Gluten Free Super Bowl Sliders

I look forward to the (ads on the) Super Bowl every year, but this year we are really excited around here because the Steelers are back! If you love Green Bay, sorry. Don't stop reading. I also get really excited about the Super Bowl food that you get to eat, which is almost like a total junk food binge, but I always see great little recipes and ads in the paper for Super Bowl snacks that I wish I could eat but most of them are full of gluten. Which makes me mad, but only for about 10 seconds. Since I like to cook anyway, I love coming up with great party food for one really fun day out of the year. I posted some other great recipes last year, like Spinach and Artichoke Dip, Strawberries with Sour Cream and Brown Sugar, and Hearty Chili. I have a great easy recipe based on one of Rachael Ray's that makes about 16 delicious mini burgers called sliders. Come to think of it, I don't even have a clue as to why they named mini hamburgers sliders. Is it because they are easy to slide down your gullet? That is a great question for someone to Google.

To start, I made some hamburger buns using Grandpa's Kitchen bread mix and I put little handfuls of rolled dough into muffin tins to see if that would help them keep the bun shape while they were rising. It worked, and the buns were pretty good, although I guessed on the baking time (25 minutes) and I think they baked about 5 minutes too long. So check the buns at around 20 minutes and see if they're ready to come out. I'm not so good with the yeast breads and I would really love to perfect the art of baking gluten free yeast dough. Maybe that's my new resolution. I'm dying to try the Cheese Bread Mania gluten free buns to see if it's good with the cheesy flavor.

Then I took 2 1/2 pounds of hamburger and added 1/3 cup of A-1 sauce, and one packet of onion soup mix, which now I have to make by hand with this recipe. It says to use 5 tablespoons of the mix to equal one packet. I mixed it all together in a huge bowl with my hands and then patted it out in a greased 9x13 pan. I baked it in the oven at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. (I checked it at 12 minutes, which the recipe calls for, but the meat was still raw. At 15 minutes it was just a bit pink in the middle. Cook it until you feel comfortable with the meat's doneness.) When you take this out of the oven, be careful, because the fat from the meat will be hot and bubbly and you'll have to carefully pull it out so as not to burn yourself. I used one of those basters to suck the fat out of the pan. Then I cut it with a pizza cutter into squares (so cute) sized to fit onto my buns. I got about 16 patties out of this batch. The nice thing about this recipe is that you can make all the patty batter for everyone and they can use little dinner rolls and you can put a little patty on your own gluten free buns just like the rest of the world. For the toppings, I sliced roma tomatoes, because they are small and cute for the mini burgers, tore some romaine lettuce into small chunks, used the small rings of a red onion, and cut pre-sliced cheese into fourths and let people have at it with the ketchup and deli mustard. You could use arugula instead of lettuce if you wanted to. I served them with some homemade fries, which were really simple to make.

Homemade Fries
1.Peel 4 potatoes and slice into steak fries. Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
2.Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse kosher salt to taste. Toss to coat.
3.Roast for 45 minutes-1 hour in a 400 degree oven, or until desired crispness, stirring occasionally.

I loved these fries! If you love fast food fries, they might not be your favorite, but they tasted like delicious homemade fries to me.
Check back tomorrow for another gluten free Super Bowl Recipe!
Happy eating and Go Steelers!

The Cody Sandwich: Gluten Free Lunch Heaven

I have this friend named Cody who has celiac disease that is my neighbor. We share treats all the time (because really, I shouldn't eat all four dozen of the batches of cookies I make and there's no way he can eat all that Joy Luck Chinese by himself) and people think we're weird at church because we stand in the hall having animated discussions about food. Anyway, one day in the summer his wife brought me over a sandwich that he makes all the time for himself and she thought I would like it. I'm never one to turn down a free lunch (you all remember the times I've said how bad I hate to make lunch...it hasn't changed.) so I gave it a go. Now I seriously wake up in the middle of the night wondering if I have the stuff to make this sandwich. It tastes great, it's simple, and it fills you up. I'd say that's a win-win right there. The best thing about it is that I actually use up a whole loaf of Pamela's Gluten Free bread before it gets hard when I eat these. So in honor of Cody turning 38 last week, here is the recipe for the Cody Sandwich:

Cody's Gluten Free Turkey Melt

2 slices of Pamela's Gluten Free bread, made from the mix (I used my breadmaker)
2 T Best Foods mayonnaise
6 slices of deli turkey, your choice (I do oven roasted...plain turkey flavor is my favorite)
1 slice of provolone, meunster, gouda, or monterey jack cheese
3-4 slices of tomato (summer homegrown are best, but we'll suffer through the winter with grocery store versions)

Toast the two slices of bread and spread with mayo. Place turkey with cheese on top on a microwave safe plate and cook until cheese is melted and meat is warm (about 30-45 seconds). Move meat over to the bread, top with tomato and close sandwich. Eat warm.

Now, Cody always toasts his bread and I never do. I think it's a personal choice. Both ways taste great if you ask me. Another simple but delicious lunch option for those of us who hate to think about lunch!
Happy eating and Happy Birthday, Cody!

The Best Gluten Free BLT You'll Ever Eat

This year I planted five tomato plants, which is a lot for me. I am the only one in my house who eats tomatoes, so that was pretty ambitious of me to plant so many. My real intent was to can some of those tomatoes, but first I have to figure out how to do it. Until I figure it out, I've made myself quite happy with Gluten Free Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato sandwiches at lunchtime with my home grown tomatoes, which everybody knows are the best kind of tomatoes you can eat. I start with two slices of toasted Udi's Gluten Free Whole Grain Bread, and then I mix up the secret ingredient: Gorgonzola Mayonnaisse. Now, this may sound like something entirely too fancy for a housewife to be eating, but I assure you it's the easiest spread in the world. Take 2 T Best Foods Light Mayo and add 2 T crumbled Salemville Amish Gorgonzola and mix well. Spread this lumpy concoction over your toasted bread, add cooked Tyson bacon on one side and sliced tomatoes on the other (both will hold onto the mayo a little better than lettuce) and then add a couple of pieces of lettuce in the middle. Slice down the middle and you've got yourself the best gluten free BLT you'll ever eat. Mmm, I think I'll have one of those for lunch myself today. Good stuff.

Happy eating!

What to do with Udi's Gluten Free Bread: Tuna Melt

I love a good tuna sandwich just as much as the next gal, (or guy) but to be honest the last few years tuna sandwiches have lost their appeal to me. It's all about the bread. When you have gluten free bread that is not so great, you'd rather eat your sandwich fillings on anything but bread for a while. This Whole Grain Gluten Free bread from Udi's is the perfect hearty sandwich bread, and the other day I took a crack at a tuna melt. Here's the surprising ingredient that saved the day: extra virgin olive oil.

Usually when I make a grilled anything I just spread butter on it and throw it on the griddle, but this time I drizzled extra virgin olive oil on the outsides of my sandwich to see if it would do anything different. The crust came out perfectly golden and crunchy. It was so worth the price of good olive oil to get a nice, crunchy tuna melt. I've never used it on sandwiches before, so this was, I think, a great flash of inspiration.

I filled my sandwich with the things I like to have on tuna: one can of tuna, 1/4 cup mayonnaisse, 1 T sweet pickle relish, and one slice of havarti cheese. It turned out to be a great light dinner and I served it with a spinach salad. Delectable. Mmmm, thank you, Udi's, for the hearty gluten free sandwich bread that makes comfort food actually comfortable.

Happy eating!