Quinoa and Roasted Vegetables

I made a new dish today that just sounded good. I had no recipe but this is very easy, especially if you have a rice cooker. Quinoa (pronounced Keen-wa) is an ancient grain from the Incas but it is really a seed. It has a very mild taste and you can use it for many things. This one is my new favorite, but my favorite before today was to mix in a little milk and berries for breakfast. Yum! Quinoa is very high in fiber (5 g in a one cup serving) and is considered a "complete" food as it has the right proportions of carbs/fats/protein and has all eight of the essential amino acids. I used red quinoa but it can come in several different colors with a light beige color as the most common.

You cook it just like rice. One part quinoa to 2 parts water (or broth). I used a rice cooker but I have also cooked on the stove just like rice. I roasted some veggies that I had on hand - one red bell pepper, two carrots, a small onion, and about a small handful of asparagus spears. If I had remembered, I think garlic would have made it even better. I did a rough chop in the food processor, but you could use your knife to chop. I was being lazy and Charles is cleaning up tonight! I added it to the cooked quinoa and topped with parmasean cheese. Charles loved it. Logan made gagging sounds but he does that to almost everything new so I didn't take it personally!

Soup Night!

I have been feeling like soup lately. It has gotten cooler and I need to free up some freezer space for Holiday stuff. This is my favorite soup recipe and I make enough to freeze some and have at a later time.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

6 tablespoons vegetable oil
8 (6 inch) corn tortillas, coarsely chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 onion, chopped
1 (29 ounce) can diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons cumin
1 tablespoon chili powder
3 bay leaves
6 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
5 boneless chicken breast halves, cooked


In a large stock pot heat oil. Add tortillas, garlic, cilantro and onion. Saute for 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in tomatoes and bring to a boil. Add cumin, chili powder, bay leaves and chicken stock. Return to a boil, reduce heat to medium and add salt and cayenne. Simmer for 30 minutes remove bay leaves and stir in chicken. Heat through and serve.


Now, I used to cut up everything and it took forever, especially shredding the chicken. But with the food processor I got this summer this soup was much faster to make. I cut up the tortillas with a knife and threw in the pot. I put the onion, garlic and a couple handfuls of cilantro in the processor and zap... Done! Started to cook those while I threw in a big bag of thawed homegrown tomatoes into the processor and zap...into the pot. Then cut the chicken breasts into quarters and into the processor zap... Done. It was that quick. And I am sure it will be yummy!

Charles is outside starting to build our new arbor/patio. It should be wonderful. Now if we can just figure a way to get rid of the masses of mosquitoes, I might acturally get out there to use it!

Good Eats!

Last night we had a fabulous dinner! We had pasta and a Chicken/Apple sausage that was very tasty. It was a little heavy and would be great in the winter. Then we had a salad that was made almost completely from things in the garden: cucumbers, cherokee tomato, basil, salt, red wine vinegar, and olive oil. It was the best salad all summer! Then today I finally bought a food processor. The first thing I did was roast a whole bunch of left over veggies laying around and pulverized them. I mixed the mash (garlic, onions, red bell pepper, asparagus, carrot and tomato) with an equal part of low fat sour cream and a bit of salt. Viola a great chip dip. That was today's lunch. I probably should have eaten the dip with cucumber (we have plenty - can you roast cucumber?), but the chips really hit the spot. I will put a few spoonfuls of the stuff in the fritatta that I will make tonight and serve it with a salad. It should be pretty good. Then tomorrow I will be harvesting basil again. That was one of the reasons for getting the food processor. I used a blender last time to process the basil and olive oil. It took an hour and was quite a mess. The herbs were not heavy enough to get down to the blades in the blender and I'll never do that again! So in a few days I will have a ton of ice cube shaped blocks of basil and oil. Hopefully I will get a few more harvests and will have enough basil to last the year.

Bon Appetite!

Chicken Enchiladas with Tomatillo Sauce

I made this one last week for the second time and still love it. I found this recipe in a magazine at a doctor's office. I don't remember which magazine. I had just enough time to scribble down the ingredients and make a few other notes and I made the rest up.

Sauce:
2 pounds of tomatillos, paper layer removed and sticky stuff washed off
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 cup of chopped onion
1/3 cup cilantro lightly packed
1 teaspoon cumin
1 1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup heavy cream

1. Cut tomalillos in half and place on a baking sheet. Broil 7-9 minutes turning once until it starts to brown.
2. Saute onions in oil until translucent.
3. Blend all above ingredients in a blender except broth and cream.
4. Heat sauce in a sauce pan for about 5 minutes until hot, stirring frequently.
5. Add broth and cream and heat for 5 more minutes, stirring frequently.
6. Set aside.

Enchiladas:
12 corn tortillas
2 tablespoons of olive oil
3 cups of shredded cooked chicken (I do this before I make the sauce)
1 1/2 cup of grated cheddar cheese
1 1/2 cup of grated monterey jack cheese
1/2 cup of onion
1/2 teaspoon of salt

1. Mix chicken, half of the cheeses, onion, salt and 1/2 cup of the sauce together in a bowl.
2. Brush the tortillas with oil and heat in microwave until warm.
3. Put 1/3 of the remaining sauce in the bottom of a 9in.x13in pan.
4. Roll a couple spoonfuls of the chicken mixture in a tortilla and place in the pan. Do the same for all the tortillas.
5. Top the enchiladas with the remaining sauce and then the cheese.
6. Bake 20-30 minutes at 375 degrees.

They are supposed to come out as individual enchiladas, but for some reason the tortillas kind of falls apart and it turns out to be more of a casserole. Still tastes great! We usually eat half and freeze the other half for an easy dinner a few weeks later.

My First Gluten Free Bread Success

I have recently found some new gluten free blogs that feature many recipes. I have been buying bread at a Whole Foods Market that is almost an hour away. With rising gas prices I have decided to try and make my own again. I tried my old recipe that at the time was the best one I could find. It flattened out too much to really be worth it. Now three years later I have found a fantastic bread recipe. I was looking for something that was a little healthier and had some more nutrition and fiber. I looked on the Celiac Message Board that I go to when I need some information and found some links to a few blogs. At Recipezaar and Gluten Free Mommy I found very similar recipes with rave reviews. Now to a person who can eat regular bread it might just taste like regular bread, but to someone who is gluten intolerant it TASTES LIKE REGULAR BREAD!! The texture is great and the taste is great. But there is one really big con. It is made of SEVEN different flours and there are many other ingredients. But I think it is worth it to work a system to make this one on a regular basis. My usual is to put all the dry ingredients together and make a "mix". I usually make at least three bags of pre-measured dry ingredients but for this I will probably make more. Then when I make them I will probably make at least two loaves at a time.


Here's the recipe with my substitutions and I used the one at Gluten Free Mommy:

1 cup brown rice flour

1/2 cup quinoa flour

3/4 cup millet flour

1/2 cup tapioca flour

1/3 cup cornstarch

1/3 cup sweet rice flour

1/4 cup flax seed meal

1 Tablespoon xantham gum

3 eggs

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 packet active dry yeast+ 1 tsp granulated sugar for proofing yeast

1 Tablespoon honey

3 Tablespoons brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

4 Tablespoons butter or margarine, melted

1 1/4 cup of 120 degree water

DIRECTIONS:

All ingredients including eggs need to be at room temperature.

1. Grease and flour a 10 inch loaf pan. I only had a 9 inch pan so I also made three muffins with the rest of the batter.

2. Combine all dry ingredients except yeast.

3. Combine all wet ingredients except water in the bowl of a stand mixer.

4. Combine yeast and one teaspoon of sugar in a small bowl.

5. Heat the water to 120 degrees. Add 1/4 cup of the heated water to the yeast and let sit for 10 minutes. if it does not foam up after 10 minutes then start over with the yeast.

6. When the yeast is ready slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix together.

7. Then add the yeast and continue to mix.

8. Then slowly add the water until it gets to a stiff cake batter consistency.

9. Beat the dough for about 10 minutes.

10. Pour batter into pan(s) and cover with wax paper and a towel. Place in a warm place to rise for at least an hour. The dough should be to the top of the pan.

11. Bake for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees. The crust will be dark brown. The muffins I took out at about 20 minutes and they were a light golden color.

12. Let cool in pan for 15 minutes then on a drying rack until cool.

I think it would be possible to make other things with this recipe like hamburger buns. I cut it up and froze it so we shall see how it tastes as a sandwich tomorrow.

I still had to go to Whole Foods to get two of the flours that I did not have, but I think I will be able to order these pretty easily.