Easy as Pie Test Kitchen

Chipotle allergen list

I can't say enough about how great Chipotle is. I could eat there every day. Well, okay, I could eat there every day if I didn't care about staying at least kind of thin. I have been avoiding rice there, however, because of a recipe for Chipotle-style rice a friend showed me awhile ago that had loads of butter in it. Apparently the creamy rice at the restaurant itself doesn't have butter in it. That was the pleasant surprise. The unpleasant surprise is how many of their ingredients contain soy. Soy?? Yes, soy. I think you have to work pretty hard to get soy into steak. It seems like some sort of mallet and maybe a cow suppository might be involved.

For the list of allergens, see allergy.about.com's post.

1 of 365 Veggies to Choose from

Did you know that Indians recognize 365 different types of vegetables? I think I'd be lucky to name 100 off the top of my head. Anyone trying to stick to a healthy diet would be happy with a wider variety of vegetables to choose from, but our nutrient-rich vegetable friends are especially helpful to people with food allergies, since there are fewer potential allergens in this food group than some others.

So, I've been exploring vegetables outside of my usual cooking routine to try to give my recipes a little extra variety. A few weeks back, I blogged about buying really great beet greens at the farmers market. I did cook them, and they were great. They had more beet flavor than I was expecting, but still not as much as the root has. I loved the purple color of the dish when it was done! Here's how I cooked them:

Sauteed Beet Greens
greens from 6-8 beets, (about 4 cups)
1 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
8-10 green olives, sliced

Directions:
Prepare greens by removing the stems, rinsing them thoroughly, and cutting or tearing them into pieces (about 3" X 3" max).

Heat oil in the wok over medium high heat. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the beet greens and cook for a few more minutes, until they start to wilt. Add green olives and cook one minute more. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Dairy-free, sugar-free popsicles

It's stinking hot where I live, so I've been trying to find a way to make popsicles that I can eat that aren't tooth-chipping blocks of ice. That can be a bit of a challenge, since sugar and dairy are the two things that make popsicles easy to bite into. I've finally found a couple that work, and I've got to say the chocolate coconut ones are my favorite food for this summer. They're like frozen Mounds bars. The other ones are good, too. They're still not as soft as pudding pops or some kind of ice cream on a stick, but they're softer than the other dairy and sugar free concoctions I've tried.

Chocolate coconut popsicles

1 can coconut milk

2 tablespoons pure cocoa powder (read the label--some cocoa powders have milk in them)

1/4 teaspoon pure stevia (again, read the label. Why must everything be mixed with milk??)

2 tablespoons dried coconut flakes

Whisk ingredients together. There will be little lumps of cocoa powder. That's okay. They are little bursts of chocolate flavor when you eat the popsicle, and if you don't like them for some reason, you don't have to eat them because wind up at the base of the popsicle.

Pour the liquid into popsicle molds or paper cups. If you're using paper cups, put craft sticks upright in the mixture. Freeze 3-4 hours, and enjoy. 

Just Coconut Popsicles

Use the recipe listed above without the cocoa powder.

Choco Banana Pudding Pops

1 package sugar free banana flavored pudding

2 cups chocolate-flavored unsweetened almond milk

Whisk ingredients together and let the pudding solidify. It will be a little runnier than pudding is when you make it with milk.

Pour the liquid into popsicle molds or paper cups. If you're using paper cups, put craft sticks upright in the mixture. Freeze 3-4 hours. Run under hot water for 30-40 seconds, remove the mold or peel off the paper cups, and enjoy.

Easy as Pie Challenge--Dinner #1

On the menu:

Spinach Salad with Basil
Roast Chicken
Creamy Pesto Sauce (used as a salad dressing and a spread for the chicken)
Corn on the Cob

All right, I've got to admit this one was a pretty soft pitch for me. I cooked it myself and served it to just my parents, my brother, and my husband for dinner. To remind everyone of the challenge this time, it had to meet my diet (no sugar, dairy, eggs, or wheat), be low-carb (for my parents) and be something my dad would eat. He's pretty picky.

I used a standby in my repertoire--roast chicken--and nearly botched that. I'm not used to my mom's oven, we roasted two chickens at once, yada yada. Suffice it to say it was not done when I thought it was. Nonetheless, dinner was good, in part because of some great fresh Ohio produce--corn and tomatoes from the farm market and basil from my mom's garden (see photo). My brother liked the pesto sauce so much he ate what was left with a spoon for dessert. My dad said it was "fine," ate a lot of corn, and even tried some of the pesto after he weaseled the name of the previously secret ingredient (tofu) out of my brother and me.

Roast Chicken
1 2-3 pound whole chicken

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Rinse the chicken, then dry it very well with paper towels, inside and out. Truss the chicken. (Click here for my instructional video on trussing a chicken.) Put the chicken in a casserole dish or roasting pan. Roast until it is done (20 minutes per pound) or until a meat thermometer inserted in meatiest part reads at least 185. There is no need to baste the chicken or do anything else with it while it is roasting.

When it is done, remove chicken from oven and add remaining rosemary to juices at bottom of pan. Spoon the juices over the top of the chicken and allow to sit for 15 minutes, continuing to spoon juices over it every so often.

Spinach Salad with Basil
1 bag baby spinach
1 1/2 large tomatoes, sliced or diced
1/2 large red onion, thinly sliced

Toss the ingredients together in a large salad bowl.

Creamy Pesto Sauce
2 cups fresh basil
2 tablespoons silken tofu (or yogurt or sour cream, if you eat dairy)
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
3 heads garlic
2/3 cup pine nuts (I prefer walnuts, but they don’t agree with my mom)
3 tablespoons olive oil

Combine all of the ingredients in a food processor until they are creamy. Drizzle on the salad and spread on the chicken.

Corn on the Cob
Remove husks and silk. Boil in salted water for 8-10 minutes until tender.

The Easy as Pie Challenge--Bring it!

As I'm building my database (just a few short months and you'll all be able to access it quickly and easily!!) I would love to know what it is everyone is looking for. What are the things you crave? What are your unique food requirements? What's your biggest challenge cooking for special dietary needs? Send me your food challenge and I'll do my best to send you a good recipe. Try it out and send me a review or picture and I'll post it here on my blog.

I already have a few challenges going. I'll be sharing the results in upcoming blog posts.

• Low-cholesterol Mexican food
• Kid-friendly recipes that don't contain gluten, sugar, dairy, or soy
• The grandmother of them all--a week's worth of recipes for a large crowd in town for my brother's wedding that fit my diet (no gluten, dairy, eggs, or sugar of any kind), my parents' low-carb lifestyle, and my dad's picky tastes. Good thing we can all eat lots of meat and vegetables and it's grilling season.

Contributions from foody bloggers

I met Nancy over at the Sensitive Pantry on Twitter. She has some great recipes on her blog, and has agreed to include variations of her Rice & Artichoke Salad recipe in my recipe database. I've cooked it a couple of times myself. It's a really easy recipe, it's great for parties and potlucks, and it has been a popular dish every time I've made it.

Do you know any bloggers whose recipes you'd like to make sure are available in the Easy as Pie database? Send me a URL, and I'll get in touch with them.

With a poached cherry on top

You can substitute whatever ice cream fits your diet. The topping is cane sugar free (and actually pretty good by itself, I must humbly admit)

1 cup port wine
1 sticks cinnamon
2 slices orange
2 cloves (optional)
1/2 cup dried cherries
1 pint vanilla ice cream
honey

Bring port, orange slices, cinnamon, and cloves to a boil in a medium sauce pan. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer 5 minutes. Remove spices. Add cherries, cover, and simmer 10 minutes. Pour over ice cream, drizzle with honey, and serve.

Another lovely photo by my friend Kellee.        

       

Beets me

My husband still claims not to be convinced of the superiority of organic produce (the real stuff, not the fakers that get by on technicalities). I've got to say, it's not always better, but the more widely available it gets, the bigger the difference seems to be between organic and other produce. He has got to be convinced after what I bought this evening, though. I mean, guess which bunch of beets was the $1.60 "normal" bunch and guess which is the $2 organic bunch. Hm. I'll take the healthy-looking leafy ones that will probably get me 3 side dishes instead of just 1, thank you very much.

Of course, if you're more of a beet aficionado than I am, maybe you could tell me that I have different types of beets and that's why they look so different. I bet not, though.

As a side note, I bought these to experiment with cooking beet greens, which I have heard are tasty but which I've never tried myself. I'll let you all know how they taste.

Stevia seeds have arrived!

They're so stinking tiny! (They're in the bag in the photo below. I included a spice jar for comparison.) I hope I don't lose them before I have a chance to plant them this weekend.

New logos!

The company doing my logo has come up with some new ones. They are better than the last round. Come check them out. If you would like to comment, please do so here on my blog and not in the comments box on the linked page. I kind of like 1 and 2.