Friday, June 29, 2012

The Good Chicken & Waffles

Mmm....mmm...mmm...good!


This is basically my favorite thing to eat, now it can be yours as well. It takes forever to make but the results are well worth it.

I call this chicken "the good chicken" because when I lived in the Netherlands, the mother of the family I was living with would always say, "Are you making the good chicken?" whenever I would make this. I later learned that she didn't actually like chicken, unless it was "the good chicken" I made.

The Good Chicken

modified from the Momofuku cookbook

Ingredients
4 chicken thighs
1 cup water
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup rendered duck fat (or pork fat, save the fat from when you make bacon)
optional: a couple strips of bacon


Instructions
  1. Make a brine by dissolving the sugar and salt in water. Pour over the chicken and place in the fridge. I do this is the morning before I go to work, so it usually sits there for 8-9 hours. I like my chicken really salty.
  2. Pre-heat the oven to 180° f.
  3. Take the chicken out of the fridge and discard the brine. Place the chicken in an oven safe pot. Pack the chicken sungly, so you do not have to use as much fat. If you want add the bacon, tuck it in with the chicken now (the bacon helps give the chicken a smokey flavor).
  4. Put the chicken in the pre-heated oven for approximately an hour.
  5. Once the chicken is nice and confited, take it out of the oven and let it cool. Stick the chicken you won't be cooking right away back in the fridge with the left over fat.
  6. Heat your cast iron pan on medium-high heat on the stove top. Once the pan it hot, put the chicken on. I place another pan on top of the chicken to weight it down. If you have a press use that.
  7. Cook the chicken for 3-5 minutes, until it is slightly blackened. Flip and cook the same for the other side.
  8. Remove from heat and cool slightly. Serve over rice or waffles (see below).
  9. Enjoy!

Waffles

Modified from roost blog.

Ingredients
1/2 cups almond flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 scant teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
2 eggs
1 scant tablespoon maple syrup
1/4 cup greek yogurt
1/2 a banana (I usually eat the other half, but if you are eating the waffles without the chicken, you can serve the waffles with the leftover banana)
optional ginger syrup


Instructions
  1. Pre-heat your waffle iron, per the instructions that came with the waffle iron. All irons are different, so you're on your own with this.
  2. Mix together the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg. 
  3. Whisk in the eggs, maple syrup, yogurt and banana.
  4. Scoop approximately 1/3 cup of the batter onto your waffle iron. Cook according to waffle iron instructions. (I cook for just over 2 minutes.)
  5. Serve with "the good chicken" and ginger syrup (or whatever topping you prefer on your waffles).

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Peanut Butter Cookies

C is for Cookie!
One of the hardest things about being gluten free is not being able to make small sandwiches when I want a small snack. I've been craving peanut butter lately, and since I can't bring myself to eat it straight from the jar, I went for the next best thing, cookies!



I'll eat you up, I love you so!

Peanut Butter Cookies

adapted from here

Ingredients
1 cup almond flour
pinch sea salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup peanut butter (I used Trader Joe's brand with flax seeds)
¼ cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons coconut oil
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350°.
  2. Mix together almond flour, salt and baking soda.
  3. Separately, beat together peanut butter, maple syrup, coconut oil and vanilla. I used my blender.
  4. Mix dry ingredients into wet until well combined.
  5. Roll dough in 1 tablespoon sized balls. Place dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Squish with fork and then rotate 90° and squish again to create cross marks.
  6. Bake for approximately 12 minutes until golden.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Scapesto

Ball jar of scapesto
What are these?
They are garlic scapes, of course! Scapes can be used in the same way you would add garlic to a dish, but they can also be used to make delicious, delicious pesto. Pesto are sort of my thing since I went gluten-free. I pack my lunch for work every single day, and my go-to dish has pretty much been pasta. Pre-gluten-free, I would eat pasta with just some butter and cheese, but gluten free pasta doesn't have the same flavor as the wheat-full version. I don't eat tomatoes (ever!), so I started going the pesto route. Pesto is super simple, just gather up the ingredients and stick them in the food processor and pesto! you've got pesto.
Scapesto Pasta Salad. I use Trader Joe's corn pasta, that is why it is so yellow.

Luckily my food processor matches the pesto.

Scapesto

modified from here

I don't like store bought pesto because it is very oily. I will usually drain off some of the oil if I do buy pesto (I do this with peanut butter, as well). If you don't think the recipe is the right consistency for your pesto, you can double the oil.

Ingredients 
150 g garlic scapes (about 10)
1/3 cup Parmesan
1/3 cup almonds
2 tablespoons hemp seed oil *optional
2 tablespoons olive oil (if you omit the hemp seed oil use 4 tablespoons or 1/4 cup)

Instructions
  1. Put everything but the oil in your food processor (I have seen recipes where people use their blender, I have never tried but I assume that will work). Process (or blend).
  2. Slowly add the oil while blending. Most food processors have a spout you can pour liquids in, if not lift off the lid, pour in some oil, blend and repeat. Once you are happy with the consistency, you are done! 
  3. Enjoy!

Monday, June 18, 2012

Chicken Burger Wraps

Chicken burger wrap
I finally decided the use the meat grinder my mom bought me for my birthday back in February. I decided to make little chicken burgers. Lately, I've been on a kick of wrapping my food in lettuce wraps. It's a little trick I learned when I lived in California from In-n-Out burger. I always order a protein burger and animal style fries when I go there (even before I was gluten-free). The people at In-n-Out really know how to do a lettuce wrapped burger. They have a very good proportion of lettuce to burger so your hands don't great burger juice all over them. I think that is the main point of the bun on a burger. 

Anyway, this burger has a slice of CSA cheese, mustard and a good amount of lettuce wrapped around it. You can add tomatoes or onions or whatever other veggies you like. I'm pretty minimalist with my burgers, I like to go big on my fries. Here's the recipe for my chicken burgers.

Baked chicken burgers

Chicken Burgers

recipe modified from smitten kitchen

Ingredients
500 g chicken thighs (if you don't have a meat grinder, get 1 lb ground)
3 slices gluten-free bread, torn into pieces (~1 cup)
1/3 cup milk (I use hemp milk)
50 g prosciutto, finely chopped
3 green onions (or scallions as New Yorkers call them), finely chopped
1 small garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons finely chopped chives
3 tablespoons finely chopped basil
1 large egg, beaten

Instructions
  1. Pre-heat the oven to 400 f.
  2. Grind up the chicken thighs in the meat grinder. If you are using pre-ground meat, just open the package and dump it in your bowl.
  3. Pour the milk over your bread pieces. Set aside (watch out, the gluten free bread can get really runny).
  4. Cook the prosciutto on the stove over medium. Add the green onions and the garlic. Cook for about 5 minutes. Take off the stove and let cool for a bit, or else it will cook the egg when you mix everything together.
  5. Drain the milk that didn't get absorbed by the bread you set aside earlier.
  6. Now mix everything together! I think it works better to use your hands, you get a more even mixture. If you don't want to touch the raw chicken, use a spoon, it's your prerogative.
  7. Make the chicken mixture into balls. If you want burger use about 90 grams per burger. If you want meatballs like the original recipe, use about 50 grams per ball.
  8. Pop those suckers in the oven. I set my timer for 20 minutes, but I know it will take 25 minutes. I'd rather check before everything is cooked than burn my burgers. Enjoy.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Tortilla!

tortilla espaƱola
Tortilla is basically the perfect thing to make when you are starving and there is nothing to eat and you are tired of having scrambled eggs everyday for dinner. All you really need is a potato, some eggs and a bunch of olive oil. I like to be a bit fancy with my tortilla because I am a classy lady.

I happen to be a classy, single lady and the most important thing to creating a fancy tortilla for one is a small cast iron pan. I use a 6.5-inch cast iron pan, and it is basically the most important tool for cooking for one. Anywho, on to the recipe:

Ingredients
1 potato (unless you have tiny potatoes, then you'll need 2)
olive oil
2 eggs
~1 oz of cheese (I used cheese I got at my last CSA, any cheese with work. Go for it!)
chives
salt

Instructions
  1. Pre-heat your pan over medium on the stove top.
  2. Wash the potato and the chives. Peel the potato.
  3. Slice the potato into thin slices. I aim for about .5 cm slices. You can make yours any size you want. You can even cut the potato into cubes if you are feeling adventurous.
  4. Put the pieces of potato in the pan. Grab your olive oil and pour. You want enough olive oil to cover the potatoes. Let the potatoes cook until the are soft and start to get just a bit of brown.
  5. While the potatoes are cooking crack the eggs and scramble them up with a fork (or use a whisk).
  6. Chop the chives into small bits. Break up the cheese.
  7. Put the chives and cheese bits into the eggs and scramble them up some more.
  8. Back to the potatoes, now that they are nice and soft drain out the excess oil and discard.
  9. Put the pan with the potatoes back on the burner. Salt your potatoes. If you forget to salt the potatoes at this point, you will regret it. Pour your eggs over the potatoes. Let it cook until the eggs start to set.
  10. At this point turn on the broiler in your oven.
  11. When the eggs are firmly set on the bottom, stick your pan under the broiler.
  12. The tortilla should only have to sit under the broiler for 1 to 2 minutes. When you tortilla is just starting to brown on the top, take it out of the oven.
  13. Flip your tortilla onto a plate and enjoy!

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Kale Chips

So I had a really awesome first recipe planned out, but cooking last night went horribly wrong. There may or may not have been a (very) small fire, oil burns, slipping on wet floors and salt gone wrong. I'm going to start off with something easy instead. Kale chips!

Kale Chips!
So kale chips are super easy. They only have three ingredients (you can add garlic and spices if you want to get fancy, but I went home from work sick today, so there isn't really any energy left for me to be fancy). You start with a whole bunch of kale. If you aren't familiar with kale, it comes in huge bunches.
Start with some kale
The you add salt and oil. Pop it in the oven and boom! kale chips.
Only three ingredients (including salt!)
Ingredients
1 bunch of kale
2 tablespoons of oil (I use 1 tablespoon hemp seed oil, 1 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, just olive oil is fine)
salt, to taste


Instructions
  1. Preheat your oven to 275 f.
  2. Remove the kale from the stem. You can use a knife to cut out the middle stem, or just tear the leaves from the stem. De-steming the kale is probably the hardest part of making kale chips. Tear (or cut) the stemless kale into smallish pieces, I like my kale chips large (approx. 3in) but I mostly see recipes say 1.5in pieces.
  3. Gather up all your bits of kale and wash them. Get off all the dirty bits and then dry really well.
  4. Measure out your oil. Pour it all over the kale and then mix it up so all the kale is covered with oil. I usually do this by putting the kale in a giant bowl (see above) and then covering the bowl with a plate and shake. You can also just get in their with your hands, it's up to you.
  5. Salt the kale and mix it up some more.
  6. Put the kale on a baking sheet. The kale will shrink as you cook it, so you can pile it on. Stick the baking sheet in the oven. You will probably have to do multiple rounds of making, especially if you only have a jelly roll for a baking pan like I do. Put your timer on for 15 minutes.
  7. At 15 minutes, I go in and take off all the crispy kale chips. Some of the kale will still be a bit soggy, so those go back in the oven for 5 more minutes. Some people like their kale chips basically burnt; you can leave them in even longer.
  8. That's it. Enjoy your kale chips!

Sunday, June 10, 2012

introduction

Boba in Williamsburg
Hello! Welcome to omnomnom brooklyn. I'm Caitlin, a 26 year old, gluten-free lady living in Brooklyn. This is what I eat.