Greek Gluten-Free Food : Dolmathes

Dolmathes are a must-try: savory-sour-salty little packets bursting with a delicious Greek mini-feast of rice, tomatoes, mint/dill/parsely and beef or lamb. It's enough to say υπέροχος: delicious! 
We tried them for the first time at SLC's Greek festival with our good friends, and now we are certifiably addicted. The rolling is time consuming unless you get a few helpers! 

Dolmathes Recipe:
1 can of grape leaves (look next to the pickles or anchovies in your grocery story)


for filling:
a cup of rice
a can of diced tomatoes
 fresh mint, parsley and dill

meat (beef or lamb) sauteed with an onion and olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

cook all of these ingredients together for a few minutes...

 Then fill the grape leaves!
Make sure the leaf is vein-up,
then put some filling in the middle.
(Notice the rice is not cooked! Don't worry!)

 fold up the bottom,

 fold in the sides,










Then roll that little bundle of yum up.


















Cook 'em in a crockpot on high for about 5 hours or low for 7 or so. Cover the bottom and sides of the pot with extra grape leaves first, then layer the bundles with lemon juice (like 1/2 a cup! Lots!). Pour vegetable, beef or chicken broth over the whole thing with about an inch of extra liquid covering all of them, then invert a heavy dish on top to keep all the dolmathes submerged while they cook.





Serve with tzatziki sauce (must, must, must have, unless you're dairy free of course)
plain yogurt + finely diced/shredded cucumber + garlic, salt/pepper and fresh dill + olive oil

Gluten free Gougeres

Light, hollow, scrumptious g-f pastry: either sweet or savory.

Here are the step-by-step photos. 

Grind the grain?  Or buy preground, but grinding your own is CHEAPER!


Grate the cheese.  Not cheap is this cheese, but it is delicious and one pound lasts  forever in the fridge and really goes far.   It's worth the budget investment for the flavor.

 

Melt 1 cup of water or milk, with a stick or 1/2 cup butter

 Heat in a saucepan until it boils.

add 1 cup rice flour all at once

Stir on the heat until it makes a ball

then get that thing off the heat or out of the saucepan or when you add the eggs they'll start frying! Oops. 

 Beat in the eggs, one at a time (just THREE might do it if they are overlarge like mine.) 

Only add the cup of asiago cheese if you want to fill these with chicken salad or another savory filling. For cream puffs, add 2 T sugar and nix the cheese! 

My dough ended up a little TOO liquidy

 (I should've stopped at three eggs--the dough should still stand up a little)

So Why not try baking it in a muffin tin?second Oops, my left front broiler was on... Anyway, bake at 400* for 17 minutes

then turn off the oven and let the things sit for about 8 more minutes in the hot oven. 

serve with chicken salad

 

 

G-F Pesto Stuffed Mushrooms

• I spied fresh mushrooms on sale at the store and had to buy them.  Stuffed mushrooms are calling to me but I want to make them without breadcrumbs.  My sister said it's easy when she fries up sausage, drains it, adds sour cream and bakes it in the mushroom caps until it's crispy on top.   So I'm combining two recipes and making some stuffed right now.
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• Clean and pop the stems from an 8 ounce package of baby portabella mushrooms 
• Fry 1/4 lb. ground italian sausage and drain it. (meat optional)

In a blender jar combine:

• 3 leaves fresh basil (1/4 tsp dried)  'cause I had it.
• 1 inch of fresh jalapino (seeded or used canned, I do it all the time)
• 3 sun dried tomato slices (or half of a firm roma tomato)
• 2 Tablespoons chopped walnuts
• 1 whole clove of garlic (or 1/2 tsp minced from a bottle)
• dash of salt  (sea or land, I'm not picky)
• a splash of  olive oil  (actually, I forgot this)
• dollop of sour cream (1/4 cup) could non-dairy alternative or leave it out entirely.
• Toss the leftover stems of the mushrooms in to chop up too. 
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• Blend ingredients together in a blender until smooth. Fold in the cooked sausage and spoon carefully over the upturned mushroom caps in a casserole dish.  Bake 30 minutes until the top is crispy.  Serve with salad and Bette Hagman's recipe for breadsticks.  Delicious.  

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