Winter Veggie Cobbler (gluten-free)

Gluten-free friends, rejoice! A gluten-free recipe that actually browns beautifully. Okay, so it's not really that exciting for most people, but if you're used to eating GF, then you're also used to things that are slow to brown, or which don't brown at all -- which for bread recipes, can be rather frustrating.

I've had a version of this recipe on my fridge for a while, courtesy of a food co-op, but hadn't gotten around to trying it. I didn't have what I needed. Or I didn't have the time. Or I didn't have the creative energies for making it. Or...well, there were lots of excuses. And that's the thing. There are always excuses about why we should make something simple, or even why we should just go grab food to go, or have it delivered. 

I finally did make it when I had a lazy weekend, and E and I were going to go swimming in the evening after she got off work. I wanted something that would be pretty much ready for us when we got home -- and this can certainly be easily prepared up to a point and then left in the oven for an hour or so and quickly rewarmed, which is exactly what we did. That's nice, really nice, because let's face it, most of us are pretty busy. That being said, this recipe does take a fair amount of prep time before it actually goes in the oven, but it's pretty low-key prep. Chopping, sauteeing, stirring the topping mix. 

Chopped Turnip and Celery Root

I used the winter veggies I had on hand. The original recipe, for instance, called for parsnip (not turnip), among other things, and I suspect the recipe would be fairly forgiving in general of changes. My word of caution with that would be to use caution when thinking about how much you want to include of strongly flavored veggies, such as turnip.

It was a lovely dish to come home to on a day off that had been filled with wandering around town in the pale sunshine of late December. If you're vegan, I imagine this would be pretty easy to convert to a vegan recipe using a vegan margarine or shortening in place of the butter and coconut milk (or another non-dairy milk of your choice) in place of the whole milk in the dumplings. In this case, I'd probably add some lemon juice to create a vegan buttermilk and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda . 

Because this used red wine, and because we were feeling cozy, E and I mulled wine to go with this dish. Just a suggestion, but it was pretty fantastic.

Winter Veggie Cobbler

Topping

1 cup brown rice flour

1/2 cup white rice flour

1/2 cup tapioca flour

1 teaspoon guar gum

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons unsalted butter cut into small cubes

1 ½ cups whole milk or half butter milk and milk

2 tablespoons mixed fresh herbs like thyme, marjoram or parsley, finely chopped (I used about a teaspoon dried instead and it worked fine. Who has this many fresh herbs in winter?)

Veggies

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 large yellow onion , chopped

4 large carrots cut into ½ inch rounds then quarters

1 medium size celery root peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces

1 medium turnip peeled and cut into ½ inch rounds

1/2 medium size sweet potato cut into 1 inch dice

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup dry red wine

3 tablespoons tomato paste

2 ½ cups veggie stock or water

2 tablespoons fresh herbs like thyme, marjoram or parsley chopped fine (again, I used dried herbs)

1 teaspoon sea salt

Black Pepper

 Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Make topping first and let rest in the fridge while you make the veggie filling.

Topping: Sift the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Cut in the cold butter until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Add herbs and the milk. Mix very lightly with a spoon until the batter just holds together (it comes out pretty liquidy, so make sure all the lumps are gone). Let rest in the fridge until you make the veggie filling.

Filling: Heat half of the butter and half of the oil in a large sauté skillet. Add the onion, stir for a minute, then all the carrot, celery root, and sweet potato. Brown well on several sides. In the last 3 minutes of cooking, add the minced garlic. Transfer veggies to a 9x13 baking pan.

Return skillet to high heat and add the tomato paste, toasting until fragrant. Add the wine and veggie stock. Bring to a boil, scraping up all the browned bits in the skillet. Simmer at a lowered heat for a few minutes.

Pour the liquid into the baking pan. Sprinkle with the herbs, sea salt and pepper.

Use a spoon to dot the surface of the vegetables with golf-ball sized dollops of the topping.

Just after removing the foil to bake longer

Cover baking pan with foil and bake 25 minutes at 400 degrees. Remove foil, return dish to the oven and bake uncovered until the topping is browned, about 25 minutes. Serve warm.

Beautifully browned veggie casserole

Ambercup Squash with Forbidden Rice and Cranberries

When my local growers market was still running, I bought several varieties of squash I hadn't tried before, or had only tried once or twice. I've been slowly working through the pile and recently tried my ambercup squash. I hadn't tried this type before because in my grocery stores past, it was always just in a pile of winter squash with no flavor profile descriptors to be seen. Fortunately my growers market did a much better job with describing it -- though for the life of me, I can't remember what the sign near the bin of these squash said.

Forbidden Rice

I wanted to bake my squash and stuff it and so I looked at my ingredients and saw I had some forbidden rice (a black rice) I'd purchased from my co-op around the same time I bought the squashes. I decided to boil it up, adding split red lentils and some flavorings, and then stuff the rice mixture into the baked squash.

This recipe was nice, because of the small size of the ambercup squashes I used. I could cut them in half and stick two halves in my toaster oven (I could have also used my regular oven, but I didn't actually need to make all the filled squash right away), start the rice, and take the dog on a run -- and do all this after work. After 30 minutes, the squash was quite tender, the rice was ready for lentils and cranberries, and I only had a little bit longer to wait for dinner.

I made the conscious decision to make this recipe vegan, because I know at the beginning of the year, a lot of people make promises to themselves about the eating habits they will adopt in the coming year. My regular readers know I play with vegan recipes regularly, but if you're new to the blog this is a great recipe to start with -- it's savory, filling, and doesn't use (too many) bizarre ingredients. If you don't have access to forbidden rice, you could certainly use a short grain brown rice in a very similar way. Nutritional yeast, which provides a lovely cheese-y flavor without cheese, is available at most major grocery stores now -- but certainly in the bulk section of stores that focus on whole food approaches to eating and online. And this filling could go in a number of different winter squashes, be eaten on top of salad, or (in the summer, though you might have to sub out the cranberries unless you're like me and stock up on cranberries while you can or happen to live in a place that keeps them in the freezer section of the grocery store year-round) stuffed in a large tomato.

Without Sunflower Seeds

You can use fewer cranberries, but I really like cranberries and try to eat as many as I can while the season permits, hence the wide range. They'll definitely add a tart flavor to your dish if you use way too many, but I liked the lightly tart taste they provided for this meal.

After all the hyper-indulgent food from the past month, this dish is a welcome respite, and full of flavors that still match the season without being the flavors of the season.

Roasted Ambercup Squash with Forbidden Rice and Fresh Cranberries
2 small/medium ambercup squash, cut in half with seeds removed
2/3 cup forbidden rice
2 cups water
1/4 cup split red lentils
1/2-1 cup fresh (frozen) cranberries (to taste)
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon fines herbes
1/4 teaspoon salt
2-4 tablespoons nutritional yeast (to taste)
Shelled sunflower seeds, optional

Bake the squash, cut side down in a baking dish covered with a thin layer of water, for 30 minutes at 350 degrees then remove and allow to cool.

Meanwhile, combine rice and water in a small saucepan over high heat. When it boils, turn the heat to low and cover the pot. Cook 30 minutes.

After the rice has cooked for 30 minutes, increase the heat, remove the lid, and stir in the lentils, cranberries, and red pepper flakes. Cook 10 minutes and then stir in the fines herbes, salt, and nutritional yeast. Cook another 5-7 minutes to allow flavors to combine (add a small amount more water if the mixture begins to stick to the bottom of your pan -- you want it dry, but not so dry that it sticks).

Rice, lentils, cranberries, pepper flakes

Spoon the rice mixture into hollow part of the squashes and sprinkle the top with sunflower seeds, if desired.
(I like that they add a bit of extra crunch) Use salted and roasted, or raw, depending on your personal preference. Serve warm as a side dish, or a main meal.

Chocolate Roasted Potato Cake

E and I recently hosted a double-birthday/holiday potluck. My friend whose birthday was approaching said she wanted something "chocolate," when I asked her what I could bake her -- not terribly helpful, but she's also super laid back, so I wasn't too concerned either.

I, however, don't like chocolate cake and even though I wasn't planning to eat any of it (even if I'd made it gluten-free, using my standby chocolate gluten-free cake recipe), I wanted to at least try to make something that wouldn't, well, be dry and tasteless. And, I told myself, I'm not on a budget that really lets me try multiple variations of things. So, whatever I did with a chocolate cake, I needed to make sure that it was something that I wouldn't mess up--or that I'd have alternate ingredients for if I did mess it up.

E suggested the brownies I posted in November. Doable, definitely. Even if I messed up the cake. But, this was an opportunity to try making something new and how could I pass that up? In recent weeks, I've felt barely able to write--or even think about writing--much less do anything more than put rather routine (for me) food in my mouth. I haven't wanted to be creative. My friend's birthday though, seemed like a good opportunity to spark some of that kitchen-creativity again. So, I thought: chocolate. And I thought: birthday. To me, this surely equals some sort of cake.

I remembered my friend Kim, a talented writer and generally wonderful person, had a potato party while I lived in the Midwest. She'd bid on a bushel of potatoes during an auction and won--and wanted help eating them all. One of the things she made: chocolate potato cake. And, I remembered seeing recipes for potato cakes (and sauerkraut cakes) in my parents' German cookbook.

I remember trying Kim's chocolate potato cake--before I went GF--and thinking that it was surprisingly good--and delightfully moist. And this, I decided, was what I wanted to make. But, most of the recipes I looked at called for unseasoned mashed potatoes. I understood that, to some extent. The process of creating mashed potatoes necessarily creates a little additional moistness. But I know how to make things more moist. I wanted to subtly up the flavor a little. I'm in favor of roasting things--especially in the winter, when I can also use it to warm up the house (though I pan roasted the potato for this, so not applicable). And because I didn't have enough potato for any of the recipes I looked at, I added a couple of carrots to the roasting process. I always have carrots on hand.

I also thought about making this cake into a Mexican chocolate cake, with cayenne and cinnamon. But I couldn't bring myself to do that either--at least not to the whole cake. It can surprise come as a surprise if you're not expecting all those extra flavors in your cake.

Chocolate Roasted Potato Cake

1 cup unseasoned mashed potato/carrot mixture (for me, this was one medium potato and two large carrots all finely diced which I pan-roasted for about 45 minutes before processing in my food processor until nearly smooth)

1 cup buttermilk

1 ¾ cups sifted all purpose flour

1 cup unsweeted dutch cocoa powder

2 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

½ cup salted butter (softened)

1 ¾ cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

1/3 cup mayonnaise

Confectioners’ sugar for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans and set aside.

Place mashed potatoes/carrots into medium bowl. With a small whisk, gradually beat in buttermilk to form smooth mixture.

Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to combine the butter, sugar, and vanilla extract until well blended. .

Add eggs and blend well. Add mayonnaise and beat at medium speed for 2 minutes.

At lowest speed, alternate adding both the dry ingredients (from step 3) and smashed veggies (a little dry ingredients, a little smashed veggies, a little dry, a little smashed veggies etc.) until all are incorporated.

Turn equal amounts of batter into prepared baking pans. Bake in preheated oven 27 to 32 minutes (for a 10” cake pan; 15-18 minutes for cupcakes), rotating once about halfway during the baking process.

Cake is cooked when a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. When done remove to a cooling rack. Cool completely before removing from pans and cutting. If desired, frost or sift confectioners’ sugar over top of cake after the cake has cooled completely.

Note: The pictures you see of the iced cupcakes use just a basic buttercream.