Peach Pie

 Peaches are heaped at our farmers' markets, so it's time for a favorite way to eat more peaches. This peach pie recipe comes from Taste of Home. 

Your favorite double pie crust. We use Maine Pie Company

for the filling toss together:

5 ripe peaches / 4 1/2 cups chopped

1/2 cup coconut sugar

Let sit for one hour

Then mix in a small saucepan:

3 T cornstarch

1/4 t ground nutmeg

1/4 t cinnamon

1/8 t salt

add the juice from the peaches and heat slowly to a paste. Add in, stirring:

2 t lemon juice

1 T butter

Toss with peaches and spoon into bottom crust. Top with second crust. Cover crust edges with tine foil.

Bake at 400F 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 10 minutes. Let cool and keep refrigerated, after all, it's August out there.

Cilantro Ginger Sauce

 In a blender:

2 C packed cilantro leaves

1/4 C + 1 T vegetable oil

1/2 jalapeño pepper

1" peeled fresh ginger root, finely grated

2 T lime juice

3 scallions, green part only

Oatmeal Cookies

 

Preheat oven to 350F

Mix together:

2 C almond flour

1 3/4 C old fashioned oats

2 T coconut sugar

1/2 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

1 T ground flax seed (optional)

Then mix in:

2 T vanilla

2 T honey

2 T coconut oil

2 eggs

Fold in:

1/3 C chopped dates

1/3 C dried cherries or cranberries

1/4 C walnuts or pecans

1/4 C cocoa bits (or chopped baking chocolate)

Form into 1 T cookie shaped lumps and bake 10 minutes.

Best Chocolate Cake

So moist! So chocolatey! So simple to make!

Preheat oven to 320F (160C)

1/2 C cocoa powder
1/2 C coconut flour (flour not flake)
2 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t cinnamon (I use Ceylon Cinnamon from Penzeys. Worth. It.)
pinch of sea salt

6 eggs
1/2 C honey or maple syrup
1/2 light cooking oil (I like rice bran oil)
1/2 C milk or coconut milk
1 t vanilla

In a mixing bowl add cocoa powder, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, & salt and combine.

Add eggs, honey, vanilla, milk, & oil, whisk until smooth and combined.

Oil a 8" or 9" round cake pan. Cut a circle of parchment paper or paper bag and place in the bottom of the pan, oil that too.
Bake 45 minutes or until wooden skewer comes out clean. Let cool.

Recipe adapted from The Healthy Chef

Doesn't need frosting or even a fork, but if you want to dress it up, try Rich Chocolate Frosting

Watermelon Ginger Frappé

At the height of summer, you buy a big watermelon. Eat a bunch of it. Let the juice run down your chin, eat all around the rind and save the most central bit for last, for it is the sweetest. When everyone has had their fill, slice the remaining watermelon into thin slices, a quarter inch or so. Cut the rind off and cut the sliced melon into pieces no bigger than 3" in any direction. Line a baking sheet with cling wrap. Lay all your thin sliced melon on the baking sheet, adding more layers of cling wrap and melon as needed, depending on how much melon you have. Freeze the melon on the baking sheet. Next day, move the melon (but not the cling wrap) to gallon freezer ziplocks and store in the freezer until you need a fancy drink.

In a blender, add frozen melon and Q Ginger until it's the consistency of a slushee. It's delicious! (If corn syrup & processed sugar doesn't bother you, make this with ginger beer. Yum!)

Hearty Stews

It's snowing! Time for hearty stew recipes. I'll post a quick and a slow. I made both yesterday, cooled them overnight in the fridge, and now I'm freezing them in cardboard forms that I made to fit in my crock pot. It's a cunning plan! I hope to unmold the frozen blocks of stew directly into the crock pot and reheat slowly, thus coming home to a delicious dinner.

Chicken Curry (a quick stew)

2 lbs chicken, deboned & cut in 1.5 -2" pieces
1 large onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic, smashed
1 lb kale, torn off the stems and washed
1 lb baby cut carrots
1/2 lb snow peas or green beans (whole or in half)
1 bell pepper, chopped
3/4 C frozen peas
(these are the vegetables I had in the fridge yesterday; add what you have)
2 cans coconut milk (thin with water if necessary, at the very end)
red & yellow curry paste (available at Asian groceries, and so worth it)

Cook up some rice.

Pour a couple teaspoons of oil in a big stew pot on medium high heat. Add the sliced onions and stir until they're soft. Add the garlic and stir until the onions start to brown.  Take them out, add oil if necessary, and add the carrots. Brown them, and remove. Add oil if necessary, then add half the chicken. Let it brown by not moving it around for a few minutes, then turn the pieces over and brown the other side. Take the chicken out and repeat with the other pound, but instead of taking it out, add curry paste. I cannot possibly tell you how much to use, but I recommend 2 parts red to 1 part yellow. This stuff is strong, so whether you measure in teaspoons or tablespoons is up to your family's tolerance for heat.

Work the curry paste into the oil, splashing in coconut milk as needed. I use a whisk for this. Keep pouring in coconut milk until it's all combined with the curry. Put the remaining browned chicken and onions back into the stew pot, and add the carrots. Cook 10 minutes, then add the remaining vegetables. If you're going to freeze it, stir in the veg and take it off the heat. The freezer and reheating will cook them. If you're eating it now, cook 5-7 minutes. Serve over rice.

A note on vegetable cooking times: Onions, carrots and other root vegetables, and broccoli take more time than leafy greens, peppers, peas, corn, and beans. I pull all the veg I want out of the fridge/freezer and divide them into piles based on how long I want them to cook. You can also slice/chop accordingly - if it's going to cook longer, it can be a bigger piece. If you're using frozen spinach, it's basically already cooked, so add it at the end.

Daube (a slow stew)

2 lbs stew-cut beef or venison
1 large onion, sliced
6-8 cloves garlic, smashed
2 lbs baby cut carrots
1 bottle red wine (3 buck chuck is good)
3-4 T rice flour
3 T dried thyme
oil & butter to cook in (you can substitute oil for butter if you don't eat dairy)

For this one I like to bake it for a while, so I use a pot that can go in a 300F oven. If you don't have that kind of pot, you can simmer if stovetop on very low heat instead.

Pour 2 T oil into your stew pot.Add onions and cook until soft and starting to brown. Add garlic for just a minute, stirring constantly, then pull it all out of the pot. Add 2 T butter, then add 1/2 a pound of meat. Brown the meat quickly, remove it, and do another 1/2 pound, etc, until it's all browned and sitting on top of your onions. Make sure there's visible oil in your pot, 3 tablespoons or more, then dump in the carrots and cook for a few minutes. Sprinkle in the rice flour and thyme, scraping the mixture around the bottom of the pot. When your fat and flour are combined, pour in a little wine. Work your way around the bottom of the pot, deglazing with the wine, scraping up crusty brown stuff from the bottom, and mixing in the roux (cooked fat + flour), until you have a smooth, thick delicious wine broth. If you find that you are drinking wine, substitute some stock or broth for that glass you snuck out of there. Once all the wine and in and the pot deglazed, preheat your oven to 300F and add all meat and onions back in. Cover and cook in the oven for 2 hours. Traditionally this is served over mashed potatoes, but rice or a crusty Against the Grain baguette are good too.

Almond Oat Cookies

These are simple, delicious cookies adapted from the back of the Bob's Red Mill Oat Flour bag. The cookie dough tastes like cookie dough! I cannot express how excited I am about that. But I will tell you that about half a dozen cookies worth never made the oven.

1/2 C butter
3 T agave syrup
1 t vanilla
1 C almond meal
1 C oat flour*

Preheat oven to 300F and grease a baking sheet. Cream butter, agave, and vanilla together with a mixer. Sift in almond meal and oat flour. (I rub it through a mesh strainer to take out the lumps that the freezing causes.) Mix until dough sticks together. Form into 1-11/2" balls and place on baking sheet. Bake 30 minutes.

*If you are celiac, make sure to use certified gluten-free oat flour. Bob's makes it.

Coconut Snowballs

In the workplace, there are potlucks. It is a fact of the American work ethic. When you have dietary restrictions, the potluck is a minefield, peppered with conversations like this:
Me: You made a gluten-free cake?
TTBHOM*: Yes. It's a flourless cake recipe.
Me: What's the crust made of?
TTBHOM: Oreos.
Me: o_o

*Trying To Be Helpful Office Mate

So mostly I say "No, no, don't worry about me" a lot, and bring all my own food.

However, I have this one coworker who is determined to bring in things I can eat. She cares, and she's kind, and she's figuring it out. She found this recipe, and it's delicious! She found it at The Kitchn.

They were so popular at home, that they didn't make it long enough for me to grab my camera.

1 3/4 cups unsweetened shredded coconut or coconut powder, divided
2 teaspoons melted coconut oil
3 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon sea salt

Place 1 cup of shredded coconut in a food processor along with the coconut oil. Pulse, scraping down the sides periodically, until it begins to form a paste, or at least holds together.

Add the maple syrup, coconut milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt and process until well combined. Add 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons of shredded coconut and pulse until just combined.

Shape the mixture into 12 (1-inch) balls and coat with the remaining shredded coconut. Refrigerate for at least an hour** and up to 5 days. Bring to room temperature before eating. Makes 12. Not enough.

**Yeah, right. You'll just be popping these babies while you're still rolling. Yum.

My other favorite no-bake cookie is Elana's Pantry's Fudge Babies. So good!

Almond Flour Biscotti

I just made this recipe from Elana's Pantry and want to capture it here. After tasting the dough on the first batch I made a second variety on the spot.

In a food processor, pulse until combined:
1 1/4 C almond flour
1 T arrowroot powder
1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t sea salt (I used Kosher)

Add
1/4 C agave syrup or honey
1 T lemon zest

Pulse until a ball forms

Chop 1/4 C nuts (I used pumpkin seeds, Elena used almonds)

The dough is sticky. Lay done a square of cling wrap and spread the nuts in the center. Scrape out the dough, touching it little, and put it on the nuts. Fold over the cling wrap and gently fold the nuts and dough together, then roll the dough into a log about 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 in diameter. Slice into 2 logs and place on a baking sheet lined with oiled parchment paper. (I use brown paper bag with the dye side down. These first 2 batches stuck to the paper like crazy, so I'm going to try oiling the paper next time.)

Bake at 350F for 15 minutes. Let cool for 1 hour. Carefully slice on the diagonal with a sharp knife. Lay each piece cut side down on a baking tray and back at 325F for 15 minutes.

VARIATION
For the second batch I used 1 T mixed chopped fresh cranberries and orange zest for the fruit, and cashews for the nuts.

Brownies

I have yet to find a brownie recipe that I love. I tried 3 this weekend, and this one is the one worth keeping, for now. The search continues. I'm going to try these next.

2 C almond flour
1 C cocoa powder
1/2 t cinnamon*
1/4 t salt
1/2 C coconut oil or melted butter
1/2 C honey
1 t vanilla
2 eggs whisked
1/4 - 1/2 C coconut milk
2-4 squares baking chocolate, chopped into chip-sized pieces

Preheat oven to 325F. Grease a 9"x9" baking dish.

Mix together flour, cocoa, cinnamon, & salt. Melt the oil or butter, mix honey and vanilla into it. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well. Mix together  1/4 C of coconut milk and 2 eggs, and stir it into the mix. If it appears too stiff, add up to 1/4 C more coconut milk. Fold in baking chocolate chips.

Bake 35 - 40 minutes.



*original recipe called for 1 teaspoon cinnamon, which I found overwhelming, distracting from the chocolate

Lemon Bars

So, I love lemon bars. Bright and tart and not too sweet, with a tender, melt-in-your-mouth crust.

The tender, melt-in-your-mouth crust is just not going to happen on a gluten-free diet, but this recipe gets close. I based this on Simply Sugar and Gluten Free's Lemon Coconut Bars. It's an excellent recipe, but it wasn't lemony enough for me. So, I tweaked it a bit, as follows.


Crust:
1 1/2 C sorghum flour
1/2 C sunflower seeds*
1/2 C coconut oil (or butter)
1 T coconut palm sugar or cactus honey powder


Lemon Custard:
6 eggs
1/2 C honey
1 1/2 T arrowroot (or cornstarch)
2 t lemon zest
3/4 lemon juice (fresh-squeezed or don't bother - takes about 6 lemons)
1/4 C + 2 T milk (almond milk for dairy-free version)

3/4 C ground or shredded coconut (the finer the better) for on top

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter or cooking spray a 13" x 9" pan. In a food processor w/ steel blade, add the sorghum flour and sunflower seeds and process until the seeds are finely chopped. Add the coconut oil and sugar and pulse until the mixture is crumbly, like a pie crust. Do not over-process. Press into the prepared pan and bake until golden brown, 8-10 minutes.

In the same food processor, without washing it out, add the eggs and pulse until the yolks are broken. Add the honey, arrowroot, lemon zest, lemon juice, and milk. If you're using cornstarch, mix it thoroughly with the milk before adding it. Pulse in one second bursts until combined.

Pour lemon custard over the hot crust. Sprinkle shredded coconut over it. Bake for 18-22 minutes, until set in the center. Cool completely, cut into bars, and refrigerate.  This is Important: The crust will not be good until it's refrigerated. When warm or room temperature the texture is sandy and disappointing. Make yourself wait. When it's cold, it's the right texture and absolutely delicious!

* raw unsalted = best, but I've used roasted/salted with no ill effects

Barbeque

I'm not going to post many dinner recipes. Gluten and sugar free dinner is easy if you cook real food and don't serve bread. However, there are certain dishes that I love that are traditionally made with sugar. Of my two favorites, barbeque and sushi, we make both at home with great success. 

My children love this bbq sauce, and when they have more traditional sauces elsewhere, they don't like them! This recipe is adapted from Epicurious, first published in Bon Appétit magazine, March 2005, submitted by Joan and David Oswalt of Pasadena, California. Although I have made it with fresh berries, frozen works just as well.

The recipe as written is terrific, but I've slathered the sauce on chicken and pork chops as well. It's best when combined with the simple spice rub.

The rub:

4 teaspoons chili powder

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon salt

The sauce:

2 1/2 cups fresh blackberries or frozen, thawed

1/2 cup salsa

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup minced peeled fresh ginger

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce

2 slabs baby back pork ribs (about 2 pounds)

Preheat oven to 400°F. 

Mix chili powder, garlic, and salt in small bowl; rub mixture into ribs. Place ribs on large rimmed baking sheet, meaty side up. Bake ribs 50 minutes.

Meanwhile, puree sauce ingredients in blender until almost smooth.  Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper. 

Brush ribs with enough sauce to coat. Continue baking until sauce browns and forms thick glaze, about 10 minutes longer. Cut slabs between bones into individual ribs. Serve with remaining blackberry sauce. 

This sauce stores well in the freezer, and this recipe makes more than enough for two delicious dinners.