Gf pie crust

 To my everlasting horror, I just checked the Bob's Red Mill Easy As Pie gf pie crust recipe to send to someone, and they'd changed the directions! 

I will grant that it will make a better pie crust, but it's no longer the simplest failsafe recipe I know. 

For the record (so I can both find it and point to it), here's the original. 

Actual easy as pie crust recipe (makes 1 crust):

• ½ cup Butter cold
• 1 ½ cups Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour
• ½ tsp Salt
• 4-6 Tbsp Milk cold

Preheat oven to 400. Cube or grate very cold butter. Mix with flour and salt until it resembles coarse meal, by hand, pastry cutter, or food processor. Add milk slowly while mixing until it forms a dough. 

Roll out two sheets of parchment paper. Place dough between parchment and roll out to 1/4", and slightly too big for the pie plate. Flip into your pie tin, line with parchment, and fill with pie weights*. If it is a filled pie, into the oven for 10 minutes before filling and dump out the weights, then fill and bake according to your recipe. If unfilled, them your dough needs 40 min or until golden.

This is one where I can hand it to a kitchen newbie and trust it will be fine. It also works Just Fine with wheat based flours, even though that's not my need. 

*Pie weights can be anything from a bag of dried beans to a bunch of ball bearings to the ceramic ones sold for purpose. The point is to mimic the weight of a filling with something that comes up to oven temp quickly and prevents giant bubbles in the bottom crust as the butter steams

Instant Pot Mexican Casserole

A few months ago, I came across this recipe for "Instant Pot Mexican Casserole" from Disabled Kitchen and Garden and decided it looked really interesting. The quantities looked all wrong, though- neither metric nor imperial nor the usual blend I'd expect from somewhere in the English-speaking Commonwealth. It used the metric equivalents of some of the common US quantities.* On the other hand, once I had that part figured out, we decided to try it.

As per usual in my kitchen, some things ended up with substitutions, and some things I looked at and went "...yeah, my hands are not up for that." Then there was the post-execution roundtable for opinions. And another round of testing, etc.

It's taken a while to get this where we like it, mostly because it makes around 4 qts of heavy casserole, and by the time we kill a batch, we don't want it for a while. 

Instant Pot Mexican Casserole

Makes 12 1c servings

1 lb ground beef

16 oz bag frozen peppers and onions

1 4oz can green chilies

2 14oz cans diced tomatoes

1.5 c rice (basmati by preference)

2 tbsp chili powder

1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tbsp garlic powder

1 tbsp paprika

2 tsp table salt

2 tsp dried oregano

2 tsp onion powder

1 tsp black pepper

2 14 oz cans chili beans**

1 c water

Turn the Instant Pot to saute and brown the hamburger into crumbles. Add in the peppers and onions, and cook until everything has thawed and the onions are starting to go translucent but not brown. Turn off the Instant Pot. 

Roughly level off the surface of the meat & veg in the pot. Now later in everything else on top in the order in which it appears above: green chilies, tomatoes with their juices, rice, herbs and spices, beans, water. 

Put the lid on and set the Instant Pot for 20 min. When done, do natural release for 10 min, and then quick release. (Do not do quick release right away, your kitchen will not thank you, it is a giant mess.) Remove the lid and mix thoroughly. 

Serve by itself, or with sour cream and cheese, or in a tortilla or with corn chips and a lot of cheese as a nacho topping...there are many options. 

*The Vancouver folk took one look at it and went "Canadian." So that mystery was solved. 

**The original recipe called for 2 cans of kidney beans, drained and rinsed. I was out. We've decided it's better with chili beans.

Mustard Soup

 Mustard Soup is one of those foods that sounds iffy, but is great and glorious. It relies heavily on which mustard you use for the final flavor, which is part of the reason that every town in the Netherlands has variations on this recipe- every town has it's own beloved mustard. 

Here, Spouse requests mustard soup by coming home with a new and interesting mustard and leaving it conspicuously next to the stove. I generally end up mixing half of one smooth mustard and one cracked or whole grain mustard for the texture. This is also good with a handful of bacon crumbles or cooked barley mixed in, or as a sauce over pork chops. 

The basic recipe isn't actually complex, just a little finicky because you have to temper an egg. I make mine gf by using rice flour.

Mustard Soup (serves 3-6, depending.)

2 Tbsp flour

1/2 stick of butter

2 c chicken or veg stock

2 c milk or half and half

4 Tbsp mustard

2 eggs

Over medium heat, melt the butter, then add the flour to make a roux. Slowly add the chicken stock, whisking constantly to prevent lumps. Bring up to a low simmer.

In a separate container, mix the mustard and eggs, until the eggs are well beaten and incorporated. Slowly temper the eggs by adding the hot liquid to them, whisking constantly. When they are warm, add back to the main pot. This takes about half the stock. 

Remove from heat & add the dairy. Taste. It may need more mustard. 

White chicken chili

 My mother keeps losing this recipe. I cannot count the number of times I've forwarded it back to her- one of our coworkers 20 years ago brought it to the office chili cook off, and it's been living in my email ever since. I cannot count the number of people I have sent it on to. I have, of course, made some modifications over the years. 

White chicken chili:

2 lb chicken breast - 1/2" cubes

1 medium onion - chopped

3 tbsp garlic

1 tbsp oil

4 - 15.5 oz cans Great Northern Beans - drained and rinsed

4 c chicken broth

2 - 4 oz cans chopped green chilis

2 tsp salt

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp oregano

1 tsp pepper

2 cup sour cream/ plain yogurt

1 cup half and half

In large pan sauté chicken, onion, garlic powder in vegetable oil until done. (just enough oil to coat bottom of pan)

Add beans, broth, chilis & seasonings.

Bring to boil - reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir in dairy

(These days, I add everything up to the dairy in the instant pot, cook for 4-6 min, turn the warmer off, and let it release. And then wait until it's cool enough I won't curdle the milk)

Makes 7 servings.

Weeknight Italian

 This is not a recipe for what my friend Evan refers to as Sunday Gravy. That takes 4-6 hrs, and fresh garden tomatoes. This is a recipe for 30 min on a weeknight when you want something several steps up from sauce in a jar. 

1lb italian sausage

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced (or 2-3 Tbsp pre-minced, no judgement)

1 28oz can crushed tomatoes

2 14.5 oz cans of diced tomatoes

1 tsp italian seasoning

1 tsp onion powder (optional)

1 c red wine (optional)

Salt to taste

If you're me, start defrosting the italian sausage you forgot to start thawing last night.

Start a large (5-6qt) pot, 2/3rds full of water on the stove at high. Add a tablespoon of salt.

In a dutch oven, deep frying pan, or other large capacity pot, brown the sausage. Add the garlic while you're opening the tomato cans. Stir. Add the tomatoes. Stir. Add the italian season and optional ingredients. Stir. Turn to low. Taste to check salt level- it's not going to need much, if any. 

In an ideal world, your pasta water is boiling.* Follow the directions on the package, but yes, this makes enough to go with the whole pound of pasta. Add the pasta to the water, and stir both pots occasionally until the pasta is done. Drain the pasta. Serve, with or without parmesan. Makes 6-8 servings.

*On the other hand, if this is the point you go "I knew I forgot something", be at ease. The sauce gets better the longer it simmers. The extra 20 min are no big deal. Except to your blood sugar. Eat a piece of the sausage as Quality Control.

Instant pot Baked Potato Soup

You know those soup recipes where you look at a dozen and none of them are quite right, but you can always synthesize? Yeah, that's what happened here. I wanted baked potato soup, dang it. From stuff I had in the house already, for goodness sake.

Then I had to make it again. And a couple more times.

(Husband *really* liked it. Since he is not a soup person, I take it as a high compliment.)

My best friend, who doesn't see what all the fuss is about with bacon, admits that this is an acceptable use of a pound. Use a good set of kitchen shears to take it into 1" or smaller pieces.

This recipe is somewhere on the opposite side of healthy from a salad. I use Bob's Red Mill GF AP for the flour, but any GF starchy flour will do here. White rice, cornstarch, potato, etc. I make this in the instant pot, but there's no requirement for that besides time. This is a recipe that takes additions well- broccoli, chives, anything else you think goes on a loaded potato.

Baked Potato Soup

1 lb bacon, in pieces

2 tbsp flour 

1/2 onion, diced*

4 large potatoes, cubed

4 c stock (chicken or veg)

4 c milk

1.5 c sharp cheddar shreads

1 c sour cream or plain yogurt

Fry up the bacon and optional onion 7-10 min, or until cooked. Add the flour to the pot and stir for about a min. Add the stock and potatoes. If you are using the instant pot, set it for 4 min. If you are using the stovetop, bring to a simmer for 30 min. 

Remove from heat. Add all the dairy and stir until combined. The sour cream should be dissolved, but bits of cheddar are good. Serves 6-8. 

Gnocchi with bacon, spinach, and pecans

A long time ago (2014), Teresa Nielsen Hayden posted her recipe for pasta with fresh peppers and arugula. I went to my now-husband and said "does this sound good for dinner?"

It did, but the only things we actually had at the time were the peppers and the cheese. But bacon is *like* pancetta, spinach is *almost* arugula, and one can always substitute pecans for walnuts. As it happens, she'd recommended a ricotta gnocchi recipe a couple of weeks prior and we had a spare batch in the freezer.

Moving to New England, fresh peppers have become quite dear, so they dropped from the recipe a few years ago.  This is what has evolved from that original. You can still make it with pasta, peppers, arugula, and walnuts! It's quite good! Or even store bought gnocchi, but they're not quite the same as homemade. Just save the pasta water for the sauce.

We always make a double batch of the gnocchi, then I can freeze the other half to use later.

Gnocchi:

3/4 cup (95 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more for baking sheet and work bench

1 ounce Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, finely shredded, plus more for serving (about 1/3 cup)
2 teaspoons lemon zest
1 cup (250 grams) whole milk ricotta cheese
1 large egg

Sauce:
1/2 lb bacon, chopped
1/2 c pecans
1 batch gnocchi
3 c parmesan, shredded (the good stuff)
1/2 c half and half
1/2c gnocchi water
4-6 oz (1 bag) of fresh spinach

Gnocchi: Put a quart of water on to boil. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Flour a flat surface and roll a snake about the diameter as your forefinger. Cut into 1 inch lengths and place on lightly floured baking sheet. Drop carefully into the boiling water in groups of 10. When they float to the surface, they're cooked through- pull them out and place in a collander to drain. Save at least a cup of the water for the sauce- the starchy water will thicken things quite nicely.

Sauce:
Over medium high heat, start cooking the bacon pieces. Once they're mostly cooked (about 5 min), toss in the pecans for another couple of minutes, or until toasted. Add in the gnocchi, cream, and pasta water and let it come to a summer.

Slowly incorporate the cheese a small handful at a time until you have what can only be described as a gooey mess. Add in the spinach, turn off the heat, and throw on the lid for 3 minutes. There should be a *lot* of spinach.

After the 3 minutes, fold it in to the rest of the gnocchi. It will have wilted slightly, but it's very definitely not cooked. Serve immediately. Makes about 4 servings.

Kofta Curry

Kofta Curry (cheater version)

It's a cold and rainy day here. There was snow this weekend. Snow! In May! I need something warm and hearty and spicy. Also, something that involves enough leftovers. I grabbed this base recipe a long time ago off pinterest, from the now defunct Zest and Zeal blog. We've made it for years, but recently that has involved using the Wayback Machine to grab it. So I might as well post it, but in the edited version that we've come to prefer here. We tend to take out half of the meatballs and sauce before adding the pickled lime, because my husband thinks it's the best and I am not a fan at all. We put it over rice.

Serves 4-6.

Ingredients for meatballs -

• 1 lb ground beef 
• 1/2 diced yellow onion
• 2/3 cup almond flour
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons curry powder
• 2 teaspoons garam masala
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• dash of cinnamon
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons of coconut oil for cooking the meatballs in

Ingredients for sauce

• 1/2 diced yellow onion
• 1 can of full-fat coconut milk
• 1 cup organic chicken stock
• 4 teaspoons curry powder
• 2 teaspoons garam masala
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• juice of 1 lime
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
• 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
• 2 tablespoons pickled limes, chopped (optional)
• Red pepper flakes sprinkled just before serving

1. Combine all ingredients for the meatballs in a large bowl.
2. Shape meatballs to desired size (golf ball, for us)
3. In a large skillet, melt coconut oil and add meatballs and half the diced onions and let them brown for a couple of minutes. 
4. Let the meatballs cook an additional 3-4 minutes.  Flip and cook another 3-4 minutes.
5. Mix the remaining ingredients for the sauce and cover meatballs with the sauce.
6. Cover the skillet and simmer until cooked through.
7. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes.

Quick Flatbread

Ok, so this started out as a specific quest. My bishop, being a baker (and formerly Baptist, so originally from the Stale Chicklet School) asked the parishes in the diocese to look at doing real bread for communion. Preferably baked in the parish, but grocery store pita was acceptable. 

Not acceptable in my parish, dang it. At this point, not only was I GF, but we had someone who was Celiac in the congregation and two children with egg allergies, and one should not have to fear cross contamination and hospitalization from Eucharist. It abrogates the point of being open and welcoming, if the choice presented is regularly send people to the hospital or deny them the grace of communion.* 

So I started with one of my gf baking cookbooks with a recipe for flatbread, using brown rice flour. It also works just fine with sorghum or buckwheat, but I decided to use a very common flour from the middle east - chickpea. If you can't do legumes, sub out another high protein flour. This is the vegan version, because see above - egg allergy. Replace the 4T water + psyllium husk with 2 eggs if you don't want to go into exotics. Flax eggs also work. 

This is version 3.5, having gone through a number of different options on the way, trying to find a gf bread that was not gummy, did not fall apart when it came in contact with wine, and could be made in batches ahead and frozen, and thawed in the microwave prior to the service.

The nice thing about this is that it makes a pretty good flatbread for dips, which, if you've been GF for long, is Really Hard. And yes, I have been known to do hummus with the chickpea bread. (also, the single round makes a nice flatbread base for pizza-like objects.) 

4 T olive oil

2 c chickpea flour

2 t sugar

1t salt

1 c + 4T water

2 T psyllium husk

1/2 t baking soda

5 t xanthan gum

2 t distilled vinegar

x

Preheat oven to 400. Mix flour & oil until well combined. Mix 2 T water & psyllium husk, then add into flour mix. Add & mix remaining ingredients in the order given, being sure to sprinkle the xanthan gum evenly to avoid lumps. Mix until well blended. Divide dough in half. On a greased baking sheet (or, by preference, greased aluminum foil lining the baking sheet) spread into two even rounds about 1/2" thick (about 8" across). (Optional: Drizzle with oil & sprinkle with salt.) Bake for 20-25 min

*I have opinions about the choices around how we celebrate communion in the Episcopal church, but not on the recipe blog.

Pasties

When my husband and I started in the Society for Creative Anachronism, one of the important features of serving* at a medieval-style feast was the ability to take home leftovers. Feast leftovers could frequently get a thrifty poor college student through a month if carefully managed.

Many years later, most people who cater our events try to be more concious about food waste, including myself. No one is going to go home hungry, but I try not to have trays of leftovers. My current group just doesn't have the college student population to support. ;) However, we still all cook for the high end of attendence estimates, so there are often some very tasty  leftovers available during clean up, and it's nice not to have to cook for a couple meals.

This weekend I brought home a quart of mustard stewed chicken. I'm catering one of these in 2 months, so have been working on the last kinks from my recipes, so tonight, I taught my husband to make mini pasties.

The important part here is the crust. Without gluten, it does not want to play nice. Bob's Red Mill GF Crust Recipe is my go-to, but needs more structure as a handpie.  We have to add those structural elements, or all is sadness. So I have added egg and xanthan gum, and I am so happy.

Half of these are just stewed chicken, half have spinach and chicken. All are tasty. Use any filling you want, go crazy. These are the original "honey don't forget your lunch."

Crimping hand pies is an art, born of practice. Don't worry if you're messy, you will get there. The most common problem is overstuffing- the size I did was 2T max filling. Overstuffed pasties tear and won't seal.

1.5c. Bob's AP flour
1/2t salt
1/2c butter, diced
1/2t xanthan gum
1 egg
4-6 tbl milk

Preheat 400. Mix butter & dry ingredients until corned in texture. Add egg and milk, form into ball. Cover and let sit in freezer for 15 min & fridge for an hour. Take a portion, roll out to 1/4 thickness. Use a biscuit cutter or top of waterglass to cut circles. Put in 1T filling, fold and crimp around the filling. Bake for 10 min.

*Servers don't have to pay for feast, and eat the "brokens" or the platters that come back and the extra food that doesn't fit on the communal platters. I had a 4 month period where I survived on milk, eggs, yogurt, and leftovers from 1 event a month.

GF Foccacia

I have been craving bread. For weeks. Then Pinterest served up this pin for Easy Cast Iron Skillet GF Focaccia from Fearless Dining. I looked at the directions, looked at the ingredient list, and decided to make a trial run.

With some changes, of course.

I didn't have any almond milk around, so I used 2% milk. No one in this household has dairy restrictions, so I generally don't worry about it. Almond milk will also retard your rise more than standard dairy, so, unless you need it to be dairy free, use real milk. It will still slow your yeast down, but not nearly as much.

One of the things I liked about the recipe is that it's baking in cast iron. I adore doing cornbread and skillet biscuits in my large skillet. This is certainly an option - the heavy pan does nice things to the crust, and also tends to even out heat in an oven. However, I decided to use my dutch oven for a couple of reasons: it's also a cast iron pan, but it a) has a lid and b) is enameled. Having the lid means I don't have to find another way to cover the bread during the initial rise. And being enameled lets me not worry if my seasoning is up to releasing bread, or if the bread will destroy the seasoning on my good skillet.

Having now made this several times this week, I can say that it's lovely with rosemary and parmesan baked on, or plain with butter and honey, and would probably hold up well to all your traditional foccacia inclusions and toppings.

Flour blend is important here, as it is with most gluten free items. This was made with Bob's Red Mill GF Cup for Cup blend, which is preferred here due to many issues with legumes on the part of my usual guests. The recipe is flexible enough that I would guess that most 1 to 1 blends will work here - Next is trying out my personal gf blend, and some of the others that have collected in my pantry.

GLUTEN FREE FOCACCIA (as adapted from Fearless Dining)
1 c Milk
2 t Dry yeast
1 t Honey
2 1/4 c Gluten Free Flour
1 t Salt
2 large Eggs
1 T Olive oil
3 T Shredded Parmesan (optional)

Heat the milk until lukewarm. Mix in the yeast and honey, let sit for 5 min. In a separate bowl, combine flour and salt. Add eggs to liquid and beat lightly, then pour wet into dry and mix until it starts to form a ball. This makes a relatively dry dough. Use about half the olive oil on the inside of your cast iron vessel, then spread the dough out evenly, edge to edge. Cover, and let rise for 45 min in a warm place. Preheat the oven to 375. Uncover. Drizzle on the rest of the oil. Bake for 25-35 min, or until it starts to go golden brown and crusty. Enjoy!

Gingerbread Waffles

Life has been a little hectic around my house this week/end, and by the end of it, I was totally out of cope. Unfortunately, we'd eaten all the leftovers, and already ordered pizza, so my option last night was cook something.

And because I was totally out of energy, we fell back on the fine family tradition of breakfast for dinner.

These are not mildly gingerbready waffles. I tweaked the recipe some, because the flavors that make it feel like gingerbread are important to me - I don't want waffles with a hint of ginger. They need to be bold and deep and sweet with enough ginger to be noticeable.

I'd made these waffles once before, using my house gluten free all purpose flour (2x sorgum, 1.5x brown rice, 1x tapioca, 1x potato starch). Of course, I've run out, and haven't had time to make up a new batch. However, I did have a package of Bob's Red Mill GF AP in the pantry. Yes, the recipe still works. Thankfully.

If you have a four-square waffle iron, this makes 4 sets. If you're using a Belgian, it makes 5.


ETA, 2021: DO NOT USE NAMASTE FLOUR FOR THIS RECIPE. While it's good for some things, it's hydrophilic to such an extent that I upped the milk to 2 cups and the oil to 1 cup to get a workable but not ideal batter. 


Gingerbread Waffles:
as adapted from The Baking Beuties

    2 cups all purpose gluten-free flour
    1 teaspoon xanthan gum
    1 tablespoon baking powder
    1/2 teaspoon salt
    1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
    1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
    1 teaspoon ground ginger
    1 cup milk
    1/2 cup molasses
    1/4 cup oil
    2 large eggs

Preheat waffle iron to medium high, or following manufacturer's instructions. Mix dry ingredients. Separately, mix wet ingredients. Pour wet into dry, mix well. Grease your waffle iron, even if it's non-stick - the molasses makes the batter really sticky. Follow your instructions on how to make waffles (for both my 4-square & belgian, pour on batter, close, wait for the light to go off, remove waffle). Eat, with butter, and/or maple syrup, molasses, or salted caramel.

dog, underfoot, wanting batter

Pumpkin Almond Scones with (dead easy) Salted Caramel Sauce

I, like much of my mother and grandmothers before me, stress-bake.

I currently have no hot water heater.

There is only one picture of these, since I was busy not strangling the person theoretically installing the new hot water heater that is still sitting, prettily, disconnected, in my basement rather than taking pictures of my baking.

I wanted non-complex comfort food again, and I wanted something that tasted of fall. I'd been meaning to make another batch of Vanilla Almond Scones, but they weren't enough. I needed spices. I also needed to use a partial can of pumpkin. (Hey, I'd picked up a dozen cans of pumpkin at the store at 25c a piece since they're all dented. Oops. I'm using a lot of pumpkin.)

On the other hand, one of my critiques of the previous version is that they were a bit dry, and not very sweet. Pumpkin usually helps with both of those things, retaining moisture and giving just a little bit more sugar to the mix. Now they're pretty good without the caramel sauce, but it was the spirit of using leftover ingredients! Really! And they're 5x better with caramel. Isn't everything?

Pumpkin Almond Scones with Salted Caramel Sauce

Scones:
3 cups of almond meal/ground almonds/almond flour
2 teaspoons of gluten free baking powder (or ¾ teaspoon of baking soda)
1/4 cup (60g) of butter, soft
1 heaped tablespoon of honey
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice (or 1/4 t clove, 1/2 t nutmeg, 1 t cinnamon, 1/2 t allspice, 1/2 t ginger)
2 eggs

Salted Caramel Sauce:
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/8 half and half
1/8 teaspoon sea salt (or a 1/4 teaspoon table salt)

Preheat oven to 325F. Mix almond flour and baking powder, then add butter, honey, vanilla, pumpkin, spices, and eggs. Mix well into a soft dough, and take the mass and place it on a greased baking sheet or seasoned stone. Pat into a round an inch to an inch and a half thick. Cut into eighths and separate slightly. Bake for 30-40 min, or until just coming brown at the edges. Remove from pan and let cool.

In a small sauce pan, melt the butter over medium low heat, add in the brown sugar, stirring constantly. When the sugar has dissolved, add in the half and half and salt. Stir until smooth. Drizzle over scones, and put the rest in a container for later use. There will be later use...

Beef Mushroom Stroganoff over Smashed Potatoes

My mother always made me stroganoff, and didn't mind too much when I pulled the mushrooms out. Her recipe is from the old Betty Crocker cookbook, and was always served over buttered egg noodles. I remember the first time we went out to eat Russian and they had it in the menu over mashed potatoes, it offended my sense of the universe.

Of course I ordered it. I was 8, not stupid. ; ) I picked the mushrooms out of that one, too. Mom was happy -she got more mushrooms.

Somewhere along the line I decided that mushrooms weren't too bad. My friend Aaron added red wine to his - I could see that. Something or another suggested parmesan cheese for umami, under the sour cream - sounds good to me! And gradually, the recipe has changed significantly from what Mom still makes into my own version. When I went gluten-free, I had to give up my buttered egg noodles, and no, there are no good rice substitutes. But I remembered long ago, a Real Russian Restaurant served it over potatoes...

This is a good weeknight dinner - it comes together quickly, and I usually have everything but the beef and mushrooms on hand, and it uses one pan and a bowl. As always, all measurements are approximate, and if it doesn't seem to be coming together right, there are several points to adjust. Use any kind of steak - this round, I used thin cut breakfast steaks, because they're on sale. But I've used flank, or round, or chuck. Since everything cooks for a while, you don't need uber-fancy grades of beef. It doesn't hurt, mind you, but it's not necessary for a good meal.

Yukon gold potatoes are highly suggested for this recipe for a couple of reasons. 1) they tend to have a nice, buttery flavor off the bat 2) they're very thin skinned. As I don't bother to peel them before smashing them to chunks,  this means I'm not picking out rough portions of skin. I cook my potatoes in the microwave - it's fast, easy, and involves a lot less mess than most cooking methods. Your needs may vary. Yukons usually come in two sizes - small and large. My measurements here are for small - 10 happens to be the number left in the bag when I started making dinner, and 9 or 12 would both have been fine.

My preferred broth is Better than Boullion paste + water. It usually has a higher flavor content and less salt content than the cubes, and I have finer control over the quantity of paste to water and the resulting flavor profile. If I use the veggie, it comes flavored with the herbs I usually put in my stock, so I call it a win. If I have beef, I often add a sprig of thyme or sage for some herbiness.

I usually use tapioca starch as my thickener, but if you prefer corn starch or arrowroot, I know both work, as does white/sweet rice flour. Over the years, I've used just about anything that seems like it might do the job. Just make sure you add and boil it before putting in the dairy.

Beef Mushroom Stroganoff over Smashed Potatoes

Stroganoff:
.5 lb steak
12 oz fresh mushrooms
1 onion, diced
2 cloves diced garlic or 2 T minced garlic
1 cup red wine
1 c veggie or beef broth
1 T worcestershire sauce
Salt
Pepper
1T tapioca starch or corn starch
2 T water
1 c sour cream
1/2 c grated parmesan

Smashed Potatoes
10 small Yukon gold potatoes
3 T butter
1/2 c milk or half and half
Salt

Cube/cut steak into bit sized pieces. Do the same with the mushrooms, esp if you're using fresh. Canned, it's not as much of a problem. Saute steak, mushrooms, onion, and garlic until the meat is browned. Pour in the wine to deglaze the pan, add the broth and the worchestershire sauce. In a small bowl (or leftover measuring cup) mix tapioca and water until smooth. Add back into pan and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Drop it to a simmer or low heat and add sour cream and cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Wash potatoes well, the poke at least once with a fork. Put in microwave for 10 min, or until fork tender. They should be done about the same time as waiting for the main dish to come to a simmer - if not, the main dish flavors will just be getting happier for having more time to meld. Don't sweat it. Throw the hot potatoes in a large bowl. Use a fork, or a pair of forks, or a knife, to open up the potatoes and start smashing. Add milk and butter, then go back to smashing the potatoes into the side of the bowl until you have something resembling really lumpy mashed potatoes. It shouldn't take more than 2-3 min of smashing, and is fabulous after a bad day. Add salt to taste.


Ladle strognaoff over potatoes in a bowl, eat.

Chai Masala

I like chai. I like I nice steaming cup on cool to cold days, and if I'm feeling indulgent, I'll make it from scratch. My neighbor growing up used to make it for me and she taught me how. She was from Bangalore, and I know that my idea of "what chai should taste like" comes from those afternoons after school, and her flavors of home.

Then there are the days when I'm not quite insane enough to make it from whole spices or scratch, or when I want those specific flavors in some dish that isn't tea. I could use the spice mill - or I could get into the jar I keep in the cabinet of ground masala. This is the cheater's version, and scales well. I throw about a teaspoon into a simmering cup of milk and a cup of water with a black tea bag - usually keemun, but sometimes an assam. Simmer for 5 min, then pull the tea bag and serve.

Chai Masala
2 tbsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp ground cardemon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp black pepper
(added if I have them to hand - ground fennel or anise, allspice. There is no 'right' recipe, or one true way.)