Why beans made me cry in my car today.

Also pleased in the power of humanity, because it’s really good to see people helping each other out, but really sad because it sucks to be in that position, with no money and hungry people to feed, and no idea what to do with this so-called staple, beans.

As such, I’m going to be reading up on what to do with things like lentils (since I don’t really have a clue what to do with them) and posting some of my findings here.

For today, though, I’m going to share a recipe that I love. It’s easy to make, uses staple foods (beans and brown rice), and is absolutely delicious. It’s also really good for a shared dinner/pot luck, because everyone can add their own toppings.

Bean and Brown Rice Burrito Bowls

Software:

• 4 tsp. olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped fine
• Optional: 1 red bell pepper, chopped fine
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 1/4 cups water (or 1 cup broth and 2 1/4 cups water)
• 1 boullion cube (omit if using broth)
• 2 (15 oz) cans black beans – drained and rinsed, or about 3 cups dried beans, cooked (NOT just soaked)
• 1 tsp salt and black pepper to taste
• Optional: ¾ cup corn kernels (canned or frozen and thawed)
• Optional Toppings: Salsa, sour cream, sliced avocado, cooked chicken or ground beef, corn tortillas

Hardware:

• Large oven-proof pot or dutch oven

Preheat the oven to 375° F.  Adjust an oven rack to the middle position.  Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat until shimmering.  Add the onion (and bell pepper, if using) to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until well browned and tender, about 12-14 minutes.  Stir in the garlic and cook just until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Add the chicken broth or water and boullion to the pan.  Bring the mixture to a boil.  Remove the pot from the heat, stir in the rice and salt, and cover.  Bake until the rice is tender, 65-70 minutes.

Remove the pot from the oven and uncover.  Fluff the rice with a fork, stir in the beans (and corn, if using) and replace the lid.  Let stand for 5 minutes.  Mix in the black pepper.  Serve in bowls with tortillas and a mixture of toppings. My favorite is salsa and sour cream, but avocado is nice if you can get them cheap. I actually like this recipe better as vegetarian than I do with chicken or beef in it, but it’s certainly OK to add those as a topping too.

Adapted from Annie’s Eats

Of course, I’m headed in to work today.

Let’s see if the faucet is going to be the same kind of dramatic experience that installing the dishwasher was…

One 34.25” dishwasher successfully installed in a (previously) 34 inch hole. After we took the feet and the wheels off the dishwasher, I did some trimming on the lip of our (already pretty much trashed) countertop to allow the dishwasher to fit. It’s still snug, but it’s installed, running beautifully, and not leaking. (It has a handle too, I was just too excited about it fitting to wait before I took the picture)

And the dishes this morning were CLEAN. Yay!

The hole in our cabinets is 34 inches tall. The dishwasher door is 33.875 inches tall. This is good.

The dishwasher body, with rubber insulation, is 34.25 inches tall – this is after we cut away the cellulose insulation. This is not what the box says (34” dishwasher) and it is not good.

So instead of just being able to hook up the thing and install it, we’ve had to do major reconstruction on our countertop to get the damn thing to fit.

Oh, and the old dishwasher got hauled off yesterday morning.

Her Baked Artichokes au Gratin is an amazing recipe, super easy, and though it’s not gluten free, the only gluten containing ingredient is breadcrumbs, which I easily replace with GF pretzels/crackers/Rice Chex that I pulverize in the food processor.

I double this recipe for Thanksgiving, since I’m feeding 10 people. Last year there weren’t any leftovers either!

Baked Artichoke Hearts Au Gratin with Green Onion, Parmesan, and Romano
(Makes 4 servings, but recipe can easily be doubled; adapted from Rose’s Baked Artichoke Hearts in Martha Stewart Living, November 2008.)

You will need:

• 1 pkg. (12 oz.) frozen artichoke hearts, thawed, drained, and larger ones cut in half
• 3-4 green onions, green part only, very thinly sliced
• 2 tsp. olive oil
• salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup whole wheat bread crumbs <- This is your GF Substitution Point, I like Rice Chex Crumbs in this recipe
  
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/3 cup grated Pecorino-Romano cheese
• 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
• 1/4 tsp. dried oregano
• 1/3 cup mayo or light mayo (do not use fat free)
• juice and zest of 1 lemon (about 1 tsp. zest and 2 T juice)
• 1/2 tsp. garlic puree

Preheat oven to 325F/170C. Thaw artichoke hearts in the microwave if they’re still frozen, then drain well. Cut larger artichoke hearts in half so they’re all about the same size.

Use olive oil to grease 2 small gratin dishes or 1 medium sized baking dish. (Medium = an 8.5 x 8.5 inch square baking dish. If you double the recipe, you’ll want to use a 9×13 pyrex baking dish) Arrange artichoke hearts in a single layer in the oiled dish, then sprinkle finely sliced green onions over the artichokes and season with salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Mix together bread crumbs, grated Parmesan cheese, grated Pecorino-Romano cheese, and dried herbs. (If the cheese isn’t finely grated you might want to buzz it in a mini-processor for a minute or two.) Whisk together the mayo, lemon juice, lemon zest, and garlic puree; then mix in 1 cup of the bread crumb/cheese mixture. Use a rubber scraper to spread this over the top of the artichoke hearts, setting aside the rest of the bread crumb/cheese mixture.

Cover the dishes with foil and bake in 325F/170C oven for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and increase temperature to 375F/190C. Remove foil and sprinkle the remaining bread crumb/cheese mixture over the top of each dish. Put back into oven and bake about 25 minutes more, or until the topping is lightly browned, and the dish is hot clear through.

Serve hot and wait for compliments!

Obviously you’ll need a gluten free pie crust (which really just means pie crust made with a gluten free all-purpose flour blend, which is a little crumbly for a top crust but fine for a bottom crust, since you can piece something together in the pan), and there is a little bit of flour in the actual pie filling as well. Sweet or brown rice flour both work just fine, or more of your AP Flour Blend.

(Which I guess makes this the least Gluten Free of all my recipes, since it does require a Gluten Free Flour blend, but if you’re going for the least amount of impact on your Thanksgiving, I think these pies are worth it. I’ll also make a basic pumpkin pie with the same crust recipe.)

Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie

You will need:

• 1 – 9″ prepared pie crust, do not pre-bake/blind bake
• 3 large eggs
• 3/4 cup light corn syrup
• 4 tablespoons butter, melted
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
• 2 tablespoons bourbon
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour or rice flour
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 1/4 cup pecan, chopped
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 425°F.

In a large bowl mix together eggs, corn syrup, butter, light brown sugar, bourbon, flour and vanilla until well combined. Add the chopped pecans and chocolate chips and mix well. Pour into prepared pie crust.

Bake pie on the bottom rack at 425°F for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes reduce heat to 350°F and bake for another 45 minutes. Let pie cool for at least 1 hour before serving.

Instead, I make the recipe, following her exact instructions, with Blackstrap Rum instead of Whiskey.

This makes the carrots sweeter, which I don’t mind even a little bit. I’ve thought about adding some finely minced onion and garlic to the sauce as well, since I think that’d be good. And you could probably add some spicy too. Either way though, it’s not hard to do, and Pioneer Woman has the best pictures of her instructions ever!

Drunken Rum Carrots

You will need:

• 1 stick Butter, Divided
• 2 pounds (to 3 Pounds) Carrots, Peeled And Cut Into Thick Circles
• ½ cups Jack Daniels Or Other Whiskey
• ¾ cups (to 1 Cup) Brown Sugar
• ½ teaspoons (to 1 Teaspoon) Salt
• Freshly Ground Pepper, to taste

Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a large skillet over high heat. Add carrots in two batches, cooking for 60-90 seconds each batch. Remove from skillet. (This would be where I would add the finely diced onion and garlic, and cook them until they were golden brown and had let off most of their liquid.)

Pour in whiskey and allow to evaporate 30 seconds. Reduce heat to medium, and add remaining butter.

When butter melts, sprinkle brown sugar over the top. Stir together, then add carrots to skillet. Cover, and continue cooking for 5 minutes.

Remove lid and add salt and pepper. Continue cooking until carrots are done and glaze is thick, about 5 more minutes.

Pour onto a platter and serve immediately. Sprinkle with chopped chives if desired.

You need:

• 1 bag of cranberries (I think 12 or 16 oz?)
• 1 large orange
• sugar

You also need:

• A bowl
• A food processor

Place the cranberries in the food processor. Cut the orange up into chunks, remove any seeds, and put the whole thing in there too. Push go, and let the processor run until you have a finely chunked, red and orange bowl of amazing. You’re going for seed-bead sized chunks, not puree (but it’s not an exact science). Stir in some sugar – I usually end up wanting about 3/4 cup, but I’ve seen recipes for this that call for anywhere from 1/2 to 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar. 3/4 cup is usually just about right for the sweet/tangy balance for me.

Refrigerate until serving.

The Orange Trick: The white pith of an orange can be kind of bitter, so I do the following to my orange:

1. Using a paring knife, cut the zest – just the orange part, not any of the white part – off the orange in big strips.
2. Using a serrated knife, slice away the rest of the rind, get all the white pithy part off.
3. Cut the orange open and remove any seeds
4. Toss the zest and the orange pulp into the food processor in chunks
5. Proceed with the rest of the instructions

This gets the bitter pithy part out of the relish, and leaves a prettier result (no white stuff). I’m fussy like that!

Which is really very fun – it’s a big potluck kind of Thanksgiving.

But the gluten free thing is kind of a challenge, more so because my mother in law is completely unfamiliar with what it means to not eat gluten, not helped by the fact that she lives in a tiny farm town that doesn’t have anything remotely resembling “specialty” food (at one point, before I was GF, we had a conversation where she said that the area she lived in was too poor to have people that couldn’t eat gluten).

Fortunately the turkey is easy. My father in law always brines and smokes a turkey for us, so not only do I not need to cook it, I don’t need to worry about it – I know what’s in his turkey brine, and it’s perfectly OK for me to eat.

Also, it’s the best turkey any of us have ever eaten. Ever.

Mashed potatoes are also easy, as is some kind of green bean dish (I may actually make a homemade traditional casserole, which just avoids the flour in canned soups and means I make my own, which is yummier anyway). Everyone loves my artichoke gratin, and I can just as easily make that with GF breadcrumbs (or pulverized GF pretzels). I can thicken the gravy with cornstarch instead of flour, there’s no gluten in my orange and cranberry relish or in the drunken rum carrots, and I’ve caved in and agreed to have some baked (frozen) yeast rolls for everyone else, since I know that my brother and father in law are of the opinion that it’s not a meal without bread, and can go through an entire bag of rolls just between themselves.

Which leaves me with two fussy problems.

Stuffing and pie.

The pies I will just make myself.

My mom and dad will be here to help with our side of the cooking, and I’ve made gluten free pie crusts before. They’re not all that easy to make, because the flour doesn’t have the sticky stretchiness that regular wheat flour does, but piecing the crust together in the pan works just fine as long as you don’t need a top crust. Which means pumpkin and my bourbon chocolate pecan pies.

I think everyone will be happy with that, and if they’re not, they can buy their own damn pie from the grocery.

Stuffing I’ve kind of caved in on, but I’m not overly upset about it. When I set out to do this whole Thanksgiving thing, I decided I didn’t want anything on the table that I couldn’t eat. I was willing to negotiate on rolls, but I’m more worried about that than the stuffing, because I love bread. LOVE bread. So maybe I’ll buy some GF bread to serve instead.

Stuffing, however, my mother in law always makes, with a mixture of white bread and cornbread.

When I asked her if she would be willing to make it only with cornbread (and with cornbread ONLY made with corn and not with white flour) she balked. Her husband and sons both LOVE the stuffing she always makes. Making it without white bread just wouldn’t be the same.

So she’s making the stuffing she always makes, but using a gluten free cornbread, and will put some aside for me that doesn’t have white bread in it.

It’s not the ideal situation, but I think it’ll work out without having to ask anyone to buy gluten free bread that might not be any good for $10 a loaf.

Anna’s (mostly) Gluten Free Thanksgiving Menu:

• Smoked Turkey
• Assorted Stuffings (GF and not)
• Mashed Potatoes
• Gravy
• Drunken Rum Carrots
• Green Bean Casserole (homemade, GF)
• Artichoke Gratin
• Orange Cranberry Relish
• Frozen wheat rolls (not GF)
• Pumpkin Pie
• Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie

If anyone wants recipes, let me know in comments and I’ll do what I can to have them posted soon!

You need:

• 2 lbs of stew meat (or 2 lbs of cheap beef roast, cut in chunks)
• 1/2 lb mushrooms – I usually use cremini or shitake – cut into chunks
• 1/2 lb carrots – cut into slices. Or a bag of carrot slices or baby carrots
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup (not low fat)
• 1 envelope Beefy Onion Soup Mix
• 1/4-1/2 cup whiskey or red wine (or water)
• 1 tsp thyme

Dump the mushroom soup, the soup mix, the thyme, and the whiskey in the slow cooker. Stir it up until it’s all evenly blended, then add everything else. Stir to combine and cook for 4-6 hrs on high, 8+ hrs on low, or until the meat is tender. The resulting stew will be thin, so if you want to thicken it, make a slurry of a few teaspoons of cornstarch in a little water and add that right into the hot stew – it’ll thicken up quick!

I serve this either over rice or over slightly smashed red potatoes.