Recipes

A Simple Brown Rice Flour Pie Crust

4 · Feb 18, 2011 · Leave a Comment

If you are trying to make a gluten free pie crust and find yourself with few ingredients, or want to make a gluten free pie crust with a whole grain flour and no xantham gum, try this one. It does contain some cream cheese, so be certain your guests can eat dairy products.

For a one-crust pie:

1 cup finely ground brown rice flour

1/3 cup corn starch

1 Tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

8 Tablespoons unsalted cold butter (1 “stick”)

2 Tablespoons gluten free cream cheese (cold)

1 teaspoon fresh lemon or lime juice

1 Tablespoon beaten egg white

Using a food processor, mix the dry ingredients (brown rice flour, cornstarch, sugar, salt and baking powder) just until mixed. Add the butter, cream cheese and lemon juice and mix until the mixture is crumbly. Dribble in the egg white while mixing, just until everything comes together in to a ball. A tiny bit more egg white may be required to get it to come together. Adjust the egg white as necessary.

Roll the dough out between two sheets of wax paper. There is no need to chill before rolling.

To make a pre-baked shell, line a 9-10″ glass pie plate with the rolled out pastry, then bake in a pre-heated 400 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until browned slightly but remove it from the oven if it starts to crack. Unlike wheat crusts, this crust does not need to be filled with pie weights when baking a pre-cooked shell.

Make sure to use all gluten free ingredients, and, if you are cooking for a gluten free friend and you don’t keep a gluten free kitchen, make sure the ingredients are not contaminated with wheat flour from your other cooking adventures.

Homemade Vinegar

0 · Feb 3, 2011 · 1 Comment

Homemade vinegar is easy to make – it kind of makes itself under the right conditions – and we have been making our own for 25 years. The vinegar you buy in the grocery store (white, cider, wine) is sharp tasting and thin in flavor compared to the rich complexity of a homemade vinegar. Make your own vinegar and you will become a fan! Also, with your own homemade vinegar there is no need to read labels looking for gluten-containing items. The test of a delicious vinegar is this: sip up a teaspoon of the vinegar and you should want more! You will not want to waste this homemade vinegar making those baking soda and vinegar volcanoes that are so popular in elementary and middle school classes.

You will need:

Leftover Wine diluted with unchlorinated water
Vinegar culture (a bacterial culture, check with the manufacturer and do NOT use malt vinegar culture)
a wide-mouthed glass or stoneware container
Cheesecloth to keep fruit flies out of the vinegar while allowing air to enter the container
Room temperature (68-96 degrees)
surgical hemostat clamp (a ten dollar item) for easily removing old vinegar mother

If you really get in to making homemade vinegar, you may want to invest in a handy vinegar crock with a spigot, or an oak vinegar barrel. Bear in mind that it is not safe to use homemade vinegar in home canning or pickling, unless you are a talented chemist who can accurately test the acidity of your finished product. For pickling, you need 5% acidity.

Coyote Vinegar Crock gfzing.com square — Gfzing.com uses a vinegar crock with spigot - made by Clay Coyote Gallery

To make Vinegar:

Choose what kind of vinegar you are making: red, white, cider. Dilute leftover wine or hard cider with unchlorinated water, about 2 parts of wine to one part of water. Put about a quart of diluted wine in to a cleaned large mouth jar or bowl, or vinegar crock. We use C-brite to clean the container. Add the starter culture. Stir with a clean spoon; cover the container with cheesecloth secured with a rubber band (keeps out fruit flies while allowing air to enter). Store the crock at the back of the counter in your kitchen, where the vinegar will remain largely in the dark and at 68-96 degrees. In about 4 weeks the first vinegar should be ready to use in salad dressings and sauces. Pour off some of the vinegar, taste it and dilute it with additional water if it tastes too strong, then bottle it in sterilized bottles and cork the bottles.

Now add more diluted wine to your crock – this is called “feeding” your vinegar and let it go. Each time you get ready to bottle some vinegar, taste the finished product to see if it is ready for bottling, and add water if the flavor is too strong. Since this is a trial-and-error, imprecise method for achieving the final product, you will not know the final Ph of the homemade vinegar and cannot use this vinegar to make pickles or preserves that are not refrigerated.

Vinegar Culture:

To make vinegar, you add a starter culture of acetic acid bacteria to an alcohol base (like wine or hard cider). For the starter culture, you can use some vinegar from a friend’s vinegar crock, or you can buy a culture. For gluten free vinegar, do not use malt vinegar culture.

Vinegar Mother:

Vinegar mother is a thick cellulose material created by the vinegar bacteria. People who have never handled vinegar mother call it “slimy” but that is not a good description. The material is strong, thick and fibrous, stretchy, slippery and somewhat leathery – like the covering on a papaya seed, or a sort of fibrous jelly. It can break cleanly in to clumps when you pull on it. The mother accumulates in your crock or barrel, and eventually some of it needs to be removed to make room for more wine. The mother is not necessary to the formation of new vinegar – what you need is the bacteria. So, if you have a friend who makes good vinegar and does not pasteurize it, ask for a sample of their vinegar and you are ready to go.

Vinegar Barrels:

A word about vinegar barrels – the oak vinegar barrel adds a strong oak flavor to a red wine vinegar, and we use one for this purpose. However, the home vinegar maker should be forewarned about a couple of things. 1) The vinegar barrel should be soaked before using, to prevent leaking. 2) Unless the barrel has a large opening at one end, removing old vinegar mother from your vinegar barrel requires two people, because most of these barrels only have small holes through which to remove the mother. One person holds the barrel so that a hole is facing downwards (the largest hole is the air hole at the top) and the other person uses a surgical hemostat clamp to grab bits of the mother and pull them through the hole. This is a messy process.

Vinegar Crock and Barrel from GFZINGdotcom — Gfzing.com uses the Vinegar Crock for cider vinegar and an Oak Vinegar Barrel for red wine vinegar

Bottling:

We bottle the vinegar without pasteurizing it.

Homemade Vinegar and Pickling:

Do not use homemade vinegar for making pickles. Vinegar used in pickling must be of a certain Ph, or you can have spoilage and dangerous bacteria can grow in the pickles.

More Instructions:

Further instructions for making your own vinegar are available here: http://www.claycoyote.com/blog//SunsetMagazine_Vinegar.pdf

Thai Cucumber Salad Dressing

1 · Feb 3, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Salad is the BFF (best friend forever) of seasoned gluten free eaters. Here is another simple, inexpensive gluten free dressing that can be used on many different kinds of fresh vegetable. In this case, we used English cucumbers – those long, long cucumbers that are often sold mysteriously laminated but have the advantage of holding few seeds.

To make attractive edges on the cucumber, increase the fiber in the finished dish, and avoid peeling, we use a fork to deeply score a cucumber from end to end, on all sides. Scoring the cucumber in this way breaks up the peel so the diner does not have to masticate like a herbivore. Then we cut the cucumber in half lengthwise, then sliced it crosswise into moon shapes. If you use a standard American cucumber, after halving it remove the seeds by scooping them out with a spoon.

Put the cucumber slices (or grated carrot, daikon radish or whatever vegetable you want to lightly pickle) in to a glass bowl. A fancy bowl is not required – any glass bowl will do.

Mix up the following dressing, pour it over the cucumber slices, stir and chill:

1/2 cup cider vinegar (homemade is best)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 water
1 teaspoon salt
1 medium shallot, peeled and minced
1 dried cayenne pepper, minced (or 1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes)
fresh ground black pepper (optional)

You can add more cucumbers to the leftover dressing and serve the same salad again the next day.

A note for the wheat-eater who is serving a gluten free diner: be cautious with the sugar container. Sometimes a tired baker scoops up some flour from the flour container and then uses the same measuring cup to scoop up some sugar. If that’s something you tend to do, use a fresh container of sugar to make this dressing for your gluten free friend.

Gluten Free German Torte Cake base

1 · Jan 24, 2011 · Leave a Comment

German tortes can have a cake base with a cream filling, and maybe fresh fruit on top. Here is how to make a gluten free German sponge cake (this one is made with almonds and cornstarch) that will work well as the base for a torte with a cream filling.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line the bottom of a 9 inch spring-form pan with parchment paper, then grease the sides of the pan with butter. Set this prepared pan aside.

You need 3 bowls – like Goldilocks and the Three Bears! One great big bowl, one medium sized bowl, and one little bowl.

You need a kitchen scale to weigh the ingredients. Be sure to zero out the scale each time you measure something.

3 eggs, separated
3 Tablespoons cold water
75 grams Sugar
50 grams Cornstarch
65 grams Almond meal (Bob’s Red Mill makes the one we used)
1/2 teaspoon gluten free baking powder (measurement is for American baking powder. If using German baking powder, use slightly more.)

Beat the egg whites with the cold water in a large bowl until stiff. In the medium sized bowl, beat the egg yolks until light lemon colored and fluffy.

Beat the sugar in to the beaten egg whites, then fold in the beaten yolks.

In a third little bowl (capacity 2 cups), mix the cornstarch, almond meal and baking powder. (The volume of cornstarch and almond meal will be about one cup combined).

Fold the cornstarch/nut mixture in to the egg mixture. The mixture will be light and fluffy.

Carefully distribute the batter in to the prepared spring-form pan.

Bake for 35 minutes at 300 degrees until the cake springs back to the touch. Remove from the oven, slide a knife around the sides to loosen the cake, then remove the sides. Allow the cake to cool completely. Remove the cake from the pan. You can cut it horizontally in to two layers using a bread knife, if you need 2 layers.

Make sure your ingredients are all gluten free!

Gluten Free Lace Cookies

0 · Jan 18, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Lace cookies are quick to make, and require few ingredients. It is just as easy to make them gluten free if you substitute cornstarch for the wheat flour in the recipe.

In a 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup, put the following ingredients – then microwave on the setting you would use for 1 cup of coffee, until the butter melts and the mixture bubbles.

2 Tablespoons butter
1 1/2 Tablespoons corn syrup
2 Tablespoons dark brown sugar

Remove from the microwave, then stir in

2 Tablespoons cornstarch

Deposit the batter in teaspoon-sized circles on parchment paper lined baking sheet. Be sure to leave 3 inches between each cookie, and make only about 6 cookies at a time if you plan to roll them in cylinder or cone shapes because you will have to work quickly.

Bake the cookies 6 minutes, until spread out, brown and bubbly. Watch them carefully to make sure they don’t burn.

Remove the sheet from the oven. If you are going to make cylinders or cone shapes, allow them to cool about 15 seconds and then start working with them. Otherwise, wait about a minute and the parchment paper will be easy to peel right off the cookies! As you can see from the picture, these cookies spread quite a lot. I have included a quarter in the photos so you can compare the size, uncooked and cooked.

and these cookies are delicate like glass. Here are about 7 of them stacked on a Heath Ceramics coffee cup – (cup color is Moonstone.)

Braised Lamb Shanks with pepper and Green Peas

0 · Jan 18, 2011 · Leave a Comment

This rich, delicious dish is based on one for North African-Influenced Lamb Shanks with Couscous by Emeril. We have added more vegetables, and removed all the gluten.

2 1/2 pounds lamb shanks (if these are American hind quarter shanks you will have 2 shanks)
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 teaspoon turmeric

Sprinkle the spices over the shanks and fry them in 3 Tb of olive oil until browned on all sides. Remove the shanks to a large covered casserole that can go in the oven.

In the same pan where you fried the shanks, add:

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 a dried cayenne pepper, minced, or 1/4-1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, ground

Stir fry the spices for 30 seconds, then add:

1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped spanish onion
2 large carrots, peeled and cut in 1 inch chunks
1 sweet potato, peeled and cut in half

Stir fry the vegetables until the onion is a little bit golden, then add:

1 Tablespoon chopped fresh garlic (about 4 cloves)

Stir fry until the garlic is fragrant only – about 30 seconds. (Emeril’s recipe called for stirring the garlic for 30 minutes, which must be a typo)

Add:

2 cups rose wine
1 cup chopped tomatoes (about 1 large tomato)
4 cups chicken stock – if you are reconstituting this from bouillon mix, make sure the mix is gluten free and use less than is called for on the package – to avoid over-salting)
Juice of one orange
2 strips of orange zest (you can remove the pieces when the braising is complete)

Bring to a boil, then add the vegetable-wine-tomato mixture to the lamb shanks in the other pan. Cover the pan. Place in a 350 degree oven for 2-2 1/2 hours until the meat is falling off the bone. Check occasionally to see if more liquid is required. Remove from the oven, and remove the pieces of orange peel.

Add:

1/2 pound frozen green peas

Cook on top of the stove until the peas are just barely cooked.

Gfzing.com likes to serve with steamed artichokes for dipping up the delicious sauce.

If you want a gluten free substitute for the “couscous” in the original recipe, substitute 1 cup pre-rinsed quinoa and 2 cups water for the couscous. Microwave the quinoa and water, covered, for 8 minutes on high, then add the rest of the seasoning ingredients in Emeril’s recipe and set aside, covered for about 10 minutes until the water is completely absorbed by the quinoa.

Lime and Agave Salad Dressing

0 · Jan 15, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Here is a delicious gluten free dressing of agave nectar and lime juice, based on a “thai-style” dressing that can be found all over the internet. (The standard “thai-style” dressing contains the now evil corn syrup, once sooooo trendy and now hiding shamefully in the back of many American cupboards, waiting to be used in pecan pie.)

We had a bottle of agave nectar sitting on the shelf, and apart from wondering why that agave was not made in to tequila we hadn’t given it another thought. As usual, we are entering the new year with a load of greens on our plates, hoping to reverse the effects of holiday indulgences. The problem with all that salad? It can be boring! The only hope is an arsenal of interesting sauces to “dress” up the greens. Here’s one:

1/4 cup amber agave nectar or other sweetener or your choice
1 1/2 tablespoons gluten free soy sauce (check the label)
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lime juice (about 1/2 of a large lime, or one whole small lime)
1 tablespoon oil (not from olives)
1/2 teaspoon dried basil (or 1 tablespoon snipped fresh basil
1 tablespoon snipped fresh mint leaves
1/4 teaspoon ground chili (cayenne or red pepper)
1 tiny clove of garlic, peeled and grated or minced

Mix all ingredients together and serve with a salad of mixed greens, sliced boneless chicken seasoned and pan-fried, sweet cherry tomatoes, nuts etc.

Chianti goes well with this dressing.

Maple Pumpkin Pie, no dairy, from fresh pumpkin

0 · Jan 14, 2011 · Leave a Comment

small pumpkin pie — Non Dairy, Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pie

This interesting recipe from gfzing.com has no milk, cream, rice milk or any other type of milk, is gluten free and uses fresh rather than canned pumpkin. The type of pumpkin used is the small “pie” or “sugar” pumpkin – they are sold at farm stands for the purpose of making pies. The natural liquid in the freshly cooked pumpkin is sufficient liquid and no added milk products are needed. Do not use canned pumpkin for this recipe.

The pie is quite light, and since the only sweeteners are maple syrup and molasses the pie is not too sweet.

Ingredients:

1 “pie” or “sugar” pumpkin
1/2 cup dark maple syrup
1/4 cup molasses
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
3/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 unbaked Whole Foods gluten free (gf) pie shell, thawed and cracks repaired

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Defrost the gluten free pie shell and repair any cracks. Sometimes frozen pie crusts get broken, but you can smush the crust back together along the breaks to make a whole crust.

Next, remove the stem (just break it off) from the pumpkin and stab the pumpkin through the shell to the center in 4 or 5 places with a pairing knife – to let out steam. You don’t need to cut the pumpkin up or remove the seeds before cooking. Set the prepared pumpkin in the microwave oven and cook it as for baked potato (use the setting on the microwave).

Remove the very hot pumpkin from the oven using potholders and let cool completely. Now cut the cooked pumpkin in half, use a large spoon to scoop out and discard the seeds. Then, scoop out the cooked flesh, set it aside for use and finally discard the peel. You should have about 24 ounces cooked pumpkin (weigh the cooked flesh.) You do not need to mash or strain the pumpkin flesh.

In a food processor, combine about 24 ounces ( one and a half pounds) of cooked fresh pumpkin (not canned) with all the rest ingredients except the pie shell. Process until the mixture is completely smooth. Pour most of the pumpkin mixture in to the uncooked pie shell until the pie shell is filled almost to the top. Depending on the size of the pumpkin, there may be a cup or so of extra filling. If so, grease a small oven-proof dish and pour the excess in there.

Put the pie in to a 450 degree oven for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 and cook for another 45 minutes. Check the pie – if the filling is set, the pie is done. Cool and serve with your favorite pie topping.

For the extra filling, bake that along with the pie but it will be done and ready to take out of the oven well before the pie. You can use this cooked pumpkin pie filling to make a nice pumpkin parfait, layering the cooked chilled filling with your favorite gluten free pie topping (whipped cream if you use it).

Gluten Free Deep Dish Pizza

0 · Jan 7, 2011 · Leave a Comment

We were addicted to the deep dish pizza made by Edwardo’s on the South Side of Chicago in the 1980s, and after leaving that part of the country we went to great lengths to learn how to make deep dish pizza at home. We even purchased an enormous specialized pan purposed for making stuffed pizzas. Fast forward a few decades and sadly a gluten free deep dish pizza seemed like an impossible dream. But continue on, dear reader, because you can have a reasonable deep-dish pizza, gluten free, if you have a cast iron or Le Creuset skillet available to you. The crust will be little chewy, somewhat denser than an ideal crust, but flavorful because of the potato flour in the dough. It will have unique characteristics which make it worth eating, even though it is gf.

Crust:

Cut a 12″ diameter circle of parchment paper to line a 10 inch heavy cast iron skillet (ours is the enameled Le Creuset designed for use in a hot oven – some of the Le Creuset skillets are not meant for very hot ovens, so make sure yours is – the enamel on the inside of the pan should be black). A flat circle must be creased a few times to line a 3 dimensional pan, so flatten the paper against the bottom of the pan, and pleate and crease it up the sides to make it “fit”. Make one recipe of the pizza base dough from Darina Allen and Rosemary Kearney’s Healthy Gluten-Free Cooking. This is a rice flour, potato flour and tapioca flour dough that contains dried milk and an egg as well – but no bean flour. Note that the recipe calls for potato flour, not potato starch. Weigh the ingredients using a kitchen scale because the book is written using Irish measurement units. I encourage you to purchase the cookbooks mentioned in my articles, to support the work of fellow recipe writers in the hope that they will produce more useful books for us!

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. When the oven is hot, roll out the dough between two sheets of waxed paper dusted with sweet rice flour (mochiko), and line the pan with the dough (the entire recipe’s worth of dough). Prick the dough all over with a fork and bake it (unfilled) for 10 minutes, remove the very heavy pan from the oven using two hands and oven mitts to grab the handle and edge of the pan. Set the hot pan aside and prepare the filling. I always leave an oven mitt on the handle to remind me that the handle of the pan is hot, hot, hot! That handle is 400 degrees, and you don’t want to grab it without an oven mitt!

Filling:

1/2 pound of mushrooms

1/2 pound gluten free italian sausage – spicy is nice – omit for vegetarians

1 large spanish onion, sliced (don’t use “sweet onions” as they don’t brown nicely)

1-2 bell peppers, sliced

6 cloves garlic, minced

Fry the mushrooms in olive oil for 4 minutes without stirring. Remove the mushrooms from pan and set aside. Season with salt and pepper.

To the same pan, add the gluten free sausage, onions, peppers and garlic and fry for 10-12 minutes until cooked through.

Mix the sausage mixture with the mushrooms and add a 1/2 pound of full-fat mozzarella, hand grated, a half cup of canned diced tomatoes (fresh if you have them), 1/2 cup of chopped basil or 1-2 Tablespoons of gluten free homemade pesto sauce. Test the filling to see if it needs additional salt and pepper.

Spread the filling in the prepared pre-baked crust, Sprinkle with another 1/2 pound of grated mozzarella, sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese, raise the temperature of the oven to 450 and bake the pizza for 30-35 minutes. Remove the very very hot pan from the oven using oven mitts. Serve immediately or cool slightly first.

Make sure all your ingredients are gluten free!

The filling is based on one in the October 2005 issue of Cuisine at Home. Ham and pepperoni have been eliminated, and the option of using prepared pesto in place of basil is added. You can tinker infinitely with the ingredients in the filling. Use what you have available – spinach, other types of cheese, omit the peppers and double the onions, whatever you like!

Pasta con Alici – gluten free

1 · Dec 20, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Pasta con Alici is pasta with anchovies – for garlic and anchovy lovers only!

Melt 1/4 cup butter and 1/2 cup olive oil in a small pan.

Add:

6 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced paper thin
2 ounces top quality anchovies (the kind that come in a glass jar and taste good), drained, and thoroughly rinsed
freshly ground black pepper

Mix and mash the anchovies in to the oil until completely dissolved but do NOT let the garlic brown.

Serve over 1 pound of gluten free spaghetti – normally you would use angel hair pasta, but there is not currently a gluten free angel hair pasta available, so use the Bionaturae brand of gluten free spaghetti cooked al dente, mix with the sauce, and serve immediately. Do not add any salt as there is residual salt in the anchovies, even after rinsing.

The sauce can be made a few hours before serving.

Gluten Free Feast of the Seven Fishes

7 · Dec 20, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Some Italian-American families celebrate Christmas Eve with a dinner of many fish dishes. This is a wonderful holiday tradition that has evolved, in our family, to honor the many ethnic groups and food preferences of the extended family.

If you have a large guest list and a small table without enough chairs, try hosting a Hawai’ian-style “heavy pupus” (hot and substantial appetizers) Feast of the Seven Fishes. You can make this meal entirely gluten free without bothering any of the guests!

Get together an eclectic play list of music, including some hits from the year and some holiday music. When “Who let the dogs out?” or “The Macarena” were popular, we included them along with the Jingle Bells. It is nice to have variety instead of an endless train of Joy, Joy, Joy, since everyone has challenges as well as happiness during the holidays. It is nice to include some favorite music and foods of people who used to celebrate with you but have passed away, to include them in the party even though they are not corporeally present.

Traditional Dishes:

Baccalà (hot dish)
Baccalà (cold salad)
Mare Salad
Pasta con alici (make with GF spaghetti)

Fusion Feast of the Seven Fishes Dishes:

Crab Cakes
Shrimp Sushi
Mini Lobster Rolls
Filipino Lumpia
Fried Fish
Jonah Crab Claws with Cocktail Sauce
Oysters Rockefeller
Fish Cakes
Codfish with Orange Sauce
Crab Dip with plantain chips
Gravlax
Spanish tapas – Shrimp with garlic
Mare Salad
Fish cakes with Wasabi Ginger Tarter Sauce (must be heavily adapted to gluten free)

Mare Salad (Italian Seafood Salad)

3 · Dec 20, 2010 · Leave a Comment

This is a delicious Italian seafood salad with chickpeas. Divine!

1/2 pound of fresh, small scallops, parboiled for a very short time – just until done – in a 50/50 mixture of white wine and
water – use Cape or bay scallops if you can get them. If using the large sea scallops you will have to slice them in halves or quarters.
1 dozen pitted Kalamata olives, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
15 ounce can of chickpeas, drained, rinsed (peel the tough
skins off, or cook from scratch instead of using canned)
1 medium red onion, diced (be sure not to use too much – the red onions are pretty gigantic in the supermarket these days)
2 Tb. flat italian parsley, diced
2 Tb. olive oil
2 Tablespoons red vinegar
2 Tablespoons white vinegar
salt and pepper

Mix it together and let marinate overnight.

Notes:

You can add 1/2 pound sliced cooked squid. Only parboil the squid for 30 seconds or it will become tough and rubbery.
Do not use any “imitation seafood” or “seafood legs” or any of those fake crab products – they are often made with wheat.

Indian Pudding

1 · Dec 6, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Indian Pudding, one of the finest desserts ever invented, is a naturally gluten-free American dessert over two centuries old. The recipes vary over the years, but the ingredients always include milk, corn meal (the “Indian meal” from which the dessert gets its name), spices and some type of sweetener. Note that once in a while a recipe for Indian Pudding will include a small amount of completely unnecessary wheat flour. At gfzing.com, we have studied the subject at length and have 2 recommended recipes for excellent gluten free Indian Pudding – one sweetened primarily with maple syrup and one made primarily with brown sugar. Our favorite recipes appear near the end of this article, after some historical bits.

Historical Recipes:

In American Cookery, by Amelia Simmons, published in 1796, there are 3 recipes for Indian Pudding. The two baked versions include eggs, which later recipes for the dessert often omit.

No. 1. 3 pints scalded milk, 7 spoons fine Indian meal, stir well
together while hot, let stand till cooled; add 7 eggs, half pound
raisins, 4 ounces butter, spice and sugar, bake one and half hours.
No. 2. 3 pints scalded milk to one pint meal salted; cool, add 2 eggs,
4 ounces butter, sugar or molasses and spice q. f. it will require two
and half hours baking.
No. 3. Salt a pint meal, wet with one quart milk, sweeten and put into
a strong cloth, brass or bell metal vessel, stone or earthern pot,
secure from wet and boil 12 hours.

Table Talk monthly magazine, which billed itself as the “The American Authority Upon All Culinary and Household Topics,” included in its September 1893 issue ten recipes for Indian Pudding (go to page 323 in this document). Some of these recipes omit the eggs, and some use the technique of mixing the hot porridge-like base for the pudding and then pouring an amount of cold milk on top, leaving the cold milk without stirring, then baking the whole dish for from 2 to 8 hours.

Now for how we actually prefer to make Indian Pudding. We like the following 2 recipes, with a preference for the one sweetened primarily with maple syrup which has a more interesting flavor than modern brown sugar. We actually wonder if the antique recipes used a form of brown sugar more similar to jaggery, rapadura or panela – which would have had a more subtle flavor.

	Maple Syrup Cookbook by Ken Haedrich, 1989 (our preferred ingredient list)	Early American Recipes by Eloise Frost, 1953
Whole Milk	5 cups	1 quart (4 cups), scalded + 1 cup cold
Corn Meal	2/3 cup	½ cup
Sugar	1 cup grade A Amber Maple Syrup (or Grade B)	1/3 cup light brown sugar
Molasses	1 TB (we used 2)	1/3 cup
Ground Cinnamon	½ teaspoon	1 teaspoon
Ground Ginger	½ teaspoon	1 teaspoon
Dried Fruit	1 cup raisins or chopped dated (we used raisins)	none
Salt	½ teaspoon	1 teaspoon
Butter	4 tablespoons	3 tablespoons

Both recipes are baked in a well-buttered 9 x13″ baking dish at 300 F; a porcelain, ceramic or Pyrex dish is necessary for the baking; for the clean-up be prepared to soak the cooking and baking dishes before cleaning. The basic cooking method is as follows.

For the maple syrup recipe, in a heavy-bottomed pot, cook the milk over medium heat until it is almost scalded, then whisk in the cornmeal, stirring all the while. Keep whisking for 10 minutes until the porridge is thickened slightly. The porridge will be a very, very pale yellow. Remove from the heat and use a wooden or bamboo spoon to stir in the rest of the ingredients, stirring all the while. Give one last vigorous stir to distribute the raisins evenly and pour it in to the prepared porcelain (or Pyrex or ceramic) dish. Bake for 2 and a half hours. Remove from the oven, let cool for about a half hour and serve with vanilla ice cream or plain cream.

For the brown sugar recipe: Mix the scalded milk, molasses and brown sugar. Whisk in the corn meal, salt, cinnamon and ginger. Cook, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes. Pour in to the prepared baking dish and dot with the butter. Bake 1 hour, then pour the cup of cold milk over the top (do not stir) and cook for 2 more hours. Remove from the oven, let cool for about a half hour and serve with vanilla ice cream or plain cream.

We hope you enjoy this review of Indian Pudding through the ages, from gfzing.com. Indian Pudding is the best dessert ever, and deserves to return to its rightful place as a mainstay of American cooking!

Gluten Free Cookbooks for gift givers

0 · Dec 6, 2010 · Leave a Comment

A reader says:

I love your recipes. … I am looking for a GF cookbook for a relative who needs fairly easy recipes, doesn’t spend a lot of time in the kitchen and too much time in the restaurants. Do you have one? Or can you recommend one?

Answer: Absolutely. We can recommend cookbooks (and are hard at work on a Gf-zing! cookbook, seeking a publisher)!

Making the switch to gluten free cooking is initially annoying and feels like deprivation, but your relative will eventually find that journeying to the parallel universe of gluten-free cooking presents an opportunity in disguise. She will find that the complex flavors and textures of gluten free cooking are often superior to “wheatavore” cooking. She will also see that the produce and meat sections of the grocery store are her favorite areas, and that there is very little reason to travel in to the cereal or bread aisles.

For simple GF baking, we like: Great Gluten-Free Baking by Louise Baker. This British book relies on simple brown rice flour for many of the recipes. The superfine brown rice flour from Authentic Foods is the one we like best. To use this book, your relative will need a kitchen scale – another excellent Christmas present for the home cook. She should try baking the Victoria Sandwich Cake on p 124; the Lemon Drizzle Loaf on p. 54 , and the Cherry Crumble Muffins on p. 27.

For a general cookbook, Gluten Free and Easy by Robyn Russell is a good choice. Your relative could try the Quinoa Tabouleh on p. 30; the Quinoa, Eggplant and Chickpea Salad on p. 32; the Pesto, Lamb and Sweet Potato Salad on p. 98; the San Choy Bau on p. 106; the Pistachio and Apple Cake on p. 150 (add some vanilla and salt); the Lemon Tea Cake with Lemon Butter on p. 153.

Another fine general cookbook: Healthy Gluten-Free Cooking by Darina Allen and Rosemary Kearney. Your relative might like the Buttermilk Pancakes on p. 41 (make sure she gets flavorless tapioca flour – we like the one from Authentic Foods); the Fish Cakes with Parsley or Garlic Butter on p. 95; The Fruit Scones on p. 123 (grate cold butter in to the dry ingredients and mix by hand); the Pizza Base on p. 149 is excellent for deep dish pizzas. Use it in a cast iron skillet.

And a third general book that uses no grains at all: Healing Foods: Cooking for Celiacs, Colitis, Crohn’s and IBS by Sandra Ramacher might also fit the bill. Your relative could try the Mini Chicken Satays with Peanut Sauce on p. 43; and the Apple and Blueberry Crumble on p. 165 (it uses almond flour for the crumble). No grains, no gluten, no refined sugar and no lactose in this book.

Also, although The Sultan’s Kitchen by Ozcan Ozan does contain recipes with gluten, most of the recipes are gluten-free. A few favorites include: Rice Pilaf with Chickpeas, Green Lentils and Caramelized Onions, (we used lentil orzo), Sea Bass Poached with Herbs and Raki in Parchment, (we used ouzo instead of raki, and your relative would need to make sure whatever licorice liqueur she used was gluten free), Stewed Lamb Kebab with Creamy Garlic Mashed Potatoes.

And finally, although Eating Stella Style by George Stella is pitched to low-carb dieters trying to lose weight, it has many, many excellent recipes that are gluten-free. Your relative will need to be sure that the spices and meat products she uses are gluten-free, and she doesn’t have to substitute Splenda for sugar. This cookbook is a find for the gluten-free community. (The picture on the front of the book is a little goofy, and it is geared to weight loss.)

Thanks for inquiring, and there will be a Gf-Zing! cookbook coming, but not in time for Christmas 2010.

Crustless Custard Apple Pie

1 · Dec 5, 2010 · Leave a Comment

In the mood for pie, but don’t want to roll out a crust? You can use the new gluten free Bisquick to make a pie that creates its own crust. This pie is like a gluten free French Clafoutis, but more economical because it uses cranberries instead of cherries. The large amount of cinnamon and vanilla balances out the deeply flavorless gluten free Bisquick.

Fruit mixture ingredients:

3 large flavorful apples that hold their shape (use types like Northern Spy, Winter Banana and Roxbury Russet – do not use Macintosh) – pared, cored and cut in to pie-type slices

1/2 cup (or more) gluten free dried sweetened cranberries

1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice

2 Tablespoons gluten free Bisquick (and you will need more later)

Custard Ingredients:

14 ounces fat-free gluten free sweetened condensed milk

1 1/2 cups water

3 large eggs

1/2 cup gluten free Bisquick

4 Tablespoons butter, melted

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg

In a large deep bowl, mix the apples, cranberries and lemon juice and then stir in the 2 tablespoons of gluten free Bisquick to coat the fruit.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Butter a glass pie plate (10 inches, or marked 25 cm on the bottom), then spread the apple-cranberry mixture evenly in the dish.

In the now-empty bowl, mix the rest of the ingredients: condensed milk, water, eggs, 1/2 cup gluten free Bisquick, butter, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg. Use an immersion blender to mix these custard ingredients until smooth – about 3 minutes. Pour this custard mixture over the apples and cranberries in the pie plate. The dish will be very full, so take care not to spill.

Bake for45-50 minutes until the custard is cooked through and the top is browning a little. Remove from the oven, set aside to cool. Serve cool or cold.

There will be a kind of crust that has settled out on the bottom of the pie – the texture of the “crust” will be the texture of a mochi, slightly chewy and quite intriguing.

Be sure to use all gluten free ingredients.

Thanksgiving Recovery Salad

0 · Nov 29, 2010 · Leave a Comment

After three days of recovery from the delicious Thanksgiving feast, we want a GF salad! This one from www.gfzing.com has lots of vegetables and fruits, with a little cheese and nuts.

Thanksgiving Recovery Salad gfzing.com — Thanksgiving Recovery Salad from gfzing.com

A composed salad of the following ingredients fits the bill exactly:

2 Roasted Pears (recipe is below)
1/2 Avocado, peeled, pitted and sliced
1/2 bunch Fennel, sliced or shaved
2 ounces Goat Cheese or gluten free blue cheese, chunked (optional)
2 TB sweetened dried cranberries or raisins (gluten free)
1/3 cup Candied Nuts
6 cups Salad Greens, washed
1 Carrot, grated
1 recipe Tangerine Dressing

Roasted Pears: wash 2 unripe (hard) Bartlett pears, remove the cores and cut them in to 8 pieces, stem-to-blossom end. No need to peel them. In a small bowl, mix 1/4 cup pure Grade B maple syrup (or Grade A Dark Amber) and 1 TB minced fresh ginger (optional). Combine the pear slices with this syrup mixture, then spread the pear slices on a foil or parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake at 500 degrees for 15 minutes. Turn the slices over and bake an additional 5 minutes if desired. You cannot use a silpat lined pan for this process because the oven temperature exceeds the heat tolerance of silpat.

Roasted Pears gfzing.com before baking — Roasted Pears before baking

Avocado: Peel, pit and slice 1 ripe avocado, then mix the slices with the juice of a lemon or tangerine. The citric acid in the fruit juice will keep the avocado from turning brown.

Candied Nuts: Mix walnut meats, pecans or almonds with 2 TB granulated sugar. Place in a small frying pan and fry over medium heat for about 5-10 minutes, stirring constantly, until the sugar melts and begins to caramelize, sticking to the nuts. Remove the nuts from the pan at this point and place on a parchment paper-lined plate to cool. Separate the nuts so they don’t form one big nut mass.

Assemble the salad – Gfzing.com recommends that the greens, fennel, grated carrot, and cranberries or raisins can be tossed with the dressing. On each individual salad plate, gently arrange the avocado slices, pear slices, candied nuts and optional cheese on top of the dressed greens. Don’t try to toss avocado slices with the salad – disaster that way lies!

Homemade Poultry Seasoning

2 · Nov 23, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Once again, Gfzing.com cracked the binding on a bunch of cookbooks to find a tasty gluten free poultry seasoning for the Thanksgiving turkey stuffing. We looked through the usual suspects, those older books that included formulas for standard seasonings and came up empty! Then, on an old bottle marked “poultry seasoning,” we found a typed list, taped to the bottle. The ingredients are listed below.

The herbs and spices for poultry seasoning are similar in all formulations, it is just the proportions that change. The sage and thyme should predominate. Some poultry seasoning recipes include nutmeg, and some include celery seed.

We dried the herbs from our garden, at the end of the fall, by hanging them upside down in the kitchen to dry. If you don’t have home-dried herbs, you can use bottled herbs.

2 parts dried sage
3/4 part dried rosemary
1 part dried marjoram
1/2 part ground black pepper
1/2 part grated nutmeg
1 1/2 parts dried thyme

These ingredients are listed in “parts” – you can substitute teaspoon or Tablespoon for “part” in the recipe, depending on how much poultry seasoning you want to make. You can assemble all of these in a large, stone mortar and pestle and grind them quickly to a fluffy powder. It is the sage that adds the fluffiness to this preparation.

More thoughts on Gluten Free Pie

1 · Nov 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Some of the most popular posts on this website have to do with pie!

How to make gluten free pie crust (see this link for the recipe) is a key interest for the gluten free community. It turns out that the type of flour you use for pie crust really does matter, so here is some advice on finding good gluten free flours:

Where to find those flours for the pie crust mix? We buy them from Authentic Foods (you can use Amazon.com.) Not even a trip to the grocery store is required; they grind the flour really fine (so it does not have that gritty quality, sticking in your back teeth like dental amalgam ), and their tapioca flour does not taste like boiled lobster.

When you do buy the flours, consider storing them in the freezer – those pantry moths like to eat gluten free too, but they don’t seem to be able to squirm in to the freezer yet.

I’ll sign out with some lyrics from the great Bob Dylan song, “Country Pie”:

“Raspberry, strawberry, lemon and lime
What do I care ?
Blueberry, apple, cherry, pumpkin and plum
Call me for dinner, honey, I’ll be there.
…Oh me, oh my
Love that country pie.”

Gf-Zing! does not guarantee the gluten-free status of products; we rely on the manufacturer to do that. Check the labels, and make sure all your ingredients are gluten free!

Bento box lunch

0 · Nov 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment

A bento box is a lidded Japanese lunch box with many sections. Making a bento box lunch is a snap for the gluten free community. By filling each little section of the bento with a different food, you can make an attractive, well-balanced meal without a great deal of extra work. You can keep your bento simple or go wild! The choice is yours.

Provide both a fun lunch and a lovely reminder of home for every member of the family – line up several bento boxes on the counter, fill them up assembly-line fashion, and you’re done! Don’t forget to make one for yourself as well, and take proper precautions for food safety, sending along an icepack if necessary.

A gluten free bento box could include:

Fresh, Pickled or Dried Vegetables & Fruits: carrot sticks, green peppers, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, steamed veggies, dilly beans or pickles (drained and patted dry), apples, grapes, banana (a thick slice with the peel still on so it doesn’t turn brown), melon, mango, pineapple, kiwi, oranges, berries, fruit salad, raisins, dried fruit, nuts etc.

Protein:

Grilled GF meats or poultry sliced on the diagonal, a deviled egg, cheese cubes, a couple of pieces of homemade sushi, the possibilities are endless and can include meatballs, fish cakes, smoked fish, seasoned tofu etc.

Attractive tea sandwiches cut to fill the space in your bento box – Choose gluten free bread and savory fillings such as GF tuna, chicken or egg salad, cheese, GF deli meat or peanut butter and jelly or honey. You may have to trim the corners of the sandwich to fit it in to a bento box section – you can nibble on these corners while packing the box!

Starch:

GF Crackers, rice, fried rice, and seasoned rice formed in to a cake, roasted root vegetable (potato, sweet potato etc.)

A GF sweet: A cookie (cut to fit), brownie, cake or muffin, gummy bears, gorp, a miniature candy bar – any of these sweets can go in one small section of the box.

Supplies:

Bento boxes are available at various Asian grocery stores, kitchen supply stores, and Amazon.com.

Turn any box in to a bento, dividing a larger section up by adding aluminum foil or silicone reusable cupcake liners.

More ideas for bento construction: www.justbento.com , www.lunchinabox.net and www.cookingcute.com/recipes

This bento article is from Gf-Zing! (www.gfzing.com), celebrating flavor in the gluten free world!

Thanksgiving Turkey – why does it seem to take forever to cook?

26 · Nov 14, 2010 · 2 Comments

Almost a decade ago, we enlisted the kids’ help to keep careful tabs on the temperature of the Thanksgiving turkey as it was roasting. We roasted a 24 pound, unstuffed turkey from a local farm (all natural, no “solutions” injected in to it, and minimally processed) at a constant temperature of “325” F – that is what the oven dial was set to, at any rate. We used a thermometer with a probe connected to a digital display – this type of thermometer allows you to run this experiment while making only one puncture in the turkey. The turkey started cooking at 40 degrees.

As you can see from this graph, it took about 6 hours to bring the roast from 40 degrees to 175. The temperature rose quite quickly for the first 4 hours, then the change in temperature slowed down considerably.

turkey roasting graph from gfzing.com — The temperature of a roasting turkey, over time (gfzing.com)

This experiment, and subsequent discussions with scientists, gave us a greater understanding of the Thanksgiving paradox: as the turkey gets closer and closer to being done it never seems to be done. After several hours, as the house fills with the good smell of roast turkey, the recalcitrant turkey sits there with the thermometer showing clearly that it is not yet cooked. We always start to wonder if the oven has gone out or if the oven thermostat has ceased working. We shake the drumstick, we poke the turkey, we open the oven way too many times, putting a hand in to see if it still feels hot etc. Why do we do this, year after year – with the Thanksgiving turkey, a Christmas roast beef, and any other large piece of roasting meat?

I spoke with a well-known astrophysicist, to try to get some answers. He says people tend to view trends as linear processes, so they will see the temperature rising quickly at the beginning, assume that this quick trend will continue at the same rate, and feel that the turkey should be done much earlier than it really will be. He says in fact “the plot above is a solution of a well-known heat diffusion equation* which applies to all cooking processes with the exception of microwaves.” The steepness of the line in the curve is a measure of the heating rate of the turkey. The heating rate (the change in temperature in a particular time) is proportional to the change in temperature between the turkey and the oven. The temperature of the turkey will approach, but never reach, the temperature of the oven. As the turkey gets warmer, the temperature change in an hour decreases (it goes up, but less quickly).

The astrophysicist, who likes to simplify problems so they can be solved, says you can “view the turkey as a solid,” “assume a spherical turkey” and “assume a non-spherical turkey.” He then considered the problem of cooking stuffed turkeys vs. unstuffed turkeys, the stuffed turkey being closer to a spherical turkey and the unstuffed turkey having an empty cavity which reduces the thickness of the material to be cooked and effectively reduces the size of the turkey. The concept of a spherical turkey provoked a lot of laughs, but in the real world, there are no spherical turkeys. Real turkeys have wings and drumsticks.

He provided a helpful reference to The Science of Cooking, by Peter Barham, which notes “… the cooking time is always proportional to the square of the size of the food, rather than its weight.” You can understand this if you consider that the same weight of turkey, cut in to pieces, will cook in much less time than the same exact turkey cooked whole.

This is why chefs will tell you to cut the turkey up in pieces, roasting the light meat and dark meat for different amounts of time so that the light meat does not become dry and the dark meat gets more time in the oven. However, the “dissected turkey” method of cooking the Thanksgiving turkey is impractical for those cooks who want to present a Norman Rockwell turkey (visually appealing whole turkey on a platter) at the table. The Norman Rockwell turkey requires compromises, and more time than you may think.

*the solution of the heat diffusion equation is an exponential process, if you extrapolate a line from the early cooking temperature data you will expect the turkey to be cooked many hours sooner than when it is actually cooked.

How to make gluten free beer

0 · Nov 5, 2010 · 8 Comments

At gfzing.com we have tried all the commercially available gluten free beers. Our favorites were those made by Green’s – there are three that are imported in to the U.S., and in our area they generally sell for a mind-boggling $7/bottle. This was the motivating factor behind a successful attempt at home brewing gluten free beer, the techniques of which are outlined here. A reasonable glass of gluten free beer (in the weissbier or weiss beer style), can be made for less than a dollar a bottle after start-up costs. The beer is similar to the St. Peter’s Sorgham Beer from Suffolk England.

The major difference between most fine artisanal beers and gluten free beer is that the ordinary beer is made with malted barley and wheat, and the gluten free beer cannot contain either barley or wheat. Therefore, the gluten free brewer must rely on other malted grains. The ingredients for gluten free beer are available from home brewing shops. The two tricky items to locate are the sorghum syrup, which lately we have had to purchase online from morebeer.com, and the gluten free brewing yeast. The actual link for purchasing the syrup is here.

To make home brewed beer, you should first read some of the fine homebrewing websites and chats on the net, and learn the basic technique. You are going to make a sort of soup called wort, and then ferment this soup with yeast in a large container with an airlock. When it has finished fermenting, it gets bottled with a little “priming sugar” added to each bottle to cause another fermentation in the bottle – this produces the carbonation. An excellent discussion with photos is available at WikiHow.

These instructions are provided here for use by adults of legal brewing age.

Recipe from gfzing.com for about 48 twelve ounce bottles of gluten-free beer requiring 2-3 hours of cooking time and about 7 weeks from starting the process to pouring:

Ingredients:
Malt Base – 6lb Sorghum Extract

Specialty Grain –

1lb Flaked Maize
1/2lb Whole Sorghum (for toasting)
1/2lb gluten free Oats (for toasting) – optional

Specialty Sugar – 1/4lb Belgian Dark Candi Syrup (this is a product that is worth the trouble of obtaining – it can be ordered online)

Hops –

1 oz UK Northern Brewer Leaf hops (bittering)

1oz Cascade hops (aroma)

Yeast- Notthingham Yeast (check for gluten free status on the package)
Other-

1/4 tsp Irish Moss
3/4 oz Coriander Seeds
3/4 oz. Bitter Orange Peel (in the event of a beer emergency, you can use the zest of one fresh orange)
8oz Malto-dextrin (a weird, nearly flavorless material that makes a smooth “mouth-feel”)
15 black peppercorns

Other: Priming sugar (about 1 cup for five gallons) dissolved in a couple of cups of water

Instructions:
Toast Whole Sorghum & gluten free Oats in the oven for 20 minutes @ 375 F.

Grind toasted Sorghum & Oats using a grain mill that is only used for gluten free grains, and then combine these with flaked maize.
Maize, Oats and sorghum go in a muslin bag in one and a half gallons cold well water in a large pot – large enough to hold at least 3 gallons.
Heat to 160F, hold at this temperature for 10 minutes.
Remove grains (the muslin bag full of grain will have swelled considerably) and discard.
Add Sorghum extract & Belgian Dark Candi syrup to the grainy water, stir to dissolve. If you have no Belgian Dark Candi syrup you may be tempted to use molasses. Our advice – don’t use molasses because it will impart a distinctive molasses flavor to the finished beer. If you must substitute for the Dark Candi syrup, try dark brown sugar or panela.
Bring to boil. ALERT: at this point, there are 60 minutes left in the cooking process. All the times listed next to the ingredients below are the total cooking time for that ingredient. When we say “set the timer” that is to indicate the time between steps.

Start proofing yeast in a cup of water – Nottingham yeast (marked gluten free).
While grainy water and sugars boil, add the following for the minutes indicated (this is a standard beer recipe convention, and you have to study on how beer is made so that this series of instructions will make sense):

1 oz. Northern Brewer Hops (60 min)
Set Timer for 45 minutes

When timer goes off, start adding the following ingredients and cook them for the amount of time indicated:

1 ounce Cascade hops (15 minutes)
Set timer for 5min, when timer goes off, add
1/4 tsp Irish Moss (10 minutes)
Set Timer for 5min, when timer goes off, add

1/2 lb. Malto-dextrin mix with cold water first (5 minutes)
3/4 oz coriander seeds (5 minutes)
3/4 oz bitter orange (5 minutes)
15 black peppercorns(5 minutes)

After 5 more minutes, all the cooking is done.

The total cooking time, from the time an ingredient is added to the end of the cooking is show in parentheses next to each ingredient. This is how beer-making recipes are generally written. The instructions about “set the timer for X minutes” are our own addition and show the time between steps. So, the Northern Brewer hops go in, then you wait 45 minutes and add the Cascade Hops, then wait 5 minutes, then add the Irish Moss etc. The last 4 ingredients all go in at once, and they only cook for the last 5 minutes of the boil.

Pour wort through a fine strainer in to 2 gallons of cold water in a sterilized 6 gallon fermenter.

Add cold water to increase to 5 gallons total volume in the fermenter (it helps to mark the fermenter at the five-gallon level so you know when you have added enough water).
Cool to 72 degrees F.
Measure the starting specific gravity and record. It should be around 1.040.
Add the proofed yeast, give a stir, cover the fermenter and add an airlock. This mixture should ferment for two or more weeks. This beer will not bubble as vigorously as a barley or wheat beer – it is a gentle fermentation and does best at around 70 degrees.
After the primary fermentation, rack off the beer in to another vessel, add the dissolved priming sugar, give the mixture a vigorous mixing, and bottle in sterilized bottles. Cap the bottles with new caps (you cannot re-use caps). The beer will be ready to drink in about 3 weeks.

Homemade Spicy Tomato and Sweet Pepper Ketchup

0 · Nov 3, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Making your own custom ketchup is easy-peezy! At gfzing.com, we made a careful study of the available recipes for homemade ketchup, and concluded that the ingredients in most tomato ketchups are pretty much identical. The spicy ketchup variant here is gluten free and can be served with fries, meatloaf, Shepherd’s Pie, hamburgers, hash browns, corned beef hash or any other dish that requires ketchup.

We tasted the typical store-bought ketchup which is very smooth, mostly sweet, with heavy tomato and celery seed notes – sort of like sweetened and thickened V8 juice! We also read Malcolm Gladwell’s interesting discussion of why there are so many mustards and only one ketchup. Afterward reading that, we thought that we would not like a ketchup substitute, but we were wrong. This ketchup is better than bottled ketchup!

Spicy Tomato and Red Pepper Ketchup — Homemade Ketchup has a rich color and complex flavors

We started with a Saveur recipe for homemade ketchup. We replaced half the tomatoes with sweet red peppers, added sweet potato and dates for sweetening and thickening, and switched out their brown sugar with some agave syrup and gluten free fruit jam, to reduce the amount of refined sugar in the recipe. We changed the amount of spices, and upped the hot peppers. The final ketchup has some chutney-like flavors. It has more flavor than bottled ketchup, and far less refined sugar. It provides dynamic tension for your meatloaf!

Ingredients:

14 0unces diced or petite cut canned tomatoes

3 long sweet red peppers, stemmed, seeded and sliced

1 cup water

1/2 of a large red onion, peeled and chopped

1 clove garlic, peeled and sliced

1 dried cayenne pepper, stemmed and sliced

2 Tablespoons agave nectar

1/3 cup cider vinegar (we make our own cider vinegar out of homemade New England apple cider, from local apples)

1/4 teaspoon celery seed

1/4 teaspoon dry mustard

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 Medjool dates, pitted and sliced

1 1/2 ounces of peeled sweet potato, chopped – a piece of sweet potato about the size of an extra-large egg

2 Tablespoons plum jam

How big are the peppers — A dried cayenne pepper on the left, and a sweet red pepper on the right

The Steps:

Homemade Spicy Tomato and Sweet Pepper Ketchup before cooking — The ketchup before the cooking...

First, put all the ingredients in a saucepan and cook over medium heat for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until reduced by half. The material will start to stick to the bottom of the pan. Be careful that it does not burn.

When cooked, cool and then puree the mixture thoroughly in a blender or food processor. Taste, and adjust the salt, sweet, and sour flavors as necessary. That’s it! Serve warm or cold. Store, covered, in the refrigerator. This is not a “preserve” since it has a low sugar content and low salt content. It cannot be kept indefinitely. Make sure all your ingredients, including spices, are gluten free.

How to Feed a Gluten Free Guest

0 · Oct 30, 2010 · 1 Comment

A friend asked about what to serve a gluten-free guest at dinner.

We advise that a nice menu for entertaining a gluten-free guest might include

A simple salad of lettuce and grated carrots with a dressing made of olive oil and lemon juice, fresh garlic, salt and pepper. Do not use croutons.
A lamb, fish or chicken dish made with simple ingredients. Take great care that if you use stock or soy sauce it is gluten free. Use whole herbs and spices rather than ground spices. A simple recipe to try might be a Marinated Grilled Chicken.
A rice pilaf such as Nilufer’s Khtichri or plain braised potatoes.
Steamed broccoli finished with olive oil, fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper, or alternatively a dish made with fresh or frozen green beans, or carrots
For dessert, serve a gluten free sorbet or fresh fruit salad.
If you want to serve ice cream, ask the gluten free guest if they eat ice cream (some do not eat dairy products), and use a gluten free product. Haagen Dazs keeps a gluten free list of their products at this site: http://haagendazs.com/flavor_finder/. About half way down the page is a check box for “gluten free” – check that box and search the site – this will generate a list of their gluten free products. Always check the manufacturer’s site.

As you can see, the gluten free diet is a very healthy diet!

Banana Cream Chocolate Pie – gluten free

0 · Oct 24, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Banana Cream Chocolate Pie Close up — Close up of an actual slice of gluten free Banana Cream Chocolate Pie

This delicious pie is based on one from The Best of Cooking Light (2000). We have changed a few things and made it gluten free. As cream pies go, it is relatively light. For those of you who eat pie for breakfast, we maintain that a slice of this pie is nutritionally not very different from a bowl of sugary cereal with milk and sliced bananas. So, by all means, eat pie for breakfast!

It is possible to make this pie and serve it in 4 hours – you have to work quickly and chill at each stage. Chill the pie crust immediately after it is baked, add the chocolate layer and chill, add the bananas and custard and chill again. In winter, we take advantage of a table on a screened-in porch for these chilling stages. The screens on the porch are necessary to keep squirrels out of the pie.

First, you will need a one-crust gluten free pie shell. You can make your own using 1/2 of this recipe: Pie Crust Recipe. Roll out a crust and line a 9 inch Pyrex pie plate.

Prick the crust all over with a fork and pre-bake the pie crust for 10-12 minutes at 450 degrees (for this crust you don’t need to use pie weights or dried beans to keep the crust from collapsing.) In the event of a true pie emergency, you could use a Whole Foods gluten free pie crust from their freezer section.

Gather these ingredients:

For the chocolate part:

1 TB cornstarch
2 TB sugar
2 TB unsweetened gluten free cocoa powder
1/3 cup low-fat milk or gluten free rice milk
2 ounces semi-sweet or bittersweet gluten free chocolate (chopped coarsely)
Dash of salt

For cooking the custard:

2 TB cornstarch
1 cup of low fat milk or gluten free rice milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1 TB butter

After cooking the custard, mix these in:

2 tsp gluten free vanilla

1/4 cup (2 ounces) gluten free cream cheese (for dairy-free, omit this)

Other:

2 cups sliced ripe bananas (2 bananas)
Whipped cream, lightly sweetened and flavored with vanilla

You are going to layer up some thick chocolate paste which goes in to the baked pie crust first, then sliced bananas on top of the chocolate, then custard. Chill for 2 hours or more, then serve with whipped cream!

For the chocolate part: Mix the cornstarch, sugar, cocoa, milk and salt in a saucepan and cook, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens. Add the chocolate and stir until it melts. Spread this mixture over the bottom of the baked pie crust.

For the custard, get your immersion blender ready at your side in case you need it to correct custard disasters. You basically have two choices. You can mix the custard materials and cook over a boiling water bath, which takes more time and assures a lump-free custard, or you can mix the custard materials in a sturdy pot, cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a whisk, and if the custard curdles or looks at all lumpy give it a good blast with the immersion blender (taking care not to hurt yourself), adding a little heavy cream if necessary to loosen things up. Either way works fine.

After you cook the custard mixture, while the mixture is still hot, stir in the vanilla and the cream cheese and mix thoroughly. If you are making a dairy-free version, leave out the cream cheese.

Slice the bananas and put the slices on the chocolate layer, then spread the finished custard over the bananas. Chill completely, slice and serve with whipped cream. There won’t be a lot of left-overs.

Make sure all your ingredients are gluten free!