Gluten-Free Recipes for the Conscious Cook: A Seasonal, Vegetarian Cookbook (20 page)

This light and refreshing dressing is great on green salads, coleslaw, steamed vegetables, and cooked grains, especially sorghum.

Makes about 1¼ cups

6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1½ cups parsley leaves

2 scallions (white and green parts)

1 tablespoon chopped green bell pepper

1 clove garlic

½ teaspoon sea salt

Put all of the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth and creamy. Taste and adjust the seasonings if desired.

I like the combination of umeboshi vinegar and garlic in this dressing. Umeboshi vinegar isn’t technically vinegar (though it can be used like vinegar); it’s the tasty liquid left over from the process of pickling umeboshi plums. It has a salty and lemony flavor and can be substituted for those ingredients in many recipes, including hummus. Unlike acidic vinegars, it has an alkalizing effect on digestion. This “vinaigrette” will lend a lively flavor to salads and is also great on cooked sorghum, quinoa, or pasta.

Makes about 1 cup

6 tablespoons water

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons umeboshi vinegar

1 cup tightly packed fresh basil leaves

8 garlic scapes, or 8 cloves garlic

Put all of the ingredients in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth and creamy. Taste and adjust the seasonings if desired.

This Russian dressing doesn’t need mayonnaise, sugar, or eggs to be great. Blending tofu with juicy tomatoes, sour pickles, sweet red peppers, and pungent garlic and onion creates a delicious, gorgeous pink dressing that’s perfect on a simple salad of lettuce and carrots. It’s also tasty on cooked beans and pasta. Avoid the silken tofu that comes in aseptic packages, as the containers contain aluminum and can’t be recycled in many communities. If you can’t find silken tofu in the refrigerated case, you can use soft regular tofu.

Makes about 1¾ cups

10 ounces silken tofu

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 cup coarsely chopped tomato

2 tablespoons coarsely chopped dill pickle

2 tablespoons coarsely chopped red bell pepper

2 tablespoons coarsely chopped red onion

1 clove garlic, coarsely chopped

¾ teaspoon sea salt

Put all of the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth and creamy. Taste and adjust the seasonings if desired.

Ranch dressing is so popular, but it typically contains a host of unhealthful ingredients. Since many people love it so much, I decided to come up with my own version, substituting tofu for the sour cream and mayonnaise and keeping the other ingredients more or less the same. Use this version in all of the typical ways, and also try spooning some over a baked potato or tossing it in macaroni salad instead of mayonnaise. Although recipes for creamy blended dressings and dips usually call for soft or silken tofu, I like to use firm tofu (and add a bit of water to adjust the texture) because it gives you more nutritional bang for your buck.

Makes about 1½ cups

8 ounces firm tofu, drained

¼ cup water

3 tablespoons honey or maple syrup

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon canola oil

3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon coarsely chopped parsley leaves

3 tablespoons coarsely chopped red onion or shallot

1 clove garlic

¼ teaspoon sea salt

Put all of the ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth and creamy. Taste and adjust the seasonings if desired.

This dressing combines balsamic vinegar and red wine vinegar with fresh basil and garlic for an intense flavor that can transform a bowl of rice and beans into a gourmet meal. If you’re using it on a green salad, you only need a tablespoon or two per serving, and you may want to tone it down by adding a bit more water.

Makes about 1 cup

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

¼ cup water

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 cup fresh basil leaves, tightly packed

6 cloves garlic, pressed or minced very fine

½ teaspoon sea salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

Put all of the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth and creamy. Taste and adjust the seasonings if desired.

Fresh basil and mint are a classic summer combination. Here they’re blended with fragrant olive oil, lemon juice, and garlic to make an addictive dressing that’s equally at home on bean or pasta salads as it is on green salads and other vegetable salads.

Makes about 1 cup

½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 cups fresh basil leaves

½ cup fresh mint leaves

5 cloves garlic, or 5 garlic scapes

¼ teaspoon sea salt

Put all of the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth and creamy. Taste and adjust the seasonings if desired.

Variations

Substitute oregano for the mint.

Try balsamic vinegar in place of the lemon juice.

These marinated dried tomatoes are a staple in my kitchen. They’re great in dips and roasted vegetable dishes and, of course, as a topping on an endless array of savory dishes, from simple grains to salads to pizzas. You can also use the flavor-infused oil as a condiment, in salad dressings, or for sautéing vegetables or tempeh. If you use all of the tomatoes and have any leftover marinade, you can keep it going by adding more dried tomatoes, garlic, and herbs.

Makes about 4 cups

1½ cups dried tomatoes

½ cup red or white wine

15 garlic scapes, chopped, or 15 cloves garlic, sliced

1 cup tightly packed basil leaves

About 12/3 cups extra-virgin olive oil

Place the tomatoes in a bowl or widemouthed quart jar. Pour in the wine and let stand for 2 hours, until the tomatoes absorb most of the wine and soften. Stir gently from time to time to work the tomatoes at the top down into the wine.

Add the garlic and basil, then pour in enough oil to cover everything. Mix and use immediately, or cover with lid and store on your kitchen shelf, where the tomatoes and their flavor-infused oil will keep for at least 1 year.

Variations

Swap balsamic or white wine vinegar for the wine.

Use a different herb or a combination of herbs in place of some or all of the basil: oregano, marjoram, rosemary, and thyme are all good choices.

Dulse, a sea vegetable harvested along coasts of the North Atlantic, is rich in iron, calcium, and a wide array of trace minerals. When fried, it has a baconlike flavor and crispness that’s easy to love. Use fried dulse as a topping for eggs, grains, soups, stews, and salads.

Serves 2

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

¼ cup dulse

Heat the oil in a medium-size skillet over medium-low heat. Pull the dulse apart, remove any tiny shells, and fry the dulse for about 30 seconds, until it crisps, turns yellow or green, or smells like bacon. Serve immediately.

Some folks seem to think that adopting a gluten-free diet means giving up most desserts, especially baked goods. And while you can certainly buy gluten-free cookies and the like, they’re no match for homemade when it comes to flavor—and just pure satisfaction. Plus, they can be pretty spendy, and many of them contain questionable ingredients. If you love dessert (and who doesn’t?) but think a gluten-free diet means giving up your favorites, this chapter will set you free. And for those avoiding soy and dairy products, no worries: most of the recipes in this chapter don’t use them. These are desserts with no apologies. Beyond crisps and fruit pies, you’ll find cookies, cakes, a luscious mocha pudding, and a brownie recipe that, in my opinion, outshines all others—gluten free or otherwise. If you’re going to indulge, do it in style!

Just like any other time you’re in the kitchen, remember to engage your senses while baking. This is how I came up with the recipe for
Hazelnut Brownies with Chocolate Chips
. As I pondered what goes with chocolate, I thought of the toasty aroma of hazelnut flour and the richness and tropical flavor of coconut flour. (If you haven’t tried baking with coconut flour, you’re in for a treat.) And while teff flour has been my favorite for making cookies and piecrusts for over twenty years, I wanted to go a step further and create a dessert that would showcase and build upon its subtle hazelnut and chocolate flavor, so I came up with the recipe for
Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie
, where I use hazelnut butter in the teff crust and fill it with a smooth, creamy chocolate pudding enhanced with peanut butter. Over the top? Maybe… Delicious? You bet!

Who needs wheat and its often troublesome gluten when there are so many other great choices. And while it can take some tinkering to create gluten-free cookies and cakes with a good texture, the sky’s the limit when it comes to using alternative grains as toppings for fruit crisps where, you can even use nut and seed meals to excellent effect (see the recipes on pages 192 and 193). I could give you a lot more advice and ideas about baking with different grains and flours, but in the end, the most important guide is your own experience, combined with your preferences.

Another fun area to explore is healthy fats. Not that long ago, the primary choices were butter, margarine, shortening, vegetable oil, and (ugh!) lard. These days there are so many interesting oils on the market. Coconut oil is my current favorite, specifically, extra-virgin coconut oil, which imparts a luscious coconut flavor. Although coconut oil has a high percentage of saturated fats, they come in the extremely healthful form of medium-chain triglycerides. We don’t need to go into the technical details, but suffice it to say that this allows coconut oil to stand in nicely for traditional hard fats, like shortening and butter. Not that I have a problem with butter! It has a rich and satisfying flavor that’s hard to beat. And though nut oils can be expensive, they’re very tasty. I especially like hazelnut oil. For a long time, canola was the go-to oil for vegan baking, but I typically don’t use it. Not only is it flavorless, if you don’t buy organic, it might be genetically modified.

Here are a few tips to make your baking easier, and in some cases, more eco-friendly:

• When you need to measure both a liquid oil and a liquid sweetener, measure the oil first (including melted coconut oil and butter). Then, when you measure sticky liquid sweeteners like honey or maple syrup, they’ll slide out of the measuring cup quickly and cleanly. For the same reason, when making a recipe that calls for both oil and nut butter, it’s best to measure the oil first.
  
• When a recipe calls for melted coconut oil, I find the easiest way to melt it is in a small skillet. Then, if you need to oil a baking sheet or other pan, you can just clean out the skillet with a pastry brush and use the brush to oil the pan.
  
• You’ll read many recipes that call for mixing wet and dry ingredients separately, then combining them. In my experience, this isn’t necessary, and it just dirties another dish. Most of the time, you can just mix everything together in one bowl.
  
• In the recipes in this chapter, I’ve organized ingredients lists so that the information is presented in a uniform way to make things easier for you. But when I’m cooking, I usually add the ingredients in whatever order I like. You should feel free to do the same. One caveat: If you’re making a batter that uses egg, whisk the egg first, then add the remaining ingredients.
  

This is the best brownie recipe I know of—gluten free or otherwise. Enjoy them warm out of the oven. Or, in the unlikely event that you have leftovers, rest assured that they get better every day.

Serves 6 to 8

2 eggs

1 cup apple or pear juice

¼ cup melted extra-virgin coconut oil or butter

½ cup maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ cup finely ground raw hazelnuts (skins on) or hazelnut
flour

½ cup cocoa powder

1/3 cup brown rice flour

¼ cup coconut flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon sea salt

¾ cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Lightly oil a 9-inch round pan or a standard loaf pan.

Whisk the eggs in a large bowl. Add all of the remaining ingredients, holding back ¼ cup of chocolate chips, and stir until thoroughly combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, scraping the bowl to get every last speck of chocolaty goodness. Decorate the top with the remaining chocolate chips.

Bake for about 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (or with only melted chocolate on it). Cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing and eating—if you can wait that long!

I encourage you to think of the recipes in this chapter (and throughout the book) as master recipes, providing a structure that you can use to create your own variations. That’s exactly what my neighbor Mara did to create these delicious cookies. Starting with the recipe for Peanut Butter–Chocolate Chip Cookies in my cookbook
Going Wild in the Kitchen
, she swapped cashew butter for the peanut butter, replaced 2 cup of the teff flour with coconut flour, and added an egg. The possibilities are endless, which is always a good thing, especially when it comes to gluten-free cookies.

Makes about 2 dozen cookies

1 cup teff flour

½ cup coconut flour

½ teaspoon sea salt

1 cup
cashew butter

½ cup butter or extra-virgin coconut oil, softened or at warm room temperature

½ cup maple syrup

1 egg

½ cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Put the teff flour, coconut flour, and salt in a large bowl.

Put the cashew butter, butter, maple syrup, and egg in a food processor and blend until creamy. Add the mixture to the flour, along with the chocolate chips, and stir until well combined.

Shape the dough into walnut-size balls and place them on an unoiled baking sheet about ½ inch apart. Gently flatten the cookies with the tines of a fork.

Bake 10 to 15 minutes, or until the cookies lose their shine. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes before handling. They will be soft when they come out of the oven but will crisp up when they cool.

Variation

Swap carob chips for the chocolate chips.

These are one of my favorite cookies. They’re rich, satisfying, and, if you make them with coconut oil, vegan—and proof that sometimes the simplest things are also the best.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

2 cups teff flour

½ teaspoon sea salt

1 cup
hazelnut butter

½ cup extra-virgin coconut oil or butter, softened or at warm room temperature

½ cup maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Put the flour and salt in a large bowl.

Put the hazelnut butter, oil, and maple syrup in a food processor and blend until creamy. Add the mixture to the flour and stir until well combined.

Shape the dough into walnut-size balls and place them on an unoiled baking sheet about ½ inch apart. Gently flatten the cookies with the tines of a fork.

Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until the cookies lose their shine. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes before handling. They will be soft when they come out of the oven but will crisp up when they cool.

These taste just like my Grandma Ethel’s sugar cookies, but they’re made with rice flour and maple sugar.

Makes about 18 cookies

1½ cups brown rice flour

¼ teaspoon sea salt

5 tablespoons extra-virgin coconut oil, softened or at warm room temperature

½ cup maple sugar

1 egg

½ teaspoon almond extract

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Oil a baking sheet.

Put the flour and salt in a bowl.

Put the oil and maple sugar in a food processor and blend until creamy. Add the egg and almond extract and blend until well mixed. Add the mixture to the flour and stir until well combined.

Shape the dough into walnut-size balls and place them about ½ inch apart on the prepared baking sheet. Gently flatten the cookies with the tines of a fork.

Bake for about 10 minutes, until light brown. Cool for at least 10 minutes before eating.

Sweet and scented with vanilla, these are also high in iron, making them the ultimate woman’s cookie!

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

2 cups teff flour

2/3 cup ground flaxseeds

2/3 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon sea salt

1/3 cup melted extra-virgin coconut oil

2/3 cup maple syrup

2/3 cup chopped pitted dates

1/3 cup raisins

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly oil a baking sheet.

Put all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir until well combined.

Shape the dough into walnut-size balls and place them on the prepared baking sheet about ½ inch apart. Gently flatten the cookies with the tines of a fork.

Bake for about 10 minutes, until the cookies lose their shine. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes before handling. They will be soft when they come out of the oven but will crisp up when they cool.

Easy to make and fun to eat, these sensational raw food treats are also excellent party fare. In addition to being gluten free, they have minimal added sweetening and aren’t even baked, which is especially nice in hot weather, when you may not want to turn on the oven. Cacao powder is simply cocoa powder that wasn’t subjected to high heat during processing, so it qualifies as a raw food. Cacao nibs are simply roasted, cracked cacao beans.

Makes about 2 dozen Treats

1 cup raw hazelnuts (skins on)

1 cup pitted dates

¼ cup unsweetened shredded coconut