Indian-spiced Cabbage

Whenever I went to an Indian restaurant or ate Indian food at home, I used to wish for more vegetables or an obvious vegetable dish to go with the main course. Now, thanks to my friend Tiffany from church, I know what to make: Indian-spiced cabbage. For the past several years a group of us has gotten together to have Indian food for our Easter dinner. One year Tiffany made this Indian cabbage, and I liked it so much that I asked her for the recipe. I have modified it a bit so that it's easier to make with the ingredients I usually have on hand, but the flavor is pretty much the same. My version is inspired also by a "hot" Indian coleslaw recipe and a cabbage and carrot stir-fry recipe.

Indian-spiced Cabbage
serves 2 adults

Ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp. canola oil
  
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp. cumin seeds
• 1/4 tsp. ground coriander
• 1/4 tsp. curry powder
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt
• 1/2 tsp. granulated white sugar
• dash of cayenne pepper
• 4 cups of shredded green cabbage (about 1/2 of a small, 2 lb. head of cabbage)
  
• 2 Tbsp. lemon juice (fresh is best, but bottled will do)
  

Instructions:

Heat 1 Tbsp. of canola oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Finely chop the onion and then saute until tender. While the onion is cooking, chop the cabbage. Measure out the coriander, curry powder, salt, sugar, and cayenne pepper in a small bowl.

When the onion is soft, add the cumin seeds and stir constantly for about 30 seconds. Then add the other 1 Tbsp. of canola oil and pour in the rest of the spices from the small bowl. Stir constantly for about 1 minute. Add the shredded cabbage and cook, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes, until the cabbage has softened to the texture that you prefer. Stir in the lemon juice and serve.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

This post is long overdue, but I am finishing it anyway because I want to remember exactly how I made this strawberry rhubarb pie. Every spring for the past few years I have make at least one strawberry rhubarb pie, because I love the flavors of strawberry and rhubarb together. Some years I have more success than others, and I think that this year's pie is worth repeating. I actually made strawberry rhubarb pie twice this year, and can you believe that I forgot to take a picture of it both times? I'd like to blame the lack of a picture on the fact that the pie gets eaten so quickly. But, I do realize that I could have taken a picture of my own piece before digging in.

The first time I made the pie this year was for Michael's birthday in June. I learned the hard way that the rhubarb needs to be cut quite thin, otherwise the pieces of rhubarb don't get soft as quickly as the strawberry and you end up with crunchy rhubarb in your pie. And you don't want crunchy pie. The other thing I discovered is that if I baked the pie long enough to soften the thickly-cut rhubarb, the juices bubbled over and made a mess all over the bottom of my oven. Because I wanted to try to learn from my mistakes, and because I just really like strawberry rhubarb pie, I made it again when my sister Stacy and her husband Dave came to visit us over the July 4th weekend. This time the pie turned out just as I had hoped, and it was gone in about 24 hours.

Here are a couple of additional tips I've learned from experience. First, making a pie crust using gluten-free flour is an exciting endeavor (or, as Michael might prefer to say, an unbelievably frustrating endeavor). Gluten-free pie dough is very fragile and tends to break easily, so try to let go of your preconceptions of what the perfect pie crust should be like. It's normal to need to perform some minor surgery on the pie dough once it's in the pie plate. The second tip is to give yourself lots of time to make this pie. It takes quite a while to make the crust and to mix up the filling and the crumb topping. Then it takes even longer to bake the pie, and a while longer to let the pie cool. I would budget at least 3 hours for the whole process the first time you're making the pie.

Lastly, the crust for this pie was inspired by a recipe in Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. The filling was based on the following recipe for strawberry rhubarb pie. And the crumb topping was based on a recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook as well as the following crisp recipe.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
makes 1 9-inch pie

Ingredients for the pie crust:

• 1 1/4 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free flour
• 1 Tbsp. granulated white sugar
  
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
• 1/3 cup Spectrum Organic shortening
• 5 Tbsp. ice water

Ingredients for the pie filling:

• 1 lb. strawberries
• 1 lb. rhubarb
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
• 1/4 cup quick-cooking tapioca

Ingredients for the crumb topping:

• 1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free flour
• 1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free oats OR 1/2 cup chopped pecans (make sure that the pecans are not coated in corn oil)
• 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar (I'm not sure which amount I like better.)
  
• 1/3 cup Spectrum Organic shortening

Instructions for making the crust:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Take a drinking glass and fit it with water and several ice cubes. In a medium bowl, combine the first three ingredients for making the crust: the flour, sugar, and salt. Then cut in the shortening until the pieces are the size of small peas. Pour 5 tablespoons of water onto the mixture one at a time, tossing the mixture so that it becomes moistened all over. Use your hands to form the dough into a ball.

Lay a large dish towel on a flat surface and sprinkle it with some gluten-free flour. Place the dough on the towel and sprinkle the dough with a bit more of the flour. Then gently roll out the dough with a rolling pin until the dough is 3 or 4 inches wider in diameter than the top circumference of the 9-inch pie plate. Sprinkle the dough with more flour at any point in the rolling process if the rolling pin starts to stick to the dough. When the dough has been rolled enough, lay the pie plate face-down on top of the flattened dough. Grab the edges of the dish towel and gently pull them over the bottom of the pie plate (which is right now facing you). Grab the ends of the dish towel with one hand and quickly flip the entire dish towel and pie plate over so that the pie plate is now face up with the pie dough inside it. Gently press the dough into the pie plate and crimp the edges around the top of the pie plate.

To make the pie filling:

Rinse the strawberries and cut the green tops off. Cut the strawberries into 1/4-inch slices and place in a large bowl. Rinse the rhubarb and cut off the ends. Thinly cut the rhubarb into 1/8-inch slices and place in the same bowl. Add the other ingredients for the pie filling to the bowl -- the sugars, lemon juice, salt, and tapioca -- and stir to combine, so that the fruit is coated with remaining ingredients.

To make the crumb topping:

In a small bowl stir together the flour, oats or chopped nuts, and brown sugar. Cut in the shortening, or just use your fingers to combine the shortening with the other ingredients.

To complete the pie:

Pour the pie filling into the unbaked pie crust. Sprinkle the crumb topping evenly over the filling. Cover the entire pie with a piece of aluminum foil and place in the oven for 25 minutes. Remove the aluminum foil from the pie, turn the heat down to 375 degrees, and let the pie bake another 15 minutes. (If your oven tends to run hot, turn the heat down to 350 degrees so that the crumb topping doesn't burn.) Then check to see if the crumb topping is getting brown. If the crumb topping is browned but the pie is not bubbling, put the aluminum foil back over the pie and let it bake for another 10 to 15 minutes, unless the pie is bubbling. Remove the pie from the oven and let it cool on a wire rack for as long as you are able to wait. I actually think the pie tastes even better at room temperature the next day, although my second favorite option is to have the pie while it's still hot with some vanilla coconut-milk ice cream on the side.

Egg-free Applesauce Pancakes

I forgot to include the cream of tartar when I first published the recipe, so now I've corrected that. The pancakes turn out much fluffier and more golden in color with the cream of tartar. I've also decreased the amount of oil and water, which makes the batter and pancakes thicker.

I've instituted Saturdays as pancake day at our house. Sabrina likes pancakes so much that she was starting to ask me nearly every morning if we could have pancakes for breakfast. To end the daily requests for pancakes, and to provide Sabrina with a definite pancake breakfast to look forward to every week, I decided to make Saturdays our pancake breakfast day. This was made a bit more challenging by the fact that Sabrina tested positive for a mild egg allergy earlier this year. However, I've discovered that yummy pancakes aren't too hard to make without eggs. Below is my first egg-free pancake recipe, which the girls and I enjoy eating with blueberries and maple syrup. You'll notice that I include flax seed meal, which is supposed to mimic the properties of eggs when you soak it in liquid before using. I prefer using flax seed meal over other egg substitutes because the ones that I've looked at so far may contain corn.

Egg-free Applesauce Pancakes
makes 6 pancakes (enough for me to have 3 and the girls each to have 1 1/2)


Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup almond milk (or Lactaid milk if making for Michael)
• 1 Tbsp. flax seed meal. I buy Bob's Red Mill flax seed meal.
• 1 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
  
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
• 1 Tbsp. granulated white sugar
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 Tbsp. canola oil
• 1 Tbsp. water

Instructions:

Heat the almond milk in the microwave until warm. Then stir in the flax seed meal and let sit for a couple of minutes. While the flax seed meal is soaking, in a small bowl mix together the flour, baking soda, salt, and sugar. In a blender, with the bottom screwed on tightly, pour the applesauce, canola oil, water, and milk with flax seed meal. Blend briefly to combine the ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the blender and blend thoroughly, scraping down the sides of the blender at least once, until there are no traces of dry flour left. Then let the batter sit in the blender for at least five minutes.

While the batter is resting, place a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat to let it heat up. After the batter has rested, use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to pour the batter into the pan to make a pancake. My pan can hold 2 pancakes at a time without them running into each other. Cook the pancakes on one side for 3 minutes. Then flip them over and let them cook for another 3 minutes (or 2 minutes if your stove runs hotter).

I like to serve the pancakes with blueberries and maple syrup. I heat 1 cup of frozen wild blueberries for 2 minutes in the microwave until they are warm and have released their juices. Then I stir in 2 Tbsp. of pure maple syrup.

Vanilla Creme Brulee

Michael and I were back in New Hampshire on June 23rd, the day of our wedding anniversary. Although we had already celebrated the previous weekend in Virginia, I still wanted to do something special. So I decided to try to make vanilla creme brulee, which is the dessert that Michael usually orders when we go out to a fancy restaurant to eat. There is something lovely about the taste and mouth-feel of rich creamy creme brulee. Michael also enjoys cracking through the hardened melted sugar on top to get to the creme brulee beneath. It's a wonderfully sanctioned reason for playing with one's food.

I had tried to make creme brulee a few years ago, but I couldn't get it to set up and become thick and creamy the way it does in restaurants. However, I was feeling brave, so I decided to try again. This time I consulted several different recipes before trying the following combination of ingredients. It was really pretty easy to make, and I was quite pleased with how it turned out. Since I'm not sure what I could have done wrong before, I think I'm going to blame the oven in our old apartment for my previous failures. And now that I've figured out regular creme brulee, perhaps I will experiment with coconut milk creme brulee next time.

Vanilla Creme Brulee
serves 4


Ingredients:

• 2 cups heavy cream. Look for one that does not have any additives or preservatives that could come from corn. I used Trader Joe's brand, but other organic brands might work.
• 1/4 cup granulated white sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract. Use Trader Joe's alcohol-free vanilla extract or another vanilla extract that does not have corn syrup and is preferably alcohol-free, since the alcohol could be derived from corn. Recently I have been using Rodelle Vanilla Flavor alcohol free all natural extract, which I found at Stop and Shop.
  
• 4 large egg yolks
• 2 tsp. turbinado sugar (aka. Sugar in the Raw) on top of each ramikin

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. In a medium pot heat one and a half quarts of water to boiling. Next place a small pan over medium heat. Add the heavy cream, vanilla extract, and half of the sugar to the small pan and heat until boiling. While the cream mixture is heating, whisk together the egg yolks and the other half of the sugar. After the cream mixture has come to a boil, pour one fourth of the cream mixture into the egg yolks while whisking constantly. Then pour the egg yolk mixture back into the rest of the cream while whisking continually. Pour the liquid evenly among four 7-ounce ramikins.

Place the ramikins in a 9"x13" pan. Pour the one and a half quarts of boiling water into the pan around the ramikins so that the water goes half way up the sides of the ramikins. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven, place the ramikins on a cooling rack, and cool to room temperature. Then place the ramikins in the refrigerator and let them cool for at least two hours. After the creme brulee has cooled thoroughly, sprinkle two teaspoons of turbinado sugar over the top of each ramikin and melt using a kitchen torch or the broiler.

Ranch Dressing and Dip

If you couldn't tell, during the month of July I have fallen behind on posting recipes. The reason for this is that we have been shopping for a new car, so most of my mental energy, not already expended upon taking care of the girls and the house, was used up researching cars and how to buy a car. Fortunately, we have now purchased a car and Michael brought it home on Friday, so now my brain can relax and go back to posting some of the recipes that I have come up with recently.

One of these recipes is for ranch dressing and dip. Ranch is Michael's favorite salad dressing. He is also quite particular about how his ranch dressing tastes. For a while Trader Joe's carried one that Michael really liked, but then a few months ago they stopped carrying it. We tried out several other bottled ranch dressings, but none of them lived up to Michael's expectations. So I decided to go back to the recipe I had for homemade ranch dressing, which I used to make in BC (as in both British Columbia and "before children"). I tweaked the recipe a bit, and now we have a ranch dressing that we can enjoy any time we want. In addition, the recipe can be used to make ranch dip if you substitute sour cream or Greek yogurt for the milk.

You'll notice that our mayonnaise requirements have changed. Back in the spring Sabrina and Naomi both tested positive for a soy allergy, and when Michael went through food allergy testing last week, he tested positive as well. Therefore, our favorite standby of Hellman's Real Mayonnaise is no longer a good option since its first ingredient is soybean oil. Although several websites say that people with a soy allergy can still eat soybean oil, we think that Naomi reacts to it. Therefore, this past week we purchased several brands of soy-free and corn-free mayonnaise in search of an acceptable alternative to our beloved Hellman's. The only one we like so far is Naturally Delicious All Natural Real Mayonnaise. If you cannot find that one, then just stick with Hellman's, which should be okay for Michael and Sabrina in small quantities. Both of the two other brands that we tried -- Cains All Natural Mayonnaise made with canola oil and Spectrum Canola Mayonnaise -- taste more like Miracle Whip and just don't taste right to us.

Ranch Dressing and Dip
serves 2 adults

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup Hellmann's Real mayonnaise (unless making it for Naomi)
  
• 2 Tbsp. Lactaid milk (Or if you would like to make a dip, use 3 Tbsp. sour cream in total and no milk.)
  
• 1 Tbsp. sour cream (not low-fat). I recommend Daisy brand, or another brand that contains just cultured cream.
  
• 1 tsp. lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
• 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp. dried chives
  
• 1/4 tsp. minced garlic
• 1/8 tsp. onion powder
• dash of cayenne pepper

Instructions:

Whisk together all of the ingredients. The dressing can be served right away, but it tastes best after it has sat in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes and preferably about 2 hours.

Home-made Pizza

As you can tell from the date that I started this post, it's been a busy past couple of weeks. But fortunately, even when life is busy, there is still time to make pizza. On the recommendation of a friend, I recently tried Bob's Red Mill's Gluten Free Pizza Crust mix. This mix makes a great crust, even better than the frozen gluten-free pizza dough I was buying, and a lot more convenient since you don't have to defrost it overnight before using it. The mix is pretty economical, too, as far as gluten-free mixes go. One Bob's Red Mill package makes two 12-inch pizzas. Since the girls are still little, one 12-inch pizza is enough for all of us, but I can see the day coming when I will need to make two pizzas for dinner. Michael and the girls like the pizza so much that I think it might need to go into my regular meal rotation.

Pizza
1 12-inch pizza, which serves 2 to 3 adults, or 2 adults and 2 small children

Ingredients:

• 1/2 of the package of Bob's Red Mill's Gluten Free Pizza Crust (and 1/2 of the yeast packet)
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
  
• 1 8-ounce can of tomato sauce. Make sure that it doesn't contain soybean oil or corn syrup.
• dried or fresh basil
• dried or fresh oregano
• onion powder
• 1 3.8-ounce can of Lindsay Naturals slice black olives. Most canned olives contain ferrous gluconate, which could come from corn. The only canned olives I have found that do not have it are Lindsay Naturals olives, which contain only water, olives, and salt. You could also use whole olives found at the deli or salad bar of a supermarket, if you can check the ingredient list.
  
• mozzarella cheese for Michael's side of the pizza. Buy the cheese as a block, not pre-grated, and make sure to buy one that does not contain any vinegar, which probably comes from corn.
• feta cheese for Laura, Sabrina, and Naomi's side of the pizza. You can buy the feta as a block or crumbled, but make sure that it does not contain any cornstarch or other corn products, just in case any of it touches Michael's side of the pizza. Or you could buy a block of cheddar goat cheese and grate it.

Instructions:

Follow the instructions on the package for making the pizza crust and baking it. In my oven I needed to bake the crust for 8 minutes. Then spread the tomato sauce over the crust, leaving 1/2 inch around the edge free of sauce. Sprinkle the basil, oregano, and onion powder on top of the sauce, using as much as you would like. Drain the olives and then sprinkle them over the sauce. Grate the mozzarella cheese and sprinkle over Michael's side of the pizza. If you have a block of Parmesan cheese, you could grate some of that onto Michael's side as well. Sprinkle feta cheese (or grated hard goat cheese) over the side for me and the girls. Bake according to the instructions on the pizza mix, watching after 15 minutes to make sure that the cheese does not get too brown. Let cool for a few minutes before serving.