Gluten-free Hamburger Buns

The gluten-free hamburger buns on the market are pretty dry and stale and there is just not a lot you can do to buff them up (maybe lots of ketchup?) So although we still have hamburgers on occasion, they aren’t really good hamburgers — Until tonight! I went to Whole Foods, thinking I would get some of their GF buns but they were out. I had enough time, so I thought I’d use the bread machine to make a dough and then use that for hamburger buns. I didn’t know yet what I would use as a mold to shape the buns — I was, frankly, making it up as I went along.

By the way, gluten-free bread is a great bread for the bread machine. Since it is more of a batter than a true dough, the bread machine takes care of the process efficiently. There are lots of bread machine recipes out there and I see that Annalise G. Roberts has a complete book on gluten-free bread machine recipes . There are also lots of GF bread mixes that you can use. For hamburger buns, use your favorite sandwich recipe and then put the machine on the Dough setting.

So I had gotten this far — had some beautiful risen dough in the machine and now comes the time to figure out what to use for a mold. Muffin tins? Too small. Free form shapes on a baking sheet? I was afraid it would be too runny and flatten out too much. Looking through my cupboards, I spotted some medium-sized cereal bowls. Hmmm… I greased the bowls, divided the dough into four of the bowls, put them on a baking sheet and baked for about 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven. While they were baking, I cooked up the hamburgers. The “bowl buns” turned out beautifully — just the perfect size for the hamburgers. Even my gluten-eating husband gave them a big thumbs up.

 

GF Bread Crumbs and Shrimp Boats

Gluten-free bread crumbs are easy. Just take any piece of dried up GF bread product and toss it into a food processor. I’ve used bagels with much success and tonight I bought a loaf of Trader Joe’s Brown Rice bread with the intention of  drying it all out and making breadcrumbs. I had this recipe (Shrimp Boats) that needed some bread crumbs so I thought I would stock up. I laid out all of the slices on a tray and put them in a 250 degree oven until they were noticeably toast-ier. (about 15-20 minutes). I whirred them up in a food processor and voila — I had enough for my shrimp boats and enough to store for later use.

The Shrimp Boats are a great way to get veggies into the kids. They ate the whole thing! First, dice a pound of uncooked shrimp and mix it with some garlic and a tablespoon or so of olive oil. Mix in 1/4 cup of breadcrumbs. Cut the zucchini in half lengthwise and scoop out the center like you would a cucumber. Put zucchinis in a greased pan and fill with the shrimp mixture. Top with 1/4 cup more breadcrumbs, drizzle with some olive oil and cook for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Yumm.

 

Gluten-Free Pizza Rustica

Before we discovered our intolerance to gluten, I used to make this Pizza Rustica, from Julia Child’s Baking with Julia, fairly regularly. Since the diagnosis, I basically shelved the baking books in favor of all of the GF books and only recently returned to it. Paging through it, I re-discovered this recipe and decided that the crust would easily adapt to being gluten free. You see, it has eggs in it, and eggs are a terrific binder. If you have a pie crust recipe that has eggs in it, you can substitute GF flours for the wheat flour almost straight across. I did add just a touch of xantham gum (probably about 1/2 tsp) just for kicks, but it probably wouldn’t need it.

They tell you that gluten free doughs don’t handle like wheat doughs and they are right – GF pie doughs can be much more cooperative when it comes to lining a pie plate! We try to treat it like a gluten free dough — rolling it out and then transferring it to a pie plate. But really, just throw a lump of your dough into the bottom of the pie plate and smoosh (that is the proper term, I believe), until it covers the pan. Easy.

Now mind you, this dish is not a healthfest. But it was Sunday night and I was hankering for something comforting, filling, and yes, just a bit decadent. The guts of this pizza are a pound of ricotta, quarter pound of mozzarella, 1/4 cup of pecorino romano, shredded prosciutto, eggs. After you get the bottom crust in, fill it with the cheese mixture. I topped it with some latticed pie crust for a nice finish, but you probably wouldn’t need to. To make a lattice crust, you do have to roll it out and slice it up. Just make sure you’ve got lots of flour underneath the dough and then gently lift the strip into place. Bake at 350 for about a half an hour or until the crust looks like you want to eat it.

It does need to set up for about 10 minutes after you take it out of the oven.

This is great for leftovers. I packed a piece for my daughter’s lunch the next day and she thought she was in heaven.

 

Gluten-free Polenta Lasagna

The title of this recipe is probably not accurate, because lasagna implies noodles, and there are no noodles in this one. It’s just a simple dish of polenta topped with sauce, topped with sausage topped with cheese. Kind of like a pizza, with polenta as it’s base and the sauce is plain tomato sauce. A filling comfort food, this dish can go together quickly or a little more slowly, depending on the ingredients you get. For example, I was feeling pushed for time last night, so I bought pre-grated mozzerella cheese and pre-cooked sausages. You could probably even buy the polenta pre-packaged, but I did have enough time to throw some polenta on the stove, so I didn’t do this.

But basically, mix a bit of parmesan cheese into the polenta and put it in the bottom of a casserole dish. Top with more parmesan. Layer tomato sauce (plain ol’ tomato sauce from a can) on top of that. For the meat, if you use uncooked sausage, first cook it, drain it, and then layer it into your casserole. Top with the mozzerella.

Again, this is one of those dishes where you can get as creative as you want — green peppers, mushrooms, onions would all be great in the layers.

Bake for a half an hour  at 350 degrees and serve with your favorite wine!

 

Crustless Salmon Quiche

I broke my new rule … I went to the grocery store without ingredients from a recipe. I had planned on something a little more elaborate, given that it is Monday night and there are no lessons, no soccer, everyone is home at a reasonable time. But I found myself on an errand downtown and there was Whole Foods, right there, and it just didn’t make sense to run home, find a recipe and go back to the store. So I came up with a tried but true plan — a Crustless Salmon Quiche with a side of roasted sweet potatoes. Of course, the appeal was that I know all of the ingredients by heart…

The sweet potatoes take about an hour to roast — easy to prepare though. It’s like washing clothes. Start it, pop it in the machine, and check back when the buzzer goes off. First peel and then thickly slice sweet potatoes — the small ones are the sweetest, most flavorful ones. I’d rather get 8 of those than 4 of the big ones, purely for the flavor. Anyway, once they are sliced up, toss them with some oil and salt. Lay them out on a baking sheet covered in aluminum foil and sprayed with Pam. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes or until the bottom starts to brown. Remove foil, turn over, and roast until done, another 15-20 minutes. These are filling and caramel-y and sweet and the kids love them. If they don’t inhale them all, they are great the next day, too.

After I turned the sweet potatoes, I waited about 10 minutes and then started the crustless quiche. It’s as easy as can be — whip together 4 eggs, a couple of Tbsps of sour cream, a Tbsp of cream cheese. Pour in a pie dish. Top with smoked salmon, roasted red pepper — really, anything you want. As soon as the sweet potatoes came out, the quiche was ready to go in for about 15 minutes.

I made a double batch tonight and used a 9×13 pan instead. The kids are getting bigger appetites and also, I thought this would be great for breakfast tomorrow. Too bad there isn’t any leftover sweet potatoes to go with it!

 

Jill and Me and GF Deep Dish Pizza

It was just Jill and me tonight. I love it when I get one on one time with my daughters and tonight we were going to make the most of it. I had tried this GF Deep Dish Pizza recipe on Christmas Eve and it got rave reviews — crispy, thick, airy crust, with the perfect crunch on the outside and the tenderness on the inside. Jill said “Let’s have a kid-friendly meal” so we agreed it would be this pizza.

I found the recipe online, once again giving thanks to the generous souls out there who share their knowledge and skills for the benefit of all.

It’s the standard GF bread drill — mix dry ingredients together, then add wet ingredients, and beat in a mixer. GF doughs are usually pretty wet and this one is no exception. The tricky part is when a GF dough needs to be shaped. How do you get this sticky mass in order? Usually, you have to employ either Saran Wrap or wax paper. For this task tonight, I used wax paper. I glopped out two mounds of dough onto two baking sheets (we were each creating our own pizza). I then put a sheet of wax paper over it and simply pressed it into place. Oh, did I say simply? It was simple until I tried to lift off the wax paper and then realized I had omitted a crucial step — spraying the paper with vegetable oil spray! A lot of it came up with the paper and I had to start over again, getting a new sheet of wax paper, and generously coating it with spray, and then pressing it into place. Once it has the spray on, it comes up pretty easily.

On this pizza, before you add the toppings, you bake the crust for 20 minutes. It starts to brown up beautifully.

I love the puffiness of this crust! Now put on your favorite toppings. When my husband is home, I will usually make my own sauce, but he’s out of town and I was feeling footloose and fancy free so I bought canned sauce!! I truly am walking on the wild side. When the cat’s away, the mice will play, and all that!

I really wish they had a smell feature to the Internet. We could hardly wait for it to cool. I cracked a bottle of wine, Jill put on some music (Brandi Carlile, one of our favorites) and we dug in. The crust is just as it was the first time. I think the eggs in it help make that exterior so crispy, giving way to the tender insides. I left the edges wide, so I could enjoy just the amazing crust.

You can see the airness of it, along with the oregano and garlic powder in the crust. This is the closest GF pizza recipe I’ve found to a regular (gluten) crust. We used tonight as one of the rare times we have cheese, because what better time to have it than whe you’re having pizza? However, the crust is both gluten-free and dairy-free, so if you need to be DF use your favorite cheese substitute (or forego any cheese and just pile on the meat and veggies) and this crust will fit right into your GF-DF diet.

Now I’ve got a kitchen filled with some dirty dishes. But thankfully, Brandi is still on the player and I still have my glass of wine and I think Jill and I need one last mother-daughter bonding experience…