Food, cooking, eating, and me

I’m sorry, I ate it all before realizing that I ought to snap a photo.

Seriously, the site gets a fair number of hits from people searching for gluten-free and/or dairy-free breakfast options. It seems like what used to be a “balanced” or “square” meal in the old days - eggs, meat, potatoes, juice, bread - has become an artifact preserved only in those museums of culinary archival, restaurants. Nowadays few people eat anything for breakfast besides cold cereal or baked goods.

This morning I had breakfast fried rice. I fried a jumbo breakfast sausage, removed it from the pan and sliced it. In the pan I put some more butter, leftover brown rice, and a cup of chopped green onions. After the rice was hot I added back the sausage and an egg. I stirred until done, seasoning with black pepper and crushed red pepper. No salt was needed as both the rice and sausage were previously seasoned. I served it with a small bowl of fresh pineapple. Yum.

Heres a link to the breakfast fried rice recipe, if you’re a recipe sort of person. There are also bacon, ham, and vegan fried rice variations.

I know it’s been a while, but unlike other times of redolence and maybe debauchery, I’ve been working hard trying to perfect recipes worthy of posting. Unfortunately, some of these recipes require a lot of attempts before you feel like you’re starting to make progress. Then all of a sudden, you’re there.

I’ve got one here now.

Oh, this is perfect. Light, airy, crispy, gluten-free, and vegan.

Gluten-free vegan chocolate waffles

Makes 3 waffles

• 1 cup of rice flour blend (4 parts white rice flour, 1 part sweet rice flour)
• 3 tablespoons cocoa
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3 tablespoons coconut oil, refined or virgin (non-vegan option: butter
• 3/4 cup water

Method 1: sift together the dry ingredients. Melt the coconut oil. Mix all together with the water and beat with a wire whisk until smooth.

Method 2 (when the coconut oil is solid): Place the dry ingredients and the coconut oil in the food processor and process until smooth. Dump into bowl and beat with wire whisk until smooth.

Heat a non-stick waffle iron on high. When hot, brush grids with a little coconut oil. Pour enough batter to almost cover the bottom grid, close the iron and bake until done. Remove, sprinkle with powdered sugar and eat out of hand, or serve with crushed berries.

I’m not sure what to call these babies. I just know that I went on a rice flour waffle-making binge, and realized that waffle batter poured into a waffle (or some other shape) made tasty breads for the table, without drying out as rice baked goods often do in the oven. Out on the prowl of kitchen stores, I found a pizelle maker, which I could undoubtedly make crackers from. But I was not in the mood to spend $40 on a pizelle maker that day.

Next time I was in the mood to shop, I went around my local stores. At Kohl’s I found a “quesadilla maker”, sort of an odd thing which is supposed to squeeze your quesadillas and seal them into little triangles, I guess. The issue was that the only one in the store was a demo model. They didn’t have any for sale at another local store. For all that, they didn’t have many small appliances for sale at all. As the clerk explained it to me, they stock up the store for the holidays. When the appliances run out, they run out and are not replenished by the central office. WTH? A store with no merchandise for sale? Is this Soviet Russia?

Anyway, I made a batter, poured it in, and baked. Mmm, good. Leftovers reheated in the toaster oven were just as tasty. You could serve these in a basket at any meal. The split peas give them a nice golden appearance.

Toasties

1/3 cup yellow split peas, soaked in warm water for a couple of hours
1 cup of rice flour blend*
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup water
3 tablespoons melted butter, oil, or shortening

Drain and rinse split peas, and put in the blender with the water until smooth. Add remaining ingredients and beat until smooth. Pour into a prepared quesadilla iron (or any other similar appliance) and bake until brown and toasty.

*Rice flour blend: Mix 1 pound of sweet (glutinous) rice flour with 4 pounds of white rice flour.

Sorry, I ate the whole thing the first time around. But they were so good I ended up making them again the next day, so I got to take a few photos.

What I did was to chop a clove of garlic and an inch of leeks very finely. (Day 2 potatoes had sweet red peppers sauteed in with the leeks, as you can see in the photo.) I sautéed them in chicken fat—use butter, oil, or whatever fat you prefer— gently until soft, adding freshly ground black pepper and ground or crushed red pepper if desired. Mix in with leftover mashed or smashed potatoes. These will be better if there is fat in the mashed potatoes, but it will still work if the potatoes were mashed without fat. Taste to adjust for seasoning, adding salt if necessary.

I recently started zapping my potatoes in the microwave to mash them. Just put them in a deep, covered casserole and microwave until soft. It couldn’t be easier, and they cook up properly for mashing. You’ll see I’ve got what looks like a ceramic glazed cast iron dutch oven. It’s not. Actually, it’s a ceramic casserole with a nonstick coating that I got on one of those special promotions at the supermarket. It’s made in China, oh-oh…

Butter or grease a cold non-stick Belgian waffle iron. Pack in enough cold seasoned potatoes so that when you lower the top and squish it closed, the grids will be filled without coming out the side. Now plug it in and put it on high. Check after 5 minutes, giving more time if necessary until it is golden brown. If you have more potatoes to do, keep the first batch in a warm oven, loosely covered with foil while waiting for the remainder to bake. I think with a large waffle iron you can probably make four generous servings in one cycle.

I would probably serve these at brunch or as a side dish with dinner.

Today I woke up with a bit of tummy upset, and thought it would be nice to make some rice batter waffles. Unfortunately, I was unable to find the cheap little Belgian waffle iron I had used most recently. I brought up the old-fashioned one from the basement, but the grids need to soak and be scrubbed with a wire brush (not teflon).

But there was a never-been-used ebleskiver pan looking at me on the kitchen shelf. I thought about someone’s blog entry I recently read describing the ebleskiver pan (which apparently had been promoted during the 70’s as a device to make round rather than flat pancakes) as one of the 10 worst inventions of all time. In fact, the writer described the resulting pastry in words we will not use here, labeling himself as someone who has never tried anything new in his life that wasn’t junk food. So, without further ado, the ebleskiver pan:

I whipped up some batter

• 3/4 cup rice flour
• 1/4 cup sweet rice flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• enough water to make a spoonable (rather than pourable) batter

Then I heated the pan, brushed the wells with butter, scooped in some batter, and cooked. I tossed the first batch in powdered sugar, and they were ok. I ate them all—well of course I did, I was hungry.

The next batch came out and I thought that they might be better with a little jam in them. So Isplit them and spread in a little dab of black raspberry jam before the powdered sugar. I ate one, and it was an epiphany of a food experience. I realized that this would be not only good enough to write about (and I’m trying to be a good girl and post regularly), but they would be photogenic enough to try to take pictures of them with my nice new camera.

After taking the photos, I wolfed down the rest of them. Oh, my! One of those photos came out great! Click the last photo for a link to the full-sized original.

Well, not really just one more time, as far as cooking is concerned. When I decided to do an article on buckwheat pancakes again, I wanted not only to have a tasty recipe for you, but also to be able to show you what they look like when you use different amounts of dark and white buckwheat flour.

I ended up making many recipes of buckwheat pancakes in my quest for good photos and good taste quest. This was not an issue for me, as now I have a huge bag of frozen buckwheat pancakes I can thaw and eat in the mornings.

I took some pretty good pictures with my cheapie camera, so you can see for yourself. If you’re looking at this article as a single post, check out my previous entry More About Buckwheat so you can see the raw ingredients I’m working with.

But in the end, I found after all the measuring and pancake-making, there’s not all that much difference in eating quality between pancakes that have mostly dark buckwheat flour or mostly white buckwheat flour, provided you have sifted it to remove large hull particles. Buckwheat being a gluten-free grain means baked goods make with it won’t tend to get quite as fluffy as wheat.

I find most people aren’t adventuresome at breakfast. While I wouldn’t mind eating buckwheat pancakes that were as dark as devil’s food cake, any wussy eater will stamp his or her little foot and sniffle sniffle snuffle snuffle. Looking at the top picture, you can see that 25% is a little darker than whole wheat. In the bottom photo are pancakes made with no dark buckwheat flour, 12.5%, and no white buckwheat flour.I found that adding 25% sweet rice flour improves the texture greatly. This is cheapest at an Asian grocery, where I find it for .79 a pound in sealed plastic bags. If you’re gluten intolerant, you shouldn’t be buying it in the bulk bin at a natural food store. They rotate those bins from product to product, and people use different scoops.

You can also save the batter in the refrigerator for a day and still have the pancakes cook up equally well.

Buckwheat pancake Recipe

There’s a lot of information out there about buckwheat. For instance, I’ve heard it said that it’s not a grain (so far so good), but a fruit?? Just let’s use a wee bit of logic here, folks. Buckwheat is the seed of an herb, not a fruit. It’s also not even remotely related to wheat. Therefore, there is no gluten in it and it should be safe for celiacs.

In fact, it’s a triangular sort of a seed that is ground for flour or cooked into a pilaf called kasha - which I will soon post my favorite recipe for. As you can see in this picture, the whole seeds, also called groats, are greenish when raw and tan when toasted. I prefer the toasted flavor. I was previously able to buy mine pre-toasted, but they were never toasted dark enough for me, so I do my own, stirring over a low flame in a frying pan.

It is also possible to buy them coarsely ground for kasha, but I’ve never purchased them, so I can’t comment on it.

The seeds are also available with the hard black hulls on for sprouting. I tried sprouting buckwheat years ago, when I was in my al natural mode. I vaguely recall that the hulls remained hard after sprouting and were difficult to remove. I’d have included this in the photo, but I was unable to find a sample. Maybe nobody else liked it, either.
Most buckwheat flour I have seen is ground from whole unhulled seeds. Looking at the photo to the left here, you can see how dark the hulls make the flour. Most dark buckwheat flour I have used is full of gritty hull particles, and I find it an unpleasant feeling on my teeth. Very fine sifting can remove the coarse ones, but this takes a fair amount of time.

I buy white buckwheat flour and add a small amount of the dark flour for color and flavor. You’ll see when I put up photos of pancakes how dark a little bit of dark buckwheat flour can make the pancakes. Back when I used to make pumpernickel bread with rye, I used half buckwheat and half whole rye, and the bread was almost black, without any coloring added.

Next: kasha with sausage and onions, or buckwheat pancakes… 

First of all, as far as I’m concerned, hot chocolate and chocolate milk are made with chocolate and drinking quality milk or “milk”, not with cocoa, and definitely not with some kind of mix that looks like you got dirt in your skim milk.

I’m just a firm believer in the real thing.

So what you have to do is melt the chocolate in the almond milk and blend it to mix it in. Almond milk should not be heated to boiling by itself, but you can safely heat it after mixing in the chocolate.

I have found that some commercial milks can taste thin. If I want the finished product to be “milkier”, I add some coconut milk powder, which I buy at an Asian food store.

For chocolate milk, it’s the same thing, but you may need to add some extra sugar, as chilled things taste less sweet.
Gosh, better make plenty, too. I bought some chocolate rice milk once that was so horrible I took one taste and threw the carton away. Not this. This is the real deal.

Ah, and the piece de resistance: European-style hot chocolate. When blending the chocolate and milk, add some cornstarch to thicken it up so you will use a spoon while drinking it. Thicker is definitely better.

Nowadays you most often see the term “hash browns” used for those prefried/refried chopped potato patties that you get at the drive-thru of your favorite fast food emporium. Less often you will find slower food restaurants that still make the old-fashioned shredded-style hashbrowns, either on the grill or fried in a pan. Those are rare around these parts. I live outside of the land of Waffle House - not that I think Waffle House does a particularly good job with them, at least not with any great consistency. Just as I described in the previous breakfast potato posting on home fries - hash browns also often tend to be soggy and unseasoned, but since they start with raw potatoes, sometimes they are even not quite cooked through.

It is really not hard to make them well, but there’s a trick or two to it. So get out your shredder. That’s what we’re making today.

Just kidding, Folks. But if you’re going to be making these, you’ll need a good coarse shredder. The food processer blade will puree the heck out of those potatoes, not a pretty sight. Actually I prefer the coarse shredding disk that came with my now-ancient Cuisinart food processor. You can however use whatever coarse shredder you have available to you.

I start with about a pound of potatoes, which will serve two generously or four as a side. Scrub them well. I like to leave the skins if they are tender, but I peel the potatoes if the skins are tough-looking. I then put them in a bowl with a teaspoon of salt, toss them well, and let it sit for about half an hour to draw off excess liquid. At the end of this time they are limp and starting to brown a bit. I put them in a sieve, run fresh water over them, which removes the brown color, and press them really well to get rid of that extra liquid, even wringing with my hands.

Now they go back in the bowl. I add a tablespoon of potato starch - which I purchase in an Asian store - and some white pepper, and toss it all well to mix it.

Now the fastest way to cook these is in individual pans you have going on the stove at the same time. If you’ve got a regular stove, you’re making four individual portions from the recipe, and you’re making a fancy, complicated breakfast, this will be monopolizing your stove for a while, so you should probably plan to cook these first and when done, pop them into the oven to stay warm while you finish up whatever else you are cooking.

You’ve got some choices, too. I personally think the crispy thin parts are the best, which means cooking in two 12″ non-stick frying pans or four 10″ ones at the same time. But you could also cook the entire recipe in the 12″ pan and cut it into wedges to serve. Decisions, decisions, decisions…

I grease the pan I am going to use or pour a tablespoon of butter, fat, or olive oil in it and drop in the potato mixture, tossing it with a fork to distribute it evenly, then pressing down. I then set the heat to medium and cook until the underside is golden brown, adding more oil if it is all absorbed and the pan gets dry. When it is golden brown, it is manageably firm, so I slip it onto a plate or a pan lid without an inner lip, invert the pan over the plate, and flip the two together so that it can brown on the other side. A little more oil will be necessary for this side to brown properly.

Now I fold it and plate it up to serve with eggs and maybe meat. A warm plate is best.

You can fry up some bacon or ham, peppers and onions to top it for a Waffle House-like treat. Also, melted cheese is yummy if you can handle it. We used to love having these smothered in bacon, onions, red peppers, and three cheeses back when I was speedskating and able to handle both casein and calorie overload.

OK, homefries are supposed to be gluten-free. They’re just supposed to be potatoes fried in a pan, golden brown and crispy on the outside, moist on the inside, and seasoned with salt and probably pepper and maybe a little cayenne. You would think that would be a simple thing to do, but between badly-made traditional homefries which seem to be little more than lukewarm unseasoned leftover potatoes and those that are deep-fried and breaded or batter-coated, let’s just say the bar doesn’t seem to be particularly high nowadays.

It’s a shame, because making excellent homefries is so easy to do. I’ll let you in on my “secret” method, which is so much easier than any I have seen before, and it’s much more reliable, too. But first, a little homefry talk.

Years ago I read a discussion in an old cookbook that said that the difference between homefries and hash browns was that the homefries were made from raw potatoes, while hash browns were made from precooked ones. Linguistically this makes a lot of sense, as the word “hash” is generally used for things that are precooked and then panfried, like corned beef hash. Meanings have drifted, so now “hash browns” are generally raw shredded potatoes pressed into a patty or a pancake and fried until set, while “homefries” are recooked precooked potatoes. (We are going to ignore the abomination which is breaded or batter-fried potatoes masquerading as “homefries” from this point. If you like them, you can buy them from Sysco, just like the restaurants do.)

I have read over and over again that you have to boil potatoes before making them into homefries, not only to “save time” but because they won’t come out right otherwise. I can tell you with certainty that neither of these are true. It’s much faster to make them without an extra boiling step, and homefries are made more reliably with raw potatoes than with precooked ones. Another issue - one I would make a great effort to avoid - is that there are certain varieties of potatoes that set up and get hard when refrigerated. They do not soften up again when reheated, and no matter what you do with them subsequently, they taste like leftovers. Potatoes like these make terrible homefries when precooked, but make excellent homefries using my method.

The method:

Scrub potatoes and peel them if the skins are thick. Dice any size you like, from 1/4″ to 1″ cubes. Put in a pan with a little extra fat - olive oil, butter, bacon fat, chicken fat, and beef fat all work. Heat on medium high, stirring every five minutes or so until they are about 50% brown. Season with salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes or cayenne for heat, paprika for color. Cover and lower the heat to medium-low. Continue to stir every five minutes until potatoes are cooked through. Cooking should take maybe 20 minutes for large cubes, less for small ones. Any excess oil can be removed from the pan by blotting with a paper towel at the end.

That’s all there is to it. I used to make these almost every day when I was cooking breakfast for my family. It’s just a matter of stirring occasionally, so the cooking process takes very little time, and is easy to coordinate with eggs or meat or toast to make the breakfast I call a “blue plate special”.

A favorite variation is to fry up bacon and cut into pieces. Set these aside while frying up the potatoes. In a separate pan saute onions until they start to get translucent, then cover until cooked through. Add to the potatoes, top with the bacon, and serve as is or with cheese melted on top - a huge favorite from my cheese-eating days. We used to love that on a cold morning.