Recipe Revamping: Pumpkin Tunnel Cake

“Calories: Tiny evil creatures which live in your closet and quietly sew your clothes tighter every night.”

The above was written on a pillow sitting in a store window, and my son pointed it out to me, thinking it would make me laugh. He was right! I’m convinced these creatures have been multiplying in my closet over the past few years. What else would account for my clothes beginning to become more snug as I age? *grin*

I thought about the pillow when I received an email asking if I could revamp a recipe not just for allergies but to reduce overall calories. The recipe in question was for a tunnel cake and called for a total of six eggs, a cup of butter, and 12 ounces of cream cheese, so it’s no wonder the request was being made!

If you’re not familiar with a tunnel cake, it’s simply a bundt cake with a filling inside. They’re fun cakes to make wonderful to serve to guests because they look pretty and taste lovely. This particular cake was a pumpkin ginger cream cheese cake. The original recipe called for the filling: 12 oz cream cheese, 1/2 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/4 tsp salt, 2 large eggs, 1/2 tsp vanilla, and 1/2 cup crystallized ginger; and for the cake: 2 1/4 cup flour, 2 tsp salt, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tbsp ground ginger, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp cloves, 1 15 oz can pumpkin, 2 cups sugar, 1 cup butter, 4 large eggs, and 1 tsp vanilla.

To revamp the cake:

The Filling: To tackle the calories and the allergies to dairy, I opted to use tofu cream cheese and tofu sour cream in place of the regular cream cheese and sour cream, and I decreased the amounts by half. Even with half of the filling, there was plenty to fill the “tunnel” and to give the cake it’s pretty look and it’s surprise taste. I opted to keep one whole egg in the filling because it would help with the texture of the filling, figuring I could do something about the amount of eggs in the cake itself. To further reduce calories (and because I never use white refined sugar), I used Truvia in place of the sugar, which meant I could use half the amount needed.

The Cake: Because the person emailing couldn’t eat gluten, I swapped a gluten free blend for the white flour, but I didn’t want to use a rice flour blend for the entire cake, so I only used 1 1/2 cups of a GF blend and used sorghum and gluten free oat flour for the rest of the amount to add protein and fiber to the cake as well as to give the texture of the cake some density. I also chose to use 3/4 c of Agave instead of the 2 cups of sugar which further reduced calories as well as getting rid of the refined white sugar. To tackle the bad fat in the butter, I opted for safflower oil instead and reduced the amount to 3/4 cup. For the eggs, I decided to use 2 eggs and use 1/2 cup of egg whites for the rest.

The cake came out quite lovely. I served it to guests who asked for the recipe because they liked it so much! Below is the recipe as I made it. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Ginger Tunnel Cake

Ingredients:

Ginger Filling:

6 oz Tofutti cream cheese, room temp (3/4 cup)

1/4 cup Tofutti sour cream, room temp

1 1/2 tbsp Truvia

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/8 tsp salt

1 egg

1/4 tsp gluten free vanilla

1/4 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger (I chop it in my food processor into tiny pieces)

The Pumpkin Cake:

1 1/2 cup Gluten Free rice flour blend

1/4 cup sorghum flour

1/2 cup oat flour

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp ground ginger

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cloves

2 cups pumpkin, cooked and pureed or canned

3/4 cup Agave

3/4 cup safflower oil

2 eggs

1/2 cup liquid egg whites

1 tsp gluten free vanilla

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar or white vinegar

Baking Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour a Bundt pan with your preferred method. Just make sure that you’ve covered every crevice well so that your cake will easily come out when you invert it. Nothing is worse than the top of your bundt cake sticking to the pan!
Using a mixer, blend the cream cheese until smooth and creamy. Add the sour cream, truvia, ginger, and salt. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating just until incorporated. Mix in the vanilla and crystallized ginger. Set aside.
Whisk together the gluten free flour blend, sorghum flour, oat flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Set aside.
Mix together the pumpkin, agave, oil, egg, egg whites, and vanilla.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet with the vinegar and mix well until the dry ingredients are completely moistened.
Fill the prepared bundt pan half full and make a little tunnel in the batter for the filling.
Give the filling a good stir because the ginger pieces would have have fallen to the bottom. Carefully spoon the filling into the tunnel. It will probably spill out a bit. Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.
Carefully add the rest of the cake batter to cover the filling.
Bake for about 40 minutes until the cake has risen, is golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Cool on a wire rack for at least 15 minutes, better to do 25 to 30. Carefully invert and remove the cake from the pan. Cool completely.

Creative Cooking: Crepes

July 11, 2016PajamaLiving dairy free, gluten free, nut/peanut free, soy free Leave a comment

“Sorry we tried to kill you and your students. Do you want a job with us?”

Several weeks ago I had a terrible experience at a banquet I helped to host for the music students of our high school. Several conversations and in-person meetings with the chef and the functions manager of the facility to ensure that the students from our high school would have no worries regarding their food allergies didn’t yield the expected results . Despite having put together a completely allergy friendly menu ahead of time, on the day of the banquet, the chef cooked the food with all the ingredients he was supposed to leave out which caused no end of stress as we learned that fact literally minutes before several students put the food into their mouths! Fortunately, we did get to the students before their forks touched their lips, and new meals were made, but as you can imagine, I was not at all pleased.

Laughably, all my mother’s etiquette training must have worked, because at the end of the event, the onsite coordinator actually took the time to thank me for being the most polite angry person he’d ever had the pleasure of working with to deal with an issue. More incredibly, he also told me that he and the chef had taken a liberty in having a piece of the gluten, dairy, soy, nut free chocolate mousse cake I had brought for the students with allergies and that it was the best cake either of them had ever eaten. Most unbelievable, though, was the next day when the manager, who had called to see what she could do to keep our school’s business after the unfortunate event, asked me if I wanted to work for them, making cakes for their weddings!

As a writing facilitator, I always tell the folks who attend my writing groups that truth is stranger than fiction and that they only have to look at life for creative writing ideas. My experience above bears out the truth of what I’ve been telling them!

The fact is that while there’s more recognition around gluten and nut sensitivities, there’s still a long way to go for the world to think proactively about accommodating people with food allergies in general. Our allergy friendly menu fell off the radar for the chef and the manager because they simply don’t think about it regularly. Fortunately, now the manager has revamped all of their forms so that allergies are actually the first item on the form — and in bright red now! So, hopefully no other folks will have to deal with the issues we went through on that day.

As for the job offer, the chef was surprised that my cake was actually good! The site coordinator went on and on about how the chef couldn’t believe how much the texture and the taste was like a “real” cake. As he spoke, I kept thinking that my cake WAS a REAL cake. It wasn’t “fake”. It wasn’t made of air. All the ingredients were ingredients you can buy at the store, made from real, natural foods like tofu and garbanzo beans and oats and flaxseed.

I was thinking about all this the other day as I made crepes….

Like the cake I made, crepes are misunderstood to be something they are not. Most folks I’ve spoken to seem to believe crepes are complicated to make. Crepes are actually wonderfully easy to make and are very versatile. They are basically just flour, eggs, and milk — all of which people can be allergic to. This, however, isn’t a problem, because it’s so easy to substitute ingredients for crepes. And it’s worth doing, because you can make crepes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert in just a matter of minutes. And if you have guests, they’ll be highly impressed because they’ll think you did a lot of work when you didn’t!

What you need to know about crepes:

Ratios: Google crepes recipes, and you’ll discover that the only consistency lies in the three basic ingredients: eggs, milk, and flour. The ratio of the three to one another varies from recipe to recipe. For every one cup of flour, some will call for 1 cup of milk; others 2 cups. For that same cup of flour, some recipes will call for two eggs; another four. What you need to know is this: crepes are supposed to be thin, so your liquid ingredients combined – the milk and eggs – should be more than the flour, unlike in pancakes where the dry to liquid ingredients are usually one to one. How much milk versus eggs you add is really all about your preferences. More eggs makes slightly thicker, custardy crepes. More milk creates lacier, more delicate crepes. If you are making crepes for the first time, I’d suggest using one cup of flour, one cup of milk and two eggs as a basic recipe and then experiment from there to see which texture you prefer.
The Flour: You are not limited to white flour for crepes. You can use wheat; you can use gluten free; you can even use nut flours. What’s important to know is that because you want your crepes to be light, if you are going to use a heavier flour like garbanzo bean or whole wheat or sorghum, you should opt to use less than you might with typical white flour – more like 1/2 cup. If you want to use the same one cup amount, opt for a lighter flours like rice or tapioca or arrowroot.
The Milk: Once again, your options are unlimited. You can use other types of milk for crepes besides cow milk. Almond milk, coconut milk, rice milk, quinoa milk, etc… they all work! And unlike the flour substitutions, these can all be substituted one to one for the regular milk.
The Eggs: If you are watching your cholesterol, you can opt to use only egg whites. Just remember that you need two whites to replace one whole egg, or if you’re using liquid egg whites, that about 1/4 cup is equivalent to a large egg. If you are allergic to eggs, you can also simply leave the eggs out. You can simply increase the milk amount to replace the liquid you’re losing from the eggs — again about 1/4 cup of milk for each egg you omit. You can also mix one tablespoon of ground golden flaxseed with three tablespoons of water to replace one egg.
The Fat: Crepes usually have one other important ingredient: a fat. Usually one tablespoon of butter or olive oil or melted coconut oil or almond butter or whatever you decide is enough, but it’s good to choose a fat because it helps the crepes to stick less to your pan, as well as adds some flavor.
The Flavor: Crepes are usually made so that you can fill them with savory or sweet fillings so you don’t really need to add anything other than a pinch of salt, but as always, tailor the crepes to your taste. If you want something sweet, add a bit of honey or agave to the batter. If you want something savory, add some herbs. Want something distinctive? Substitute orange juice for part of the milk. Experiment and see what you like.
The Batter: Okay, I promised you that making crepes was easy, and it is. Whatever you’ve decided to use for your crepes, you simply mix all the ingredients together. You can whisk them, blend them, shake them, food process them, and in a matter of minutes you have a nice batter. What’s key is that you want your batter to be very smooth. The smoother, the better. If you are making crepes with flour, you should let the batter rest because this relaxes the gluten in the batter. If you’re making gluten free crepes, then you have no such worries.
The Cooking: People think making crepes is difficult and takes time, but I make enough crepes for a family of five in less than ten minutes. Crepes cook very quickly. You simply grease your pan, pour a scant amount to just cover the bottom, let the crepes begin to solidify (usually only about a minute), flip, let the crepes finish cooking on the other side (usually about thirty seconds), transfer to a plate, and you’re done with a stack in just mere minutes. You simply need to follow a couple of easy steps:
1. Don’t use a large pan. A pan sized for an omelet is the perfect size. It allows you to easily flip the crepes without worrying about tearing them.
2. Cook over medium heat. Too low and the crepes won’t cook quickly enough. Too high and the crepes will burn.
3. Don’t use a large scoop. You only want enough batter to just cover the bottom of your pan. Usually a quarter cup works just fine.
4. Invest in a wide spatula. A spatula which allows you to get completely under the crepe to flip it quickly is best.
5. Make sure your crepes won’t stick to your pan. Use your favorite spray or oil in between each crepe if you don’t have a nonstick pan. You don’t need a lot – a quarter tsp will work – but you do need something to make sure the crepes don’t stick because otherwise they’ll tear or burn.
The Filling: Crepes are great because you can fill them however you want. You can keep them simple and spread jam on the crepes and roll or fold them over. You can put fresh fruit on top. You can make a creamy vegetable filling (I like to make a white sauce with spinach and mushrooms which I roll the crepes around). You can fill the crepes with ice cream or a vanilla custard. You can spread cheeses like ricotta or marscarpone and fold the crepes. You can fill them with pureed pumpkin or squash. You can use a lemon curd. You can roll chicken salad inside crepes. The list is endless. Experiment and see what you like!

Cooking Techniques: No Bake Cheesecakes

June 25, 2016PajamaLiving dairy free, egg free, gluten free, informational, lesson, nut/peanut free, reduced refined sugar, soy free Leave a comment

“But they’re really more like suggestions than hard and fast recipes….”

Once again some friends were telling me this week that I needed to write a cookbook….. And once again, as I thought about it, I realized that the problem with a cookbook is that it presumes you believe your recipes should be followed…. And I don’t!

I personally never follow recipes. Even the ones I put on this blog, I’m always re-creating to see if I can either make them better or differently. To me the goal of this blog is to give folks enough tips and techniques and knowledge that you can then be as creative as you want. My recipes are supposed to be jumping off points, not “hard and fast, you must follow this to the T” types of experiences. That’s why I write at length about the “how’s” of each recipe I give, and it’s also why there are so many posts on this site which give no recipes and only “techniques”.

To illustrate my point today, I thought I’d use no bake cheesecakes: Right now they’re all the rage because they’re versatile and summery without the use of an oven. I could certainly give you a recipe for a no bake cheesecake but the fact is that there are so many different ways to make them that I’d hate to limit you to just one recipe.

For instance:

The crust: For a no bake cheesecake, you can use just about any type of crust you’d like: a crust made from graham crackers, cookies (any type there is from ginger to lemon to sandwich cookies to chocolate chip to oatmeal to you name it!), pretzels, crackers,coconut, goldfish, vanilla or chocolate wafers, nuts, etc…. What type of crust you’ll make will depend on what you’re making for the filling. If you want a traditional cheesecake, use graham crackers. If you’re making a cheesecake with chocolate in it, you might want to use chocolate wafers or a cookie with chocolate pieces. Maybe you’re making a lemon cheesecake which might go well with lemon or vanilla cookies. You can experiment and see what tastes you prefer. If you have allegies, you can use allergy friendly versions of all the above which you can now find in any supermarket.

What’s key is that you should process whatever you’re using into fine crumbs and mix them with a binder such as melted butter or vegan substitute or coconut oil or a nut oil or plant oils such as olive or safflower. Rule of thumb: about 1 1/2 cups of finely processed crumbs will cover the bottom and sides of a traditional pie pan. How much binder you use depends on your tastes and health: I tend to use a low amount, about 2 tablespoons, just enough to moisten the crumbs so they’ll adhere to one another. Many recipes will call for 4 to 6 tablespoons. You can also begin with two and add more if you think it’s needed. What you use can depend on your tastes and health and allergies. If you’re allergic to dairy or have health issues, you may opt to use a plant oil instead of butter. Or maybe you want just the taste of the cookies you’re using to come through, so you might use a more neutral canola oil. Or maybe your cheesecake will do well to have the complementary flavor of a nut oil.

Whatever you choose for the crumbs and the binder, for a no bake cheesecake, the crust should be made first. You then can either pop the crust into the freezer for 15 to 30 minutes or put it into the fridge for an hour or two. Either way, you want the binder to get cold enough to keep the crumbs together so it won’t crumble when you cut into your cheesecake. So, make sure the crust is solid before making and adding your cheesecake filling.

If you’re looking to make things even easier, you can use store bought crusts. Now they even make gluten, dairy, nut free versions which you can purchase at the regular grocery stores.

The cream cheese: For folks with no allergies, regular cream cheese is what most cheesecake recipes call for. if you’re trying to watch the fat, using a light or fat free version of the cream cheese is acceptable. If you have dairy allergies, you can use the Tofutti vegan cream cheese. If you’re allergic to soy, you can puree tofu or soaked cashews to replace the equivalent 16 oz of cream cheese. What’s important is that if you’re using cream cheese, any version, you should bring it to room temperature so it will blend more smoothly without chunks. If you’re using the tofu or soaked cashews, make sure to puree them completely so they’re as smooth as they can be. For a traditional pie pan, two packages of cream cheese or two cups of a replacement is enough to fill the pie pan once you’ve added the rest of the ingredients.

The sweetener: Most no bake cheesecake recipes call for the use of either sugar or powdered sugar in quantities ranging from 1/2 to 1 1/2 cup. You can use either, varying the amount to your particular tastes. If you’re like me and don’t use sugar, you can substitute coconut sugar or stevia or agave which usually require half to less the amount you’d use of sugar. I’d suggest beginning with 1/4 cup and tasting to see if you need to add more. What’s important to know is that no matter what you use for the sweetener, you should add it immediately after you’ve creamed your cream cheese smooth, and you should combine the sweetener well so the cream cheese is not grainy. If you using Agave, keep your mixer going on low while you slowly pour the agave in a little at a time.

The flavor: A no bake cheesecake can be whatever you want it to be: chocolate, lemon, mint, berry, peanut butter, etc…. What’s important to keep in mind is that whether the flavoring is an extract or peel, or chunky like chopped chocolate pieces or mint cookies or pureed strawberries, or if you opt to use jello or pudding mix for the flavoring (see below), add it AFTER you’ve made your cream cheese or substitute smooth and after you’ve added the sweetener. The first thing you always do with a no bake cheesecake is to make the cream cheese smooth. Then you want to add the sweetener, and then you can add the other ingredients, with the binder being the final ingredient.

The no bake filling binder: When making a no bake cheesecake, you don’t use eggs which is what usually helps to solidify the cheesecake as it bakes. What you can use in the place of eggs varies, though. Some recipes use heavy cream. Others use a combination of sour cream and whipping cream. Some use condensed sweetened milk. Others use whipped topping. Still more use pudding mixes or jello/gelatin or even marshmallow creme. This is why I’d rather not give you a recipe, because you may want to use one or the other depending on tastes, allergies/health, and/or what you have in the house.

What I can give you, though, are tips and information to help you: So, for example, if you are going to use heavy cream or sour cream or whipping cream or whipped topping or marshmallow creme, the ratio is usually two 8 oz containers of cream cheese to 3/4 to 1 1/2 cups of whichever you use. What’s important is that they should be added at the end after you’ve mixed the rest of your cheesecake ingredients, just before you put the cheesecake into the fridge. The quantity will depend on the type of consistency and taste you want for your cheesecake: the more you put in, the airier, lighter and less cheesecake-tasting the cheesecake will be. The less you put in, the more dense cheesecake-like and tasting it will be.

If you choose to use gelatin or pudding mix, the ratio is usually two 8 oz packages of cream cheese to one package of jello or pudding (3 oz size) or one envelope of unflavored gelatin. What’s important is that if you’re using jello or pudding mix, you have two options for how to use them. One is to simply mix it in really, really well with the cream cheese so it’s smooth. Another is to make up the jello or pudding and let is slightly set before mixing it in with the cream cheese mixture. If you’re using an unflavored envelope of gelatin, the gelatin needs to be dissolved according to directions (usually a couple of minutes over a tablespoon of cold water and then stirred with a tablespoon of hot water until dissolved) and added to the cream cheese mixture at the end.

For people with allergies, So Delicious makes a whipped topping out of coconut which you can substitute for whipped topping. To substitute for heavy cream you can puree an equal amount of silken tofu; or mix 2/3 cup soy milk with 1/3 cup melted vegan butter for one cup of heavy cream; or use coconut cream in a one to one ratio; or make a cashew cream (soak cashews for a day and puree really, really well) where about one and 1/4 cups of soaked cashews purees into one cup of cream.

The topping: A no bake cheesecake can be simple with just the above ingredient choices mixed together and poured into a crust, but you can also jazz up the cheesecake with toppings. You can pipe whipped topping in designs. You can melt chocolate and drizzle it over the cheesecake. You can chop up cookies or chocolate and carefully place the pieces on top. You can chop berries and put them on top. You can spread jam on top. You can cook a fruit compote and pour it over the cheesecake. The ideas are endless. Let your creative side have fun.

For folks who do like a recipe, below is one a version I made recently. It does have coconut and soy, though if anyone has allergies to either, you can substitute with anything I’ve written about above!

Lemon Blueberry No Bake Cheesecake

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup gluten, dairy, nut free graham cracker crumbs (I pureed Midel graham crackers)

2 tablespoons vegan butter, melted

two 8 oz containers Tofutti vegan cream cheese, at room temperature

2/3 cup coconut sugar (I like things tart; you may want to sweeten it more)

one tablespoon lemon juice (Meyer lemons are sweeter)

one tablespoon lemon peel (optional, grating fresh lemons are better; store bought dried peel can be bitter)

one teaspoon gluten free vanilla

one cup So Delicious dairy free Coco Whip

one cup fresh blueberries

1/4 cup water

one tablespoon Agave

one tablespoon cornstarch

one tablespoon water

Cooking Instructions:

Combine the graham cracker crumbs with the melted butter and mix until the crumbs are completely moistened. If you need to add a bit more melted butter, do so. Carefully press the crumbs in a glass pie pan to cover the bottoms and sides. Place into the freezer for half an hour.
In a mixer, blend the cream cheese until smooth. Scrape down the sides and bottoms.
Add the coconut sugar and blend for a couple of minutes until completely smooth and not grainy.
Add the lemon juice, lemon peel, and vanilla. Mix well.
Add the Coco Whip, and mix just until blended. Pour into the prepared crust.
In a small saucepan on the stove top, mix the blueberries with the water and agave and bring to a boil over medium heat.
Once boiling, mix the cornstarch with the water and blend until smooth. While stirring the blueberries, add the cornstarch mixture and keep stirring until the blueberries thicken. Remove from the heat.
Carefully places spoonfuls of the blueberry mixture on the top of the cheesecake. Use a knife to run through the berries to create a pretty pattern and to mix the berries a bit into the top layer of the cheesecake.
Refrigerate for at least four hours.
Enjoy!

Creative Cooking: Dairy Free Dark Chocolate Mousse

June 2, 2016PajamaLiving dairy free, egg free, gluten free, lesson, nut/peanut free, reduced refined sugar Leave a comment

“But I want it quick and easy!”

I’ve already confessed to being a lazy cook, someone who likes to make a good meal with the least amount of effort. Now, I confess that I’m also a very impatient cook. If I want to make something, I rarely like to wait the time it takes for something to get cold or to reach room temperature, and I never have patience if I try someone else’s recipe and it fails, making it a waste of my time.

Recently one of my daughter’s really wanted a chocolate mousse, but with my dairy allergy we couldn’t make it with heavy cream. Many online recipes call for using coconut milk which I have done in the past for making a whipped cream. The problem is that it doesn’t always work. Sometimes you purchase a can of coconut milk, put it the fridge, and it doesn’t solidify properly. Other times, the coconut milk tastes a little off, making your mousse not as palatable. And in both scenarios, you’ve had to wait for the coconut milk to chill, only to be disappointed.

So, we then looked at recipes which used tofu, but we found many of those recipes to be too sweet because people wanted to cover the tofu taste and did so with sugar. We also discovered that many of the tofu recipes either still called for the use of heavy cream or used almond milk, both of which I can’t have. In addition, a bunch of the recipes required a wait time for the tofu to get to room temperature or required a complicated process of straining the tofu mousse after making it.

Undaunted, though, I decided I’d make a mousse to my liking in taste, texture, and time spent. So I pulled out two cold 16 ounce containers of silken tofu and went to work. Since the process of straining the mousse seemed to be because people wanted a creamy texture which would be marred by chunks of tofu, I decided that I’d simply puree the tofu completely smooth first with my hand blender. This would eliminate any additional work needed later. And it worked really well.

Next, after looking at the too sweet recipes, many of which called for two cups of chocolate chips for one package of tofu plus additional sugar, I figured that for the two tofu packages, one 10 ounce package of Enjoy Life allergy friendly mini chocolate chips (about one and a half cups) with no addition of any other sugar products would suffice. I microwaved the chips in a large four cup measuring bowl for one minute, stirred, and then microwaved them for another 20 seconds so that when I stirred the chips, they were melted and smooth.

Because I knew that adding the warm, melted chips to the cold tofu would result in the chocolate becoming solid again, I decided that I’d adopt the tempering process one uses with eggs to the chocolate. I added a couple of spoonfuls of the cold tofu to the warm chocolate and blended it well with the hand blender. I repeated the process three times, and then added the entire chocolate mixture into the rest of the smooth tofu, using my hand blender to completely blend the chocolate and tofu together.

When we tasted the mousse, we realized that while cutting the amount of chips made for a less sweet mousse, it also made for less of a chocolate taste, too, so I added two tablespoons of Hershey’s Special Dark unsweetened cocoa powder with 1/2 tsp of gluten free vanilla and blended one more time with the hand blender until everything was smooth and creamy. We divided the mousse among eight dishes and sprinkled chopped dairy free chocolate pieces on top as a garnish.

The entire process from start to finish was less than ten minutes, and by the time we were done eating dinner, the mousse had cooled enough in the fridge to make for a delicious impromptu dessert!

Dairy Free Dark Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients:

Two 16 oz containers of silken tofu

10 oz package Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips

2 tablespoons Hershey’s Special Dark unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp gluten free vanilla

Cooking Instructions:

Puree the tofu completely smooth first with a hand blender. If you don’t have a hand blender, use a food processor or blender. The key is to make it completely smooth and creamy.
Microwave the chips in a large four cup measuring bowl for one minute, stir, and then microwave them for another 20 seconds so that when you stir the chips, they are melted and smooth.
Add a couple of spoonfuls of the cold tofu to the warm chocolate and blended it well with the hand blender. Repeat the process three times, and then add the entire chocolate mixture into the rest of the smooth tofu, using the hand blender to completely blend the chocolate and tofu together.
Add the Hershey’s Special Dark unsweetened cocoa powder with the vanilla and blend one more time with the hand blender until everything is smooth and creamy.
Divide the mousse evenly among eight dishes and sprinkled chopped dairy free chocolate pieces on top as a garnish.

Cooking Techniques: Croquettes

May 28, 2016PajamaLiving dairy free, gluten free, nut/peanut free Leave a comment

“But you play that, not eat it!”

I confused my son last week because I made croquettes (kro-kets), and he thought I said, “Croquet (kro-kay).” He thought it was funny that we were going to eat the game! And of course, croquettes actually look like little balls, so throughout the entire meal, he kept pretending that he was hitting them through croquet hoops.

If you aren’t familiar with croquettes, the name comes from the French, but they’re simply chopped up meat or chicken or cheese or vegetables or fish or potato or rice or quinoa or beans or combinations of all these, rolled in breadcrumbs or seeds or nuts and then cooked. For me, croquettes are a lovely way to use up leftovers. They’re versatile, not only in what you can put into them, but the way you can make, cook, and serve them. Plus if you serve them for company, the French name makes them think you’ve done something special. *grin*

Croquettes are quite easy to make, especially if you’re beginning with leftovers. The most common recipes you’ll find online are for ones made with mashed potatoes, either alone or in combination with meat, chicken, cheese, or vegetables. You’ll usually find, too, that they’re fried in some way, whether deep-fried or pan-fried, but they can be just as good baked. Below I’ll give you some tips for how to go about making your own.

The Main Ingredients: What’s important to know about croquettes is that no matter what you use, smaller is better. You don’t want large chunks in your croquettes. Because you’ll be rolling the mixture into balls, the smaller the pieces of meat or vegetables, the easier it will be for them to adhere to one another. I use my food processor to zoop at least one of the ingredients into almost a paste – potatoes, butternut squash, chicken, fish, rice, quinoa, beans, etc… all work well. Then I process the rest of the ingredients into tiny pieces which will mix well into the more paste-like ingredient. The reason I made croquettes last week was because I had some leftover chicken breasts which weren’t enough to serve as another meal for the whole family, so I processed them into a paste and added finely chopped cooked zucchini, mushrooms, and broccoli (also leftovers).

The Seasonings: You can season croquettes however you like. Salt and pepper, of course, but herbs (basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, chervil, sage, mint, dill, tarragon, marjoram, etc…) and spices (allspice, cayenne, cardamom, coriander, tumeric, cumin, paprika, nutmeg, cinnamon, garlic, ginger, cloves, mustard, onion, saffron, etc…) of your choosing are great, too. If you are going to eat the croquettes by themselves, you should season more heavily. If you are going to serve them with a sauce, then the croquettes can be more plain because the sauce will give them flavor.

The Binder: It’s important that your ingredients hold together to keep their shape. If you do as I do and puree one of the ingredients into a paste, then the rest of your ingredients will stick to that. It’s one of the reasons why so many croquette recipes are made with potatoes. Potatoes are naturally glutinous. If you want all your ingredients to be small, solid pieces, though, then you’ll need something to hold them together. Most anything works. Some recipes use eggs. Others call for mayonnaise or sour cream or yogurt. Many just moisten the ingredients with a little bit of liquid like chicken or vegetable broth or milk and add some flour or bread crumbs to give the vegetables or meat something to adhere to. Whatever you choose to do is fine. What’s important is that your ingredients can be shaped into balls, so if they can’t and won’t stick together, try something different.

The Shaping: Whatever ingredients you use and however you choose to bind the croquettes, I recommend that you chill the mixture before you shape the croquettes. Unless your ingredients are super sticky, chilling the mixture will help them to adhere to another better. I use a quarter cup measuring cup to form my croquettes but you can certainly make them smaller or larger. Whatever size you make, though, having them be uniform will allow them to cook evenly if you bake them or help you to time them consistently if you’re frying them.

The Coating: After you’ve shaped your main croquette ingredients into balls, you need to coat them with something. Usually they are coated in bread crumbs. I like to make my own with gluten free bread, but you can use store bought bread crumbs. What’s important is that your crumbs be very fine. Texture is very important to the taste of the croquettes. If you opt to use something other than bread crumbs, there are many options: cracker crumbs, finely ground nuts or seeds, flour, etc… Once you decide on your coating, you can decide how you want to adhere the bread crumbs (or other choice) to the croquette balls. You can roll the balls in beaten eggs, in milk, in broth, in mayonnaise, in just about anything which will help the bread crumbs stick to the croquettes. I find that eggs make for a crispier croquette, mayonnaise (or something similar like sour cream or yogurt) for a moister croquette, and milk and broth for softer croquettes, so you can choose.

The Cooking: If you want to deep fry them, it’s best to make sure you have enough oil to completely cover the croquettes. You also want to heat your oil as hot as you can. I have a deep fryer which heats to 374 degrees but if you heat oil in a pan stove-top, you can usually get the oil to about 350 degrees. The hotter your oil, the more quickly the croquettes will cook and the less oil they will absorb. Since your ingredients in the croquettes are already cooked, all you’re doing is making the croquette warm and crispy, so usually just two to three minutes is all they need to cook.

If you want to pan fry the croquettes, you simply need enough oil to brown all the sides of the croquettes. Having your skillet on medium high is good. Simply place the croquettes in the skillet and allow them to brown on one side before turning them over to brown on the other. When making the croquettes in a skillet, they usually take about four to five minutes per side.

My preferred method for making croquettes is to actually bake them because they’re healthier that way. I line a pan with aluminum foil which I’ve crinkled and very lightly grease the foil with olive oil. I place the croquettes on the foil and then lightly brush them with olive oil. I preheat my oven to 450 degrees and bake the croquettes for about 20 minutes, turning them halfway through.

The Sauces: Croquette sauces are as varied as the ways you can make the croquettes. You can dip them into a barbecue sauce, a cheese sauce, a tomato sauce, a lemon sauce, a mustard sauce, a garlic sauce, an avocado sauce, a dill sauce – if you can imagine it, you can make it. What’s important is to think about the ingredients you used in the croquettes and to match a flavor which would complement the croquettes. So, for example, if you used ham and potatoes, maybe a mustard sauce. If you made fish croquettes, maybe a lemon-dill sauce. What’s fun is if you make croquettes and serve them with a couple of different sauces for the family to try.

The Coating:

The Cooking:

Cooking Techniques: Stir Fry

April 30, 2016PajamaLiving dairy free, egg free, gluten free, lesson, low fat, nut/peanut free, reduced refined sugar, soy free Leave a comment

“It was magnificent!”

Our family had a recent opportunity to attend a concert my oldest was performing in which was her women’s Glee club singing with Cornell’s men’s Glee club. Over 120 voices combined in four part harmony to create a most wonderful listening experience. What was amazing was listening to the individual voices even as their voices melded to become one united sound.

I thought about this when I received an email asking about how to make a good stir fry. Stir fry is food’s equivalent to a choir. Separate types of food becoming one dish where the tastes of the individual food remains even as their flavors meld to create a delicious stir fry.

Too often, though, people think of stir fry as something difficult. “Well, I don’t have a wok,” some say. “It’s too much chopping,” others say. I’ve also heard, “I never have the proper ingredients.” The fact, though, is that stir fry can be easy, quick, and done without a wok. It’s a great way to use up leftovers or to make when you only have a little bit of a variety of food items available. It’s also versatile and can be made any number of one thousand and one ways, not to mention stir fry is very accommodating for people with food allergies.

The Pan: The reason people like woks is that their curved shape allows you to cook at different temperatures at the same time. The bottom, which is closest to the heat is hotter and the temperature gets increasing cooler as you get to the top. This means you can move cooked foods toward the top and add newer food to the bottom to begin cooking on the hottest part, and then you simply mix everything together in the end. The shape of a wok also allows you to cook in different ways. The food that hits the hot bottom sears which traps flavor into the veggies or protein. When the sauce is added, though, moisture rises in the concave center of the convex wok, allowing the foods near the middle to top of the pan to be braised, which softens the food without making it mushy. If you don’t have a wok, though, you can still make a good stir fry. The key is simply to use a skillet which is just slightly larger than your burner and which has at least 2 in sides, which most of the larger skillets have these days. The center closer to the burner will get hotter than the edges of the skillet which allows you to move food to cooler sections of the pan, and the higher sides will allow you to braise. If you don’t have a large skillet with 2 in sides, you can also simply cook in smaller batches, cooking the veggies and protein separately, then mixing the two, and thickening the sauce separately and adding it to the mixed vegetables and protein. Doing everything separately doesn’t add time, it only adds another dish, and if you use the dish you’ll ultimately be serving the food in, then it won’t even do that!

The Veggies: All good stir fry dishes have an assortment of vegetables. Varying what goes into the dish can make for a colorful presentation as well as provide a variety of nutrients, textures, and flavors. People tend to get hung up on what they see as a “traditional” stir fry with bamboo shoots and baby corn and water chestnuts, but virtually any vegetable can go into a stir fry, so whatever you may have on hand works: broccoli, green beans, carrots, peppers, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, spinach, sweet potato, zucchini, squash, bean sprouts,leeks, asparagus, beets, radishes, mushrooms, onions, eggplant, and of course, baby corn, water chestnuts and bamboos as well. What’s key is cooking your vegetables uniformly. This means chopping vegetables of similar texture into the same size. It may also mean that you start vegetables which may take longer to soften like carrots and sweet potato first and adding greens like spinach or kale at the end. What’s nice about stir fry is that your goal isn’t to cook the vegetables for a long time; it’s to cook them just long enough for their colors to become bright and deep. You want the veggies to be still have some of their crunch and crispy-ness, not for them to be mush. For folks who don’t want to do any chopping or prep at all, nowadays you can buy your vegetables pre-chopped in the vegetable section. You can also used frozen chopped veggies, which is what I tend to do because then I always have veggies on hand.

The Protein: A stir fry doesn’t need to have protein but if you’d like to add protein, just about any type can go into a stir fry. Beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, scallops, tofu, beans. As with the vegetables you want the protein to be able to cook quickly and uniformly, so make sure all pieces are similar size. Cutting the protein into smaller pieces allows you to use less, increases it’s ability to blend in with the vegetables, and spreads its flavor. Most recipes will tell you to sear the meats like beef, chicken and pork first and then to move them to the cooler section of the wok or skillet while you cook the vegetables and then to mix the two together, adding the sauce. This allows the meats to begin cooking their cooking process with the searing but then finishes the cooking with the braising which keeps the meat from becoming tough and dry. When using protein like tofu or softened beans or seafood, though, it’s often better to cook those at the last minute, just before you add the sauce because they usually only need a couple of minutes to cook, and overcooking them will make them tough or fall apart. For folks worried about the prep and chopping for these, you can find pre-sliced tofu and meats at the grocery store. For seafood such as scallops, I use the frozen variety; I simply thaw them in cold water for about 15 minutes and throw them in. You can also simply used leftovers from previous meals which you throw in at the last minute just to rewarm.

The Sauce: A good stir fry will have some flavor added more than just your veggies and protein. What you do can vary, though. If you don’t want a sauce, you can simply use herbs and spices. Stores carry premixed blends for specifically adding to stir fry. You can also experiment with herbs and spices to see what you like. For me fresh ginger, garlic, and green onions are my preferred flavors. If using dried herbs and spices, you’ll want to add them to the veggies and to the protein as you begin cooking them so the flavor have time to meld. If using fresh, add them at the end. If you opt to make a sauce, the key thing to know is that you need a thickener for your sauce. For stir fry usually cornstarch is the thickener of choice but you can also use tapioca starch or arrowroot or any type of flour. You want to whisk the thickener in with your liquid before adding the sauce to the pan to thicken. A good rule of thumb is that one tablespoon of cornstarch, tapioca starch, arrowroot, or flour is needed for every cup of liquid. When cooking the sauce, you’ll want to continually stir the sauce whether you’re cooking the sauce separately or whether you’ve added it to the pan with the vegetables and protein. If you add it the pan with food in the pan, simply move the veggies and protein to the edges of the skillet or up the sides of the wok, so you can thicken the sauce in the middle of the pan. Once thickened, combine the sauce with the veggies and protein. As for ingredients in a stir fry sauce, that all depends on your tastes. For the liquid part you can use soy sauce, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, broth such as chicken, beef, or vegetable, red or white wine, sherry, etc…, whatever your tastes prefer. To add another dimension of flavor to whatever liquid you choose, you can add different flavored vinegars like apple cider, rice, or red wine, juices like lemon or lime or pineapple, oils like sesame or peanut, etc…. You can also add herbs and spices like garlic, scallions, ginger, shallots, lemongrass, etc…. To make the sauce, simply mix all your chosen ingredients in the ratio that tastes the best to you and which makes one cup’s worth, add your thickener, mix well, and cook over heat, stirring constantly until the sauce thickens to a consistency where it will cling to the veggies and protein in your stir fry. If you find that for some reason you need more thickener, simply mix more of your thickener with the equivalent amount of water and add it to the sauce (so, one teaspoon of cornstarch with one teaspoon of water).

The Sides: Stir fry can be eaten alone or atop something else. Good options if you want to eat them with something else are rice (brown, white, wild, jasmine, etc…), quinoa, barley, noodles such as udon, soba, lo mein or rice noodles, strips of spaghetti squash or zucchini ribbons or chopped cabbage, fresh greens like spinach, kale, arugula or swiss chard, etc…. Use your imagination and be creative.

Cooking Tutorial: Eggless Baked Macaroni and Cheese

April 5, 2016PajamaLiving dairy free, egg free, gluten free, lesson, nut/peanut free Leave a comment

“Third time’s the charm!”

There’s something about the number three…: We all know the folks who sneeze in three’s; there’s that belief that bad things happen in three’s; the occult, divine, and human psychology seem to value the power of three; and of course, we talk optimistically about the third time being the charm.

When I opened up my email to find a question about baked macaroni and cheese, I had to laugh because this will be the third posting about macaroni and cheese, hence my thinking about the number three this morning!

Previously I had posted a general baked macaroni and cheese recipe which was a lightened up version of an Emeril recipe. Then someone asked about a gluten, dairy free version of the lightened version. Now I’m being asked about whether you can make a baked macaroni and cheese without eggs.

The answer, of course, is yes. The purpose of eggs in a baked macaroni and cheese is to create a firm and thick texture. Combining the eggs with evaporate milk also makes for a silkier macaroni and cheese. A baked macaroni and cheese can achieve the same texture and silkiness, though, without eggs. Instead of using evaporated milk, though, you would use regular milk or milk substitute, and because you won’t be using eggs as a thickener you’ll need to make a thick sauce first as opposed to simply combining everything and baking.

Creating a thick sauce: There are a few ways to go about making a thick white sauce:

Roux: You can make a roux by warming 2 tbsp of olive oil (or other plant oil or you can use butter/butter substitute, too, if you’d prefer) and adding 1/4 cup of your preferred type of flour with a whisk. Once the flour mixture has cooked for about 30 seconds, you slowly add 2 cups of your “milk”, stirring constantly to mix the roux into the liquid well. Heat over medium low heat, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens. Then you add your cheese.
Cornstarch: You can simply mix cornstarch into your “milk” and heat over medium low heat, stirring constantly until the mixture begins to thicken. A good ratio is 1 tbsp of cornstarch per cup of milk, so you’d use 2 tbsp of cornstarch in 2 cups of milk, and once it’s thickened, you’d add your cheese.
Flour: You can also simply mix the milk with flour and again heat over medium low heat, stirring constantly until the mixture begins to thicken. Usually 1/2 cup of whatever flour you’d like to use in 2 cups of milk will do the job. Once it’s thickened, you add the cheese.

Creating a creamy cheese sauce: Again there are a few ways you can go about making a creamy cheese sauce:

Using good cheeses: One way to make a silky, gooey, cheesy sauce is to invest in cheeses with good melting and great taste. This means opting for the more full fat cheeses like gouda, fontina, sharp cheddar, etc. If you have no dairy allergies and don’t mind the expense, the taste will be worth the investment. These cheeses, when added to your thickened white sauce, will simply melt into creaminess. Depending on your tastes, you would add one to two cups of shredded cheese to the white sauce.
Mixing types of “cheese”: Another way to create cheesy-ness is to use half shredded cheese of your choice and half cream cheese. Since I have a dairy allergy and can’t use real cheese, I’ve found that the non-dairy cheeses don’t provide the creamy texture, so in my mac and cheese, I mix Daiya mozzarella with tofu cream cheese, and it makes for a lovely creamy sauce. So, once my white sauce is thick, I add the mozzarella and let it begin to melt, stirring constantly; then I add the cream cheese and keep stirring until both the mozzarella and the cream cheese have completely melted into the sauce. Depending on your taste, you would use 8 oz of the mozzarella and then add between 1/2 cup to 1 cup of the cream cheese to the white sauce.
Adding sour cream or yogurt: A third way to create a silky texture is to add either sour cream or yogurt to the cheese sauce. After you’ve made the cheese sauce the way you prefer, simply mix in yogurt or sour cream until it’s well blended. Depending on your tastes, you would add between 1/2 to 1 cup.

Using the best noodles: For macaroni and cheese the best noodles to use are ones with nooks and crannies, so pastas like elbows, shells, penne, rotini are all good choices. What’s key for baked macaroni and cheese is to only cook the noodles until al dente, which means they are mostly cooked but still a little sturdier in texture. The reason you slightly undercook them is because the noodles will cook more in the oven during the baking and you don’t want them to become mushy. Because of my wheat allergies, I like to use a quinoa elbow or shell variety which adds some protein to the dish.

Being creative with add-ins: Yes, you can make a straight mac and cheese but additions to the dish can intensify the flavor and texture. My children like ours best when I add chopped up bits of turkey ham or turkey sausage with chopped up bits of zucchini or broccoli, but you can opt to add whatever you’d like — chicken, spinach, peppers, bacon, tomatoes, etc….

Choosing spices and herbs: Many flavors complement cheese so you can be imaginative in your choices. I like to combine cumin, nutmeg, onion powder, black pepper, and oregano. Sometimes I simply add some red pepper flakes. Other times we opt for thyme and sage. Think about the type of cheese you’re using and what you’re adding in, and experiment with flavors.

Assembling the macaroni and cheese: The best way I’ve found to make a good macaroni and cheese is to cook my noodles al dente and then cool them with cold water, rinse and put into a bowl. Then I mix the noodles with my add-ins and spices and herbs. Then I make the cheese sauce, also adding spices and herbs to the sauce. Then I combine the cheese sauce with the noodles, before putting the entire contents of the bowl into a greased glass casserole pan.

The topping: Baked macaroni and cheese can be topped in many ways:

Cheese: Most people simply put shredded cheese on top of the macaroni and cheese casserole. This adds another level of gooeyness.
Bread crumbs: If you mix bread crumbs with herbs and spices and either a plant oil or butter and spread it evenly over the macaroni, you’ll get a nice crispy contrast to the creamy macaroni.
Add-ins on top: Another way to top the macaroni is with more of the add-ins, so sprinkling chopped bits of bacon or broccoli on top. This makes for a colorful presentation of the baked macaroni and cheese and lets folks know what else might be on the inside.
Creative toppings: Some folks like to be a bit more creative in their toppings and add foods like crushed potato or tortilla chips or crushed corn flakes. Use your imagination and see what flavor combinations work best.
Herbs: Another way to make for a pretty and tasty baked macaroni and cheese is to sprinkle fresh chopped herbs on top immediately after the dish comes out of the oven. So, adding chopped fresh basil or mint or thyme — experiment and see what you like.

Baking the macaroni and cheese: Most dishes cook well in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Because everything is already cooked, you simply need the casserole to set and become hot and for your topping to melt or become browned and toasty, depending on what you chose to use.

The Scoop: Zucchini Bundt Cake

March 31, 2016PajamaLiving dairy free, gluten free, informational, nut/peanut free Leave a comment

“Please let me do that….”

I am envied by many of my female friends because my husband is a godsend. He washes dishes even if I don’t ask. If clean laundry is sitting on the bed, he will fold and put his away instead of moving it to ironing board so he can get into bed. Because of his job, he’s home during the witching hour and will help set the table or drive the children to baseball, dance or guitar lessons. On Saturday mornings when we clean the house as a family, he vacuums and dust mops.

I thank God every single day for him because I know that I’m blessed to have such a husband. There are two things, however, which I rarely ask my husband to help with – cooking and making the bed – for the same reason. Both require an attention to details which my more conceptually-minded husband often forgets.

With the beds: Growing up as a military brat, I believe beds are to be made with tight corners and nary a wrinkle in the sheets. My husband thinks that if the sheet is mostly covering the bed, he’s done well.

With the cooking: The idea that you have to actually pay attention to what you are cooking is foreign to my husband. We have been together 23 years, and he still burns his grilled cheese sandwiches because when an academic thought pierces his brain, he forgets that he’s grilling a sandwich and walks away to his computer, only remembering the sandwich when either the smell of burnt bread reaches the office or I discover the sandwich on the stove with no husband in sight.

Paying attention to details is important… especially when it comes to baking. I was reminded of this when I received an email about a disaster a friend had trying to make a Bundt cake. Bundt is a trademark name for a pan with fluted ridges and a tube in the center of the pan. Nowadays you can find a myriad of differently shaped Bundt pans on the market. Bundt pans are designed to distribute heat more quickly and more evenly to the cake batter, and the tube in the center allows denser batter to cling and rise more effectively.

As such, recipes designed specifically for Bundt pans tend to be moister, denser cake batters. They often include fillings like fruit or nuts and tend to require more eggs than regular cake batters. Because this is the case, if you try to bake a Bundt cake recipe in a regular flat cake pan, you’ll usually get a cake which hasn’t risen as well and which is usually more cooked at the edges than the center. If you decide you want to make a Bundt cake recipe in a regular cake pan, you’re better off dividing the batter between two smaller pans over trying to cook the Bundt cake recipe in regular 9 x 13 pan, even though the batter amount will fit such a pan.

The converse is not true, however. If you have a regular 9 x 13 cake recipe, you can substitute a Bundt pan without fear of a cake disaster. There are a couple of things to keep in mind when using a Bundt pan, though:

One, it’s very important to prepare Bundt pans well. The same ridges which make for a beautiful Bundt cake, also make for a disaster if the cake sticks to them and won’t come out of the pan. With most cakes, I don’t grease; I simply line the cake pans with parchment paper. With Bundt pans, however, I not only grease, I grease so that not a single crevice, line, spot on either the sides or the tube is missed. Then I carefully and evenly coat the grease with flour, cocoa powder or coconut sugar, depending on what type of Bundt cake I’m making.

The second important consideration is cooling the cake before removing it from the Bundt. If you try to remove a Bundt cake from the pan while it’s still warm, the cake is more likely to stick. If the pan is prepared well, however, and you wait until the cake is mostly cooled, the cake will release from the pan more cleanly. It also helps to run a butter knife around all the edges, including the center.

To help my friend with her Bundt cake disaster, I decided to create a recipe of my own using the original as a jumping off point. She had wanted to make her recipe gluten free but the brown rice flour blend she used wasn’t as structurally sound as one needs for a sturdier Bundt cake. As such, I created my own flour blend which combined sorghum, fava bean, garbanzo bean, oat, sweet rice, and tapioca flours with just a little bit of xanthan gum. The heartier high fiber, high protein flours would lend depth to the cake.

Her recipe had came out a bit oily because the large amount of oil just soaked into the brown rice flour blend. I opted to include ripe mashed bananas into the recipe and reduce the oil to 1/2 cup of safflower oil. I also replaced the sugar with Agave which allowed me to reduce the sweetener amount to only 1/2 cup. My friend’s cake was supposedly a Spice Bundt cake but it only called for cinnamon. I added cardamom and also decided to include shredded zucchini because veggies are a wonderful way to add moisture to a cake as well as natural vitamins. My last change was to swap out 1/2 cup of allergy friendly mini chocolate chips for the cup of chopped nuts, because unfortunately I have a tree nut allergy.

I didn’t change the eggs because we don’t have any allergies or health issues related to eggs but folks who do can always swap liquid egg whites for the whole eggs or ground flaxseed mixed with water.

The resulting cake, of which I made two, were met with appeals for the recipe when I served them at a workshop and at a bible study on the same day.

Zucchini Bundt Cake

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cup gluten free flour blend* (recipe below)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips

1 cup mashed ripe bananas

1 cup shredded zucchini

1/2 cup safflower oil

1/2 cup Agave

3 whole eggs (or 3/4 cup liquid egg whites or 3 tbsp flaxseed mixed with 9 tbsp water)

1 tbsp vinegar (white or apple cider)

Baking Instructions:

Thoroughly grease and then flour a normal 12 cup Bundt pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cardamom, and salt. Add the mini chocolate chips. Set aside.
Mix together the bananas, zucchini, agave, oil, and eggs.
Combine the dry ingredients with the wet, adding the vinegar. Mix well, until everything is incorporated together.
Pour the batter evenly into the Bundt pan and bake until the cake is golden, risen and a toothpick in the center comes out clean, usually about 30 to 35 minutes. (I usually check around 25 minutes and go from there.)

*Gluten Free Flour Blend:

1 cup tapioca flour, 1 cup sorghum flour, 1/2 cup garbanzo bean flour, 1/2 cup fava bean flour, 1 cup sweet rice flour, 1/2 cup gluten free oat flour, 2 tsp xanthan gum. Mix well. Make enough flour for two cakes.

Creative Cooking: Currant Muffins

March 16, 2016PajamaLiving dairy free, gluten free, nut/peanut free, soy free Leave a comment

“Muffins again?”

For the past month my life has been drama, drama, drama – quite literally. A musical I wrote had its debut this past weekend so I had been busy directing rehearsals, working with AV for lights and sounds, producing, finalizing music, and everything else which goes into putting on a drama performance.

As such, the meals my family has eaten has been almost all crock pot meals because those I can throw together in the morning, and when we’re ready to eat in the evening, it’s ready for us. So stews, soups, chili, and the like have been our mainstays. To go with these dishes, I had been making muffins. Normally we only have muffins every so often, but after a week or two of eating muffins more regularly, I realized that our family was in a muffin rut. Blueberry, pumpkin, zucchini squash, and banana muffins seem to be our go-to muffins.

So, after a couple of weeks, I was wanting something different. As I perused the staples in my kitchen pantry, I found Zante currants leftover from our Christmas cookies. For folks not familiar with Zante currants, they’re basically just baby raisins. True currants, which we don’t often find in the States, are a different type of tart berry. (Anyone familiar with Anne of Green Gables knows the difficulties that homemade currant wine caused the literary heroine. *laugh*)

Because Zante currants are small and sweet, I figured they’d make for a nice muffin, so I pulled them out of the pantry and went to work. I didn’t want the currants to be hard in the muffin so I first soaked them in boiling water to soften them. Then, because I didn’t want the muffins to simply be the fruit sugars, I opted to puree cooked vegetables (we’ve now tried the muffins with cooked pureed carrots, butternut squash, and pumpkin – all three have worked well). I used a plant based oil (both safflower and grapeseed have worked well) and egg whites only to keep down the fat. I also simply used a store bought gluten free flour blend to keep things easy. I chose to use Agave for the moisture and added some cinnamon and cloves for taste. Even my middle child who doesn’t like “chunks” in muffins declared it a success.

Currant Muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup boiling water

2 cups Zante currants

2 cups cooked pureed vegetable of choice (carrots, pumpkin, butternut squash, etc….)

3/4 cup liquid egg whites

2/3 cup plant oil (I’ve used both safflower and grapeseed)

1 cup Agave

3 1/2 cups gluten free flour blend

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Baking Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line 30 muffin cups with liners.
Add the boiling water to the currants and let sit for at least five minutes.
To the currants add the pureed vegetable of choice, the egg whites, the oil, and the Agave. Mix well and set aside.
Blend together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients with the vinegar and mix just until the dry ingredients are completely moistened.
Evening divide the batter among the muffin cups.
Bake for 15 minutes or until muffins are puffed, golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Creative Cooking: Crumb Cake

February 17, 2016PajamaLiving dairy free, gluten free, lesson, nut/peanut free, reduced refined sugar, soy free Leave a comment

“Your EKG is abnormal.”

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to make an allergy friendly version of a crumb cake recipe for an office party. I was told, though, “Please don’t change anything other than to make it gluten and dairy free for my co-workers. It’s a delicious recipe, and I don’t want to lose the taste.”

I did as instructed, but it killed me emotionally. Simply reading the ingredients was enough to give anyone a heart attack. Between the cake batter and the crumb topping the recipe called for two cups of full fat sour cream, four cups of sugar, four cups of butter, four whole eggs, and of course, white flour.

I’m sure the gentleman was correct in saying that the crumb cake was delicious. All that butter and sugar, how could it not be. My question, though, was whether it couldn’t be just as delicious as a healthier version of itself. I thought about that question again this week as I laid in a hospital bed after a severe stomach flu rendered me completely dehydrated which in turn caused an abnormal EKG.

I was sent home yesterday and spent this morning being checked out by a cardiologist. Fortunately, because I do lead a healthy lifestyle of exercise and good eating choices, the abnormal EKG did appear to be caused by low potassium levels and not anything being wrong with my heart itself. I thought, though, about how differently the results could have been if I did eat crumb cake the way a lot of people do.

Food is to be enjoyed, and I want to eat delicious crumb cake just like other people. I think, though, that what one eats should be the best it can be for my body’s health. So, I confess, that after I made the crumb cake as I was asked, that I went to work creating a healthier version which I shared with my writing group, a friend, and my family, all of whom declared it to be delicious. It took a little though, but I was able to make a few simple changes which made all the difference. Let me share….

The Sugar: Four cups of sugar is crazy. Really. As I’ve mentioned in the past, sugar is a poison to our body, and we’re better off avoiding it if we can. As I’ve also mentioned, sugar replacements aren’t the end all as well. They still have calories and still can cause some fluctuations in one’s glycemic index, but that you can lose so much less in a recipe and are not as refined has pluses which sugar does not. So, I opted to use a cup of Agave for the cake batter and 1/2 cup of coconut sugar in the crumb topping which reduced the sweetener from 4 cups to 1 1/2 cups. Everyone agreed the cake was plenty sweet enough.

The Butter: Four cups of butter is A LOT. I agreed, though, that for a good crumb topping you did need a substantial amount of butter to get the right consistency and taste. So the question was how to create a balance between quantity and quality. In the end, I swapped grapeseed oil for the butter in the cake batter. As a plant based oil it has health benefits which butter does not, and as a liquid fat, I only needed to use 1/2 cup versus the two cups of butter in the original recipe. For the crumb topping, I decided I could halve the amount and use one cup of a vegan soy free butter which still reflected the taste and consistency of a good crumb topping. So, I was able to decrease the fat from 4 cups to 1 1/2 cups.

The Eggs: Eggs are not bad in general. In fact, they’re quite good for you. But as with all things, moderation is the key, and four whole eggs carry a lot of cholesterol in those egg yolks, which is not always good for people with certain health risks. This was an easy enough fix, though. I simply opted to use 3/4 cups of liquid egg whites which eliminated yolks altogether but kept the liquid ratio needed for the cake batter.

The Sour Cream: I admit, I love sour cream. Even the tofu version I have to eat because of my dairy allergy. It’s creamy texture and tangy taste definitely make for a delicious crumb cake. The problem is that even the vegan version isn’t really that great for you. Being made from tofu only adds a small margin of protein, nothing concrete enough to counter the fat and other additives. So, I thought about for something different to give the cake it’s moisture and flavor. In the end I decided to use pureed pumpkin because it would lend a pretty orange color to the cake as well as all those good minerals and vitamins which our bodies need. Two cups of pumpkin instead of sour cream eliminated a lot of extra fat and calories from the cake.

The Crumb Topping: This was key to do correctly, because crumb cake is, after all, about the crumb topping. If it didn’t meet expectations, all would be lost. As I previously mentioned, I had reduced the quantity of butter to one cup and swapped 1/2 cup of coconut sugar for the two cups of white sugar , but there was still the problem of how little nutritional value the white flour in the topping had, not to mention my allergies to wheat. I finally chose to use a combination of gluten free whole rolled oat and gluten free oat flour. With the addition of protein and fiber, I felt better about the topping being healthier than the original version. I also reduced the overall amount of “flour” and used 2 cups instead of the original three cups to reduce the extra calories.

The Flour: White flour is another food to be avoided if at all possible. There is no nutritional value to white flour, and if you’re like me and allergic to wheat, you can’t have it anyway. The problem, though, is that my usual switch, which is to use high fiber, high protein gluten free flours like bean flours and sorghum flours wouldn’t necessarily give me the texture I wanted for the crumb cake. Crumb cake batter is supposed to be a medium batter, not light and airy but not overly dense. Since I had altered the crumb topping, though, to have more fiber and protein, I decided I could be more lenient with the cake batter, and I opted to use a gluten free baking mix that was a mixture of brown rice flour and sweet white sorghum with potato and tapioca starches that worked well.

The Flavoring: Since I had omitted the sour cream which usually gives a good crumb cake its flavor, I needed to consider adding some spices to the pumpkin replacement. Cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves did the trick.

The Ratio: Because crumb cake is all about the crumb topping to cake ratio, and because I was reducing the amount of flour and butter, I opted to cook the cake in an 11 x 15 pan which meant I could distribute the crumb topping over a shallower depth of cake batter to ensure that there wouldn’t be more cake to crumb topping which might prevent enjoyment of the any piece given.

The Appearance: Crumb cake usually has a powdered sugar coating which makes for a beautiful presentation. I admit, I didn’t want to eliminate the aesthetics because for me presentation is important, too. I could, however, greatly reduce the amount used. The original recipe called for 1/2 cup of powdered sugar. I was able to use one tablespoon and create the same appearance without all the added sugar.

Crumb Cake

Ingredients:

Cake Batter:

2 1/2 cup gluten free flour blend (use a version with brown rice flour)

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp cloves

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup liquid egg whites

2 cups cooked, pureed pumpkin

1/2 cup grapeseed oil

1 cup Agave

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Crumb Topping:

1 cup gluten free whole rolled oats

2 cups gluten free oat flour

1/2 cup coconut sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 cup vegan soy free butter

1 tbsp powdered sugar

Baking Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a 11 x 15 pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
Mix together the gluten free flour blend, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
Blend together the liquid egg whites, pumpkin, grapeseed oil, and agave. Add to the dry ingredients with the apple cider vinegar, and blend until the dry ingredients are fully moistened.
Pour cake batter into the prepared baking pan.
Combine the whole rolled oats, oat flour, coconut sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Using clean hands incorporate the vegan butter into the mixture until everything is completely mixed and you have no dry ingredients leftover. You’ll have a nice clump which you can then crumble for the crumb topping.
Evenly distribute small chunks of the crumb topping over the cake batter.
Bake the prepared cake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the cake is puffed and golden.
Cool the baked cake on a wire cooling rack. Using a sifter, gently sprinkle the powdered sugar to completely cover the crumb topping.

Recipe Makeover: Dairy Free Vegetarian Enchiladas

February 3, 2016PajamaLiving dairy free, egg free, gluten free, lesson, nut/peanut free 1 Comment

“It’s killing us.”

What my high school aged daughter seems to be learning from her science classes is that we’ve screwed up the world, and as a result, too many things in our environmental lives now have negative repercussions. In many respects, I understand and agree with what the teachers are saying. On the other hand, it’s not easy to feed the family when your daughter seems to think everything she eats will cause cancer or heart attacks or just general bad health. As her list of what she thinks we shouldn’t eat anymore grows, her father and brother find themselves devoid of the foods which they would rather eat, despite the risks. Throw in food allergies, and you can see the dilemma I’m facing with the “What’s for dinner?” question.

Tonight the family was in the mood for enchiladas, something we actually haven’t had in a while. My son and husband would have preferred a nice pork or beef enchilada but my daughter wanted nothing to do with those “cancer-causing” meats, as she expressed. I’ve always loved enchiladas but since developing a life-threatening dairy allergy, I’ve not found a cheese substitute which comes anything close to what is needed for a cheesy enchilada casserole. But enchiladas were what was wanted, so I needed to put my thinking cap on and get to work.

The first question was how to make a vegetarian enchilada which would have the umami without the actual meat. Mushrooms have always been a good “meat” substitute, but only my oldest and I like mushrooms so if I was going to use them, I would need to disguise them. I also didn’t want to simply have mushroom enchiladas. I’d like a variety of vegetables. So I chose to combine spinach, mushrooms, yellow and red peppers, and cauliflower. Cauliflower may seem an odd choice, but like the mushrooms, they have a meaty component to them.

Because enchiladas require time and effort, I lessened my work by using frozen and canned versions of the veggies. It meant I could more quickly begin the assembling process without all the cooking beforehand. I also used my food processor to finely chop everything together to both disguise the mushrooms but also to create a texture that would be more like ground meat.

The second question was how to create a cheesy taste and texture without actually using cheese. The filling was easy because the use of tofu cream cheese could impart the impression of cheesy-ness. The topping, however, required a bit more thinking. Usually a vegetable enchilada calls for a white sour cream sauce and then a liberal topping of cheese, which when baked forms a nice crust for the enchiladas. I began the process of creating a sour cream sauce using tofu sour cream and unsalted vegetable stock from my freezer (if you don’t make your own, it’s easy enough to purchase at the store, or you can use vegetable broth, but you’ll want to omit the salt in the recipe then). As I looked at the mixture, it occurred to me that if I added a gluten free flour to the sauce, it would not only thicken the sauce for me, but when it baked, the flour would slightly separate from the sauce to create a crusty top. I decided to give it a try.

In the end we had a delicious vegetarian enchilada with a meaty texture and a cheesy, crusty facsimile which we’ll make again.

Vegetarian Enchiladas

Ingredients:

Filling:

two 4 oz cans of mushrooms, drained

1 cup thawed frozen cauliflower

1/2 cup thawed frozen mixed red and yellow peppers

1/2 cup green onions

10 oz thawed frozen chopped spinach

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

“Cheese” for Filling:

8 oz tofu cream cheese

1/2 cup unsalted vegetable stock

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp minced garlic

Sauce:

1 1/2 cup unsalted vegetable stock

12 oz tofu sour cream

1/4 cup sorghum flour

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground onion powder

1/4 tsp white pepper

12 to 16 corn tortillas

Cooking Instructions:

In a food processor combine and process the mushrooms, cauliflower, peppers and green onions. Add to the chopped spinach and mix well.
Add the cumin, oregano, salt, black pepper, and red pepper. Set aside.
In a pan put the tofu cream cheese, vegetable stock, lemon juice, cumin and garlic, and slowly melt the cream cheese over low heat, stirring continually until the mixture is smooth.
Add the vegetables to the cream cheese sauce and combine well. Set aside.
In another pan combine the vegetable broth, tofu scour cream, sorghum flour, lemon juice, cumin, onion powder and white pepper. Over low heat, stirring continually with a whisk, let the mixture slowly heat and thicken.
Grease a 9 x 13 pan and cover the bottom of the pan with about 1/3 of the sour cream sauce.
Wet a paper towel and wrap the corn tortillas in the wet paper towel. Heat the tortillas in the microwave 20 seconds at a time until the tortillas are warm, soft to the touch and pliable enough to bend. (Mine took 40 seconds total).
Divide the vegetable mixture among the tortillas evenly. (I had enough filling for 16 tortillas but I opted to fill twelve and then use the leftover filling to cover the top of the twelve tortillas to increase the “taste coverage” of the filling, but you can simply fill all 16 tortillas if you’d like.)
Cover the tortillas with the remaining sour cream sauce.
Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Cooking Techniques: Shrimp Scampi

January 25, 2016PajamaLiving dairy free, egg free, gluten free, lesson, nut/peanut free, soy free Leave a comment

“Maude is a giraffe…. George is a goat.”

When I was in high school, my geometry teacher wanted to impress upon us the importance of having all the facts. He wrote on the board, “Males are taller than females. George is male. Maude is female. Therefore, George is taller than Maude.”

He then turned around and asked us if this was a reasonable supposition. We, of course, all nodded in agreement. He then turned back to the board and wrote, “Maude is a giraffe. George is a goat.”

I was reminded about Mr. Budnitsky’s teaching, when I received an email this evening asking a funny question. Someone had purchased the recent Cook’s Illustrated magazine and wanted to know what I thought about their recipe for shrimp scampi. The friend hadn’t liked their version but since Cook’s Illustrated is supposed to be the expert for proper cooking, she wanted to know my thoughts.

First, I want to say that if one is going to spend money on a cooking magazine, you cannot go wrong with a magazine like Cook’s Illustrated. The folks who create the recipes are from America’s Test Kitchen, and this means they actually do test their recipes, over and over and over again, and not only that, but they tell you all about it which gives you plenty of food for thought — pun intended.

That being said, I do agree with my friend that I sometimes find myself wondering, too, about the presumptions that the testers/cooks make about people’s palates, because occasionally I actually disagree with what they say is the best way to make a certain dish. There are presumptions the testers/cooks make about what people like or dislike.

For example, they frequently comment that overdone poultry is not tasty. This fails to take into account, that for some cultures, the only “tasty” way to eat poultry is what Cook’s Illustrated would consider overdone. Does that mean those cultures are “wrong” about poultry? I would say, “No.” Rather, it means palates and tastes differ from person to person and culture to culture.

Shrimp Scampi is no different. Ironically, the name is a redundancy because scampi means shrimp, so we’re really saying Shrimp Shrimp. That fits, though, because it implies an abundance, and the number of different types of recipes that exist for scampi is quite abundant. Do you want prefer olive oil or butter? Do you like only garlic or garlic and onions? Do you want a thick sauce to coat the shrimp or a thinner sauce to run over noodles? Do you even want noodles or do you prefer scampi plain or with rice? Do you coat the scampi with bread crumbs? Do you want to season it with basil or thyme or something completely different? Do you like a lemony sauce or more of a white wine taste or a balance? However you answered each of these questions, I guarantee you, you’ll find a recipe to match your palate.

I have a simple recipe I use which you can vary to your hearts content….

Shrimp Scampi

Ingredients:

Shrimp, 12 to 16 ounces (Decide whether you want to use raw shrimp or cooked shrimp. Raw means you usually have to peel and devein the shrimp. If you have cooked shrimp you can usually just throw them into the sauce at the end. Either way, about 12 to 16 ounces of shrimp is usually a good amount for dinner for four with leftovers. If you use raw shrimp, you’ll simmer the shrimp midway through the recipe. If you use cooked, you’ll just add the shrimp at the end.)
Olive oil or butter, 2 tsp (Do you prefer a buttery sauce or an olive oil sauce? I usually use a combination where I saute with olive oil in the beginning and then add vegan butter at the end.)
Aromatics: Garlic Cloves, thinly sliced – 1/4 to 1/2 cup; Onions, diced, 2 tbsp to 1/4 cup (Think about the taste you’re going for: Do you want a deeper, mellow garlic flavor in which case you should roast the garlic before preparing your scampi. Or do you want more of a garlic bite which means you should saute fresh garlic as you begin preparing the scampi. Do want just a garlic taste or do you like onions, too. How much of one or the other or both flavors do you want? Vary the combination and amounts to match your tastes.)
Flavorings: White wine or chicken broth or a “shrimp” sauce, 1 cup (What is your taste preference? Some folks like a wine sauce; others prefer just to use broth. Many folks want the broth to taste “shrimpy”, in which case you should use raw shrimp and simmer the shrimp in wine or broth to flavor it.)
Seasoning: Basil, thyme, oregano? 1 tsp dried or sprigs of fresh; red pepper, black pepper? 1/4 to 1/2 tsp (What do you like for seasonings? If you prefer one over another, choose that. If you use dried, you should begin the scampi with the dried herbs. If you use fresh, don’t add the herbs until midway. Do you like the bite of red and black pepper? How much? Vary the additions and amounts to your liking.)
Lemon juice, 2 tbsp to 1/4 cup (Do you like a lemony sauce? if so, how lemony? Vary the amount to your liking or omit altogether.)
Cornstarch, 2 tsp (If you want a thicker sauce, you should mix 2 tsp of cornstarch with the lemon juice or if you’re omitting lemon juice, with the same amount of water. If you like the sauce to be more of a liquid, then omit the cornstarch and simply cook down the sauce until it’s reduced.)
Vegan Butter, 1 to 2 tbsp (If you want a buttery sauce, you can add butter at the end. Many recipes will call for 1/4 cup or more of butter. I find that one to two tablespoons is more than sufficient.)

Cooking Instructions:

Prepare shrimp if raw by peeling and deveining. If using cooked shrimp, make sure it’s defrosted and tails are removed.
Put olive oil or vegan butter into a large pan, along with the chosen aromatics (garlic, onions or both) and seasonings if they are dry (basil or thyme or oregano). Saute over medium low heat for one to two minutes if the garlic is roasted and if onions are frozen, two to three minutes if using fresh garlic and onions, stirring continually.
Add the flavoring (white wine or broth). If using raw shrimp, add the shrimp and cover the pan. If using already cooked shrimp, simply simmer the liquid. Either way, you’ll simmer for about five minutes. If using fresh herbs, add them now to the simmering sauce. If using raw shrimp, remove the now cooked shrimp from the liquid before proceeding with the next step.
Mix the lemon juice, cornstarch, red pepper and black pepper and add to the liquid. Stirring continually, cook until the sauce begins to thicken. This will only take about a minute or two. If you’re going for a buttery sauce, as soon as the sauce thickens, add the pat of vegan butter and stir until it dissolves.
Add the cooked shrimp to the sauce and coat them well.
Serve the scampi over broccoli, rice, or pasta, or serve it as is.

Pajama Living

Navigating Food and Life Challenges

Tag Archives: dairy free

Recipe Revamping: Pumpkin Tunnel Cake

Creative Cooking: Crepes

Cooking Techniques: No Bake Cheesecakes

Creative Cooking: Dairy Free Dark Chocolate Mousse

Cooking Techniques: Croquettes

Cooking Techniques: Stir Fry

Cooking Tutorial: Eggless Baked Macaroni and Cheese

The Scoop: Zucchini Bundt Cake

Creative Cooking: Currant Muffins

Creative Cooking: Crumb Cake

Recipe Makeover: Dairy Free Vegetarian Enchiladas

Cooking Techniques: Shrimp Scampi

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: