Karina's Roasted Hatch Chile Stew

Karina's Santa Fe Inspired Stew

If you are lucky enough to live in enchanted New Mexico (as we were- a few years back), chances are you worship at the Sacred Temple of the Holy Chile Pepper. During the all-too-short chile harvest season you can smell the intoxicating smoky-sweet scent of roasting chiles everywhere you go. Teasing. Tantalizing. Infusing your daydreams with green chile fantasies.

The devotion to roasted chile runs deep in these parts and yes, it's with an e never with an i; if you call chile chili in these parts you may as well kiss your white bread tuchas good-bye, pendajo, because you'll be laughed out of the state. Shunned. Scorned. These folks get very serious about their autumn roasted chile. Don't mess with 'em. It's harvest time.

If you're up to roasting your own chiles, you can do it on the grill or even over an open flame like Elise does at Simply Recipes; here's her How to Roast Chile Peppers Over a Gas Flame. After roasting, cool and peel; then stem, seed and chop.

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Mulligatawny Soup with Jasmine Rice

Warm up with a bowl of this delicious mulligatawny soup.

Warm Up

All this Arctic Vortex talk (and accompanying blizzard aftermath) has got your intrepid Gluten-Free Goddess shivering in her skivvies and sporting a Brooklyn-style knit beanie at her desk. Outside our winter rental it is a frosty 17ºF as I type (a heat wave- up from 8ºF upon waking). Remind me again why we chose Cape Cod for our Winter of 2014 I mutter, shuffling in double socks to brew my favorite anti-depressant. A steaming cuppa Joe.

The sky is icy blue this morning. And I am craving mulligatawny. As luck or fate or Plan B foresight would have it, I have enough ingredients on hand to make my favorite soup for lunch today. A simpler, easier version of my well worn recipe for Vegetarian Mulligatawny.

I skipped the cabbage and cauliflower and canned tomatoes this time, and upped the carrots for a bright, fresh tasting- dare I say- healthy potage (that's a fancy word for soup, as you, Darling, already surely know; I just mention it in case you might think I'm getting snobby or elitist or uppity- Goddess forbid!).

I just started reading The Sound of Paper by Julia Cameron. I need a kick in the creative butt. I'm feeling stuck. Not in a blasé, cigarette dangling, shoulder shrugging What's the point? existential despair kind of stuck.

But close.

I blame the Arctic Vortex.

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Gluten-Free Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Easy, tasty gluten-free sweet potato fries baked with spices.

Sweet Potato Fry Love

Like my South Beach Diet inspired food blogging pal Kalyn, I'm a big fan of sweet potatoes. And sweet potato fries. Kalyn's recipe has a different spice blend than mine but our recipes are quite similar. Check out hers if you don't happen to care for my particular spices. Or get down-and-dirty personal and make up your own signature concoction.

Cooking is all about making recipes your own. Developing your own tastes. Your likes and dislikes. Cooking is flexible. And highly personal. It's not precise like, say, brain surgery. Unless you're baking something fussy. Baking folks swear by precision.

But I've never been that kind of cook.

I'm intuitive. I fly by the seat of my jeans. I look at a glistening picture of pasta and vegetables and I feel inspired.

I open my pantry and get juiced to play the What If? Game. 

What if I take this ingredient and add it to that ingredient? I wonder. What would that taste like?

Then the fun begins.

How do you cook? 

Do you wing it like Chet Baker? Or do you prefer a road map, with precise direction?

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Sweet Potato Salad

Potato salad with no mayo- and sweet potatoes!

 A recipe winner from the archives you may have missed. Because I haven't been cooking. I've been packing. We're moving from our Santa Monica apartment to a sweet place in West Hollywood. Like, tomorrow. If it seems as if we live gypsy lives, it's true. We do (if packing up and moving six times in fourteen months counts). We're signing a lease today. Ostensibly for a year. I hope to settle in fast and start whipping up gluten-free recipes in the new kitchen- which is, I'm happy to report, new as in brand new. New everything. Hence, a gluten-free stove. Fridge. Dishwasher. The landlord remodeled, bless her generous heart. I'll post pics as soon as the dust settles. xox Karina PS: And yes, there's a window over the kitchen sink.

This is a colorful and lower carb potato salad recipe, a welcome change from the ordinary white spud con mayo and boiled egg offerings so ubiquitous at backyard get-togethers. Why? Beyond the no Hellman's and huevos part, it features sweet potatoes, Dude. Sweet potatoes.

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Gluten-Free Sweet Potato Pie - Easy Recipe

Gluten-free sweet potato pie- and vegan, too.

Easy as Pie (Sweet Potato Pie!)

The afternoon sun is spinning the seaside air that particular autumn gold, burnished and warm and chilly all at once. Delicious. And gone too soon. The sun will officially set tonight at 4:50. I feel as if I am running out of time. There is so much I want to do- and never get done. I surrender my expectations day after day. The pile of choices snipped free by my dwindling energy is gathering a bulk and momentum akin to the dirty laundry (I’m still waiting for the post-menopausal zest promised by Margaret Mead).

But Santa Monica does not fade after dark. Her charms only deepen. So we walk after dinner to the Third Street Promenade and listen to the brave souls who risk their ego and their artistry (the unkind among us might quip, questionable talent) crooning songs or plucking violins or juggling. Palm readers and skateboarding bulldogs aside, it takes guts to stand in public and offer up a tune or a dance.

I come home inspired.

I am thinking a lot about my life these days. And what I want to do with the rest of it. Moving here is a new beginning (well, yeah, obviously). I am reinventing the woman I used to be. Spinning my own autumn magic from bits of bone and history.

I am not sure yet where I am headed. Or what will snag my interest. I am not sure what I will paint. Or write about. Maybe I should write a script. Or a book. About a woman. Someone I used to know (or thought I did). I look back into the past and wonder, did I invent her- cobbling disparate pieces of memory and duty and dreams? She is like a stranger to me now. Like a character in a movie I once saw. You know, that actress?

I can't remember her name.

It's not easy to determine these things, to peel back the past and keep only what is true.

There is a lot that no longer fits.

There are skins that itch to be shed. Old habits that are losing their velvet grip. Patterns and assumptions that chafe and seem downright absurd. Even comical now.

And then, there is suddenly so much space, so much sea and sky.

The burned and smoldering barn has been raked and sifted, the ashes buried or flipped into the desert wind. This bare-armed back slide of adolescence in reverse evokes the sensation of free falling back into girlhood. Like that first solo bike ride after a stifling family dinner when you finally wiggled away and peddled down the driveway past the porches past the neighborhood into the indigo evening air, unsure of the territory, grip strong, clean faced, exhilarated, with no map in your pocket but your belief in possibility.

A slice of sweet potato pie and a fresh, hot cup of coffee. Bliss.

Easy, Gluten-Free Sweet Potato Pie Recipe

Originally published November 2009.

 I made this melt-in-your-mouth pie in my new green apple Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer, using the whisk attachment. It whipped up the pudding-like filling in no time flat. I let it beat for maybe 4 minutes. Have I mentioned my favorite aspect of this retro-glorious beast? Beating ingredients with two hands free. How have I baked gluten-free without one? I love it.

Ingredients:

1 15-oz can sweet potato puree (or 2 cups fresh cooked sweet potato, mashed)

3/4 cup organic brown sugar, packed

2 tablespoons pure maple syrup

1/4 cup GF buckwheat flour or certified gluten-free oat flour

1/4 cup sorghum flour

2 tablespoons tapioca starch

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

2 tablespoons light olive oil

1 tablespoon Ener-G egg replacer whisked with 4 tablespoons warm water till frothy (or 2 eggs)

1 cup vanilla hemp milk, coconut milk or almond milk

1 tablespoon bourbon vanilla extract

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Lightly oil a 9-inch glass pie plate.

Combine the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Beat until the filling is smooth and creamy. Stop and scrape the sides of the bowl, if necessary to incorporate all of the dry ingredients.

Pour into the prepared pie plate and smooth evenly. Bake in the center of a preheated oven for 45 minutes. Lower the temperature to 350 degrees F and continue to bake for an additional 15 to 20 minutes until done. My pie took close to 70 minutes to bake.

The pie should be firm- but still give a little when lightly touched. The center should not be wet. It will fall a bit as it cools, and may even sport some cracks around the edge, like my Flourless Chocolate Cake recipe.

Cool the pie on a wire rack completely. Cover and chill in the refrigerator until serving. Chill at least four hours for best taste and texture. Chilling the pie overnight is even better.

Serve cold or slightly chilled. Sprinkle with toasted chopped pecans, if you like. Or try it with a scoop of coconut milk ice cream.

Cook time: 70 min

Yield: 8 servings

Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

All images & content are copyright protected, all rights reserved. Please do not use our images or content without prior permission. Thank you.

 

Karina's Note:

If you don't have sweet potato, try canned pumpkin or squash in this recipe. Both work extremely well.

Crave whipped cream? Look for a gluten-free non-dairy coconut milk, soy or rice based whip in the dairy section.

Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie, Cottage Pie, wait!

Sweet potato topped cottage pie. Gluten-free.

A certain individual living by the mesa has some news. Can you guess? We sold the house. We're moving lock, stock and barrel (in reality, more like Macs, books and UGGS) to Los Angeles, packing up the Honda Fit again to head West and start our new life as Los Angelenos.

I am almost too wired to write.

The quasi-plan is to rent a furnished place for a month. In mid October. Once we're out there, we'll begin our search in earnest for a longer lease- a space we can call our own, not too far from the ocean, I hope. A place with a workable kitchen. Windows. Light. Simple criteria.

As I sort through art books to sell (all the impressionist/landscape books I once mooned over- like a school girl- no longer tug at my attention) I am imagining the new again. I am fueled by the scent of possibility and change and consumed with the urge for going. Three and a half years in the desert have inked their big sky imprint upon me.

I feel as if I sport an invisible tattoo.

Time and distance will reveal the wisdom gained here (if any is to be found). Time and distance will temper the losses. No doubt memory itself will soften the sharp hungers of the everyday isolation and doubt.

Some readers have asked me, What lesson did you need to learn? implying that there is a silver lining to every prickly, dark experience and that if we only embrace The Lesson, we'll be free.

Well, I can answer that. 

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Vegan Garden Loaf with Maple Apricot Glaze

Delicious vegan garden loaf with quinoa.

Go ahead and snicker. I'll wait. I'm fully aware that veggie loaves are the punch line for many a joke in Burger King sponsored sit-coms and pseudo-reality shows pitting sweaty cranky chefs against each other for the promise of fame and fortune. So do your thing. Snort. Sigh. Bare your teeth. I can handle it. 

Vegetarians and vegans endure more than their fair share of indiscreet eye-rolling.

I know this first hand. Because I've been a vegetarian and sometimes vegan for most of my life. Four decades. And after my medically recommended foray back into Omnivore Land (to jump start the healing of my broken hip) now that I am vertical and ambulatory without a cane I am once again whistling past the graveyard into familiar territory, leaving behind the protein I flirted with, listening to my body's need to get back to the garden, back to my first love, my culinary Eden. My natural preference, before The Fall.

I tell you this without judgment. 

I mention this without pressure of any kind. Seriously. I'm not proselytizing. Goddess knows, I understand better than most how hard it is to eat in this gluten infused world of ours without whittling down our choices even further. If you love your bacon and eggs, Babycakes, go rustle up some grub.

Gnaw on some haggis.

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Sweet Potato Latkes

Sweet potato latkes and ruby applesauce.

The shortest day of the year is finally upon us. The darkest point in the turning of the seasons will tomorrow tilt toward light. The balance in power has shifted. Daylight gains. The darkness recedes, inch by inch, minute by minute. Light is reborn. Pretty powerful stuff. No wonder so many cultures have celebrated the Winter Solstice in a myriad of ways.

For Hanukkah- no matter how you spell it- it's also about light. An eight day Festival of Lights, in fact, and food is intricately woven into the tradition. Because Hanukkah celebrates the fortuitous finding of a flask of olive oil (a small amount that would, maybe, last a day, but miraculously burned for eight dark nights) recipes for celebrating the miracle of light are cooked in oil.

And that brings to me to one of my all-time favorite foods on Earth.

Latkes.

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Gluten-Free Sweet Potato Coffee Cake- and a love story

Winter in Northern New Mexico- my view.

First, the love part.

It's been snowy, windy, cold- you name it. From all the tweets I've been reading over on Twitter lately, I'm not alone. Far from it. This has been one crazy snowy month. So what does a gluten-free goddess do when she gets stuck in the middle of the desert with no buckwheat flour, no sorghum, and no four-wheel drive? (Note to self- if you're going to live in rural Northern New Mexico, Darling, a cute and thrifty little Honda Fit won't cut it.)

Snowed in and hungry she does the only sensible thing.

She scans the pantry and pulls out a Whole Foods gluten-free cake mix and starts stirring things up. She starts imagining dirt bombs. And bakes up a coffee cake worthy of the winter holidays.

The love part of the story?

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Sweet Potato Soup with Ginger

A comforting sweet potato soup for the sun deprived  soul. With ginger.

Winter Solstice is approaching fast. The days now are so short I've been warning Steve to hide all sharp instruments. Your intrepid gluten-free goddess, you see, has that infamous seasonal wrestle with gloom this sun deprived time of year. In a perfect world I'd be spending the month of December in Hawaii like certain lucky individuals, soaking up vitamin D with the surfer girls and feeling all mahalo instead of Get me the bleep outa here before I scream.

So I've been on a sweet potato kick. I can't get enough of these ruby and golden hued tubers- perfect for winter comfort food. So tasty. And versatile. Astute readers may have noticed the trend already.

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Gluten-Free Turkey & Sweet Potato Enchiladas

Gluten-free turkey and sweet potato enchiladas.

Enchiladas, Family Style 

This Friday is just like any other out here in the New Mexico hinterland. There were big-eared rabbits eating breakfast (nibbling spare tufts of grass). A chickadee or two in the junipers. Pink light on the distant mesas. And as far as I know, no scary crush of shoppers at the Espanola Walmart. At least I haven't heard any sirens off in the distance. Truth be told I haven't budged from my casita (and I have no plans to). Nope. It's just another day here, call it what you want. Black Friday is quiet as an empty nest. So I thought I'd share a recipe for leftover turkey and sweet potatoes- a surprisingly tasty combo.

As always, make it as mild or as spicy as your little heart desires.

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Moroccan Coconut & Chick Pea Soup

A delicious gluten-free soup with Moroccan flavors

The Best Exotic Soup Recipe- Evah?

On a whim I threw together this North African inspired fusion of flavors led by cravings and intuition. We slurped it down and scraped our bowls. Turns out that sweet potatoes, chick peas, roasted green chiles and coconut milk make for one scrumptious soup. I think you'll love it.

Dairy-free never tasted so good.

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Purple Cabbage & Sunbutter Soup

Alex in Ojo Caliente, New Mexico

The visit with Alex and his girlfriend was thick with conversation, food for the eyes, and dreams for the soul. As always, in the wake of my son's absence I am struck dumb by the restless silence of the desert, finding it difficult to steady my post-maternal footing. It's not the letting go thing. Letting go of your children is the easy part. Their beauty is astonishing and too big to keep for yourself. You miss them, yes.

But the space between you is precious, too.

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Pumpkin-Sweet Potato Soup

A gorgeous soup for the soul- gluten and dairy-free...

Autumn Soup for the Soul

Sweet potatoes add body and a boost of color and to one of my seasonal favorites- pumpkin soup. But before I get to the recipe, Dear Reader, I just need to kvetch a little. This won't take long.

You see, I am cooking from the left side of my brain- and I don't like it one bit. Well, truth be told, I'm actually doing more consulting in the kitchen than chopping and stirring and getting my hands all nice and sticky.

Which is exactly the point.

I must sit apart from all the action and fun, perched as I now am in my wheelchair, offering verbal guidance (the generous of spirit might even say, wisdom) to my willing-but-never-cooked-much husband while he does all the culinary work. Our tiny kitchen really has no room for me (and my new wheels) to wedge myself close enough to be of any substantial help. This cocina ain't big enough for the two of us. So the gimp has to sit this one out. Off to the side.

Which leads us back to the whole left brain-right brain verbal vs. visual mystique.

You see, I cook without recipes, for the most part. I use what I have on hand, what's in season. I improvise. And my baking recipes I adhere to with, maybe, 80 to 90% fidelity. I'm always seduced by, What if... I'm intuitive. Spontaneous. And messy (just ask my husband). I never toss the same ingredients together twice in exactly the same way. It's called being a right brained visual thinker. I am unable (even if I wanted to) to follow instructions in a linear fashion. I'm genetically resistant to the concept of: this is tried and true so don't mess with it.

So when my lovely, patient, helpful husband asks me, How much balsamic vinegar do I add? I stare blankly (I'm pondering). I visualize (which sparks the neural pathways in the right side of my brain where I see pictures). Then I start to conjure a verbal response (scurrying back to the left brain) and I approximate my intuition, pictures and kinesthetic antics into speech.

I wave my arm and twist my hands in the air like a lunatic.

And it's never quite right. It's an approximation. Subtle shades of taste lost in translation. To be fair, we've had plenty of good meals based on this left brain verbal analysis. Steve has made a killer meatloaf and a damn fine shrimp stir-fry among many, tasty dishes. I am more than well fed (um, I've gained five pounds).

It's just that, well, I miss the whole hands-on thing. The whole stirring, humming, chopping, seasoning, splashing, tasting, guessing, adjusting, making a mess thing. When I cook my whole body gets involved. Much more so than my imperfect brain. So I miss that.

I've tried using the walker to stand on one foot next to the counter (I can do that for three minutes or so before I get wobbly and loopy and gratefully sit back down in the wheelchair). I've placed a cutting board on my lap and sliced green peppers and onions. But instead of feeling helpful, I start to feel like I'm simply in the way, interrupting Dear Husband's flow, blocking the door to the fridge or the cupboard that inevitably holds the thing he is reaching for. I spend my time in the kitchen wheeling backward and forward, forward and backward, trying (in a goddess-like manner, of course) not to be an obstacle.

So that is where I'm at. Six weeks down, two more to go- before we x-ray this old celiac hip again and check our progress. In the meantime, there will still be no funny business. I'll behave. And sit safely in my wheelchair. Tossing my opinions out like so many chocolate sprinkles. 

Here's a soup we made.

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