Jam-Filled Thumbprint Cookies

As I continue in my Lenten discipline of eating no sugar and keeping mostly vegan, I've been getting more and more interested in playing around with old favorite recipes that normally contain lots of butter, sugar, eggs, or whatever, and making them tasty without all of those things.

My secret to success, in general, has been fruit, which can add sweetness and moisture. I also recently read that nut and coconut flours can make for very moist, rich-tasting baked goods. Since I teach at a nut-free school (but coconut is apparently ok), and had had a bag of coconut flour in the back of my fridge forever, I decided to try using some. I've also read that sorghum flour can do a good job of binding itself without added gums (xanthan, guar, etc.) and had a bag of that lying around, so I decided to go with that. And finally, I always think of jam cookies as being especially tasty with a little powdered sugar sprinkled on top at the end, but I didn't want to go that route, so I decided to use some unsweetened, shredded coconut, instead.

The dough of these ended up a little pasty and not very sweet, but I think the preserves balance it nicely. If you like a little more sweetness, try adding a Tbs or so of agave nectar.

These were very touchy to form, so I might try a little xanthan gum next time, after all.

JAM-FILLED THUMBPRINT COOKIES

Makes 3 dozen cookies

1 c coconut flour

1 1/2 c sorghum flour

1 tsp gluten-free baking powder

1 tsp egg replacer

1/2 tsp salt

2 c unsweetened applesauce

1/2 c olive oil

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 c unsweetened shredded coconut

1/3 c all-fruit preserves

Combine flours, baking powder, egg replacer, and salt in a medium bowl and whisk to combine.

In a larger bowl, combine applesauce, oil and vanilla. Stir briskly to blend, then start adding dry ingredients bit by bit, stirring vigorously to combine. The resulting dough will be very crumbly, but should hold together when a small handful is gathered up and pressed into a soft ball. (Squeezing more firmly will cause it to fall apart again, but this is ok.)

If you're a slowpoke like me, you'll want to wait until after this next step to preheat the oven. If you work a little faster, you could preheat at this point or about halfway through the shaping process. Baking temperature will be 350°F.

Spread shredded coconut onto a medium-sized plate. Take up a small amount of dough and very gently press and roll it into a ball, about 1 inch in diameter (slightly smaller than a ping pong ball). Once it's holding together, place it in the coconut and roll it around a little, then, right there in the plate, shape it into a "thumbprint" shape. This means pressing your thumb down somewhat firmly in the middle while supporting the outside edges with your fingers, pressing things together again as they start to crack. There should be enough of an indentation to hold about 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of fruit preserves.

Transfer to an ungreased baking sheet and repeat until dough is all used up, moving to a second baking sheet when necessary.

Preheat the oven now, if you didn't do it earlier.

Measure out the jelly into a cup, and mash it with the back of the spoon to soften it if necessary. (Some brands of all-fruit preserves are a little excessive in the pectin department, or contain extra starch to stabilize. It's easier to measure little spoons of the preserves if you break this down a little.) Use a spoon to place a little in the dimple of each cookie, taking care to make as little contact with the cookies as possible, as they're very fragile.

Bake 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool thoroughly on the sheets, set on wire racks, then remove very carefully to a plate or tin. Enjoy one or two with a cup of tea for an afternoon or mid-morning treat!

How to make a cream sauce with no flour and lots of flavor

Yes, it's sometimes going to be a long time between posts. And I mean a loooong time. Sorry 'bout that. Also? This is totally not one of those healthy-eating posts, in the sense that even reading about this quantity of butterfat might just raise your cholesterol about 10 points. But there is some pretty good nutrition here, too, and it's not like I'm suggesting we eat this way every day.

When I was a graduate student in Chicago, I worked at a cafe in Rogers Park called Ennui Café. One of my coworkers was a culinary student who told me her approach to cream sauces: instead of starting with a roux, start with equal parts heavy cream and white wine, and reduce it down about 50%. Finding myself with some extra cream on-hand after making ice cream (more on that later), I decided to give it a try. Another person I met recently had a good rule of thumb for vegetarian meal-building: "a grain, a green and a protein," so I added canned navy beans and frozen, chopped spinach. Knowing that (a) vitamin C increases iron absorption from leafy greens and (b) tomatoes are yummy, I added some canned crushed tomatoes.

I'm still doing my best to use local ingredients, but since I spent most of last summer scuba diving instead of prowling farmers' markets and putting up veggies for the winter, there are a lot of supermarket goods in this one.

By the way, I've decided that there is no point in eating any brown rice pasta other than Tinkyada, ever again. Fin.

Brown Rice Fusilli and Navy Beans with Spinach-Tomato-"Atwell's Gold" Cream Sauce

makes 2-3 servings

2 c. light or heavy cream

2 c. white wine (I used Newport Vineyards Pinot Grigio)

Combine in a medium saucepan over medium heat and simmer to reduce. This will take bloody forever. Try being braver than I was, and turn up the heat a little more to speed up the process.

Meanwhile, put a pot of water on to boil for pasta, and ...

2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil

6 cloves garlic (or less, if you're not quite as insane for garlic as I am)

1 c. canned navy beans or cannelini, drained and rinsed

generous pinch of salt

1/2 c. canned crushed tomatoes, lifted out of the sauce with a fork to get as high a tomato:sauce ratio as possible

2 c. frozen spinach

Heat the oil in a sauté pan over medium heat, then crush and add the garlic. Stir for a few minutes until garlic is fragrant and a little bubbly. Stir in beans and salt and cook for about five minutes to allow the starchy beans to soak up the flavors. Mix in tomatoes to deglaze pan and stir until warm. Add spinach and sauté, stirring occasionally, until warm and well distributed, then set aside.

When the pasta water is boiling, check to see whether the cream mixture is at least down to 2 1/2 cups volume. If not, turn the water to low or off and wait. Once it is, ...

2 c. (dry) brown rice fusilli or other short pasta (penne, etc.)

Add to rapidly boiling water along with a generous amount of salt, at least a couple teaspoons. Stir for the first couple minutes, then occasionally until desired tenderness. Drain, rinse and return to pot and toss with spinach mixture, and set aside.

When sauce is reduced to 2 c., reduce heat to low and start adding cheese:

1/2 c. freshly grated Atwell's Gold, asiago or pecorino romano cheese, plus additional for serving

Over low heat, add cheese a small pinch at a time, stirring after each addition until completely incorporated. When all cheese has been added, pour cheese sauce over pasta and spinach and combine over low heat, stirring gently until warmed through.

Serve in a warmed pasta bowl, topped with additional cheese and freshly ground pepper. Mwah!

** If you're dining alone, you can eat possibly deliciously for two nights! The whole thing might reheat well, but I didn't try it. What I did do was the following: Boil only 1 c. pasta and shred only 1/4 c. cheese (+ a little). When the spinach is all thawed and distributed, put half the mixture in a lidded container and refrigerate. When the cream mixture is down to 2 c., put 1 c. in a separate lidded container and refrigerate that, then proceed as above.

When it's time for leftovers, start the pasta first and shred the cheese while waiting for the water to come to a boil. As soon as the pasta's in the water and boiling happily, start warming the cream concoction over low heat. It will look like it's separating and bad things are happening, but I promise it's fine; I just did it. The pasta should be done just before the sauce is warm enough to add the cheese; drain, rinse, and return the pasta to the pot along with the cold spinach mixture. Heat the two together over low heat. Next, start adding the cheese to the sauce, slowly as above. As soon as all the cheese is in, pour this over the pasta mixture and heat thoroughly.

And about dessert ...

I'm feeling downright smug, because I succeeded in making tartufi, or scoops of ice cream encased in a coating of chocolate so that they look like big truffles. I used David Lebovitz's recipe for Chocolate Ice Cream, Philadelphia Style, and his recipe/instructions for tartufi (except that I substituted brown rice syrup for corn syrup because corn syrup makes me cringe), and it was downright easy. Using my brief training as a helper at the now-defunct Ursula's, I drizzled them with white chocolate (which I thinned with whole milk, which I'm not sure was a good move but it made it drizzlable). And then served them over a small pool of raspberry sauce à la Rose Levy Beranbaum.

Plus, I made moose-munch-only-it's-not-moose-munch-because-that's-a-copyrighted-name from Patrick Evans-Hylton's Popcorn book, again substituting brown rice syrup for corn syrup and also mixing unsweetened chocolate about 50/50 with the milk chocolate for a richer flavor. I got a Whirley-Pop recently, and have been giving it a real workout because I loooooove popcorn. I was feeling very intimidated by toffee-involved recipes, and this was messy but overall pretty easy. And it made a lot.

Summer Peach Bread Pudding

I apologize for the long silence! Many thanks to new commenters theresa and sea for their compliments, and of course to hilary for her constant support. :-) This is a post I wrote a long time ago, when I actually was making this dish, but didn't get around to finishing until now because I was too lazy to upload the photos. Ah, the last days of summer.

Speaking of which, I do intend to keep posting once I'm back to the teaching grind (in, ergh, a few days), but please understand that it will be much less frequent than my intial flurry of posts. I'll try to be reasonably regular with adding things here, though.

On to the food!



Peaches are in season, and the ones from my neighborhood farmers' market are sweet, juicy and scrumptious. I honestly believe that the best thing to do with ripe, in-season fruit is to eat it raw, all by itself. Yum! It also inspires me to try new recipes - and occasionally to improvise, which I've done here.

I had most of a loaf of GF bread in my freezer, of a type that I don't particularly like for toast or sandwiches. This is what gave me the idea of making a bread pudding. I honestly don't know exactly how much I had, so I'm guessing it was about ten slices. If you try this yourself, you may find you need more or less to complete two layers in the dish. I would recommend the softest/airiest bread you can find, and giving it a good, long soak before baking (longer than the 30 minutes I did). My experience was that the peaches and bread all floated up to the top when I poured in the custard, and the bread stayed very dense and chewy, rather than incorporating the custard, which forced me to bake this far longer than the recipe indicates. It was still very tasty, but should definitely be considered a 'work-in-progress.'

Some of the proportions in this recipe were based on the Apricot Bread Pudding recipe in Rebecca Reilly's Gluten-Free Baking. Although it will go without saying on the slighest glance at the ingredients list, this dish falls securely under the heading of 'treat.'

SUMMER PEACH BREAD PUDDING

about 10 slices gluten-free bread, thawed and crusts trimmed off
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 ripe peaches, pitted and skinned
cinnamon, nutmeg and powdered ginger
6 Tbs dark brown sugar, divided
5 eggs
1 Tbs or more vanilla
1 1/4 c. heavy cream
1 1/2 c. skim milk
[2 3/4 c. half-and-half can be substituted for the above two ingredients]

In a 6-cup Pyrex dish, make a single layer of bread by cutting slices to fit like a jigsaw puzzle. Drizzle with half of the butter. Slice one of the peaches into very thin slices, placing it to cover the bread layer completely. Sprinkle liberally with cinnamon, slightly with nutmeg and moderately with ginger. Sprinkle 1 Tbs brown sugar over that. Repeat all of the above steps to create a second layer each of bread, peaches, spices and sugar.

Heat cream and milk in a saucepan over low heat, until very hot but not yet scalded. Meanwhile, beat eggs with a whisk in a medium-sized, heat-proof bowl, then whisk in remaining 4 Tbs brown sugar along with vanilla (I slipped at this point and added at least 2 Tbs worth; luckily, I like vanilla). Whisk in hot cream, gradually, then strain mixture over bread and peaches. (Top layer of peaches may float to the surface.) Allow to stand 30 min.



Preheat oven to 300°F. Place a roasting pan (or other pan large enough to allow your baking dish to sit in it) in the oven, place pudding inside it, and fill the roasting pan with boiling water halfway up the sides of the pudding dish. Cover dish with buttered parchment paper (or foil). Bake for 20 to 30 minutes.



Remove the pudding from the hot water bath (careful - water is very hot and can burn you). Serve warm, or try room-temperature or cold, as you prefer. I found this to be too rich to be enjoyable with any sort of accompaniment (e.g., ice cream), but that may change if the bread is soft enough to get a more classic bread pudding texture than I did on this try.

Eggplant-and-sundried-tomato-stuffed tofu "steaks" -AND- Balsamic roasted red potatoes and onions

As promised, for dinner tonight I baked up one of the stuffed tofu "steaks" that I prepared last night, and I also roasted some farmers'-market red potatoes and red onion as a side-dish. The meal, in addition to being strictly gluten-free, would have been entirely vegan if I hadn't given in to the impulse to put a little reduced-fat cheddar on my salad.

Eggplant-and-sundried-tomato-stuffed tofu "steaks"

NOTES: Since tofu takes the flavor of anything it touches, it really is best to assemble this a day ahead of time. This recipe gave me my first opportunity to use my new food grinder attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer. I think I'm in love! A food processor fitted with the sharp blade would probably also work, or if you're really determined, you can chop the filling by hand.

1. Drain a block of tofu (usually around 1 lb) and place it between two large, flat plates with something heavy on top such as a textbook. Leave for 30 minutes to press out excess water.

2. Meanwhile, cut two 1/2-inch-thick round slices from a medium-large-sized eggplant. Salt slices thoroughly on both sides, and leave in a colander 30 minutes, to sweat out excess moisture.

3. Place about six sundried tomatoes in the bottom of a small, non-reactive bowl, and cover with boiling water, then place a plate over the bowl to keep in heat and steam. Wait five minutes, then drain.

4. Feed sundried tomatoes, five peeled cloves of garlic, and 1/2 white onion (peeled and cut into small chunks) through food grinder. When eggplant has sweat sufficiently, pat it dry (or spin it in a salad spinner), cut it into chunks and feed it through grinder.

5. Heat about 1 Tbs olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add ground eggplant mixture and cook, stirring occasionally, until just starting to dry out and stick to pan. Deglaze pan with dry white wine (I used Pinot Grigio), about 1/4 cup, and continue to cook, stirring, until most of the liquid has cooked off.

6. Drain tofu and place on a cutting board. Slice into five thick slices, then cut a pocket into the long side of each one. Use a teaspoon to fill each tofu "steak," gently pushing as much filling into each as possible. I used about three spoonfuls per "steak," and had only a little filling left over.

7. Place "steaks" in a container with a tight-fitting cover and drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Spoon any leftover filling into the container, as well. Close tightly and refrigerate overnight.

8. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350°F, lightly coat a pan with olive oil, and place desired number of "steaks" on pan. Bake 45 min. Serving size: 1 "steak."


(appearance before baking)


Balsamic roasted red potatoes and onions

NOTE: This dish has the same baking temperature and time as the tofu "steaks" above, and can be cooked simultaneously. All measurements are approximate, and estimated after the fact.

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

2. In a (preferably Pyrex) 9"x13" baking dish, combine 1-2 Tbs olive oil, 3 minced garlic cloves, 1/2 red onion (chopped into chunks and layers separated), 2-3 Tbs balsamic vinegar, 3 cubed red potatoes, and about 1/2 tsp each of oregano and salt (to taste). Stir gently with a wooden spoon to coat potato pieces thoroughly.


(appearance before baking)

3. Bake 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes with a long-handled wooden spoon.

As pictured above, I rounded out these two greenless dishes with a nice, fresh salad. Portions for the tofu and potatoes were decently small, and the salad made the plate look full without adding too much additional weight. In the future, I'll probably go easier on the serving size for the potatoes - I'm totally stuffed, even about 30 minutes after finishing my supper!

Eggplant extravaganza!

One of my original goals, in starting this, was to get more of my food from local sources. The reasons for this are two-fold: first, I know I need to make vegetables and fruits a bigger part of my diet, and since locally-grown produce is usually fresher and riper, it is usually more tasty and therefore more appealing, to lure me away from my heavy-starches-and-fats habits. Second, small-scale farming is better for the environment, and local produce uses a lot less fuel in carting produce from farm to consumer. This is the reasoning behind my weekly farmers' market sprees.

The next step, of course, is actually to eat the food before it spoils. This has often been a stumbling-block for me. Luckily, I'm a teacher, so my greatest free time coincides with the greatest availability of fresh, local produce.

Two items in my refrigerator this week have been a block of tofu (grocery store, not farmers' market) and an eggplant. I'd been thinking about how I might like to prepare the tofu, and decided to try stuffing tofu "steaks," similar to the way Japanese chefs stuff tofu with spiced meat. Being a vegetarian, I tried to think of other things, and settled on eggplant, among others.



I think the recipe for the "steaks" shown above, currently raw, will appear after I bake and eat one, probably tomorrow night. But can I just say? I love my Kitchen Aid mixer!

The problem was, I knew I was only going to need a small amount of eggplant for this recipe, and that the eggplant would spoil more quickly once it was cut. What else could I do? I went ahead and cooked the rest, two ways: grilled slabs that I will make into sandwiches on Chebe foccaccia, with fresh tomato and basil, and small cubes that I sautéed in olive oil and garlic and will put into a risotto at some point.



I love my Forman grill, too, incidentally. :-)

I used to hate eggplant, by the way. The turning point, for me, was when I learned to salt it and let it sweat before cooking it. Cuts the bitterness and brings out the sweetness beautifully. If you're worried about your salt intake, you can rinse it gently after it has finished sweating; otherwise, just pat or spin it dry. I used my salad spinner, which I also love.