GF Huckleberry pocket pies

We were getting together with some friends on Saturday for dinner at our place and wanted to do something really special for dessert. I knew I wanted to do something pie-ish and was thinking maybe a tart when hubby remembered we have some dough presses we'd picked up at Ross a while back (they are similar to these) and I said that was it. We also decided to forgo the usual canned pie filling and I hauled out some huckleberries a friend gave us and started them to thaw.

In the meantime I dug out my gluten free cook book I have been putting together and decided to try a recipe from Bob's Red Mill:

Gluten Free Pastry Crust for Double Crust Pie
contributed by Carol Fenster, Ph.D.


This crust works best with fillings that don’t have to bake for a very long time such as stone fruits––cherries, peaches, or apricots. The fruit should be thoroughly drained before using. The dough should be made in a food processor for even distribution of liquids.


Ingredients:


Dry Ingredients


1 cup Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour
3/4 cup Tapioca Flour
1/2 cup Sweet White Rice Flour
1 Tbsp. Sugar
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Xanthan Gum
1/2 tsp. Guar Gum


Liquid Ingredients:


1/2 cup Shortening
2 Tbsp. Butter or Margarine
1/4 cup Milk
1 Tbsp. Lemon Juice


Pie Filling:


2-16 oz. cans Tart Red Cherries
2 Tbsp. Cherry Juice
2/3 cup Sugar
1 Tbsp. Quick-cooking Tapioca
1 tsp. Almond Extract


Directions:
1. Prepare cherry pie filling. Combine 2 cans (16 oz. each) drained tart red cherries, 2 Tbsp. of the cherry juice, 2/3 cup sugar, 1 Tbsp. quick-cooking tapioca, and 1 tsp. almond extract in bowl. Let stand while rolling pie crust.


2. Place dry ingredients, shortening, and butter in food processor. Mix well. Add milk and lemon juice and blend until dough forms small clumps or a large ball. Remove dough from food processor and shape with hands into a ball.


3. Flatten dough to circular disk, wrap tightly, and chill 30 minutes so liquids are well distributed throughout dough.


4. Massage dough between hands until warm and pliable, making crust easier to handle. Roll half of dough to 10-inch circle between two pieces of heavy-duty plastic wrap dusted with rice flour. (Keep remaining half wrapped tightly to avoid drying out.) Use damp paper towel on countertop to anchor plastic. Be sure to move rolling pin from center of dough to outer edge, moving around the circle in clockwise fashion to assure uniform thickness.


5. Remove top plastic wrap and invert crust, centering it over pie plate. Remove remaining plastic wrap and press into place. If dough is hard to handle, press entire bottom crust in place with your fingers.


6. Fill with cherry filling. Or, use your favorite fruit filling for a 9-inch pie, but limit the amount of extra juice to two tablespoons.


7. Roll remaining dough to 10-inch circle between floured plastic wrap. Invert and center on filled crust. Don’t remove top plastic wrap until dough is centered. Shape decorative ridge around rim of pie plate. Prick crust several times with fork to allow steam to escape. Freeze 15 minutes. If desired, brush with milk or beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar. Place on nonstick baking sheet.


8. Bake pie in preheated 375º oven for 15 minutes on lower oven rack to brown bottom crust. Move to next higher oven rack and bake another 25-35 minutes––or until crust is nicely browned. Cover loosely with foil if edges brown too much. Cool thoroughly on wire rack before cutting to allow juices to thicken.


Makes one 9-inch pie crust (12 slices).


NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Servings Size: 1 slice
Calories 270, Calories from Fat 100, Total Fat 10g, Saturated Fat 3.5g, Cholesterol 5mg, Sodium 80mg, Total Carbohydrate 42g, Dietary Fiber 1g, Sugars 19g and Protein 2g.

So for my pocket pies I made the crust. I did eliminate the guar gum as I didn't have any on hand and it pretty much does the same thing as the xanthum gum and I simply doubled the amount of xanthum gum.

While the dough was resting in the fridge I took the huckleberries and drained them (and after being in the freezer they were very juicy). I put the liquid into a small sauce pan and turned the heat up to medium high to reduce the liquid. I added a little bit of Splenda to offset the tartness a bit. You can use sugar if you like. I didn't want the huckleberries to be too sweet or too tart. When the liquids had reduced to a thick syrup I added a little bit of corn starch to thicken it a bit further and then added the drained berries.

While the berries cooled I took the dough out of the fridge and sprinkled some rice flour on my big cutting board and rolled out the dough after dividing it into two balls. When it was thin enough I used the 2nd largest dough press to cut out the rounds (the presses I have are set up to do that) and when all the rounds were cut, started assembling pies.

Each round went into the press, filled with a couple tablespoons of huckleberries and then I moistened the edges and folded (I love those presses). Onto a greased cookie sheet and gave them all an egg wash and sprinkled a bit of sugar on top.

Into the oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Out of the oven and onto a wire rack to cool.

They were the prefect ending for a wonderful dinner with good friends.

Corn bread

Had a serious hankering for a bread product that texture wasn't different then what the non-gluten version would be (I love the GF breads I have been making, but the texture isn't even close to a nice fresh from the oven wheat bread), so I decided I HAD to have some corn bread:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup corn meal
1 cup masa harina (the fine ground corn meal for making tamales or tortillas)
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup milk
bacon grease

Preheat oven to 450F. Put 1-2 table spoons bacon grease into cast iron skillet and pop into the oven to melt.

Mix dry ingredients, add eggs, milk and oil. If the batter is to thick, add 1-2 tablespoons more milk until creamy and pourable.

Take skillet out of oven and pour in the batter and put back into the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes or golden brown. Use a toothpick to check for doneness, toothpick show come out clean when poked into the corn bread.

Cut into pieces and add butter, honey or what ever you like on corn bread and enjoy.

NOTE: If you don't have a cast iron skillet a 9"X9" baking pan or cake pan works just as well.

Gluten free chicken and dumplings

So I had a jonesing for chicken and dumplings. I started the other day by tossing about 3 chicken carcasses with some meat into the big slow cooker to make stock. Let that simmer all day and then strained out the bones and meat and put everything in to the fridge over night.

Next day I took the resulting chicken jello (the stock was perfect) and put it into a pot to simmer on the stove. Once it was going I tossed in boneless, skinless chicken thighs, dehydrated Walla Walla Sweets, dehydrated broccoli and dehydrated yellow squash that I chopped up to disguise they were squash slices. I also added some salt, pepper and basil and let it simmer.

I then peeled what meat was left from the carcasses and set that aside in the fridge since I didn't want them to cook too much longer since it has simmered quite a while the day before.

I then puttered about the web looking for gluten free dumpling recipes that used the ingredients I had on hand. I found a few that were doable so I came up with my own recipe using the info I found:

1 1/3 cups white rice flour
1/3 cup tapioca flour
1/3 cup gluten-free all-purpose (I use Bob's Red Mill)
2 tbs baking powder
1 tsp salt
6 eggs, lightly beaten

Mix the dry ingredients together and then add the eggs and mix thoroughly. Let the dough sit and rest for about 15 minutes. Drop by big spoonfuls into the simmering liquid and cook uncovered for 10 minutes. Cover and cook for an additional 10 minutes. I did sprinkle pepper on top before I covered the pot.

While the dumpling dough was resting I thickened the stew with rice flour to make a nice gravy when everything was done.

I grew up with Bisquick dumplings and that is the texture I am used to, so the denser texture of the gluten free dumplings took some getting used to. They were quite tasty and not too dense (I've made from scratch dumplings in the past with regular flour that could kill you if you got hit with one), but not as fluffy as I would have liked. The hubby liked them and he isn't a big dumpling fan. He felt they needed something added tho, I sprinkled a bit of adobo seasoning on his 2nds and he thought they were perfect.

So I will look at tweaking the recipe a bit for future meals and look forward to having lots of dumplings for various meals (turkey and dumplings, beef and dumplings the variations are endless).

Cucumber and tomato salad

A very tasty salad is cucumber and tomato. It is a nice salad in that you can do all sorts of things with those two ingredients as a start. I like to take tomatoes and dice them up, dice up cucumbers and add some finely diced sweet onions. Drizzle some olive oil over it, a squeeze of lemon juice and toss.

The salad above I sprinkled with dried mint leaves and let it sit in the fridge to let the flavors meld.

I love to use garden fresh cukes and tomatoes, but my garden this year was pretty non-existent due to weather and not having the energy to do much. I do have a couple tomatoes in pots that have tomatoes on them, but they are still quite green, so I had to make due with what I could get at the grocery store as I haven't been to the farmers market in a while.

I chose Roma tomatoes for this salad as I wanted a nice meaty tomato and made a big batch. When serving it yesterday I made a dressing of plain Greek yogurt with a squeeze of lemon juice and more mint leaves.

It was quite delicious yesterday, but after sitting and melding over night...YUM!!!!!!

GF oatmeal cookies

Another recipe from Bob's Red Mill, this one for oatmeal cookies:

Ingredients
1-1/2 cups Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour
3 cups Gluten Free Rolled Oats
1 cup Butter (softened)
1 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Sea Salt
1 tsp Cinnamon
2 large Eggs*
1 tsp Xanthan Gum
1 cup Raisins (Unsulfured)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Beat butter and sugars together until smooth. Add vanilla and eggs; beat well. In a separate bowl, blend flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and Xanthan Gum. Stir flour blend into wet ingredients. Add oats and raisins and mix well. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto un-greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 – 12 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool one minutes then transfer to wire rack. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

*Eggless Option: Mix together 2 Tb. Flaxseed Meal with 6 Tb. of water and let sit for a minute. Add to recipe as you would the eggs.

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION

Serving Size: 1 Cookie - Calories 100, Calories from Fat 40, Total Fat 4.5g, Saturated Fat 2.5g, Cholesterol 20mg, Sodium 50mg, Total Carbohydrate 15g, Dietray Fiber less than 1g, Sugars 9g, Protein 2g.

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These were very yummy, tho flatter then I like and a bit crispier then hubby likes. I will probably sub butter-flavored Crisco next time around, tho my neighbor told me not to mess with the recipe LOL!

I prefer thicker, chewier cookies but I like how these made a perfect substitute for graham crackers in s'mores. They were the right thickness for s'mores and I enjoyed my first s'mores in over a year this last Sunday.