GreenSunflower Cooks

This Blog Has Been Moved

2010-03-15T00:05:51-07:00

All the content from here is there as well as new content

White Beans with Smoked Sausage on Brown Rice

2010-03-13T23:15:27-08:00

This is cheap, healthy, tasty, easy to cook and delicious. You can easily soak the beans overnight, instead of my four hour thing, but I am not a planner so my recipe does not do that. I do have to say I had some gas afterward, but the bowl of warm beans on the slightly coarse rice was worth it.

GreenSunflower's White Beans with Smoked Sausage on Brown Rice

1 bag white northern beans
2 TB olive oil
2lbs gf smoked sausage chopped
1TB granulated onion
2 gloves of garlic, chopped
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 springs rosemary, leaves pulled from stemmed, and finely chopped
2 quarts GF chicken broth

In a 7 quart heavy bottomed saucepan place beans and fill it up to the top with water. Bring it to a boil and then place it on low and let it sit there for 4 hours.

After the beans are done soaking. Rinse them and keep them to the side. Place olive oil in pan on medium along with the sausage. If your sausage is not a fully cooked one, fully cook it now, if is just brown it. At the end of the sausage process put in the onion, rosemary, and garlic, keep it stirring and let it brown. As soon at it is browned pour in the chicken broth, while scrapping the bottom of the pan. Then add the next quart of chicken broth. Pour in the beans. Bring to a simmer and then simmer over medium heat, uncovered for 1.5 hours, until the liquid is thick, but not dry.

While you are come to the hour mark with your beans, get your rice cooker going with brown rice (jasmine is the best, I believe) and cook it with a 1:2.5 rice to water ratio.

Top the rice with the beans and enjoy.

Clementine Cake

2010-03-10T16:00:00-08:00

I got one of those bags of clementines from Costco. I had eaten my fill and didn't know what to do with the rest. I also wanted to bake a lemon cake. Well this marriage happened. I added key lime juice and pure orange extract (i got mine from Williams-Sonoma*) for a more tart and extra orange flavored cake. I chose Agave syrup because it has a lower glycemic index, but I also had a bottle to use up and this week is all about NOT GOING TO THE GROCERY STORE. Babe also gives his seal of approval and says this cake is up there with his all time favorite, Heavenly Almond Cookies.

GreenSunflower's Clementine Cake

1/2 cup plain yogurt
6 TB softened butter
2 eggs
3/4 cup Blue Agave syrup
1/3 cup clementine juice
3 TB clementine zest
2 TB key lime (or just regular lime) juice
1 tsp pure GF vanilla extract
1/4 tsp pure almond extract
1/4 tsp pure orange extract
2 1/2 cupsPamela's Products Ultimate Baking & Pancake Mix

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk and yogurt and butter together, until creamy. Then add eggs and throughly mix. Then add all other wet ingredients until mixed throughly. Put away your whisk and pull out your spoonula. Add the Pamela's and mix until throughly incorporated. It will be thick. It should be to get a good rise.

Grease a 9" springform pan, and spread the batter into it. Pop it in the oven and bake for 30 min, or until it springs back when touched or when a toothpick comes out clean.

Glaze

3 TB Key Lime juice
1/4 tsp pure orange extract
1 cup powdered sugar.

Combine all in a bowl and mix until powdered sugar has dissolved. When the cake comes out of the oven and take off the side of the spring form pan. Place a plate over the top of the cake and turn over, remove bottom, then place a rack on the bottom of the cake and flip back over upright. Place the rack on a cookie sheet (with sides). Drizzle/spread the glaze over the top of the cake.

Let cool completely, and then take a piece, or two, or four, and don't blame me.

*I cant find the extract on their website, but at the store in the gourmet food section they have a a whole host of extracts by Neilsen-Massey. Who make the best pure extracts around. I have Almond, Peppermint, and Vanilla too and they are all very high quality.

Iced Cinnamon Mocha Coffee

2010-03-10T11:27:00-08:00

Sometimes at the end of those two weeks, spending $5 on a coffee just seems too unreasonable. Until this Friday that is so. I bought a pound of french roast, and got to thinking. I am not a hot coffee person. I have corn based to go cold cups and straws. So I came up with this. I had everything else in my cupboard.

GreenSunflower's Iced Cinnamon Mocha Coffee

10 cups piping hot french roast coffee
1 8oz can sweetened condensed milk
2 cubes semi sweet baking chocolate, finely chopped
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp pure vanilla, GF extract

In a heat proof pitcher, add SC milk, cinnamon, chocolate, and vanilla. Pour the coffee on top and stir, until all if fully incorporated. Stick in the fridge, until chilled. Serve over ice. A little whipped topping of your choice wouldn't hurt things a bit.

You will find some very fine chocolate bits don't melt but rather are like mini chocolate morsels that melt in your mouth as you drink. It is heaven. I am on my second glass this morning. Yum.

Sweet and Sour Cucumber Salad

2010-03-09T22:27:59-08:00

I made this as a side to my pork spareribs. I let it marinate while they were cooking

GreenSunflower's Sweet and Sour Cucumber Salad

2 seedless cucumbers, small chopped
1/2 red onion, finely diced
1/2 rice wine vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Mix the vinegar, salt, pepper, and sugar and let sit until sugar has completly dissolved. Add the cucumber and onion. Let sit for at least an hour. The onion taste will mellow and the cucumber will develop more flavor the longer it sits. It can sit at room temp or in the fridge.

Dry Rubbed Pork Spareribs with BBQ Sauce

2010-03-09T22:20:10-08:00

I wanted to make BBQ sauce. Mostly because I went to eat the BBQ sauce in my fridge and couldn't: modified food starch= no no no. So I decided on pork spareribs.

Everybody is always all a-talk about baby-back ribs when it comes to pork, but I find them hard to keep moist, lacking in meat and marbling (do they use that term with pork?). I always find spareribs delicious and hard to ruin. They do take a while to prepare but most of it is just waiting. We are heading to spring. So if you don't live where you have 70 degree days during the winter, keep this recipe in mind.

GreenSunflower's Dry Rub

2 TB granulated garlic
2 TB granulated onion
2 TB salt
2 TB ground cumin
1 TB FRESHLY ground black pepper (if you use the dust, use two)
1 TB dried basil
1 TB dried oregano
1 TB dried pepper flakes
1 TB chili powder
2 tsp ground chipotle chile
1/2 tsp ground clove
1/2 tsp ground ginger

MIx all spices completely.

GreenSunflower's BBQ Sauce

3TB Olive Oil
1/2 stick butter
2 red onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
3 cups catsup
1 15 oz can tomato sauce
1/2 cup GF tamari
3/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1 cup brown sugar
1 TB FRESHLY ground black pepper
1 TB Frank's Red Hot
1 TB lime juice
1 TB cumin
1 TB Sriracha
1 pinch cloves
1 pinch ground chipotle chili

In heavy bottomed 5 quart pot, heat olive oil and butter on low. Once butter has melted, add onions and stir to coat. Let onions lie on low for a long time, like 20 min, until they are soft and caramelized.

Then add garlic and give it about 10 min on low to caramelize too. Then add all other ingredient and stir to combine, simmer on medium, stirring frequently for 20 min. Now you have your BBQ sauce.

GreenSunflower's Ribs

Now I only made one slab, as it was just me and Babe but the Dry Rub and BBQ sauce are enough for two. I am putting a picture in of what spare ribs look like because some may not know. But here is how to get to cooking the dang things.

You need two slabs of the above meat. Wash the meat and pat it dry with a paper towel and then slather the dry rub on it, so it looks like this.

Let those sit for a good 30 minutes. The salt will tenderize the meat and allow the spices to wreak havoc.

After this warm up your BBQ. I haven't used a charcoal BBQ in 10 years, so don't ask me how to do that. But you want to get all the crusties off your grill and then you want it at a nice 250-300 degrees.

Drizzle olive oil on both sides off the meat and put the meat bone side down on the grill. Let the meat cook at this low temp for one hour.

After the one hour turn those puppies over and cook for another hour at the same heat. After you turn them over, make your BBQ sauce.

After that hour is over, head out to your grill with your BBQ sauce. Sauce the meat side first and turn over. Then sauce the bone side. Then turn over AGAIN (this was just to get some char on the meat side) and re-sauce your meat side. Now let that cook again covered (did I mention this is all covered to maintain that even heat?) for 20 min to let the BBQ sauce caramelize, so when you pull your meat off it looks like this.

Now you can either cut them up with a boning knife or you can pull them apart, cause they will just melt away from that bone.

There should be some extra sauce, after it is all said and done, to put over the ribs, if you need more.

Baby wipes on the side are suggested. Or whatever classier method of cleaning your hands you so desire.

Blueberry Fake Soda Bread

2010-03-09T00:19:05-08:00

I was searching the internets for Irish Soda Bread to go with Babe's Bday breakfast this morning. Nothing spectacular was happening but potatoes and eggs, which I make all the time. I thought a nice subtly sweet bakery product would do the trick. I couldn't find one using my all time favorite,Pamela's Ultimate Baking and Pancake Mix . So I hopped on over to GFG and found this. After rattling it around in my not-so-gourmet-much-lazier head, I came up with this. But I only had dried blueberries from Costco. I must say though, that they are HUGE and juicy. So huge in fact, I had to chop them up.

This is what came out. I have been pummeling my body with gluten so long, I couldn't even find my springform pan, so I baked in a pie pan and it fell right out onto the plate nicely.

Blueberry Fake Soda Bread

1 3/4 cup Pamela's
1 cup milk w/ 1tsp white or cider vinegar added
1 egg
6TB butter
3/4 cup chopped dried blueberries, or any dried fruit

Heat oven to 350. Mix the milk and vinegar and let sit for five min. Then add melted butter. Next whisk in the egg. Add in the Pamela's. Stir and fold until moist. Add fruit.

Grease a pie pan or springform pan. Spread the mixture in the pan. Bake for 20 min or until it springs back when touched, it will not get too browned, so don't count on that.

Serve!

Tomato Rice Salad

2010-03-08T23:59:23-08:00

It was Babe's Bday today, and I wanted to make him a nice dinner, but I DID NOT WANT TO GO TO THE GROCERY STORE.

So I thought up this little number, from what I had in my fridge and pantry. Babe declared it delicious and that is he is soooooooooooo glad I am gluten free again and that he will be my dedicated taste tester for LIFE.

Tomato Rice Salad

3 cups cooked, cooled, fork fluffed jasmine rice (1rice:2/3water ratio)

Place 2 tsp Knorr Caldo de Tomate con sabor de pollo* in rice water when cooking.

1 seedless cucumber, large dice

1 TB red onion, small dice

3 stalks including leaves inner heart of celery, medium dice

1/2 cup white balsamic vinegar

1/2 extra virgin olive oil

lots of FRESHLY ground black pepper

Get your rice cooker going with the rice. And go do something. Let the rice cool a bit after cooking and then fluff it with a fork and let it sit OR let it sit in your freezer while your salmon fillet cooks for 20 min and frequently re-fluff it:)

Get all your veggies together in a bowl. In another smaller bowl whisk the olive oil and white balsamic with as much pepper as you can stand (I love black pepper). Do not add any salt the bullion has enough for the whole dish.

Pour the oil/vinegar mixture over the veggies, stir and let them soak it up for 5 mins or so because once the rice is in there, it is going to take it all.

Add rice, stir, taste. Make more oil/vinegar/pepper if needed and add.

Serve!

*I am not absolutely positive this is gluten free. It didn't irk my tummy, but all of us GFer's are different. It does have "natural flavors." My suggestion if you are concerned it to use tomato paste and GF chicken broth as the water for flavor instead. But you will need to add additional salt.

I Think I Might Be Back

2010-03-08T23:31:50-08:00

In April of 2008, I got pregnant. I had HG. I almost died. I was so desperate to eat anything, I started eating gluten. Then tried to continue eating gluten free after giving birth, but decided to be in denial and continued to eat it. 60lbs lost, packs of adult diapers, many refills of many nausea meds, many bags of IV fluid, later, I got an endoscopy that shows lymphocytes and delicate architecture of my small intestine. Considering I eat less than 300 calories of solid food a day, and most of my calories come from cranberry juice, I will take that to mean, I really cant eat gluten ever again.

All of this means that I must cook for myself and of course Babe again, but now there is little Oli to soak up the goodness too.

Here we go.

Pea Salad With Lemon And Goat Cheese

2008-04-10T22:24:16-07:00

Summer is fast approaching and with it, all the freshness that are the varied salad possibilities.

Tonight we had lamb and potatoes (very winter), but it was 75 degrees outside and I wanted to make it a little more warm weatherish. So I barbecued the lamb, and made this salad. It was different and very good and SIMPLE.

Pea Salad With Lemon And Goat Cheese

1 bag frozen green peas, defrosted at room temp
2 TB chevre
2 TB chopped red onion
2 small lemons
4 TB extra virgin olive oil
salt
pepper

In small bowl, whisk chevre, onion, lemon, salt and pepper (to taste) together, whisk in olive oil.

Spread over peas and toss.

It's that easy.