GF Adventures: Homemade Applesauce

There's a nip in the air, the leaves are starting their slow cascade to the ground, and Starbucks has rolled out their Pumpkin Spice Latte; know what that means? Autumn must be upon us! I don't know about you, but my family has fall traditions that we always like to do: pick apples from an orchard, run through our local corn maize, eat our favorite carmel apples flew in from Minnesota, and pick pumpkins from the patch! 

Usually when we pick apples from the orchard we have an exorbitant amount of apples left over and there is only so many apples you can eat and so many apple pies you can make, so I decided to make my first attempt at homemade applesauce. 
After searching for the perfect recipe I decided to try our the Pioneer Woman's recipe, who also happens to be one of my personal favorites.  

Homemade Applesauce 

Ingredients

6 pounds Apples, Peeled, Cored, And Cut Into 8 Slices

1 cup Apple Juice Or Apple Cider

Juice Of 1 Lemon

1/2 cup Brown Sugar, Packed

1 teaspoon Cinnamon, More Or Less To Taste

Optional Ingredients: Nutmeg, Maple Syrup, Allspice, Butter

Preparation Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a large pot and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 25 minutes.

Carefully puree in a food processor or blender (don't fill too full; split into two portions if needed) until smooth.

Store in the fridge and serve by itself, over pork chops, over ice cream, over pancakes...or any place where applesauce is needed!

GF Adventures: Homemade Chewy Bars

The weekend is prep time for me: prepping for lunches, snacks and dinners throughout the week. By the time I get off work, head to Crossfit and bust my butt (almost literally), drive home and shower it's nearly 8 p.m. and who wants to be on the struggle bus trying to eat a healthy, gluten free meal? This means no calling to pick up a pizza on the way home, no cereal and toast night, or throwing pasta on the stove for a quick pasta meal. Gluten-free, organic living calls for a little planning ahead. One of the things I miss is having quick grab-on-the-go snacks like granola bars so when I saw one of my favorite people ever, Ree aka The Pioneer Woman, posted a yummy looking granola bar recipe I decided to tackle it today and convert it to GF! 

[Chocolate Chip] Granola Bars

• 6 cups Rolled GF Oats (not Quick Oats)
• 4 Tablespoons Butter, Melted, Plus More For Greasing
• 1/4 cup Vegetable Or Canola Oil
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 1 cup Brown Sugar
• 1/2 cup Honey
• 1/4 cup Apple Juice
• 1/4 cup Molasses
• 3 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
• 1-1/2 cup GF Rice Krispies
• 1/4 cup Roughly Chopped Almonds
• Semi Sweet Chocolate Or Dark Chocolate (optional)

Preparation Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a bowl, toss the oats with the canola oil, melted butter and salt. Spread the mixture out on 2 baking sheets and toast in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, shaking the pan twice and making sure they don't burn. Remove from the oven and set aside.

Reduce the heat to 325 degrees F.

In a medium saucepan, combine the brown sugar, honey, apple juice and molasses. Heat the mixture slowly, stirring until all combined. Stir in the vanilla

Toss together the toasted GF oats, GF rice cereal, pecans and almonds. Pour in the sugar mixture, stirring as you pour. Toss to combine; it will be sticky!

Press into 1 baking sheet (thoroughly greased with butter, or line pan with foil and grease foil) and bake until golden, about 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. Cut pieces with a sharp knife and remove from the pan.

They turned out nice and crunchy and the chocolate melted nicely. Now it's time to let them cool, wrap them up and store for the week!

GF Adventures: Homemade Pesto

Summer is officially coming to an end and the garden is quickly disappearing so I decided to go out and pick a bunch of the fresh basil and make some homemade pesto to store up for winter. 

It takes a whole heck of a lot of basil to make just a small amount of pesto so cut up about 2 cups of basil leaves

 Wash & dry the basil and then place it in a food processor with salt and pepper. Add in a few cloves of garlic and a heaping handful of parmesan cheese. 

With the lid on, drizzle in several tablespoons of olive oil and voila - homemade pesto. Store in an air tight container and freeze until ready to use. Perfect for pasta, pizzas, and chicken!

GF Steak & Ale Pie Night

After a super tough Crossfit Workout, one in which I thought I was going to vomit and die right there on the floor, I was craving something filling and with a little bit of nip in the air, something with a taste of fall. Time for some steak and ale pie. It's super filling, deliciously warm and tasty, and makes the entire house smell of fall for hours. So came the time to experiment on how to make this gluten-free friendly.

Gluten Free Pie Crust

*Based off of Bob's Red Mill Recipe

1 1/2 cups GF All Purpose Flour (I used Trader Joe's All Purpose)

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 cup of Butter (one stick)

4 Tbsp Cold Milk

Combine flour and salt, then cut in butter using a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle in milk, one tablespoon at a time, while blending until all ingredients are moist.

I rolled the dough mixture into a ball and pulled off small pieces and pressed them into the bottom of the pie dishes. 

Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes or until the bottoms are just enough done.

Now time for the actual pie mixture! Our families favorite is Pippa Middleton's "Celebrate" Steak, Guinness Cider and Kidney Pie. 

2 pounds beef chuck, trimmed of fat and cut into cubes

1 pound of ox or lamb kidneys, cleaned and cubed (optional)

Salt & Pepper

6 tablespoons all-purpose GF Flour

6 Tablespoons of sunflower oil (or veggie oil)

2 Tbsp butter

6 ounces small button mushrooms

1/2 onion, halved and sliced thinly 

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed

2 celery stalks, chopped

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

4 large fresh Thyme sprigs

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 3/4 Cups Gluten Free Hard Apple Cider (YUM)

1 3/4 Cups Beef Stock

2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 Bay Leaves

Season the beef and kidneys (optional) well, then coat in the flour. Heat 4 tablespoons of the oil in a large Dutch oven or saucepan and brown the meat in batches. Remove and set aside. Add another tablespoon of the oil and half the butter into the pan and brown the mushrooms, scraping up the residue in the pan from the meat, then remove and set aside with beef.

Add the last of the oil and butter to the pan and cook the onions over medium heat until soft, then add the garlic, celery, carrots, thyme and sugar and sweat for another 5 minutes.

Return the meat and mushrooms to the pan, pour in the Cider, stock and Worcestershire sauce and add the bay leaves. 

Partially cover with a lid and simmer for 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally to ensure nothing sticks to the bottom. Remove the lid and continue to simmer, uncovered, for another 30 minutes, until the meat is tender and the sauce has thickened. Season well.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Spoon the beef mixture into the individual pie dishes. brush the edges of the pie dish with a little beaten egg mixture and roll the left over pastry over the surface, trimming off any excess so it fits the dish nicely.

Brush the top of the pastry with the remaining egg wash and cut a small cross in the middle of the pastry to allow the steam to escape. Put the dish in the middle of the oven on a baking tray for 25-30 minutes, until the pastry is golden. Let stand for a few minutes before serving.

The GF substitutions worked out great :) 

GF Adventures

With the recent diagnosis of gluten intolerance, things have been slowly clicking and after years and years of feeling..eh, I'm finally starting to feel better. Who knew, after four years of random diagnosis, that GF might be a possible solution. One of the hardest things is that for 22-years I have enjoyed everything with gluten, and I'm not sure I'm ready to give up everything I used to love just because of the gluten; time to start experimenting. Tonight was a quiet night with Abby so I made a GF Fish & Chips for us (Okay, she got the scraps...)

Baked Gluten Free Fish & Chips

Olive oil cooking spray

1/2 cup GF Rice Krispies

Salt & Pepper

Lemon Pepper Seasoning

1 egg white 

Pinch of salt

1 tilapia filet (I used a frozen piece of tilapia, thawed)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees 

Set a wire rack on a baking sheet and coat with cooking spray. TIP: This gets the bottom crispy too!

In a shallow bowl, combine the egg white and a pinch of salt and whisk with a fork until frothy.

In a second shallow bowl, crush the Rice Krispies using your hand or the bottom of the measuring cup. Add seasonings.

Dip the fish in the egg whites, then roll in the cereal crumbs to coat. Place the five on the rack. Bake the fish on the bottom oven rack until crisp and just cooked through, about 12 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and serve with "chips".

12 minutes later...voila! Bon appetite. 

The "chips" were some gluten free sweet potato oven fries as I was too exhausted to make homemade sweet potato chips tonight :)