Boulder Canyon Rice & Adzuki Bean Artisan Snack Chips
February 6, 2010 | Comments
I’m so excited when I go to Whole Foods and find new gluten free treats. I’m not a big chip eater, but I was having a party and wanted to have a pita like chip that would be great for dipping in hummus. I’ve seen the Boulder Canyon Rice & Adzuki Bean chips before, but I never bought them because I didn’t know what an Adzuki bean was and I wasn’t sure if they would taste good. According to Wikipedia, Adzuki beans are grown in East Asia and are commonly used for making red bean paste. I had no idea!
I was pleasantly surprised to find that these chips are really good. They are very thin and have a great savory flavor, almost like garlic or some type of spice, and a subtle hint of sweetness. These are definitely not pita style chips in any respect, but I didn’t mind at all. I didn’t even bother with dipping them in hummus because they tasted great right out of the bag!
GF Linzer Cookies from Risotteria
January 28, 2010 | Comments
Anyone who knows me, knows that I have an obsession with jelly cookies or more specifically “cookies with the red dot” as I like to call them. I have no idea what they are really called, but it’s basically a shortbread cookie with a jelly dot in the center. Yum. I used to buy $1 packs of these cookies in the 80s and haven’t had them in years, but I still think fondly about them.
Now that I’m old and grizzled (lol, ok maybe not grizzled), I still have a mild obsession with those red dot cookies. I get all sorts of excited whenever I find a gf linzer cookie, because it’s the closest I can come to my nostalgia. Which is why I was in near euphoria when I went to Risotteria recently and saw that they sell individually packaged linzer cookies. Amazing.
Once I saw that they were dairy free the $4 price tag didn’t matter. Dairy + gluten free is always a win win situation for me. I bought one and devoured it as soon as I got back to my office. It was pretty much everything I hoped for, yummy raspberry jelly filling, a sweet (but not too sweet) cookie that still had a little give to it – perfection. The only thing that could be better about these cookies is if they sold them in a box of 12 and maybe made them a little smaller.
Risotteria is simply awesome. If you’ve been there you know what I mean, and if you haven’t – make sure you go one day. It’s well worth the visit just for the fantastic gf pizzas, but you really can’t miss out on their desserts either. Take your desserts to go if you aren’t hungry, you’ll thank me later.
I <3 Cupcakes
January 18, 2010 | Comments
The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind for me – my little one had her first birthday, which was cause for celebration and lots of commotion getting things ready. I love parties with themes and decided that a Mad Hatter style tea party would be fun. Making everything gluten free would have been a huge challenge, but I did have two kinds of gluten free cupcakes and a tray of gluten free tea sandwiches.
During all of the shenanigans I didn’t get a chance to snap any pictures of the sandwiches, but I assure you they were yum. I made egg salad, chicken salad with globe grapes and cucumber sprout sandwiches. The cucumber sandwiches were a sleeper hit – I never had one before and didn’t taste any of the ingredients as I went along so I was surprised that they were full of flavor and really good. I think a lot of people agreed with me because they disappeared really quickly. The egg & chicken salad sandwiches were both really good too – I did store bought for the chicken salad and whipped up a quick egg salad with mayo, mustard, onion and some spices.
Who are we kidding though – the real pièce de résistance were the cupcakes. I wanted them to be bright & cheery, but didn’t want to put a ton of time into making them since I was pressed as it was. I had two gluten free cupcakes mixes on hand already - one from Dowd & Rogers and one from Pamela’s.
I’ve made cupcakes from the Dowd & Rogers mix a ton of times before and always thought they were good, but they really didn’t hold a candle (lol) to the Pamela’s cupcakes. For one, the D&R mix doesn’t rise the way that the Pamela’s mix does, and while they both taste good – the Pamela’s cupcakes taste and feel more like regular cake.
For frosting, I did store bought Betty Crocker (gluten free – woot) vanilla frosting and tinted it different colors using food dye. I topped all of the cupcakes with pink sugar, sprinkles and piped flowers.
Dowd & Rogers Dark Vanilla Cupcakes
What do you think?
Pamela’s Vanilla Cupcakes
Oh and because I think you should really try it – I included the Cucumber Tea Sandwich recipe below. So tasty!
Cucumber Tea Sandwich Recipe
1 large cucumber, peeled and sliced very thinly
Salt
3/4 cup soft butter (I used spreadable butter)
2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic
20 slices bread (I used Whole Foods gluten free bread)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
Pepper to taste
Lightly salt the cucumber slices and place them in a colander to drain for 1 to 2 hours. Then combine the butter and garlic and apply to one side of each slice of bread. In a small bowl, stir together the lemon juice, olive oil, and pepper. Add the cucumber slices, coating them well. Arrange the cucumber on 10 of the bread slices, top with the other 10 slices, remove the crusts, and quarter. Serve immediately. Makes 40 tea sandwiches.
Stonyfield Farms Yogurt is Gluten Free
January 9, 2010 | Comments
I’m (mostly) dairy free, which can be challenging because most soy substitutes pale in comparison to the original. Take yogurt for instance, dairy yogurt has that tang that soy just can’t mimic, no matter how hard it tries. It’s ok though – I’ve convinced myself that eating soy yogurt is healthier, whether it really is or not.
I used to be all about WholeSoy & Co. yogurt, but didn’t really like the chalky/watery taste and moved on to Silk Live! soy yogurts, which are actually really tasty, but they are hard to come by at most big chain stores, so I can only get them when I make a Whole Foods run. Stonyfield Farms yogurts are everywhere, but I never noticed that they had a soy version of their yogurts until recently and I’ve really been missing out! Their O’Soy yogurts are really thick and creamy – which makes for a very satisfying snack/breakfast. I checked out their site and found out that many of their yogurts have been certified gluten free by the Gluten Free Certification Organization (GFCO) so you can add another mainstream item to your list of gluten freedom. Below is the list of Stonyfield Farm yogurts that are gluten free – moms, take note of the YoBaby yogurts for your sensitive little ones! My 1 yr old daughter is not GF, but she majorly hearts her YoBaby’s.
The GFCO certification includes the following Stonyfield Farm products*:
- 6 oz. Fat Free, Low Fat, and Whole Milk Organic Yogurt cups (all flavors)
- 32 oz. Fat Free, Low Fat, and Whole Milk Organic Yogurt quarts (all flavors)
- 4 oz. Fat Free Organic Yogurt cups (all flavors)
- 4 oz. YoBaby Organic Yogurt cups (except for YoBaby Plus Fruit & Cereal)
- 6 oz. YoBaby Organic Drinkable Yogurts (all flavors)
- 10 oz. & 6 oz. Low Fat Organic Yogurt Smoothies (all flavors)
- 4 oz. & 6 oz. O’Soy Soy-Yogurt cups (all flavors)
- 4 oz. YoMommy Low Fat Organic Yogurt cups (all flavors)
- 4 oz. YoKids Low Fat Organic Yogurt cups (all flavors)
For more information about Stonyfield Farm, its products and initiatives, visit www.stonyfield.com.
Enjoy!
Pho-getaboutit!
January 4, 2010 | Comments
One of my obsessions is pho – I heart it ever so dearly. Something about the rich flavors of the broth, the fresh beef slices, and the rice noodles just make my mouth happy.
veggies, oxtail and a chunk of eye of round boiling with spices
I’ve had amazing pho (Le Bambou in Paris) and not so amazing pho, but I never thought about making it because the whole process seemed so daunting and long. Now that I live in the burbs of Connecticut I don’t have easy access to good pho anymore, which makes me sad. So I decided that I would make pho at home and get over my fear of unexplored culinary adventures.
strained broth
What I discovered is that pho is very easy to make! I mean like really easy. I found a great recipe from my culinary blogger ecrush Jaden (Steamy Kitchen) and thought that all the ingredients sounded spot on for the pho of my much romanticized dreams (Le Bambou) so I resolved to make it before the new year – and I did!
cooked rice noodles
There were a couple of missteps on my part, namely that I did not note the amount of beef bones she used and only bought 1/3 of the amount. I realized it before I really got going on making the soup, but I don’t think my off the cuff halving of the recipe was accurate, which resulted in a bit of a diluted flavor. However, I didn’t decrease the amount of spices used and I was really in love with the fragrant broth – even if it didn’t have that satisfying rich flavor that the proper amount of beef bones would have given. When attempting this recipe again – and I will – I’ll probably increase the spices just a tad and use a little less rock sugar. I found that the end product was just a tad too sweet for me – again that could have been because of my attempt at correcting the recipe for the amount of oxtail I had on hand.
fresh veggies for adding to the soup (bean sprouts, thai chilies, thai basil, cilantro and lime)
Overall I really liked the recipe – I think it could be “The One” with a little bit of tweaking for my personal taste. Did it take a long time to cook – yes. It was about 4 hours all in all, but I honestly spent about a half hour of that time actually preparing food – the rest of the time was sitting on the couch catching up on Lost episodes.
freshly sliced eye of round (that’s pork laab in the background)
This is a fantastic dish for moms (who have kids with adventurous palates), or anyone short on time, but craving something big on flavor. Plus, the entire dish is gluten free! You can’t beat that.
finished product – topped with veggies and lots of sriracha
Vietnamese Pho: Beef Noodle Soup Recipe (Steamy Kitchen)
THE BROTH
2 onions, halved
4″ nub of ginger, halved lengthwise
5-6 lbs of good beef bones, preferably leg and knuckle (I used oxtail – but recommend using a mix of oxtail and leg/knuckle)
1 lb of beef meat – chuck, brisket, rump, cut into large slices [optional] (I left this out because I’m a Pho Tai purest)
6 quarts of water
1 package of Pho Spices [1 cinnamon stick, 1 tbl coriander seeds, 1 tbl fennel seeds, 5 star anise, 1 cardamom pod, 6 whole cloves - in mesh bag]
1 1/2 tbl salt
1/4 cup fish sauce
1 inch chunk of yellow rock sugar (about 1 oz) – or 1oz of regular sugar (you can find yellow rock sugar in an asian market – near the palm sugar)
THE BOWLS
2 lbs rice noodles (dried or fresh)
cooked beef from the broth
1/2 lb flank, london broil, sirloin or eye of round, sliced as thin as possible.
big handful of each: mint, cilantro, basil
2 limes, cut into wedges
2-3 chili peppers, sliced
2 big handfuls of bean sprouts
Hoisin sauce
Sriracha
Char: Turn your broiler on high and move rack to the highest spot. Place ginger and onions on baking sheet. Brush just a bit of cooking oil on the cut side of each. Broil on high until ginger and onions begin to char. Turn over and continue to char. This should take a total of 10-15 minutes.
Parboil the bones: Fill large pot (12-qt capacity) with cool water. Boil water, and then add the bones, keeping the heat on high. Boil vigorously for 10 minutes. Drain, rinse the bones and rinse out the pot. Refill pot with bones and 6 qts of cool water. Bring to boil over high heat and lower to simmer. Using a ladle or a fine mesh strainer, remove any scum that rises to the top.
Boil broth: Add ginger, onion, spice packet, beef, sugar, fish sauce, salt and simmer uncovered for 1 1/2 hours. Remove the beef meat and set aside (you’ll be eating this meat later in the bowls) Continue simmering for another 1 1/2 hours. Strain broth and return the broth to the pot. Taste broth and adjust seasoning – if you want a little more flavor, add a few dashes more of fish sauce, large pinch of salt and a small nugget of rock sugar (or large pinch of regular sugar).
Prepare noodles & meat: Slice your flank/london broil/sirloin as thin as possible – try freezing for 15 minutes prior to slicing to make it easier. Remember the cooked beef meat that was part of your broth? Cut or shred the meat and set aside. Arrange all other ingredients on a platter for the table. Your guests will “assemble” their own bowls. Follow the directions on your package of noodles – there are many different sizes and widths of rice noodles, so make sure you read the directions. For some fresh rice noodles, just a quick 5 second blanch in hot water is all that’s needed. The package that I purchased (above) – needed about 45 seconds in boiling water.
Ladling: Bring your broth back to a boil. Line up your soup bowls next to the stove. Fill each bowl with rice noodles, shredded cooked beef and raw meat slices. As soon as the broth comes back to a boil, ladle into each bowl. the hot broth will cook your raw beef slices. Serve immediately. Guests can garnish their own bowls as they wish.
