Gluten-free biryani and carrot fritters

You know when you have leftovers and it's just a cup of this and a cup of that? Things that you can't exactly serve to anyone but yourself, standing eating at the kitchen counter?

All. The. Time.

This week, my friend's wife sent me a tupperware of chicken biryani and I liked it so so SO MUCH that I ate just a few spoonful at a time until I realized that I didn't have enough left for a meal.

Desperate, I raided the fridge and BOOM! Magic.

I don't know about your fridge but I think mine is a magic box. Whenever I am at the end of the food rope, I just need to stick my head in there and all kinds of fun ideas pop up.

So here we go, enjoy these fritters because I did. I actually had to portion it to not eat the whole batch.

(Biryani) Rice and carrot fritters

- 1.5 cup of biryani or plain cooked rice.
-3 medium carrots, shredded, squeezed well
-3 eggs
-1 Tbsp curry powder (more if you have plain rice)
-3 Tbsp minced mint leaves
-salt and pepper to taste
-coconut oil for the pan

Mint yogurt sauce

-1/2 Cup plain yogurt
-1 Tbsp minced mint leaves
-1 tsp lemon juice

***For sauce, mix all ingredients together.

Mix all fritters ingredients together. Heat a small knob of coconut oil in pan over medium heat. Drop a few tablespoons of mixture and fry a few minutes each side until golden. Serve warm with mint yogurt sauce.

Almond pulp (gluten free) apple and peach cobbler

I saw Christmas decoration in store last week. Seriously? At least wait until I've had my turkey and pumpkin pie guys!!!! I haven't even thought of a Halloween costume yet!!!

We are having Indian summer this week and it's beautiful outside. I love that there are red leaves everywhere but it's hot and sweaty which definitely makes it easier for me to stop denying that fall is here. Soon, everything will be about stews and roasts, pumpkins and sweet potatoes, apples and cobblers.

HMMM.... Cobblers.....I. LOVE. COBBLERS!!!!

As I have been eating sans gluten, cobblers would have been hard not to have anymore. It's like a poem, you know? A beautiful fragrant to start, a bite of the soft sweet apple chunks to lure you into the story and then the buttery crunch. Without that buttery crunch, the poem doesn't finish well. It's still good, don't get me wrong but that crunch... oh that crunch..

Ehem... sorry.. I got a little distracted there... But I'm back! So as I am on a roll with this almond pulp thing, I thought why not use almond pulp instead of flour? I went to ask my close friend Google and I found one that sounds really really good, and I went on from there.

This recipe is really easy and fast I can assure you that. It was inspired from Cinnamon Eats and I substituted a couple of things and made it the lazy way.

Gluten free almond pulp cobbler
-5 apples
-3 peaches (optional. I had peaches left over so I just threw them in there)
-juice of 1 lemon
-2-3 cups of almond pulp (yield from 1 cup of whole almonds when I made the milk)
-1 Tbsp ground cinnamon (use less if you prefer. I like mine cinnamon-y)
-a few shakes of ground cloves
-a few shakes of grated nutmeg
-1/2 cup butter
-1/4 cup honey (I used raw because that's what I had)
-a handful of raw pumpkin seeds

Turn oven to 350F
Slice the apples and peaches and toss them with the lemon juice in a glass baking dish (I used a 9x11 because I couldn't find the 8x8)
Mix almond pulp and spices.
Melt butter and honey and add into dry mixture. Spoon on top of fruit slices and spread.
Sprinkle the pumpkin seeds. Bake for 50 minutes then turn the oven off and leave it in there to keep warm

4-ingredient almond pulp cookies

Hi there! :) How have you been?

Yes, I know I've been away for quite a while... but let's just pretend that my last post was a couple of weeks ago, shall we? After all, I'm sure life has been very exciting for you so you probably didn't miss me too much, right?

What?

Oh... I was hoping that you'd say you did miss me so so much....

Well, in any case, I  am going to try to buy back my time with you with this cookies recipe. I promise they are good. Scout honor.

So this whole time away I made movies, I made cakes and I made almond milk. Delicious plain and chocolate almond milk. There is nothing really special about my almond milk compared to yours, no. Just good old four cups water to one cup raw almonds. This means that I was accumulating almond pulp and I must say, I started to freak out a little bit. It was my guilty conscience telling me I was supposed to make delicious stuff with it really fast and my lazy brain whispering: "You don't have a dehydrator... Do you really want to mess around with this crumbly wet pile?"

Needless to say, the world wide web had many suggestions. My brain was right, drying almond pulp??? Oh hell no! As I realized that most of the recipes required extra ingredients that my wallet shook its head to and the amount of almond pulp used was not as much as the pile was growing, I decided that I'd just randomly mix things into my crumbly wet pile and made cookies.

O.M.G. SO. GOOD. My colleagues love them. I love them. The texture apparently reminded one colleague of camping bars (delicious ones obviously!) They are gluten-free and vegetarian friendly!!!

So without further boring you, I am sharing one of the two recipes I came up with as the other one needs to be tested again.

Almond pulp banana cookies:
(about 20-24 cookies)

-3 cups almond pulp (plain or chocolate)
-1 large banana
-1 egg
-1/2 cup sugar

Turn your oven to 350 F
Mix everything together well. Line your cookie sheets with parchment papers. Scoop 1 tablespoon  of mixture for each cookie, flatten them slightly with the back of a spoon or fork. Bake for 20 minutes or until there are golden specs on top. Cool cookies on racks, keep them in a tightly closed tupperware in the fridge for a few days (Mine never last more than 24 hours... LOL!!!!)

Good luck eating just one!!!! :P

Vietnamese mango & shrimp salad

As a kid, Tết (Vietnamese New Year / Chinese New Year / Lunar New Year) meant that I'd spend days munching on water melons, melon seeds, sweets & tart kumquats that I'd secretly pick from the kumquat trees we had in the house, the equivalence of the Christmas tree here (We were not supposed to pick at them because they end up not looking as nice anymore by the time it's the new year, so I'd take the fruits from the side that was against the wall hoping it wouldn't show. LOL!)

 (Image from here)

On the first morning of Tết, my cousins & I would dress up in our new clothes & greet our grandparents, uncles & aunts with extravagant wishes of health, happiness & longevity. Then, they'd hand us "li xi" of crisp new bills in red pouches. The upcoming days were visits from and/or to friends and extended family. Tet was exciting. Tet was lots of yummy food. Tet was the only holiday I'd look forward to.

Now, I mostly spend Tết with close friends instead of family because they are all far away. No flower festivals that line the main strip downtown for weeks on end. No firecrackers popping away through the night. The kumquats have been replaced with tangerines. I'm the one to make the food & give "li xi" because I am now the adult. Things have changed but one thing for sure, the love stays. Be it with friends or family, Tet is the time to spend with people you cherish and I wouldn't change it for the world!

This year, I continue the tradition.

One of the dishes that I will be serving at Tet dinner is this yummy mango salad (Other recipes will come soon) You can use the Asian green mangoes or the greener Fat Cat ones, which will be a bit sweeter. 

For a one-person lunch size:

• Half a mango, cut into slightly bigger than match sticks
• A handful of "do chua" (Vietnamese daikon & carrot pickle)*
• A many cooked shrimp as you think you can handle (I used 5 Tiger shrimps, cut in half length wise)
• A few Tbsp of mixed fish sauce** 
• A few mint leaves and "rau ram" (Vietnamese coriander) chopped
• A small handful of roasted peanuts, chopped

Mix the  first four ingredients together, then top with mint & Vietnamese coriander. Sprinkle the peanuts on top just before eating to keep them crunchy.


*The advantage of making a jar of daikon & carrot pickle instead of buying it in the store, is saving money, having it on hand at anytime and you can add it in home-made "banh mi" (Vietnamese sandwich) I must warn you though, daikon smells strong.


**I don't really have a recipe for mixed fish sauce, simply because it all depends on your own taste. Some like it sweeter, some like it saltier, etc. But as the base recipe states: "one part lime or lemon juice, or occasionally vinegar, one part fish sauce, one part sugar and two parts water"

Soy sauce drumsticks

Chúc Mừng Nǎm Mới!!! Happy New Year!!!!  Bonne Année!!! Feliz Año Nuevo!!! Buon Anno!!! La Mulţi Ani!!! 새해 복 많이 받으세요!!!

Whichever language(s) you speak, write or understand, I wish you and your loved ones a new year filled with happiness, health, joy, laughter, smiles, and yummilicious food in your bellies.

Speaking of which, here is a short & savory "recipe" for your drumsticks. Simply delicious.

No, not YOUR drumsticks, but chicken drumsticks that you bought at the store/farm first thing this morning because almost nothing was opened yesterday on the 1st of January and you didn't want to purchase them in Chinatown for personal reasons... Don't worry, it'll be our little secret...

Calling this a "recipe" is really a stretch. All you need is:

• enough soy sauce (to fill about 5mm high of a shallow baking pan or dish or whatever you want to marinade in) 
• minced garlic (of about 3, 4 cloves)  
• chopped shallots (1-2) 
• drumsticks (I scored them with 2, 3 deep lines almost to the bone, horizontally so that they'd soak up the marinade better and cook well at the more meaty part without drying out or burning)

Line the chicken in the pan with the marinade and turn them over once in a while to ensure that the soy sauce coats all. Let stand for about an hour or two, or refrigerate over night and let cool before cooking.

Cook in a pan over medium heat with a bit of olive or vegetable oil, turning over once in a while to cook all sides. Once done (mine took about 30-35 minutes) place them on a big plate and sprinkle freshly ground pepper over the top.

Enjoy!!!

Crockpot pasta meat sauce with a twist

Ok, so I know what you're thinking: "ANOTHER pasta sauce recipe!?" because of course, we all have enough pasta sauce recipes in our closet!

But hear me out!!!

1-You won't have to keep going to check up on it
2-There is a twist that will give your pasta sauce a whole new depth.
3-No cleanup to do for splatters on the counter!!!

Seriously, if you have a crockpot, DO IT!

DO IT NOW!!!!! Ok, maybe not right now because for all I know, you're reading this in bed on your laptop at 1am while your significant other is snoring away on the left side of the bed. But do it when the sun is up because you won't regret it. You will have enough to freeze and the kids will ask for seconds (And I say this so firmly because I've got proof. Picky-eaters proof!)

So, what's the twist? Ha-ha, very funny, it's not squirrel meat! (Although, those little cute furry punks who dig up our back yard are really asking for it....)

It's fish sauce. Oh, don't make that face, it's really not attractive. That's the same face my better half made when I first talked about cooking with fish sauce. Then he tasted the sauce I made the first time and hasn't stopped eating it since. Didn't even leave me when he found out what I put in it! LOL!

It's really quite quick to prep. The only part that takes more time is cooking the beef. So let's get to it!

Tramie's pasta meat sauce with a twist:
(serves... a lot...)

• 2 pounds extra lean ground beef

• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 cans of diced tomatoes n the juice, 796ml / 28oz each

• 1 can of crushed tomatoes, 796ml / 28oz

• 4-6 tbsp fish sauce (to taste)

• 2 bay leaves

• 2 branches of fresh oregano, washed 

• 2-3 branches of fresh parsley, washed, discard stems and mince

Cook the ground beef with the garlic in a skillet over high heat. Draining the fat is optional. I don't :) Let it cool down.

Pour the 3 cans of tomatoes into your crockpot. Blend thoroughly with a handheld blender (Or in a blender and then put them in the crockpot.

Add the fish sauce. Now, this is important: I don't actually measure the exact amount, this is totally eyeballed. So add and taste slowly. It doesn't have to be salty right away, remember, you can always add more after.

Then add in the meat and the rest of the herbs. Set your crockpot on low for 6 hours.

Now go finish up your holidays shopping, because THAT will not do itself.