Random Recipes

Last night I made chicken picatta for dinner. I did not take a photo of it, so you'll have to use your imagination. But imagine it was hot and tender and a bit lemony, and you'll have the gist of it.

I used a random recipe I found online from Giada De Laurentiis. It was good, very good. I will likely make it again.

Lately I have been making a lot of random recipes. Sometimes they're recipes I come across on Pinterest or on my favorite food blogs. Other times they're recipes I seek out because I'm looking to use certain ingredients—the chicken breasts in the freezer, as was the case last night, or some leftover bacon, or produce from our weekly CSA delivery that I don't normally cook with.

Some of the recipes I've tried recently include mashed potatoes and turnips with greens; grilled garlic scapes (yum); a slaw with fennel, cabbage, and kohlrabi from a weekly CSA email; a gluten-free version of strawberries and cream biscuits (a failure once they baked, though as you can see above they were pretty pre-oven; but the original version from Smitten Kitchen looks divine so please make them for me!); black bean sweet potato flautas (below); cheese papusas; huevos rancheros; and beef with snow peas from The Pioneer Woman. Most of these recipes were good. Most of these recipes I'll make again.

Along with those random recipes I've been making recently, though, I've also been relying on a couple of cookbooks.
The first is Gluten-Free Girl Every Day by Shauna James Ahern. She writes my favorite gluten-free cooking blog, which I reference frequently here, and also wrote the first gf cookbook I ever purchased. That first book, Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef, tells a lovely story and includes some delicious albeit rather aspirational recipes—most aren't the kind you'd have the time or ingredients to make on an the typical night. (Well, maybe you do, but I sure don't.) That's why I picked up the new book. Because it's made—as the title says—for everyday cooking.

One of the things I like best about the new cookbook is that it doesn't just give you recipes. It tells the story behind them and includes the hints and tips and tricks that make cooking easy and enjoyable for the Aherns. I appreciate knowing what substitutions I can make or how I can modify a recipe if, say, I don't want to include dairy.

So far from the new cookbook I've made waffles (though not the fried chicken that accompanies them—cross your fingers I have time for that soon!), the browned butter peach buckle (above), a chicken recipe that involves lemon and raisins and pistachios called "everyday chicken," and a nice loaf of bread (which I'll share with you someday).

I've also been cooking—a lot—from PrairiErth Farm Cookbook by Katie Bishop. This one has a special place on my countertop because it's actually the cookbook written and published by PrairiErth Farm, which is where we get our wonderful fresh organic produce each week.

The recipes are divided up by type of produce, which makes it easy to find something to make with our loot. If I want to make something with leeks or fennel or kale, I just flip to that section of the cookbook. A lot of the recipes come straight from Katie; others are from other CSA members. I have yet to try a recipe I didn't like. So far this year we've had roasted beets with rosemary, scalloped potatoes with fennel, and garlic scapes hummus (below).

As I write this, I'm pretty sure I've made more than just those few recipes, but now I need to get out the cookbook and check. You should probably just go order a copy and try them out for yourself anyway.

So there you have it. A random roundup of some of the many recipes we've tried recently. I welcome any suggestions you might have on other recipes I should add to my "to try" list.

Fruit Pizza

Hello. How was your long 4th of July weekend? I hope it was filled with fireworks, fun in the sun, and good food. That about sums up ours.

Since we went to Georgia for Memorial Day weekend this year, we stayed home for July's big patriotic holiday. It was rather quiet around here, but there's something nice about a long weekend that moves at a slower pace.

Conservative Hubby golfed five days in a row, the last two of which were a tournament he plays in each year. That left plenty of time for Little Man and I to take walks, dig in the dirt, go swimming, and generally run around seeing what trouble we could get into. I took Little Man back to daycare this morning covered in scrapes and bruises from all of his debauchery outside (and looking rather tan despite liberal applications of SPF 50+). This, to me, is the sign of a good weekend.

On Saturday night we had some friends over for a low-key BBQ. Conservative Hubby requested a fruit pizza for dessert, so I went on the hunt for a recipe, as it had been a few years since I made one.

I decided I really wanted to find a fruit pizza that Little Man and I could eat too. Since most fruit pizzas have what is essentially a sugar cookie crust, I figured I just needed to find a decent gluten-free sugar cookie recipe.

Let me tell you, I spent a long time looking at and dismissing gluten-free sugar cookie recipes leading up to Saturday. For one reason or another, none of them seemed right to me. For one thing, as I've made clear here before, I'm a bit of a sugar cookie snob, so I was reluctant to try recipes that seemed incredibly different than my old standby or that included a ridiculous amount of random ingredients (because trust me, with gluten-free baking, sometimes the number of ingredients is downright insane). I was also being cautious because I really wanted to find a cookie that wasn't "good—for gluten-free." I wanted it to be just good. Good enough that no one else eating the fruit pizza would know it was gluten-free in the first place.

But after quite a bit of searching I realized I was going to drive myself mad trying to find the perfect recipe. So I just decided to try one that looked like it had potential—and if it didn't turn out how I wanted, I'd go buy premade sugar cookie dough to slap in the pan and bake at the last minute.

The recipe I tried is from The Gluten-Free Homemaker. One reason I picked it is because she says it's not an overly sweet sugar cookie. (The big fluffy grocery store bakery sugar cookies are so sweet my teeth literally hurt when I bite into them—not what I wanted for my fruit pizza crust or what I want when I make my own sugar cookies.) The other reason I decided to give this recipe a try is because it seemed pretty manageable and not that far of a cry from my usual sugar cookies, aside, of course, from the substitution of flours.

This recipe involves butter and coconut oil, sugar, egg, vanilla, a touch of milk, baking powder, then rice flour, potato flour, and a bit of xanthan gum to replace the wheat flour. I creamed the butter, coconut oil, and sugar, mixed in the vanilla and milk, then combined the dry ingredients in a separate bowl before adding them to the liquid mixture. Once everything was mixed together, I refrigerated the dough for an hour before spreading it in my pan to bake for about 15 minutes.

I had enough extra dough to make three cookies, which I baked beside the fruit pizza crust. I figured this would give me a chance to try the crust without cutting into my (hopefully) pretty fruit pizza.

The dough baked up well. Light, golden, looking very much like my sugar cookies I usually make. And although they of course didn't taste exactly like my go-to recipe, the cookies I ate were good. Nice, subtle flavor. Not too sweet, as advertised. I ate all three cookies just to be sure the crust would work (sometimes this baking stuff is hard work) and decided it would make a great fruit pizza base, no "for gluten-free" addendum required.

Just before the BBQ, I mixed 8 ounces of softened cream cheese with 1/2 cup powdered sugar for the "frosting" on the pizza. Some fruit pizza recipes use less sugar, some also use a bit of vanilla. There are plenty of variations out there. But I decided to go ahead and use the sugary version since the sugar cookies weren't all that sweet. Then I cut up some fruit to place atop the pizza and voila! it was ready to serve.

Conservative Hubby loved it. In fact, he said it was "unreal." So there's your assurance that this version is, in fact, worth serving to the masses.

P.S. The lady in charge of photos around here sure stinks at her job. She didn't even bother to snap a pic until after she cut into the pie and people had already eaten a few pieces. Oops. Might have to fire her. Then again, the pay is pretty lousy, so what do you expect?

Sponge Cake with Whipped Cream and Berries

Once I finally got settled in our new kitchen, I was overcome with the serious urge to bake something. Anything. Preferably a cake or pie. It had been a long time since I'd bothered much with baking since our old oven was so unpredictable.

Although my first choice is always a pie, since it was Father's Day weekend I decided instead to make a cake to celebrate. But I didn't want something heavy, like the German chocolate cake Conservative Hubby suggested at first. I wanted something light and fresh and springy.

So I decided to make this sponge cake with whipped cream and strawberries.

Admittedly, I was a little nervous about tackling this recipe. For one thing, I don't bake cakes all that often. For another, I was trying out our new oven for the first time. And—this was the big one—I decided to be brave and try a gluten-free sponge cake recipe.

The recipe I used, from Gluten Free on a Shoestring, looked easy enough. Eggs, granulated sugar, freshly squeezed lemon juice, cornstarch, kosher salt, vanilla extract, and a gluten-free flour blend. (She includes a link to her preferred blend with the recipe, but I used my usual mix instead.)

Mixing together the ingredients was easy. (There's something I can't quite describe about how lovely a bowl of cake batter can be. Perhaps someday I will try to put it into words for you, when I'm feeling a bit more poetic and my stomach isn't growling at me.)

Pouring the batter into the pan was easy.

Waiting for the cake to bake—and praying it would turn out OK—was excruciatingly hard.

Fortunately, the cake turned out beautifully. Golden and spongey, just as it should.

Once the cake cooled, I made some homemade whipped cream. (Nothing fancy. Just 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 cup heavy whipping cream, mixed and mixed and mixed some more until I had a bowl full of sugary-white peaks. This, by the way, made more whipped cream than I actually needed. But there's nothing wrong with having some leftover whipped cream.)

I cut the cake in half, generously slathered the top of the first half with whipped cream, added cut strawberries, placed the second half of the cake on top, and repeated the slathering and placing. Easy as can be.

And the results? Absolutely delicious. No one would have been the wiser that it was gluten free, except that both Little Man and I got to enjoy a rather large piece of cake—and otherwise, we would've passed on it.

(He said "mmmm" after each and every bite and ended up with whipped cream from his chin to the top of his head. That, in my world, is success.)

I'm thinking of making this cake again this week, in fact. With some blueberries thrown in alongside the strawberries, I imagine this would make for a rather festive Fourth of July treat.

Buckwheat Crepes

My first—and for the longest time only—experience with crepes came when My Parents would occasionally throw parties for their friends. Everyone would get dressed up and have cocktails and eat all sorts of tasty treats. I never attended these parties, mind you. But I'd enjoy the leftovers, and my favorite leftovers were the crepes My Mom would make on her old crepe maker (yes, there is such a thing), fill with ice cream, freeze, and serve with homemade hot fudge sauce. Heavenly. And, I thought, something only to be bothered with for very special occasions.

It wasn't until I was in college that I realized crepes weren't reserved only for the sweet—and that some of the best crepes are actually the savory ones. (That's also when I learned how to actually pronounce crepe, so thanks, Little Diplomat!)

Yet until today I never even considered the possibility of actually making crepes myself—at least, not without My Mom's handy crepe maker. And I never in a million years thought that making crepes could be so easy.

Then I stumbled across a recipe for buckwheat crepes on the Gluten-Free Girl website. (Yes, they're gluten-free, but that's beside the point.) They included a video showing how easy crepe-making was. Little Man sat patiently on my lap and, enthralled, watched the video with me. That's when we decided we were having crepes for dinner.

Just like that. No big menu-planning. No dinner party-throwing. No agonizing over technique. Just, come on, let's make crepes for dinner.

And you know what? Crepes are easy to make. I'm not saying pretty crepes are easy to make, as mine definitely are not. But they're easy to whip up. Milk, eggs, buckwheat flour, a dash of kosher salt. That's it. I didn't have coconut oil, as the recipe called for, so I used butter instead, and it worked just fine. (But you don't want to do 2 tablespoons all at once. That first crepe was ... uh ... buttery, to say the least.)

To keep things simple, Little Man and I had ham and cheese crepes for dinner. As you can see, he was a fan (though he pulled everything apart and ate the ingredients separately ... lovely).

For dessert, I may or may not have indulged in a crepe slathered in peanut butter. Just because I could.

Now that I've stopped thinking about crepes as something only trained French chefs (or lovely mothers looking to impress dinner guests) whip up, I'm imagining endless possibilities. Sweet, savory, you name it.

However, I do plan on making some homemade ice cream soon, so re-creating My Mom's fabulous dessert crepes may be on the agenda first.

All-Purpose Gluten-Free Flour

It's hard to believe it's been nearly a month since I quit eating wheat. Honestly, it has been a lot easier than I imagined—in large part because I researched what my baking options were in advance and stocked up on a great selection of gluten-free flours to get me started.

You know I can't possibly give up baking in the name of my health.

I know there are plenty of gluten-free all-purpose flours available, but I've heard mixed reviews about most. I knew if I was going to make going wheat-free work, I needed to find not just an okay alternative to wheat flour but a great alternative. So, mostly, I've been relying on the advice of experts, like Gluten-Free Girl and a few others.

So far since I ditched wheat I've made all the things I'd normally make—chicken and dumplings, pancakes, snickerdoodles, peanut butter cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, flourless chocolate cake, pizza crust (multiple recipes—you know I have to have my pizza), all sorts of muffins. And I've yet to find anything I didn't like or wouldn't make again, in part because I've been so selective of the gf recipes I'm willing to try.

One thing that's really helped me in my new baking endeavors is a recipe for all-purpose flour from Gluten-Free Girl. I mixed up a big container of it and used it to make all sorts of cookies and as a thickening agent in recipes on occasion. I'm about out, in fact, so I need to make up another batch. I really do think a good gluten-free AP flour recipes may be the key to my survival.

Here's what my recipe of the moment includes:

• 200 grams superfine brown rice flour
• 150 grams sorghum flour
• 50 grams potato flour
• 250 grams sweet rice flour
• 150 grams potato starch
• 100 grams arrowroot powder
• 100 grams cornstarch

Wait! Stop! Come back! Please don't freak out by the huge list of items that you don't have in your kitchen and the fact everything above is written in grams.

That stressed me out a bit, too. So, yeah, it's a big list. But once you get the hang of working by weight rather than volume, it only takes a few minutes to measure things out and toss them in a container. This lovely little scale I bought makes the process a breeze.

If you live in an area with a decent health foods/natural foods/whatever store, you can probably find all these ingredients locally. Naturally L-Town doesn't have a big demand for these things (yet), so I ordered mine online from Vitacost (free shipping—yay!). I stocked up on the flours I thought I'd use the most, including what's listed above plus a few others. I'll probably place another order again before too long, but my initial order is lasting me quite a while given how frequently I bake.

If you're still a bit alarmed about the idea of mixing your own AP flour, check out this Gluten-Free Girl blog post on the topic. It even includes a video to show you how easy it is. And it includes a list of all the options, because you can even make your own special, personalized gluten-free all-purpose flour combo. All you do is follow the recommended ratios she explains in the post.

Come on, give it a try ...

Or, if you're a wheat-eater, just stick to what you know. No peer pressure here. But expect to try some delicious wheat-free baked goods if you come to visit me.

Chicken and Dumplings

Remember a while ago when I talked about my comfort food-making spree?

Well, along with meatloaf and mashed potatoes and quinoa and cheese, I made chicken and dumplings. (Apparently, comfort foods must be a combination of two key ingredients connected by a conjunction. ... Sorry, word nerd.)

I first grew fond of chicken and dumplings as a little girl, when my grandma made this dish for dinner one night. I don't remember a lot of the details about the chicken and dumplings I ate back then, honestly. I just remember that I loved the light, fluffy biscuits floating on top of the stew.

So I was excited to come across this recipe, because it's quick and easy and hearty. I've made it twice since I found it and will undoubtedly make it again.

This version calls for gluten-free Bisquick (it's one of many swell gluten-free recipes from the Betty Crocker website), but you could just as easily make it with regular Bisquick, I'm sure, although you might want to follow a slightly different dumpling recipe than this one if you do that.

What You Need

For the Stew
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 cups cut-up cooked chicken
1 cup frozen mixed vegetables
1 teaspoon seasoned salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons cornstarch

For the Dumplings
3/4 cup Bisquick Gluten-Free mix
1/3 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 egg
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley (or, if you're like me, this time of year you'll just add a few shakes of the dried stuff instead)

What You Do

1. In a 3-quart saucepan, heat chicken broth, chicken, vegetables, salt, and pepper to boiling. In a small bowl, mix 1 cup milk and the cornstarch with a wire whisk until smooth; stir into chicken mixture. Heat just to boiling.

2. In a small bowl, stir dumpling ingredients with fork until blended.

3. Gently drop dough by 8 rounded spoonfuls onto boiling chicken mixture.

4. Cook uncovered over low heat 10 minutes. Cover and cook 15 minutes longer.

Enjoy!

Ditching Wheat

For breakfast, I love a fresh, fluffy biscuit or a nice, crumbly muffin. If you stop by here very often at all, you already know that I'll take a cookie with my coffee or for an afternoon snack with my tea any day. Few things make me swoon like a flaky pie crust. And a warm, crusty slice of bread with dinner? Don't even get me started.

And yet, about two weeks ago, after a pizza and breadsticks binge, I gave up wheat.

Why?

Because a few years ago, when I had surgery to remove a giant cyst from my ovary (which also resulted in the removal of my ovary, too), I learned that the cause of that darn cyst was endometriosis.

To make a long story short, once the cyst was gone, I was pain free for a while. But a few months later, all sorts of symptoms that I soon found out were related to endometriosis started cropping up. Then, I got pregnant, and for my entire pregnancy and most of the time I was nursing Little Man, I was once again symptom-free.

But now, in the past few months, my symptoms have come back full force. I'm not going to bore you with an explanation of endometriosis or the many symptoms it causes, but if you're so inclined, you can learn the basics.

Please note: I don't tell you this to make you worry about me or feel sorry for me or anything of the sort. Endometriosis is a chronic illness that affects a lot more women than you might realize. In fact, odds are you know more than one woman who has it, although it's not the sort of illness most women talk about openly. (Which is actually something I'm hoping to help change, by the way.)

Fortunately, although there is no cure for endo, there are a variety of ways to manage it. And one of the natural ways many women are able to keep symptoms somewhat in check is through diet.

Guess what's at the top of the list of foods to avoid if you have endo? Yep, you guessed it.

Wheat.

I'm not going into all the details on why here, but needless to say there is quite a bit of evidence—scientific and anecdotal—that for many women with endometriosis, eliminating wheat from their diet has a positive effect.

I'm not interested in trying the different drug therapies that are out there for endo, because most of them are only somewhat effective and come with some nasty side effects. (Uh, no thanks on the excess facial hair or starting menopause at age 30—although I know these treatments are very necessary for some women.) And I'm hoping to avoid having surgery again, although laparoscopy is often a woman's best chance at obtaining relief from endo.

So that leaves natural treatments, one of which is diet.

Perhaps giving up wheat will help. It's too early to really know for sure. Maybe it won't. But either way, it's worth a try.

I can tell you that if it doesn't seem to make a difference, I'll be back on the wheat train. I don't think wheat is something to deprive yourself of unless you have a medical reason to do so. An increasing number of people are hopping on the gluten-free bandwagon just because they've heard it makes you feel better or because celebrities do it. That's crazy. Sure, everyone should probably eat wheat in more moderation than most Americans do (the same with pretty much everything Americans eat). But to cut it out completely just because it's trendy is nuts—and it may even have unintended health implications.

Anyhow, random soap box again. I keep jumping up on those darn things.

For now, my goal is to make going wheat-free as easy as possible. I'm not going to be nuts about it. If I slip up a few times, it's not the end of the world. I'm going to be as low-maintenance about it as I can—skipping the items that contain wheat when eating out or at someone else's house, but not freaking out if I have to eat something with wheat on rare occasions. (Trust me, if you've seen me in need of a snack, you will understand that eating something with a bit of wheat is preferable to a hungry Julie.) I don't have celiac disease, in which case any exposure to wheat can be incredibly harmful. So a little wheat here and there, if absolutely necessary, won't be the end of the world.

Fortunately, it's a lot easier to skip wheat than it was even a few years ago when I first starting investigating natural endo treatments. (At that point, the thought of actually giving up wheat never even crossed my mind because I didn't see how I'd survive!) Now, there are fabulous blogs and books devoted to making incredibly delicious gluten-free meals and even baked goods to rival those with gluten. There are also some pretty darn good gluten-free breads, snacks, cereals, you name it available at many grocery stores.

I knew all of this well before my no-wheat diet began two weeks ago, because over the past few months an increasing number of gluten-free recipes and products have been sneaking into our house anyway. That's because there's a chance Little Man has a sensitivity to wheat, too.

I know, I know. Now you think I really am nuts. It's OK. This one is a bit more of a stretch. It isn't really grounded in any research or trials, like ditching wheat for endo is.

The thing with Little Man is totally different. You see, around the time he started eating solid foods beyond his introductory all-fruit or veggie purees, he developed one cold after another—and every single on turned into a sinus infection that required at least one, sometimes two, rounds of antibiotics. Within a week of clearing up one sinus infection, his runny nose would be back, and we'd start the cycle all over again.

I started to do some research, talked to some other moms, and heard of other kids that had similar issues. Eventually, in a few cases, it turned out wheat was a culprit. I was desperate for anything that would prevent our almost-monthly trips to the doctor's office and the pharmacy, so we took Little Man off wheat to see if it would help.

Since the wheat was finally out of Little Man's system, he hasn't had a sinus infection. Not a single one. He's had a few colds (but who hasn't this winter?). None of his recent colds has turned into a sinus infection like every single one used to.

Is wheat the culprit? Who knows for sure. It could be an environmental allergy or a seasonal allergy that's the problem. Kids can't really be tested for allergies until they're three (I guess their bodies don't really respond to the tests until around then), so it's going to be quite some time before we know for sure. But as long as he keeps doing well sans wheat, I'm not going to mess with what's working.

And so now, after I'm pretty sure no one is actually still reading, I get to the point of this long, rambling post. Which is this: I'm probably going to be trying all sorts of gluten-free recipes in the near future. And I'll probably post them here. But I promise not to turn this into a gluten-free cooking and baking blog. I promise to post lots of things you wheat-eating people will still like.

And if I do post gluten-free recipes? It will be because they're just plain good. And because they've gotten the ultimate endorsement from Conservative Hubby: either he liked them enough to eat them knowing they were gluten-free, or they were good enough he never realized they were gluten-free in the first place.

That's how you know a recipe really is fit for the masses, or at least a couple of loyal blog readers!

(I also promise not to really post about endo on this site at all, or only very rarely. I'll save all that info for my fellow endo sufferers over at this blog, which is a work in progress but the beginning of a bigger project I'm actually pretty excited about. I'm not expecting most of you will read it, but if you have endo or know someone who does, perhaps you'll be interested in checking it out.)

Quinoa & Cheese

When I say "comfort food," what do you think of? Mashed potatoes and meatloaf? Chicken and dumplings? Homemade macaroni and cheese?

Well, that's what I think of. And apparently I've been in a comfort food kind of mood lately, because we had all three of those things in the past week. Only the macaroni and cheese didn't actually involve macaroni. Instead, it was with quinoa.

In case you're not familiar, here's the scoop on quinoa. It's actually a seed, but people often treat it like a whole grain. It cooks pretty easily, has a great texture, is gluten- and cholesterol-free, and offers 9 essential amino acids (hello, protein!). Plus it provides a nice alternative to rice or pasta.

It looks much prettier when you see a scoop of it on a plate. But guess who forgot to take photos of that? Fortunately, you can see the lovelier version when you visit the recipe here. (One note: I used fresh spinach rather than frozen, since that's what I had. And I went light on the spinach so it wasn't too "green" for you-know-who.)

Plus, I served it with a rosemary dijon pork loin. Having meat is incredibly important if you're going to make you-know-who try a new dish.

Generally, I gauge whether a recipe is fit for the general public and not just wacky-me consumption by you-know-who's (aka Conservative Hubby's) reaction. The night I made quinoa and cheese, he said, "This is kind of weird." But he said it as he was scooping up seconds.

And when we ate leftovers the next night, I figured he'd pass on the reheated dish. But instead, that's all he wanted for a side.

I liked it, Little Man liked it, and I guess that means Conservative Hubby liked it too. So take that for what you will.