Vegetarian Planet Pasta

Another pasta winner! One of my favorite cookbooks is Didi Emmons' "Vegetarian Planet" (Boston: Harvard Common Press, 1997). I've had lots of successes with her boldly flavored, but fairly simple to prepare dishes, and this pasta recipe is just wonderful. It's a delicately nutty-tasting, very healthy, beautiful-looking recipe and I am delighted to share it with you. Be careful to keep heat low to medium while lightly browning the garlic and ginger as you want to keep the taste delicate.
I do have a hardcover copy of this cookbook in stock at our bookshop, if anyone is interested. There are 349 other fantastic recipes in this book to explore.

PASTA WITH BABY RED LENTILS AND GINGER

1 lb. gluten-free pasta (Emmons recommends penne)
8 Tbsp. butter
2 large garlic cloves, sliced very thin (I always add more garlic for our taste)
1 2-inch piece of ginger, cut into thin julienne strips
1 tsp. minced fresh sage or 1/2 tsp. crumbled dried sage
3/4 cup baby red lentils (I got them at my health food store)
1 cup water
2 cups fresh spinach, firmly packed (I've used frozen spinach in a pinch)
1 tsp. salt
Fresh-ground black pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Drop the pasta into the water, stir, and cook the pasta, stirring occasionally, until it is just tender. Drain it, and rinse it well.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan or skillet over medium heat. When the butter begins to turn golden with some brown specks, add the garlic and ginger. Cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Then add the sage, the lentils, and the 1 cup water. Bring the mixture to a boil, cover the pan, and reduce the heat to low.

Let the lentils simmer for 10 minutes or until they are tender but still slightly chewy (if the lentils are large they may need more time and more water). Stir the spinach and salt into the lentils, and turn the heat up a bit. Stir often until the spinach wilts, about 1 minute. Then add the cooked pasta and pepper to taste, and heat the mixture through. Serve immediately.

Serves 4 to 6.

Mangia bene!

Pies of Unlimited Possibility

Real men don't eat quiche, but they do enjoy a good egg pie now and again. I was pricing up a box of cookbooks in the bookstore today and came across this humorous title by some hip hospice volunteers. These fundraiser cookbooks always have some good down home recipes, although they do tend to be heavy on the jello salads and cream of mushroom soup casseroles. I found a recipe for Impossible Seafood Pie, which brought back memories of leafing through homemaker magazines back in the day and seeing all those advertisements pushing Bisquick and other prepackaged foods. There was always some variant of Impossible Pie, basically a mixed up slurry of stuff that you baked and which magically produced its own crust in the oven.

I had some zucchini and assorted cheese ends in the fridge, so I came up with this version of a completely plausible pie, basically a crustless quiche or frittata. It was a hit with my Real Man.

Crustless Zucchini Pie

2 small zucchini, sliced thin
1 onion, sliced thin
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1-1/2 cups grated cheese (I used some garlic/herb cheddar and regular cheddar)
1-1/2 cups milk
4 eggs
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly oil a 9 or 10 inch pie pan.

Heat olive oil in a saute pan. Add onions and saute until lightly browned. Add zucchini and saute until softened. Place in center of pie pan with cheese.

Beat eggs and milk until smooth (about 1 minute with hand mixer). Season with salt and pepper. Pour over cheese and zucchini.

Bake 35-40 minutes (I forgot about this poor pie while I was on the computer, blogging dontcha know, so it can stand another 10 minutes of baking). Cool for 5-10 minutes to let set and then serve.

Serves 4-6 people.

You can also use other sauteed vegetables, such as tomatoes, broccoli, asparagus, etc. in place of the zucchini.

The Pasta That Refreshes

After our rich Easter feast yesterday, we needed something lighter and more refreshing, so I perused my kitchen library and found a very nice and light pasta salad in Mollie Katzen's "Still Life with Menu Cookbook" (Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 1988). I found that 5 to 6 oz. of noodles only made enough for two dinner portions and made a few changes, so this is a modified version of:

Sunomono (Japanese Noodle and Cucumber Salad)

5 to 6 oz. rice noodles (I would have used the whole 14 oz. pkg. rice noodles for our family of four plus one teenaged guest)
6 Tbsp. rice vinegar
4 tsp. sugar (I used brown sugar)
2 tsp. wheat-free soy sauce
1 tsp. salt
1-2 Tbsp. sesame seeds
1 medium-sized cucumber
Sesame oil to taste
2 thinly sliced scallions

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Turn off heat, throw in noodles and cook until al dente. Drain and rinse in cold water.

Mix together vinegar, brown sugar, soy, salt, sesame seeds and sesame oil to taste. Pour over noodles. Chill until cold.

Peel and seed cucumber. Cut into quarters lengthwise, then into thin pieces.

Divide noodles into 4 or 5 serving bowls. Top with cucumber slices, a light sprinkling of sesame seeds and scallions. Serve cold.

Serves 4-5 people.

Adventures in Gluten-Free Baking - with Elizabeth Barbone

I promised a blog entry on Elizabeth Barbone's cooking demonstration at Monday's Glens Fall Celiac Support Group meeting and have had some time to "digest" it, literally. I brought home two of the moist chocolate cupcakes she brought for sampling and my husband and kids pronounced them delicious (don't tell them about the cat hair I scraped off the frosting when they fell over in the car on the ride home).

Barbone was funny, enthusiastic and knowledgable as she gently reminded everyone about baking basics, like measuring correctly and keeping your fingers out of the mixer. If only my high school home economics teacher had been as lively and practical (all I remember are the weird grape jelly omelettes and endless vats of white sauce we had to make, and worse, ingest). Her bodacious purple KitchenAid mixer was the envy of the room and it was an informative and most of all, FUN.

I bought a copy of "Easy Gluten-Free Baking', which the author was kind enough to autograph for me. I was inspired to flip through and am pleased to see lots of standards that we've been missing in our new gluten-free lifestyle: oatmeal cookies (made gluten-free by using quinoa flakes),Mexican Wedding cookies, edible pizza, onion rings and lemon bars. I decided to try the Lemon Bar recipe and it turned out great, even though I had to stop halfway through to pick up my kid from a friend's house. Barbone gave me permission to reprint this recipe from her book, which I would recommend to everyone. You can order a copy of the book for $24.95 directly from the author at her website. It's a nice large-sized softcover with wet and dry ingredients laid out separately so you have the option of pre-measuring and packing ingredients to save time if you bake in bulk. This cookbook uses fairly common ingredients and does not use those weird tasting bean flours that are in many other gluten-free recipes.

Barbone is based in Rensselaer County, so if you live in the Capital District you can attend one of her gluten-free baking classes, held in Latham and Queensbury. I am tempted by her Gluten-Free Cracker class and she also teaches a basic baking, and beginner and advanced bread-making classes. There is also a monthly gluten-free baking newsletter you can subscribe to for more recipes and instruction, as well as a blog so if you're a serious baker, you can really find some great information.

Now onto the serious business of making

LEMON BARS

Cookie base

Dry Ingredients

1/4 cup sweet rice flour
1/2 cup white rice flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp. xanthan gum
1/4 cup powdered sugar

Wet Ingredients

1 stick butter, cold and cut into small pieces
2 Tbsp. water

Topping

2 large eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbsp. white rice flour
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and rice flour an 8-inch square pan.

2. In a food processor, add the dry ingredients. Pulse once or twice to combine. Add butter. Pulse mixture until butter is more thoroughly incorporated. (Dough should resemble a coarse meal.)

3. Add water. Pulse a few times until a dough forms.

4. Press mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan.

5. Bake crust for 35-40 minutes or until golden brown.

6. Remove pan from oven. Place pan on a cooling rack. (Be sure to leave oven on.)

7. In a small mixing bowl, combine eggs, granulated sugar, white rice flour and lemon juice.

8. Pour mixture over baked crust.

9. Return pan to oven. Bake for 15 minutes or until filling is set. (Filling should be firm and not jiggle.)

10. Cool on a wire rack.

Makes one dozen bars.

**** These were terrific. Nice flaky bottom with a sweet-sour-lemony top. Dan had at least four of them last night. I wonder if they would work with lime juice instead of lemon?