Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Garlic (No knife required)

This evening, I injured myself while attempting to cut up a small chicken. I was working on a how-to video, and then my husband came in, not realizing that I had the camera on. I was giving him the “quiet, please,” face, instead of watching what I was doing. The knife slipped…and there you go. And now I have the whole thing on video. Fabulous.

Roasted Brussels sprouts

Inspired by my mishap, I decided to share an extremely easy and knife-free recipe that uses only 5 ingredients (plus one optional), and is quite healthy.

Two out of three of my kids even like these. That’s about as good as we ever do in our house, since the youngest is the pickiest person I've ever known.

These sprouts are very forgiving. I have put them in the oven right before going out for a run, and returned later than I expected to find them darker than I anticipated, but just as delicious. They pair well with anything robust or tomatoey. However, in our house, we normally eat them right off the roasting pan as soon as they are cool enough to touch. 

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Ingredients

1 lb. Brussels sprouts

(I like the pre-washed bag, but the long stalks with the sprouts still attached also look very cool).

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Dried flaked red pepper

Optional: 4-5 whole cloves of garlic with the papery peel still on

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400F

Set out a broiler pan, roasting pan, or other large, shallow pan.

Place the sprouts in a mixing bowl. Pour about a tablespoon of olive oil over the sprouts. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper (probably about ¼ tsp each, depending on your tastes). Add the dried red pepper flakes to taste. I like my sprouts spicy, so I use about ¼ tsp.

If desired, add the whole, unpeeled garlic cloves. Swirl the bowl around so that the sprouts roll about in the oil and seasonings. Pour the sprouts onto the baking sheet. Roast them in the preheated oven for about 35-40 minutes, until the outer leaves turn very dark and are nearly black. They might look close to burned, but the olive oil should keep them from drying out.

When the sprouts are done, remove them from the oven. Pull out the garlic cloves, and squeeze the gooey roasted garlic out of the papery skin and onto a small cutting board. Roughly chop/mash the garlic goo, then return it to the pan with the sprouts, stirring the two together before placing them in a nice serving dish and taking them to the table. (Or eating all the sprouts right off the pan like vegetable addicts)

Note:

This is not a good dish to make the first time you have a new guy/girl over for dinner. The sprouts will make your house smell like farts for the first 20 minutes they are roasting. I know that’s not very ladylike, but I thought you should know. 

Gluten-Free Cornbread

We use this cornbread as an accompaniment for chili and any type of barbecue. It's also a key part of our cornbread dressing for Thanksgiving (the recipe for which is coming soon).

Cornbread with butter & honey

Gluten-Free Cornbread
1 1/4 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free All-Purpose Baking Flour
3/4 cup gluten-free corn meal
1/4 tsp Xanthan gum (optional: The dough will be thinner without it, but it still works)
1/4 cup sugar (or honey or agave nectar)*
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup plain Greek yogurt (or regular plain yogurt)**
2/3 cup milk**
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted (or melted butter)
2 whole eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 400F.
Grease an 8- or 9-inch pan. (I use a 9-inch round stoneware pan for this).
In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.
In another medium bowl, combine the liquid ingredients.
Pour the dry ingredients into the wet, stir well, and pour the batter into the greased stoneware pan.
Allow the batter to sit for 3-4 minutes before baking.
Bake at 400F for 25 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve warm, with butter and honey or all-fruit preserves.

Use the leftovers for cornbread stuffing.

Notes:


I specify Bob's gluten-free flour because each company uses a different mix. I find that some of the brands soak up too much liquid, requiring changes to the recipe.



*For the sweetener, you can use either regular sugar, honey or agave nectar. The liquid sweeteners make the batter thinner and the final product a little crunchier, but it works. You can vary the amount of sweetener based on your personal preference. If you like a sweeter cornbread, use 1/3 cup. If you are accustomed to "Southern" cornbread, try using 1/2 cup sugar.

About the liquid:
**In this recipe, I use a combination of Greek yogurt and milk. Alternatively, you could omit the yogurt + milk and use 1 cup of buttermilk. Buttermilk works great, but I do not always have it on hand.
For the lactose-intolerant, omit the yogurt + milk and instead use 1 cup of almond or soy milk + 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar. Mix and let sit 5 minutes before using. The texture will change with this variation.

Spaghetti sans pasta

Every time I go to the grocery store, I see more and more gluten-free pasta products. I am glad there is an increasing variety of gluten-free food, but it's also expensive and high-carbohydrate.

Spicy tomato sauce oer a baked sweet potato

One of the great health benefits of going wheat-free is that you have the opportunity to fill the void left in your diet with more vegetables.

I used to love making spaghetti. I went through a few months after I quit wheat, where I did not make it at all, because I didn't want to spring for the gluten-free spaghetti noodles. Eventually, I got creative and started putting delicious tomato sauce on top of any vegetable that would stand still for a few minutes. Here are some of my new favorite bases for spaghetti sauce:

• Slice zucchini and sautee in olive oil, butter or coconut oil until tender. Season with salt and pepper. Top with sauce.
• Prick a sweet potato all over with a fork, wrap in foil, bake at 400F for one hour (or microwave). Cut open and fill with sauce. (This is particularly good with a spicy tomato sauce--or chili)
• Bake a white potato. Fill with sauce.
• Make mashed potatoes, top with sauce.
• Cut an acorn or butternut squash in half and scrape out seeds. Place cut-side down in a baking dish. Add just enough water to fill the bottom of the pan. Bake at 350F for 1 hour. Top with sauce.
• Using the same cooking method, bake a spaghetti squash. When cooked, scrape out the stringy pulp and place in a colander to drain for about 5 minutes, pressing down on the pulp with a rubber scraper from time to time, before plating and topping with sauce.

Crazy little thing called swing

Charles Dickens had no idea he was summing up my 30s when he said, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” I was newly divorced, which was a good and bad thing at the same time. I was finding my own feet again. My kids were young, and their father and I had arranged for shared physical custody. So they spent half their time with me and half with him—kind of like the arrangement Demeter had with Hades over Persephone. Except my kids aren’t Greek gods, but it still sort of felt like the summer bloomed when they arrived, and winter’s frost settled in when they left.

While they were away, I had plenty of time to get into trouble. But mostly, I worked. I worked at work, then I worked out at the gym. I came home and ate lentil soup, and then I worked at my freelance job until I fell asleep on my sofa, usually on top of the laptop.

It sounds like I had no social life, but that's not true. I dated a series of high-quality individuals. I can’t say what happened to any of them, but I would guess that they are still stoutly holding down barstools around town.

After spinning my wheels in this manner for a couple of years, I eventually developed a new axiom about my life. If I didn’t really love it, I was not going to waste my time on it. This applied to food, clothes, and relationships. I stopped eating at Chick Fil-A, figuring I would not really starve before I could get home and cook an egg. I stopped spending money on mediocre clothes, knowing that I had enough in the closet to avoid an arrest for indecent exposure, and I didn’t have money to waste on items that would sit in the back of the closet unworn. Lastly, I stopped hanging around with people who really didn’t have time for me, because they needed to spend quality time with their beverage of choice. 

I realized that spending time with unsuitable people did not, in fact, make me a better person by comparison.

Changing my standards created a lot more free time in my life, and I decided to fill that with something I had always wanted to do: learning to dance. I had grown up dancing. I took ballet classes whenever I could, and when I couldn’t, I danced around the living room. The only thing I did more than dance as a kid was write. As a young adult, I took ballet and jazz. But I had never learned how to dance as a couple. My first husband and the people I dated were anti-dance, so I would have had to choose between my guy and my hobby. In retrospect, that may not have been a bad thing.

Joel and I after we'd been dancing together for a few years.

With ample free time and no one to stop me, I started taking ballroom dance classes at The Ballroom in Centreville, VA. I went to their Friday night dances. Everyone made me feel welcome. The experienced people asked me to dance. I socialized. I stayed until the dances ended, and I went out for late dinner with the dancers afterward.

Although I enjoyed all the dance styles, I loved swing music the best. It's such a happy beat. I don't understand how anyone can be depressed or bored when listening to "In the Mood." I knew I wanted to learn more swing dance, so I signed up for the Ballroom's classes. 

Then there was Christmas 2008. My kids were at their dad's house. I had spent my Christmas day watching a "Rocky" marathon, and then I traveled about an hour to a ballroom dance in Chevy Chase. I waited 30 minutes on a dark, 30-degree street corner before someone (not the host) opened the door. They had to call the host at home, and it took him another half-hour to arrive. This spectacular event was attended by approximately six other people. It was a Merry Christmas party indeed.

The day after Christmas was a Friday. The Ballroom's regular Friday night dance was canceled. 

I went online and found swing dance in Herndon--another hour drive. I didn't really want to venture out that December 26. It was raining. I didn't know exactly where I was going. I was tired, and I could feel the stringy black fingers of depression trying to drag me down into the sofa. But faced with a choice between 1) sheets of rain and 2) another movie marathon followed by falling asleep on the sofa, I suited up and went out. 

The rain fell so hard it was disorienting. My Mapquest directions led me to an exit that didn't exist. I drove up and down the same five miles of Rt. 28 in Herndon for half an hour before I decided to give up and go home. And then I heard a Voice in my head. You know that Voice. It's the quiet one, the one that's not your own. The one you have to listen to. "You are not going home," it said. "You are going to find this dance."

So I kept looking. I found the dance, and I fell in love. The love grew over several years of Gottaswing classes and weekend workshops around the country. It was the music, it was the joy of being surrounded by 20 or 40 or 400 swing dancers who didn't really care about anyone else's clothing labels, car, or conversational skills. Dancing and the music occupy so much of your mind, there is no space left over to think about whatever thing was bothering you during the day. Even though I didn't really know what I was doing at that first dance, I was a witness to joy. And a great love was born. Between me and the music and the dancers, and everyone who helps keep this thing alive. (That was also where I met my husband. But that's another story)

That is how I got into swing dance. I'd love to hear your story.

Homemade gluten-free apple pie with Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Pie Crust

I recently received a “hot off the press” package of Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Pie Crust. I have been waiting for inspiration to arrive ever since. Today, I made a homemade apple pie and the reviews from the family were: “Ultra-delicious” and “I was A-ok with the pie-crust.” I am the only GF person in the house, and I do like it when even the wheat-eaters enjoy what I’m making.

Bob was generous with this crust: it filled out the pan nicely. The finished product wasn’t really flaky like traditional wheat crusts; it was more crumbly, like shortbread. But it did shatter at the touch of the fork, it wasn’t dry, heavy, doughy or soggy, and it tasted delicious. I think it would make a great base for any pie. I expect to try it as a quiche crust next.

Comments & Notes:

• The recipe on the bag calls for 20 tbsp of fat (a mix of butter and shortening)--not exactly health food. You wouldn’t want to eat like this every day, but it’s okay for a special occasion, and when you have a lot of people to share it with.
• After adding the ice water to the mix, the dough will need to be mixed with your hand (not a wooden spoon) to get it to come together.
• Do roll out the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap. As a rice-flour-based mix, this dough is very crumbly and it would never survive rolling and direct contact with both the pin and work surface. The plastic makes it neat and easy to work and place in the pan. 

Recipe

Rolling the dough

Pie Crust

1 bag Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Pie Crust Mix

12 tbsp butter

8 tbsp shortening or coconut oil

Prepare the crust per package directions. Separate dough into two disks, wrap in plastic and place in the refrigerator to chill for one hour.

Roll each half of the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap until it’s about 10 inches in diameter.

Peel off the top sheet of plastic wrap and gently invert the bottom crust into a 9-inch pie pan, then gently remove the second sheet of plastic wrap.

Roll out the second half of the crust to about 9.5-10 inches in diameter. Remove the top sheet of plastic and cut four steam vents in the crust (each about 1.5 inches long and near the center).

Prepared bottom crust

Preheat the oven to 425F and prepare the filling.

Filling

6 apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced

½ cup sugar

2 tbsp gluten-free cornstarch

1 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp cloves

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tbsp butter, cut into 4 cubes

Sugar for sprinkling

Place the sliced apples in a mixing bowl. Add the sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Mix well. Pour the fruit into the prepared bottom crust in the pie pan, compressing the fruit slightly with a wooden spoon, and mounding the apples higher in the center.

Drop the 4 cubes of butter on top of the apples.

Handling gently by the one remaining sheet of plastic, place the second crust on top of the pie and remove the plastic wrap. Cut off any excess, overhanging crust and crimp the edges with the tines of a fork. Dust the top crust of the pie with sugar.

Ready for the oven

Bake the pie in a 425F oven for 30 minutes, and then lower the heat to 350F and bake for another 30 minutes. The pie is done when the crust is golden brown and juices are bubbling up.

Serve warm, maybe even with ice cream if you're feeling really naughty.

Decimated.

Gluten-free beef stew & homemade biscuits

Gluten-free beef stew

The traditional method for beef stew involves dredging the meat in a flour mixture, which will provide body to the finished broth, but it also adds gluten. I replaced the flour with a little cornstarch, so the broth still has some thickness. For a paleo version, you could omit the starch and potato, but it would be more of a soup than a stew.

This is one of our favorite chilly-day beef stew recipes. Feel free to alter the vegetables. If you don’t like mushrooms, leave them out. No harm done. Stable root vegetables like sweet potatoes, rutabagas, and parsnips all work well in a stew.

This stew takes about 2 hours from start to finish, but most of that is sitting-on-the-stove time. That’s nice, because you can go and do other things, like exercise, do laundry, or take a nap while the stew is cooking. There is also much chopping of vegetables.  You could use a food processor to speed up the process. I prefer to chop by hand because I like uniformly sized pieces (processing an onion usually gives me a combination of onion mush and one large onion ball about the size of a walnut).

When you buy cubes of “beef for stew” at the store, they are usually cut in enormous hunks. I like to cut it smaller. To facilitate the cutting, I put the meat in the freezer for a few minutes before cutting. However, do not re-freeze meat that has already been frozen and thawed.

Ingredients:

¼ tsp coconut oil

1 onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 ½ cups carrots, chopped

1-1.5 lbs beef cubes for stew

1.5 tbs. cornstarch

½ tsp pepper

½ tsp garlic powder

8 oz mushrooms, chopped

1 clove minced garlic

¼ cup red wine

8 cups water

2 redskin potatoes, chopped

1/8 tsp crushed dried red pepper

½ tsp oregano

salt to taste (optional)

If the meat is fresh, pop it in the freezer to firm it up for cutting while you cut the vegetables.

In a large soup or stock pot over medium-high heat, melt the coconut oil. Add the chopped onion, celery and carrots. Stir occasionally and let brown while you cut the meat.

Cut the meat into rough 1-cm cubes. Place cut meat cubes into a small mixing bowl. Sprinkle on 1.5 tbsp corn starch, ½ tsp pepper and ½ tsp garlic powder. Mix with your hands to evenly coat the meat. Turn out the meat into the soup pot with the onions, celery and carrots. Stir occasionally until the meat browns on all sides.

Add the chopped mushrooms. Stir and cook until the mushrooms release their liquid, about a minute or two.

Add the minced garlic to the soup pot and stir for about 1 minute.

Add the red wine and allow the mixture to boil for a minute or two.

Add 8 cups water and the copped redskin potatoes, keeping the heat medium-high until the liquid comes to a boil. Lower the heat to medium-low. Simmer the soup for 1.5 hours, until the meat is tender and all the vegetables are well cooked. (In the meantime, you can watch football, check your email, make gluten-free biscuits, go for a walk, etc.) Add the crushed dried red pepper and oregano. Serve hot.

Gluten-free biscuits

Note: I do not roll these out like traditional biscuits because the GF variety tends to stick and fall apart. Pressing the dough flat and rolling makes nice triangle wedges with minimal fuss. Handle with care—they do crumble easily when baked.

Makes 8 biscuit wedges.

Preheat the oven to 450F.

Stir together in the large bowl of an electric mixer:

1½ cup Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-free flour

¾ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

Blend into the flour mixture, on low speed

4 tbsp cold butter, cut into half-tbsp slivers

Blend until the butter and flour mixture forms pea-sized balls.

Add

½ cup milk (more or less—the dough should just begin to come together)

Blend until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the mixer and form a ball.

Using a rubber scraper, place the entire dough ball onto a pizza stone or cookie sheet.  With the rubber scraper, press the dough into a flat round, about 8 inches in diameter.

With a knife, cut the flat round into eight wedges, separating the wedges slightly with the edge of the knife to allow room for expansion.

Bake until lightly browned, 12-15 minutes. Serve hot.