Crossing my Fingers...

You know a loaf of bread is going to be good when you can't stop licking the dough off your fingers. At least, you do when you're baking with normal flour. With gluten-free I'm never quite so sure. With traditional bread I could tell by the feel of the dough in my hands if it needed more flour; I could watch it grow smooth and glossy as I kneaded.

With gluten-free, I find myself often staring at a mysterious gob of Play-dough under my hands, wondering if it needs to be a more liquidy Play-dough, or a stiffer one. And more often than I'd like, I pull a loaf out of the oven to find it crumbly on the edges and too gummy in the middle. And the yeast... never seems to do anything. Without the gluten, there just isn't much there to hold the air bubbles in and make the bread rise like I want. It's more like a quick bread - think banana or cornbread, without the banana or corn.

Today, though, as I started up a big pot of soup, I decided I really, really wanted some Russian Black Bread. And so I started searching the wide realm of the internet for a gluten-free recipe. I found one on an ancient message board, posted back in 1996. It has several different dough additives that I haven't experimented with yet. Gelatin, for one. I've seen that in a few recipes before, but never tried any of them. And fruit pectin, for another. (That's the stuff that helps make jelly gel.) And a lot more xanthan gum than I would normally use. This bread is going to have Structure with a capital S.

I just finished mixing and kneading, and I've just popped it in the oven to let it rise. I'm a little nervous. It tastes great - bursting with caraway seeds and the rich flavors of coffee and cocoa powder. But it's a little rubbery. I have no idea what the texture will be like once it's bakes.

BUT! The dough behave more like gluten dough than anything I've tried before. It feels, for example, more elastic, and it pulls cleanly away from the bowl with a certain feel that is... well, I can't say it's anything but reminiscent of gluten dough. Really. I mean, sure, get your gluten-free dough dry enough, and it will also pull away from the sides of the bowl. But the texture just won't be the same, and don't kid yourself hoping for it.

So... updates to follow soon. Wish me luck. Continue Reading!

My Favorite Flax Bread

I stumbled upon this recipe for flax bread in a low-carb forum, and I've been addicted to it ever since. It's as simple to make as an omelet (in fact, maybe simpler), absolutely delicious, and endlessly variable. I've made it into a sweet "nut-bread" style snack with the addition of some sweetner and cinnamon. I've gone savory with sea salt and rosemary. The other day I decided I needed pizza for breakfast - and 20 minutes later it was out of the oven and burning my mouth!

In addition to it's great taste and versatility, though, this bread is just plain good for you. The flax seed gives you a good serving of Omega-3 fats (the same fats you might eat salmon or take fish oil for), and all the carbohydrates in flax are in the form of fiber. In fact, in Germany they list fiber separately from carbs, and flax is considered a no-carb food.

So, for anyone following the Sommersize diet or food combining - or just watching their carbs - you can have sandwiches again! Pizza is no longer off limits! Turkey and swiss with a dab of mustard... cold cuts with tomato... go ahead, knock yourself out!

I do have to note - this isn't a low-calorie bread. There is a lot of fat in it, but it's all the healthy kind. And two pieces will give you a lot of fiber, so you may want to start out eating just half the recipe. Other than that - enjoy!



Quick and Easy Flax Bread:
To keep your flax at it's freshest, buy whole flax and grind it in a small coffee grinder before each use. If you do purchase pre-ground flax, be sure to store it in a sealed, opaque container to prevent rancidity.


Ingredients:
1/3 cup flax seed, ground
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
Seasonings: rosemary, garlic, black pepper, etc

1 egg
1/2 Tbs water


Preheat the oven to 350°

If you have a Silpat or other silicon baking mat, lay it out on your baking pan. If you don't have a silicon mat, lay out a sheet of parchment paper. And if you don't have that, just grease your pan well so you can remove your bread in one piece after it bakes!

Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium sized bowl. Add the egg and water and stir briefly. Pour the batter onto your baking sheet and smooth to your desired thickness.

Bake about 12 minutes, until cooked through. If you want to use this as pizza crust, bake about 8 minutes or so, then add your toppings and continue baking until the cheese is melted.
Continue Reading!

Recipe Coming Soon!

I know I don't post very often on this blog. I'd like to - but life intervenes, and to be honest I don't always have an interesting, creative recipe at my fingertips. Sure, I keep a log of ideas. Sometimes I get all ready to whip one of them up and photograph it, only to have it utterly flop.
Consider yourselves lucky that you don't have to eat the out-takes!

Aside from that, I don't really eat that well - or that interestingly - when other people aren't watching. My meals tend to be little snacks. A piece of cheese with a tomato, a tablespoon of tahini paste, a few pieces of cauliflower dipped in mustard (and not even fancy mustard - just the cheap yellow stuff). Today I actually ate a slice of processed cheese spread with red pepper paste for a mid-afternoon snack.

I can cook well when I want, but I'm not by any means a food snob. In fact, I've managed to gross out my boyfriends with my bachelor-style eating habits. But I think that was their eccentricities, not mine. I will defend my stance that pizza tastes better after a night in the fridge - and doesn't everyone like cold Kraft Mac 'N Cheese for breakfast?

I'll have a new post with a recipe coming in the next few days. But in the meantime, I just wanted to share some photos from my new favorite food photographer. This man makes portraits of zucchinis and apples so beautiful that I get a lump in my throat. Just look at that bunch of sage and tell me it doesn't make you want to burst into song. (OK, I'm a little eccentric, I know - but really...)

The kicker is, he lives in Long Beach, CA. We used to be neighbors.

Matt, if you happen to read this, can I come hang out at your studio when I'm home for the holidays? I won't break anything, I promise! Continue Reading!

Eggplant Parmesan

Yesterday, as if mandated by some sort of genetic coding, I found myself unconsciously mimicking my grandmother, frying sliced eggplant in an olive-oil filled pan. It must be genetics, because I never fry eggplant in olive oil. I steam it, cube it, bake it - but I can never bring myself to add oil to my eggplant, because I know what a sponge it is.

I grew up watching my grandmother cook fried eggplant by the panful. I would stand to the side, eagerly gobbling it down with slices of Wonder bread, the oil soaking through the bread and running down my hands. God, it's delicious that way. But these days I'm more of a "dripper" than a "pourer" with my oil. I spritz it on my salad. I drizzle it for flavor. I really don't fry things.

But yesterday was different. I'd decided to make eggplant Parmesan, and the recipe in Joy of Cooking mandated fried eggplant. And Joy of Cooking is my bible. I had my parents mail my copy all the way from California to Berlin, and if the recipe calls for fried eggplant, it's not my place to argue.

So there I stood, tapping into some genetic code I didn't even know I had, frying batch after batch of eggplant. I had a giant bowl of freshly chopped tomatoes off to the side, marinating with garlic and basil. My friends had been put to work grating an unbelievable mound of Parmesan cheese. An American of Italian ancestry, making eggplant Parmesan in Germany. Could I get any more post-modern?

This dish, by the way, is a very different beast than the eggplant Parmesan you're probably used to in Italian restaurants. I usually think of it as a heavy, greasy dish - two slabs of breaded, fried eggplant smothered in mozzarella cheese and dense tomato sauce. It might be vegetarian, but when you're done you feel like you ate a whole cow.

This, on the other hand, is much lighter. I fried the eggplant with a light coating of beaten egg, but I left out the bread crumbs. It's gluten-free, low-carb, lower-calorie - what's not to like? And rather than a traditional cooked tomato sauce, I made a quick sauce of freshly chopped tomato, garlic and basil that was bursting with flavor. (Thank you, Joy of Cooking. You were right once again!)

And so, without further ado:




Eggplant Parmesan (adapted from Joy of Cooking)
The eggplant is normally baked in a single layer with sauce and cheese, but I needed to feed six hungry people and had only one pan, so we did it lasagna-style in layers. I think it's even better this way.

Sauce Ingredients:
5-7 large tomatoes, finely diced
1/2 cup fresh basil, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic
1Tbs olive oil
1 tsp salt

Casserole Ingredients:
4 medium eggplants (about 4 pounds), cut in 1/2 in. thick slices
2 eggs, beaten
Olive oil, for frying
2 cups shredded Parmesan cheese (about 8 oz)
2 cups shredded mozzarella (use fresh, water-packed mozzarella if you can)


1. Preparing the Sauce:
Dice the tomatoes and put them in a colander in the sink. Let them sit for about 20 minutes, so that all the extra liquid drains out. In the meantime, chop your basil and garlic. You'll have some extra time to use up here, so start slicing your eggplants up. When the tomatoes are drained, mix them in a bowl with the basil, salt, garlic, and olive oil and let it all marinate.

2. Frying the Eggplant:
Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan. (Or, if you're coordinated, I recommend doing two pans simultaneously, to save time.) When the oil is hot, lower the temperature to medium. Briefly dip each slice of eggplant in the egg and shake off the excess, then toss it in the pan. Cook for 2-3 minutes on each side, until it is soft. Put the cooked slices on a platter off to the side.

3. Assembling the Casserole:
Preheat your oven to 350°. Spread about 1/3 of the sauce in the bottom of a large baking dish. Lay slices of eggplant on top, with edges touching. Sprinkle about half the Parmesan and mozzarella cheeses over the top, then add another layer of sauce and another layer of eggplant. Spread the remainder of the sauce over the top, then finish off with the rest of the cheese. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the casserole is heated through. Continue Reading!

Zucchini "Pasta" with Sauce

Every time I tell someone that I can't eat gluten, I get a similar response: "Oh my god! What DO you eat?"

Once, this conversation occurred while I was grocery shopping with a friend. I'd just told him that I'd have to skip the breakfast roll he was about to grab for me. Feeling guilty, he quickly cast his glance around in search of the nearest available substitute. "Um, can you have bananas?"

Yes. I can eat bananas. I can eat almost anything that didn't come out of a bakery or a brewery... at least, as long as we're talking about raw ingredients and not packaged products. But I've been out of the habit of buying anything packaged for years now, so I rarely even think about that. Who needs beef-stroganoff-in-a-box, anyway?

I could get all the packaged stuff in a gluten free version, if I really felt like it. At the health-food shop across the street from me, I can buy gluten-free crackers, bread, cereal bars, pasta, cookies, pita bread, sponge cake... even rice beer if I want to. (It tastes a lot like sake, in case you were wondering!) But most of the time I don't. I'm a whole-food junkie, and besides, those replacement products are expensive! Most of the time, I'd rather just figure out a way around it.

That's how this particular recipe came to be. I was out of rice pasta one night and craving spaghetti, so I grabbed the nearest veggie and started shredding it. Tossing it into a pan with some turkey breast, tomato sauce, onions, and seasoning, I managed to whip up this simple one-pan meal in under 30 minutes.

Although it won't twirl around your fork or give you the joy of slurping foot-long noodles off your plate like real pasta, the zucchini noodles are delicious in their own right. I've always been a fan of zucchini with pasta sauce, but I'd never realized how important the shape is in recreating the "spaghetti experience."

When you cube the zucchini, as I normally do, the zucchini is more the centerpiece of the meal. Each mouthful gives you a sudden burst of... well, zucchini... as you bite into the larger pieces. But with the fine shreds I used this time, the flavors blended together and allowed the sauce to stand out in it's own right. And really, when you're eating pasta and sauce, the noodles are just there to help carry the spicy tomato goodness to your mouth, aren't they?





Zucchini Pasta with Tomato Sauce:
This recipe is for one serving, but you could easily double or triple it if you like. The sauce is a very basic "quickie," but of course you could vary it in any way you want - mushrooms and Parmesan cheese come to mind as nice additions.

Ingredients:
1 Large Zucchini
4 oz turkey or chicken breast, uncooked
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 C. tomato sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
pinch black pepper
pinch rosemary


1. Browning the turkey:
Cut the turkey breast into bite size pieces and toss it into a hot skillet along with the onion and garlic. Stir this all briefly to get the browning process started, then turn the heat down to medium and let it keep cooking.

2. "Noodling" you zucchini:
Wash the zucchini and make sure your chef's knife is sharp. You're going to slice the zucchini lengthwise as thinly as you can. This is a bit tricky with a large zucchini; you may want to cut it in half first to make slicing it easier. The shape isn't too important - I realized at some point that I was really whittling more than slicing. This will give you big, wide ribbons of zucchini "noodles," which work just fine. If you want thinner strips, go ahead and keep chopping.

3. Putting it all together:
Add the zucchini strips to the turkey and onions. Pour the tomato sauce over everything, and add the seasonings. Stir it all together, cover the pan with a lid, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Stir every so often to prevent sticking. Continue Reading!

Jörg's Birthday Cheesecake

It's becoming tradition that every year I make my flatmate a cheesecake for his birthday. This makes me happy for a number of reasons. First of all, because it gives me an excuse to bake. But more importantly, it made me realize that I've been here long enough to start establishing traditions. I have less and less "firsts" here; instead I find more and more moments of connection. Moments that feel like real life, before I uprooted myself from everything I knew.

We've been in this flat for exactly a year, and last year we celebrated Jörg's birthday in this same room with the same people. This year, I watched the same crowd show up, looking more or less like they did last year. They distributed themselves throughout the familiar background, and we went through the familiar birthday festivities. It could have been last year, at first glance.

The background was almost identical - the same furnishings, the same faces - but a closer look revealed the subtle changes of the last year. The table's been painted. There's a new poster on the wall. One of the couples is now married, another brought their new baby. I am, at long last, able to follow the German conversation going on around me. I felt like I was watching a painting come to life and slightly alter itself, so faintly that the casual observer might not have even noticed.

I'm watching life evolve here - my own and those around me. I'm not just the "new transplant" who everyone half-expected to head back home in a few months. I live here now. A network of people and places has slowly grown up around me. I'm a part of Berlin, and these people and places are all a part of me.

And I reflect on my last year here; on how much things have changed and yet remained the same. People think that when you go to a new country you leave everything behind - and it's true, you do, in a physical sense. But while the background picture of Jörg's birthday stayed the same, with only the details changing, I find that the opposite is true of moving countries. I've picked myself up and stuck myself into a new painting, but the longer I stay here the more I recognize the similarities to the old one. Life goes on, people meet and interact and grow together and then apart. We eat food and drink wine, and have our small dramas that fade into distant memory. Things haven't really changed at all. Everything stayed exactly the same... just slightly different.

And on that note: I move on to the recipe for this year's cheesecake! Last year I tried to use a recipe I found on line, but the cheesecake ended up in a puddle once we took the Springform pan away. This year I just gave up on the recipes and forged my own path. Not the best way to approach a cake destined for an audience of 30 people, but I got lucky.

This is a very German-style cheesecake. German käsekuchen is very firm and more cake-like than custard-like. It holds it's shape and lets you really pile the cheesecake on top of the crust without risk of collapse. The sturdy surface lets you spread your choice of toppings freely over the surface without any trouble, and as the cheesecake itself is fairly mild and lightly-sweetened, you can go crazy with the toppings.

The one trick with this recipe is that it is based on Quark. Click the link for a wonderful explanation of this cheese, but in short just know that it's flavor is basically the same as cream cheese, with a texture closer to that of ricotta. I had never seen it before I came here, but apparently it is available through a few creameries in the US - you may be able to find it at a high-end grocery store. If you're very curious you can also order it online at GermanDeli.com If you can't locate quark anywhere, feel free to substitute a low-fat (or full fat, if you like) cream cheese in place of it. It won't be exactly the same as what I made, but hey... almost the same, just a little different!



German Cheesecake with Plum Topping
This basic recipe could be a great starting point for a number of variations. I topped mine with the last jar of my cinnamon-plum jam, but orange marmalade or strawberry jam could be excellent as well. I'm looking forward to trying it with a squeeze of lemon and a tangy lime glaze, or with some goat cheese blended in to the filling for extra bite!

Crust Ingredients:
1/4 cup breadcrumbs (GF if necessary)
1 1/2 C. ground almonds (5 ounces if you're buying pre-ground)
3 Tbs sugar
1/4 tsp cinammon
1/2 C. butter
pinch salt

Cheesecake Ingredients:
48 oz lowfat Quark (or cream cheese)
2 medium eggs
1/4 tsp. almond extract
3/4 C. sugar
1/3 C. cornstarch
pinch salt

Crust Preparation:
Preheat your oven to 350°. Take out a 9" Springform pan, and cut a circle of parchment paper to cover the bottom of it. Reassemble the pan and lay the parchment paper down inside.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a small bowl. Melt the butter over low heat (or microwave on low power). Add the butter to the dry ingredients and stir until the ingredients come together. Scoop the mixture into the pan and pat it into an even layer. Bake this in the oven for about 10 minutes, to give it a nice toasted almond flavor.

Preparing the Cheesecake:
Briefly mix the corstarch, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl, stir the quark (or cream cheese) until it is soft. Add the two eggs and almond flavoring, and blend until you have a smooth mixture. At this point, stir in the dry ingredients little by little. Make sure they are thoroughly blended into the cheese mixture.

Pull the crust out of the oven and let it cool for about 5 minutes. Pour your filling into the crust and smooth the top with a spatula. If you'd like a swirl effect in the center of the cheesecake, you can do that now. Take a few tablespoons of topping and plop it in the middle of the filling. Then, take a butter knife, stick it about halfway-deep into the filling, and draw a rough spiral shape from the center of the filling heading out. This will incorporate the topping into the center part of the filling.

Bake for 60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let the cake cool completely, then remove the walls of the Springform pan. Spread thick blanket of preserves over the top, and slice into at least 12 pieces. This is a thick cake - it doesn't take much to make a serving! Continue Reading!

Honey-Sesame Chicken Salad

I've been totally addicted to the combination of honey and sesame lately. The bitter-sweet combination of tahini paste and honey with apples, or on toast - or straight out of the jar. Crunchy almonds drizzled with honey and sprinkled with sesame seeds. The nutty-sweet sesame candies they sell in the Turkish supermarket. I can't get enough of the stuff.

Eventually, though, all the sweets and goodies had to give way to proper food. I started contemplating a honey-sesame treat that I wouldn't leave me worrying about my next trip to the dentist. And bingo! Inspiration came to me one day as I peered into my nearly empty fridge to find a head of napa cabbage and a lone chicken breast.

This salad is lightly sweet, nutty and mildly flavored, with a sharp kick from the ginger and pepper flakes. The Napa cabbage is a wonderful base - crisp, refreshing, and with none of the bitterness you get from lettuce. Combined with a light vinegar dressing, it's the perfect salad for a hot summer evening.




Honey-Sesame Chicken Salad for 2
I would use this marinade on damn near anything, given the chance. Tofu, veggies - you name it, it would probably taste good. I wasn't even hungry when I finished photographing everything, and I still couldn't resist snacking on a few morsels.

Ingredients:

1 Tbs light honey
1 tsp soy sauce
1 Tbs mild oil, like Canola
2 Tbs sesame seeds
1/2 in. cube ginger, minced
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4-1/2 tsp hot pepper flakes


6 oz chicken, cut into bite-sized, thin strips
1 head Napa cabbage
1/4 yellow bell pepper
1/4 red bell pepper
1-2 spring onions

3 Tbs rice vinegar (or other mild vinegar)
2 tsp Canola or other mild oil
1/4 tsp salt
pinch black pepper

1. Preparing the Marinade
Mix the first 8 ingredients together in medium-sized bowl. Add the chicken and stir everything again until the chicken is well-coated. Pop this in the fridge to marinate for at least 20 minutes.

2. Cutting the Vegetables
Slice the cabbage as finely as you can. Don't chop it - you want long, thin strips of cabbage when you're done. I like to use the whole cabbage, from the tips down to the base. Slice the bell
peppers thinly, like matchsticks. Chop the spring onions, including the green stalks. Divide the cabbage between the serving bowls, making sure each bowl gets an even blend of the curly leaves and the crispy base pieces.

3. Cooking the Chicken
Heat your pan on high, with a little extra drizzle of oil to help prevent sticking. When it is nice and hot, toss in your chicken and start stirring. Turn the heat down to medium, and cook until the chicken is no longer pink inside. Divide the chicken between the two salads.
4. Making the Dressing and Finishing the Salad
Let the pan cool briefly, then pour the rice vinegar in. Stir the vinegar around the pan - you will see its color darken as it collects the accumulated seasonings from the chicken. Pour this into a small bowl, add the oil, salt, and pepper, and whisk briefly with a small whisk or fork. Drizzle this over the salads, and sprinkle the green onion and bell pepper pieces over the chicken. Toss on a few pinches of sesame seeds for the finishing touch. Continue Reading!