Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Going [Pea]Nuts for Bread

Bread is something of a rarity for me. I think it has more to do with the perceived obligation of eating it for days after baking it. Gluten free bread can, if made a certain way, i.e., incorrectly, go from a warm slice to pair with chili to a crusty brick in a matter of twenty-four hours or less. That happens less frequently now, what with my love of experimenting with ingredients. I’ve been working with different flours, learning about their individual flavors and textures, incorporating different liquids, leaveners, binders, fruits, vegetables, fats, etc. 

From my persistence for a perfect slice, I’ve made skillet cornbread and apple teff bread, both using applesauce for moisture. In many other cases, egg and flaxseed meal have acted as binders so it doesn’t crumble apart in your hand.

The one I'm going to talk about didn't crumble, mumble, or bumble. And I want to share its awesomeness with you.


I don’t really make bread often, maybe once a month at most. I like to keep it “whole grain”, or not using starches when I can. But when I find a new innovative way to making bread, I like to try it and see what I think.

There has been uproar (the good kind) far and wide on the creation of Mr. Peanut Sandwich Bread. Lisa of the 24/7 Low Carb Diner made it for her son who was eating the GAPS diet. Even those who eat a low carb diet miss the taste of a good sandwich, particularly the bread part that makes a sandwich... well, a sandwich. A brilliant way of making bread is using finely ground nuts/seeds or nut/seed butter.



Who would have thought peanut butter made sandwich bread that sliced easily and tasted so darn good! The result was a springy and sturdy loaf, still soft after refrigeration, and delicious as is for as an alternative for breakfasts with a smear of fruit preservatives or cream cheese.

To take it one step further, I added poppy seeds for my own personal spin on the recipe. And when I perfect making my own nut/seed butters, I’m going to try making this bread with almond, cashew, pistachio, walnut, pecan, sunflower seed, pepitas, and flaxseed. Maybe an additional flavor or two…

Peanut Butter Poppy Sandwich Bread

256 g Smooth peanut butter*, organic and lightly salted preferred
3 Eggs
1 tbsp. Unrefined apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp. Baking soda
1/4 tsp. Sea salt (or more if the peanut butter is unsalted)
20 g Poppy seeds
Stevia or honey, to taste (optional)
Coconut oil, for greasing the loaf pan

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
Grease the loaf pan with coconut oil at room temperature or cooking spray and set aside.
Blend the peanut butter, eggs, and vinegar with an electric beater on medium speed until smooth.
Stir in the remaining ingredients thoroughly, especially in regards to integrating the poppy seeds.
Pour into the greased loaf pan and smooth the top.
Bake for 30 – 35 minutes.
When done, carefully remove from the loaf pan onto a cooling rack.
After a few minutes, it can be sliced and served.

Makes 1 loaf, 16 slices. Refrigerates beautifully.

*Allergic to peanuts? If you can tolerate almonds, Lisa recently made her Mr. Peanut Sandwich Bread with almond butter just as successfully. And if you made it with the other nuts and seeds I've listed above, I'd love to hear how it went.

Monday, February 27, 2012

A Different Kind of Sweet... Potato

Carbohydrates. It's highly debated just how healthy they are. In some circles, such as those following SCD, ACD, Paleo, and Keto, foods high in carbohydrates are avoided like the plague. For health or weight loss or both, grains, legumes/beans, most fruits and root vegetables are removed from the diet, and the majority of what’s acceptable are leafy greens, meats, certain fats, and sometimes dairy. I've always been rather confused about the whole thing, simply because runners and rock climbers are encouraged to eat carbohydrates like it was going out of style (which, coincidentally enough, it kind of is). 

I'm not a Runner, or the athlete that runs and exercises to be a professional runner. I'm now only running three times a week for 30 - 45 minutes per run to balance out my rock climbing. I eat typically eat one serving of  gluten-free grains a day, just to keep my muscles happy, but I've been encouraged to eat more (thoughts?).  

I was grain-free for a while, though much of my carbohydrate consumption wasn’t removed. I simply found replacements to brown rice and white potato, choosing buckwheat, legumes, beans, quinoa, and various root veggies instead. For root veggies, I am a sucker for color, particularly orange, so it no surprise that my favorite go-to root vegetable is the sweet potato.


My favorite preparation for sweet potato is treating it like a baked potato, wrapped in foil, baked on high heat for hours until caramelized and gooey. It’s one of those foods that doesn't need anything but itself (and a way to cook it) to be delicious. Interestingly enough, it is really essential to have fat with it, something I thought it never needed. According to the World’s Healthiest Foods profile on the sweet potato:
“It's important to have some fat in your sweet potato-containing meals if you want to enjoy the full beta-carotene benefits of this root vegetable. Recent research has shown that a minimum of 3-5 grams of fat per meal significantly increases our uptake of beta-carotene from sweet potatoes.”

There’s even a certain way of cooking it that releases its nutritional benefits, mainly steaming and boiling. I always felt that boiling and steaming foods, unless using the water, takes away many of the nutrients so I don’t do either method too often. However,
“…Recent studies show excellent preservation of sweet potato anthocyanins with steaming, and several studies comparing boiling to roasting have shown better blood sugar effects (including the achievement of a lower glycemic index, or GI value) with boiling. The impact of steaming is particularly interesting, since only two minutes of steaming have been show to deactivate peroxidase enzymes that might otherwise be able to break down anthocyanins found in the sweet potato.”

I learned this knowledge after making this recipe, but it’s nice to see that I did best by the sweet potato.

The goal for this recipe was coming up with a “whipped” sweet potato, similar to what I had at the Joshua Wilton House in Harrisonburg. At first I tried using your average electric mixer to make it smooth, but it still had miniscule lumps scattered throughout and the Burt-man doesn’t like lumpy potatoes. Again, our handy dandy emulsion blender saved the day, and it was heavenly.

Whipped Sweet Potato

4 Large (around 320 g each) sweet potato, peeled and quartered
162 g Coconut milk
15 ml Coconut oil
1/2 tsp. Sea salt

In a large pot or wok with a steamer and lid, steam the sweet potatoes over medium-high heat until completely cooked through and softened.
Drain the water from the pot to give room for the potatoes, and add the remaining ingredients.
With a wire potato masher or a fork, smooth the lumps and thoroughly mix together the ingredients until integrated.
If there are some persistent lumps left, use an emulsion blender or a freestanding blender to make the finished product velvety.
Serve immediately, preferably warm or hot (it refrigerates well, however, and would be as delicious chilled).

Makes 4 – 6 servings.

From Weird to Wonderful

Last week was, for lack of a better word or possibly the best word to describe it, weird. As in, The Twilight Zone weird. Or Weird Al weird. Or falling down the rabbit hole weird. I’m sure you get it. It was weird, and it wasn't the kosher kind.


Stress and uncertainty can do a lot of things to a person, particularly when you aren’t quite sure what it is you are stressed or uncertain about. While I was sick it felt like I was eating all the time. I felt better by Thursday, and rock climbed three days in a row. At the same time I was playing around with various supplements to enhance my health. Some days it worked while on other days... not so much. My hormones and emotions were playing Ping-Pong in the very back of my consciousness, coloring my perception of reality. Again, there were days where I was aware and bright eyed. But on most days, I didn’t like it at all.

From the weirdness came a beacon of light, though. This was the week the boyfriend was up from Harrisonburg to talk with students at GMU for the job fair. We talked about us, about hypothetical and/or future hard decisions, and we walked from it hand in hand, a better couple and better friends as the result. This may have been the underlying stress I didn’t know I had, because after our many heart-to-heart conversations, I’ve been sleeping a full night’s rest without waking up, and I’m not randomly hungry or mindlessly munching.

It was the domino effect, and it poured into the other aspects of my life. I became motivated to continue working on my resume and taking it seriously. With my sleeping well, I wasn’t as hungry and had the energy to run longer (view updated fitness regimen here). I am managing my time more efficiently, and thus have time to write a post or two… maybe three.

Starting this week, I’m managing recipes and posting a lot more regularly than I have been doing. I want to do at least one every other day, but I’d like to have around twenty posts a month. So be on the look out for more recipes, philosophizing, random pictures of food, adventures, health updates, and restaurant reviews.


My blog is changing, hopefully for the better, because I have been neglecting it terribly. I loved how much I learned my first month blogging, and recently I’ve been treating writing like it was a chore instead of a pastime. If I want to be the change I want to see in the world, I have to make the effort to develop and nurture such a feat.


I’m back from the Rabbit Hole, dear readers, with a new recipe for you.

As you may know, most of my breakfasts have consisted of breakfast bakes for a couple of months now. Some of them have been solely made with buckwheat flour or garbanzo bean flour, while others have had additional flours like coconut, CGF oats, or flaxseed meal. I like to keep the base around 275 to 350 calories, and incorporate fruits, veggies, and spreads for a higher nutritional content for an extra 100 to 200 calories. Calories don’t matter that much to me anymore, and I can happily say my breakfasts keep me going until 11:00, an impressive 4 – 5 hour stretch.

Recently I made a carrot cake breakfast bake and, loving it so much, decided to make a batch of muffins with a few modified adjustments and some added ingredients to make them cake-like and moist. The base is essentially two breakfast bakes combined to make 8 – 9 muffins, so if you eat four or six (yes, they’re that yummy) in a sitting, don’t worry about it. They hold well and don’t crumble on you, perfect for eating right out of your hand. Eat them with a smear of honey or stevia-sweetened cream cheese, almond butter, or simply them as is in all of their glorious muffin-ness.

Eat well, my friends, and enjoy. 

Carrot “Bran” Muffins

60 g Buckwheat flour
28 g Coconut flour
16 g Flaxseed meal
120 ml Carrot juice
120 ml Filtered water
10 ml Unfiltered apple cider vinegar
15 ml Coconut oil, room temperature
2 Eggs
60 g Unsweetened applesauce
80 g Thompson (or Sultana) raisins
2 medium Carrots, finely grated
45 g Unsalted pistachio meats, finely chopped (by hand or with a food processor)
1/2 – 1 scant tsp. Sea salt
1 tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. Bourbon vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. Baking soda
1/4 tsp. Nutmeg
1/4 tsp. Cloves
1/4 tsp. Ginger powder
Stevia, to taste

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
In a large mixing bowl, thoroughly combine the ingredients (sans the coconut oil, the grated carrot, raisins, and pistachio).
Fold in the remaining ingredients and let the batter sit at room temperature for fifteen minutes.
Pour the batter into greased muffin tins (I used a 3 oz ice cream scoop like this one to keep it even), and place in the oven to bake for thirty minutes.
When set, remove from the muffin tins to the cooling rack (I didn’t wait that long to take a bite).
Serve slightly above room temperature or chilled.

Makes 8 – 9 muffins.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

A Taste of Adventure

Maybe it’s my delirious state that has given me the audacity to be something I don’t encourage on this blog: a Doubtful Darcy. (This in no way judges the ladies of the world named Darcy, nor do I believe they are more or less likely to be more doubtful than a David, say, or a Dolores… or a Dan.)

My getting sick started out as a wave of nausea on Saturday morning, and completely took the winds from my sails by the early afternoon. Then the coughing started, followed by the rise and fall of body temperature, a raw throat, and a Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer mouth. I’m better today, though I’m rather unsettled with the whole thing, partially because I was in bed most of the day, thinking. And when your heart rate is going at a runner’s pace simply because you’re standing or lying down, your thoughts become anxious and fragmented.

Now, I’m a Doubtful Darcy (or a David, a Dolores, or a Dan) because of this blog. I believe in it with all my heart, and I know I’m making progress with my recipe making, my fitness, and my photography, but I want to go the next level.

Since I haven’t been able to focus my attention more than a few minutes before getting lightheaded, I’ve just been looking over my old blog posts and old blog posts of foodies and health enthusiasts I respect. These people have beautiful photos from the very get-go of their blogging careers, have amazing recipes that are well thought out and restaurant-worthy, and beautiful site layouts. I have a yearning to have something just as perfect in my neck of the woods in cyber space.

In short, I want to be taken seriously.

Delirium and sickness has made me a deep thinker, I know. I’ve been looking into various organizations on idealist.org that are doing what I want to do for the world. And believe me, there are many. I feel stagnated, because I know what my potential is, and I’m not certain how to go about it. Do I want to apply for a Masters program for 2013? Am I willing to move away from Virginia in order to follow my dreams? Do I need to get some sort of Culinary Degree to open a community-oriented place to begin a movement of food security? How do I change the world for the better?

All of this Doubtful Darcy stuff came about from my old photos, when I was (and still am) getting used to using a DSLR. Part of me wants to delete the old photos, the ones that are grainy because of the ISO I used, or the ones that are out of focus, have a low shutter speed and a small aperture setting, or were taken in awful lighting. I’ve learned quite a bit since April 2011, and the other half wants me to hold on to the physical evidence that shows my progress. My other idea is to recreate my early works, edit the recipes, and take new photos this April but keep the old posts the way they were written. Somehow, I am uncertain how I would feel about it – maybe even feel a little hypocritical – though I’m sure none of my readers would mind very much.  

It occurs to me that the bloggers I respect so highly, the ones with phenomenal photos, stories, recipes, and sites, worked their butts off for it. They paid for quality and received the fruits of their labor with the same eminence. If I’m going to get to their level, I’m going to have to work hard, be patient, and follow my heart.

My heart has led me down many paths in the past. It is a lot more spontaneous and daring than it used to be. Besides rock climbing, I want to take a class that works on digital photography techniques, maybe buy one or two lenses to really enhance the images (especially for low/no light, moving subjects, outdoor, and non-food) I post. Perhaps I can go into a culinary program at a community college, look into molecular gastronomy or focus on a kind of cuisine (gluten free and holistic, naturally).

The details are unknown, but I do know what I want as far as the big picture is concerned: I know that I want to work with/for the community, the word ranging from a group of people to every single sentient being on this planet; I know that I want to work with food, empowering the relationship of what comes from the ground and what goes into our mouths; I know that I want to end food insecurity, world hunger, and I want to be part of a nonprofit or movement that is just as passionate about it as I am; and lastly, I want to make a place for people from all over the world to share their stories, eat great food, and take that happiness back home with them.

Over the next for days/weeks/months, certain changes will be happening, both to the blog as well as the blogger. In the meantime, to all you fellow bloggers and readers out there, I’d love to hear from you:

  • What are your thoughts of me editing old posts, particularly recipes and photos?
  • Where did following your dreams in the culinary arts (or whatever it is you are passionate about) take you?
  • Would you continue to follow Meals with Morri if: it changed its blog host, its domain name, or if less than satisfactory food photos disappeared from old posts?
  • How can Meals with Morri be taken more seriously?

Feel free to email me or to comment on this post directly.

As always, I want to thank you so much for being part of my life. 


To stop myself from getting too mopey, I thought I’d share with you a recipe. It’s one that a Morri, in sickness and in health, can make in less than forty-five minutes, is dense in nutrients as it is with flavor, and is easier to make than you know. Tom yum is a clear spicy soup that hails from Laos and Thailand. Along with the Peruvian pollo a la brasa restaurants that are popular in northern Virginia, Thai food is another cuisine that’s trendy in the area and also very near and dear to my heart. I can remember drinking Thai iced tea until my mouth was coated in the sweetened condensed milk and sugar and getting brain freezes while I waited for my order.

Mama Dazz, the Burt-man, and I usually shared an entrée such as the Pad Thai or the drunken noodles, and we each had an appetizer of soup of some kind. Depending if the Pad Thai was made with chicken, I ordered tom (soup) yum (spicy/sour salad) goong, or tom yum with shrimp. And if the entrée had shrimp, I had tom yum gai, or tom yum with chicken. Chili infused sesame seed oil droplets scattered along the surface, and the spices were perfectly balanced. The spicier it was, thought Mama Dazz and the younger me, the better. Then I had tom yam nam khon, similar to the previous soups only the broth is opaque from the coconut milk, and it became on of my favorite soups of all time.

This particular recipe is similar to my beloved tom yum nam khon, though it should not be confused with tom khai gai, or chicken galangal soup, simply because it has chicken as the main protein. Looking back, I’m surprised I didn’t use galangal for this recipe. We still have a vial of the powdered stuff we purchased from Penzeys Spices way back when and I think it would have brought a nice peppery fragrance to the broth.

What I love most about this soup is how simple and forgiving it is if you don’t have all of the ingredients. Since we frequent the international market every week, we typically have ingredients on hand for Asian, Hispanic, and Indian dishes that is typical in our household (concentrated fish extract or “fish sauce”, curry leaves, organ meats and pork belly, and more spices than you would believe). So if you don’t have particular ingredients on hand, that’s okay. The only thing you really need to consider is balancing hot with sour. If you don’t have kaffir lime leaves or tamarind paste, you can substitute it with lime juice, curry leaves, and apple cider vinegar, as I did. Any kind of dark and fleshy mushroom will work, but I’d recommend a species that has a meaty cap, minimal gills, and a slender stalk.

The only ingredient I was unsure about was how to prepare the lemongrass. I simply removed the outer layer of two stalks and thinly sliced the yellow bulbs, thinking it would soften. It added remarkable flavor… but I wouldn’t recommend trying to eat it unless you know how to cook it correctly. I didn't; and let me tell you, it’s extremely fibrous if you don’t.

All in all, it’s a taste-as-you-go kind of soup, and goes well with sticky rice, cellophane noodles, and a spicy marinated salad. Next time I'll make it just as any respectable lover of Thai food would, and I'll post the results.  


Tom Yum Nam Khan with Chicken

1 qt./946 ml Veggie stock or water
240 ml Coconut milk
5 ml Sand lance fish extract
15 ml Unrefined apple cider vinegar
Juice of 1/2 lime (save the remaining half for later)
2 Stalks Lemongrass, washed with outer layer and lower part of bulbs removed, then halved vertically
1 White onion, finely chopped
6 Curry leaves (or kaffir lime leaves)
82 g Maitake mushrooms, gently pulled apart and left whole
1 Jalapeño, seeded and finely chopped
1 lb Boneless and skinless chicken breast, cut into small slivers
16 Frozen shrimp, thawed
1 tsp. Red chili pepper flakes
1/4 tsp. Galangal, optional (but suggested)

Combine all of the ingredients into a large pot (except for the shrimp) and cook on medium heat until the chicken is fully cooked.
Remove the lemongrass stocks from the soup and discard.
Even pour out four servings into bowls and top with four shrimp, a quarter wedge from the remaining lime half, and carefully sprinkle the chili-infused sesame oil onto the surface. (The curry leaves are edible, but you can set them aside on the edges of the bowl if you wish.)
 Makes 4 servings.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

My Belated Valentine

This is a rather belated time to be writing about love, what with Valentine’s Day being last Tuesday and all. But love isn’t a cliché to me, nor do I believe it should only be considered a once a year phenomenon. Love comes in more colors than white, red, or pink, and it certainly symbolizes more than fat golden-haired cupids and chocolates in a heart-shaped box.

I do admit, however, that I love receiving cards and silly gifts and flowers (the Iris species being my favorite) around this time of year. And yes, I did fall under the stereotype of being a cynical single when I was a teen, filled with unrequited love and youthful angst. Maybe it has to do with currently having a boyfriend, but I found that besides a lovey-dovey text in the morning, that was all I really wanted. 

We don’t need a designated holiday for something we feel every day. We have a lifetime of days to celebrate it. 


For our second anniversary we celebrated two weeks later, simply because he was in Harrisonburg and I was up in Old Town and Fairfax, both of us working. I went down and was immediately swept off my feet to Oakland, MD, in a large cabin by the lake for a night and a day, filled with his spirited and industrious colleagues. While they worked, I made healthful oatmeal cookies (more on that later), went for a light run until it started snowing, and began a fiction novel I’d been more or less thinking about for over a year. After that, we drove back to Harrisonburg for a night on the town, more specifically a very romantic dinner at the Joshua Wilton House.

Right when we're heading out...

One new feature to the Meals with Morri site you may have noticed is the link of lists titled “Restaurants, Coffee shops, and Foodie fun… Oh My!” on the side column of the webpage. It occurred to me that there have been plenty of places I’ve eaten at or bought cool kitchen stuff (i.e., food, books, and gadgets) since my gluten free adventure began, and I should honor them for it. Actually, it was after visiting this wonderful restaurant that I came up with the idea.

The Joshua Wilton House is a mere few minute’s drive from James Madison University. Much like Choices By Shawn in Fairfax, the restaurant was built inside a renovated home from another era. The majestic interior and exterior of the building itself, the romantic appeal of the soft lighting and separate dining areas, the mouthwatering aromas wafting from the kitchen in harmonious waves and tones, and the beautiful artwork that laced the halls raised the standard of fine dining for me.

Unfortunately, since cell phones were to be turned off or silenced, I felt that taking photos of the food with my DSLR camera was also out of the question.

In a way, not being in Meals with Morri mode turned my focus to the food I was eating and the company I was with. Without my camera, it was like falling in love all over again and experiencing everything without the barrier of the lens. 

So why am I writing about this restaurant so admiringly when there's a boyfriend to love and cookies to bake? Besides the fact that I believe the chef is a brilliant mastermind in the culinary field, the hosting and waiting staff went above and beyond in their tasks of making it a perfect evening for this gluten freer and her date. I made reservations online for two, and in the comment box I listed my dietary restrictions and that we were so excited to have dinner there. Hours before dinner I receive a call with the assurance that most of the entrees could be made gluten free or were gluten free already. Almost all were soy free anyway, and they typically didn’t add refined sugar to their food unless it was for dessert.

For dinner I had the duck confit that fell apart with a slight prodding of my fork on top of a sweet potato puree that melted in my mouth. The plate was decorated with pan seared Brussels sprouts and bacon pieces caramelized to perfection and a red wine reduction I am still raving about. I think hed had a rack of lamb over soba noodles (not gluten free), but I don’t remember the details of his dish since they change their menu so often. We drank wine, ate delicious and perfectly portioned meals, held hands and lovingly looked into each other’s eyes. Naturally, it was only fitting to finish off the meal with dessert.

For a while, we debated whether or not to have dessert. The only gluten free dessert they have is their crème brulèe, but they said it would be no trouble to make a fruit cup. So, with a pot of “Mandarin Silk” tea (with hints of lemon myrtle, marigold, and vanilla), we were served fruit drizzled with honey-sweetened yogurt in a martini glass.

No matter where we go in life, I hope to make dining at the Joshua Wilton House an annual tradition. Next time, however, we’re staying at the inn connected to the restaurant for the full package.

Now, about these cookies…


I mean, I guess you can call them cookies, but they’re more like easy handfuls of breakfast or cylindrical oatmeal bars that pair wonderfully with a strong cup of Joe. Had they been made smaller, I think they would have been more cookie-like, with crispy edges and a nice gooey center. But I loved the moist crumb from the Applesauce, the explosion of juices and color the fresh Blueberries provided, and the natural sweetness of the dried Currants. Consequently, the A-B-C oatmeal cookie was born.

This recipe would go well topped with ice cream as a dessert, a fika treat for any time of the day with a cup of tea, and definitely a great breakfast for a person on the go.

ABC Oatmeal Cookies

56 g Coconut oil
1 1/4 tsp. Baking soda
338 g applesauce
240 g CGF rolled oats
2 Eggs
175 g Peanut butter (if unsalted, add 1/2 tsp. Sea salt to the recipe)
75 g Dried currants
100 g Fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
In a large mixing bowl, thoroughly mix the wet ingredients (coconut oil, applesauce, eggs, and peanut butter) until lump free with an electric mixer or by hand.
Fold in the dry ingredients and leave on the counter to let the dough set and rise slightly.
Line two or more baking sheets (depending on how large you want the cookies to be) with parchment paper and put the desired amount of cookie dough at least two inches apart (this cookie will spread).
Bake for 15 – 20 minutes, or until the cookies are baked throughout.*
Raise the parchment papers and lay them on cooling racks until room temperature before serving (I couldn’t wait that long… and they were delightful warm).
 Makes 15 large cookies (or 45 small ones).

*Baking time will vary depending on size.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Spiced Butternut & Carrot Stew with Herbed Quail Egg Custard Cups

I must have thought up the following post over a dozen times, some of which I had written and some that I had thought up when there was time to spare. I thought of mentioning Mother Nature’s sense of humor, my travels, my hectic schedule, and other things that I feel may interest you (well, to amuse you, anyway). But for the moment, because I’ve missed blogging, I’m just going to say this: I’m glad I have a scale.

Artful Dodger makes a mean Americano!

When I visited the boyfriend in Harrisonburg (he’s at JMU for his job), I sadly left my scale behind. For one excruciating week I tried *shudder* baking by volume, and all my recipes that I had been successful in simply turned out floppish and unappealing. It occurs to me that when I bought my scale, I used it for cooking, yes. On a darker side, I also used it for portion control, so that I’d know just how much was going into my mouth and what. Recently, however, I realized that it helped me keep track of my eating in a positive way. I wasn’t eating nearly enough for my fitness regimen, and last week was quite all over the place. By Friday I couldn’t take it anymore.

I had a decision to make; either I drive two and a half hours to get my scale from him or buy a new one. After weighing the pros and the cons, I figured it would be easier and more economical (I mean, have you seen gas prices lately?) to buy a new one. It’s shiny and sensitive and has that new scale smell, but I still like my old one better. We have a history, it and I. Though I happily say I broke the new one in with not one, but two recipes, and it has become what looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The stew-soup hybrid (stewp, perhaps?) itself was something I’ve wanted to do for a while now. It’s not exactly what I expected, but it was still delicious. I plan on tinkering the recipe and trying again, because I think it needed more carrot and ginger, maybe an extra helping of coconut milk. But when you blend it, don’t put it all in at once! You’ll end up with a boiling hot mess all over the blender and counter-top. Believe me, I know this from experience.

The herbed quail custard cups were merely an experiment to celebrate the awesomeness of having a scale again. I can’t tell you enough how amazing recipes are with the accuracy of measuring by weight, and then assuring those wanting to try it out themselves that it will work for them also. I do think they were in the oven a little longer than they had to be, but it was something new and different to have for dinner. 

Spiced Butternut and Carrot Stew

567 g Butternut squash, peeled and cut
191 g/ 4 medium Carrots, peeled and cut
16 g Fresh ginger, peeled and cut
4 Garlic cloves, whole
240 ml Water
400 ml Coconut milk
1 tsp. Sea salt
1 tsp. Cinnamon
1 tsp. Turmeric
1/2 tsp. Cracked pepper
1/2 tsp. Cloves
1 Bay leaf

Put all of the ingredients in a pressure cooker or large pot on medium heat until the vegetables have softened.
Pour the mixture into a blender in batches until completely pureed, and then back into the pot to reheat.
Serve hot and garnish with homemade bacon pieces* and a dollop of sour cream.

Serves 4.

Herbed Quail Egg Custard Cups

183 g/ 18 Quail eggs
366 ml Water
1/2 tsp. Sea salt
1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning
1/8 tsp. Powdered rosemary
Dash of Paprika
Homemade bacon pieces*, optional

Preheat the oven to 325ºF.
Place 6 small oven-proof bowls or ramekins in a large roasting pan and fill the pan so that the water comes three-fourths the way up the sides of the ramekins.
Remove the ramekins and carefully place the pan of water in the oven.
Combine the ingredients for the custard (except the paprika and bacon pieces) and blend until the mixture is uniform and evenly fill the ramekins.
Bake for 30 – 40 minutes, or until the custards are almost set.
Remove them to a rack to cool, and either refrigerate to serve chilled later or serve warm.
Garnish with a sprinkle of paprika and bacon pieces on top.

Makes 6 small custards. Serves 3 – 6.

Bacon pieces
*: For bacon I can eat, I simply buy thinly sliced pork belly at bake it in an aluminum foil lined baking sheet, covered also, at 400ºF until it takes on a bacon-y crispness. That’s usually when I season it with sea salt and cracked pepper.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

The Best Oven-Baked Chicken You'll Ever Make

There are days where I come up with a recipe I like and really want to share it with the world. But two situations sometimes occur: firstly, Life with a capital “L” leads me in a profusion of directions and blogging is the last thing I think about; and secondly, the most common of the two, I don’t have much of a Story behind it.


You see, I’m not partial to simply posting the recipe without a little introduction about it at least. Cooking is linked to just about everything in my life. Food is a basic need after all. We need nourishment to thrive, to survive, and to simply enjoy the process of being nourished. 

Believe me when I say recipes are plentiful in this household, hurriedly written on notepads or loose paper, jotted down in pencil or ink (and sometimes a Sharpie permanent marker). I am always changing the recipe based on the ingredients I do or do not have, removing one in place for another, adding more to reach the consistency I desire, etc. There are a few I thought I’d posted already or had lost in my attempts to organize my life, and there are many that I truly enjoyed and wished to post but didn’t have my camera at the time and thus no photos to provide.

If there aren’t any photos to post or stories to tell, a recipe will not be published. It’s that plain and simple.

“Why is that?” you wonder. Well, I’ll tell you. I’m not a computer. I’m not a cooking robot who wants to keep it formal and prim. I want to show you how my photography skills and storytelling are steadily improving. I want to open a little window for you to see what goes on in my life and inside my head. I’m a real person, one who succeeds and fails, laughs and cries, learns as she goes, and loves to share her passions with others.

In short, I want perspective… for you and for me.

I want to meet people who are like-minded (or not), who have stories of their own that are related to mine. I want you to comment, to provide constructive criticism and encouraging words to others as well as myself, and to do so lovingly and with respect. I want you share your lives and your recipes with me and those who visit this site, because what you have to say may be the most important thing for someone to hear.

If you really think about it, the Gluten Free movement is rather amazing. Actually, any form of movement, whether it’s for a kind of dietary lifestyle, an ethical standard of living, a political and/religious principle, or a love for all things Sci-Fi, there are people all over the world who you can talk to, become friends with, give and receive advice, and spread the word. This can be just as negative as it is positive; still though, the movement spreads and spreads. Gluten free eating is significantly easier to accomplish these days with pre-made CGF products, restaurants and grocery stores that cater to those with food allergies, and most certainly blogs (ahem). There are people out there who truly care about the health of their family, their community, and the world. That’s why I do the GFRR every month (at least, I try). I want to show you just how marvelous and freeing any form of “restrictions” are. 


I made grain-free popovers, people. That feat alone showed me just how far I could go with a little effort and persistence. And it doesn’t stop there. There are recipes I’ve yet to try, and many of them I know are likely harder to successfully create than others (the following being the simplest recipe anyone can do), but they are all doable. Remember, someone before you made it delicious, and someone after you will also. So keep at it and keep moving forward. You’ll get there.

As I said, this recipe is easy-peasy. But... it isn’t really a recipe. It’s a method. Actually, it’s a perfect-every-time-you-do-it method. The recipe itself is up to you. It is one we have almost once a week, just like chili is. All you need is chicken (with skin and bones, if you please), some aluminum foil, a paper towel, a rather large deep-dish pan (depending on how many you want to feed), a silicon brush (optional, but I recommend it) and a hot oven.

For those who say they burn water or look to the microwave to make food edible, I promise this is a recipe you can do. Just follow the directions, be patient, and have fun. You are going to make the best oven-baked chicken you have ever tasted.

Let’s start with the oven, shall we? Preheat to 425ºF, and be sure that the shelf is in the very center of the oven. While you wait, line the deep pan with one or two sheets of aluminum foil. Lay the chicken pieces flat on the foil. In order to get a crispy skin, dab the skin dry with the paper towel. 



At this point, you can spice it up any way that sparks your fancy. I typically do sea salt and cracked pepper, but I grew up with Old Bay (gluten free, by the way) on my oven-baked chicken and heartily recommend it. In this case, I used chili powder in addition to the former two. No oil is required or encouraged (more on that later).


  


When the oven is ready, place the dish on the center shelf and bake for at least 45 minutes until checking. At this time, a pool of chicken fat will line the bottom of the pan, and I use the drippings to coat the skin with the silicon brush for epic crispiness. By one hour it should be done, but my family is partial to the meat being removed from the bone easily with a fork, so we bake it longer (around 15 to 30 minutes).

The result is a crispy skin, moist interior, and fall-off-the-bone and melt-in-your-mouth chicken. Next time I want to mix in honey with drippings and coat the chicken.


Now, I’d love to hear from you! How do you prepare oven-baked chicken (you know, aside from that fact it was baked in the oven)? What seasonings have you tried, enjoyed, and disliked? What methods have worked to get the skin especially crispy, or the meat particularly moist and falling off the bone?

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Little Bitty Popover Bites

I don’t think people realize how invigorating writing this blog has been for me. It has been a humbling, maddening, and amazing experience. There have been flops as many as there had been successes. I’ve cooked and baked outside the box, and the same goes for my fitness and health. As January comes to a close, I stand before the month of February empowered and amazed what four weeks into the New Year has done for me. Amongst the mistakes and the experiments and the lessons, I am proud to say I participated in the first Gluten Free Ratio Rally of 2012.


For all of January the participants of the GFRR worked hard to come up with popover recipes, and all of us had our trials. I personally had three flops before a winner emerged. During this time I made different breakfast bakes, perfected cornbread, and dressed up quinoa. I also started rock climbing no less than three times a week (bouldering to be more precise), running twice a week, working two part-time jobs, and loving everything about my life.

Now, even though my cornbread boosted my confidence, it was the success of January’s GFRR that proved just how limitless I was, and just how limitless and delicious being gluten free can be with a little patience and perseverance.

So you may be wondering, “just what was this month’s GFRR, Morri?” Well, with an ingredient ratio of 1 flour : 2 liquid : 1 egg, can you guess what it is?

If you said “popovers,” you are absolutely correct.


I wish I had taken photos of the flops, because when I say flops, I mean flops. The first batch was cooked in duck fat, with a much too thick batter that essentially turned into savory donut holes in muffin tins. The second batch was made as a dairy free Dutch baby, but it was like a thick pancake without the rise. The third batch was made in my new mini muffin tin, with pureed banana, buttermilk, and coconut flour that ended up being your average muffins more than anything. But the fourth batch was just right, so right in fact gluten loving Burt-man ate practically the entire batch without a second thought of them being gluten free. And this was a man that feared most of my gluten free experimentations!

Needless to say I was quite pleased.


Popovers are light, hollow rolls made from an eggy batter similar to Yorkshire pudding, though instead it is cooked in a special kind of baking tin (or a muffin tin if you don’t have one) and cooked in butter as opposed to drippings. The oldest known reference to popovers is from a letter in 1850, and the first cookbook to mention this delectable treat was M. N. Henderson’s Practical Cooking (1876).

U.S. American poet Ogden Nash even wrote a light-hearted albeit inverted chronology of the popovers:
Let's call Yorkshire pudding
A fortunate blunder:
It's a sort of popover
That turned and popped under.
Mrs. R of honey from flinty rocks is our amazing host for this month’s GFRR. As a woman who is all about overcoming the shortcomings that happen in life, I say she chose the perfect challenge for the rest of us. At one point I was ready to throw my hands up and say “Nope. I’m done.” But on the last day of January, I figured I’d try at it again with three new tricks:

1. Using starch in the recipe (45 g out of 120 g)
2. Putting the leftover butter into the batter after greasing the pan (Thanks for the tip, Jonathan!)
3. Steam

The third, I believe, made all the difference in the world. On the shelf below the popovers I put a third of a teakettle of tap water (not hot) in a broiler pan but otherwise cooked as Ruhlman’s book Ratio instructed.

The rest, my dear readers, is history. I hope that you realize from each month’s GFRR is, whether you are gluten free, vegetarian (with or without the animal by-products), dairy free, nut free, or following a specific diet (SCD, ACD, Keto, Paleo, etc.), you should never deny yourself good food. Look at me; I made popovers. Grain-free mini muffin tin ones that followed the Meals With Morri motto “Delicious. Nutritious. Gluten free.” without compromise.

So then, what on Earth are you waiting for? Get cooking!

Little Bitty Popover Bites

240 ml Whole milk, room temperature
2 Large eggs, room temperature
19 g Quinoa flour
56 g Garbanzo bean flour
45 g Tapioca starch
1/2 – 3/4 tsp. Sea salt
30 g Butter, melted

Place a mini muffin tin (or small popover tin, if you have it) in the center shelf of the oven and preheat to 450ºF. 
In the shelf below, place a covered broiler pan filled with a third of a stovetop teakettle of water for steaming.
Except the butter, place the ingredients in a blender and pulse until just combined and let it sit on the counter to let the batter set.
Once the oven is preheated, take the muffin pan out of the oven and grease the tins with a silicone brush generously (do it at least twice).
Pour the leftover butter, between one and two teaspoons, in with the batter and pulse through the blender one more time until combined.
Fill each cup to the top with the batter and bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375ºF, and continue baking until done, about 20 to 30 minutes (mine were done at 20).
Serve straight from the oven (pierce the tops to allow steam to escape) with preserves or honey, in soups or stews, or as is with a cup of tea.
 Makes 16 Little Bitties. :) Just saying "little bitty" makes me smile.

Here are the other participants for your viewing pleasure. And thanks again, Mrs. R, for hosting!

*Mrs. R | Honey From Flinty Rocks    Popovers - Gluten & Dairy Free
Brooke | B & the boy!    Chocolate & Sweet Potato Popovers
Charissa | Zest Bakery    Lemon Vanilla Popovers with Minnesota Raspberries
Claire | My Gluten free home    Chai Popovers
Erin Swing | The Sensitive Epicure    Popovers
Ginger Bardenhagen | Fresh Ginger    chive and black pepper; toasted onion and aleppo pepper
gretchen  |  kumquat    strawberry cream cheese popovers
Heather | Discovering the Extraordinary    Basic Popovers
Jenn | Jenn Cuisine    Chocolate Popovers
Jonathan  |  The Canary Files    Cinnamon & Star Anise Popovers
Mary Fran | FrannyCakes    Gluten-Free Honey Coconut Popovers
Morri  |  Meals With Morri    Little Bitty Popover Bites
Rachel  |  The Crispy Cook    Corny Popovers
TR | No One Likes Crumbley Cookies    Sweet Cherry Popovers