Cookies, Version 3
contains nuts. Makes about 16 cookies.
Preheat oven to 350F
1 1/4 cup almond meal/ground almonds
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup allergen-free chocolate chips (Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips recommended — mini chips are best in this)
2 Tablespoons oil (I used canola — use what you like for baking, but if using coconut, melt it first)
1/4 cup agave syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Whisk almond meal, salt, cinnamon, chips, and coconut, if using, together in a medium bowl.
Whisk oil, agave, and vanilla together in a small bowl. It will be tempting to skip this step and just add the wet ingredients into the dry, but don’t. The oil mixed into the syrup will make it mix smoother in the end.
Mix the wet ingredients into the dry with a rubber spatula. You will have a pretty thick dough, but mix until there are no dry spots.
Drop by the tablespoon onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. You don’t really need to space these, as they do not spread out. Bake for 12 minutes, until slightly browned on the bottom (baking time on a metal cookie sheet). Rest them on the cookie sheet for 3 minutes or so before CAREFULLY cooling completely on a wire rack. Be careful — these cookies are a little… loose. These cookies are MUCH better completely cooled — the flavors are muddled when warm. Enjoy!
Walnut-based Chocolate Chippers
Walnut-based Chocolate Chip Cookies, Version 4
contains nuts. Makes about 12-16 cookies.
Preheat oven to 350F.
1 1/4 cups ground walnuts (I have not seen walnut meal for sale. Pulse them in a food processor.)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (Enjoy Life recommended)
Whisk together the walnuts, salt, and chocolate chips.
Whisk together the oil, syrup, and vanilla. This will take a minute, as the brown rice syrup is thick, but it will come together. (A measuring tip — measure out the oil into the 1/3 cup measuring cup. Swirl it around before dumping it in the bowl, and then use that cup to measure the syrup, and it will come right out.)
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix with a rubber spatula.
Drop 1 Tablespoon scoops onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, about 1 inch apart. Bake 12-17 minutes or until cookies have spread and edges begin to brown (baking time on a metal sheet). Let rest only a few minutes on the cookie sheet before removing to a wire rack to cool. Unlike the almond-based cookies, these are even better warm. Enjoy!
Cookies from King Arthur GF box mix
If you are newly gluten-free, don’t want to buy 100 spendy new flours and want to make cookies, try the King Arthur box mix. It is a box mix, so it’s not as great as making them from scratch, but it is good. And early successes in gluten-free baking are worth it.
We hope that our happy 100th post has inspired you to venture up the cookie tree. You know, the tree that the elves live in? If you have no elves, you’ll have to bake your own cookies, but we promise, if we can do it, you can do it. Your friends will love you for it.
Got a favorite recipe? Tried one of ours and liked it? We’d love to hear from you.
Disclaimer: This is not an original recipe. But it’s the best curry I’ve ever made at home, and as such, I want to share it with all of you today. With full credit to the author and cookbook, of course.
The Chickpea and Spinach Curry comes from one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s Vegan with a Vengeance. This is the first cookbook I purchased after my first intolerance-related diagnosis — lactose intolerance. While I ate a strictly vegan diet for a while, and don’t at the moment, I still love vegan cookbooks. They correlate with my preferred way of eating — heavy on the vegetables — and a good vegan cookbook relies mostly on whole foods, not processed foods. In a completely non-compensated way, I can highly and heartily endorse this whole cookbook (though, honestly, if you’re brand new to vegan cooking, consider starting with Veganomicon, as it’s got more basic information in it and a broader range of recipes). Most vegan cookbook authors are very aware of ingredients and a great place to learn to cook without — no matter what you’re cooking without.
And it’s a big hit at potlucks — with vegans and omnivores alike. The recipe below is kind of huge. If it’s just for me, I made a half-recipe.
So, without further ado:
Mise en place
Chickpea and Spinach Curry, from Vegan with Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
Preheat a pot over medium heat. A good Dutch oven would work, if you have one, or a large sauce pan, but to minimize the mess I generally make with cooking (and because I don’t have a Dutch oven), I use my stock pot. When the pot is hot, add
3 Tablespoons oil (not olive, vegetable, as this is kind of hot for olive oil)
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
Cover the pot and let the seeds pop for about a minute. They do pop, like popcorn. It’s cool.
Turn the heat up to medium-high. Add the following:
1 large onion, chopped (about 2 cups)
Sautee until it starts to brown — 5-10 minutes, depending on your heat level.
1/4 cup of juice drained from can of diced tomatoes
14 oz can of diced tomatoes, with juice drained and reserved*
Rinse and drain, then chop
10 cups of spinach, chopped. Yes this seems like a TON, but it really will all incorporate perfectly. Add this in handsful, stirring each addition until wilted.
When all the spinach is wilted, add:
2 cans of chickpeas (15 oz. each), rinsed and drained (4 cups if you cook your own)
Stir, cover and turn heat to low. If you’re planning to make rice, start it now. Let the stew simmer for 10 minutes.
Uncover, stir, taste. Adjust the seasonings if necessary (I’ve only ever needed a tiny pinch of salt), and let simmer for another 10 minutes, until its all thickened and wonderous. Enjoy it over rice.
*The single asterisk represents minor alterations I’ve made to the original recipe.
**Curry powder is amazing, but it’s a blend of ground spice, so quality can vary widely. To get a good curry, the spices must be fresh when they’re combined and reasonably fresh when you use it. And your curry dish will only be as good as your curry spice is. As you might already know, both of us believe the post-apocalypse relies heavily on Penzey’s Spices, based in Wisconsin. They have a variety of curries; if you’re new to curry, try the sweet curry. Curry is NOT inherently spicy hot, so don’t be scared if you don’t like spicy. If you do like spicy, try the hot curry.
So that’s the best curry I know how to make. Let us know what you think.
Before the food allergy apocalypse hit, one of the things I really liked was Thai food, and one of the dishes I really enjoyed at Siam Orchid, our local Thai place, was Hot & Crazy Noodles, which is a spicy version of Pad Sei Ew (or whatever spelling variant of Thai anglicized you might find). It’s probably a safe-ish dish for me still, but going to Thai places reminds me of all the curry and satay and other yummy dishes that I now cannot eat because of the whole coconut thing, so I just don’t go. But I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately, so I thought I’d try to do my own version.
Hot & Crazy Asian Noodles Apocalypse Style
Makes 4-6 servings (if you are cooking for one or two people and don’t want tons of leftovers, cut the portion amounts in half).
a dash of fresh ground szechuan peppercorns (I took about 4 and ground them in a mortar and pestle)
First, mix the soy sauce and the baking soda for the chicken marinade in a small bowl and then add the sliced chicken, mixing it well. Put it aside.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the rice noodles and cook according to the directions on the package (mine said about 6-8 minutes). When done, drain the noodles using a colander and then place them back in the pot, tossing them with the canola oil so that they are less likely to stick together.
Cooked and Drained Rice Noodles
Using some of the chili oil, coat the bottom of your wok (or skillet in my case, I know I used to have a wok, but I have no idea where it went), turn the heat to medium high and cook the chicken in batches so it fries and doesn’t just steam. Once you have finished one batch, place it aside in a large bowl and cook then next batch, again placing it the large bowl when it’s cooked.
Chicken cooked in batches
Using a bit more of the chili oil if needed, start stir frying the carrot, onion, peas, zucchini, asparagus, green onion, bean sprouts, thai chili, baby bok choi leaves, and thai basil leaves in batches, adding them to the large bowl when cooked.
Stir-fried VeggiesStir-fried VeggiesStir-fried Baby Bok Choi and Basil
To make the sauce for the noodles, whisk the garlic, ginger, soy sauce, Sriracha, Hoisin sauce, rice wine vinegar, corn starch, sugar and szechuan peppercorns together in a little bowl. Using a little of the chili oil, stir fry the cooked noodles in your wok/skillet and add the sauce for the noodles, mixing well, until the noodles are hot and thoroughly coated with the sauce.
Cooked Noodles Coated in Sauce
Once the noodles are coated and nice and hot, place them in the large bowl with the other ingredients and mix all the ingredients in the bowl thoroughly.
All cooked ingredients being mixed in bowl
Once mixed, serve them immediately while they are nice and hot, and have some of the Sriracha and Hoisin available as condiments so your family and/or guests can doctor their portions to their taste. Enjoy!
For the many years where the only allergen I needed to avoid was dairy, Asian restaurants of most types were a saving grace. With the exception of Indian cuisine, which uses cream and butter, most cuisines of the Asian continent use little to no dairy.
Now that there are more allergens in my arsenal, it’s not quite as simple. But what is reasonably simple is learning to adapt recipes at home. I like that stir fry is an excellent way to incorporate a lot of vegetables into one dish, with meat as a flavoring rather than the focus — and you can make a vegan version by either substituting tofu or seitan for the meat. This marinade should work well for either, but I have not tried it since I can’t eat either anymore.
Year of the Snake Stir Fry
For marinade:
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 1/4 teaspoon crushed garlic (2-3 cloves)
1 Tablespoon, rounded, crushed or grated ginger
2 Tablespoons gluten-free tamari (soy sauce)
3 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar
4 Tablespoons mirin (Japanese cooking wine) or dry cooking sherry
Add
1/2 to 3/4 of a pound of thin cut pork sirloin, cut into bite-sized chunks
1 cup thinly sliced onions.
Marinate overnight.
Get rice cooking. I can’t give you a recipe or time — read your package or your rice cooker directions. I am generally hopeless at cooking rice. My Chinese ancestors would be less than best pleased.
Stir fry with
1/4 cup yellow bell pepper, sliced thin
1 cup celery, chopped
1 cup broccoli florets
1 cup of sugar snap peas, whole
1 cup of mushroom pieces, broken instead of sliced
1/4 cup of celery leaves, chopped
This makes a lot of stir fry. I tend to stir fry the ingredients in rounds, each ingredient separately — meat first, and then through the veggies. Strain the marinade out — you want to fry the meat, not boil it — and discard. Stir fry until cooked through, and then remove from pan. Cook the peppers. Remove. I stir fry in canola oil, and use it sparingly adding a tiny bit with each ingredient.
Stir Fry Flavor Meld
When all your food is cooked, dump it all back in the wok, turn the burner off, and give it a few minutes to meld.
Serve over rice. Or, you know, dump some rice in to flavor meld, too.
Before I start my rhapsody on the glories of bacon and Sriracha, let me just confess that this wasn’t my idea and isn’t my recipe, which is why we’re posting it on Whatever Wednesday. For that we can thank Scott Hutcheson, whose recipe was provided in his blog, and then was picked up and discussed by another blog, True Laurel, where one of my friends saw it and pinned it on Pinterest. I had to try this. I’ve made some minor modifications, because I’m used to cooking my bacon in oven, I like it really crispy, and I’m way too lazy to use a baking rack and then have to wash it afterwards. It works perfectly fine just on the baking sheet or piece of stoneware (but it does work best on the stoneware between the two), but you will want to use some tongs to remove the bacon from the baking sheet and place them on a sheet lined with paper towels to drain after baking.
Okay, I’m beginning the rhapsody. Two of my favorite foods in the whole world, together at last. (Sounds like an ad for an duet album on TV when they still had ads like that right?) In any case, the guy who thought this up was a culinary genus. It’s beyond awesome.
Bacon with Brown Sugar and Sriracha
a package of Hormel’s Black Label Applewood Smoked Thick Cut Bacon
a bottle of Sriracha (you squeeze it onto the bacon from the bottle, using probably no more than 3 Tablespoons or so)
3-4 Tablespoons of brown sugar
Preheat your oven to 375°F. Lay your bacon strips out carefully so they do not overlap on your baking sheet or stoneware. (I’m using the Pampered Chef large bar pan stone.
Bacon laid out on stoneware
Take your Sriracha bottle and run a line of Sriracha down each strip of bacon.
Sriracha lines on bacon
Once you have the Sriracha on the bacon, take a basting brush and spread the Sriracha evenly over each strip of bacon.
Spreading Sriracha evenly over bacon strips
Now sprinkle the brown sugar evenly over the bacon strips. I found it was easiest just to use my fingers to do it.
Brown sugar sprinkled over Sriracha covered bacon
Bake for 15-20 minutes. Check on your bacon at about 15 minutes so it gets to the proper level of “done-ness” for you. Again I like mine really crispy, so I’ll let mine go longer until it’s where I want it.
Bacon just out of the oven
Once it’s out of the oven, use a fork or a pair of tongs to lay them on some paper towels to drain away the excess bacon fat.
Welcome to another segment of our Hangover Breakfast series! Again, I used the method that the Gluten Free Girl and the Chef have provided on their blog to make an all-purpose flour mix, to choose flours with waffles and pancakes in mind, which I posted previously (see link below). Waffles are great, but then you have to clean the waffle maker, which you might not want to do on the morning after, or if it’s just an every day sort of breakfast. So then, hey, pancakes! You can also dress these up anyway you want, add blueberries, chocolate chips, apples and cinnamon, etc. You can also make up a batch, let them cool, put wax paper in between them and put them in a container in the freezer and toast them when you want some too.
1 1/4 cups of rice milk (or other alternative milk of your choice)
some Earth Balance Soy Free Natural Buttery spread to grease your skillet with.
Measure out flour, salt, baking powder and brown sugar and place in a bowl. Whisk ingredients together until they are well incorporated into each other.
Dry pancake ingredients in a bowl
Mix ground chia seed meal and water in a container to form a chia egg, setting it aside to let it gel.
Chia and Water to form chia egg
Measure out rice milk, oil and vanilla into a container large enough to add the chia egg. Add the chia egg and whisk it together so that chia is well incorporated into the rice milk.
Rice milk mixture and chia egg whisked together
Pour chia and rice milk mixture into the flour mixture and whisk them together until most of the lumps are gone.
Pancake batter after mixing dry and wet ingredients together
Melt a bit of the Earth Balance, maybe half a teaspoon or so in a skillet over medium to medium high heat, depending on your burner strength. When your skillet is hot, scoop some of the pancake batter into the skillet. I used a Pampered Chef large scoop that holds about 3 Tablespoons of batter to portion out the pancakes into the skillet.
Portioning out batter into skillet
Cook until the edges of the pancake look dry and there are bubbles in the batter. You can use a spatula to gently lift up an edge to see how brown the pancakes are underneath.
Pancakes just about ready to be flipped
When they are a nice deep golden brown, flip them and cook until the other side is a nice deep golden brown. I found that I needed to cook them a bit longer than I normally would cook wheat flour pancakes, which I understand is fairly common for gluten free cooking.
Pancakes after flipping
Enjoy them with some maple syrup and Earth Balance Soy Free buttery spread!
