SpiderWomanKnits

if you do one thing today

It should be to scoot on over to my friend Suzanne's blog and whip up a batch of her Killer Easy Chocolate Pudding. I bet you have everything on hand that you need and it takes a whole whopping 10 minutes to make a batch.

The first batch I made using bittersweet chocolate as she suggests and it was so decadent and perfect. But then I was out of bittersweet chocolate and I don't know where all the pudding went so I had to improvise the second batch. I used white chocolate and then used 1/2 tspn almond extract and 1/2 tspn vanilla extract. My, my, my.

To make this gluten free I subbed Bob's Red Mill AP mix for the first batch and then I tried tapioca flour for the second. The had very different textures. The Bob's flour made a very think pudding with a perfect top. The tapioca, a smoother pudding but no top. I think I will try just rice flour next time. Regardless of the flour you use the results will be delicious. I also plan to make some more and put it into the wee bitty Ball Jars so Jorn can take it along with him in his lunch. So go ahead, make some too. If you come up with different flavors be sure to share!

Thankful and Gluten Free Slow Cooker Stuffing

My belly and my heart are still so full from yesterday's festivities! I hope that you all had a lovely and peaceful Thanksgiving. We had a simple celebration with family and friends at our home. 

This year I have to, have to share a notable recipe with you that made it to our Thanksgiving table.

Slow Cooker Stuffing. That's right, stuffing that you fix, put in your slow cooker and forget about until the big time comes.  I was skeptical about a slow cooker version of stuffing, so to be on the safe side I set aside some of the mix to bake in the oven after the bird came out just in case. But let me tell you, it was good. It was so good.  It was also really liberating not to have one more thing to put in the oven when the bird came out to rest. That last 1/2 hour can feel a little chaotic, you know? This recipe helps relieve a bit of that.

I am gluten intolerant so my stuffing has to be gluten free. To accomplish that I use Ener-G Tapioca Loaf.  Two nights before Thanksgiving I slice up 3 loaves into cubes and toast them in a 350 degree oven in a single layer on baking sheets until they are a golden brown. When you squeeze them they should be hard, not soft at all. Then, they can be used interchangeably in virtually any stuffing recipe if you have a favorite of your own. I don't know why but Tapioca bread works best for gluten free stuffing.

In the past I had successfully made gluten free stuffing before using a heavily altered version of Shauna's but it never felt like 'the one' and every year I had to tweak it this way or that. This recipe is the one. I had to adjust some aspects of the slow cooker recipe since 3 loaves of the Ener-G bread yields more cubes than the recipe calls for. 20 cups vs. 12.

This is what I did.

I used:

3 loaves of Ener-G Tapioca Bread, cubed and oven toasted (approx 20 cups)

1 1/2 cups salted butter

3 1/2 cups chopped onion

3 1/2 cups chopped celery

12 ozs roughly chopped baby bella mushrooms

4 cloves of garlic (the recipe doesn't call for garlic but I always use it)

1 handful or dried parsley (I didn't have fresh on hand)

4 Tblspn of poultry seasoning

1 tspn marjoram

1 1/2 tspns thyme

a wee bit less than a Tblspn of kosher salt

a wee bit less than a tspn pepper

3 eggs, beaten

3 1/2 cups of chicken broth* but use only as much as needed to moisten the mixture

To Make:

1. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook onion, celery, garlic, mushrooms and parsley in butter, stirring frequently until tender. (I do this the day before.)

2. Spoon cooked veggies over bread cubes in a very large mixing bowl. Add seasonings (I mix these up the day before too). Pour in enough broth to moisten, a cupful at a time and stirring gently, and then mix in the eggs. Transfer mix to a slow cooker and cover. At least 5qt cooker is needed for this much stuffing. You can save any extra broth you have and check the stuffing while it's cooking. If you want to add a wee bit more as you go along you can.

3. Cook on high for 45 minutes, then reduce heat to low and cook 4-8 hours.Serve!

Easy Peasy and oh, so satisfying.

I feel so thankful this year for so many things (including this stuffing) but another, and more important, one of those things are the connections that I have made through this blog. I am thankful for you! Here's to a relaxing rest of the holiday weekend!

oooxxx

Spidey

when life gives you tomatillos

Make this salsa. Really. Whether you grew tomatillos in your garden this year or have never even seen one in your life find some and then some time to whip up a batch of this salsa. I dare say that it is the best salsa I have ever had. Really. I made a few modifications to the recipes so I'll write those out here.

You'll need:

2 lbs of fresh tomatillos, husks removed

2 heads of garlic

2 jalapeno peppers (this gives you a pretty good kick, omit one or both depending on your taste)

1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves (no stems)

2 heaping table-tablespoons of brown sugar

1 tsp salt

1/4-1/2 tsp ground chipolte

a pinch each of cumin and cinnamon

To make:

1. Preheat the oven's broiler. Arrange the whole cloves of garlic, tomatillos, and jalapenos on a baking sheet. Place under the broiler, and cook for a few minutes. Remove garlic cloves first, as soon as they are toasted, to avoid developing a bitter flavor. Continue to roast jalapenos and tomatillos until evenly charred, turning occasionally. Set aside to cool. Don't remove the charred parts of the tomatillos or the peppers. They add a really nice flavor.

2. Place garlic and cilantro in a food processor and process with a dash of olive oil until smooth. Add peppers and tomatillos and process until somewhat smooth.  Transfer mixture to a saucepan add seasonings and then cook over low-medium heat for about 10-15 minutes. Transfer to pre-warmed (I just let some hot tap water sit in mine while I was cooking the mixture to prevent the jars from cracking when you add the hot salsa) Ball Jars and then refrigerate until serving. Yields approx 26ozs. Enjoy!

i am an armenian

And I love Luleh Kebob! This is perhaps one of my family's very favorite meals to eat. I can make a double, even a  triple, recipe and still there won't be a single kebob left over. The more I make, the more everyone eats. You should definitely give them a try. Here's the very simple recipe that I love to use. 

You will need:

2.5 lbs of ground lamb (you can use ground beef too but lamb is really the way to go)

1 Tbspn tomato paste

4 ounces of tomato sauce

4 Tbspns of evaporated milk

1 tspn of ground cumin

1/4 cup minced parsley

1 Tbspn minced, dried onion

1 tspn salt

ground pepper to taste

Make:

Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl and form into sausage shapes around 4" long. We sort of just make mini meatloaf shapes but a longer, narrow shape is traditional. Keeping your hands moist will help when shaping them. Place kebobs in a shallow baking dish.

Bake for 20-25 minutes in a preheated 400 degree oven. Transfer to a platter and reserve pan juices to serve separately. Garnish kebobs with chopped onion and parsley.

Enjoy!

That green bean salad has turned into a favorite of ours this summer too. I completely winged it one night when I had just run out into the garden to pick what was ready.

Red Comb Roasted Green Bean Salad

You will need:

Green Beans suitable to feed your size family, washed and cut into 1 inch pieces

Olive Oil

Ripe cherry tomatoes, a good sized handful

Salt and Pepper to taste

Asiago cheese, shredded, to taste

Fresh basil to taste

Make:

Drizzle your green beans with olive oil to coat and roast in a preheated 450 degree oven until nicely cooked (approx 10 minutes). Meanwhile while your green beans are roasting, rinse and slice your cherry tomatoes into quarters, transfer to a heat proof serving bowl. If you are using basil just toss some washed leaves in with the tomatoes.

When your green beans are done spoon them out of the roasting pan carefully right into the bowl with the tomatoes. Toss, add salt and pepper to taste and serve! Sprinkle each portion with shredded asiago cheese or you could just sprinkle the entire salad too. Enjoy!

P.S. All the patterns in the latest Berroco Remix book are named after famous Armenians! I can't wait to share the 'behind the scenes scoop' from our wonderful day shooting that book with Norah Gaughan and Cirilia Rose. Soon!

you're going to want to make these : granola bars

My oven broke two weeks ago, or maybe it was three. Who's counting? We've been grilling, eating lots of salads and satisfying our sweet tooth's with ice cream. But I had the need to bake something the other day and without an oven, well, that's not possible. So I turned to my favorite recipe site in search of a no-bake 'granola bar'. I thought that would be a good take along sweet with a wee bit of nutritional value and granola bars were always on my list of things I wanted to but hadn't made for myself yet especially since going gluten free seven years ago. 

Well, these are delicious and SO easy to make. The recipe calls for corn syrup but I really didn't want to use corn syrup so I subbed it with organic blue agave. These bars are sweet, I mean really sweet. Next time I might alter the sugar content or just skip the chocolate chips. I am excited to make the next batch and add cranberries and maybe some pumpkin seeds. If you aren't familiar with agave I highly recommend it. I use it to sweeten my favorite granola in place of honey or sugar depending on my whim and what I have in the cupboard.

 

To keep these gluten free I used Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Whole Rolled Oats and Erewhon Rice Twice cereal which is also my gluten free stand in for rice krispie treats. Really the possibilities are endless with these bars. Add whatever you like! You do need to let them cool completely before cutting them and I like to store them in the fridge. That seems to 'set' them and give them a true chewy granola bar texture.  Oh, yes, these are chewy granola bars. I guess technically they are not granola bars since you are using raw whole oats and not prepared granola but who cares? They are so good.

eggs in a basket and driving around the world, really

We eat a lot of eggs! Can you imagine? This is one of our favorite ways to prepare them. Herman and Candie showed us how to make these when they stayed with us during their second trans-continental journey by car in a 1928 Graham Paige. While they were here we talked a lot about living your dreams. At the time Greg and I talked about turning our new home into a homestead. They talked about their next big trip and having more babies!  Well guess what? We started our farm and they just drove across Australia with their brand new fourth baby! How about that! Check out their story or better yet, read their book! You won't put off living your dream for another second if you do. Greg and I still feel the residue of having had the privilege of meeting them and welcoming them into our home three years ago.

Here's how you make Eggs in a Basket. I can't eat them without dreaming big dreams!

You need:

two eggs, the fresher the better

two slices of bread with the centers carefully poked out so you don't tear through the crust, set aside your scooped out centers * i use gluten free bread, either fresh or store bought

butter

a warm frying pan

To make them:

butter one side of your scooped out bread and place in your warmed frying pan. then carefully butter the edges of the other side of the bread.

crack an egg into a small bowl and then dump right smack in the center of the bread, one egg per slice.

fry for a bit until one side of your egg is set and your bread is golden brown and then carefully flip over. 

fry the other side until bread is golden brown and your egg is set to your liking.

carefully transfer to your plate and enjoy!

if you you like your eggs over-easy use the scooped out center to sop up your egg.

This makes a really nice light lunch with a salad on the side or a quick and easy summer dinner!  I hope Herman and Candie stop by again so we can prepare this for them with our farm fresh eggs this time! Although, we did promise that the next time we see them it would be on their turf in Argentina :)

you're going to want to make these

The April issue of Martha's Mag proclaims itself as 'The Best' issue, you know, filled with the 'best' of everything. I can't tell you if that's true because I haven't gotten past this one recipe for the best brownies. Seriously, I have made these several times already and I can say with absolute certainty that they are, in fact, the best brownies I have ever made. 

See that! They have that perfectly cracked, crisp top layer* and when you get past that you bite into the most moist, rich, chewy center ever. Quintessential 'brownie'! There aren't any special Martha-y ingredients that you will have to hunt down or special order and they are so easy to make. I sub Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Flour Mix for regular flour, of course, because I am gluten intolerant, but it doesn't matter in this recipe. You would never be able to tell anyway.

UPDATE 12/12/11!! Here's the link to the recipe on Martha's site! I really think that if you don't have a copy you should make sure that you pick one up at the grocery store. This is the type of brownie that will have you go down in history as 'making the best brownies ever!', really. Everyone should know how to make really amazing mac and cheese and brownies. At least that's my opinion.  Ok, I think I'll go look through the rest of the magazine now and see if I can find any more 'bests'!

* I can't type or say 'layer' anymore without thinking about chickens ;)

 

when life gives you double yolks...

Make these! Seriously. Emily of The Black Apple blogged about her quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie and, well, you don't have twist my arm to try a new c.c.c recipe. So, I gave it a go. The recipe calls for one egg and then one extra yolk. Guess what? My Overachiever eggs are double yolk-ers! Perfect. It's impossible to name 60 chickens but if I could figure out which hen is laying these huge eggs you better believe she'd officially be dubbed, "Cookie". 

Let me tell you. These. are. perfect. So much so that I have kept all the dough in the fridge and just baked a few at a time each day, otherwise you'd have to roll me out to the coop in the morning. I have to make a few changes since I am gluten intolerant. The most obvious change being that I substitute gluten free flour for the regular flour. I love Bob's Red Mill AP mix for cookies. Then I add 1 Tsp of Xantham Gum.  Otherwise I followed the recipe to a T. You can find the recipe here along with a lot of helpful notes.

Enjoy! (But don't say I didn't warn you about setting aside some of the dough!)