Gluten Free Pasta Verde, Homemade

Red & Green - this was my Christmas dinner.

 This is an adaption of the previous recipe that I posted on homemade GF pasta. It basically subs pureed spinach for some of the egg, and ends up being bright green! The taste doesn't change very much, so it's still good with a variety of sauces. I've preferred to keep it simple, and top it with a few grape tomatoes sauteed in olive oil, garlic powder, red pepper flakes, salt, and black pepper.

While we're on the subject of olive oil, I highly recommend Trader Joe's Spanish Olive Oil. It is fragrant and rich, not at all bitter, and everything that an EVOO should be! Get it.

I used my Cuisinart pasta maker for this again. I've tried it with the fettuccine dye, as well as the angel hair one. Worked great with both!

When I've made this, I've done a double recipe, and bagged the leftovers to feed myself for the next 10 dinners or so.  Below is the doubled version, because it's easiest to sub the spinach for one whole egg. To make less, I would sub the weight of one egg yolk for equal weight of spinach puree.

Angel hair extruding.

THE RECIPE: (feeds ~8) - (or more, if you're me)

6 oz garbanzo bean flour
6 oz millet flour
6 oz potato starch OR tapioca starch/flour
2 tsp psyllium powder
2 pinch nutmeg
2 tsp salt                           -----> combine dry ingredients (mix them in bowl of pasta maker)

1 L egg
8 L egg yolks*
5 oz fresh spinach leaves    -----> blend eggs and spinach until spinach is pureed. Slowly add to dry mixture and blend.

1 tbs oil (maybe)
1 tbs water (maybe)          -----> after your egg/spinach mixture is fully incorporated into the dry ingredients, evaluate the consistency of your dough.  It should be naturally clumping into walnut-sized chunks. (Although the moisture of the spinach may make it ball a bit more than usual- that is okay.)  If the dough resembles cornmeal, it is too dry.  If this is the case, add up to 1 tbs oil, and re-evaluate. This should be all you need- however, if you find it is still too dry, add up to 1 tbs water.  Get those walnut-ish chunks, one way or another.

Then, follow the instructions on your pasta maker to extrude the noodles. You should also be able to do this by hand-- google elsewhere for detailed instructions on how to do that.

Cook in a very large pot of boiling water for just a few minutes.  Fresh pasta cooks VERY quickly-- and overcooking it will make the noodle structure and shape fall apart. (aka, still tastes good, but looks crummy.)  It always finishes more quickly than I expect!

Top with some olive oil, salt/pepper, or your favorite sauce. Enjoy!

Fettucine in the stew pot!

Fettuccine, just about to be cooked.

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* STAY TUNED for the dessert that is the PERFECT PAIR to make with or soon after this pasta...... because it uses 8 egg whites! So, it's pretty much a requirement that you make them one after another.  Just don't explode from deliciousness overdoes when you do.

Gluten Free Pasta: Homemade

Yeah,  that's right. I made this meal for Girl's Night, and shared it with my non-weird-diet friends! Also.. disregard the overcooked (aka, flattened) ziti.  Still tastes awesome!

My new favorite meal is homemade gluten free pasta.  I have a Cuisinart pasta maker that mixes the dough and expels it out of a die, which makes the whole process super simple.  It should be possible to roll out the dough and cut strips without a pasta maker, too.

I've been using THIS recipe from GlutenFreeGirl. (Scroll down to the recipe in the box.)  I've use garbanzo bean flour instead of garbanzo-fava, and also tapioca starch instead of potato starch.  I did use a baking scale to measure by weight for the flours.

I usually have large eggs (not extra large, as the recipe calls for) at home, so the second time I made the pasta I used 4 egg yolks from large eggs, and 2 large eggs-- it came out the same.  Either way, just adjust the oil and water amounts if it ends up too wet or too dry.

Oozing out of the Cuisinart!

Plate of uncooked pasta.

Seriously, this pasta is delicious.  I eat it with some Spanish olive oil, salt, pepper, and a little basil. --Delish!

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Also:

I found this at my local Healthway:

Conte's frozen gluten free potato gnocchi.  Cooked up in under 10 minutes... I don't get insta-meals very often, so this was awesome. Pretty darn good, too!

Pumpkin Madness!

Pumpkin snickerdoodles!

A new post? Shocking, right-- seeing as I've been completely AWOL for a very long time.... sorry about that. This week I got caught up in the fall pumpkin-everything craze!  It started with pumpkin snickerdoodles and then progressed to pumpkin-sauce pasta. I still have some pumpkin left in the can... so there may be some pumpkin pancakes in store for tomorrow morning.

I still have been being food-lazy, so I mainly used other peoples' recipes for these creations.  I made the pumpkin snickerdoodles using the awesome recipe on The Nourishing Gourmet.  They are definitely some of my favorite cookies ever!! The pumpkin gives them a delightfully fluffy texture.

In the recipe, I used coconut sugar for the sweetener.  For gluten-free flour, I used 1 cup millet flour, and 1 cup of mixed garbanzo flour and brown rice flower.  I also threw in about 1/4 or 1/2 tsp guar gum for good measure.  I also added Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips to half of the batter...... but those do have cane sugar in them. (I was feeling adventurous!)  I love the combination of pumpkin and chocolate, but these cookies were so good they barely needed the addition.

Pumpkin (sauce) pasta

Now, for the pasta, I cooked up some gluten-free brown rice penne and twisty things (don't know the proper pasta-name!) and whipped up some pumpkin sauce with the left-over canned pumpkin.

I really just made the sauce by taste, and followed the basic seasonings listed here. The base was pumpkin, olive oil, almond milk, and pasta water.  The seasonings were salt, pepper, sage, onion powder, garlic powder, nutmeg, and cinnamon.  It ended up having a great blend of savory taste, plus the implied sweetness of the touch of cinnamon.  Definitely also a winning creation.

Happy fall! Now the big question.... what are you being for Halloween???

Mac 'n' Cheese

Just look at that soft, stringy, cheesey deliciousness.

Mac and cheese is quite possibly the best comfort food in the world. It may seem daunting to create, for someone who can't eat mac and can't eat cheese. However, it really isn't difficult at all. So, bring on the cold, grey weather, and get eatin'.

Recipe:
Big handful of brown rice macaroni/penne pasta (I used this kind)*
Big handful of shredded fake cheese (I used a yellow/mozzarella combo)**
Little bit of almond milk (~1 tsp)
1-2 leaves fresh basil
salt and pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to directions, with some salt in the pasta water. Drain and transfer to a new pan. Heat on medium, add cheese, milk, a fair amount of salt, and pepper if desired. Stir frequently. When the cheese is melted and gooey, and milk is incorporated into the mixture, break up the basil leaves and add them to the pot.

Eat it straight from the pan, if you dare.

That's it! Really, shouldn't be too difficult.

* Beware: some pasta (Tinkyada, for example) takes 20 minutes to cook. If you're looking for a quick meal, make sure you have a fast cooking pasta.


 ** My favorite shredded fake cheese is Veggie Shreds by Galaxy Nutritional Foods. It melts super well- although the cheese in these mac pics was something else, aaand I don't remember the brand. I actually haven't found any shredded cheezes that I don't like.