Mangia!

It's been too long my friends! I've been lost in the world of job hunting, sitting in the driveway for our garage sale, mailing off book donations and dropping off stuffed animals for a charity. Last night, however, I spent over an hour in the kitchen making something magnifico!

I used Ener-G gluten free bread crumbs mixed with grated Parmesan cheese and Italian seasonings to create a coating for a deliciously tender Gluten Free Chicken Parmesan. I served it over Tinkyada Spaghetti style rice pasta. We also had fresh steamed green beans that I picked up at a local farm stand and mom shucked while I made the chicken. A truly delicious home made meal, even more satisfying than knowing my family ate well was the fact that my brother and father BOTH went back for seconds on the chicken, praising the flavor, and not bothered by the gluten free aspect. It has taken them a while, but they are both much more willing to try gluten free versions of recipes now, having experienced that gluten free doesn't mean flavor free.

I kind of eyeballed the amounts here, I can give you some basics. I used 6 chicken breast, two large eggs and approximately 3 cups of coating (2 c bread crumbs, ¾ c cheese, ¼ c seasoning). The amount you need will vary depending on how much chicken you're making.

INGREDIENTS

• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• Breadcrumbs
• Grated Parmesan cheese
• Italian Seasonings (pre-made or your own blend)
  
• Eggs
• Oil

1. Heat oven to 350°, spray shallow baking pans with non-stick cooking spray
2. In a shallow bowl, combine breadcrumbs, cheese and seasonings. In a second bowl, beat the eggs to combine.
3. Butterfly cut the chicken breasts so they are large and flat. Using a meat mallet, pound them to tenderize and further flatten.
   
4. In a large skillet, heat oil as you begin to coat the chicken.
5. Coat chicken, first in egg, then transfer to the breadcrumb mix and turn until thoroughly coated.
6. Place chicken in oil and fry for a few minutes. Repeat step 4 until the pan is full, turning the previous breast each time you add one.
7. When pan is filled, remove breasts in order they were cooked. Place them in baking pans. and cover with a bit of spaghetti sauce.
8. When all the chicken has been breaded, fried in oil and placed in baking pans, bake for 15 minutes.
9. Serve over your favorite pasta and enjoy!

South of the Border Sea Food

I've had a red pepper sitting on the counter for a while. It became shriveled and somewhat dry, but smelled so wonderful that I knew I had to find something wonderful to make with it. Yesterday, after the corn was cooked, I thought it would be a shame to waste a well heated grill and smoldering charcoal, so I began looking for other things to cook. My mind settled on the pepper.

I sliced it up and wrapped it in a foil packet with olive oil. After a while on the grill, the pepper was perfectly roasted and re-hydrated by the oil. It smelled wonderful.

I put the packet in the refrigerator, determined to find something wonderful to make it into. I started thinking of making fish for tonight's dinner, and I thought of the lime and avocados I had sitting in the produce drawer.

Today, I measured out some quinoa and chicken stock into a saucepan and let it soak while I chopped a shallot, and sauteéd it with some mushrooms. I added the shallot an mushrooms to the pan and used the Magic Bullet® to puree the pepper with the olive oil from inside the foil packet. Into the pan I stirred the roasted pepper pulp and set the whole thing to boiling.

While the quinoa cooked up, I rinsed out the Bullet's cup and added cilantro, the fruit from half an avocado, juice from a small lime and a small amount of oil too keep everything smooth. When all that was blended up into a nice paste, I used a basting brush to paint it onto the top of some orange roughy fillets which were beginning to sear in a large everyday pan. When they were white almost all the way through, I turn them over and added the avocado paste to the other side. I cooked them until the runoff began to brown in the pan and the quinoa was red and fluffy.

The flavor combination was amazing! I saw my Grandma later that night and had her taste the leftovers. She is not a mushroom fan (texture), and so she ate around them in the quinoa, but even she agreed that they added to the overall flavor. My dad thoroughly enjoyed the quinoa, which he regularly mocks as a weird food, but never complains about the taste. :)

The bite of lime in the fish was offset by the creamy texture of the avocado, and together they made for quite a dance of flavor on the tongue.

Corn Roast Revisited

Earlier this week I mentioned getting a steal on corn at Ron's Market. This purchase came from my recent desire for a taste memory from my childhood. When I was young, my aunt and uncle had an annual party at the end of the summer, the Corn Roast. My uncle set up a grill and roasted bushels of corn over an open flame. At the end of the grill area was a large coffee can, filled with melted butter, into which each ear of corn was dunked after cooking to perfection. To my taste buds, grilled corn means mosquito bites and giggles while hiding in a gazebo in the woods. It means watermelon and cousins, netted food covers to keep flies away, thick ropes holding a plank swing from an ancient tree. Most of all, however, corn roasted on a grill means Uncle Bill.

My Uncle Bill was a wonderful man, always ready with a joke to put a smile on everyone's faces. He was generous of his time and resources, and even at the end of his life, joy seemed to radiate from his eyes and his smile. It's been about three years since he left this earth, but his memory remains.

With him in mind, I soaked the ears of corn, still wrapped in their leaves, in cold water while I set up the grill. After getting the charcoal jut right, I arranged the ears on the grill and let them cook for about 15 minutes, turned them and cooked them for another 15 minutes. I got my corn grilling information from GrilledCornOnTheCob.com, which gives step by step instructions with photos on how to make great grilled corn.

After all was cooked and eaten, I looked to my mother and said, "All that was missing was the coffee can," and we both smiled, remembering a great man.

OMG, What a treat!

I've mentioned OMG It's Gluten Free Café in earlier posts, but I don't think I've ever really told you anything about this great place. They're located at the intersection of Harlem Avenue and Vollmer Road in the Harlem Crossing plaza in Frankfort, IL, at 19810 S. Harlem Avenue.

They opened for business back in March, but just had an official Grand Opening Celebration today. The owner, Julie Scianna, like a lot of Celiac patients, diagnosed herself after lots of problems, several false diagnoses, and plenty of unnecessary worry. After starting up a gluten free cooking club with some friends, she and the chef, Andrew (A.J.) Hebda, started creating quality, flavorful food that people actually would enjoy eating, and a local restaurateur encouraged them to start up a business.

This place is amazing. It's a small store front café with a handful of tables for dining in. Besides bakery items such as cookies, brownies, scones, muffins, and cupcakes, they have several enticing lunch and dinner options. The pizza is crisp, lasagna perfectly layered, chicken parmigiana crusted in their own breadcrumbs and for the kids (of those of us who like to eat like kids), chicken fingers and grilled cheese are sure to please.

When my Celiac Support Group met here a month or so ago, one member made the comment that it was so strange to just know that all your food was safe. She had to remind herself that that the salad she ordered, which arrived at her table with croutons made from their baked in store bread, was not a danger to her health. The delicious food is just that much better for the knowledge that nothing in the whole café has ever come anywhere near a cross contaminant. No wheat flour has ever been measured with their measuring cups, mixed with their mixer, baked in their oven or even passed through the doors.

My mother joined me at the Grand Opening where she enjoyed samples of a blueberry muffin, white chocolate chip cookie and brownie. She prefers cake brownies, so the mouthwatering fudgy brownie was not to her taste, but the cookie and muffin made a great impression. An prize wheel was set up outside the store for prizes such as product discounts. I won a BOGO on pizza, and Mom won a date with the chef! Of course, they hadn't told A.J. they were using that particular prize, so I'm not sure how that would even work out.

All told, Mom and I left with a 1lb. bag of granola, a dozen assorted cookies, two 14 inch cheese pizza (frozen), a lemon poppyseed scone, a vanilla cupcake and a pecan roll. The last three were fresh from the bakery case, one of each of us, Mom, Dad and me. I shared a little of my cupcake with each of them, and Dad, one my toughest food critics, raved about it. Mom fell in love with the pecan roll, which she generously shared with Dad, and even gave me a taste. She wants to go back to OMG for more, and she doesn't even follow a GF diet! The scone rests in its box, awaiting our first taste, which I'm sure will not disappoint.

This little piggy went to (Ron's) Market

On the corner of Sauk Trail and East End Avenue in South Chicago Heights is an open air farm stand called Ron's Market. Now and then I drop by to scope out deals on produce, and the other day, I scored some great deals.

After a morning full of errands, I decided to stop in and see what was ripe. Less than an hour later, I was home with a cantaloupe, a head of cabbage, 10 ears of corn, 8 peaches and a pint of strawberries, all for under $7.00.

If you're in the area, I recommend taking a stroll through the place, you might be handsomely rewarded with a great deal some favorite produce. With 75¢ cantaloupe, 99¢ pints of strawberry, peaches and cabbage for 39¢/lb and 5 ears of corn for a dollar, it's going to be a great week of produce at my house.

Napoleon, gimme some of your tots!

I have not had tater tots in over a year. I thought they were gone from my menu forever. Most tater tots, pressed hash browns, some fries, and various other pre-made potato products are rolled or coated in flour to give them that golden brown color and crunch. Recently, I ran into someone at the health food store who told me that Ore-Ida products are gluten free. I almost did a happy dance right there in the store.

Later that week, I realized that we already had some Ore-Ida Mini Tater Tots in the basement freezer!

As luck would have it, a couple weeks ago, while at Costco, we discovered some GF Dijon and Swiss Chicken Burgers, which I decided to try out. All the components of a classic summertime meal seemed to be falling into place, short only one. Buns. In general I just forgo bread products, or, where I can, sub in a corn tortilla. But a burger on a tortilla? No, thanks. Another little bit of serendipity came into play at this point. I remembered that only a week ago, I saw the facebook post from OMG It's Gluten Free regarding the newly installed freezer case :)

Yes, it came down to a freezer case. You see, some of the products sold at OMG are only available certain times of the week, as that is when they are made. Now, however, with the arrival of this freezer, some of the products one might call "stock-up staples," such as buns, pizza crusts, frozen pizzas and pie shells, are available for our daily purchasing needs.

I stopped and talked with Julie, the owner, who told me to toast the buns for about 4 minutes for the best texture. Just looking at these adorable buns made me eager to get home and start dinner. The tops are dusted with coarse salt and herbs, the bottom are chalky white with the remnant of GF flour dusting the pan, and they have a nice crust. Like all gluten free breads, they crumb a bit, but besides toasting it, I also steamed one by wrapping a moist paper towel around it and popping it in the microwave for a few seconds. The bun soaked up the moisture and held its crumbs together

The buns are a great size, big enough to hold a large burger without all the meat hanging over the sides, which also meant there was a good meat to bread ratio in each bite. In the end, I had a chicken burger on a bun with tater tots, something that less than a year ago I would have thought possible. So, thank you Ore-Ida, for realizing that flour is an unnecessary ingredient in tater tots. Thank you Julie, for having a good idea and running with it. Thank you A.J. (OMG chef/baker), for helping Julie's good idea make its way to my plate.

P.s.: For those of you who have been unable to stop thinking about Napoleon Dynamite since reading that title, I've provided the following clip, courtesy of YouTube. Enjoy!

A Meal Worth Repeating

Recently I've had some exciting food-splorations which I haven't yet shared with you. The other day, I cooked and ate an artichoke, on Thursday I tried some Thai Red Rice crackers, yesterday, I made a Roma tomato, Spanish onion and ground chicken meat sauce and today I tried Babybel Cheese.

For several years I've timidly glanced at artichokes in the produce section of my supermarket. Spiky and acorn-like, I've been somewhat mystified as to how to prepare and eat these interesting veggies. I've eaten spinach artichoke dip, jalepeño artichoke dip and other variations, but I have never been able to wrap my mind around the whole food artichoke.

After reading about Shauna's description of eating artichoke leaves in an elementary school classroom, I knew it was time to try one. It turns out, artichokes are not actually difficult to cook or eat.

It was like eating a Christmas present. After steaming the artichoke in a pan of water, slowly unwrapped it, leaf by leaf, and ate them dipped in butter. Scraping the leaves through my teeth, the buttery artichoke pulp danced around on my tongue, smooth and creamy. When all the leaves were finished, I encountered the choke and the heart. The choke is a fibrous clump at the center of the artichoke, not edible, which must be removed. It came out easily and beneath it lie the artichoke heart. The heart has a texture like softened cream cheese, and an almost sweet, mild flavor. I must buy more.

The rice crackers were one of the items in my gift bag from Lil's, and they were a pleasant surprise. Beneath the unassuming packaging, and made from simple ingredients, these crackers are meant to be topped with meats, cheese or dip. I first tried them without topping on Thursday, to assess the flavor and texture. They remind me a bit of rice cakes, with a slightly puffed crispness. Flavor-wise, they are fairly neutral and easily complementary to anything with which you might top them.

The sauce. Mmmm... the sauce. My friend Bridget gave me The Gloriously Gluten-Free Cookbook:Spicing up Life with Italian, Asia, and Mexican Recipes for my birthday, and for the first recipe, I tweaked their meat sauce. I don't eat beef or pork, so instead of ground beef, I used leaner ground chicken. The recipe calls for a 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes, but recently I've been reading about the potential negative affects of the canned tomatoes. It seems the acid in the tomatoes can break down the lining in the can, releasing chemicals which we then ingest. I don't know all the science behind it, but since I found some Roma tomatoes at the farmstand for a good price, I just sidestepped the whole can issue and diced them myself.

Half a large Spanish onion, several cloves of garlic and some herbs, fresh ground pepper and sea salt as well as grated Parmesan cheese and a light sprinkling of Truvia instead of sugar came together beautifully. After cooking the ground meat and the sauce separately, I combined the two for a somewhat sweet and definitely flavorful addition to past or anything over which I might want to serve it.

While dreaming up dinner, I decided to finally sample some of the babybel cheese Mom keeps buying. One taste, and immediately I thought: SPINACH, I must have this with spinach.

I sautéed some spinach in garlic and olive oil, added the crumbled babybel cheese, and topped it all with some of the meat sauce. I had it with a baked potato, and it was definitely a meal worth repeating.