Katsudon

One of my favorite meals in the world is katsudon.  I am normally not a huge pork fan, but for some reason I will eat this any time any where.  Unfortunately, the base for this is a breaded pork cutlet.  No problem with my super awesome cheating skills!

Katsudon

Tonkatsu
~Pork cutlets
~Crushed rice cereal
~2 eggs, beaten
~1/4 cup cornstarch
~Salt and pepper

Onion, sliced thin

4 eggs, beaten

Donburi sauce
~1 1/4 cup dashi soup stock (about 1T hon dashi plus 1 1/4 cup water)
~5 Tbsp soy sauce
~2 Tbsp mirin
~1 Tbsp sugar


First you start by making the tonkatsu.  Heat 3-4 inches of oil in a pan (or break out your deep fryer) over medium to medium-high heat.  Take your pork cutlets and pound them with a tenderizer (or the back of your knife blade) until about 1/4 of an inch thick.  Working one piece at a time, pepper and salt the meat, then coat with cornstarch, then egg, then your crushed rice cereal.  Place each finished piece out of the way somewhere until you are all done.  Next you fry the pieces, two to three minutes on each side until golden brown.  Set these aside.

Your next step is to make the donburi sauce.  This one is easy - mix all the ingredients in a pot and boil for about 5 minutes.

When your sauce is ready, take a small frying pan (around 7 inches is good, anything you like to make little things in) and add about 1/2 cup of your sauce.  Throw in a handful of the sliced onions, and while that is coming up to a boil go ahead a cut the tonkatsu into half inch wide strips.  Put one whole cutlet on top of the sauce and onions, and top with two beaten eggs.  Cover with a lid and cook on medium for about 2-4 minutes.  How long you cook it depends on how done you want your egg.  Me, I like mine runny!  Remove from heat and serve immediately over rice.


I can not emphasize how much I LOVE this dish.  I have made it a few times over the past few months, and I always want more and more.

Failed donuts

Well, I don't know why but a few weeks ago I took it upon myself to try and make some chocolate cake donuts.  They sounded so good, and so much like nothing that I can have any more.  So I broke out my GFDF cookbook, and started away at them.  The batter looked good, and even tasted okay.  They smelled amazing while cooking, I think it was the instant espresso behind the chocolate


THEN.


I took them out of the oven.  No problem, they cooked up, even looked done.  I let them cool and when I went to take them out of the pan?  They would not budge.  Stuck tight even with the greasing.  I tasted them and they were pretty good, so I made them into *dun dun dun duuun* a big chocolate mess!!

Covered with an easy chocolate frosting and some sprinkles, it looked and tasted reminiscently of crumbly cake.  Something was off, but I didn't complain too much.  Since I had still more batter, I decided to cook my next batch up as a pan of cakey brownies.

This pan turned out pretty well.  It looked like it was supposed to, even if it still had the same off taste.  I think I only had a few bites before I threw this one away.  Honestly, I am still not getting the hang of this gluten free baking thing.  I am used to being able to make things from scratch and have them turn out well, and not being able to do that anymore is a little frustrating.  I could stick to mixes, but then I will never learn.  I just need to move on and keep trying until I find something that I like.



What about the rest of the cake mess, you ask?  Well, as I was sitting there with a plate full of crumbled donuts, Gabe suggested that I make them into balls.  So, I did just that!

I didn't actually try any of these, but they must have been good because they all disappeared!  I liked the way they looked, but by this point I was sugared out.  At least I know that when something flops I can kind of save it :)

Omurice

A few weeks ago I got it in my head to make an easy dinner for once - omurice.  Not necessarily a staple in the Japanese diet, but something that a lot of people seem to be very fond of.  As the name implies, it is a rice dish, covered with an omelet!  There are a lot of variations on this dish, and I went with the really standard version - chicken, onions, and ketchup.  I have confidence that anyone can make this and enjoy it!


Omurice (to serve 4)
Hot rice (or quinoa)
2 large chicken breasts, cooked and cut into small pieces
1 large onion, chopped small
1/2 cup ketchup (or to taste)
8 eggs
Oil of your liking


In a medium-hot pan, saute the onions in oil until see-through.  Add the chicken and rice, stir until completely mixed.  Add your ketchup and mix.  Remove from heat.  Heat a small omelet pan on medium, and grease with your favorite oil/butter.  Add two beaten eggs and let cook until about 70% done.  While this is cooking put your rice mixture on a place and form into an oval.  Turn your eggs, runny side down, onto the hot rice.  Top with more ketchup and serve!


You can make many variations on this.  Try adding mushrooms and green peppers, or using demi-glace sauce instead of ketchup.

Super Bowl Snack Foods, GF style

For Super Bowl Sunday, Shayla really wanted to have a party.  Well, maybe not really a party, but she definitely wanted to have people over.  So to support this since I have no interest in football, I threw myself into cooking.  There was a lot that I wanted to eat, but I knew that I had to find a way to eat what I could without getting sicky.  In the end we decided on chicken strips and pizza, two things that everyone loves.  Of course, I didn't want to take the hassle of finding another GF flour recipe to try out, so I went with a mix.

This time it was Glutino's French Bread and Pizza Mix.  All in all, it wasn't that bad.  It was really weird to mix it up - it stayed very fluffy, even after rising.  The consistency was almost like a whipped frosting, but I followed the directions and spread it onto the cookie sheet (with a lot of struggle to get it to stay in a pizza-like form).  I used spaghetti sauce as my base, then added sausage, corn, and black olives.  I was badbadbad and used a tiny bit of cheese on top, then baked it all according to the directions.  It turned out surprisingly well!  The crust ended up fluffy, more like a semi-dense bread than a nice chewy pizza crust.  But the taste, that's where it got me.  There was no weird taste to it at all!  It was a nice, neutral flavor.  The only downside was that there was so much dough - the one package was enough to make two pizzas.  Since it was a french bread recipe, I split the difference and made a small loaf of french bread with the rest!

I really liked the way the bread turned out.  It cooked up very evenly, and has a nice texture.  I used it to make a sandwich the other day and it was almost as good as the real thing!  I think this bread would make a wonderful french toast, it's dense enough to hold up to the eggs.


The other thing that I made for the party, and Shayla helped me with, was some baked chicken strips.  It's weird the little things that you take for granted, and I miss chicken nuggets.  Now, this wasn't nearly the same, but it was good.  Fills that comfort food spot just right :)

Chicken Strips
1 lb chicken tenders
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 Tablespoon Lawry's
3 eggs, beaten
2 cups rice cereal, crunched up

In separate bowls, put cornstarch and Lawry's, eggs, and the rice cereal.  Coat the chicken with the cornstarch mix, then the egg, and finally run it through the cereal.  Put each finished piece on a baking sheet.  When full, bake on 350 for about 20 minutes, depending on the size of your chicken pieces.  Enjoy with your favorite sauce!  I used a creamy sweet onion dressing with mine :3


And that was my GF Super Bowl Party menu.  It wasn't fancy, but it did the trick.  Who needs fancy anyways - I'm just learning right now, so this is good enough for me.

Gyudon

A while ago I had some friends over from work for a Japanese-y night.  I had been promising for a while that I would make gyudon, so I finally took the plunge and tried to figure it out.  With the exception of a few minor issues, it was amazing.  For those of you not in the loop, gyudon is a beef and onion bowl served over rice.  You can get it anywhere in Japan for super cheap.  There are even some restaurants where you put your money into a machine and it gives you a ticket for what you want.  It's good and cheap - Japanese fast food I guess.

Gyudon
2 lb. slightly thawed beef - I used stew meat
1 large onion
3 cups dashi soup
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup mirin
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp sake
benishouga (red ginger) for topping

Add all of the wet ingredients to a large pot and let simmer until the alcohol burns off.  While this is cooking slice the beef and the onions as thin as you can.  Add these to the pot and let simmer for about 10 minutes.  Serve over hot rice and garnish with benishouga if you want.  :3  There might be lots of leftovers, but do not fret!  I also have a good way to use this as a second meal without anyone getting bored.

Gyutamadon!
1 serving gyudon meat
Handful thinly sliced onions
2 eggs, beaten
Soup from the gyudon

In a small pan, heat the onions in about 1/4 cup of the sauce from the gyudon.  Let this boil for about a minute, then add your meat.  When this is boiling again, add your eggs and cover with a lid.  Cook on medium high for about three minutes or until the eggs are as done as you like (I like mine really runny so I only it for a little over a minute).  Serve over rice, with shichimi and benishouga.

Cream Croquettes -----> Chicken Pot Pie

I tried to make cream croquettes.  I tried to make cream croquettes knowing that I had never made them before, and I had to find a way to make them gluten free, dairy free, and soy free.  I don't know why this idea popped into my head.  I just thought that I could do it.  Well.  I tried.  And I learned something.  I need a better source of fat so that my mixture will actually firm up when chilled.  But let's see what I did and try to learn from my mistakes, okay?

Cream Croquettes
1 whole chicken, roasted
2 onions, chopped fine
2 tablespoons garlic
1 teaspoon cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
Fake white sauce, recipe below
Cornstarch
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups crunched up rice cereal


For "White Sauce"
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons GF flour
3 cups chicken broth

Roast your chicken, then pull apart and shred all of the meat.  Make up your fake white sauce by heating the oil in a small pot, then adding the flour and let cook on medium until not grainy anymore.  Add chicken broth slowly, letting thicken.  You want the mixture to be about the consistency of a thick mustard.  Pull off burner and set to the side.  Saute your onions in some olive oil, then add your garlic and spices.  Mix together chicken, onion mixture, and white sauce.  Pour into 9x12 pan, put into freezer and let sit until fully cooled.  When cooled, you are ready to start making your croquettes.  Heat a pan filled with about 1 inch of oil on medium.  Take a handful of mixture and form into a log.  Roll this in the cornstarch, then the eggs, then finally through the rice cereal before you place into the hot oil.  Let cook for about 4-5 minutes on each side, then drain on paper towels and serve with Tonkatsu sauce or chicken gravy.

Careful, if you follow this recipe you need to make sure your mixture is frozen so that it doesn't fall apart on you when you are shaping.  Otherwise you just end up with a huge mess that isn't worth your time.  That's what happened to me.  So, I made about a quarter of my mixture into croquettes so that everyone could have some dinner, and I threw the rest of it into a pot pie!  Well.  Kinda.

Fake Chicken Pot Pie
Leftover Croquette mixture
1 cup peas/carrots
1 cup corn
Easy oil pie crust

Pie Crust
2 cups GF flour
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup oil
1/4 cup soy milk

Make up pie crust by mixing everything together with a fork until blended.  Press into the bottom and up the sides of a 9x12 pan.  Mix together vegetables and chicken croquette mixture, and pour into the crust.  Bake at 375 for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on how thick your mixture is.  Tastes much better the second day, after the crust has soaked up all the juices from the filling!!  Cover with gravy, if you like.

Rainbow Rice Krispie Treats

Since I have had a bit of a sweet tooth lately and no way to satisfy it, I decided that this week I would make up some Rainbow Rice Krispie Treats for everyone.  These were totally not gluten-free, but they satisfied that sweets craving that I have been having.

Rainbow Rice Krispie Treats
1 bag mini marshmallows
1/4 cup dairy free butter
1 small box Fruity Pebbles (you could substitute GF rice cereal, or any cereal really depending on what taste you want)

Melt together marshmallows and butter over low heat.  When fully melted take off heat and stir in cereal.  Turn into greased 9x12 pan, and flatten down the top with a greased piece of plastic wrap or some parchment paper.  Wait until cooled then enjoy!

We seem to forget about the best treats from our childhood it seems - how often have you made Rice Krispie Treats lately?  I think I want to make the butterscotch/chocolate ones next.  And maybe some of those chocolately chex mix things.  Oh man.  Now I'm going to be craving sweets again all day...