What's For Dinner?

There are two phrases I'd like stricken from the English language - "Hey mom!" and "What's for dinner?"  For the first one, I just keep threatening to change my name....but they still manage to find me and bug me for something.  But "what's for dinner?" makes me want to run screaming some days.  Seriously, I just fed you people yesterday!  What do you mean I have to do it again today??

Usually, I've forgotten to pull something out of the freezer, so I grab some chunk and pitch it into the sink into a bowl of water to thaw.  Now to figure out what to have with it. Rice?? No, we had that last night.  Pasta??  Nope, forgot to pick up more gluten free pasta. Do we have potatoes?? Score!  Spuds it is!  Ugh, now I have to figure out how to cook them.  Mashed? No gravy. Fried? That's a possibility. Baked?  No time for that! Roasted?  Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!

Pan roasted potatoes is one of my favorite ways to make potatoes.  I often add some carrots in there for yummy sweetness.  There are countless variations to seasoning them, so you can tailor them to just about anything.

Pan Roasted Potatoes

Potatoes - I like to use thin skinned, waxy potatoes.  White, gold, red skinned, purple.....or a combination is great. You can use Russets if that's all you have, but go put waxy potatoes on your store list!

Additions - Roasted carrots are delish.  Da girl can't eat raw carrots anymore due to Oral Allergy Syndrome - raw fruits and veggies cross react with pollens and cause an itchy mouth.  But she can eat them cooked.  Sometimes I add whole peeled garlic cloves.  Minced garlic tends to burn. Onion wedges roast well too.  You want things that you can have in similar sized pieces that will cook in the same amount of time.

Acid - Just a splash of vinegar.....red wine vinegar adds a nice tang.  Balsamic adds some sweetness.  Lemon juice complements seasonings like dill.

Seasoning - Salt is a must, but after that, pretty much anything goes!  Spices work better than dried herbs which have a tendency to burn.  Some good choices are any variety of seasoning salt, grill rubs, chili powder, or even garlic bread seasoning.  I often replicate whatever flavors I'm using on the meat.

Oil - I usually just use my regular olive oil.  This is going to be baked at a high temp, so don't use anything with a really low smoke point.  Infused oils can add another dimension of flavor.

Prep your spuds

 

I have this nifty waffle cutter that works great for this.  You get lots of surface area and crispy edges.  But a knife works too. Larger potatoes can be sliced or cubed. Small marble or fingerling potatoes can just be cut in half or quarters.

Cut other veggies into similar sized pieces.  I'm adding carrots here and giving them the same waffle cut,

Chuck everything in a bowl and add your acid, seasoning and oil of choice.  How much??  Just eyeball it.  A tablespoon or so of acid, a couple tablespoons of oil, a couple teaspoons of seasoning. Toss it all together.  You can leave it marinate for a bit if you've got time.  I usually don't.  But sometimes when I've actually planned ahead, I'll do this prep first and then work on getting the rest of dinner going.  They are better if the seasoning have a chance to soak in a bit.

Spread everything out on a parchment lined tray.  I love parchment!  It saves so much on cleanup.  Don't have any??  Drizzle a bit of extra oil on the pan before dumping things on.  If there is a lot of marinade in the bowl, try to avoid dumping all the liquid on the pan.  It will just burn.

Oh, and you've remembered to turn your oven on to 375F, right?  No?? Well, go do it now!  Bake time is going to depend on how big your pieces are.  Small cubes or halved marble potatoes may be done in as little as 20 minutes.  Larger pieces may take 40 minutes or more.  Set a timer for 15 minutes when you first put them in the oven and check their progress then.  You should be able to judge how far along they are. I have to set timers or I forget to check things!

But, I already have another part of dinner in the oven at a different temperature, you say! That's fine...these are pretty forgiving.  I've roasted them as low as 325F and as high as 425F.  You have to keep a closer eye on them at higher temps as they can burn more quickly.  If using a higher temp, try to put the pan toward the bottom of the oven, under whatever else is in there.  I find this seems to shield them from the heat a little more.

You can toss them around on the tray when you check them at the 1 min mark.  I have a hard time leaving stuff be and one side of my oven seems hotter than the other.  So tossing them around and turning my tray keeps things baking evenly.

Everything will be yummy, golden brown, and delicious!  The spuds and veggies should be soft.  Try not to burn your mouth sampling a piece....you do have to make sure they are properly done.

Tonight's dinner was roasted chicken breasts, pan roasted potatoes and carrots, and a salad.  Now, what am going to make tomorrow when I hear "what's for dinner?"

Cracking Up!

Being gluten free, one thing I really miss is saltines. I used to eat them just plain....or maybe with butter spread on them. Because, ya know, butter makes everything better. I want a cracker that can stand alone. Simple, but flavorful. Sure, there are gluten free crackers out there, but none are quite a saltine.  I'm not a fan of the crunchy rice crackers. That's more of a texture thing - it's just not what I'm looking for. There are others that are closer to what I'm craving, but most have egg in them that I need to avoid.

Back in the day, when da boy was allergic to wheat, I tackled crackers. People thought I was crackers when I'd tell them I was making my own crackers.  Yeah, I made cereal bits too out of gluten free graham cracker dough. There were times when even I questioned my own sanity. I came across a converted version of King Arthur Flour's Traditional Soda Crackers made with a gluten free brown rice flour blend on a celiac newsgroup. Newsgroups - there's a blast from the past!  Of course I had to first tweak the flour blend to remove the cornstarch ....sigh.... nothing is ever easy when dealing with multiple allergies.  But that flour blend became one of my favorites and is really quite versatile.  I would make regular salt top crackers and garlic crackers.  The kids loved them and would down half a tray before they were even completely cooled.  These are crispy and crunchy and buttery.  Still not quite a saltine, but they fit the bill for me. They are not terribly difficult, although take a bit of time.  So worth it if you really miss yummy crackers.

Today, I was craving crackers....and then I spotted the package of Penzey's Pizza Seasoning sitting on the counter.  Hmmm.....pizza flavored crackers??  Oh, yeah!  There went my day!

Gluten Free Soda Crackers

1 1/2 cups  KathyP's Brown Rice Flour Mix (174g)

Ignore the dough hook in the picture - you won't "knead" it.  My original method used it, but you can do all the mixing with the paddle attachment.

2 tsp            instant yeast
1/2 tsp         salt
1/4 tsp         baking soda
1/4 tsp         cream of tartar
2/3 cup        hot water (120°F to 130°F)
1/2 tsp         brown rice syrup (or 1 tsp sugar)
2 Tbsp         coconut oil (or shortening) (28g)

2 Tbsp         butter or margarine (28g)

                    salt, seeds, or other topping

In the bowl of your stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, combine 1 cup of the flour mix, yeast, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar.  Set this on "stir" to combine.

In heatproof measuring cup, combine hot water, coconut oil, butter/margarine, and the brown rice syrup.   Stir until the fats melt.  Add the wet works to dry and mix well to combine.  Put the mixer on medium low speed for a minute.

Scrape down the paddle and bowl.  Add remaining 1/2 cup flour and beat on medium for 3 to 4 minutes.  This is where I added 1/2 tsp pizza seasoning to the dough. This will not look a wheat based dough. It will just be sort of a jiggly mass.  You will surely think it's way too wet, but trust me, it's fine.

Drizzle about 1/2 tsp oil into a zip top quart freezer bag.  Squish it around to coat the inside of the bag.  Scrape the dough out of the mixer bowl and place in oiled bag.  Form dough into a rectangle in the bag and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.  You can even do this overnight.   It won’t rise much.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 425F. 

What you need for this part are several sheets of parchment that fit your baking sheets, a rolling pin, a fork, and some sort of cutter.  A pizza wheel works well here.  Avoid using a knife since that is likely to cut through the parchment.  I use a antique fluted brass cutter that was my great grandmother's. My grandmother passed it down to me and it makes me think of her every time I use it.  She had the patience of Job when us kids would "help" her bake!






Slit the bag open and divide the dough into half or thirds depending on the size of your baking sheets. I use half sheet pans (13" x 18") and divide my dough in half.  Transfer a portion of the dough to a well floured piece of parchment paper (or Silpat).  

Sprinkle with more flour mix and place another piece of parchment on top. Roll dough into a large rectangle about 1/16-inch thick. It's a good idea to keep lifting up the top parchment to make sure nothing is sticking.  Dust with more flour as needed. This stuff is wet and sticky - flour is your friend here.

Fold the dough in from the short ends to make three layers (like folding a letter). This is where it's handy to have a bench scraper or you can just use the parchment like a shirt folder to flop the ends over.





Roll out again, as thin as you can get it making sure the dough is even. Try not to roll over the edges too much as they will get too thin. Remove the top sheet of parchment. I can get even thickness, but I can never get a nice rectangle!  Oh, well, I actually like the jagged edge crackers - I don't feel bad about sampling those as they cool.

Prick the dough all over with a fork. Sprinkle crackers lightly with salt , seeds, or other seasoning if desired. For my pizza crackers, I mixed up 1/2 tsp Kosher salt, 1/4 tsp pizza seasoning, and 1/2 tsp nutritional yeast.  Press salt/seeds lightly into dough with your fingers. 

Cut into squares using a pizza or pastry cutter. I just cut freehand, but if your OCD starts twitching over that, then use a straight edge. Be extra careful if you are doing this directly on a Silpat. Carefully transfer parchment to baking sheet.

Repeat w/ remaining dough.

Bake crackers in a preheated oven for 12 to 18 minutes, depending on the thickness and size of the crackers. Crackers will be lightly browned. Turn off the oven. Separate crackers on the trays.  They will have shrunk slightly, so just separate any that are still touching.  Return pans to oven and prop open the door.  Leave pans in oven for 20 min to finish drying/crisping.    

Remove from baking sheet and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

Stand guard to smack hands that will try to snitch crackers! Store in an airtight container if there are any left!  Enjoy your crackers!

Kathy P's "All Purpose" Brown Rice Flour Mix

I've learned that there really is no "all purpose" flour mix when it comes to gluten free baking.  For a lot of my recipes, I just measure out individual flours and starches.  That way each application can be customized with the flours and starches that work best.  Bread doesn't work with the same combination as cookies.

I do have a couple blends that I keep on hand.  One is a light blend of equal parts rice and 2 parts  starches.  I usually use potato and cornstarch these days, but when we were avoiding corn, I used potato and tapioca.  I don't use this mix a lot anymore, and if I do, I'm adding it to another heavy flour like sorghum.

One blend that I've been using for a long time that does work in a lot of places is this brown rice flour blend.  I came across it on a celiac newsgroup way back when.  I don't even remember what newsgroup.  I had to modify the blend to remove the cornstarch and all I have anymore is my handwritten recipe card. This blend works well in cookies and muffins.  It's not as gritty as most other rice flour blends.  It seems complicated since it uses a lot of different flours and starches, but they all do play well together and give a nice texture.  This blend is the basis for my Yankee Doodle Biscuits and GF Soda Crackers.  It's my go to blend for most cookies too, especially shortbread type cookies.  This blend already has xanthan gum in it, so usually you can omit any called for in recipes.  You will definitely be seeing more recipes using it.

Kathy P's Brown Rice Flour Mix (116 g/cup)

This makes about 4 1/4 cups, but I usually scale it up and make a quadruple batch.

1 cup (120g)        brown rice flour
1 1/2 cup (180g)  white rice flour
1/4 cup (36g)       potato starch
2/3 cup (70g)       tapioca starch
3/4 cup ( 81g)      sweet rice flour (Mochiko)
1/3 cup (36g)       arrowroot starch
2 tsp                     xanthan gum

Mix together thoroughly and store in an airtight container.  Give it a stir before using.

Yankee Doodle Biscuits

I'm a Yankee...I was born and raised north of the Mason Dixon line.  I know about pretzels and scrapple.  Biscuits were not a staple at our house.  The rare times that we did have biscuits, they were Bisquick "drop biscuits" or pucks that exploded out of a cardboard tube.  So, why is a Northern girl talking about biscuits?? Because I figured out how to rock those babies!  They may not hold a candle to your Southern grandma's buttermilk biscuits, but I bet she's not making gluten, dairy, and egg free ones. These come out flaky and wonderful and are still better than any biscuit I ever had as a kid!

This recipe started out as a tweak to Alton Brown's "healthier" biscuit recipe that used part whole wheat flour.  I had modified it way back when to make it dairy and corn free.  I used part all-purpose flour and part whole wheat pastry flour.  When I decided to tackle it gluten free, I figured I could start with my brown rice flour mix and be able to lighten that up a bit with more starch to emulate the lower protein flour blend.  I chose cornstarch since that adds nicely to the texture and there is not already cornstarch in the flour mix.  If you can't use corn, swap it out for another starch.

I stumbled on to a number of tricks as I was perfecting this recipe.....

• Treat it gently - Even though there is no gluten to activate, you still need to handle this as little and as gently as possible.  If you go all gangbusters, you will wind up with tough biscuits.  Pat it out gently. Use a pastry blender for all the mixing to avoid transferring the heat of your hands to the dough.

• Uniformity is not your friend - When cutting in the fat, you want to leave some pieces larger than others.  Don't work it until everything is "coarse meal".  This goes along with....

• Flip and fold - This brilliant little trick dawned on me as I was looking at puff pastry methods where you work the fat in by wrapping dough around a block of butter then begin a process to fold and roll thus building up layers of flour and fat.  In the heat of the oven, those layers of fat will melt bathing the flour to create lovely flaky layers.  Leaving some larger pieces of fat and doing a couple quick folds really makes these biscuits flaky.  Don't skip this step!

• Invest in a scale - I've converted over to weighing out my flours since even slight variations can effect the outcome of gluten free baking.  It's really worth the $30 investment for a scale.  But I've included volume measurements for the scale impaired.

Yankee Doodle Biscuits

154g       Brown Rice Flour Mix
                    (1 1/2 cups) - see below
64g         cornstarch ( 1/2 cup)
1 Tbsp    baking powder
1 tsp       salt
1/2 cup   cold butter or margarine, cubed
3/4 cup   cold milk alternative
                   (I use unsweetened So Delicious
                     Coconut)







Preheat oven to 425F.


Measure out the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl.  Cut fat (butter or margarine) into cmall cubes using a sharp knife.

Using a pastry blender, cut in the fat.  Don't overdo this; leave some larger pieces.

Pour the milk alternative in and, using the pastry blender, gently mix until you have a soft dough.  This may seem a bit wet, but that's OK. Dust your counter liberally with flour mix and dump out the contents of the bowl.

Using your hands, gently gather everything up and pat it together into a rectangle. Don't be afraid to dust with extra flour as needed. This actually helps maintain the layers of dough.  Fold 1/3 over the center, then fold over the other side.

Give it a quarter turn and gently pat out into a rectangle again.  Liberally sprinkle with flour to make sure nothing is sticking to the counter or to your hands. Repeat the folding, then pat out to rectangle again.  This time, pat it out evenly to about a thickness of 1/2".

Cut out using a floured cutter.  Place on a parchment lined baking sheet about an inch apart.

Gather up the scraps and gently pat it back together.  This is a bit tricky as you need to smoosh it together enough so it doesn't just fall apart, but not so much as you loose your layers.  Cut out as many more biscuits as you can.

I generally do one more gather, pat, and cut.  Those last scraps, I just gather up and pat into a round.  That becomes my "cook's treat".  You only get nice flaky layers when you have a clean cut on the edges.  So, that last one that is just patted together and doesn't have cut edges will not puff up as nicely.  That's OK - that one's mine!  That's the one I get to eat as soon as they come out of the oven.  The one I get to eat with no guilt!  See that one on the lower left??  That has my name all over it!





Bake biscuits for 12-15 minutes depending on size.  This is the perfect time to brew yourself a pot of tea and decide on butter or jam.









Because they are gluten free, they will only get slightly golden.  Allow to cool a few minutes before serving.  If you won't be serving them immediately, transfer to a cooling rack to keep them from getting soggy on the bottom.  Nobody likes soggy bottoms.

Don't they look fabulous??  Check out those flaky layers!  Yes, those ARE really gluten free!  Enjoy your cook's treat with your tea and jam of choice.  I'm having mine with butter and my grandmother's peach butter....because at her house, we were allowed to have butter AND jelly! That's my last jar.....I'll have to make a batch before peaches are completely out of season!  Unfortunately, I had to share this one with my photographer......next time, I'm baking while the kids are in school!

Brown Rice Flour Mix (116 g/cup)

This is one of my go-to flour mixes that I keep on hand.  It works well cup for cup in cookies and muffins.  It already has xanthan gum in it, so usually you can omit any called for in recipes.  This makes 4 1/4 cups, but I usually scale it up and make a quadruple batch.

1 cup (120g)        brown rice flour
1 1/2 cup (180g)  white rice flour
1/4 cup (36g)       potato starch
2/3 cup (70g)       tapioca starch
3/4 cup ( 81g)      sweet rice flour (Mochiko)
1/3 cup (36g)       arrowroot starch
2 tsp                     xanthan gum

Mix together thoroughly and store in an airtight container.  Give it a stir before using.