Shop Rite was having a sale on fennel (2 for $5) and California pomegranates (2 for $3) this week. It must be the season for them! I’m no expert at picking pomegranates but they were sweet and juicy! This makes a delicious, refreshing salad made easier with some store bought dressing. Or you can make your own. For this recipe, I used Brianna’s blush wine vinaigrette which is more sweet and less vinegar forward than most dressings and it’s such a lovely pink color!
I found this recipe online for a copycat homemade version of Panera’s broccoli cheddar soup. I pretty much followed the ingredients list except for rice flour to make it gluten free and using Trader Joe’s caramelized onion cheddar on hand. There’s already onion here so the TJ cheese didn’t alter the flavor too obviously and the rice flour made the soup more translucent than all purpose flour. The recipe turned out pretty good especially on a blustery fall day. Now all I need is a bread bowl or crust baguette….
Oh my Benadryl! I just had to make this pork roast. Shoprite had a special $0.99/lb. This whole thing was cheaper than a ribeye steak and just as fatty if not more so! You can feed so many people with this affordable cut of meat and it’s just so satisfying to crack into the crispy crispy shell! See my old post for my recipe. Adjust cooking time according to overall weight.
This beast was over 11 pounds so I ended up cooking it for over 6 hours. I recommend letting it rest for 20-30 minutes so it gives time for the skin to set up and the juices don’t all come out when you cut into it.
I used this recipe from Spend with Pennies. I bought a 5 pound bag of carrots and have to use it up. Although you can make 2 cups of shredded carrots from 1 large carrot so this recipe didn’t use that many. I pretty much followed it except for swapping out brown sugar for white and King Arthur’s measure for measure gluten free flour and left out the salt. I filled the wells to almost full just because gluten free flour, I was expecting it to sink back down. Surprisingly, these came out very puffy and light and didn’t collapse back down after baking.
Overall, I think if I didn’t make any modifications, this recipe would have been very good. They weren’t too sweet. Even with my modifications, I was very happy with their soft texture, but there was a bit of grit. Because I used the alternate flour, I probably had to mix it more or perhaps add a little more liquid. I didn’t notice any grittiness when I made the blueberry muffins swap which calls for adding milk. I also had barely any flavor left to my ground cinnamon (which is a Costco sized bottle years past it’s expiration date) so I would probably have added an extra teaspoon of cinnamon to it.
The only major disappointment I had was in the oil I used. It just stuck out as an awful flavor. I used soybean oil since it said not to use a flavored oil like olive oil. However, maybe my oil went rancid though the bottle said it was supposed to be good until November of this year. I should have tossed it out when I smelled it. This didn’t go away when I baked it. Why does carrot cake use oil? Is it supposed to be healthier? Could I have just used melted butter?
I will keep this recipe to try again. Maybe with some cardamom or cloves and some vanilla?
It’s the middle of winter, and you just bought some fresh blueberries for your breakfast. Who doesn’t like fresh fruit? After taking a bite, you discover why unseasonal fruit is unseasonal. They are subpar in sweetness, borderline sour, and their mushy texture renders them unpalatable… What do you with the 18 ounce container? Waste not, want not! Why not make some muffins?? They will cook down so you won’t know what texture they were to begin with. Add more sugar to adjust for any overly sour berries. Win-win!
Here is a link to the original recipe post from July 2020. This time I used King Arthur Company’s 1 for 1 all purpose gluten-free flour. A benefit of their mix is that they added some vitamins which are lacking in a DIY gluten free flour all purpose mix.
I kind of over baked them by 10 minutes in this batch, a bit dark but still edible!
Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone! 2020 has been a very tough year so far, but it’s made it more meaningful to find the things we are thankful for. There’s always something to be thankful. Many blessings to each and everyone of you!
Made my recipe for gluten free pecan tassies. Trying out King Arthur’s 1-1 gluten free all purpose flour. I forgot to add sugar and salt to the dough! And used 2 teaspoons of cognac instead of bourbon and vanilla. Hope it’s good anyway.
One of the methods I prefer to cook salmon is an almost baked/steamed method where the salmon is enclosed in parchment (“en papillote”) and a liquid and other vegetables are added and then the parcel is closed and baked int the oven. The salmon is essentially steamed and you get a tender moist fish. On the other hand, this method is a milder way of cooking that you don’t get the maillard/browning reaction. This is an alternative method, where you cover the Pyrex dish with some aluminum foil to trap the steam inside and cooks the fish in a similar way.
This recipe is pretty close to other recipes I’ve tried before except for one additional step. It makes a big difference. The cabbage and carrots are salted for 3-4 hours and the liquid is squeezed out before the sauce is mixed together. The additional step didn’t add that much more work so I was curious to try it and see how things would taste. Interestingly, this technique is similar to Asian recipes such as kimchi or Japanese pickled cucumbers, where the vegetables are presalted and liquid squeezed out.
Overall, the vinegar flavor is quite intense and doesn’t get diluted by water coming out of the cabbage because that’s been removed. I can understand why the author insisted on using good vinegar. I used rice wine vinegar. Next time, I would taste the dressing before mixing it. So add more more mayo or sugar to your taste at this point. I added 1/4 small onion grated finely to the dressing because my family likes onion.
Chez Louise: A Cooking and Baking Blog 