Mock Pumpernickel - In the Slow Cooker~gluten free

Often I hear that Celiac's lament that most gf breads have very little fibre.  This bread should take care of that!  This is a very dense bread that you slice into very thin slices.

Tastes just like old fashioned dark rye pumpernickel!
I will include changes at the end if you wish to use cooked rice instead of buckwheat groats.
Ingredients

1 cup buckwheat groats
3/4 cup cornmeal
2 cups boiling water
Mix together, cover and soak overnight

3/4 cup plus 9 tablespoons brown rice flour (can use white)
1/4 cup yellow corn flour (not corn meal)(or other gf flour)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons corn syrup or molasses
1 tablespoon cooking oil
Stir together the dry ingredients. In a small dish mix the syrup and oil.
Mix all the ingredients into the cooled buckwheat/cornmeal water mixture that has soaked overnight. Mix well with a spoon.
Grease a 9" x 5" loaf pan. Line the bottom with greased foil.
Put dough into pan. Cover pan tightly with foil.
Place in large oblong slowcooker. Cover. Cook on High for 6 hours.
Cool. Remove from loaf pan. Place in plastic bag in fridge overnight.
Slice into 1/4" slices with a greased knife.  Slice and freeze.
If you have a round slow cooker- use a round metal pan that fits inside.
Changes for "Mock Rice Pumpernickel"
Substitute :

• 1 cup cooked brown rice for the buckwheat. Soak One Hour instead of overnight.
• Add 1/2 teaspoon guar gum and 2 tablespoons cocoa powder to the dry ingredients.
• Use cornstarch instead of cornflour

Let cool completely.  Store in plastic bag.  Slice thin.

Barb's Green Relish

Neighbor Barb also gave me her great recipe for Green Relish.  The first time I made it I was suprised that it didn't look like store bought relish although it tasted like it.  I had some food colour in the pantry that I had purchased for adding to the kids homemade playdoh and luckily it was green. This was many years ago when I had young kids and everyone I knew made their own playdoh instead of buying it...... I added just a tiny bit and stirred it through.  It looked great - just like store bought.  I want to make this recipe again but the last two years we did not put in a garden.  My son and daughter-in-law have a large garden and are harvesting lots of cucumbers.  That is why I dug out these two recipes.  They gave me enough cukes to make dills, but I will have to hint that I would like enough to make a few jars of relish too.
Barb's Green Relish -makes 4 quarts
Ingredients:
10 4" cucumbers (they are just the dills grown too big)- about 1.5 kg
4 medium onions - 900 grams or 2 lbs
400 grams or 14 oz celery
2 red peppers- 1/2 lb or 225 grams
2 green peppers- 1/2 lb or 225 grams
1/4 cup pickling salt (coarse salt)
Put the vegetables through a food processor with blade or use coarse  shredder.  Place in large glass bowl or stainless steel pan.  Sprinkle the pick
ling salt over and put the lid on.
Let sit for 6-8 hours.
Drain well.
Sauce:
In large pot place:
3 cups white sugar
3 cups vinegar
1/2 teaspoon tumeric
1 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon mustard seed
Bring to a boil.  Add vegetables.  Simmer uncovered 30 minutes, stirring occassionally.  This is where you will add the tiny bit of green food colour if you choose.  Seal in clean hot canning (pint) jars.  Place in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.
Boiling water bath.  Put enough water into your canner that it will cover the jars.  Bring to a boil.  Place the jars into the canner.  Cover and boil for 10 minutes.  Remove jars and place on a towel placed on the counter.  Let cool.  You will hear the delightful "pings" as each jar seals.  If a jar does not seal - do not worry.  Just place it in the fridge to use first.

Barb's Dill Pickles

We have lovely neighbors.  We've been next to each other for 33 years.  When I started gardening and grew pickling cukes- or maybe it's when Barb gave me a bag from her garden - she also gave me her recipe.  Every so often I phone her up and ask once again "do you put these in a boiling water bath?  Or just let the hot jars seal on their own".  After 33 years, I called once again and finally this time wrote it on the recipe card "No Water Bath".  I remember reading all about canning online a few years ago and then everyone was saying you had to put your quarts in a water bath.  The resulting pickles were not nearly as good and crunchy - the way I love them. 
Prepare 2 quart jars by washing them and boiling them or putting them through the dishwasher.  I do the dishwasher method once we moved up to owning one!  The idea is to time the washing of the jars so that they come straight from the dishwasher to the counter to be filled with cucumbers.  Let's back up a bit here..... first the recipe:
Barb's Dill Pickles:
In each hot clean quart jar put: 1 teaspoon pickling spice.
                                               1/4 teaspoon powdered alum
                                               1 clove garlic, peeled.
Fill the jar with scrubbed clean, small pickling cukes.  Right up to the shoulder of the jar. Place one head of dill at the top of the the cukes. 
Liquid:
 in pan on stove put:
3 cups water
1 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup pickling salt (coarse salt or un-iodized salt)
Bring to a boil and pour over cukes in jars.  There is enough liquid to fill two jars.  Place clean hot snap lid on top and screw on lid.  Let cool on counter.  You should hear two snaps indicating both jars have sealed.  Barb had told me not to double the recipe.  Many times I didn't listen thinking "what difference can that make?"  Well, I should listen and so should you if you try this recipe. The pickles turn out way better if you just make two jars at a time.  Let sit for at least a month in you basement cold storage room for the flavour to develope.
Tips: Clean your cucumbers first.  Assemble all your ingredients and supplies next.  Put your jars in the dishwasher, boil the lids and boil the liquid. 

Overnight Rotini Casserole ~ Easty to convert to gluten free

As mentioned before, we usually have a full house on Sunday's for lunch.  This is a great make ahead recipe!

The recipe calls for Rotini pasta which is the spiral pasta.  To make the recipe gluten free susbstitute with gluten free macaroni rice noodles - it worked great and we all ate the same casserole without anyone noticing it was gluten free.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs lean ground beef                  

1 cups diced onion

1 cup diced green pepper

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes

2 cups hot water

1 envelope onion soup mix (for gluten free please read ingredients and choose a gluten free one)

1 teaspoon italian seasoning (I used 3/4 tsp. oregano and 1/4 tsp. thyme)

3 cups uncooked rotini pasta (or gluten free macaroni rice noodles)
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella
Method:
Oil or butter a 9"X 13" glass casserole dish.  In a pot, fry the hamburger, onion, pepper and garlic on medium heat until hamburger is brown - stirring frequently.  If there is any grease - drain.
Stir in the crushed tomatoes, water , onion soup mix and seasonings.  Stir in the pasta and spoon into the prepared casserole dish.
Cover with aluminum foil and refredigerate 8 hours and no more than 24 hours.
Bake at 350 for 1 hour.  Remove foil, sprinkle on shredded cheese and return to oven for 10 minutes until the cheese is melted.
Serves 8 -10
Serve with salad, sliced veggies, and or buns.



I made this one with rice macaroni noodles from our local chinese store.



What to do with a Gluten Free cake that didn't work out.

On Thursday evening I tried to make an old family favourite spice cake into a gluten free one.  The original cake did not call for an egg but I put one in and then just substituted gf flours for the gluten free.  Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't.  This one was so dry the kids would call it sawdust cake. I by accident had doubled the recipe (never do this the first time converting a recipe!) and some of the ingredients were fairly costly so I did not want to throw it away.  What I did was look for a recipe that was similar but NOT Gluten Free.  I crumbled up the gluten free loaf cakes into a large bowl and measured out the crumbs.
Gluten Free Spice Cake- This is the one that flopped .
1 cup teff
1 cup brown rice flour
1 cup arrowroot flour
1 egg
3 tsp. baking pwd.
2 tsp. guar gum
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ginger pwd
1/8tsp. cloves
1/8 tsp. mace
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. allspice
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup Rogers Syrup
1 cup milk.

Wheat Flour Spice Cake - this is what I converted the flopped gluten free one too.
2 cups raisins soaked in 3 cups water
1 cup shortening, butter or margarine
2 cups sugar
3 1/2 cups flour
3 eggs
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. cloves
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
If  you look at the two recipes you will see they are similar.   To reuse the flopped cake and remake it into a decent wheat cake (for your family and friends who do not have to eat gluten free) you will take the flopped cake and crumble it into fine crumbs into a large mixing bowl.  You can do this with your hands for most flopped gluten free cakes.   When comparing the recipe you will see the flour amounts are almost the same.  Measure out 1-2 cups of the crumbled flopped cake and place in another large mixing bowl.  Add 1- 2 cups wheat all purpose white flour.  DO NOT add any spices, salt  or sugar as there is enough in the flopped cake.  Add the eggs, the shortening and the raisins along with the liquid the raisins were soaking in.  I also added 3 more teaspoons baking powder.  Mix with a hand mixer until well  mixed.  You may have to add a bit more batter to make a  thick batter (should be a batter not a dough).  Pour into greased loaf pans about 3/4 full. 
Bake for 1 hour at 350 until toothpick inserted comes out clean.  What I did above will give you a bit of an idea of how to do it.  My mom gave me this idea.  Last year I was teaching my son to make gluten free Christmas Fruit Cakes for his small bakery.  He ended up with quite a few flopps and my thrifty mom could thought it was such a waste to throw out all that cake and fruit.  We gave her all the flopped ones and she just used her favourite fruit cake recipe using the crumbld flopped cake for about half the flour ingredients.  You would never have known her Christmas Fruit cake was made from flopped gluten free fruit cakes.

You can also make Gluten Free Crumb Cookies out of  your flopped cakes or breads. 

Gluten free Crumb Cookies 

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1 cup brown sugar (if using bread crumbs, omit is using sweet cake crumbs or just add less)

1 cup dry shredded coconut

1 cup dry cake, cookie or bread crumbs (or a mixture)

1 /4 cup cornstarch.
Preheat oven to 350 F.  Beat eggs until frothy.  Add sugar, coconut, crumbs and cornstarch.  Stir well.  Drop onto an ungreased baking sheet.  Bake 10 - 15 minutes until they just start to brown.  Makes 12.

Nutella Chocolate Cookies ~ Gluten Free

This is a recipe that was inspired by the simplicity of the no flour peanut butter cookie recipe. It worked out really well. I am eating one as I type this!




Ingredients:

1/2 cup chocolate spread (Like Nutella)
1 small egg
1/2 cup brown sugar
6 tablespooons cocoa powder
6 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon baking soda.

Method:  Mix chocolate spread, egg and sugar together really well. (I used a hand mixer). Stir in the sifted cocoa powder, cornstarch and baking soda.

Spray with Pam or line baking sheet with parchment paper. Drop cookie dough by tablespoons (for large cookies) or teaspoon full for medium sized cookies. These do spread out.

Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 5 - 10 minutes. They should start to look dryer when done. They puff up and then when cooling flatten out. Remove from cookie sheet while warm for easy removal.

Makes 12 large. Enjoy!

Turkey Tetrazzini ~ Easy

With school volleyball season just starting up and two kids involved on separate teams there is a lot of driving involved around the supper hour.  It's casserole and slowcooker cooking for the next few months!  Just after lunch I threw together this casserole and made it gluten free.  (Recipe will have both instructions).  It's a good way to use up pasta that is lying around.  I put in a mixture of spagettii and macaroni as I only had small amounts of both.  The recipe calls for canned cream of mushroom soup.  If you need a gluten free brand the SuperStore in western Canada carries it as their yellow noname brand - make sure  you always read the ingredients.  If you cannot locate gluten free cream of mushroom soup, either make homemade or make a cream sauce and add some sauted diced mushrooms to it.

Turkey Tetrazzini
Ingredients:
2 cups spaghetti, broken into 2" pieces (use rice noodles if you need gluten free)
2 chicken bouillon cubes (for gluten free I omit this and instead of boiling water I use chicken stock from a carton - as usual read the label)
3/4 cup boiling water
1/4 teaspoon celery salt (if you don't have substitute diced celery, or dried celery leaves)
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 1/2 cups diced cooked turkey (or chicken)
1 cup frozen or canned peas, or peas and carrot mixture - optional
1 cup diced onion
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided.
Method:
Cook spaghetti according to package directions; drain.
Melt bouillon in boing water, in large bowl. (omit if using chicken stock)
Wisk in soup, celery salt and pepper.
Stir in drained spaghetti, turkey, onion and 1/2 cup shredded cheese and peas (if using)
Put in greased 8 x 8" baking dish
Top with remaining shredded cheddar cheese

Bake at 350 F for 40 - 60 minutes.

Comments:  We ate this for supper tonight and the kids said it was a keeper.

Mushroom Egg Foo Yung Casserole - Easy, Gluten Free

 Ingredients  (Serves 8)
8 eggs beaten
1 1/2 cup thinly sliced celery
1 (16oz) can bean sprouts or 2 cups fresh
1/2 cup dry milk powder
2 tablespoons chopped parlsey (fresh or dried)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Mushroom Sauce:
2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/2 cups chicken broth, divided
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 cup fresh mushrooms, sliced
2 tablespoons diced green onions

Stir together all of the Casserole ingredients and pour into a greased 9 x 13 casserole or a 10 x 10 baking dish. Bake at 350 F for 30 - 35 minutes until knife inserted comes out clean.

To make the sauce, combine cornstarch with 1/2 cup of chicken broth and set aside. In a saucepan heat the remaining 1 cup of chicken broth to boiling and whisk in the cornstarch and broth mixture. Add soy sauce. Cook, stirring until thickened and smooth. Stir in mushrooms and green onions, simmer a couple of minutes.
To serve cut casserole into squares and spoon some sauce over each piece.
*This was really good. I served it with some simple fried rice. For the rice I had about 2 cups leftover rice in the fridge that I stir-fryed in peanut oil (or any other oil will do) add a little onion, a tablespoon or two shredded carrot, a little green pepper and a little diced celery. Once all fried up add a little soy sauce. It tasted very good. Next time I think I'll try adding the mushrooms to the casserole mixture and just make the sauce.