Niku Jaga

Winter has finally hit were I live and as I sit here thinking about what to write, my thoughts turn toward comfort foods. At our house, one of the comfort foods happens to be Niku Jaga. Really, this is just Japanese for simmered beef and veggies. Much like beef stew here in the US, in Japan everyone makes it with a personal flair.

My favorite version is based on the recipe I got from Gaku Homma's book. This version only uses ingredients that are readily available at you local grocery store. If you want an even more authentic taste, add some yam cake noodles, shiritake, which you can find at some health-food stores packed in water in the refrigerator section, usually next to the tofu. My version doesn't have them due to a personal preference, but you don't have to change the sauce part of the recipe if you do add a package.

Another trick I learned when preparing potatoes for these simmered dishes is to soak them in cold water before adding them into the recipe. It helps to remove some of the starchiness and removes some of the aku. In Japanese, aku is something that is tied into their religious beliefs. To make a long story short, it is the name for the foam that appears during the cooking process. It is bitter and if it isn't removed it will mess with the flavor of your meal. So when removing the aku, you just skim the foam off.


Niku Jaga

1/2 lb. sliced beef in bite sized pieces or ground beef
1 onion
2-3 carrots, chopped
2-3 potatoes
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced

2-3 tablespoons sesame oil (not toasted!)
6 tablespoons Wheat Free Tamari
2 tablespoons sake
2 1/2 tablespoons light brown sugar

1. Preheat your dutch oven or large cooking pot over medium heat and coat the bottom with oil. Add the meat and saute until it changes color.
2. Add the onion and carrots and stir to coat them with oil and cook until the onions begin to appear translucent.
3. Add the potatoes, also stirring them until they are coated with oil.
4. Add 4 cups of water to the pot, enough to cover all the ingredients.
5. Reduce the heat to medium low and cook until the aku is released (the foam I was talking about). Skim the foam off the top using a slotted spoon or fine mesh strainer.
6. Add in garlic, tamari, sake, and sugar. Cover. Continue to cook 10-15 minutes until the potatoes are soft and the meat is cooked through. Serve with rice.

Mitarashi Dango

Mitarashi Dango is a favorite among many in Japan. It has also gained popularity here in the US due to it appearing in Anime (Japanese animation) that is viewed here by some members of the younger population. This simple rice dumpling is served on a wooden skewer and topped with a sweet sauce. I learned how to make this while at my mother-in-law's house in Japan and I soon fell in love with this little bit of heaven. There are many variations of this recipe and I usually make it with a mix that my in-laws send us. However, you can make it with glutenous rice flour that can be found in local oriental markets (Mochiko) or even the kind found in health-food stores (Ener-G Sweet Rice Flour is one brand).

I prefer Mitarashi sauce, which is a mix of sugar and soy sauce, but there are also other types such as Anko (adzuki bean) and green tea dango. Kids tend to like this flavor better than some of the others, I am told, and it disappears fast when I make it at my house. The following is an adaptation of my mother-in-laws recipe, so I'll have it with both the metric and standard measurements.

Mitarashi Dango

Dango Dough

2 cups/200 grams by weight glutenous rice flour or Mochiko (the flour should not poured into the measuring cup, not packed in)
2/3 cups/160 ml warm tap water

Step 1: Mix 200 grams, by weight, of sweet rice flour (Mochiko or Ener G sweet rice flour) with 160 cc of warm water. Add water while mixing little by little. Mix by hand until you reach the consistency that feels like an ear lobe, kind of like Play-Doh that is a little on the dry side. Add more water only if it absolutely feels too dry. The dough will pick up some water while steaming, so be careful.

Step 2: Divide the dough into 5 or 6 balls. Then steam it for about 25 minutes. Bamboo steamers work the best if lined with unbleached wax paper with enough room around the edges to let the steam through.

Step 3: Once it is done steaming, put the dough in the bowl then knead the dough until it gets sticky. You can wait a few minutes if it is too hot to touch. The dough kneads best when still hot and a good tip is to wet your hands with a little cold water, making sure to have your hands mostly dry before going back to your kneading. The dough is done when it is smooth and sticks, but releases from your hand if you pull away.

Step 4: Make a ball between the size of a large marble or a ping pong ball-bite. Place on a bamboo skewer. This recipe makes about 6 skewers with four balls each.

Step 5: Grill on a grill pan until the outside turns to a lighter color. – Grilling is optional.

Mitarashi Sauce

3 Tablespoons/ 45 ml Water
1 Tablespoon/15 ml Wheat Free Tamari
2 Tablespoons/30 ml light brown cane sugar

1 teaspoon/5 ml warm water
1 teaspoon/5 ml potato starch (not flour)

Step 1: Mix water, tamari, and sugar together in a pan over medium heat.

Step 2: Once the sugar is dissolved, mix the 1 tsp warm water with the potato starch in a separate bowl and stir until dissolved.

Step 3: Pour the mixture in the pan into the bowl holding the water/potato starch mix and mix well, making sure that there are not lumps.

Step 4: Return this to the pan and continue to stir over medium heat until the color changes from cloudy to clear and bubbly. Remove from heat once it begins to bubble well and allow it to set up slightly. The sauce should be thick and have a sheen to it. Spread it over the dango balls and enjoy.

Homemade Tofu and Okara

Homemade Tofu

This recipe is much simpler than one might think when making tofu. Tofu is relatively inexpensive to buy in any modern grocery store and you might not think that learning how to make your own tofu is cost effective. I make organic tofu from the soy beans I pick up at the local health-food store for about $2.00 a bag and I make 5 full blocks of tofu. Where as, one block of store-bought organic tofu was about $1.76 the last time I bought one.

Personally, I prefer the organic soybeans over the regular ones. Organic beans taste much better. There is also the whole issue of GMO vs. non-GMO as all non-organic soybeans are now genetically modified. I personally go for non-GMO whenever I can, but it really comes down to taste. If you want your tofu to taste better than the tofu you can buy at the local grocery store, go with organic beans.

The equipment is important for this recipe. I use an 8 quart multi-cooker pot (the kind you use for spaghetti) with a strainer, a bowl large enough to hold about 6 quarts, a wooden long-handled spoon or long cooking chopsticks, 1 large cotton flour-sack style towel (I found mine at Wal-Mart), A blender, and a tofu press. Now if you don't have a tofu press (they are sometimes available at oriental markets) you can take an old tofu container and poke holes in it and line it with a second towel cut down to about 3-4 times the size of the container. You want enough fabric hanging over the sides to be able to cover the top of the container when pressing the excess moisture out of the block.

Note: Any equipment you use will have a small effect on the flavor of the tofu. Pre-wash the towels before using them for making tofu. Use only oil that will not add flavor, such as sunflower or a lite cooking oil when making this recipe.

1. Wash the dried beans well and soak them overnight, making sure to remove any hard debris or damaged beans. 1 cup of dried beans will make one block of tofu. I generally soak two cups of dried beans so that I can make two batches at a time. I also wash them in hot tap water to give them a good head start and put them out to soak in hot water overnight. I want the softest beans I can possibly get so that I can pull all the goodness out the next day. (That doesn't mean keep the water hot all night, however.)

2. Time to grind your beans. For one batch, I take 3 cup of soaked beans (1 cup dried beans makes 3 cups of soaked beans) and 3 cup of water and blend it in the blender until it is as smooth as possible. This will look a little frothy and that is what you want. I prefer to do this early in the morning and put them in an air tight container; placing it in the refrigerator until I have time to work on it later in the afternoon. I also seem to get better tasting and firmer blocks when I do this. However, it is traditional for the Japanese farm-wife to do this all before the rest of the family woke up in the morning, so it's really up to you.




3. Bring 4 quarts of hot tap water to a boil. Add about 2 Tablespoons of cooking oil to the pot. The oil is to help prevent the mixture from boiling over as it is quite foamy.

4. Have your wooden spoon ready and pour in the ground tofu/ water mixture into the boiling water. Make sure to turn the heat down to medium high (about 6 on my stove). Stir constantly and cook for 15 minutes. Bring it to a boil at the current temperature and make sure to keep an eye on it as it will boil over quickly while it still has foam on the surface of the mixture. A good tip is to keep the oven vent on high and remove it from the heat if it gets too close to the top and stir until it settles down; placing it back you your heat source when it does.



5. Once it reaches boiling, cook it for an additional 10 minutes or until all the foam has cooked down into the liquid. You do not need to stir it constantly in this step once it has passed the danger of over-boiling. Below are two images of different foam levels. The one on the left is about 15-minutes into the cooking process and the one on the right is ready for separation as it has almost no foam left.



6. Cover your large bowl with the towel and slowly poor step 5. into the lined bowl.



7. You have now separated the soybean milk (tonyu) from the soybean mash (okara). You can skip the first 6 steps if you are trying this with store-bought unflavored soy milk. Wring out the mash to get out all the excess liquid by twisting the towel. Be careful, this is very hot. I use the cleaned off chopsticks that I cook with to hold the towel while I twist the ends. Make sure that no mash gets into your milk as this will make for lumpy tofu. You can save the mash (okara) and use it in the recipe below. There are also recipes online for breads and vegan burgers using okara.



8. Place the soy milk in the cleaned pot and reheat it back to almost boiling. In a separate bowl or measuring cup, mix together 1 1/2 cups of very hot water and one rounded tablespoon of Epsom salt and blend until the salt has dissolved. Nigari is traditionally used and I only found it recently at the oriental market, but Epsom salt is the same thing (Magnesium Chloride) and it is easier to find. The picture on the right is showing you (the spoon is right above the bag of salt) how much of a rounded tablespoon I use. The more salt you add, the firmer the tofu. This recipe can be firm to extra firm, depending on the quality of the soybeans. If you want silken tofu, add less than what you see here.



9. Add half of the water/salt mixture to the soy milk and stir until it starts to separate. Set the temperature to medium-low and cover while you wait a couple of minutes before adding the second half of the water/salt mixture to the soy milk. It will take about 5 minutes from the first addition til the tofu is completely separated. If it isn't separating, add more water/salt mixture and wait a few minutes. The picture on the right was taken 30-seconds after I added the first half of the water/salt mixture.



10. Once the mixture is coagulated (it will look much like cheese if you've ever seen it made), take a large slotted spoon and spoon it evenly into your lined container or tofu press. Wrap the ends of your lining over top the tofu and press out the excess liquid using a weight (I use the pan I put the okara in or a bowl filled with water); allowing it to set for 5 minutes.



11. Gently remove the cloth wrapped tofu from the container and immerse it in cold water. Gently remove the cloth and allow it to float in the water, making sure that it is completely immersed in the water. That's it. You are done. Make sure to change your water at least every other day and keep a lid or cover the container with plastic wrap until you are ready to use.




Breakfast Sweetened Okara

2 batches worth of okara from above recipe
1 tsp of salt
6 tablespoons of either honey, maple syrup or brown rice syrup

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Spray the sides and bottom of your pan with cooking spray. Place the okara in the pan and sprinkle with salt and pour over the sweetener of choice (I like maple syrup or brown rice syrup). Mix well with a fork until the salt and syrup are evenly distributed.


Place in the oven for 20 minutes and stir. Continue this process until it is golden brown and much drier than it's original form. I usually bake it for 1 1/2 hours depending on how well I squeeze the soy milk out of it in the above recipe. Okara holds a lot of moisture, so be aware of the hot steam as you stir. Allow it to cool before putting it into a container. I place it in either the refrigerator or freezer, depending on how soon I'm going to use it. Okara is as perishable as tofu and should be treated as such.

I like to eat one cup of okara with raisins and or chocolate chips with hemp milk. It is filling enough for a small breakfast or snack. Follow this link if you are interested in it's nutritional value. It is great if you need a boost in Iron, Calcium, or fiber and it tastes good too.

Ground Beef Rice Bowl

You may have gone to your local Japanese restaurant and seen Donburimono recipes listed on their menu. They may include beef, chicken, pork, or eel (unagi) mixed with fried vegetables in a soy based sauce either served on top of or with white rice. Now if you're gluten free, these tasty Japanese fast food restaurant standby's are not part of your menu, at least not made commercially.

This version is a quick and easy version that works great for busy lives or just one of those nights when you're craving a trip to Kokoro's like in old times. I've made this version with ground beef, but you can substitute sliced beef, chicken, or pork. Traditionally this dish is served over rice, but you can also eat it on the side like we do at my house. Happy cooking.

Sukiyaki Don


1/2 to 3/4 pound ground beef
1/2 oz (about 1/2 inch) peeled and grated fresh ginger
1 onion, thinly sliced
2-3 carrots, peeled and slivered using a grater
4 dried shiitake mushrooms reconstituted in 1 cup of very hot water, sliced thinly
1 cup additional vegetable: broccoli, zucchini, snow peas, bell peppers, or green beans in 1/2 cup amounts depending on your taste and color preference. (I used peppers and snow peas.)
1/2 block tofu

1 Tablespoon sesame oil, not toasted
1 cup of mushroom water from above mushrooms
4 Tablespoons sake*
2 Tablespoons light brown sugar*
4 Tablespoons Wheat Free Tamari

*If you don't want sake, use 4 Tablespoons of mirin and 1 Tablespoon sugar instead.


In a preheated 12 inch heavy skillet (I use cast iron), add oil and ground beef and saute on medium heat until it changes color. Add the onions, carrots, shiitake mushrooms, and saute until the onions begin to change color.

Add the water from the mushrooms, sake, sugar, tamari, ginger, the rest of the vegetables, and tofu cut into bite sized pieces and cook over medium-low heat for 5-6 minutes.

Divide into individual servings and top with shredded nori if so desired.

Serves 4

op. Can also top with 4 beaten eggs (cook covered for 1 minute) at the last minute before serving. This variation is called tanin don.

Picky Eating

I was browsing some of my favorite Autism links online and I came across a new article about 'Autism and Defining Clinical Nutrition,' along with a comment section. Now, it wasn't so much what the article had said that sparked the topic I'm going to spin off on, but the comments that came after it that sparked my urge to write. Most of the comments were along the lines of how their kids were so picky or texture driven that they were in a constant battle to get them to eat, much less eat healthy. I really get where these parents are coming from, as my oldest son is a picky eater and has texture issues. Trust me, getting my son to eat pancakes if they were not made to his texture requirements is a challenge. Before I understood what was going on in his little body I would usually be thinking, "It's just a pancake, so what if I cooked it a little to long on one side, eat it!"

Well, that is the way most parents think before taking this journey down the road with a kid that has texture issues, Autistic or otherwise. It has taken a long time to understand what sets him off about a certain food so that I can avoid the confrontation during the meal. As most time pressured moms, I love to make one pot meals. What's better than throwing everything in a pot, setting the timer, stirring here and there, and dinner is ready. I have had to learn that my son doesn't like his food to have sauce on it or other bits from other foods touching. Chili, forget it. When I did do Hamburger Helper, no way. Beef stew, nope. The Hungarian Goulash I made two nights ago, not unless you clean off his potatoes first. It was so much easier when he was a baby, because everything was the same texture and he didn't know any different.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things he loves that most kids his age wouldn't touch. The child loves tofu. I usually cook it in Nabemono (Japanese style of cooking everything in one pot called a Nabe, which I'll post some recipes later) or I have to dust it with a little potato starch and deep fry it. He loves whole foods such as apples, oranges, tomatoes, and baby carrots. I've had to just take the American diet blinders off and try all sorts of things with him to see what he'll eat. He loves to eat nori cut into pieces and eaten like chips. Sushi is a favorite, but don't try to give it to him with real sushi rice; just plain rice, a few little bonito flakes, and rolled in a sheet of nori, thank you. He eats dango plain. I love dango, but I personally think that just rice flour shaped into a dumpling is too boring without the sweet syrup. He has to have ketchup on all his meat or he wont touch it. It doesn't matter that it already has sauce on it.

Now that he is almost 7, I have learned most of his quirks, but that doesn't mean I don't try to introduce new things. I'm still trying to get him to eat chili and stew without having to pull out each food item and have it separated on his cafeteria style plate. I still try to put a few cooked carrots on his plate before giving him the raw ones, bribing him to get at least a few down before I do. He has been the reason that I make the gluten free foods that I do. I don't know if it has to do with genetics, but he is the one that has pulled us towards Asian style foods more than my husband or even my own tastes did. He just does better with these flavors than American or even Italian ones (notice I still have an Everyday Italian cookbook). I make a sweet potato biscuit that I tried with miso soup instead of milk one time, and he ate them up so fast that I still make them at least every couple of weeks just to make him happy. He's also my baking tester. If he doesn't like a new recipe I've been working on, forget it, you won't find it on this blog.

So to all you parents out there that are struggling with picky eaters and their texture issues, I know where you are coming from. Hang in there and hopefully you'll find the textures and tastes that your kid favors the most. Eventually you'll be able to use that to expand their menu little by little, then these articles about the importance of kids and good nutrition won't make you feel like such a guilty parent. Trust me, there are still more days than I want to admit, where he doesn't eat much more than plain rice. Give him a couple of days and he'll be eating me out of house and home like a typical kid. Also, if you have an Occupational Therapist, they may have some ways to help get your kid to try things with textures in ways you would never think of. It all will balance out eventually as long as you don't loose heart and give up.

Kelly

Butternut Squash Mini-Muffins

I bought some beautiful butternut squash the other day at the grocery store. The fact that they were on sale and the weather was more fall like than winter like where I live was part of the reason I had the urge to eat squash. I’m not one for baked squash, unless I turn it into soup, so I tend to use it in my baking. This is also one of the few ways I can get my kids to eat squash of any form.

When it comes to baking with squash, from pumpkin to kabocha, I prefer to use only the orange varieties in my baked goods. They have more of a nutty flavor than their yellow cousins have and usually have less moisture so that I do not have to make a huge adjustment to the liquid amounts in all those fall pumpkin baked goods recipes we all have tucked into our recipe boxes.

I have used this recipe with both pumpkin and butternut squash. I think it would even work with baked sweet potato if you happen to have some leftover from the night before. I have made it with and without the cocoa powder and both options are delish and it really just depends on how much of a chocoholic you feel like that day. The photo below is of the ones I made yesterday to throw into the kids lunches and I opted for cocoa free (not chocolate free as you can tell) because I think we are still recovering from eating too much chocolate over the holidays.




Kelly's Mini-Muffin Recipe

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Coat mini muffin pan with preferred cooking spray, I use Spectrum grapeseed oil spray.

Wet ingredients:
1 cup Hemp milk or non-dairy milk of choice
1 cup precooked butternut squash or pumpkin
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup light oil (safflower or sunflower are good ones)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
(or just 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice instead of nutmeg and cinnamon.)
2 Tablespoons flax meal mixed with 6 Tablespoons of hot water (2 organic free-range eggs if opting for the non-vegan version)
1 Tablespoon Cocoa Powder (op.)

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup brown rice flour or sorghum flour
1/2 cup potato starch (not potato flour)
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 teaspoons gaur gum

Stir in ideas: (optional)
½ cup Enjoy Life chocolate chips
½ cup chopped walnuts or chopped nut of choice

Combine flax and hot water and set aside for 10 minutes. Blend all other wet ingredients until well combined. Sift or whisk the dry ingredients together. Add the dry ingredients into the wet squash mixture and beat until blended for 2 minutes. If the batter is too thick, add a little non-dairy milk, a tablespoon at a time, until the batter is smooth. This batter will be thick like quick bread batter, but it should not have any lumps in it. Fold in chocolate chips into your batter, being careful not to over stir. Use a teaspoon to spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pan and bake for up to 30 minutes. It may take only 15 minutes at lower altitudes. The muffins should be firm to the touch and golden brown on top.

Turn them out onto a rack, as the bottoms will get soggy if left in the pan too long. Can serve these still warm or freeze them as an easy way to throw into lunches. They can be reheated in the microwave if desired. Yields 24-36 mini-muffins, depending on how high you like muffin tops.

Sauteed Chicken and Dandelion Leaves with Tamari

I know what you must be thinking, dandelion leaves? I had the same reaction a couple of years ago when I saw them in the produce section of my local health food store. What does one do with dandelion leaves? Dandelion's are good in a salad, they aid in digestion by stimulating the liver, and act as a mild laxative. They are also a great substitute for spinach in the early spring when they are at their peak. In this season of detoxification, I thought I'd add my own spin on an old recipe.

In Japan this recipe was originally called daikon no ha to sake, sauteed Japanese white radish leaves and grilled salmon with soy sauce. I am not one to eat radish leaves, personally I believe they have a sharper bite to them then arugula leaves, but I still liked the thought of salmon and sauteed greens flavored with soy sauce. The first time I made this dish was with salmon and dandelion, since I knew this green was supposed to be good for me and I wanted to give it a try. It turned out much better than I expected.

I got this recipe from my favorite authority on Japanese country cooking and restaurant owner, Gaku Homma. I've used his cookbook 'The Folk Art of Japanese Country Cooking' to the point that the pages are falling out. He also had a suggestion that chicken could be used in this recipe, so being the good experimentalist that I am, I had to try it out with the dandelion leaves.

Thus this recipe was born. Trust me, if you get the dandelion leaves in early spring, they have a wonderful mild flavor that is surprisingly refreshing and mixed with the flavor of shiitake mushrooms and sauteed chicken, it may soon be your favorite standby recipe.





1 bunch of fresh dandelion leaves, washed
2 tsp sesame oil, not the toasted variety
1/2 oz. grated ginger (about 1/2 inch off of a piece of fresh ginger) or 1/4 tsp ginger powder
2 scallions, chopped
1 lb. ground or thinly sliced chicken
3 to 4 dried shiitake mushrooms, reconstituted in 1 cup hot water for 10 minutes
2 Tbs. wheat free tamari
3 Tbs. sake
1 Tbs. brown sugar

1. Bring a large pot of water and 1 Tbs of salt to a boil. Add dandelion leaves and boil for 10 minutes. Remove dandelion leaves and soak in ice water or run under cold water for 10 minutes.
2. Squeeze out excess water and chop finely. In a heated skillet, coat with the oil and saute chopped scallions, dandelion, and grated ginger (remove skin before grating) for 7 to 8 minutes. Save the water the shiitake was in, remove the stems and thinly slice the mushrooms; add to the skillet and saute for 2 more minutes.
   
3. Move the vegetables over to one side of the skillet and add the chicken. Saute until the meat changes color, while stirring the vegetables to make sure that they do not become overcooked. Add the water from the mushrooms, tamari, sake, and sugar; mix well. Saute until all the liquid is absorbed. Serve and enjoy.
   

Note: If you are not a big sake person, you can use 2 Tbs of mirin or sweet rice wine in place of the sake and sugar.

My Pantry

The first thing most people ask me when they find out that I’m gluten free is what type of flour blend do I use. I remember asking that same question when I first started baking gluten free. I spent hours online looking for the right blend and nothing seemed to fit me. Bean flours have an aftertaste and nut flours I couldn’t figure out how to get them to work. Most other flours were just too pricey to play with. That’s when I turned to my trusty bag of rice and my coffee grinder. I don’t remember where I had heard that you could grind rice in a coffee grinder, but I found a rice bread recipe online and just started playing.

Why rice you may ask? Well, our family can go through a 50-pound bag of rice from Costco in a month and I’m not talking about the rice I use for baking. With my love of Asian food and my husband’s Japanese heritage, we usually have at least one bowl of rice with our main meal of the day. Rice is also relatively inexpensive and widely available. It only seemed natural that I use what was at hand, as I began my journey into gluten free baking that I start with something familiar and branch out from there.

I also decided that I wasn’t going to make a flour blend. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get a bunch of little bags of flour, figure out the amounts, dump them into a bigger container and hope I mix it well enough so that the mixture is homogeneous. I think it is much easier to have a few larger containers in the fridge with my main ingredients and a few little bags in the door of the fridge for my additives than have a giant bucket that sits in the pantry waiting for me to be inspired. Considering that half the flours I like are stored in the refrigerator section of my local health foods store, I would rather keep them in there than on a shelf in the pantry because the bucket doesn’t fit.

Rice Flour:

When it comes to grinding rice, I’ve learned to do it by ear. You do it often enough you can tell when the rice has changed from grains into flour. It just has a quieter sound, like sand vs. small rocks. I also measure my rice as I put it into the grinder, usually grinding ¼ cup at a time. This will vary from grinder to grinder. If you have a counter-top grain mill that is dedicated to gluten free flours it would more than likely be very easy to measure out your entire amount and grind it that way; making sure to follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

When I convert a recipe, I will use brown rice in place of white rice, sorghum, almond, chickpea or whatever the main type of rice is in the recipe. Brown rice has a nutty flavor that is on the mild side and it is very versatile. Brown rice does take more moisture in a recipe than white rice and I usually use a 1:1 ratio of rice flour to liquid when I convert the recipe. For example, if I use 1 ½ cups brown rice in a recipe, I’ll use 1 ½ cups of liquid. If I use white rice, say I ran out of brown and I won’t be able to get to the store until tomorrow, I would use 1 ½ cups of white rice and 1 cup of liquid; making sure to add more if the dough feels too dry. The best thing about grinding my own rice flour is it is economical. I can buy a 20 lb bag of brown rice at Costco and turn it into flour for about $.70 a lb, which is almost half of what you would spend on store bought rice flour. One thing to note is that rice (and most other gluten free flour for that matter) has more calories than wheat; 574 per cup of brown rice flour to 407 per cup of whole-wheat flour. If you are looking to lose weight by going gluten free, you might want to keep that in mind.

Quinoa:

In the last few months, I have started branching out into using different flours in my cooking. I have found that quinoa (KEEN-wah) flour, though it turns all my dough a slightly yellow color, adds protein to my recipes and I do like its flavor in combination with other flours. I have been known to substitute quinoa for millet or sorghum in a recipe, but I don’t think I like the flavor enough to use just straight quinoa. This flour has an advantage as it contains the highest amount of protein for a vegetable source as well as being a complete protein. This is a good one to use when I think the kids have been skimping on their protein and I just want to give them a little boost without them knowing it. I also like the economics of this one as I can buy a 5 lb bag at Costco of the prewashed (very important to have it either washed or prewashed as it has a coating that is bitter) and bring it home and grind it myself. I also like to use it in combination with oat flour.

Oats:

Now oats are a little controversial in the gluten free community. It still bothers some people even if they buy the gluten free oats. When I use it, I try not to eat more than one serving a day. I do eat it all the time, but in moderation so as not to upset my already fussy digestive system. This one is also easy to buy the whole oats, such as Bob’s Red Mill GF oats, and grind it in your coffee grinder or food processor. The food processor is great if you want a coarse grind such as a substitution for quick oats in your favorite cookie recipe, but the coffee grinder does a great job of making fine flour. I like this flour for pancakes or cookies as it is fluffy and light. I have yet to try this, but I hear it is good in scones, as that was the original flour used in scones. It is also a type of flour I have yet to like as a standalone flour.

Sorghum:

Sorghum has a nutty flavor that is stronger than rice and the flour feels courser than rice does. I like using this flour as part of a recipe if I want a nuttier flavor by just adding some to equal the original amount of flour used in a particular recipe. Some recipes require sorghum flour because of the flavor and texture it provides. I don’t think it would be possible to make a good pita bread without this flour. There is just something about sorghum that makes gluten free pita bread taste like its gluten filled original. However, I have yet to find a local seller of whole sorghum that I can grind myself inexpensively, so I use this only occasionally in my recipes.

Potato Starch:

Potato starch is a staple in my recipes. I usually use at least 2 Tablespoons in my dry ingredients just to add a little lightness to the dough. It works great as a thickener, much like cornstarch, and I use it in combination with sesame meal for dusting chicken, fish, or tofu before deep-frying them. In addition, a rule of thumb of mine is that if I have starch in the recipe and I need to knead, I use that starch for dusting the table or pastry frame, vs. the flour, as it helps the dough to become more elastic without making it dry. This is the same for arrowroot starch, but I usually only use arrowroot for cookies or if I just have to have a starch and the store is all out of potato starch as arrowroot has a stronger flavor.

White Sesame Seeds:

I use sesame meal as I mentioned above, but I also like it when I make a roux or as a replacement for Parmesan cheese in a savory dish. I also grind my own when I make hummus in place of tahini, because I never go through tahini fast enough to warrant buying a whole jar of it. I usually just get the toasted white sesame seeds that can be found in many an Asian section in the grocery story. The Japanese use sesame seed a lot in their home cooking in conjunction with miso and I hope to share some of those recipes with you in the future.

Flax Seed:

I use flax seed, from that little blue flower pictured on the right, mainly as an egg replacer. The mixture I use is one tablespoon of flax seed, grinding it, then adding 3 tablespoons of hot water and letting it rest for about 10 minutes before adding it to the recipe. This amount is equivalent to replacing one egg. I do not use more than two eggs worth of flax seed to a recipe as it is not a strong enough ‘glue’ to bind a recipe that requires a lot of eggs. If you are vegan by choice or just egg sensitive some dishes are just not easy to recreate without using eggs. Really, don’t try to make a soufflé with flax seed. However, there are very good cake recipes out there that don’t have much in the way of egg or egg replacer that are perfectly light and fluffy. It’s also an added bonus that flax seed is a great source of omega 3 oils and no cholesterol. I also love to toss a couple of tablespoons of ground flaxseed into my smooties, just for the omegas.

Guar Gum:

Guar gum has a funny name, but it is what replaces gluten in baked goods. Made from a bean, this powder is generally used 1 tsp to a cup of flour blend, depending on the dough. I add more gum if I want a really sturdy dough, like pizza dough, or less if I want a hint of glue, like pumpkin pie. I use this in place of xanthan gum as I did a little research and they grow xanthan on corn and soy, so if you are sensitive to either one it could cause you some problems. If you are sensitive to the legume family (beans) however, you can easily replace the amounts for guar with xanthan. The other bonus of guar gum is that it costs about 1/3 of xanthan, but it can be harder to find at the grocery store, as xanthan is more popular.

Cream of Tartar:

Again, a funny name but very useful if you want light and fluffy. Cream of tartar is the other half of the mix with baking soda to create baking powder. It is also common in meringue. I stay away from baking powder because of my son’s corn sensitivity because cornstarch is used as filler in baking powder. There are corn free baking powders out there, but this way I have a little more room in my spice cabinet and more money in my budget for other things. The conversion from baking powder to baking soda/cream of tartar is 2 teaspoons baking powder to ½-teaspoon baking soda and 1-teaspoon cream of tartar. I’ve also noticed that with being at a higher altitude it is always better to have a little more cream of tartar than not enough. If you are at a lower elevation, or your recipe comes out too high, you can always back off on the cream of tartar by a little bit.

Quinoa and Oat Chocolate Chip Pancakes

While hunting through my recipe collection in search of the next one to publish, I realized how many of my recipes are done in a grandmother/Rachel Ray fashion. I start out with what I have on hand and build from there, taking a pinch of this and a little of that until I'm satisfied with the outcome. Now don't get me wrong, I have my favorite cookbooks that lie open while I'm cooking. These are used as my base reference, but let's be realistic, sometimes the flavor of the carrots might be a little off that day or spicier just sounds better.

This has spilled over into my baking. Unless it is a cake, I don't follow recipes to the letter like we were always told to do as children in 4-H cooking class. I love to experiment with ingredients now. When I first started baking gluten free, I was scared to death of trying new flours. Now I'm starting to see what kinds of flavors work well together. It also doesn't hurt to throw a little bit of cocoa powder into the mix once in a while, as long as you adjust your sugar amount appropriately. Actually, tasting batter isn't a bad thing. There are advantages to cooking egg free. For one, you can eat cookie dough without worrying about raw egg.

So today's recipe is a little something I whipped up one morning when making pancakes. I usually try to make pancakes for the kids on Sundays, but sometimes the same old thing gets a little boring. So this is where this recipe came from. These quinoa oat pancakes are the fluffiest I've made since going wheat free and the kids just loved them. They also freeze well, so if there are any leftovers you can just stick these in a freezer bag with some wax paper in between each pancake to make it easier to separate later. Pop them in the microwave for a minute or two, depending on your microwave, to reheat.


Note: I make my own flour using my coffee grinder, grinding 1/4 cup at a time. You can also find these flours in your baking section at either the grocery or local health food store.

1/2 cup quinoa flour made by grinding pre-rinsed quinoa

1/2 cup GF oat flour made from GF oats ground fine

2-Tablespoons potato starch (not potato flour)

1-Tablespoon brown cane sugar

1-tsp cream of tartar

½-tsp baking soda

2-tsp guar gum

1 pinch of salt (1/4 tsp)

1-Tablespoon flax seed meal plus 3 Tablespoons hot water (or one egg)

1 ½-cups non-dairy milk of choice

2-Tablespoons Vegetable oil

1- cup of applesauce or well mashed banana

Optional: Enjoy Life chocolate chips-could also mix in blueberries into this batter.

1. In a small bowl, combine the flax seed and hot water. Set aside for 10 minutes.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, potato starch, baking soda, cream of tartar, guar gum and salt. Combine and set aside.
3. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and blend batter until it is smooth. (should not be lumpy like traditional batters)
4. On a well-oiled, hot griddle or pan, pour about ¼ cup of batter and top with chocolate chips. Cook over medium heat, making sure that on the first side the pancake is almost completely set as the rice flour tends to be a little stickier and will not flip easily if the batter has not set up. Flip over to second side and cook until golden brown. Serve warm.