Easy Gluten-Free Biscuits

Someone's missing a gluten-free biscuit.

In cutting back on gluten in my diet, one thing I missed the most was biscuits.  The gluten-free ones I tried were like bricks.

But I've had great luck with baking with King Arthur gluten-free flour so when I saw they had a gluten-free baking mix, I immediately ordered some from their website. It's packed in a certified gluten-free facility and comes with a number of recipes on the box including the biscuits, pancakes, waffles, and a yummy looking coffee cake.

You can order at the

• King Arthur Flour

website if your grocers do not carry it.  The website also has dozens and dozens of gluten-free recipes as well as tips on gluten-free baking in general.  The mix is composed of mostly of whole grain brown rice flour with xanthan gum and leavening (to save you the steps of adding) and it has ZERO grams of sugar.  Just top with a little regular or vegan "butter" and some sugar-free jam for a delicious treat.

The biscuits are super easy to make, even if you don't normally bake things from scratch.  Just put 2 and 1/4 cups of the mix in the bowl and add two large eggs and a cup of cream (or use full-fat coconut milk if you can't do dairy). 

You mix it with a big spoon just until it holds together in a ball.

Then place it on a cutting board that's lightly dusted with the baking mix and with dry hands fold it over (like you were folding a piece of paper for a letter) 4 times.  

Then cut (I used a wineglass sprayed with a little non stick spray as my biscuit cutter went missing) and bake at 400 degrees F (200 C.). for 16-18 minutes.

They sure looked tall and fluffy.  Let's see about the taste.

They are slightly drier than my gluten-laden biscuits but a dab of butter took care of that and they were VERY fluffy and light with a slightly crisp exterior and a very soft interior.  Yum!  Even my "I hate gluten-free" husband" scarfed down two of them ignoring the dinner rolls from the bakery.

I'm going to make another batch this weekend, with some sausage gravy made with the King Arthur gluten-free flour.

Thanks King Arthur flour.  These were a hit.

Sourdough Beer Bread

Most beer breads, a wonderfully easy quick bread, call for a LOT of sugar and butter as well as a full can of beer. With a crackly, crisp top and a soft crumb, it's really a tasty bread. This recipe, made with the wonderful wild yeast sourdough starter from Azure Standard, uses less of all of that.

Now I know you are thinking - is she daft?  Why add a sourdough starter to a quick bread that also has leavening?  In risen bread the acids in the sourdough make for a great dough conditioner, improving BOTH taste and texture.  In a quick bread, the acids won't have time for that, but it DOES amp up the the taste, plus adding the probiotics that are in sourdough can't hurt.  It is the faintest of sour tastes, tasted on the back of the tongue, but really quite nice and it makes for a very moist bread. Plus it's a nice way to use up an abundance of sourdough when you've been busy and have't made any sandwich bread. :-)

Sourdough Beer Bread

3 cups flour (I used a half and half mix of  King Arthur white and  Bob's red Mill whole wheat pastry flour)
3/4 cup Azyre Standard wild yeast sourdough starter (the only sourdough starter I've not been able to "kill off" - it's super easy)
1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons of sugar
1 cup plus 4 Tablespoons beer (slightly less than a full bottle but if  batter is a bit dry, use it all)
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Melt butter and set aside.  Spray a 9 x 5 loaf pan with non stick spray. Dust a little flour inside, then shake out.

In a medium bowl, thoroughly mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.  Add the sourdough starter and beer, stirring with a spatula until moist and combined.  Pour into loaf pan.  Pour melted butter over top (makes for a nice crackly top).

Bake for 45-50 minutes until golden on top and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Loosen bread from sides of pan with knife, let cool a few minutes then remove from pan and cool on a rack slightly before slicing.  This also makes some great toast for breakfast.  My husband had a piece every single morning instead of his usual bread.

If you want easy muffins from this recipe - add the butter INTO the batter and place into 12 greased muffin cups (about 2/3 full). Bake for 30 minutes. For savory dinner muffins, reduce sugar by 1 Tablespoon, add 1/2 teaspoon of dried herbs and sprinkle sea salt on top.  Guinness as the beer with rosemary makes a particularly nice dinner muffin to accompany vegetable soups or stews. They have a light crunchy outer shell and a very soft filling and though not photogenic, are really tasty.

Simply Organic - Pasta Quick and Easy

Spaghetti is one of my favorite foods.  As a kid who wouldn't eat pasta sauce until I was about ten (my Mom would explain to the waitress on the rare meal out -" yes, just buttered noodles"), I love it now and eat it two or three times a month.  I often make spaghetti squash or zucchini "zoodles" if I'm cutting back on non-complex carbs but a small plate with veggies fits in with any meal plan, especially if you use very lean meat or veggie proteins.

But I often don't have time on a work night to make sauce from scratch and that's usually when I check the freezer for pre-made frozen sauce to find out we used the last of it the previous week. The jarred sauces are either  gourmet expensive or full of corn syrup (in the cheaper ones.)  The packaged seasoning mixes to add to your tomatoes often have a lot of salt, sugar, AND MSG as well as stuff I can't pronounce (and with a Ph. D in one of the forensic sciences, I've taken more organic chemistry than should be allowed by law).

What's a healthy cook to do?

Simply Organic Spaghetti Sauce Mix

Link  (cut and paste in your browser)

https://www.simplyorganic.com/

Simply Organic is part of a member-owned co-op responsible to people and planet and has a wide assortment of some really great seasonings, this is just the first time I've tried the pasta sauce.

I found the product at a neighboring village's health food store (small family place) and it made an excellent sauce. I've also seen it at larger chain neighborhood grocers.  I simply added to a 15 ounce can of Muir Glen fire roasted tomatoes (worth a few extra cents), a couple of shakes of extra dried basil, a shake or two of crushed red pepper and a teaspoon of raw honey (because I refuse to leave any recipe un-tweaked). 

It has organic cornstarch in it already so you can thicken up the sauce without adding extra tomato paste which cuts down on prep time. With a small can of drained and rinsed sliced  black olives and 3/4 pound veggie "beef" crumbles, it made an excellent low fat, pasta sauce that was not only thick and fresh tasting - it was on the table in 30 minutes!

Oatmeal Waffles

Think you can't eat waffles while eating healthy? There IS more to life than maple syrup.  These light and tasty vegan oatmeal waffles are topped with low fat vanilla yogurt, fruit and a dash of cinnamon for a great, filling breakfast that won't weigh you down.

The waffle batter recipe is from the website Minimalist Baker which I just love.

Link to her is here: (just cut and paste in your browser window).

http://minimalistbaker.com/vegan-gluten-free-oatmeal-waffles/