Gluten-Free Recipes for Appetizers/Snacks

Spicy Sausage and Peach Cornmeal Muffins

From Chef Oonagh Williams of Gluten-Free Cooking with Oonagh

The original (non-packet mix) wheat flour recipe for these muffins came from Better Home and Gardens. It appealed to me in the middle of a New Hampshire winter. Prosciutto (Italian ham) is delicious but also expensive, so I use one of the Al Fresco fully cooked, labeled gluten-free, sweet and smoky bbq sausages, weighing 3 oz instead of 4 oz chopped prosciutto. They have a nice texture, still a slight graininess of cornmeal, excellent warm with butter. 

Some of you probably know that I don’t normally use packet mixes. I do have a culinary arts degree and always cooked from scratch so even in wheat flour days I couldn’t see the point of using a packet mix that tasted commercial and still needed egg and oil as well as containing unpronounceable ingredients. But I am realistic and know that plenty of people will use a packet mix. Friends that I trust about food recommend the ‘Krusteaz gluten-free honey cornbread and muffin mix’, 15 oz box which includes both millet and sorghum flour for better nutrition the same as my blend.  No rice flour or potato starch.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Krusteaz mix, which includes baking powder, xanthan gum and honey powder so no additional baking powder, xanthan gum or sugar added.
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup half-and-half or light cream
• 1 egg
• 2 Tbsp butter, melted and cooled
• 1/2 cup chopped peaches. The recipe recommended using frozen peaches if fresh weren’t available.  I have found lots of frozen peaches are tasteless and not sweet. I used 6 slices/3 oz of Del Monte canned peaches, rinsed off juice or syrup, patted dry and chopped. The muffins will be soggy if you don’t dry off the peaches.
• 1 x 3 oz Al Fresco sweet and smoky bbq sausage, quartered lengthwise and chopped small. You can leave the skin on. 4 to a packet.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.  l used paper liners in 2 1/2-inch muffin cups, less clean up and portable; set aside. 
2. In a medium bowl whisk together half-and-half, eggs, and melted butter. Stir in peaches and sausage. Stir in Krusteaz mix and salt. Stir just until combined. Divide batter among prepared muffin cups. They say filling 2/3 full so I only get 8 muffins, but they don’t rise much and are not the huge monsters you get in-store. 
3. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until the edges are golden. Remember that ovens vary and so does the size of the muffins you make and can take longer to cook.  I literally pull one apart to check all the way to the bottom. 
4. Serve warm with butter.  They reheat nicely in the microwave.

Sweet & Spicy Cucumber Salad

From Chef Oonagh Williams of Gluten Free Cooking with Oonagh

I typically make a basic cucumber salad with oil, vinegar, sugar and raw garlic. Then I saw a post with a new recipe, and as usual tried it and did my own thing. You can alter the heat factor of this recipe to your family’s taste. You do need to use salt. Salt crisps up the cucumbers, draws juice from the cucumbers into the vinaigrette and also shrinks the cucumber. 

When you first make this cucumber salad, you look at a huge amount of cucumber and think that’s not enough vinaigrette/dressing. Yes, it is. I like both thinly sliced cucumber and small cubes. Don’t keep it more than a couple of days in the fridge. 

Gluten-Free Sweet & Spicy Cucumber Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 English/European cucumber, rinsed (aka seedless cucumber even though it does have seeds, just less than regular American cucumber). Remove from plastic wrap when you buy it as it can go moldy rapidly if left in plastic. Or equivalent of small Persian cucumbers, they look really cute sliced or cubed, but are more expensive. 
• 2 Tbsp HOT pepper jelly. Sweet pepper jelly doesn’t add heat. I buy Trappist hot pepper jelly at my local grocery store. I’ve also made this with Maesri Spring roll dipping sauce from an Asian market. Do not buy Maesri sweet chili sauce, far far spicier hot – nearly killed my husband. 
• Zest of a lime 
• Juice of a lime 
• 1/4 c (60 ml, 2 fl oz) mild oil. I use avocado oil
• Green of 2 green onions 
• 1/2 – 1 tsp salt (3-5 ml) – make it with half teaspoon and add more after refrigeration if you like more salt. 
• Freshly ground pepper
• Cilantro to taste. Start with only 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh cilantro. You can also use Thai basil. Or even lime basil, so good. 

Directions:

1. Melt pepper jelly in a 4 cup microwave safe bowl in microwave, add lime, oil, salt, herbs.
2. Cut ends off cucumber then I thinly slice the cucumber on a mandolin or cut into small cubes, like a sugar cube.
3. Stir cucumber into vinaigrette, cover and refrigerate for at least one hour.  Stir, taste and serve. Some recipes like to add sesame oil, but sesame oil is a very strong oil and easily overpowers. 

Sweet Potato Hummus and Goat Cheese Snacks

English Scones

A gluten-free Mother’s Day treat!

From Chef Oonagh Williams of Gluten-Free Cooking with Oonagh

I saw the original wheat flour dough for this recipe in one of my English cookbooks and made gluten-free version of the dough, tried it, liked dough, but was bored by filling  But since then I have used my gluten-free version of the dough to make scones, non-yeast cinnamon buns, non-yeast Stromboli, yeast and non-yeast Lithuanian bacon buns, and Italian sweet ricotta Easter Pie. All of this just by altering amount of sugar, butter and type of liquid from fat free milk to heavy cream.

This pastry is a cross between pie crust and cookie dough—soft, rises due to baking powder, very rich.

In all my hands-on wheat flour cooking classes as well as brunch parties for clients, I always had to make my English scones, with raspberry jam and whipped cream with Chambord, or peach jam and cream with peach schnapps. Clients would stand in kitchen watching me make scones, unable to believe that people still baked real food. Scones are a part of life in England, cream teas, Sunday afternoon tea. My mother used to make them by the hundreds for church fair.

Gluten-Free English Scones
Makes 6 scones

Ingredients:

• 5 oz (1 cup less 1 tbsp, 140g) King Arthur gluten-free all purpose flour – no baking powder or xanthan gum. Available in 24 oz box in grocery store.
• 3 oz (¾ c, 84 g) almond flour – note finely ground almond flour (white) is less volume than more coarsely ground almond flour or almond meal (freckly), that’s why I weigh. Too much or too little by volume will alter recipe. Not all measuring cups are accurate.
• ¼ c (1 oz, 28 g) powdered (icing) sugar
• ¾ stick (3 oz, 84 g) cold butter
• 2 tsp (10ml) gluten-free baking powder
• pinch of salt
• ½ tsp (3 ml) xanthan gum, ¼ tsp xg crumbled too much even when cold.
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp (5 ml) gf vanilla extract, almond if doing more almond filling.
• ¼ c (60ml, 2oz)- 1/3 c cream.  I use cream for scones for a richer taste, but also a more tender dough that will crumble a bit when warm, it doesn’t need more xanthan gum.  I use 1/4c cream if I am baking scones on a baking sheet where they will spread. If you are putting scones into mini whoopie pie tins or a ‘shape’ then I use 1/3 c for dough so it’s moister but will spread without walls to contain scone.

Directions:

1. Mix gluten-free flour, almond flour, sugar, xg, baking powder and salt together, then rub in cold butter until resembles fine breadcrumbs. Food processor is quickest.
2. Mix egg, cream and extract together and whisk with a fork to blend egg.
3. You can add liquid mix to dry mix in food processor and pulse to combine.  For scones I prefer to take dry mix from food processor into 4 cup bowl, add liquid and stir until combined.  Gently knead a few times with white rice flour.
4. Pat dough into roughly 6 inch circle, Cut into 6 pieces, separate and place on lined cookie sheet or skillet and bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes.  Scones should have risen, be a nice light golden brown color, and look fluffy inside when you break one open. Round each piece into a ball to cook in mini whoopie tin etc.
5. Remove from oven, let cool slightly.  If you try to halve scones too soon, they will disintegrate. Then halve and serve with good raspberry jam (my favorite) topped with imported clotted cream – about $5 for 6 oz jar in specialty cheese section of my regular grocery store. Or just whip and sweeten some heavy cream.

No Bake Easter Sweet Cheese Mold

Also known as Lithuanian Flowerpot cheese (saldus sūris) or Russian Paskha

From Chef Oonagh Williams of Gluten-Free Cooking with Oonagh

This recipe makes 2 x 1 lb cottage cheese or sour cream tubs, washed well, holes poked in bottom for drainage and lined with damp cheesecloth. Or new plastic flower pots. People in my Lithuanian cooking demo said it was like a cheesecake.
“This rich and lovely addition to the Easter table is reputed to be of Russian origin, but is described as sweet cheese in books on Lithuanian traditions” – Treasures of Lithuanian Cooking. From(1960’s) Time-Life Foods of the World -Russian Cooking. “The Paskha is meant to be a marvel of cottage cheese, rich cream, eggs, raisins, almonds and candied fruits deposited in a four-sided, perforated wood frame in the shape of a truncated pyramid. The mold is lined with cheesecloth and weighed down so that the surplus liquid in the ingredients can seep out. The mold has more than a purely utilitarian function; it usually has a cross and an XB design carved on its inner sides, so that when the paskha emerges it is already decorated. XB stands for the Cyrillic initials of Christos Voskres, the greeting given at Easter Saturday Midnight Mass (therefore being Easter Sunday) of “Christ is risen” “Truly He is risen.” If the mold doesn’t have this imprint then the letter are spelled out on the outside of the cheese in fruits and nuts and they continue to celebrate for the next three days.” (The molds are available to buy on Amazon).
The original recipes would have used whisked raw eggs and sugar to enrich the cheese. In today’s salmonella-conscious world we either make an egg custard or purée hard boiled egg yolks. For cheese now we can buy the ‘Friendship’ brand of Farmers cheese or cottage cheese that we drain and then puree. They would have forced the cottage cheese (which would probably have been home made) through a sieve to give the smoother texture. We have the food processor.

Gluten-Free No Bake Easter Sweet Cheese Mold

Ingredients:

• 1lb Friendship brand farmers cheese –Market Basket, sold in 1 lb packages in specialty cheese section for about $4/lb (500g). Not Andrulis brand which is a slicing farmers cheese
• ¾ c (5+3/4 oz, 160 g)  sugar
• 4 oz (112g) cream cheese at room temperature, cut into pieces. I buy Market Basket’s own lite.
• Yolks of 3 large hard boiled eggs
• Grated zest of ½ lemon
• Grated zest of 1/2 orange
• 3/4 c (6 fl oz, 180 ml) of heavy or whipping cream
• ½ tsp (3 ml) gf vanilla extract
• 1/4c (40g, 1+1/2 oz) golden raisins (sultanas)
• ¼ c candied orange peel – optional
• 1/3 c (2 oz, 55g) finely chopped blanched almonds

Directions:

1. Put the farmers cheese, cream cheese, sugar, cream, egg yolks, orange and lemon zest in a food processor and process until the mix is extremely smooth.  Depending on sharpness of food processor blade, you might only get it to tiny dots of cheese not puréed totally smooth. With my new blade mix became very smooth, runnier than instant jello vanilla pudding.  Transfer to mixing bowl.
2. Add vanilla, raisins, almonds and fruit and stir well to combine.
3. Line a clean, unused 4 c flowerpot (plastic is fine) with a double layer of rinsed and squeezed-dry cheesecloth. Or 1 or 2 lb cottage cheese/ricotta/sour cream etc tub, rinsed, holes poked in the base.  Spoon the cheese mix into the lined pot, smooth the surface, fold the ends of the cheesecloth neatly over the top. Place a saucer or plastic lid that fits inside rim of container, on the cheesecloth, then a 2lb weight such as a can on top of the saucer.  Stand the flowerpot upright in a bowl large enough to drain into with enough space under bottom of flower pot so it is not sitting in drained liquid. (I made 2 smaller flower pots)
4. Refrigerate for at least 8 hours.
5. Discard any liquid that drained out. Unmold the sweet cheese onto a serving plate and carefully remove the cheesecloth.

Cookbooks say this will keep refrigerated for a week once removed from cheesecloth.

Cucumber, Smoked Salmon and Sweet Mustard Dill Sauce

Sweet Slice Ham with Cranberry Chutney

Sweet Slice Ham with Cranberry Chutney

December 19, 2018

Courtesy of Boar’s Head

This sweet and tangy cranberry chutney perfectly complements the rich flavor of our Sweet Slice Boneless Smoked Ham for an elegant dish worthy of any holiday gathering.

Gluten-Free Sweet Slice Ham with Cranberry Chutney

Ingredients:

• cup Cranberry-Pomegranate Juice
• 1 tbsp Red wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp Cranberries
• ¼ tsp Ground ginger
• ½ tsp Ground cinnamon
• ½ cup
  Sweet Vidalia Onions in Sauce
• 2 tsp
  Honey Mustard
• Sweet Slice Boneless Smoked Ham, Sliced

Directions:

1. Heat the juice in a small saucepan and add the red wine vinegar.
2. Add the dried cranberries, cover and let steep 15 to 20 minutes.
3. Stir in the spices, onion sauce, and mustard. The chutney can be cut into smaller portions if desired.
4. Serve slightly warm along with ham slices, or store in the fridge until ready to use.

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White Cheddar Stuffed Mushrooms

Old World Antipasto

Old World Antipasto

December 10, 2018

Courtesy of Boar’s Head.

Simple yet sophisticated, this antipasto platter is easy to prepare and adds an elegant touch to any affair.

Gluten-Free Old World Antipasto

Serves 6

Ingredients:

• 10 Grape tomatos
• 3 slices Red pepper, roasted
• 3 slices Yellow peppers, roasted
• 1 cup Olives, assorted Italian
• 1 jar arrtichoke hearts, halved
• 1 tsp Capers, drained
• lb Boar’s Head Prosciutto Cotto – Italian Roasted Ham with Seasoning, thinly sliced
• lb Boar’s Head Hickory Smoked Pasteurized Process Gruyere Cheese, long thin strips
• lb Boar’s Head Prosciutto di Parma, thinly sliced
• lb Boar’s Head Picante Provolone Cheese, halved
• lb Boar’s Head Sopressata Grande (Hot & Sweet), thinly sliced
• lb Boar’s Head Manchego Cheese, sliced in wedges
• lb Boar’s Head Serrano Ham, thinly sliced

Directions:

1. In the center of a serving platter place a medley of grape tomatoes, roasted red and yellow peppers, assorted olives, grilled marinated artichoke hearts, and caper berries.
2. Place assorted Boar’s Head meats and cheeses around the center medley (alternating for color) in the following order Italian Roasted ham, Gruyere, Prosciutto, Provolone, Sopressata, Manchego, and very thinly sliced Serrano ham.
3. Serve with olive oil toasted gluten-free baguette or bread slices.

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Bacon, Brie and Cranberry Holiday Melts