Check out a recipe for gluten-free (treenut-/peanut-/sesame-free) Cream of Asparagus soup on Bucks County Taste.

Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 head Savoy cabbage, shredded
3 scallions, trimmed and chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
1/2 tsp kosher salt
4 cups chicken broth
2 cups Idaho potatoes,  peeled and cut in 1/2-inch slices

Heat the oil and butter in a large saucepan then add cabbage, scallions, garlic, and salt and cook about 5 minutes. Then add the chicken broth and potatoes, bring to a boil, and then simmer until the cabbage is tender, about 15 minutes. Then a little pureeing with a hand blender and it is done!

He stuck very close to the original recipe with the exception of reserving a 1/3 cup of shredded cabbage for garnish, he just cooked all the cabbage together.

This was delicious. The cabbage flavor was subtle and light. We had it with a delmonico steak (grilling season has begun!) and it was a wonderful meal. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Ingredients
1/2 cup sour orange juice (I have never seen this anywhere, although I haven’t looked very hard. I always make with regular oj)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp fresh lime juice
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp crushed red chili flakes
4 chicken breasts

mojo chicken

Couldn’t get much easier than this—just throw all the ingredients in a plastic bag and let marinate in the fridge for at least an hour. I usually do this in the morning and let it sit all day. When ready, pour everything into a baking dish and cook at 375 until chicken is cooked through; depending on the thickness of the chicken breasts this can be from 20-30 minutes.

The orange flavor isn’t overwhelming, just a nice citrusy kick with a little spiciness thanks to the crushed red pepper. Usually I serve this with yellow rice, black beans, and fried plantains (although unfortunately that night the plantains weren’t ripe enough).

Ingredients
2 sticks butter or 1 cup light olive oil
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup turbinado sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp milk—I used rice milk one of the times I made them
2 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cups flour—I used all buckwheat flour one time and 1 cup buckwheat, 3/4 cup white rice flour the next time
1 tsp baking soda
2 1/2 cups uncooked oats
3/4 cup Enjoy Life gluten/dairy/soy-free semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup dried cranberries

cranberry, chocolate chip, oatmeal cookies

Preheat oven to 375. Beat butter/oil and sugars, then add eggs, milk, and vanilla and mix until well blended. Add flour and baking soda, then add oats and chocolate chips and mix well.

Drop teaspoons of dough on ungreased cookie sheet and bake 10 to 12 minutes. Cool 1 minute then move to a cooling rack. Don’t leave them on the tray for too long or they may stick.

These cookies turn out very crisp and delicious, although they do generate a lot of crumbs. Next time I may add more oil and milk to try to get a chewier texture.  I also may try to make these vegan sometime using egg replacer; I’ll let you know how that turns out!

Ingredients
1 (32-ounce) box chicken broth-we used Pacific Foods organic free-range chicken broth
2 chicken sausages, thinly sliced-we used The Original Brat Hans Chicken Sausage, Spicy Andouille
1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 bunch organic kale
2 to 3 slices cooked bacon, crumbled
1 tbsp crushed garlic
Olive oil
Salt, ground black pepper, crushed red pepper flakes to taste

white bean, kale, sausage soup

Coat bottom of a dutch oven or small stockpot with olive oil and heat. Add onions and saute until almost translucent. Add garlic, sausage, and seasonings and cook until sausage is a little brown. Add crumbled bacon and cook for one minute. Add remaining ingredients and cook until greens are reduced. We let simmer on the stove for about 1/2 hour.

This soup is delicious; it is hard to get all the different tastes and textures in one bite. This recipe could serve 6 I think. It served Carlos and I two nights in a row, but we had seconds the first night and really full bowls the second night. We made some garlic toast with this the first night, but that was unnecessary, the soup definitely can stand on its own.

To me, a recipe is the road map for how to make something, preferably delicious. A recipe should contain the building blocks of a meal—a list of the basic foods and seasonings a meal contains and the instructions on how to put them together. Now, while I am not a fancy cook or a gourmet chef to say the least, perhaps I am a recipe snob. Why? Because I do not consider recipes that contain something premade and packaged to be recipes. I present to you two examples of this.

Real Simple Potato and Leek Flatbread
I subscribe to the Real Simple magazine recipe emails and when I saw this in my inbox I thought, yum! I clicked to view the recipe and was immediately pissed off. The first ingredient is refrigerated pizza dough. Um, ok. So, the rest of the “recipe” explains what these editors think would be tasty on this premade, store-bought dough. Well, thanks, I guess. I suppose there are people who need ideas for toppings for their pizza dough, but when I saw the word recipe, I assumed there would be instructions on how to make the flatbread, you know, from scratch. Now it is not lost on me that the magazine/website this came from is called “Real Simple.” I understand the purpose, it is why I subscribe to the magazine. But it would have been much more helpful to provide a recipe for simple flatbread and then a note that premade pizza dough coud be substituted to save time.

To be fair, this is one of the first disappointing recipes I have encountered from Real Simple; they have provided me many wonderful and truly simple recipes like basil beer bread and oatmeal raspberry bars, and for those I am thankful. Perhaps the editors were just really busy last month.

Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook: Feasting with your Slow Cooker
This cookbook was an impulse buy at Bed Bath and Beyond. First, my excuse. Normally I don’t buy books at stores. I find books I like at stores, then go home, read reviews, and then buy them used on amazon.com for a fraction of what they cost. Sure I have to wait a few days for it, but in most cases the 75% savings is worth it. This particular day though I was returning a trashcan we didn’t need during my lunch break and these books were stacked up at the customer service counter. I picked it up as the cashier was processing the return and she immediately testified to the book’s greatness and how all the recipes were awesome. Then she asked if I wanted to use the store credit from the trashcan for the book. This woman was good. She could see I was very pregnant and me, being very pregnant, thought, this would be a good purchase as I knew would definitely be short on time in the near future. So the trashcan became a cookbook and I left the store pleased.

Then I came home and looked through the book. On one page containing six recipes, three include cans of mushroom soup as a main ingredient. In fact, an alarmingly large number of recipes in the book rely on a can of mushroom soup, package of dry onion soup, or other processed soup as a base.  I feel that part of the point of making food from scratch is to avoid the preservatives, MSG, excessive sodium, and artificial flavors and chemicals that are a part of processed and packaged foods. I can appreciate that it is still better for someone to make their family one of these recipes, even with a can of soup instead of hitting the drive-thru, but this book could have been much improved and done better service to people by providing ways to make these recipes using fresh ingredients, and then noted that people could substitute a can of soup if necessary. There are a few recipes from this book I might use, but I really wish I had spent more time looking through it before buying it.

And despite this rant, I am not against making quick substitutions to save time and get a home cooked meal on the table, I just think the recipe authors should have provided instructions on how to make these meals as healthy and homemade as possible as well. It doesn’t hurt to describe how to make something completely from scratch and then offer the easier alternative—who knows, people might try the homemade way and find it tastes much better!

Ingredients
1 box lasagna noodles – I used Tinkyada brown rice noodles – this brand is great and is the closest in texture to wheat noodles that I have found. I have served this many times and people had no idea it was gluten free until I told them.
1 bag of frozen spinach
1 15oz container of ricotta cheese—I like the Natural by Nature grass-fed ricotta
1 egg
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1 bag shredded mozzarella
1 to 2 jars of your favorite tomato sauce, depending on how saucy you like your lasagna (or make a big pot of homemade sauce like my grandma’s spaghetti sauce)
salt, pepper, oregano, basil

spinach lasagna

Preheat oven to 375, set a large pot of water to boil, and cook noodles as directed on package (unless you are using no boil noodles). Defrost and drain the spinach as indicated on the package. In a large mixing bowl combine ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, egg, spinach, and seasonings—I don’t have exact measurements for those, I just add what I think looks right, which I guesstimate is about 2 tsps of salt, 1/2 tsp of pepper, and 1 tsp each of oregano and basil.

You can either make one 9×13 inch dish of lasagna or two smaller lasagnas using two 8×8 pans. I use Pyrex glass baking dishes for these—the lids make freezing and storage easy. If I am cooking for me and my husband I split the recipe in two and freeze one dish. Whichever you decide to do, start by pouring a couple of ladles of sauce in the pan and lay 3 noodles across the bottom of the dish (if using smaller dish break noodles in half). Scoop half of the cheese mixture evenly on top of the three noodles. Place the next layer of noodles, another layer of sauce and the remainder of the cheese. Place the last layer of noodles on top, the remainder of the sauce, and anywhere from a half to a whole bag of shredded mozzarella cheese on top depending on your preference for cheesiness (I like cheese, a lot). If you have parmesan cheese left sprinkle some on top as well. Bake uncovered for 40 minutes. Cover with foil and bake another 10 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes and serve! If you like your lasagna super saucy, like my husband and grandma do, have a small pot of sauce heating while the lasagna is cooling and pour a ladle on top before serving.

This recipe can easily become a meat lasagna, just add or substitute the bag of spinach with a pound of browned ground beef and onions. Also, this is excellent as a plain cheese lasagna.

If made in the 9×13 inch dish, this serves 6 to 8, depending on the level of hunger (or 4 if your super hungry brother in law is visiting). If made in the two 8×8 pans this serves about 3 to 4 healthy servings for each pan.

Ingredients
1 28oz can crushed tomatoes—I like the San Marzano brand
1 can tomato paste
1 onion, diced
2 cloves of minced garlic
olive oil
salt, pepper, oregano, basil

gram and her spaghetti sauce

Add enough olive oil to the bottom of a large saucepan to coat and turn heat to medium. When hot, add onion and cook until translucent. Add garlic and cook another minute. Empty can of crushed tomatoes into the pot, fill the can with water and empty that into the pot as well and stir. Add the can of tomato paste to the sauce and fill the empty can with water and empty that into the pot as well. Season with salt, pepper, oregano, and basil—no exact measurement here, just to taste (she would taste throughout the day and add more seasonings each time). Bring sauce to a boil and then simmer for at least an hour, but if possible 4-6 hours. She would make this first thing in the morning, set it to simmer, then make meatballs and add them to the sauce and let them simmer all day. Mmm, delicious.

Ingredients
1 stick melted butter
1 cup sugar—I used turbinado
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 cup flour—I used 1/4 cup buckwheat and 1/4 cup Whole Foods Market Gluten-Free 365 Baking Mix (This mix has rice flour, tapioca and potato starch, guar gum, and salt. I think plain rice flour would have worked well too, I will try that next time.)
1/3 cup cocoa—I used Hershey’s
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
12-16 mini peppermint patties—I used Honey Mint Patties, but I am sure York Peppermint Patties would be fine if soy allergies or corn syrup avoidance don’t make those off limits.

peppermint patty brownie

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease an 8×8 pan with light olive or canola oil. Mix butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until creamy. Add flour, cocoa, and baking powder and mix until well blended. Spread 1/2 of batter in pan—it will be thick and sticky but with some coaxing with a spatula you can get it to spread across. Place peppermint patties evenly spaced across batter. Spoon rest of batter on top. Bake for 25 minutes.

This recipe makes about 16 smaller brownies (approx. the size shown in the photo). I used 12 peppermint patties and the brownies are definitely minty, but not overwhelmingly so. I’d add 4 to 8 more patties to make more minty, if desired. The brownies are thin and chewy/gooey. My husband and mom both say these don’t taste gluten free at all.  Enjoy!

Ingredients
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour or for gluten free use 1 cup buckwheat flour, 1 cup white rice flour, 1/4 cup tapioca flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 bag semisweet chocolate chips – I used 1/2 a bag of the Enjoy Life gluten/dairy/soy-free semisweet chocolate chips

chocolate chip cookies

Preheat oven to 375, mix sugars, butter, egg and vanilla, then add remaining ingredients, adding chocolate chips last. Drop tablespoons of dough on a cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes. Cool on sheet for a couple minutes and then move to cooling rack.

These cookies when made gluten free are very thin and very crispy.