Polenta Grilled Cheese

There's really no cute or cool story for how I came to make this recipe. We are running low on food, which used to be fine when we didn't have kids. But with Ada eating more and more each day, when I'm out of stuff -- I need to get very creative if I can't make it to the grocery store.

C'mon, mom. I'm hungry!

One of Ada's favorite foods right now is cheese. She likes cubed cheddar with her other favorite food: grapes. She also likes American, which we never used to buy until we got desperate during her recent solids strike. Thankfully, we had a few slices left. No bread, though.

So, while we ate the last of our eggs at breakfast, I made some polenta.


POLENTA GRILLED CHEESE

What you'll need . . .

• 1 cup polenta 
• 3 cups water 
• Pinch salt 
• Cheese of your choice 
• Earth Balance or butter 

Method . . . 

1. Bring water to a boil, then toss in polenta and whisk for several minutes, until thickened. Cook for a couple more minutes and then take off heat. 
2. Generously grease an 8" x 8" baking dish. Pour polenta into it and smooth it out, distributed evenly.
3. Let chill for at least 4 hours. 
4. Then -- using a sharp knife -- cut out squares or rectangles from your chilled polenta. Carefully cut your piece in half through the middle, so it'll be like bread for the cheese. 
5. Place a slice or two or cheese in between the pieces of polenta. 
6. Cook over medium-high heat on a pan (I greased mine first with Earth Balance) until polenta is brown and cheese is bubbly. 
7. Slice and enjoy.

I made a small "sandwich" for Ada.


And a larger one for myself.


Crisis averted. I don't love American cheese, but it actually tasted good. OK. It tasted amazing, and I'm embarrassed to admit that. Just imagine how incredible it will be with cheddar or pepper jack!

Almost as good as the Polenta Pizza w/ Roasted Veggies we made a few months ago, too.


Happy birthday, Ada Mae! (And happy Friday to the rest of you!)


You can see some gorgeous photos, if I do say so myself, I took for the occasion over on Writing Chapter Three today. Now I'm off to do some last-minute party planning before tomorrow's big bash.

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Celebration Cookies

I know, I know. Sugar. But I've been doing much better with it since my last post. I don't even feel like I NEED to eat dessert every day of the week, which is huge progress. Today's recipe is one created in celebration. I made them as a treat for a race well run.

Bonus: They're wheat-free, gluten-free, peanut-free, and vegan. BAM!

CHOCOLATE-ALMOND OATMEAL COOKIES

What you'll need . . .

• 1 cup almonds, processed into meal
• 1 cup rolled oats, processed into flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons flax meal mixed w/ 6 tablespoons HOT water
• 1/3 cup grapeseed oil
• 1 teaspoon almond extract

Method . . .

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment or lightly grease and set aside.
2. When you've finished processing all your dry ingredients into meal, put the almond meal, processed oats, oats, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl and whisk until well incorporated. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the sugar, maple syrup, flax eggs (see above), oil, and almond extract. Beat until fluffy-ish.
4. Then add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix well.
5. Scoop heaping tablespoonfuls onto your cookie sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.
6. Let cool before eating.

Recipe yields one sheet of generously sized cookies that keep well in an airtight container for a week. While these guys were baking, I took a peek in the oven and was amazed at how well they were turning out. It's been a while since I created a cookie recipe entirely from scratch (and not just a variation of an old favorite).

They are chewy, chocolatey, and completely satisfying.


If you're in the mood for something fruity, check out today's recipe post on Writing Chapter Three. Strawberry pie with a rye-almond crust. One of my proudest baking creations in a long, long time. I definitely need to make more pies -- stat!

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Even Better Pecan Chocolate Chippers

We've been dealing with a cranky baby this past week -- which has meant little time for posting, unfortunately. But in order to stay sane, I snuck in some baking time. Thing is, I'm also trying to reduce the dairy and wheat in my diet to help with some breastfeeding issues that we're having.

Good news, though. As a result, I improved on my favorite cookie recipe.

EVEN BETTER PECAN CHOCOLATE CHIPPERS!

What you'll need . . .

• 1/2 cup Earth Balance (I used the soy-free kind)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup natural sugar
• 1-1/2 teaspoons Ener-G egg replacer with 2 tablespoons water
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups rolled oats, processed into flour*
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup diced pecans (or walnuts)
• 1 cup vegan chocolate chips (I used Sunspire)

*To process rolled oats into flour -- put them in your food processor for 3 to 5 minutes -- until they are pulverized, flour-y. That's all you have to do.

To bake, just follow the method on the Pecan Chocolate Chippers recipe page.

They turn out even better than the original . . . and are wheat free, dairy free.


Now back to soothing our crying two week old. Tonight we're making some pretty amazing vegan pizza. So, keep an eye out for that recipe -- coming soon!

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Newfound Love: WF, GF, Vegan Chocolate Chippers

I never thought I'd say this after nearly three years of marriage. But, I've fallen in love again. It wasn't as difficult to break to Stephen as I had originally thought it'd be. In fact, he was kind of into the whole thing. Said maybe our marriage could survive -- thrive, even -- as a threesome.

What an amazingly open-minded guy he is!

You see, this love of mine is here to stay . . . always. In our cookie jar. Yeah. I recently fell in love with a cookie recipe. Some of you who follow us on Twitter may have read the other day that I found this amazing gluten-free, wheat-free, vegan cookie recipe on a new-to-me blog, Wing-It Vegan. OK. So, WF, GF, AND VEGAN? Didn't we just expound the merits of junk food?

Please, bear with me. You'll thank me for sharing this seemingly too-healthy-to-be-good cookie recipe with you as soon as you get the chance to make it.


Of course, I'm not going to copy word-for-word the original recipe for these chocolate-peanut butter beauties you see above. You'll have to check out Wing-It Vegan for that (and for tons of other tasty recipes!).

But I did tool around a bit and created a peanut butter chocolate chipper inspired by ever-so delicious original.


What you'll need . . .

• 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup (scant) coconut flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
• 4 tbsp almond milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon Bob's Red Mill egg replacer whisked with 3 tablespoons water
• 1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (or any vegan ones that strike your fancy)

Method . . .

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk together the coconut flakes, brown sugar, coconut flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. Add in the peanut butter, almond milk, vanilla, and Bob's Red Mill egg replacer.
4. Mix together using the paddle attachment. Then fold in the chocolate chips.
5. Drop heaping tablespoon amounts onto the cookie sheet, spacing about 1-inch apart. Flatted with the palm of your hand just slightly.
6. Bake for 14 minutes. Then let cool on the sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a write rack to cool.
7. We stored ours in an airtight container in the refrigerator. They taste great warm or cold!

Be prepared to fall in love. I know that we'll be making these over and over and over again. They can be changed in so many different ways. Use different nut butters for the base. Different sugars. Gluten-free flours. Etc. And they're just a tick healthier than the cookies we normally make.

It's a good excuse to keep them around.


Have you ever fallen head-over-heels for a recipe? A dish that you just have to return to over and over again? We have several. As well as several go-to meals we know by heart (for when we're in a pinch). Leave us a comment or email us (at neverhomemaker [at] gmail [dot] com) about yours!

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Gluten-Free Carob Chip Ovencakes

While we're on the topic of healthy, satisfying breakfasts, I thought I'd share one of my own creations. This one is as fresh as yesterday's breakfast . . . when I decided to craft some wheat-free, gluten-free (and vegan) "ovencakes" full of banana and carob.

They're called "ovencakes" because pancakes just don't describe the cooking process. You bake them. In the oven. Makes the end product less greasy and unhealthy. And despite my early attempts with gluten-free foods (uhhh, the crumbly, but beautiful, wheat-free, gluten free pizza disaster), they're even a little fluffy.

Just a little, but it's there. I promise.


What you'll need . . .

• 1 large ripe banana
• 1 teaspoon agave nectar
• 1/4 cup coconut flakes (unsweetened)
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
• 1 tablespoon flax meal
• 1/4 cup walnut meal (take raw walnuts and pulse them in a food processor)
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• handful carob chips

Method . . .

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. Put your banana and agave nectar in the bowl of an electric mixer and mix until it is as smooth and syrupy as possible.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients except the carob chips. Mix until well incorporated.
4. Stir in the carob chips.
5. Spoon three 1/2 cup sized amounts of batter onto the parchment paper/cookie sheet. Flatten by placing a piece of plastic wrap on top and rolling over with a rolling pin.
6. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. You'll start to smell them, and that's when you know they're done. They should also be lightly browned.

These tasty cakes kept me full so long I ate a super late lunch -- didn't even think about food until 2PM. And if you really examine what's in them -- you see it's all good stuff. So, even though this recipe yields a heaping serving (3 thick ovencakes), you need not feel the guilt. If you're still not convinced, read this post about our take on calorie counting.


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Gluten-Free Adventures: Pizza Crust

Emma asked us: "I'm a pizza lover myself, but recently found out that I might be wheat intolerant. Know of any good gluten-free pizza dough recipes?" Well, I certainly tried my best this weekend to create a gluten-free, wheat-free crust with items we already had in our kitchen (part of the whole budget-friendly part of this blog). I don't think I achieved the best results ever (tastes amazing, doesn't totally stick together) . . . but for improvisation, I think I earn an A-.

Let's take a closer look at what's inside . . .



All homemade and clockwise from left to right: Rice flour, cornmeal flour, flax meal (OK, that one wasn't ground by me), oat flour, and cashew flour. What I found when I started looking up gluten-free pizza crust recipes is that they all seem to have 1,000,000 types of flours in them. All of which I didn't own. So, I tried making my own with the base ingredients -- grinding them in our food processor. Some worked better than others.



For example, oat flour (above) is super simple to create and I use it in many items. I'm new to the whole gluten-free arena, but I've heard oats are an iffy subject. Can anyone fill me in on that? I did also read that some believe they're totally gluten-free, which is why I ultimately decided to include them in the recipe.



The rice "flour" on the other hand was much more difficult to create, and it never totally took a complete flour texture. It was more like cornmeal. And it also took a good 10 minutes to reduce to this grainy texture. I may have also lost some hearing in my left ear. Ouch.



The cornmeal (above, difference between flour and regular meal) did grind nicely into a powdery stuff with enough pulses (and I happened to have a gluten-free variety on hand from Bob's Red Mill).



As did the raw cashews. There are much easier ways to make these things, but instead of going to the grocery store and buying a whole new stock of flour . . . I'm pretty proud of the results.

Basically, to create the flours, I just took the raw ingredients and pulsed them in our food processor until they took on as many flour characteristics (powdery-ness, no lumps/bumps, etc.) as possible. This isn't the best way to perform this process, and I know there are mills for this sort of endeavor.

My friend Meg wrote an article about using a flour mill. Though her writeup features wheat flour and L'Equip VitaMill, I think it would also work on all the ingredients I include in this recipe.



What you'll need . . .

• 3/4 cup oat flour
• 1/2 cup cornmeal flour
• 1/4 cup rice flour
• 2 tablespoons flax meal
• 2 tablespoons raw cashew "flour"
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon agave or honey
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1-1/2 teaspoons cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup warm water (wrist temperature)
• Extra flour of any kind for dusting (I used the rice)

Method . . .

1. Grind all your flours ahead of time so they're ready. Then sift them all together with the salt and yeast granules.
2. Make an impression in the dry ingredients with your fist -- a hole where you'll put the wet ingredients.
3. Then pour the warm water into the hole, followed by the agave or honey, olive oil, and cider vinegar.
4. Mix for 4 minutes -- until fully combined.
5. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
6. Transfer to a clean work surface dusted with flour of your choice. Form into a ball, cut in half, and then transfer each to a piece of parchment.
7. Using a piece of plastic wrap on top, roll out the dough into a circular shape -- until thin. Repeat with next dough round.
8. Then bake -- without toppings -- for 5 minutes, until the dough has hardened. This is called parbaking. Repeat with other crust. Then continue on to your toppings. We put salsa as our tomato base, fresh mozzarella, some of our leftover cheese from the Vegetarian Juicy Lucy, black beans, and avocado (after baking).
9. Bake for another 7 to 10 minutes, until cheese is lightly browned.

Stephen and I both thought the crust was really good. But it was extremely easy to break apart. You can't pick up a piece of this pizza. You have to scoop it. It tastes quite good, but -- again -- the texture isn't quite "normal" . . . so I think I'll set out on another gluten-free pizza adventure sometime soon. I found a variety of recipes since this project that look more like "real" pizza crust.

So, here's my question to you all: What you're favorite gluten-free, wheat-free pizza crust recipe? The one that's most authentic?



Thanks to Emma for asking us this great question! If you have anything you want to know related to the content in this blog, just email us at neverhomemaker@gmail.com -- and we'll be happy to take a stab at answering for you! You also still have until this evening to enter our Martha Stewart's Cooking School cookbook giveaway. Just our little way of celebrating reaching 500 (and now 630) subscribers.

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Not-So Sinful Breakfast: Monkey Pancakes

One of my friends and his little guy have been munching on chocolate (chip pancakes) for breakfast lately. It got me thinking about creating an ULTIMATE chocolate pancake for myself. Because I'm addicted to chocolate, and there's no better cure than consuming it in the wee hours of the morning. These wheat-free, vegan pancakes have it ALL! We're talking banana, chocolate-peanut butter, chocolate chips, vanilla, etc! But they're not so bad for you . . . no, really!

I call 'em monkey pancakes because for some reason, the combo of banana and chocolate and peanut butter makes me think of, well, monkeys. Oh, yeah. And there's a monkey on the jar of peanut butter I use in the recipe. Plus, including all the ingredients in the title would be silly.



Now, the real trick is using this peanut butter that we recently discovered called Dark Chocolate Dreams from Peanut Butter and Company. Using this specific kind isn't necessarily required for the recipe, however -- I think it's good to show you guys this stuff. It's basically vegan Nutella (with peanuts, not hazelnuts) -- but I like it much better. In fact, I can't get enough of it. Our local Wegmans sells it . . . and I see it popping up more and more at other stores (if you'd like to find some of you own, in a grocery aisle near you, check our their store location tool). And if you haven't seen it, you can get some online . . . and it's worth every penny!


What you'll need . . . (for a tasty breakfast for two)

• 1 very ripe banana
• 1/4 cup Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter (or 1/4 cup natural peanut butter mixed with 1 to 2 tablespoons cocoa powder)
• 1/2 cup soymilk
• 1/2 cup rolled oats (uncooked, processed in food processor until they are like flour)
• 1/2 cup rolled oats, uncooked
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• Handful vegan chocolate chips (I used Sunspire)

Method . . .

1. Mash the banana until gooey with no clumps.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix until well combined.
3. Fold in the chocolate chips.
4. In a large frying pan over medium heat, melt some Earth Balance (or other butter substitute) and pour a 1/3 cup amount of batter into the pan.
5. Fry on each side until lightly browned. Continue with the rest of the batter.
6. Top with banana slices or more chocolate chips. And enjoy! 

And be sure to check out the details about our Something for Nothing Giveaway of Martha Stewart's Cooking School cookbook -- to celebrate 500 (and now 612) followers :)

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Spelt Corn Bread: Wheat-Free Treat

Corn bread -- or is it cornbread? -- version 2.0 is both vegan and wheat free. It's a more savory example of the stuff -- incorporating some rosemary for extra flavor. (Just a tip: I find I can use rosemary and lavender almost interchangeably in cooking and baking.) What makes it wheat-free is the glorious spelt flour which is used for the base.

Spelt is not only a great substitute for "regular" flour, but it is also packed with protein and other enhanced nutrition. It has a slightly nutty flavor that works well in baking . . . is readily available at most grocery stores . . . and is easy to digest.

AND: If you'd like to try something a little crazy -- check out the pomegranate-lavender poppy corn bread recipe we posted this morning.

What you'll need . . .

• 2 cups cornmeal
• 1 cup spelt flour
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 cups soy milk
• 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon rosemary

For lack of another photo of the corn bread, I've decided to showcase my Mommie Dearest magnet. NO WIRE HANGERS!



Method . . .

1. Preheat oven to 350 F, line a 9x13 baking pan with parchment paper or spray the bottom lightly with non-stick cooking spray.
2. Whisk together the soy milk and the vinegar and set aside.
3. In another bowl, sift together the dry ingredients
4. Add the oil and maple syrup to the soy milk mixture. Whisk until it is foamy and bubbly (about 2 minutes).
5. Pour the wet ingredient into the dry and mix together using a large wooden spoon or a firm spatula.
6. Crush the rosemary in a mortar and pestle and incorporate into the mixture.
7. Pour batter into the prepared baking pan and bake 30-35 minutes.

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