Hearty Soups and Pasta Sauce from Roasted Vegetables

 

Roasting vegetables and fruits brings out the best flavors in them without requiring much seasoning because the natural flavors come out during the roasting.

 

Roasted or baked sweet potatoes are sweet and flavorful enough that they can be eaten as is. We had baked sweet potatoes growing up. There was a time that was what we had for lunch! And nobody starved or suffered from malnutrition.

 

We enjoyed those fresh garden vegetables, fruits and berries from the area. If anything arrived by truck back then, it was from a few miles out from nearby farms. I remember seeing people bartering with vegetables for meat or poultry or eggs.

 

The last trip I took along US 49 in Arkansas heading West to Brinkley, there was a little shed with fruits and vegetables for sale. Every trip I’ve taken down that highway, there was always that little shed! Oh, and we always stopped even though we were days away from home!  Most of the time, we ate the fruit we bought within a day.

 

Most cities have large farmers markets, but those aren’t the same as those individual “stands”.  Sometimes you actually knew the family or even if you didn’t, you remembered them from year to year and knew their life stories.  Although the large farmers markets have some really good food, it’s the ‘knowing the providers/growers’ that make it more interesting.

 

If you have never roasted or baked vegetables or fruits, it’s time to try it.  That roasted or baked food will make you go …. um yum good!

 

It’s about time to heat up some of the last batch of soup, just writing about it makes my mouth water!

 

From September

From August

 

September - soup with roasted vegetables

This one included roasted potatoes, carrots, winter squash, peppers, green beans and corn.  It also has ‘fresh’ carrot juice instead of tomato juice.  I do not recommend canned or non-refrigerated bottled carrot juice! Basically if it does not taste like fresh squeezed, it will not have a good effect on this soup.

The finished soup - it comes out like stew, with potatoes doing some major thickening! Delicious for sure!

soup with roasted potatoes and carrots served this one is very thick

 

Soup - roasted vegetables with black and kidney beans added

 

Pasta Sauce

Roasted Vegetables served

 

Preparing soup with a few roasted vegetables

I needed to add other ingredients here, because there was only about 2 cups of roasted vegetables left.
over-ripe tomatoes, frozen mixed vegetables, roasted carrots, roasted corn, roasted potatoes and roasted squash. Cooked sliced okra will be added last

Adding a small amount of quinoa, which will thicken the soup, prior to adding the fresh tomatoes

 

Finished it off with fresh carrot juice

Preparing the okra separate

Added the okra - would be ready to serve in about half an hour

The finished soup  -  Delicious for sure!

Leftovers

                                                                            served with cranberry flax muffin

Prepping the Vegetables

I cover the pans with foil and rub oil over to prevent sticking.  The oil is absorbed into the vegetables. Makes for an easy clean-up.  These can also be roasted in a large covered grill.

Cut the summer squash in cubes

Winter squash

Winter squash carrots and corn

peppers in slices and strips

End pieces of the peppers can be diced for salads or adding to omelets

eggplant and summer squash

Potatoes

 

Get to it!   Roast those veggies and fruits!

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© 2013 http://retiredwithnoregrets.blogspot.com/

Gluten Free Muffin Biscuits - Easy, Soft, and Delicious

This week has been rather hot, so I haven’t done much baking. But when one of my sisters said she would be coming out  for a visit, I knew I had to bake something!

We had been trying to get together for about two months to try to get her older laptop working again.  So when she said “I’m coming out this week”, I asked if she wanted to come out, spend the night and we could spend all day working on the laptop and ‘running around’.  Well, she decided, yes, she would grab the jammies and a change and come out.

When she finally made it, it was after 10:00 PM, I thought that was a bit late to eat a large meal, so she went for a loaded salad of romaine, cukes, avocado, peppers, olives, asparagus, tomatoes, …… with a sprinkle of balsamic capers and sliced almonds.

Finally we made it to bed, we both were tired, so off to sleep..

I was in the kitchen trying to think about what to fix for breakfast.  I usually make a fruit/veggie smoothie with protein powder and I’m fine until about 3:00 PM. But I figured I should cook her a breakfast since she came out to visit for a day.  Then the light bulb popped, figuratively!  I decided to make the muffin biscuits that I had started making over the past year…

Since Gluten-free biscuits are beaten instead of kneaded, I knew a deep muffin tin would keep them high instead of spreading.

I have used them like egg ‘muffins’ and simply as buttered and jammed biscuits.  One day I had a burger patty and didn’t have a hamburger bun, so I split one and ate my burger!

If you like dry crispy biscuits, you may not like this biscuit, because it’s moist and soft.

The one requirement is a deeper muffin tin.    See the pans at the end of this post, So the real secret to this biscuit is the deeper muffin tin.  Not any old deeper muffin tin.  I will show you the differences. I found the one I have at WalMart.

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Muffin Cup Biscuits – Gluten Free

 

Ingredients

 

Dry Ingredients

1 cup Pamela's Artisan Flour Blend

1/4 cup Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix

2 tbsp dried milk powder (used Sanalac)

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

2 pkts Pure Via Stevia (or 4 tsp sugar)

1/4 tsp Ginger, Ground

1/4 tsp baking soda

 

Fats

1 tbsp Buttery Spread, chilled

2 tbsp butter - with olive oil, chilled

 

Liquids

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup water (as needed)

2 tbsp liquid egg product (used because a whole egg is too much)

 

Procedure

Combine Dry Ingredients and set aside.

Dice the Fats, keeping them chilled. Combine with Dry Ingredients, whisking with a wire whisk until Fats has been mixed and has small pea sized “pellets”.

 

Beat in egg and buttermilk with a wooden spoon, adding water as needed. The ‘batter’ should be soft and thick, but not dry.

 

Grease the muffin cups with shortening or palm oil.  Divide dough into the 6 cups. Shape with a toothpick using swirls to even dough in the muffin pan. Do not smooth it or press it down!

 

Bake in pre-heated 375° oven for 20 minutes or until browned. Remove from pan, allow cooling slightly. Serve hot or warm.

Store leftovers, covered in a cool dry room on counter for 24 hours or refrigerated, wrapped for about a week. 

To re-warm, microwave 15 seconds, or less on high. Be careful on the microwave as if over-cooked, they become gummy and hard

 

Servings: 6

 

Nutrition (as prepared): 162 calories, 6.1g total fat, 2.2g monounsaturated fat, <1g polyunsaturated fat, 0g trans fatty acids, 2.2g saturated fat, 5.7mg cholesterol, 340.8mg sodium, 218.1mg calcium, 207.9mg potassium, 1.9mcg folate, 27.8mg phosphorus, <1mg phytosterols, 0mcg lycopene, 1.9mcg selenium, <1mg thiamin, <1mcg vitamin b12, <1mg vitamin b6, <1mg vitamin c, 0IU vitamin d, <1mg zinc, 23.5g carbohydrates, 1.2g fiber, 22.3g net carbohydrates, 2.4g sugar, <1g fructose, <1g galactose, <1g glucose, 0g lactose, 0g maltose, <1g sucrose, 3.2g protein.

 

 

 

 

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Tips

The shortening must be cold.  It should be whisked into the Dry Ingredients using a wire whisk by hand.  The Dry Ingredients may be pulsed in a food processor to mix and grind finer, but the fats should not be added while the mix is in the food processor or you could get grainy biscuits due to the shortening melting before it goes in the oven!

Larger Muffin pan compared to regular sized pan, on the left.

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Our Days food

Breakfast Omelet, bacon and biscuit

Romaine salad with berries  and salmon with asparagus

Frozen Lemonade

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© 2013 http://retiredwithnoregrets.blogspot.com/

Simple Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Anyone who loves cookies, most likely loves chocolate chip cookies! Now that I have said it, who will try to convince me otherwise?  Oh yea, there are the ‘cookie monsters’ like me….. who would rather have a cookie than any other dessert. But….maybe I like chocolate chip cookies because they have CHOCOLATE in them.
Now that I take time to spend lots of time in the kitchen or writing ideas for a cookie recipe, I get to sample those ideas!  I often wonder if I had a previous life as a cookie tester….
Although I love baking and cooking my own food, I have never had any desires to own a food establishment to sell said goods…  Guess one could say food is my hobby, not my profession.
When I was first forced to go gluten-free, I felt a little sad because I had to start over learning how to cook.  I attended some great classes presented by Michelle over at Allergen Free Cooking.  One of the most important things I learned from her was how to mix flours and the properties of the types of flours like the base flour and the starch.  Well that  took a little bit of a learning curve, but it’s not that difficult.  Now, I don’t even fret about which flour to use.  My motto now is  “have food processor, can make almost anything”.
Now back to the cookies, there are numerous packaged chocolate chip cookies on the market including cookie dough and cookie mixes.  I buy some here and there, but always go back to baking cookies.  I have found one specific Crunchy Double Chocolate Cookie that I love!  I will buy that one when I get lazy.   I have a box of those in the pantry just in case I need a quick fix and am not up to baking.
This recipe shows how simple it is to make chocolate chip cookies.  Most recipes add a stick of butter (8 tbsp) for 1 1/4 cups flour, but I reduced it to 6 tablespoons which makes a crunchier, less greasy cookie.
If you are not familiar with using flax gel as an egg substitute, use an egg instead, because the flax gel needs additional flavoring added. When using flax gel in a non-chocolate/spicy cookie, additional cinnamon and/or extract is necessary.  The flax doesn’t seem to have a flavor of it’s own, but seems to reduce the potency of other flavors.
So, enjoy this version the Chocolate Chip Cookie!

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Simple Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

Ingredients

 

Dry Ingredients - Food Processor

1 cups white rice flour(or mix of brown/white) - used a fine grind

1/4 cup Tapioca Flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder (used aluminum free)

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup granulated Stevia - equal to 1/4 cup sugar (used Pure Via-Cup for Cup)

1/4 cup Brown Sugar - (or coconut palm sugar)   

1/2 tsp Vanilla Powder (used Authentic Foods)

 

Wet ingredients and Fats

6 tbsp butter, softened

1 flax gel egg (recipe = 1 egg)*

3 tbsp raw honey (or 1/4 C strained liquid honey)

1/2 tsp orange or almond extract

 

Add Ins

1 cup Milk Chocolate Chips

 

Procedure

Combine Dry Ingredients in a food processor bowl and pulse about a minute to finish grinding and mixing.

 

 

 

 Prepare flax gel and whip with a hand mixer, beat in the butter and honey until creamy, beat in the extract. 

 

 

Raw honey can be from light in color to golden brown in color.  It is more concentrated.

 

The orange extract that was used -

 

Scrape down the bowl and beat in the Dry Ingredients from the food processor just until mixed. 

Scrape down beaters and bowl.

 

Stir in the chocolate chips.

 

 

 

 

 Divide dough into 24 portions.  A cookie scoop worked well for this dough.

 

 

 

Place each portion onto parchment paper covered baking sheets, shape and flatten to 2 inches wide. The cookie will puff, but spreads very little.

 

 

Bake 9 to 11 minutes in pre-heated oven at 350F until golden brown.

 

 

 

 

Gently, using a flat lifter, remove to wire racks to cool completely.

 

 

 

Store any baked left-overs in a sealed container on countertop or refrigerator. Eat within a week, if left unrefrigerated, because no preservatives are in the cookies.

 

 

 

 

Servings: 24

 

Nutrition (as prepared): 116 calories, 6.1g total fat, <1g monounsaturated fat, <1g polyunsaturated fat, 0g trans fatty acids, 0g trans-monoenoic fatty acids, <1g linoleic acid, <1g alpha linolenic acid, 3.9g saturated fat, 11mg cholesterol, 47mg sodium, 19.6mg calcium, 10.5mg potassium, <1mcg folate, 28.3mg phosphorus, <1mg phytosterols, <1mcg lycopene, 1.1mcg selenium, <1mg thiamin, <1mcg vitamin b12, <1mg vitamin b6, <1mg vitamin c, 0IU vitamin d, <1mg zinc, 16.1g carbohydrates, <1g fiber, 15.2g net carbohydrates, 8.8g sugar, <1g fructose, 0g galactose, <1g glucose, 0g lactose, 0g maltose, 1.4g sucrose, 0mg stigmasterol, 1.1g protein.

 

Tips

Pan Cookies: Prepare dough as above. Spread into a prepared pan. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pan on wire rack. Cut into 24 bars

 

 If freezing any, place on cellophane wrapped tray, cover and freeze. Once frozen, remove wrap and place in a plastic bag or lidded container and return to freezer. Use within 30 days.

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If you aren’t familiar with flax gel eggs - this is how to make it - it can be prepared and stored in the fridge for two or three days.  This is a picture of my making about 4 at once for Holiday baking.

Flax Gel (1 egg)

 

 

Ingredients

1 Tbsp ground flaxseed meal

1/4 cup water

 

Procedure

1. Place the Flax Gel ingredients into a large microwave-able container.    Microwave on high until it bubbles and is slightly thick.  (About 90 seconds)  Cool about 2 minutes.  Beat with electric mixer until it is frothy.

 

Yield: 1 flax gel egg substitute

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© 2013 http://retiredwithnoregrets.blogspot.com/

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