Scallops Provencal with Winter Squash Timbales

"Cooking is an art and patience a virtue... Careful shopping, fresh ingredients and an unhurried approach are nearly all you need. There is one more thing - love. Love for food and love for those you invite to your table. With a combination of these things you can be an artist - not perhaps in the representational style of a Dutch master, but rather more like Gauguin, the naïve, or Van Gogh, the impressionist. Plates or pictures of sunshine taste of happiness and love."  - Keith Floyd, ‘A Feast of Floyd’

What a delicious, sumptuous meal - light, but very satisfying with lovely flavors, texture and color.

Scallops Provencal

My favorite way of cooking scallops. Thank you to Ina Garten for Barefoot in Paris - Easy French Food You Can Make at Home. I adapted her recipe to accommodate my black pepper-free, gluten-free diet.

Ingredients:

1 pound large sea scallops, rinsed, pat dry and sliced in half horizontally

Sea Salt

Cayenne Pepper

All-purpose Gluten-Free Flour, for dredging

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted Butter, divided into pats

1/2 cup Shallots (2 large)

1 clove Garlic, minced

1/4 flat-leaf Parsley, chopped

1/3 cup dry white Wine

1 Lemon, halved

Directions:

1. Sprinkle the scallops with salt and cayenne pepper, then toss with the flour. Shake off the excess flour and set aside on a plate.
2. Heat a large sauté pan on medium-high heat. Add 2 tablespoons of the butter and place the scallops in a single layer in pan and lightly brown on one side, then lightly brown on the other side. This takes no more than a few minutes in all.
3. Melt the remaining butter in the pan along with the scallops, adding the shallots, garlic, parsley and sauté for another couple of minutes, tossing the seasonings with the scallops.
4. Add the wine, continue cooking for only another minute. Taste for seasoning.
5. Serve hot with a fresh squeeze of lemon on each serving.
6. Serves 2

Winter Squash Timbales (a dish formed in a mold or ramekin)

Thank you to my daughter for sharing this recipe, which she gleaned from The Vegan Table (page 236). A wonderful fall and wintertime side dish that is colorful, textured and nutritious!

Ingredients:

2 cups winter Squash, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

2-1/2 cups Vegetable Stock (I use vegetarian bouillon and water)

1 cup Arborio Rice (do not rinse, and stir often)

1/4-1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt (depends how salty vegetable stock is)

1 tablespoon Olive Oil for sautéing 

1 large yellow Onion, finely chopped

1 teaspoon minced Garlic

2 tablespoons fresh Parsley, finely chopped

1 teaspoon fresh Thyme, finely chopped

2-3 tablespoons of sun-dried Tomatoes, finely chopped

Cayenne Pepper to taste (or Black Pepper)

1/4 cup Pine Nuts, toasted for garnish (optional)

Kale, washed, dried, chopped and steamed or sauteed

[Note: I used my food processor for the onion, then again to chop the garlic, parsley thyme, sun-dried tomato together. Worked nicely and saved time.]

Directions:

1. Lightly oil 4 ramekins, or oven-proof bowls or pans that can hold 1-1/4 cups.
2. Steam cubed squash until tender (10-12 minutes). Place in a medium to large mixing bowl.
3. In a large sauce pan, bring to a boil the rice in the vegetable stock. Add salt. Cover and reduce heat to low, cooking until the rice is tender, for about 20 minutes. Some liquid should remain. Stir often. Arborio rice becomes very thick.
4. In a large sauté pan, heat the oil on medium heat. Add the onion, sautéing until it starts to turn golden brown and translucent (about 5 minutes). Add the thyme, parsley and garlic and sun-dried tomato mixture, cooking another couple of minutes, then stir in the cooked squash. Remove mixture from heat.
5. To make the timbales, place 1/4 of the vegetable mixture in the bottom on each ramekin - pressing down gently to compact. Top with rice, once again pressing down to compact.
6. When ready to serve, run a knife along the inside edge of the ramekins and invert each one atop a bed of freshly steamed or sautéed kale on each dinner plate.
7. Garnish with the pine nuts and black pepper optional. I use Cayenne.
8. Serve as a side dish with Scallops Provencal. 

Bon Appetit!

Thanksgiving Dinner that Your Mama Didn't Make

Creating a sauce that tastes of warm carmel apple with the pleasant and not so over-powering tang of cranberry, was the beginning of putting together a semi-non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner that taste better than any traditional meal I've made in the past. According to my husband, the best ever!

Don't wait until next Thanksgiving to try these recipes - Christmas is just around the corner. Enjoy!

Our Gluten-Free Holiday Menu

• Garlic Mashed Potatoes with Tamari Gravy 
• Tempeh and Sage Loaf with Cranberry Maple Cider Sauce
• Ginger-Glazed Parsnips & Carrots
• Romaine, Red Onion & Orange Salad with Lime Dressing
• Cranberry-Apple Pie

So, let's go through the ingredients and directions for all the recipes. Click here for the cranberry sauce.

Garlic Mashed Potatoes with Gluten-Free Tamari Gravy

Since you probably already know how to make garlic mashed potatoes, I'll only share that we boil white potatoes until soft, then mash them with freshly minced garlic, a cup of non-dairy sour cream, along with some of the reserved potato water in the pot, with sea salt to taste.

Tamari Gravy

You'll love the ease and simplicity of this one!

Ingredients:

1/4 cup Tamari, organic and gluten-free soy sauce (San-J)

1/4 cup Olive Oil

1/4 cup Water

1/4 cup Nutritional Yeast

Directions:

Pour all of the ingredients into a blender and blend until a smooth consistency. While preparing the rest of the meal, I leave the gravy mixture in the blender to give one final blend until ready to pour into a small gravy bowl or pitcher as dinner is about to be served. Yields 1 cup.

Tempeh and Sage Loaf

I thank my daughter for this fabulous gluten-free entree, which she found in the cookbook Casseroles (and Loaves) You Wish Your Mother Had Made (page 99). My husband says it's an excellent alternative to both turkey and stuffing all in one. What I love about this recipe is that you mix the ingredients a day ahead and then on the day you serve it, it slow cooks in a crock pot while you busy away in the kitchen making the side dishes to accompany it.

Ingredients:

1 package plain Tempeh, cubed (8 ounces)

1 small Onion

2 cloves Garlic

2 stalks Celery

1 medium Carrot

1 cup fresh, sliced Mushrooms

2 tablespoons Olive Oil

1 cup gluten-free Bread Crumbs

2 tablespoons Flaxseed mixed with 2 tablespoons Water

2 tablespoons vegan Chicken-Flavored Bouillon

1 teaspoon Thyme

1 teaspoon rubbed Sage

1/2 teaspoon Oregano

1/2 teaspoon dried Rosemary

1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt

Directions:

1. The day before, steam the cubed tempeh for 10 minutes and cool.
2. Using a food processor, mince the onion, garlic, mushrooms, celery and carrot. To avoid the mixture from becoming mushy instead of minced into small bits, I pulsed separately first the onion, then the carrot and celery, and lastly the garlic and mushrooms.
3. After heating the oil on medium heat in a skillet saute the vegetables for a few minutes, only until the onion is translucent.
4.  In a large bowl, crumble the cooled tempeh and add the vegetable saute, the bread crumbs, flaxseed mixture, bouillon, herbs and salt.
5. Mix thoroughly, then refrigerate in a sealed container overnight.
6. Planning ahead when you wish to serve your meal, put the tempeh mixture into the oiled crock pot and cook on low for 6-8 hours (7 is about right). Keep the lid propped open during cooking to keep the condensation from dripping on top on the loaf. You want the top to have a crisp texture; the center will be moist. Use a flat spatula to cut and lift out each serving. Serves 6 

Ginger-Glazed Parsnips & Carrots

This Ginger Glazed Carrots recipe has been one of my favorite holiday side dishes for years; a recipe from Spices of the World Cookbook by McCormick I acquired in 1978. This adaptation includes my other favorite root vegetable, parsnips.

Ingredients:

4 medium Carrots

4 medium Parsnips

1 teaspoon vegetable-based Bouillon, chicken-flavored optional 

1 teaspoon Sugar

1 teaspoon Bon Appetit seasoning, optional

3/4 cup Water

4 tablespoons Butter or butter substitute

1 tablespoon fresh Lemon Juice

3 tablespoons Honey

1/2 teaspoon Ginger powder, or fresh minced

1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg powder, or freshly grated

Parsley

Directions:

1. Wash, peel and slice diagonally carrots and parsnips. 
2. Finely chop some parsley for garnish.
3. In a skillet add the carrots and parsnips, bouillon, water, sugar, Bon Appetit and 1 tablespoon of the butter.
4. Cook covered over medium-high for 10-12 minutes - or until tender, then drain.
5. To the skillet, add the remaining butter, lemon juice, ginger, nutmeg and honey.
6. Cook uncovered over medium heat 2 to 3 more minutes, tossing continually to glaze the carrots and parsnips.
7. Garnish with parsley when serving.
8. Serves 4

Romaine & Orange Salad with Lime Dressing

Dressing - Mix the following ingredients by shaking in a tumbler or by blending in a blender:

2 tablespoons Olive Oil

1/8 teaspoon grated Lime Peel

1 tablespoon fresh Lime Juice

1 large clove Garlic, minced

3/4 teaspoon Sugar

1/8 teaspoon Sea Salt

Salad - Toss together six (6) cups of washed, crisped and torn Romaine Lettuce leaves with 1/2 cup thinly-sliced red onion and 1 can of drained or freshly chopped mandarin oranges. Either drizzle dressing over individual salad servings or toss the dressing with the salad.

Cranberry-Apple Pie

Working with a gluten-free dough can be tricky, especially when trying to make a pie with a lattice top. Photo clearly shows the challenge I had making a "pretty pie". If it's texture and taste you're going for ,bursting with flavor, tucked into a flaky crust... it's so worth the effort.

Start by making the dough for the top and bottom gluten-free pie crusts:

Recipe for 1 crust (for 2 crusts, double the ingredients except for the salt)

Wet Ingredients:

1 Egg

2 teaspoons White Vinegar

Dry Ingredients:

1-1/4 cups Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour*

1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt

1/2 teaspoon Xanthan Gum

Additional Ingredients:

6 tablespoons Butter Flavored Crisco, chilled or frozen

1 teaspoon ice cold Water

Directions:

1. Whisk the egg and vinegar until very frothy and refrigerate while mixing other ingredients.
2. Combine the dry ingredients.
3. Cut the Crisco into the flour mix until a coarse, mealy consistency the size of small peas.
4. Add the egg/vinegar mixture. If the flour mixture is still too dry, add cold water 1 teaspoon at a time until you have the consistency where you can form the dough into a ball (2 balls if doubling for 2 crusts).
5. Wrap dough balls in plastic wrap and refrigerator for an hour.
6. Roll the dough between wax paper or parchment paper until the circle is the size to fit your pie pan.
7. Add the filling** and top second crust. I used a lattice cutter as I found the top too fragile to weave strips of crust into a lattice top.
8. Brush the top with a glaze made of mixing together: 1 egg and 1 tablespoon of milk brush over the top and edges of the crust, then sprinkled with a mixture of: 2 teaspoons sugar and a dash of cinnamon.
9. Bake pie in an oven pre-heated to 400-degrees and bake for 25 minutes.
10. Reduce the oven to 325-degrees and continue baking for another 40-45 minutes.
11. Especially yummy served warm a la mode with vanilla coconut ice cream.

* Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour Mix

Blend together the following ingredients and store in an air-tight container:

2 cups Rice Flour

2/3 cup Potato Starch

1/3 cup Tapioca Flour

** Filling for Cranberry-Apple Pie

In a large bowl, thoroughly mix together the following:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup dried Currants and Raisins

2 tablespoons Dark Rum or Water

1 cup fresh, whole Cranberries, washed and drained

3/4 cup Sugar

5-6 medium Baking Apples - Fuji or Braeburn, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch slices

2 tablespoons quick-cooking Tapioca

1 tablespoon fresh Lemon Juice

1/2 teaspoon ground Cinnamon

Cranberry Maple Cider Sauce

Thanksgiving without cranberries, whether celebrated with a traditional or non-traditional feast, would be to me like taking the "Thanks" out of "Thanksgiving". I've enjoyed serving raw cranberry relish as a healthy and delicious alternative to traditional cranberry sauce or jelly, but this year I created a new recipe that by all appearances looks like traditional sauce, but is a variation with a deeper color along with the combined, naturally sweet and rich flavors of maple and unfiltered apple cider. I call it... wait for it... Cranberry Maple Cider Sauce. It has the tang of cranberries with the warmth of other fall flavors that evoke wonderful memories.

Ingredients:

1 12-ounce bag of whole Cranberries
1 cup Apple Cider, unfiltered (thick)
1 cup Maple Syrup (real maple syrup)
Grated zest of 1 large Orange
1 cup coarsely chopped Pecans

Directions:

1. Rinse and drain the cranberries.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine the cranberries, apple cider, maple syrup and orange zest.
3. Bring mixture to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low heat and continue to cook for about another 10 minutes or until all the cranberries pop open. 
4. Use a "potato" masher or fork, to lightly mash the cranberries into the liquid.
5. Stir in the pecans.
6. Serve the sauce warm or cool, cover and refrigerate until ready to serve, no more than a few days  before Thanksgiving. 

Serves 8-12

Zucchini-Feta Flapjacks

When I asked a friend of mine what she was doing today, she replied that she was making flapjacks for a bonfire tomorrow night.  Her comment reminded me that I had not posted my recent gluten-free recipe for making a savory pancake (aka flapjack) as a brunch, lunch or dinner side dish or entree. 

So here it is!

Ingredients:

1-1/2 pounds of Zucchini, grated (about 3 cups)

1/4 cup Feta Cheese, finely crumbled

2 eggs + 1 egg white, beaten

3/4 cup All-Purpose Gluten Free Flour

3/4 teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 Sea Salt

1/8 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper (or 1/4 teaspoon Black Pepper) 

1/2 teaspoon dried Oregano

Olive Oil (spray) for coating fry pan

Directions:

1. Once the zucchini is grated, squeeze out excess liquid using just your hands pressing down the zucchini in a fine strainer, through cheesed cloth, or like in my case since I had neither at hand, pressing the moisture out into layers of paper towels (worked great).
2. In a large mixing bowl, blend well the zucchini, feta, eggs, flour, baking powder and seasonings.
3. Heat over medium-high heat, a wide frying pan that is coated with the olive oil.
4. You should be able to cook 3 to 4 flapjacks that are 2-3 tablespoons of mixture each, spreading them out to make 4-inch rounds.
5. Cook the flapjacks for about three (3) minutes per side, or until golden. 
6. Serve warm as is, with butter, sour cream, greek yogurt, savory cream sauce or condiment to taste.

These were a BIG hit at my dinner table!

Curried-Tempeh Salad

Wow. This is way better than chicken salad! Thank you for sharing you recipe with us, Ef!

The main entree of our tailgate lunch, in the parking lot at the Portland International Raceway between our kid's cyclocross races, was our daughter's gluten-free, faux chicken curry salad, made with tempeh, served with her gluten-free sandwich bread made with buckwheat. If I am successful with her bread recipe, I will share it on this blog too.

Ingredients:

2 packages (8-ounce each) of Tempeh, diced into 1/4" cubes

1 Apple, cored and diced (peeling optional)

3 Celery stalks, chopped

1/4 cup chopped Nuts (walnuts or pecans)

2 tablespoons Raisins

2 teaspoons Curry Powder

1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt

1/2 teaspoon Black Pepper (optional)

1/4 teaspoon ground Cayenne Pepper

1 cup Mayonnaise (eggless, if vegan)

Directions:

1. Steam the tempeh for 10 minutes. If you don't have a steamer, add 2 to 3 inches of water to a saucepan and place tempeh in a steamer basket. Let cool.
2. Once cooled, in a large bowl, combine the tempeh with the apple, celery, nuts, raisins, seasonings and mayonnaise. Add more or less pepper and mayonnaise to your taste and level of moistness you prefer.
3. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Serves 8

Here's a recap by my daughter of her conversation her four year old daughter, my granddaughter, on their drive home from their cyclocross race: 

"Leify (22-month old brother), please stop making all that noise! It's not polite to make all that noise when I'm trying to have a conversation with Mama." She told me in intricate detail of her plans for opening a restaurant called "A Big Kitchen For All of Us" - it will host two large kitchens, a party room, offer world foods, the parking lot will be on the left - and I will be supplying lights for the lot, restaurant decorations, roses for the tables and a calendar for the kitchen so that she knows what day it is. And her menu sounds amazing! She's so creative she won't even have to go to cooking school! Thankfully we've been invited to dine at her restaurant every night! I can't wait for her to wow me every night, cause she certainly does evety day!!!

Some of the delectables Seph plans to serve are Crispy Crunchy Carrots and Purple Marshmallow Stew.

Whether ambiance or ambience, it spells special atmosphere.

While I was visiting with a friend yesterday, he mentioned as he was about to leave that he and his wife were going shopping for candles. I figured since we've had some high winds and storm season is upon us, they would be utilitarian, back-up lights for a possible, even probable, power outage. We had an outage, not far from their home, just the other night. He replied something like, "No, we enjoy dining by candlelight." BIG smile here. I gave him a mental high-five.

It has always been our family tradition during our thirty-eight years of marriage to serve dinners with a pleasantly set table: table cloth or runner, attractive placemats, sometimes charges that we brought back from France, cloth napkins and condiments go from bottles and jars to serving bowls, while enjoying that special atmosphere or mood  (ambiance/ambience) created by dimming the lights and/or candles lit at the table. Sometimes we add soft, relaxing music to the background, other times we enjoy quiet and the flicker of the fireplace as we share our thoughts and recaps of our days. In an atmosphere like that the food tastes even better, we eat slower and linger at the table.

I came across this great idea from Friends of Glass on Facebook. All you need is a glass cutter to repurpose regular or over-sized wine bottles to make a casual cluster of candles as center-piece luminaries, to create a special atmosphere or mood whether indoors or outdoors - the wind won't blow these candles out!

Crab Babies

DZ is harvesting crabs daily, with a limit of five per harvest - Washington State limit per person, per day. It was dark by the time I got home, and DZ was still in the garage removing the crab meat from the  five he brought home and steamed late afternoon. The day before, he bought a small freezer to keep in the garage to store the vacuum-sealed seafood we will enjoy after their perspective season has ended.

We were both tired and hungry, with two portions of fresh crab in the refrigerator... so while DZ was dealing with the crabs outside, I need to quickly get creative and productive in the kitchen, if we wanted to eat anytime soon.

Having served my friend, Kris, sweet Dutch Babies filled with fresh fruit and Greek yogurt drizzled with agave nectar, for breakfast a few days earlier, I thought it would be tasty to serve us savory "Crab Babies" for dinner... simple, quick, and with little taxing of what brain cells I had left, a creative solution that proved to be excellent, despite how I had to take a number of little offerings from the refrigerator to generate enough content to feed two people. Our Crab Babies ended up just right - flavor-wise and portion-wise, especially for two, who whatever reasons, forgot to eat lunch.

Dutch Babies are easy-cheesy to make and take few ingredients... even with alternative ingredients in the batter, they hardly ever fail to impress, look and taste great.

Here's the ingredients and directions for making my version of a gluten-free Dutch Babies, using what I had on hand:

Ingredients for Dutch Babies Batter:

1/4 cup, same as a half a stick of Butter or butter substitute (four pats - two for each baking dish)

3 Eggs

1/2 cup Rice Milk

1/4 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free Flour

Pinch of Salt

Note: Dutch Baby batter recipes may vary slightly as to the ratio of number of eggs, milk, flour and butter per serving.

Directions and Other Ingredients for making Crab Babies:

1. Pre-heat oven to 425-degrees with two glass pie plates on a rack in the middle of the oven. Do not have a rack above, as the Dutch Babies have the potential of rising on the sides, sometime quite high.
2. Liquid first, put all the ingredients, sans the butter, in a blender and blend until... well, blended.
3. When oven reaches temperature,  put two pats of butter in each glass pie plate and melt, without browning - happens very fast, so watch carefully. It's easy to forget and set off the smoke detector.
4. As soon as the butter is melted, pour half of the batter into each of the two glass pie plates.
5. Before or while they bake at 425-degrees for 18-20 minutes, prepare the contents to fill the "Crab Babies" after they are transferred to dinner plates, as shown above.
6. In a saute pan, lightly saute together in olive oil savory ingredients of choice. Here's what I had on hand: chopped Green Onion, diced White Onion, diced Red Bell Pepper, sliced Mushrooms, teaspoon or less of Capers (rinsed), a quarter + teaspoon of Fennel Seed and a pinch of Salt and Cayenne Pepper. Keep warm, but don't over cook.
7. In a small mixing bowl, whip together - best at room temperature (a quick microwave works to take the chill off) -  whatever portions seems right to you of creamy ingredients. I found a little of each of the following in our refrigerator and combined them to make a wonderful, creamy base to my concoction: Tofutti (soy cream cheese substitute), Greek Yogurt, Mayonnaise, shredded Parmesan Cheese, a squeeze of fresh Lemon Juice and Lemon Zest... and a pinch of Salt.
8. As soon as the Dutch Babies come out of the oven - oven mitts compulsory - very, very hot and easy to burn yourself - transfer them to dinner plates. They should have lovely, toasty brown edges, perhaps bubbly in the center slathered in melted butter... then immediately start to "settle" on the dinner plates.
9. Best using a rubber spatula, divide and spread the creamy mixture across each, hot serving, then divide both the savory filling and warmed, cooked crab meat, and cover the creamy mixture with color and texture of the sauteed mixture and bite-size pieces of crab.
10. Garnish with a light sprinkling of Paprika and serve while hot. 

Generously serves 2

Recipe dedicated to Crab harvesters DZ and Phil.