The Scratching Post Gourmet: An Adventure in Culinary Chemistry

A Fresh Start for a New Year

2009-01-07T14:43:00.000-08:00

I want to answer a question that a friend posted for us: "I commend you for trying over and over again! But, I'm confused... is wheat flour gluten free? I use it a lot in regular cooking and am quite fond of it. =)"

The answer is, tragically, no. Wheat, kamut, spelt, rye, and barley all have gluten. Oats might have gluten (for some reason this is controversial). I'm only wheat-free, not gluten-free, but it does mean I have to give up wheat flour (both whole wheat and white flour).

Anyway, this is just a short post, but far too good to pass up. Mark Bittman wrote an excellent article in the New York Times about kitchen minimalism.

Fresh Start for a New Year? Let’s Begin in the Kitchen

Mike and I already do some of what he suggests (such as using dried beans and keeping fresh spices), but I'm ready to try some of his other suggestions too! I have to admit, I love having my organic canned lemon juice in the fridge...but we just bought a juicer at Goodwill for a buck, so we might as well put it to use.

Also, we are addicted like smokers to our organic low-sodium chicken stock. Seriously, we buy like 4 cartons a week. I've been holding back on making homemade because I assume it's too high in fat for my stomach, but we might give it a whirl. I always thought making stock involved boiling a turkey carcass for hours, letting it cool, and skimming off the fat. This fellow just suggests adding some chicken scraps to water, onion, garlic, and celery and simmering for a half an hour. That could be good...and far less expensive than our little addiction. Poor Revi will never forgive us for using his chicken scraps...

In other news, I can now officially report that my amazing relationship has cost me two pants sizes. Something about eating well and eating meat on a regular basis sure does agree with me! I stressed about it for a while, but at long last I decided that putting on a bit of weight is good for my Crohn's (because it means my guts are calm enough to get all the nutrients out of my food) and I deserve to buy new pants.

Plus, Mike and I have been amazing couch potatoes this winter. I vow this will change now that we purchased the most exciting thing ever: a rowing machine we got at Goodwill for $8!! Mike was a genius and spotted it in the midst of emaciated Stairmasters and pathetic splintered NordicTraks. It doesn't even smell bad!! My world is complete.

A New Obsession

2008-12-31T17:07:00.000-08:00

Mike has two friends from Denver named Promethius and Lioness (Burning Man names that have become more common than their real names). When we were visiting over Thanksgiving, Lioness mentioned a drink that she uses to keep her energy up when she works as a masseuse. When I got back to Seattle, I tried it and LOVED it. It's delicious. Sort of like drinking cranberry-flavored beer. Or, since it's non-alcoholic, it would be more like cranberry-flavored O'Doul's.

There are few things on this earth that disgust Mike more than this drink. The drink is "Kombucha." From Merriam-Webster:

"a gelatinous mass of symbiotic bacteria (as Acetobacter xylinum) and yeasts (as of the genera Brettanomyces and Saccharomyces) grown to produce a fermented beverage held to confer health benefits; also : the beverage prepared by fermenting kombucha with black tea and sugar."

Delicious, you say? You just have to try it--but at the store it's over $3 a bottle. I thought to myself, "I grew up on a farm making redneck apple cider. I can make this!"

WikiHow: How to Make Kombucha Tea

Then I started reading further on the internet. This process involves caring for a new pet--my brand new blob of fermenting mushroom goo. I have to treat it nicely or it will start growing "wild" yeast (didn't know there was feral yeast) or it will grow mold that could possibly send me to the hospital. As far as dirty pets go, keeping up with Revi's weekly molting is more than enough.
After exploring the page comparing healthy gross-looking globs to possibly dangerous gross-looking globs floating on the surface of effervescent tea, I made a decision: no homemade kombucha for me. If there is a limit to making things from scratch for this blog, I have certainly found it! I will continue to buy my overpriced "Cosmic Cranberry" and pity the poor hippies who work in their very stinky factory.

Jam for Jews

2008-12-31T11:46:00.000-08:00

There are some people who enjoy baking. For me, even before cutting out wheat and sugar, I was never very good at it. Most of my baking happened during grad school when I was stressed out and sick of reading about abused children or schizophrenia. My roommates would wonder, "If we stress her out, she'll make us cookies. Should we....?"

Now, it's a huge challenge to bake anything. I found some delicious gluten-free Glutino bagels and that has pretty much satisfied my "bread" cravings. I wouldn't mind some pizza dough or a good BLT, but other than that I don't miss bread too much.

So far my efforts have been disasterous. I decided to cook for Anneke's baby shower and almost had a meltdown over the sad hot cross buns that never made it past "glue in the bottom of the bowl" form. A few weeks ago I made some anise cookies that tasted like soap. But in the spirit of cooking from scratch, I can't just run over to the Flying Apron (excellent gluten-free and sugar-free bakery ten blocks from Mike's house) every time I want a cookie!

I'm beginning to appreciate just how versatile wheat flour truly is: it has a mild flavor that can work with anything from chocolate to chipotle, it stays moist but not crumbly even when baked, and it is so easy to work with (rolling, balling, slicing, thickening, etc.)

The same goes for sugar--its chemical properties are so easy to manipulate. It sweetens without overpowering like honey or agave, it's dry so you don't have to adjust the wet ingredients, you can make CARAMEL!!! (I love caramel. I can't give it up.) And have you ever tried to make icing with honey? It's tragic.

Since we are replacing two of the most versatile ingredients with something I can tolerate, it's naturally grounds for disaster. I've noticed a few tips that can help:

-Always make the batter wetter than you think necessary because wheat-free flour tends to crumble. This might mean giving up on cookie cutters.
-Sweetening with juice is a great idea--carrot and orange work especially well.
-Oat flour is the closest to wheat flour. Rye makes everything the consistency of concrete. (By the way, oats and rye are not gluten-free. Don't feed them to your celiac friends.)
-Thickeners like xantham gum or guar gum are great and don't add a funny taste.

For Hanukkah, I gamely tried to make cookies again. I used some honey-sweetened blackberry jam that my sister Julia made when she was here. I also made the dough a LOT wetter than required. They came out of the oven looking cute but tasting very bland, so I spooned some agave syrup over the top and stuck them back in the oven.

My brother's verdict? "It's sort of like eating tasty sawdust. It's tasty, but very sawdusty."

Oh well, I'll try again later. Or I might leave the baking to Mike, who really has a gift for it. By the way, here are pictures from Hanukkah:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/katehallman/sets/72157611907200982/

Delicious Deliciousness

2008-12-22T20:53:00.000-08:00

The corned beef was great!! I'm trying to pay attention to blogging, but "How I Met Your Mother" is pretty funny. How did I survive without this show?

We were supposed to add some "curing" ingredients to keep the meat looking pink, but it seemed suspiciously like MSG to me. We skipped it and the meat came out decidedly greyer but carcinogen-free. It also came out a LOT saltier than expected, even though I halved the salt in the brine. Next time we'll cut the salt down to a half cup.

Revi was driven insane by the smells coming from the kitchen. I fed him little scraps of fat and he will now love me forever.

David Spade should not make television ever, ever again. Ever.

The vegetables, cooked in the beer and beef juices, were juicy and flavorful. I'm going to cook everything in Guiness from now on. Everything was really easy on my stomach, which makes me think my stomach is secretly a plumber from Jersey.

By the way, today the meal turned into stellar corned beef hash.

--Kate

Snow and Thai food

2008-12-21T20:28:00.000-08:00

The snow is falling, the dog is going haywire, we've been cooped up in the house for 4 days, and it's gorgeous outside. My work is closed again tomorrow (3rd day in a row) so I have more puttering about to look forward to. I'm just bummed I don't have my snowshoes with me...although I have seriously considered harnessing the hyper dog to pull me on skis...

The corned beef is on the stove now, smelling like heaven. I can't wait to try it. I'm pretty confident my stomach will be ok with it, but it's been up and down the past couple of days. One of the hard things about Crohns is that, although some foods do set it off, food is only part of the picture. Often I have no idea how to predict how I will feel.

Last night we made homemade vegetarian Herb Salad Spring Rolls. It was so easy to make and it was delicious, especially the accompanying Spicy Peanut Sauce (Mike says add more peanut oil than the recipe states). Even though all the ingredients should have been okay, Mike was fine but it didn't sit so well for me. Next time we'll try it with a few changes to make it milder--hoisin (plum) sauce instead of spicy peanut, and blanching the vegetables before rolling them up. Hopefully that should make it a bit easier. But for those of you without a gut like a discount muffler, I highly recommend this tasty recipe. All the veggies can easily be put in a food processer, so the whole thing can be ready in less than 45 minutes.

Also...while we were making the spring rolls, we were inspired (okay, I was inspired because I'm the one who's secretly a 12 year-old boy) to make the world's best Halloween appetizers!! This is my invention:

Brain Tasties

2 ounces cellophane noodles

rice paper rounds (4" would be ideal)

hoisin sauce

crushed peanuts

chicken or fried tofu

fresh basil

fresh mint

Directions: Cook the cellophane noodles and cut them into 3-inch pieces. Mix with hoisin sauce and set aside. Cook up chicken or tofu, cut into tiny pieces, and mix with the crushed peanuts, basil, and mint. Put a rice paper round in very hot water for 45 seconds to a minute (until soft). Put on a cutting board. You might double up the rice paper if they are cracking. Spread 2 tablespoons of the noodles onto the rice paper. Put a tablespoon of chicken/tofu mixture in the middle. Roll it up like a dumpling (you might need to cut away extra rice paper if you got big ones). Turn it over...and it looks like a little brain!! So tasty....

In a few hours we'll be enjoying the corned beef!!

--Kate

Corned Beef

2008-12-19T21:50:00.000-08:00

Our first recipe arose during a heated debate over what to eat in the coming week. Kate was advocating for Shepherd's Pie, a dish that has been passed through the ranks of her culinary kinfolk...I suggested Corned Beef, in keeping with the underlying Irish theme...but due to my predilection to "grass-fed" beef and my strange aversion to "mad-cow" disease...we realized that even shopping at Whole Foods, we were unlikely to find this magical mixture of "all natural" and "corned beef", especially because we were interested in a full meal, and not just deli slices.

So naturally we decided to make our own...

We found a great recipe on epicurious and last weekend we put our brisket in a bath of beer and pickling spices, covered it with aluminum foil and put it in the fridge (dreaming of an excellent meal the next night). Fortunately for us, Kate decided to read over the recipe again the next day at work. Who knew that it takes 8 days to prepare? Apparently Epicurious does, but we'd failed to read the fine print.

So, with a couple days left, the corned beef has been repotted, the sauce has been stirred (in a fashion) and now you must wait with us for the final verdict...

dreaming of Guinness,

Mike