by jphilo | Jan 22, 2014 | Recipes
In December, our extended family went out to breakfast at The Original Pancake House in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Now, pancake houses can be a bit tricky for those will dairy allergies, but the restaurant wait staff was very accommodating. After consulting with them and the manager, I ordered their Mediterranean omelette (hold the feta cheese, please).
It. Was. Delicious.
So delicious that a few weeks later, I recreated the recipe and served it for breakfast when our daughter and son-in-law spent a weekend at our house. It wasn’t an exact flavor match, but close enough to try again. The recipe below is for a two egg omelette, which was plenty for my daughter and me. The guys had the three egg version, which satisfied their larger appetites. The other ingredients are approximate rather than exact. So fiddle around with them until you get the taste you like.
Mediterranean Spinach Omelette
2 eggs
3/4 cup washed, lightly packed baby spinach leaves
1 green onion, chopped including green ends
1/4 cup Kalamata olives, whole
2 tablespoons, sun dried tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup feta cheese
1 tablespoon butter flavored olive oil
Put oil in skillet. Heat on medium burner.
Beat eggs with electric hand mixer until they are pale and fluffy.
Pour eggs into pan and cook over medium heat until the bottom is set but the top is still runny.
Sprinkle the onion, olives, tomatoes, and feta cheese* onto the runny surface. Press down lightly with spatula. Sprinkle spinach on top.
Press down lightly and let cook until the eggs are almost, but not quite done. Then flip one half of omelet on top of the other half. (See photo at top of page.) Continue cooking until eggs are firm. Serve hot with fruit and hash brown potatoes. Delicious!
*Omit feta cheese for the dairy-free version
by jphilo | Jan 15, 2014 | Recipes
Yes siree, Bob, you can make your own cashew milk! The process does require some forethought. But, under my daughter’s tutealage, I discovered it’s not a hard task or a time-consuming one. Here’s how we did it.
- Put 1 cup of raw cashew pieces in a ceramic or glass bowl. Add water until they are completely covered, with 2–3 inches of water above the cashew line.
- In the morning, drain the water and replace it with the same amount of fresh water.
Repeat this step again in the morning and once more in the evening, until the cashews have soaked for 48 hours. Do not soak them more than 48 hours.
- Drain the cashews one more time and put the nuts in the blender. Add about 1 cup of water and blend. If the cashew and water mixture sticks to the side of the blender out of reach of the blades, scrape it back into the blender well. Then add water, about 1/4 cup at a time, until the blades are continually blending the mixture.
- Blend and blend and blend the mixture. Occasionally residue off the sides and lid into the well. Then continue blending. For a really long time. Longer than you think could possibly be necessary. Until, as my daughter says, the residue on the side of the blender is tiny, tiny flecks. Like in this picture.
- Then, pour the milk into a jar or pitcher. Add water as needed if the milk is too thick for the intended use. It is yummy in coffee, tea, and hot chocolate though a pinch of salt and sweetener may be required to mimic the flavor of cow’s milk. It can also be used in place of milk in white sauces. It can be used for baking, though I find it a bit heavy and prefer rice milk for those purposes.
- Keep the cashew milk in the refrigerator and use it within 3 weeks.
Are you a cashew milk maker? Do you have some secret tips to share? Feel free to leave them in the comment box. Unless you want to keep them secret, that is!
by jphilo | Jan 8, 2014 | Recipes
The holiday season is over, and thanks to some new dairy-free recipes and ingredient substitutions, this skip-the-dairy woman navigated the party season without feeling deprived. This recipe for dairy-free spinach dip (a modified version of Knorr Spinach Dip) is guaranteed to make the upcoming Super Bowl and March Madness gatherings fun for everyone, including non-dairy, non-sports fans. Why? Because this dip tastes just like the real sour cream version. No one will be able to tell the difference.
Dairy-Free Spinach Dip
1 box (10 oz.) frozen chopped spinach, cooked, cooled and squeezed dry
1 container (12 oz.) Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream
1 cup mayonnaise (contrary to popular belief, mayo contains no dairy products)
1 package Knorr® Vegetable recipe mix
3 green onions, chopped (optional)
Combine all ingredients and chill about 2 hours. Serve with your favorite dippers* to your favorite people.
*Check the ingredient list of dippers to be sure they are dairy-free.
by jphilo | Dec 31, 2013 | Recipes, Top Ten Tuesday
Photo Credit: www.freedigitalphotos.net
We’re home after a long weekend spent with family in the Twin Cities area. Bad roads on the way home Monday made the trip much longer than normal. Hence, no post yesterday and total writer’s block concerning a topic for today’s top ten list.
Until I remembered today is New Year’s Eve, the perfect time for a run down of Gravel Road’s top ten posts of 2013. That said, here goes:
10. Savory Vegetable Strata: First glimmer of 2013 readers looking for non-dairy recipes.
9. Mexican Rice: First glimmer of readers looking for easy recipes.
8. Top Ten Reasons to Look Forward to a Cousin’s Reunion: No glimmer necessary for this one. The pictures tell why this post was so popular. Our family is overflowing with cousins…with almost a dozen more yet to be born at the time these photos were taken!
7. Where Minnesota Farm Girl and Queen Elizabeth Meet: I love that readers loved this post pointing out parallels between the lives of Mom and England’s queen.
6. The Best Non-Dairy Egg Bake Ever: Hmm…is a recipe theme developing?
5. How to Build a Playhouse with Life-Sized Lincoln Logs: The popularity of this post proves that my husband also has a large extended family.
4. Tiny Town, Gigantic Heart: This post puts the tiny town of Camp Crook, South Dakota on the map, as it deserves!
3. Downton Abbey Dairy-Free Scones: Where Masterpiece Theater and dairy allergy sufferers meet!
2. Dairy-Free German Chocolate Cake: Our family’s favorite birthday cake redone for all to enjoy.
1. Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free Apple Crisp: Just goes to show, the more allergies people have, the more interesting and attractive they are to the general public.
Don’t see your favorite post of the year listed in the top ten? Then leave a comment below to give it some air time. Or suggest a topic for the coming year.
by jphilo | Dec 18, 2013 | Recipes
Last weekend, we were invited and asked to bring food for two Christmas parties. For people with food allergies, such gatherings tend to be either a minefield of hazardous food choices or an unwelcome exercise of sweet tooth self-denial. But after discovering Costco’s Kirkland brand chocolate chips are dairy-free, I created a non-dairy version of chocolate-dipped pretzels. They satisfy a sweet tooth without being too sugary, and they’re very easy to make. The recipe’s kind of hard to pin down, but here’s a good start.
Ingredients:
1 bag of small pretzel twists (be sure the ingredients contain no whey, dry milk or other dairy products
)a jar of creamy peanut butter
Kirkland Signature Chocolate Chips (pictured below)
Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or waxed paper.
Combine 1/3 cup chocolate chips and 2 tablespoons peanut butter. Melt in the microwave for 1 minute. Remove and stir until chips are melted. Microwave for another 30 seconds if mixture is too stiff for dipping. One by one, dip pretzels halfway into the melted chocolate-peanut butter mixture. Lay them on the lined cookie sheet. Repeat this process, mixing and melting more chocolate chips and peanut butter, until the pretzels are gone.
Cool the dipped pretzels several hours until the chocolate coating hardens. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator until party time.
by jphilo | Dec 11, 2013 | Recipes
Our extended family will celebrate Christmas the weekend between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. And Grandma Josie’s tapioca fruit salad will grace our table. The recipe for this delectable family favorite debuted on this blog in January of 2012 and is making a return appearance for two reasons: it’s making the round on Pinterest and I’ve been to busy for the past few weeks to try any new recipes.
Today’s recipe comes from my mother’s mother, Josephine Newell Hess. She made huge batches of this tapioca fruit salad when her 8 children, their spouses, and her 39 grandchildren gathered for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Once she was unable to host the gatherings, the recipe was lost for many years. Finally, my sister and I were so hungry for it, we recreated the dish with help from Mom. Now we serve it at Thanksgiving and Christmas and eat it as greedily as hobbits do mushrooms.
Though the recipe below doesn’t make as big a batch as Grandma whipped up in her prime, it’s still enough to fill a large Tupperware bowl. Why make so much? Because we love to eat what’s left over the next morning for breakfast!
Holiday Tapioca Fruit Salad
1 box (8 ounces) large pearl tapioca
4 cups water, divided into two equal parts
1/2 cup sugar
1 20 ounce can pineapple tidbits
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup sugar
1-2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups seedless red grapes, halved
1 cups chopped walnuts
2 apples, cored and diced
2 bananas, sliced
2 oranges, diced
The night before the meal, put tapioca in a medium bowl. Add 2 cups of water to the tapioca, cover, and let soak overnight.
Several hours before serving, place soaked tapioca in heavy saucepan. Add 2 cups water and the sugar. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until most of the tapioca is translucent and the mixture is very thick. Pour into a large bowl and immediately add pineapple (juice and all) into the thick tapioca. Stir thoroughly. Put in the refrigerator or on the porch to cool.
An hour before serving whip the cream. Add sugar and vanilla. In a large bowl mix the tapioca, fruit, (except the bananas), and whipped cream together. Immediately before the meal, slice the bananas and stir them in, along with the nuts.
