GF Pasta with a Spicy Twist!

OK guys, I'm going to be honest with this one.  I made this for dinner a few weeks ago on a Sunday and it was fantastical... we both really loved it.  I took pictures.  I had leftovers.  I even battled with some indigestion from eating too much.  But it's all too common that when I make a great dish like this, it comes together in pieces in my little pea brain, and then we gobble it all up and I never write the recipe down.  So here's the long and short of it.  I was craving pasta and I had a box of Schar Multigrain Penne Rigate in the pantry.  This is one of the best GF pastas out there and really holds up well when tossing it with a thick and chunky kind of pasta sauce.

So that's the pasta part of it.... here's the rest of my inspiration - (1) a whole stick of chorizo that was in the fridge and (2) indian spices, from watching too much of The Next Food Network Star and wanting to create my own Aarti Party in my kitchen.  So the end result was a thick tomato sauce with chunks of chicken, crispy chorizo pieces, chopped olives, and lots of spices (like cumin, chili powder, coriander and even a pinch of cinnamon).... then I stirred in greek yogurt at the end to give it a creamy and tangy finish.  It was awesome.  Sorry I can't be more exact, but I guess it will be my secret and maybe subconsciously I didn't want to share it with any of you.  Oh, and I'm looking at the picture and I see chopped green stuff.  Fresh herbs - probably marjoram and oregano from the planters out back.  Instead of telling you to enjoy this one, I'll just give you one of these :P

Weeknight Chicken Dinner... Hmmmmm?

Almost every night of the week we are faced with the same question:  What's for dinner?  It doesn't matter who you are, what you like, what special diet you adhere to - after spending a full day at work, nobody wants to spend a long time in the kitchen preparing dinner.  When I lived alone, it was easy to cook one night and have leftovers for a few nights.  Now that there are two of us, it's a little tougher to make a meal for two that includes enough leftovers for at least one other night for both of us.  And that is a requirement - we try to cook on our off-gym nights so that we have leftovers for the nights that we workout and eat at 8:30 or 9.

Lately one of my favorite weeknight dinners revolves around roasted boneless chicken breasts that are smothered in some kind of spice mixture.  We get the large family packs of chicken breasts when they are on sale and then trim, clean and cut them into large chunks - and we're good to go.  This time around, I went with the following theme for my spice mixture:

Smoky Chili Lime Chicken

1/2 T smoked paprika
1/2 T ground cumin
1/2 T ground coriander
1/2 T chili powder
1 tsp chipotle chili powder (more or less to taste - it's pretty spicy)
1 tsp garlic salt (or alternately, grate up 1 clove of garlic and add some kosher salt)
2 T extra virgin olive oil
1 lime, zested and juiced
kosher salt and black pepper to taste

approximately 3 lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Preheat the oven to 400°.  As mentioned, prep the chicken breasts by cleaning, trimming and cutting the breasts into large chunks (about 3 pieces per breast, equal sizes).  In a small bowl add all of the dry spices and stir together, then add the lime zest & juice and olive oil.  Whisk together until well blended.  Place the chicken in a large bowl and pour the spice mixture over the chicken.  Stir together with a large spoon until all of the pieces of chicken are evenly coated with the spice mixture.  Drop the chicken into a greased pyrex baking dish and spread the pieces out evenly to ensure even cooking.  Season the chicken with kosher salt and fresh black pepper to your personal taste.  Then bake the chicken for about 35 minutes, or until the chicken starts to brown slightly at the thinner edges and the juices run clear.

Now what can you do to make this a complete meal?  Add veggies and some kind of carb/grain, right?  We had some great fresh asparagus, so we seasoned it with salt, pepper and olive oil and roasted it for about 10 minutes on a baking sheet in the same oven that the chicken was cooking in.

And finally the carb this time around was quinoa.  Anyone who has had quinoa will quickly realize that it's a very plain grain, and your really need to jazz it up a bit.  So I diced up 1/2 of a small white onion and sauteed it in a small sauce pan with some olive oil.  I seasoned with salt and pepper and also threw in about 2 tsp of whole cumin seeds over the onions.  When the onions softened, I added 1 cup of quinoa and stirred it until the grains were coated in olive oil.  Then I added 2 cups of GF chicken stock and threw in a fresh bay leaf and a sprig of fresh thyme.  Once it comes to a boil, cover it and lower the heat - simmer for about 15 minutes or until the grains absorb all of the liquid and become light and fluffy.  Stir it up, remove the bay leaf and thyme sprig and then serve up the whole meal like this!  I hope you enjoy this quick, easy, gluten free meal :)

Friday Happy Hour... at Home!

Nobody said that all of the recipes that I posted had to be food, right?? Another big part of balancing out the gluten free lifestyle is finding the right "adult beverages" that I can safely consume. I tend to be very safe with the types of alcohol that I consume. I usually stick to wine as the safest bet, but I will also have drinks with rum and tequila when out, since they are alcohols that are made by fermenting sugars of some type and not grain.  At home, I always stock up on Chopin potato vodka (mostly for straight up dirty martinis - hands down the smoothest martini vodka out there) and Smirnoff vodka (many people don't know that the grain used to make this vodka is corn, which is gluten free).

Happy hour at home on Friday evenings in the Summer is something that I look forward to each week.  This summer we've been growing mint out on the deck, so rum & vodka mojitos have been in heavy rotation.  But last Friday I had a craving for a nice, strong, tart margarita.  I know a margarita is not a highly unusual drink, but I took some liberties with the ratios of ingredients and added some fresh squeezed orange juice to sweeten it up.  And no salt!  I hate salt on my margaritas :)

Margaritas
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (4-5 limes depending on size)
3/4 cup tequila (I used Jose Cuervo Gold)
1/4 cup orange liqueur (I used Cointreau)
1/4 cup simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water, heated and dissolved)
1 T agave nectar
1 orange (slice off some for garnish and juice the rest)

When playing bartender/mixologist at home, I usually start in a large liquid measuring cup and layer in one ingredient to the next counting to the next ingredient level.  In other words, I squeeze 1/2 cup of lime juice then add tequila up to the 1 1/4 cup mark then Cointreau up to the 1 1/2 cup mark.... and so on and so forth - until everything that needs to be measured is measured.  Once everything is added I stir it with a large spoon until the agave is dissolved.  I fill up two pretty little margarita glasses with ice and fill up the glass with the margarita mixture.  Garnish with a fresh orange sliced into a half moon and a straw - then stir and enjoy!  Makes 2 'healthy' margaritas.

Grillin' & Chillin'

There really is nothing that makes me happier than pulling together a great dinner on a Friday evening in the Summer - especially when it is a meal based around something grilled.  Now, this blog is not really intended to be just a listing of a bunch of recipes.  This meal, for example, is just a few different ideas that Stefan and I had that came together really well.

The first part of the meal was the main event - the BURGERS!  I've eaten plain burgers for way too long, so lately, I've gotten into playing around with different types of burgers and throwing lots of different flavors into my burgers.  This one is up there as one of the better burgers that I've tried to create.  What I envisioned with this one was the flavor of sausage - lots of fennel and garlic and some good spice.  Here's how I pulled it together:

Spicy Sausage Burgers
1.5 lbs of lean ground beef (I used 93% lean)
1 T fennel seed
1 T cumin seed
1 or 2 tsp red pepper flakes (to taste)
2 cloves of garlic, grated with a hand held grater
1/4 cup grated pecorino romano cheese
1 T tomato paste
2 T extra virgin olive oil (since I used such a lean meat, I like how the olive oil keeps it moist and gives it a light flavor)
1 tsp Frank's red hot sauce (or more if you like - I just gave it a few shakes)
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Take the fennel seed, cumin seed and red pepper flakes and grind them finely in a spice grinder.  Throw the meat into a large bowl and then add the rest of the ingredients, including the freshly ground spices.  Then, use the world's best kitchen utensils - your hands - and mix all of the ingredients together until the spices, cheese, garlic, tomato paste and sauces are spread evenly throughout the mixture.  Flatten the mixture in the bottom of the bowl and score the meat with your hand to that you can make even sized burgers.  I made 3, but you could probably use this amount of meat for 4 smaller burgers.  Form your burgers and set aside for grilling.  A good tip when forming burgers - press down in the center with your thumb so that when the middle expands when cooking, they'll be perfectly round when they are done cooking.  Now, sadly, this is the only picture that I got of the burgers, before they went on the grill.  We ate them too fast when they were done.  No time for pictures.  Sorry.  Deal with it.

The next part was a bit of an experiment in baking GF rolls.  I used a recipe from one of my favorite GF cookbooks - You Won't Believe it's Gluten Free, by Roben Ryberg.  These rolls are made with a blend of potato starch and sorghum flour.  I divided the dough evenly between these three mini springform pans that I had, since the dough is not firm enough to hold it's shape on its own.  However, these pans were a little too big and the bread ended up baking very thin.  I probably could have made just two, but that's a lesson learned.  We carefully split them in half for the burgers (with one getting ruined in the process - the innocent casualty was gobbled up while it was still warm).  Yum.  These rolls are really good and they have a pretzel like taste.  Anytime you bake with over 75% potato starch, the result is a very gummy consistency when it's warm.  But I kinda liked how chewy they were.  They cooled slightly while the burgers cooked, so I toasted them lightly before eating the burgers.

And the last part of our fantastic Friday meal was Stefan's sweet potato spears.  I didn't watch every step of the way, but he cut the potatoes into spears (as you'll see in the picture below) and seasoned them with salt, pepper and olive oil.  First he roasted them in a roasting pan for a while at about 375-400°.  For the last 10 minutes or so, he put them onto a cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet, and placed them back in the oven so the hot air could wrap around them and crisp them up.  He also added some chopped fresh herbs from the garden - a combination of oregano, marjoram and parsley.

And that was our Friday night meal... Since we had the day off, we started early with some happy hour cocktails and continued with some red wine sangria through dinner.  I can't think of anything better on a beautiful summer night.  Enjoy!

Sunday Morning Muffins

Before I had to eat gluten free, it used to be so easy to grab something quick and easy for breakfast - like a muffin or a bagel... I was always a Dunkin Donuts coffee fiend, and once in awhile I would grab a large, warm, freshly baked muffin for breakfast on my way to work.  The biggest problem with these muffins was that even the "low-fat" varieties had an obscene amount of fat and calories.  At the time, I knew these were not good for me.... but I had no idea how bad they really were for me.

Fast forward to now.... there's something so comforting about a fresh, warm muffin for breakfast.  But what I've found is that there's something way MORE comforting about mixing your own muffin batter and baking it yourself.  You can control what add to the batter and make it a little less of a guilty pleasure.

Leveraging some of the great gluten free baking and flour mixes out there, I played around with the idea of a muffin and what would be the best combination of flavors.  My Cherry Almond & Spice muffins have the warm flavors of cinnamon and nutmeg running through them with the sweet and tart flavors of dried cherries and a slight crunch of slivered almonds in there.  They are light and surprisingly moist for a gluten free muffin.

Here are the ingredients that I used (most of them... I may have left something out of the picture):

I thought it would be super cute to use this little mini loaf tray to make the muffins (I bought this tray for about a dollar at the Christmas Tree Shops, another of my guilty pleasures, hehe).

So here's the recipe and how to bake 'em:

Cherry Almond & Spice Muffins
1 cup Pamela's Pancake and Baking Mix (I'm guessing any gluten free flour blend will do, but this is the one that I keep in an airtight container in my fridge for my all purpose baking flour.)
1/4 cup almond meal
2 T flax seed meal
1 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp all spice
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup vanilla almond milk
1 6 oz. container of nonfat plain greek yogurt (I used Chobani, and all I had was the kind with honey added)
1/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 tsp vanilla extract (McCormick)
1 large egg and 1 large egg white
2 T honey or agave nectar (I used slightly less since there was honey in the yogurt)
1/2 cup dried cherries (I used Trader Joe's brand)
1/4 cup slivered almonds, toasted lightly in a dry pan on the stove.
optional:  sprinkle some granulated sugar or cinnamon sugar on top of the muffins before baking

First, preheat the oven to 350°.  Then add all of the dry ingredients to a large bowl - this includes the gf flour, almond meal, flax seed meal, baking powder and spices.  Whisk this together thoroughly until all of the ingredients are well incorporated.  In a separate bowl add all of the "wet" ingredients (almond milk, yogurt, brown sugar, vanilla extract, eggs and honey/agave).  Stir or whisk these ingredients together until they are well blended.  There is no need to use a mixer for this - as much as I love the snot out of my KitchenAid Artisan, stirring this by hand is just fine.  Add the blended wet ingredients to the dry mixture bowl and stir together by hand with a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula until everything is well combined.  Finally, stir in the dried cherries and the slivered almonds and the batter is complete.

This will be enough batter for a six (6) muffin pan or eight (8) mini loaves, as I've done.  Be sure to spray the muffin pan with some Pam non-stick spray... then pour the batter evenly into each of the muffin holders.  Throw the muffin pan into the oven and bake for 18-20 minutes, or until the muffins start to turn lightly brown around the edges.  Remove from the pan when they cool slightly and finish cooling on a rack.

Here are my beautiful babies, up close and personal:

I hope you enjoy these muffins as much as we do.  They are great just with a cup of coffee, but the challenge will be eating just one.  And now, just to show off a bit more.....  ;)

90 Minute Risotto

How do you take a dish that should take 20 minutes to prepare and stretch it out to 90 minutes?  Let me explain... My sister got me a CostCo membership for Christmas this past year, and I have been working that membership all through 2010 like it's going out of style.  Recently I found a 12-lb bag of Lundberg Farms Organic Brown Short Grain Rice at CostCo which really excited me... now for those of you who don't know, short grain rice is a thicker and starchy grain similar to arborio rice, but with all of the whole grain benefits of brown rice.  It's delicious, which is why that 12-lb bag found it's way into my cart, then into my car, then into this extremely oversized jar that now resides on our kitchen counter:

I love risotto.  The funny thing about risotto is that I never had it before I was diagnosed as Celiac.  Growing up in an Italian family, we never indulged in risotto or even polenta for that matter.  I guess this "newness" added to my excitement.  What I love most about risotto is that it's a one pot meal and you can add in anything you want.  One pot meals are the best thing in the world.  If I can scoop it into a bowl and eat it while I'm sitting on the couch watching TV, then I am a happy man.

Back to risotto.... Sunday, I decided was going to be a risotto night - but then the gears starting turning in my brain and I thought about all of that short grain brown rice that I had sitting on the counter.  A perfect substitution for arborio rice, I thought... and it would even be healthier.  Except, I neglected to acknowledge the fact that brown rice takes considerably longer to cook than any white rice and really only begins to soften when it is in a covered pot.  At this point, however, I still did not realize that my risotto prep time had increased from 20 to 90 minutes.  Rachel Ray would need 3 back to back episodes to complete this 30-minute meal... and about 60 of those minutes would be spent doing nothing but stirring the pot (which does not make for very good Food TV).  Here are the basics of the recipe:  

Roasted Chicken & Vegetable Short Grain Brown Rice Risotto
1 cup short grain brown rice
1 vidalia onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced or grated
2 T olive oil
1 T butter
1 T finely chopped fresh thyme leaves
1/2 cup of dry white wine (I used an Italian Pinot Grigio)
6-8 cups of chicken broth (more on that later - this needed much more liquid than I thought)
2 roasted boneless chicken breasts, diced (I had leftover chicken breasts that were oven roasted with lemon, olive oil, oregano and basil)
1 6 oz. bag of baby spinach
1 large yellow squash, diced
1-2 cups of cremini mushrooms, diced and sauteed in olive oil until brown (then set aside for risotto)
1/4 cup fresh chopped oregano and marjoram + some for garnish
1/2 cup grated parmigiano reggiano
salt and pepper to taste

All risotto starts the same way - first, simmer your chicken broth in a pot to the side... then melt the butter into the olive oil at the bottom of a large pot.  I like to use our small cast iron dutch oven for risotto because it keeps the heat even throughout.  Add the onion and garlic and season with salt and pepper.  Add the chopped thyme.  Stir together until the onion softens and the thyme and garlic are fragrant.  Then add the rice and stir until coated.  Toast the rice lightly for a couple of minutes.  Then add the white wine and begin stirring the risotto.  This is where the labor begins and this is where I realized that brown rice takes longer to cook than white.  Normally, arborio rice soaks up the wine like a sponge.  But after 5 minutes of stirring, it was just starting to soak in.  Then begin to ladle in 2-3 scoops of chicken broth at a time, stirring the rice mixture vigorously until all of the liquid is absorbed.  Stir.  Stir some more.  Then a little more.  Then switch hands and stir again.

After 45 minutes I realized that this was not going to take 20 minutes.  I also realized that the rice wasn't getting tender and I needed more broth.  I started with 1 quart and ended up using an entire second quart (a total of 8 cups).  What I also realized at this point was that the brown rice would soften better if covered.  So I started a rotation of adding broth, stirring for a minute or so, then covering for 6-8 minutes, then stirring again, then repeating until all of the broth was used.  About 10 minutes before the rice is done, add the yellow squash and stir through.  This needs the most cooking time to soften, out of all of the risotto add-ins.  With just a minute or so left, I gave the baby spinach a rough chop and stirred it through.  Once the spinach wilts down, add in the prepared diced chicken and mushrooms and stir just to warm through.  Once the rice is fully cooked and tender, and all of the add-ins are warmed through and delicious.... the risotto should be nice and creamy.  Then, the big finish - stir in the parmigiano reggiano and the chopped oregano/marjoram mixture.  It is so important to serve risotto when it's hot - so immediately scoop into bowls and garnish with some extra grated cheese and a sprinkle of herbs.

And THAT, my friends, is how it took me an hour and a half to get a simple risotto dish out on the table.  It was definitely worth the wait though - the brown rice added a great, hearty, almost nutty flavor.  The fresh herbs made it feel totally homemade, the zucchini still had some crunch and the pre-roasted chicken had great fresh flavors running through it.  All in all, a great sunday dinner - served just before 9pm.

The Gluten Free Oats Oxymoron?

From the first day that I was diagnosed as Celiac, it was drilled into my brain that I have to avoid all foods that contain wheat, barley, rye and oats. All of my research pointed in the same direction until I started to read mixed reports about oats. Pure, certified gluten free oats could be tolerated by most Celiacs? Could this be true? About a year or so ago I picked up a bag of Bob's Red Mill Certified GF Oats at the store and I was determined to put this to the test. I'd glance at the bag in the pantry some days and wonder when that day would come for me to try it out. So finally I decided to cook up a batch of oatmeal overnight in the crock pot... much to my dismay, the next morning all I found was a soupy, watery mess. I must have gotten the ratios wrong, but for me, this was enough of an omen to say "forget it", at least for now. Eventually that open bag of oats became stale and was trashed.

Bravely, a few months ago, I found these same oats steeply discounted at Target. Another omen, I thought? More time had passed.... more internal healing had occurred.... maybe it was time to try it again? The bag sat for many months until I decided to give the overnight, crock pot oatmeal another try a few weeks ago. That morning, I anxiously ran downstairs to see the result.... a huge pot of creamy, warm, delicious oatmeal! I measured out a cup to try and gobbled it up quickly. All day I was waiting for some sign that this was a terrible idea to eat oats.... and that sign never came. I was fine! I can eat oats!

After all of this, I finally decided to try out an oatmeal cookie recipe that I had been longing for over the past few years. Nothing beats a homemade cookie, and oatmeal raisin cookies always give you that warm, homey feeling. Dessert hasn't really been on the menu for the past couple of months, as I've been watching what I eat while I destroy my body with a pretty intense workout program. I decided to replace the butter in the recipe with peanut butter to make them healthier... and honestly, what could be better than the combination of oatmeal and peanut butter???? It's a win win situation! So here's the recipe:

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup of firmly packed brown sugar
1 large egg and 1 large egg white
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup gluten free flour blend (I used Pamela's Pancake & Baking Mix)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1 1/2 cups certified GF oats (I used Bob's Red Mill)
1/2 cup raisins (I used SunMaid)

Cream together the peanut butter and sugars until fluffy; add eggs one at a time and vanilla until combined. Whisk or sift all of the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then add to the wet ingredient mixture slowly. Mix until well combined. Finally, stir in the oats and the raisins until there are no dry oats lying at the bottom of the bowl. The mixture will be a little bit dry but just keep working it through. Form a large dough ball and chill the dough in the fridge for an hour or so.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and drop rounded tablespoons of the mixture onto a heavy baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. I fit about 9 on a large baking sheet. I pressed down on each of the cookie dough balls to help encourage them to melt down and spread out a bit while baking. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the edges start to brown slightly. Move them to a cooling rack or gobble them up immediately!

The final verdict???? These cookies were delicious and cake-like! It almost reminded me of those square Quaker oatmeal breakfast bars that I used to eat all those years ago. They were really delicious and I didn't feel the least bit guilty about eating 1 or 4 of them for breakfast (with coffee, as you see in the above picture)!! :)

Welcome!

I'm Joe, and since I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease in December 2007, my entire way of looking at food has changed.  Celiac Disease is an intolerance to gluten, which is found in wheat, barley and rye.  The only treatment is a lifelong adherence to a gluten free diet.  For someone, like me, who was brought up in an Italian household with lots of pasta, bread and pizza - this meant a whole new approach to dealing with food in the kitchen - with this new approach and reborn passion for creating food that I could safely eat, New Perspectives was born.

This blog has been a long time in the making - at the beginning, I wasn't very creative.  I started cooking very plain things that I knew were naturally gluten free.  I wanted to make myself feel better and let my body start to heal.  But I knew I would never be truly happy with dull eating.  So I started to branch out and get creative.  I found spices that I could trust using, and loved the way the scents and tastes could transform something plain and ordinary to amazing.  I started to experiment with gluten free baking... and honestly, I can only remember one true baking fail to date.... which is a pretty good track record.  This became my way of taking control of this disease and showing myself that I didn't need to be afraid of food.

Life for me has now become separated into two phases - pre-diagnosis and post-diagnosis... in the post-diagnosis world, the biggest change has been the attention that must be paid to every food item that I consume.  With this attention has come a new approach to everything I make in the kitchen.  Then Stefan came along at the end of 2008.  His love for food and cooking helped me to revisit my own passion for creating things that I could eat happily while continuing to get myself healthier than I've ever been.  So much of the happiness that we've found together has revolved around time spent in the kitchen.... sipping wine or a cocktail, brainstorming the next meal, or just whipping something up on the fly.

This blog is intended to show that gluten free eating can be care free, worry free, mainstream and easy to accomplish with just the basics that you find in your grocery store.  People who do not need to live a gluten free life will appreciate all of these recipes too.... and most won't know the difference.  So here is the beginning of our recipe collection - please enjoy and share our New Perspectives.

Joe & Stefan