The stuffing of your dreams (sausage stuffing)

I know, Thanksgiving is over and no one wants to look at another scoop of stuffing or turkey slice or plop of cranberry sauce until next year. Everyone except me! I love Thanksgiving. We had a great time. My mom and sisters and a friend all came over and I cooked a giant turkey, way bigger than we needed for the six of us. 

This post is a little delayed because my computer crashed and I bought a new one online on Thursday (did you know a lot of electronics stores start their black Friday online sales on Thursday?) and it arrived yesterday, but I had to set it up and play with it and catch up to all the internet things I'd missed in a week. New computers are so fast and shiny! I love it. It's a Toshiba of some sort.

Back to this stuffing recipe. I found it on Epicurious, and it claims to be the stuffing of your dreams. Obviously I had to test that, and they're right. It's a dreamy stuffing. Butter, cream, sausage, garlic, parmesan cheese, etc. These photos are from when I remade it, to eat with the rest of the turkey we have. It's not too involved to make, cook some sausage and some veggies and mix up some liquid and stir it all together and bake it. Oh and drizzle it with some cream if you want right before you bake it. Seriously.

Sausage and bread stuffing
From Epicurious


1 loaf gf bread*
1 T olive oil
2 lb sausage, casings removed (I use sweet Italian like the recipe called for, but I can imagine it would be delish with half spicy and half sweet)
1 stick of butter
3 onions, chopped
4 ribs of celery, chopped
a head of garlic, minced or pressed
2 t paprika
4 lightly beaten eggs
3/4 c heavy cream, divided (you can use half and half and it will still be ok)
1/2 c really good stock
1 c parm cheese
salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 350. Chop up your gf bread into cubes, then spread onto a cookie sheet and toast until crispy. Turn the heat up to 425 if you plan to bake the stuffing now. Heat up the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat, then break up half of the sausage into the pan and cook until well browned and delicious. Remove to a bowl with a paper towel in the bottom to drain the fat. Cook the rest of the sausage as well. Wipe out the grease from the pan, then melt the butter. Cook the onions, garlic, paprika and celery together until softened. Combine the sausage, bread, and vegetables. Whisk together the eggs and 1/2 c of cream and cheese and stock. Stir in the liquid and spread into a glass baking dish (your largest). Drizzle the rest of the cream over the top and cover with foil. Bake for 20 minutes until heated through, then remove the foil and bake another 20, until crispy and lightly browned.

Makes about a million servings, and can be made a day or two ahead if you keep it in the fridge, just bring to room temp before baking.

*I use Food for Life brown rice bread. Their breads are pretty crappy for eating, but great for things like breadcrumbs and stuffing. Soft breads like Udi's tend to get all soggy if you don't crisp them up enough.

I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving, and here is a picture of my puppy.

Peaches

This is what I've been eating all summer long. Grilled peaches in booze syrup with ice cream. I make big batches with the intention of having enough for a while but then I eat most of them within a day or two. It's been a good summer for peaches, but because I'm allergic to raw ones I have to cook them, and grilling them is the best. I'd even eat them with a little bit of cream poured over them, but I don't have any.

Peaches!!

Grilled peaches with syrup

a bunch of peaches (you can make two, or thirty)
some sort of liquid (I've used whiskey, wine and juice, but you can use water or whatever you want)
some sort of sweetener (sugar, brown sugar, honey)

Preheat your grill to medium high heat. Rinse off your peaches and cut them all in half and remove the pit. You can sprinkle a little sugar on the cut sides of the peaches now if you want, but you don't have it. In a little saucepan, combine two parts liquid with one part sugar (as in 1 c wine and 1/2 c sugar) and cook for a few minutes, until all the sugar is dissolved and some of the alcohol is cooked out, depending on what liquid you used. You can do this in the microwave if you want if it's too hot outside to cook. Now that the grill is nice and hot, place the peaches cut side down over the heat and cook for two minutes or so, then flip. Cook the skin side another minute or two, then remove to a bowl. Let the peaches sit for a few minutes and let their juices run out, then dump in the syrup. Serve warm with ice cream! Or eat plain, or with whipped cream. Or with avocado gelato, like in the photo below.

 

Chocolate cake with raspberries and dark chocolate frosting

Hi! Sorry it's been a while. But to make it up to you, I made a cake! A chocolate one! With a secret layer of raspberry jam in the middle, from the raspberries I picked from the yard. Our new house has raspberry bushes like nobodies business. A giant giant one by the front of the house next to the driveway, and two smaller ones out back. I've been picking about a pint a day, yesterday I picked a pint and a half. I don't even know what to do with that many raspberries. I froze a bunch, and have been eating them out of the freezer as a surprisingly delicious snack.

I used a bunch of raspberries to make a jam which I spread in the middle of a chocolate cake, which I then frosted with easy dark chocolate frosting and promptly devoured. Chocolate cake is so good, you guys. I'm going to bring most of it to work so I don't have to eat it all. Because I will. Don't tempt me.

Chocolate cake with raspberries and dark chocolate frosting


Chocolate cake:
this is the same recipe I've used a few times before, here and here. It's easy, you use one bowl, and I always have these ingredients. 


1 3/4 c rice flour mix
1/2 t xanthan gum
3/4 c cocoa powder
3/4 t salt
1 1/4 t baking powder
2 t baking soda
2 c sugar
1 c milk, soured with 1 t lemon juice
1 c strong coffee (I use decaf because I'm sensitive to caffeine at night)
2 eggs
1/2 c oil
1 t vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 and lightly grease two 8" cake pans. Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl, and then dump in all the rest of the ingredients. Stir well, then pour into the cake pans. Bake about 30 minutes. I forget how long my cakes baked, it was something like 30 minutes. When the cake starts to pull away from the pan it is done. Cool on racks in the pan for a few minutes, then turn out and let cool the rest of the way.

Raspberry filling
1 pint raspberries (or whatever kind of berry you want, I guess)
1 T sugar
1 T juice or water (I used pomegranate)

Combine all those guys in a little saucepan. Cook on medium-low until all the berries have broken down into a mush and some of the juice has cooked out. This isn't an exact science, you're not really making jam as much as you're making mashed up cooked berry juice.
Or, you can skip this step and just use raspberry jam you buy at the store. If you do that, microwave it for a few seconds so it's soft so you can spread it without tearing the cake.

When the cake is totally cool, place one layer on your cake plate, or if they're all still packed because you moved a few weeks ago, a regular plate. Don't mess around here with waiting until the cake is mostly cool, I mean it. It's so sad when you work so hard to make a cake and then it slumps all over because the frosting melts and squishes out the sides. Spread the jammy sauce on top of the bottom layer. If you're worried about it spreading out the sides when you put the top layer on, pause here for a few minutes and stick it in the freezer to harden the jam. Then top with the second cake layer.

Dark chocolate frosting
This is adapted from Joy the Baker's recipe for peanut butter blondies with milk chocolate frosting, which I'm drying to make. The frosting is killer. It's an easy, quick frosting recipe and makes exactly enough to frost the sides and top of a cake, but not the middle, so it's a good thing we've got that jam. 


6 T unsalted butter, room temp
3 T cocoa powder
1/4 t salt
1 1/2 c powdered sugar
3 T milk (I used chocolate! I'm crazy!)
3/4 c dark chocolate chips, melted (this might be spectacular with white chocolate....)
1 t vanilla

Beat the butter and cocoa powder and salt together until creamy. Add in 1/2 c powdered sugar and 1 T milk, then beat again. Next, beat in the rest of the powdered sugar and milk. Then dump in the melted chocolate and the vanilla. Now, frost your cake! Then let it sit for a few minutes to firm up, and decorate with raspberries.

cucumber agua fresca

Because we are spending 99% of our time either at work, sleeping, eating, or doing home renovations, we are not cooking. Or, I am not cooking. Alex is enjoying the new grill we bought a few weeks ago, and I am enjoying spending a few minutes each day uploading one billion pictures onto Flickr of our new house. We've been eating burgers, hot dogs, and grilled chicken and salads, so no posts. Sorry. Summer!! This is the kind of thing I have been making. Throw some things in the blender, strain it, and drink with ice cubes.

Cucumber agua fresca
another fun thing to add would be some watermelon in here, but I was too lazy to cut some up. 


1 cucumber, cut into pieces
a few big sprigs of mint
3 T sugar
6 cups of cold water

Combine the cucumber, mint, sugar, and half the water in the blender. Blend until there aren't any big pieces left, then strain into a pitcher. Stir in the rest of the water. Maybe add some gin or vodka to your own glass, maybe not. Serve cold, with ice and mint sprigs.

Crinkle top oatmeal raisin cookies

I haven't made cookies in a million years, and decided to today. I flipped through my Google Reader starred things and found this recipe. Ok, easy! These are interesting because instead of just sticking the raisins in the finished cookie dough, you run them through the food processor and make a paste. Then you beat them in with the eggs, and have super raisiny cookies. Mine were flat and crunchy and chewy all at the same time, but delicious. I like them. Which is good, because this recipe makes like, a billion cookies. Or five dozen, which is a billion in cookie terms. These might be even more delicious if they had mini chocolate chips in them. 

Crinkle top oatmeal raisin cookies
Adapted from this recipe

2 c raisins
2 c rice flour mix
1 c shortening
2 c sugar
2 eggs
2 c rolled oats
1 t baking soda
1/2 t xanthan gum
1 t salt
3/4 t cinnamon
more sugar for rolling cookies in

Preheat oven to 350. Combine raisins and 1/4 c rice flour mix in your food processor, and pulse until a paste forms. If your raisins are kind of old like mine were, add a teaspoon of water of juice.

In the bowl of your mixer, beat the shortening and sugar until fluffy, then add eggs. Beat until well combined, then mix in the raisin paste. In a medium bowl, mix together the rest of the flour mix, oats, xanthan gum, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon. Stir the dry ingredients into the shortening/raisin mix just until combined. Using wet hands or a small cookie scoop, roll dough into balls smaller than a ping pong ball and roll in a small bowl of granulated sugar. Place a dozen to a cookie sheet, and bake 13-15 minutes, until just set and starting to brown around the edges. Repeat with all the dough, then bring cookies to everyone you know, because you will have so many cookies.

Sausages, onions, peppers, sauce, and Udi's hot dog buns

Hi. I got a package a few weeks ago from my friends at Udi's, with some hot dog buns and burger buns. Sweet! We ate the burger buns already, and I didn't take pictures, but here's what the hot dog buns look like, with sausages and peppers and onions and tomato sauce. Oh and provolone cheese. The burger buns were good, they held up to the big burgers I made and then devoured. The hot dog buns are good as well, although they do get a little soggy if you don't scarf down your saucy sausage immediately. No stopping to talk you guys, eat this fast. To be fair though, I did make regular sausages and peppers and onions without the tomato sauce, and the buns didn't fall apart. We don't have a grill yet, so we haven't had hot dogs, which I would imagine would be great in these buns, as long as you don't top them with chili or anything.

Even though they were a little soft in the face of saucy goodness, I'd still buy the hell out of these all summer long (as soon as I find them in the store), because it would be great to go to BBQs with these and be able to eat a hot dog like a regular person, not off a plate like a 5 year old.  Disclaimer! I did get these buns for free, but I am not paid to say that I ate them and will eat them again. I just think they are delicious.

Now on to the delicious sausage mess on top!

Sausage and onions and peppers and tomato sauce


1 onion, cut in half and sliced
3 cloves of garlic, minced (or sliced)
1 pepper (whatever color you like) sliced into strips
a can of whole tomatoes
a big pinch of basil and oregano
salt and pepper
4 sausages of whatever kind you like (just make sure they're gluten free)

Heat a pot with a little bit of whatever kind of oil you use over medium heat, and toss in the onion and garlic. Lower the heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft and smell good. Toss in the pepper and cook for a few minutes, until that starts to soften too. Then add the can of tomatoes, pouring them through your fingers so you can squeeze the whole tomatoes into squishy lumps. Add in the herbs and salt and pepper, stir, then nestle in the sausages. Cover and cook until the sausages are cooked through, about 15 minutes. Serve on toasted hot dog buns. For extra credit, melt a slice of provolone cheese on each bun before adding the saucy sausages. The cheese will help protect the bun from falling apart too much.

Blueberry Icebox Pie

Remember last weeks strawberry pie? Me too. This is the little sister to that pie. It has less steps and no fresh fruit, but it will still be the pie of your dreams and will still completely ruin the white shirt you decided to wear when you made it. Also, you can eat it for breakfast and not feel too bad about yourself. It's pie, yes, but full of fruit!!

To make this pie, I used the same recipe I used for the strawberry pie, but with a few changes. I know I said that next time I would make a cookie crumb crust, but I didn't because I had another pie crust to use up. Those ones I buy at Whole Foods come in two packs, and I couldn't leave that poor crust to just sit in my freezer forever. It takes up a lot of room, plus we are moving soon. I'll make it with a cookie crust later, promise.

When I Googled 'blueberry icebox pie' I came up with a bunch of recipes that were the opposite of what I wanted. Most of them were for a gross looking cheesecake-y concoction with gelatin and blueberries and low fat cream cheese. I just wanted a blueberry pie I didn't have to bake! All the ones I found that didn't use cream cheese used cornstarch instead, which a) I am out of and b) I wasn't convinced I'd get a firm enough pie. I wanted to be able to cut a slice, and then not have to scoop out all the filling that oozed off the pie server. This is firm, but not 'ew I'm eating gelatin pie' firm. The texture isn't weird, I promise. It's delicious. 

Blueberry Icebox Pie


3 lbs frozen blueberries (although I guess if you were made of money, and it was the right season, you could use fresh ones)
1/2 c sugar
pinch of salt
2 T lemon juice
2 T water
1 T gelatin
a prebaked pie crust

Cook the blueberries until they're reduced to three cups, over medium heat, stirring a few times. This will take about half an hour or 45 minutes, I lost count. Once that's done, add sugar and salt to the blueberries in the pan. In a small bowl, combine the lemon juice and water, then stir in the gelatin until it starts to thicken a bit. Stir that into the blueberries, and bring to a simmer and cook for a minute or so. Pour the blueberry mess into your waiting pie crust, and stick the pie in the fridge for a few hours. This is a good pie to make right at bedtime because then you wake up and it's firmed up enough and you can eat it for breakfast.

You could even stir it into your breakfast yogurt like Alex did.

Fresh chickpeas

Another delicious vegetable I like to eat is fresh chickpeas. Are? The grammar in that sentence is all wrong. Anyway, these are delicious. I cook them like edamame and they taste kind of similar, very fresh and green and a little salty if you salt them. Inside their little shells, they look like little brains. Gross, but so delicious.

Fresh chickpeas


1 lb fresh chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
a steamer basket
water for steaming
salt

Heat a pot with an inch of water to boiling, and place the steamer basket in it. Dump in all the chickpeas, cover, and let cook for 2-3 minutes. Remove from the basket, toss with salt, and eat. To eat - open up the little pods and eat the guts. Yum!

RAMPS!

Do you guys know about ramps? They're related to leek and garlic, and grow wild around New England. Probably some other places too, but I don't live in any other places. These ones grow along the path in the woods where my mom walks her dog, so we brought a trowel and dug up a bunch. They're hard to get out of the ground! But they're so delicious.

They're easy to prepare. You can cut them up and cook them in a pan like I did, or you can grill them whole (once you remove the roots), or probably bake them if you feel so inclined.

Ramps

Wash the ramps well. They will probably be dirty. Trim off the roots, then slice in the middle and separate into piles, with a bulb pile and a leafy greens pile. Heat a little olive oil in a saute pan, then toss in the white ends. Cook for about ten minutes on medium heat, tossing a few times. Once the ends are starting to soften and brown, add the leaves and cover. Turn the heat down to low, and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring once, until the greens are softened. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Serve over pasta, or with eggs, or just eat like this.

strawberry pie

This is the best pie I've ever made, probably. It has three pounds of strawberries. Three pounds!!

Also, I don't know if I've ever had a strawberry pie before, except strawberry rhubarb pie. I ripped this recipe out of a magazine a while ago and have been putting off making it, thinking this was going to be a big production. After I finished making it, I was all like "that's it?" Really, all you do to make this pie is make a thick jam, add in some sugar and gelatin, stir in some fresh strawberries, and pour into a pre-baked pie crust. 

But you know what? Next time I might not use a pie crust and might do a crushed cookie crust instead. 

Strawberry pie

From Cook's Country

1 lb frozen strawberries

2 lb fresh strawberries, divided

2 T water

2 T lemon juice

1 T unflavored gelatin (a little more than a packet of Knox)

1 c sugar

a pinch of salt

1 pie crust, baked and cooled (I used store bought, but here are some recipes to make your own)

Combine the frozen strawberries and half of the fresh strawberries in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until all the strawberries have broken down and turn into a thick jam. This will take about half an hour, which is a good time to slice the remaining strawberries very thin, or chop them up, depending on if you want strawberry slices or little chunks. Measure out the strawberry goo, you should have two cups. If you have more and are sick of waiting, scoop out some until you have exactly two cups. Set that extra aside to either eat with a spoon or stir into some whipped cream to put on top of the pie. 

Pour the strawberry goo back into the pan and add the sugar and a pinch of salt. In a small bowl, stir together the water, lemon juice, and gelatin until the gelatin is dissolved and starting to thicken, then stir that into the strawberry mess. Heat over medium heat just to a simmer, then remove from heat and cool to room temperature-ish. I didn't wait all that long. Once the mixture is cooled, stir in the sliced strawberries and pour the whole red mess into your pie crust. Cool until you can't stand it anymore, at least three hours, to let it set completely. 

Don't wear a white shirt while making or eating this pie. 

the best roast chicken (again)

There are a lot of ways to roast a chicken, and this is my favorite. It's easy, fast, and every single time I've made it it has come out perfect. I posted about it before, a few years ago, and it's still my go-to chicken recipe.

The best roast chicken
From Thomas Keller on epicurious. 


1 chicken, 3-4 lbs (pick a good one, no added hormones or any of that junk)
salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 450. Yes, 450, very hot. Dry off your chicken as much as you can, then sprinkle inside and out with salt and pepper. Truss your chicken, or tie it up tight (check out this link to learn how). Place the chicken in a cast iron pan or other dark, oven proof pan, and cook for about an hour. I cooked mine about an hour and 5 minutes. You'll know it's done when the juices run clear and if you twist a drumstick it feels loose. Let it sit for 15 minutes, then cut up and serve. Thomas Keller recommends slathering the chicken with butter and dipping it in good mustard after it's cooked, but I think it's fine as is.

Hot cross buns

Hey! Life is super duper crazy, more so than usual. Oof! Anyway, real fast, my sister is here visiting for a second and I wanted to make something delicious, then I remembered about hot cross buns! Oh yeah, they're delicious. I haven't had them in ten years or something, and these are what I wanted. Happy Easter!

Hot cross buns


Ok so I'm not going to post the recipe, really, because it's just this recipe, but without the apricots and plus:
3/4 c raisins
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t cardamom
1/4 t cloves
1/4 t nutmeg
zest of 1 orange

Add the spices and zest with the other dry ingredients, then after beating the dough stir in the raisins. I scooped the dough into muffin tins instead of trying to shape each glob nicely. Makes a little under 2 dozen.

For the crosses
1 T milk
1/2 c powdered sugar

Stir together, and spread over the top with spoons onto the cooled rolls.

Manicotti, or lasagna rolls with vegetables

A while ago I saw a recipe for baked manicotti in Cooks Illustrated. The idea was that instead of trying to stuff slippery manicotti noodles, you soak some lasagna noodles and roll them up with filling. That way you don't have to struggle with messy filling of slippery noodles, but still have pretty much the same thing. I thought I'd try it, after getting a comment on my Facebook page asking for a manicotti recipe.

It worked out well, except I forgot that gluten free lasagna noodles are so skinny. Ideally I would have rolled these into long tubes, but the noodles are so skinny that would have been more trouble than it was worth. Instead I rolled these up into fat little rolls, so they're more like rolled up lasagna and less like manicotti. It's got the same flavors, and idea as manicotti, so this is the best I can do without making my own noodles (a project for another time) or buying gluten free manicotti noodles (do those even exist?).

See? Lasagna roll ups. Oh and the best part! I snuck in a bunch of vegetables. Not that I have picky kids or anything, but I haven't been eating enough vegetables (does anyone?) so I added frozen spinach to the cheese filling and shredded carrots to the tomato sauce. Sneaky!

Manicotti, or lasagna rolls
This makes about a dozen rolls, I only baked the six pictured above and froze the rest. When it's time to eat those ones, I will probably stick them straight from the freezer into the oven and bake about an hour or so. 


1 box gluten free lasagna noodles (I used these)
1 28oz can of tomato puree
3/4 t salt
1 t chili flakes
1 t sugar
6 cloves garlic, minced and divided
2 T chopped basil divided
2 T tomato paste
1 16oz container of ricotta cheese (Maplebrook is my FAVORITE)
1/4 c grated Parm cheese, plus more for topping
1 bag frozen spinach, thawed and drained well
2 eggs
1/2 t paprika
1/2 t dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste
6 carrots, peeled and grated

Set a kettle of water to boil and lay the lasagna noodles in a baking dish. When the water comes to a boil, pour it over the noodles, poking them once in a while with a knife to keep them from sticking. Preheat the oven to 350. Combine the tomatoes, salt, chili flakes, sugar, half of the garlic, half of the basil, and tomato paste in a pan and bring to a simmer. Cook until everything else is done. Combine the rest of the garlic and basil, ricotta cheese, parm, spinach, eggs, paprika, and oregano. Add salt and pepper to taste. Check to see if the noodles are softened yet. This might take 15-20 minutes, but be patient. When the noodles are soft enough to roll without breaking them, drain them and rinse them with cold water. Dry them off as best you can with paper towels. Add the carrots to the tomato sauce, then spread enough of the sauce on the bottom of a baking dish to cover it.

Now it's time to roll the noodles! One noodle at a time, spread the filling on 3/4 of each noodle, leaving one end without filling. Roll them up, starting with the side with the filling, and place each noodle roll end side down in the tomato sauce. Repeat with all the noodles. Don't go too crazy with the filling, you just need a thin layer on each noodle, you don't want it to ooze out the sides as you're rolling. Once you've rolled all the noodles, spread tomato sauce all over the top, then sprinkle with cheese. Cover and bake 30 minutes.
Serve with garlic bread and salad, if you have it.

Peanut butter banana bread

We're hoping to be moving soon, so I'm trying to clean out the freezer. Turns out there were bananas in there! I found five. That was exactly as much as I needed to make banana bread! Perfect.

This is a gluten free, edited version of Joy the Baker's pb banana bread. Alex is newly in love with peanut butter (after years of claiming he hates it), so I wanted to see if he could handle peanut butter and bananas together. Then I added in some chocolate chips. Then I sprinkled some pearl sugar on top because I just bought some.

Peanut butter banana bread with chocolate chips
Adapted from Joy the Baker

1 1/2 c mashed bananas
1/3 c buttermilk
1/3 c peanut butter
3 T melted butter (I used oil)
2 eggs
1/2 c white sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
1 1/2 c rice flour mix
1 t baking soda
1/2 t xanthan gum
1/2 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 c chocolate chips
1 T pearl sugar

Preheat oven to 350, and grease a loaf pan. Stir together the bananas, buttermilk, peanut butter, butter, and eggs. In another bowl, whisk together the sugars, flour mix, baking soda, xanthan gum, salt and cinnamon. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, then fold in the chocolate chips and scrape into the loaf pan. Sprinkle with pearl sugar, and bake an hour. Cool in the pan. Wait until the loaf is cool to slice it!

Bread maker bread

Hi! My mom gave me a bread maker a while ago and I hadn't gotten around to using it until today. Oops, I wish I'd used it earlier! I was a little nervous because 1. I'd never used a bread maker before and 2. gluten free bread is a special case. I used my easiest bread recipe, this one, and it worked out great. The loaf was fairly moist, I might cut down the liquid by a tablespoon or so next time, but not overly so. We spread it with butter and ate it with our spaghetti and meat sauce. The outside of the bread had the perfect, delicious crispy crust that I remember from when my mom used to make bread maker bread, YUM.

Bread maker bread

3/4 c warm water

2 egg whites

1 T olive oil

1/2 c rice flour
1/2 c sorghum flour
1/2 c tapioca starch
1 T teff
1/2 t salt
1/2 t xanthan gum

1/2 t sugar

2 t yeast

Pour the water, egg whites, and olive oil into the bread maker. Mix together dry ingredients except yeast, and dump them into the bread maker. Add the yeast. Turn on the bread maker, and you're done! I set mine to medium crispy, I might set it to dark crispy next time.

Chicken with olives and things and feta

When we were on Croatia that one time, I didn't like olives. What a bummer! There were olives everywhere and I bet they were so delicious. Now I just eat them off the olive bar. Oh well.
Anyway, this is one of the easiest dinners you can make. Chop up some things, put some chicken on top, and 45 minutes late you have dinner. Yum! Serve with some garlic bread or over pasta or rice or just eat it like this, out of a bowl, like we do because I keep forgetting to make something to go with it.

Chicken with olives and things and feta


2 bone-in chicken breasts
a cup or so of olive bar things, like pitted olives, roasted tomatoes, artichoke hearts, etc
an onion, roughly chopped
a head of garlic, peeled and one clove minced/mashed
a crown of broccoli*
some dried herbs (I used basil, oregano, chili flakes, and rosemary)
some olive oil
a chunk of good feta
*optional other vegetables cut into bite size pieces - carrots, potato, green beans, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, etc


Preheat the oven to 425. Chop up your olive bar stuff, and toss together those things with onions, garlic (except the one mashed clove), broccoli and whatever vegetables you have around. Mash together the herbs you're using (eyeball it, I used about 1/2 t of each) with the remaining garlic and a little olive oil, about a tablespoon. Smear this all over the chicken, set on top of the veggies, and bake 35-45 minutes. It's done when you poke the chicken with a fork and the juices run clear. When the chicken is done, crumble the feta over the top and serve.

Molasses crinkles

I had some different cookies in mind when I made these, but then ate these instead because they were delicious. I was looking for some sort of soft, chewy, flatter gingery molassesey cookies, but these will do. I'll find that recipe someday, but in the meantime, enjoy this one! I made these cookies fairly large, but you can make them smaller, just adjust the baking time accordingly.

Molasses crinkles
From bettycrocker.com

3/4 c shortening, room temp (I used Earth Balance)
1 c packed brown sugar
1/4 c molasses
1 egg
2 1/4 c flour mix
1/2 t xanthan gum
2 t baking soda
1 1/2 t cinnamon
1 1/2 t ginger
1/2 t ground cloves
1/4 t salt
granulated sugar

Beat shortening, brown sugar, molasses and egg until smooth. Stir together the dry ingredients except the granulated sugar, then stir into the shortening mixture. Cover and refrigerate 2 hours. Preheat the oven to 375. Roll balls of dough about the size of a golf ball in sugar, then place a few inches apart on a cookie sheet. Bake about 14 minutes, until cracked and starting to brown.
I baked six at a time, and made about a dozen and a half. 

What to do with leftover boiled dinner (corned beef hash)

Hi! I made this a bunch of days ago, but then I went away with my sister for the weekend and then worked and some other things happened. Now I have a day off and despite how nice and sunny it looks outside, it's still winter. It snowed yesterday. Hmph.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite breakfasts, and there is nothing more sad than eating all your corned beef at night and then waking up in the morning and realizing it's gone and you can't make hash. Boo. It's easy and fast and good and you can even add in some spinach to make it healthier. If you want to do that, spread a few handfuls of spinach over the hash right before you add the eggs, then when it's wilted, stir it in and add the eggs. We did this for dinner last night.

Corned beef hash


a bunch of leftover corned beef
some leftover potatoes
maybe some cooked vegetables if you have any (I added carrots)
eggs
salt and pepper

Cube up your meat and potatoes and vegetables into little pieces. Heat up a pan with about a tablespoon of olive oil or butter, and toss in the cubed things. Press down with the back of a spatula, and cook without stirring about ten minutes over medium heat, until brown and crusty. Flip over the best you can, pat down again, and cook another few minutes. Crack an egg or two or three on the top and lower the heat, and cover. Cook until the whites are set and the yellow is still runny. Serve immediately.