Back to Baking: Cupcakes

The last time I made cupcakes, I opened a box. Now, I turn to Silvana Nardone's Cooking for Isaiah and scoop out some of my flour mixture. Oh. My. GOD!

Her "chocolate birthday cake" recipe is AMAZING! I made it without instant espresso powder because I hate all things coffee-flavored. Still amazing! Cakes are hard to share, so I took out my cupcake tins and lined them with my dwindling supply of cupcake papers and got to work. Last time I made a cake, I had lumps in the batter, which contrary to my wishful thinking, did not disappear in the baking process. I encouraged my poor taste test subject to "eat around the lumps" and I did the same. This time, I whisked together the dry ingredients THEN I took out my handy five-cup flour sifter and sifted out every blessed lump. I had perfectly smooth batter that lead to the greatest cupcakes ever! Silvana's recipe is for making a cake and I am trying to hold myself to following recipes to the letter for my first attempt, but I cross-referenced with a box of cupcakes and changed my baking time to 19 minutes and had a delicious, moist chocolate dessert. I'm pretty sure this is one of the best chocolate cupcakes I have ever had and I know my cupcakes!

I did not feel like making frosting as well, since I was baking after work and my time was precious (translation: I had too many dishes to do already), so I decided to sift some powdered sugar onto the cupcakes. The result? Picture-perfect cupcakes that had the powdered sugar disappear an hour later. Note to self: do not add powdered sugar to a warm baked good.

And then the ultimate test came the next morning: bringing the cupcakes to work. I only brought 10 cupcakes into the office (enough for half of the people since I figured people might be scared to try gluten and lactose free cupcakes; many people were weirded out by the soy ice cream bars one girl brought in for my birthday the year prior) so did not bother with the office-wide e-mailed invitation to try my baked goods. I set them on the empty desk next to me and let people grab them if they liked. Everyone who tried one said they were delicious and really good. I asked one guy what he thought and if he could honestly tell me if they tasted like real cupcakes to him. He said he had no idea that they were special cupcakes and asked if he could have another. Three different people all went back for seconds! Now if that doesn't boost my baking confidence, I don't know what will!

Recovery and Grilled Cheese

Being gluten-ized sucks. I was sick with Friday's dinner, had the leftovers for Saturday and had some more for lunch on Sunday (after removing the larger pieces of meat). I was stupid to keep eating the food that made me sick, but the meal itself was so good, it was disappointing that the Italian sausage ruined it. By Sunday afternoon, I felt so horrible. I was so nauseous and was having crazy "bathroom problems", my stomach ached, my headaches worsened, the swelling on the right side of my abdomen grew, I could barely think, I wanted to crawl into bed by 6pm, and I could not eat. I cut my losses and just stopped eating for the day.

The next morning I went to Jamba Juice and started my stomach recovery. By Monday evening, I was almost back to normal. What a crazy detour! I made an easy dinner of grilled cheese.

Grilled cheese? It's on my list. When I realized I was going to be gluten-free for life, I opened up one of my basic cookbooks and made a list of everything I wanted to eat - including all of the ones I had ruled out because they would be "too hard." I used Udi's Whole Grain bread and freshly sliced goat cheese with some fresh chopped basil in between the cheese slices. I should have let the cheese melt a little more, but I have been horribly out of practice. It has probably been over two years since I stood at the stove making grilled cheese. It was really nice to be able to turn back to traditional comfort food as my stomach started healing and I began crossing items off of my food wish list.

WARNING: not everyone who is lactose intolerant can have goat cheese. I can't have any butter (which is really low in lactose levels), but I can eat as much goat cheese as I want. Here's some additional information: http://www.drgourmet.com/askdrgourmet/goatcheeseallergy.shtml

Italian Sausage and Tomatoes over Noodles

Cooking with Eliot is such a joy.
“Can you cut up these tomatoes?”
“Sure. Dice them?”
“Yeah.”

I continue working on cutting about a 1/3 cup of peas from their pods. I turn around. He’s done. The tomatoes are beautiful. And I’m insanely jealous.

We were having a gluten and lactose free dinner after a busy week. We subconsciously switch who is going to plan the meal and this time it was my turn. I decided earlier in the week to just “be inspired” by whatever I saw at the Famer’s Market on Thursday in front of Daley Plaza. It was a risky move since my supply of fresh protein has been eaten and I would need to supplement whatever I bought with something from the grocery store that night…without stopping home and searching my cookbooks for the perfect recipe.

I met my cousin Rachel at the market and we went shopping! We bought rosemary plants (my rosemary never grew past ½” tall, despite being planted twice) and basil and I was still stumped over my upcoming dinner. We wandered over to the Amish vendors and Rachel started looking at their cheeses. Normally, when my shopping partner looks at breads and cheeses, I take a step back so I’m not in the way of any potential customers. This time, I looked at their selection. They had goat cheese. I bought two squares. Yay! We continued our shopping and I bought small yellow and red tomatoes, some peas, and a small bouquet flowers to decorate my table. Rachel and I talked through the menu and decided that adding Italian sausage (cooked without the casing) would be delicious – and we were right!

For this meal, it involves cooking the sausage and once the meat is done, tossing with whole small tomatoes, diced tomatoes, a few peas, and chopped fresh basil and cooked noodles over a low heat for about two minutes. We had freshly shredded goat cheese on the table to top the dish off with some needed calcium. The noodles we used were Hodgson Mill's Brown Rice Pasta - Elbow - with Golden Milled Flax Seed. They were very tasty and I recommend trying them! I also made bread that was rather meh. I added fresh rosemary to some of the bread and sprinkled some dried basil over the others to help continue the Italian flair of the meal. Eliot and I ended our meal with warm chocolate chip cookies.

And now for the warning that comes with this dish to my gluten-free friends: BUY GLUTEN FREE MEAT. Seriously. I got sick from the sausage (I ate it again the next day…just to make sure. Yup. Felt like vomiting, had too many “bathroom” issues, my energy level dropped, I was having a wave of anxiety, the next time I put food in my mouth I nearly vomit, and generally felt horrible.) I thought I could save money with grocery-store brand cheap sausage that was incidentally gluten-free based on the declared ingredients, but I was wrong. There’s a lot of meat that now comes with the gluten-free label. I’m going to switch over to organic meats when I want things like sausage that may not be labeled gluten-free (but have 6 or 8 ingredients) and see if that helps. The good news is that my reactions were rather mild and only lasted a day instead of the traditional two or three day recovery, so not all is lost. This is rather disappointing – especially since our meal was so delicious and had a really flavorful profile – both in taste and texture!

Cooking for Isiah

My rule when purchasing a cookbook is I need to be able to make (or have the desire to learn to make) at least three recipes. I have started checking out cookbooks from the library first to make sure that the recipes match my cooking style and eating habits. The latest find is Silvana Nardone's Cooking for Isaiah: Gluten-Free & Dairy-Free Recipes for Easy, Delicious Meals.

I'm ordering my own copy on amazon before the book is even due.

Most of her recipes include her flour-blend so I bought another bag of rice flour and bought a container large enough to hold her just-over-ten-cup mixture and dove right in. A flour mixture of that size is quite the investment, especially since I have only worked with smaller mixtures for individual recipes. I went in completely trusting Silvana and it was worth it.

Last Saturday, I bought some ribs (conveniently labeled gluten-free on the back of the packaging - thank you, Hormel!) http://www.hormelfoods.com/brands/glutenfree/default.aspx I made her delicious pineapple-brown sugar barbecue sauce (omitting the hot sauce since my taste buds are not a fan) and made ribs. I have always loved ribs - they are very easy to make. At their simplest, you pour bottled sauce over the ribs on a cookie sheet covered with aluminum foil. But these were amazing! Once cooked, the barbecue sauce just exploded with flavor and richness.

For my side, I made double corn cornbread and hit another home run. This bread tastes like normal bread!!! My recommendation is to make sure that the corn kernels are fully cooked because otherwise they can be a bit chewy while eating. I was particularly excited by this recipe because now I have a bread to eat for Thanksgiving.

And since no meal is complete without dessert, I kept my All-American Traditional theme going with her chocolate chip cookies. When I opened the oven door, I loudly swore in complete shock: the cookies came out of the oven just like cookies are supposed to!! They rose and grew and were everything a chocolate chip cookie should be. When I gave one to Eliot, he proclaimed, "This is how a cookie is supposed to taste." This could easily be passed off as a traditional cookie.

This book is hands down the one book any lactose and gluten free cook NEEDS propped up on their counter. The book is one giant YES! If I ever have the Julie and Julia goal to work my way through an entire cookbook, this would be chosen with no other book even coming in second. Every recipe already takes into consideration the different types of milk and shortenings for cooking. The recipes are all kid tested (her son Isaiah is gluten and dairy-free) and range from traditional favorites to delicious splurges, such as s'mores pancakes. And honestly, only a mom would think to use Fritos to coat chicken tenders. Brilliant!!!

http://www.amazon.com/Cooking-Isaiah-Gluten-Free-Dairy-Free-Delicious/dp/1606521659/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285441129&sr=8-1

Pork chop, onion and green beans over noodles

After cooking all weekend (and leaving me with a backlog of posts and pictures to share), I still feel the need to cook myself a quickly and easy dinner after work. I headed to Dominicks and was going to buy whatever meat was on sale and go from there. Today, pork chops won and I grabbed about a pound of green beans.

This recipe is really easy to make - about fifteen to twenty minutes start to finish. It does dirty two pots, a pan, a cutting board, and a George Foreman grill. It has a lot of "mean whiles..." so I'll separate them by pot.

Small pot - bring to boil. Rinse your green beans and chop off the ends. Add the green beans and cook until they reach your preferred tenderness. Drain. Set aside to place in your pan.

Larger pot - bring to boil with Kosher salt. Add noodles. Follow the directions, including rinsing gluten-free pasta. Drain. Set aside.

Larger pan - chop one medium sized onion and smash two cloves of garlic. Add olive oil to pan and then onion and garlic. Cook until tender. Remove the garlic. Add the cooked green beans and about one to two tablespoons of soy sauce. Cook for another two minutes on low.

George Foreman - lightly oil the warmed plates by wiping it with olive oil on a paper towel. Add pork chop(s). Cook for a few minutes. Remove from grill and cut into smaller pieces.

Bring all the ingredients together in a perfectly plated bowl! Enjoy! And don't forget to clean your George Foreman once you are done eating! The sooner you clean it, the happier you will be.

I used La Choy Soy Sauce (some people have a gluten reaction from it - I don't) and thin rice noodles from the Asian section of the grocery store.

Chili (with noodles)

Warning: this is not a purist’s version of chili.

Growing up, chili meant the meat and bean combo poured over a generous portion of elbow macaroni topped with oyster crackers. A few months ago, Eliot and I were going to make chili to ward off the cold of the Chicago winter. At the store, I asked if he had noodles. “Why?” “You need noodles for chili.” And then my worldview changed when he said that chili doesn’t have noodles. Apparently, this was a Midwestern (or at least – my family) tradition – much like putting butter on rice. I said that I still needed a starch, so picked up a loaf of bread. I was still sick at that point, so Eliot made the chili and I pretended to help. My memory of what went into his chili is sketchy (as are most of my memories from January through mid-June when my gluten intolerance reached its peak) so I turned to my cookbooks for this meal so I knew what ingredients to add.

I cooked a pound of ground sirloin, a chopped onion, two chopped cloves of garlic, and a sliced celery stalk for about 10 minutes and then drained. Then I added a can of diced tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce and then some spices (I used paprika, salt, and pepper). Bring to boil and simmer for an hour, stirring occasionally. Then add a can of beans, bring to boil, reduce to simmer for another ten minutes. Easy! The paprika substitution was because I did not have any chili powder at the time. Thanks to a Target trip today, I have remedied that situation for future dishes.

Since I was making chili MY way, I decided to try rice macaroni from the Asian grocery store. There was no gluten-free label on it, so I was hoping that the product was incidentally gluten-free thanks to the ingredient list: rice flour, water, salt. The instructions were difficult to read since they look like they were imported into a free translation website, but ultimately they had the two key pieces of information I needed: the cooking time and draining the noodles. I was originally baffled by rice noodles continually instructing to rinse in cold water after cooking, but after looking at the murky white water, I am more than happy to complete this extra step.

The chili was great – I still have not figured out an oyster cracker substitution. I have a feeling that this dish will become a fine-tuned dish with an exact recipe over the coming winter months.

Sweet Potato Fries

During my traditional Thursday lunch hour visit to the Farmers' Market at Daley Plaza, I was pleasantly surprised to find some of the first sweet potatoes this year. I bought three without any specific plans for them. I went home and searched FoodNetwork.com for some ideas. There are more than plenty!

I chose Paula Deen's Baked Sweet Potato Fries. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/baked-sweet-potato-fries-recipe/index.html

The most difficult part about making these fries was slicing the potatoes. My knife skills improved by the time I was done cutting the second potato, but I think I nearly chopped off a finger a few times! I've seen a gadget that cuts your potato for you in french fry slices, but I don't have the space (in my small studio apartment) or eat enough fries to justify that purchase...yet. For the seasoning, I did not want to commit to the House Seasoning, so I mixed much smaller portions in one of my tiny prep bowls and used that. I love reading comments about the recipe - someone mentioned using her pre-heated stoneware to cook the fries! Perfect - I've been trying to season my new Pampered Chef pizza stoneware. With an adventurous spirit, I split my fries between the stoneware (first lightly covered in oil since it is not seasoned yet) and parchment paper on a cookie sheet. I made all other variables the same and wanted to see which way had a tastier fry. The result? Exactly the same.

Oh well, at least I have some restaurant quality fries without using a deep fryer!