Gluten-free Archives - Page 3 of 5 - Eat Simply, Eat Well

Spring in Rome and an Orange & Fennel Salad

March 21, 2016 by aplough

A recent trip to Italy has inspired me to cover my table in seasonal fruits and vegetables. Leaving a snow-covered Helsinki behind, we arrived in Rome to sunny-cloudy skies, early buds just emerging on trees, low levels of tourists (a huge win!) and pleasant temperatures that required only a light jacket and scarf for warmth while touring this beautiful city.

Rome is one giant museum, and best seen by walking around, so we were glad we’d packed great walking shoes. Everywhere you look, there are bits and pieces of ancient Rome, with layers brought in by all the subsequent generations, each looking to make their mark on the city they call(ed) home, while literally and figuratively building on the work and lives of the city’s previous residents. We visited the major sites: the Colesseum, Forum, Pantheon, Vatican, St. Peter’s Basilica. We stepped inside multiple churches to enjoy the intricate architecture, artwork, and in some delightfully surprising cases, groups of locals singing and enjoying their daily lives.

We wandered down winding side streets leading to courtyards and plazas and parks in the back streets of Rome.

We took selfies and panorama shots, alongside other tourists from around the world, in front of the fountain by the Spanish steps; from the rooftop of Castle d’Angelo, in front of ruins in the Jewish Ghetto, in the midst of headless statues inside the Forum. We sat overlooking the Tiber river, watching the world go by, enjoying the unscheduled days and the warmth of the Spring sunshine.

And we ate. We dined on the usual suspects of pizza and pasta…

…and the more surprising and enjoyable offerings on the menu: arugula salad topped with fennel and orange; local goat cheese and toasted hazelnuts on dark greens; zucchini, sundried tomato and pecorino souffle; Roman-style artichokes – Carciofi alla Romana; and became completely addicted to Brutti ma Buoni – the “ugly but delicious” cookies made from toasted hazelnuts – a completely irresistible chewy-crunchy (we went back to the same bakery 3 times).

We enjoyed gelato from Gelateria del Teatro – more than once. We consumed many, many oranges and blood oranges – too many to count.

We drank cappuccinos literally all over the city, soon discovering our favorite places for the first cup of the morning, the second cup an hour or so later, the place to go after lunch, the mid-afternoon pick-me-up. When in Rome… We drank coffee as the locals did: standing up at the coffee bar, knocking back a freshly pulled espresso shot, or sitting at the outside tables, enjoying a cappuccino while watching the world go by.

Here’s what we discovered while walking and eating our way through Rome for four days:

The local pasta and pizzas are great, but eat these daily and you’ll soon be craving vegetables – the pasta dishes tend to be very simple, for example the cacio e pepe made with cheese, butter or olive oil and black pepper over pasta – a delicious dish, but one screaming to be served with a side of vegetables or a salad. One trick is to ask for two plates and share the pasta dish, and then order several of the vegetables or salads along with it. Trust me, your gut, waistline and energy levels will thank you for this.

The most interesting dishes were found in from the list of appetizers, side dishes or salads. It is here that the local chefs are most adventurous, and where some of the best food in Rome. Sometimes, we ordered only side dishes – and these turned out to be our best meals.

Local markets let you see what’s in season. During our visit in early March, the markets were loaded with wild asparagus, broccoli rabe, and artichokes. So whenever we came across these items on the menu, we ordered up! Wise choice – they were always fresh and delicious. The broccoli rabe at Pizzeria del Francesco was steamed and then dressed with garlic toasted in olive oil and a generous douse of black pepper – a perfect predecessor to the crisp pecorino, wild asparagus white pizza, topped with a fresh egg and baked in the wood-fired oven.

When looking for good food, here are a few rules:
- Don’t rely only on the guide books – their recommendations will likely lead you to places overcrowded with tourists and dishes that are less than stellar. Instead ask a local in their late 20’s thru early 50’s where they eat. They are likely to give you the address of the trendier new restaurants cooking up Italian food with a modern twist.
- If the menus are in English only, skip it.
- If you’re looking for food after visiting a tourist attraction, follow the “rule of 3” shared with us by tour guide Chad: turn your back on the tourist site; walk 3 blocks in any direction and the food will be 3 times better and 3 times cheaper. It’s true.
- Don’t look for dinner before 7:00 PM. Expect to pay extra for bread, water, plus a service fee.
- You want a restaurant in which (most) of the guests are speaking Italian. If not, keep walking.
- The best food is found on the side streets in smallish restaurants.
- Use the local WiFi to check out “restaurants near here” on Google maps. You’ll get up-to-date comments from people like you about restaurants in the vicinity. We had really good luck with this, and found one of our favorite restaurants, dar sor Olimpio al Drago in Trastevere this way.
- Be adventurous. Try foods you’ve never heard of. Share dishes so you can enjoy more new flavors without stuffing yourself.

Pecorino, Zucchini & Sundried Tomato Souffle; Eggplant Involtini; Carciofi alla Romana; Tiramisu

To get you started, here are three of our favorite food stops from the trip:

dar sor Olimpio al Drago, Piazza del Drago 2 in Trastevere – Impeccable service in a charming restaurant, and where we found one of my favorite dishes of the trip: a souffle of pecorino cheese, zucchini and sundried tomato. Everything on the menu was excellent. Unusually for us – we ate here twice!
Gelateria del Teatro, Via dei Coronari, 65 – This is one place where the guide books get it right – truly the best gelato in Rome with authentic gelato flavors masterfully made in-house. Your only regret will be limited capacity as you’ll want to try every single flavor.
Baylon Cafe, Via di San Francesco a Ripa 152 in Trastevere – fresh juices and the best cappuccinos in the city. Also serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. Well-loved by the locals and has a wonderful staff and decor that made me smile. This place really felt like “home”.

In case it may be a while before you visit the Eternal City, here’s a refreshing Spring salad inspired by our trip. This simple combination makes the best of a few ingredients, so look for the best quality of each that you can find. This will be on our Easter table, reminding us of those delightful days in Rome, and promising that Spring is nearly here – even in Helsinki.

Orange, Fennel and Carrot Salad

1 head of Lollo Rosso lettuce, or dark greens of choice
1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced lengthwise, reserving 8 whole slices from the center.
1 orange, peel and outer pith cut away, cut into fourths and then into slices, reserving a few slices
1 carrot, peeled and cut into thin, short strips
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon high-quality balsamic vinegar

Wash the dark greens and spin dry. If large, cut into bite-sized pieces. Place the greens in a large bowl. Add the fennel and orange except for reserved slices, and the carrot pieces. Add salt, pepper, olive oil and vinegar. Toss well to coat vegetables with the dressing.

Divide the vegetable mixture between 2 plates for a main course and 4 plates for a side dish. Garnish with reserved fennel and orange slices. Serve immediately.

Serves 2 as a main course and 4 as a side dish.

Have you been to Rome? Share your favorite food stops and tips in the comments below! Dreaming of Rome? What would you love to see or eat there?

Creamy Parsnip Soup with Coconut Bacon (dairy- and gluten-free)

October 23, 2015 by aplough

I finally harvested the final crop from my garden: a load of giant, gorgeous, sweet, white parsnips. I’d read that parsnips increase in sweetness if they stay in the ground until after the first frost – which is when the starches turn to sugar, so I opted to let them hang out in the dirt long after I’d cleared out everything else. This was the first year I’d planted parsnips, so I wasn’t sure what to expect – half afraid that their 5 months in the ground would yield only a withered and disappointing harvest, the result of a less-than stellar summer.

Not to worry: these parsnips are beautiful!

Parsnip are an old and much forgotten vegetable, but I urge you: bring them back into your kitchen. When roasted with a little olive oil and salt, they caramelize into this soft-yet-crispy goodness that is completely addicting. When made into a soup, there is a smooth, earthy, and almost spicy element to them that is really hard to describe.

Parsnips are native to Europe and Central Asia, and were introduced to the US around the 17th century. They are related to carrots and parsley, and the flavor is slightly reminiscent of both, so those two flavors pair well with parsnips in any dish. Packed with natural sweetness, parsnips were used as a sweetener in cakes and baked goods before sugar cane became widely available.

They are good for you, too. They are full of vitamins and minerals in a nutritious package that helps to keep you healthy and prevent diseases: 100 grams of raw parsnips has:

fiber – 20% RDA
vitamin C – 28% RDA
manganese – 28% RDA
vitamin K – 28% RDA
folate – 17% RDA
potassium – 11% RDA
phosphorus – 7% RDA
vitamin E – 7% RDA

Sources: webmd.com; organicfacts.net

Right now parsnips are popping up in soups, purees, and roasted alongside the main courses in restaurants all over the Nordics and Baltics. When viewing the menu options for the upcoming Restaurant Week in Tallinn, Estonia, I saw parsnips everywhere. Join in on sampling the delicious flavor these vegetables provide, and take in the best of the season.

For this soup today, I opted to keep it vegan. So instead of adding cream to make it creamy, I used a special trick: oatmeal! It’s a little surprise that adds an extra dose of fiber and heart health to make the soup deeply satisfying. It’s the perfect thing for a cold, rainy, windy Autumn evening like this one.

Creamy Parsnip Soup with Coconut Bacon (gluten-free, dairy-free)

1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 small yellow onion, diced
650g / 1.5 pounds parsnips, washed, peeled and diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 cups water
1.5 cups cooked oatmeal, or 3/4 cup dry oatmeal +1.5 cups water, or 1.5 dl dry oatmeal + 3.5 dl water
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon chopped fresh or frozen parsley
salt & pepper to taste
Coconut Bacon for garnish

Heat coconut oil in a medium-sized pot over medium heat until it melts completely. Add the diced onion and cook 5-8 minutes until the onion is very soft. Add the parsnips and stir to coat; cook for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for an additional minute.

Add the water, cooked oatmeal (or oats plus additional water if using), thyme, bay leaves and parsley. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and allow to cook until the parsnips are really tender – about 20 minutes. Remove the bay leaves and puree the soup until smooth using and immersion blender, or in batches using an upright blender or food processor.

Add salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle each serving with Coconut Bacon for flavor and garnish.

Serves 4.

Gluten-free Whole Grain Sandwich Bread

October 2, 2015 by aplough

For the last 13 days, I’ve been on a dietary experiment – a detox, if you will. I decided to eliminate all caffeine (yep, no coffee), sugar (no fruit either), gluten and dairy from my diet. Yup. No sugar, coffee, gluten or dairy for at least 2 weeks. Why in the world would I do that, you might wonder?

Well, all of the above food groups are known to either be common allergens or to cause known health issues in people, and I wanted to know what it would feel like to go without for a while. It needed to be long enough to really feel the detox, so we started with 14 days, with the idea of extending it if it felt great (it does). I’d gone off coffee (my only source of caffeine) before, so I knew what I was in for there: the first day is miserable. If you’re going to do this, start on a Saturday morning and make zero plans to see anyone, anywhere. You’ll be feeling pretty antisocial. On day two, the fog begins to clear and you’re feeling halfway functional. By day three, you’re not 100%, but your back up and rolling, and if you’re not feeling like your normal self, you can at least act like it. So if day three is a Monday, you’ll at least be able to be civil to your colleagues and loved ones. By day four, you start to feel really great. Light. Refreshed. Sleeping better than ever. Clear-headed. It’s pretty amazing. You may never want to go back to the old you.

I didn’t have any experience with getting rid of dairy, sugar and gluten, though, so I wasn’t sure how I’d react. We’ve been free of white and other refined sugars for a while now, but have used other, natural sweeteners: dates, maple syrup and honey, mainly. We also ate a lot of fruit, and on this detox program the only fruits allowed would be berries and pomegranate seeds. Whole wheat sourdough bread has long been a mainstay of our diet; that had to go too. Dairy was something I consumed every day: yogurt in the morning; cream in my coffee; milk in my latte; kefir as an afternoon snack or in a smoothie. It turns out that detox from sugar, dairy and gluten has some of the same effects as a detox from coffee does. Anytime we remove a substance from our diets that our bodies have become dependent on, we suffer withdrawal symptoms. Of the foods we removed, coffee (or caffeine) and sugar or known to feel the most difficult. But we got through it, and so can you. And really – I’m not interested in adding either sugar or coffee back in very soon, because so far, I like where things are going. Is this a forever thing? Maybe not. But it’s the way we’re cooking and eating for now.

So we were talking major lifestyle change. How do you prepare for that? Here’s the good news: protein sources, vegetables, and gluten-free whole grains were still OK, so actually, we had a lot of fun coming up with new recipes trying different types of vegetables: pumpkin, eggplant, cabbage, tomatoes, red peppers, carrots, brassicas and more – the vegetable world has such an incredible array of delicious options, we’ll never run out of ideas. We’ve also included sustainable animal protein: mainly beef, chicken and fish. We don’t actually eat very much animal protein anymore, so we leaned more towards the occasional tofu dish and then consumed a lot of different, colorful beans like black beans, chickpeas, kidney beans and lentils. And of course gorgeous whole grains: buckwheat, brown rice, whole oat groats, quinoa, and amaranth. Our main courses were really satisfying, and you’ll see some of them showing up on the blog in the coming weeks.

Breakfast posed a bit of a problem: what do you eat when you’re used to have yogurt and muesli (sweetened with maple syrup)? The answer: sugar free coconut muesli with almond milk, rice milk, oat milk or cashew milk. Smoothies with protein powders, avocado, coconut milk, berries, and nuts or seeds have been so delicious. Or, we’d have an egg scramble with vegetables and on those days, we felt like we were on vacation. I stopped missing coffee by the end of the first week, incredibly.

What I missed most was fruit…and bread. Whenever I’d cook up a soup, I’d want bread to go with it. We had gluten-free crackers that I make all the time anyway, but that didn’t really fit the bill. I checked local shops for gluten-free breads, and all I could find were pre-packaged shelf varieties that were both expensive and unappealing.

But we live in age of digital information at your fingertips. I turned to one of my favorite blogs, Cannelle et Vanille, because I know all of her recipes are gluten-free. This led me to the Martha Stewart web site and a recipe for Gluten-free Sandwich Bread. Hope was on the horizon.

I made a few tweaks to the recipe, and the result is a bread that would make me happy whether I was allowing myself to eat gluten at the moment or not. It has the great texture you expect in a good sandwich bread, with a crunchy crust and a soft crumb, and satisfying heft. It’s great fresh or toasted, and goes with everything. I’m calling it a winner.

So if you or someone in your life can’t eat gluten, make this bread. You’ll be so glad you did.

Notes:

The original recipe called for tapioca flour which is hard to find in Finland, and expensive. I subbed in potato flour, but you could also use cornstarch (make sure it’s non-GMO).
The original recipe called for soy flour, but I’m not a big fan of using soy in everything, so I used millet flour instead. If you can’t find millet flour, you can use buckwheat flour or oat flour in it’s place
If you’d rather use dry yeast instead of fresh yeast, use one sachet of dry yeast, roughly 11g

With bread like this, I’m ready to continue my detox experiment for a few days longer, though next week, we’ll be adding fruit, with the exception of bananas, grapes and melons, back into our diet. Happy Days!

Gluten-free Sandwich Bread

adapted from MarthaStewart.com

1/2 cup millet
1/2 cup cold water
1 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup millet flour (could use buckwheat, quinoa or oat flour – or soy, if you use it)
1/2 cup Teff flour
1/2 cup potato flour
2 1/2 teaspoons xanthum gum
2 teaspoons salt
25 g fresh yeast or 1 sachet dried yeast (11g)
3 eggs
2 tablespoons good quality vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F. Grease a 1.5 liter / 8 1/2″x 4″ loaf pan and line the bottom with parchment paper

Combine the millet and 1/2 cup water in a small pan. Bring to a boil; remove from heat; allow to sit for 20 minutes
Combine the yeast and 1 cup warm water (45°C/115°F) in a small bowl and allow to sit for 5 minutes. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and oil together.
Combine the flours, xanthum gum and salt in a large bowl. Pour the yeast mixture and the egg mixture over the top of the flour mixtures and stir well to combine. Add the cooked millet, and continue to stir the mixture (or use your stand mixture with the paddle attachment) for an additional 3-5 minutes. The mixture will be like a thick, smooth muffin or cake batter. Use a spatula to scrape the mixture into your prepared loaf pan and smooth the top. Cover with a clean dish cloth and allow the bread to rise in a draft-free place for roughly 1 hour – until the dough has risen slightly above the top of the pan.
Place the bread into the hot oven, and immediately lower the temperature to 175°C/350°F. Bake for one hour, or until the bread is golden brown and makes a hollow sound when you tap on the top. Remove the bread from the pan, loosening the sides with a knife if necessary. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Makes 1 loaf.