Authentic Flan!

Flan:

1 TBSP Rice Flour
1/2 Cup Rice Milk

1/2 Cup White Sugar* 
*  *  *  *
13.5 oz can of Coconut Milk (look for a good brand that does not add water if possible)

4 Eggs

1/4 TSP Cinnamon

Pinch Ground Cloves

*  *  *  * 

1/3-1/2 cup Cajeta (Goats milk caramel)

*You can use Agave nectar or coconut sugar, but it does affect the color.  Also add 1 tsp tapioca starch if you choose to use Agave Nectar.

1) Before starting, make sure that your can of coconut milk is cold enough that when you open it, it is mostly solid. You will end up using the solid part and tossing the water.  I use the Golden Star brand and end up with only 1-2 TBSP of water in the bottom of the can.
2) The first 3 ingredients are the Sweetened Condensed milk substitute.  Rather than boiling the rice milk to condense it, it is just so much easier to condense it by adding rice flour to it- Mix rice flour into COLD rice milk and then bring to boil over medium heat stirring constantly.

3) When mixture thickens remove from heat and add sugar mixing until fully dissolved and then add the solid coconut cream/milk and stir until smooth.
4) Put eggs in medium bowl and whisk together before adding the warm milks mixture, cinnamon, and cloves. 
5) Spread cajeta over the bottom of a 9 inch pie pan.

6) Pour the contents of the bowl over the cajeta and bake 325 for about 60 minutes or til fork comes out clean when poked in the middle of the flan.  Flan will be dull in appearance with no sheen.

7) Let cool for 30 mins on the counter before placing in refrigerator for an hour. Then remove from pan by placing a plate over the dish and inverting it onto a plate.  The cajeta/caramel will now be on top and drooling over the sides.  If you think you need more cajeta add it now. 

8) Serve cold.

Pozole

For dinner tonight we are having Pozole. Pozole is a Mexican soup that is usually made to celebrate an important event, like Christmas or New Years. So you are probably wondering what are you celebrating?  AND believe me you're not alone.  My husband, who is Mexican, always wonders that when I make it!  Tonight's celebration- How about getting through this week; it was a LOOOOONG week for me, filled with too many appointments!  This is one of my favorite soups and definitely one of my favorite mexican dishes. It is very easy to make and does not take much time and is also great for a tight budget and definitely a Gluten and Dairy free diet.  I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do! 

Pozole

5 Medium-Large Chicken Thighs (skinned, bones in)

4 Large Dried Ancho Chiles, stem removed and seeds dumped out

3 Large Dried Guajillo Chiles (New Mexico or California Chiles will work if you cannot find Guajillo)

3 Medium-Large Cloves of garlic peeled and minced

*  *  *  *

4 cups of Chicken Broth (1-32 oz box of chicken broth)

3 Tsp Oregano

Salt to Taste

*  *  *  *

2 - 29 oz Cans of White Hominy

1/4 head of Iceburg Lettuce, Chopped in Shreds

1 Small White Onion, Finely Chopped

4-6 Limes, Halved

Additional Oregano for garnishing

Raddishes sliced thinly (optional)

1) Place dried destemmed and seeded chiles in the bottom of a large pot, followed by chicken and minced garlic over the top (so the chicken will hold the chiles down, preventing them from floating).  Fill pot with water so that water covers chicken by 1 inch.  Boil until the chicken is cooked through.

2) Remove chicken from broth and set aside.

3) Remove chiles from broth and then one by one remove the flesh from the skin.  It is easiest if you start at the tip of the chile and slowly pinch it toward the stem opening.  It does not matter how you do it, just that somehow you peel the skin off, or else you soup will be gritty. (If you are not particularly fond of spicy hot foods, you may want to keep the Guajillo flesh separate; blender it with a little broth, and add it to your soup like you will the garnishes.)

4) Boil the broth til there is about 5 cups left and skim off excess fat.

5) Take the chicken off the bones and remove fat deposits while you shred the chicken with your fingers.

6) Take a small amount of the broth from the pot and add the chile flesh to it.  Blender it til smooth.

7) Check that there are no bones stray in the broth, then blender the remaing broth and put the broth, chile mixture, and chicken back in the pot.

8) Add second set of ingredients to the pot, bringto a boil, then decrease heat to medium-lo

9) In a separate pot heat up the White Hominy with about 1 cup of water to prevent burning the hominy at the bottom of the pan.

Serve by first placing  heated hominy in bottom of the bowl, then add a scoop of the Chicken and broth, and finally top with the Lettuce, Onion, Radishes and additional Oregano if you choose.  Squeeze some lime juice over the top and enjoy! There is not a Mexican I know who does not top the soup with all of the fixin's including my kids, but I, however, like it with no more than just oregano and lime.

Chicken Enchiladas

http://recipes.kroger.com

Here we find ourselves in the Mexican Kitchen!  Like I said before, Mexican food was made for us Gluten Free folk.  Honestly, It keeps our lives a bit more simplified and allows us to eat things that are sooo normal and very tasteful.  Really, you could have people over and feed them this and they would not know you were Gluten Free unless you chose to tell them.

Chicken Enchiladas

18 Corn Tortillas

4 boiled and chopped chicken breasts

24 oz Tomato Sauce

16 oz your favorite kind of Salsa

1 1/2 cups shredded non-dairy cheese

1) Mix together tomato sauce and salsa

2) In a 9 x 13 inch pan layer 6 tortillas, 1/3 chicken, and 1/3 Salsa mixture.  Repeat one more time. And finish with a layer of the final 6 tortillas

3) Mix remaining chicken and salsa mixture and pour over final layer of tortillas.

4) Cover with foil and bake 350 for 20 minutes.  Remove foil layer with shredded non dairy cheese and return to the oven for about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Tostadas and Fideo: Easy Peasy!

Tostadas.  The name says it all- again we are eating south of the border tonight!  For those of you who have never had or seen a Tostada, it could be described as a Salad on a large round tortilla chip, though the meal is far more complete than a salad.  When my husbands family eats tostadas, they usually have a simple soup with it too, called Fideo. Fideo is usually made with a bouillon tomato broth, however, these powdered mixes usually  have gluten and dairy in them, so I make it from scratch.

This makes for a fast and easy dinner at the last minute as long as you have all the necessary ingredients.  This recipe feeds 3-5.

Tostadas, you will need:

12 corn tostadas

2 Avocados (sliced thinly or diced)

1 large tomato (sliced thinly or diced)

1/3 head of lettuce, chopped

1/2 onion chopped (optional)

1- large can refried beans (or 3 cups homemade refried beans)

3 chicken breasts cooked and well chopped OR 

                1 pound cooked ground beef

Crema - 1/3 cup non-dairy sour cream mixed in blender with 

                 1/4 cup rice milk (consistency should like honey)

When all preparations have been completed, layer each tosatada shell in the following order:

1) Spread with refried beans (not too thick)

2) 2-3 TBSP chopped chicken OR ground beef

3) Lettuce (and onion if you choose)

4) 1-2 TBSP 'crema'

5) Tomatoes and avocados

Fideo:

4 oz tomato sauce

1 16 oz can chicken broth

6 cups water

1 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

6 oz Gluten Free angel hair pasta broken in 1-2 inch pieces

Salt to taste

1)  For the broth, combine first 5 ingredients in pot and bring to boil.

2)  In separate pot cook pasta until ready.

3) When Pasta is ready drain and add to broth.

You could choose to cook pasta in the broth, but I choose not to because gluten free pasta leaves a residue in the broth.  

Tres Leches Cake

I recently made a Tres Leches Cake for a party my husband and I were going to.  It is a dessert I enjoyed making (and eating) before we learned about Dairy allergy. Then I got to thinking about how my kids would never taste the delight of a Tres Leches Cake. This was the only motivation I needed to conquer the seemingly impossible task.  To top it off, there is very little difference of flavor between a gluten and dairy free Tres Leches Cake and the 'real thing'.  

It may seem fancy, but this is my choice for the gluten and dairy free birthday cake.  Its flavorings take a completely different route than your typical birthday cake, which seems to remove the judgement comparison that gluten free usually endures.  The most important piece of this puzzle is flavor, as is usual in most baking.  


A Tres Leches Cake is built around subtly sweet flavors, which greatly limit your choices in milks.  Almond and soy milks are 2 very common milks and many times prefered in the world of milk allergy or dairy free living.  I strongly advise against using either of these milks in this cake.  Both of them have distinct flavors in them that will be too powerful for the cake, not to mention that they are not used in Latino cultures.  Coconut milk is a very good match to this cake and one that I highly favor; I included it in my recipe even before the elimination of dairy. The milk that I have chosen to preserve the subtle sweetness of the original cake is rice milk.  Rice milk is a similar resemblance to the Mexican drink Horchata (a rice drink flavored with cinnamon), which is very prominent in Mexican living, so in my opinion, it is a perfect replacement for milk.  Of course for the purpose of this recipe, there is no cinnamon.  

Tres Leches Cake

1 cup Coconut Milk or Cream

1 1/3 cups rice milk

1 1/4 cup cold sweetened condensed milk substitute
2 TBSP Melted Butter or Coconut oil

* * * *

Your favorite gluten and dairy free Yellow Cake Recipe baked and cooled and still in its 13 x 9 inch pan.

1 container of dairy free whipped cream

1/2 cup coconut flakes

2 TBSP finely chopped pecans

2-3 large strawberries (or 2 tangerines/mandarines and some marachino cherries)

1) Using a fork poke as many holes as you possibly can in the cake.  You cannot have too many; this will assist with even absorption of the milks, so don't skip this step.

2) In a large bowl mix all the milks together. (Make sure the coconut milk is at room temperature so that it is not separated and there are no clumps of fat.  If not set unopened can of coconut milk in a warmed (but off) oven for a couple hours before starting.)

3)  Pour the milk mixture over the cake (still in its pan) and and let it sit on the counter until most of the liquids are absorbed, then move it to the refrigerator and let it stay there for at least 4 hours.  If your cake is a dense cake (in comparison to a boxed mix) let it sit at least 6 hours.  Overnight would be ideal.

Spread whipped cream over cake like frosting. Sprinkle coconut over top evenly.  Spinkle on chopped pecans.  And decorate with strawberries.  This cake should be kept in the refrigerator.

Tamales

Tamales are a Mexican Delicacy; and loved by any who has ever tried one.  If you are familiar with them, you will know that no alterations need to be made to fit in with a Gluten and Dairy free diet.  They are also pretty easy to make, though very time consuming (I am assuming this is why they are only made for special occasions in Mexico).  

I helped my mother-in-law make Tamales for the first time the first Christmas after getting married.  After making them this one time, I was good to go.  It was a very easy process to pick up.  All I needed was a basic recipe and I would make it on my own.  In Mexico they don't record recipes or use measuring cups or spoons, so I could not just ask for the recipe.  The first recipe I started out with came from the cookbook Authentic Mexican by Rick and Deann Bayless, though over the years I have tweaked it to what I felt was ideal, based off of what I have learned from my immersion in the Mexican Culture. In actuality it really had nothing to do with how I felt but how my husbands native taste-buds reacted.  So I really took notes on every comment or furrowed brow and made alterations as necessary.  This recipe makes about 25.

In order to dull the time consuming effort making tamales takes, I make them in two shifts.  The first shift is the night before when I make the filling.  The second shift consists of making the corn masa and putting the Tamales together.  Be sure to wear an apron or clothes you do not care about.

Filing Ingredients:

3 chicken thighs

3 large dried ancho chiles

2 large dried California or New Mexico Chiles

1/4 tsp black pepper

1 clove of garlic (or scant teaspoon garlic powder)

1-2 TBSP oil

1 tsp sugar

   salt to taste

1) Remove stems from dried peppers and dump out the seeds. Place them on bottom of large pot and place chicken thighs over the top of them (this is so the peppers don't float when water is added).  Fill pot with just enough water to cover chicken and peppers. Boil covered until the chicken is cooked through.

2) Reserve 1 1/2 cups of the broth. Shred chicken. Remove the skins from the peppers.  (The easiest way to do this is to take the boiled pepper by the pointy end and using both hands pinch the tip gradually moving downward until the meat slides free.)  You must remove the skin; skin will ruin your Tamales.

3) For the sauce combine 3/4 cup of the reserved chicken broth, all the chile meats, black pepper, and garlic in a blender and blend until smooth.  Put tablespoon oil in a large skillet and heat until a drop of the blender sauce will sizzle upon hitting the oil.  Then pour sauce in all at once.  Boil stirring constantly for 5 minutes to thicken.  Add the remaining 3/4 cup of reserved broth, turn stove down, to medium heat, and simmer stirring occasionally, while you work on shredding the chicken. When there is approximately 1 cup of sauce remaining, season with salt, add sugar, turn off the stove, and add the shredded chicken.

Before starting the Masa, place 8 oz of corn husks in a pot of water and boil for 10 minutes.  When done boiling leave them in the water and let set for 2 hours.

The Masa - Corn Dough

1 3/4 cup Masa Harina Corn Flour (not to be confused with corn meal)

3/4 cup crisco

1 1/4 cup warm chicken broth or water (to start)

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt, then salt to taste

The Masa dough is going to be the challenging part.  Do not just plan on following the recipe.  Be prepared to make alterations.  Climate makes a huge difference.  A dry climate like New Mexico will require more liquids.  A climate like Chicago will require less liquids.  I made these in the summer time one year and only needed 1 cup of water, but in the winter time this year i needed 1 1/4 cups of water.  So the trick is going to be checking the consistency.  If it spreads on the corn husk as easy as peanut butter and stays put, then the dough is right.  You should not be fighting the dough in forming the Tamale.

Start by cutting the Crisco into the corn flour as if you were making a pie crust. Then add the warm water, baking powder and salt.  Be sure to taste the mix and make sure there is sufficient salt.  If there is not enough salt the Tamales will not taste very good; it is better to have a little too much than not enough.  If you struggle with getting the masa dough to stick to the corn husk, then the dough needs more water.  If you need more water add water 2 Tbsp at a time until the consistency is right.

Forming the Tamales:

(you will need Baking Twine)

1) It is easiest to form the Tamales with corn husks that are about 6 inches wide. If you need to, you can over lap 2 husks to make them wide enough. 

2) On the corn husk form a 4 x 4 inch square of masa dough less than a 1/4 inch thick. Then place about 1 TBSP of the filling down the middle.  

3) Bring the sides of the corn husk together so that the sides of the masa square touch each other.  Then roll the excess of the corn husk semi-tightly to one side. Fold up tail and tie with the baking twine.

Steaming the Tamales:

I use a large pot with a strainer insert. 

1) Before forming the Tamales fill the pot with enough water so that the straining basket is on the water, but water does not come into the basket and take note how high up the water goes on the side of the pot (you will likely need to add water to the pot during the cooking process and won't be able to tell if there is water in the basket). 

2) Line the sides and bottom of the straining basket with some of the corn husks. 

3) As you finish forming the Tamales, set them upright in the basket.

4) When all the Tamales are formed and in the pot, fill empty spaces with leftover corn husks and lightly crumpled aluminum foil until the pot is full.  Do not pack tightly.  

5) Put lid on pot and bring water to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to medium. 

Cooking time will be approximately 1 hour 15 minutes.  Check water about every 20 minutes to make sure there is enough by removing the basket from the pan; add water as necessary. Check the tamales by removing one from the bunch and sampling the masa.  The masa should be firm and husk removable with little masa residue on wrapping. If not, cook another 15-20 minutes and recheck. 

Tortilla Soup

This soup is inspired by a small restaurant in one of the high rise buildings close to where I worked in downtown El Paso. It was one of the most wonderful holes in the wall in El Paso.  I searched Tortilla Soup recipes all over the place, but every recipe had red broth, beans, corn, or other Americanizing additives unfitting of the Mexican soup I was so fond of.  So I based my creation off the soup I remembered with very minimal additions.

I recently brought this to a Christmas Eve Party where each attending family was supposed to bring their favorite soup.  Usually on Christmas Eve we would eat Pozole as a family, but Pozole uses Hominy and has some rich distinct flavors in it that we thought other attendees would not appreciate, so we opted for Tortilla soup. The Mexican way.  I am so glad I have a picture to post so you can see just how glorious a bowl looks; doesn't it look blissfully divine.  Honestly, this soup is HEAVENLY. 

Tortilla Soup

9 boneless skinless chicken thighs
15 corn tortillas
32 oz box Chicken broth (or 2 cans broth)
1 small onion finely chopped
1 small can diced green chiles (brand name is best; generic tends to be soggy and mushy)
Garlic powder to taste
Salt to taste


Garnishes:
2 Avocados, diced
1 cup shredded non-dairy yellow cheese
1/2 bunch cilantro coarsely chopped
8 oz non-dairy sour cream

1) Boil Chicken thighs in large pot with enough water to cover 
     chicken plus about an inch. 

2) Let broth and chicken cool, shred/pull apart chicken, remove 
     excess fat from broth, return chicken to broth and set aside.

3) Cut tortillas in strips about 1 cm by 1.5 inches.  You can do 
     this by first cutting the tortillas in three equally wide strips 
     and then cut those strips in strips 1 cm wide. I just stack 
     tortillas all on top of each other and do this all at once. 

4) Fill deep pot with 3 inches of oil (I use an Asparagus pot seen here ).     
     Heat on high until you can drop a crumb of tortilla in and 
     watch it sizzle. Fry tortilla strips a handful at a time until 
     they are a golden brown.  After first handfuls turn heat down 
     to medium.  Set strips on a cookie sheet lined with paper 
     towels to cool. Store in paper bag.*

5)  To homemade broth add: 32 oz box/cans chicken broth, 
     finely chopped onion, can diced green chiles well drained, 
     garlic powder to taste, salt to taste. Boil until onions are soft; 
     about 15 mins. 

6) Serve soup, garnish with a handful of the fried tortilla strips, 
     freshly chopped cilantro, diced avocados, tablespoon non-
     dairy sour cream, and shredded yellow non-dairy cheese 

This recipe makes 12-15 bowls. I hope you enjoy it as much as our family does!

*If you want to cut on prep time you can buy store bought tortilla strips, but I do not recommend it. 

Mexican Food in Gluten and Dairy Free Cooking

Mexican food has been part of our diet since our family began.  I lived on the Texas Mexican Border for about 10 years.  This is where I met my husband who happened to be born and raised in Mexico.  Mexican food was a large part of our diet prior to the GFCF diet, but is more dominant since diagnosis. As many probably know corn, rice, and beans are staples of Mexican cooking and all of them are welcome in GFCF living. If you don't already have one, get a Mexican cookbook; not Tex-Mex, but the real deal.  Tex-Mex tends to use wheat products and dairy products far more often than real Mexican food does. We have found Rick Bayless does a pretty good job of remaining true in his earlier Mexican cookbooks, though I have not really looked at his more recent books.

The only problem that you will most definitely encounter in most Mexican dishes is the cheese and dairy cream requirements.  However, this is very easily addressed, because there are so many cheese and cream substitutes out there.  Most of these substitutes are rice or soy based. Alot of the rice based cheese and creams have milk protein in them, so you must be careful.  Many people with a dairy allergy  also have a soy allergy, so you need to be careful here too. Our children have reactions to soy only in the long term use of it, so we just choose to use the soy based cheeses and creams very occasionally, because dairy free rice based cheese is not always available and is very expensive.