Book of Yum

The other night DH and I settled down to a deceptively simple feast of homemade vegetarian pinto bean burgers, corn tortillas, lettuce, and baked onion rings. And yes, I just said BAKED onion rings. Of course, they were totally GLUTEN-FREE. But the real secret… they weren’t even that hard to make! I had been thinking about baked onion rings for some time when I stumbled across an intriguing recipe at Cooking for Engineers. It used a nice buttermilk batter (alas, not gluten-free) and a crispy coating of potato chips and (non gf) saltine crackers. I just happened to have some buttermilk in the fridge so I converted the batter to be gluten-free, and then reworked the coating. I was reluctant to use FRIED chips for a BAKED dish and cancel out all that healthfulness, so I decided to use the newly gluten-free and crunchy Rice Chex instead of potato chips. DH and I had recently discovered a new type of Glutino Cheese crackers at the local New Leaf health food store, and I decided to use them as a substitute for the saltine crackers. The result was cheesy and flavorful with less fat than the gluten-based-recipe that inspired me. To accompany this traditional American fast-food restaurant treat, I took some homemade slow-cooked organic pinto beans and sauteed them with some caramelized onions and garlic, adding peanut butter, tomato paste, green pepper, and fresh cilantro for flavor. Then I added some freshly cooked brown rice and shaped the mixture into patties and floured them with pure GF buckwheat. I pan fried them in a little peanut oil in a cast iron pan and then sprayed them with nonstick cooking spray and baked them until they were firm and perfectly brown. We enjoyed them in a non-traditional corn tortilla with mayo and ketchup (and a little chipotle salsa) and they were the ideal accompaniment for golden, perfectly baked onion rings. Onion rings have always been a rare treat, due to all the trouble (and guilt) of all that oil and deep frying, but with this recipe, they can be on our regular menu. In fact, DH has insisted that we have them again… soon!

*I know, I know, the pinto bean burgers don’t have exact proportions. This is one of those recipes that I created as I went along, tasting and adjusting as I liked. That’s the fun thing about veggie burgers- you can make them up as you go along, just making sure they will shape into a croquette at the end of your kitchen witchery. Enjoy- and tell me all about your version!

Question of the day:
What is your favorite gluten-free breading, either homemade or purchased? Tell me in the comments!

One of my favorite hearty gluten-free indulgences is a yummy biscuit, preferably topped with some killer (vegan) gravy. I’ve tried many recipes over the years, and I keep going back to Bette Hagman’s biscuits made with her gluten-free bisquik type recipe. But recently, with a surplus of Pamela’s Baking mix to use up ASAP, I’ve been experimenting with some of the recipes on the Pamela’s Product web page. I made the biscuit recipe on their page to rave reviews for DH, but even though I thoroughly enjoyed every buttery bite, I couldn’t help but feel that they were a bit too rich for me to enjoy as a regular dish. And wouldn’t it be nice to have biscuits regularly with my other southern dishes, like southern fried tofu or slow cooked greens? (Yes! Absolutely!) So I decided to turn things around a bit and instead of using ultra-rich (although trans-fat free) Organic Spectrum shortening for the base of my biscuits, I tried using lowfat cottage cheese, inspired by Naomi’s recent revolutionary croissant recipe- *the original used cottage cheese*. It worked beautifully, and cut the fat AND calories so much I could easily see making these biscuits on a weekly, not a yearly basis. DH gave them a thumbs up of approval, and I was really happy to enjoy them not only for dinner, with gravy, roasted asparagus, and vegetarian refried beans, but for breakfast too. Here’s a biscuit this southern-girl wannabe can really sink her teeth into! The best part is how very FAST this recipe comes together. Dump your ingredients in a bowl, plop them on a pan, stick it in the oven and whalah, almost instant biscuits that are easier to clean up after than muffins. Now that’s what I like to hear. So if you too have a Pamela’s baking mix haunting your cupboard and you’ve just had one too many pancake or waffle recipes this week, why not go Southern with it and whip up a quick batch of biscuits? I promise you won’t be disappointed!