Gluten-Free Slow Cooker Stew

Hearty and tasty gluten-free slow cooker stew.

Here's a bright and delicious slow cooker stew recipe with sausages - and it's tasty using any sausage you choose, from free-range roaming buffalo to furry-friendly vegan. Scrumptious. Seriously. Make it for the Big Game. You know, the one with a pigskin ball and helmeted men in shiny tights. Throw all the ingredients in a Crock Pot and go root for your favorite tight end. Make a hot artichoke dip and grab some gluten-free chips. Game on.

Go Cubs!

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Gluten-Free Italian Meatball Recipe

Gluten-free Italian meatballs recipe with pesto rice pasta

Craving meatballs but shun evil gluten? Have I got a meatball recipe for you. And it's so good you won't even have to apologize to your Aunt Carmella. I promise. She won't ever suspect you pulled a switcheroo on the old family recipe and made it gluten-free.

Mum's the word (or is it Mama mia?).

Let's face it. When it comes to making meatballs every family boasts an ultra-special top secret meatball recipe, right? There's a loyalty to meatball mojo as fierce and tooth baring as the die hard belief that Mom's meatloaf can cure all ills, mend bruised hearts, and restore order to chaos theory.

So why am I putting myself on the line here? How do I even dare to post a gluten-free meatball recipe? The wrong ingredient or technique might actually lead to fisticuffs. Or bristling. You might turn away from Gluten-Free Goddess in utter, sheer contempt.

I'm putting my reputation on the line here, and I know it.

So why risk it? Why torture myself with the inevitable backlash? Reason one-  an obvious plea. My meatballs are gluten-free and casein-free, in other words, GFCF. My audience. My people.

These meatballs also happen to be egg-free (yes, I hear the snorts of derision- may you wake tomorrow with a blooming albumen rash and come crawling back to peruse my egg-free recipes).

Reason number two? My spaghetti and meatballs? Killer. I'm serious.

Meatball bliss.

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Gluten-Free Beef and Mushroom Rice Casserole

Tasty beef and rice casserole with cranberries, mushrooms and olives.

Here's a cozy autumn casserole recipe with crumbled beef (or turkey), mushrooms, black olives and tart cranberries. Vegetarians can change out the meat with cooked black beans or white kidney beans.

The recipe is an improv, so the measurements are close approximations, but most of you readers are creative cooks who do your own thing and toss together your own improvisations, anyway, right? You're my kind of people. 

You can handle it.

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A Gluten-Free Pasta with Ragù You Can Mangia

Gluten-free pasta with homemade red sauce.

Before I share my new ragù pasta sauce recipe, I have a note about the blog. Gluten-Free Goddess now has a FAQ page. (Thank you, David Lebovitz for the reader-friendly blogging tip.) What took me so long? Who knows, Babycakes? I sure don't. I could blame it on my preoccupation with Mad Men. Or hot flashes. Or the simple fact that living out here in the rural sand swept hills of Northern New Mexico is making me crazy. Not shooting caribou from a helicopter crazy, but. 

Crazy enough.

At any rate, now that I've come to my senses (I'm sure it's only temporary) you, Dear Reader, will find a platter of helpful links and answers to the most frequent questions asked here at the brand spankin' new Gluten-Free Goddess FAQ page. If I've overlooked anything obvious or important, I'm sure you'll let me know- won't you?

On to ragù! Up until quite recently I had never attempted a meat ragù. My red gravy of choice was always a simple vegetarian marinara sauce with plenty of garlic and basil- vegan by default (and choice). It's a recipe that I've been simmering on my stove or in my slow cooker for years. Decades, in fact. Way better than the jarred stuff. But lately I've become an omnivore. (to heal my broken hip) and I'm appreciating the virtues of grass fed Black Angus beef.

So I made a meat ragù. And here's the recipe.

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Italian Eggplant Recipe with Crumbled Beef, Tomatoes and Mint

Gluten-free eggplant recipe with crumbled beef, tomatoes and mint.

The classic Italian flavors are all here- eggplant, tomato, garlic, onion and oregano with a twist of fresh chopped mint nudging it over into Greek territory- but there's not a speck of gluten or dairy.

Mediterranean goodness on a plate.

This recipe is for those of us who miss eggplant Parmesan- a little something I threw together this week when my craving for a slab of eggplant Parm (as we called it back in Massachusetts) heated up to such a fever pitch that all I could think about was, How? How to translate a dish so fiercely reliant on a fried breadcrumb coating and slabs of melty Parmesan cheese? A dish so not gluten-free. Or dairy-free. Or lower glycemic friendly to this waist-whittling goddess.

Thin, weeped eggplant slices are brushed lightly with a little extra virgin olive oil and roasted in a hot oven- all by their lonesome. This makes for a delicate, slightly crispy eggplant slice, let me tell you. Topped with a homemade ragu of Italian tomatoes, browned ground organic beef with onions and garlic and herbs and a splash of balsamic vinegar- it's love, Mediterranean style. It is sustenance. It is flavor. And it's dairy-free.

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Gluten-Free Maple Apple Breakfast Sausage- and things I lost in the fall

Truth is often messy. It's complicated. Hard to blog about. Because truth- the whole of it- doesn't always dovetail into a post about rhubarb or biscuit dough. It isn't shiny and pastel sprinkled or predigested for your consumption. What I'm feeling lately is raw and no doubt undercooked, and I'm not even sure I understand it. So, what, exactly, is it?

Things I lost in the fall.

Besides the ability to straddle, to jog up the patio steps, to dance to the Talking Heads while stirring onions, to heft groceries from the back seat, lug heavy Mexican chairs over into the sun, to reach the top edge of a five-foot canvas and lay down a swath of color, walk back, step forward, add more paint, back up, mix color (do this for hours). Or even just sit on the floor. Cross my legs. Curl up in a chair with a book.

To stand for more than ten minutes without assistance (read: cane).

But it's more than these things, even. More than the physical struggle back to a modified semblance of wholeness. It's the acidic sensation of sliding backwards in time, losing ground you worked so hard to get to, to claim as your own. The foothold that didn't come easy to a questioning hyper-vigilant child. A cultivated center of pure confidence. The belief in I am here. Entitlement.

The right to take up floorspace and wall space, to carve out time, spend money on materials. Make mistakes, explore, discover. Play. To start over somewhere new and unfamiliar. The right to disappoint someone else. To confuse them. To place someone else's needs next to your own- instead of in front of your own.

More was broken than a hip.

And ten months later, I am still mending. Not just knitting marrow and stretching fifty-year old muscles that knot and resist. There are invisibles I have lost.

And I am no longer bold enough, or naive enough, to simply assume I'll get them back.
 

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Beef and Potatoes au Chocolat

 Beef. In chocolate. That's right.

One of my favorite food-themed movies is Chocolat. All those sexy close-ups of thick and glossy ribbons of deep dark chocolate. The dustings of cinnamon you could almost taste. And the revelation of chile-spiked cocoa! It's enough to make any chocolate and spice lover swoon.

Flash forward. Winter day. Steve is turning, smiling- devilish- in the late afternoon sun that slants through the square kitchen window, unwrapping (vegans please skip ahead now to when I acknowledge your goddess-given right for a substitute) a gorgeous grass fed ribeye steak from Whole Foods and ponders, aloud, Should we make some kind of stew tonight- something Sicilian, maybe? And suddenly- feverishly- I am possessed with the idea of mole- a lip smacking, foodgasm-inducing Mexican sauce, decadently rich and redolent with unsweetened chocolate and spices.

You know what happened next.

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Karina's Gluten-Free Maple Meatloaf

My maple meatloaf is homespun comfort food.

I have some good news. I mean, besides this delicious meatloaf recipe. After eight long weeks of no funny business, yours in gluten-and-casein-free bliss is humming to the Stereo MC's and shuffling around our one room casita with a walker. Yup. I was officially sprung from wheelchair status today! Progress with a long o.

High-fiiiive me.

I'm one happy crone tonight. So I'm keeping this short and sweet. Here it is. It snowed today. There's a crackling fire in the kiva. A glass of wine awaits- not to mention- one of our favorite comfort food suppers. A slice of my favorite meatloaf and a generous scoop of warm Champagne Vinegar Potato Salad. Life is good.

Have a safe and tasty weekend! And be good to your bones.

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Beef + Mushroom Stuffed Acorn Squash

A hearty stuffed acorn squash recipe- comfort food for omnivores.

Yours truly has been stewing. Not in the culinary sense, Darling. I've been stewing about Sting, and how disappointed I am with the latest news (and Oy, the photo of him ducking his head, cringing in the back seat?) about him schtupping (okay, maybe he didn't actually schtup- who knows?-maybe he innocently indulged in some lap dances in a post-concert-suffering-from-exhaustion kinda way) at the exclusive brothel-slash-strip club Relax in Hamburg, Germany, while sans wife Trudie and his six children.

Whatever.

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Good Karma Meatloaf Pie with Dill Mashed Potato Crust

Got leftover meatloaf? Make a shepherd's pie, Baby

 

Yeah, I'll just say it. If you like comfort food you're gonna love this meatloaf pie recipe with a mashed gold potato crust. It's simple, hearty comfort food. Because I'm a home-style cook. I'm no chef. I know my way around a kitchen but eviscerating a chicken? No thanks. I've never been attracted to truffles. I could care less about honing my knife skills.

My soul is built for comfort not for speed.

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