Saturday, February 19, 2011

"Granola" Bars




1 lb (approximately 1 1/3 cups) honey**
8 ounces sesame seed
6 ounces golden flax seed (whole seeds, not meal)
2 ounces hemp seed
1 teaspoon grated orange peel
1/8 teaspoon orange extract
6 ounces dried fruit (I used a "berry blend")

Place a sheet of parchment paper on a work surface.

Combine honey and orange peel in a medium saucepan, bring to a boil (the longer you boil it the more firm the bars will be). Add seeds stir well- as soon as it returns to a boil stir in orange extract and pour onto parchment. Spread it out until it is approximately 1/4" thick, sprinkle dried fruit over top and press it into the seed mixture. Be careful it's hot- use a silicone spatula or some other tool for this.

Let cool to room temperature. Leave on parchment and cut into pieces. Peel off parchment when you serve it.

Variations- you can leave out the fruit, or change the seed ratio, or add other "toppings" like chocolate or peanut butter chips. You can also change, or omit, the peel/extract combo, or use a strongly flavored honey to change the flavor. There are as many variations as you could imagine!

Here are some ideas:
Replace fruit with 1/3 cup each peanut butter, semisweet, and white chocolate chips

Omit extract, replace fruit with 1/3 cup each cranberries and chocolate chips.

Omit extract and peel. Add 1 teaspoon "apple pie spice". With seeds, stir in 6-8 ounces chopped dried apple. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup caramel chips.

**While this is starch free, it is very high in maltose. If you have difficulty with honey or maltose, agave syrup is a good substitute.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Cheesy Chickeny Casserole

This is just another variation of a million cheesy casseroles that are floating around the net. But it's yummy, and sometimes it's nice to have a recipe that you don't have to modify.

Cheesy Chickeny Casserole

~ 1 lb broccoli, cut into florets (use more or less as you like)
~ 1 lb cauliflower, cut into florets (ditto)
2 lb chicken
1 can GF cream of chicken soup or cream of mushroom soup**
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup oat flour
1/2 milk (adjust amount as needed)
12 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded or cubed
1 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning, to taste
salt
pepper
olive oil
GF croutons or crackers, if desired
1 tablespoon butter, if using crackers or croutons

In a medium saucepan, combine 2T butter and onion. Soften over medium heat, 5-7 minutes. Add garlic, cook an additional minute. Add oat flour, cook for 1-2 minutes. Add cream of chicken soup and milk, whisk well. When sauce is hot, add cheese. Cook over medium heat, uncovered, stirring frequently until cheese is melted.

Meanwhile, heat a saute pan over medium heat, add 1-2 T olive oil. Season chicken with salt and pepper and Italian seasoning. Brown slightly on each side. You will likely need to cook the chicken in batches; set aside as they are cooked. If you have cubed your chicken, or if your chicken breasts are thin, do not cook them completely but leave them slightly undercooked so they won't overcook in the oven.

In a casserole dish, combine uncooked broccoli and uncooked cauliflower. Add chicken. Cover with cheese sauce.

Bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and casserole is hot. If using croutons/crackers, combine with about 1T of melted butter, and sprinkle over the top of the casserole about 5 minutes before done.

Starch content:
The starch content of the soup will vary depending on brand and variety. Of course, avoid "common" brands such as Campbells as they are not GF. Also, adding any kind of crackers or croutons on the top will raise the starch content considerably. But without any kind of topping this casserole contains 10-13 grams of starch per serving.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program

My son, the reason for this blog, was "diagnosed" with some food allergies last fall. No nuts, no corn (now including syrup and sugar), no fin fish, no shell fish, in addition to all the "No"s he already had. Well, that was great. Just hunky dory. And it was also fantastic timing, given that it was right before Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Ironically, he was pretty much left with fruit, veg, and meat. The title of this blog also became his menu for a while (figuratively, at least). To be honest, it was more than a little disheartening. I was looking at his previous restrictions as a challenge, but this seemed insurmountable. After all, there is only so much that one can do to a Brussels sprout or a carrot stick.

I didn't really cook much for a month, forget about inventiveness. Most of the recipes here had already been created, but when I ran out of them I really lacked the motivation to create anything new. Thus, this poor blog has been a little bit lacking for the last few weeks.


However.....

Last week I came up with my first new recipe in a long time (which I will post shortly) and even better, we got some good news. It appears that the "no nuts" ban will be lifted(it looks like it might have been a false positive). It is my hope that it will be, and he will get nuts back, and I will be able to create some yummy new things once I have something, anything to work with.

In the meantime, go buy some mascapone cheese and some strawberries. I have some yummy almost-starch-free crepes to tell you about.