Easy Peasy Coq au Vin

Coq au vin may sound luxurious, but in reality it was originally found in the kitchens of peasants. Roosters who'd outlived their breeding days were stewed in cheap wine to make the tough ol' birds edible - tasty, in fact.

We don't have old roosters strutting around in our yard. Instead, I buy bone-in chicken thighs and remove the skin.

I tossed potatoes and apples into the pot with the chicken and onions. Some folks use mushrooms and bacon. You could also just do the chicken and onions then serve with pasta/rice and a vegetable. This is one of those dishes that you can really simplify or really dress up. I aimed for a very simplified, one-pot-meal version.

Ingredients I Use (but you can be pretty creative!)
Oil (I used grapeseed)
Bone-in chicken thighs (I used 6; remove the skin before cooking)
Flour (I used rice flour)
Seasonings (I used Italian Seasoning, but you can use whatever you like)
Salt 'n Pepper
Onions (I used 2)
Garlic (I used 3 cloves)
Cooking Wine/Apple Juice/Cheap Wine/maybe even Beer
Soy Sauce (optional, but adds a nice layer of flavour)
Water
Potatoes
Apples (could use carrots, celery, whatever you have on-hand, or nothing else at all!)

Heat the oil in a large cooking pot. Put the flour, seasonings, and s&p into a large plastic freezer baggie, add the chicken pieces and shake til they're well-coated.

Peel and chunk your onions, peel and chop your garlic (or just use whole).

Place the chicken pieces into the oil and let them brown on all sides. Remove the chicken piece from the pot and turn the temperature down to about medium low.

Add the onions and garlic to the oil in the pot.

For the "sauce" you will need to decide what amounts to put in to get a taste that you like. I poured in about 1/4 - 1/3 bottle of cooking wine, then added a bit of soy sauce at a time til the sauce tasted just a bit stronger than I would like. I then added chopped potatoes with the skin still on and returned the chicken pieces to the pot. I added enough water** for everything to cook without the sauce becoming too thick too soon.

Lid on. Medium heat. About half an hour later, I peeled/cored/chunked a couple of apples and tossed them into the pot for a few more minutes and voila!

**Chicken or vegetable stock would also work instead of water, but I found the soy sauce did a nice job of adding in the extra flavour without the extra cost or using up frozen, homemade stock.

Dandelions

Today I'm enjoying dandelion tea with fresh ginger shavings. What a flavour treat! I have to say, the ginger is surprising me. I've never been fond of ginger in cooking, but really enjoyed the homemade ginger soda my son and I made back in August. I decided to add some to my tea this morning and it's so good.

Back to dandelions.

They can be used in such a variety of ways. And they have amazing nutritional value: Calcium, Iron, Protein, Fibre, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and more!

Go ahead, check it out!
http://health.msn.com/nutrition/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=100256169&imageindex=13

Potato Candy

My Mom used to make this when we were kids. The family recipe was basically "mash a potato, add icing sugar to form a stiff-ish dough, add a bit of peppermint flavouring if desired, roll out in large rectangle, spread with peanut butter, roll like a jellyroll, refrigerate, slice, gobble."

That's how I made it for years. With Josh and I now being the only ones home most of the time, a smaller amount is needed. So - about 3 tablespoons of mashed potato, then about half a cup of icing sugar at a time til a nice workable dough is achieved. After all these years, I'm still amazed at the magic of the sugar/starch breakdown.

Alternatives: Almond butter can substitute for the peanut butter. Some folks roll the dough into balls and roll in cinnamon or cocoa and/or add coconut and/or dip in chocolate. Some folks form a ball around a chocolate-covered peanut. There are also potato candy recipes out there that don't use potato as an ingredient but are done up to look like little potatoes. Go wild! It's potato candy! Have fun!

2-Ingredient, Snack-Size GFCF Pancakes

Ingredients

24 Rice Crackers (I used Superstore's plain, "no name" crackers)
3 Eggs

That's it!
I used my "Magic Bullet" and first made the rice crackers into crumbs then blended in the eggs. I spooned the batter into a non-stick frying pan and cooked just til the batter seemed to start firming up, then flipped them over. Watch that they don't burn.
****This recipe only makes 8 very small pancakes, each about 2 inches in diameter. They were perfect with honey!

A few months back, I was craving french toast and didn't have any gfcf bread in the house, so I crunched up some rice crackers, mixed in some eggs, and poured the mixture into egg molds in my frying pan. They were pretty good, and I've turned to that often as an inexpensive french toast alternative.

Today I wanted something more along the pancake line, and since I'm just recovering from some sort of something or other, I knew I needed something with protein that would be light on the stomach and wouldn't take long to make. These worked out to be a perfect solution. Obviously this doesn't work well for families having a big pancake breakfast, but as a snack or as part of a larger meal for 1 or 2 people, these are fantastic.

Fried Spring Rolls

Yes! Apparently rice paper rolls can be baked or deep-fried!

I just found out today.

Needless to say, we'll be experimenting with fillings and will report back...

Rice Paper Salad Rolls

My dear friend introduced me to doing up fresh salad rolls. I enjoyed the process of making them together, and I enjoyed the flavour and the unique texture.

My son thinks these are "really cool" and has done a bit more experimenting with fillings than I've even considered. One of my daughters refers to these as caterpillars.

We find that our frying pan is the right size for wetting the rice paper, and we use room temperature water that is leaning towards warm.

Immerse an entire cicle of rice paper (make sure the edges are all immersed!) under the water for a few seconds until it is soft (not too long; not too soft!). Place the circle onto a plate.

Salad rolls can be folded two ways (possibly more, though I only know of two):
- with one end open so they end up looking sort of like a sandwich wrap
- completely enclosed like a spring roll

I start filling the circle about a couple inches or so from the edge closest to me, depending on how many ingredients I'm using, then lay the ingredients in so I'll have a taste of everything in each bite. If you are brand new to rolls, it will only take you one or two rolls to figure out how much to put inside without the rice paper ripping. Once I've finished with the fillers, I pull the bottom of the circle up over the fillers to completely cover them, fold in the paper edges on each side, and carefully roll the salad roll to the top of the rice paper to finish it up.

Our favourite salad roll includes:
-cilantro
-shrimp
-Italian parsley or curled parsley (or go wild and add both at the same time!)
-mint
-sprouts (Josh LOVES radish sprouts in these; I prefer bean sprouts)
-cooked and cold rice noodles, thick or thin
-sometimes a leaf of crunchy lettuce
-Josh usually adds chile pepper flakes or hot sauce to his; I prefer dipping my finished rolls in hoisin

Of course, you could also use rice, pork, chicken, smoked salmon, dill, and any number of other ingredients, most likely limited only by the imagination.

Birthday!

My son LOVES food. He loves seeing it, smelling it, being around it, touching it, preparing it...and EATING IT!!

For his birthday, he and I decided to do up a birthday buffet. The menu went something like this:

-Homemade Soda bar with 5 different flavours
-Cream Puffs with Creamy Almond Filling
-Double-Chocolate Cashew Cookies
-Brownies
-Homemade Herbed Crackers
-Cashew "Cheese" Spread
-Sliced Red Peppers
-The aforementioned Almond Play-Doh Ball
-Potato Candy
-Parslied Rice with Tomatoes
-Marinated Cucumber Salad

I think that was everything; all gluten-free and dairy-free!
The potato candy was made with icing sugar, so you'll want to check labels if you plan on making some.

Recipes to follow!

How to Get 90% of your daily Iron, 40% of your Calcium, and 40g of Protein

Superstore's "no name" brand has a "six bean blend" which is a canned combination of various beans.
1 cup provides 15g of protein, 25% of the daily amount of iron, and 20% of the daily amount of calcium.

I also found a brown basmati rice there in a big brown foil bag from India; I'll look for it again next time I'm there so I can tell you the brand name. It is pesticide-free, gmo-free, and certified suitable for vegetarians, and its nutritional value is higher than many of the other rices. 3/4cup cooked provides 20% daily iron, 5g of protein, 2% of daily calcium.

So unless my math is off, doing up two servings of the rice and beans (sometimes adding tomato sauce and/or parsley and/or peas) and eating them throughout the morning provides 90% of the daily iron requirement, 40% of calcium, and 40g of protein.

Easy, Tasty Smoothie with iron, protein, calcium

If you're looking for a beverage that provides iron, protein, and calcium, the following might be a tasty match for you.

1 1/4 cups white cranberry juice
1 banana
1 serving of spinach (3 nuggets if you use "Our Compliments" easy-to-use little frozen nuggets of spinach)
cinnamon to taste (optional, though cinnamon does provide tons of health benefits!)

According to the nutritional value charts listed on the juice and spinach, this smoothie provides 15% of your daily calcium needs, 8% of your daily iron needs, and 3g of protein.

1/8 cup of raw cacao powder added to your smoothie provides an additional 5g of protein, 15% of your daily iron needs, and 4% of your daily calcium needs in addition to all the other good stuff in raw cacao.

Cornmeal

A few months ago, my son told me that he really missed having cream of wheat cereal, so we picked up a box of cream of rice cereal for him but the texture just didn't work for him. We decided to try cornmeal. I was very doubtful; but he loved it! And he loves eating it plain as a hot cereal in the morning.

You can get pretty creative with cornmeal.

1. Bake with it (cornbread, cornmeal muffins, etc.)

2. Cook it up as a thick hot cereal then spread it into a pan or dish to cool in the refrigerator; once it's cool, slice it up and pan-fry it til golden brown and serve as is or with syrup or dipping sauce.

3. Cook it up as a hot meal/snack with various additions.
Here are some ideas to mix in with your cornmeal:
-honey or syrup
-sugar and cinnamon
-peanut butter and/or jam
-chocolate
-chopped or mashed fruit
-chopped vegetables/small vegetables (peas, corn, etc)
-nuts
-salsa
-salsa with chicken or beans

4. Try adding different ingredients to it and use it as filler for Stuffed Peppers!

Beets and Carrots, Carrots and Beets

My neighbour received boxes of vegetables from her daughter's in-laws last week. She knew she wouldn't use them all and sent two boxes over to my place. There must have been 30-40 beets, at least 5 pounds of carrots, and the largest cabbage I have ever seen in my life! I was thrilled, but in the midst of preparing for my son's birthday party, I was at a loss as to how to pack all this fresh produce away before it lost its goodness!

So, I went to my default. I got out my blender.

My freezer now contains little bags of roasted beets, pureed beets, pureed carrots, pureed beets and carrots, pureed beets with carrots and cabbage, pureed carrots and cabbage; you get the picture. All a great way to add a nutritional boost to rice dishes and soups this winter!

I also canned a few jars of beet juice; warm it up and add just a smidge of vinegar (sometimes I also toss in a bit of dill) for a wonderful fall/winter drink.

I mixed up a bunch of rice with tomatoes, parsley, seasoning,and cabbage, and tossed it into serving-size bags for casserole starters, quick suppers, or weekend lunches.

I usually prefer food-made-fresh, but I'm now rethinking the idea of having an apartment-sized freezer again.

Almond Milk

There are all sorts of ways to make homemade non-dairy milks. We've done rice milk, potato milk, and almond milk. We've tried them all with vanilla, with honey, with sugar, and plain. For regular daily milk use, we prefer plain almond milk.

Consistency is a personal thing. I prefer one cup of almonds to about 2 1/4 cups of water. My son prefers a less almonds:more water ratio.

Some folks soak their almonds overnight for better nutritional value.

Toss almonds into blender. Add water. Blend very very well. Strain through a sieve. For us, we've found it's best to rest the sieve on a pot, then pour in the milk mixture. It takes awhile for the mixture to rest long enough for all the milk to drain out. For a finer strain, sometimes I drop a coffee filter into the sieve beforehand. A quicker option is to line the sieve with cheesecloth and, after the initial liquid has dripped through, bundle and squeeze the cheesecloth over the sieve.

If I'm using the milk for pudding or other cooking, I usually just use a sieve then nudge the straining process along a little by using a wooden spoon.

Don't toss out the almond mash that's left in the sieve! It's good on cereal, as a topping for casseroles or baked goods, even just as it is with a bit of honey drizzled on top and a sprinkle of cinnamon! We tried making a "cheese-type spread" with it once by adding pureed tomatoes and spices. My son said he liked the taste. I didn't. And it looked like play-doh. But who knows, with further experimenting....

Indulgence: Homemade Soda

"Simple syrup" and club soda. That's it! The combination amounts are a personal-taste thing. Fill the glass mostly with (cold!!) club soda then carefully pour in a bit of the syrup to taste.

Simple syrup is just a combination of liquid and sugar boiled together at least til the sugar is dissolved, sometimes longer to get a stickier syrup.

We used 1.5 cups of liquid to 1.5 cups of fair-trade, organic cane sugar (I think I'll use less sugar for some of the flavours next time, though some really needed the equal portions) and just boiled til dissolved. So far we've tried five different flavours:

1. Ginger: This is our hands-down favourite so far. We peeled a small bit (a couple inches) of "fresh" ginger, cut it into slices, tossed it into water, and boiled it up then let it simmer til it smelled very gingery. We poured 1.5 cups of the ginger liquid into another pot and added 1.5 cups of sugar, boiled til sugar was dissolved, then removed from heat and let cool.

2. More Lime than Lemon: Hands-down second favourite! We juiced some limes (I think there were 6) then calculated how much more liquid was needed to make 1.5 cups. We then did 2/3 of amount of lemon juice and 1/3 of amount of water. 1.5cups total liquid into a pot, 1.5 cups sugar, boiled til dissolved, removed from heat and let cool.

3. Strawberry: I had a pail of strawberries earlier in the season and decided to juice some of them without any sweetener. I just ran berries through my blender with a small amount of water then strained through a sieve and ended up with a dozen bottles of nice, clear jewelesque-coloured juice. For the soda, I boiled up 1.5 cups of the juice with 1.5 cups of sugar. As my niece said when she tasted it with the club soda, "it tastes sort of like drinking liquid jam."

4. Blueberry: I did the same with blueberries as I'd done with strawberries. I have a blueberry addiction. Strangely enough, I haven't tasted the blueberry soda yet.

5. Orange: We juiced oranges then added a small amount of water til we got 1.5 cups, added sugar, boiled, etc. In my books, this one was fairly disgusting as soda goes, but we decided we will make it again sometime using a different kind of orange rather than navel.

Once the syrups were made and cooled, we poured them into glass/crystal decanters we'd picked up at the thrift shop for $1 each.

FOR ANOTHER DAY: We're going to try different "spice" sodas next!

Fish Cakes

My grandmother used to make these. Now they are one of my son's specialties. You can use any kind of fish that flakes. We use canned tuna or salmon.

Drain tuna/salmon. Mix into mashed potatoes along with a raw egg. Add chopped onion if you like. Season with salt and pepper or other seasonings. Form into patties and into the frying pan they go. Mmmmm.

These are fantastic on their own, but also take on flavour very well; we've used dill and paprika, though I would think you could add almost anything your tastebuds desire with fish and potatoes.

Easy Chicken Spread

This is such an easy and tasty spread. I discovered it one day just out of a moment of curiosity.

I blended together a plain, cooked chicken breast and half of an English cucumber. It was that simple! And it tasted good! It's a nicely-textured, smooth spread, great for crackers, rice cakes, tortillas, etc. Tonight we're piling it into lettuce wraps!

It's great on its own but experimenting with different spices (curry, turmeric, parika, etc.) has also produced some tasty results! Once you start adding in things to nutrition-it-up even more, such as tomato juice or cherry tomatoes or dried tomatoes or dried peppers, you might need to adjust your cucumber amount for texture.

Tasty Little Nuggets

Yesterday I blended up a tin of 6-bean blend (well-drained then rinsed first), mixed it in with mashed potatoes, added a bit of sea salt, then added enough flour so the mixture could be easily rolled into little walnut-sized balls. I used rice flour, but I would think almost any type of flour would work for these. These could be cooked up as little balls for h'ors doeuvres or as part of a dinner plate, but this time I chose to flatten them with my palms and cooked them up in a pan with a bit of oil til lightly golden brown. Very nice with a bit of a dip but fine just on their own. Quick, nutritious, easy peasy, inexpensive, and would make a nice "chicken nugget" alternative for kids as well. Next time we're going to experiment with different spices.