Let's Catch Up

Mothers Day Rhymes with Parfait

I think it's about time for us to catch up, considering it's been a few days since I've posted.

Thursday night we had our weekly dinner, and that went quite nicely. We had the Hawaiian Style Chili. It contained both local beef, and local portuguese sausage. We really have to be careful when buying sausages as they often contain some sort of gluten as a filler, and if dairy is an issue too then that's something else to watch out for in the ingredients list as well. If you're still unsure, try contacting the company. The brand I've been eating without any problems is Gouveas, but I've received no response to the e-mail I sent to the company in which I asked about whether or not their sausage contains gluten. This may be a company I need to call. As I said though, I've experienced no symptoms after eating the product, but this is something I need to get better about. I admit it. Sometimes I do take small risks, but I would never cheat purposely.

I read over at Gluten Free in Georgia and Florida that in her book "The G-Free Diet" Elisabeth Hasselback takes cheating very lightly, and in no way do I want to be associated with that kind of thinking.

Channa Masala

Friday night the Nerd and I dined at home on some delicious chickpea curry. It's based on a recipe for Channa Masala on Seriouseats.com. I couldn't find Garam Masala at Foodland or Pukalani Superette, but I do know that it is available in the bulk spices at Mana Foods. However, I think this dish is quite delicious with Madras Curry powder. This dish has a very spicy, comfort food quality that I can't get enough of. Because there is a little lemon juice, the dish also has just a hint of sourness that enhances all of the spices coating every inch of the chickpeas and that have soaked into the rice. Served alongside a nice salad, or some steamed vegetables, this is a delicious and healthy well balanced meal. I do suggest bringing a large pitcher of water to the table, you might need it.

A Delicious Hot Breakfast for Mother's Day

Sunday was Mother's Day. My moms aren't here with me, but I was able to honor the Nerd's mother by getting up early to make a big, beautiful, and scrumptious brunch. I really only needed 2 hours to prepare everything for this breakfast. The Nerd's brother, the Hunter, and his wife CJ came over for brunch as well. CJ brought me a beautiful jade plant, and they presented his mother with a lovely bouquet.

The Hunter said that he normally needs to put ketchup on his scrambled eggs, partly because of how bland and dry they are, but he felt no need to do that with the eggs I whipped up. I made scrambled eggs that I found the recipe for through Food.com and the recipe is from Foodandwine.com. I had never made scrambled eggs over a double boiler, but I think it is now the only way I will do it. I left out the truffle oil and brioche rolls(of course).

Whisk your eggs up in a bowl with some water while bringing a pot of water up to a simmer. Once the water reachers a good simmer, place a metal bowl on top of the pot and add in a little butter or margarine. Let the butter melt and then add the whisked eggs. Drop the temperature just a bit, and use a heat resistant rubber spatula to scrape the bottom of the bowl as the eggs cook. Just before they are completely set up, add some more butter. Keep scraping and stirring. The eggs should come together in a curd like consistency. Cook the eggs to the firmness you like, and then remove the bowl from the pot and turn off the heat. Add in your seasonings at this point.

Roasted zucchini, onions, and garlic were also a delicious hit. With a little salt and pepper, they were a nice addition to a savory hot breakfast.

I followed a recipe for buttermilk biscuits from Bobsredmill.com, but they didn't turn out as they should have. I may have rolled the dough too thin, but if I hadn't then I don't believe the recipe would have yielded as many biscuits as it says it will. Despite being thin, I think they worked well with the amount of food served. We topped these biscuits with Poha jam. Pohas are berries that are also known as Cape Gooseberries, Goldenberries, and some other names. I found out from CJ that she's been eating some berries called Incan Goldenberries, and they are highly nutritious and full of antioxidants. She was excited to learn that they are also Poha berries and grow wild here on the island. The jam slightly reminds me of very sweet gold cherry tomatoes with sugar. I will happily eat some more.

It was worth a second shot!

Finally, we had a breakfast "dessert" of strawberry, blueberry, and banana yogurt parfaits. These caused some "Oo's" and "Ah's" from the family. Deliciousness was inspired by the local fruits available at the farm stand. The strawberries, bananas, and blueberries were all local. The yogurt was organic. Mary, at Kula Country Farms, let me run in and buy 2 boxes of berries on Saturday while they were closing up. Thank you for the berries Mary!

To make these tasty treats:

Hooray for Parfait!

AmandaonMaui

• 3-4 small bananas, sliced
• 1lb of strawberries, rinsed and diced
• 1 pint of blueberries, rinsed
• Nonfat vanilla yogurt

Layer 4 slices of banana on the bottom of the glass, top with a few tablespoons of yogurt, add in a couple tablespoons of strawberries, add more yogurt, add blueberries, add more yogurt, top with more strawberries and banana slices.

In fact, here's a list of the food in this breakfast that was local:

Eggs

Zucchini

Onions

Strawberries

Blueberries

Bananas

Poha Jam

Here's what was organic:

Butter

Soy Milk

Yogurt

Sugar

If not for the biscuits, then everything would have been local or organic. That's amazing, and inspiring!

Go out to your farmers market or farm stand and get inspired too!

Sunday Cooking Projects

Kula Country Farms Strawberries

I feel like I do a lot more cooking on the weekends than during the week. Basically I just cook one more meal, but I do tend to plan the more complicated cooking for the weekend.

This morning I made Strawberry Buckwheat Pancakes. I used the Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes from The Gluten-Free Vegan as a guide, but I made my own changes to the recipe.The strawberry flavor isn't extremely strong, so if you'd like more strawberry flavor, try pureeing some strawberries and replace the apple sauce with the puree. The strawberries were locally grown. Here's the recipe, they're definitely worth making.

Strawberry Pancake Breakfast

Strawberry Buckwheat Pancakes

adapted from The Gluten-Free Vegan

• 1 cup buckwheat flour
• 1/4 cup brown rice flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp grapeseed oil
• 1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 3 tbsp strawberry guava syrup
• 1 egg or substitute for 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cup milk or non-dairy milk alternative
• 7 medium strawberries, hulled and chopped into 1/8 inch pieces

Combine the dry ingredients in a small bowl.

Combine the rest of the ingredients, including the strawberries, in large bowl.

Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until it is thoroughly combined and smooth.

Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add oil or butter to prevent sticking, if necessary. Ladle 1/4 cup of batter into the pan and heat until bubbles form and pop. Flip the pancake over, and cook until the pancake is cooked through. The pancakes should be a nice brown color.

Serve with more strawberry guava syrup, and if you love peanut butter and jellies use peanut butter instead of butter on the pancakes.

For dinner we had Grilled Chicken Tostadas. These were pretty healthy, and very delicious. We like our Mexican food spicy, so if you don't like too much spice you should use half of the jalapeno and less of the cayenne pepper if you use either at all. The tomatoes and lettuce were locally grown. We didn't have sour cream or yogurt, so we left that out. You could replace that with avocado if you have them readily available.

Grilled Chicken Tostadas

Grilled Chicken Tostadas

AmandaonMaui

• 1 1/2 tsp goya adobo seasoning
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 can refried beans
• 2 tsp chili powder
• 1 jalapeno pepper, deseeded and minced
• 2 cups tomatoes, deseeded and chopped
• 4 cups crisp lettuce, chopped
• 9 corn tortillas
• 1/2 cup of vegetable oil
• 2 grilled chicken breasts
• Cilantro, minced
• Green onions, sliced
• Salsa
• Sour cream, dairy or non, or plain yogurt (optional)

Grill 2 chicken breasts either on an indoor or outdoor grill. Chop into small pieces.

Empty the refried beans into a pan and add the adobo seasoning, red pepper, cayenne pepper, chili powder, and jalapeno pepper. Stir well, and keep over low heat until the rest of the food is prepared.

Heat the oil over medium low heat and add one or two tortillas at a time (depending on the size of the pan) and heat until they are crispy and partially browned.

Remove the tortillas and place onto a platter with paper towels to help absorb some of the oil from the tostadas.

When everything is ready, top the tostadas with beans, lettuce, tomatoes, chicken, cilantro, green onions, salsa and sour cream/yogurt.

Coming Soon: The beauty of pasture raised, not uniform, local eggs.

Touched by the Noodley Summer Rolls

Summer Rolls

For making the above summer rolls I basically followed a recipe on Vegweb.com, but I added in things that I liked and worked with what I had available. I was out of bean sprouts like I used the previous week, so I used mung bean noodles. These worked out very well. They're the clear noodles, not the thin white rice noodles. Mung bean noodles are typically called cellophane noodles.

I have quite a lot of mung bean noodles. They're very popular here on Maui. These noodles are used in many local dishes including chicken hekka and chicken long rice. I'm not a fan of either dish, and the noodles are definitely a texture that has to be gotten used to. Hiding them in summer rolls seems to be a great way to use them. They're so cheap, and I have a lot of them, so I'm glad to have found a way to use them up. The other wonderful thing about mung bean noodles is that they're gluten-free.

I served the summer rolls with Thai Kitchen Sweet Chili Sauce. The sauce is kind of expensive at $5 per bottle. As you know, whole meals can be made for $5 as is done over at $5 Dinners. But, it's worth it for the flavor. I know that it is something that I can't easily make myself, and that I'd have great difficulty in finding the ingredients here. I also know that I promote a mainly local foods diet, but sometimes you just have to have a treat.

Strawberry Chocolate Smoothie

Speaking of treats, right now I'm slurping down another strawberry chocolate smoothie. I added extra cocoa powder this time (about 1/2 tablespoon extra). I like how chocolate-y it tastes, and I enjoy the creaminess. I don't think I added the protein powder last time like the recipe suggests, but I did this time. The box of strawberries in the picture came from the farm stand. They had the strawberries on sale for 2 for $5. I know that I can get them for 2 for $4 at Pukalani Superette, but I decided to just grab them at the farm stand and let the money go directly to the ladies and gentlemen who farm them right there next to the stand. Lucky me, strawberry season is year round on Maui. Promise me you'll get some strawberries the next time you're on Maui, or if you live on Maui and you're not buying local berries it had better be because you're allergic or have an extreme dislike of them. There is no reason anyone should ever buy non-local strawberries on Maui.

Antioxidant Chili

Oh, and for dinner tonight we ate leftover chili. We had friends over past dinner time, and we didn't get to eat dinner until 8pm. So, to make things easier I just pulled some chili out of the freezer and fed the Nerd, myself, and our friend J who wasn't feeling well. Since the chili was vegan it worked out perfectly as J is a vegetarian. The chili was from The Gluten-Free Vegan and was the Antioxidant Chili. It contained carrots, onions, bell peppers, zucchini (my addition), black beans, kidney beans, and diced tomatoes. I did use canned beans and tomatoes, but it is my intention to use dried black beans for the big pot of salsa chicken and black bean soup later this week.

Well, it's getting late here in Hawaii and I've got some project to work on tomorrow. I need to finish my powerpoint for my class presentation, I need to do a little clean up, and I need to do some more work on my desk project (which I have touched in about a month the poor desk). There might also be a run over to St. Joseph's church in Makawao tomorrow. They're having their annual festival with lots of yummy food and a good thrift store. Although I can't eat most of the food, I can at least eat vicariously through the Nerd. That reminds me, I need to find a gluten-free Malasada recipe. Does anyone have one yet? How about a gluten-free Chow Fun recipe?