Easy Gluten Free Corn Cakes. Ihop style!
Fast and Easy Butterbeer
Made this for Yule in 2015, and it’s time to do it again! Serves 4. Diet root beer cuts back on the sugar a little, but this is a super sweet dessert no matter how you make it.
- 4 cups root beer
- 1/2 cup butterscotch chips, melted
- 1/2 TBS butter
- optional: vanilla ice cream
Warm rootbeer in a stockpot. Melt chips in a double boiler, or for 30-second intervals in microwave-safe container. Add butter to melted butterscotch and stir well. Add some rootbeer to melted chips until pourable. Pour the melted chips mix into the warm rootbeer and stir to incorporate. Pour into cups and serve.
Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream to complete this dessert.
Food from the 80s: Nachos “Bean” Grande
GF and Vegetarian recipe. Can be vegan with vegan cheese and vegan sour cream.
Made this easy recipe as part of a quick crowd-pleasing dinner!
Tools:
- Saucepan
- Large stirring spoon
Ingredients:
- 1 – 16oz. can fat-free low-sodium refried beans
- 3/4 – 16oz. can black olives, chopped, reserve some for topping
- 3/4 cup salsa (we like medium)
- 1/4 cup green onions, chopped
- 2/3 cup shredded cheese of your choosing +extra for topping
- 3/4 cup sour cream, +extra for topping
- Tortilla chips
Warm beans, olives, salsa, and cheese in a saucepan on medium heat. Stir frequently. Once you hear bubbles, remove from heat and stir in the sour cream.
Spoon over chips, top with sour cream, olives, and garnish with shredded cheese.
Sausage Cheese Balls a la Grandma Zuzu
- 2 cups Bisquick
- 2 pounds sausage, thawed (preferably Owens sausage)
- 2 cups Sharp Cheddar cheese
Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine all ingredients. Form into balls. Bake for 20/25 minutes.
Notes: Out of Bisquick – no problem! Replace with a scant 2 cups flour, 1tsp baking soda, 2 tsp baking powder. To make cheesier, use 2 cups cheese per 1 cup flour. If using lean sausage, add more cheese.
Add-ins: 1 cup savory greens, chopped fine (spinach, kale, collards, a handful of fresh herbs…)
GF Vegan – 2 Ingredient – Muffins
When I first started GF cooking, I only ate oatmeal, corn tortilla quesadillas, veggies, and skipped whatever glutenous item my family enjoyed at dinner. I really missed breakfast bread and pasta.
So I took to the interwebs and started trying all kinds of exotic GF flours and strange ingredients like xantham gum. Over time we experienced more dietary changes. We adopted a low-salt diet to improve the husband’s heart-health. We went back and forth between vegan and vegetarian. I started buying pre-made boxes of GF Vegan items and eventually quit experimenting with GF recipes altogether. Cooking was a trial.
Coming back to a love of cooking from the edge of kitchen-hating has not been easy. I am loath to describe our diet to family and friends. Instead of explaining all the ins-and-outs we just say vegetarian and try to be gracious guests. If family and friends take the time to make a meal and invite us over I’m not going to throw that back in their faces. I eat the crustless pumpkin pie and the queso and I say thank you because I am grateful that they are trying so hard to make something I’ll eat.
So, in an effort to enjoy cooking again I decided to see what kind of simple recipes I could concoct and this is the very first one. The trick to this recipe is the THICK non-dairy milk. Homemade walnut, cashew, or banana milk will work. Or thickened coconut milk. You are looking for a traditional Egg Nog consistency. Most non-dairy milk can be thickened by slow-simmering to evaporate the water but then things get complicated again! 💛
GF – 2 ingredient – Muffins
Makes 8 muffins
Tools:
2 cup measuring cup
Mixing bowl
Muffin Tin
1/4 cup measuring cup
Muffin papers (optional)
Ingredients:
5/8 cup Cornmeal
1 and 1/4 cups THICK non-dairy milk
Directions:
Preheat oven to 395° F.
Mix ingredients.
Chill 5 minutes. The batter will be thin.
Stir and pour into muffin cups, 3/4 full.
Bake 20 minutes.
Easy -no meat- White Gravy
At its very simplest gravy is fat, starch, and liquid. Here we use margarine, flour, and milk, but you can use many combinations of the three basic ingredients for different kinds of gravy including “exotics” like tomato gravy and cheese gravy. Gravy made with animal fat carries the flavor of the animal and the seasonings used to cook that animal, like Thanksgiving Turkey gravy or Pork Chop gravy. This gravy is white because it calls for milk, but gravy made with broth is often tan or brown and more savory with a richer depth of flavor. Very delicious! As vegetarians leaning vegan we opt out of animal fats and prefer margarine. Even this recipe is a special treat because it calls for milk, a non-vegan ingredient. I haven’t tried vegan-milk gravy but we probably will someday!
Ingredients for White Gravy
- 1 tbs margarine
- 2 tbs flour
- 2 tsp pepper
- 1 1/2 cups milk
Directions
Melt butter in a warm pan.
Add flour.
Stir butter and flour with fork to make a roux.
Brown the roux.
Add milk and pepper.
Bring to a simmer.
Simmer 10 minutes, stirring constantly.
When the mixture coats the back of the fork, remove from heat.
Pour over biscuits (or waffle biscuits) and enjoy!
Fast Miso Soup + Vegan + GF
Disclaimer: When we say Gluten Free here, we mean there are no gluten containing ingredients in the recipe, however some ingredients may be manufactured in facilities that also process gluten containing foods. If you are cooking for someone with Celiac disease, please purchase only GF certified ingredients.
You can buy GF miso!! Miso is a mix of beans and starch – read the ingredients to find a GF option. Easy-peasy. This soup is great for cool evenings in the spring and fall. It’s not as heavy as other soup/stews we cook, yet incredibly satisfying. Despite being low salt – the seaweed provides an element of flavor similar to salt, and can really help out when those salty cravings hit.
Items needed
- kitchen knife
- stock pot
- wooden spoon
Ingredients
- 4 cups water
- 2 Tbs. miso (gluten-free, low sodium)
- 1 Tbs. garlic powder
- 1 sheet nori or other seaweed, diced
- 1 bunch green onions, chopped
- 1 pkg extra firm tofu, pressed
- 1 bunch kale, chopped
Pour the water into the stock pot. Add the miso and mush against side of stock pot until dissolved. Add garlic powder, cut nori/seaweed and chopped green onions. Stir and set aside. Chop tofu, then kale. Add to stock pot, bring to simmer on medium heat, reduce heat to maintain simmer for 15 minutes.
Possible stir-ins
- leftover rice
- green sprouts
- bean sprouts
- bulb onion
- sriracha
- wasabi
- red pepper flakes
- hot mustard
Vegan Jambalaya
My tween nephew was over for a week-long summer visit and veggies are not his favorite thing. Being a family of ovo-vegetarians (who lean vegan when it’s easy to cook, or opt-out) we eat a lot of veggies. Without some crafty seasoning the dear nephew might have starved! One of the recipes we made during his visit was Vegan Jambalaya, and he enjoyed it so much he asked to take some home with him. Luckily, it keeps well – in the refrigerator for a week, and in the freezer for a month. This recipe serves 8 -10.
It’s a two-day recipe so I only make it twice a year, but it’s worth it.
Tools:
Sharp Kitchen Knife
Cutting Board
Large Mixing Bowl
Saran Wrap to Cover
Rice Cooker
Large Stock Pot
Ingredients:
2 Bell Peppers, diced
2 Lbs. Okra, diced
1 Medium White Onion, diced
1 can no salt added, diced tomatoes (14.75 oz.)
3 TBS Italian Seasoning
2 TBS Tony Chachere’s Seasoning
1 tsp. Cayenne Pepper
2 tsp. Garlic Powder
2 tsp. Black Pepper
–
1.5 cups White Rice
3 cups Water
1 cup Veggie Broth
1 can (15.5oz) Kidney Beans, drained
1 can (15.5oz) Black Beans, drained
Day 1
1. Dice and mix the first 9 ingredients.
2. Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate over night.
Day 2
1. Cook 1.5 cups rice with 3 cups water in the rice cooker.
2. Transfer the veg mix from day 1 to a large pot, add 1 cup broth (or water and bullion). Bring to a boil then simmer for 20 minutes, stir frequently.
3. When the rice is done, add rice and canned beans to the large pot. Mix well. Turn off heat.
4. Taste it. Add more seasoning as desired. Enjoy!
SweetSpicy Stir-fry Sprouts
I love our rice cooker. If I had to chose a favorite small appliance, it would be the one. Ours has a removable steamer basket and we use it all – the – time. In the time it takes to make rice we can have crisp-tender steamed vegetables of any kind, but sometimes we want a little more depth of flavor and in the summer months, the less we use the stove the better. Oh and just forget about the oven. I’m tempted to hide the knobs until cooler weather returns in October.
With the heat bearing down on us, stir-fry is a perfect way to quickly add flavor to the veggies.
Ch loves Brussels sprouts. He’d probably eat them every night, but they’re not my favorite. We bake them frequently, which gives the outer leaves a nice crunch and caramelizes the edges of interior leaves, but even that delicious concoction gets tiresome after a while. So, after months of Brussels sprouts evasion, I picked up a bag of sprouts at the grocery store. Now it’s almost time to go grocery shopping again (tomorrow is the day) and I’m scraping the bottom of the frozen veggie drawer. I’ve got to do something with these little green balls of sulfur.
Being vegan means all the scrumptious looking bacon wrapped recipes are a no-go. Being gluten free means all the scrumptious looking breaded recipes are a no-go. What’s a family of picky eaters to do? We look to the east, where meat is not an integral part of the diet.
We love the spices employed by Thai cuisine, and the simplicity of traditional Chinese dishes. Mixing the two gave us a not so spicy, but not exactly simple dish.
We’re calling it SweetSpicy Stir-fry Sprouts.
2/3 cup brown rice
1 1/3 water
20 brussles sprouts, frozen
1 mucho nacho pepper
1 can bean sprouts
2 TBS olive oil
1 large clove garlic, minced
2 TBS brown sugar
low sodium soy sauce and sriracha sauce to taste
Start the rice first. Our Brussels sprouts were frozen, so we thawed them in the microwave first, then quartered them and set them aside. Remove the seeds from the Mucho Nacho pepper and slice it lengthwise into thirds. Then mince each third, and set aside. Mince the garlic. Open the can of sprouts and drain completely.
When there is about 15 minutes of cooking time left on the rice, get out the wok. Turn the stove on to medium-high, add the oil. When the oil is thin, add the garlic and stir until it starts to brown. Turn the stove up to High. Add the minced pepper and brown sugar. Stir until the bubbles have normalized. Add the quartered Brussels sprouts. Stir-fry until the edges are brown but not crispy. Add the bean sprouts, stir to incorporate and warm.
Taste it. Add sriracha and soy sauce as desired. We added about 6 shakes of low sodium soy sauce, and about two TBS sriracha (give or take). If you did your math right the rice should be ready for serving. Fluff it with a fork and scoop it into bowls. I went with equal portions of rice and stir-fry.
The cool thing about this dish is that your guests can customize the levels of salty and spicy. My daughter added a swizzle of oil, I added a little more of both sauces, my son and husband added more sriracha. To each their own. We paired the stir-fry with cut carrots and roasted red pepper hummus. I bet SweetSpicy Stir-fry Sprouts will go great with soup this winter.
**Best News Yet**
It’s even better the second day. Yumyumyum.
FAST Vegan Pea & Couscous Salad
15 minutes start to finish including getting everything out of the pantry. This was one of those thrown together quick kind of meals. It is fast, informal and healthy in a vegan way – meaning it provides good carbs, healthy fats, B vitamins and some protein. To cook this you will need measuring cups and spoons, a medium pan (bigger than a sauce pan, smaller than a stock pot), a knife, and a large spoon.
- 1 cup water
- 2 – 15 oz. cans of salt free peas, drained
- 1 cup couscous
- 1 medium avocado
- 1 Tbsp butter substitute, heaping scoop guys. Live dangerously.
- 5Tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 Tbsp garlic powder
- +/- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- Pepper (and salt) to taste
- Add hot sauce (or ketchup) if desired
Put the water on to boil. Open and drain the cans of peas. When the water boils add the couscous and remove from heat. Using the knife cut the avocado in half, compost the pit, squeeze the goods into the cooling couscous. Use the knife to chop the avocado into the couscous. Add the butter substitute, yeast and garlic powder. Use the spoon to stir everything in. Add the peas and stir them in. Add the oil last, adjusting for desired consistency, top with pepper and serve. Bring hot sauce to the table to give it some zing. Done. Makes four servings, more or less depending on your serving size.
Kale and Chia Chips
1 bag or a big bunch of Kale, ribbed and chopped
1 swirl (maybe 2 TBS?) olive oil
2 TBS chia seeds
Black Pepper to taste
Cayenne Pepper to taste
Italian Seasoning to taste
Sea Salt to taste
Pre-heat oven to 400°F.
Place kale in large mixing bowl. Stir with olive oil to lightly coat. Add seeds and seasonings to taste. Turn out onto cookie sheet. Bake at 400°F for 15 minutes – give or take.
Bread Butter and a Cup of Tea 