el Alce con Nopalitos (Elk and Prickly Pear)

In our travels to Mexico I have fallen in love with nopalitos.  I first had them in a tortilla with farmer cheese and a yummy different salsa.  They're supposed to be really good for you.  I went searching for the farmer cheese here and found some at the local grocer, but it was more aged, what I found in Mexico was more like a fresh cheese.  But I found nopalitos, in a jar.  Today I had elk steak thawing and Stan asked when we were going to eat the nopalitos.  The wheels started turning and this is what I came up with.  This goes really fast-the longest part was waiting for the rice to cook.

el Alce con Nopalitos

1 1/2 pounds elk steak, cut in small cubes

3 Tablespoons potato starch

1-2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

2 Tablespoons cooking oil

2 Tablespoons chopped cilantro

1 chipotle pepper, chopped

10-12 ounces chicken stock

12 ounce jar nopalitos, drained and rinsed (the jar I found had serrano peppers, cilantro and onion-bonus!)

Combine potato starch, salt and pepper; dredge elk in mixture. Brown in oil.  Add cilantro, chipotle and chicken stock.  Cook over medium heat until elk is done-5-7 minutes.  The combination of stock and potato starch make a nice sauce.  Add more stock if it gets more thick.  Add nopalitos and heat through.  Serve over rice, or in my case I served it over bean threads.  Stan had the rice and loved it, his exact words were, "Yeah, you can make this again."  High praise for Mr. Cool.

I think I can make it again, too!

My Mom's Ginger Cookies (Gluten-Free)

After the success using chickpea flour for the chocolate chip cookies, I moved on to the ginger cookies my mom used to make.  Stan and I have both made the recipe and people just go nuts over them.  So now the challenge-would they still drive people nuts if there was no wheat in them?  That would be a big affirmative!  We were coffee hosts at church this morning and we heard comments like, "These cookies are so good!" and "You're kidding me-these aren't gluten-free!"  Yay!

So here is my recipe:

My Mom's Ginger Cookies

1 cup softened butter

1 2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup molasses

2 eggs

2 cups chickpea flour

1 1/3 cup tapioca flour

2/3 cup potato starch

4 tsp soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cloves

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp salt

Of course use safe-for-you ingredients.  Preheat oven to 375.  Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and molasses.  Beat til fluffy.  Stir together the rest of the ingredients and stir into butter mixture.  Drop by tablespoonfuls onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment.  (Don't skip the parchment, makes all the difference)  Bake at 375 for 10 minutes.  Check, if cookies need a bit more browning turn pan and give it one more minute.  Remove from pans and cool.  Makes about four dozen.

Muffins

Decided to try adding more eggs to my muffin recipe.  It worked pretty well.  I waited to see if they were still good to eat the next day, and they're not bad so here is the recipe:

Eggy Muffins

1 3/4 cups flour  (my current mix is 3/4 cup tapioca and 1/2 cup each potato starch and sorghum)
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 stick butter, melted and slightly cooled

Stir together flours, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Beat eggs and milk, stir into dry mixture.  Whisk til smooth, stir in butter a bit at a time.  Pour into paper lined muffin cups and bake at 450 for 20-25 minutes.  Makes 12.

The extra eggs cause a cute little peak at the top.

Let me know how you like them.  Of course if you can eat rice I would use it along with a little of the other flours.  It's hard to get a good product without being able to use the rice-I have a lot of throwaways!  I eat a lot of mediocre stuff, too!

A Quick Hint

I have found, in all my baking experiments, that it's extremely difficult to get a light texture in your wheat-free baked goods.  Especially, as in my case, when you can't use rice flour.  A few weeks ago it hit me-what about club soda?  So first I used it in place of milk for some cupcakes, which were pretty successful, and last night I used it in biscuits.  They were very good!  The thing you have to do with non-gluten flours is cut back a bit on the liquid, since there's no gluten to hold the dough together.  The recipe called for 2/3 cups of milk and I put in 1/2 cup of club soda instead.  It worked perfectly and the biscuits even held together better than they have in my other experiments!  And don't worry if the club soda isn't the freshest-I used some that barely has any fizz and it worked fine.  Next on my agenda is scones-if it works for biscuits it should work for them!

Pancakes

Up until now my wheatless pancakes have been a bit heavy and dry, but when I added sorghum to the equation and took out the Bob's all-purpose flour, they improved immensely. They're very tender, light and fluffy. Lovely Saturday breakfast:

Wheat-free Hotcakes

3/4 Cup sorghum flour
1/4 Cup potato starch
1/4 Cup tapioca flour
3 teaspoons baking powder (I use Hain, it doesn't have cornstarch in it)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg (1 tablespoon ground flax mixed with 3 tablespoons water can be substituted)
1 Cup milk (soy milk would be fine)
2 tablespoons cooking oil (whatever is safe for you)

Stir dry ingredients together. Beat egg, milk and oil, stir into flour mixture. Cook on a hot lightly greased griddle. When the bubbles on top break, flip pancakes and finish cooking.

I love mine with real maple syrup!

Palomilla Steaks

This is a revised recipe. I had to rearrange a few things to accommodate my allergies. Palomilla steaks are a Cuban dish, with tons of flavor.

Palomilla Steaks

Marinade:

2 T vinegar
4 T olive oil
1 tsp marjoram
2 T finely chopped cilantro
1 tsp cumin

4 steaks, thinly sliced (sirloin is recommended but I used chucks and they were really nice)
Salt and pepper to taste

4 T butter
1/4 C finely chopped parsley
Juice of 2 limes

Marinate steaks 4 hours in the fridge. I like to put the marinade in a gallon zipper bag then rotate and squish at hourly intervals to be sure of coverage.

Heat skillet to medium high and fry steaks until crispy on the outside and a tiny bit firm to the touch-2 to 4 minutes, depending on the thickness of the steaks.

Remove steaks, turn off heat, then melt butter in hot pan. Add parsley and lime juice and pour over steaks. Black beans and rice are the best companions but I baked a couple of potatoes to eat with the beans. I just heated up the beans and added a bit of chili powder, cumin, and some chopped cilantro.

Very yummy! I have a small piece of my steak left that I'm going to reheat for lunch today. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it.