The day after Thanksgiving I whipped  these up, and after two additional batches I’m finally putting a muffin down long enough to type this recipe out to share.

Before I cut gluten completely from my diet, I had that *one* go-to, never-fails-me muffin recipe. It had more than one grain, add ins were very easy, and for a muffin, it was decadent. My favorite thing about the recipe is that it uses pumpkin puree (apple butter works well, too). When I pulled it out of my archives last week, I hit a small hurdle — it never occurred to me that it was chock full of gluten. Thankfully, this amazingly versatile recipe was a breeze to make gluten free. And the crumb. The crumb! So tender.

What makes a muffin a breakfast muffin in my book? This one has cornmeal, steel cut oats, multi-grain flour, molasses and pumpin puree. Downright breakfastworthy. Nevermind the flecks of chocolate — for the freaky few who don’t want chocolate in their breakfast (say what?), you can easily leave it out without sacrificing flavor. Or better yet, sub it out with chopped nuts or dried fruit. The possibilities are truly endless.

Pumpkin multi-grain breakfast muffins
Makes 14-16 muffins
(or, in our house, 12 muffins + 2 heart-shaped Le Cruset ramekins)

{dry ingredients}
2 C AP/MG gluten free flour (see note)
1/3 C steel cut oats
1/2 C polenta or cornmeal (I prefer a coarser grind, so I use polenta)
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp fine grain sea salt

{wet ingredients}
1/2 C full fat coconut milk
1/2 C unsweetened almond milk (hemp or rice work, too)
1/4 C sunflower oil
1/2 C granulated, raw sugar
1/8 C (2 T) molasses (regular, not blackstrap)
1 C pumpkin purée
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

{optional but oh so worth it!}
1 small dark chocolate bar (1.5-1.75 oz), coarsely chopped
1 tsp orange zest – you’ll include this with the wet ingredients

Preparations: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare muffin trays with liners or a light coating of oil.

Sifting the dry ingredients: In a medium bowl, whisk together dry ingredients; set aside.

Mixing the wet ingredients: In a large bowl, combine all remaining ingredients, including orange zest and chocolate.

Final mix: Add the dry ingredients to the wet in two batches, and stir until all of the flour is absorbed. Fold in the chocolate and orange zest. The leaveners will begin working immediately, so don’t be surprised if your batter starts to aerate right before your eyes. It’s pretty cool, actually.

Bake your muffins: Portion the batter into muffin tray(s), 3/4 of the way full, and bake for 20 minutes, or until the edges are starting to brown and the center springs back when touched.  Allow to cool for five minutes before transferring muffins from their tray to a cooling rack.

Notes

• In a pinch, you could use a pre-blended all purpose gluten free flour (one that has starch added, but NOT xanthan gum). I keep Authentic Foods’ Bette’s Gourmet Featherlight Rice Flour Blend on hand for such Empty Pantry Baking Emergencies. You know what, though? Pre-blended AP GF flour mixes are expensive! Also, they aren’t usually multi-grain, something that this recipe — not to mention one’s health — benefits from.
• So, to make my own AP/MG GF flour, I measure out by weight two parts flour [quinoa, millet, sorghum, brown rice, red lentil, etc] + one part starch [potato, tapioca, or corn starch or a combination] into a giant, half gallon canning jar and shake it shake it shake it. And voila, your very own custom blended all purpose, multi-grain, gluten free flour!
• Sometimes I add teff flour to my flour mix, but not always — it makes whatever you’re baking turn out pretty dark. Just something to keep in mind if that’s one of the flours you consider tossing into your jar.

The original recipe that stole my heart can be found at Have Cake Will Travel

I have this problem of almost never buying avocados, and then when I do, of buying way too many of them. It usually takes forever and a day for them to ripen, and then all of a sudden – quick! use those avocados up before they turn!

Which leads to guacamole overload, and then so much time passes before I want to even look at an avocado again that by the time I do, I buy too many of them. Again.

The other morning, a very overpriced, organic, perfectly ripe avocado was sitting next to a bunch of somewhat overpriced, organic, very ripe Peruvian bananas. And all I could think was “I am not making guacamole for breakfast. And too bad I don’t have enough bananas to make muffins . . . “

Then it hit me – sub the avocado for the missing bananas.  They’re both tropical fruits, right?

It may sound weird, but trust me – these muffins are good. Add a chopped up dark chocolate bar and you’re in muffin heaven.

Avocado Banana Chocolate Chunk Muffins

makes approximately 15 regular or 40 mini muffins

{dry ingredients}
1 3/4 C all purpose gluten free flour mix (see note)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp fine grained sea salt

{slurry}
2 T chia or flax seeds, ground to a powder
3 T boiling water

{wet ingredients}
2 medium ripe bananas
1 medium or large ripe avocado
2/3 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup softened coconut oil, or sunflower or olive oil (plus extra if using to coat pan)

{very important final ingredient}
1 small dark chocolate bar (1.5-1.75 oz), coarsely chopped

Preparations: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare muffin tray(s) with liners or a light coating of oil.

Sifting the dry ingredients: In a medium bowl, whisk together dry ingredients.

Mashing the wet ingredients: In a large bowl, mash up wet ingredients: bananas + avocado (a potato masher works awesome for this), syrup, and oil.

Make the slurry: Put the ground chia or flax seeds into a small bowl, add the boiling water, and stir with a fork or small whisk.  Your slurry will thicken instantly.

Final mix: Add the slurry to the wet ingredients and stir to combine thoroughly.  Add the dry ingredients and stir just until all flour is absorbed. Take a taste!  That’s right, go on now.  No fear of salmonella happening on my watch.  Sweeten a bit more if necessary (we all have our own preferences).  And most importatly: fold in the chocolate.  (Yes, I’m aware that there is no chocolate in the photo below – I had to wrest it away from Nina.)

Bake your muffins: Portion the batter into muffin tray(s), 3/4 of the way full, and bake: 25 minutes for regular sized / 15 minutes for minis, or until the tops are starting to brown.

If you don’t have an avocado, use two more small or medium bananas and your muffins will look like this:

Notes

• For quick, no nonsense recipes like this that don’t use a lot of flour, I usually use Authentic Foods’ Bette’s Gourmet Featherlight Rice Flour Blend.  It’s my way of being lazy.
• When I’m out of the above-mentioned flour, I use two parts gluten free flour [quinoa, millet, sorghum, white or brown rice flour or a combination] + one part starch [potato, tapioca, or corn starch or a combination] to equal whatever amount of gluten free flour a recipe calls for.
• So basically, a 2:1 ratio of flour to starch.  For muffins, there is no need to sweat the particulars, although I do have best results when I use at least two different flours.
• If you prefer using xanthan gum, omit the chia slurry and use ½ tsp xanthan gum, which you would sift into the dry ingredients.

I pulled up my tomato plants last weekend, amended the soil and will let it rest for a few weeks before I lay a comforter compost bed for the winter. While walking my tomato rows one last time, I made a little end of summer harvest.

You could just as easily make these recipes with a bag of grape tomatoes from the market, a comparable amount to what I used here. But I think the magic in these dishes – that je ne sais quoi – comes from using fruit you know on an intimate level. Intimate, you ask?  Nursing tender vines through an unexpected late spring frost, dressing each plant with compost I customized to get the ph just so, watering each individual plant daily through a prolonged drought, stripping blemished leaves and stems by hand in hopes it wouldn’t spread to the other plants – yes, these are tomatoes that I knew intimately.

All of the energy and care I put into these plants was returned to me tenfold in this last little harvest. With a mug of soup in hand I bid summer a hearty farewell. Salud!

The soup and sauce recipes start with roasting the tomatoes, which takes about 20 minutes. After that, you can pull the rest of either recipe together in another 15. If you’re a fan of roasted tomatoes, though, you can also just toss them as-is with spaghetti and basil, fold them into a salad, plate them up with some olives and marinated artichoke hearts . . . or pluck them straight from the still-warm pot.

Simple Roasted Tomatoes
Serves 2

This is a very informal recipe, the perfect way to use up a few handfuls of smaller tomatoes, or three or four big ones. You’ll need enough tomatoes so that when they’re halved or quartered, they fit snugly in a single layer on the bottom of a Dutch oven or large soup pot. The tomatoes I used were golf ball-sized, and once halved I only needed 25 of them for this recipe.

Move one of your racks to the center position and preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Drizzle a few drops of sunflower oil (or something with a similarly high smoking point) in the bottom of your pan and start arranging your tomatoes, cut sides up. Sprinkle about a tablespoon of brown sugar over them – this will help them caramelize while they roast. Throw in a few peeled cloves of garlic if you’re into that sort of thing, maybe a quartered sweet onion, and pop the whole thing into the oven.

Check in on your pot after 20 minutes – the juices will have darkened on the bottom and your tomatoes will look a bit shriveled.  If they need to cook a bit longer, check on them every 5 minutes until they’re done.

If you’re going to use the roasted tomatoes straight from the pan, be sure to scrape up the caramelized juices with a spatula, and season with salt and pepper to taste. If you’re going to use the tomatoes in one of the following recipes, move the pan from the oven straight to a burner.

Roasted Tomato Soup
Serves 2

Move your pan of roasted tomatoes from the oven to a burner over low heat. Add enough water or broth to cover by two inches. Using a silicone or wooden spatula, carefully scrape the caramelized juices from the bottom of the pan and stir to incorporate. Bring to a gentle simmer for five minutes, then turn off the heat. Use an immersion blender to puree right in the pot, or puree in batches in a standard blender until nice and creamy. If you use an immersion blender, there will be little flecks of tomato skin in your soup. If this bothers you, then either strain them out with a mesh sieve, or use a standard blender.

Return to the pot and season to taste with salt, pepper, a pinch of smoked paprika, perhaps another pinch of brown sugar. Thin the soup to your liking with additional water or broth.

If you have a well-traveled WBEZ “Worldview” mug that your significant other has patiently glued back together for you two or three times (and counting), this soup would be a great excuse to stop worrying about breaking it – again – and get it back into giant-mug-of-soup active duty.

Ridiculously Healthy Roasted Tomato Sauce That (almost) Every Kid Loves
Enough to dress one pound of pasta

While your tomatoes are roasting, very thinly slice some vegetables for the sauce. I use the following:

1 medium sweet potato or 3 carrots
2 stalks celery
½ sweet yellow onion
1 large handful shitake, cremini or white button mushrooms
1 sweet bell pepper

Pasta in your child’s (or picky-eating spouse’s) favorite shape
Any add-ins that they may like (my daughter insists on adding frozen peas and vegan meatballs to everything these days)

You’ll also want 1 ½ cups cooked (or 1 can) lentils
Whatever else you like to season your red sauce with: balsamic vinegar, a bit of brown sugar, herbs, salt and white pepper

Move your pan of roasted tomatoes from the oven to a burner over low heat. Add the sliced vegetables and sauté over medium heat until the sliced vegetables are softened, about 7-10 minutes. Stir frequently to scrape the caramelized tomato juice off the bottom of the pan and to keep everything else from sticking. Add your cooked lentils and enough water so that you can blend the sauce – it will be thick and creamy; thin to desired consistency with water or broth and season to taste.

Turn off the heat, cover the pot and allow the flavors to meld while you boil your pasta. As soon as your pasta is finished cooking, plate it up in your kid’s favorite bowl, toss with just enough sauce to coat thoroughly – but not be too saucy! – and serve.

She has no idea why this sauce tastes so good, but I had to stop her for getting a third serving.  Perhaps the unthinkably overpriced fancy pants gluten free pasta of a zillion super cool shapes had something to do with it, but I’d wager it has more to do with the roasted tomatoes.

Sherbet is just sorbet with added fat.  It smooths out the granular texture that characterizes sorbet/granita/Italian ice, but isn’t as rich or heavy as ice cream.  In this recipe I used coconut cream, but you could easily use a rich non-dairy milk (e.g. coconut or almond); just double the amount.

Watermelon Sherbet

4 Cups cubed watermelon (half of a basketball-sized watermelon yields ~4 cups)
2-4 Tablespoons agave nectar or 1/3 Cup simple syrup (1/4 cup sugar dissolved in 1/4 cup water)
Juice of 1 lime
1/2 Cup coconut cream or 1 Cup alt milk or creamer (not rice milk, it’s too thin)

Combine all of the ingredients in your blender and process until smooth.

Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.  In 30 minutes or so you will have delicious sherbet.  Transfer whatever you don’t eat right away to single serving-sized containers and freeze.

For Mikey, Jennie, and their two precious girls. I’m a firm believer that food heals mind, body and spirit, and I hope all of the pies being made in Mikey’s honor bring you some peace.

For my Mario and Nina. I’m always showing you my love through food, but rarely say it with actual words. So if you thought something was a bit wonky last night when I served up this pie with a thousand uncharacteristic I Love You’s, you’re not crazy.

{raw} Icebox Peanut Butter Cream Pie

This pie is in three stages so that it each layer has time to set up, but it’s really quite easy to make. I used coconut oil in the crust, which does give the pie a noticeable coconut flavor. If you like this sort of thing, it isn’t overwhelming and complements the peanut butter and chocolate well. If you aren’t a coconut fan, you could just as easily use melted shortening or butter; just keep in mind that the pie would no longer be raw. I suppose you could also use a cold-pressed nut oil, which would keep it raw. I used banana in both the peanut butter and chocolate layers, with very little noticeable taste. If you wanted to sub half of an avocado in place of the banana in the chocolate layer, that should be fine. I’m not too sure how that would work in the peanut butter layer, though. And of course, if you have nut allergies and cannot use almond meal in the crust or peanut butter in the filling, there are myriad flour and seed butter options available. But you already knew that, I’m sure!

Crust:
1 ¾ Cups almond meal
¼ Cup melted coconut oil
2 Tablespoons agave nectar

Peanut Butter Filling:
½ Cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky, your preference)
¼ Cup alt milk (coconut cream works well, if you don’t mind the additional coconut flavor)
1 small banana
Large pinch of salt
(optional) sweeten with agave to taste

Chocolate Top Layer:
1 small banana or ½ of an avocado
½ Cup alt milk
6 Tablespoons raw cacao powder
Small pinch of salt
(optional) sweeten with agave to taste

Mix the crust ingredients together, they should have the texture of wet sand. Press into a nine-inch pie tart and chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes while you prepare the peanut butter filling.

Blend or whip together the ingredients for the peanut butter filling. Pour into crust, and return to the refrigerator or freezer for an hour to set up before adding the top layer.

Blend all of the ingredients for the chocolate layer together until smooth. Pour over the peanut butter layer, and return to the freezer until the pie is set, another hour or so.

Grab some forks and share with your loved ones, preferably straight out of the pan before it melts.

Many people have been making pies in honor of Mikey, Jennie and their girls. The FN Dish has been keeping track and has a comprehensive list here.

If you do make a pie, and you’re on Twitter, the hashtag is #apieformikey. If you tag your post with that, Jennie will able to find them all someday.

Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out how to get the title of this recipe to reflect that it’s really (yet another) vehicle for using up alt milk pulp. And a very specific pulp – one that has both nuts and oats. So, for those of you reading this who may decide to move on because you don’t have the pulp on hand, I’m sorry. Your loss! You see, this recipe is so good that it’s worth making the oat-nut alt milk, just so you can use the pulp in this recipe. Yes, it’s that good. (The milk recipe tastes like horchata, which is a nice bonus, too.)

Double oats: ground oats in the pulp + rolled oats in the main layer. Double fruit: a bottom layer of banana + two more layers of some sort of berry. The denseness of the oats and pulp, combined with rich coconut milk give this dish a bread pudding texture. I think. I’ve never actually had bread pudding, but this is how I imagine the texture would be. Rich, moist, more creamy than spongy but with a definite bread-like mouth feel. And that’s just the middle layer. A bottom layer of creamy banana slices, topped with bursting berries, and topped with more berries and a caramelized sugar crust . . . who wants to come over for brunch?

Fruit and Oat Breakfast Strata

coconut oil for the pan
1 batch oat-nut-hemp alt milk pulp
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
2-3 ripe bananas, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 – 2 cups berries of choice
1 1/2 cups coconut milk (light or full fat both work; I prefer the full)
3-4 tablespoons turbinado sugar or brown sugar

Adjust oven rack to the center position and preheat oven to 375 degrees. Generously grease a casserole-sized (8″ square or 9 x 7) dish with coconut oil.

In a large bowl, combine the alt milk pulp and rolled oats, taking care that they are very thoroughly mixed. The texture will resemble damp bread.

Arrange the banana slices in a single layer on the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle half of the berries over the bananas, and then top with the rolled oats-pulp mixture. Next, pour the coconut milk evenly over the whole thing. The oats will soak it right up, but don’t worry if you missed a spot. The coconut milk and berry juice will co-mingle while the strata bakes. Layer the remaining berries over the top, and then sprinkle evenly with sugar.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until everything is bubbly and the top is just starting to brown. Turn the broiler on for just a minute or two to melt the sugar, forming a crisp, caramelized crust. Allow to set for at least ten minutes before serving.

Serve with agave or maple syrup for those who prefer their oats sweeter. Tastes amazing both hot or cold.

Adapted from Super Natural Every Day

One of my farm-sitting duties this week is to get any and all ripe raspberries off the bushes before they start to spoil. A couple of nights ago I thought I might spend, oh, fifteen minutes or so plucking a handful of berries. I should have known better! I spent over an hour picking non-stop. Two huge overflowing buckets later, I headed home to make some jam.

Something to note about fresh berries, especially strawberries and raspberries – once picked, you need to eat or preserve them inside of 48 hours, tops. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you can extend their life off the vine by shoving them in the refrigerator. Your only options are to eat them or preserve them.

I didn’t feel like water bath canning such a small batch, my freezer was full, I didn’t want to pickle the raspberries, and soaking them in spirits was out because Little Chew is going to be eating these almost as fast as I can preserve them. As always, Pam Corbin’s River Cottage Preserves Handbook had several recipes for me to choose from, including an award-winning fridge jam* recipe of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s.

The only time-consuming part of this recipe is lightly cleaning your berries before you start making the jam. Once they’re in the pot, they’ll be in jars in less than half an hour.

Raspberry Fridge Jam
Yields approximately 40 oz

1 ½ pounds raspberries
1 ½ cups sugar
¾ – 1 teaspoon powdered pectin

Sterilized jars and lids

With a soft, damp cloth, lightly wipe your berries and inspect them for any sign of spoilage or hitchhikers. As you clean them, put half into your pan and the other half into a separate bowl.

Using a potato masher, coarsely mash the berries you put into the pan. Add the remaining whole berries, sugar and powdered pectin. Stir to combine and put the pan on med-high heat. As soon as the berry mixture comes to a boil, set your timer and boil them for exactly five minutes. When five minutes has passed, remove the pan from the heat, stir in any foam, and let cool for another five minutes.

Quickly pour your jam into the sterilized jars and cap right away. Allow to cool before labeling. Once opened, refrigerate.

Note: According to this recipe (and similar recipes I’ve read elsewhere) these jars should keep for up to one year if stored in a cool, dark place. However, whenever preserving something by a method other than a water bath or pressure canner, use your best judgment. Personally, if I make something like fridge jam it goes straight into the fridge; we tend to finish it off in just a couple of weeks. If I make an especially large batch, I gift the jars right away to friends and family and let them know that it was not prepared in a water bath and should be eaten sooner than later.

Adapted from The River Cottage Preserves Handbook

*Fridge jam is another name for a conserve. It is basically a loose-set jam – almost a sauce – that uses less sugar than traditional preserves. Also, the flavor of the fruit is more pronounced than in a traditional jam.

Turns out BC and I are the ones who need the lesson, not Little Chew.  I mean, how easy is it to boil a pot of pasta or turn on the rice cooker or make a sandwich when life gets hectic?  A little bit too easy, most of the time.

Enter my latest food eureka moment: a basic pilaf that blends rice with millet and quinoa.  Still recognizable to LC with the rice, but supplemented with additional protein, minerals, B vitamins, and amino acids from the millet and quinoa.  Also, the millet makes it really pretty.

See?

The millet and quinoa give this pilaf a nice, fluffy texture.  It doesn’t dry out as much when refrigerated as rice does on its own, and it tastes really good.  It works well in soups, impromptu clean-the-crisper stir fries, in place of cous cous, and all by itself with a bit of coarse salt and pepper.

Millet, Quinoa and Rice Pilaf

1 cup long grain rice
1/2 cup millet (or amaranth)
1/2 cup quinoa
4 1/2 cups water or broth

Prepare as you would plain long grain rice.  It cooks well in a pot, and even better in a rice cooker.

Pie.  Tart.  It all lies in the eye of the beholder – and the depth of the outer crust.  Big Chew and I happily debated which camp this dessert falls into while devouring it piece…by piece…by piece.  Oh, the things we do in the name of science!  (And out of nostalgia for Twin Peaks.)

Why is this piece of pie glowing?  Magic.

No, it doesn’t contain fairy dust or a unicorn horn; it’s raw.  Raw!!  The magic is all in the phytonutrients preserved by using fresh, unheated fruit; in the lauric acid from the coconut oil; in the isoflavones and antioxidants from the kudzu; and in the protein and fiber provided by the coconut and sweet sorghum flours.

Also, do not ever underestimate the magic of not needing to turn on your stove or oven during a heat wave in the South.

First order of business: the crust.  I tweaked it ever so slightly from the newest raw chef on the block, Ms. Rebhal.  In part because I didn’t have enough coconut flour already ground and ready for use, but mostly because I’m currently in the throes of a love affair with sweet sorghum flour (as well as teff and millet – shhh, don’t tell my other flours!).

For the filling, all I had to do was look over at the gigantic overflowing bowl of cherries we’d just picked to know what was going into it.  Dwarfed in size but no less delicious was a container of strawberries I somehow managed to hide from Little Chew, so some of those went in for good measure.  And since we live in the land of invasive kudzu, I thought it was appropriate to use kudzu starch as my thickener.  It also happens to give fillings (and sauces, etc) a nice sheen.  Probably not such a good thing for gravy, but for pie filling?  Yes, please.

Raw Cherry Pie

Crust:
2/3 cup coconut flour
1/3 cup sweet sorghum flour
1/2 cup alt milk, preferably unsweetened
1/3 cup coconut oil, softened, plus more for greasing the pan
1/4 cup agave nectar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

Filling:
1 1/2 cups pitted cherries (do not drain!)
1/2 cup strawberries, hulled and quartered
2 scant tablespoons kudzu starch*
1/4 cup cold filtered water
optional: agave, sweeten to taste

If you could see how deep this pan is, you would most definitely agree that this is a pie.

Lightly grease your pie or tart pan (standard size for a round pie, or 8″ square) and set aside.  Combine all of the crust ingredients in a large bowl and stir vigorously until completely mixed.  The dough will resemble wet sand.  If you need to soften your coconut oil, do so using a warm water bath or double boiler method.  Do not place the oil over direct heat.  Turn the dough out into your pan and pat it into place.  Transfer the pan to your refrigerator while you prepare the filling.

Combine the cherries and strawberries in a small bowl and set aside.  In a small cup, combine the kudzu and water and stir to make a slurry.  In a small saucepan, slowly heat the slurry until it begins to thicken.  If you are keeping this recipe 100% raw, use your sense of touch to ensure the slurry remains lukewarm (or use a candy thermometer to keep it just under 115 degrees F).  It will take 10-15 minutes to start to thicken.  If you aren’t opposed to heating the starch briefly, then raise the temperature until the slurry is not quite at a simmer – it will thicken almost instantly.  Allow the slurry to cool to room temperature, then combine with the fruit.  Transfer the bowl to the refrigerator for at least a couple of hours and it will thicken nicely.

After a 2+ hours have passed, pour the pie filling into the crust.  Continue to refrigerate for at least another hour before serving.  This is best if eaten within 48 hours; after that, the filling will begin to seep into the crust.

This cherry pie is a miracle. – Log Lady

*An interesting overview about kudzu can be found here

This recipe was also posted at Cybele Pascal’s Allergy Friendly Friday roundup post on 03 June 2011. Check out the other great entries here!