Adopt-a-Gluten-Free-Blogger Healthy Resolution Edition: Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried

I've wanted to participate in one of the Adopt-a-Gluten-Free-Blogger events--conceived of and sponsored by Book of Yum--for quite a while. It's such a great idea--giving us bloggers an opportunity to interact with each other on a somewhat deeper level than the normal reading and commenting. When I saw this month's theme (Healthy Gluten-Free Recipes), I knew I needed to get baking so I actually could create something on the web instead of just spending (way) too much time surfing. It feels healthy to be writing instead of only reading.

One of the reasons that I chose Naomi of Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried is that her dietary constraints and subsequent recipes really demand that we confront the question "What is bread?" The more I cook and bake gluten-free food and talk to other people about eating gluten free, the more I've been thinking about this question. Is bread a set of ingredients or an experience? If your "whole-grain" bread is half cornstarch, does that make it equivalent to the wholesome whole wheat of our past breakfasts? What if there's no flour at all? Who would call that bread, and who wouldn't? These aren't meant to be rhetorical questions; they are questions that increasingly intrigue me.

It always comes back to Shakespeare! Juliet, of course, said "What's in a name. That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." But then remember Anne of Green Gables. She said "I don't believe a rose would be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage." At least where bread is concerned, I think I agree with Anne. Eating "bread" is somehow different than eating "rice cakes."

In the past, Naomi has posted more conventional gluten-free recipes that I've made, adapted, and riffed off of: her Teff Pita Breads were the basis for one of my first gluten-free Middle Eastern meals. Currently, Naomi's following a much more restrictive diet in the hopes of getting her digestion back on track (no pun intended). The Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) eliminates all grains, including gluten-free ones; processed foods; most dairy; all refined sugar; and other foods. I'm tempted to say, wow, that sounds terrible, but I won't. I know how adaptable we are to new diets and how restriction often sparks our culinary creativity. Come to think of it, that bit about restriction breeding creativity is true about a lot of life.

Another reason I won't say, wow, that's terrible, is the recipe I made for this Adopt-a-Blogger event. I chose Naomi's Hazelnut Pan Bread for a few reasons. First of all, it looks fabulous. Naomi takes beautiful pictures of her food. Second, with 1-2 eggs, enough butter to grease the pan, and no refined starches, it is definitely a "healthy" recipe. Third, since I don't have ready access to hazelnut butter in a jar, this recipe was a great excuse to use my new hand-turned grain/nut mill!
Fourth, she definitely has a good sense of food is what you call it. Here's a quote from her Hazelnut Pan Bread post:

"'Is that cake?' asked Fin incredulously as he was drawn in nose first, on a ribbon of hazelnut scent.

'Cake?' I chortled indulgently, 'of course it's not cake - who has cake for breakfast? It's hazelnut pan bread Fin, sit down and have a slice.'

And Fin sat down and ate two slices of not-cake..."

I made Naomi's recipe as written, except that I used one egg (I only had one on hand) and a very modest pat of butter in my small cast iron skillet (maybe 1-1.5 tsp.). The first time, I finished it under my broiler for 10 min and the top completely charred. So I scraped off the top and ate the rest--not pretty but definitely yummy. The second time, I finished it in a preheated 450-degree oven for 10 minutes. It still slightly charred around the edges. For a third try I might try 400 degree for 8-10 minutes, checking it every few minutes.

In any case, the Pan Bread was filling, moist, and rich. But in spite of that I didn't feel like I was being indulgent--it's a very healthy recipe and makes good use of a small amount of fat and natural sweetener. Seemed like bread to me.

Homemade Yogurt

I've been eating yogurt for years, but until I lived in Russia, my yogurt consumption was limited to Dannon and Yoplait. I hated dumping Dannon Fruit on the Bottom yogurt into a bowl and watching it hold its cup-like, gelatinous shape. Reminded me of cranberry sauce from the can (which, I admit, I love, but the can ridges are a bit scary).

In Russia and later in Ukraine, I discovered yogurt made from 1%, 2%, and even whole milk. Suddenly I could get any kind of yogurt I wanted and in all sorts of surprising flavors, like prune and pineapple. After growing up on the ubiquitous berry concoctions, I was hooked. Later I lived in Bulgaria, the home of yogurt, and discovered tarator (see below for recipe) as well as the joys of a good-quality plain yogurt.

Yogurt flavors and companies have multiplied since I was a kid eating from a conical Yoplait container. Dannon sells their Activa brand, which claims to help your digestion (though I'm not clear how it differs from any other yogurt with active cultures), in fun flavors, like fig. A recent perusal of my dairy aisle turned up whole, 1%, and several kinds of Greek-style yogurt. I'm not, however, terribly excited about the amount of sugar or, worse, artificial sweeteners used in them. And now that the Little Pottamus is eating yogurt, I need to be able to find organic whole milk yogurt for him. Shame on Dannon, Yoplait, and even Stonyfield's for putting so much sugar in their yogurts marketed at kids!

So why not make my own? Turns out it's super easy and far cheaper than buying yogurt from the store (even with the most expensive organic milk our coop has on offer homemade yogurt is half the cost of the commerical yogurt I would normally buy). And homemade yogurt tastes better than anything you can buy in a store--it's creamy and you can make it as rich as you like. Making yogurt doesn't take much time. I usually put the yogurt on as I'm cleaning up the kitchen or prepping dinner. Give it a try!

Homemade Yogurt
Some recipes call for added powdered milk to make it thicker. I've never had a problem with homemade yogurt not being thick enough, but you might experiment. I like my yogurt plain or with a little maple syrup or tahini and, of course, with plenty of add-ins!

Ingredients
1/2 gallon milk (2% is my favorite, but you could use any kind of cow/goat milk--see below for non-dairy tips)
1/2 cup plain yogurt with active cultures (a carton of Dannon or Stonyfield's will do)

Equipment
candy thermometer
2 quart-sized glass jars with lids
1 8-oz. glass jar with lid
large pot with lid (for sterilizing the jars)
pot with heavy bottom (for heating the milk)
small cooler or pot (for keeping the milk warm as it becomes )

Step 1--Sterilize the jars: Put two glass quart jars, their lids, and a small (8-10 oz.) jar and lid into a large pot (I use my pasta pot) with a few inches of water. Put a lid on the pot, bring the water to a boil, and boil for about 10 min.

Step 2--Scald the milk: While the jars are sterilizing, heat a 1/2 gallon of milk in a large pot with a heavy bottom. Hook a candy thermometer on the side. Heat, stirring occasionally, until the milk reaches 85-90 deg. Celsius.
Step 3--Cool the milk: Remove the scalded milk from the heat and cool until the milk reaches 50 deg. Celsius. I partially fill the sink with cold water, plunk the pot in the sink, and stir to speed up the cooling process.

Step 4--Inoculate the milk: Put 1/2 cup of plain yogurt with active cultures (I've used Dannon, Stonyfield's, and homemade yogurt from a previous batch successfully) in a 1-cup measuring cup. Add 1/2 cup of the cooled milk and stir to remove all of the lumps. Pour the yogurt-milk into the rest of the cooled milk and stir to combine.

Step 5--Pour the milk into the jars and cap them. Place the jars in a small cooler or deep pot. Add enough hot water until the jars are 3/4 submerged (you may need to place the smallest jar on top of an upside-down cup to make it tall enough). The idea is to keep the milk at around 50 deg. Celsius. At this temperature, you should have yogurt in about 3 hrs. (don't test the jars until 3 hrs have passed, or you risk losing heat each time you check on them). If the milk has gelled, congratulations--you've made yogurt! If not, just leave it a little longer, until it gels. Stick it in the fridge and enjoy. You can also freeze yogurt, just don't fill the glass jars too full or they will break (yep, one of my nice Mason jars broke yesterday).

Yogurt Recipes and Resources

Homemade Yogurt at 101 Cookbooks
A Comprehensive Yogurt-Making Tutorial (a more in-depth version of my instructions)
Homemade Soy Yogurt
Homemade Soy Yogurt at Fat Free Vegan Kitchen
Homemade Coconut Milk Yogurt at Stephen's Recipes
Buy a GF, Soy-Free, Dairy-Free Yogurt Starter!

Tarator (Balkan Cucumber-Yogurt Soup)
Labneh (Yogurt Cheese)
Greek-Style Soy Yogurt or Soy Yogurt Cheese

Gluten-Free Menus: February 11

I just bought a new cookbook at our fabulous new-used bookstore in town--I took in a few old books and turned them into Mark Bittman's (aka The Minimalist's) new cookbook, How To Cook Everything Vegetarian. This comprehensive vegetarian roadmap is quickly becoming the go-to cookbook in our house. All of the recipes this week are found in or were inspired by this 4000-recipe tome. The strength of this cookbook lies not in any individual recipe, though everything I've cooked from it has been tasty, but in its underlying principle. Bittman doesn't say, "Hey, this is what quinoa is and here's a quinoa recipe." Instead, his book is packed with charts called "Improvising Asian-Style Noodle Bowls," lists like "13 Other Fillings for Rolled Kale or Stuffed Grape Leaves," and variations on stock recipes like classic guacamole. I'm sure there will be more great recipes to come, and I'll keep posting my new finds.

Here's what we're eating this week:

Breakfast Bonus! Please check out my recent post on gluten-free breakfasts to see what fiber-and-protein-filled goodness I eat in the mornings.

Sunday: Paella with turkey and shrimp, carrot sticks
Monday: Thai Corn Cakes, Vietnamese spring rolls with a spicy peanut dipping sauce
Tuesday: Monday redux
Wednesday: Coconut Lemongrass Soup with crunchy tempeh
Thursday: We're out of the house
Friday: sushi bowls (brown rice, avocado, scallions, daikon, radishes, smoked salmon with nori to scoop it all up)
Saturday: sushi bowls strike again!

Bonus Dessert: In honor of this week's theme, I'll share this recipe for Dark Chocolate Meringues, which satisfied and continues to satisfy my recent chocolate cravings. These cookies are different than other chocolate meringues I've made in the past, containing both cocoa powder and melted chocolate, which impart a richness and chewiness unusual in meringues. Who cares about gluten with chocolate such as this?

Gluten-Free Breakfasts

I love breakfast. But as I've said before, I'm a creature of habit. Before I was diagnosed, I ate a bowl of oatmeal almost every morning. There were a few weeks after my diagnosis that I thought I was going to have to give up oatmeal, but I was lucky. I found out about my gluten intolerance right about the time Lara's Gluten Free Oats began to be available at our local co-op. Besides those few panicky weeks, I have little to complain about. My temporary oatmeal hiatus, however, has prompted me to diversify my breakfast fare. I'm hedging my bets against future GF oatmeal price spikes and shortages...

I've compiles a picture of what I might eat for breakfast, mostly because early on I spent a ton of time surfing the web for healthy, interesting gluten-free breakfasts:

1. Oatmeal

Thanks to the companies listed, I often eat a bowl of oatmeal cooked in soymilk with raisins, blueberries, flax meal, and walnuts. If you love oatmeal, too, read this poem by Green Mountain State poet, Galway Kinnell.

Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free Rolled Oats and Steel Cut Oats
Lara's Gluten-Free Oats (and oat flour!)
Gifts of Nature (you can buy oat groats here)

2. Bob's Red Mill Mighty Tasty Gluten-Free Hot Cereal

At first, I saw this corn-based hot cereal as an oatmeal substitute. I cooked it in soymilk and added raisins and chopped-up apples. The taste wasn't inedible, but it wasn't inspirational either. And it wasn't oatmeal. Then last summer I noticed a grit, cheese, and jalepeno bowl on the menu of our favorite breakfast place. Hmmm. The Mighty Tasty GF Hot Cereal does have a suspiciously grit-like consistency, though it's protein and fiber content make it nutritionally superior to most grits. When I started treating it like the grits it was, I found out why it was dubbed "mighty tasty." This cereal is a great choice for a cheesy (see below), warm, savory breakfast with lots of protein and fiber.

To try, cook 1/4 c. Mighty Tasty GF Hot Cereal (or grits or Arrowsmith's Rice 'n Shine cereal--they taste the same in the end, though the rice cereal has less protein and fiber than the corn cereal) in 3/4-1 c. water for about 10 min. Put 1 ounce of chopped-up cheddar cheese in your breakfast bowl (I use Cabot 50% Reduced Fat Cheddar). When the cereal is done, pour it over the cheese and stir to melt. Add flax meal, walnuts, and salt and pepper.

2. Gluten-Free in the Greens' Multigrain Hot Cereal

When I was little and refused to eat cold cereal (drinking the milk totally grossed me out), my mom would make me a creamy, wheaty hot cereal with raisins and honey. This multigrain cereal reminds me of those winter mornings when it was so cold I'd get dressed in front of an open oven door. The beauty of this hot cereal is that you cook all the grains in one pot ahead of time, preferably on Sunday night, pop it in a Tubberware, and have hot breakfast fixings for the rest of the week. My directions assume you'll be making it ahead of time and will be eating it for about 4 days.

In one pot, pour:
1/3 c. millet
1/3 c. brown rice
1/3 c. amaranth
1/2-3/4 c. GF steel cut oats
4.5-5 c. water
(This recipe makes about four servings. To adjust the amount or types of grains, just add three times more water than grain.)

Bring to a boil and cook for 20-30 min, covered. Check it from time to time to see whether the pot needs more water. Turn off the heat, leave the lid on, and allow the grains sit for 15-20 min. and absorb any remaining water. If you're cooking this the night before, spoon the cereal into a tubberware and wait for breakfast...

To eat, add 3/4-1 c. of the cooked cereal to a pot with raisins and a little salt. Add 1 c. milk or soymilk.* Cook gently until the milk and cereal are thick. Turn off the heat, cover the pot with a lid, and let the cereal rest for a few minutes. I add frozen blueberries at this point. Pour into your breakfast bowl. Add cinnamon, cardamom, or whatever spices you like, and flax meal and walnuts.

*note: I really like the taste of cooked soymilk, though I don't like that of cooked milk. If I was using regular milk, I'd just heat the cereal in microwave and add regular milk to the already-hot cereal. Just be aware, if you decide to cook the cereal in regular milk, that it won't taste like cold milk you added to already-hot cereal.

3. Not-too-sweet Midnight Muffins

One of my quirks is that I love to spread and dip (the little pottamus and I should get along well when he hits toddlerdom), which means that ordinary muffins, meant to be eaten plain in all their sweet-fruity-nutty goodness, don't really satisfy me for breakfast.

As a result, I've tended to like toast more. Unfortunately, I've struggled to find a brand of GF bread that has a decent protein and fiber content and that doesn't contain a lot of starch. Toast is also problematic because it gets cold when you take it to a restaurant. Eating cold toast when everyone around you has warm and crunchy wholewheat makes me want to invest in a travel toaster. So my search for a whole grain bread product that I can spread peanut butter on (isn't all bread just a vehicle for peanut butter?) and that travels well to breakfast restaurants has led me back to muffins.

Enter the pottamus. He hasn't been sleeping terribly well recently, and I've found myself up in the middle of the night, pacing up and down our small downstairs. He usually doesn't buy it. He's not upset; he just doesn't want to sleep. But I've found that baking is a surefire way of getting him to sleep. I wear him in the Ergo carrier or my ring sling and go about cooking. It bores him to sleep, I guess. Either that or there's something more peaceful about the movements I make while cooking than the please-go-to-sleep-so-I-can-go-to-sleep ones I make while pacing. Regardless, I've found myself inventing muffin recipes at 3 a.m. several times recently.

Because I want something healthy for breakfast, my rule of thumbs for muffins for muffins are little or no starch, not too much fat, and not too much sugar. This recipe makes about nine muffins (a strange number, I know, but I'm the only one eating them so I don't like to make too many, in case I don't like them). I eat them split and spread with peanut butter with a touch of honey.

In a large bowl, mix:
1/4 c. corn flour
1/4 c. teff flour
1/4 c. GF oat flour (quinoa or sorghum would also work)
1/4 c. brown rice flour
1/2 tsp. xanthum gum
spices: I like 1/2 tsp. each cinnamon and cardamom
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda

In a small bowl, mix:
1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce
1 lightly beaten egg
1 tbsp. canola oil
2 tbsp. honey (if you don't want to add jam or PB to your split muffins, you might add 1-2 tbsp. more sweetener)
3/4-1 c. milk

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix. Add in 1/3 c. dried fruit (I like chopped dates). Pour into muffin tins and bake for 20-25 min. in at 350. Go put your sleeping baby to bed.

4. Japanese-Style Breakfast

a bowl of rice
a hard-boiled egg, or leftover fish from dinner
miso soup

5. In the Greens Tips for a Healthy Cold Cereal Fix

Gluten-free cold cereals aren't difficult to find: Panda Puffs, Gorilla Crunch, and Brown Rice Twists are fairly ubiquitous in natural food stores. But I didn't eat sweetened cereals before I was diagnosed, and I wasn't about to start buying the organic, GF equivalent of Frosted Flakes just to get a nice, cold crunch on a summer morning. Here are the gluten-free cold cereals I've found that have a decent amount of fiber and protein and little added sugar. I tend to mix several cereals together and often add flax meal and walnuts or almonds to boost my fiber and protein intake (and for the added crunch!).

• make your own granola or muesli
• Perky O's
• Nutty Flax
• Mesa Sunrise