Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

So my washing machine has been broken for about a month now.  My landlord didn’t like the first repair quote we got so we had to get a second opinion and now it turns out that the part we need is pretty much not available anymore.  While we wait, I do some laundry by hand in the bathtub (so not as fun as it sounds) and some I do downstairs in Fussellette’s machine (which is identical to and yet works so much better than ours).  So in recompense for being a pain in her butt while I wash my unmentionables in her house, I made her some cookies yesterday.  These puppies (adapted from this recipe) are soft and chewy and you can’t even tell that they are gluten-free.  I asked the Pie how many cookies he wanted and all he did was extend his arms to their fullest, which I took to mean “this many,” so I doubled my batch, but a single batch here makes 18-24 large cookies.

Preheat your oven to 375°F and line several baking sheets with parchment paper.

If you can find oat flour for this then you’re gold.  If you can’t, take a heaping cup of rolled oats and plop it in your food processor.  Give that a go for a few minutes until you have fine crumbs.

Plop that in a bowl together with 1 cup brown rice flour, 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon corn starch, 1 teaspoon xanthan gum, 1 teaspoon fine salt, and 1 teaspoon baking soda and stir that up.

In the bowl of a mixer, add together 1/4 cup granulated sugar and 3/4 cup brown sugar.  Pour 1 cup melted butter on top and mix it up.

While that’s on the go, add in 2 eggs and 2 teaspoons vanilla.

Now slowly add in your bowl’s worth of dry ingredients and mix until fully incorporated.  Looks kind of runny but don’t fret.

Now slowly mix in 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips.  That looks more like it, eh?

I used a soup spoon to scoop plops of dough onto the baking sheets.

Bake for 10-13 minutes, rotating your sheets halfway through, until the edges of the cookie turn a nice brown.  The centre will not look set, but again, don’t fret.  Let the cookies set on the pan for another 2-3 minutes after removing them from the oven.

Then you can put them on a rack to cool completely.  Or you can eat them right away.  I think the choice is obvious.

You can see how well my lettuce is doing, too.

Scoff and a Half: Cod Fish Cakes, Rock-style

If you know anything about Newfoundland, you know that historically it has been home to one of the largest cod fisheries in the world.  So if you visit the Rock you can pretty much eat cod any which way you like.  Many here prefer to eat it salted (a traditional way to preserve it), and there’s a huge number of dishes surrounding this particular delicacy.  A favourite locally is fish ‘n’ brewis (pronounced like “bruise”), and is very popular amongst the hungover patrons of George Street.  It’s a breaded filet of salt cod, pan fried and topped with scruncheons, which you may remember from our toutons recipe.  It makes for a good “scoff,” or meal.

You can get salt cod pretty much anywhere on the eastern coast of Canada and through much of New England.  It’s a pretty popular way of preserving fish, so you’re likely to find it as well in markets in Russia, China, huge chunks of Europe, and more or less wherever else cod is sold.  You can also get canned salted cod from specialty shops and online.  If you can’t get salt cod (or you can’t be bothered to get some) you can use fresh cod or haddock or any other white fish as a substitute.  Just don’t go through the soaking step, and add a bit of salt to the recipe.

First you need about 1lb salt fish bits.  I don’t even question what the bits are, though it’s not all cod.  Just trust me on this one.

Dump those bits in a pot. Okay so it doesn’t look that appetizing. Just wait for it.

Fill the pot with cold water.  Bung that pot in the fridge overnight.

Next day, drain that salty, salty water, and fill it again with fresh. Put the pot on the stove and bring the contents to a gentle simmer for about 10-15 minutes.

While that’s on the go, peel and chop up about 1lb white potatoes (this was 4 large ones).  Huck them in a pot and boil the crap out of them as well.

Drain the cooked fish.

Use two forks (or a potato masher) to break the fish up into fine little bits.

Drain the cooked potatoes and mash them as well.  Leave them aside to cool a bit.

Finely chop up a small onion (or half a large one) and drop it in a pan with 1/4 cup butter.

Cook on medium heat until soft. While I’ve got you moving, might as well do the hokey pokey.

Crack 1 large egg and beat it up and put it aside, together with 2 tablespoons savoury, and some salt and pepper.

Dump the onions in with the fish and give that a stir.

Same-same with the potatoes and herbs.

When the mixture has cooled enough that it won’t cook the egg on contact, dump that in as well and mix it in.

Use a spoon to scoop up a generous helping of the mixture and form it with your hands into a little patty.

Roll the finished patty in about 1/4 cup flour (I used buckwheat so I could give some to Fussellette) and set it aside.

This particular recipe made 16 fish cakes for me.

Now you can wrap them up in waxed paper and seal them in something airtight and chuck them in the fridge, or freeze them.

To cook, heat a couple glugs of vegetable oil in a pan and fry on medium high for 3-4 minutes each side.

Flip when you get some nice golden-brown crispies on the bottom.

Serve with fresh chives or parsley and a side of strong condiment, like dijon mustard, relish, or chutney.  Save a couple for the magical creation we will be having on Friday.  Stay tuned!

Fruity Oat Muffins (Gluten-Free!)

Fussellette sent me this gorgeous recipe from the CBC and I had to try it out after listening to her rave about the results.

The best part about this recipe is that it’s flexible — you can change the flavours around by changing up the fruit you’re using, even using fruit-flavoured yogurt if that’s what you have on hand.  I’d also like to play with the flours a bit, maybe swapping in some coconut or almond flour if appropriate.

Preheat your oven to 375°F and spray or line a muffin tin with paper cups. I recommend paper cups for these, because gluten-free baked goods tend to like to stick to what they’re baked in.

Take 1 cup oats (if you have a sensitivity, make sure they’re gluten-free), and pulse in a food processor until they’re all fine and powdery.  Plop that in a large bowl.

Add to that 1/3 cup brown rice flour, 1/3 cup tapioca flour, 1/3 cup corn starch, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, and a pinch of salt.  Whisk that all together.

Then add in 1/2 cup each dried cherries, dried cranberries, and golden raisins.  I had this multi-pack with all those in it already, so I chucked that in, together with some chopped dried apricots.

In another bowl, rub 2 teaspoons orange zest and 2 teaspoons lemon zest (I used 4 teaspoons orange because I had no lemons) into 1/2 cup granulated sugar.

Whisk in 2 large eggs, then 1 1/4 cups Balkan-style plain yogurt, 1/3 cup light olive oil or vegetable oil, 2 teaspoons vanilla, and 1 teaspoon cider vinegar.

Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and stir only until just combined.  It will seem lumpy but don’t fret.  If you stir it too much you’ll end up with flat muffins, which, especially in gluten-free recipes, is the opposite of what we want to happen.

Spoon into your muffin tin (it should make 12 regular-sized muffins or 6-7 super large ones).

If you end up with some empty space in your muffin tin, add a bit of water into the empty cups — it will ensure that your muffins bake evenly.

Sprinkle some more whole oats and maybe some brown sugar on the top of each muffin.

Bake for about 25 minutes, until the tops are firm to the touch.  Allow to solidify in the pan for about five minutes after removal from the oven.  Use a fork to transfer the muffins to a rack to cool completely.  As with most gluten-free material, they won’t last long, so make sure to eat them or freeze them within a couple of days.

Chocolate Almond Coconut Macaroons

I’ve had a real hankering after macaroons recently, so I decided to fulfill my craving.  And if you’re looking for good, easy, light and airy dessert ideas (gluten-free, too!) for Passover or Easter, this one (with any modifications you like, such as kosher ingredients) would probably do in a pinch.  And it’s a cinch.

Separate 3 large eggs.

Bring the whites to room temperature by setting the bowl they’re in into another bowl of hot water — just make sure not to get the water where it shouldn’t be.

Press plastic wrap into the surface of the spare yolks, seal them in an airtight container, and put them in the fridge to use in something else.

Preheat your oven to 325°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, plop your 3 room-temperature egg whites, 1/2 cup sugar, a sprinkle of salt and 2 teaspoons pure almond extract.

Whisk those together until it’s all glossy and frothy and the sugar is mostly dissolved.  The frothier you get it, the better your macaroons will stick together and the fluffier they will be.  You won’t get a meringue out of this because you added the sugar at the beginning but you can get this lovely white stuff that works really well.

Fold in 4 cups sweetened shredded/flaked coconut and 1 cup blanched sliced almonds.  Make sure the egg mixture is fully combined with the dry ingredients.

I used a soup spoon to scoop these onto the baking sheets and ended up with about 20 cookies.

Bake the cookies for about 20 minutes, rotating halfway through, until they’re a nice golden brown. Allow them to cool completely.

For a bit more pizzazz, I melted a hunk of white chocolate and another of milk chocolate and dipped half the cookies in white chocolate, and the other in the milk and put them back on the parchment to dry.

Deadly.

I caved for Kale Chips

Yup.  I’m behind the times on this one, I know.  Wayyyy behind.  You are all probably like, kale chips?  Been there, done that, b’y! (although probably without the “b’y” part, unless you’re in Newfoundland).

Thing is, kale is something you can get locally grown here.  Other thing is, it comes in a huge 5kg bag.  Having not tried this dark green super food before, the Pie and I were a little leery of purchasing such a huge amount of it at once.  Then recently I saw these wee bunches of a frizzy kind of kale that were just the right size for two people.  I could finally see what all the fuss was about.

Start by preheating your oven to 350°F.

Wash the kale well (as you should with any vegetable — it’s amazing what can get stuck in those leafy greens).  You want the kale to be as dry as possible.  If you have a salad spinner, give it a whaz in that for a while and see how that goes.  My kale was pretty rigid so I gave it a hefty shake and then bashed it against a tea towel for a while until I’d shaken most of the water drops off.

Now you want to cut or tear your kale into chip-sized pieces.  The stems on mine were pretty tough so I make sure to get rid of that.

Lay your pieces out on a baking sheet in a single layer and drizzle with a few tablespoons of olive oil.  Because I’m lazy (and I care about accuracy), I used my Misto oil sprayer, which pressurizes your own brand of oil and lets you spray it like an aerosol, minus all the gross things that come with aerosols.

This allowed me to get a thin layer of oil on every leaf, rather than huge gobs somewhere and none somewhere else.  Anyway, then you use your fingers to massage the oil into the surface of every leaf.  If it’s not covered with oil it won’t get as crispy when you bake it.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper (though less salt than you’d think, as kale is naturally a bit salty), or with any other toppings you like, such as cumin, chipotle, or even cheese, and toss, making sure the leaves are once again in a single layer.

Bake for about 8-12 minutes, checking to make sure the leaves aren’t burning.  The cooked leaves are dark, even slightly brownish, and crisp like chips.  Allow them to cool (or don’t) and crunch away on this easy peasy snack!

Have You Tried Banana “Ice Cream”?

No?  You probably should.  It’s like all the good things about ice cream, but it’s also gluten-free, vegan, and pretty darned good for you.  I feel like world peace could be achieved if everyone could have some of this ice cream (except for people who are allergic to bananas — they will just have to negotiate peace on their own terms).

So basically, you take some bananas.  Ripe ones, with a few brown spots.  You want them soft and squishy and very sweet.

Then you peel them and slice them into disks.  And then you freeze those.  In the freezer.  Or outside, if you live in Central or Eastern or Atlantic Canada.  Or Northern Europe.  Or Siberia.  Or Antarctica (actually, then they’d probably be too cold.  Your freezer is probably warmer than Antarctica).

Then you take them out of the freezer.  And you plop them in your food processor.

AND YOU GIVE IT A WHAZ.  Which is what Jamie Oliver would say.  And the Pie and I love him, so that’s one of our new favourite phrases.

And when it’s all gooey and soft and smooth, you can eat it!

If you prefer your soft serve a little more firm, you can chuck it back in the freezer for a bit.  I like the fact that when it thaws, because it’s banana, it doesn’t get all soupy.

And you can flavour it as well!  Add peanut butter, Nutella, chocolate chips, cocoa, vanilla … you name it (I added Nutella and vanilla).

The only limit is your imagination — and what you have to stuff in there.  GO BANANAS!

Treats Week: All Truffles, All the Time

I think I would lead a happier life if every Wednesday was a truffle day.  Just sayin’.

I have an easy kind of truffles for you today, delicious to the max.  They make great nibblies to have on hand for guests who drop by, and also elegant little gifts.  And the best part of this recipe (which I have modified from here and here), aside from its simplicity and versatility, is that they’re totally vegan and gluten-free.  So you can make everyone happy.  Serve them with chokladboll for fika and it will be even more impressive.

Soak about 15 medjool dates (those are the big ones) for about 15 minutes.

While the dates are relaxing in their nice bath, take about 1 cup dessicated coconut, and chuck it in your food processor.  Pulse that until you have teeny flakes, and set half of it aside for coating the finished truffles.

Do the same with 1 cup walnuts, almonds, pecans, or nut of your choosing, reserving half for coating.  I toasted these ones first.

Dump the other half of the coconut and nuts back in the food processor.

Add the soaked dates to the food processor, as well as 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt, 1/2 teaspoon cayenne powder, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 1/4 cup full-fat coconut milk.  Alternately, you can use a few tablespoons of coconut oil.

Now what you should know here is that I both doubled the recipe and my food processor is really small, so I did this in batches and mixed it together in a bowl.

Pulse that gooey mass until it’s all finely combined and forming a huge ball.  Chuck that in the fridge for about 15 minutes.

Then you can start making truffles balls with your hands.  Take about 2 tablespoons of the mixture and roll it in your palms to form a rough sphere. This was my hand after doing the whole batch.

Roll about a third of your truffles in unsweetened cocoa powder (with an extra sprinkling of cayenne if you wish), another third in your coconut flakes, and the last third in the crushed nuts.

Keep these in the fridge, or freeze them for later on down the road. My doubled recipe made 48 truffles.

They’re so pretty and tasty and spicy!

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Dog Treats

This is the last pumpkin post, I swear.  We’re finally rid of it.  Fortunately, there is one member of our family who will never tire of pumpkin, and that is The Short and Spoiled One.

Have we met?

This is a quick recipe that I put together with inspiration from Betty Crocker and Simply Sugar and Gluten-Free.

Preheat your oven to 350°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together 4 cups brown rice flour with 2 tablespoons ground flax meal (optional) and 1 teaspoon cinnamon.  It occurs to me after the fact that you could also use a mixture of brown rice flour and quinoa flour, seeing as quinoa is the new superfood for dogs these days.  Very trendy of you.

In another bowl, whisk together 2 large eggs with 1 3/4 cups (or 1 14 oz can) of pure pumpkin purée (not the pie filling) and 1/4 cup peanut butter (all natural, with no added salt or sugar, please).

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until a shaggy dough forms — you may need to use your hands.

Sprinkle with more flour and stir that in if it’s still tacky.

Take the dough and form it into a small ball with your palms.  Flatten it into a patty and place it on the baking sheet.  Angle your thumb sideways on one side of the cookie and press it into the dough.  Use the point of one of your fingers to make four indentations along the curve of your thumbprint.   So it looks like a wee paw print.  Cute, eh?

Bake for about 25 minutes, depending on the thickness of your cookie.  A finished cookie is crisp and dried out.

Allow them to cool completely on a rack and store them in the fridge to keep them fresh for a couple weeks.  At room temperature in an airtight container they’ll keep for about a week.

Gren obviously enjoyed testing them.  Here he is waiting for my okay.

Scarfing down the first piece.

Discovering the second.

Scarfing that one too.

Are there no more?

Gren was nice enough to share with some of my coworkers’ dogs, and this was the review:

Photo credit: E. Wright

Guinness Beef Stew

Oh yeah.  The fact that my fingers are going numb with cold right now tells me it’s comfort food season.  And what’s more comforting than a nice beef stew?

The other day at Costco I went a bit nuts and purchased one of their large packages of excellent stewing beef.  ”I’ll make boeuf Bourgignon,” I said, forgetting two important things: 1) I am horribly allergic to red wine; and 2) I do not own a Dutch oven.

So scratch that.  Let’s cook with beer instead.  I took a bit of inspiration from the Guinness Storehouse website, and a little from Jamie Oliver, but other than that I just kind of winged it.

First I started off by roasting some of my vegetables.  That’s 1 head garlic, with the top chopped off, 1 package white mushrooms chopped in half, and 1 package pearl onions, peeled.

Drizzle those with olive oil and roast at 400°F for about half an hour, and give the onions and mushrooms a good stir about halfway through.

Then I peeled and roughly chopped 3 parsnips and 4 carrots, and a small bunch of celery.  And some potatoes, which aren’t in this shot.  How many potatoes?  I don’t remember. I didn’t take a picture of them.

That all goes straight into the pot.

You can tip in the roasted onions and mushrooms, too.

Save the garlic on a plate for a little bit.

Now you can work on your meat, and this is going to take a while.  This is whatever size the package of stewing beef is that comes from Costco, which is extremely large, but the beef is truly excellent and I highly recommend it.  I cut my chunks in half just to make them more manageable with a spoon.  Then  you pat them dry with a paper towel and put them on a plate.  You could use a clean tea towel to dry your meat if you were feeling environmentally conscious, but let’s face it: ew.

In a bowl, mix together some flour (I used buckwheat just in case a gluten-free person came over for dinner sometime in the future – but then the Pie pointed out that Guinness has gluten in it so I’m an idiot), salt, pepper, and cayenne seasoning.

Spill some of that onto a plate and spread it out.  Roll your meat chunks in the flour.

Brown the meat, working in small batches, in that skillet you already used on medium heat.  Add some more olive oil if it starts to dry out and smoke.  Chuck the browned beef into the pot with the vegetables.  This is probably the most tedious step, and takes a while.

Once you have browned all the meat, pour about 3 1/2 cups beef broth into the vegetable/meat pot.  I found this concentrated stuff at the grocery store. All you have to do is add boiling water. Sure takes up less space in my cupboard!

Tie a bundle of thyme and rosemary together and chuck that in as well.  I find if you tie the bundle string to the handle of the pot it makes getting it out later a lot easier.  Bring the contents to a simmer.

In the skillet that you have been using, plop a little butter and more olive oil and let that melt.

Add in the garlic you roasted earlier and mash it with a wooden spoon.

Then pour in 2 cans Guinness stout beer and bring that to a simmer.

Scrape the bottom lots with your wooden spoon.

Pour that whole lot into your bubbling stew and let that simmer with the lid off, stirring occasionally, to reduce for a while (at least an hour).  You may find you have to add in a bit of corn starch after a while for thickening if you used a gluten-free flour.

We served ours with some beer bread made out of Mill Street’s Oktoberfest.

You can simplify all this by doing it all in a slow cooker, but I find I prefer the sharper flavours of the roasted vegetables and the constant stirring — you’d still have to brown the meat before slow-cooking it anyway.  But boy it is time-consuming.

Worth it, though.

Them’s Fightin’ Cookies

This is a recipe for gluten-free almond chocolate chip cookies.  I found it in Thursday’s issue of The Ottawa Citizen, where it was referenced to the California Almond Board.  Can we get more complicated?  Surely.  These cookies are also touted as a great energy snack after a workout (a cookie?  Really?).  Whatever they are, they’re gluten-free, egg-free, refined sugar-free, and, if you use carob instead of chocolate, then they are also dairy-free and vegan.

So I figured I’d bake up a batch and try them out on my collection of captive guinea pigs — in this particular case, the Pie’s fighting game community, which meets every Sunday.  I’m sure that the last thing they need is more energy, but whatever.  They are good at ensuring the Pie and I are not left alone with too many cookies to eat by ourselves.

Preheat your oven to 350°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together 2 1/2 cups almond flour (I did half coconut flour and half almond meal, because that’s what I had and I figured that the recipe actually meant almond flour, which is a finer grind, and not almond meal) with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda.

In a smaller bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup grapeseed oil (regular canola or sunflower oil will do as well), 1/2 cup agave nectar (available at any health food store and many grocery stores — it’s basically sweet cactus sap, and they also make tequila out of it), and 1 tablespoon vanilla.

I’ve finally busted open the home-made vanilla that Ando and Teedz gave me a couple Christmases ago.  It’s excellent, and I can just keep refilling the bottle to get more and more vanilla.  Fantastic!

I’m not sure if I had to do this, but I whisked the ingredients thoroughly together until they formed a lovely smooth and thick emulsion.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and make sure they’re thoroughly combined before folding in 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips and 1/2 cup sliced almonds.

I didn’t have any sliced almonds so I just used some raw almonds, which I then toasted and crushed myself.

Using a tablespoon, drop the dough onto the parchment sheets and press down on the dough to flatten it a bit.

Well, that’s what the recipe said.  I had a hard time keeping mine together so I found if I used my hands and mashed them hard into little patties then I had better luck.

Bake those puppies for 7-10 minutes, until golden, before removing from the oven.  Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for about 20 minutes before you try to peel them off.

This recipe had potential, but it fell far short for me.  The cookies turned out a little burnt on the bottom despite me only cooking them for 7 minutes, and they were so very, very dry.  If I were to make these again (and I might), I would nix the oil and substitute in about 1/4 cup butter, salted (which means leaving out the salt in the recipe) and then 1 large egg instead.  If you still want to pursue the vegan route you could also substitute in some apple sauce.  In fact, I might add in some anyway, in addition to the butter and egg.  There simply was no glue holding this baby together.