Gluten-free cheddar scallion biscuits

Before my gluten-free days, I had an infrequent, periodic passion for biscuits. I was usually immune to their buttery charms, but once or twice a year, I would crave them something fierce, and only McDonalds sausage egg and cheese biscuits could make things right. I would order one of these monstrosities, devour it to the disgust of my companions, and be sated for the better part of a year. Let’s face it: my family originates variously from England and the Mid-Atlantic US – we just don’t eat a lot of biscuits. These are the first biscuits I have made since going gluten-free, except for a disaster more than a year ago in which I used coconut milk (??) for the buttermilk and created a tray of hockey pucks that somehow gave me a terrible stomach ache. But enough about all that. Let’s talk about these biscuits, because I promise you that these are best thing I have put in my belly in last few months. Sharp cheddar cheese and butter were always meant to be together, and the slight sharpness of scallions elevates this to another level. And by “another level”, I mean “a higher plane of existence.”

I tore the top off of one of these biscuits while they were cooling, and ohmygod, I nearly passed out with joy. I literally stood motionless in the kitchen massaging my belly in ecstasy. I didn’t know that people actually did that, but I do, so apparently they do. Ok, let’s try to speak intelligently about these biscuits. You rub some butter into a mess of gluten-free flours, add an enormous amount of cheese and a somewhat smaller amount of scallions, stir in some buttermilk, plop on a sheet, bake. But let’s elaborate on that little word “bake,” shall we? After ten minutes in the oven the cheese is melting and the scallions are softening, losing their sharp edges and becoming totes BFFs with all the other ingredients and you’re standing there in the kitchen, inhaling and feeling so smart that you invited all these kids to your party. After 15 minutes in the oven the cheese has oozed out and is rapidly becoming delightfully crusty, and the interior of the biscuit has hollowed out into a crispy shell, with tender crumbs and streaks of melty cheese and little morsels of scallion magic suspended inside and GOOD LORD. Just bake these. Please.

I came across this recipe in a familiar way, through Smitten Kitchen. Deb has this uncanny ability to sift through the vast reams of recipes in the world and tell you which ones you should use. Because face it, there are lots of shitty recipes out there. Deb’s passion for stellar ingredients and her dedication to finding the exact ratio or technique that will yield the most stunning results has led me to many delicious destinations. She reinterpreted these biscuits with blue cheese, but I went to the source, Epicurious, to find the original, highly flexible recipe she used. For flour proportions, I consulted Gluten-Free Girl. Shauna has got gluten-free baking down pat, and while I sometimes can’t use her recipes because of her reliance on eggs, her flour recommendations are usually spot on. I tweaked her flour combination for her biscuit recipe to fit into the measurements for the Epicurious one.

At this point, it would be dishonest for me to withhold the information that I ate 7 of the 8 biscuits my halved recipe produced within three hours of baking them. I have no justification for this behavior. In fact, the only reason I didn’t eat all 8 instantly was that I forced myself to save one for the morning so I could photograph it in daylight.

Gluten-Free cheddar scallion biscuits (adapted from Epicurious, with an assist from Gluten-Free Girl)

1/2 cup minus 1 tablespoon potato starch

1/2 cup sorghum flour

1/2 cup tapioca starch

1/2 cup sweet rice flour

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt (omit if your margarine is salted)

6 tablespoons cold butter or margarine, cut into 1/2-inch pieces, plus 1 tablespoon, melted, for baking

8 oz sharp cheddar cheese, coarsely grated (about 2 cups)

3 scallions, finely chopped

1 cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 450 deg F.

Whisk together all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl until well-combined. Add the butter and mix with your fingertips until small crumbs form and you no longer have big butter chunks. Stir in the cheese and scallions. Pour in 3/4 cup buttermilk, and stir until just combined. If the dough is still stiff, add the remaining 1/4 cups.

Drop dough onto parchment paper-covered baking sheets to make 12-16 biscuits. Brush the top of each biscuit with a small amount of melted butter. Bake for 14-16 minutes or until golden.

Can be stored in a Ziploc at room temperature, but they are infinitely better right out of the oven, so eat as soon as possible. Like you needed an excuse.

These biscuits are ridiculously flexible. You can swap out the cheese for one you prefer. On commenter on Epicurious substituted rosemary for the scallions, which sounds so delicious that I am tempted to whip up another batch right now. You could sub any herb or onion-variant here. Garlic and cheddar? Mmm.

Southeast Asian chicken noodle soup

Sometimes I worry about categorizing something as a particular kind of ethnic cuisine when I don't actually know how people of that culture prepare the food. Sometimes I know that my preparation is not authentic in the least, and I think: do I need to qualify this with "Cheater's"? But then, I spent a couple months in Vietnam and Thailand joyously devouring every dish of food that came my way (ok, maybe not the fetal quail eggs), and I know that the flavors in this soup do accurately represent the flavors used in southeast Asian cooking. And with my tiny kitchen, Stateside location, and aversion to boiling carcasses for stock, this is about the closest I'm going to get.

Another reason for this soup is that I recently started a new medication that makes me chronically, constantly nauseous. It's at a pretty low level, but the loss of appetite is the biggest problem. This was when I realized how weird my body is. During my endless days of nausea, here are the foods that sounded good to me: caramel. pho. cheese. biscuits. dosa. beef. pho. caramel. did I mention pho? Ok, how about some brothy soup? Brothy SE Asian-inspired soup?(We'll get to the caramel obsession eventually)

So, here we are. This soup is fragrant from the lemongrass and ginger, slightly spicy from the chili and garlic, savory from the chicken broth. Fabulous. It's not very filling, due to the lack of protein or complex carbs, but it's a nice snack.

Southeast Asian chicken noodle soup

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1/2 inch segment fresh ginger, finely chopped

1 inch segment of lemongrass, finely chopped

Oil for sauteeing (I used coconut oil)

2 cups chicken broth

A few drops of fish sauce

1 1/2 - 2 cups cooked rice noodles

Chopped fresh cilantro and scallions

Lime juice

Heat the oil in a medium-sized pan over medium heat. Add the garlic, lemongrass, and ginger and saute until fragrant. Add chicken broth. Reduce heat to simmer. Add fish sauce. Cover and simmer for 15 or so minutes.

Put a big handful of rice noodles in your bowl, and pour broth over top, through a sieve if you want to avoid the awkward little pieces of lemongrass and ginger. Garnish with cilantro and scallions and add a squeeze of lime juice.

Scenes from Chicago

I was in Chicago with my boy this past weekend. I hadn't seen him since early July, so this visit was much-needed. We ate our way through the city, visiting a farmer's market in Wicker Park, the Lincoln Park Zoo, and a few tasty restaurants. Oh, and the biggest Whole Foods in the world. Seriously. I could move in there.

This Whole Foods had a dedicated GF bakery, where we purchased some very tasty eggless pizza crusts. Too late, I realized that these crusts contained dairy. And when I say "contained dairy" I mean milk was the first ingredient. Oops. They were extremely tasty, especially with heirloom tomatoes, piles of herbs, and fresh mozzarella on top.

Raspberry gratin (in praise of ugly food)

One of the problems I have with summer produce is that the making-too-much-work-for-myself, creative part of me wants to try new things, combine produce with genius ingredients and chop or bake or blanch until perfect. But then I start eating the berries or peaches raw out of their little green box and then doing anything to them except putting them in my mouth seems sacrilegious. So when Deb of Smitten Kitchen posts some terribly awkward pictures of some lovely concoction that elevates raspberries to their singing best while leaving them basically raw, I didn't hesitate.

Deb's recipe calls for three ingredients: raspberries, sour cream, and dark brown sugar. I recently inherited dark brown sugar from a friend who was moving out of her apartment and needed a loving home for her baking supplies. But sour cream? They don't make that out of goat milk. I barely paused a second, though, because even in the days before my allergies were diagnosed and I regularly sullied my system with dairy products of every persuasion, I often used plain full-fat yogurt as a sub for sour cream. The adorable goats came through again.
However, this yogurt is quite runny and I knew I would need something of a more Greek consistency for this recipe. I jury-rigged a draining apparatus: paper towels laid in a sieve, balanced over a mixing bowl. Spooned about 2.5 cups of yogurt in, covered with another paper towel, and let drain for a couple hours. This process is necessary because regular yogurt has too much water, and will make this a runny, soggy mess if you don't drain it beforehand.
After draining the yogurt you fold it together with raspberries and top with brown sugar, then broil for a few minutes. The brown sugar melts and caramelizes and the yogurt gets barely warm, but the raspberries are only softened the smallest amount and it all melts together and gah. It is so good. I hope you will forgive these extremely unappetizing pictures and just believe me that this is the simplest, tastiest thing to do to raspberries. Even if they kind of look like brains afterwards.

Raspberry gratin (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

This recipe has very simple proportions, and they can certainly be tweaked. I actually didn't measure anything - I used the raspberries I bought at the farmer's market, the yogurt I had left, and enough brown sugar to cover the top.

2 cups fresh raspberries, washed and dried very carefully

2.5 cups of full-fat yogurt, or 2 cups of Greek yogurt/sour cream

1 cup dark brown sugar

If using regular (ie not Greek) yogurt, "Greekify" it by lining a sieve with paper towels, spooning the yogurt in, covering and letting drain for a couple hours. I left it out on the counter but you can let this process happen in the fridge if you want.

Position the rack in your oven so that one if close to the broiler. Turn on the broiler.

Once you have the appropriate yogurt/sour cream substance, fold it together with the raspberries in a shallow dish or pan. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the top, evenly covering the surface.

Broil until the sugar starts to caramelize. It's best if eaten immediately, but can be refrigerated, covered. It will look even more horrible after spending some time in the fridge.

Chilled cucumber soup with mint, dill, and yogurt

The farmers markets are full of cucumbers these days - big bins of knobbly dark green tubes, only surpassed by the enormous, baseball-bat-sized (seriously. like omg) zucchini. It's August. Late summer. My summer research project is due in about 2 weeks, but more importantly, cukes and zukes and tomatoes and stone fruit and berries will soon be gone, gone forever except for in mediocre incarnations in the produce section of Gin'Iggle. And by "forever" I mean next summer. But who knows where I will be next summer? Probably not here in Pittsburgh, with my beloved East Liberty farmers market.
Appropriately, the air is also full of a strange grey humidity -a stickiness that stops short of being truly hot. I expected this first week of August to be the most fierce in terms of heat, so I am grateful for the reprieve (no A/C in my third-floor walk-up). But the air is damp and heavy, and this is no time for stoves or ovens. Hence this soup - no heat is involved. You peel and chop some cukes, whirl them in the food processor with tangy yogurt and cool mint, refrigerate and eat. Refreshing and easy.
I mostly left this recipe as-is, since I can eat every ingredient and Shauna is a genius and her recipes rarely need tweaking. I adjusted the ratio of yogurt:cukes somewhat, upped the herbs because I always up the herbs, and played with a few other ingredients.
Chilled Cucumber Soup (barely adapted from Gluten-Free Girl)

3 cucumbers, peeled

2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

1 1/2 teaspoons rice vinegar

16 ounces plain yogurt, preferably full-fat

1 tablespoon grapeseed oil

1/4 cup soda water/seltzer

salt and pepper to taste

Chop up your cucumbers into pieces of a size that your food processor can handle. Toss these pieces in the food processor with everything else except the soda water/seltzer and the salt and pepper. Whiz until smooth. Add the soda water/seltzer and stir, then add salt and pepper to taste. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour before eating (depends a lot on how cold your ingredients were to start with).

Gluten-free vegan pizza crust

I have a confession to make. I kind of cheat when I make pizza crust. I use.. a mix. Yes, I know; the ingredients of the mix I use are common, and I could easily sling together a slew of gluten-free flours and do this myself, and abandon the mix and my shame forever. But it is so easy this way! And... I have not been terribly successful on the GF vegan bread/pizza crust front, and I am afraid of failure and disappointment when all I really want is some hot, crusty, melty pizza. Yes, I am a baby.

The reason why I am posting this as a recipe is that over the course of my experimentation I have substantially tweaked the back-of-the-bag recipe for pizza crust, both to accommodate my additional allergies (hi, eggs!) and to improve the taste and texture of this crust. I think my tweaks are helpful enough that I feel justified in posting them.

In posting the pictures of the last pizza I made with this crust, I am also admitting another great shame: I used moo-cow mozzarella on this pizza. Let me explain. Goat mozzarella exists, and is sold both at the Whole Foods and Giant Eagle in my neighborhood. Unfortunately, someone is capitalizing on the desire of us cow-milk-sensitive folks for good pizza, and so these tiny bricks of cheese tip the checkout line at $7-9. Ugh. Trader Joe's, my go-to source for cheap staples, had a nice little bag of shredded goat mozzarella for less than $4, and though it tasted a little weird and didn't melt like moo-cow mozz, I was willing to compromise. Joe has not been holding up his end of the deal. Last week, after seeing the goat mozzarella's usual spot on the shelf empty for the fourth week in a row, I asked an employee, who confirmed that Trader Joe's had heartlessly discontinued the item. That night, my belly clamoring for some pizza, I stood bereft in the cheese aisle of Giant Eagle, looking at the $8.99 brick of goat mozz... and the $3.50 ball of snowy, elastic moo-cow mozz. I made my decision, and scurried to the cash register, clutching my contraband cheese and looking around furtively. I tried to lessen my misdeed by combining the mozz with some soft chevre, and oh... it was good. I forgot how beautifully mozzarella stretches, how gooey and lovely it becomes. I forgot about the mild salty tang of fresh cheese. Never again.

This crust is thin and crispy, with a bit of a chew to it. The only downside is that it seems to have a very slight bitter aftertaste, which is easily counteracted by quickly stuffing another piece in your mouth. I find that half of the dough makes enough pizza for two people. I usually freeze the other half, wrapping it tightly in plastic wrap then placing inside a ziploc bag.

Gluten-free vegan pizza crust (adapted from Bob's Red Mill)

1 package Bob's Red Mill GF pizza crust mix

1 package yeast (included)

1 1/4 cups warm water

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for baking

2 tablespoon Ener-G egg replacer, plus 1/4 cup water

2 teaspoons flaxseed meal

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon white wine

Combine yeast and water in a large bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer if you have one, and let stand for about 5 minutes. Then add the flaxseed meal, stir, and let stand for another few minutes. Add the olive oil, Ener-G, honey, and wine and combine. Add the mix, and blend until well-combined, about 1 minute on medium speed in the mixer.

Split the ball of dough in half, leaving each half in the bowl. Cover and let rise for 20 minutes at room temperature (even better: place in the fridge and let rise for at least 3 hours).

When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 425. Generously sprinkle a baking sheet with cornmeal, and with wet or oiled hands, press one half of the dough onto the sheet, spreading it out to the edges as thin as you can. Don't worry about uneven edges. Brush the entire surface of the dough with olive oil, then bake for 7-8 minutes.

Add toppings, then bake for 15 minutes or until the cheese is melty and bubbly.

Blackberry peach cobbler (vegan and gluten-free)

Oh, East Liberty farmers market. I love your shady location by the defunct police headquarters, your sweet Mennonite women selling goat milk, your tables of salsa and cheese and smoked salmon and hummus to taste. But you have been sadly missing berries for the last few weeks, your tables bereft of those cute little bundles of black- and blue- (and straw- and rasp-) deliciousness. Or maybe it's me? Have I been arriving too late to appreciate your bounty?

Oh, but you made up for it this week, East Liberty farmers market. I was rushing, on my way to meet friends, but I stopped by because of my love for you. And what did you have? You had blackberries. All is forgiven.

This is my first cobbler. I have never made this variation on baked fruit before, and I'm not even sure if I've eaten it. Cobblers always seem shunted to the side for the more popular pies, crisps, and crumbles. Of course, I have instituted a Pie Crust Boycott after discovering that I could have baked fruit without rolling out a temperamental gluten-free crust. Crisps, crumbles, and cobblers are all wonderful in that there is no crust. Which of course means no rolling pin. Hallelujah.

I adapted this recipe from the original by hedging on the sugar and completely re-working the crumble topping. Oh, and adding peaches. Because peaches + berries = <3.

Blackberry peach cobbler (gluten-free and vegan) (adapted from Manifest: Vegan)

Filling:

Three ripe peaches, peeled and cut into 1/2-1 inch pieces

About 1 1/2-2 cups blackberries

1/4 cup sugar

Juice of half a lemon

1 tablespoon cornstarch

Dash cinnamon

Cobbler:

1/2 cup sorghum flour

1/4 cup tapioca or potato starch

1/4 cup white rice flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum

2 tablespoons sugar (preferably raw/turbinado)

1/4 cup soy-free margarine or butter, cold

1/2 cup almond milk

1/2 teaspoon salt (omit if your margarine is salted)

Crumble:

2 tablespoons sugar (preferably raw/turbinado)

3 tablespoons sorghum flour

3 tablespoons gluten-free oats

2 tablespoons soy-free margarine, cold

Preheat the oven to 350.

In a deep 9-inch pie dish, combine the fruit, sugar, lemon juice, cornstarch, and cinnamon. Stir well to evenly coat fruit.

In a separate medium-sized bowl, combine the dry ingredients for the cobbler and mix well. Add the cold margarine in small pieces and work into the dry ingredients using a pastry blender, fork, or your hands, until you have a crumbly texture. Add the almond milk and combine. You should have a batter with a thickness halfway between cake batter and cookie dough. Spoon this batter in large dollops over the fruit. Do not spread it out to cover evenly - each dollop will expand while baking to fill in the spaces.

Combine the sugar and sorghum flour for the crumble in a small bowl. Crumble in the margarine like you did for the cobbler, then stir in the oats. Sprinkle this crumble topping over the cobbler.

Bake for 40-50 minutes, until fruit is bubbly and topping starts to brown. Let cool somewhat before serving.

Quinoa-green bean salad with mint-date dressing (vegan)

The last three weeks or so have been very indulgent. First Sam was visiting, and we patronized multiple restaurants and cooked various unhealthy meaty, fatty things. Then I drove across the country, and along the way we seemed to find the best food in every town: Delicious Thai in Chicago! Best steak of my life in Omaha! Gluten-free pizza in Moab! Best bacon ever in Utah! More Thai in Laguna Beach! Plus, you know, a couple bars of Dairy Milk in the car and lots of butter on my toast in the morning and....

Anyway, now that I am back in my domicile and the life of cooking-for-one, I am trying to get back into eating the way I like to think of myself eating: not a lot of meat, plenty of seasonal vegetables, and some whole grains for good measure.

This dish fit the bill quite well. By the way, I originally thought I was buying shell peas at the farmers market, only to bring a basket home and try to shell them and discover that they were certainly not shell peas. They may not even be green beans, but close enough, right?

I completely forgot to take pictures of this dish, so I hope these pictures of the Southwest will suffice:

Quinoa-green bean salad with mint-date dressing (adapted from 101 Cookbooks)

About two cups green beans, washed, trimmed, and cut into 1-inch pieces

1 cup quinoa

2 cups water

1 cup fresh mint leaves

2 or 3 dried dates, pitted and coarsely chopped

Juice of half a lemon

Zest of whole lemon

1/2 small serrano pepper (can remove seeds and veins to reduce spiciness)

Dump the water and quinoa in a medium-sized pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cover, and simmer until all the water is absorbed and you can see the little white ribbon in each grain.

Bring a large pot of water to boil, and cook the green beans a little longer than blanching - about 2 minutes. The beans will turn bright green and will float up to the top of the water. Drain in a colander and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking.

Puree the mint, dates, lemon juice and zest, and pepper in a food processor or blender until thoroughly combined and paste-like. Dilute with a little water until the mixture is more of a dressing consistency.

Combine the beans and quinoa, either in a serving bowl or in individual bowls, and top with dressing.

The best steak of my life.

The Drover

And it was $12. Thank you, Omaha.

Peach crisp with vanilla goat milk ice cream

The weatherman says it will be 93° F tomorrow in Pittsburgh. Yesterday was Independence Day, and Sam and I feasted on shellfish, swam in a friend's pool, and narrowly avoided a riot at Point State Park when we went downtown to see the fireworks.

Extreme heat, ritual consumption of unhealthy food, water sports, and civil unrest - sounds like a classic American summer.

I have a great nostalgia surrounding summer on the east coast. When I think "July" I think hot nights, fields of fireflies, days at the local pool, the scent of honeysuckle drifting across the backyard, lying on our backs at the fairgrounds trying to catch the fireworks falling from the sky. I think of the tinkling song of the ice cream truck wending through the cul-de-sacs of our neighborhood, heat rising from the asphalt, sweat in my eyes, Wednesdays at the air-conditioned library.

Now that I'm sort-of-grownup, its interesting trying to place my current experience of summer within the framework of my childhood ideal. I am working on a research project this summer, so I spend days holed up in my apartment or in the library (again valued for its air-conditioning) with stacks of scholarly papers and government reports, losing myself in exciting ideas.

Sam has been visiting me for the last two weeks or so, and we have been filling our days with hikes in the surrounding countryside, trips to the Strip District, good times with friends, and delicious food both created and purchased. We had a wonderful sushi dinner at Chaya, complete with soy-free "soy sauce" (then we read this article and felt bad about enjoying our tuna rolls) we grilled lamb and zucchini and corn, I tried again to make injera.

With my fridge filled with farmer's market purchases, I made this delicious crisp, and the ice cream that we ate with it. Crisps are so easy to make, as I noted in the magnificent strawberry-rhubarb crisp I made earlier in the summer. I will never make a lidded pie again!

This ice cream was awesome and easy to make without an ice-cream maker. It was sweet and creamy and full of vanilla flavor. Instead of making a custard base with egg yolks, this recipe makes a pudding base using cornstarch. It works well!

Peach Crisp (crumble topping adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

6-10 ripe peaches, depending on size of peaches and depth of pie dish

Juice of half a lemon

2 tablespoons white sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup sorghum flour

1/3 cup tapioca or potato starch

1/3 cup almond meal

1/3 cup uncooked oats (not instant)

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons white sugar

2 tablespoons demerara/turbinado/raw sugar

6 tablespoons margarine or butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350.

Peel peaches if you want (you can leave the skin on, but some people don't like it) and chop into eighths. Dump the sliced peaches into a deep 9-inch pie dish. In a separate bowl, mix together the 2 tbsp sugar, lemon juice, cornstarch, and vanilla, making sure to fully mix in the cornstarch. Pour this mixture over the peaches in the dish, and stir to combine.

In a separate bowl, stir together the flours, oats, baking soda, and sugars. Pour in the melted butter, and mix together with a fork until you get "pebbles" of various sizes. Spread this mixture over the peaches, and pop the dish in the oven. Cook until the crumble topping starts to brown and you can hear the fruit bubbling, about 20 minutes.

Vanilla goat milk ice cream (adapted from Mark Bittman)

2 1/2 cups whole goat milk

1/3 cup sugar

pinch salt

1 vanilla bean

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon agar-agar powder

1 teaspoon vodka (optional, helps ice cream stay soft)

In a saucepan, combine 2 cups of the milk with the sugar and salt. Split the vanilla bean down its length, scrape the seeds into the mixture, then add the bean itself. Heat over medium-low heat until just steaming, and in the meantime...

In a small bowl, combine the remaining 1/2 cup of the milk with the cornstarch and agar-agar, and stir until combined. Make sure the cornstarch doesn't just stick to the bottom of the bowl!

When the milk-sugar mixture is steaming, add the cornstarch mixture and stir constantly as the mixture thickens, about 5 minutes. As soon as it starts to boil, turn the heat way down, to the lowest possible point. Cook for another 5 minutes or so, until the mixture is quite thick. Remove from heat, pour into the bowl you will use for mixing later (such as the bowl for your stand mixer), cover, and pop in the freezer.

When the mixture if fully chilled but has not yet begun to freeze, remove from the freezer and take out the vanilla bean. Add the vodka if using. Mix throughly with a handheld mixer or stand mixer at medium-high speed, then replace in the freezer. You will need to keep an eye on the mixture, removing it periodically from the freezer throughout the freezing process and mixing it throughly so ice crystals don't form and the ice cream stays light and soft.

Take a slice of the crisp, top with a big scoop of the ice cream, and sprinkle a handful of fresh local blueberries on top. Sit on the couch and eat, closing your eyes with pleasure with each bite.

Grilled corn

I ran out of money when I was in Tanzania. I thought I had lost my credit card and debit card, and I called my mother in a panic, telling her to cancel the cards before someone picked them up and used them. Less than 24 hours later, I found both cards in an obscure pocket of my backpack, but too late: the cards had been cancelled, and I could only rejoin the global economy by having the cards shipped to me.

With less than 3 weeks left in Tanzania and extremely uncertain shipping times from the US to Dar es Salaam, we agreed that my cards should be sent to Vietnam, my next destination. A tricky few weeks followed, my pockets empty and my belly growling, constantly approaching my friends to borrow a few shillings.

We spent 10 days in Ifakara, a small town in the interior of Tanzania. Basically a single street, the town quickly gave up its secrets - unexpectedly speedy internet cafes, and a cluttered market where one could buy lunch. With funds low, the most cost-efficient way to fill my belly was to buy fruit and vegetables for pennies on the street, then prepare them to be eaten with a dull pocket knife and the edge of a concrete step. I sucked juice from my hands as I nibbled around the fibrous core of a mango; I smashed coconuts on the sidewalk and slurped the thin milk from cracked shells, carved the sweet flesh into my mouth, astoundingly white in this country devoid of bleach.

And I ate grilled corn. As often as I could get it. The vendors would turn the nubby, irregular ears on their charcoal grills, I would purchase an ear for less than 10 cents, and they would hand it to me with a lime wedge that had been dipped in a mixture of chile and salt. I would rub the lime wedge over the ear, covering the kernels with a mixture of lime juice and seasoning. It was genius, it was dirt-cheap, and it was absolutely delicious.

Corn is getting cheap here in Pittsburgh as the early-producing varieties start to come into season, and Sam and I bought 7 ears for a couple dollars at the farmers market. I could see no reason to deviate from the recipe of the corn vendors in Tanzania, so here it is. Enjoy.

Grilled corn (adapted from those resourceful Tanzanians)

4 ears of corn, still in husks

1 lime

pinch salt

pinch red pepper flakes, or a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper

For each ear of corn, pull back the husks without detaching them from the base of the ear. Remove the silk from inside, then fold the husks back around the ear. You want to make sure the ear is completely covered so it can steam inside the husk, so you can remove excess husks as you see fit.

Grill the ears on a hot grill, turning to brown the husks on each side. Remove from the grill and when cool, peel back husks. Mix the salt and red pepper in a small dish, then cut the lime into fourths. To serve, dip the wedges of lime into the salt mixture and rub over the ears of corn until seasoned to your liking.

Spring pea dumplings in lemon-sage broth: gluten-free and vegan

It is a source of great sadness to me that I never feasted on the wide variety of dumplings in the world before I went gluten-free. Sure, I ate some fantastic rice-flour packages of deliciousness in Vietnam, but it seems that most dumplings on restaurants and recipes rely on those gluten-ful wrappers (that may also contain egg). Ditto for ravioli. I used to LOVE ravioli, and I still miss its gluten-egg-cow cheese-laden goodness. One of my goals for this summer was to make gluten-free dumplings/ravioli. I have been really embracing the early summer produce lately - I have thousands of plans for strawberries once I can get to the farmer's market again - and so I fixated on a fresh, green pea dumpling. I think the picture accompanying this recipe is what really inspired me - that image of translucent dumplings with bright green innards, floating gently in a clear broth - so summery! I sat on my porch in the evening light to shell the peas.

I then blanched the shelled peas, and whipped them up in a food processor with shallots, sage, chives, olive oil, and lemon zest.

I was very, very pleased with the recipe for dumpling wrappers I found. The dough was easy to work with, and didn't taste too.. well, doughy after being steamed. I was surprised at how elastic the dough was. Rather than torture myself with rolling out dough on a surface and cutting out wrappers, I rolled and assembled each wrapper in my hands, pinching off a glob of dough and flattening it out before sealing it shut around some filling.

I got better at the wrappers as I went. You can see how thin I got one here.

I steamed the dumplings in a jury-rigged steamer - a colander balanced over a big pot of simmering water.

I was very pleased with the results - the fresh, green taste of the dumplings together with the tangy, herby broth. It made for a great dinner - even at 11 pm.

Spring pea dumplings in lemon-sage broth: gluten-free and vegan (loosely adapted from 101 Cookbooks and Epicurious)

1 cup shelled green peas

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh sage, plus a few stems, cut in half

1/4 cup finely chopped chives

1/2 cup minced shallots

zest and juice of one lemon

3 cups low-salt vegetable broth (chicken works too)

olive oil

dumpling wrapper dough (recipe follows)

Boil a medium-sized saucepan of water. Dump the shelled peas in the water, and cook very briefly, until the peas turn bright green and rise to the surface of the water. It will take less than a minute. Drain the peas immediately and pour cold water over them continuously until they are cool. This stops the peas from cooking further.

In the bowl of a food processor, or in a blender, combine the peas and 2 tablespoons of chives,2 tablespoons sage, and 1/4 cup shallots. Add half of the lemon zest, and a tablespoon of the olive oil. Process the mixture until desired texture, then season sparingly with pepper and salt. Set aside.

For each dumpling, pinch about a tablespoon of dough from the ball. Roll the small piece of dough briefly in your hands, until it has a uniform, smooth, elastic texture. Flatten out the dough in your hands, using the knuckles and heel of one hand to press the dough against the other hand. When the dough is as thin as you can get it without breaking it, or is about 4 inches in diameter, place a small amount of the filling (a little less than a tablespoon) in the center of the wrapper. Fold the wrapper over the filling and pinch the edges shut. Cover the freshly-assembled dumplings with a damp paper towel as you work, so they don't dry out.

In a medium-sized saucepan, saute the remaining shallots in the olive oil until soft. Add the broth, and the stems from the sage. Simmer.

While the broth is simmering, steam the dumplings. If you have a bamboo steamer you can use that. If not, place a small amount of water in the bottom of a large pot, so that it does not reach the bottom of a colander balanced in the pot. Oil the inside of the colander to prevent the dumplings from sticking, and arrange the dumplings inside. Cover the top of the colander. Bring the water to a simmer, and steam the dumplings until the wrappers are soft and translucent. (Took about 20 minutes for me).

Add the remaining chives, sage, and lemon zest, as well as the lemon juice, to the broth. Continue to simmer for about one more minute, then remove from heat, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove the sage stems.

Place a few dumplings in the bowl of each bowl and ladle the broth over them.

Dumpling wrapper dough (adapted from Hey, that tastes good!)

1/2 cup tapioca starch

1/2 cup sweet rice flour

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1 teaspoon Ener-G egg replacer

1 tablespoon oil

5-6 tablespoons water

Combine the tapioca starch, sweet rice flour, and xanthan gum in a medium bowl, and stir to combine. In a separate small bowl, combine 5 tablespoons of water and the Ener-G egg replacer. Add the oil to the dry ingredients, then add the water mixture. Stir to combine. Add another tablespoon of water as needed. Mix the dough with clean hands to help incorporate the last of the flour, and knead briefly in your hands until the dough has a smooth and elastic texture.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble, gluten-free

Before today, I had never eaten rhubarb. I knew a little about it - it was a late spring fruit (vegetable?), glossy ruby in color and often paired with strawberries. But rhubarb has never knowingly passed my lips. Somehow, though, I became fixated on baking a strawberry rhubarb pie. I have been obsessed with seasonality lately, and have been skulking around Pittsburgh muttering "Peas! Spinach! Strawberries! Scallions! Rhubarb! Strawberries!" You know, like a crazy person.

Enter a week of trying and failing to obtain the necessary ingredients from farmers markets. I finally succeeded yesterday, biking to the Citiparks market in Bloomfield and picking up a backpack-full of tasty produce and some wonderful runny goat yogurt. At the stand for the yogurt, I tasted a dense and flavorful feta, and also a tiny cup of lovely pink yogurt, flavored with... rhubarb! I tasted it and immediately knew that my big plan for a rhubarb-including dessert was a Very Good Idea.

When using gluten-free dough, crumbles are much easier to work with than pie crusts. There is a lot I would rather do than struggle with a fragile, tear-prone, absolutely-refuses-to-roll-out-properly dough. This crumble is so easy - the most time consuming step is washing and chopping the fruit. You mix the chopped fruit with some sugar, lemon juice and cornstarch, whip up a topping from flour, baking powder, sugar, and melted butter, dump it all in a pie dish and bake.

A note on liquid/cornstarch: my strawberries were extremely ripe, and very juicy. Adding the sugar pulled out all that liquid, resulting in something that more resembled strawberry-rhubarb soup than a pie. I decided to skip half of the lemon juice for this reason. I was nervous about all this liquid and added about 3.5 tablespoons of cornstarch, not wanting to add much more for fear of a gluey filling. Even though the filling was very liquidy, it baked up almost a little bit too firm. I guess the lesson here is don't worry too much about how liquidy your filling is!

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble, gluten-free (adapted from... where else? Smitten Kitchen)

Topping:

1/2 cup sorghum flour

1/2 cup tapioca or potato starch

1/3 cup almond meal

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons white sugar

4 tablespoons demerara/turbinado/raw sugar

zest of half a lemon

8 tablespoons margarine or butter, melted

In a medium-sized bowl, mix together all ingredients except for the margarine/butter. Pour the melted butter over the dry mixture, stirring with a fork until you form "pebbles" of various size. Refrigerate until needed.

Filling:

1 quart + a few more strawberries, washed, hulled, and quartered

1 1/2 cups of rhubarb, washed and chopped into 1-inch pieces (I chopped a bit smaller and used a bit more, which was fine)

Juice of half a lemon (increase to juice of one whole lemon depending on juiciness of strawberries)

1/2 cup of sugar (adjust to taste and the sweetness of your strawberries)

3-4 tablespoons cornstarch (adjust according to juiciness of strawberries)

pinch salt

Preheat the oven to 375.

Combine the chopped fruit in a large bowl, or right in the deep 9-inch pie dish, if you're feeling daring. Add everything except the cornstarch, and decide how much cornstarch to add based on the juiciness of the mixture.

Dump the fruit mixture in the pie dish if you didn't start out there, and sprinkle the crumble evenly over the top.

Cover a baking sheet with foil, place the pie dish on top, slide into the oven, and bake for 40-50 minutes, or when the topping has started to brown and the fruit is bubbly. Let cool on a rack before serving, and store covered in the fridge.

Gluten-free soy-free egg-free Dulce de Leche Cheesecake with goats’ milk

Cheesecake without cows’ milk! I bet you didn’t know it was possible. I sure didn’t until recently, when I unwrapped a soft, mild chevre. Spreading it on some gluten-free crackers, I thought “Wow, this tastes just like cream cheese!” If you are unable to eat cow’s dairy, as I am, you probably miss cheesecake, since goat’s cream cheese doesn’t seem to exist on any planet. What a surprise it was to me that I could use chevre in place of this elusive ingredient.

I started this recipe at 5pm on Thursday evening, hoping I would be able to finish it in time to bring to my friends house at 9pm that night. Please excuse me while I chuckle knowingly at my naiveté. It is Saturday afternoon, and I am only just getting my first bite of this delicious cheesecake.

Granted, this is counting long breaks to sleep, work, and do other various things, but let’s be honest here. This cheesecake, as I made it, involves a batch of cookies being whipped up, baked and ground, a pan of dulce de leche spending 3 hours on the stove, and a finally-filled cheesecake spending 45 minutes in the oven, 2 hours on the cooling rack, and 6 hours in the refrigerator. This is not a dessert for those desiring instant gratification.

But, oh man, was it worth it.

Now, I have stolen this recipe from Smitten Kitchen (again), but have adapted it in a number of ways. Obviously, cream cheese and eggs and graham crackers have been replaced by things I can eat. I also elected to make this as a traditional round cheesecake in a pie dish, rather than in squares, and I omitted the chocolate glaze, wanting a more pure dulce de leche flavor and lacking the resolve to go through one more step.

This recipe is an undertaking, but it is less so if you have fewer allergies than me. You can use store-bought cookies or graham crackers for the crust, and even store-bought dulce de leche (or use the condensed milk recipe, which is much easier, found at the end of the original recipe at smitten kitchen). Good luck, and enjoy your cheesecake.

Gluten-free soy-free egg-free Dulce de Leche Cheesecake with goats’ milk (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

Crust
1 cup crumbled gluten free cookies (ginger is delicious) or graham crackers. Or you can use my ginger cookie recipe, below.
2 tablespoons sugar (omit if using a sweet cookie, like my ginger cookies)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter or margarine, melted

Filling
1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin (about half an envelope of the Knox stuff) or 1 teaspoon agar-agar (this will make it vegetarian)
1/4 cup whole milk or a creamy milk substitute, such as soy, almond, or hemp milk.
8 oz mild chevre (soft goat cheese) or cream cheese, softened.
2 large eggs or equivalent in Ener-G egg replacer
3/8 teaspoon salt (skip this if using a salty chevre)
1 cup dulce de leche (recipe below)

To make the crust:
Preheat oven to 325, making sure your oven rack is in the centre position. Grease the inside of a 9-inch round pie dish (a heavy glass one works best) with butter or a neutral oil. Take the cookies/graham crackers you have decided to use and grind them up in a food processor. (If you don’t have a food processor, you can put the cookies in a large Ziploc bag, cover the bag with a dish towel, and roll a rolling pin over the towel, pressing down to crush the cookies. When the cookies have been ground down to crumbs, transfer them to a bowl) If using graham crackers, add the sugar and mix in. Add the butter and mix until combined. Press this mixture into the pie dish, on the bottom and up the sides as far as it will go without being too thin. Pop in the oven and bake for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes.

To make the filling:
While the crust is baking/ cooling, pour the milk or milk substitute into a small bowl and sprinkle the gelatin/agar agar over the surface. Let stand for 2 minutes. In the bowl of a stand mixer, or a large bowl if you are using a hand-mixer/your guns, add the chevre/cream cheese, the eggs/egg replacer, and the salt, if using. Add the gelatin-milk mixture, making sure to scrape up all the potential clumps at the bottom of the small bowl. Beat at medium speed for about two minutes until well combined, scraping the bowl as needed. Gradually add the dulce de leche.

Pour the filling into the crust in your pie dish, making sure the top is smooth and beautiful. Don’t stress out if the filling reaches above the top of your crust, it will be ok. Place the pie dish in a water bath – a large, 9x13 pan full of hot water. Very carefully place this in the oven, and bake for about 45 minutes, until the center is just barely set. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack for 2 hours, then refrigerate for at least 6 hours.

Ginger cookies for crust (adapted from All Recipes.com)

This recipe makes way more than you need for the crust. You only need a cup of crumbs, which for me was about half of this recipe. You can easily bake half of these for the crust, then put the rest of the dough (well-wrapped) in the fridge or freezer
for ginger cookie deliciousness later.

1 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup tapioca starch
1/2 cup potato starch
1/4 cup almond meal/flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt (I omit this because the dairy/soy-free spread I use is salted)
3/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg or equivalent in Ener-G egg replacer
1/4 cup molasses
2 tablespoons white sugar

Preheat the oven to 350. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat. Stir together the dry ingredients – flours, spices, and baking soda. Set aside.
In a stand mixer, with a handheld mixer, or with a whisk and your biceps, beat the butter/margarine until creamy. Add the 3/4 cup sugar and cream together until light and fluffy. Add the egg/egg replacer, and then the molasses. Gradually stir in the dry ingredients, adding a little bit at a time.
Put your 2 tbsp sugar in a shallow bowl or on a small plate. Take the dough and form small balls, about 1 inch in diameter. Roll each ball in the sugar before placing on the baking sheet.
If you are making these to eat as cookies, bake them for 8 minutes for a very soft cookie, or 10 minutes for one with more of a crisp to it. Remove the cookies from the sheet immediately and cool on a rack. If you are making these to use as a crust, bake for 12-14 minutes. You want these to get as crisp as possible in the oven without burning them, so monitor them very closely. If using for the crust, you need to let these cool and harden completely on a rack before starting the crust.

Dulce de Leche (adapted from Alton Brown)

1 quart (4 cups) whole goats milk
1 vanilla bean
1 ½ cups white sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Before you start, take the saucepan you are going to use – you want one that seems much too large for the volume of liquid – you’ll see why below. Measure out one cup of water and put it in the saucepan, and note what that volume looks like – how far it goes up the side of the pan. This will help you know when the dulce de leche is done much later. Dump out the water, you won’t be needing it. Water your plants.
Place the milk and sugar in a large saucepan. Split the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds into the milk, then add the bean.
Turn on the medium heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved.
Add the baking soda and stir to combine. This is why you want a large saucepan! It will froth and foam like mad!
Turn the heat down to low and simmer at the lowest possible level – you want the surface to be slightly agitated, but do not let it boil. Continue to simmer, uncovered, stirring regularly, watching the liquid slowly take on a wonderful golden hue. After about an hour, remove the vanilla bean.
Continue to simmer about another 1 ½ to 2 hours, until the liquid has reduced to about one cup and has taken on a deep, dark caramel color. Use the color and the volume (remembering what one cup of liquid looked like with the water earlier) to decide when you’re done. Do not use thickness! If you wait until you have a “proper dulce de leche thickness” on the stove, your cooled dulce de leche will be way too firm!
Take the pan off the heat and let cool before using in cheesecake filling. If making ahead, refrigerate in an air-tight container.

Vanilla-cinnamon goats' milk panna cotta with caramel sauce

So, Cinco de Mayo was a few days ago. I am at home with my family for about 10 days, until I return to Pittsburgh to see Sam graduate and to start my summer. I have been cooking for my family almost every night, which I enjoy. It is a pleasure to work in my parents' large, well-equipped kitchen, and I love having a dishwasher that is not me. My parents don't get too excited about cooking, so they are more than happy to give up the title of head cook. Also, if I cook, I am able to control exactly what is put in front of me, and so am able to both avoid allergens and include the foods I love.

For the holiday, I soaked some diced chicken breasts in a lime-garam masala-brown sugar marinade for about 24 hours, then roasted them to roll up in corn tortillas for enchiladas in a mole-ish sauce. I also made my favorite black bean salad, with red onion, tomatoes, garlic, cilantro, and lime juice.

For dessert I wanted to make flan or creme caramel, since this is a fun Mexican-themed dessert. However, most of these recipes contain eggs. I decided that panna cotta was close enough, since this Italian pudding is naturally egg-free. I flavored it with some cinnamon and vanilla, and topped it with a rich, buttery caramel sauce. Yum yum.



Vanilla-cinnamon goats' milk panna cotta (adapted from David Lebovitz)

4 cups whole goats' milk
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnanon
4 1/2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
4 tablespoons cold water

Put the cold water in a bowl large enough to accommodate all ingredients. Add the gelatin and let stand for five to ten minutes, until softened.

While the gelatin is softening, put the milk and sugar in a medium-sized saucepan and heat on low until the sugar is dissolved. This step can also be done in the microwave. Remove from heat. You do not want to boil the milk or reduce it, just dissolve the sugar. Stir in the cinnamon and vanilla until well-combined.

Take eight custard cups and oil the insides with an neutral oil. If you don't have eight cups of equal size, improvise!

Add the very warm milk mixture to the gelatin and mix until all clumps of gelatin are dissolved.

Divide the mixture out into the oiled cups and cover each cup tightly with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least two hours, or until firm.

When you are ready to eat, unmold the panna cotta by sliding a thin sharp knife around the edge of each cup, then invert the cup onto a serving plate. Top with caramel sauce, if desired (recipe below).

Caramel sauce (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

1/2 cup white sugar
3 tbsp salted butter or margarine
1/4 cup whole goats' milk

Heat the sugar over medium heat in a saucepan bigger than you think you'll need. Stir constantly at first, making sure the sugar melts evenly. Continue cooking the liquefied sugar until it has taken on a beautiful, coppery color, stirring frequently to ensure it does not burn. Do not taste it! Hot sugar is burny and will instantly cool on your teeth, giving you some (literally) sweet grillz.
When the sugar is the right color, add the butter, and stir in to combine. Turn off the heat, and stir in the milk. It will foam up a lot.
If not using right away, store tightly covered in the refrigerator.