Hello again!

Wow, it's been a while.  Between finishing up things in the lab, packing, and trying to see everyone before I move next week, I've been quite busy.  Plus, last weekend I went to Florida to throw Mom a surprise birthday party.  I think I cooked more for the party than I have at home in the past month (I've been living off of the cooked grains and beans from my freezer).  I made two cakes: a flourless chocolate cake that was rich and delicious, and an Italian cream cake (apparently it was so good that Mom asked me to make another one while I was home, and I've been informed that I'm making it for a family reunion).  For the last few years almost everything I've baked has been gluten-free with very minimal sugar, so it was incredibly easy not worrying about either (the chocolate cake was gluten-free, though).  The other favorites at the party were the stuffed mushrooms and bacon-wrapped jalapenos, both from The Pioneer Woman.

 She didn't have a heart attack or spill her wine!!

I have a couple of recipes that I'll hopefully get around to sharing in the next week or so, but I doubt I'll be cooking much in the next couple of weeks because I'm planning to pack my kitchen this weekend, and I have no idea how long my belongings will be stuck on a moving truck somewhere between Michigan and Georgia.  After that, hopefully I'll be able to share all kinds of concoctions (likely involving peaches and tomatoes... probably not together, but who knows!).

Two gluten-free granola bar recipes

In addition to the fig, pecan, and flax crackers I made for my Mother's Day care package, I also sent two kinds of granola bars.  I found two recipes that sounded fantastic and couldn't decide between them, so I went overboard as usual.  Luckily granola bars fare well in the freezer, so none of them went to waste.  Both have relatively little refined sugar and are gluten-free, and I thought both were delicious.  Unfortunately the cocoa and orange variety (on the bottom in the picture, if you can actually tell them apart) had too much liquid and didn't stay together very well at all (I pieced one together for the picture).  I loved the combination of chocolate and orange, though, and I think the problem could be remedied simply by reducing the amount of orange juice.  The fig, raisin, and walnut ones were fabulous, too, and these held together well.  So, here are both recipes.  I recommend going overboard and trying both.  What do you have to lose?

Cocoa and orange granola bars (adapted from Anja's Food 4 Thought)
(Printable version)

1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp cocoa powder
zest of one orange
3/4 cup dried fruit (I used half apricots and half currants)
1 1/4 cup orange juice (I would start with 3/4 cup and add more if necessary)
2 Tbsp honey

Combine oats, walnuts, salt, cinnamon, cocoa powder, zest, and dried fruit in a large bowl.  In a separate bowl, stir together orange juice and honey.  Pour the orange juice mixture into the dry ingredients and stir well.  Let this sit for 15 min, and then add more orange juice if the mixture isn't sticking together.  Spread this out on a parchment-lined baking sheet so that it's about 1/2" thick, and bake at 350 for 25 min.  Then let cool and cut into bars.  Wrap individually and freeze for long-term storage.  Makes 20 bars.


Fig, raisin, and walnut granola bars (adapted from Simply Sugar & Gluten-free)
(Printable version)

2 cups rolled oats
2 Tbsp flax meal
6 Tbsp teff flour
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup dried figs, chopped
1/2 cup raisins
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/3 cup agave nectar or honey
2 eggs, beaten
water if necessary

Combine oats, flax meal, teff flour, walnuts, figs, raisins, cinnamon, and ginger in a large bowl.  In a separate bowl, stir together agave nectar and eggs.  Pour the agave mixture into the dry ingredients and stir well.  If you need to moisten the mixture so that everything sticks together, add water a tablespoon at a time.  Spread the mixture out on a parchment-lined baking sheet so that it's about 1/2" thick, and bake at 350 for about 20 min.  Then let cool and cut into bars.  Wrap individually and freeze for long-term storage.  Makes 20 bars.

Cabbage stuffed with quinoa pilaf recipe

I loved this simple quinoa pilaf, especially because my last pilaf was virtually inedible.  The flavors were very simple, but the combination of quinoa, tomatoes, raisins, and pine nuts was perfect.  I got the pilaf recipe from Gluten-Free Goddess, but decided to stuff cabbage instead of mushrooms.  The pilaf would be great alone, as well (I had some left after stuffing the cabbage, and enthusiastically gobbled it up while the cabbage rolls were baking).  I'm submitting this dish to Weekend Herb Blogging, which is organized by Haalo from Cook (almost) Anything At Least Once, and hosted by Astrid from Paulchen's Foodblog.

Cabbage stuffed with quinoa pilaf (adapted from Gluten-Free Goddess)
(Printable version)

8 large cabbage leaves
1 tsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups cooked quinoa
15 cherry tomatoes, halved
4 green onions, chopped
3 Tbsp raisins
3 Tbsp toasted pine nuts
salt and pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and then add cabbage leaves and boil until they're tender (about 5 min).  Remove the leaves from the water and set aside to cool.  While the cabbage cools, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Then add the garlic and saute for a minute.  Stir in the remaining ingredients, season with salt and pepper, and let heat through for a few minutes before removing it from the burner.  Then stuff each cabbage leaf with about 1/3 cup quinoa pilaf, roll the cabbage up tightly, and place it seam side down into a large baking dish.  Bake at 350 for 20-30 min.  Serves 4.

Warm butter bean, red onion, and spinach salad with mustard recipe

Even after making Brunswick stew this week (which is getting better and better!), I still have butter beans in my freezer (for some reason I thought it was a great idea to cook 3 pounds of them a few months ago).  Before I made the stew, I was inspired by Gel's kitchen to make this salad.  I made the recipe and it was pretty good, but then I got the idea to add whole grain mustard.  Sometimes I have random last-minute ideas that fail miserably, but this one took the salad from ok to wonderful.  Next time I'll probably add more spinach, but it was great just as I made it.  I tried the leftovers warm and cold and couldn't decide which way was better.

Now the only problem is deciding how I want to use my last bag of butter beans.  Do I make more of this salad?  Do I try mashing them up like potatoes (an interesting idea I just read about)?  Any favorite recipes out there?

Warm butter bean, red onion, and spinach salad with mustard (adapted from Gel's kitchen)
(Printable version)

1 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 large red onion, sliced thinly
2 1/2 cups cooked butter beans
salt and pepper to taste
2 large handfuls spinach
2 Tbsp whole grain mustard (I used one with horseradish)

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat, and then saute the onion until it's very tender (about 10 min).  Add butter beans to the skillet, season with salt and pepper, and stir everything around for a couple of minutes.  Then add spinach, stir well, and cook until the spinach wilts.  Stir in the mustard and serve.  Serves 3-4.

Brunswick stew recipe

I'm ecstatic right now.  I have a lot of recipes in the queue, but I have to tell you about this one immediately.  One of my absolute favorite meals in the world (perhaps THE favorite) is my grandmother's vegetable soup with cornbread.  The soup has a creamy tomato base with a bit of a kick (thanks to Tabasco), and is filled with butter beans, okra, corn, and potatoes.  My cousins and I fight over the soup, and I'm really hoping that Grandmother remembers that I organized and catalogued her chest freezer last month and will give me at least one of the three containers of soup she has left.  And very similar to her vegetable soup is her perlue stew (a few Google searches revealed that people spell it all kinds of ways: purlo, perlo, and purlew are just a few).  Perlue stew has a very similar base, but typically contains chicken, rice, potatoes, and corn.  It's heavenly as well, but for some reason Grandmother didn't make it nearly as often.  Unfortunately I've been intimidated to make both.  I'm afraid to even attempt her vegetable soup because, let's be real, it won't be the same.  I've pleaded for a recipe, but it's one of those things where she throws things in the pot and "knows" when it's right.  I do have her recipe for purlue stew, but nobody else in the family has succeeded at replicating it (and Mom found out the hard way that you must use a roaster chicken because of its higher fat content).

But then last month I was flooded by recipes for Brunswick stew from the Daring Cooks challenge.  Brunswick stew is a combination of Grandmother's vegetable soup and purlue stew.  It has some kind of meat (typically beef, pork, or chicken along with some random other ones - sometimes squirrel or rabbit), butter beans, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, and sometimes okra.  But that creamy tomato base is common among all of three of them (apparently to Burgoo as well, which I've never tried, but is basically Kentucky's version of this stew).  I associate Brunswick stew with barbecue restaurants.  If a restaurant doesn't sell Brunswick stew, don't eat the barbecue there.  Trust me.

The influx of Brunswick stew recipes last month made me drool, and I'm trying to eat up the cooked butter beans I have in my freezer, so I had to make this, and boy am I glad I did.  I don't know if this is the absolute best Brunswick stew I've ever had, but it's pretty close.  I'm used to the Georgia-style stew with beef, so the chicken version (more typical of Virginia) was different but equally as enjoyable.  If it follows the Rule of Soups and Stews (they get better and better as the days go by), I'll be in heaven all week.  And even more exciting is that the base is the exact same creamy tomato base of Grandmother's vegetable soup.  Forget the PhD, I'm far more proud that I've mastered the stew/soup base that I love so much!

Brunswick stew (loosely adapted from What We're Eating)
(Printable version)

2 strips of bacon
1 large onion, chopped
2 small peppers, diced (I used dried Thai chilies because that's all I had, but jalapenos or serranos are preferable)
2 1/2 pounds chicken thighs, skin removed
5 cups chicken stock
2 bay leaves
2 tsp Tabasco or other hot sauce
freshly ground black pepper
2 carrots, diced
4 small red potatoes, chopped
2 1/2 cups cooked butter beans
1 cup corn (fresh or frozen)
1/3 cup ketchup
1 large can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes

Cook bacon in a large soup pot over medium heat.  When it's done, place it aside on paper towels and crumble it.  Add the onions and peppers to the bacon grease and cook until the onion is tender.  Then push the onions to the side of the pot, and add the chicken, making sure that it's touching the bottom of the pot as much as possible.  Sear the chicken on both sides (a few minutes per side), and then add stock, bay leaves, Tabasco, and black pepper to the pot.  If the chicken isn't covered by the stock, add more until it's almost completely submerged.  Bring the stock to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 min.  Remove the chicken from the pot and set it aside to cool.  Then add carrots, potatoes, butter beans, corn, ketchup, tomatoes, and crumbled bacon to the pot.  When the chicken is cool enough to handle, shred it and add the meat to the pot.  Then bring the stew back to a boil, reduce heat to medium low, cover, and cook for 90 min, stirring occasionally.  If the stew base is very watery, leave the cover off for a while so it can thicken, or add more stock or water if it's too thick.  After the stew is done, mash the stew with a potato masher for a few minutes to create the creamy base.  Taste and add more Tabasco if necessary, and remove the bay leaves.  Serves 6-8.