menu

After All, We Eat With Our Eyes…

Nibbles

Last week started out as a week where I just couldn’t be bothered with, well, much of anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary. Cooking dinner? Necessary. Filming it? Less so. (Part of it was the week, part of it is the aggravation of such a small memory card for my vlogging camera, I need to update it soon!)

But I didn’t like the idea of not doing a video–I actually enjoy putting up videos each week (if nothing else, the novelty hasn’t worn off) so I decided to do a little something different for the menu video and I hope you like it.

Direct link for the feed readers: Draw My Menu, 4.24.16

Now that the trailer’s over, let’s get to the main attraction:

Meals At Home 4/18-4/24

Meals At Home 4/18-4/24

Monday: Grain Salad w/Carrot-Ginger Dressing and a Fried Egg
From Bon Appetempt (and, yes, I realize I left out the second ‘p’ in the video), this was a simple salad with the promised “showstopper” dressing. Being able to make the carrot ginger dressing without miso is a nice change and means we have a new dressing for the salad rotation that also gives us more veggies, too.

Tuesday: Lemon-Parmesan Chicken + Spinach Salad
Aside from the pucker-power of the dressing, this chicken recipe from Mise en Place was just aboslutley delicious. It’s not often I feel like setting up a 3-step breading process, but this one was worth it. I’ve yet to see gluten-free panko anywhere yet, but even with the regular gf crumbs it’s damn tasty. I suppose I could crush some corn flakes if I wanted the different texture… Okay, I definitely have to try that next time!

Wednesday: Cheese-Stuffed BBQ Meatloaf + Green Beans + Sweet Potatoes
A freezer meal “classic” (if something can be a classic when we’ve only been doing freezer meals for a few months!), this is always a good Wednesday night supper because there’s seldom a reason to hurry dinner to the table since payroll almost always keeps Todd until 8pm at the office. The nice thing about this particular meatloaf (aside from the layer of cheese in the center and the sweet bbq sauce on top, that is) is the chopped peppers inside–it changes things up just enough so that it doesn’t feel like boring meatloaf.

Maybe next time I’ll do a couple of the Cordon Blue-style meatloaves (with ham and cheese inside) that Todd’s a fan of, I bet they’d freeze just fine!

Thursday: Pepper Pesto Pork and Zoodles + Sweet Corn
I had plenty of the Red Pepper Pesto from Table for Two from the last time I used it and decided it would go as well with the zucchini noodles as anything else. It was a successful experiment, and I’ve put the super-simple recipe down below.

Friday: Impromptu night out at Sweet Grass Dairy
I forgot, when I was making this week’s menu, that Friday was the Rose Parade and all. While we briefly entertained the idea of walking back home, having supper, and then walking back downtown for the fireworks, we decided we were more likely to stay home rather than venture back out, so hung out downtown. I have a full recap of the Friday and Saturday Rose Festival coming in video form, just as soon as I get it edited (it’s almost 3 hours of footage!), but dinner at Sweet Grass Dairy did not disappoint!

Saturday: Tomato Sauce w/Italian Sausage + Polenta-Style Grits
It’s a good thing I remembered to put the Crock Pot on before we went out to Art & Bark in the Park because once we got home both Todd and I were beat and took some long naps! All I had to do once I convinced myself to leave the fluffy blankets was to make the grits. It might take 30 minutes to make good grits (don’t even bother with the quick stuff, it’s not worth it) but very little of that time is active cooking.

Sunday: Baked Thai Salmon Chicken + Green Peas + Rice Noodles
I’ve been a bit spacey lately (Todd allows that I have had a lot on my mind) and one of those space cadet moments was completely forgetting to put salmon on the shopping list. Even though it’s on the same piece of paper as my menu. Thankfully, the sweet chili sauce worked just as well on chicken thighs as it would have on salmon, and dinner was saved. (Yes, I could have gone to the store for the salmon, but it wasn’t a compelling reason to switch out of pajamas on an otherwise go-nowhere Sunday.)

A successful kitchen experiment deserves to be shared, so here is the basic run-down of the Pork and Zoodles meal, above.

Pepper Pesto Pork and Zoodles

Serves 4

6 medium zucchini, spiralized
2 T olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
4 oz red pepper pesto
4 boneless pork loin chops
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

Heat olive oil in a large saute or frying pan, add zucchini strips and cook 5-10 minutes, until they start to cook down a bit. Season with salt and pepper.

Stir in red pepper pesto to coat the zoodles, then push the zucchini and sauce to the edges of the pan and fill the center with the pork chops.

Sprinkle pork with salt and pepper, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cover. Cook until the pork is done, 10-15 minutes depending on thickness.

Top with Parmesan cheese.

Enjoy!

And with that, I happily turn the dinner reins over to Todd for the week. Since it’s my birthday this Saturday, he’s making a lot of my favorites over the course of the week: grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup, burgers fresh off the grill, and butter chicken as well. Yum!  And we’ve already decided that if there’s a night he doesn’t feel like cooking (hey, it happens), sushi will be the alternative.

What’s on your plate this week?

~Jenn

Of Menus and Radishes

Nibbles

This was a big week, food-wise! Lunar New Year, Mardi Gras, and Valentine’s Day all within 7 days… Let’s dig in!

Meals and Radishes

Monday: Lunar New Year Feast!
In honor of the Year of the Monkey I decided it was a good time to look into Lunar New Year dinner customs and found a good resource at ChinaHighlights.com. Along with another site I failed to bookmark (oops!) I devised a 6-dish menu that, I think, hit the high points of the celebratory dinner. Everything about the Lunar New Year is about prosperity, so the food tends to either resemble symbols of wealth (like spring rolls resembling ingots) or have homophonic names (a lot easier in a culture whose language depends tremendously on inflection for meaning).

I steamed almost-whole catfish (head-on would be traditional, but I didn’t miss it–have you looked at a catfish face lately?) with a broth of chicken stock, soy sauce, fish sauce, and ginger. Then I used the same broth to cook and flavor our “Longevity noodles” with cabbage. The noodles were the small rice noodles sometimes known as cellophane noodles, the important thing is that they are long (see the play on words) and these definitely qualified. It was nice to see that leafy greens are synonymous with money and good fortune across cultures, too.

I purchased dumplings and spring rolls to reheat, as well as tangerines to serve as is. Then I made the sticky rice cakes from a Chow Hound recipe. They’re less like a cake, more like a cooked pudding, and reminded me of cream of wheat meets rice pudding. All these dishes, plus the baking for the next day, made for a late supper and a messy kitchen, but it turned out to be totally worth it. And we learned about cultural traditions in the process!

King Cake 2016!

King Cake 2016!

Tuesday: Sushi & King Cake with Friends
A friend of ours organized a dinner meetup at our favorite sushi place and of course we said yes, even if it was Fat Tuesday. Since we were meeting friends after work, I made an extra King Cake to bring with us. This year’s experiment used the brioche recipe from Gluten Free Baking Classics (by Annalise Roberts of My Gluten-Free Table) with the Bananas Foster filling recipe from Tasting Table. Not only was the brioche amazing on its own, the banana filling was a nice change from the cinnamon sugar we usually default to. Granted, I opted out of the cream cheese and just subbed a 4th banana for it, and I used frozen bananas from our banana bread-to-be stash instead of fresh. They cook down faster.

Wednesday: Maple-Mustard Pork Chops with Roasted Green Beans and Red Potatoes
I was so glad I had this one in the freezer to pull out for a relatively quick meal. When I got home I chopped up the potatoes and tossed them with olive oil and seasonings along with a bag of frozen green beans. In the oven they went, occupying half a cookie sheet lined with foil and pinched in the center to create a barrier. After half an hour the pork chops went onto the open half and back into the oven. Made for some easy clean-up to sort of make up for the mess from Monday.

Thursday: Coconut Curry Chicken with Basmati Rice and Not-Exactly-Naan
Another freezer meal, this one for the slow cooker. The house smelled divine when we got home, but I found the sauce to be a bit thin, so added more salt, garam masala, and an arrowroot slurry to pull it all together. Much better. I’ve been working on my gluten-free “naan” for a while and this one, while still not quite perfect, was a big hit with Todd. It was 3:2 GF Bisquik and Self-Rising cornmeal, an egg, a can of coconut milk, and seasonings (salt, cilantro, chives, and garlic oil), mixed and griddled.

Friday: Bacon Pancakes and Eggs
We’ve all seen these online, right? I hadn’t tried it and figured it would be a fun Friday-night supper. I tried laying the cooked bacon on the griddle and pouring the batter over it and the other way around. Pouring the pancakes first yielded prettier pancakes by far. Once again, Pamela’s pancake mix rocks!

Saturday: Spaghetti and Meat Sauce with a Green Salad
I knew we’d be working on the bathroom so I wanted something relatively simple and high on the comfort food meter for Saturday’s supper. Now, I’ve written about how a spaghetti dinner isn’t exactly cheap when you’re on a restricted diet, this time I avoided one of the major expenses (specialty marinara sauce) and threw together my own. Not something I always feel like fussing with on a weeknight, but on a weekend I will.

Sunday: Lemon Dump Chicken, Brown Rice, and Caramel Apple Tarts
Such an ignoble name for a tasty slow-cooker supper, we really enjoyed this freezer meal and I have no idea where I copied the recipe down from. Basically it’s chicken breasts, a couple of lemons (halved, but otherwise intact), carrots, Brussels sprouts, and seasonings. I hadn’t planned on a starch, but there was so much juice in the slow cooker that I decided some brown rice would not go amiss. The Caramel Apple Tarts were part of the Omaha Steaks gift package Todd’s mom sent us for Christmas. Very High-FODMAP between the wheat and apples (and we added vanilla ice cream), but just the right size for a splurge. I regret nothing. And in honor of Valentine’s Day I broke out grandma’s china and poured us a little wine, too.

When I was putting together our salads Saturday night, I remembered that I recorded a video back at the beginning of January about the neat little trick I use to get perfect radish slices. So I dug out the footage for you and here it is!

Direct link for the feed readers: Perfect Radish Slices!

Here’s to a tasty week, my friends!

A Week of Meals + a Three Cheese Artichoke Dip Bonus!

Nibbles

Okay, folks, it’s February. The exhilaration of the new year has worn off a bit, now it’s time to stop thinking about meal and menu planning and actually do it. You with me?

Here’s some help!

On The Plate 1/25-1/31

On The Plate 1/25-1/31

Monday: Garlic-Parmesan Pork Chops with Brown Rice and Green Beans
I had a chance to try out some of those freezer meals I put away a few weeks back and this was one of them. I believe it was inspired by this recipe at Plain Chicken, but my version does NOT include cream of chicken soup or prepared garlic bread seasoning. Instead I used coconut milk for the cream soup plus the applicable seasoning, garlic oil, and Parmesan cheese along with a splash of apple cider vinegar. I don’t know how the original tasted, but ours was very good and, yes, the convenience of just throwing the prepared everything into a baking dish and setting up the rice cooker did make dinner that night even easier to prepare.

Tuesday: Chicken Thighs and Polenta with Italian Sausage and Tomato Gravy
In Italy they call it polenta, down here we just call them grits (they’re not the same, but they’re close cousins, and if you cook grits low and slow they don’t turn out gritty at all); they make a nice side dish option for a little something different. I added some garlic olive oil, Italian herbs, and chives to add color and flavor and used a little less liquid than I normally would for regular grits. The Italian Sausage and Tomato gravy is another one that I came across while hunting up freezer meals (found here, but I skipped the cream cheese), but I only had half the sausage it called for to top pasta, but it was enough to top the chicken and grits polenta. This one will likely happen again.

Wednesday: Cheese-Stuffed BBQ Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes, and Spinach
Our first freezer meal meatloaf and I’m sold on it. And what goes better with meatloaf of any stripe than mashed potatoes? Total comfort food meal along with the spinach. I’m glad I made two of these meatloaves (from The Virtuous Wife) when I was prepping the freezer meals because we get to have this again with very little effort.

Thursday: Overnight Creamy Chicken Mac & Cheese with Glazed Carrots
I found this recipe from Flavor the Moments while browsing Pinterest and it sounded novel enough to give it a whirl. It made for a perfectly fine supper but, if you already have a favorite from-scratch mac and cheese, you don’t necessarily need to click the link. The gimmick, here, is that you make your white sauce and mix it and the dry pasta together and let sit overnight, “cooking” the pasta in the process. Unlike the overnight oats trend, this doesn’t seem to save time or dishes since you still have to mix everything together and bake it for an hour. I could just as easily boiled the pasta while making the sauce and, then, the finished casserole probably would have only needed half the time in the oven. Like I said, it was fine, but I’ll stick to my own recipe if I want any sort of mac & cheese in the future.

Mayuri Indian Restaurant, Tallahassee, FL

Mayuri Indian Restaurant, Tallahassee, FL

Friday: Mayuri Indian Restaurant
Sadly, some friends are moving to Reno in a few weeks, and we all met up at a local Indian restaurant to wish them off. I ordered the Kal Dosa (rice pancakes) with Chicken Curry and Todd chose the Goat Vindaloo and Garlic Naan. I also had a cup of their chai and it was very tasty–not the sweeter version that I drink frequently at home, but very good nonetheless.

Saturday: Quinoa Bowls with Turmeric-Tahini Dressing
Again, browsing Pinterest brought up a post from Keepin It Kind about macro bowls. I may have been intrigued by the Turmeric-Tahini dressing most of all, since we have a jar of tahini that needs using up and I can only do some much hummus. My eventual bowl (quinoa, chick peas, kale, sweet potatoes, red cabbage, nori, avocado, and cucumbers) might not technically count as a macro bowl (no fermented veggies–Todd’s not a fan), but it was very filling and made for a good meatless meal. At least I thought so. Todd wasn’t as impressed with it. Oh, well, you win some you lose some.

Sunday: Beef Stew and Rice
Another freezer meal, but you don’t need a recipe for this one. Just throw everything you usually put into your stew into a freezer bag for later. Toss it in a slow cooker with a cup of red wine or beer and 2 cups of water and let it cook all day until everything’s nice and tender. Serve over rice

A secondary lesson from our freezer meal adventure is that Ziploc freezer bags are not what they used to be! It’s gotten to the point that I’ve designated a particular bowl to be the defrost bowl, and anything with the remote possibility of leaking needs to be in it when defrosting in the fridge to reduce spills and cross-contamination. They’ve always been the gold standard for freezer bags but the boxes we picked up from Sams are consistently leaking upon defrost. It’s quite unfortunate and more than a little frustrating.

On a happier note, I had reason (reason, craving, take your pick) to whip up some artichoke dip for a snacking lunch on Sunday. Artichoke dip is, at heart, a simple recipe and I saw one recently from Positively Stacey that used green chilies in the mix. Of course, I was out of green chilies and we were nearly out of Parmesan cheese (the horror), but that’s not a reason to give up, just an opportunity to improvise.

So I present to you, my Three-Cheese Artichoke Dip, just in time for weekend noshing (or a certain football event that I hear is coming up).

IMG_20160131_135531280

Three Cheese Artichoke Dip

1 can (14 oz) Artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3 Tbsp Recaito
1 Tbsp Garlic Olive Oil
pinch each of salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 350° F.

Mix all ingredients together and place into a small casserole dish. Bake 30 minutes or until the edges are all golden bubbly.

Serve with tortillas, pitas, or crackers.

Recaito is a cilantro and bell pepper blend that Todd keeps on hand for when he cooks out of his favorite Puerto Rican cookbook. It doens’t have the heat of diced green chilies, but it does have a lot of flavor. We grazed on this Sunday afternoon in place of lunch while we worked more on the bathroom and other household chores.

Have a tasty week, my friends! Anyone have any good dinner plans for next week’s Chinese New Year?

On the Plate 11/30-12/6

Nibbles

Have you hit overwhelm yet, even though it’s only the second week of December? I’ve had a few moments of on-the-bring, myself, but I just remind myself that I’ve got a plan, what needs to will get done, and the rest (probably) won’t matter in the long run.

Part of that plan is, as usual, my menu. Here’s what it looked like last week.

OTP 11-30-12-6 (1)

 

Monday: Rice & Gandulas-Stuffed Peppers with Turkey Hash
Rice and Gandulas (aka Pigeon Peas) is a Puerto Rican dish Todd makes for our Thanksgiving dinner. It’s next to impossible to make a small amount of, so we always have leftovers. This year I decided to use the leftovers to stuff peppers, topped with a generous helping of cheese. To go with I tossed together a quick hash of potatoes, green onions, and sliced turkey.

Caesar salad with Chicken @ Northside Pies

Caesar salad with Chicken @ Northside Pies

Tuesday: Monthly Beer & Cheer at Northside Pies
The first Tuesday of every month we get together with friends from a local MeetUp group for dinner. Northside Pies does a really nice job of plating their very tasty salads, but this Caesar was not my favorite (their dressing was… different; lots of black pepper and something else that didn’t sit well with me). Still, after the indulgences of the holidays, some green food was definitely a good idea.

Wednesday: Southwestern Rice & Beef Casserole with Green Beans
I’ve had this in my Foodie Goodness pin board for a bit and it seemed like good comfort food now that our weather is turning chilly and somewhat staying that way for a bit. The recipe is from Feeding Big and is very straightforward. If you are not fond of heat, though, you might not want to do what I did in using both the can of green chilies and pepper-jack cheese (our grocery didn’t have plain Monterey jack, just co-jack or pepper jack, I’d go with the co-jack next time).

Notably, the author of Feeding Big was surprised that rice was grown in the US. Are you surprised that US produces its own rice and doesn’t import it all from Asia? I remember reading somewhere, probably during my high school years at the latest, about antebellum rice plantations in the Carolinas, so this doesn’t exactly shock me. But I’m curious, did you know about domestic rice production?

Thursday: Harvest Stuffed Squash with Cilantro-Tahini Sauce
Meatless Thursday? Sure! This recipe (from Food Fitness Fresh Air) was actually better on Friday for lunch than it was Thursday night for dinner. Todd and I agreed on this and decided it was largely in part of the sauce having time to develop a flavor other than the strong raw-sesame seediness of the tahini-based sauce. So if I were to make this again, I would make the sauce the night before at the very least.

Mahi Mahi and Shrimp special at George & Louie's

Mahi Mahi and Shrimp special at George & Louie’s

Friday: George & Louie’s
By the time I got home on Friday I was over it. What in particular? Everything. An old friend passed away, another friend received some scary health news, I hadn’t been sleeping well the last few nights, and I’m waiting on a response for some work stuff that could bring big, awesome changes but still, the waiting. When I got home and the chicken I’d left in the fridge was still playing popsicle, off to George & Louie’s we went. The seafood and fixings totally revived me, putting me in a far better mood for Christmas tree shopping afterwards.

Saturday: Baked Shells with Squash and Chicken
Tasting Table is a great newsletter for keeping up with food trends. Baked Stuffed Shells with Squash and Burrata seemed like a good, filling supper so on the list it went. Unfortunately, jumbo shells are not something I’ve had luck finding in the rice or quinoa pastas, so I used regular-sized shells and just made a casserole of it. The other substitutions were on the lactose-avoidance front–lactose-free cottage cheese (Lactaid brand is carried by our local Publix) is a great substitute for ricotta cheese and I used regular mozzarella balls instead of the burrata. And since I had the chicken out from Friday that I hadn’t used, I quickly cooked that with salt, pepper, and a bit of oregano, diced it up, and mixed it in. It was a great one-dish dinner.

[tooltip text=”Fresh cheese are higher in lactose and therefore High-FODMAP; aged cheese lose most, if not all, of their lactose as the whey is drained off and as a product of the aging process.”][/tooltip]

Sunday: Crock Lemon & Rice Soup with Cheese Toast
We finished out the week with a slow-cooker version of the Greek classic avgolemono soup via Dish About It. It’s a very simple soup and it was a great way to use the rest of the chicken broth I made for Thanksgiving. When it was time to dish it up I realized it was pretty much blending into the soup plates, so I added a bit of parsley to it for color. This would be a very good recipe to keep on hand for the next time you or a loved one are feeling under the weather.

A Weekly Menu, Purple Rice, and the Secret to Lump-Free Gravy

Nibbles

Last week might not have gone exactly as planned (two nights of take-out, oops!) but for a first week back after vacation, it went as well as it could have!

OTP 11-16-11-22

Monday: Chicken & Egg Breakfast Pie with Caesar Salad
We hadn’t had quiche in a while and this recipe from Jody Wagstaff sounded like a good one to try. I had a pie crust cooling its heels in the freezer and picked up some fried chicken (what I thought would be the last of our vacation indulgences) at the grocery store for lunch and used the rest in the pie. Not being big edamame fans, I used green peas instead and used some herbed cream cheese we had in the fridge. The cruise reminded me just how much I missed a good Caesar salad, so I grabbed a salad kit and added some tomatoes and bacon to it.

Tuesday: Taco Salads
A perfect use for leftovers, we still had a ton of tortilla chips and cheddar cheese from the Halloween party, so I whipped up these taco salads to with seasoned ground beef, my sweet potato refried bean substitute, and some homemade guacamole. I could almost eat this every night, except that sushi holds that honor.

Wednesday: Chinese Buffet
There’s just something about my annual check-up that makes me want to do absolutely nothing afterwards. So dinner plans got scrapped for a nap and then a trip to the local Chinese buffet when Todd finally made it home from work. I regret nothing!

Thursday: Garlic Shrimp & Orzo with Roasted Acorn Squash
This was supposed to be Garlic Shrimp and Quinoa from As Easy As Apple Pie but something icky happened inside the quinoa bag (it just didn’t look right) and I pulled a last-minute switch to avoid another take-out night. It all turned out okay but I might give this one another shot when I’ve restocked.

Friday: Slow-Cooker Lasagna Soup
Tomato-based soups are often hit-or-miss with me, but this one from Culinary Hill sounded worth the try and we really liked it. I think I used too mild of a sausage, though, because it was a little on the tame side, not quite lasagna-y enough. But it was a good soup for a chilly night, and Todd asked for seconds, so there ya go!

Saturday: Sonic 
We’d spend the day running errands and I was already a little tired when I went into the kitchen. But when the kitchen light wouldn’t come on (it’s temperamental when it’s cold) and one of the pots I needed was still soaking in the sink, I took it as a sign to not cook. Todd had been craving Sonic so we went and picked up supper and caught up on more television we missed while on the cruise.

Sunday: Pork Chops with Roasted Butternut Squash, Purple Rice, and Greens Salad
But we finished the week strong! The pork chops were roasted alongside the butternut squash and then topped with a Peach Barbecue Sauce we picked up on Saturday. I based the side dish on the Roasted Sweet Potato, Wild Rice, and Arugula Salad from Pinch of Yum with lots of substitutions. It sounded like a perfect use for the purple rice (see below), and we had the butternut squash in the freezer. My arugula went bad between buying it on Monday and serving it on Sunday, so I used the green leaf lettuce Todd picked up earlier in the day and I’ll be headed to the store after work tonight to replace it. Dinner can always be saved, except on the nights I don’t want it to be 😉

Purple Rice?

After leaving the ship last weekend we headed over to Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney) so I could get a mini-Disney fix while we were in the area. One of the new (at least I think it’s new) shops is the Tea and Spice Exchange, where I picked up a couple of teas (bringing the total count of chais in this house to 5, I may have a bit of a problem…) and a bag of Thai Purple Sticky Rice. It was just so different, I had to give it a try.

No-Buy November wasn't such a great idea, with a vacation in the middle!

No-Buy November wasn’t such a great idea, with a vacation in the middle!

The label says it’s often used in desserts, but I didn’t notice a lot of inherent sweetness. It’s definitely purple and stays purple after being cooked (could possible stain, so beware), but has a nutty flavor that makes it a good substitute for wild rice, like in the recipe above. I have about half a cup left after last night’s dinner, so I’ll have to dry something sweet with it to really see how it shines.

And, finally, with Thanksgiving on the horizon for those of us in the US, I’d like to offer a tip to avoid a persistent, annoying problem around the holidays: lumpy gravy. This trick also works on any hot liquid that needs thickening, be it a soup, stew, sauce, or the ubiquitous gravy.

Introducing: The Slurry

Sounds kinda icky on the surface, but a slurry is simply a mixture of starch and cold water. The cold water is the key. Chances are you’ve followed a recipe in the past that included “thicken with cornstarch” or something to that effect. Only, when you add cornstarch (or any other starch) to a hot liquid, the starch clumps up and refuses to play nice. Why? Because starches, when wet, gelatinize. Or, in other words, they absorb water and swell up, which is how their thickening power works. The application of heat accelerates, or in some cases, activates this reaction, which is how you get lumps in your gravy. So if you first dissolve he starch in a bit of cold water you can safely add it to your hot soup or gravy without causing clumps!

Our go-to slurry solution.

Our go-to slurry solution.

We keep a small mustard jar in the drainboard for whenever a slurry is required. Add a little water, the required starch, screw on the lid and shake it up. That’s all there is to it!

A word about starch selection.

Cornstarch is probably the most common starch called for in thickening situations. It’s readily available in most pantries and pretty cheap. It also takes about 5 minutes of cooking, on average, to both thicken the liquid in question and lose that raw starch taste. Other starches that can be used include potato starch, tapioca starch, and arrowroot. You might need to look in the organic or special diets section of your grocery store to find them, but they all work quite well if you or someone you’re feeding is allergic to corn. Another benefit to using arrowroot, and this is something I learned when I was getting into wheat-free cooking a few years back, is that arrowroot thickens quicker than cornstarch (and can do so without heat), does not cloud your soup or gravy, and is the most easily digested starch out there.

So go forth and eat well, and save yourself some lumpy gravy!