Three cheese and sausage lasagna

I've been wanting homemade pasta lately. At home I have a pasta roller machine I got last Christmas when I was making a lot of pasta (actually, it might have been the Christmas before), but it's been sadly out of use lately. I am back in Massachusetts, visiting my mom (who broke her shoulder) for a while, and decided tonight was the night to make pasta. Mom had some spicy sausage from Wholefoods in her fridge, and ricotta, and we ran out to get some mozzarella and we were all set. I made the pasta (really, it only took 10 minutes from the time the first ingredient hit the bowl to the time when I dropped it in the water), and mom made the sauce. Oooooh man, was this delicious. I will be making this for Alex as soon as I get back to Philly. 

Homemade Pasta 

From Bette Hagman's The Gluten Free Gourmet, with modifications

1/3 c tapioca starch

2 T potato starch

1/3 c cornstarch

2 T rice flour

1/2 t salt

1 T xanthan gum

2 eggs

1 T olive oil

Combine the tapioca starch, potato starch, cornstarch, rice flour, salt, and xanthan gum, then make a well in the middle. Mix in the eggs and oil and stir until combined. Dust your hands with rice flour and knead the dough into a ball, dusting with more rice flour as necessary. Roll very thin (as thin as you can) and cut into rough rectangles about 3"x5". Bring a pot of water to boil, with 1 t of salt and a splash of olive oil. Cook noodles 8-10 minutes, then break off a corner and taste to see if they're done. 

Drain, then run under cool water to make cool enough to handle. 

Sausage and mushroom tomato sauce

1 lb hot sausage

1 T olive oil

1 container (8 oz or so) mushrooms, sliced

2-3 cloves garlic, minced (or more)

1 onion, diced

1/2 c red wine

2 cans (28 oz) tomatoes, diced or crushed

1 t sugar

2 bay leaves 

1 t oregano

Brown the sausage in the olive oil, then remove to a bowl. Cook mushrooms, garlic, and onion over medium heat, then add meat back to pan. Stir in red wine and let cook a minute, then add tomatoes, sugar, bay, and oregano. Let simmer for 20 minutes. 

Vegetarian? Omit sausage, and stir in a package of thawed, frozen spinach 5 minutes before the sauce is done. 

Lasagna 

1 batch lasagna noodles, above

sausage and mushroom tomato sauce

1 c ricotta cheese

1 1/2 c grated mozzarella cheese

1/2 c grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly oil the bottom of your lasagna pan, then lay down a bit of sauce. Lay on top a layer of noodles, then top with more sauce. Drop teaspoonfuls of ricotta around on top of the sauce, then sprinkle with mozzarella and parmesan cheeses. Repeat, starting with noodles, until all noodles are gone, then end with a layer of cheese. Bake 20-30 minutes, until bubbling and slightly browned. 

Roasted pumpkin seeds

I love fall, and Halloween, and pumpkin carving. The most fun thing about carving pumpkins is baking and then eating the seeds. Maybe that's not true. The whole process of carving pumpkins is fun. While I was in Milwaukee, Kelly, her friend Ben, and I carved pumpkins. Mine was wearing sunglasses, Kellys had eyes stuck together, and Bens was a math pumpkin, all squares and an equilateral triangle. 

Despite the looks on their faces, we had fun. I can't wait until Alex brings home some pumpkins so we can carve them, something he doesn't totally understand because they apparently don't make Jaco-o-lanterns in Slovakia. He had fin when we did it last year! Anyhow, here's a simple recipe for roasting the seeds. You can add spices or flavorings if you want. I like lots of salt and pepper. 

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

seeds from your carved pumpkin(s)

olive oil

salt

pepper

Rinse your pumpkin seeds, then toss in a Tablespoon or two of olive oil. Spread on a cookie sheet in a mostly single layer (I line the cookie sheet with foil so I don't have to wash it after) and sprinkle with lots of salt and pepper. Bake in a 350 oven for 20-30 minutes until seeds start to brown, stirring once or twice. 

Opera Cake

When I was in Milwaukee, Kelly and I planned to do so many things. We were going to bake, bake, bake beautiful things for her to photograph and me to blog about. We did bake a lot, but not nearly as much as we planned to. One big thing we did make was an opera cake. Almost. If you don't know what an opera cake is, it's an almond sponge cake (called a joconde, which is what the Mona Lisa is called in French), which is wet with a syrup, then layered with a buttercream, then on top of the last layer is a mousse, topped with a glaze or ganache. It is a production, but it one of the best cakes I've ever had once it was finished. The joconde uses a dozen eggs, so it's pretty serious. 

Photo by Kelly

Kelly and I started the cake, and when it was time to peel the paper off the cake, it was stuck. Forever. We had substituted wax paper instead of parchment paper, and had greased it, but the cake was stuck. The paper was coming off in shreds. So we scraped pieces off and ate them, but scrapped the project for that night. We tried again a few days later, and instead of the extravagant dozen eggs, we decided to make a simple sponge cake for a jellyroll. I actually thought it tasted a lot better than the other recipe. The recipe we used did make a smaller cake than you are supposed to make with an opera cake, which was fine for us. I bet the cake recipe could be doubled, though, if you want to make a bigger one. 

We decided to flavor our cake with lemon, which Kelly had a bag full of in the fridge, and white chocolate, which I really like. It was heavenly. During the course of this recipe, Kelly learned that egg whites are not something to be scared of. 

Almond Sponge Cake 

4 eggs, separated

3/4 c sugar

1 T vanilla

3/4 c almond flour

3/4 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a large jelly roll pan (or your biggest cookie sheet) with parchment paper, or if you don't have any, use aluminum foil. Lightly grease. Beat egg yolks until light, add sugar and vanilla, then the almond flour, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, beat the egg whites to fairly stiff peaks. Fold into the yolk/flour mixture, spread into your prepared pan, and bake 8-10 minutes, until lightly browned and spongey feeling. Let cool. Cut into quarters (you may notice we only cut ours into thirds and only had 3 layers of cake. We should have done quarters). 

Syrup

1/2 c water

1/3 c sugar

juice of 1 lemon

1 t vanilla

Mix everything together in a small pan, heat until sugar is dissolved, and remove from heat. 

Buttercream

This is very complicated and we didn't do ours right. Google buttercream and use your favorite. Add in some lemon juice at the end. 

Lemon White Chocolate Mousse

1 c plus 2 T heavy cream 

1/4 c white chocolate chips

juice and zest of 1 lemon

2 T sugar

Melt 2 T cream and white chocolate (I microwave), and stir in lemon juice and zest. Whip cream with sugar until stiff (we accidentally overmixed by a little, so it was very thick, but we thought it was perfect) and then fold in chocolate lemon cream. Keep in the fridge until it's time to use. 

White Chocolate Glaze

1/2 c white chocolate

2 T heavy cream

Don't do this until you are ready to use it!!!! Melt together the chocolate and cream. Stir until smooth. 

To Assemble:

Place one layer of cake on your cake plate. Spoon (or brush if you have that kind of thing) 1/4 of the syrup over, then spread with 1/3 of the buttercream. Repeat for the next two layers. After finishing the buttercream on top of the third layer, add the last layer of cake. Spread mousse over the top, then smooth as much as you can with a spatula or tool of your choice. Pour the warm chocolate glaze over the top, spreading with a knife or spatula so it's even and fairly smooth. Let the glaze harden in the fridge, then devour. 

Sticky sesame tofu and snow peas

I love making delicious food that you could get in a Chinese restaurant, especially since I can't just go into some corner Chinese place and order up some sesame tofu or General Tso chicken or egg rolls. Kelly is mostly a vegetarian so I wanted to make tofu, crispy in some sort of soy-sticky sauce. This was a hit, and is best when eaten right away when the tofu is still crispy. 

Sticky sesame tofu

2 blocks extra firm Mori-nu tofu

1/2 c cornstarch

oil for frying

1/4 c honey (or brown sugar if you're vegan)

1/4 c soy sauce (gf)

1/4 c rice vinegar

1 chopped up hot chili, or 1 t chili flakes

2 T sesame oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

3/4" piece of ginger, skinned and grated

sesame seeds

Open the boxes of tofu and cut them in half the long way, to make two thinner blocks of tofu. Press between paper towels, and balance a plate or book on top, whie you make the sauce. Combine honey, soy sauce, vinegar, chili, sesame oil, garlic and ginger in a small pan. Cook over medium heat until slightly thickened and sticky. Cut the tofu into cubes, dust with cornstarch, and fry in batches. Drain on paper towels. 

Snow peas

1 t sesame oil

2 c snow peas (or more)

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 T water

1 T soy sauce

1 T rice wine vinegar

Heat oil in a sauce pan. Cook the garlic until fragrant, add snow peas and water, and cover and cook for 2 minutes. Remove lid, add soy sauce and vinegar, and cook 2 more minutes. 

To assemble:

In a bowl or on a plate, place a mound of rice. Put tofu on top, pour sauce over, sprinkle with sesame seeds, and serve with snow peas!

LightFull Smoothies

One of the perks of having a food blog is that people send you things. I love mail, and I love free things. Before I left for my Chicago/Milwaukee vacation, I received a box of LightFull smoothies. The timing was perfect. I was spending 27 hours on a train and needed stuff to bring to eat. Smoothies that fill me up, in little tiny bottles? That are almost fat free, and are all gluten-free? Sweet. I brought a few of them on the train with me, and true to their word, they do get rid of those hunger pangs for a while. I didn't love the taste of a few of them, the fruit ones are better than the chocolate or coffee ones, but they definitely work in a pinch! Check them out if you need something portable and healthy for a snack on the go!

Peanut butter blossoms

Apparently I really only want to eat cookies on this trip. Which is ok, since there are three other people to help me eat them. And my BFF Kelly has a much better camera than I do, and is a better photographer than I am. 

Also, did you guys see the great article on Celiac disease in the New York Times yesterday? Probably not, since it was in the sports section. It's pretty good, focusing on the magic that is the gluten-free diet. Not enough people talk about how great being gluten-free is, and I feel like people think more about the horrors of not being able to eat everything they want anymore. When really, that's simple not true. For example, peanut butter blossoms!! I'm fairly sure you can make these vegan if you instead of egg use applesauce or something, and replace the Kisses with something else. 

Peanut butter blossom cookies

From the back of the Hershey's Kisses bag

Hershey kisses

1/2 c veg shortening

3/4 c peanut butter

1/3 c brown sugar (packed)

1/3 c white sugar

1 egg

2 T milk (I used soy)

1 t vanilla

1 1/2 c rice flour mix or rice flour (I'm out of mix, I just used 3/4 c brown rice and 3/4 c sweet rice flour)

1/2 t xanthan gum

1 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

granulated sugar for rolling cookies in

Preheat oven to 375. Cream shortening and peanut butter. Add sugars and mix until combined and a little fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla, stir until combined. Mix together flour, xanthan gum, baking soda, and salt. Stir into peanut butter mixture, form into balls and roll in sugar. Bake 8-10 minutes, and immediately press (unwrapped) Kisses into the centers of the cookies. Remove to a rack, let cool, and eat while still warm. If you don't eat all 40-something cookies at once, they're best if you microwave them for a few seconds before you're going to eat them, when the Kisses are all melty and yummy. 

Makes 40-something cookies. The recipe says 48, I made 42. 

Cornmeal pancakes with blackberry sauce

When I was in Chicago (this past weekend), I stayed with my friend Liz. We had a lot of fun, cooked some delicious food, some not so delicious food, and had a great visit. On my last morning, we made pancakes. We ate them with a quick blackberry sauce, and plain yogurt. Yum. 

Cornmeal Pancakes

Based on a recipe in the Joy of Cooking

1/2 c cornmeal 

1 T honey

a pinch of salt

1/2 c boiling water

1 t baking powder

1/4 c milk

1 T oil or melted butter

1 egg

1/2 c flour mix

1/4 t xanthan gum

scant 1/4 c brown sugar

Combine cornmeal, honey and salt in a bowl, stir in boiling water, cover and let sit for 10 minutes. In a separate bowl, combine milk, oil or butter, baking powder and egg. Once the cornmeal mix has rested, add the egg mixture. Stir in the flour mix, xanthan gum, and brown sugar, stir until combined, and let rest another 15 minutes. Cook in a hot pan until lightly

 browned on each side. Makes enough for 2 or 3 people. 

Blackberry sauce

1 small container blackberries

2 T orange juice (or liquid of your choice)

1 t honey

Stir everything together in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until thickened. If you want, you can press through a seive to get rid of the seeds. 

hello from america!

I am home! I've been back for about a week, which obviously means I have lost all motivation to write a big post detailing our trip. I'm sorry. Maybe later, but right now I'm kind of obsessed with doing important wedding research on the internet. And grilling. And people have been over almost every night since we've been home. But I'll do a quick recap. First we went to Budapest, then Slovakia, then back to Budapest, then Croatia, then back to Budapest, then back to Slovakia, then back to Budapest and then home! Everywhere we went people cooked for me, which I am really thankful for. I had wonderful, wonderful food everywhere, for the first half of the trip I only ate in a few restaurants, which were terrible.

However, there was one AWESOME restaurant in Budapest that had a whole gluten free menu, Etna II. Etna II is an Italian restaurant, with pizza and pastas and soups. Alex loved it, and so did I. We had pizza, as well as gnocchi, tiramisu, and soup (they keep wheat out of their soup until you order it, so you can get the beef vegetable pasta soup without the pasta). If you are ever in Budapest, absolutely go there!!

It is really good to be home, head over to my Flickr to check out more pictures with some info because I can't even think about anything I'm so tired from work.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

engaged
Originally uploaded by jill elise

I know I'm long overdue for a post, and a long one about what I've ben doing, eating, and seeing for the past month (almost) is in my head, and will be written when we get home (this weekend, Thursday is the day but I'm not making promises I won't keep) but I have big news! Alex proposed!!! And, obviously, I said YES!!!!
It was perfect, while not as dramatic as Lizzies sky-diving proposal (see her blog for details, and congratulations again!) it was perfect.
We were in Croatia, and we went off on a romantic bfgf trip to the beach that included a long stroll down unmarked roads that we hoped were right. The beach was not so much a beach as a rocky place to swim and play with sea urchins (which are everywhere, you have to wear shoes when you swim) but it was beautiful and totally empty, we had the whole cove to ourselves. We splashed around and played in the water and were crabbing, which is something I taught Alex about because it's something we used to do as kids. He ran to check what time it was because we had to be somewhere at 6, and when he came back he was holding his string for catching crabs and asked me to pull it in because he thought he'd caught something. I pulled it and attached to the string was a little red box, with a ring in it. He got down on his knees and proposed, then after a lot of kissing I said yes, and I didn't cry like I thought I would. I did jump up and down like a little girl a lot, though.
So, big news!! We're going to get married next year, probably in May. I can't wait. The ring is a symbolic one, while beautiful it is from a little souvenir shop in town and won't last forever, so I'll get a real ring when we get home.

back from vacation! blueberries, coffecake, corn fritters

I am back from vacation, and, fittingly with my mood on returning, it's raining. We had a fantastic time, Alex ate a ton of lobsters, and we bought as many blueberry products as we could. We visited my mom in Massachusetts and she smoked some pork butt and chicken that was awesome, we saw (and Alex met) my family in Connecticut, we drove to Portland and saw two friends from my summer camp that I hadn't seen in a long time. In Portland we played on the dog beach (I wished the whole trip that we had brought Puff), marveled over how big and nice their Wholefoods is, and then said our goodbyes and headed up the coast, towards Acadia. We stopped for delicious BBQ just south of Freeport at a place called Bucks Naked BBQ (they don't have a website but the link has a good review and great pictures), pulled in by the name. I love BBQ, and there aren't a lot of places that serve BBQ I can eat (you know, the whole gluten-free thing and the wide use of vinegars and other suspect things in BBQ sauces) so I was hoping, and correctly so, that "naked" meant without sauce. The meat at Bucks is smoked with a delicious spicy rub, and the BBQ sauce is served on the side. It was great. I had been hoping to go to Holy Smokes in Massachusetts but they burned down a little while before our trip. They had great gluten-free BBQ. We continued on and up to Camden Hills State Park, where we camped, it being too late to reach Acadia. Alex ate some lobster, we camped, then in the morning headed up to Acadia. We stopped right before the bridge to Mount Desert Island (where most of Acadia is) and Alex got some lobster, I ate leftover BBQ and some corn on the cob. We checked in, set up camp, and went to Bar Harbor to explore. We played on the rocks at Seawall, I taught Alex about ocean life (a recurring theme on this trip as I spent my childhood in tide pools and he is relatively new to the ocean) and had a good time. Alex ate lobster ice cream, we picked up supplies, and we cooked dinner at the campsite. In the morning we drove up Cadillac Mountain, ate a great breakfast of rice cakes and honey roasted peanut butter from Portland's Wholefoods, then started the long journey back towards home. We spent a few hours at the Big Chicken Barn, an antique and bookstore along Route 1 on the way back, picking up a set of silverware and a $6 copy of Larousse Gastronomique that both Alex and I had been wanting for a long time. We stopped for ice cream and a lobster roll for Alex and later, at Bucks BBQ again for me. We drove and drove and drove until we got to my dad's house in New York, where we slept, and then headed down to the NJ shore to see Alex's friends. We got there in time for a quick swim, walk on the beach, and then dinner, which, to my surprise and delight, was almost all gluten-free. The only thing I couldn't have was the green salad, because it had croutons. There was roast garlic pork loin, grilled chicken, mango salsa, rice and beans, black bean and corn salad, and a fantastic caprese salad with heirloom tomatoes. In the morning there was a blueberry coffeecake (made with some of the Maine blueberries we had brought as a gift) which looked fantastic. The recipe came from epicurious.com, so I looked it up, and made it for breakfast today.

Blueberry Coffeecake
Made with Maine blueberries, which are small and so delicious, totally unlike the regular large blueberries you can buy anywhere. They grow everywhere in Maine. Recipe from epicurious.com but adapted gluten-free.

For cake
1/4 cup oil
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup milk (I used 1/4 c half & half and 1/4 c soymilk because we had no milk)
1 1/2 cups sifted gf flour mix
1/2 t xantham gum
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

For topping
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon gf glour mix
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup ground almonds
1 tablespoon melted butter
3/4 cup fresh Maine blueberries

Combine oil, egg, and milk. Sift together dry ingredients and add them to the milk mixture. Mix well. In another bowl, combine all ingredients for topping.

Pour cake batter into a greased 9 x 9 x 2-inch pan (I used a 9" round springform pan, and had to increase the baking time by about 10 minutes). Spread blueberries evenly over batter. Top that with the cinnamon nut mixture. Bake in 375°F oven 25 to 30 minutes.

Corn Fritters

These are adapted from Elise's. They were great, however, I didn't have any onions or cilantro so I used carrots. Not quite the flavor adder, but they added soem color. The substitutions in this recipe and the one above are because I just got home from vacation, and haven't been to the grocery store yet. These were so good, and the sauce was deliciously sweet and spicy.

Dipping Sauce
3/4 cup rice vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons red chili pepper flakes
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 large clove garlic, minced

Fritters
1 cup gf flour mix
1/2 t xantham gum
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 cup water
2 cups of corn kernels, (see steps for cutting corn from a cob) cut from 3 large cobs (or frozen corn, defrost and drain first)
2 carrots, peeled and diced fine
canola oil for frying

Make the sauce by combining all the sauce ingredients in a small pot, cooking until sugar is dissolved, then bringing to a boil for 5-10 minutes until slightly syrupy.
Mix dry ingredients, mix wet ingredients, stir until smooth, then add corn and carrots.
Fry in small batches, a few minutes on each side, and serve with dipping sauce.

Edit: These can be made vegan if you leave out the egg and use beer instead of water, although I bet any liquid will do!

vacation!!

Tomorrow I go on vacation. It has been close to 100 degrees all week, and my best friend has been here visiting. I haven't been cooking much. It's too hot. I am going on vacation, to Massachusetts and then Maine and then the Jersey shore so, see you in a week or so!