Category: Uncategorized

Frozen Celery

What To Do With Leftover Celery

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I don’t often cook with a lot of celery, and I always seem to have some leftover this time of year after making stuffing and gravy.

Instead of letting it languish in the back of your fridge (until you have to throw it away) you can freeze it and use it in future dishes. There are just two things you need to remember with frozen celery.

1. Don’t let it defrost before cooking with it or it will brown. Add it straight from the freezer to the pan. It’s still edible when it turns brown, just not so pretty. If you need to dice the frozen celery further before cooking, try and do it quickly so that the celery doesn’t have time to defrost before it hits the pan.

2. You can use frozen celery in any recipe that calls for cooking celery, it’s not so great in recipes that call for raw celery (like potato salad) because frozen celery will lacks the color and crunch of fresh celery.
I’ve even used frozen celery to make dairy and gluten free clam chowder and it came out great.

You can also add some frozen celery to a pot with some diced onion, sliced carrot, leftover chicken, broth and cooked brown rice or gluten free noodles for a quick and tasty chicken soup. Its also great in minestrone or other vegetable soups.

Directions

1. Wash and slice the celery into ½ inch thick slices. They look like beautiful little crescent moons this way, and the size makes it easy to add to recipes. I also love when little bits of chopped celery leaves peeking out of dishes because they make any dish a little prettier and cheerier.

2. Place the celery into a Ziploc bag and freeze flat.

When you want to use the celery, just break off as much celery as you need in the recipe and put the rest back into the freezer. Ta da! No more wasted celery!

 

 

gravy

Gorgeous Gravy – The Best Vegan And Gluten Free Gravy Recipe

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This is hands down the best gravy I’ve ever had. It’s totally vegan, and incredibly delicious.

It has all the flavors that you want in a gravy. The browned mushrooms give it a deep savory richness. The sage and the other spices give it that special Thanksgiving charm, and the oat flour gives the gravy a velvety, creamy, buttery texture with out any dairy.

I promise that you won’t miss the chicken stock or the butter.

It’s great served over mashed potatoes, turkey and stuffing, but delicious enough to be eaten on it’s own. You can double or triple the recipe and serve it with sautéed mushrooms as a creamy mushroom soup, or serve it over pasta for something like a creamy mushroom alfredo sauce.

I would add just a pinch more salt to this myself, but I like things more on the savory side. Some people like things less salty, and leaving that extra little bit of salt out gives your guests a little more wiggle room as far as the savory level of their gravy is concerned.

This recipe works well with lots of different dietary restrictions, but if you know that one of your guests has celiac disease, then be sure to use certified gluten free oats. Oats are naturally gluten free, but normal oats from bulk bins can sometimes be processed on the same equipment as normal flour, and can contain trace amounts of gluten.

You can make this gravy ahead of time, and just reheat it right before serving. One less (delicious) thing to worry about cooking on Thanksgiving is something to be thankful for indeed.

Gorgeous Gravy
Makes 2 cups

Prep time – 5 min
Cook Time – 30 min
Total Time – 1 hr 20 min

Ingredients

1 2/3 cup diced mushrooms (about 5 white or crimini mushrooms)

¾ cup diced onion (about ½ a medium onion)

1 tbsp. diced celery

7 tbsp. olive oil

¼ cup oat flour *

2 cups water

 

½ + 1/8 tsp. sea salt

¼ tsp. black pepper

¼ + 1/8 tsp. dried rubbed sage

¼ tsp. dried thyme

3 tsp. finely chopped fresh parsley.


Instructions

1. Sauté the mushrooms over medium high heat with 4 tbsp of olive oil for about 8 – 10 minutes until the mushrooms have become golden brown around the edges. Pour the mushrooms and olive oil into a bowl and set aside.

2. Allow the pan to cool off the heat for 10 minutes. The onions and celery will cook more evenly if they are allowed to start off cooking from a cool pan.

3. Add the onions and celery into the cooled pan along with another 3 tbsp of olive oil. Cook the onions and celery over medium high heat for 3-4 minutes. Then turn the heat down to medium and cook for another 3 minutes until the vegetables are softened.

4. Add the oat flour into the celery and onions and cook for 3 minutes, stirring the mixture as it cooks.

5. Add the 2 cups of water and the cooked mushrooms to the pan and turn the heat up to medium high. Cook uncovered for about 8 minutes until the mixture has thickened, stirring frequently. Don’t worry if the gravy looks a little lumpy right now, the blender will smooth that all out.

6. Take the pan off the heat, and let the gravy cool for 30 minutes.

Caution when blending hot liquids – remove the little clear plastic cap off the top of the blender lid (the lid’s center insert) and put a folded towel over the top, then blend.

If you don’t allow the blender to vent steam while blending hot liquids, pressure can build up and the blender contents can explode. Taking the center insert off the lid, and using the folded towel should prevent this from happening.

Add the gravy to the blender, and blend until smooth. Add in the the salt, pepper, sage, parsley and thyme and give the gravy a quick blitz to stir in the spices, but still allow some green from the fresh parsley to show through in the final gravy.

You can stash this in the fridge overnight and then reheat the gravy in a saucepan over medium heat right before serving.

Notes – * I grind oats into oat flour using a blender. Don’t grind the oats in a food processor because the flour won’t be fine enough.

Any extra oat flour I don’t use in the recipe goes into an airtight container and I use it for another recipe.

cornbread dressing - stuffing

Southern Style Cornbread Dressing – Gluten and Dairy Free Stuffing Recipe

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There are many types of incredible stuffing, but Southern Style Cornbread Dressing is my absolute favorite. The taste of this brings back so many happy memories of friends and family over the years, and always brings a smile to my face. It’s slightly crispy on the top and moist and creamy in the middle, and it’s definitely a crowd-pleaser.

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You can either bake this in a muffin tin (will make 12 muffin size portions of stuffing) or bake it in a 13 x 9 casserole dish. The baking time will be the same either way. I would use the muffin pan if you’re planning on making the stuffing ahead or want to freeze individual portions to enjoy later.

Southern Style Cornbread Dressing – Gluten Free
Makes 4-6 servings

Adapted from this recipe.

For the Cornbread

Ingredients

¼ level cup + 1/3 level cup of oat flour*

1 level cup + 3 tbsp. of cornmeal **

¾ level tsp. baking soda

1 tbsp. ground flax seed (or add another ½ a beaten egg to the wet ingredients)

4.5 tbsp. avocado oil – or any neutral flavored oil

2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar (or white vinegar)

1 ½ tsp. maple syrup

1 cup of water

1 egg

 

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 425. Grease and flour a 8 x 8 baking dish with oat flour and any neutral flavored oil.

2. Sift the cornmeal, oat flour, baking soda, and ground flax seed in a large mixing bowl.

3. Stir together the wet ingredients until well combined. Add the wet into the dry and stir to combine. Pour into the 8×8 baking dish.

4. Bake at 425 for 30 minutes until golden brown. Set the cornbread aside to cool.

Notes – * I grind oats into oat flour using a blender. Don’t grind the oats in a food processor because the flour won’t be fine enough.

Any extra oat flour (or ground flax seed) I don’t use in the recipe goes into an airtight container and I use it for another recipe.

**If you’re allergic to corn, you could try substituting brown rice flour for the cornmeal at a 1:1 ratio. I didn’t test this recipe specifically with this substitution, so I’m not 100% sure this will work, but last year I made a cornbread dressing with brown rice flour instead of cornmeal and it came out great. You couldn’t tell the difference at all.

 

For the Cornbread Dressing

3 tbsp. olive oil

½ cup diced onion

¾ cup diced celery

1 egg

2 cups of chicken broth (homemade or store bought)

¾ tsp. pepper

¾ tsp. dried rubbed sage

¼ + 1/8 tsp. sea salt

Instructions

1. Sauté the diced onion and celery in the olive oil over medium heat until tender, about 12 minutes.

2. Add the sage and sauté 1 minute longer.

3. Crumble the cornbread into a large mixing bowl. Add the cooked vegetables, salt, pepper, sage and chicken broth to the mixture. Taste for seasoning, and add more salt and pepper if needed.

4. Stir in the beaten egg, then cover and chill the mixture overnight (at least 8 hours).

5. Preheat the oven to 375. Grease and flour your muffin tin or 13 x 9 baking dish with oil and oat flour. Pour the mixture into the pan and bake uncovered for 30-40 minutes until golden brown on top.

If your making this in a muffin pan, let the stuffing cool in the muffin pan for 30 -45 minutes so that the stuffing has some time to firm up and hold it’s shape. Run a butter knife around the edges to loosen them, pop the stuffing muffins out and refrigerate. Reheat them to serve.

If you’re putting a dish straight from the fridge into the oven, put the fridge-cold dish into the cold oven (so that the ceramic dish does shatter from the temperature change between the cold fridge and the hot oven). Then preheat your oven with the dish inside so that it warms up with the oven and bake as usual.

You can reheat any leftover stuffing by covering the dish tightly with foil, and baking at 300 degrees for 45 minutes until warmed through.

Cashew Whipped Cream

Cashew Whipped Cream – Dairy Free, Gluten Free, Vegan

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This cashew whipped cream is a great alternative to store bought whipped topping, and it’s super easy to make.

On it’s own, this cashew whipped cream isn’t super flavorful, but poured over a fresh summer peach it is absolutely spectacular, and it gives a wonderful creaminess when dolloped over mini pecan tarts, or pumpkin tarts at Thanksgiving.

Once it’s blended, you can add another tsp. of maple syrup, or a little more vanilla to taste, but the pie fillings will already be quite sweet, so try the cashew cream on a tart with some pie filing before adjusting the flavor of the cashew cream.

The oil may seem like a little bit of an odd addition, but it gives the cashew cream a little extra richness, and rounds out the flavor of the cashew whipped cream along with the sweetness of the maple syrup.

If you’re making a lot of tarts, you can easily double this recipe if need be. You can make this in advance and then keep it in an airtight container in the fridge until you’re ready to serve.

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Cashew Whipped Cream

Makes about ¾ cup.

Ingredients

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp maple syrup

½ cup raw cashews (soaked overnight)

5 ½ tbsp. water

1 -1 ½ tsp avocado oil, or any neutral flavored oil (optional)


Instructions

1. Soak the cashews overnight, and drain. Add the cashews to a blender along with the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth and creamy.

2. Spoon over fresh fruit or mini tarts. Serve.

Note – If you forget to soak the cashews, you can boil them for 50 minutes (it’s a long time I know, but they plump right up), adding water the pot occasionally if the water runs low. Drain them and allow them to cool to room temp before using

roasted sweet potatoes

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

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Roasted sweet potatoes are surprising versatile and super simple to make.

I roasted sweet potatoes a number of ways until I found Gwyneth Paltrow’s recipe for roasted sweet potatoes in her book It’s All Good.

This is a version of her recipe. I added the olive oil to crisp up the skin, and also put the sweet potatoes on a sheet pan (instead of roasting them directly on a baking rack) just for the sake of easy clean up.

I usually roast 4-5 of them at a time on a stainless steel baking sheet or a large glass pyrex dish, and they make a quick snack when I’m hungry but a little too tired to think to hard about what I want to eat. They usually get sweeter when they are refrigerated overnight. For a quick snack, I sprinkle them with a little cinnamon, and maybe a drizzle of little maple syrup if I’m craving something sweet

The cheapest place that I found organic sweet potatoes was at Costco (they don’t always have them) but you can get a 10 lb bag of them for around $11. Trader Joes almost always have them year round, and they are a little more expensive than Costco, but much cheaper than anywhere else.

You can puree them and use them to make my pumpkin tarts, mash them with some cinnamon and maple syrup, or add them to my vegan cheddar bay biscuits (recipe coming soon!).

Ingredients

4-5 sweet potatoes

½ – 1 tsp olive oil

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 425.

2. Give the sweet potatoes a good scrub. Pat them dry with a paper towel and prick them 4-5 times with a fork.

3. Rub the olive oil over the sweet potatoes, place them on a baking sheet or pyrex dish and roast for 1 hr.

4. If the sweet potatoes are thicker than 2 inches in diameter, cook them for an addition 15 -30 minutes until cooked through and you can pierce them with a paring knife with no resistance.

To clean up the caramelized/ blackened sweet potato goo, soak the pan or baking sheet overnight. Pour off the water and make paste from a little baking soda and dish soap. Use a scrubby sponge and baking soda paste to scrub off any of the remaining sweet potato goo.

 

 

Pecan Tarts

Pecan Tarts – Dairy Free, Gluten Free, Vegan

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These pecan tarts are awesome! They really taste like pecan pie. The pinch of salt really makes these mini pecan pies sing. I hope that you love them as much as I do.

You can make the filling ahead of time, and just stir through the toasted pecans through right before serving. I’d make the candied pecans the day you want to serve them so that they stay crunchy.

This recipe makes 4 tarts, which is sort of a funny amount, so I’ll put the measurements for 12 tarts at the bottom of post just in case you want to make 12 instead. You may have to slightly adjust the cooking times for the bigger batch of toasted and candied pecans.

You can use this recipe to make the gluten free tart shells.

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Pecan Tarts

Makes 4 tarts

For the filling

¼ ts. vanilla extract

1/3 cup raw cashews

3 tbsp. maple syrup

6 diglet dates – about a scant 1/3 cup

1 tbsp. water

pinch salt

Instructions

1. Grind the cashews in a food processor until they look like breadcrumbs. Scrape down the sides of the processor occasionally, and add in the maple syrup and blend until the mixture looks like heavy cream, with little bits of cashews running through it.

2. Chop the dates into ¼ inch dice and add them to the cashew mixture. Blend for 3-4 minutes until relatively smooth, a few lumps of cashews or date here and there are ok.

This is what the mixture should look like when it’s done.

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3. Scrape the mixture out into a bowl and set aside.

Toasted Chopped Pecans

¼ cup whole pecans

Instructions

1. Chop the pecans into ¼ inch dice. Cook them in a dry pan over medium heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly until toasted and fragrant.

2. Add the toasted pecans to the cashew mixture and stir until mixed through.

3. Allow the pan to cool, then carefully wipe out any tiny bits of leftover toasted pecans with a bit of folded paper towel, as they can burn when you use the same pan to cook the candied pecans.

Candied Pecans

12 whole pecans (3 pecans per tart) about ¼ cup

2 tbsp. maple syrup

Instructions

1. Toast the whole pecans until fragrant in a dry pan over medium heat for about 2 minutes, stirring frequently so they don’t scorch.

2. Add in the maple syrup and stir the pecans constantly for another 30 seconds, then take the pan off the heat. Continue stirring the pecans off the heat until the caramel coats the nuts.

3. Pour the candied pecans onto a silpat or a piece of parchment paper (on in pinch, a lightly oiled plate) and arrange them with two forks so they aren’t touching each other, and allow to cool.

Don’t touch the hot caramel or the candied nuts until they are cool. It’s super tempting to touch hot sugar, but you don’t want to burn yourself.

If you stir the nuts too long over the heat, the syrup can crystallize, and the coating on the pecans can go cloudy and rough textured. If this happens, it’s ok! It just means that the pecans will be extra crunchy, and they will still taste great.

4. Add about 1 ¾ tbsp. of filling to each tart shell. Top each tart with 3 candied pecans (4 candied pecans is two sweet, and 2 isn’t sweet enough) and serve.

Getting the leftover caramel off of utensils and saucepans is really easy. Just put the caramel covered utensils in the pot that you candied the pecans in, pour in some warm water and let the pan sit for an hour or two. The sugar will dissolve into the water, and you can just pour it out and put everything straight into the dishwasher.

For 12 tarts

For the filling

¾ ts. vanilla extract

1 cup raw cashews

½ cup + 1 tbsp. maple syrup

18 diglet dates – about a scant 1 cup

3 tbsp. water

3 pinches of salt

Toasted Chopped Pecans

 ¾ cup pecans

Candied Pecans

36 whole pecans (3 pecans per tart) about ¾ cup

6 tbsp. maple syrup

 

 

 

 

 

pumpkin tarts

Pumpkin Tarts – Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Vegan

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No Thanksgiving would complete without pumpkin pie!

When I was a kid, it was my job every year to make the classic pumpkin pie recipe from our well-loved Betty Crocker Cookbook. I made that same recipe all the way through high school and college, and missed it terribly when I found out that I couldn’t eat it anymore.

This is a quicker version, and is gluten, dairy and egg free. It’s rich, and perfectly spiced. You can top it with some cashew whipped cream for that classic pumpkin pie look and taste.

Also, another plus to this recipe is that you can secretly pretend that you’re at Hogwarts when you eat them.

You can make the filling ahead of time, and keep it in the fridge until you want to serve it.

The only to keep in mind is that you have to make the cashew whipped cream before you make this recipe because the few tablespoons of cashew cream give the pumpkin filling a lot of richness.

I’ll put the measurements for 12 tarts in case you’d like to double the recipe.

 

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Pumpkin Tarts
Makes 6 tarts

Ingredients

½ cup + 1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. pumpkin puree, or roasted sweet potato puree

3 tbsp. + 1 ½ tsp. maple syrup

2 tbsp. avocado oil or any neutral flavored oil

 

¾ level tsp cinnamon

¼ + 1/8 level tsp ground ginger

tiny pinch of cloves

pinch of salt

¼ tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp. water

3 tbsp. cashew whipped cream


Instructions

1. Stir all the ingredients together. Top each tart shell with 2 tbsp. of the pumpkin pie filling, and a dollop of the cashew whipped cream. Serve.

For 12 tarts

Ingredients

1 cup + 2 tbsp. + 2 tsp. pumpkin puree, or roasted sweet potato puree

7 maple syrup

4 tbsp. avocado oil or any neutral flavored oil

 

1 ½ level tsp cinnamon

¾ level tsp ground ginger

pinch of cloves

2 pinches of salt

 

½ tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp. water

6 tbsp. cashew whipped cream

mini pie crusts

Mini Pie Crusts – Dairy Free, Gluten Free, Vegan

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These tart shells are so cute and so full of possibilities! They can be filled with just about anything, and on their own they sort of taste like fortune cookies or waffle cones, but not quite as sweet. I snacked on a bunch of them while I was testing this recipe.

If you’re making mini-tarts for a party or celebration, I would the make a couple different pie fillings ahead of time, and then bake up a bunch of these tart shells the day I want to serve them. They have a crisper texture than normal pie shells, and I would fill them right before serving, as if the wet filling is in them too long then the bottoms of the tart shells can soften a bit and lose their crunch.

You can also set out bowls with a few different pie filling options like apple, pumpkin, pecan, or even a chocolate peppermint filling and people can top the tart shells with their filling of choice.

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I used a normal sized muffin tin (not a mini muffin tin). If you have to make them ahead of time, store them in an airtight container so that they retain most of their crunchiness.

Mini Pie Crusts

Makes 12 Tart shells.

Ingredients

6-8 tbsp. water

1 level tsp. psyllium husk powder*

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. olive oil

3 tbsp. maple syrup

1 cup of oat flour + 2 tbsp.**

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375.

2. Grease and flour the muffin tin with olive oil and oat flour.

3. Stir together 6 tbsp of water with the psyllium husk powder. It will gel up quickly, and try to smush out as many lumps as you can. Let it sit for 5 minutes, and then stir in the vanilla, olive oil and maple syrup until well combined. Add in the oat flour and knead until a smooth dough forms.

If the dough is too sticky, let it sit for a minute. If the dough is still sticky, add a little oat flour and knead it through.

If the dough is too dry, add 1 tbsp. or water and knead it through. The dough should have the consistency of a soft sugar cookie dough and shouldn’t crack or break apart at all when you press on it.

4. Cut the top and sides off of a gallon size Ziploc back so that you have a large rectangle of plastic when you unfold it. Dip a paper towel in a little bit of olive oil and oil the inside of the plastic.

5. Divide the dough into 4 equal portions. Take one portion of the dough and roll it out between the two layers or oiled plastic until it’s just slightly thinner than 1/8 of an inch thick. Use a 3.5 inch wide round cookie cutter (I used the band off the top of wide mouth mason jar for this), to cut rounds out of the dough.

Peel the scrap dough away from the rounds. Peel the rounds away from the plastic and press them gently into the muffin pan. Repeat until you have 12 little tart shells ready to bake.

6. Prick the bottom of each tart shell with a fork 2-3 times, and bake the tart shells for 20-25 minutes until golden brown around the edges. Let them cool in the pan, then use a butter knife to pop them out of the muffin tin.

Fill with your favorite pie filling, add a dollop of cashew whipped cream if desired, and serve immediately.

Notes – *Psyllium husk powder gels like nothing else, and there’s no great substitute for it. I found mine in the bulk spice section of the local Fred Meyer, but Whole Foods, Trader Joes have been known to carry it as well. If it’s not in the natural foods, or bulk spice section, check the dietary supplement/ digestive health (where the Metamucil is) section of the store or pharmacy as it’s sometimes sold there as well.

** I grind oats into oat flour using a blender. Don’t grind the oats in a food processor because the flour won’t be fine enough.

Any extra oat flour I don’t use in the recipe goes into an airtight container and I use it for another recipe.

 

 

 

muffin pan

The Best Way To Flour a Pan or Baking Dish, or an Ode to the Snap Mesh Tea Strainer

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I don’t use non-stick cookware or non-stick sprays, and learning to bake without those things can seem like a challenge.

But I’m here to tell you that it’s actually pretty easy! I use a stainless steel muffin pan and baking sheet, glass bakeware, or use a silpat. This is how I grease and flour my bakeware so that I can get my baked goods in an out of the pans easily.

I used to find that I would waste at least a few tablespoons of extra oat flour when I needed to grease and flour a baking dish. Recently, I figured out that my snap mesh tea strainer was the perfect thing to dust oat flour over any baking dish.

Having a handle attached to what is essentially a very tiny flour sifter makes adding fairy light coatings of oat flour over baking dishes a breeze. You just flick your wrist a few times and like magic, your muffin pan is perfectly floured and you are ready to fill it with lovely muffin or cupcake batter.

And pretty soon the whole kitchen smells like heaven, there are freshly baked muffins and instantly it’s a fantastic day!

You can find snap mesh tea strainers online for about $5. I think that I got mine about 5 years ago from Whole Foods and it’s still going strong. They are pretty easy to care for, just make sure to hand wash and don’t let wet tea stay in them overnight to avoid rusting. I always snap them onto the lip of a jar or mug so that the two metal halves of the tea strainer get a chance to properly dry out.aa

Directions

1. To grease and oil a baking dish, I dip a corner of a folded paper towel into either some olive oil or a neutral flavored oil like avocado oil, and then rub the oiled bit of the paper towel over the surface of the baking dish.

2. Add some oat flour to one of the half spheres and close the tea strainer. Shake strainer to dust the oat flour over the surface of the oiled baking dish. If no more oat flour is coming out, then the little bits of oat flour left in the strainer are probably too large to make it through the fine mesh. Open the strainer, and pour out these larger bits of oat flour, and add more new oat flour to the tea strainer and resume dusting.

I also use this to whisk matcha tea. I don’t have a traditional bamboo matcha tea whisk, but I just put some powdered matcha tea into this tea strainer and then whisk it into some hot water and it works great. I don’t whisk until the tea is frothy, just until the tea is smooth and all of the matcha powder has worked its way through the fine mesh of the tea strainer.

This would make a great stocking stuffer for anyone who loves to bake. You’ll probably have to spend a minute explaining how amazing it is at dusting oat flour, or cocoa powder (if you’re making brownies) over bakeware, but once they try it, they’ll probably wonder how they ever greased and floured anything without it.