New Noodles

Sometimes the notion of "pasta for dinner" is equal to "I have no idea what to make and noodles works for everyone". I know that feeling well - especially when you're living in a family like mine, when (if my sister's home) we can easily prepare two to three different pasta dishes every night. I know that seems a lot for our family of five, but we have one (ahem) picky eater, me with the wheat and animal protein intolerance and other assorted allergies, then the rest of the household sharing the kitchen. Dinner times are staggered, and we all get fed one way or another, so it works for now! The fact that I cook and eat after the bulk of the meals are done also saves me from the awkward explanations of the "weird" meals I make - whether grilled tofu or tempeh based or a mashed potato with spicy beans, trying to tell people that my food does taste good even though it looks anything but is a bit draining.

Thankfully nobody was home when I came about making this noodle-omelette type dish the first time. Not only did it not involve meat or dairy (something my stepfamily still doesn't seem to "get" about me) but it involved a rather interesting impulse buy of mine from the Asian market: shirataki noodles. Usually used for stir-fry as far as I can tell anyway, they're packed in a bag of water and look like cellophane noodles. They don't really taste like much on their own, so I dug around in my crisper and found a portabello mushroom, grabbed some salsa and a carton of egg substitute (not being able to handle the yolks, egg whites are about it here) and boiled some water to hydrate some TVP crumbles I had in my pantry. A couple spices and some vegan Parmesan later I had an eggy, noodley mixture sizzling away in my brand new EarthChef pan (I freaking love that thing!), which I fired under the broiler for a few moments to crisp up the top before diving in. For extra zip I broke out a tomato-chili pepper sauce I had cooked up over the weekend, and while it was blow-your-head-off hot on it's own it really worked with the eggy, starchy and meaty meal.

Skinny Pastata
Serves 1
If you don't like, can't find or otherwise don't want to use shirataki noodles in this recipe, feel free to use an equivalent amount of cellophane noodles. Likewise for the Egg Creations you can use 3 eggs, 1 egg and 5 egg whites or 8 whole egg whites.
1/4 cup TVP
1/4 cup boiling water
dash liquid smoke
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
pinch kosher salt
1 small portabello mushroom, sliced thinly
8 oz shirataki noodles, drained and rinsed
dash hot sauce (like sambaal oelek)
2 tbsp spicy salsa
2 tbsp water
1/2 tsp oregano
salt and pepper to taste
2/3 cup (150 mL) original flavour Egg Creations
1 tbsp Galaxy Foods rice Parmesan

1. Place TVP in a small bowl and pour boiling water overtop.
2. Add liquid smoke, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika and salt, set aside for 15 minutes. Drain excess liquid.
3. Meanwhile, heat a small, deep non-stick frying pan over high heat and coat with cooking spray.
4. Add mushroom and cook, stirring, until browned - about 5 minutes.
5. Add TVP, noodles and hot sauce and cook until dry and incorporated well with the mushroom.
6. Spread mixture into one even layer in the pan and reduce heat to medium.
7. Cook, undisturbed, for one minute.
8. Whisk together salsa, water, oregano, salt, pepper and Egg Creations in a measuring cup or bowl and pour evenly over the noodle mix in the pan.
9. Continue cooking over medium heat until almost completely set, then sprinkle with the rice Parmesan and slide onto an oven-safe plate.
10. Place under the broiler and cook until browned and crusty, 1-2 minutes (this is optional, you can finish cooking this stovetop if you prefer).
11. Eat right off the plate, or if sharing, cut into wedges and transfer to serving plates.

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 204.0
Total Fat: 1.2 g
Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
Sodium: 494.3 mg
Total Carbs: 13.7 g
Dietary Fiber: 11.8 g
Protein: 31.1 g

Spicy Tomato-Chili Coulis
A note about the tomatoes: nrmally I'm not a stickler for the seasonal / local thing, but when it comes to this sauce, it matters. You need them to be picked at the peak of their ripeness, flavour and nutrition, not crunchy like storebought tomatoes.
Makes 16 (2-tbsp) servings
3 1/2 lbs fresh, IN SEASON plum tomatoes (San Marzano if you have a garden with them) - see note above
2 hot cherry peppers (usually called "cherry bomb" or similar, you can substitute jalapenos)
1 sweet cherry pepper (usually called "cherry pick")
1/3 cup brown sugar

1. Quarter tomatoes and peppers (seed the peppers if you're concerned about too much heat). Place into a food processor (skins and all).
2. Puree until completely smooth.
3. Pass the puree through a food mill to eliminate the skins and seeds, and pour that mixture into a large pot.
4. Bring to a brisk simmer and add the sugar.
5. Cook uncovered over medium-low heat for 4 hours, until reduced to a thick puree.
6. Store in the refrigerator or process in a waterbath for 30 minutes.

Amount Per Serving

Calories: 38.8

Total Fat: 0.3 g
Cholesterol: 0.0 mg

Sodium: 10.8 mg

Total Carbs: 10.8 g

Dietary Fiber: 1.2 g

Protein: 0.9 g 

I'm sending this dish over to Presto Pasta Nights (brainchild of Ruth, who's also the host this week).

A Bite of Sweet, A Bite of Bitter

It's been a good long while since I've seen the Sugar High Fridays event around on the blogs. For a while, I thought our resident Domestic Goddess Jennifer had retired the long running event... but nope, it's back at Aparna's blog My Diverse Kitchen and the theme is tiny... literally. "Bite sized desserts"  are the order of the day, and lucky for me I've just done not one, but two, kinds of petit-fours perfect for the party!

Not Intended

When you hear "semolina", the application most people picture is in the creation of pasta dough. Durum semolina pasta is buttery-yellow, toothsome, and can form any sort of noodle: from fine, fragile angel-hair to the hearty, artisanal shapes made with the old bronze dies. You know you've got a good, authentic(ish) bundle of fettuccini on your hands when the strands are slightly rough and pebbly from the edges of the extruder... they hold onto even the thinnest sauces with the culinary equivalent of a vice grip and the cooked dough never seems to get mushy even after sitting in the fridge overnight. While I loved and (more than) willingly ate my fair share of whole wheat and spelt pasta before discovering my wheat and gluten intolerance, there was just something about those sunny strands that was, witout question, better.

But I'm not here to talk to you about pasta-making. No, no... been there and done that. And while I may have loved making the sheets of lasagne and pockets of beet-tinted, pumpkin-filled ravioli, let's just say that the family... didn't. So my poor, maligned pasta maker has been sent to the basement to languish until I move out and I had to find a new use for the bag of durum semolina flour in my pantry.

A Better Broth

Have you ever found yourself looking into the depths of your freezer in search of something - anything - to make for dinner, and come face to face with a bag or two of some unidentifiable edible? On one hand, you know you should really use up that quarter pound of ground beef, or the handful of vegetable medley that would barely serve one. But when you're feeding a household those piddly amounts of freezer food just don't cut it in the volume department. We all know it takes well over 1/4 lb of meat to feed a family of four, and at the same time you're not likely to find many takers for the chronically mushy, freezer-burned plant life.

That is, until you break out the soup pot. Soup is the great equalizer of the food world - if you can chop an onion and saute a mirepoix, even if you have not a clue what that is, and you have access to some form of liquid, anything is game. You can add almost anything you find in your freezer, fridge or pantry to a flavourful broth, and over a lazy afternoon coax out everything good that you forgot about those forgotten ingredients.

It's almost always a case of "I found this in the freezer/fridge/cupboard, what can I do with it?" that directs my cooking experiments with my mom's weekday soup menu. Whether it's that last chunk of ground beef, those slightly wilted mushrooms, the almost sprouted potato or the ten cans of beans brought home by a certain step-parent from Costco in a fit of World War mentality, mom knows that I'll figure out something to make them all work together. Usually the size of the pot is determined by just how much crap stuff I can find in about a half hour, and of course the ever-economical shell beans are a great stretching tactic. This week's pot had no less than five types of beans in it - frozen green, fresh Romano, canned Mexican red and dried adzuki and kidneys - and got fleshed out with some tomatoes, sweet potatoes and barley. Still dealing with the overabundance of cucumber in our crisper drawers, I grated half of one big guy and let it melt into the broth seamlessly.

This soup is one of those that freezes incredibly well too - which is good, because it fits neatly into the category of "soup for a year" bulk-wise!

Beany Beef and Barley Broth

Serves 10

1/4 cup water

1/2 lb lean ground beef
2 large onions, diced
6 carrots, halved lengthwise and sliced
2 baby beets, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup red wine
5 cups beef or rich chicken broth
2 cups water
29-oz canned tomatoes with juice
5 fl. oz low-sodium V8 cocktail
1 2/3 cups roasted tomato sauce (or chunky tomato sauce)
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
5 oz adzuki beans, soaked overnight
6 oz kidney beans, soaked overnight
10 oz cucumber, grated
2 bay leaves
3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp black pepper
35 fresh Romano beans (Italian flat beans), shelled (you can also use fresh or frozen baby lima beans)
7.5 oz sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 cup pot barley
19 oz can small red Mexican beans, drained and rinsed
1 lb fresh or frozen green beans, chopped

1. Heat water in a large stockpot over medium-high.
2. Add ground beef and cook until browned, stirring to crumble.
3. Add onions, carrots and beets and cook, stirring, until the onions begin to turn golden - about 8-9 minutes.
4. Add garlic and cook 1 minute longer, until fragrant.
5. Stir in wine and cook over high heat, stirring well, to dislodge the fond from the pot and reduce slightly.
6. Add broth, water, tomatoes, V8, tomato sauce, Worcestershire, soaked beans and grated cucumber.
7. Stir in bay leaves, thyme, oregano, basil, paprika and pepper, then bring to a boil.
8. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 3 hours.
9. Stir in the freshly shelled Romano beans, sweet potato and barley and cook 1 hour further, until beans are tender. Remove bay leaves and thyme stems.
10. Add canned and frozen beans, uncover and cook at a brisk simmer for 30 minutes.

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 402.3
Total Fat: 6.0 g
Cholesterol: 17.0 mg
Sodium: 1,024.5 mg
Total Carbs: 65.0 g
Dietary Fiber: 18.8 g
Protein: 21.9 g

Double (and) Nothing

I don't think I could say enough how much I'm in awe of the gluten-free chefs and foodies out there. I mean, these people not only have a need to cook for themselves in a safe and nutritionally sound manner, but they have a true passion to share what they cook, eat and live with the world who reads their words. In fact, I cannot commend and thank enough all the bloggers out there who share their personal stories, trials and tribulations as well as the foods that comfort them. It takes real courage to so openly display your life, and it takes a true writer to spin each story into something far from a self-pitying rant - a readable, relatable account of what we can generally take for granted each day.

This isn't to say that the rest of the blogging community at large is any less deserving of praise - any well-written work should be valued regardless of the backstory of the author. But for those of us who do cope with food-related allergies, intolerances and diseases everyday, finding a journal that we can reliably read, understand, navigate and (most importantly) relate to is paramount. There are so many out there that I won't even begin to list them - but I'm sure you'll find more than enough inspiration and help by searching.

It was a simple search string for a rather complicated issue that led me to this recipe on Wheat Free Bread Recipes. If you follow my Twitter feed occasionally, you may have noticed two topics that I've brought up in recent weeks - helping out a young adult with celiac disease (and assorted allergies), and the fact that making anything with "standard" wheat or spelt flour left my skin and eyes itching and burning to the point where I would resort to an anti-allergy medication to stop it. I already know that eating wheat is not a great idea on my front, since it tends to lead to a fair bit of GI upset, but the trouble arsing from the flour in the air really...well... troubled me. I'm a baker at heart, after all - take away my flour and you take away my soul!

Or so I thought. Luckily, I was as wrong as I was melodramatic. Sure, the choice to exclude the allergenic ingredients of wheat, corn, brassicae, mushrooms, strawberries and dairy from my kitchen for the well-being of my client did not make for your standard experience while baking, but it wasn't exactly a slog through the valley of despair either. Rather, it was refreshing to dust off my baking "mitts" and try something new and totally unusual for me in both ingredients and method! The thrill of pulling that perfectly baked loaf out of the oven after a series of rather odd preparation instructions was akin to winning the baker's lottery - and the fact that the bread not only looked good but tasted good was the proverbial icing on the cake. Hey, if you've had your "usual" hypoallergenic food (cardboard and wallpaper paste, anyone?) you'll understand how precious that complexity of flavour is.

I'm sending this sleeper success to Susan's event YeastSpotting at Wild Yeast.

Gluten-Free Double Quinoa Bread

Makes 1 loaf (16 slices) or 16 "rolls" in muffin tins
1 1/2 cups GF all-purpose flour (mixture of garbanzo bean, potato starch, tapioca flour, white sorghum flour and fava bean flour)

1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup quinoa flour
1/4 cup El Peto Whole Grain Cream of Brown Rice Cereal
3 tbsp soy protein powder

6 tbsp soy milk powder

1/4 cup ground flaxseed
2 tbsp chia seed
2 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tbsp instant yeast
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1 1/2 cups unsweetened soy milk
1 tsp brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp fine salt
1/4 cup quinoa, soaked 8 hours in cool water and drained

1. Spray 8 x 4 inch loaf pan with "safe" nonstick spray.
2. In a large bowl, combine flours, rice cereal, protein powder, soy milk powder, flaxseed, chia seed, cream of tartar, baking soda and yeast, stirring well.
3. In a pot, combine water and tapioca flour, whisking smooth.
4. Bring to a boil and cook 1-2 minutes, until thick. Remove from heat and let cool for 10 minutes.
5. In another bowl, beat together soy milk, sugar, egg and salt until frothy.
6. Beat in the tapioca mixture, then mix the whole thing into the dry ingredients.
7. Add the quinoa and beat smooth.
8. Scrape into the prepared pan or 16 sprayed muffin cups.
9. Cover and set aside for 15 minutes.
10. Preheat oven to 400F. Bake loaf 45 minutes, tenting with foil after 25 minutes. If making rolls in the muffin tins, bake 25-30 minutes.

Per one 1/16th of the loaf

Calories 135.2

Total Fat 3.2 g

Cholesterol 13.3 mg

Sodium 57.8 mg

Potassium 95.1 mg

Total Carbohydrate 23.0 g

Dietary Fiber 3.0 g

Sugars 1.9 g

Protein 6.4 g

Vitamin A 3.2 %

Vitamin B-12 7.1 %

Vitamin B-6 1.3 %
Vitamin C 0.3 %

Vitamin D 1.3 %

Vitamin E 0.2 %

Calcium 4.6 %

Copper 2.9 %

Folate 2.2 %

Iron 8.9 %

Magnesium 3.2 %

Manganese 2.5 %

Niacin 0.4 %

Pantothenic Acid 1.6 %

Phosphorus 5.8 %

Riboflavin 7.0 %

Selenium 3.0 %

Thiamin 1.3 %

Zinc 1.4 %