Summer BBQ

Tonight we went to our friend's house for a summer BBQ.  We were asked to bring a meat to grill and a side dish.  We chose to make brats, because our children love them.  Whenever we are with our friends, our children do not always want to sit down long enough to eat their whole meal.  They would prefer to run around and play with their friends.  However, the brats were intriguing enough that they both ate.

The side dish I chose to bring is an Apple Cole Slaw.  I have made this recipe for a couple of years, and it is always a success.  It is simple, colorful, and delicious.  Here is my recipe.

Gluten Free Apple Cole Slaw

Ingredients:
4 cups shredded cabbage
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
kosher salt
pepper
2 apples, cored and thinly sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons sugar

In a large bowl, toss together the cabbage, vinegar, salt, and pepper.  Just before serving, add the apples and toss again.

Enjoy!
<3 Cassidy

Potato Salad Recipe

My husband is a professor at a local college in town, and he has a few students who work for him during the summer.  One of the things that people miss when being away from home is a home cooked meal.  So, we try to invite his students over once during the summer to thank them for all of their hard work.  The summer is quickly coming to a close, so we realized that we needed to invite them over soon.  So, we decided to have a cookout.  My husband grilled hamburgers, and I made salad and potato salad.  I have been making this particular potato salad since we were newlyweds.  My husband really likes this version, so he specifically requested it for the cookout.  Here is my recipe.

Potato Salad

2.5lbs red potatoes
3 eggs
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 small green pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt
pepper

Cut the potatoes into cubes, and place them in a large pot.  Cover the potatoes with water, and bring the water to a boil.  Once the water is boiling, turn on your timer for 15-20 minutes.  Cook the potatoes until they are tender.  Drain them in a colander, and pour them into a large bowl.  Set them aside to cool.

While you are boiling the potatoes, you will need to be hard-boiling the eggs.  Place the eggs in a small pot with a cover, and fill the pot wither water until the eggs are covered.  Cover the pot with it's cover and bring the water to a boil.  Once the water comes to a boil, turn off the heat, but leave the pot on the stove.  Leave the eggs in the pot, with the burner off, for 15 minutes.  Then remove the eggs from the water and let them cool until you can touch them.  Once they are cool to the touch, you can peel and chop them and add them to the potatoes.

Mix in the mayonnaise, onion, green onion, and pepper.  Season with salt and pepper and mix well.  Cover and refrigerate the potato salad for several hours or overnight.

The students really enjoyed the cookout.  The weather was beautiful, and the bugs even stayed away for most of the meal.  We ended our meal with yummy brownies.  We are looking forward to doing it again next year.  

<3 Cassidy

Gluten Free Mock Kisir Recipe

Tonight some of my friend's came over for a belated birthday celebration.  I decided to have a Middle Eastern theme, so we had baba ganoush, hummus, olives, and kebobs (beef, red peppers, pineapple, peppers, mushrooms and grape tomatoes).  We marinated the stew meat in Italian dressing for a couple of hours.  The Italian dressing tenderized the meat, so that it was less chewy and very delicious.

I wanted to make a Turkish dish called kisir.  Kisir is a traditional sidedish made with bulgur wheat, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, peppers, parsley, mint lots of lemon juice, and lots of olive oil.  A tomato paste is used to help give it the beautiful reddish color.  Unfortunately, I could not use bulgur, because it is not gluten free.  So, I chose to substitute quinoa.  Even though this is not really kisir, it has some of the same flavors.  It is a good substitution for someone who likes the same flavors that kisir provides, but it is gluten free.  Here is my recipe.

Gluten Free Mock Kisir 

2 cups of quinoa

2 cups of water or broth
3 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 cup olive oil
6 green onions- finely chopped
2 small onions- finely chopped
2 cucumbers- finely chopped
2 green peppers- finely chopped
juice of 2 lemons
1 tsp cumin
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
2 tablespoons chopped mint
1 teaspoon dried dill
salt to taste
2 tomatoes, finely chopped

Put the quinoa in a medium saucepan and cover it with water or broth.  (I used vegetable broth, because we had a vegetarian join us for the dinner party.  You can use chicken broth as well.)  Add the tomato paste and mix together well.  Bring the quinoa mixture to a simmer, and then cook until it is soft.  It should take about about 15-20 minutes.

In a large bowl, mix the onions, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, parsley, mint, and dill.  Add the lemon juice, olive oil, and a few pinches of salt.  Mix well and let the veggie mixture sit for a few minutes for the salt to dissolve and the flavors to blend.  Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.  Pour the cooked quinoa into the veggie mixture, mix well, and serve.

My friend at See Mommy Do It made a wonderful dessert to end our evening.  She used her amazing almond cake as layers topped with whip cream and strawberries.  It was absolutely delicious.  Thank you Krista for ending our evening so sweetly!

This quinoa was an excellent substitution to this dish.  The mock kisir still had a lemony taste, but all of the fresh vegetables kept it light delicious.  It balanced our kebobs nicely.  You could also eat this as a main dish.    It is great to take with you as a lunch to work or school.  Enjoy!

~Cassidy

Gluten Free Garlic Bread Recipe

I have a group of friends who get together, with spouses and children, once a month for a pot luck dinner.  We rotate homes, so that no one family hosts the dinners all of the time.  It is a wonderful tradition that we started this summer, and it gives us a chance to have some adult conversation while the children play.

This weekend we celebrated the holiday season at our monthly pot luck dinner.  Our contribution for the pot luck was Mozzerella Stuffed Meatballs and Almond Flour Garlic Bread.  My husband made the meatballs, and they were excellent!  I will talk about them in another post.  This post is all about the yummy garlic bread.  First, I needed to make 2 loaves of almond flour bread.  I based my recipe on a bread recipe from Elana's Pantry.  I decided to substitute with tapioca flour.  Gluten Free bread can be very heavy, but this combination made a lighter bread that was very successful when used in a Gluten Free stuffing and as a garlic bread.  

Almond Flour Bread

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of almond flour
3/4 cup tapioca flour
1/4 cup flaxseed meal
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
4 eggs
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the 4 eggs until they are frothy.  I used the wire whip accessory with my mixer.  This takes about 5-7 minutes.  You can place the bowl and wire whip in the freezer for a few minutes before using to decrease the amount of time it takes to whisk the eggs to make them frothy.

In a medium bowl, combine almond flour, tapioca flour, flaxseed meal, salt, and baking soda.

Stir the honey and apple cider vinegar into the frothy eggs, and then add the dry ingredients into the same bowl.  Combine all of the ingredients together, but do not over blend.  You want the batter to stay light, and it will lose the fluffiness if you over stir.

Spoon the batter into a greased loaf pan.  Cook for ~20-25 minutes or until the toothpick (or metal knitting needle in my case) comes out clean.

Let the bread cool before serving.

I cooked the bread for only 20 minutes, and even though the needle came out clean, there was a little spot in the middle that did not get completely cooked through.  Next time I will have to stick the needle in a couple places on the bread to make sure it is thoroughly cooked, and I will cook it a few minutes longer.  I ended up slicing the loaf in 1 inch slices and baking it in the 350 degree oven for 5 minutes to make sure that everything was cooked thoroughly.

Then it was time to make the garlic bread.

Garlic Bread

2 loaves of almond flour bread, sliced
1/2 cup spreadable butter
~2 (rounded) tbsps of minced garlic

I mixed together the butter and garlic together in a small bowl.  You can adjust the amount of garlic based on your preference for garlic.  This is probably a pretty heavy amount of garlic, because in my family, we love the taste of garlic.  My husband always tells me that he can eat a lot of garlic, as long as I do too, so we cancel each other out. I buttered one side of each slice of bread with the butter/garlic mixture and placed it on a cookie sheet.  A few minutes before we sat down to dinner, I placed the garlic bread in the broiler for about 2 minutes or until the tops are lightly browned.  Serve immediately.

The garlic bread turned out very good, but a few of the pieces were a little overcooked.  I think the extra toasting I had to do to guarantee that the bread was done might have overcooked the crust on some of the pieces.  Otherwise, it was fantastic.  The host even kept some of the garlic bread to eat for breakfast the next morning.

Stay tuned for my husband's Mozzerella Stuffed Meatballs.  I hope you enjoy!

Cassidy