Chickpea Flour Crepes

One of the things that has been hardest for me, since having to stop eating wheat, is that I am cheap.

And the store-bought wheat-free alternatives are pretty pricey.  As are some of the flours needed for wheat-free baking - not to mention you have to do a bit of shopping to find all the different flours you need.

Enter... chickpea flour.  We have a large Indian population in the Chicago area, so most stores are fairly well stocked at this point with Indian ingredients.  Which inclues chickpea flour, which is less than three bucks for a small bag of it.

Cheap.  And it makes great crepes.

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoonds fine chickpea flour
Rounded 1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup low-fat milk (or water - both work)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1. Sift together the chickpea flour, all-purpose flour and salt.

2. Place the eggs, milk (or water) and olive oil in a blender, and turn on the machine. Add the flour, and blend for one minute. Transfer to a bowl or a large measuring cup. (You can also use a bowl and whisk together the ingredients. If blending by hand, put through a strainer.) Set aside for at least 30 minutes; if longer, put the bowl in the refrigerator.

*** DO NOT SKIP THE WAIT TIME.  It is honestly better to put the batter in the fridge overnight rather than skipping this step.  It gives it all time to blend - makes it easier to get rid of any lumps in the batter, and the flavors seem to mellow a bit (you get more "chickpea" taste than "bitter").  Seriously.  Waiting is the key.  Let it go for AT LEAST 30 minutes. ***

3. Heat a well-seasoned or non-stick crêpe pan over medium-high heat, and brush lightly with olive oil. For 6-inch crêpes, ladle in 2 to 3 tablespoons batter per crêpe; for 8-inch crêpes, use 1/4 cup, enough to just cover the pan. The batter should sizzle when it hits the pan. Tilt the pan to distribute the batter evenly, and cook on the first side for less than a minute until nicely colored and easy to flip over. Flip and cook for another 30 seconds, then remove from the pan. Stack the crêpes on a plate as they are done. To reheat, wrap in foil and place in a 350-degree oven for about 15 minutes. Alternately, reheat individually in a dry pan.

Yield: Eight 8-inch or 10 6-inch crêpes, serving four.


These have become my new alternative to bread.  It is easy to make up a batch of them and stash them in the fridge so I can pull one out to make a quick wrap with some cheese and/or lunch meat for a quick lunch (you do have to be careful though, they can crack on you if they bend while they are cool... they can crack even when room temp since they have no wheat flour, but they stay pretty managable).

Monday Meal on a Sunday

Red beans & rice.

The history goes that on Monday, you'd throw the bone leftover from your Sunday ham into a pot with some beans, let it simmer all day while you did the wash, and then have red beans and rice for dinner.

I can see that logic.  I did mine in the slow cooker, and even though I did this as a "side" for crawfish enchiladas... I think we enjoyed the beans & rice more than the enchiladas.

One of the things that irked me, big time, when I found out I was allergic to wheat was that in all my usual rice mix things, there was wheat.  Really??  REALLY???  You have to go and ruin something I can have like rice by adding wheat to it??

I knew I wanted to make crawfish enchiladas tonight, and I do love some red beans and rice as a side for that.  Time to buck it up and make it for myself.

And holy crap, was it easy.

This was my recipe... which I pretty much followed.  I did throw in both a ham hock and some smoked ham necks.  I used Polish sausage (that I wouldn't eat as part of a cabbage & sausage meal, but it was tasty in this).

The beans....

And, yes, this is one recipe where a ham hock is important.  Ham hocks... if you actually see them at your grocery store you might look at them and think they are odd (I know I did as a kid... until my family started cooking cajun food).  If you don't see them at your grocery store and you want to make this recipe.... seriously.... find them somewhere.  They are cheap, and they are good.  I know at the place I seem to buy most of my meat and produce, the butchers are all Mexican.  But they do a damned fine ham hock (and the smoked necks were pretty good too, must remember those).  They were like $1.29 per pound.  And worth every penny in the final dish.

Ham hocks and smoked pork necks, having done their duty for the beans.

Thank you, ham products.  Thank you.

When life hands you lemons.....

Ya learn to... well... do something with lemons.

In the case of now having to live without wheat, that means trying to turn a "great, I spent $6 on that to try and feel like a normal person until I RUINED IT" into something tasty.

In the case of actually seeing Meyer lemons at the grocery store, it means time for some preserved lemon!

So... for Christmas day, we always have the parents over for cheeses and munchie things.  This year, in addition to wheat-free bread for the reuben dip, there was The Cracker Issue.  Yes, there are great alernatives like Nut Thins and rice crackers... but I wanted something cracker-like.  So I spent $6 on a package of wheat free "table crackers" (think saltines).  And I can tell you NONE of that money is spent on proper packaging for the crackers, since I dropped them as soon as I got home from the grocery store and every single damned cracker in the package broke.  So, I shoved them aside and figured I'd just make something with "cracker crumbs" in the near future.

And that turned out to be some very nice fried pork tenderloin.  Expensive fried pork tenderloin, but still tasty.

2011... my first full year knowing I cannot eat wheat.  Ain't this gonna be fun??

Christmas Cookie FAIL

Sigh.  Gluten-free baking is, so far, WAY harder than I thought it would be.

I learned at Thanksgiving that if I want sweet treats somewhere, I'd better bring them myself or I'm gonna be screwed.  Sure, at Thanksgiving, we had my crepe cake, but that was about my only option.  So I figured for Christmas, I'd try some gluten-free cookies.

Like these.  DO NOT MAKE THIS RECIPE.  I seriously think it is missing ingredients or something, because as written, it totally did not work.  I've been wanting to try that recipe for awhile - sounds good on the surface, right??

HA.

It has to be missing ingredients, because when you mix it up as written, it is beyond crumbly.

I also tried another recipe that used chickpea flour.

Aaaaaand in both those recipes, I thought I grabbed my chickpea flour. 

Nope... .grabbed the masa harina (corn flour).  And I didn't figure it out until both doughs were made.  So I just sai "F(#@((#&# IT" and went with it.

And both batches of cookies were awful.  So awful, I tried the chickpea flour-chocolate-cashew cookies again with the right flour.

They were still awful.  I think in both recipes, it was the cornstarch.  It does not do good things in a cookie.

I shoulda just made the stinkin' crepe cake again.  Or bought cookies at the store.

I figure I have until Easter to find some recipes that DO work.  The big challenge is also trying to find recipes that do not use almond flour, since the hubby's cousin has nut allergies and it's nice to be able to make something he can have, too.

But he was not lucky on Christmas... all I had to bring was buckeyes (can't go wrong with just peanut butter, powdered sugar and chocolate chips).

blah

Yeah... it's still been quiet around here.

If you ever want to turn into a cranky hermit, get yourself a wheat or gluten allergy.  It works wonders.

Made it thru Thanksgiving... even though I quizzed the hubby about the mother-in-law's "stuffing practices" with her turkey and he assured me she cooked it outside the bird... yep, we arrived at their house just in time to see my mother in law pulling stuffing out of the bird.  I didn't have a horrible reaction from it, but I knew it'd mean one night of turkey and absolutely no leftovers for me.

Yep.  When you have problems with wheat, it can be to the point where if you eat turkey that comes from a bird that was stuffed, you can have a reaction.

Luckily, we're just having ham and Polish sausage for Xmas.

In the upcoming days though, I will be doing some gluten-free baking of cookies and other delights for the holidays.  I can't go another holiday without having at least two desert options, lol.

But one of the kickers of that seems to be that a lot of gluten-free cookie recipes use almond flour.  Not really an option, since we also have a nut allergy in the extended family.  It just makes things extra fun!  Lots of internet recipe searching has been happening around here.

But, to try and be useful and actually add some information to the interwebs, I am going to throw out a few tips for those out there who, like my own family, may be very new to this whole "no wheat" thing and a bit worried when it comes to the holiday season:

• Be patient.  You are most likely to get quizzed on products, preparation details and other stuff.  It's not that we don't trust you, we know from experience that there are some products you won't trust unless you know all the brands/ingredients involved.
• We love you for trying.
• Things to avoid: Soy sauce (yep, that has wheat in it usually - find a gluten-free brand or use the Japanese sauce Tamari which is basically the same thing), anything that lists "natural flavors" in the labeling as those often contain wheat (those are the things that are killers to me), and if you're really going for it and trying to rely on things like cornmeal and oats -please read labels.  A lot of those products are processed in facilities that also process wheat and YES, that can be a problem.
• Make it simple.  Really... dumb down your dishes.  Rather than the green bean casserole (yep, those condensed soups usually contain wheat) - steam some fresh beans and toss them with some browned butter - delicious. 
• Don't be afraid to ask.  Trust me, we are more than happy to help you.

 

Oh yeah... my blog!

Yes... it's been quiet.  The wheat-free continues to bite, big time.

I actually did really good on our trip to Vegas... the only two incidents I had with wheat were one that was my own fault, and one that means I'll never get a grab&go salad from Burke in the Box again.  Our first meal we went to Hash House A Gogo and I *know* I'd seen on some food/travel thing that they cooked their chicken breasts to-order in a pan and not in the communal frier, so I thought I'd be OK with their potatoes.

We walked back to the hotel, and the hubby flipped on the Travel channel just as we watched the - at the Strip location - throw a chicken breast into the shared frier on an episode of Man vs. Food.

Ooops.

The Salad Incident made me angrier... sure, there was a sign that mentioned "shared equipment" at the Burke in the Box at the airport on the way home, and I checked ALL off the packaged salads and NONE of them appeared to have croutons in them or listed in the contents... so I got a salad.  Aaaaand then 3/4 of the way through the salad while I was on the plane, I found a flippin' crouton that managed to stay on the bottom even when I picked through it to just check and cause enough cross-contamination when I shook it up.  Yay.

Otherwise... Vegas was good.  Didn't leave all our money there, the weather was nice, and the bestest thing of all was that I couldn't even take my work laptop with me since it was getting upgraded to Windows 7 while I was on vacation.

This week (of course) starts the prep of Turkey Day items... which this year also means my attempt at a gluten-free cornbread stuffing (it's just not Turkey Day without stuffing) and an attempt to do some wheat-free crepes for a crepe cake (crepes layered with whipped cream).  Other than that, it's the same old cranberry sauce, beans and sweet potatoes that I usually bring to my mother-in-law's.

Well, that wasn't so bad

So... today was Un-Birthday (belated) party for my sister in law.

Um... she walked in wearing a sparkly thing (very cute) in her hair.  Obviously someone blew the surprise (or she just knows how to interrogate her children, ;D).

My bro was doing it at a restaurant, with one set menu for everything.  I originally told him, "don't inlclude me in the food count - I'll need to have them make me something without any bread or pasta" (it was an Italian place... Luigi's House).  They do their food family-style for parties... which basically means wheat would be touching pretty much everything.  Yay.

He asked, they said they'd be able to accommodate me food-wise.

They brought the appetizers out, bruchetta and pizza, so I was out of luck on those.  No biggie.  A waiter came by to ask me how "sensitive" my allergy to wheat was and he at first obviously thought I was being a bit of a tool about it all and I might have gotten a bit huffy trying to confirm that no, I was not being picky and I couldn't have ANYTHING that involved flour, bread or pasta or anything like that - but they did a stellar job.

They made me a chopped salad without the pasta - I was even beyond impressed that they left off the blue cheese, which can cause reactions in people with celiac but I think I can still, ha, stomach.  When they brought out the main dishes, rather than the breaded lemon chicken and chicken parm, they gave me grilled chicken in a lemon sauce and grilled chicken w/tomato sauce and mozz.  Nothing to do about the pasta - but they did give me a nice side of steamed broccoli.

And I planned ahead for desert... some wonderful gluten-free Outrageous Brownies (with Bob's Red Mill GF Baking Flour.... with a pound of butter and two pounds of chocolate in there, no one noticed any "off" flavor from weird flours) that I made ahead of time came with.  And were enjoyed even by the people who can eat wheat.

I understand how "picky eaters" can be a challenge at restaurants and that it gives a bad image to those who really have issues, but I am glad to at least know of one place where when it is made clear, they go above and beyond.