Let’s go back in time about a month to the night my parents took Joel and me out to dinner as a birthday present for Joel. We went out for Italian food, and while four of us crunched salads, Joel ate a bowl of minestrone soup. Oh, if you could have seen the looks of longing on my dad’s and my faces! That minestrone soup smelled so good.

My dad reminisced about my grandma making minestrone soup when he was growing up – she’d make a big batch every fall, and freeze most of it to eat throughout the winter. I mentioned that I’ve been wanting to make minestrone – it would, of course, be easy to make GF because the only gluteny thing in it is pasta. My dad, maybe to discourage me, said that grandma’s minestrone was no quick cooking soup – it was a process that would take about three days to make.

Challenge accepted.

(Oh, and I should mention, my dad sent me a link to this recipe, which probably wasn’t exactly what my grandma used to make, but close as she was a fan of the chef. I also used the Barefoot Contessa’s recipe for inspiration.)

Jennie’s Three Day Minestrone Soup

Day 1: eat some chicken.

Cook it in your crock pot, roast it, smoke it, whatever. Or just buy a rotisserie chicken from the store – hey, I won’t judge you, that’s what we did. Actually, it’s kind of a funny story: I got an email from theknot.com last Thursday reminding me that it’d been two months since our wedding day.

“Hey, it’s our two month anniversary,” I texted Joel.

“Happy anniversary!” he texted me back. “What is this, the wool anniversary?”

“I think it’s the rotisserie chicken anniversary,” I said.

After our rotisserie chicken dinner, we cleaved the bones and fired up the crock pot to make 10 cups of chicken stock.

Day 2: Finish the stock, start some dried beans soaking.

After about 24 hours in the crock pot, I strained the stock and stuck it in the refrigerator overnight. Meanwhile, I covered a cup of dried beans with water (plus a little salt and apple cider vinegar) and left them out to soak.

Oh, and for dinner, I made a tasty chicken noodle soup from the last of the rotisserie chicken (and some store bought chicken broth.)

Day 3: Make minestrone soup

I’ve written out the full recipe (find it here.)

Making minestrone was a two-pot operation – on one burner, the beans boiled (for a couple of hours!), in the opposite corner, I sauteed mirepoix (onion, celery, carrots) and some chopped pork. I used nearly a full pound of pork, rather than the 4 oz the recipe called for, because I was using pretty lean chops (they were on sale last week, and also, I didn’t know what salt pork was. It’s like bacon – next time I think I’ll just use some bacon.)

Speaking of next time, the next time I make this, I’m going to try blending half of the beans and half of the tomatoes to make the soup a bit thicker.

As it was, when I stirred everything together in that gorgeous green Dutch oven, it was a bit chunky and more stew-like than soup-like. I suspect that was in part because of the huge amount of pork I used, and also, turning some of the beans and tomatoes into puree would help to make it soupier.

In this case, soupier is a good thing.

But don’t go thinking we didn’t like it. I made the soup on Sunday, and we’ve already polished off the entire pot. And don’t worry – Dad got a bowl, too 🙂

I haven’t even finished recapping our honeymoon in New York, and Joel has already been back to the city without me.

But it gets worse: one of the things that we wanted to do on our trip was see a taping of The Daily Show and/or The Colbert Report. We weren’t able to since they were both on hiatus. Guess what Joel did last week?

Oh, and if that weren’t bad enough, he went back to The Bell House to see the cast of Bob’s Burgers, and Kristen Schaal apologized for not signing our Bob’s Burgers poster.

Oh, and then if I wasn’t jealous enough already, he saw Mike Birbiglia, my favorite comedian, do sketch comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater.

I was like this.

So to comfort myself, I’ve been baking like crazy for the past week.

A loaf of cranberry orange bread. (This is an old picture – the loaf I baked this weekend was not as photogenic.)

My gluten free pumpkin muffins.

And I tried my hand at caramel eclairs, gluten free.

I’ve made attempted to make eclairs a couple of times in the past (both times with regular all purpose flour – this was before I knew I had Celiac) and both times, my choux pastry came out a little flat. But even those flat pastries were delicious filled with custard (and if I’m being totally honest, on my second attempt, I pitched the pastries and just dug in to the custard with a spoon because that stuff is good.)

So I didn’t have high expectations for my first time making gluten free eclairs. It was definitely different working with gf starches rather than regular flour, but everything tastes as good as I remember, and believe it or not, this was my most successful choux pastry to date.

That could be because I found a helpful photo tutorial. Or maybe because I used a stand mixer rather than trying to beat the pastry by hand. Or maybe I’m just a much better baker now. Yeah, I think I’ll go with that.

Here’s the recipe. I originally found it on the IMDB message boards for the movie Simply Irresistible, which is loosely based on Like Water for Chocolate. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character makes caramel eclairs that make her love interest fall for her.

I’ve modified it to be gluten free based on suggestions from The Sensitive Epicure and This Gluten Free Life.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Custard

4 large egg yolks
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 cups whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Choux Pastry

1/4 cup sweet rice flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 tsp granulated sugar
A pinch of salt
2 large eggs

Caramel Sauce

1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup whipping cream
1 1/2 teaspoons butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup confectioners’ sugar

And what you’ll do:

First, make the custard

1. Place egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl and whisk together.
2. Add starch and milk and whisk in to the mixture.
3. Strain mixture into a medium sauce pan. Whisk constantly over medium heat until the custard becomes thick.
4. Remove from heat, then stir in vanilla extract.
5. Transfer to a bowl and refrigerate until you are ready to assemble the eclairs (at least one hour.)

Now for the choux pastry

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Measure flour and starch into a small bowl. Whisk thoroughly to combine. Set aside.
3. Combine water, butter, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, then immediately remove from heat and stir in flour/starch mixture. Using a wooden spoon, beat the mixture until it forms a big ball. These flours are sticky, so this shouldn’t take long.
4. This is where you’ll want to use an electric mixer or stand mixer: transfer the dough ball to a bowl (or the bowl of your stand mixer) and beat for a few minutes. This is to cool the mixture down so we don’t scramble the eggs in the next step. If your dough ball separates into a bunch of tiny dough balls, you’re doing it right.
5. Break eggs into a bowl and beat. Pour half in to the dough, and incorporate with the mixer. Wait to add the second half of the egg unto the first half is fully incorporated. Let the mixer run until the dough has transformed into a shiny, sticky paste.
6. Transfer the paste into a ziplock bag and cut a hole in the corner (you could use a pastry bag for this if you have one. I don’t). Squeeze the pastry dough into logs on a greased cookie sheet.
7. Bake 10 minutes at 400 degrees, then increase heat to 425 and bake for a further 10-15 minutes. Whatever you do, don’t open the oven door!
8. When the pastries are tall and fluffy and golden brown, remove from oven and use a paring knife to cut a slit in the side of each. This is so steam can escape and the pastries don’t collapse. Then cool on cookie sheet and (this is the important part) DON’T TOUCH!

When the pastries have cooled and you’re ready to assemble the eclairs, make the caramel sauce

1. In a double boiler, combine brown sugar, cream, and butter. Stir constantly, until the sugar has melted completely.
2. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla and powdered sugar. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes.
3. While the caramel sauce cools, stuff the pastries with the custard. Use a pastry bag, if you have one – as we’ve established, I don’t – I cut the pastries open and spooned the custard in.
4. Spoon the caramel sauce on top of the pastries.
5. Eat.

Makes 8, plus a couple extra spoonfuls of custard.

Between the several years that I was vegetarian and the several years that I’ve been gluten-free, it’s been nearly a decade since I ate a French dip sandwich. There were a number of foods that I’ve actively missed in that time (chicken salad sandwiches then; red licorice and cheesecake now; and teriyaki always.) French dip sandwiches were never among those things.

I was surprised – nay, shocked – during my “eat all the things” experiment when I found myself craving French dip sandwiches. One of my coworkers heated one up in the lunch room microwave one day, and the smell took me back to junior high school, when my mom used to make them all the time. I wanted a French dip sandwich, suddenly and strongly.

So I made one.

The sandwich itself was easy enough to make GF. I found some Schar white rolls at Safeway, and used the Columbus brand roast beef, which is GF. It was the au jus that took a little more effort, but I found Betty’s recipe, and with a few tweaks it tastes (and smells) just like what mom used to make. I made an enormous batch so that we could just reheat for easy dinners all week.

Here’s what you’ll need:
2 Tbs butter
Half of a small onion, or a quarter of a large onion, minced
4 cups beef broth, divided
1 tsp garlic powder
Splash of white wine (approx. a scant quarter cup)
2 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbs cornstarch (or other GF starch – I used tapioca)

Here’s what you’ll do:

1. Heat butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add minced onion and caramelize (about 15 minutes.)
2. Add 3 cups beef broth, garlic powder, wine, Worcestershire sauce, and whisk thoroughly.
3. In a small bowl, combine remaining 1 cup broth and starch to make a slurry.
4. Add slurry to saucepan, whisking quickly. Allow to simmer for about 15 minutes. Liquid will thicken slightly.
5. Strain, if you’d like to remove caramelized onion bits, or serve them up. Use as dip for roast beef sandwich.
   
   Enjoy.

I’m very excited today to bring you my first ever giveaway on the gf-gf!

I’ve long been a fan of NuNaturals liquid vanilla stevia as a sweetener in my coffee, so when the company asked if I would be interested in receiving their new lemon and orange flavors to try in exchange for this review, I was like “duh!” Well, I managed to say it more eloquently than that, but I was pretty excited.

If you’re unfamiliar with stevia, it’s an herb that is often used as an alternative to sugar. It’s naturally zero calorie, and has a negligible effect on blood sugar. Some brands have a bitter aftertaste, but NuNaturals does not, and their new flavors are made with real lemon and orange ingredients.

Both the lemon and orange stevia flavors are gluten free – in fact, the only NuNaturals product that might be questionable for us Celiacs is the More Fiber Baking Blend, which contains oat fiber. Ron from NuNaturals informed me that the fiber of the oat does not contain gluten and they try to source gluten free ingredients, but the oats cannot be labelled certified GF. Personally, I’m avoiding it in favor of other products that are sure to be safe.

I’ve made great use of the lemon stevia to make a sugar free lemon poppyseed dressing. It’s just the juice of one lemon, 10 drops lemon stevia, 1/4 cup olive oil, and 1/2 tsp poppy seeds.

And the orange stevia is the star ingredient in these chocolate orange biscotti. These biscotti are gluten free, dairy free, and sugar free, but full of flavor – they got great reviews from my official taste testers. Please click here for the recipe.

So here’s the part you’ve been waiting for – the giveaway!

NuNaturals would like to share a bottle of each of their new flavors of stevia with four readers of the gf-gf. You have up to three chances to win.

1. Required – tell me in the comments what you’d like to make with lemon and orange stevia if you win.
2. Optional – “Like” NuNaturals on facebook.
3. Optional – Tweet something like “I entered to win @NuNaturals new stevia flavors from @thegfgf”

Please leave a separate comment for each entry.

You can also use the promo code BLG0612 to take 15% off of your entire order on the NuNaturals website (good through June 30). And shipping within the continental U.S. is free on orders of $35 or more.

Here’s the fine print:
Giveaway is open until Monday, May 14th at 9pm (PDST), at which point, I’ll close the comments on this post. The winners will be selected randomly and will be notified by email, so be sure to leave a valid email address when you comment.
Winners must have a street address (No PO Boxes, please.)
NuNaturals sent me these products free of charge and is providing the prizes. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Thanks for entering, and good luck!

Joel made this take on lasagna for us about a month ago. I’ve been asking him to share it here on the gf-gf ever since, but since it hasn’t happened yet, I decided it was time to post it myself.

I think this is technically a ziti, rather than a lasagna, but it tastes just like lasagna without all the layers, and “lazy lasagna” just has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? ANYways, here it is – hope you enjoy.

Joel’s Lazy Lasagna

1 16 oz box brown rice pasta
1 lb ground sausage (we used pork)
1 16 oz jar tomato sauce
1 15 oz can stewed tomatoes
1 15 oz can large black olives
1 2 cup pkg shredded mozzarella
8 oz sliced mushrooms*

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Boil water. Cook pasta according to package directions.

3. Brown sausage in a large skillet.

4. In a saucepan, combine tomato sauce and stewed tomatoes over low heat.

5. Drain olives, and chop or tear in half lengthwise.

6. In a large bowl (or the empty pasta pot, if you don’t want to get another dish dirty – this is lazy lasagna, after all), combine cooked pasta, sausage, olives, tomato mixture, and mushrooms (if using).

7. Spread pasta mixture in a 9″x13″ Pyrex dish. Top with shredded cheese.

8. Bake uncovered for 15 minutes, until cheese bubbles. Allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Makes 8 servings.

*Mushrooms optional. Joel insists they aren’t, but since I’m writing this post, I say they are. Of course, if someone else insists you add mushrooms to your lasagna, you can always pick them out and dump them on that someone else’s plate – just be sure you make a disgusted face every time you come across one.

I hope you all had a blast welcoming in the new year! I made this spectacular New Year’s feast.

• Ham steaks
• Collard greens with bacon
• Black eyed peas (recipe is below)
• Pumpkin cornbread (I swapped coconut milk for the milk and arrowroot starch for the AP flour)

It was the first time I’ve made a “traditional New Year’s dinner,” so I was sure to include all the foods that are said to bring luck. And especially financial luck – I certainly wouldn’t say no to a little of that! I couldn’t find a black eyed pea recipe that was quite what I wanted, so I combined my favorite elements from several to make my own.

New Year’s Eve Black Eyed Peas
Here’s what you’ll need:
1/2 cup dried black eyed peas
1 Tbsp butter or other cooking oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 small onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 green pepper, chopped
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes

Here’s what you’ll do:
1. Place beans in a large bowl and cover with water. Make sure there are about 2 inches of water over the beans because they will plump up! Leave soaking for 6-8 hours.

2. After the beans have soaked, strain and rinse.

3. Heat butter or oil in a pot over medium heat. Add chopped onion and garlic and cook, stirring often, until the onion is translucent.

4. Place beans in pot with the onion and garlic. Add 1 cup water, salt, paprika, oregano and thyme. Cover pot and bring to a boil.

5. Once boiling, reduce heat and let simmer for one hour, stirring once every 15 minutes.

6. In the last 15 minutes of cooking, stir in green pepper and tomatoes (you can add them earlier, but I wanted the pepper to be al dente)

Makes 6 side dish servings.

We woke up early on New Year’s Day, and Joel had pancakes on the brain. So, we headed out for an early breakfast. I had an omelette with turkey, spinach, and swiss cheese, with tomato slices instead of toast.

Wondering why that looks like an Instagram shot? Because it is! Yes, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to get the gf-gf on social media. You can now …

Follow me on Twitter

Find me on Instagram

And that’s all she wrote. Happy Monday, everyone!

Another gf-gf fun fact: I studied Spanish for four years in high school. I remember very few things of the language – important phrases like “me llamo Jennie,” and “donde esta el bano?” and unimportant ones like “tengo pello in mis pantalones!” (I have hair in my pants – no idea why that one seemed worthy of memorization, but I found it hilarious at 16, so it’s still in my head now.)

What I do remember quite clearly from all those years is my arroz con pollo recipe. I picked it up by chance in my sophomore year, when I was 15, to make for a class fiesta. I’ve been making it ever since. I’ve tinkered with the recipe over the years, and I think this is as close to perfect as it gets – and it just so happens to be gluten-free.

Arroz con Pollo

Here’s what you’ll need:
1 cup basmati rice
1 lb chicken (could be white or dark meat, or a combination)
1 Tbsp cooking oil of choice (I used butter)
Either: 1/2 cup tomato sauce OR 1/4 cup tomato paste
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tsp cumin (divided)
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp coriander
1 1/4 cup boiling water
S & P

Here’s what you’ll do:

1. Dice chicken into cubes. Season with salt, pepper, and 1/2 tsp cumin.

2. Melt butter or oil in a shallow pan over medium heat. Place chicken in pan and cook until it has cooked through.

3. Remove chicken from pan, but leave the fat. (If most of the fat has evaporated, you’ll want to add more.)

4. OPTIONAL: Saute onion until it is translucent, then push to the sides of the pan.

5. Allow rice to toast in the chicken drippings, approximately 5 minutes, stirring often.

6. While rice toasts, boil 1 and 1/2 cup water (you can use the microwave for this – it’s okay, that’s how I boil water, too!)

7. Pour boiling water over rice. Add tomato sauce/paste, remaining 1 tsp cumin, oregano, coriander. Place chicken back in pan. Stir once.

8. Cover pan. Let simmer until rice is cooked through – about 20 minutes.

9. OPTIONAL: stir in frozen peas during the final 5 minutes of cooking.

Makes 4 servings.

Feel free to stir in plenty of your favorite cheese – jack, pepper jack, mizithra. Cheddar is less authentic but still tastes great melted on top.

For those of you outside of the US, I think that the fresh herb you call coriander, I call cilantro. What I used in this recipe is the ground, dried spice from the root of the herb, but the fresh stuff does taste great stirred in at the end or as a garnish. If you do not like coriander, you can simply omit – the dish will still be tasty and flavorful from the cumin.

In my vegetarian days, I often made this with tofu instead of chicken, or, with beans. To do so, start at step five (toasting the rice) and add fully cooked beans at the same time you add the boiling water.

Hope you enjoy!

Today I’m taking on Starbucks with my own recipe for a gluten-free-friendly Bistro Box. There are several things I don’t like about their to-go meals …

First off – they’re not gluten free. Every single Bistro Box contains some form of gluten in the form of either crackers, tortilla, pita, or soy sauce. In some, like the fruit and cheese plate, the crackers are packaged separately, so a gluten-freebie could (in theory) eat just the fruit, cheese, and almond/cranberry trail mix – but I wouldn’t.

They’re being advertised as a healthy fast food alternative. I’ll give the Bucks a pass on this one – tuna salad or chicken and hummus is probably healthier than a burger + fries. But the boxes are still loaded with vegetable oils and preservatives, which I try to avoid.

Not to mention, the Bistro Boxes are priced for the convenience factor. It’s just as easy to spend an hour on a Sunday afternoon baking up a couple of chicken breasts, slicing up your favorite veggies, rationing out a few handfuls of nuts.

But, if you, like me, went straight to the Chicken Lettuce Wraps but can’t eat them because of gluten or vegetable oil or peanuts or whatever, I have created a delicious (gluten-free!) version for you here.

Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Here’s what you’ll need:
2 Tbsp tamari (wheat-free soy sauce)
1 Tbsp peanut butter (or other nut butter – tahini would probably be fantastic in this recipe)
1 tsp ginger, minced
1/2 tsp molasses
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1 lb ground chicken
Cooking oil of choice (I used coconut oil)
1 tsp arrowroot, tapioca, or corn starch
A lime
2 carrots
1 Red bell pepper
A cucumber
Scallions
Cilantro
2 tsp sesame seeds
Leafy lettuce (I used romaine)

Here’s what you’ll do:
1. Whisk together tamari, peanut (or other nut) butter, ginger, molasses, sesame oil. Reserve.

2. Heat oil over medium-high heat. Brown ground chicken in the oil, breaking it up as you go. When chicken is fully cooked, stir in soy sauce mixture, juice from half a lime, and the starch you’re using. Continue cooking until sauce is very thick.

3. Remove from heat, stir in chopped cilantro (I went with about 2 tablespoons – I love cilantro!) and 2 sliced scallions.

4. Cut up your carrots, red bell pepper, and about half a cucumber into little matchsticks. Douse with juice from the other half of your lime, stir in chopped cilantro (as much as you like) and a teaspoon or 2 of sesame seeds.

Makes 4 servings.

I packed the chicken mixture, veggie slaw, and lettuce leaves separately so they’d be as fresh as possible at lunchtime, along with a handful of almonds and a few bites of chocolate for a complete meal.