Korean-inspired Sweet & Spicy Wings

I don’t know how many of you have tried Korean spicy chicken wings prior to having to eat gluten free, I only did once.  And they were delicious, sticky, spicy and oh-so-good! My husband often picks up a pack when we are at the Korean grocer for munching.  I don’t make them at home – usually – because not only are they tossed in seasoned flour (not GF, but easily converted) but they are deep-fried.

Now that is a mess I don’t like.  I like fried food as much as the next person but man, I hate that mess if prepared at home.

The other thing I don’t think I’ve ever gotten 100% right was the seasoning.  That sticky red-spicy and sweet sauce that coats the wings seems to also differ rather significantly depending on who is making it.  Since his favorite Korean chicken place closed a long while back (16 months +?), I know he’s been craving these wings.  And quite honestly, I wanted some sticky goodness too. 😀

This time around, I rinsed the pack of wings, patted them dry, seasoned them (salt, pepper & granulated garlic) and put them in the oven at a very high heat (450F+).  I flipped them a bit more than half way through cooking (25 minutes?) and broiled them for another 8-10 minutes until they were crispy brown.  Frying averted.

The only thing that remained was making the spicy-sweet sauce to coat them in. (I made it while they baked.)  Most of the recipes given to me over time contain “mulyeot” which is a malted corn syrup.  Since it is traditionally made with barley but now seems that most are making it with corn, I avoid it.  I don’t know enough about the processing, preparation, etc and the words “barley” and “malt” are all I need to know sometimes.  I substituted corn syrup (in the recipe below) but next time will also add some brown sugar to caramelize this even more.

If you are looking for a sweet & spicy wing recipe, this might be for you too!

Korean-inspired Spicy & Sweet Wing Sauce

Makes enough for 12-15 full chicken wings  (4 pounds+?)

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons gluten free soy sauce
1 Tablespoon corn syrup (or honey)
1 1/2 Tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 Tablespoons mirin or other rice wine
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
2 teaspoons minced ginger
1 teaspoons Korean red chili powder (less/more to taste)
2 teaspoons minced jalapeño (seeded!  Or not – if you want it to be HOT HOT HOT!)
3 Tablespoons water (or 1 1/2 Tablespoons ginger juice* + 1 1/2 Tablespoons water)

Directions:

1. Mix together GF soy sauce, corn syrup (or honey), sugar, mirin, garlic, ginger, chili powder and 3 Tablespoons water.  (Reserve jalapeños – if you want to keep their color bright. If it doesn’t matter to you, toss them in now.)
2. Taste!  (no kidding!  Dip your finger in and taste this mix.  Is it sweet enough?  It will get a bit spicier as you let it blend together, but if it is not spicy enough or you doubt that it will be, add some more jalapeño or chili powder.)
3. Bring it to a boil then lower the heat.  Allow mixture to simmer – stirring frequently – until it has reduced by almost half.  It will thickly coat the back of a metal spoon when dipped and removed from the mixture.  (If time is running out – or you don’t think it is as thick as you’d like, you can speed up the thickening (but diminish the flavor intensity a bit) by mixing together 1 teaspoon cornstarch (not flour) and 2 teaspoons of water.  Add this to the simmering sauce at the end and stir constantly.  The sauce will thicken over heat with this mixture, so watch that you don’t over thicken it as well.)
4. Pour the sauce into a large bowl when done.  Add a few wings at a time and stir to coat the wings well.  Remove and place on a serving dish.  Continue until all wings are coated. (Sometimes we even save some of the sauce before dipping the wings in for dipping while eating – just an option.)

Happy GF Eating!
Kate

 

Gluten free weeknight meals & budgeting

So this blog post should really be a post of the numerous ways the month of September has come and is exiting before my head has been able to wrap itself around it all.  Surely I am not the only mom who finds herself witnessing myself both coming and going in the middle of the dark of night, right?

My new purse is even sporting some tag-along buddies.  I don’t think I go anywhere any more without things packed into my purse that aren’t really mine.  And despite the extra poundage, I wouldn’t really change the rest of it.

Well, maybe I’d change my sleep schedule:  to bed late (or early) and it takes me forever to fall asleep and up no later than 5AM or we are ALL off late for the day already.  A change with these hours would be helpful, but I honestly don’t see that happening anytime soon.  Teaching doesn’t end with the kids leave… or even when my kids finally crash and go to bed.  (PS…they have been in bed for 45 minutes now… and the Chicklet just asked via the monitor “Hey Mom, what’s my cake going to look like?”  “Your cake?”  “Yes, for my birthday.”  “Babe….your birthday is in May.  It’s September. We have a while to think about it, okay?” = this is the kind of thing that never ends around here….LOL)  Evidence:  apple slices + goofy face photos…despite a few attempts we don’t have ONE photo for BOTH smiling nor BOTH making a goofy face at the same time.  Egad.

So I decided to share my working mom “Sanity Saver” meals.  I’ve been asking and posting here when I thought my world was careening off track, but seldom have I posted when I have done it right (finally) for a month.  I challenged myself this month to get the meals down and stick to them.

Next month, I am challenging myself to:

• only go to the grocery store every 10 days to 2 weeks
• STICK to my grocery budget – and SAVE every penny that I don’t spend in an account for a family trip
• stick to my meal plan (come high water or sleep exhaustion)
• stick to a reduced (extremely) budget for “eating out”

Seriously.  I’m starting at ZERO here people.  There is only room to grow, right?

Some of you are experts at all of the above (budgeting, time-management, meal-planning, saving (!), etc) but these are things I tend to stick to for a short time and then meander down some random thought-path-etc and I blow it.  We have had TWO four-day vacations/trips in the last EIGHT YEARS of our lives.  (My Love does NOT get time off from work.)  But we’ve had SO much fun on these rapid-paced trips to see family (my parents/his parents) that we want to do it more often.  And now the girls have seen an ad for Disney Land and CarsLand.

Yeap.  My budget better get in gear.  NOW.

Want to follow along on my endeavor?  Care to add your two cents/tips?  I’d love to hear them!

Okay… enough meandering.  Some of you are just here for the list of my weeknight go-to meals.  Take note:  the meals on this list HAD to be able to be prepared and ready to go in under an hour (or toddler + mom meltdown ensures).  Well, here it is:

1. fajitas (chicken or flank steak)
2. enchiladas
3. taco salad
4. one-pot rice dish (random meat/tofu, rice, veggies – a la jambalaya)
5. tarragon chicken tenders
6. Bo-jay-fan (Chinese one-pot chicken/rice/sausage/mushroom)
7. pork chops and apples
8. steamed fish + tofu
9. split pea soup (thank you crock pot)
10. jambalaya
11. quinoa salad (a la fried rice/couscous – NOTE couscous is NOT gluten free!)
12. pasta salad (schars or jovial)
13. parfait (yogurt + granola)
14. pancakes (corn ones here) or waffles (to save time, i’ve made “waffles” in a panini pan with pancake batter )
15. chicken chili
16. mongolian beef (marinate night before or immediately upon returning home for 45 min at least)
17. spaghetti (schars, jovial or homemade on the weekend)
18. lasagna (no boil/lazy method – make ahead, pop in oven)
19. pot pie (make ahead OR make muffin-sized (lunch/dinner) OR make with crescent roll dough  for last minute)
20. roasts (pork loin is our favorite as faster than whole chicken, etc)
21. meatballs and mashed/roasted potatoes
22. kebabs
23. tortilla española (potatoes, eggs, onions, seasoning) – leftovers are great lunches too
24. shrimp and grits
25. chicken marsala
26. risotto
27. lettuce wraps
28. migas
29. corned beef (crock pot or reheat after cooking on Sunday), roasted cabbage
30. curried chicken
31. beef and broccoli
32. spicy green beans and tofu
33. arroz con pollo
34. baharat chicken or lamb
35. chowder (Chinese corn, OR salmon/fish, etc – whatever you got and put it in a pot!)
36. arepa sandwiches
37. jibaro sandwiches (plantains, flank steak, etc)
38. burgers (bean or beef) (speedy buns – done in the oven while I grill/cook burger or pao-d-quejo buns – quick too!)
39. beef stroganoff but served over rice, mashed potatoes, steamed cauliflower/broccoli in lieu of noodles
40. teriyaki chicken (or whatever is on hand)
41. quiche
42. fried rice
43. ….leftovers!  (the great list ender…I try to use up leftovers for lunch, but often there is a bit more)

I hope this list helps someone else pull a menu plan together.  My trusty purple spiral bound notebook and I roam the aisles of the grocer trying to make sure I have it all together.  Maybe that will be what I share next?  Ay!  Who knows!

Hopefully now that I am getting my feet under me at school the next blog post won’t be delayed as long as this one has been.  I’m sorry – and THANK YOU for sticking with me.

Happy GF Eating 
~Kate

Gluten Free Rainbow Enchiladas

Seriously.  This is why my posts have dropped in quantity.  I truly think all of us cook like this, so it feels awkward to post this but here goes nothing.  Maybe someone hasn’t made an enchilada before?  Maybe you are stuck in a rut (like I usually am…lol) making the same-old-same-old meals day in and day out?  Okay.  Well then, for you, I post this.

Usually our enchiladas are chicken + whatever veggies are in the fridge/freezer (typically some squash/zucchini and some frozen corn).  Seems strange to me to say that we have zucchini on hand (it’s definitely not my fave veg) but for a while, it was the main “green” veggie that the girls would eat in order to “Eat The Rainbow” everyday.  Somehow, they’ve moved away from zucchini as their green and are much more content to eat edamame.  (Whatever works.)  Last night, I had them thinking that the fresh peas from the CSA were “just like edamame only you can eat the pod too”  (insert parental “oohs” and “ahhs” in order to make story more “exciting”).  But they busted me.  However, they did both consume at least two tablespoons of peas sans the pods which I ate (I LOVE the fresh ones from the CSA).

Into these enchiladas, I tossed the veggies that they DO eat and that make up the rainbow:  carrots, corn, roasted red pepper strips, green zucchini (had to slide in something green) and some chicken.  Zoe kept telling me that she want broccoli in hers, but I realized that she was just trying to appease me and would only take a smidgen of food if that is what really ended up on her plate.  Thus the zucchini was stealthy added before they realized the evil plan.

All of the veggies were stir-fried/sautéed (whichever works for you) until crisp-tender and seasoned nicely with salt/pepper and a little chili powder.  The chicken was actually from a grocer rotisserie (yes, I checked, it is gluten free.  Thankfully, knowledgeable staff helped out!).  Hey – short cuts are highly encouraged with little feet and hands “helping” in the kitchen and demonstrating new dance moves when things are busiest. 😀

So here is what I did to throw this inexpensive dinner together.  It served the four of us for dinner and lunch the next day.  I made one 8′ by 12″ pan with the fixings I used.  The measurements below are estimates for some (like seasoning and frozen corn) as I do most of my cooking by taste and appearance when it is something like this.  Baking… well… I usually measure unless I’m making a riff on something like pancakes that I’ve made a million times for the girls this summer.

PS.  This picture doesn’t do it justice.  My kitchen helper added an extra cup of chicken broth to the top when we had finished putting it together.  Thus the extra soft/lack of rolled enchilada.  I hesitated to even share the photo, but you know what?  I’m just a home cook like you!

Rainbow Enchiladas – gluten free

Ingredients:

2 cooked chicken breasts, roughly chopped (bite-sized if you have little ones)
2 small zucchini, sliced into 1/4″ rounds and quartered
3 small carrots, sliced into 1/4″ rounds and quartered
1 cup frozen corn
1 small can (5 ounces?) diced mild green chiles
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper, if desired
salt/pepper to taste
cumin (2+ teaspoons) and red chile powder (2 teaspoons +) to taste
4-6 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 small sweet onion, minced
2 cups of shredded melting cheese (Monterrey jack or queso quesadilla) for the topping
**optional:  2 cups of shredded melting cheese (Monterrey jack or queso quesadilla) added to the filling
16 corn tortillas (be sure these are gluten free)
2 cups enchilada sauce, gluten free (see note and a recipe below)

Directions:

1. Roast the red and green peppers under the broiler in order while you cut/prep your other veggies.  It’s easy to roast your own.  Split the bell peppers in half and seed them.  Lay them open side down on a parchment or tin foiled lined sheet (with a lip, the juices might run while they roast).  Keep your eye on them.  Once the skins blacken, remove from the oven and place into a paper lunch sack (and on plate or something to prevent dripping, etc).  Set aside until cool.  Once cool, you can easily peel the blackened skin off and then slice/chop the roasted peppered into your desired size.
2. While roasting the peppers, prep other veggies.  Quarter and slice zucchini and carrots. Mince garlic and onion. In a frying pan large enough to hold your veg, add a teaspoon of olive oil.  When hot, add carrots and onions.  Sautee for 2-4 minutes until *just* beginning to become a bit tender.  Add garlic, zucchini and corn.  Sautee an additional 3-4 minutes until everything is crisp-tender.  Remove from the heat.
3. Mix together veggies, chopped roasted pepper, green chiles (cheese, if using) and chicken.  Season generously with cumin, chile powder, salt and pepper.  Taste.  Adjust seasonings.  If it is bland now, it will be super bland later.
4. Warm your enchilada sauce.  Working in batches, warm your corn tortillas (half at a time) in the microwave wrapped in a damp paper towel for 20-25 seconds.  You just want them to be pliable so they won’t break.  Drizzle the bottom of your baking pan with a 1/2 cup of the warm enchilada sauce. Spread it around.  This will help prevent your enchiladas from sticking to the pan.
5. If baking right away, preheat your oven now to 350F.  If freezing (almost typed freaking… nice), feel free to obviously skip this step.
6. Dip an individual tortilla into the enchilada sauce, flip it over and then lay it on a cutting board or clean prep surface (yes, it’s messy).  Place 1/3 cup (or so) onto the tortilla.  Roll it up.  Lay it into your prepared pan at one end.  Continue this way, tucking each enchilada next to the previously created fabulous enchilada in your pan.  You will need to pack them tightly.
7. Once you are done, pour the remaining sauce over the top of the enchiladas.  Brush it over to cover them to prevent the tortillas from getting dried out/burned and all around yucky.  Top with shredded melting cheese.    Bake at 350F for 15-20 minutes or until the cheese if melted and golden.  (Cheese coloring will changed depending on which cheese you have chosen.  Please cook to your desired doneness as you would watch your pizza cheese.)
8. Serve with avocado slices, sour cream, diced jalapeño (for the heat lovers in your house), shredded lettuce, pickled carrots/radishes, Mexican rice, beans, etc.

A NOTE ABOUT ENCHILADA SAUCE:

Gluten free enchilada sauce is easy to find.  I like Frontera and Victoria – the green sauces are my favorites.  Read the ingredients, obviously, but I bet you will find one that you like as well.  If you want, there is a red sauce enchilada recipe from Rick Bayless that is ah-mazingly good.  This recipe for green enchilada sauce looks quite similar to what I make too.  However, that is so just-for-the-weekends-in-the-summer for me now.  (It involves an easy step of rehydrating dried Mexican chiles (red sauce) or roasting the tomatillos (green sauce), etc – easy… but not for me at the moment.

 I regularly use the recipe below to make a red enchilada sauce when I want them in a pinch and don’t have the convenience of a canned sauce on hand.

Whatever-you-got Red Enchilada Sauce

Ingredients:

3 teaspoons of minced garlic (yes, we love garlic)
1/4 cup minced sweet onion
2 Tablespoons + chile powder (we like to vary this and use ancho or pasilla or whatever we have on hand)
1 12 (or so) ounce can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes (sometimes with green chiles, but never the Ro-tel stuff)
1 cup gluten free chicken broth
2 Tablespoons GF flour mix (OR sweet rice flour)
2 teaspoons cumin
salt and pepper to taste
jalapeño, optional (if you want to add some more heat)

Directions:

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a pan.  Saute onions until translucent (or even slightly browned/caramelized if you like that add flavor/smokiness).  Add the chile powder, cumin, garlic and gluten free flour.  Sautee until fragrant (2-3 minutes).  Add tomatoes and chicken broth.  Simmer over medium for 10 minutes.  Adjust seasoning.  Blend with an immersion blender (what we have from 1988, tyvm) or be brave (AND CAREFUL!) and transfer/blend it in batches in your blender.  It need not be perfectly smooth sauce.  It’s up to you.

Happy GF Eats, everyone
Kate

Gluten Free Tamale Pie – on the grill

It is not nearly as hot here in the Pacific Northwest as it is where my family is (Chicago & Minnesota).  You guys have certainly had the heat wave.    We are still wearing our October gear in the mornings.  However, yesterday it was 85F.  (I know, still not hot comparatively, but come on… that’s a 20 degree jump for us!)

We took full advantage of the day:  playground in the morning, walk after lunch, bubbles/sidewalk chalk, building a fort, soccer outside, etc.  By the time dinner-cooking-hour rolled around, I was hot.  And so was the house.  We don’t have air conditioning and the warmest time of day here is late afternoon.

At 3:30PM, the house was almost 80F.  The thought of heating up the house further to cook (as the temperature was still rising) was NOT appealing to me at all.  I had planned to make a tamale pie with whatever veggies + ground beef that were in the fridge.  I knew this meant browning the beef, sauteing veggies and what not on the stove top and then finishing in the oven.  Oh.  NO.  Wasn’t happening.

So I cracked out the cast iron skillet and headed outside to the grill.  Beyond making the tamale dough topping, the rest of this was prepared on the grill.  I honestly didn’t plan to give a “recipe” today.  I totally winged this – but I think some of you might find the idea functional for you HOT house as well.

Forgive the lack of perfect measurements, I didn’t measure anything – so they are all guesstimates.

Nice, huh?  What a food blogger am I.

Oh well.  Here goes nothing!

 

You can see my fancy topping here – precooked.  Lovely, huh?

Tamale Pie on the Grill

NOTE:  Make sure you have enough gas (if using a gas grill) to have your burners on for 30-40 minutes on medium-high (or enough to maintain an internal temperature of 350F +)

TAMALE TOPPING (Prepare inside with you mixer)

Ingredients:
1 1/ cups masa harina, rehydrated according to package instructions
1/3 cup of butter, cut into pats
1/2 cup chicken broth (or water + gluten free chicken bouillon) or MORE
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
granulated garlic to taste (1/2-1 1/2 teaspoons)

Directions:

Put your rehydrated masa dough into the mixer.  Add the chicken broth, baking powder, salt, some granulated garlic and half of your butter pats.  Mix thoroughly on low.  Increase speed to medium after broth has been well incorporated.  Add the remaining pats of butter until well incorporated.  Beat on medium.  The dough texture should be coming up the sides of your mixer and not dense on the bottom or in a ball.  It is not super light – but should be very pliable.  If not, add a bit more broth – tablespoon by tablespoon – until your get rid of the ball stage.  Set aside.

TAMALE PIE – Meat + veggie bottom

Ingredients:

1 pound ground meat of choice (I used beef)
1/2 cup minced onion
4 carrots, peeled and diced
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 small can green chilis
2 whole tomatoes, diced
2/3 cup (or more??) frozen corn kernels (or fresh, if you’ve got them!)
1 Tablespoon + cumin
2 teaspoons ancho chili powder
salt/pepper to season to taste

Directions:  (written for those cooking on a gas grill)

1. Put your cast iron skillet on your preheated grill.  Heat thoroughly.  Add a tablespoon of olive oil.
2. Dump in diced hard veggies (onions, carrots).  Cook for 2-3 minutes.  Add diced peppers and tomato.  Cook again another 3-4 minutes.  Add garlic – cook until aromatic (1 – 2 minutes)
3. Add ground meat.  Brown.
4. Taste.  Add green chilis, frozen corn, cumin, chili powder and salt/pepper.
5. Bring to a simmer.  Taste again.  Adjust seasoning to desired.  (NOTE:  If it is mild now, it will be SUPER mild later – so really taste/adjust now.)
6. Once you’ve reached your flavor, top with the reserved tamale dough.  (I used my fingers to make a flat piece (much like working with play-dough) about 1/3-1/2 inch thick.  Cover the pan to the best of your ability.  I purposefully leave the edges open to allow me to see/check the base and the topping.
7. Put your cast iron skillet on the “cool side” but still over some heat.  Our grill has 4 burners.  I turned the right two burners to high and the far left one to the off position.  The second one I had on medium.

GRILL BURNERS
ONE (off)           TWO (medium)           THREE (high)           FOUR (high)
Position pan over burner #2

8.”Bake” with your grill closed until the tamale pie topping is cooked through (about 30 minutes or more, depending on the temperature of your grill/outside).  You can check the dough by poking it (I know… but hey – I was only cooking for me).  If the center is dry/cakey/tamale like, you are good.  If there are any wet/doughy parts, keep it on the grill longer.

Serve with:  cucumber, avocado, shredded lettuce, sour cream, salsa, shredded cheese, fresh diced tomatoes, black olives, whatever….

GRILL BURNERS
ONE (off)           TWO (medium)           THREE (high)           FOUR (high)
Position pan over burner #2