Potato and kale winter salad.

For dinner today I made this fabulous warm salad from Epicurious, with roasted potatoes and garlic and kale, and a tahini lemon sauce. I didn’t use cheese, as I am off dairy lately, bit I did sprinkle in some nutritional yeast. Not sure if it made much difference. Because I had thick curly kale, I figured it wouldn’t wilt like it said in the recipe, so I blended it with the potatoes towards the end of the cooking time and let the kale roast for a few minutes (not long enough to make kale chips..) Great sauce, great flavors, great way to eat lotsa veggies. Will make again!

Bean and pesto mini muffins (vegan, gluten-free)

I saw a food intolerance doctor this past week, and for the time being, I am eating gluten- and dairy free. Given that several important people in my life already do, the adjustments I am having to make are fairly minor – gluten-free oats for breakfast instead of rye bread, soy/rice milk cappuccino. (This is the worst part, honestly! I am finding that a mix of vanilla soy and unsweetened rice milk produces tolerable results). Communal meals were already gluten and dairy free anyway. The biggest challenge I foresee is snacking outside the house – I need to be careful about bringing snacks, since I can’t eat nuts. It seems to me to be the most readily available gluten-free snack, certainly my husband is always nibbling on nuts.

So I have been trying to cook up some food options for bringing to work and having in my bag this week, hence these little savory mini muffins. The base of these muffins are those white beans with lemon and rosemary I made a while back. You can definitely just replace with plain white beans from a can. Then you might think to add some other flavoring (herbs, onions), but you might not need to, since the sundried tomato pesto is quite overpowering. I had some beans left over in the freezer, so I just defrosted them.

This recipe is gluten free and vegan, and this little ones will work nicely as an accompaniment to soups. I think they would also make a great hors d’oeuvre if you are making a fancy dinner or cocktail party for gluten-free friends.

Bean and red pesto mini muffins

• 1 cup white beans (mine were already seasoned with onion, garlic and spices, see this recipe)
• replacement for 2 eggs (I used Orgran No-Egg, 2 tsp no-egg plus 4 tbsp water)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• scant cup of unsweetened rice milk or other unsweetened milk substitute
• 2 tbsp nut-free and dairy-free sun-dried tomato pesto (or normal pesto, if you like, but they often have nuts in them. At any rate, check that it is without nuts and dairy! I use this one)
• 1/2 cup quinoa flour
• 1/2 cup brown rice flour
• 1/2 tsp guar gum
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda

In a food processor, add the beans and the other wet ingredients (including pesto). Process until you have a fairly smooth mixture, with few lumps.

In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients. Stir well to disperse the guar gum in the mixture. Add to the food processor, and process on low speed just until the flour is entirely incorporated.

I baked them up in a mini muffin, at 180C for about 10-12 minutes. You could also make them normal-sized, adjusting the cooking time accordingly. A knife or pin should come out clean.

Pear and parsnip soup and a bare bones bento.

Pear parsnip soup

I can’t take credit for this soup – the recipe comes from Ricki over at Diet, Dessert and Dogs, and I barely made any changes to it. I halved the recipe, since I am just cooking for myself today, and I added a glug of white wine and a roasted elephant garlic to the mix after the sautéing step. I used a low sodium stock cube instead of proper vegetable stock. I served it with a sprinkling of hemp seeds and pumpkin seeds, and it was a lovely supper on a wet fall night! The rest of it goes into tomorrow’s lunch. Highly recommended!

Simple lunch

This was my very simple lunch today – left-over millet, cold-smoked mackerel (from the grocery store) and some cucumber.I picked out the two cupcake molds and reheated the millet in the microwave, and then mixed in the mackerel. Kind of salty-satisfying

Lentil butternut squash soup.

There is nothing particularly groundbreaking about this soup. I make variations over this kind of red lentil soup quite a bit in the winter, with carrots or whatever veg I have lying around. It quick and simple – lentils do not require presoaking, and the split red ones, like these, are the quickest to cook. But it’s been a while since I have made one now, and it came to mind as a good solution to my current problem.

I seem to be allergic to something, but I can’t quite figure out what it could be. I’ve gotten quite  unwell from eating the food in the cafeteria at work several times in the past few weeks. Typical food intolerance symptoms – fatigue, brain fog, upset stomach. Simple solution, while waiting for a more comprehensive solution involving a doctor and some investigative work: stop eating the food from said cafeteria and bring my own lunch.

Enter the soup – a quick, low-effort way for me to make three proper lunches I can bring this week! I took some shortcuts, taking advantage of the fact that I had frozen caramelized onion and garlic.

• 3/4 cup red lentils
• 1 small butternut squash, diced
• about 1 caramelized onion
• 1 roasted elephant garlic
• 1 tbsp coconut oil or other oil
• 1 tsp mild madras curry powder
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 2oo ml coconut milk
• water
• 1 low-sodium stock cube
• salt
• pepper
• some paprika

Defrost the pre-caramelized onion and garlic and add to pan with some coconut oil, or fry some fresh onion and garlic for several minutes. Add curry, paprika and garam masala and fry for a minute or two more.

Deglace the pan with the coconut milk and scrape off bits. Stir in the lentils and the butternut squash and the low sodium stock cube (crumbled). Add water to cover, approx. 2 cups. It should look like this:

Bring to a boil and then lower to a simmer until all is tender, approx 20-25 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Voila!

 

Lactose-free mac and cheese with veggies.

I had various left-overs in my fridge, but what I really wanted today was mac and cheese.. And, as I mentioned, I have decided to cut out lactose. Thankfully there are options..

Mac and cheese, step by step

• cook pasta (I happened to use gluten-free pasta – it’s what we have around)
• cut a small butternut squash in half, remove seeds, pierce all over with fork, microwave on high for about 4 minutes (until soft)
• make a roux from 1.5 tbsp each olive oil and flour (rice flour for gluten-free)
• stir the roux as you add lactose-free milk
• If you have frozen portions of caramelized onions, like I do, defrost one
• add onions and mashed butternut squash to the sauce
• add some lactose-free cheese (old-school traditional hard aged cheeses should all be lactose-free, I used some “goat parmesan”)
• salt and pepper to taste
• add pasta
• enjoy!

Lazy weekend.

This past week was just grueling. So this weekend I am making up for it by taking it very easy and hanging out with friends. Yesterday, the co-op where I live (maybe that’s not the right term) had its biannual “dugnad” – a very Norwegian thing which doesn’t translate well. It means everyone gets together to clean up the communal areas. So I raked a bunch of leaves in front of the building. Otherwise it’s been laundry time – slowly going through my delicates. The new laundry machine seems to have a good delicates program. As you can see – not the most interesting weekend.. But I have done some cooking too!

Chia breakfast cereal (gf)

In Toronto, my husband often eats this chia cereal from Ruth’s Hemp Foods. This is a homemade approximation. Gluten-free, good vegan source of omega-3, plenty of fiber.

I soaked 2 tbsp chia seeds with some goji berries in some lactose free milk, and then 5 minutes later I sprinkled in some pumpkin seeds, some buckwheaties and some coconut. Not bad! However, I do think for next time I will get some hemp seeds and cut down on the buckwheaties.

Homemade oat milk (gf, v)

So I have this feeling that maybe I am not handling lactose too well any more. These things can happen as we age, and given that I have consumed very little lactose for several years now, I am wondering if I have become more sensitive to it. I eat much more milk products here in Norway than i did in Canada.

So I have decided to cut out lactose for a few weeks and see what happens. In that context, I have been curious about homemade milk alternatives. Especially because oat milk is generally the one I prefer, but the storebought varieties are not gluten-free (which obviously is not an issue for me, but for other members of my household).

So yesterday I made gluten-free oat milk according to this recipe from Affairs of Living. I did not culture the milk, but still the results were really quite thick (and the milk has not separated, I guess because it was cooked). I think it would perhaps be better for cooking than drinking, so next time I won’t add stevia (I only added  a little bit, and it isn’t too sweet). A pretty fascinating process, actually. I got a nut milk bag recently, which I strained the milk through. It was more work than I expected, though.

Here, the oats and water are simmering away. After putting it through the blender and the nut milk bag, I poured it into this rather decorative bottle

Tamarind!

My exciting grocery find of the week was this tamarind for cooking. I used some for a simple chickpea curry with coconut and tamarind.

And finally, this week’s latte art

I have to say it is rather hit or miss still whether I get this right, but anyway, I am starting to make rather decorative, though somewhat abstract, lactose free cappuccinos.. This is really one of the reasons I am cutting just lactose and not dairy altogether, because there is no way I can get cappuccinos right with milk alternatives….

Lemon rosemary beans.

Living in a country where groceries are really quite expensive, and temporarily living with a friend who now works for the Ministry of Environmental Protection, I have been thinking about some small ways to cut both food costs and waste.

So last week, when our pot of fresh rosemary was getting quite sad-looking, we did something neat instead of throwing it out – namely drying the rest of the still-green rosemary leaves in the microwave. Super easy! Instructions from The Kitchn. I will definitely start doing this when fresh herbs in my fridge or on my counter start to look sad, as it only takes a few minutes. The only dreary part is drying the rinsed leaves before zapping them in the microwave.

So what to do with this dried rosemary? I’ve also been thinking that I should cook my own beans, rather than using canned ones. It’s a pretty obvious thing to do – but I keep forgetting to pre-soak etc.. Yesterday I did remember, and I bought some organic dried white beans which I left to soak overnight. I took my cue from Affairs of Living and largely followed her recipe, but more or less halved it.

• approx. 1 cup dried white beans, soaked overnight
• one onion
• lots of garlic
• dried rosemary
• some dried “Fines Herbes” brought from France
• salt
• pepper
• 1/2 lemon, sliced thinly
• water

The beans were left to soak overnight, approx 14 hours, which is less than she recommended, but quite standard for beans. This morning, I whizzed the onion and garlic in my food processor (why chop if you don’t have to?) and mixed in with the beans and some olive oil in my Dutch oven. I blended in some of the dried rosemary, and also added some dried herbs I had brought with me from France (Fines Herbes from Monoprix; parsley, chives, tarragon and chervil). I mixed in salt and pepper, and covered with thin lemon slices. Finally I added water until it almost reached the top of the beans.

The Dutch oven went into the oven at 350F/180C with the lid on. I checked it after an hour, and I realized why the recipe said to use tin foil with holes to let steam escape, because the beans were very wet at this point. I left the lid ajar on the Dutch oven and put it back for about another hour. At this point they were cooked through, but not mushy. Really tasty beans!

Revival.

So it’s been a little dead around here lately. There are a few explanations for that.

1. I moved continents and started a new job.
2. I (by which I mean my husband..) broke the lens on the DSLR camera.
3. I bought a new smartphone with a decent camera and then promptly lost it.

So I have been busy and camera-less. Yesterday, I finally got around to hauling the DSLR to a photo place. In a total fluke, the guy working there was an old friend whom I haven’t seen in years. Turns out the lens was kaput – a pin inside had broken and the zoom no longer worked. I trusted my friend when he said it was not worth fixing – it would have cost more than a new lens. Given that I was unhappy with it anyway, and had been dreaming of buying a f 1.8 50mm prime lens to take better food pictures, that’s exactly what I did.

So hopefully this will mean more blogging and better pictures!

I have some white beans soaking which I will cook later, but so far all I have made is a lactose-free cappuccino. I recently got a used Gaggia machine and Isomac grinder, and I am slowly getting better at latte art..!

A Niçois feast for everyone.

This Thursday, I made a feast for some good friends. With no meat or fish, to cater to the vegetarian (except for some cured ham which she could skip). And without gluten (except for a gifted baguette for those of us who could eat it), dairy, tomato, potato, nuts, and eggs to cater to me and Ingeborg. Phew.

But I choose to see allergies as an opportunity rather than a constraint. What kinds of interesting food can I make which we can all eat? This is the question to ask – rather than what I can’t make. The theme was Nice, inspired by my recent trip. The rosé (A Guigal Côtes du Rhône – admittedly from the wrong region of France) was delicious, and the food turned out excellent!

The feast came about over the course of two afternoons, and I don’t have proper recipes for most of it. But here’s what we ate:

Stuffed bell peppers

Stuffed vegetables are pretty common in restaurants in Nice, but the stuffing is usually made from a mix of meat and rice. I made a stuffing instead from onion, garlic, shredded zucchini, herbs (parsley and basil), cooked brown rice and crumbled tofu (I had frozen extra firm tofu and then microwaved it in order to be able to squeeze out the maximum amount of water. Then I put it in the food processor with the dough attachment and crumbled it). Delicious.

Pissaladière

Pissaladière is really common Niçois street food. It’sa bit like a white pizza, with a topping made mainly from caramelized onions. Traditional iterations also have anchovies, but mine just had onion, olives and thyme. The onions – two huge white onions – were sliced in the food processor and cooked the day before. We cheated for this one and bought a gluten-free pizza crust, but next time I’ll make my own. This is an excellent “pizza” for those that are not only off gluten, but also tomato and dairy…

Socca

The quintessential Niçois street food, which happens to fit all our dietary restrictions! I cheated by panfrying it, instead of broiling it, because I didn’t have an appropriate oven dish.

The batter is simply 1 cup chickpea flour (sifted), 1 cup water, some olive oil and salt and pepper, left to sit for a while. Easy as pie. You can see it above on that blue plate.

Mesclun

The traditional mixed salad, served with a mustardy vinaigrette courtesy of Ingeborg.

Tapenade

This is so easy to make at home in a food processor! Much cheaper than buying ready made. Just don’t make the same mistake as me and buy olives with their pits in still, because that’s a lot of extra work right there… Normally, tapenade has anchovies. I skipped that and just put lots of black olives, some capers, garlic and olive oil.

Pistou

This is the Provençal version of pesto, which doesn’t contain pine nuts. In addition to the basil, garlic and olive oil I also added some parsley (mainly because I had lots more of that than basil). It is most often eaten in soup, but we used it on bread and just generally on top of stuff. A tasty splash of green!

Moral of the story: allergies are in no way an obstacle to cooking great food, and to finding great joy in the sharing of a meal between friends. I am already thinking of food to cook for the next one!

note: my phone is missing and my DSLR is broken and needs to go to a repair shop. The pictures are courtesy of Jonas’ iPhone. I am hoping to deal with this camera situation soon so that I can put better pictures.

Socca love.

Last week I went on a solo vacation to Nice for 4 days. I’ve been in the library all summer, and I am about to start a new job, so I needed to relax a little. An exciting fact about Nice is that it is the birthplace of socca, the magical chickpea pancakes that I have been so excited about before. I finally, at long last, got to eat proper socca!

This lead to the realization, of course, that my own socca was not particularly authentic. I have been panfrying it, and making it thin like a pancake, but the real deal was thicker and baked at super high heat in a woodfired oven.

I had socca twice – first at a place called Chez René Socca in the old town. It was served in a messy heap, rather thick and somewhat mushy. Like it wasn’t quite cooked through. I didn’t swoon. The second place I went was another story. Chez Pipo, in the Vieux Port area, was highlighted by David Lebovitz as the best place in Nice for socca. I think he knew what he was talking about. OMG so delicious!

It was served like this, in neat, crispy wedges. It was quite salty, which was probably one of the reasons why it was so good. I wolfed down the entire plate, even after having already sampled their pissaladière. I wanted to order more.

I wondered how they managed to give it that crispiness, and the uneven surface, so as I was leaving the restaurant I peaked over the little barrier separating the restaurant from the cooking area. I saw that when the socca was about half cooked, it was taken out of the oven. A guy then used what looked like a butter knife to “ruffle” the entire surface very thoroughly, before putting it back into the oven. Very interesting.

As for me, I am sticking to my pan-fried fake socca for now, mainly because I don’t have an appropriate oven dish to bake socca in. For dinner today, I made a simple batter of 1/2 cup each of chickpea flour and water (sifting the flour to avoid lumps), with a bit of herbs, salt and oil added in. Then, I stirred in the leftover cooked millet from Friday’s dinner. I cooked it in a generously oiled frying pan, and I didn’t even break it as I flipped it. Really tasty!