Category Archives: egg free

Cooking Techniques: White Sauce

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Something simple yet versatile….

Every August finds me and my family up in the mountains of the Adirondacks where my husband’s family has been managing a forest for 60 years. Driving to the nearest major highway might get me two to three bars on my cell phone.  If I want to use the internet, I have to drive down into the local town to the library. Television viewing is limited to VHS tapes watched on a VCR. The radio picks up two stations, one of which is in Canadian French; and the house we stay in lacks modern amenities such as my coveted food processor, though we did upgrade the oven a couple of years ago from the kerosene/electric version to just plain electric.

For a number of years now I’ve been chief cook for the duration of my family’s stay, catering for dinners we have with the many folks who work for the family forest. While I enjoy the cooking, every summer I am reminded why modern conveniences such as food processors and hand blenders and Kitchen Aids are a joy to have in one’s kitchen. Chopping veggies for a ratatouille to feed 16 people takes about 5 minutes in my food processor — about five times as long by hand. A hand blender can turn lumps smooth in seconds — no matter how long you mash or stir with a masher or wire whisk, you’ll never get a puree. With a Kitchen Aid you can make a cake in minutes — creaming butter by hand takes a lot longer than one imagines it will.

As such, I love it when I can make something spectacular with little time and energy, so upon my return home I was thrilled to see a request for something “simple yet versatile.” My answer is just as simple: a basic white sauce.

White sauce is usually just milk, flour, and butter. On a stove top, you melt the butter (usually about 1/4 cup), stir in the flour (about 1/4 cup), add the milk (about two cups), and continuously stir until the sauce thickens. That’s it. Takes about 2 minutes.

But what you can do with a white sauce is amazing:

  1. You can adapt it to your needs: Have food allergies? You can use any type of “milk”, any type of flour, and any type of “butter” as a substitute. Trying to eat healthier? You can substitute 2 tbsp of olive oil for the butter or you can even omit the butter entirely and just stir about 1/2 cup of the flour into the milk and cook and stir until it thickens.
  2. You can add herbs and spices of any type. You want a curry sauce? Add curry powder. You want a garlic sauce? Simmer with minced garlic or stir in garlic powder. You want to try something a little different? Mix in a lot of thyme with a little bit of nutmeg.
  3. You can change-up the sauce: Want a cheesy sauce? Stir in shredded cheese or slowly melt in cream cheese. Want something with a more adult taste? Substitute a 1/4 cup of the milk with sherry or white wine or vodka. Want something a little less “milky”? Substitute half of the milk with a fat free, low sodium broth such as chicken or vegetable.
  4. You can add vegetables and meats: Looking for a veggie sauce to put over pasta or fish? Saute leeks, mushrooms and spinach and add to the white sauce with black pepper, thyme, and minced garlic. Want a nice sauce to use turn your leftover rice into a casserole? Chop leftover ham and chicken and throw it into a white sauce you’ve seasoned with curry powder.
  5. You can use it for anything: Like to make casseroles? Change up a white sauce to mix into any type of casserole — rice, pasta, veggie, meat…. Want to jazz up the side veggies or the chicken or fish? Make a sauce with freshly chopped herbs. Have just a little bit of leftover meats and veggies which you’re not sure how to use up? Throw them all into a more thickly made white sauce and serve them with toast triangles to the family.
  6. You can even use it for dessert: Want to jazz up your pie when you serve it? Make a slightly thinner white sauce sweetened with a little bit of agave with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Looking for a nice topping for bread pudding? Make a vanilla white sauce by steeping vanilla beans in your milk before making the sauce. Want something to contrast with your chocolate cake? Make a sauce adding white chocolate which you can drizzle over the cake.

Happy Fourth: Berry Crisp

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website berry crisp

“I want something easy….”

Happy Fourth of July! I received an email yesterday, asking for a dessert that could feed a large amount of people, would be allergy friendly, was Fourth of July-ish, and would be easy to make. Fortunately, I had just the suggestion.

Berry Crisp. It’s one of my children’s favorites, and my son always says that it reminds him of the Fourth of July because of the color of the berries. What I love is that if you keep frozen berries in your freezer, you can whip this up quickly and easily any time of the year.

Berry Crisp

Ingredients:

one 16 oz pkg frozen blackberries*

one 16 oz pkg frozen raspberries*

one 16 oz pkg frozen blueberries*

one 16 oz pkg frozen strawberries*

1/4 to 1/2 cup favorite GF flour (I use either garbanzo bean or sorghum or GF oat flour because they have more fiber and protein than others; use the smaller amount if you want a juicier crisp and the larger amount if you prefer a drier crisp)

1/2 cup Agave (if you like a sweeter crisp, increase this to 3/4 c)

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp ginger

4 cups gluten free whole grain oats

1/2 cup GF flour (I use either garbanzo bean or sorghum or GF oat flour because they have more fiber and protein than others)

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp ginger

1/2 cup melted vegan butter

1/4 cup Agave

Baking Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease an 11 x 15 pan with your favorite method. (If you don’t have a large pan like this, you can use several smaller dishes like the three pictured above.)

2. Empty into and mix all the frozen berries in a large bowl with the flour until they’re coated.

3. Combine the agave with the cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger and coat the berries with the agave mixture.

4.  Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil, and bake the berries in the preheated oven for about half an hour until the berries are warm and soft and starting to bubble a little.

5.  While the berries are cooking, mix the whole oats with the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. Mix together the melted butter and agave, and mix the oats with the butter mixture. Set aside and let the oat mixture cool.

6.  After the berries have cooked for the half hour, remove the foil from the pan, and reduce the oven to 325 degrees.

7.  Give the oat mixture a good stir. (The oats should be cooled now and have formed little clumps.) Evenly spread the oat mixture over the berries.

8.  Bake the crisp in the lower heat oven for another 15 to 20 minutes, just until the oat mixture has begun to crisp up and brown just a little.  The berries will be bubbling. (Be sure to check after 15 minutes because the oats can become too toasty very quickly.)

9.  The crisp can be served while warm with vanilla “ice cream” or “whipped cream” or just plain. It can also be eaten room temperature or cold.

If you have leftovers, you can wrap it and leave it on the kitchen counter or you can put it into the fridge.  My son thinks it’s a great breakfast food!

* NOTE: Obviously, if the season is right or if you simply prefer and don’t mind paying more, you can use fresh berries instead of frozen. If you use fresh berries, then you don’t need to use very much flour at all, so reduce the flour coating to about 2 tbsp or leave it out altogether, depending on how juicy or dry a crisp you prefer.

Menu Munching: Avocados

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KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

“The best is an orchestra.”

At a recent event for writers, a gentleman shared a story about his grandfather who said that people should be like an orchestra, each complementing one another in harmony to make the world a better place for everyone.

I thought about this when I received an email this week asking me about the hype around super foods. If you look at the list of super foods, you’ll see that they’re fruits, nuts, veggies, beans, whole grains, fish, and spices – essentially and simply an orchestra of naturally existing, non-processed, complementary foods which when eaten make for better health.

It’s not that they’re super. It’s that we unfortunately have fallen away from eating them, and our bodies are craving them. For some folks, it’s the cost. The fact is that the natural foods are a lot more expensive than processed. For others it’s the maintenance. Fresh foods don’t last as long, so they need to be eaten quickly and replaced more regularly which requires more trips to the store. For many it’s that our lives are busy, and we need food which have longer shelf-lives because we’re simply not home to eat the fresh food in the fridge.

The fact, though, is that our bodies need certain vitamins and nutrients to function optimally, and eating a wide variety of fruits, veggies, nuts, whole grains, beans, fish and spices provides what our bodies need in ways that processed foods simply cannot.

In the email, the question was specifically about avocados and why the hype and how to incorporate it into one’s diet.

Avocados are high in fiber, nutrients like potassium, vitamin K and folate, and the good monounsaturated fats our bodies need, so yes, people are advocating it as a super food. Like all the foods on the list, though, it needs to be a part of a healthy varied diet to have any benefit. If you’re eating unhealthy all the time, simply adding avocado to your menu isn’t going to make your body super.

As an addition to a healthy diet, though, avocados can add variety if you’re in a food rut. You can add them onto salads and sandwiches, make soups with them, stuff them, put them into smoothies, and you can even add them to cake recipes. For most folks, avocados mean guacamole, though, so I’m going to focus on that today.

Guacamole often gets a bad rap because it’s most always associated with the tortilla chips people tend to eat with them. It’s the tortilla chips that are unhealthy; not the guacamole. Guacamole is actually a combination of super foods: avocado, garlic, onions, citrus juice, jalapeno peppers, and sometime tomatoes. So, eating it is a good thing, though one should eat it as a veggie dip or a sandwich spread as opposed to a tortilla chip dip.

Making Guacamole:

1. Purchase good avocados: You want avocados which are dark green, soft to your touch, but without any brown, overly soft spots. When you go to the store, though, the avocados are almost always unripe. So, look for ones which are green with no brown and/or soft spots in them, firm to the touch and heavy in your hand. When you bring them home, put them into a paper bag, and check them after a day or so. When they’re ripe, they’ll be soft when you press into the skin with your finger. If you have the time to wait, you can also simply leave the avocados in a bowl on your counter, and they’ll ripen over time.

2. Prepare the avocados: Avocados are easy to cut. You simply cut in half around the pit and twist. When the avocado is ripe, the seed will simply slip out with very little aid from a spoon or knife. If the pit is sticking to the avocado flesh, it’s a clear sign that the avocado isn’t ripe. When avocados are ripe, you can put a spoon around the edge between the skin and the flesh and the avocado flesh will simply fall out of the skin. If the flesh is sticking to the skin, it’s either unripe or overly ripe.

3. Decide on the ingredients: Guacamole is usually a combination of avocados, citrus juice, garlic, onions, and jalapeno peppers with folks sometimes adding tomatoes, too. You can decide what you want to use. Since I don’t always have fresh jalapeno peppers and onions in the house, I often use dried red pepper flakes and onion powder. I also prefer to use Meyer lemons over lime juice, and since my children don’t like tomatoes in their guacamole, I don’t include it. You can decide whether you want to use all fresh ingredients or some dried like me. You can choose whether you prefer the taste of lime or lemon juice. You can decide whether to be a purist or to add tomatoes or even experiment with other additions. Some folks like to add herbs like basil to their guacamole. Most add salt and pepper to taste.

4. Begin with a basic recipe: A basic recipe I follow is:  Put the flesh of two avocados into a large bowl. Begin with 2 tablespoons of squeezed citrus juice, 2 tsp of minced garlic, and 1/8 tsp each of onion powder, black pepper, salt, and red pepper flakes. Mash the ingredients into the avocados so everything is combined but the avocados are still chunky. Taste and see what you need to add more of to your liking. If you’re using all fresh ingredents, start with 2 tsp of minced onions and seeded, jalapeno peppers and then see if you need to add more or not.

 

Menu Suggestion: Oatmeal Pancakes

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“What do you mean it’s blue and black?”

There’s an experiment making it’s rounds on the internet these days which is a picture of a striped dress, partially in shadow and partially in light. The question asked is “What color is the dress?” What’s interesting is that a percentage of folks will say the dress is white and gold striped, while another percentage will say it is blue and black striped.

According to the explanation given, the two different answers represent how people’s brains process information. If your brain sees the dress only, regardless of the shadow or light around it, you will see the dress as blue and black (which it actually is). If your brain looks at the picture as a whole, incorporating the shadows and light around it, then you will see the dress as white and gold.

Interestingly enough, my husband and middle child, who lean toward more big picture, conceptually-minded thinking, see the dress as white and gold, while my oldest and youngest and I, who are extremely detailed-oriented thinkers, see the dress as blue and black. And of course, both sides think the other is nuts for seeing as they do!

I was reminded of this experiment when my son asked yet again for chocolate chip pancakes. Whereas I view food as fuel for my growing son which needs to be healthy and thought out, my son sees food only as an opportunity for gluttonous pleasure. On this particular occasion he and my middle child both had friends sleeping over, and my son thought it would be a valid argument in favor of chocolate chip pancakes – “But mama, don’t you want to serve our guests something they’d like to eat?”

I personally thought the kids wouldn’t care what I served them, but I decided in the interest of the dress experiment, that maybe I should work out a compromise with my son. Yes, to chocolate chip pancakes in deference to his view of food, but also yes to the pancakes being healthy to stay true to my food views. The result was a gluten, dairy, egg free oatmeal pancakes with both blueberries and mini chocolate chips.

Below is the recipe for folks interested in trying them out. You can make them without the chocolate chips and only blueberries; you can omit the blueberries and make them only chocolate chip; you can omit both. Your choice.

Gluten, Dairy, Egg Free Oatmeal Pancakes

(Makes a lot; may want to half the recipe for a small family)

Ingredients:

4 cups “milk” of choice (soy, flax, rice, cow, etc….)

4 tbsp lemon juice

2 cups gluten free quick oats

2 tbsp ground golden flaxseed

6 tbsp water

2 cups favorite Gluten Free flour blend (I used a garbanzo and fava bean blend for the protein and fiber)

1 cup sorghum flour

1 cup gluten free oat flour

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1 cup Enjoy Life allergen free mini chocolate chips (can use regular mini chips if you aren’t allergic to them)

1/3 cup melted “butter” of choice (vegan, soy-free, or cow)

1/4 cup Agave

1 tbsp safflower oil

12 oz frozen wild mini blueberries

Cooking Instructions:

1. Mix the milk with the lemon juice. Add the quick oats, blending well, and let sit.

2. Mix the flaxseed with the water, and let sit.

3. Combine the gluten free flour blend, the sorghum flour, the oat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add the chocolate chips.  Set aside.

4. Mix the melted butter, agave and oil. Combine this with the milk/oat mixture and flaxseed mixture, and add the blueberries.

5. Combine the wet ingredients with the dry until everything is well blended. Let sit while the griddle or pan heats.

6. Heat a pancake griddle to 350 degrees or a pan over medium heat. Grease with favorite method (oil, spray, butter).

7. Ladle pancake batter by 1/4 cups and let cook until the pancakes begins to bubble and get dry around the edges (usually just a minute or two). Flip and cook on the other side another minute or two.

8. Serve and enjoy! (I found them to be sweet enough without anything, but the kids still poured maple syrup on top!)

Simple Pleasures: Chocolate Chip Muffins

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“Well, can you make it a junky, healthy snack, then?”

My son has a sweet tooth – there is no doubt about that – and every day he looks for a way to finagle a treat. For a mom who’s trying to feed her children healthy foods, it can become tiresome to always be “fighting” about what is good and what it isn’t. So, I’m always creating recipes which can be a compromise between what my son considers a treat and what I think is healthy.

The other day, my son really wanted something “junky” as he called it, and I advocated for something healthy. When he asked me for a “junky, healthy snack” I laughed, but then I got to work. After all, if I could create something he thought was “junky” but it really wasn’t, then we’d both be happy.

I asked my son what he wanted, and he replied that he wanted a chocolate chip muffin. He, of course, meant one of those monstrosities they sell at the store which is all white flour and butter and huge chocolate chips, a lot of them. I wasn’t going for that, but it did give me an idea, and the result was a low fat chocolate chip muffin which was full of potassium from bananas, antioxidants and fiber from dates, and protein (and fiber) from oat and garbanzo bean flour – plus the muffins were free of dairy, soy, gluten, eggs, nuts, and refined sugar. What more could a mother ask?

And my son plus my daughters, and later, my writing group, all enjoyed the muffins immensely.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients:

8 ounces of pitted, chopped dates

1 cup gluten free rolled whole oats

1 cup boiling water

2 tbsp ground golden flaxseed

6 tbsp water

1 cup gluten free oat flour

1 cup garbanzo bean flour

2/3 cup potato starch

1/3 cup arrowroot starch

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp ginger

1 cup Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips

Four 6 inch bananas (comes to about 1 1/4 cups mashed)

1/4 cup safflower oil

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Baking Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line 24 muffin cups with cupcake liners or grease them so the muffins won’t stick to your pan.

2.  Use a food processor to finely chop your dates into tiny pieces. (This will distribute the dates throughout your batter.)

3. Mix the finely chopped dates with the oats in a bowl, and pour the boiling water over them, pushing the dates and oats down into the water so they are covered. Let sit.

4. Whisk together the flaxmeal with the water, and set aside.

5. Whisk together the oat flour, garbanzo bean flour, potato starch, arrowroot starch, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger.  Stir in the chocolate chips and set aside.

6. Mash the bananas and mix with the oil and the dates and oatmeal mixture and the flaxmeal mixture.

7. Make a hole in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients along with the apple cider vinegar. Mix up quickly just until the dry ingredients are moist.

8. Evenly scoop the muffin batter among the 24 muffin cups and bake for 15 minutes or until the cupcakes are golden and puffed and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

9. Remove the muffins to a wire rack and cool completely.  These keep well in a tightly covered tupper ware container.

 

 

 

 

Simple Pleasures: Blondies

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“I’d rather be a stromboli.”

My son loves pizza, and if he had his way, he’d eat pizza morning, noon, and night, seven days a week. His great sadness in life is that he only gets pizza every couple of months. The nice thing is that he doesn’t care what type of pizza it is – whether it’s frozen from the grocery store or fresh from a pizza parlor or homemade; so occasionally I’ll also make a pizza stromboli where I roll the dough like a cinnamon bun with the tomato sauce and cheese and filling wrapped up inside.

The other day I was teasing him that he’d turn into a pizza if he wasn’t careful, and he responded by saying that he’d rather be a stromboli because it’s neater, easier to pack for his lunches at school, and that people ask questions about it.

As I thought about our conversation, I started thinking about blondies. Blondies are to brownies what stromboli is to pizza. It’s similar but different enough that people don’t often associate the two. Simply put, blondies are brownies which aren’t chocolate. They have the same fudgy texture and are made just like brownies, and if you’re feeling like something just a little bit different, these are just the thing.

My family loves them, and when I make them for company, they love them, too. When it came to revamping a recipe, though, it took a little bit of creativity because blondies usually get their rich, caramel and butter taste from butter and sugar, both of which we don’t use, plus we were making them gluten and egg free. We found a recipe on the back of an Enjoy Life package, and after tweaking it a bit, we were able to create a recipe that is quick and easy to make and delicious.

Blondies

Ingredients:

1/4 cup ground golden flaxseed

3/4 cup water

2/3 cup safflower oil

1 tbsp gluten free vanilla

2 cups coconut sugar

1 cup Gluten Free flour blend (we use Authentic Foods brown rice version)

1 cup sorghum flour

1/4 cup gluten free oat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups allergen free chocolate chunks (we use Enjoy Life)

Baking Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease an 11 x 15 pan. (Can use whatever you prefer.)

2.  Mix the flaxseed with the water and let it sit while mixing the other ingredients.

3. Mix the oil, vanilla and coconut sugar. Stir the flaxseed mixture to be sure it’s thickened and looks like beaten eggs, and add it to the we ingredients.

4. Whisk together the gluten free flour blend, the sorghum flour, the oat flour, the baking soda, the baking powder, and the salt.

5. Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, along with the chocolate chunks, and mix quickly until the batter is well mixed.

6. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan and bake for 20 to 25 minutes until the blondies are a golden brown. The batter will have puffed and be slightly firm to the touch.

7. Cool completely on a wire rack before cutting into pieces to be eaten. (You can certainly cut them while warm, but like brownies they won’t cut as well.)

Simple Pleasures: Cranberry Scones

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website scones

“May your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions.”

When my husband and I married, one of my two newly minted degrees was in Psychology, and having gotten married in late December, our first New Year’s celebration came upon us pretty quickly. Being a wise 22, I decided we could do resolutions “better”. So, I made up a three page chart which would assess how our year had been physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, and spiritually, stating that we’d then make goals under these categories for our new year, both individually and for us as a newly married couple.

It’s a testament to my husband’s sainthood that he humored my insanity, not only that evening, but over the course of the year as I continued to drag out the bedraggled sheets to assess how we were doing.

When our second New Year’s came around, my husband very gently asked me whether we should assess the successfulness of my better resolution experiment before we embarked on another year of it; and of course, what we discovered is that we hadn’t done any better with our resolutions than we had any other time in our lives.

What it had done, though, was to make us more conscious of the fact that a better life is all about those daily decisions, not the one time a year ones; and for those of us trying to be healthy and take care of our allergies and be in better shape and wanting to love better, it’s what we do each day that makes the difference, not what we simply say we want to do on January 1.

So, for today’s post, I’m sharing another simple pleasure recipe for scones. In the past, I wouldn’t make scones because normal versions use a lot of butter and cream, and they took too much time and required more effort than I liked to expend. Over time, though, I realized that there were ways to make them healthier and that I could make drop scones instead which took much less time and effort. These cranberry ones don’t take much time to make, and you get lots of good health benefits from the cranberries, protein and fiber, which is one way you can improve your health today on your first day of 2015.

Gluten and Dairy Free Cranberry Scones

Ingredients:

12 oz bag fresh cranberries (I actually keep them frozen in my fridge so I can just pull one out when I need it)

1/4 cup unsweetened orange juice

2 tbsp Agave

1/3 cup vegan butter

2/3 cup flax milk mixed with 2 tsp lemon juice (You can use another type of milk if you prefer)

1 cup vegan ricotta

1 tbsp coconut sugar

1/4 cup safflower oil

2 tbsp Agave

3/4 cup sorghum flour

3/4 cup garbanzo bean flour

2 cup Gluten free brown rice blend (I use Authentic Foods)

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

2 tbsp coconut sugar

Baking Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

2. In your food processor, chop up your fresh or frozen cranberries with the orange juice and agave. Set aside.

3. Measure out the vegan butter and put it into the freezer while you are assembling the rest of the ingredients.

4. Mix the flax milk with the lemon juice and let is sit for a minute while you mix the ricotta with the coconut sugar.

5. Add the milk mixture to the ricotta mixture, along with the safflower oil and agave. Set aside.

6. Mix together the sorghum, garbanzo bean, and gluten free flour blend with the salt, cinnamon, ginger, and coconut sugar.

7. Take your butter out of the freezer and cut in the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or two knives until the flour mixture is a bit crumbly.

8. Gently stir in the cranberries so they are coated with the dry ingredients.

9. Make a well in the center of the dry mixture and pour in the wet ingredients. Quickly mix the batter up just until the dry ingredients are moist.

10. Drop the batter by 1/4 cup onto the lined cookie sheets, and bake for about 20 minutes. The scones will be puffed and golden. You may eat them immediately while warm or cool the scones on a wire cooling rack for later eating.

NOTE: Your cooking time may vary, depending on your measuring cup. I usually use a deep cup so it takes 20 minutes, but once I used a shallower cup and the scones took less time, so be sure to gauge accordingly. Basically you want your scones to be puffed and airy and cooked through.

 

Simple Pleasures: Grilled Cheese

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“No, nothing flashed.”

Over the holiday I was fortunate to survive three different episodes of what the doctor diagnosed as heart failure due to anaphylaxis, and I’m sorry to share that, at none of those times, did my life flash before my eyes.

I have always been curious as to what exactly would flash: my entire life? all the good memories? all the bad? the childhood ones I can no longer remember? my most recent days? The movies and songs talk about your whole life being seen, but honestly there’s not that much time between when you first feel that first tightness and your breathing stops. How could your whole life possibly flash?

In my case, my brain seemed most preoccupied with the fact that I wasn’t getting any more air into my lungs, and the only conscious thought I remember having is concern for my children if I actually died on Christmas day of all days. It would be bad enough for them to lose me, but to ruin the rest of their Christmases to come just seemed to add insult to injury.

Fortunately, I am alive and well, and I’m wondering if the flashing of one’s life may actually be all the reflection you tend to have after almost dying. Things I’ve not thought about in years have come to the surface, and I find myself thinking about whether there is anything I need to consider doing before I do die.

One of the things I did was to scribble thoughts in reaction to recent events in my life and to send them off to everyone I know, telling them how much they mean to me and how much I appreciate them. The other thing I did was to finally make a vegan grilled cheese sandwich.

Now, this may strike folks as slightly absurd, but when I developed my dairy allergy, I lost out on one of the simple pleasures in life: a hot, gooey, grilled cheese sandwich, the type mom used to make for you when you were little and had had a bad day. Because I’ve not had much fondness for the “fake” cheeses, I’ve opted to forego having grilled cheese sandwiches. After recent events, though, I decided that life is to short to deprive myself of the simply things one can enjoy.

So, I adapted a recipe from Cooking Light which they created to make a lower fat, less calorie grilled cheese sandwich, though, of course, using all “real” dairy ingredients, and I have to tell you: Life is worth living! *grin* It was gooey and creamy and delicious, and I was very happy at lunch today.

So, I invite you to indulge as well, and below the recipe, I’ll share the thoughts I shared with the people in my life, because although it’s not a recipe for a meal, I’m thinking it’s a good recipe these days for life. (Hopefully folks will be able to open it. I’ll add it under my “thoughts” section, too, just in case….) Happy New Year!

Gluten Free Vegan Grilled Cheese Sandwich: Choose your favorite gluten free bread (I used Udi’s Soft and Hearty Whole Grain bread). In a bowl mix 2 tbsp of vegan cream cheese with 1 tbsp vegannaise and 2 tbsp Daiya shredded mozzarella. Chop up baby spinach and fresh tomato (strain the juice out) and mix into the cheese mixture. Spread the mixture onto one of your slices of bread and top with the other. In a shallow fry pan which has a lid, put 1/2 tsp of olive oil, and set your sandwich into the pan. Cover with the lid and cook over the lowest heat setting until the first side is golden brown and the cheese is starting to melt. Flip the sandwich (if needed add another 1/2 tsp of olive oil for the second side). When the second side is golden brown, move the sandwich to a plate and let is cool for a few moments before indulging.

Today Is the Day

Creative Cooking: Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

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“Can we make something chocolate?”

My few weeks have been beyond crazy.  On top of our usual busyness of school, work, and activities, we’ve continued to deal with my oldest’s recovery from being hit by a car, we’ve grieved the death of a friend’s daughter, we’ve agonized over a loved one being in the hospital in an induced coma, and we added rehearsals for my son to be in “It’s A Wonderful Life” and auditions for a play I’m directing.

So, it’s now just a few days before Thanksgiving, and I’m finally turning my attention to the menu for that day and returning to this blog which I have ignored for these past three weeks. When I asked my children what we should have my middle child responded with the question:  “Can we make something chocolate?”

Now, two of my three children are well-rounded dessert lovers. When presented with choices, they may choose a slice of apple pie or a piece of zucchini cake or a ginger cookie or a slice of pumpkin cheesecake. My middle child, however, when given options to choose from, will opt for the chocolate cream pie or the chocolate fudge cake or the double chocolate cookie or the chocolate cheesecake.

So, I wasn’t surprised when she asked if we could make something chocolatey. She always does, and I always suggest that we stick to the traditional pies for Thanksgiving and make something chocolate for another time. I surprised myself yesterday, though, by actually contemplating the idea of making chocolate cupcakes.

Why? Three reasons: One, I just had a really, really long week and the thought of something comforting like chocolate cupcakes was enticing; two, with the death of my friend’s daughter at such a young age (20’s) and my own daughter being alive after being hit by a car, I’m realizing that life’s too short to NOT have chocolate, no matter the season; and three, we just watched my son’s performance in “It’s A Wonderful Life” where I was reminded that it’s all really about family and friends and time together and not the menu.

So, if you need assistance in revamping your holiday menu to fit allergy or health needs, please read my posts from last year (Nov and Dec 2013) where you’ll learn all sorts of lessons for how to do so; but for this Thanksgiving, I’m offering a creative addition to the Thanksgiving menu:  Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes which are gluten, dairy, nut, soy, peanut, and egg free. Enjoy and have a most Happy Thanksgiving!

Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups gluten free flour (I used Authentic Foods Multi-Blend)

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

1 cup Enjoy Life allergen free mini chocolate chips

1/2 cup Hershey’s dark unsweetened cocoa powder

3/4 cup oil (I used safflower)

1 cup Agave

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups water

2 tbsp vinegar (I used raspberry but apple cider or white will do)

Polaner’s Raspberry All-Fruit

Baking Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 24 muffin cups with cupcake liners.

2. Whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda and cocoa powder. Add the chocolate chips and set aside.

3. Whisk together the oil, agave, vanilla, and water.

4. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet, adding the vinegar.

5. Divide half of the batter evenly among the muffin cups. I usually put about 1 1/2 tbsp of batter into each.

6. Carefully put one teaspoon of raspberry all fruit into the center of the batter.

7. Evenly distribute the remaining batter among the muffin tins, carefully putting the batter over the raspberry all fruit.  Again, this is usually about another 1 1/2 tbsp.

8. Bake the cupcakes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 15 to 20 minutes.

9. Cool in the muffin tins on a wire rack for about five minutes before removing them from the tins and completely cooling them on a wire rack.

10. For a festive touch, put the cupcake into a bowl with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or nondairy frozen dessert next to it with a raspberry and mint leaf on top.

 

Menu Suggestion: Bread Pudding

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“Um… you don’t know me but your daughter has been run over by a car.”

Last week, one of my worst fears as a mother came true. My husband and I received THAT phone call. You know, the one where you’re told that something horrible has happened to your child while you were not with them to prevent it.

We were very fortunate that our daughter survived being hit by a car while she was crossing the street at a crosswalk, but there’s nothing which can erase the agony of those first few hours as the doctors ran tests and our daughter was in and out of consciousness.

Even when we knew she was going to be okay, though, and the world was once again filled with the light of what would eventually be, there was still this need for comfort, and while most of my comfort came through prayers and the support of friends and family, I came to a place one day where I knew I simply had to cook something, because, for me, cooking is soothing to my soul, and being able to cook something special for my daughter brought a different type of  solace.

As I thought about what to make, the first thing which came to my mind was bread pudding. Now, bread pudding isn’t something which folks in my part of the United States make much these days, and that’s such a shame, because folks don’t realize what they’re missing. Bread pudding is a delicious, homey sort of dish which is also extremely versatile and easily adaptable for a lot of food allergies. It’s also a great way to use up leftovers of any type of bread product like loaf bread, muffins, bagels, croissants, or quick breads. Plus it can be anything from a sweet dessert to a savory side dish to a breakfast entree.

I happened to have some allergy friendly pumpkin muffins leftover (free of gluten, dairy, nuts, eggs, and sugar) so I decided to chop those up and mix it up with eggs, chocolate soy milk and chopped pears. It was so delicious! And I confess, I ate it for breakfast, too, since you know — eggs, pumpkin, fruit, milk — all good things to start your day, right? *grin*

There’s some general information, though, which you should know for making bread pudding, and I’ll share them below:

1. The egg to milk ratio: Search for bread pudding recipes in cookbooks and online, and you’ll find that people differ on the ratio of milk to eggs. For myself using at least 1/2 cup of milk per egg is the lowest ratio I use; using 1 cup of milk per egg is the most I’d suggest you’d use. You’re essentially making a custard for the bread to soak up. The milk contributes to the creaminess; the eggs bind it together. The more eggs, the firmer the custard; the more milk, the softer the custard.

2. The milk: The thicker your milk, the more rich your bread pudding, so heavy cream obviously makes for a richer bread pudding than skim milk. You can, however, use any type of milk you want, from skim to heavy cream, from cow milk to coconut, soy, almond, rice or flax milk. Since we have dairy and nut allergies, I use either soy milk or flax milk. Flax milk is thicker so it mimics more the consistency of whipping cream, and it has the added bonus of those omega 3s. Soy milk is nice because it adds some more protein. In addition you are not limited to plain milk. Flavored milks, of any type, are a great way to change up the bread pudding you’re making.

3. The eggs: Using whole eggs with both the whites and yolks makes for a creamier pudding, but you can also make bread pudding with only egg whites, with Eggbeaters, and even without eggs. While eggs do bind, simply using milk alone will work, too. You just need to remember that your liquid to bread ratio has to account for the loss in eggs, which requires using more milk.

4. The liquid to bread ratio: How much liquid you need really depends on your bread. Denser whole grain breads or leftover bagels or muffins will require more liquid than an airy French or Challah bread. As a general rule, though, a one to one ratio works well — one cup of liquid for every one cup of bread. So, for example, 4 cups of bread could be mixed with 4 eggs (which would equal one cup) and 3 cups of milk which would give you a four cup liquid yield to the 4 cups of bread. If you’re uncertain, start with half the amount you think you might need and then add more if necessary.

If you’re making a bread pudding in a 9 x 13 pan, usually you’ll be using at least 3 cups of bread for a shallower bread pudding and up to 6 cups for a thicker bread pudding.

5. Mixing the custard: If you are using both eggs and milk, it’s really important to mix them together before pouring the liquids onto the bread. You’ll sometimes find a recipe that soaks the bread with milk and then mixes in the eggs. You really don’t want to follow that recipe. The key to a good bread pudding is the bread evenly soaking up the liquid, so be sure to whisk your eggs and milk together before pouring them over the bread. Obviously if you’re only using milk, you have no issues.

It’s important that any flavorings or sweeteners or aromatics you use for your bread pudding, whether sweet or savory, are mixed into your custard so that the flavors will soak into the bread along with the custard liquid.

6. The bread: What’s lovely about bread pudding is that most anything will work. Any type of sliced bread, whether wheat based or gluten free, and any type of leftover muffins, bagels, cake pieces, scones, croissants, donuts, etc…. The advantages to using leftover baked products is that you’re using up something you might otherwise throw out and usually those products are already flavored so you don’t need to add any to the custard.

If you are using bread, though, you’ll note that people will say that it should be stale bread or they’ll have you toast the bread in the oven or lightly cook it on the stovetop. This is because the drier your bread, the more obviously it’ll soak up liquid. You don’t, however, need to wait until you have stale bread to make bread pudding. If using fresh bread, simply let the bread soak longer before you put it into the oven. The effect will be the same.

7. The bread shape: Here again you will find that people’s preferences vary. Some will say use cubed bread; others say to keep it sliced; a few will argue for large hunks; many suggest small pieces. Really, it’s all about what you’re looking for as the end product. When I made the chocolate pumpkin pear bread pudding, I actually crumbled the muffins because I wanted a smoother, creamier texture. If you keep the bread in slices, it’ll make for a denser, crispier texture. Bread chunks give you something to bite into. Small cubes make for a chewier texture. So, you decide.

8. The flavorings: Bread pudding can be both sweet or savory. If you want the bread pudding for a dessert, use cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, cloves, ginger or vanilla or fruit peels. If you want a savory side dish or something for breakfast use herbs like thyme, rosemary, oregano, marjoram or basil and/or aromatics like onions, garlic or celery.

9. The sweetener (for dessert puddings): If you’re making a sweet bread pudding, you can sweeten it with sugar, honey, maple syrup, molasses, agave, stevia, or coconut sugar. How much you add to your custard mixture really depends on your sweet tooth. Recipes vary from 1/4 cup to 2 cups for a 4 to 6 cups of cubed bread. I personally add chopped or pureed fruit or some mini chocolate chips if I’m making a sweet bread pudding and omit any other added sweetener.

10. The additions: Okay, the best part of bread pudding is that you can create whatever you want. As I mentioned, this time around I took leftover pumpkin muffins and added chopped up pears and used chocolate soy milk to make a chocolate-pumpkin-pear bread pudding.

You can add anything you like to a bread pudding. For sweet puddings add chopped or pureed fruits or chocolate chips or coconut flakes or dried chopped fruits. For savory puddings add chopped vegetables or pureed pumpkin or squash or sauteed vegetable aromatics like mushrooms and celery or add cheeses like romano or parmesan or even chopped up chicken or sausage.

What’s important is that you either mix the additions with the bread or sprinkle them onto the bread before you add the custard mixture. The custard mixture is always last.

11. Assembling a bread pudding: We’ve basically gone over this in pieces-parts: Prepare your bread, whatever it is, the way you want, whether crumbling, cubes, chunks or slices. If you’re going to mix in any additions, do so. Grease a pan with your preferred method of greasing. Spread the bread mixture evenly in the pan. Mix together your custard, whether it’s eggs and milk or just milk, with your flavorings. Pour the mixture over the bread. Let the bread soak up some of the custard before baking (This can be anything from 15 minutes to overnight.)

12. Cooking the bread pudding: Okay, this is where you decide what type of pudding you want. I like my bread puddings to be soft and creamy in texture. So, for my bread puddings I use a pan with a large overhanging edge and place that pan into a larger pan. Then I put the larger pan, holding the smaller pan, into the oven. Slowly I pour hot water from my tea kettle into the larger pan until the water comes up just under the overhanging edge of the smaller pan. As the pudding cooks and solidifies, the hot water bath more evenly cooks the pudding and the moisture keeps the pudding soft and creamy. If you prefer a heartier texture to your pudding, you can simply bake the bread pudding in the oven in its pan without any hot water bath.

Most bread puddings in a 9 x 13 pan will cook in about an hour at 350 degrees. You’ll know it’s done because the bread pudding won’t be liquidy but puffed and solid.

And bread puddings last for days and days in the fridge without going bad so you can go ahead and make that big 9 x 13 batch instead of the 8 x 8 which many recipes these days make!

 

 

 

 

 

Cooking Techniques: Allergy Friendly Pie Crusts

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website crusts

“Yay! Thanksgiving in October!”

My ninth grade daughter is taking French this year for the first time, and the high school she is at hosts an exchange program with another high school in France. We were asked to host a French student for two weeks, and one of the suggestions for entertainment was to have a Thanksgiving meal with them, since that would be a different experience for them.

We were happy to oblige, as you can tell by my son’s response above.

As we prepared, we explained to our French student that no matter what people say about the Turkey and the side dishes and the rolls, that Thanksgiving really is all about the pies: apple pie, pumpkin pie, mincemeat pie, cranberry pie, pecan pie, sweet potato pie, pear pie, buttermilk pie, and every possible variation of these pies which exist.

For folks with food allergies, though, pies can be tricky. May people struggle with pie-making in general, even when you’re able to use white flour, butter, and salt. The thought of trying to make a pie crust with substitutions is something a lot of folks simply just don’t want to consider.

The good news, though, is that making a gluten, dairy, soy, salt free pie crust is actually easier than making a traditional pie crust. You just need to know a few things, and you’ll be on your way to a great Thanksgiving dessert buffet!

Tips for Allergy Friendly Pie Crusts:

1. It’s just a simple swap: Because pie crusts don’t need to rise the way breads and cakes do, you can simply substitute your favorite gluten free flour for the all purpose flour. No need to make up any special flour blends at all. If you want a flakier, crispier, closer to traditional pie crust, opt for flours like brown rice or sorghum. If you want a more substantive crust with flavor, protein and fiber, try garbanzo bean or gluten free oat flour. If you have a gluten free flour blend sitting around in your closet, you can by all means use, too.

2. Cold is best all the way around: All pie crust recipes call for cold butter or shortening, cold ice water, and to put the made crust in the fridge for a little while. Why? Because warm pie crust dough sticks and won’t roll very well. Warm pie crust dough makes for a denser, less flaky crust.

What I find works wonderfully is to stick your measured butter and/or shortening into the freezer for five 10 minutes or so before using, to put ice cubes into your water, and to put your prepared pie crust dough into the fridge for a minimum of thirty minutes, an hour at the most.

3. “Fat” substitutions work: I use soy free vegan butter and shortening in my pie crusts all the time without any difference. So you can simply use what works for you without worry. It’s a straight one to one substitution ratio. What you should know, though, is that the allergy friendly versions tend to be softer than regular butter and shortening so sometimes I freeze them a little longer more like 10 to 15 minutes.

4. Work around and with the rolling: When it comes to pie crusts, the rolling out of the dough is what usually causes issues for people. I’ve learned a couple of things:

One, you don’t have to roll the bottom crust. I shape my dough into a slightly flattened disk (about an inch high) which I cool in the fridge for my 30-60 minutes, and then I simply use my fingers to push the dough outward from the center to the edges. It takes less than five minutes and actually makes for a more even crust.

Two, when I do have to roll the crust for the top part of a pie, I’ve found that putting the dough between two pieces of wax paper which I’ve also lightly greased is the best approach. The dough rolls easily, doesn’t stick, and comes off when I go to put it on top of the pie.

5. Be creative with the flavoring: Salt is the go-to for pie crusts, but it doesn’t have to be. If you’re making an apple pie, add some cardamom to complement the cinnamon in the pie. If you’re making a pumpkin pie, add grated orange peel as a contrast to the pumpkin. If you’re making a sweet potato pie, add grated nutmeg to intensify the sweet potato taste. You simply add the spices to the dry ingredients of the pie dough before cutting in the fat.

6. Know the effects of the process: Another issue people often have problems with is making their dough too dry or too wet. It’s important to understand the dynamics of the different ways you process the dough:

If you use a food processor which is what many recipes say to do nowadays, the dynamics of the food processing blade means the water is incorporated quickly and efficiently. If you have cut the fat in yourself with a hand pastry blender of two knives and are adding the water by stirring the dough with a fork, the water will drain into different parts of your dough more quickly than you can stir it. As a result you will often need more water for hand processing than when using a food processor.

Also, a food processor will draw the dough naturally into a ball which makes it easy for you to see that you have enough water. When you stir the dough by hand, the dough will usually not form a ball unless you’ve added too much water.

So, a tip: If a recipe calls for a certain tbsp amount of ice water for use in a food processor, it will normally mean you’ll need about two tablespoons more for hand stirring, so if my dough looks dry after the amount specified, I will go ahead and add two more tablespoons, and then even if it looks dry still, I will push the dough together with my hands to form two disks. If the dough will stick together, it’s fine, if there are dry pieces falling off, I simply wet my hands with the ice water and incorporate those dry pieces into the disks.

Struesel Pear Cranberry Pie

(This recipe makes two pies)

Ingredients:

Pie crust, prepare enough for two bottoms only

1 cup agave

1/4 cup water

one 12 oz package of fresh cranberries (be sure to check for stems)

8 pears, washed, cored and sliced into 12-16 slices each

3 tbsp cornstarch

3 tbsp water

2 cups gluten free whole oats

1/2 cup sorghum flour

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/2 cup vegan soy free butter*

Baking Instructions:

1. Prepare your favorite pie crust recipe. If you don’t have one, Bob’s Red Mill pie crust mix works very well. Would recommend adding some spices to jazz it up a bit, though.  Line the bottoms of two 9.5 inch pie pans with the crusts.

2. Mix agave with water and put into a stove top pan large enough to hold all the pears.

3. Add the cranberries and bring to a boil. Cook for a minute or two until the cranberries begin to pop.

4. When the majority of cranberries have popped, add the pears, stirring to coat with the cranberries. Cook for 3-5 minutes until pears have softened.

5. Mix the cornstarch with the water, and making a well in the center of the pear mixtures, slowly add the cornstarch, stirring continually. Mix the cornstarch syrup thoroughly with the pear-cranberry mixture, cooking for a minute or two to make sure the syrup has thickened.

6. Evenly divide the pear-cranberry mixture between the two pie crusts.

7. In a food processor, add the oats, sorghum flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and butter.  Process until the mixture is a nice crumbly topping.

8. Evenly distribute the topping over both pies to completely cover them.

9. Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for about 40-45 minutes until the pie is bubbling and the streusel is golden brown.

10.  Cool completely before serving.

* This makes for a savory topping which contrasts with the sweetness of the pear-cranberry mixture. If you happen to like your toppings sweet, you should add a tbsp or two of Agave with the butter.

 

 

 

Recipe Experiment: Sorghum Quick Bread

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“Well, can’t you make some healthy junk food for me to have as a snack?”

If my son was growing up in what the surveys say is a typical American home, he’d be a junk food junkie. Given the choice, cookies, ice cream, cake, chocolate, candy, would always win. As it is, though, he was born into our family so he is more of a junkie wannabe, constantly nagging me for all those things and resigning himself to a banana when the answer is, “No.”

The other day, though, he had a particularly rough day, and he really wanted something sweet but a banana wasn’t cutting it. (Yes, he must be my son, since he’s already learned that food can sometimes provide solace in the face of difficult days! No, I do not approve of folks “feeding” their problems, but face it, sometimes you just need some comfort food!)

One look at his little sad face, and I caved. Since I still have all that sorghum flour I mentioned in the sorghum pancake post, I decided I’d try experimenting. Maybe I could make a quick bread which would be a good healthy snack but provide that little sweet solace my son craved.

Since sorghum flour is so high in fiber, it seemed it would make a great base for a banana bread where ripe bananas would help to cut down on the need for sugar and the fiber in the sorghum flour would counter any spike in blood sugar levels from all the fructose. I didn’t want the bread to be too heavy, though, so I mixed a bit of brown rice flour, and then, because you know how much I like that protein-full garbanzo bean flour, I added that, too.

Because I wanted to steer clear of egg, dairy, and soy allergies, I used ground flaxseed and flax milk, using lemon to make a “buttermilk” and adding vinegar at the end to help the eggless, gluten free breads to rise.

I had wanted to use a little bit of safflower oil, but since the cupboards were bare of that, I opted for a coconut oil and used some coconut sugar, figuring any residual coconut taste would complement the bananas. To add other flavor, I decided this would be a spice bread and incorporated some cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice and cardamom. Then because this was supposed to be “medicinal” bread, I added mini Enjoy Life chocolate chips, and the results were two loaves of delicious, healthy snacking bread.

My son was happy that he got to eat a “healthy junky snack”, and I was happy that I was able to bring a smile to his face without compromising my principles surrounding junk food.

Sorghum Banana Quick Bread

Ingredients:

2 tbsp golden ground flaxseed mixed with 6 tbsp of water

1/2 cup flax milk* mixed with 1/2 tbsp lemon juice

2 cups mashed very ripe bananas

1/2 cup melted coconut oil**

1/4 cup Agave

2 cups sorghum flour

1/2 cup brown rice flour

1/2 cup garbanzo bean flour***

1/2 cup coconut sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp sea salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp allspice

1 1/2 cups Enjoy Life allergen free mini chocolate chips****

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar*****

Baking Instructions:

1. Line two 9 x 5 loaf pans with parchment paper so there are wings hanging over the sides of the pan for lifting the bread out, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix together the flaxseed and water and let it sit for five minutes to thicken.

3. Mix together the milk and lemon juice and let that sit for five minutes to thicken.

4. Mix together the flaxseed mixture, the milk mixture, the mashed bananas, coconut oil and agave. Set aside.

5. Whisk together the sorghum, brown rice and garbanzo bean flours with the coconut sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice.

6. Add the chocolate chips to the dry mixture, and then add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients with the apple cider vinegar.  Mix quickly and well.

7. Evenly divide the batter between the two loaf pans.

8. Bake for 40 minutes until the bread is golden brown and a toothpick in the center comes out mostly clean.

9. Cool the bread for 10 minutes in the pan. Then remove the bread, using the parchment paper wings to a wire cooling rack. Cool another ten minutes, and then carefully slide the loaves off the parchment paper onto the wire rack.

10. Cool completely, slice and enjoy.  Or eat it while it’s still warm, if you can’t wait!

* You can use any other type of milk, too.

** Try it with safflower oil or vegan melted butter instead of coconut oil if you have a tree nut allergy.

*** If you have a legume allergy, just double the brown rice flour or opt for another type altogether.

**** If you want to mix it up, omit the chocolate chips and try using chopped dried plums or apricots or dates instead.

*****If you don’t have apple cider vinegar, white distilled is fine.

Final Note: If you don’t want to use all those spices, don’t. Feel free to omit any of them or experiment with your own flavors.