Quiche Lorene

I recently came to realize that I have a different philosophy about cooking than most people. To me the work involved in cooking a delicious meal is no work at all. Gordon thinks I love to cook, but that's not really right. I love to eat good food. If that means working a couple of hours, well that's a small price to pay. 

Quiche Lorene

named after my sister who introduced me to this dish

8 to 10 slices bacon, crisply cooked, chopped
1 1/2 cups shredded Swiss cheese (you can use cheddar but that changes the flavor)
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups half-and-half, 1/2 cup milk
2 cups fresh spinach cooked, drained, squeezed and chopped
dash or 2 of seasoning salt 

                        Super easy gluten free pie crust 

                        1 cube of butter frozen and chopped 
                        1 1/4 cups gluten free flour
                        some salt
                        scant 1/4 cup cold water
                        scant 1/4 cup cold water 
                       1/2 cup oat flour

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425.
Put the chopped frozen pieces of butter in a food processor. It doesn't matter what size the pieces are as long as they don't jam the food processor. Add flour and salt and mix until the they resemble fine crumbs. Put the mixture in a bowl and add a scant 1/4 cup water. Mix and add another scant 1/4 cup water. Shape into a ball. Note- you might want to add less water. I just made this recipe up and it worked but I might have been lucky. Roll the pie dough in LOTS of oat flour, and keep adding more to keep it from sticking. Put it in a 9 or 9.5 pie pan. Carefully line pastry with a layer of foil, gently pressing it to the bottom and sides. Bake of 10 minutes, pull the foil off and bake a few more minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 325°F. Layer bacon, cheese and onion in pie crust, top with spinach. I cook the spinach by putting in a bowl and pouring boiling water over it. Let it sit for a few minutes, drain, and squeeze. I find this is the easiest. In medium bowl, beat eggs slightly; beat in remaining filling ingredients. Pour into pie pan. Bake 45 to 50 minutes or until done. Let stand a few minutes before serving.

 

Perfect (gluten free) Pancakes

Last pancake... I almost forgot to take a photo!

1¼ cups

Perfect Flour Blend

1 tablespoon

baking powder

½ teaspoon

salt

1 tablespoon

granulated sugar

1 teaspoon

baking soda

1¼ cups

milk

2

eggs

2 tablespoons

melted butter

½ teaspoon

vanilla

Perfect Flour is sold at Costco in 5lb. bags

1. Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Whisk together the liquid ingredients in a large bowl.

2. Add liquid to dry, combine well. Preheat griddle or pan to medium heat. Pour batter by 1/3 cupfuls onto sprayed griddle. Sprinkle with blueberries.

 3. Cook until bubbles appear and bottom is golden brown. Flip and cook a minute or two longer.

Gluten Free Perfect Pie Crust

Perfect Pie Crust Recipe

 

Ingredients

½ cup unsalted butter
2 to 4 tablespoons cold water
Flour Blend:

Whisk until fully combined. This will give you enough for the recipe plus rolling. For best results use Asian or Superfine rice and sweet rice flours. I also use Asian tapioca starch as it does not have that “off” flavor of many tapioca starches. Do not use Asian potato starch as it is made from sweet potatoes.

3/4 cup super fine white rice flour

1/4 cup potato starch (not potato flour)

1/4 cup sweet rice flour

1/4 cup tapioca starch

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1 teaspoon kosher or fine sea salt
2 tablespoons sugar

Directions

Cut butter into ½ inch pieces and place in the freezer for 15 – 30 minutes.
Add some ice cubes to the water and let it get ice cold while preparing the dry ingredients.
Combine 1¼ cups Flour Blend, salt and sugar in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse 5 -6 times to combine. Add the butter and pulse 6 -8 times or until the mixture resembles coarse meal with some pea size pieces of butter.
With processor running, add ice water 1 tablespoon at a time until the mixture just barely starts to clump together. If you pinch some of the crumbly dough together and it holds then you have enough water, if not add more a little at a time. You do not want to add any more water than is absolutely necessary.
Remove the dough from the machine and form into a disk. Wrap the disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour or for as long as 2 -3 days. Since the dough is so crumbly and does not hold together at this point, I find it easier (and far less messy) to pour the mixture into a large food storage bag and form it into a disk using the bag to help. Then just close up the bag and put it in the fridge. Remove dough from fridge 5 minutes before rolling.
To roll the dough, lay a piece of waxed paper on a work surface and sprinkle with some flour blend. Lay the chilled disk on the floured paper, sprinkle with some more flour and lay on another piece of waxed paper. Roll the dough into a circle approximately 12 inches wide. Remove the top sheet of waxed paper and carefully transfer into a 9 inch pie plate and remove the waxed paper. Push the dough very gently down so it lines the bottom and sides of the pie plate. If the dough splits or breaks apart just push it back together. Trim the edge of the pie crust to about ½ – ¾ inch over hang. Tuck the overhang under and pinch the dough into a decorative finish.
To Pre-bake (or Blind Bake) a pie crust:
Sometimes a recipe will call for a pre-baked or blind baked pie crust, here’s how to do that.
Freeze the pie crust in the pie plate for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place a piece of parchment paper (or foil) in the bottom and up the sides of the pie crust. Fill with dried beans, rice or pie weights. (I prefer dried black beans as they help distribute the heat better and are much less expensive than pie weights. I use the same beans over and over.) Bake the crust for 20 minutes. Remove the weights and waxed paper, poke a few holes in the bottom of the crust using a fork and return to the oven for 10 minutes or until golden brown.
Let pie crust cool completely before filling.
A gluten free recipe that makes 1 – 9 inch pie crust.

Thanksgiving

We had a fresh turkey which was a first for us. 

No defrosting... I love it! And the turkey tasted really good. 

A lot of our recipes were gluten free. If I can post more you'll notice the change in our menus. Even if you use regular flour these recipes are still good!

Apple Stuffing:

Ingredients:

8 tablespoons of butter

2 large finely diced onions

4 finely diced celery stalks

4 coarsely chopped tart apples

1 tablespoon chopped sage

2 tablespoons chopped thyme

10 cups of cubed day-old bread (GF recipe below)

1 cup of chicken broth

½ cup of cream

2 beaten eggs

In a large skillet, melt the butter and add onions. Cook until softened. Add celery stalks, soften and season with salt and pepper. Add apples and cook for a minute. Stir in sage, thyme and turn off heat. In a large mixing bowl combine cubed day-old bread (crusts removed) with the skillet mixture. Pour in chicken broth and cream and mix well to moisten bread. Taste and adjust seasoning. Stir in 2 beaten eggs. Transfer stuffing to buttered shallow baking dish. Bake for about 40 minutes, until golden.

Gluten Free bread:

Ingredients:

3 ½ cups	Namaste Perfect Flour Blend
1 ½ cups	milk or rice milk
1 Tbsp	cider vinegar
2 Tbsp	oil
2 Tbsp	honey or agave nectar
½ cup	cornstarch, arrrowroot or tapioca starch
1 tsp.	salt
3	eggs
1Tbsp	yeast
¼ cup	warm water

Directions:

1. Mix yeast in ¼ cup warm water and set aside for 5 minutes. Warm milk, add oil, honey and cider vinegar. Beat (room temperature) eggs and add to milk mixture. Add yeast mixture to milk mixture and blend.
   
2. Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients and blend on medium speed with electric mixer for 3 minutes. Pour into well greased loaf pan. Cover loosely with sprayed waxed paper or plastic wrap and towel and let rise for 30 minutes in warm place. Preheat oven to 350°F.
   
3. Cover loosely with foil tent to prevent over browning and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and continue baking for another 35-40 minutes. Let cool completely
   
   

   

Charlie's Potato Soup

I made this soup last night for Charlie (he wanted me to get the canned stuff!!!). Now that I have a recipe he can make it himself!

 Charlie's Potato Soup 

1/4 to 1/3 lb bacon
1/3 to 1/2 large onion
6? medium potatoes
2 cups water
1/2 cup half and half

Fry the bacon on medium low until crispy. Add onion and cook until soft. Add the water and use the Cuisinart blender to mix all. This is tricky with so little water so if you can double the recipe it will help. Add potatoes and boil until soft. Add half and half and enjoy!

Swedish Wedding Meatballs

I plan to serve meatballs at the wedding reception. Maybe meatballs are an old fashioned idea but they remind me of the "good old days". Certainly the recipe I started with was retro- as it came out of the First Pres. Church cookbook from the 70's. The same recipe was submitted by 3 women and contained 1 teaspoon of nutmeg, allspice and mace. I looked on the internet and in cookbooks, some recipes called for 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg and allspice. I cut out the mace and then added it back in, I tried recipes with baking powder and ground pork not sausage. For weeks Gordon and Marielle have endured meatball recipes. Tonight Marielle said without any humor "I am not going to eat any more meatballs- I'm done."

I finally came up with the perfect combination (I hope!). If you come to the wedding you'll get a chance to tell me. Just so you know...Marielle couldn't help herself. She had a few meatballs tonight.

Swedish Wedding Meatballs

(for a crowd) 

2 eggs

1/2 cup cream

2 slices of good white bread, crust removed and torn into pieces

1 lb Jimmy Dean Natural Sausage

2oz finely chopped onion

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon mace

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons brown sugar

1 lb 85% ground beef

Sauce:

1 cube butter

1/2 cup flour

1 can Swanson's chicken broth

1 1/2 cups half/half cream

1 teaspoons Lowery's seasoning

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

1-2 teaspoons Kitchen Bouquet 

Whisk the egg and cream together in a medium bowl. Add the bread and set aside. In a standing mixer beat the pork, onion, nutmeg, allspice, mace, pepper, salt and brown sugar on high for 2 minutes. Add the egg mixture after making sure it has no bread chunks remaining. Mix for 1 minute. Make sure the mixture is homogenous. Add the beef and stir until just mixed. Dip a tablespoon in a bowl of cold water and scoop out a generous tablespoon of mixture. Place it onto a broiling pan. Convection roast or bake the meatballs for 25 minutes. Add to the sauce.

Sauce: melt the butter, add the flour and cook for 1 minute. Add the rest and cook as you would a gravy. Add more liquid if the gravy is too thick.

Chicken Cacciatore

Chicken Cacciatore

2 Tb. olive oil
1 whole chicken cut up (breasts, thighs, drumsticks, wings)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 green bell pepper, thickly sliced
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 cup red wine
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 cans diced tomatoes
1. In a deep skillet heat olive oil. Season chicken with salt and pepper and add to pan, skin side down. Cook over medium heat, turning once, until lightly browned, about 4 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate.
2. Add the onion, peppers, and garlic and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 10 minutes. Pour in the wine and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes.
3. Add chicken stock and tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. Return chicken to pan, skin side up, and bring to a simmer. Cover partially and cook over moderate heat for 45-60 minutes, until chicken is cooked and sauce is noticeably reduced. Serve over pasta or rice.