Smits Farms Herbs

Nothing beats turning a great recipe into a suburb recipe with the addition of some fresh herbs.  One of the staples at the Thursday Daley Plaza Farmers Market is Smits Farms.  I have been buying herbs from them for the past three years.  No other stand sells so many ready to use herbs.  Smits gets major props for conveniently labeling all their herbs, which is always tempting me to try something new.  They also sell a large variety of herbs in pots, ready to find new homes in your garden.

One my most recent visit to their stand, I spoke with Kayla from Smits Farms.  Their farmer's market stand is filled with a great variety of herbs, flowers, and later in the season, a lot of vegetables, like corn and tomatoes.  The farm has been family run for around twenty years and is located in Chicago Heights.

 Her favorite herb is basil.  "I really like pesto - later we will have a ton of basil.  It's super good," she says.

One of the biggest misconceptions about herbs is that people think they are never going to use it.  That's not the case - you can always use it for something, Kayla told me.  Her three favorites herbs are bail, cilantro and dill.

"Come and smell them.  They smell pretty good," Kayla says, inviting everyone to check out their delicious herbs.  Their prices are great - some of the lowest prices around for fresh herbs.  With only a few dollars, you can easily enhance the flavor in any dish.

Daley Plaza not your scene?  Don't worry - Smits Farms is part of nine Farmers Markets in Chicago in 2012!

What are your top three herbs?  Mine are basil, tarragon and flat parsley.

Salsas Vallartas

Every Thursday, I attend the farmer's market in Daley Plaza in the Loop.  Earlier last week, I (very easily) convinced a co-worker to come with me to shop for veggies and more on our lunch break.  My co-worker is a real trooper - even in the pouring rain without umbrellas - we did not let the storm ruin our quest for delicious food.

Each week while the downtown Farmer's Market is in session (click here for the calendar), I am going to spotlight a different vendor.  First up is Salsas Vallartas!

Salsas Vallartas sells salsa (of course), guacamole and hummus.  Their products are all natural with no preservatives - which quickly sets it apart from the supermarket varieties!  Give me all natural products any day! I spoke with Eliza from Salsas Vallartas - the only product I needed to avoid as someone who is gluten and dairy free was the Spinach and Feta Cheese - it obviously contains cheese.  That is actually one of her favorite types of hummus - and actually the product that sets them apart from other hummus makers.  Dairy lovers - check it out!  Her other two favorites are Cilantro and Jalapeno ("goes well with tortilla chips and beer") and Three Peppers - "The fusion of the three peppers keeps it smoky - medium - not over the top."

Eliza's dad has been in the food industry for over 15 years and all of his recipes come from his family - great-great-great grandma, actually!  They use very authentic ways of cooking.  Salsas Vallartas is bringing big taste with their products to the community while still maintaining a small-town feel in this bustling city.  Everything is made in a small kitchen in Lincoln Park.  In addition to the Daley Plaza farmer's market, they attend others as well, such as the one at Clark & Division.

It's fairly easy to incorporate hummus into your diet - use it on wraps, with chips, with veggies and more!  Uses salsas with omelets or as marinades.  Couldn't be easier!

I tried a few varieties of their salsas and hummus.  Everything was very tasty - after deciding between many tasty options, I ended up buying their lemon hummus.  The hummus and salsa are $5.00 a tub.  It seems like a lot of money, but the quantity is easily two or three times the supermarket varieties with more flavor, quality, and natural ingredients.  The hummus lasts for about a week and a half - everything is labeled with the "best by" date.  Check them out at the next Farmer's Market!  (Note: the chips they use for sampling are labeled "gluten free" on the bag.  Win!)

And as for my co-worker who weathered the storms with me?  She bought hummus as well and introduced her family to something tasty that they now love.  (And we got drenched in the rain.)

 Have you tried Salsas Vallartas before?  What's your favorite salsa or hummus?

Better Batter Yellow Cake

Looking for a tasty yellow cake mix?  Look no further than Better Batter's certified gluten free Yellow Cake Mix.  Better Batter was kind enough to send me a box to sample.  The baking couldn't be simpler: mix plus 1 cup water or milk (I used Pacific Natural Food's hemp milk), 3/4 cup oil and 3 eggs.  Mix everything together, pour into two 8" pans and half an hour in the oven later, you have cake!

I was bringing the cake to my cousin's housewarming party, so I couldn't sample the cake ahead of time.  (That's why I like cupcakes, no one notices if one is missing...I'm sneaky like that.)  From my Wilton classes, I learned how to properly level a cake.  I adjusted my cake leveler and was shocked to discover that the cakes were already level.  In my almost two years baking gluten free, this has never happened.  While I was delighted that I saved a step, I was bummed that again, I couldn't sneak any cake in advance.  At that point, I decided the cake better be worth the wait!

After placing my cake on a foil covered board and carefully positioning one layer, I piped a some frosting onto the cake and spread it around.  Then the next layer was added and the cake went to the fridge to cool to prevent any crumbs from seeping into the frosting.  Once the cake was cool, I plopped a ton of light green thin-consistency frosting on top and began to ice my cake.  I used a stencil to make the decorative swirls on the top of the cake.  I added another two toothpicks worth of green dye to darken up my leftover frosting before adding in some piping gel and a tiny bit more water.  The stencil was outlined using a #3 tip and then surrounding freehand dots were added.  Using a #21 tip, I formed a shell border around the base of the cake in the remainder of the dark green frosting.  A two-tone yellow gum paste Gerbera Daisy (made earlier) found its way in the center of the cake.  Viola!  Beautifully decorated cake without my kitchen turning into a mess!

 

Later that day after toting my cake up to the Illinois-Wisconsin border for my cousin's party, I FINALLY got to try the cake!  Was it a better batter than I'm used to?  You bet!  The cake was deliciously moist, very soft and tasted like cake!  (I've tried some gf cake mixes that felt like I was biting into sand; Better Batter thankfully tastes like a decadent cloud.  And look at those air pockets!  The batter is not too dense.)  At the party, my cousin's other side of the family happily tried the cake and complimented how great it tasted...before they even knew it was gluten free!  Everyone loved it!  I am happy to add another brand of cake mixes to my pantry.  Having a naturally level cake is a huge draw for me since I love to cut corners and find faster ways of doing things without compromising the final product.  The edges of the cake browned a bit too much for my liking, but no one will ever see that after the cake is smothered with frosting.  Better Batter's Yellow Cake is a winner - it even converted my chocolate loving self into a huge fan!

Farmer's Market Asparagus Soup

It's my favorite time of the year!  Farmer's Market Season!  Time to leave the office and enjoy some time in the sun while shopping for fresh veggies, fruits, sweets, plants and much more at Daley Plaza.  The 2012 Chicago Farmer's Market at Daley Plaza (50 W Washington, in front of the courthouse) runs from May 24 to October 18 every Thursday from 7:00am until 3:00pm.

On my first visit of the year last Thursday, I bought some herbs to fast track my city garden.  Planting from seeds is great, but the reality is I miss having fresh herbs available at home, so the plants will tide me over while my other plants slowly grow.  I'm adding parsley, basil, tarragon, chives, parsley, oregano and more to the herb starting line up - including the newcomer chocolate mint!  It smelled so good (like chocolate) I could not pass it up.  And yes, I was that girl with the flat of herbs on the bus later that evening...  To some, I may have looked silly or crazy, but the reality is I've toted far weirder things on the bus (empty child's wheelchair tops the list).  And these herbs are crucial to the tastiness of my food!

I was also tempted by fresh (and super cheap) asparagus so I bought two bunches at the farmer's market.  Once I got home, I made Cream of Asparagus Soup, using this recipe from Skinny Taste.  Keep it gluten free by reading the labels of chicken stock for hidden culprits and keep it dairy free by subbing Earth Balance for the butter and coconut milk for the sour cream.  Normally I use homemade stock, but Pacific Natural Foods was very generous in providing me some samples of their gluten free and dairy free goodies.  I tried their gfcf organic free range chicken broth - one spoonful put my homemade version to shame!  The rumors are right: quality ingredients really do make a difference in foods!  With organic chicken broth and local asparagus, I was pretty much guaranteed a high quality, tasty soup.  It did not disappoint!  The soup is extremely simple to prepare and even hits the spot on the hot summer-like days we have been having.  It was a relatively hands off recipe until the end when I spent about a minute blending everything together with my immersion blender.  I've never made soup with asparagus before but I'm glad I branched out and discovered something new for my recipe box.  This soup really is worth trying!

For more information on Chicago's Farmers Markets, check out this really helpful link from explorechicago.com.  This season, I will be spotlighting a different vendor from the Daley Plaza Farmer's Market!  Check back weekly for this fun feature.

Soup for (under) a buck

Can you feed a group of 15 on a buck?  Total.

This was the challenge presented to my Food, Faith and Sustainability group last week.  Our homework was to bring food for our group potluck.  Majority of us were given a dollar budget.  Only $1.00 to feed a group of 15.  A few people were given larger sums ($3.00 and $5.00) while one person could spend as much as she liked.

The easy way out as one of the $1.00 folks would have been to go to the Dollar Tree, pick up some snack food, and call it a day.  But I can't eat most packaged food (and if I can, it is triple the price of its wheat and milk bearing cousins) and I would like to eat, too.  I toyed with a few ideas (the ever popular rice, beans, and lentils; the ever tasty meringues; the super easy scrambled eggs and/or fries) before deciding on soup.  If I used homemade broth that has been hanging out in my freezer, the cost would be free!  I made my broth when cooking a whole chicken, so any ingredients that went into that were for flavoring the chicken and were already consumed.  The water was saved from being poured down the drain, so I should get a few gold stars for rescuing something so tasty.

I am financially fortunate and blessed that none of my meals require me to measure out how much this will cost (carrots were going to make an appearance, but at 4 cents each, they were passed up for the super pricey (all things considered) lime for a dime).  My ingredients come from a total of four grocery stores.  I live in a fantastic neighborhood - the Asian grocery stores have dirt cheap prices on things that are naturally gluten free (CARTS full of food there can cost around $100.00 - includes lots of protein).  A nearby market that sells limes for a dime each - and other produce and protein for rock bottom prices.  And then there is Dominicks - my source for everything else, including items that need to carry the gluten free label, where my dollar does not go too far.

This recipe was more of a math equation than I am used to.  I would have loved to add some carrots, mung beans, and cilantro, but then I would have had to sacrifice the noodles, which is pretty much my favorite part.  

Is it doable?  More importantly, does it taste good?

I did it for 98 cents.  It tasted delicious.  It did not feel like soup for a buck, but it was a great way to stretch a dollar on a restricted diet, eat healthy empty out my freezer from all my stock, introduce people to some new foods, and flex my math skills in the kitchen.  The lemon grass and fish sauce, although only appearing in small amounts, make their presence known, marrying the flavors together.

In college, I learned about this triangle.  It carries over in a lot of decision making in my everyday life.  If you want something to be cheap, it can be either good or fast.  You can never have all three.  Since I wanted good and cheap for my soup, I had to sacrifice fast by shopping around, carefully planning and cooking the soup myself.  Worth it?  Yes!

Lemon Grass Chicken Soup with Rice Vermicelli

Makes an impressive 15 servings.

11 cups homemade chicken broth

2 ribs of celery, thinly sliced

1 stalk of lemon grass, bruised

2 teaspoons of fish sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

9 oz rice vermicelli

1 lime

1 green onion, thinly sliced for garnish

Heat a nonstick pan and add 1/3 cup chicken stock.  Add celery and stir until softened (about 5 minutes), adding additional stock as necessary. 

Add remainder of chicken stock to a large pot.  Bring to boil.  Add celery, lemon grass, and fish sauce.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Bring to boil then reduce heat, simmering uncovered for about 10 minutes. 

Add water in a large pot.  Bring to boil.  Add rice vermicelli and cook for 4-5 minutes (or per package directions).  Rinse with cool water.  Set aside.

Spoon rice vermicelli into bowls, then add soup (discarding the lemon grass).  Add green onions as garnish.  Zest the lime over the soup and add a squeeze of the juice to the soup.

Here was my cost breakdown.  Salt, pepper, and chicken broth were my freebies.

How far do you stretch your dollar?

Summer Corn Salad

If you invite me to a barbecue or potluck this summer, there is a really good chance I'll be bringing Summer Corn Salad.

I found this recipe on Pinterest. (Hooked on Pinterest yet?  No?  You really should join the fun!  And follow me! http://pinterest.com/windycitycookin/)  Summer Corn Salad from Tatertotsandjello.com is naturally gluten, dairy, and top 8 allergen free, this recipe was sinfully simple.  I made a few small changes (namely swapping out spicy red peppers for colorful bell peppers sauteed in oil) and modified some of the portions.  Why do I love it?  It is fast, super easy, has familiar ingredients, free of all the major allergens and travels very well.  This summer, the two barbecues I attended were an hour away on public transit from my home, so I needed a dish that can handle the travel without spoiling or looking ugly.  This was perfect!  I placed it in a large plastic storage container, added a spoon and off I went!

As for the taste?  My cousins loved it and kept going back for more.  My mom loved it and declared it a keeper.  The ladies at an outdoor barbecue loved it and ate it up!  It has a really fun blend of different textures and tastes with every bite.  As silly as it sounds, it really does taste like summer.  It is perfect for the hot weather we are starting to have in Chicago.  The Chilled Summer Corn Salad can be a side salad, a little taste of the many available dishes, scooped up with a taco chip, or even a burger topping!  The possibilities are endless! (I'm now thinking about tossing it in with some rice noodles for a great lunch dish...)  Not a fan of any of the veggies?  Swap them out.  Have lots of fresh veggies to use?  Go ahead - no need to use canned or frozen.  Once summer is in full swing and my Topsy Turvey is yielding something other than green leaves, I am sure I will be using homegrown cherry tomatoes myself.

Here's how I made my version:

Chilled Summer Corn Salad
1.5 pounds of frozen corn (most bags are 1 pound)
2 diced bell peppers
1 diced red onion
1 can of diced tomatoes, drained
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
1/3 c lime juice
1/3 c olive oil
Salt and pepper

Heat corn in a large pot with water, according to package directions.  Do not over cook.

Saute the bell peppers in oil in a large pan.

In a large bowl (or the pot once the corn is done), toss everything together, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.

Chill.  Can make a day (or two or three) in advance (the leftovers were still super tasty).

Delicious cold (or even reheated).  Pairs nicely with burgers and tortilla chips.  Makes enough to serve a crowd (of a dozen or so).

Gluten Free Communion

One of the few times when I don't want to panic about gluten or dairy sneaking its way into my food is during communion.  When I first started attending Urban Village Church in Chicago, I always had a mini panic attack.  What if they didn't have gf communion?  Are they handling it correctly?  Is it really gluten free or does it have minute traces of wheat like wafers from the Catholic Church? (I will not take communion at a Catholic service after reading articles like this and this where the answer to "Is it safe?" is "Probably".)  Every week, with eagle eyes, I would silently watch the celebrant and make sure he or she did not break the wheat bread over the gluten free wafers.  After a year, one day, the unthinkable happened: while walking to the serving station, someone realized he had too much to carry (half a loaf of wheat bread, a cup, and a plate of gf wafers) and he put the wheat bread on top of the wafers.  As he passed me, we both realized what happened.  I rushed to the serving station and said that the wafers were no longer gluten free.  I sat out from communion that day and prayed, thanking God that I narrowly escaped a gluten reaction.

The innocent action (who can blame him?) opened up a new conversation about how we literally handle the gluten free communion.  We decided that the next week, I would make one loaf for the church: gluten free, vegan, and top 8 allergen free.  I had a recipe in mind and made one of my favorites: the house bread from Flying Apron Bakery's book.  I made it with pumpkin, a perfect fall bread.  The bread was a little difficult to tear in half, but the real difficulty came when breaking off pieces for people.  Growing up, I always had wafers.  The whole tear-off-bread-while-people-wait was new to me.  And after mixing that with a dense bread, there were crumbs everywhere on the floor!  Thankfully our church regularly declares that communion is messy - you will bump into other people - there will be crumbs.  Many people were thankfully goodhearted over the bread - they had no idea what to expect from a wheat free bread - but I knew that there was a better fit out there.

I was determined to find a recipe that worked.  As much as I love the idea of everyone sharing one loaf, the cost and difficulty for me to make a loaf a week was too much. I searched the Internet until I found a recipe that met my needs.  Brittany Angell of RealSustenance.com has a super easy gluten free and vegan quick bread formula.  She says it has endless flavor possibilities and she is right!  The formula was there, I just followed it with foods that worked for me and my needs and out came communion bread!  The below recipe is top eight allergen free (wheat free, dairy free, soy free, egg free, tree nut free, peanut free, shellfish free, fish free) and vegan.  Surprisingly, the most challenging allergen for me to avoid was soy.  All of my cooking sprays had soy and I needed the dough to actually leave the pan in one piece.  A quick snip of parchment paper to line the loaf pan did the trick!

The recipe below makes four loaves of bread, perfect for a month of communion.  The bread freezes exceptionally well.  Before baking, I always switch over to clean kitchen towels and make sure there are no nuts or peanuts around (I already have a dedicated gluten and dairy free kitchen).  I bought my mini loaf pans from Michaels during an after Christmas sale.  They are exclusively used for communion bread.  I make sure when I run my dishwasher that no peanut or nut dishes are in the same load, for extra precaution.

The bread itself is quite tasty and breaks apart easily and does not crumble to pieces when dipped in grape juice.  I've enjoyed it outside of church, too!

The mini loaves are at the Urban Village Andersonville location whenever I am there. (1602 W Ainslie St at 10:30am on Sundays)  Other Sundays, they use wafers from Ener-G.  I've previously made Namaste Food's sugar free muffin mix for communion as well with great results.

Gluten Free, Top 8 Allergen Free, Vegan Communion Bread

Makes enough communion bread for 4 weeks.

2 cups gluten free all purpose flour (I use Bob's Red Mill GF All Purpose Baking Flour)
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 t of xanthan gum or guar gum
3/4 c sugar

1/3 c vegetable oil
3/4 c of rice milk or coconut milk + 1 t apple cider vinegar
1 1/4 c unsweetened applesauce
1 t vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 330 degrees.  Line four mini loaf pans with parchment paper.
Whisk together all the dry ingredients.
Add in the wet ingredients and mix with a hand mixer.
Pour in the mini loaf pans and bake for 35-45 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean).
Let rest in pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.  Once completely cool, individually wrap the loaves in tin foil and place in a freezer bag, squeezing all the air out first, then storing in the freezer.

To defrost:
The night before, take a mini loaf from the freezer and store in the refrigerator in a sealed plastic container or bag.  In the morning, move from the refrigerator to the counter.  The loaf will be perfect in time for service!  (Assuming about 2 hours passes from rolling out of bed and communion time.)

Some tips on avoiding cross contamination when handling gluten free communion:

• The standard definition for gluten free is less than 20 parts per million.  Imagine a million grains of rice.  Now imagine that 20 of them are red.  How tiny is that amount!
• Do not handle wheat bread and then handle gf bread!  Make sure your hands are clean (I'm a huge fan of soap and water - it gets any residual crumbs off the hands).
• Have a dedicated gf cup and plate.  It is especially helpful to have separate storage containers and towels.
• If your church literally breaks bread (tears it in half), keep the gf elements out of the "crumb zone".
• When serving, offer the plate to the recipient and have them tear off their own piece.
• Everyone's sensitivities are different.  Just because one person who is gluten free since it helps them feel great does not have an issue with cross contamination does not mean that the next person has the same sensitivity level.  Err on the side of caution: always assume a super sensitive person.
• Now for the hardest one: if despite best intentions, something went wrong and the gf communion was cross contaminated: say something.  Example: someone dips wheat bread in the gf cup.  Not safe for those who need a gf diet.  I'd rather have someone say "no, you can't have that" rather than go home, feel sick, take a nap and take the next day off of work because I'm mysteriously sick.  (It has happened: all of my sick days this past year occurred on Monday after Sunday reactions.)

Every week, I've turned around and caught glances of strangers taking part in the communion celebration with the gluten free loaf.  It seems like every week, one or two new faces try the loaf, and not just because they are curious about gluten free breads!  One thing that brings me great joy is nourishing others through food.  To see so many people being able to participate in something that was previously forbidden due to dietary restrictions really fills me up with such happiness.  This is my contribution to bringing our church community together and growing even stronger as we move through the journey together.

Two great entries from a gf pastor's perspective at GlutenFreeJesusFreak include what to offer for communion and a few different ways of offering gf communion. 

What does your church do?  Do you have any more tips to add on serving gf communion?