Gluten Free and Vegan Strawberry Shortcake

With all the craziness of the Easter Holiday (mixed in with Earth Day and school activities with the kids) I've been a little behind in my blogging. My youngest son turned 5 the day after Easter, so not only were we up to our ears in Easter candy, but I had to make a school worthy birthday treat (thank you Gluten Free Goddess for that one) and he wanted strawberry shortcake for his special birthday treat.

Well, I grew up on the Bisquik version of strawberry shortcake where the dried out dough sucked up the juice of the strawberries, so I wanted to find a more gourmet version of what I grew up on. I happened to have a version in my Better Homes and Gardens Baking Book that I tried a gluten free lifetime ago, so I pulled it out and proceeded to put this recipe together. It is a long list of ingredients, but I really only changed the flour part of the recipe and it worked out splendidly. Instead of the applesauce and oil, you could use Spectrum shortening, but I never seem to have any on hand when I need it. I served it with a recipe for Orange Whipped Topping that I picked up out of a Thanksgiving edition of Optimum Wellness for their pumpkin pie, but I figured that if the shortcake had orange, that this would work well here. I sliced and layered mine, but this is one desert that needs no direction on assembly. Enjoy.



Shortcake: (all ingredients are measured by volume and before milling)

1 cup or 235ml brown rice flour-milled in coffee grinder
1/2 cup or 120ml gluten free oats-milled in coffee grinder
1/2 cup or 120ml potato starch
1/2 cup or 120ml finely ground walnuts (original recipe called for pecans)
1/4 cup or 60ml brown sugar
1 tsp or 5 ml cream of tartar
1/2 tsp or 2.5ml baking soda
1 1/2 tsp or 7.5ml guar gum
1/4 tsp or 1ml salt

1/4 cup or 60ml oil
1/4 cup or 60ml applesauce, unsweetened
1 tbsp or 15ml flax seed plus 3 tbsp or 45ml hot water mixed
2/3 cup or 160ml unsweetened hemp milk or non-dairy milk of choice
1 tbsp or 15ml fresh orange zest (about 1 orange or 3 clementines)
1 tsp or 5ml vanilla

Directions:

Mill flax seed and mix it with hot water in a small bowl and set it aside.

Place walnuts (or preferred nut) into food processor and mill until fine, but not super fine. Add in all other dry ingredients and blend until well combined, making sure to scrape the inside of the bowl just in case any of your nut bits are stuck on the bottom and sides.

Add in flax mix, oil, and applesauce and pulse a few times until the dough resembles course crumbs. Add in the remaining ingredients and blend until moist, but don't over blend. The dough should be moist, but you don't want smooth.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit along with your baking stone (if using). Spoon out the batter on the stone so that you make between 6-12 mounds of dough, depending on desired serving size. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown with darker brown peaks. Cool immedietly on a wire rack and serve warm or store in an air tight container in the refrigerator for up to three days.



Topping:

1 pint of strawberries
1/4 cup of brown sugar

Mix together and let it set for at least 20 minutes before serving. The longer it sits, the more juice will come out of the strawberries to form the sauce.


Orange Whipped Topping:
Adapted from Optimum Wellness' magazine

1/2 block of store bought tofu or 1 block of homemade tofu
1 container (single serving) So Delicious plain coconut yogurt
2 tbsp or 30ml maple syrup or brown rice syrup
1/2 tsp or 2.5ml fresh orange zest (1 clementine's worth)

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Cut open shortcake and layer if so desired and serve.

This recipe is also a part of Real Food Weekly for the week of April 28th, 2011.

Putting the Dehydrator to Use

My new toy

If you follow me on Facebook, you know that I got my first dehydrator the other day. It was an exciting event around here and my husband and I started rattling off recipes that we wanted to try in our new machine. My husband loves beef jerky (but what meat eating male doesn't?), so that was an obvious item on the list of things to try. I wanted to try out just some of the basic fruits and veggies so that I could send them off with the kids for school. I would love to send healthy snacks that are light weight and not as messy as say...applesauce. There are also all the goodies I've seen lately with the April in the Raw event hosted by Real Sustenance that require an hour or four in a dehydrator.

So my first day of playing with my new machine started out with a pint of strawberries that my husband 'just happened' to pick up on the way home. (I can't tell who is more excited, him or me.) Fruit is easy, just wash and cut up into desired size. I love that I have several different tray options in my machine, so I used the flexible trey for the strawberries. This was a bit of luck on my part. I don't know if I could have removed them otherwise as the flex trey made it easy to peal the berries off. These turned out really well, except for my poor planning that ended up with me having to get up at 5am to check on them.



I had also saved a sweet potato last week in hopes of turning it into sweet potato chips when the dehydrator arrived. I peeled, sliced, and blanched the slices for three minutes in my steamer before setting these on the treys. I don't know if blanching is allowed in the raw diet, but since I'm just playing with the option of raw food, I figured I'd follow directions first before attempting completely raw chips. These also turned out well, but next time I need to cut them thinner on the mandolin for a crunchier chip, as these were slightly chewy. Live and learn.



I also had to make tofu today, as Tuesday has ended up being the best day in my schedule to make it. This meant that I had okara (soybean mash) that I had to do something with. I usually toast it in the oven, but figured that since my other two experiments were done, I'd try okara in the dehydrator too. That turned out beautifully and it was much dryer than I get it in the oven and took about the same period of time. I also saved some soybeans from my tofu to make soy nuts. I cooked these all the way through before salting them and drying them for about 6 hours. They are still a little chewy, but the boys like them so it's all good.


I did throw a little applesauce on the fruit leather trey somewhere in between all the other trey fulls of foods. I don't know how long it took, but being a commercially made applesauce it was on the watery side and took longer than homemade applesauce would. It made perfect fruit leather and if I don't try anything else in the dehydrator, that alone makes this machine money well spent.

I like the fact that even with the machine running almost a full 24 hours, the house wasn't uncomfortably hot like it gets when I'm baking granola or okara all day. I was a little worried about a machine that was just a stack of treys and not a solid unit (much like the ones that look like miniature ovens with multiple treys), but this feature actually came in handy when the strawberries and fruit leather were finished quicker than their companion foods. I still have plenty of ideas to try, but as of right now I'm just experimenting with the recipes of others or playing with whole foods. I have at least one recipe in mind for beef jerky, but I'm sure my husband will have the final say on if it works or not before I post it to share. Until then, I plan on filling up my freezer with all sorts of dehydrated treats.

Gluten Free Pan-fried Chicken

If you have been gluten free for any length of time, you know that finding the perfect breading to use for fried chicken, chicken nuggets, fish, or anything that has dredging as part of the cooking process isn't easy to come by. I'm sure many of you, as I did in the beginning, struggled with finding that perfect combination of gluten free flours that worked as a replacement for wheat flour and breadcrumbs. Most commercial companies use corn meal and it is a great substitution, if you're not allergic to corn. Since my oldest has a hard time with corn, that meant that I had to be creative and come up with my own solution.

Potato starch is something that the Japanese use in deep frying their tofu, so I decided to start with that. I played around with just taking chicken and using potato starch for dusting, much like flour is used for chicken picatta in Italy. It was OK, but something was missing. As I mentioned in the My Pantry article, I settled on ground toasted white sesame seeds to add to the potato starch. The toasted seeds give the coating a nutty flavor and sesame seeds are high in iron (which I needed a couple of years ago when I battled anemia). I also use this mix for breaded fish, chicken nuggets, and just about anything that calls for bread crumbs. This is also a good way to go if you can't use egg in your cooking, as the potato starch does a good job of sticking to pretty much everything and doesn't need the help of an egg. This is an easy recipe to alter if you need just a little or a lot.

Enjoy.

Pictured above are two adult servings and several nuggets for the kids.

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts, butterflied (can be cut up into bite sized pieces for nuggets)

1 tsp/5 ml salt

¼ cup/60ml potato starch (by volume)

¼ cup/60ml toasted white sesame seeds (goma), milled in a coffee grinder

oil for frying, at least 1” deep in a heavy pan

Rinse the chicken breast and pat dry before butterflying it. Cutting it in half helps it to cook faster and more evenly. Salt all sides.

In a separate dish, such as a pie plate or low bowl, mix together the potato starch and sesame seeds with a fork or whisk. Coat all sides of the chicken with the potato starch/sesame seed mixture.

Make sure the oil is smoking hot, about 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Place chicken gently in the oil, be careful as it is very hot and can splatter easily.

Cook the chicken for about 3-5 minutes until the breading is golden brown. Turn and repeat on the other side for about 3-5 more minutes. Remove from oil and drain. Serve warm.

Makes 4 main course servings.

Adzuki Bean and Quinoa Veggie Burgers

Served bunless (not a GF thing, just me) with sauteed snow peas and onions and homemade potato fries.

To start off with, there are two spellings for this lovely little red bean that is common in Japanese cuisine, Adzuki and Azuki. I don't know why, but I'm guessing that it has something to do with dialect differences that have showed up in the Romanized version of the word when people immigrated to this country. Adzuki is what is written on my bag of beans and that is the spelling I tend to stick with.

Adzuki is traditionally used in sweet dishes from oshiruko, a sweet bean soup that is eaten over mochi as a snack, or made into tsubu-an, which is a sweetened paste that is used in various ways, but mostly in some kind of dessert or sweet treat. It is also common in the form of red beans and rice, known as sekihan, during the New Year celebration as red is a symbol of happiness. My search for uses for this little bean started when I became pregnant with our first child and my mother-in-law handed me a bag of beans and said they were good for the baby. Looking back, I think of how ironic is is that it took me a year to get through that first 1/4 pound bag of beans. They don't last quite so long around here now-a-days.

At least once a week I like to fix a meal that is meatless so that I can add a little variety to my families diet. As I mentioned in my Picky Eating post, my oldest son doesn't really like the texture of meat anyway, so getting him to eat a traditional hamburger is a struggle. I had tried to make veggie burgers from adzuki beans before with mixed results. My old recipe would just end up too heavy and they were OK when made fresh, but any leftovers ended up not being eaten. I got this idea from a fish patty recipe and went from there. My picky eater loved it and even asked for seconds. I think this may be our new favorite burger.

Adzuki beans actually don't need to be soaked overnight, but I like to anyway as I think it just brings out the flavor of the bean better, but it is up to you if you do a quick soak or a long one. I usually make 1 cup of dried beans in 4 cups of water and that cooks for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours depending on the bean and if more water is added to the pot half way through the cooking process. I then portion out one cup of cooked beans for this recipe and save the rest to make oshiruko later. (Oshiruko is one of those recipes that you just toss in sugar and salt until you reach the flavor you desire, so I still need to measure it first before I can post a recipe.)

As far as flavor goes, they have a richer flavor than most veggie burgers and having the quinoa is an added bonus in both texture and protein content. The texture can be very crispy on the outside layer, but the inside stays soft and tender. Try them out on your next burger night and see what the family thinks and I hope you enjoy them as much as my family does.

Ingredients:

1 cup precooked adzuki beans prepared using directions on the bag

1 cup cooked quinoa

1 tbsp/15ml dried parsley flakes

1 sheet of toasted sushi nori-broken up into smaller pieces

1 tbsp/15ml wheat free tamari

2 tbsps/30ml flax seed-milled

2 green onions-chopped or ½ small yellow onion

2-4 tbsp of adzuki cooking liquid

Directions:

Cook the adzuki beans and quinoa according to the directions on their respective packages. They do not need to be cooled before working with them. Using a slotted spoon, measure out a cup of beans and reserve the cooking liquid for later.

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until it reaches a thick and sticky consistency. This may take several minutes depending on your variety of food processor. Add more cooking liquid if the mixture is too dry. This will make the food processor work easier, but don’t overdo it as too much will cause the patties to fall apart.

Spoon hamburger sized portions into your hand and form into patties much like you would with hamburger. Place them in a smoking hot and oiled pan (just enough oil to cover the bottom) Cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes or until they are easy to pick up and brown and crispy. Cook on the other side for 5 minutes. Serve hot with the regular burger fixings. Makes 5 large burgers.

Gluten Free Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

If you are a gardener or a seasonal eater, you know that it is time for some spring dishes. On my patio is a rhubarb plant that has followed me through at least one move and it is the only plant that will overwinter on my east facing patio. I love that it eagerly comes up each spring, even if I forget to water it for half of the winter. The variety I have has wonderful red stalks and it isn't quite as tart as the green stemmed variety. It looked so beautiful the other day that I finally gave into my urge to harvest some. It looked a little naked after I had finished, but it is a hardy plant and as you can see from the picture below, it is just fine.

One tip for rhubarb that I just have to share is that if you ever harvest more than you can use right away (or those stalks at the farmers market where huge), just cut it up as you would for a recipe and toss it into a freezer bag and pop it in the freezer. That's it, frozen rhubarb. It is also handy to put it into bags in pre-measured portions. Frozen fruit works good in any recipe, but watch your cooking times as there is a slight difference between using thawed or frozen fruit.

For years I have been making the Choose-A-Fruit Crisp recipe that is in my Better Homes and Garden's baking book and I would get rave reviews for this simple and classic dessert. When I went gluten free two years ago this month ("Happy Anniversary to me...") I wanted to find a topping for this recipe. In the mean time, I've played with the filling by reducing the sugar amount and adding the spices from the original crisp part to the fruit mixture. I think I finally got a topping that I like to go with my filling. It is very similar to my granola recipe and it is great to eat warm with a little dab of dairy free yogurt or even a scoop of coconut milk ice cream. Enjoy.

It is also part of Real Food Weekly for April 7, 2011.

This is my rhubarb plant after loosing half of its leaves. It looks much better than it did two days ago.


Ingredients:
(all measurements are by volume and before being milled)

Filling:

2 large or 5 small stalks of rhubarb
1 pint of really ripe strawberries
1/2 cup/120ml brown sugar
2 tblsp/30ml potato starch
1/4 tsp/1.25ml salt (or a small pinch)
1/8 tsp/1ml nutmeg
1/8 tsp/1ml powdered ginger or 1/4 tsp/1.25ml fresh grated ginger

Topping:

1/2 cup/120ml gluten free oats (I use Bob's Red Mill)
1/4 cup/60ml sunflower seeds-milled in the coffee grinder
2 tblsp/30ml flax seed-milled in the coffee grinder
2 tblsp/30ml toasted white sesame seeds-milled in the coffee grinder
1 tblsp/15ml brown sugar
2 tblsp/30ml oil
1/2 tsp/2.5ml salt


Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Chop rhubarb and strawberries into bite sized pieces, stir in sugar, cover and set them aside in the refrigerator for at least two hours up to overnight. Add the remaining ingredients and place the filling into a baking dish. (This can be done with frozen fruit, toss with other ingredients and bake, but you will have to watch your cooking time.)

In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients for the topping. Mix until the oats and seeds are evenly moist. Spoon this mixture over top of the filling and place in a preheated oven and bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until the topping is brown and the fruit is tender. Serve warm, if desired. Makes 4 dessert servings.

Onigiri aka The Rice Ball

Makiko Itoh wrote an article for The Japan Times (link is in English) about this humble rice ball’s importance to the victims of the recent earthquake and tsunami. As she does a wonderful job in telling the tale of onigiri, I will not go into it here. Suffice it to say that these are easy to make, once you get the hang of pressing the rice into shape.

Read Makiko's entire article as she also give you a detailed how-to on making umeboshi onigiri. The pictures below are of our family favorite, bonito filled onigiri, but you can fill these with just about anything from last nights leftover fish, marinated mushrooms, or pickles. As long as the filling is on the salty side, most anything can be used. These are not dipped in soy sauce, so the only salt is in the center or on the outside of the rice. Have fun experimenting until you find the filling that you like.


When we went to Japan last April, I had the opportunity to hone my technique with my mother-in-law when we made onigiri for our day trip to Kamakura (pictured above) as well as to and from the airport. She is an expert at it and had three made by the time I had finished one. I think my youngest has been missing her onigiri, as he has been asking for it a lot lately. Either that or he has been seeing them on the news footage lately which has sparked his craving.

Bonito Filling for Onigiri:

1 cup (large handful) of bonito shavings
1/2 tsp/5ml wheat free tamari
1/2 tsp/5ml mirin

Mix ingredients in a bowl, using half for each rice ball.

Bonito after tamari and mirin were added. It really shrinks down.

I got this tip from Makiko too: place plastick wrap in the bowl first. You can use it to help shape the ball in a later step.

Cover the filling with more rice.The finished product. Sprinkle with a little sea salt before placing them in a lunch box or before eating. Enjoy.