Summery Spring Rolls

Summery Spring Rolls

So this is a combination of various recipes I’ve happened upon, modified to fit what I had in my fridge last night.  You could add and remove other ingredients as you see fit and easily make them vegetarian.  They are actually very easy to make, keep well for a few days, and can be made with leftovers (as mine were).  I happened to have a cooked chicken breast and some leftover plan brown rice, so that’s where I started!  Here’s the rest of the recipe.  It makes for a really great lunch sandwich alternative!

Prepare the different pieces first and have them set up in a “station” so you can just go down the line and assemble quickly and easily!  Makes 6-8 depending upon the size!

In a small bowl, mix:

2 cups shredded chicken

1 Tbs rice vinegar

1 Tbs sugar

1 large carrot, grated length wise

season lightly with a dash of salt and pepper

Set aside in separate bowls:

1/3 cucumber, julienned

4 scallions, thinly sliced

¼ cup fresh cilantro, chopped (can use mint or basil as well)

½ c cooked rice (white or brown)

Boston lettuce (or butter lettuce is fine too if you’re grocery store is as unfancy as mine)

6-8 Rice papers (found in the Asian section of the store usually, or an Asian market)

Sauce:

2 Tbs soy sauce

1 ½ Tbs chunky peanut butter

2 tsp sugar

Directions:

1. Fill wide bowl with warm water.  Soak 2 rice papers for 15 seconds.  Remove papers and place on clean work surface.  Lightly pat dry with clean towel.

2. Assemble roll in this order: 1-2 pieces of whole lettuce (or pinch of cut up lettuce), 1-2 Tbs chicken mixture, several pieces of cucumber, pinch of scallions, pinch of cilantro, 1 Tbs rice. (basically just divide up the veggies to about 1/6 their amount per roll, or more if you like.  I definitely went with an extra pinch of cilantro).

3. Gently roll like a burrito (I guess this is basically the Asian equivalent of a burrito, right).  Place on plate and cover with damp paper towel while assembling the rest.

4. If eating right away, you could drizzle sauce over mixture before wrapping, otherwise just set in a dish on the side to dip!

(I forgot to take a pic of my own, this is from the interwebs, but looks similar to my rolls)

EAT!!

You can make these ahead of time as well, just be sure to lightly wrap in a barely damp paper towel and store air tight in the fridge until you’re ready to eat!

I guess if you really wanted to go crazy, you could bake or fry these up as well, for that “traditional” (and by that, I mean the corner Chinese take out) version… but they are fabulous as-is and a heck of a lot healthier!  If you’re into spicy foods (I’m not so much), you could add some Asian chili sauce into the sauce mix and kick it up a notch!

Gluten leads to tootin!

Over share, smover share.  It’s been a little over 4 months now without gluten and I feel amazing!  However, the downside is my cookbooks have been collecting dust as I learn to make new recipes and adapt some of my favorites.  In some recipes, where flour isn’t the stand out component (like a sauce), I’ve found it easy to just substitute a little Gluten Free (GF) flour for the regular stuff.  I like Bob’s Red Mill and Gluten Free Pantry All Purpose brands the best. 

When it comes to baked goods, it’s a whole different ball game.  One day, I thought I’d make some cupcakes and figured that GF flour substitution would work.  WRONG!  I popped the tin in the oven, set the timer, and sat down with a magazine.  Before long, I smelled burning.  I figuring it was just some drippings that fell onto the coil, I didn’t expect it to be a problem, it would burn off in a few minutes.  Wrong again!  The smell turned to smoke and I went to see what the problem was.  When I opened the oven door (after turning it off of course) it was like a chocolate bombshell had gone off! There was gooey mess everywhere in there!  A few tears and a lot of clean up later, I decided I’d better consult the internets, surely Google would know what I do.  I stumbled upon several GF blogs and so far my favorite is www.glutenfreegirl.com.  After a lot of reading from GF girl and others, I had gathered enough advise to help turn my gooey nightmare into proper cupcakes.  The draw back?  They were calling for all these crazy flours and measurements in grams.  I’m not that sophisticated in the kitchen, this wasn’t going to work for me.  I figured out how to convert the grams into cups and figured I’d start from there.  Making several small batches and playing with proportions I was finally able to come up with a basic cake recipe to build my baked goods from.

Basic GF Cake Recipe

1 ½ cups all purpose GF flour

1 ¼ cups sugar

½ teaspoon of salt

2 teaspoon baking soda

¾ teaspoon xanthan gum

4-5 tablespoons of canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 cup water

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl.
3. Add all wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well by hand or with a mixer on low speed.
4. Spoon into cake pan(s) or cupcake tin filling about ½ to ¾ of the cup.
5. Bake 30-35 minutes for a cake or 20-25 minutes for cupcakes, adding time in 5 minute increments if needed
6. Remove when toothpick inserted comes out clean.
7. Cool completely on a wire rack and frost with your favorite icing!

The sugar seems like a lot, but the cake tends to be a little bitter without it.  Just go for it dude, that’s what sweet treats are for!  Now, like I said, this is a basic recipe.  You can add about a ½ cup of cocoa powder to make them chocolate or various treats in the batter to spruce it up.  My first batch was chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate, peanut butter, and Nutella frosting!  For the frosting I just followed a basic chocolate butter cream recipe and melted the peanut butter and Nutella with the chocolate.  AMAZING!  I wish I had taken a picture, but alas, I didn’t and now they are all gone.  These are just for inspiration:

Timing seems to be everything when it comes to GF baking.  No matter what recipe you’re following, I recommend checking about half way into the baking time and then checking again every 5-10 minutes so as not to over dry the finished product! 

Mamma Mia, I want a pizza!

Anyone who knows me knows I love 2 things: pesto and pizza.  Combine the two and I’m in heaven!  No really, a little pesto, fresh mozzarella and feta, and some sliced tomatoes on top of a semi-thin crisp crust, I think I’ll die now!  Wait, if I eat that, I might die (figuratively of course).  What’s a girl to do?!  Well, I’ve tried I don’t even know how many GF pizza crust recipes.  Some from scratch, others from mixes bought at the store.  They just aren’t quite the same.  As I was about to give up on my dream of a homemade GF pizza I happened to glance at the bottom self of the GF section in the grocery stores.  Could it be? Bob’s Red Mill makes a pizza dough mix!!!  I’m not sure what my local grocer’s dysfunction is, why is this at the bottom of the section?? This should be in the middle surrounded by streamers and flashing lights!  So, I’m going to give this stuff a whirl…. And on my first go ‘round I was a little disappointed.  Now granted, I expected the GF stuff to taste different, but this didn’t even taste like a pizza crust to me.  Never to fear, I will fix this!  A dash of sugar (yes, just do it!) and some herbs (a little oregano, salt, and pepper…. Much improved!  The bitterness was gone.  Mixed it up, let it rise, set, and finally it’s time to flip and fly that dough in the air to make the perfect round (imagine Snooki in this season’s opening episode of JS).  I realized it would be a disaster, so I took the responsible route and just pressed out the dough into a pizza shape.  Topped it with some leftover shredded herbed chicken, fresh spinach, tomato slices, a little feta, and a little motza!  Baked and devoured!

Minny Jackson isn’t the only one to serve questionable pies…

I come from a long line of precious young gals… most of them before me are fiery redheads (mad love to my gingies!) however somehow my dark brown hair is the mark that breaks that mold!  One of my favorite stories about my great grandmother is her infamous mud pies.  Apparent this little girl could just “bake” up a storm.  Well one day (in like 1906) as her mother was hosting bridge club, little Hope Gravely was hard at work on her last mud pie creation.  Picking things out of the yard, carefully mixing her concoction and laying it out in the sun to dry, er um bake.  When it was finished and ready to serve, little Hope marched right on into her mother’s game and started to serve slices to the ladies.  Much like Minny’s surprise for Hilly, Hopie had a surprise for those bridge playing ladies too… thankfully hers was much more harmless and funny!

Well, I may not make mud pies, but just like baked goods and pizzas, I love some thing with a crust and a gooey filling!  What was I going to do now that gluten was out of the question?  Again, more websites with 10,000 different flours and weird measurements.  This wasn’t going to do and like the cake recipe, I’d have to figure out my own!  Behold:

GF Pie Crust

1 ½ cups all purpose GF flour

1 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed

½ cup ice cold water

Pinch salt

1 tablespoon sugar

Combine flour and butter, as you would to make any other crust, using a pastry cutter or forks until pea sizes pieces form.  Don’t over do it!  Mix in the water, salt, and sugar until just combined.  Form into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate 2 hours or overnight.  When ready to use, let rest on counter for 5 minutes and roll out carefully.  GF dough seems to fall apart more easily, so don’t over do it.  If you find that you can’t get it rolled out within breaking it, I suggest just “pressing” it out directly in the pan.