5 Gluten Free Quarantine Baking Recipes I Love

During my state's "stay at home" time (which is now being phased out) I have been baking more.

 

Rather than a giving detailed recipes, this is a round-up of foods I've made and links to the original recipe.
Note: I eat gf to keep my belly happy. All 5 recipes are gluten free. Some of these recipes are also paleo, dairy free, nut free or refined sugar free. That's just an added bonus.

Bamboozled by Jackfruit

Before all this social distancing, I went out to a restaurant with a friend.  She was my boss at the bakery where I used to work, and we hadn't seen each other since I left the bakery to focus on my last semester in school.

The restaurant was one of those fancy, local, organic Mexican restaurants, with many of the taco names in Spanish. We both got the pick three tacos option, and blue corn tortillas. I got two meat tacos, and one vegan taco with jackfruit on it. I've never eaten jackfruit in my life. I usually have sour cream and cheese on my tacos, but none of the ones I picked had either.

The Al Pastor One
Pork shoulder marinated in pureed onion and Guajillo Pepper with grilled pineapple, onions and cilantro. (I got this one for the pineapple. It was my favorite - slightly spicy, but not too much.)
According to the Pioneer Woman, "Al Pastor" means "shepherd style." This pork taco takes inspiration from Lebanese immigrants to central Mexico. Read more here

The Mole One
Puebla Pollo (chicken) with radishes, sesame seeds, and cilantro. Contains nuts. (This wasn't spicy. It was kinda bland, and my least favorite. My friend thought "mole" might mean it had chocolate, but it didn't taste like it.)

The Jackfruit One
Sauteed BBQ jackfruit with mango salsa, chipotle date yogurt and cilantro. (This was super spicy. I avoided all the tacos on the menu with a flame icon next to it, but this was the hottest of the three I tried. Keep in mind I'm not used to spicy food. I think it's the chipotle that brings the heat. Speaking of Chipotle, I usually get chicken there because it's the least spicy, and skip the salsa.)

When my order arrived,  I could not tell which order was which. I was wishing I had photographed the menu, because after reading all the descriptions, they ran together in my brain. Lets see there's the pineapple meat one, the mole one and uh... they all look and taste like they have meat on them. That's odd. If one has mango and another has pineapple, wheres the jackfruit? I was expecting something sweet.

Later, I looked up jackfruit and turns out it has stringy flesh that vegans love to barbecue as a meat replacement. I could not tell the difference! Note that jackfruit has less protein than meat.

(If you couldn't tell yet, I listed the taco descriptions first to last in the order they are in the photo left to right.)

My friend got the the Carne Asada One: roast (grilled marinated flank steak, onion, cilantro, and cotija cheese [cow's milk hard cheese]), the Cauliflower One (veggie: roasted blackened cauliflower topped with avocado slices + red cabbage + guacamole salsa), and the Tinga One (spicy chipotle, crema and micro greens)


Local friends: Vivir Modern Mexican has reopened with limited hours and menu due to COVID-19 according to their Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/eatvivir/ May 15 2020.

How to Enjoy Veggies: Butternut Squash (Gluten Free and Dairy Free Option)

This recipe for squash is approved by picky eaters, both kids and adults who don’t like squash. (That is, they didn’t like squash until they tried this recipe.)

My mom has made it for years and the whole family enjoys it. Our extended family enjoyed this dish for Christmas and gave it thumbs up. This dish solves both flavor and texture issues with squash. It gets

Gluten-Free Chicken Salad Three Ways

Chicken salad is so refreshing in summer. It’s also quick and easy to make, and very versatile. You can serve chicken salad as lettuce wraps, spread it on sandwiches, or dip it with chips and crackers.

We don’t measure our basic chicken salad recipe. We throw in a dollop of this and a handful of that.

How to Cook Gluten Free Pasta Like a Pro

You’re gonna need a bigger pot

Have you ever tried to cook gluten free pasta, only to have it turn out starchy and globby? Did the noodles stick to the bottom of the pan and burn? Was the starch so thick that it would not drain off, even when you rinsed the pasta with water?

Bad news: you’re doing it wrong.

Good news: you can cook better pasta in the future.

Look Ma, no starch!

Regular readers will know that my mom does not believe in following recipes to the letter.

Turns out, to cook pasta properly you’re supposed to

"Homemade" Pizza {Gluten-Free}

My family loves pizza. I've reviewed some restaurant pizza on the blog, but only made passing reference to the kind of pizza we eat the most: "homemade" pizza. It's not really homemade because it's a mix, but close enough.

We use Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Pizza Crust Mix. For our family of six (now five since my sister moved away) we mix up two packages of crust to make two rectangular pizzas, and enjoy the leftovers.

Speedy Gluten Free Stuffing

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I thought I'd share my gluten-free stuffing recipe. It does not take long to throw together as long as you have gluten-free bread.

This was a life-saver if I needed a last-minute meal.

Early on in my gluten-free journey, I had some awkward moments where I realized I could not eat the main meal due to a hidden source of gluten.

Gluten Free Ham and Broccoli Quiche

With sweet potato crust.

This summer, my Nana made a quiche with “surprise” crust. She wouldn’t tell us what it was until we ate it, since some members of my extended family are afraid to eat things that are gluten free! I know the label can be scary, but rest assured, gluten free does not mean tasteless, as this savory, cheesy fare proves.

My mom does not usually make quiche because some of her children do not enjoy egg-y dishes, but when Nana’s quiche was so well-received, she was inspired to re-create the dish at home.

Gluten Free Baking Powder Biscuits

This recipe was written on lined paper and stored in our Betty Crocker Cookbook. It turns out the original was from my mom’s middle school home economics class. (We will not mention how long ago that was.) We played with the proportions of gluten-free flours before settling on the best ratio. This recipe is a basic staple. It makes a quick, versatile dough perfect for strawberry shortcake or garlic cheese biscuits. We also like to wrap the dough around hot dogs for pigs-in-blankets. The biscuits are soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside. They're also egg free.

Five Guys Burgers and Fries Restaurant Review

I’ve eaten at Five Guys multiple times, and in multiple different locations and I can confidently say the food is great, and so is the service. (Sadly, I have not had their milkshakes since they are only available at select locations.)

Basically, everything but the bun is gluten free.

Cooking Without Mom

I have an idea for a new cooking show: Cooking Without Mom.

We’ll send the mom on a weekend getaway at a bed and breakfast*, and watch what happens when her family tries to conquer the kitchen without her.

Cooking Without Mom - Left and Write
Meijer's rotisserie chicken

Perhaps it should be titled Man vs Small Appliances.

Gluten-Free Dairy-Free Squash Risotto

We originally found this recipe on the back of a Aidells sausage package. Ironically, we are no longer buying those sausages because we found that we like Alfresco better.
The original recipe calls for onion and white wine and Parmesan cheese, but we left those out because we didn't have some of those ingredients on hand and we wanted to make the recipe dairy free.

Crepes for tortillas

Recently, I'd had enough with round store-bought place-mats marketed as gluten free tortillas. So maybe they are not that bad, but I have braces right now and I can't chew cardboard. My mom suggested I try using some homemade gluten-free crepes for tortillas. If you Google "tortilla crepes" you'll find that tortillas are often used as dessert crepes, but I reversed that substitution, using crepes as tortillas.

The first time I tried it, the crepes were soft and bendable, but oddly sweet. Omitting the vanilla in the crepes fixed the flavor. These crepes are more oily that typical tortillas due to the coconut oil they are cooked in, but I'm not complaining. They are bendable, but I'm not gonna lie, they do sometimes crack because they are so soft, not because they are brittle.

Chili and Cornbread {Gluten Free}

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... everywhere is snow! When it's chilly outside, our family loves to eat chili. We recently served chili at our church, and there were no complaints. This chili appeals to the masses with its milder flavor.

Chili Ingredients:

plain chili, before anything else is added

1 pound ground beef
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 (14 ounces) cans of diced tomatoes-- if, early in fall, we have any garden tomatoes on hand, we peel 'em and cut 'em and throw 'em in the pot.
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon cumin

½ teaspoon coriander
1 cup tomato juice
1 Tablespoon honey
1 (16 ounces) can of navy or Great Northern Beans

The Outback Steakhouse: Restaurant Review

First of all, The Outback Steakhouse did not pay me to review their restaurant. Several days ago I went there of my own free will and curiosity.

I knew from looking it up online that The Outback has a gluten-free menu. If you want you can take a look at it here. At the restaurant, I requested and received the gluten-free menu without any hiccups. The menu has most of the items that are on the regular menu, with details about what is and is not gluten-free. Next to the salads, it advises, "ask for no croutons." The Outback does not offer gluten-free bread or buns, so if you want a burger, ask for no bun. The main dish I ordered was also on the regular menu, and by default came with Aussie fries. The gluten-free menu alerted me that Aussie fries are not gluten free. I am not sure if the fries themselves have gluten, or if the fries are fried in the same oil as battered-and-fried foods. Either way, I opted for a different side. When I ordered, the waitress asked, "Are you the gluten-free one?" I said yes, and she made some note on her paper. I suspect that cook took some precautions with my food. See if you can guess what I ordered from the picture:

Fried Rice {Gluten Free}

I realize I have been posting mostly dessert recipes, so I am going to post a main dish today. When my mom was describing this meal to someone, she called it “A marriage between Indian and Chinese rice.” The American melting pot would be more accurate! The seasonings are loosely based on Indian Biryani rice, but the dish is not spicy. At all. I have had rice at an actual Indian-family-from-India’s house, and they said they toned down the spices, but my mouth was still burning! There are also fried eggs mixed in this recipe, which is a Chinese thing. We generally refer to it as fried rice. 

Ingredients

1 ½ cups rice

3 cups water

1 carrot

1 teaspoon salt

~1 cup raisins

~2 cups cooked chicken

1-2 beaten eggs

coconut oil

~1 cup frozen peas.

1 teaspoon coriander 

1 teaspoon turmeric

 ½ teaspoon chili powder

¼ teaspoon garlic powder

Directions

Measure 1 ½ cups rice and 3 cups water into a pan, and bring to a boil. 

While it is heating up, peel and slice a carrot. Once the pot is boiling, add the carrot, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. 

If you don’t have any leftover cooked chicken you can pull out of the fridge, now would be a good time to start cooking some chicken to serve with the rice. For our family of six, we need at least 2 cups. 

When the rice is almost done, fry one or 2 beaten eggs with coconut oil in a large fry pan, and add ~1