GFCF potato leek soup

It has been a while since I posted a recipe. It's not that I haven't been making any food for my family, it's just that I haven't had time to write about it! Most of our meals last week were ones that I've made and written about before, but this one was new and I wanted to share it here.

Gluten and casein free potato leek soup. Mmmmm. As we enter the winter season, there is nothing quite like a creamy bowl of soup...and this one is easy, delicious and inexpensive!
I didn't really follow a recipe exactly but what I did was close to this recipe. I made a larger recipe, used all vegetable broth (no water) and used different seasonings (garlic and Penzey's Bouquet Garni instead of marjoram and hot sauce) but cooking is all about individual tastes and creativity. Go wild.
Chop, chop, chop...

Sautee the leeks for a few minutes in olive oil or ghee (the recipe I linked to says margarine but we don't use margarine). Then throw everything together in a crock pot. Your house will smell wonderful all day long.

Blend until smooth, serve with GFCF garlic bread and enjoy!

GFCF Chicken and Biscuits

Last night I made Chicken and Biscuits using this recipe and I think we've found a new favorite cold weather comfort food! I just used our milk and butter alternatives to make the gluten free recipe casein free, too.
I made the biscuits first.

Then I chopped veggies while I browned the chicken.

The chicken came out of the pot while I sauteed onions in olive oil in it. When they were soft, I made a roux out of a GF flour blend. I added chicken stock and then added the veggies, chicken and seasonings.

It smelled wonderful.

The chicken and veggies went into my favorite green baking dish (have you noticed I use it a lot?! I actually have two sets!) and the biscuits topped it off.

It baked for about 25 minutes and then....

Mmmmmm.

Cube steak- Love Me(at) Tender ♫

Early in our marriage I was excited about finding an inexpensive package of steaks at the grocery store so I planned a special meal. It was round steak and I had no idea how to prepare it. We could have made shoes out of the stuff! It was so tough I couldn't eat it, but my sweet husband just smiled and chewed and chewed and chewed...

So when we bought our half beef from a local farmer and the butcher asked me if I'd like the round steak mechanically tenderized, I remembered that meal and said, "Yes, please." We now have several packages of "cube steak" in our freezer and I made some for supper last night.

I started with a savory beefy mushroomy sauce. To make: sautee green onions and fresh mushrooms in a few tablespoons of ghee or olive oil until soft. Add fresh garlic and seasonings (I used salt, pepper and Penzey's Bouquet Garni) and cook another minute or so. Add several tablespoons of your GF flour mix (or just use rice flour) and make a roux. Then slowly add about 2 cups of beef broth and stir several times while it thickens. Let it simmer while you prepare the beef.
In another skillet, brown flour coated cube steaks for a few minutes on both sides. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Cover the steaks with the beefy mushroomy gravy and bake for about 20 minutes. I made creamy GFCF mashed potatoes (using Earth Balance butter and almond milk) and carrots to complete the meal.

It was so much better than that steak supper I made 27 years ago. All this nostalgia has me channeling a little Elvis this morning.... ♫ Love meat tender, love meat true, all my dreams fulfull....♪ ♪

My new favorite squash

I'm kinda boring when it comes to squash. I always choose the acorn variety and I make it the same way every time. First I struggle to cut the thing in half. Then I bake the two halves upside down in a cake pan with about an inch of water. I serve it with ghee (clarified butter) and salt and pepper. It's delicious and I've never had the desire to try anything else. Until recently. I must need a little excitement in my life.
Last week I made spaghetti squash. I stabbed the squash about a dozen times and threw it in the oven whole. The squash was much easier to cut after baking. I scooped out the seeds and shredded the squash with a fork. It is very good with butter and seasonings or tomato sauce. I'll definitely make it again but I've got a new favorite....

Delicata squash! Who knew there was a squash that you didn't need a hatchet to cut?! You simply peel it with a vegetable peeler...and you don't even have to do that because the outer skin is edible!

Cut it in half lengthwise...

...and scoop out the seeds.

Cut into pieces and answer several eager, "Is that CHEESE?!" questions from passing children.

Sautee in some Earth Balance, ghee, or real butter if you do that kind of thing...and add some of your favorite herbs for seasoning.

Add some fresh apple cider and cook until soft. Delicious delicata! It's my new favorite squash.

At toast to toast!

I haven't had toast in months. I didn't like the way our former GFCF bread toasted and I rarely ate it untoasted. I just learned to live without bread, which is a good thing because I used to be quite addicted.
But the bread I'm making now is good. Not just "good considering it's GFCF", but good. I wanted to try it toasted.

Notice that the bread is nicely shaped this time. (My last post featured a few slices from a loaf that had deflated somewhat after baking but I tweaked the recipe and wa-la!)

I probably shouldn't have eaten part of it before taking a picture but I just couldn't help myself. Is it just me or does this half eaten piece of toast look like the state of Minnesota? Uff da. I should have saved it to sell on e-bay!

(*Remember to have a toaster specifically for gluten free bread if you have gluten eaters in the home. GF bread can be contaminated by a regular bread toaster.)

GFCF bread machine recipe- and a great quote!

I've been playing around with recipes for GFCF bread for the bread machine and I came up with one that is a definite hit with the family! I'm still tweaking it because it tends to fall in the middle after rising all nice and pretty, but that problem lessened significantly when I decreased some of the liquid (I started out using 1.5 cups of coconut milk.) The following pictures are from the first loaf I made and the loaves I've made recently are not nearly as indented in the middle.

Liquid ingredients:

1 1/4 cup room temperature coconut milk (or other milk alternative) with 2 T apple cider vinegar added

3 eggs room temperature (I didn't leave the coconut milk or eggs out to warm up so I put them in some warm water as shown below)

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup honey
To the liquid ingredients add:

1 T. yeast

3 1/3 cup GF flour mix (I use Silvana's All Purpose Flour Blend - I use this for a lot of recipes and make up a batch at least once a week.)

2 tsp. xanthan gum (there is some in the flour blend but not enough for this recipe)

1 tsp. salt

Bake in a regular bread machine (you don't need the fancy one with a GF bread cycle) and about 3 hours later you have a delicious loaf of gluten / casein free bread! (*Always scrape the sides of the bread machine pan with a spatula a few minutes after starting the mix cycle. Gluten free bread doesn't pull itself together in a ball like regular bread dough so some of it tends to stick to the sides and it needs a little help to mix in.)

Now all you need is some PB & J. Mmmmm.

Quote of the week:

"Mom, there is a girl who has to eat hot lunch at school every day and she always asks me if she can have some of my food." ~Java

Vanilla Extract

There is some controversy as to whether distilled liquors are completely gluten free. We're dealing with gluten intolerance, not full blown celiac disease or an actual allergy to gluten so I'm going to give this a try. It's something I've thought about for a while but it required a trip to the liquor store, a place not on my typical errand route.
I'm not taking up drinking hard liquor, I'm making my own vanilla extract!

It couldn't be simplier. You need only two ingredients: a high proof alcohol like bourbon or vodka and some fresh vanilla beans. You can find beans online or at your local health food store. I bought 5 Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Beans for $2.99 each at the health food store but next time I'll plan ahead and search for a better deal online.

Using a sharp knife, slit the beans each down the middle leaving about an inch on the top uncut. You'll need 3 beans for each cup of alcohol. (This bottle has about 1.5 cups so I used 5 beans.)

At this point some people put the liquor and beans in a fancy sterilized jar. I just put the beans in the bottle of bourbon to hang out for the next 3 months. That's how long it takes to "brew" the vanilla extract.

Store the bottle in a cool, dark place and give it a shake several times a month. By the time it's ready, I hope to have found some adorable jars to put it in for gift giving or my own baking.

Vanilla Beans... $14.95

Bourbon.... $9.99

Homemade, high quality vanilla extract for many, many months of baking....priceless.