Yay for you, Trader Joes.

Trader Joes has GF baking ish now. It all started with some pancake/ waffle mix (which I tried and it was very good! It can double as GF flour for cakes and cookies, too) and I noticed last week that they now have brownie mix.

I gave the brownies a shot- added some extra chocolate chips and walnuts, but it was still lacking in the taste department. Maybe it was because I used applesauce instead of oil, but there just wasn't a depth of flavor. They just weren't chocolately enough. I'm sure it could be remedied by adding more cocoa, and I think I will give that a try next time around.

They did have a really great, chewy texture. The edges got crispy and caramelized...the best part of a brownie in my opinion. And if you're like me, you will appreciate this brownie pan which can be found at Fredflare.com:

lobster

I have to cook a lobster dinner on Wednesday. It's something I've never done. Any tips or advice? I'm thinking of getting three pounds for three people and boiling.

Butternut Squash Soup

One quart of stock
Two smaller butternut squash - about 1 1/2 lbs. (cubed) [I recommend two smaller ones rather than one large one cuz their flavor is better when smaller]
One carrot (diced)
One celery stalk (diced)
One medium onion or leeks (diced)
2 Tbsp. Butter or olive oil
One bouquet garni (same as the potato-leek one)
1/2 c. cream or creme fraiche (optional)

1. Add the fat (butter or oil) to the soup pot. Add the diced veggies and sautee until they have softened (about 5 minutes).
2. Add the squash, stock and bouquet. Bring to a boil and let it roll for about 30 minutes or until the squash is soft enough to slide a fork in without resistance.
3. Again, you can either eat this as is or you can puree it. If pureed, return to the pot and add the cream if you desire. Serve as soon as possible.

Potato Leek Soup

A quart of stock
A pound of russet potatoes
A pound of leeks (one large or two smaller ones)
2 Tablespoons butter or olive oil
A bouquet garni [I use a coffee filter tied off with some twine]
Salt & Pepper
1/2 c. white wine (optional)
Cream or creme fraiche (optional)

For the bouquet:
2-4 Bay leaves
4 sprigs of thyme
some peppercorns

1. Melt the butter/add oil in the soup pot. Add cut up leeks - about 1" wide sliced in half so its not a bunch of leek tubes, rather inch-wide strips. Sautee the leeks until wilted - about 5 minutes. If you are using the wine, add it and bring to a boil until the alcohol is cooked off.
2. Add the stock and bouquet and cut-up potatoes and salt/pepper. Bring to a boil.
3. When the potatoes are cooked all the way through (about 20 minutes), drop the heat. Remove the bouquet.
4. Here is where you can either eat it here if you want a "rustic" soup experience, or, if you have access to a blender, pour in the potatoes and leeks and some broth and puree the whole mess (probably in stages and dont forget to hold down the lid!).
5. Return the puree to the pot and add the cream if you want it a rich soup. Otherwise you are good to go.

Whorehouse Arizona Treats

Saturday, I went to see the Kings of Leon play at the House of Blues in Chicago for a very special show benefiting pediatric cancer research. Knowing that 1) I would be indulging in copious amounts of vodka tonics 2) Would be spending the night at a hotel 3) Would be wanting some form of junk food around 1am, so I made these GF rice crispy treats.

Although they were extremely magical tasting, they did not bring me any magical powers to get the band to impulsively play Arizona or play me a game of bowling at 10 Pin...


5 cups of RICE CHEX -they are gf, Rice Krispies are not!!!
1 bag of marshmallows (read the label for any hidden gluten jerks)
1/2 stick of butter
2 t vanilla

In a large pot, slowly melt the butter, vanilla, and marshmallows- setting one cup aside for later.

When the mixture is smooth, add the rice Chex, coating all pieces.

Quickly add the last cup of marshmallows to the mix, folding several times, and transfer to a buttered baking dish to set for about 20 minutes.

Now go stand up to a giant, say that you're a fighter... too drunk to remember. Too drunk to... weee ne ne ne neeeee, weee ne ne ne neeeeee, weee ne ne ne ne.

Two In One GF Cookies

If you're like me, you like variety. You can't commit to making one type of cookie, and GF cookies are like $5+ a box. Bogus.

I have developed a plan of action; this recipe can be altered in a few different ways, so play around with it and see what you come up with. This particular installment is for GF Chocolate Chip and GF Spice cookies.




You'll need:

1 cup Pamela's Favorite Sandwich Bread Flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/2 c coconut
1/4 cup potato starch

1/2 stick of butter
1/4 cup of olive oil
1/2 cup of packed dark brown sugar
2 T vanilla extract
1 t baking soda
1 t xanthan gum
1 egg
pinch of salt
chocolate chips for garnish

For Spice cookies include:
1 t ginger
1/2 t all spice
1/2 t nutmeg
a few grounds of fresh black pepper (depends on how spicy you like your cookies!)
crystallized ginger for garnish

Pre-heat oven to 350.

Mix butter, coconut, egg, vanilla, sugar and oil together in a bowl until creamy. In another bowl, combine all of your dry ingredients and then slowly pour them into the wet mixture, beating until it looks like "regular" cookie batter. GF baking is really dependent on weather conditions, so if its really dry outside, you may find you need to add more flour (rice or Pamela's) until it looks correct.

With 2 large spoons, drop 2" round balls onto a non-stick cookie sheet. You should not fit anymore than 12 cookies. With your chocolate chips, press a few onto each cookie.

Pop in the oven for about 5-7 minutes or until just beginning to brown (still yields to touch).



With the left over batter, dump your spices in. The dough will look like this:















Space your cookies thusly (yeah, I took that term from Alton Brown, so what...) and sprinkle a little of your crystallized ginger on top:

















And here is your highly delicious final product; a chewy, soft, very spicy cookie that your gluten eating counterparts will gladly enjoy. They probably won't know the difference. I play that trick on my friends all the time...

Pork Dumplings

So this was actually my first true attempt at making my own dumplings. I have made them twice previously, but it was using store-bought skins, and I wasn't all that happy with the final results. So I decided to make them entirely from scratch this time. I actually made some shrimp siu mai also, but I'm going to wait to post that one until I refine the recipe a bit. I was extremely happy with the way these pork dumplings turned out though, so on to the recipe:

Wrapper:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup of water
dough for rolling surface

You could probably do this in a food processor (or a big mixer if you're a bad-ass and actually have one at home), but I went with the old Asian lady way and made the dough by hand. Add the water to the flour and just work it until it begins to pull away from the bowl. When it does, start adding about a teaspoon of water at a time, working it until it's a somewhat sticky ball. Flour the outside a bit and let it sit at room temperature for 15 minutes or so to rest. IT should look something like this (I like how it glows):


The pork filling (measurements aren't exact because the batch was very large and I didn't measure everything before adding -- it really does depend on how much of each thing you like anyway):

1 lb ground pork (I ended up with 1.41 lbs because that's what they had packaged)
1 cup minced white mushrooms (could use shitake also)
1/4-1/2 of a regular cabbage (napa is best, but my market was out)
1/2 cup chopped Anise Root (or celery)
1 minced jalapeno
1/2 to 1 full package silken tofu (more on this later)
2 bunches diced green onions, about 1 1/2 cups
1 tbs minced ginger
2 tbs dark soy sauce
2 tbs Hoisin sauce
3 tbs rice wine vinegar (to taste)

It'll look like this:
Mix everything together -- make sure to break up the silken tofu so there aren't any pieces left. The whole point of the tofu is to keep everything really moist, but it also seemed to help bind everything together when the dumplings were cooked, giving them a meaty but smooth texture that was really nice. I can't take credit for this innovation, some lady in NYC who beat Bobby Flay's ass on Throwdown used it in her dumplings, so I shamelessly stole it.

This will be enough filling for about 50 dumplings, probably more depending on how large you make them. On that note, get yourself something to drink, because you'll be here for a while...


Making these was much easier than I thought it would be. The first few attempts were a little thick-skinned, but I got the hang of it despite using a Tapatio bottle to roll them (wasn't bad actually, good for a small workspace). You'll want to portion out the dough in little 1.5" x 1.5" balls/squares Form them in your hand by pressing with with 3 fingers of your off-hand -- you want them to be little football or oval-shaped blobs, a little thicker in the middle than the edges. Flour your surface for each dumpling (seemed like the best way to keep them from absorbing too much of it) and roll them out to about 1/8" - 1/4" thick at the edges.

IMPORTANT: The center of the dumpling should be thicker than the sides when it's rolled to its final size. This is to ensure that there's fairly even dough distribution after the dumpling cooks and expands a bit. This is also a failsafe to ensure that the bottoms won't break on you while you're cooking them. The best way to do this was to roll the whole thing out to about 1/2 in. then concentrate on the sides, stretching the dough out to about 3" x 3", like this:
Assemblage:

Place a very large teaspoon of filling into the center of the wrapper
Fold the wrapper in half like a taco, pinching the dough together at the top -- make sure not to tear it
Crimp the dough from the middle out to the edge, and then seal the ends off

Here's what they should look like when they're all closed up and ready to go:


You can cook these dumplings several ways: put them in a regular steel steamer, do them in a bamboo steamer on a bed of greens (cabbage or chard works well), or boil them. But my favorite way is to make them potsticker style by combination frying/steaming them. So here's that method.

Heat some vegetable oil on medium-high in a thick skillet -- you want it to immediately sizzle when you put something into it (good test is to pinch off a bit of dough)
Place the dumplings in the skillet bottom-down, making sure to give each one space so they don't stick together
Cook for 3-4 minutes on this side, then turn over to another side (whichever lays the flattest), cook another 3-4 mintes on the other side


When both sides are fairly golden, hit the pan with 1/2 cup of water ALL AT ONCE and then immediately cover with a tight-fitting lid (watch the hell out, there will be spattering and hissing)
Let the water cook off, it took me about 8 minutes, but listen for the sizzle to change from water back to a more dry sizzle (NO PEEKING!)
Uncover and let the rest of the water cook off.. after it's gone cook for 1-2 minutes
The dumplings will crisp again as the water cooks off, but you might need to flip them once more to make sure they don't burn. They may stick (hence the name), but just try to jab them off with some tongs or a spatula without tearing the skins

And blammo, delicious dumplings:


Dipping sauces are as easy as you want to make them. You could do 2 parts rice wine vinegar to 1 part soy sauce and 1 part water with a little brown sugar to sweeten the deal -- that's probably the most classic sauce for these. Here's what I did since I like things spicier and more fish sauce-y:

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp brown sugar (dissolve in hot water)
pinch ginger powder
dash sesame oil
dash fish sauce
1 tsp chili-garlic paste
1 squeeze Sriracha
2 tbsp water

Adjust to taste -- some soy sauces are really strong and salty so you have to dilute them more to avoid sodium shock.


In all, this took me about 3 hours, including the time making the shrimp ones that will debut at a later date. I ended up with about 20 shrimp dumplings and 20 pork with this recipe, but I have a ton of leftover filling and plan to get up to about 100 total. If you plan to make 100 or so, I'd do 8 cups of flour for the dough, and about 1.5 lbs of pork, and then get to work, as there should be enough filling for that many.

I actually will be freezing the majority of these -- you just want to pre-freeze them on a plate with wax paper on it then put them into a freezer bag. You'll just need to cook them a little longer to ensure that the filling is cooked through, but the methods are the same and they'll taste great. It seems like a metric shit-ton of work, but it goes quick once you get the dough and filling prepped, and they're definitely worth the effort, especially since they have longevity.

How can you say no to this face?