Gluten Free Goodness

I would not be happy if I could not have pancakes, brownies and chocolate chip cookies. Since I'm suppose to avoid gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt, kalmut), I have to bake these items myself. Luckily I like to bake, and, since my mom rarely bought mixes of any kind when we were kids, I've always understood that if you want sweet treats, it's going to take a bit of work and preparation.

The UK is definitely gluten free friendly, and I've located all the necessary ingredients: brown rice flour, tapioca flour, potato starch, gram (chick pea) flour, almond meal, gluten free baking powder and xantham gum. My pancake recipe is just a modified version of a Betty Crocker one where I substitute a mix of brown rice flour, gram flour and almond meal for one cup wheat flour. I also add 3/4 tsp xantham gum which helps bind the pancakes (this is what gluten does and xantham gum mimics this behavior). Now, I'm an approximator (I fill up the one cup measuring cup with the flour mixture-I don't measure each ingredient separately), so the pancakes may turn out differently each time. Today I made them with a little more gram flour (about 1/3 cup), and we think it made them lighter.

The brownie recipe is also a modification of a recipe-Epicurious' Best Cocoa Brownies. The recipe is easy to modify without too much of a change in flavor because it only calls for 1/2 cup flour to begin with. Once again the mixture I use changes each time, but I mostly use brown rice flour and a bit of almond meal. I sometimes use gram flour. I'll also add about 1/2 tsp xantham gum to the dry ingredients. I've also made them cholesterol free (for M*) with egg whites and vegetable based shortening. Thanks to the use of high quality cocoa and sugar, these are still moist and chocolaty enough to serve to friends.

Once I find a bag of chocolate chips that contains more than 12 pieces, I'll be making chocolate chip cookies. The recipe is from a fabulous gluten free cookbook-"Gluten-Free Baking Classics" by Annalise G. Roberts. Her recipes first appeared in Gourmet magazine in November 2005. The big plus about her book is that you don't have to create a gazillion different gluten free flour mixes to make the recipes in her book. There's one basic one using finely milled brown rice flour, tapioca flour and potato starch. Then there are a few modifications if you want to make breads and certain cookies.

Easy Split Pea Soup

From Epicurious. I made this a month or so ago with a smoked ham hock that I bought from the local butcher. It was a massive ham hock that yielded plenty of meat that I trimmed off and added to the soup. The hock was so large that it made it impossible to add the 8 cups of water to the pot. I had to add 1 or 2 cups later, after some had evaporated off. A large stock pot didn't come with the furnished flat, but I think it's a necessary investment. Cambridge in winter is definitely a prime soup location.

I didn't add any additional salt, but the ham hock provided more than enough - too much actually. M* and I are both salt minimalists. I also didn't puree the soup, as I like it chunky. I just let it cook for an extra hour or so. Didn't have the marjoram, so I added thyme.

Today, I used some leftover back bacon that M* had bought while I was gone, instead of the ham hock. This time all 8 cups of water fit in the pot since I didn't use the volume hogging hock. Left fat on the bacon - as pork fat is good, good, good. Substituted 1/2 of the butter with olive oil - but I didn't measure and I may have overdone the total butter/oil amount. Once again I didn't use marjoram - added thyme, garlic and bay leaves.

One of the reviewer comments on the Epicurious site mentioned using turkey instead of pork - may try that next time. Another comment mentioned adding miso at the end to bring out the smoky flavor, if making it vegetarian. Since I am not using the smoked ham hock this time, I'm going to add some Spanish paprika towards the end. It's supposed to have a smokier flavor than other paprikas. Oh, almost forgot - I threw in a potato that we had to help thicken it. M* loves his potatoes.

update - If I was going to use bacon again, I would trim off the fat or put it in a sack or something. The bacon fat had separated from the bacon - and it was hard to decide what was bacon fat and what was a garlic pieces that I hadn't cut all that small. Also, if one wanted to puree any amount of the soup, the bacon should be kept in a bag as well. It had come apart to the point that it was too hard to pull the pieces out. I guess I could have pureed it with the bacon in it, but that just kind of weired/ grossed me out. The paprika was a nice add to the soup. In general, it was muy tasty.