Ahh, the baguette. One of life's pleasures when you can eat wheat. Since going wheat and thus mostly gluten free, I keep searching for a good gluten free baguette. Gluten-Free on a Shoestring introduced me to this one and then I found The Loopy Whisk.
Kat of the Loopy Whisk calls this a white bread, which I do make in the way she directs and it is more of a batard size bread, but when I want a long thin baguette style, I make the dough into two thinner breads, and voila!
I have to admit that Gluten Free on a Shoestring was my salvation for a long time until I discovered the Loopy Whisk. Kat has a different method for preparing the use of psyllium husks and uses less starches in her flour mixes which I like better. By hydrating the psyllium husks before adding them to the batter, it makes a better crumb in the breads.
In my defense, I had been trying to make my own vegetarian sausage for years; I just couldn't stomach faux sausage anymore. And after too many failed attempts, I returned to the real deal. My sisters called me a "Sausa-tarian" to mock me.
While faux sausage has gotten better - less unpronounceable ingredients - it still is expensive and or includes wheat, which I longer can eat. But Italian sausage is still one of my favorite foods, especially crumbled on pizza. So I created this recipe, and it is a winner!
Quick, easy and even stores well, I try to have it on hand for Friday Night Pizza, and it never lets me down!
Inspired by Smitten Kitchen's Cauliflower Tacos and wanting some potatoes, I made this plate of deliciousness: pan fried potatoes, topped with pan fried cauliflower, and garnished with pickled red onions, cotija cheese, and cilantro. WOW! It was so good, that I had to make it three times in a week before I remembered to wait and get a photo before inhaling it!
Bonus points if you use potatoes that are red or purple on the inside, they just make it so much prettier. Do not skip the easy step of making the quick pickled red onion, it makes all the difference. And if you do it as the first step, they will be ready by the time you assemble your plate.
Most recipes will direct you to oven roast the broccoli, but I find that cooking it in a covered cast iron pan for the first ten minutes will give you that blackened crispy broccoli that you crave, and also steam it at the same time, without having to heat up a whole oven. Then, if you choose to got the extra step and make the simple garlic bread crumbs, you use the pan that the broccoli was pan seared in, and it is a one pan meal!
When you cut your broccoli, make sure to create lots of flat surfaces, keeping the stalks attached. You want to sear those flat surfaces on the hot oiled surface of the pan to achieve that crispy, blackened surface.
This meal was inspired by an old piece of blue cheese languishing in my cheese drawer, so I made homemade blue cheese dressing; feel free to use your favorite store bought.
Friends came over with fresh caught halibut and corn on the cob and asked that I provide dessert, so I whipped up this sorbet. Easy, delicious, refreshing. Do your self a favor and freeze some chunks of watermelon and then puree it into deliciousness. Your future self will thank you!
So full of flavor, so easy to make, and the variations set my mind awhirl!
Apparently fideo is a type of very thin pasta but I have never seen it. Here I used cappelini, and gluten free brown rice at that, and it worked beautifully!
I garnished this with cotija cheese since it pairs well with shrimp, but don't tell the Italians since they traditional abhor cheese with seafood.
As a child growing up on the East Coast, summer did not officially arrive until my mom made fresh corn on the cob. My sisters and I pretended that our mouths were like typewriters, furiously munching through each row of corn, and returning to the beginning to start anew, like the return cartridge of an electric typewriter, similar to the one that my mom typed my father’s handwritten novels on.
Since it was the 1970’s and home cooking was less globalized than today, I had never heard of elotes AKA Mexican street corn. Not until I arrived in California more than 15 years ago did I learn of this magical recipe. When I found it deconstructed in a pizza, I knew I had to try it.
The Berkeley Cheese Board sold me this version back in 2008 and I have been making it at home ever since.
Crumbled tofu is tossed with a little bit of olive oil, poultry seasoning, and baked for 15 minutes to absorb the flavors. Then you toss it with an easy mayonnaise dressing and add a few crunchy vegetables, and voila! Craving met!
You really need to use extra or even super firm tofu for this recipe; high protein tofu also works since it is also super dense. If you only have firm tofu, I recommend pressing the tofu to remove more water, but then it is no longer a quick meal.
Of course caramelized onions are delicious and when you add a really good mushroom stock to them, they achieve greatness. Dunking a hunk of toast with melted Gruyere cheese on top of it, well that's almost cheating!
I have been making a vegetarian Pho broth inspired by this blog, and since dried shiitake mushrooms are what give the broth its depth, I knew it would be perfect for a vegetarian version of French Onion soup. Yes indeed!
Make sure you use a crusty, rustic bread for your toast since any other less substantial bread will disintegrate too quickly in the hot soup. A range of cheeses will work, anything from Gruyere to Emmentaler to Swiss. I recommend making cheese toast rather than fiddling with putting your bowl of soup under the broiler.
For those who are curious, the glass of wine is Pouilly-Fuisse, and it was a perfect pairing!
