GF Vegitarian/Vegan Porogies

I adapted my recipe (below) from GlutenFreeVegan in my attempt to get the eggs out. It worked like magic!

I used Greek yogurt because it’s what I had in the house, I’m sure anything sour cream/yogurt vegan or not would work. If I made them again I’d make sure I had vegan sour cream so I can share with my mom.

So easy to do. Delicious. Chewy and soft… J and I made this recipe on a stay at home date night. So much fun it’s amazing to spend time with my hubby in the kitchen.

Try topping with Epicure Bacon Bits. They are delicious crunchy vegetarian (vegan?) bacon bits. Though I prefer my bacon to come from my pigs…

Instructions:

My adapted version uses the same instructions for stuffing and cooking as  GlutenFreeVegan.

Ingredients: Dry

1 cup chick pea flour
1 cup sorghum or brown rive flour
1/2 cup tapioca starch
1/2 cup corn starch
2 tsp xantham gum
1/4 tsp salt

Ingredients: Wet

2 cups Greek Yogurt

Steps:

Sift all the dry ingredients together and stir with a fork till its one colour.

Then stir in 2 cups of greek yogurt (I used fat free)

Once the dough starts to make a ball flour your work surface (cold and smooth is best) with some extra rice flour.

Put the ball on the counter and kneed it till it comes together. Flour your hands and surface if t gets sticky.

Once its a ball I found pushing down with both palms in the middle stretching it away from you gently without breaking it so it looks like a lop sided 8.

Pick it up and fold the 8 onto itself and rolling it back into a ball in your hands and repeating works best to get it springy.

Do this for 5 minutes ish. A dough hook in a kitchen-aide might work but not as nice. Its worth the work.

Using a heavy rolling pin (if yours is lighter use gentle pressure) let the weight if your fingers and the pin smooth out the dough into a sheet 1/8 inch thick.

Use a cup or cookie cutter to cut out circles.

Flour the circles so they don’t stick together and place in single layers on a cookie sheet.

Cover with a slightly damp tea towel until you are ready to stuff so they don’t dry out.

Take out one circle at a time and gently roll it to oval.

Place a tsp of mashed potato filling in the center.

Use a finger to wipe water over 1/2 the edge to make the seam stick.

Fold the dough around the filling and press the seam together gently.

Set on a cookie sheet and freeze for later.

Or boil till they float and then 3 minutes more.

If you like them fried or baked boil first then…

Fry till golden.

Brush with oil and bake at 350 on a sheet of parchment.

*********

For the filling

4 medium white or yukon gold potatoes, pealed*.

1 cup shredded 2-5 year old cheddar. (or blend several old cheeses like asiago and Parmesan)

2 green onions sliced thinly

1/2 cup ish milk (cow, almond, soy all work)

2 tbsp butter OR earth balance OR olive oil OR margarine

1 tsp fine minced garlic (optional)

Boil potatoes till fork tender drain and mash.

Mash in butter.

Continue mashing and slowly add milk till fluffy. Error on the dry side.

Stir in green onions and garlic.

*Note: If you leave skins on the potatoes they poke through the dough and cause trouble. If you want to keep the sinks in for fiber/iron etc then they should go through a blender/food processor.

Posted in Egg Free, Gluten Free, Pasta, Vegitarian | Leave a comment

Stolen Spagetti Sauce

This Spaghetti Sauce Recipe was totally mooched from http://achornfarm.blogspot.ca/ because I’m still not happy with mine and I’m a lazy girl… I haven’t tried it yet I just wanted to put it on here so I remember “where the heck I found the good recipe I liked that comes with pressure canning  instructions”.

If you are not me and you are reading this please go check out http://achornfarm.blogspot.ca/ they are awesome. If you are someone from http://achornfarm.blogspot.ca/ and you are reading this YOU ARE AWESOME.

I imagine it’d be good with a bit of chopped fresh kale in the sauce or some mushrooms too. I don’t know if that’d change the pressure canning instructions thought… and I’m a HUGE fraidy cat for canning so if you know that kind of stuff comment please!

Here it is VERBATIM

*****

With canning season in the horizon I figured I’d better share this recipe.  I have experimented with making spaghetti sauce on several occasions and this recipe is the one I ALWAYS return to.  It comes from a good friend’s mom who has canned for many years. I am posting with her permission of course!

  • 12 lbs peeled and diced tomatoes (4-5 qts)
  • 12 oz can of tomato paste
  • 1/3-1/2 cup of brown sugar
  • 1-2 teaspoons of dried sweet basil or 1/3 cup of fresh chopped basil
  • 1/2-1 teaspoon of black pepper
  • 2 tablespoons of salt
  • 3 medium onions, chopped
  • 1/4 cup oil
  • 1 green pepper diced
  • 4-5 cloves of garlic, minced

Put tomatoes, paste, sugar, basil, salt, and pepper in large pot.

Sauté onion, peppers in oil for 5 minutes adding garlic just before time is up.  Then add to tomatoes.  Bring to a boil then simmer on low heat for 2 hours or desired consistency.  Stir occasionally.  Pack into pint or quart jars.  Pressure cook @ 10lbs of pressure for 20-25 minutes or you can take the lazy easy way out and  freeze in plastic containers or bags.  I have been known to take that route on a good many occasions.

PERSONAL NOTES

  1. I shared not only to be nice but mostly because organization is not one of my finer points and I would be distraught if I lost this recipe.
  2. I don’t chop up my tomatoes I use my tomato saucer I purchased a few years back from Johnny’s select seed.  It is pictured in this post from 2011.  It is by far one of my favorite kitchen gadgets!
  3. As my sauce is cooking I blend with my immersion blender (another favorite in the kitchen) so there are “NO CHUNKS” because the kids won’t eat it if it has “CHUNKS”.  PUNKS!!!!
  4. Last note….I promise.  A couple weeks back we were in Boston and we ate at an authentic Italian restaurant.  It was DIVINE!  My boy said “Mom this sauce tastes a lot like yours.”  That is all he needed to say.  I hoping to put up at least 30-40 quarts….enough to make it through a long Maine winter.  Happy Canning!

*****

End of copy

Thanks again for posting this http://achornfarm.blogspot.ca/. If you would rather I not totally rip you off here please let me know and I’ll hide the post from the public.

Posted in Egg Free, Garden, Gluten Free, Preserves, Vegan, Vegitarian | Leave a comment

Violet and Lemon Jelly

Ingredients:
4cups sugar
1/4 cup organic lemon juice (trust me it tastes better)
1 citro box
2-3 cups wild violet flowers
2 cups boiling water

Go pick some wild violets (May is a good time)

Gently wash in cold water and pick out any bugs, stems, and grass if any.

Make your violet water. (The tea should be dark blue)

Cover with 2 cups boiling water and let sit for 10 minutes on the counter

Stir after letting it cool a bit and store in the fridge for up to 24 hours. OR use after 1 hour steeping.

Stir gently and steep over night in the fridge

Add lemon juice with an audience. Changes color from dark blue to violet.  Kids? This is a make at home liquid Ph experiment you can eat!

Then follow the instruction on the pack of pectin.

Then process in a water bath for 10 minutes. Let cool on the counter for 24 hours.

Violet Jelly cooling on the counter after 10 minutes in the water bath

Enjoy!

**Note** Preppers keep this in mind as you can use this method in a SHTF situation to test pH. I’m not sure the range of effectiveness but it’s handy to know if something is acidic and the reaction is very easy to observer.

Posted in Garden, Gluten Free, Preserves, Vegan, Vegitarian | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Stove Top Popcorn

I love popcorn made on the stove.

Delicious popcorn made at home in a pot. Microwave shmicrowave

It’s so easy and just as quick as the micro and tastes MUCH better. So what if you have to wash a pot. Get over it the flavor is worth it.

What you will need:

Large heat resistant bowl (glass is nice if you don’t have a big bowl a large casserole dish works too)  IF you want to be fancy warm the bowl.

The biggest heavy bottom pot you’ve got with a lid. I like my Lagostina set since the heat is distributed well and I don’t get hot spots that burn. If you get burnt kernels it’s because your pots are too thin. Get heavy bottom pots and thank me later. If you burn allot of dinners on the bottom when the top is raw… same thing. Get better pots.

Ingredients:

Popping corn (make sure it’s fresh and has not additives. If it’s stale feed it to the birds)

Coconut Oil (I like the organic unrefined kind from costco. It tastes sweet like kettle corn)

Epicure spice or popcorn toppers for topping (optional)

Butter – melted (optional)

Instructions:

NOTE: depending on the size of your pot you might have to play with the amount of oil and corn. start with 1/4 cup of corn and 2 tbsp oil. If you have room next time add an extra tbsp of corn and a bit more oil.

Add the oil to the pot and turn the pot on high with the lid on.

Once oil is melted put 2 or 3 kernels in the pot.

Once the 2-3 kernels are all popped add the rest of the corn and cover.

1/2 way through popping (about one minute) give the pot a gentle shake up and down with the lid on.

Once popping slows take off the head fast and get the lid off or you will get soggy pop corn.

Quickly transfer to the heat proof bowl. If you have a Pasta Spoon use it to scoop out the popped corn and leave the un-popped kernels behind. Any big spoon will work.

Top with whatever you want or not. Enjoy while hot.

Trouble Shooting:

Kernels don’t pop black on one side: Add more oil. Oil conducts heat to the kernel evenly to make the water inside boil and pop, if the heat is uneven it’ll just burn on one side.

Popped corn is burning, kernels still un-popped in the bottom: Pot is too thin.

Kernels don’t pop all the way open “1/2 pop”: Stove temperature is too low.

Popcorn is dense and chewy: Stove temperature is too low OR you left the lid on and the steam made it soggy.

 

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Fluffy Burgers – Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer Trick

So here’s a neat trick I discovered a few years back when I hurt my elbow. I wanted to mix up some home made burgers for the BBQ but my right arm wasn’t up for it. So I just used the paddle on my Stand Mixer and added the meat, spice, ketchup etc to the bowl and mixed on low for 2 minutes. Hand formed burgers like normal.

Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer


The paddle tenderized the meat so much it was like eating delicious beef clouds.

This works with any burger recipe. I highly recommend it if you are using eggs as a binding agent. I can’t have eggs any more but when I did this was the best way to do it.

 

Posted in Gadgets, Tips and Tricks | Leave a comment