Dang These are Good!

It's no secret, I love ethnic food and I love spicy! These Sichuan Green Beans are over the top. I paired them with coconut rice which is oh so simple to make and tempers the heat with a hint of sweet. I don't know about most of my GF possy but eating out at ethnic restaurants takes too much energy and research. I would rather reinvent the dishes at home. These beans, with their crinkled, chewy texture and intriguing spicy tang hit the note for me. I love the addition of the ground pork but if you want a vegetarian version substitute shitiake mushrooms.

Sichuan Green Beans

2 tablespoons gluten-free tamari sauce

1 tablespoon dry sherry

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper

1/4 -1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, more if you really like it hot

1/4 teaspoon dry mustard

2 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 pound green beans, ends trimmed, cut into 1-2 inch pieces

4 - 6 ounces ground pork

3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed through a garlic press

1 tablespoon fresh garlic, minced

3 scallions, white and light green parts sliced thin

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

Blanch green beans in boiling water for about 3 minutes, plunge in ice water and set aside.

In a small bowl, stir together tamari sauce, sherry, sugar, cornstarch, white pepper, red pepper flakes, mustard and water until sugar dissolves; set aside.

Heat oil in a 12 inch nonstick skillet over high heat. Add the beans and cook, stirring frequently, until crisp and tender and skins are shriveled and blackened in spots, 5-8 minutes. Transfer beans to a plate.

Wipe skillet clean of any remaining oil. Reduce heat to medium-high and add pork. Cook until no longer pink, about 4 minutes. Add garlic and ginger, cook until fragrant, about a minute or two. Stir in sauce and return beans to skillet with the sauce, cook until thickened, several minutes. Remove form heat and toss in scallions and sesame oil. Serve over coconut rice, or not. Enjoy!

Macular Madness

I am on a mission. Improve our ocular health. You see, my mother-in-law, and her mother both have Macular Degeneration, a degenerative disease that destroys the central vision of the eye and is the leading cause of blindness in individuals over 60. It is also a hereditary condition which means Tina is at risk. I am a great believer in the power of taking one's health into your own hands, especially when there are specific things you can do to decrease risk. Interestingly, eye health is very connected to nutrition. Macular Degeneration, while it can not be prevented, can be tempered and the onset put off with the ingestion of certain nutrients. I am all for that, even if it means eating foods that I may not like.

So it turns out that lutein and zeaxanthin are the most powerful nutrients in treating or delaying the onset of Macular Degeneration and the American Optometry Association advocates taking both, daily. So of course I don't know anything about any of this. My expertise is the Gluten-Free diet, not the Macular diet. However, I am the most well resourced person on the earth so I turned to my trusty and generous friend Katrina, over at http://glutenfreegidget.blogspot.com/ for some help. Katrina sent me links to helpful articles and lists of foods to focus on. That was the good news. The bad news, there wasn't much on the list that Tina likes.

I started by adding spinach leaves into Tina's sandwiches, next week I am adding toasted walnuts to her lunch for a Macular power snack. At home I am trying to include greens, corn, including popcorn (yes rich in lutein and zeaxanthin) and more pork and lamb in our diet. I love greens but they aren't Tina's favorite. So Katrina has been working on some recipes for greens that might pass the test for those with a fussy palate. Tonight I am making Katrina's Drunken Swiss Chard and Mushrooms (http://glutenfreegidget.blogspot.com/2011/02/ive-joined-green-party.html). I have to make a few adjustments as I got confused and got mustard greens instead of swiss chard. I think Katrina would not only agree but would approve. Greens are greens as long as they are green, leafy and organic, completely interchangeable. I am not that fussy about my produce and don't always buy organic but greens, they are different, they harbor very special organisms of the fecal sort and pesticides that I don't want in my house. Green are one of those Dirty Dozen.

You can find the recipe over at Katrina's blog, http://glutenfreegidget.blogspot.com/2011/02/ive-joined-green-party.html . While you are there look through all her wonderful, healthy recipes. I am going to use a combination of mustard greens, collards and kale. Tina is going to have sloppy joe's along with her greens and I am going to have sweet potato fries which I wish I could get her to eat as they pack a Macular boost like nothing else. Maybe down the road. Here's to our eyes!

Making Hoppin' Jane with The Gluten Free Gidget

I am faithful to just a handful of bloggers including Katrina who writes The Gluten Free Gidget at http://glutenfreegidget.blogspot.com/ . I love Katrina's blog. She writes about fresh ingredients, interesting ingredients that intrigue me and she has the most positive attitude ever. Her theater background plays front and center in a well scripted narrative of a young, enthusiastic hard working fun loving employee, wife, sister, friend . . . just waiting for the next crazy moment to present itself. She is generous beyond measure and her recipes are to die for, especially this Hoppin' Jane I made last evening.

I am little more skeptical of certain new ingredients, including buckwheat which is a gluten-free grain that shows up in a lot of gluten-free recipes. The first time I had buckwheat I was visiting my brother in Virgina, another Celiac in our family. He took Tina and I to this hole in the wall street vendor that sold savory buckwheat crepes out of a shack with a window on the street. They were weird and wonderful at the same time. Tina has mastered these at home and every now and then we enjoy a savory buckwheat crepe for dinner. I can't say I crave the odd tasting grain but it works and it is fun to have Tina cook a gluten free dinner.

So when I read Katrina's recipe I was a bit put off by the addition of buckwheat, trying to figure out what I might use instead. Lots of ideas came to me including quinoa which I don't really like and brown or wild rice. After careful deliberation I decided to give the buckwheat a try, why not.

I threw the very easy to prep ingredients together with just a few modifications and within an hour I was eating a wonderful bowl of pipping hot Hoppin' Jane, savoring every bite. You can check out the recipe yourself over at Katrina's blog at http://glutenfreegidget.blogspot.com/ .

Instead of green pepper I used a red pepper, just because I don't like red pepper. I also used a jar of black eyed peas I canned myself last fall, Katrina calls for frozen black eyed peas. If I made this dish again I would use the frozen peas for a couple of reasons. I over packed the jar of black eyed peas and by the time I was eating them in this dish they had been cooked three times and literally disappeared in the dish, they were the consistency of refried beans. My result also seemed a little dry, especially the collard greens. Using frozen peas might add more moisture. I might also dial back a little on the amount of buckwheat, to get a less bulky dish, or add more canned tomato. Regardless of my commentary, the dish was to die for. I loved the buckwheat and the flavor of the combination of herbs Katrina selected. This is an over the top vegan, low fat, and good for your macular health meal!

Roasted Chicken Chili

A few weeks ago I made some soup that was the result of wanting to get rid of recently roasted chicken so I could make some home made chicken stock with the bones. I finally got the confidence to make my own chicken stock, thanks to Shauna and Danny Ahern over at Gluten-Free Girl. Shauna and Danny made a video tutorial awhile back, showing step by step exactly how to make stock and ever since I hoard bones and vegetable peelings in my freezer like it were my job.

Back to my soup. It was early morning, by best ideas come out of the early morning hours. I actually had everything I need on hand. My partner was sitting at the dinning room table with her sister, working on her sister's new resume. I was puttering around the kitchen, dicing an onion, mincing garlic, opening a can of ROT*EL, cooking garbanzo beans and pulling roasted chicken off the bones from the previous night's left overs. I heard some talking coming from the dining room, "Wow, that smells good, what's cooking". I felt a little silly telling them I was making soup, after all it was about 9:00 am. A few minutes later I started gasping as I tasted the soup. "Oh my God, this is so good." I offered two small bowls, not wanting to give much away. The two of them sat at the table with small bowls of pipping hot roasted chicken chili, in complete agreement and dismayed that I simply created this soup out of nowhere. Well it wasn't exactly out of nowhere, I had recently enjoyed a bowl of soup at Bonfire that I really enjoyed and was simply trying to copy the recipe. Total success. This unusual version of chicken chili is to die for and a great way to use left over roasted chicken. Beware, it is so good that you are going to find yourself roasting a chicken just to make this soup which is exactly what I am doing again today after some pleading from Tina. This is a really versatile recipe! Use any kind of dried bean you like, add some chopped kale or spinach instead of corn. Heck, toss in anything that sounds good.

Cari's Roasted Chicken Chili

4 cups homemade chicken stock

1 teaspoon of olive oil or so

1 small onion diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 cup of corn

2 cups of garbanzo beans, cooked

1 teaspoon dried oregano

salt and pepper to taste

3 ounces tomato paste

3-4 cups roasted chicken, shredded

Saute the onion and garlic in a scant amount of olive oil, a teaspoon or so. Add the oregano, salt and pepper and saute until translucent. Add the broth, ROT*EL, beans, corn, chicken and tomato paste. Bring to a simmer.

You could really dumb this down using a canned broth, canned beans and a store bought rotisserie chicken, turning it into a 15 minute prep. I prefer the effort of roasting my own chicken, making my own stock and cooking my own beans because I think it elevates the outcome. You will get a perfectly acceptable and delicious soup either way!

Kale Chips

Dang these are good! Kale Chips seemed to be the rage of food bloggers last year. I'll admit, I was skeptical. I love greens, collard greens, mustard greens, spinach, bok choy, Brussels, chard, sweet potato greens, kohlrabi greens, broccoli rabe. The endless list stops short at fenugreek, ick. I love all kinds of leafy greens steamed or sauteed in garlic. The idea of roasting greens into chips didn't quite compute.

My cousin Dina sent me a lovely Christmas package which included smoked sea salt from the Mendocino coast of California, a lovely hand crafted salt made from the pure ocean water off the Mendocino Coast. The harvest of sea water is simmered until delicate crystals of salt appear, then grow and sink to form a salt bed. The salt is raked, drained and layered into open evaporating pans. The sea smoked salt draws its distinctive taste and rich color by smoking the salt in a variety of coastal woods and sea vegetables. After a three day smoke the result is a sea salt that tasted like a bonfire on the beach. If you know me, you know I am crazy about the smell of a bonfire. I can't get enough smoke! I was stymied by the gift, so thoughtful and yet I wasn't sure what to do with such a delicacy. I remembered the blogging rage over Kale Chips and thought they would pair well together.

These are really simple, get a whole bunch of kale, clean it and get it really really dry. Toss the kale in some really good olive oil. I lucked out here because Dina also sent me a lovely bottle of Nelson Family Vineyards extra virgin olive oil from California. Sprinkle with Smoked Sea Salt. Spread the kale in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees, tossing occasionally, for about 20 minutes, or until the the kale is crisp. Sprinkle with more Smoked Sea Salt, to taste and enjoy!

Eating Out

Eating out for me is bittersweet.

I am quite particular about where I eat and who makes my food, contacting chefs ahead of time, grilling the restaurant staff and even returning a meal littered with gluten, refusing to allow the kitchen to correct the meal. Serve me gluten in a restaurant, it's over, plain and simple, no second changes. I won't eat anything and I won't go back. Over time I have come to trust only a few spots and usually stick to those places that have a gluten-free menu. More and more places are getting gluten-free savvy, and well they should. When I go out I tote anywhere from 1-8 people with me. Were it not for the gluten-free menu, we would not be there. I understand it is difficult for restaurants, it requires training, retraining and maintaining strict practices in a kitchen to provide safe gluten-free meals. Restaurant owners shouldn't underestimate the economic power of the food allergy community! For more on this subject check out this article. http://www.allergyeats.com/blog/index.php/how-much-are-food-allergic-diners-worth/comment-page-1/#comment-2354 Kudos to those of you who are willing to make the effort and go the extra mile.

Recently I read a restaurant review by Amy Legar over at thesavvyceliac.com. If you haven't already discovered her blog, it is a must read for anyone with Celiac Disease. She posts very informative material on the disease, parenting a child with Celiac Disease, and helpful information on maintaining a gluten-free diet. Recently Amy wrote a post, Mad Jacks Gluten-Free Fare, reviewing a local spot that serves up good old American Bar food, noting that Mad Jack's had a dedicated fryer. A dedicated fryer means french fries. I AM IN!

A few nights later my partner and our friends Craig and Kristen, who are always up for a restaurant adventure headed out to Mad Jacks Sports Cafe, in Vadnais Heights, MN. Mad Jack's had something to make everyone happy, including flat screen T.V. in each booth so the football fans in the group could keep their eye on the playoff games taking place. It was warm, cozy and abuzz with business, a good sign.

We started with Szechuan Green Beans and some Spinach Artichoke dip served with crisp tortilla chips. The beans were to die for. I have really missed good spicy Szechuan beans. They were coated in a tangy spicy, almost Asian BBQ like sauce. I'd go back to Mad Jacks just for the beans. Everyone at the table ordered the french fries, just in case I didn't get enough with my Fish Sandwich. The fries were fantastic and of course there were plenty to go all around. My Tilapia sandwhich was wonderful, hand breaded and fried, served on lightly toasted Ener-G, gluten-free bread. It wasn't Udi's but it was really good, Ener-G probably being my second choice for a gluten-free bread. My partner got a Chicken Caesar with gluten-free croutons. It was just so so, but seriously who orders a salad at a sports bar.

The highlight of the evening, a Bucket of Sweet Potato Tots that my friend Kristen ordered. I am not sure I can adequately describe the delight of these delicious bites of fried sweet potato served with a sweet chipolte sour cream. They were sweet and savory at the same time. The bucket was huge, we couldn't finish them. I am going back to Mad Jacks, just for these! In fact, I am going back Friday evening to celebrate my birthday!

If you are gluten-free Mad Jacks is great, bar food at its best. It is festive spot, especially when there is a big televised sporting event and most importantly they take gluten-free diners seriously!

Date Smoothie

I would much rather be sipping a cup of homemade hot chocolate, you know, the kind you get in Paris, thick, rich and warm. The idea of a smoothie in the middle of January in the tundra of Minnesota just doesn't quite appeal to me. However, this Date Smoothie is to die for and since I am trying to make some changes in our diet around here it seemed a better choice for my fireside lunch.

I am sick and tired of this particular winter. Minimal sunshine and maximum snow and no trips to Florida for me in the near future. I am fine not going to Florida, happy to sit home by the fire and plan our next trip to Budapest which will include stops in London and Poland this June. A day at home, planning another trip, trying to find a place to order my packaged bees for the spring, doing laundry, roasting a chicken and looking at pictures of the two little kittens that will join us in about a week, it couldn't get much better.

But it did get better, when I made this Vanilla Date Smoothie! I found the recipe in the Bon Appetit Food Lovers Cleanse. I love medjool dates, especially stuffed with a chunk of good cheese, wrapped in bacon and roasted. I thought about doing the Food Lovers Cleanse, after all I love being in the kitchen, but quite frankly it completely overwhelmed me. Instead I picked out a few recipes to try and this was the first. I made it, exactly as written. I should have cut it in half since it serves two. But hey, don't you always want more smoothie? I should have cut it in half! It was way too rich to drink two servings and without a good way to save it, well I did drink it all and now I feel a little sickish. Seriously, it was good, really good but too rich and too sweet, even if I kept to a single portion. Next round I will back off on the amount of dates, and I will cut it half, but I will be making it again and again!

Vanilla Date Smoothie

1 cup nonfat plain yogurt

1 cup nonfat milk

1 cup (packed) pitted Medjool dates, about 9 ounces

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups ice cubes

Puree everything in a blender until thick and smooth. Divide between 2 glasses and serve.