Fancy Pants Foodie

Poblano Quinoa Cucumber Bites with Cumin Vinaigrette

March 2, 2014 by arfoodie Leave a Comment

Attendees at the North Little Rock Vitamin Shoppe’s Share the Health event loved these Poblano Quinoa Cucumber Bites with Cumin Vinaigrette.

An aside…

This title reminds me of a silly page I want to do someday on this website. I want to have a “fancy food name generator.” It will have a series of food words that go something like this: adjective noun noun noun with a(n) adjective noun noun. Refresh the page and you’ll get something like this:

Crispy Tomato Kumquat Compote with a Creamy Asparagus Sorbet
or
Savory Watermelon Kimchi Pizza with a Chilled Habañero Reduction

Anyways.

This weekend I participated in the national “Share the Health” expo held at Vitamin Shoppes nationwide, setting up camp at my local store in North Little Rock. While others demonstrated taekwondo and sold bikes, I whipped up samples of this tasty quinoa salad. Even the healthy-food averse were converted. Hallelujah!

I served the salad cold atop tiny rounds of fresh cucumber, but it could be served as a meal component or salad all by itself, warm or chilled.

Here’s the recipe, as promised to those in attendance. I think you’ll love it!

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Poblano Quinoa Cucumber Bites with Cumin Vinaigrette
Serves 30 as an appetizer, 8 as a main dish or salad

1 cup quinoa, uncooked
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 garlic clove, peeled and smashed
2 Poblano peppers
1 Red bell pepper
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 tsp. dried oregano
2 T. dried parsley (or 1/4 c. fresh parsley or cilantro, chopped fine)
2 tsp. ground cumin, plus extra for garnish
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
2 cucumbers
Optional: Fresh parsley or cilantro for garnish

If the package states to do so, rinse and drain the quinoa. In a medium pot, heat the quinoa by itself over medium-high heat a minute or two, stirring occasionally, until slightly toasted, then add the broth and the garlic clove. Bring just to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cover. Cook according to package directions, probably about 15 minutes, until the quinoa is done and all the liquid is absorbed.

Meanwhile, roast the poblano peppers. If you have a gas cooktop, this can be done there. Place one or both peppers directly on a burner and turn on the flame. When one side is charred, turn carefully with heat-resistant tongs. (Turn on the vent if you have one!) If you do not have a gas cooktop, you can do this under the broiler of your oven. Place the peppers on a baking sheet just under the broiler. Stand nearby and watch, turning with tongs when the top is charred. With either method, when all sides are charred, place the peppers in an airtight container such as a plastic storage bag or rigid container with a lid. Allow the peppers to steam while you continue.

Chop the bell pepper, which we’ll use raw, into small dice. You can do this by cutting the pepper in half, carefully removing the white membranes and seeds with the tip of your knife, and slicing the pepper halves into very thin strips, about 1/8″ thick. Line the strips up and cut into small cubes. Place in a large bowl.

By now your poblanos are ready to peel. Hold them under running cool water and scrub off the charred skin. If some skin wasn’t charred and doesn’t want to come off, don’t worry about it. Now dry the poblanos and cut the flesh into small pieces with the same method as the bell pepper. (Yeah, it will be more floppy, but it’s floppy deliciousness.) Add to the large bowl.

In a jar, add together the olive oil, apple cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, herbs and cumin. Shake to combine, taste and add salt and pepper to taste. Keep it in the jar for now.

When the quinoa is done and still warm, turn it out into the large bowl and gently mix it with the peppers, being careful to not crush the quinoa. Pour the vinaigrette over the mixture and fold it in gently. If possible, let this stand, covered, in the fridge for at least 4 hours before using.

When you’re ready to serve, slice the cucumbers about 1/4″ thick. Sprinkle sparingly with kosher salt. (Skip the salt here if these will sit out a while, or they’ll weep.) Find the garlic in the salad and remove it. Using a small spoon or melon baller, place a small amount of the salad on top of the slices. Sprinkle with another bit of kosher salt and a dash of cumin. Add a small sprig of parsley or cilantro if you like.

Prettied-up option that I skipped during my show: Before slicing the cucumber, use a vegetable peeler to make four or five stripes evenly around it. When you cut the slices, they’ll have a cool pattern and they’ll be easier to eat if the peel is tough.

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I so enjoyed making new friends at this show, especially those of you who had questions about how food changes can affect your health. I hope I can be of service to you. Stay in touch!

Diamond Chef Prelims Set for March 6 at PTC

February 19, 2014 by arfoodie 1 Comment

Chef Dan Capello, Executive Chef of Chenal Country Club, competing in last year’s Diamond Chef preliminaries. Capello won last year’s final and will compete against this year’s preliminary winner. Photo courtesy of Pulaski Tech.

UPDATE 3/5/14: Specific competitor heat times announced here.

What better setting for this year’s Diamond Chef preliminaries than a shiny new culinary school, right?

The annual Diamond Chef competition is a fundraiser for the Pulaski Technical College Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institute, taking place in two phases. The preliminary competition, taking place at the school on Thursday, March 6, culls the field of several talented local chefs (see graphic below) down to one competitor, using an elimination-style setup. Each heat features a mystery basket of ingredients that both chefs in that round must use.

Then later in the spring, at a ticketed event at the Statehouse Convention Center, the finalist goes mano-a-mano (or woman-o, if one had entered) on-stage against the previous year’s winner, Chef Dan Capello of Chenal Country Club, while the audience enjoys a multi-course meal. In the final, a single secret ingredient is revealed that must be used in each of at least three courses.

This year marks the preliminary event’s move to the institute’s new building, which opened to students last fall. The preliminary had been held at the former Peabody Hotel in years past.

If you’ve never been to the preliminary competition, it’s a great time to jump in. As opposed to the final, this event is free, and this year it will include some complimentary hors d’oerves and beverages from 5 – 8 p.m. (Thanks, sponsors!) You can drop in anytime between 2 and 8 p.m. to watch the action.

Diamond Chef Arkansas Preliminary Competition
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Pulaski Technical College Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institute
13000 Interstate 30, Little Rock
Drop in 2 – 8 p.m. (hors d’oerves and beverages 5 – 8 p.m.)
FREE

Gluten Free Chicken Pot Pie Class at PTC March 22

February 14, 2014 by arfoodie 4 Comments

Amazeballs gluten free chicken pot pie, if I do say so myself. Learn to make your own at my class!

I had a lot to do last night.

Pinterest-y Valentines for the Kindergartener’s friends. A not-so-Pinterest-y Beyblade Valentine mailbox for same Kindergartener. Spray-painting elements for said box outside. Realizing that wasn’t going to work and going out for red plastic plates. Baths. Homework. All that momma stuff.

For some unknown reason, I decided it would be a dandy night to make chicken pot pie from scratch. Well, sorta from scratch; my mom brought a rotisserie chicken over at lunch, and the leftovers pretty much demanded to be pot pie. They told me so.

It’s just as well, since I’m teaching a class next month at Pulaski Technical College’s Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institute on this very dish. Why not practice a few times? Yum.

The whole pot pie. In class, we’ll probably make individual-sized ones. Equally delicious.

Last night’s version used (gasp) frozen veggies, just because it’s what I had and I forgot to go to Kroger. Sue me. (In class, we’ll bust out our real knife skills on real-life veggies. Because you need the practice.) Well, I did dice a real onion and some garlic, so there’s that.

Want to make your own? Of course you do. This dish was amazing, even with cheater ingredients. We’ll go over how to mix your own gluten-free all-purpose flour (and save a ton of cash) in our class. I’ll teach you how to make flaky pie crust that nobody will know is gluten-free, even your picky gluten-eating family. And we’ll package them up to freeze and bake whenever the pot pie siren calls. (Or, you can bring it home for dinner that night.)

The class is $75 for four hours of instruction and lots of tomfoolery. But productive tomfoolery. Let’s just say we’ll have fun.

Sign up for this class by calling (501) 907-6670, ext. 3407 or emailing Emily Story, Director of Community Education at PTC. See you there!

Gluten Free Pot Pie Class
Pulaski Technical College Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institute
Community Kitchen
Saturday, March 22, 2014
12:30 – 4:30 p.m.
$75 per person

Panic and Gluten Free Turkey Potstickers

February 10, 2014 by arfoodie 4 Comments

My glorious plate of too-few GF turkey potstickers.

Most of the time, I don’t really mind being gluten-free.

I’ve gotten used to GF bread (don’t eat much anyways). I’m better off skipping the cupcakes and such at the bakery anyways (with a notable exception). But there are two siren calls that still wail to me: doughnuts and Asian dumplings.

Not much I can do about the doughnuts right now, but I saw a post recently on Brokea** Gourmet that rekindled my hankering for potstickers, the close cousin of traditional steamed dumplings.

I’d found myself on the aforementioned site because I’m bootstrapping a new spinoff business, one that you’ll hear all about very soon. Things are going well, but the fancy food budget has been, well, constrained. The recipe fit right in, using small amounts of inexpensive ground pork or turkey and some other bits that I mostly happened to have around.

I probably would have rather used pork, although I usually don’t eat much of the stuff, but my local Kroger didn’t have any ground pork on hand. I picked up the turkey instead, remembering that the recipe said it would be fine with the addition of an egg yolk for added moisture.

It took me a while to find the rice paper, but when I did, I realized what a great deal it was. For a little over $2, I had like a bazillion wrappers for my little packets of Asian awesome. I couldn’t wait.

I made the mistake of coming home to cook dinner right after a major shopping trip. Hungry. Panicked. Must. Have. Dumplings. NOOWWWW.

In a move of total desperation, I put the husband on rice duty. Just cook some white rice, sauté the veggies and throw them together, I said. He looked at me like I was speaking Korean. “You did cook before we got married, right?” More blank stare. He ended up doing pretty well, despite charring the zucchini a bit — the daughter asked how I made it because it was so good. Heh.

Meanwhile, I got after the cumbersome task of the dumplings. The filling was easy enough, if you’re comfy with your knife skills; just some mincing and a quick stir. The wrappers, however, were a little more tricky.

In this recipe, you wet two large pieces of rice paper and stick them together, then cut smaller circles out of that using a cup or small bowl as a guide. A little cumbersome and time-consuming, but I got one sheet done, resulting in four small circles. Yay! Oh wait…I want to make more than four dumplings. Fill those, struggle with sticky edges, smoosh closed however they’ll smoosh. Repeat. Cook those, and repeat again.

Since you really can’t cook more than eight at a time anyways, the process was very staggered. After the second batch of eight, I was done. I could have eaten twenty more of them, but I was tired of it. And hungry. Darned shopping!

Everything said, these were delicious. If I do it again (and I probably will), I’ll start early, when I’m NOT HUNGRY, and make a bazillion dumplings all at once. To do this, I’ll have to keep them on a non-stick surface, maybe a Silpat or wax paper, covered with a wet towel to keep the wet rice paper from drying out and getting crunchy. Doable.

Also, I think I’ll fry them a bit more on each side before the steaming step. The linked recipe didn’t suggest this, but the rice paper did often taste a bit gummy on the side that didn’t meet the pan directly. A bit of oil and a little flip before steaming wouldn’t kill anyone.

Now that this subject is broached, maybe I’ll try a more authentic pastry-style dumpling next time, like this one by Gluten Free on a Shoestring. Or, I’ll just make a bazillion of the rice paper ones.

Either way, honey, you’re on rice and veggie duty. Fair warning.

Cafeteria Food Gets Awesome at Green Leaf Grill

January 24, 2014 by arfoodie 7 Comments

A chef tosses a customer’s salad to order at Green Leaf Grill.

I don’t do a lot of restaurant reviews, but I had to share an experience from last week. In short, there’s a fairly new cafeteria, or fast-casual, or some kinda restaurant in the Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield building on 7th and Gaines in Little Rock, and it’s pretty amazing.

I was there for a meeting with Chef Jason Knapp about an unrelated business project. If his name sounds familiar, it should; Knapp’s lofty résumé hails from the Governor’s Mansion to the culinary school and Big Rock Bistro at Pulaski Technical College, then Executive Chef of Aramark’s dining program at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.

A chef slices tomatoes for the grill station.

It was likely at his last two appointments that Knapp got a good sense of what cafeterias need: fast, quality food that can serve a mass of hungry folks when they all show up at the same time. (Note: Much of his work at UCA involved cooking for special functions and executive meetings, giving him the best of both worlds of this type of foodservice experience.) At his new venture in the BCBS building, managed by Compass Group USA, he was given the opportunity to take cafeteria-style efficiency a step further and implement his passions for fresh, scratch-made food, using local ingredients as much as possible.

The spacious serving area has several large sections, including grill, deli, pizza, soups, entrees and a tossed-to-order salad bar. Just walking around looking at each station, one thing became immediately apparent: None of this stuff came from a box. There’s a swarm of young chefs buzzing around each station and in the open-to-view back kitchen, and each one of them has a hand in creating real food. Each freshly prepared item is pleasantly offered in French-style blue enameled cast iron, offering a bistro-meets-home feel.

Fresh vegetable selections in the entree area.

I asked the chef what I could eat, having to be gluten-free and all. Usually, in a cafeteria-style operation, I would get glazed looks because they often don’t even know what’s in the food. Knapp immediately rattled off at least three entrees that were safe. He knew every single ingredient because he planned them himself, on a menu that changes daily.

The Shepherd’s Pie was calling my name, with its billowing, toasted peaks of mashed potatoes over fresh vegetables and tender, flavorful ground beef. The sides, however, were the show-stealer. I chose the beet salad with feta cheese and the roasted broccoli, both healthy and beautiful enough to not look it. My meal, with a drink (I chose the cucumber-infused water), came to about eight bucks. Not bad.

That seems to be the idea at Green Leaf, healthy food that you’d crave even if it wasn’t. I ran into a friend who works at Blue Cross, and she said the company was moving in the direction of promoting health in all areas for their own employees, and the restaurant was just one part of that equation.

Luckily, it’s open to the public, too. Check it out (weekly menu here) and you won’t think of cafeteria food the same way again.

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Green Leaf Grill
601 S. Gaines St. (7th and Gaines, Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield building)
Little Rock
Breakfast grill hours 7:30 – 9:30 a.m.
Lunch 10:45 a.m. – 2 p.m.

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3 Things I Learned from a 3-Day Juice Cleanse

January 7, 2014 by arfoodie 6 Comments

A glass of Joe Cross’ Mean Green juice, from last spring. Clearly I hadn’t taken down the sugar monster then, either (see background).

I’m not a huge fan of New Years resolutions. Setting unwieldy goals that will be forgotten by February seems like an awful way to start the first days of the calendar. That being said, last week seemed a peachy time to do a juice cleanse, if only to scrub away the cobwebs and funk built up by a holiday season full of heavy food, sweets and cured meats.

Then it appeared in my Facebook newsfeed: a three-day cleanse featuring juice, and a plan written by the people who brought you the Food Matters documentary film. They advertised a free set of recipes and plans for the three days, although the acquisition of which was confusing and I ended up buying the e-book version. This plan seemed better than others I’ve tried before (and failed — my brain freaks out without carbs); it included real food in the form of salads for lunch and a vegetable soup for dinner, with juices and teas in-between.

Here are some things I learned in the process:

1. Some cleanse is better than none at all.

I cheated. Big time.

I actually behaved and followed the plan most of the time. I drank my large glass of water first thing every morning. I actually enjoyed my alkaline veggie juice for breakfast each day (kale, celery, cucumber, parsley and lime), although I cheated a bit and added an apple a couple of times. The large salads at lunch were filling and delicious, even when the avocados I purchased for said salads were found to be too green to even cut open. And the veggie soup for dinner was awesome!

It was those few hours before bed on day two that my body went crazy.

After all day feeding my body a virtual IV drip of awesome, I fell headlong into a bag of marshmallows. Same on day three, followed by some cornbread (hey, it’s the last day, I’m done, right?) and a handful of candy corn. That carb/sugar addiction is some serious shiz.

With my cheats, I fully expected to not get a lot of benefit from the whole experience. Guilt-tripper health nuts will chastise you and say, “you might as well not have done the cleanse at all.” But, despite all my shortcomings, I am sitting here on day four awake and clear-headed when I’m usually shuffling back to bed for a nap. I lost some weight and I feel…well…clean. Proof enough for me.

2. Any step in the right direction is a good step.

Corollary: Your brain, not your stomach, is your biggest challenge.

I could have decided I was going to lose 20 pounds by spring, mapping out an elaborate diet and exercise plan. Nothing wrong with that. Except I won’t do it. I did a tiny, three-day baby step, and I didn’t even complete it properly. But I did something.

I got enough benefit to take a few more little steps, not even as drastic as those I did for three days, but still, something. Cut down on sugar (it tastes kinda gross now, anyway). Keep juicing, at least a few times a week. Cut way back on meat and eat more fresh vegetables.

As my brain was screaming for nighttime carbs, I became more aware of the brain-stomach connection. My hunger wasn’t from my stomach, it was from a chemical reaction in my brain…literally an addiction. Even when I failed to control it, I took a tiny step to recognize it for what it is. And if you ever watched G.I. Joe, you know that knowing is half the battle.

3. Juicing is pretty awesome.

If you’ve never tried it, I can highly recommend it.

I really like my refurb Breville Juice Fountain.

Don’t freak out when you see juicing evangelists like Joe Cross (of Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, a great documentary you should totally watch) going all-juice for 30 days or more at a time. Just try one glass, mostly veggies. I like Joe’s Mean Green recipe. Then go from there.

To rehash an earlier phrase, it’s like an IV of nutrients going right into your body, immediately ready for use. I was coming from a pretty rough place last week, with fatigue and brain fog. Before I was even done with the first glass, I could feel stuff happening, like an energy surge. You know, like you hope that third cup of coffee will do but doesn’t. Oh…and other things.

Ahem. Juicing will make you go.to.the.bathroom. With a quickness. Don’t be alarmed if you don’t even finish the glass first. It’s all good. Your body needs to get rid of, well, stuff. My husband joked that men would probably take pictures and share stories. It’s pretty remarkable, really.

So, as with most things in my life, I didn’t do the cleanse perfectly, but at least I did something. And that may be the biggest lesson learned of all.

Holiday Leftover Meal Ideas: New Year’s Sticky Rice and New Year’s Blackeye Peas

December 31, 2013 by arfoodie 1 Comment

This decadent sticky rice is simple to make and easy to substitute with holiday leftovers.

I opened my fridge this morning, and there it sat, taunting me.

The ham.

Ugh, I’m so tired of you. I had a bagel (GF, of course) instead.

But, before said ham is relegated to the freezer until I want it again, it’s going to have one more incarnation: New Year’s Blackeye Peas. It would have been even better with the bone, but my mom made the ham this year and kept that prize for herself.

You’re likely in the same boat, a fridge full of bits and pieces that need to get used or frozen pretty darn soon. Go ahead and do that; don’t be wasteful! Bag up and freeze what you can’t deal with, and make a few fabulous New Year’s dishes with what you can. I have a couple ideas that might help.

Leftover Nuts, Dried Fruit, Fresh Herbs

I discovered a quite lovely Christmas potluck dish a couple weeks ago when heading out to a party. This rice dish features walnuts, dried cranberries, fresh parsley and basil, which were beautiful and delicious in a red-and-green sort of way. I added orange marmalade to the original recipe for color, flavor and a bit of sticky-rice texture. I also toasted the walnuts, which you should totally do no matter what kind of nuts you use.

For New Year’s, just use whatever nuts and dried fruit you have left over. I’d say the parsley should stay, but also add some fresh basil if you have it. You might even experiment with the marmalade; I dare you to use the last of your holiday pepper jelly!

New Year’s Sticky Rice
(Modified from Parsley-Herb Rice with Cranberries recipe by Midwest Living)

1/2 cup walnut pieces (pecans, almonds or pine nuts would work as well)
1 1/2 cup long grain white rice, brown rice or wild rice blend (i.e. Lundberg brand; do not use anything with a seasoning packet!)
3 cups water or chicken broth
2 T. butter
2 T. olive oil
1/2 cup fresh Italian parsley, chopped
2 T. fresh basil, chiffonade
1/4 cup orange marmalade
1/2 cup dried cranberries or other dried fruit, cut to similar size

In a skillet over medium-low heat, toast the nuts until just fragrant, stirring every so often so they don’t burn. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.

In a medium saucepan, combine the rice, butter, oil and water or chicken broth and bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat to low. Cook until the rice is done (white rice should take 15-20 minutes, brown rice or wild rice blend closer to an hour). While the rice is cooking, prepare the parsley and basil and combine them in a small bowl in the fridge.

When the rice is done, turn it out onto a sheet pan and spread it out to cool slightly. This helps the rice maintain its structure and not get smashed when mixed with the other items.

When still just a bit warm, gently mix the rice in a large bowl with the marmalade and cranberries or other fruit. Just before serving, fold in the parsley, basil and nuts.

Best served at room temperature.

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Ham and Ham Bone

Every year, my mom buys a ham for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner at her house. Every year, I ask the same question: Is it bone-in? Because I know, if it is, she’ll be making something like this come New Year’s Eve. I make it at my house, too…Good luck all around!

Since Mom kept the bone this year, mine won’t have the (cover your ears, vegans) unctuous, gelatinous awesome that comes from a long simmer with the porcine hip bone. But even with the ham scraps alone, this makes for a festive and relatively easy dish to ring in the year.

New Year’s Blackeye Peas

1 pound dried blackeye peas (even better, order some cowpeas)
1/2 lb. bacon, cut into small pieces
2 T. butter
1 large white onion, diced
6 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
4 stalks celery, diced
1/2 lb. ham pieces, cut into small bites, with bone if you have one
4 bay leaves
2 quarts chicken broth or water (or enough to cover the peas and other stuff by 1 inch)
Salt and pepper to taste
Hot sauce to taste

The night before cooking, pick through the peas for rocks and such (I honestly very rarely do this, but they say you should…meh) and rinse in a colander. Place in a large bowl and cover with fresh water, and cover with a towel or plastic wrap. Let the peas soak overnight.

On cooking day, rinse the peas again in the colander to remove all the toxins that come out during soaking.

In a large skillet, cook the bacon until crisp. Remove the bacon to a separate bowl and drain all but a couple tablespoons of the grease. Add the butter, onion, garlic and celery and cook over medium heat a few minutes until softened.

Place the peas and all the skillet veggies into a large pot, along with the ham pieces and the bone if you have it. Add the bay leaves and cover everything with the chicken broth or water. Bring to a bare simmer and let it cook for one hour. Check the texture of the peas and see if they are soft; you can continue to cook them much longer if you like. (This part may be done up to 8 hours in a slow cooker on low.)

When the peas are tender to your liking, remove the bone and bay leaves. Smash about 1/4 cup of the peas against the side of the pot, or use an immersion blender (being careful not to puree too much) to thicken the liquid a bit. Season to taste with salt, pepper and a bit of hot sauce. Garnish with the reserved cooked bacon.

These peas are fabulous right away, but they’re even better after being cooled and reheated the next day.

Gluten-Free Pie Crust (and Graham Crackers to Boot)

November 27, 2013 by arfoodie Leave a Comment

Gluten free, xantham gum free graham crackers.

Greetings from our cozy cabin at Big Cedar Lodge near Branson, MO!

We’re spending the week here for Thanksgiving. We got here at 5 p.m. Tuesday and I’ve already been cooking like they don’t sell food around here. But, I actually enjoy that, so taking the larger vehicle so we could sherpa a week’s worth of groceries was totally worth it.

Tomorrow, I’ll get started on all the traditional Thanksgiving fare, but first, I thought I’d share one thing I’ve already made here at the cabin: some gluten-free, xanthan gum-free graham crackers.

S’mores made from my very own GF graham crackers!

See? Yeah. I’m pretty proud of these, actually. The family got right to work after dinner on s’mores, and I had planned ahead just enough to bring stuff to make my own crackers. If I had planned even more, I would have made them at home and brought them…but no matter.

The family making s’mores by the fire. How could I not participate?

I used this recipe from Living Low Carb One Day at a Time, although I used real brown sugar rather than her healthier alternatives. (Hey, one step at a time, right?) Kudos to Karen over there for the great recipe.

I worried about the batter being really wet, but it worked out just fine. Just trust her when she says to roll it out between sheets of parchment. Silpats would probably be even better. But, I’m at a cabin, so we use what we brought, which remarkably included parchment.

Tomorrow I’ll be on full Thanksgiving alert, working on the turkey, dressing, pies and such. Oh, yeah, and the hubs wants to take the kids to see Santa at Bass Pro Shops in Springfield. I’ll see if we can work that in.

Speaking of pies, didn’t I promise pie crust in the title of this post? Ah, yes, I did. If you like a graham cracker crust, just use the above cracker recipe and crumble them up using your favorite crust recipe. Here are one or two crust recipes for you.

If you like a more traditional pastry-style crust, here’s the recipe I made ahead and froze into disks for the trip.

Gluten-Free Pie Crust (Traditional pastry style)

The dough actually behaves better after being frozen, or at least parking in the fridge for a few hours. If freezing, take it out of the freezer about 30 minutes before using.

2 1/2 cups gluten-free flour blend
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cubed small and frozen
1/2 cup lard or margarine, cut into small pieces and frozen
1/4 cup ice cold water

Place the flour blend, salt, butter and lard or margarine into a food processor and pulse (er, I had to run mine a while) until it’s a crumbly meal. If you don’t have a food processor, you can do this with a pastry cutter. Just cut the butter and flour together.

Drizzle in the cold water a bit at a time, pulsing the processor (or your fingers, as the case may be) until the dough comes together. You don’t have to use all the water, just enough to bring it together. When it just comes together when you press it, it’s done.

Turn the dough out onto a clean surface. It will still be a bit crumbly, and that’s okay. Divide the dough in two and form each portion into a disk, pressing slightly to help it come together. Place each disk into a freezer bag and place in the freezer until about an hour before you need it.

Thaw and roll out on a GF-floured surface. If it comes apart, don’t freak — just use a spatula to pick up pieces as flatly as possible and press them together in your pie pan. Comes out exactly like the traditional pie crust you always knew.

Easy Olive Tapenade for Holiday Entertaining (or, Ode to the Kroger Olive Bar)

November 21, 2013 by arfoodie Leave a Comment

This recipe, if you can call it that, was part of the recent ‘Tis the Season event at Central Baptist Church in North Little Rock. I shared some appetizer ideas for holiday entertaining, along with some crazy stories and examples of ways to share love with people through food. If you were there, the ganache recipe is here (well, roughly…I’ll update soon with the exact one we made), and the bacon-wrapped dates from my friend Delta Moxie are in this issue of Farm Bureau’s Front Porch magazine.

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Tapenade, if you’re new to the stuff, is a lovely, briny olive mixture that can be a gorgeous and easy appetizer for holiday entertaining. I’ve mentioned it before, but this one is different. And actually yummier. It’s great on little toasted rounds of bread, rice crackers (they don’t get soggy), or just about anything, really.

This is the fairly-fancy-but-no-time-to-waste version. It does require a food processor, at least for the super-fast version, although you could definitely use a knife or even one of those slap-chop kinda things if that’s your speed. The recipe is also born of inspiration based on a super-crazy week, which I’m sure I’ll see again come Christmas entertaining time.

The crazy, that is. The inspiration will have to carry over.

You may have figured out by now that I am a huge Kroger fan. They don’t pay me to say that (although, to borrow a phrase from Alton Brown, they could if they wanted to); it’s just true. One store in particular here in North Little Rock is my happy place: the Indian Hills store on JFK Boulevard. (Cue angels singing.) I shop there like most ladies shop for shoes at the mall, or wherever it is that trendy ladies shop for shoes.

At this particular store, they have a great olive bar, or Mediterranean bar, or whatever. It brims with yummies like fresh hummus (usually a couple kinds), marinated mushrooms, even some dolmas. They have three sizes of containers to choose from, one roughly double the next. (Sorry, I don’t know the exact volume, but you’ll see that it doesn’t matter.)

Tapenade in process, armed only with containers from the olive bar and a food processor.

If you live near this Kroger, or any store with a similar olive bar, here are the steps to an amazing, multi-tasking tapenade that will wow any party.

Pick up one large container (the biggest of the three), one medium, and two of the smallest ones, which are about a quarter of the size of the big one.
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Fill the largest container with the roasted red bell peppers from the bar. If you don’t see any, ask the attendant or someone at the deli and he/she will probably be glad to open a container for you. (At my store, she even offered to open one just so I’d have the very freshest, although the ones on the bar were perfectly fine.) Avoid getting large amounts of the packing oil in the container.
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Fill the medium container with pitted kalamata olives. They’re the purple ones. Drain out as much liquid as possible.
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Fill a small container with green olives stuffed with garlic. This will save you the step of peeling garlic later. Bonus! And yes, avoid the liquid. You don’t want to have to pay for that.
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Fill another small one with sun-dried or roasted tomatoes. They are packed in olive oil, which you should mostly drain off.
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Run by the produce section and get a container of Simple Truth organic fresh basil. (I’m digging on this new Kroger brand of additive-free foods.) They’re in little plastic packages, usually hanging above the mushrooms and baby potatoes and such.

The green olives stuffed with garlic, now a lovely paste with minimal effort.

The green olives stuffed with garlic, now a lovely nearly-paste with minimal effort.

Back home, put the green olives with garlic in the food processor first. This is because you want the garlic to be pretty fine. Nobody wants to bite down into that! Buzz the green olives and garlic until they are teeny, almost a paste. Remove into a large bowl but don’t worry about the processor being completely clean yet.

Put a handful of basil in the last batch of stuff you process.

Now, put the other ingredients in the processor and buzz them until they’re in tiny pieces. Work in batches depending on the size and power of your machine; it’s all going the same place, so no matter. As you finish each batch, just dump everything into the same large bowl that already has the green olives and garlic. Add a handful of basil to the last batch you process and let it get minced along with everything else. Stir it all together.

Kalamata olives about to get the grind.

What, no olive oil? No extra salt? Nope. The oil that the peppers and tomatoes were packed in is plenty. And you can surely add salt if you like, but the olives are super salty, so try the finished product first.

Guess what? You’re done.

This is best the day after it’s made, so put that bowl in the fridge and let it get happy the day before your party. The next day, drain off any excess liquid, stir, and put it in a pretty bowl. Garnish with a bit of fresh basil. Boom.

In our class, we sliced a baguette, brushed the slices with olive oil and toasted them in the oven before topping with the tapenade. To make things even easier, buy a container of rice crackers (in the Asian section of this particular Kroger) and call it done. They hold up beautifully under toppings, and your gluten-free friends (like myself) can enjoy them.

And isn’t that what food is about, sharing love with all your people? I think so. I hope your people love it.

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This “recipe” makes a metric ton of tapenade, like enough for 20+ folks. So, if you don’t need that much, just get the ingredients in similar proportions. (I know, gag, math.) Four parts peppers, two parts kalamata olives, one part green olives with garlic, one part tomatoes. If you liked the container method of measurement, this could be one medium container of peppers, one small container kalamata, and one shared small container of green olives/garlic and tomatoes.

However…

You may want a metric ton. I’m just saying.

Up next…an amazing pasta recipe that uses the remaining tapenade, should you have made a metric ton and have a bunch left after your party. Actually, it’s good enough to make the stuff for.

What You Need To Do This Week for Thanksgiving Prep

November 5, 2013 by arfoodie 2 Comments

Goat cheese and pomegranate salad from last year’s Thanksgiving.

If you, my foodie friend, are cooking Thanksgiving dinner (lunch, whatevs) this year, you need to get it in gear this week. I know. So early! But trust me. You’ll be happier.

Hang with me.

Every year, the first week of November, I start getting a little twinkle in my eye. Just call me the Santa of Thanksgiving.

Maybe you don’t get the same level of excitement, and maybe you don’t even do a T-day meal that’s all that fancy. Even so, this is the week you should start putting a few thoughts that direction. Why? Because it will save you lots of stress and probably a lot of money in a few weeks.

Menu
This week is the time to work on your menu. Why so early? Well, several reasons. For one, there are elements that you can prep early and freeze (veggies for dressing, stock for gravy, etc.), saving you some time and sanity later on. Also, if you’re like me, you might need to spread your Thanksgiving expenses across two paychecks, and buying some of the items now will help you not be busted come Black Friday. (More on that in a minute.)

Need some inspiration? Time to troll the internets and magazines. My favorites this time of year are Food Network and blogs like Simply Recipes and Gluten Free Girl and the Chef. Last week, I even bought my first Martha Stewart Living magazine in like 15 years. I still haven’t forgiven her for being a heifer and business cheater, but I was recently at a bookstore and got sucked in by the luscious cover. (Martha’s idea I’m lifting this year: brûléed pumpkin pie. Oh yes.)

You might even like my would-be menu from that Thanksgiving I ended up with the flu. Hey, it’s a start. Embellish at will.

Of course, there’s also nothing wrong with making your feast just like your family has done for generations. Just write down the list of every menu item you plan to prepare. Feel free to send reminders this week to family members who typically bring a particular dish.

Once you have all your menu items chosen, write down every.single.ingredient you’ll need to make each dish. If you know you have something in your pantry/freezer, make a note, but write it down anyway. Print out all the recipes to help make lists and to have them handy for prep.

*****

Budget
Holiday meals can be expensive, so a little forethought can help with budget planning as well as sanity.

Write on a piece of paper how much money you are going to spend on this meal. Period. No cheating. If you end up adjusting your menu because of it, so be it. Maybe ask relatives to bring some of the items, or even just the ingredients if you want to do it yourself. Just be sure to coordinate with them so you get the items in time to prepare them for the meal.

Next, consider how many people you will be feeding and how many leftovers you want. Carefully take note of your recipes where it says how many it feeds, and multiply/divide as needed. If you’re going by recipe-free tradition, just adjust as necessary based on what you know it makes. This step helps make sure you don’t spend too much on copious quantities you won’t use.

Now check out the specials at your favorite store, or even one or two that you don’t normally frequent. If you don’t wait until the last minute (and sometimes, even if you do), you can find some really great deals on Thanksgiving dinner items. As mentioned earlier, there are things you can prep and freeze early, so catch some sales and get things moving. Use your ingredient list you made earlier and get your groceries in two phases: Stuff that can be done early, and stuff you want to do later.

*****

My family is escaping to the lovely Big Cedar Lodge this Thanksgiving, so I’m planning a small feast that we can prepare in our cabin there.

I just purchased some turkey legs ($3) to make into a stock for gravy and dressing. This can be frozen way ahead of time. I’m also going to make some dressing, gluten-free rolls and a pie (maybe two) to freeze ahead of time and carry with us in a cooler, along with a very small turkey, maybe just a turkey breast. Add some bacon-wrapped green beans and a pan of sweet potato casserole and we are SET.

What are you having for Thanksgiving this year? Let me know in the comments. And, as always, if you have any cooking questions as you go, feel free to drop me a line.

Happy cooking!

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