From the category archives:

Gluten-Free Starters

Easy Summer Salad Recipe

by Emilia on July 14, 2010

Let’s get this blog back into action for a change, shall we. I think that I’ve rested enough after the renovation we did to our home, it was surprising how hard it was and how long it took for us.

I have been wondering what to eat here now that the weather is so hot and humid that you feel a lot like melting, except when you swim in the sea, after that you are cool for about 10 minutes until you feel like you are in a sauna again.

We here in the North are not used to this kind of weather, so it really can take a toll on you. Some days ago it was reported that it was the hottest day in 50 years - can you imagine. I spent most of that day swimming in the sea, tanning on the beach was impossible for more than half an hour, that is, if you didn’t want to feel like you’re melting away into the sand.

Thai foods are a given when the weather gets really hot, curries and the likes are filled with veggies and spices, so you feel good when eating dishes like that. Salads are also a godsend when you feel like you just want to eat something light. I’ve been incorporating both of these things with Thai flavoured salads which are a lot like regular salads, but I flavour them with chillies, lime, coriander and fish sauce - it’s really easy, filled with flavour and it feels cooling in the heat.

Easy Thai inspired summer salad

serves two

-a head of lettuce

-a couple of tomatoes

-a couple of onions

-a bunch of coriander

-two grilled chicken breasts

for the sauce

-3 tbls fresh lime juice (or from the bottle)

-3 tbls thai fish sauce

-1-2 red chillies, seeded and cut into thin stripes (or some dried chilli flakes)

This is so easy and fast, if you have the chicken breasts ready. If you need to cook them, just add some spices to them (I use this dry rub I make, some paprika, oregano, thyme, salt, chili flakes, garlic powder and onion powder). Then cook them in the oven at around 300 F until done.

You can use fish too, some shrimp, beef, almost anything.

You can of course use any kind of veggies basically in this; the idea is in the fish sauce, the chillies, the coriander and the lime juice.

Mix the lime juice with the fish sauce and the chillies.

Wash and tear the salad, cut the onions and the tomatoes, mix them together, cut the coriander and add it.

Pour the sauce on top and add the chicken on top of the salad.

I get a lot of questions on where to buy quinoa flour, psyllium husk, things like that which I use in the recipes. I really never had an answer for this, until some time ago when I started ordering form Iherb. Some of you probably know it already, but I thought that I’ll mention it here too in a post and I will put up a notice in the sidebar about Iherb.

Iherb has an simply amazing variety of products for sale, I for example order all my hair and skin care products from there, some foods that are hard to get by here, and also all my supplements.

This is by the way not a paid advert for Iherb; I don’t think they know that this blog even exists. I have been very happy with them and I do think that it’s worth to mention how good Iherb is.

The site is not easy to navigate at first, at least for me it was not, but you can search for psyllium husk for example by simply adding the words into the search box, you can also search for gluten free products in the same way.

Something worth mentioning for celiacs is their range of probiotics for example; you can find them by searching with the term probiotics. The same goes for multivitamins, fish oil etc.

Using code JUH901 will get you 5 dollars off your first order.

Popularity: 39% [?]

A Blini Recipe

by Emilia on March 30, 2009

Blinis, or blintz, are made from buckwheat and maybe best described as a Russian sour pancake - if you like sourdough bread you will probably love blinis.

Buckwheat blinis were born in Russia and I do consider them to be the single most delicious culinary gift the land of the Tsars has given; although I must say that in general Russian food is really good, blinis just happen to be extraordinarily tasty. Fermented pickles, fermented butter and fermented milk products like smetana all have a special place in my heart and they came here from Russia; most of the Finnish foods I like are actually Russian.

The process of making blinis starts with mixing some buckwheat flour with yeast and sour cream, the dough is then left to rise for some time either in the fridge for a longer time, or at room temperature for a shorter period of time. I usually leave it in the fridge over night; the sour scent from the dough is heavenly in the morning. After the fermenting some milk is heated and added to the dough with egg yolk, salt and butter, the egg white from the egg is whisked and then it is folded into the dough.

I would describe the scent at this point like the one you get from really strong beer.

The cooking in my house is done on a pancake pan made from cast iron with a lot of butter which needs to be hot enough, otherwise the outside will not be crisp, but it is left to be just too fatty and soggy. Blinis have all kinds of different fillings, but the most common would be some caviar, chopped onions and smetana, or sour cream, I also like to have them with some chopped cooked eggs mixed with butter.

Whatever the filling is, the blinis rarely disappoint.

A Blini Recipe

For some dairy-free blinis you could try using soy yogurt instead of sour cream, some soy milk instead of milk and lard instead of butter, some vegetable oil is fine too. In general I find lard to be better here than butter, but butter is more traditional. Organic lard is hard to get here - I get some pig fat from the organic pig we buy every now and then -so I usually use butter.

These are cooked just the same as regular pancakes, a cast iron pan is better because the heat distribution is different, but any pan would be fine.

Blinis

serves 4 people as a main course and 6 as a starter

Part 1

-400 grams / 14 ounces sour cream

-2,5 dl / 1 cup buckwheat flour

-20 grams / 0.7 ounces fresh yeast

-1 teaspoon sugar

Heat the sour cream until it feels warm when you touch it with your finger, add the sugar and the yeast. Mix them together and then add the flour.

Leave the dough to sit at room temperature for a couple hours, or leave it at room temperature for one hour and then over night in the fridge.

Part 2

-11/2 dl / 3/4 cup full fat milk

-1 tsp salt

-2 tbls melted butter

-one egg yolk

-one egg white

-a lot of butter for cooking

Take the dough out of the fridge, it should look like this.

Heat the milk and add the melted butter and salt to it. Pour it into the dough and mix the egg yolk to the dough too.

Whisk the egg white until white peaks form and then fold it into the dough.

Now the dough will be more liquid and it looks like this.

Heat a pan on medium heat.

It is the right temperature when the butter placed on it turns golden and foamy.

Cook the blinis. You can see that they are done when the bubbles on top turn into holes, then flip them and cook the other side.

Serve them hot with sour cream, or smetana if you can find it, some caviar and chopped onions. Or you could serve them with boiled eggs that have been mashed with a fork and mixed with butter and salt.

This my contribution to Go ahead honey, it’s gluten-free, which is a monthly gluten-free event, hosted this month by Naomi at Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried. The theme this month is gluten-free canapees.

Popularity: 45% [?]