Links to other recipes we use

Over the years, I've found many recipes I love. I can't really copy them into my own blog, but I can give you some links. So here you go!

Stuffed Grape Leaves: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/60

Beef Tenderloin with Roasted Shallots: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Beef-Tenderloin-With-Roasted-Shallots/Detail.aspx  I subbed rice flour for all-purpose flour, and I subbed merlot for port wine.  This is an excellent recipe for special occasions. We used it for Christmas last year.

Raw Collard Wraps: http://renegadehealth.com/blog/2008/04/09/raw-vegetable-wraps-with-collard-greens-and-tahini-sauce-the-renegade-health-show-27/  These are interesting made just like the recipe (I omitted the Nama Shoyu--soy). But I use the blanched collards leaves for all kinds of wraps now, and this has a good instructional video. You can blanch leaves in advance and then store them in the refrigerator.

Kale Waldorf Salad: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/2853

Rolled greens: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/rolled-greens-10000000223527/  I thought the recipe called for way too much onion, but it doesn't. It's great like this. I love this recipe, and so do guests--even those who are unfamiliar with collard greens. Like one of the other reviewers, I add a little water just so that I can ignore the greens without having to worry about the possibility of having them burn.

Fiddlehead Shrimp Scampi: http://www.closetcooking.com/2009/05/fiddlehead-shrimp-scampi.html

Carrot and Fennel Salad: http://www.fromsadtoraw.com/Recipes/CarrotFennelSalad.htm

Pumpkin Flax Granola

Preheat oven to 300F

4 1/2 Cups gluten-free rolled oats (we use Bob's Red Mill)
1/2 Cup flax seed meal (this is entirely optional)
1/2 Cup raw pumpkin seeds
3/4 Cup raw shelled walnuts, chopped into small pieces
2/3 Cup canola oil
1/3 Cup agave nectar
1/3 Cup brown rice syrup
1/2 Cup shredded coconut (Optional, but use the raw natural kind, not the presweetened)
1tsp cinnamon


Combine ingredients in order shown, then spread into a pan.  I used large a cookie/jelly roll pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

You can substitute 2/3 Cup honey instead of the agave nectar and rice syrup.  If you want to add any dried fruit, add it after you cook the granola.

If you want the granola to stick together in chunks, let it cool on the pan for a bit. Then remove in slabs with a spatula and store as slabs in an airtight container. If you're going to use it as cereal, you can remove it from the pan whenever and toss it around with some dried fruit. It will break apart into smaller pieces.

The shredded coconut has a fair amount of saturated fat, so you can eliminate that if you want to.

Homemade Rice Milk

It was hard to find rice milk that didn't have any sneaky, unwanted ingredients. So I finally learned how to make my own. It's easy.

Boil 5 cups of water. Throw in 1/2 Cup of brown rice. Cover and simmer for 3 hours. Remove from heat, and stir in 1 tsp. of salt.

Scoop out some of the soupy rice, and mix it 50/50 with water. Run that through a blender or a food processor until smooth. Pour through a mesh strainer. Then strain a second time. Voila! Rice milk.

If you want, you can add stuff to the rice milk at this stage. A Tablespoon of oil (canola or olive) will give the rice milk a creamier texture. A Tablespoon or two of maple syrup will give it sweetness. Vanilla is also a good addition.

When you're done, pour it into a clean jar and store in the refrigerator. It will firm up in the fridge and be concentrated and rather gelatinous. I store it this way because it takes up less space. Just add water until you get it to the consistency you're used to.

Lip Balm

A while back I started reading the ingredient lists for the lip balms I was purchasing. I was very surprised. I found that a lot of chapstick-type balms actually had warnings on them that said they were for external use only. While I don't plan on just scooping out the balm and eating it...what exactly do they think happens to stuff you apply to your lips? So I started looking for "natural" lip balms. There are lots of great ones for regular people, but they almost all contain soy oil.  I didn't want my husband to be eating carcinogenic chemicals, and I also didn't want him eating soy. So I did a little looking on the net and started tinkering around making my own lip balm.

Turns out that I like the homemade lip balm better than any of the store-bought stuff anyway. It's good at moisturizing, and it seems to stay on my lips for a long time. It was also very quick to make. Here's what I settled on:

2 teaspoons beeswax (I think this is about 0.5oz, and you can get it on etsy or ebay)
8 teaspoons olive oil
2 teaspoons honey
6 drops sweet orange essential oil (available etsy, ebay, amazon)
several old chapstick tubes, small tins, pill boxes, or other small containers with lids

Grate the beeswax with a cheese grater, mix it in with the olive oil, and heat it on the stove until the beeswax melts. Once the wax is all melted, remove from heat. Let it cool for a while, then stir in the honey and the orange oil.  Pour into your containers. The mixture will turn solid after a while.

For me, the lip balm seems to stay liquid for a long time and then turn to a solid in a split second. If you're just scooping the balm into small tins, it doesn't really matter whether the balm is liquid or solid. But if you're trying to reuse old chapstick tubes, you'll want to be sure to pour it while it's still a liquid. Personally, I like the tubes. I just scraped out as much of the old stuff as I could. Then I twisted the little holder back down to the bottom, gave the whole thing a quick rinse with olive oil, and poured the new lip balm in.

Sugared Cranberries

Sugared cranberries are pretty much the natural version of Sour Patch Kids candy. They have a nice sweet and sour combination. They do use granulated sugar, which we normally avoid. But my husband can still eat a couple here and there. We try to remember that a teaspoon of straight sugar translates into 16 Calories and 4g of sugar, so a couple of sugared cranberries probably aren't quite as bad as you might think. They certainly do still pack a sugar punch though, so he tends to go quite easy on them.

If you can remember "1:1:1" then you'll have the basic recipe memorized. It's 1 cup water to 1cup granulated sugar to 1 cup cranberries. The actual amounts can be pretty loosey goosey, but the 1:1:1 setup will always get you there. You'll also need some extra sugar for sprinkling.

I usually buy the cranberries by the bag at the grocery store, so my actual measurements are usually as follows:

2 C water
2 C granulated sugar
3 C cranberries
extra sugar for sprinkling

In a small sauce pan melt 2 C of sugar  in 2 C of water to create a simple sugar syrup. Heat the syrup until it's just shy of boiling. Let it cool a little bit and then pour over the cranberries. Pouring boiling syrup over the cranberries will make them pop, which you don't want for this recipe. Set the cranberries in syrup in the refrigerator over night.

The next day, drain the cranberries. A little bit of syrup will still stick to the cranberries, and the sugar will then stick to it. Roll the cranberries in granulated sugar and spread them on a cookie sheet to dry.

There are lots of opinions on exactly how to roll them in sugar and exactly what kind of sugar to use (try googling "sugared cranberries"). I used regular granulated sugar. I put a handful of cranberries in a small bowl, then covered them with a small handful of sugar. I rolled them around a bit and spread them on the cookie sheet. The small batches worked well for me because the extra syrup makes your sugar clump.

Keep them spread out in a single layer on the cookie sheet until they dry.  I think they're best if they're left that way for a full day. If you pile the finished cranberries into a bowl or tin, the bottom ones will eventually start getting a little soggy. They're better if you can keep them spread out bit or if you periodically rotate them for airflow. They'll last at room temperature for a week or two.

Thanksgiving Gravy

Of course I should have posted my Thanksgiving recipes before the holiday, but I didn't get to it. I'll try to get some of them up before Christmas.

Here's the gluten-free gravy I made for Thanksgiving this year. It had a slight green hue to it, so you have to adjust your color expectations. But it tasted good.

3C broth or water
Turkey neck and chopped giblets
1/4t marjoram
1/4t dried sage
1/4t dried thyne
1t salt
1/4C brown rice flour
2T arrowroot powder/starch

Put first 5 ingredients in a pot. Boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 40 minutes. Strain. Take a couple tablespoons of giblets and chop into a paste. Add back into the broth and return to the stove over low heat

In a separate small bowl or cup, mix your flour and arrowroot powder. Drizzle in water and stir into a paste. Add enough water to make the paste pourable. Slowly pour paste into broth while constantly stirring. You probably won't need to use all the paste. Once the gravy seems right, let it simmer and thicken a bit. Then serve.

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution cookbook

My family can probably be classified as a little on the earthy-crunchy side, so, of course, we've been following Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution on TV. I mean, everyone wants healthier food for ourselves and our school children, right? So, I bought the Food Revolution cookbook, basically just to support the cause.

But the recipes in the cookbook are quite good and pretty easy to make. Yay! And the directions are clearer than they are with most cookbooks, making it less terrifying for new cooks. Many of the recipes are easily altered to fit special diets. It's one of the best cookbooks I own.

Here are some hints to help you adapt the recipes:

Peanut oil for stir-fry dishes...replace with canola oil

Soy sauce...replace with fish sauce or a little salt + water

Peanuts...pistacios replace a lot of nuts well in cooked dishes.

Butter...replace with olive oil

Flour (in stews, gravies, or other items where the flour thickens)...replace with cornstarch, arrowroot powder, or xanthan gum powder either mixed with a little rice flour or just straight up.

Flour mixed into some kind of patty or used for dusting the outside of something... replace with rice flour or buckwheat flour. If I'm making patties or meatloaf, I will often add in gluten-free rolled oats. I usually chop mine up a bit before tossing them in, but they work fine either way.

I've also had a good experience replacing canned foods (pineapple, tomatoes) with fresh foods in Jamie Oliver recipes. Those don't always replace well in recipes, but they've been just fine in these recipes. I just add in a comparable amount of fresh chopped fruit/veggies plus some water.

Foods to Avoid or Buy Organic

Prevention magazine recently ran an article on foods we all should avoid. I cook almost everything from scratch myself, so I didn't expect that much on the list would apply to me. But I was surprised. The one canned good I tend to use is canned tomatoes, and it made the list! Ugh.  Here's a link:

http://www.prevention.com/7foodsthatshouldnever/index.shtml

Also, the Environmental Working Group publishes a list of the veggies with the highest pesticide load (called the Dirty Dozen) and the veggies with the lowest pesticide load (the Clean 15). The idea is that you should buy Dirty Dozen foods from the organic section. Here's the link:

http://www.foodnews.org/EWG-shoppers-guide-download-final.pdf

Waldorf Salad

Waldorf salad is pretty easy. Just toss it all together in a bowl, and go.

3 apples, cored, and chopped into bite-sized pieces
4 stalks of celery, chopped into bite-sized pieces
2 handfuls of chopped walnuts
2 large glops of mayonnaise (recipe in previous blog entry)

If your mayonnaise isn't sweetened, you might want to add a little agave nectar or a sprinkle of sugar. You can certainly go without it though.

Optional additions:
Raisins
Cut up grapes
Turkey, bite-sized pieces (goes well with cut up grapes)
Cut up marshmallow bits

Homemade Mayonnaise (no dairy, gluten, soy...yadda yadda)

First off, Spectrum makes a canola mayonnaise that many folks can use. So if you don't want to make mayo, you can check that out. If you can't find it in the natural-foods aisle of your grocery store, you can find it on Amazon.

However, the Spectrum mayo has honey in it, and my husband has a sensitivity to honey. So we make our own. To make your own, you will need:

1 whole egg
2 1/2 Tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
2 pinches of kosher salt
1 Cup oil (I use 1/2C olive oil and 1/2C canola oil)
Agave nectar or sugar (optional, to taste)

I use my Magic Bullet to mix this up, but you can use whatever kind of blender, processor, or mixer you have. Mix together the egg, vinegar and salt. Beat in the oil a little at a time, until the mixture become white and thick like mayo. You can use it right away, but it's better if  you refrigerate it overnight.

If I'm going to use the mayo as a sandwich spread, then I leave it just as it is. If I'm using it as a dressing for Waldorf salad, I add some sugar or agave nectar to it. You can also add all kinds of other seasonings to it. I like mustard, red pepper flake, or white pepper added to the mayo.

Variations...
You can replace the apple cider vinegar with another kind of vinegar or with lemon juice. Your choice here definitely impacts the final taste of the mayo, so choose wisely.

You can also use whatever kind of oil you want. I like the canola oil because it doesn't really add much of a taste on its own. However, sometimes I have a hard time getting it to whip up as well as the olive oil. The olive oil definitely flavors the mayo though, which can be pleasing as a sandwich spread but not so great for Waldorf salad. So this is how I came to use the mixed oils.