Crustless Quiche

I haven't made this one in ages, but it is gluten-free. I used to make it all the time. It's originally from a book called The Schwarzbein Principle (a guide to low-carb eating).

4 eggs
1 cup all-dairy heavy cream
1/2 cup water
dash cayenne pepper
1 cup grated Gruyere, mozzarella, or Monterey Jack cheese 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9" or 10" pie pan. In a medium bowl, using fork, whisk eggs, cream, water, black pepper, and cayenne pepper until well blended. Add grated cheese. Mix well. Pour in the egg and cheese mixture. Place pie pan on a baking sheet and bake 45 to 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted into center comes out clean. Let cool 5 minutes before serving.

Variations: (These may not be GF)
Bacon & Ham: Crumble 1 cup bacon or diced ham into the bottom of a buttered pie pan. Cover with egg and cheese mixture and bake as above.

Spinach & Herbs: Combine 1 cup cooked, drained, and chopped spinach and 2 teaspoons dried basil and spread on the bottom of a buttered pie pan. Cover with egg and cheese mixture and bake as above.

Mushroom & Herbs: Combine 2 cups sauteed mixed mushrooms (shitake, oyster, brown crimini) and 1 tsp dried thyme and spread on the bottom of a buttered pie pan. Cover with egg and cheese mixture and bake as above. Remove from oven and sprinkle with 2 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese.

Crabmeat & Onions: Combine 6 oz canned crabmeat (drained and picked over) and 1/4 cup minced scallions and spread on bottom of a buttered pie pan. Cover with egg and cheese mixture and bake as above. Sprinkle chopped parsley over top before serving.

Oatmeal Cookies

My first attempt at a gluten-free adaptation of a recipe and it worked! Again, this is from the white recipe book, and it's a very nice, basic cookie. Oatmeal is always comforting and perfect for coffee or tea. I like to make these cookies little.

Sift together:

1 cup flour (to make it GF, I dumped 1 cup of oats in the blender until they were powder)

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Add and beat until smooth:

1/2 cup brown sugar (I didn't add this amount)

1/2 cup soft shortening

1 egg, well beaten

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp water (yes, that's correct)

Stir in:

1 cup oatmeal

Shape into balls and flatten on baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes.

Notes:

One of the times I made these cookies, I used 1/2 cup of applesauce to replace the shortening. I found it was too sweet (sweetened applesauce) and the texture was too tough. I wouldn't replace more than half of the shortening with applesauce.

Added 1/2 tsp cinnamon.

Baked Oatmeal

I made this for breakfast today. Delicious. It was submitted to the white recipe book by Daphne Thiessen, who added these comments:

This is a favourite Saturday morning breakfast at our home. This recipe can easily be halved and baked in a 9 x 9 pan.

3/4 cup oil
1 2/3 cups sugar (white or brown)
3 eggs, beaten
5 cups rolled oats
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups milk

Combine oil, sugar, and eggs. Mix well.

Add remaining ingredients. Pour into greased 9 x 13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until set and golden. Serves 6 - 8.

Notes:
Daphne also suggested chopped apples and cinnamon are good additions in the recipe.

I like to make these as individual servings, so I make them in muffin tins. What I did today that worked well was to bake it, 20 minutes, in silicone pans and I allowed them to cool in the pans before removing them.

I also made apple, cinnamon syrup, which was delicious. Approximate: 2 cups water, 1/2 of an apple cut into small pieces, 1 cup brown sugar, heat on stove until apples are cooked and the syrup has been reduced by about half. Add 1/4 cup butter before serving. It was like having apple pie for breakfast.

Pumpkin Spice Syrup

I saved the liquid that drained from the pumpkin puree!!! 

2 cups liquid

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/8 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

If I had cloves in the house, I'd sprinkle in a bit of that too.

I boiled this mixture, on medium heat, until it reduced to half the amount, making it syrupy and sticky. 

Chicken Noodle Soup

This may have originated in the Mennonite Treasury, and adapted as I learned how to make it. This version is in the White Recipe Book, page 67.

Drop the chicken parts into a stock pot. Cover with cold water, bring to a boil, skim off all the scum that comes to the top. After the scum stops rising, throw in a small onion (or large one) and simmer slowly for 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

Add salt to taste. It takes a lot of salt to make it taste good! I don't know how much water I use but it's a lot, and I start with 1 Tbsp salt.

Add the following spices to the soup 1/2 hour before serving:

1 bunch parsley, cut fine (2 Tbsp dried)
12 whole peppercorns, at least (20+ or 1/2 tsp)
1 bay leaf (1 large, 1 small)
1 whole star aniseed (1/2 Tbsp pieces)
1 2" piece of cinnamon stick

Processing Pumpkins

This is from allrecipes.com and is a great guide to help you figure out how to stock your freezer with rich pumpkin puree for your fall and winter recipes! I am looking forward to a Pumpkin Spice Latte!

Smaller is Better

Choose sugar pie pumpkins or other flavorful varieties. Small and sweet, with dark orange-colored flesh, they're perfect for pies, soups, muffins and breads.

A medium-sized (4-pound) sugar pumpkin should yield around 1½ cups of mashed pumpkin. This puree can be used in all your recipes calling for canned pumpkin.

Field pumpkins, which are bred for perfect jack-o'-lanterns, tend to be too large and stringy for baking.

Choose Your Method

There are three ways to transform an uncooked pumpkin into the puree used in baking: 

Baking Method

• Cut the pumpkin in half and discard the stem section and stringy pulp. Save the seeds to dry and roast
• In a shallow baking dish, place the two halves face down and cover with foil
• Bake in a preheated 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) oven for about 1½ hours for a medium-sized sugar pumpkin, or until tender
• Once the baked pumpkin has cooled, scoop out the flesh and puree or mash it
• For silky smooth custards or soups, press the pumpkin puree through a sieve

Boiling Method

• Cut the pumpkin in half, discarding the stringy insides
• Peel the pumpkin and cut it into chunks
• Place in a saucepan and cover with water
• Bring to a boil and cook until the pumpkin chunks are tender
• Let the chunks cool, and then puree the flesh in a food processor or mash it with a potato masher or food mill

Microwave Method

• Cut the pumpkin in half, discarding the stringy insides
• Microwave on high power for seven minutes per pound, turning pieces every few minutes to promote even cooking. Process as above
• You can refrigerate your fresh pumpkin puree for up to three days, or store it in the freezer up to six months, enabling you to enjoy fall pumpkins for months to come

Thicker is Better

Once you've got a rich, smooth batch of pumpkin puree ready, you may notice that it's much more runny than the kind you get out of a can. We suggest that you allow your homemade puree to drain overnight before baking with it, especially if you're using a recipe that originally called for canned puree. The more water you can get out of the puree, the better.

To drain puree, line a large strainer with a double thickness of cheesecloth, a few flattened coffee filters, or a thin, clean dishtowel you don't mind getting stained orange. Place the strainer in a bowl, and then pour the puree into the lined strainer. Lay a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the puree and place the whole setup in the fridge overnight. You can use this puree in any recipe that calls for pumpkin puree.

To freeze it: Measure it into recipe-sized quantities (usually 2 cups) and store in resealable freezer bags. It will keep wonderfully for at least 6 months.
 

 Notes:

Here's a comment someone shared on this article on allrecipes: "An even better way to cook the pumpkin for a pie is to cut the pumpkin in half like two bowls and bake them with cream, spices and sugar in them. This makes a nice moist, mellow mixture once the flesh is scooped out that only needs eggs to be turned into pie (and you don't have to use yucky canned milk products!)"

This one's fascinating for a variety of reasons! "If you need to 'cook down' the pumpkin puree you've made, let it slowly simmer on the stove until it gets thick enough that the spoon makes a path through it. There is an excellent recipe for Stewed Pumpkin in Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ignalls Wilder. It's also reprinted in the Little House Cookbook. The cookbook says the stewed pumpkin should take about FIVE HOURS of cooking to get to the proper consistency. I happen to have a sugar pumpkin in the oven right now, baking is much easier."

Draining: I put the puree in a steamer-type pot with a coffee filter covering the holes, covered it with plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge over night. Then, I took it out and put it in a warm place, assuming it would drain even more as it came to room temperature. We'll see how it goes!

Tomato Soup

This recipe comes from Mennonite Girls Can Cook and I made a few small (I thought insignificant) changes but this just ended up bland for me...

Soup Ingredients:
2 Tbsp oil
1 onion, chopped very fine
1/2 green pepper, chopped fine
1/2 cup celery, chopped fine
1 tsp basil
1 tsp dill weed
28 oz canned whole tomatoes
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
pepper, to taste
2 cups chicken stock (1 Knorr chicken bouillon cube + 2 cups water)

White Sauce:
¼ cup butter
¼ cup flour
2 cups milk

Blend tomatoes in blender until just blended. (Do not substitute whole tomatoes for pre-blended) Heat first 6 ingredients in large pot until onion softens. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, salt and pepper; simmer 10 minutes. Add chicken stock; simmer 20 min.
In a small pot, melt butter, using whisk, blend in flour and milk to make a white sauce. Stir sauce into tomato soup. Serves 4 – 6

Notes:

I didn't have a green pepper so I used a whole red one.

I think I did about 3 cups of stock, so I increased the basil and dill to 2 tsp each.

I didn't use canned tomatoes or tomato paste. I blanched a whack of tomatoes (Roma maybe?) threw them in the pot. Maybe this is where I went wrong... too much juice from the tomatoes and I diluted the rest of it???

I did one fairly small onion, I could have done a large one for the amount of soup I have. 

I didn't do the final steps with the white sauce because there's no point in continuing if the first part isn't tasty. I'll work on what I have and then do the final step.