Recipe Conversion - Egg Casserole

Growing up, egg casserole was a holiday tradition in my house. We'd all wake up on Christmas morning, open presents and then sit down to breakfast of cinnamon rolls (yeah, still haven't figured out gluten-free for that...) and egg casserole. Fluffy, cheesy, savory, egg casserole was always amazing.

When I went gluten-free I didn't even really think about how much I'd miss this until the holidays hit and then I remembered. Egg casserole is essentially a savory bread pudding. Yeah, there's that word: BREAD.  In the ten years since I first went gluten-free, the market has exploded with some great options for us GFree eaters and that includes bread, so after a long sabbatical, I decided to try to recreate my mother's egg casserole. This recipe below (which I pretty much eye-balled) filled an oval pan about 8x12".

6 Slices of Gluten-Free Bread (I used Whole Foods' Sandwich Bread), cubed
6 eggs
2/3 cup of milk
1 pound of gluten-free sausage (I used Bob Evans' original)
2 Tablespoons of yellow mustard
4-8 oz. of cheddar cheese (depending on how much you want)
Some nutmeg (not a huge amount, just enough to add some zip)

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Alrighty, so first things first: Brown the sausage and break it up into smaller bits (about bite-sized), next toss your bread cubes into the pan. I like to toss them with the sausage for flavor.  Layer the sausage/bread mixture in the pan with cheese throughout.

Beat your eggs and add the milk and mustard to them, mixing well. If you want to use Nutmeg you can also add it at this point.  (If you are making this ahead of time, i.e., overnight, you may want to add an extra cup or so of milk). Pour the egg mixture over the bread and press the bread down with a fork so it's all coated. It's totally alright if some edges stick up though because this will be crisp deliciousness later. Spread the remaining cheese on top and pop in the oven for 40 to 50 minutes until brown on top and the middle is set. Mine took about 45 minutes and it came out wonderfully.

Serve hot! Or, do what I did and divide portions up into individual servings for packed breakfasts. Going to try to freeze it and see if it will be okay, but that remains to be seen so far.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy. I know I did! For a (not-very-good-quality-cell-phone-)picture, see my tweet from last night. I will be posting the photos here eventually, but it won't be immeediately.

Happy Holidays!

The Hipp

My cousin was in town a few weeks ago and because of this, we spent a good amount of time eating out and exploring the city. Eating out is always a bit of a trap for the gluten-free, but I have it a little easier than most as mine is a "simple" allergy and not Celiac.  But it is still hard. So hard.

One of my favorite new restaurants is The Hipp. They're pretty awesome. Besides having fantastic, fresh food, they are pretty gluten-free friendly in my experience. They also have an awesome food truck, but mostly I'm here to brag about The Hipp itself.  Their food is good. Really. It's fresh and it's fast. It is one of the few places where I can walk in with only an hour lunch to spare and get a real meal and back to the office in no time flat.   When I first started going to The Hipp, I'd simply order a sandwich or an entree sans gluten (i.e., one of the great hamburgers without the bun). Then I heard word of a gluten-free bun. Yes, folks, a gluten-free bun. And I tried it and it was amazing. It's what I like to call a "I-can't-believe-it's-not-gluten" moment. It really is the best gluten-free bun so far.

Also, I have to speak very highly of the staff as well. Very gluten-free friendly. I've called, emailed, and even just walked in off the street with gluten-related questions and they've been super helpful and well-informed about which of their items have gluten and which can be customized to be gluten-free.

If you're in the Midtown area, give them a try. I hope you'll like them as much as I do!

Burger with gluten-free bun

Fatty BBQ Sammie, sans bun and with brussell sprouts

More Gluten-Free Experimentation

I’m back to the chickpea flour. I haven’t tried baking anything with it yet and probably won’t be attempting a gravy any time soon, but what I’ve done so far I have loved. Last night was a flounder filet, dredged in a mixture of Parmesan and chickpea flour (very similar to this chicken) that I then
panfried.

Lovely flounder with veggies

Dessert? Gluten-free cookies (the ones from this post) warmed in the micro and topped with fat free vanilla frozen yogurt. Pretty tasty and, more or less, guilt free.

Gluten-free cookies and yogurt

Recipe Makeover: Grain Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites

So, as part of my gluten-free journey, I regularly rework recipes (or at least try to!) to fit not only my dietary needs, but my tastes as well. I ran across this recipe when a friend of mine started pinning grain-free recipes on Pinterest. Since I had recently gone completely gluten-free again, I was excited to see a cookie that I could actually eat.

I tried them for the first time a few weeks ago and they turned out well, but I wasn't convinced. Especially as mine were significantly uglier than the lovely pictures posted on the Texanerin Baking blog.

What I did with this recipe. I love me some chocolate and I found the original 'dough' to have a chickpea flavor that I was having a tough time getting used to. So, I added cocoa powder to the batter, threw in some butterscotch chips and called it a day. Oh, and after rolling the cookies, I pressed them down with a fork a la peanut butter cookies.

My final recipe:

2 cans of chickpeas (drained, rinsed, and dried)
3/4 c. peanut butter
3/4 c. honey
2 t. baking powder
2 T. cocoa powder
3 t. vanilla extract
1 c. butterscotch chips

Preheat the oven to 350F. Combine all ingredients except the chips in the food process. Then, fold in the butterscotch chips. (My dough was a little runny, so I ended up chilling it in the freezer for about a half hour.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and roll the dough into bolls. If you find the dough sticking to your hands, wet them and then roll. Bake for about 10 minutes. Afterwards, I like to let them cool on the rack and then froze them before bagging and popping them back in the freezer.

The final result. It's almost an I-can't-believe-it's-not-gluten moment!