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Vegetarian/Vegan – Page 21 – surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)

surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)

Tag: Vegetarian/Vegan

Recipes contain no animal products or by-products. Consider the sourcing of your ingredients if purity is important to you.

Apple Cranberry Crisp
Apple Cranberry Crisp

I think you’re an apple crisp person or an apple pie person. Or at least I am, and I fall squarely into the apple crisp camp. I can pass up apple pie anytime because unless the crust is perfect and amazing, which it rarely is, I don’t want it. It just seems like a waste of space in my stomach when I could be using that space for the good stuff. And a fruit crisp is all good stuff. And it’s a lot easier to make a crisp than a pie. So since it’s that time of year when you can get both cranberries, and lovely apples, I decided this would be a great time to post this recipe. This is also a lovely alternative to pie at Thanksgiving if you’re in a time squeeze or you just haven’t managed to perfect your pie crust technique yet, gluten free or otherwise.

Cortland Apples

As a side note, I have a problem with believing that 4 cups of cored, peeled and sliced apples can possibly equal 3-4 real apples. For some reason when I’m at the grocery store, I am compelled to buy twice as many apples as I need. So although there are 5 apples in this picture, it’s because I already cut up the 3 apples (three, count them, three) I needed to make this recipe, because I bought eight. (Eight!! What was I thinking?) So when I say 3-4 apples below, I really mean it. Good thing we like to just eat apples.

Apple Cranberry Crisp
- 12 oz bag of fresh cranberries (or frozen, I often pop a bag or two in the freezer at this time of year to have on hand later when you can’t get them)
- 4 cups of cored, peeled, and sliced apples (3-4 apples depending on size, I used Cortlands, but any baking apple will do. )
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice
- ¼ teaspoon of salt
- 1 cup brown sugar, packed
- 1 cup quick cooking oats
- ½ cup of oat flour (you may need additional flour depending on humidity and whether your crumble stays together, add it 1 Tablespoon at a time until it holds together)
- 6 Tablespoons of Earth Balance soy free margarine
- 1 teaspoon of Earth Balance soy free margarine
Quartered, Cored and Peeled Apples

Cored, Peeled and Sliced Apples

When peeling apples, I prefer to use a vegetable peeler rather than a knife because it cuts a thinner peel off and I lose less apple to the garbage can. I like to do varying size pieces so that some get more mushy and some are larger so you get a varying mouth feel.

Rinse the cranberries and pick out any mushy, squashed, or icky-looking berries, as well as any leaves and stems left in the package.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

Cranberries, Apples, Sugar, Salt and Lemon in Bowl

Cranberry and Apple Mixture after mixing

Once all your apples are peeled and your cranberries are clean, combine the cranberries, apples, sugar, lemon juice and salt in a bowl. Mix the contents of the bowl well.

Cranberry Apple Mixture in Baking Dish

Grease the bottom and sides of an 8” x 8” baking dish with 1 teaspoon of Earth Balance soy free margarine. After greasing is complete, place place the cranberry apple mixture into the baking dish.

Brown Sugar, Oats, Oat Flour and Earth Balance

Cutting in Earth Balance

In another bowl, combine the brown sugar, oats, and oat flour. Mix well, and then cut in the Earth Balance soy free margarine. I used a pastry blender, but you could use a fork if you don’t have one.

Apple Cranberry Crisp after baking

Cover the cranberry apple mixture in the baking pan with the brown sugar mixture. Bake at 325 degrees for 60 minutes (70-75 minutes if your cranberries are frozen) or until topping is crispy and fruit tender.

Serve with your favorite vanilla dairy free ice cream or dairy free whipped topping. Enjoy!
November 12, 2012
Better Than Sex Vegan Rum Caramel Sauce
Cake with Better than Sex Vegan Rum Caramel Sauce

So, one of the major bummers about a milk allergy is no more caramel. Or at least no more store bought candy with caramel. And I miss that. So by adapting a recipe that was used to make sticky buns, we developed this caramel. The first thing we used it for was to dump over a cake as shown above. (We’re not giving you the recipe for the cake because it wasn’t very good cake. Although I’m convinced that I could eat cardboard if this sauce was on it.)

It’s also very good on fruit. And might have been prettier to show you if I had remembered to pick up apples, but that didn’t happen.

Caramel Sauce over Fruit

I tried to be artistic with the fruit photo but it didn’t work out. Don’t shoot me, I’m an adult coping with food allergies, not a photographer Jim! (Yes, that was a gratuitous Star Trek reference, I’m ashamed of myself as well.) But back to the subject at hand, this freaking unbelievable caramel sauce. So in trying to figure out what I could use it for to take pretty pictures for you guys, and after Mary Kate and I had fun playing with the Vegan Creme Filled Chocolate Egg recipe a couple of weeks ago, I got my hands on some skull molds. Halloween is coming, people. And if I could have a caramel filled candy, (miss MISS Rolos) then all would be right with the world. Sort of. In an overblown and dramatic first world way. So *drumroll*, I made myself some skulls filled with caramel.

So to begin, first the sauce. (Although if you’re going to use this for the skulls and/or other molded chocolate, do the skulls first and get them all ready. It’ll make it much easier.)

Better than Sex Vegan Rum Caramel Sauce
- 1 ½ cups of firmly packed dark brown sugar
- ½ cup Earth Balance Soy Free Vegan margarine
- 6 Tablespoons of real maple syrup
- 2 Tablespoons of dark corn syrup
- 1 Tablespoon of vanilla
- 2 Tablespoons of Goslings Dark Seal Rum
All ingredients in sauce pan

Place all ingredients in sauce pan.

Stirring ingredients

Stir ingredients over low-medium heat and stir until all ingredients dissolve.

Caramel Sauce when ready

Sauce will thicken and it is ready when it coats the back of a metal spoon and drips off it in long slow drips. Do not let it get too hot or have it on the heat for too long or it will begin to sugar back out. Ask me how I know.

To make skulls, there’s a full explanation at the recipe for the Vegan Creme Filled Chocolate Egg, but I used:
- 1 2/3 cup(s) of Vegan chocolate chips, more or less depending on size and thickness of chocolate shells
Chips and Shortening in Double Boiler

Melted Chocolate

Place chocolate chips and shortening in double boiler. Melt over low to medium heat and mix thoroughly.

Painting Molds with Chocolate

Painted Molds

You then paint the molds with the chocolate, place them in the freezer until hard and repeat until you have a thick enough chocolate layer. To do these skulls, I repeated the process 4-5 times.

Large Skull Half filled with caramel

Once the molds are complete and the caramel is cool enough, you need to fill the cavities with caramel. Place the molds back in the freezer until they are completely cold.

Skull Halves removed from Mold

Once they are completely cold remove them from the molds. I used chocolate as glue to stick the skull halves together and then put them back in the molds in the freezer until they cemented together. Voila!

Completed Skull

Caramel Sauce on Apples – MK made the sauce and took a photo after I drafted the post 🙂
October 29, 2012
Awesome Cake Doughnuts — yes, gluten-free
Mini Powdered Sugars

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

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

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

Plain Cake Donut, from Babycakes Covers the Classics

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

Mise en place

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

Raw Doughnut Power

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

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

Naked Doughnuts

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

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

Chocolate with sprinkles
October 22, 2012
Amanda and Ken’s Smoky Sweet Potato Soup
Amanda & Ken’s Smoky Sweet Potato Soup

Note (note 1): This post seems to have a lot of notes.

My last year of grad school, my two roommates and I hosted somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 people for Thanksgiving. We added all the leaves of my drop-leaf table (I’m the last of the grandkids to get it, and it seats 12), plus several desks and side tables and created this huge banquet table that took up our whole living room. It was honestly possibly the best Thanksgiving dinner ever. There was SO MUCH food, and it was all amazing — and all done on grad school food budgets.

[Vaguely related side-note (note 2): It did not hurt the situation that apparently, people don’t love pumpkin pie as much as I do, and leftovers consisted of an entire pie that no one else in my house wanted. I ate it. All of it. To our lovely readers: if anyone knows of a gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, SOY-free pumpkin pie recipe that works, please please please please share. I will be forever in your debt.]

This amazing recipe was made by my friends Amanda and Ken (who also brought something else reasonably gourmet for grad school. It involved fancy cheese and mushrooms, I think.) Neither of them remembers where the recipe came from, and apparently neither one has a copy anymore. This isn’t the original anyway, but it’s still perfect — thick and creamy, smoky and sweet, and possibly the most perfect welcome to fall soup ever.

Note about measurements (note 3): This is not a recipe in which all ingredients must be precisely measured. It’s more about proportions. If you get stuck buying a threesome of leeks (like I did) and can’t see where the left-out leek will get used in your weekly meals, add it and cut back the onion a bit. Adjust the seasonings to your preferences (For example, I often double the amount of nutmeg in this soup, but when making it for other people, who find that overpowering, this is the recipe I use).

Amanda & Ken’s Smoky Sweet Potato Soup

In large sauce pan over medium heat, melt:
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon soy-free Earth Balance
Add:
- 1 ⅓ cup chopped sweet onion (about 1 medium onion)
- 2 ¼ cup chopped leek, white and light green only (about 2)*
- 1 teaspoon chopped garlic (about 2 cloves)
- ¼ teaspoon thyme, crushed
- ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  Nutmegs
Cover and cook about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are tender.

Translucent veg

Add:
- 2 ⅔ cups cubed sweet potatoes (about 2 smaller tubers)
- 2 ½ cups low-sodium vegetable broth
Bring to a boil, turn down to a simmer, cover and cook until potatoes are tender (about 35 minutes)

Add:
- Adobo sauce OR chipotle chili**
Puree the soup. Best way to do this is with an immersion blender, but a blender or food processor, or even food mill, would work.

Serve hot, with chopped cilantro for topping (unless you hate cilantro. You know who you are. Just leave it off.)

Standard Recipe Format Ingredients List:
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon soy-free Earth Balance
- 1 ⅓ cup chopped sweet onion (about 1 medium onion)
- 2 ¼ cup chopped leek, white and light green only (about 2)*
- 1 teaspoon chopped garlic (about 2 cloves)
- ¼ teaspoon thyme, crushed
- ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 2 ⅔ cups cubed sweet potatoes (about 2 smaller tubers)
- 2 ½ cups low-sodium vegetable broth
- Adobo sauce OR chipotle chili**
**(note 5): Leeks. If you’ve used them before, skip this mini-tutorial. If you’ve never used them before, I think you may love them. But know before hand that they are dirty dirty vegetables, full of grittiness. Here’s how I prep them.

Leeks cut up.

Cut off the tops and bottoms. Anything above the light green is really tough.

Sliced lengthwise.

Slice them lengthwise.

Washing leeks.

Soak them in the sink. If you have any doubt if this is necessary, look at the grit left in the sink when you drain it.

Proceed by draining the leeks (or just shaking them over the sink if you have little patience) and slice thinly.

**Spice (note 4): chipotle peppers in adobo sauce come in a can, usually from the Mexican foods section of the grocery store. Chipotle are smoked jalapeño peppers and adobo sauce is a smoky, spicy tomato and vinegar sauce. This stuff has a good kick to it, so if you haven’t used it before, start conservatively and add more as needed.

What you add from this can will depend on your taste and dining companions, but if you like things a bit spicy (or more than a bit), add one chipotle chili from the can — the chilis vary in size, so root around in there and find one that’s about your current level of courage. If you like things a little less hot, add 1-2 tablespoons of just the adobo sauce. If you have a mix of spice needs in your audience, serve the adobo sauce on the side.

Even if you like things crazy hot, you will have leftovers! I often store the sauce and peppers separately — the sauce can go in the fridge for about 4 or 5 days (it’s got vinegar in it, but usually no other preservatives). It also freezes well. I lay the chilis themselves out on wax paper or parchment over a plate, and throw it in the freezer. When the peppers are frozen, throw them in a plastic bag.
September 24, 2012
Happy Layers Nacho Dip
Happy Layers Nacho Dip

This is that layered Mexican dip that someone always brings to a potluck. I don’t recall being a huge fan of it in the pre-diagnosis days, but it was one of the random things I really missed when I suddenly couldn’t have it. This version is only 4 layers (no sour cream and no olives), but feel free to add the olives if that’s your scene. Neither Denise nor I have found a good substitute for sour cream if you’re dairy and soy free (I liked the Tofutti when I still was eating soy).

Two of the layers are adapted recipes — the nacho cheez is my final version of Joanne Stepaniak’s nacho cheese from The Uncheese Cookbook. Go check out the original and play around with it — it offers a lot of latitude in choice of flours and non-dairy milk. This is one of my go-to comfort food recipes on work days now (the cheez alone, with chips, not this dip). The red lentil “refried beans” are slightly adapted from Heather Van Vorous’ Eating for IBS.

This was one of my first experiments for allergen-free cooking for parties, and I’m pretty happy with it. Make sure to plan ahead — you need perfectly ripe avocados for this recipe, a bit soft, but not yet squishy. Leftovers will keep for 4-5 days, but they do get a little squishy and the avocado will brown a little. Just a little though, because of the layering.

A note on formatting — this is how I write out recipes for myself, with ingredients grouped by step, not all at the beginning. I find I’m less likely to get lost in the recipe this way. I would love to know what you think of it. I’ve put a full ingredient list at the bottom, for those of you who are traditionalists.

Happy Layers Nacho Dip

This is a four layer dip. The recommended layer order is important to the structural integrity of the dish, as well as its freshness.

Grease a 11×8 glass pan.

Layer One: “Refried” Beans

In saucepan, mix:

red lentils
- 1 cup red lentils, rinsed and sorted
- 2 ¾ cups water
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
Bring to boil. Reduce heat to simmer. Whisk occasionally, cooking until smooth consistency, about 40 minutes.

“refried” lentils

Let briefly cool, and then smooth into pan. Let cool completely. If you want to do this step the night before, go ahead.

Layer Two: Guacamole

homemade guacamole

Best to keep this one simple. Smash together:
- 2-3 ripe Haas avocados
- large pinch of kosher salt
- juice of ½ to 1 fresh lime (use your judgement — you want smooth, but not liquidy)
You can use a potato masher, a pastry cutter, or a fork to smash avocados. I prefer a fork. You could use the large Florida avocados, if you get them, but I find them too often bad up here. Could just be the distance. They are enough bigger that you’d likely only need one. Smooth guac over top of the beans in the pan.

Layer Three: Nacho Cheeze

In medium saucepan, over medium heat, whisk together:
- ½ cup garbanzo bean flour
- ½ cup nutritional yeast flakes
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons chili powder
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon smoky Spanish paprika (pimentón), or, if you do not have this, use regular paprika
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon dried mustard
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper (more if you are Denise or just like it really hot)
Whisk together all dry ingredients first. Then add
- ¼ cup olive oil
  Nacho Cheez dip in its primordial state
Whisk together
- Add 2 cups unsweetened rice milk
Cook over medium heat until mixture reaches a boil and starts to thicken.
- Add either fresh chopped cilantro or about 2 teaspoons (two cubes) of frozen herbs.
Pour over the first two layers and smooth on carefully — getting sort of a seal of the cheez layer is what keeps the guacamole layer green. Cover and chill.

Top with a final layer of salsa just before serving — tomatillo salsa (the green one) highly recommended for flavor, but traditional red salsa provides more color contrast. Or hey, get festive like I did in the top photo, and attempt stripes! Note: Salsa is not easily constrained to your decorative purposes.

Serve cold, with tortilla chips.

Happy Layer Nacho Dip on chips (with ominous camera shadow)

Full Ingredients List in Traditional Cookbook Order:

Refried Lentils
1 cup red lentils, rinsed and sorted
2 ¾ cups water
½ teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt

Guacamole
2-3 ripe Haas avocados
large pinch of kosher salt
juice of ½ to 1 fresh lime (use your judgement — you want smooth, but not liquidy)

Nacho Cheez
½ cup garbanzo bean flour
½ cup nutritional yeast flakes
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 ½ teaspoons chili powder
½ teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon smoky Spanish paprika (pimentón), or, if you do not have this, use regular paprika
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
¼ teaspoon dried mustard
2 teaspoons dried oregano
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper (more if you are Denise or just like it really hot)
¼ cup olive oil
2 cups unsweetened rice milk
2 teaspoons chopped cilantro (I use the convenient frozen cubes). Add more if you like.

Jar of salsa for topping. Takes about 1/3 to 1/2 of a regular-sized jar.
September 10, 2012
Wine Smoothies
So, it’s Labor Day. If you have the day off, and if you imbibe alcohol, you might want to try some wine smoothies. You might note that neither of these recipes contain bananas which many smoothies do. That’s because I really, really HATE bananas. I know, it’s a weird thing, but I don’t even want them in our apartment because I can still smell them, even though I’m not going to touch them with a ten foot pole and my husband likes them. Also, Mary Kate is allergic to bananas, so really it’s all about her, and not my irrational hatred of them. So feel free to use these recipes as a starting point and then experiment on your own, adding other fruits or ingredients that you might enjoy. I also use frozen fruit, because (a) if it’s frozen, it’s always on hand; (b) I don’t have to plan ahead; and (c) you don’t have to use it up before it goes bad or do any prep work. Using the frozen fruit creates more of a daiquiri effect, but I’m cool with that. But if you want to use fresh fruit that works great too.

Sangria Red Wine Smoothie

Sangria Red Wine Smoothie
- 2/3 cup of red wine (A Merlot or a Shiraz would be nice, but don’t get anything expensive, it’s going to be blended with fruit. It’s time for that $6.00 bottle from the grocery store to shine.)
- 1/2 cup of fruit juice of your choice (I used Chiquita strawberry-kiwi because that’s what I had in the refrigerator on hand, but any fruit juice would work. Orange juice would be really nice to continue the sangria theme.)
- 1 Tablespoon of lime juice
- 2 Tablespoons of sugar, agave syrup, or honey, whatever sweetener you’d prefer.
- 1 cup of frozen peaches
- 1 cup of frozen mixed berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries)
Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Makes 2 servings. Or one really big serving as shown above, if you don’t want to share, and you don’t need to go anywhere for a bit. You may also want to strain out the seeds from the raspberries and blackberries, but I don’t bother.

Peachy Keen White Wine Smoothie

Peachy Keen White Wine Smoothie
- 2/3 cup of white wine (A Riesling or a Pinot Grigio would be nice. You could use Chardonnay, but I find it too oak-y for my taste. Again, don’t get anything expensive.)
- 1/2 cup of fruit juice of your choice (I used Chiquita strawberry-kiwi because that’s what I had in the refrigerator on hand, but any fruit juice would work. Apple, Orange or White Cranberry would be lovely too.)
- 2 Tablespoons of sugar, agave syrup, or honey, whatever sweetener you’d prefer.
- 2 cups of frozen peaches
Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Makes 2 servings.
September 3, 2012
Grilled Salsa
Grilled Salsa

It’s still summer and there’s lots of good stuff to pick up at farmstands. So Mary Kate and I got the bright idea to buy a bunch of vegetables and experiment with grilling them this weekend. Although we spent a marathon day grilling, one of the things we wanted to share with you all, was the grilled vegetable salsa we put together. If you don’t want to do this on the grill, I have also made this salsa by roasting the vegetables in the oven and in my rotisserie.

Grilled Salsa

Our score at the farm stand
- 1 red bell pepper, cut into quarters and seeded
- 1 jalapeno, cut into halves and seeded
- 1 bulb of garlic, with top cut off and with most of the outer layer peels removed
- 2-3 tomatoes, cut into quarters and seeded (if you wish reserve the juice and the seeds to mix in with the salsa at the end.)
- 2 small onions, cut in slices (so they form rings about 1/2 inch thick)
- 3 tablespoons of cilantro, chopped
- 2 tablespoons of Cholula Chili lime hot sauce, or to taste
- 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon of adobo seasoning, or to taste
- olive oil
To prepare on the grill:

Garlic before grilling

Do what you would normally do with your grill to bring it to cooking temperature, light the charcoal, light the propane, or start the fire, depending on what you have for tools and equipment. If you do have a grilling basket, feel free to use it if it will make things easier on you.

Once your grill is hot, place garlic, cut end up, on a piece of aluminum foil large enough to wrap around the garlic and seal it shut. Drizzle garlic bulb with olive oil, and wrap foil around bulb.

Garlic after grilling

Place on indirect heat out of the way so that it can cook slowly while you grill the other vegetables. You want the garlic to be fork tender and easily mash-able.

Grilled Red Bell Pepper

Place other vegetables on the grill to cook. It might be best to place the onions and jalapeno in the grill basket to cook. This will take several minutes and you will want to watch the vegetables carefully. You may not want your vegetables quite as charred as our red bell pepper got (whoops!).

Grilled Tomatoes

The vegetables will also cook at different rates. Once each vegetable becomes tender, or is cooked the way you like it, take it off the grill and place them on a plate or a bowl until all the vegetables are done, checking the garlic last.

Chop the red bell pepper, onions, tomatoes, and jalapeno finely and place in a bowl (with juice and tomato seeds if you reserved them.)

Add 3 to 4 cloves (or more if you like) of the roasted garlic and mash it in with chopped vegetables. (You can freeze the remainder of the roasted garlic if you wish for use at another time, such as mashing it into potatoes or as a spread.)

Grilled Salsa after mixing

Add the red wine vinegar, the Cholula Chili lime hot sauce, cilantro, and adobo seasoning. You may also add a splash of olive oil if you wish. Mix well, or if you like your salsa to be more saucy, use a stick blender or a regular blender to process it a bit. Enjoy!
August 20, 2012
Hominy Salad
Hominy Salad

You know how grocery stores do all sorts of tastings and giveaways for a grand opening? Well, just to get things jump started here, we’re going to post TWO RECIPES for your allergy-free pleasure. Both focus on fresh vegetables, given that it’s summer and even in New England things are fresh.

Hominy? What on earth is hominy? That was my first reaction on reading a recipe in one of my mother’s stash of food magazines. This was well before my gluten-free days, but it turns out that hominy is great for the gluten-free. This is your new pasta salad for the summer days.

Hominy is corn. More specifically, dried corn kernels exploded by being soaked in some sort of weak lye solution, common in Native American and Central American cooking. It’s the corn kernel, but without the exterior “skin,” with a texture that reminds me a little of grits.

Hominy can be bought in cans, I’ve mostly found in the “ethnic foods” aisle of the grocery store (Goya brand is what I’ve found here). It must be drained and rinsed, much like beans, and has a different, but really cool texture and flavor. It absorbs the flavor of the dressing you make for it.

This salad should take advantage of the best of summer fruit and veg. It’s best to adjust it according to what you can get good and fresh wherever you are just now.

Hominy Salad

Make dressing.
In a small bowl or measuring cup, whisk:
- 2 teaspoons chopped basil (if you can’t get fresh, the frozen cubes work better in this than dried. If you have to use dried herbs, some fresh parsley or even chives would go a long way to preserving the “green” flavor of the salad)
- 2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (best quality you have)
- 1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar
- freshly ground pepper to taste
Set aside

In a medium bowl, mix:
- one 16 oz can of white hominy, drained and rinsed (yellow will likely work, too, but I’ve never seen it and never tried it)
- 1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
- 3 stalks of celery, chopped small
- about ⅓ of an English cucumber, cubed
- 2-4 scallions, sliced
Add dressing, toss salad, and chill for at least an hour, to let the flavors meld. Other vegetables could be added to this salad, depending on what’s fresh and best where you are, though this combination is pretty solid.

What summer foods do you miss from your pre-apocalypse days? Maybe we can help. If you try this recipe, let us know how it works.
August 13, 2012