Baked Pork Sausages

Ever since I was a kid, I have preferred hot dogs to hamburgers. And ever since living in Germany for a year, I have preferred sausages. There's something about a hot sausage dipped in spicy mustard that tastes so good. Recently when I was at BJ's, I thought I would take a look at their sausages. I wasn't expecting to find one without any corn products, but, amazingly enough, I did. The ingredient label had perhaps five things on it: pork, salt, spices, and a couple other easily identifiable foods. I decided to take a chance and see if Michael could eat them. And he could, without any ill effects! I was quite excited because I have tried and failed at several brands of chicken sausages, which are labeled gluten-free but still must be contaminated with corn. So the lesson I've learned, and need to remember, is to buy only pork sausages, not chicken sausages, and to buy ones that contain only ingredients that I can identify.

It's still summer, so we could have grilled the sausages outside. However, it's been raining all week so far -- our first rain in quite a while, so I'm not complaining. But I did need to come up with another way of cooking the sausages, and I decided to bake them in the oven. It's so much simpler and less messy than cooking them on the stove. Tonight I made rosemary roasted potatoes and cooked red cabbage to go with the sausages -- a rather German or Austrian-themed meal. The girls ate every bite! We're raising the next generation to like their sausages with mustard, too.

Baked Pork Sausages
serves 2 adults and 2 small children

Ingredients:

• 4 wheat-free and corn-free pork sausages
• 2 yellow onions

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Peel 2 onions and slice them thickly into slices of even thickness. (I usually cut a medium onion into four slices, keeping all of the rings together in each slice.) Place them on the bottom of an 8"x8" Pyrex dish so that the onions cover the bottom of the dish. You might not use all of the onion slices. Then place the sausages on top of the onion slices so that the sausages are not touching one another. The purpose of the onion slices is to keep the sausages from burning on the bottom of the pan, and to provide a lovely side of onion to your sausage after it's cooked.

When the oven has preheated, bake the sausages for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the thickness of the sausage, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into one of the sausages reads at least 160 degrees. Serve the sausages with the onion slices on the side.

Balsamic-Marinated Flank Steak with Salsa Verde

When we visited my parents at the beginning of the summer, they grilled flank steak for us. The steak was so good that I wanted to try it at home. Since I didn't have all of the ingredients for making my mom's recipe, I decided to try this one that uses balsamic vinegar. Wow. This recipe is definitely a keeper. The flank steak turned out so tender and flavorful, and the salsa verde made it taste even better. (In case you were wondering, the salsa verde is the funny looking green stuff in the picture.) The capers are essential to the flavor of the salsa verde, so be sure to get some at the supermarket.

Balsamic-Marinated Flank Steak with Salsa Verde
serves 4 to 6 adults

Ingredients for the steak:

• 1 1/2 lb. to 2 lb. flank steak (A 1 1/2-lb. steak was enough for 4 adults. A 2-lb. steak would be enough for 6 adults.)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 medium cloves garlic, minced (about 1 tsp.)
  
• 5 sprigs of thyme or rosemary, chopped
  
• kosher salt and black pepper
  

Ingredients for the salsa verde:

• 2 small finely chopped shallots, or 1/4 cup finely chopped yellow onion
• 6 cornichons, chopped, or 2 small pickles, chopped
• 2 Tbsp. capers, drained. Look for a jar that does not contain citric acid.
  
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 1/4 cup packed basil leaves
• 1/2 cup packed cilantro leaves
• 1 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
• 3 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
• zest of 1 lemon
• sea salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions:

Cut any excess fat off of the flank steak. In a small bowl combine the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic and chopped herbs. Place the flank steak in a gallon-size Zip-loc bag and pour the marinade into the bag as well. Seal the bag, rub the marinade into the steak, and then place the bag in the refrigerator to marinate for 4-5 hours, or up to 24 hours.

For the salsa verde, combine all of the salsa ingredients in a food chopper or processor and pulse until it is smooth or reaches your desired consistency. Serve by letting people spoon some of the salsa over their steak.

When you are ready to grill the steak, remove it from the bag. Sprinkle the steak on both sides with salt and pepper. Grill the steak for 4-6 minutes on one side and 3-4 minutes on the second side. Then let the steak rest on a plate tented with aluminum foil for 10 minutes before cutting it into thin strips against the grain.

Rosemary Lemon Chicken

We tried a new chicken recipe tonight, and it turned out really well. Here is the link to the original recipe for rosemary lemon chicken. I didn't change anything about the recipe except for the kind of chicken I used. Michael has reacted multiple times to Perdue and other brands of regular chicken -- both whole chickens and boneless skinless chicken breasts. Therefore, we now are eating only kosher, organic, or "all natural" chicken, which Michael fortunately does not seem to react to. As a preventative measure, I still rinse the raw chicken really thoroughly in cold water before proceeding with the recipe.

Rosemary Lemon Chicken
serves 3 adults, or 2 adults and 2 children

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts (3 half breasts depending on their size) that are organic, kosher, or all natural
  
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup fresh rosemary, minced
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt

Instructions:

See the original recipe for instructions on how to marinate and cook.

Chocolate Banana Muffins

I have made some additional tweaks to this recipe, so I wanted to email it out in its newer form. I hope you enjoy!

Baking without eggs? I feel like I'm back to square one. However, I have read that if Sabrina avoids eggs for a couple of years, she might outgrow her egg allergy and be able to eat them again without a reaction. In the mean time, I still want her to be able to eat muffins and cake, so I've been experimenting with egg-free muffin recipes. Yesterday's attempt was quite encouraging. I tried a recipe for chocolate banana muffins, and they turned out just like muffins are supposed to. Michael even said they were very tasty, and he's not usually all that excited about chocolate.

I have adapted my muffin recipe from the following recipe for chocolate banana muffins. If you can eat eggs and wheat, just use the original recipe.

Chocolate Banana Muffins
makes 6 or 7 muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp. Bob's Red Mill ground flax seed meal
• 3 Tbsp. hot water
  
• 1 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free flour
• 3 Tbsp. Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa
• 2/3 tsp. baking soda (or 1/2 tsp. and 1/8 tsp. if you don't have a 1/3 tsp. measuring spoon.)
  
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
• 1/3 cup granulated white sugar
• 1 cup mashed ripe banana. This is about 2 medium to large sized bananas.
• 2 1/2 Tbsp. canola oil
• 1 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.

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and grease 6 or 7 muffin tin cups using canola oil or Spectrum Organic shortening. Heat 3 tablespoonfuls of water in a cup or mug and then stir in the ground flax seed meal. Set the cup aside. In a medium-size bowl mix together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and sea salt.

Mash the bananas on a plate and then put them in a small bowl. Add to the small bowl the sugar, canola oil, vanilla, and flax seed mixture. Stir thoroughly to combine. Make a hole in the middle of the flour mixture in the medium bowl and pour the liquid mixture from the small bowl into the medium one. Stir just until you see no traces of dry flour left.

Scoop the batter into the muffin tin cups and bake for 17 minutes, until a toothpick comes out mostly clean. Remove the muffins from the tin and let them cool on a wire rack.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I think Southern Living is now my favorite magazine. Why? Because the August 2010 issue contained a recipe for egg-free cookies, which I adapted to make the best chocolate chip cookies that I have managed to make with gluten-free flour and without butter. My previous attempts at gluten-free dairy-free chocolate chip cookies all turned into one large crunchy blob on the cookie sheet. Even when I refrigerated the dough to make sure that it was cold before baking, it still oozed into a dough monster once I put the round balls of dough in the oven.

I got so frustrated that I gave up trying to make chocolate chip cookies. Until I saw this recipe. Why did this recipe inspire me to try again? Because it contained an ingredient that I had never seen before in a cookie recipe: alcohol. I don't know much about food chemical reactions, but something in the alcohol caused the balls of dough to turn into perfectly shaped cookies. On top of that, the cookies were nice and chewy and didn't fall apart when we bit into them. What more could you ask for in a chocolate chip cookie?

My one caveat is that using the amount of alcohol called for in the original recipe gave the cookies a slightly odd, alcoholic flavor, so I modified the recipe to use half the original amount of alcohol. Even with half of the alcohol called for, the cookies still held together wonderfully, and they tasted great, too. The original recipe called for coffee liqueur, but I used rum because liqueurs can contain corn products.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes 18 cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp. hot water
• 1/2 Tbsp. ground flax seed meal. I use Bob's Red Mill brand of flax seed meal.
  
• 1/2 cup Spectrum Organic shortening
• 3 Tbsp. granulated white sugar
• 3 Tbsp. light brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp. Bacardi Original Puerto Rican rum
• 1 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.
• 1 1/3 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/8 tsp. sea salt
• 1/2 cup dairy-free chocolate chips. I recommend Ghirardelli, Trader Joe's, or Enjoy Life semi-sweet chocolate chips.
  

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Heat 2 Tbsp. of water in a cup and then add the ground flax seed meal and stir.

In the bowl of a Kitchen Aid mixer (or a large bowl if you are using a hand-held mixer) add the shortening. Turn the mixer on low speed and add the white sugar and brown sugar gradually, one tablespoon at a time, while keeping the mixer on low speed. Then pour the rum and vanilla extract into the mixing bowl and continue to mix on low speed until blended.

In a separate small bowl combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Then take the cup of water and flax seed meal and pour it into the bowl with the creamed sugar and liquids. Mix on low speed until combined. Add the flour mixture to the rest of the ingredients and mix on low until well blended. Then fold in the chocolate chips using a spatula.

Place tablespoonfuls of cookie dough onto the baking sheet, leaving a couple of inches between each ball of dough. Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, until they are golden. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 3 minutes before transferring them onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

Grandma Robert's Potato Salad (without mayonnaise)

It's hard to believe now, but I never liked potato salad before I married Michael. To be more specific, I never liked potato salad until I tried the one that Michael's mom made using his Grandma Robert's recipe. That salad was so tasty that I immediately asked for the recipe and have been making it ever since. After Sabrina was diagnosed with her egg allergy, I knew that I needed to figure out a way to continue making this delicious potato salad, but without the mayonnaise called for in the original recipe. Tonight I tried a version that I think comes pretty close. Michael gave it the thumbs up, and Naomi even asked for seconds, which is a rare complement from her.

Grandma Robert's Potato Salad (without mayonnaise)
serves 4 adults

Ingredients:

• 2 lb. Yukon Gold or thin-skinned white potatoes
• 3 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• 1 1/2 tsp. sea salt
• 1/4 cup canola oil
  
• 1/4 cup chopped yellow onion
• dried parsley

Instructions:

In a large 12-inch non-stick skillet (preferably one that has a lid), combine 2 cups of water, 1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar, and 1 tsp. sea salt. Stir to dissolve the salt. Peel the potatoes and cut into thin, 1/4-inch wide slices. Place the potato slices in the skillet so that they form 2 to 3 layers. The liquid will cover most, but not all, of the potatoes. Bring the liquid to a boil over high heat. Turn the heat down to medium-low and cover the pan. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes, until the potatoes are fork-tender. While the potatoes are cooking, finely chop about half of a small onion so that you have 1/4 cup chopped onion for the salad.

Drain the potatoes in a large colander with a large bowl placed under it to catch the cooking liquid. To make the dressing for the potato salad, measure 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid and pour it into a small bowl. Whisk into the cooking liquid 2 Tbsp. of apple cider vinegar, 1/2 tsp. sea salt, and 1/4 cup canola oil. Take 1/2 cup of the potatoes, mash them using a potato masher or a fork, and whisk them into the dressing to thicken it.

Transfer the rest of the potatoes from the colander to a medium bowl. Pour the dressing over the potatoes. Add the chopped onion and toss gently so that the dressing and onions coat the potatoes. Sprinkle the potato salad liberally with dried parsley and toss again. For a warm potato salad, keep the salad at room temperature and serve within 4 hours of making it. Or refrigerate the salad if you prefer to serve it cold.

Asian-style Coleslaw

I have been on another cabbage kick recently. This recipe for Asian-style coleslaw came about as I was searching for new ways to make coleslaw without using mayonnaise. Sigh. I know some people don't like mayonnaise, but I really do. I know it sounds gross, but I could eat mayonnaise straight from the jar. However, mayonnaise is made from eggs, and since Sabrina was diagnosed with an egg allergy, I'm trying to limit our family's intake of egg products at dinner, when we all eat together.

Fortunately, a small amount of store-bought mayonnaise doesn't seem to bother Sabrina, so I am not banning mayonnaise completely from our meals. Oddly enough, store-bought mayonnaise is better for Sabrina than homemade, probably because of whatever has been done to the mayonnaise to make it shelf-stable for months on end. So mayonnaise is one of the few things that it's better if I don't make from scratch, since homemade mayonnaise contains lots of raw egg. In any case, occasionally I will use mayonnaise in dressings, but I'm trying to increase the number of salads and dressings I make that are mayonnaise-free.

This particular coleslaw is great with stir fries or other Asian dishes. The mild flavors of the rice vinegar and green onions contrast especially nicely with the spiciness of Thai food. I have to mention, based on personal experience, that the green onions are essential to this dish. If you don't have them, wait until you do before making the coleslaw. If you are really Asian, like my brother-in-law, you may enjoy sprinkling red pepper flakes on your portion.

Asian-style Coleslaw
serves 2 adults

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of shredded green cabbage (about 1/3 of a small 2-pound cabbage)
  
• 1/2 carrot
• 6 to 8 green onions
• 2 Tbsp. rice vinegar
• 1 to 1 1/2 Tbsp. canola oil
• 1 Tbsp. granulated white sugar
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt

Instructions:

Finely cut the cabbage into thin strips and place in a medium bowl. Peel the carrot and grate it into the bowl using the large holes on a grater. Cut the root ends off of the green onions, finely chop the white parts of the onions, and transfer them to the bowl with the cabbage and carrot.

In a small bowl whisk together the rice vinegar, canola oil, sugar, and salt. Then pour the dressing over the vegetables, toss to coat, and let sit in the refrigerator for 1 hour before serving.

Banana Pancakes

I have been working on improving this recipe and have finally figured out how to get the pancakes to rise like regular pancakes with egg in them. I have modified the recipe below accordingly.

These banana pancakes are my second success at egg-free pancakes. I made them for us this past Saturday, and the pancakes were enjoyed by all. Sabrina has decided that she likes pancakes even better than muffins. What I like about these particular pancakes is that the banana flavor in the pancakes goes especially well with lots of pure maple syrup.

Banana Pancakes
makes 6 pancakes

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp. flax seed meal. I use Bob's Red Mill whole ground flax seed meal.
  
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 1 whole overripe banana (1/2 cup banana when mashed)
• 1 Tbsp. canola oil
• 1 Tbsp. honey
  
• 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.
• 1 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
  
• 1/8 tsp. sea salt

Instructions:

Microwave the milk until warm. Put the flax seed meal in the milk, stir, and let soak for a few minutes. Meanwhile, mash the banana on a plate and then put in a small bowl. Add to the bowl the canola oil, honey, and vanilla. Then pour in the milk and the flax seed meal. Whisk until completely combined. In a separate medium bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and sea salt. Pour the liquid ingredients into the bowl with the flour and whisk until combined and no traces of flour remain. Let the batter sit for ten minutes.

While the batter is resting, place a large non-stick pan over medium heat and let it heat up. When the pan is hot and the batter has rested for ten minutes, make a tester pancake using 1/4 cup of batter. Cook the pancake for 3 to 4 minutes on each side. Then cook the rest of the pancakes, using 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake.