Spicy Bombay Sliders

When I made Buffalo Turkey Wraps, I only used half of the package of ground turkey since I mixed lentils into the meat.  Since we also had lettuce leaves, which are great to use as a gluten-free substitute for buns or wraps, we decided to make Spicy Bombay Sliders with the leftover turkey.  We picked up pound of ground chicken to round out the recipe - I don't love the taste of turkey burgers, so adding a different meat usually milds the taste for me.  Lo made Spicy Bombay Burgers for a friendly cooking "competition" with our friends, so we knew how good they were going to be. 

Spicy Bombay Sliders

recipe from The Fresh Market

Bombay Sauce: 

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
• 1 T. garlic chili sauce
• 2-3 T. hot curry paste (found in the asian section)
• 1 T. sugar

Sliders:

• 3/4 - 1 lb. ground turkey
• 1 lb. ground chicken
• 1 1/2 T. fresh ginger, minced (see tip below)
• 1 t. cumin
• 1 t. curry powder
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• salt and pepper

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together mayonnaise, yogurt, chili sauce, curry paste and sugar. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Preheat grill to medium heat. In a large mixing bowl, fold together turkey, chicken, ginger, cumin, curry powder and garlic until well combined; form 1/3 cup of mixture at a time into patties. Season patties to taste with salt and pepper; grill 4 to 5 minutes per side until done. Serve sliders with spicy sauce.  I wrapped mine in lettuce leaves, while Lo ate his on a bun.

Ginger tip: I keep a knob of fresh ginger (found in the produce section near the garlic usually) in the freezer.  When I need of piece of it, I just grab it from the freezer and cut off a hunk with a sharp knife.  Using a veggie peeler or the knife, carefully peel the skin off the ginger.  Mince or prepare according to recipe instructions.  If I don't need much ginger, I'll often just peel part of the hunk with a peeler and continue to "shave" the ginger with the peeler.  Just chop the shavings to the size you need. 

Bibimbap Recipe

While it sounds like a song by the Hanson Brothers, it's actually a crazy delicious Korean dish that I had while visiting friends in Atlanta. Since it's something that I've only had once, I can't tell how spot on this recipe is, but we loved it. I pieced this together from several different bibimbap recipes, but it's most strongly influenced by this one. This nice thing about this recipe is that you can use whatever vegetables or meat that you have on hand. Our egg didn't turn out yolky, but that's because I gave poor instructions to Lo while he was cooking it.  Update: we made it again a few weeks later because I couldn't stop craving it.  This time the yolk turned out (on mine...his still broke, sadly), so I took a new picture because it's so pretty!

Bibimbap
4 servings

4 tablespoons soy sauce (gluten-free)
3 tablespoons sesame oil
3 teaspoons sugar
2 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon ginger, grated
1 pound thinly sliced chicken or beef
2 cup cooked rice (I used brown)
2-4 eggs
1 zucchini, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
1-2 cups baby bella or crimini mushrooms, halved
1/2 - 1 cup carrots, matchstick or shredded (I buy shredded from Trader Joes)
handful of pepper slices (I used frozen) or other preferred veggies
Gochujang sauce (purchased or see below for "recipe")

Combine the soy sauce, 1.5 tablespoon of the sesame oil, sugar, garlic, and ginger in a large bowl. Add the meat and stir until coated. Set aside for 30 minutes - 2 hours. Cook rice according to package.

Heat 1/2 tablespoon of the sesame oil into a large skillet over medium heat. Add mushrooms and cook until they are tender. Set aside. Add another 1/2 tablespoon of the sesame oil to the skillet and add the sliced zucchini (and/or other vegetables). Cook until tender, about 5 minutes or so.

Set a large skillet over high heat (can remove vegetables and use same skillet). When very hot add the beef. Cook, stirring often until browned on all sides.

Pour the rest of the sesame oil into a non-stick skillet over medium heat. Crack the two eggs in and cook until the whites have set, but the yolk is still runny.

To assemble add rice to the bottom of the bowl, add the meat on top and place vegetables around the edge. Carefully place the egg on top. Serve with Gochujang sauce.  To eat, break the egg yolk and dig in.

Fake Gochujang Recipe
I call this fake because all gochujang recipes call for red pepper paste, which I didn't have, so I completely made it up.

Spoon and a half of garlic chili sauce
squirt of sriracha sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp (or less) sesame oil
1.5 tbsp brown sugar

Mix together all of the ingredients and reduce in a small saucepan until slightly thickened. Drizzle your preferred amount on top of the bibimbap.

Bourbon Chicken

I cooked a few pounds of chicken breasts in a crockpot and made several meals out of the chicken.  This bourbon chicken recipe was Lo's favorite and would freeze easily for a meal later on. 

Bourbon Chicken
based on this recipe

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 tsp. ginger, minced

3/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 cup apple cider (or juice)

1/3 cup light brown sugar

2 tablespoons ketchup

1 tablespoons cider vinegar

1/2 cup water

1/3 cup soy sauce
1/2 bag of frozen stirfry veggies (or fresh, sliced veggies)

Heat oil in a large skillet. Add chicken pieces and cook until lightly browned (or cook for 7-8 hours on low in small crockpot and shred). Remove chicken.  Add remaining ingredients to skillet. Heat and stir over medium heat until well mixed. Add chicken and bring to a hard boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 20 minutes. Serve over hot rice, in a lettuce wrap, or on a salad.  

The first night I served mine with rice in portobello mushrooms marinated in soy sauce. Pour some soy sauce into cleaned mushroom caps for 30 minutes.  Place mushrooms in skillet, add a tablespoon of water, cover and cook until mushroom starts to become tender.  If skillet gets too dry, add more water.  Fill mushrooms with desired filling, cook a few more minutes, and carefully transfer filled mushroom to plates to serve.

Grilled Gluten Free BBQ Chicken Calzone

BBQ Chicken Calzone with Pineapple Salsa

A few weeks ago when we were making pizza, Lo froze half of the Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Pizza Dough that he had mixed up.  He was having gluten-full pizza, so we didn't need one big enough for both of us - and we were curious if it could be frozen.

We popped the dough in the fridge to thaw last week and I told Lo he could come up with something to make with it.  Since we've had a lot of pizza lately, I suggested calzones or something of the sort.  And since we usually grill our pizza, I thought he should try to grill these too.  One of our favorite pizzas is BBQ Chicken and Pineapple pizza, so he decided to base it off of that. If you don't want to make these on the grill, you can probably cook them in the oven at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes - until the crust is browned. 

This was one of the best things that he's made - and he's made some pretty delicious meals!  The calzone itself would have been pretty tasty, but the pineapple salsa that he topped it with paired so well with the filling!

Grilled GF BBQ Chicken Calzone with Pineapple Salsa

ball of pizza dough, divided in two
4 strips of bacon, cooked
1 sweet onion, chopped and divided
3 cups cooked chicken, chopped or shredded (he grilled 3 breasts and used about 1.5)
BBQ sauce, about 1 cup
cilantro, chopped, to taste
shredded cheese on filling
more shredded cheese on top of crust after grilled with a little salt and pepper

Cook chicken with your preferred method and chop or shred.  Cook bacon in a skillet until crisp.  Remove bacon from skillet to a plate lined with a paper towel.  Cook 1/2 of the onion in the bacon grease until softened and slightly browned (reserve other half of onion for salsa).  Stir together chicken, onion,  BBQ sauce, and cilantro.  Set aside.  Prepare salsa and set aside.  Oil grill grates and preheat (or preheat oven if not grilling).
   
Using gf flour or corn meal on a pizza peel or baking sheet, press dough with your hands as thin as you can without it tearing, to form 2 circles (or as close as you can to circles).  Some dough instructions suggest that you wet your hands to make it easier to handle - other dough may require a little extra flour or corn meal.  Spoon half of the filling onto one side of each circle, leaving enough dough to fold over filling (you may not use all of the filling).  Fold other half of dough over the filling and pinch the edges of the dough together to prevent the filling from leaking out.  Carefully transfer calzones to the grill (Lo used a big spatula).  Grill for approximately 5-8 minutes, until the bottom is browned.  Carefully flip the calzone to grill the other side.  Grill for 4-5 minutes until both sides are grilled.  Immediately sprinkle extra shredded cheese, salt and pepper on top of the crust of the calzones.  Allow to cool for a few minutes, top with pineapple salsa, and serve.  Serves 2-4, depending on amount of dough and appetite.  We got 4 servings using 1/2 of the dough from a package of Bob's Red Mill GF Pizza Crust. 

Pineapple Salsa
1/2 onion, chopped (from above)
pineapple tidbits
cilantro
lime juice
chipotle pepper flakes

Mix ingredients together, until salsa is of your preferred consistency by adding more or less lime juice.

Grilled GF BBQ Chicken Calzone with Pineapple Salsa

uncooked calzones

Grilled Pizza Nights!

Lo's Pepperoni and Sausage Pizza

Lo's favorite food is pizza, specifically Adriatico's, but even when I was eating gluten, it always gave me more heartburn/stomach pain than other pizzas, so we didn't get it very often.  A few years ago, we started grilling pizzas and have never turned back.  Rain or shine, balls hot or winter, when we make pizza, it's almost always on the grill.  It always shocks me when people don't realize you can put pizza dough on the grill.

As for the dough - we used to often use Trader Joe's Dough, either whole wheat or garlic/herb (sold in a ball shape near the hummus in the refrig section for about $1.19), but at some point we stopped getting it very often even before I was GF.  Now we usually use Pillsbury Pizza Dough Roll (with the biscuits in refrig section) for him, and either Chebe GF Pizza Dough Mix ($19.86 for 8 mixes w/subscribe and save) or Bob's Red Mill Pizza Dough Mix ($10.95 for 4 mixes w/subscribe and save) for me.  Both of those gluten-free crusts bake up nicely and have a chewy crust instead of the crispy, crackery standard GF crust.  Note: the Chebe requires a cup of shredded cheese IN the mix, so just know that you'll need/be eating more cheese than just for the topping.  We don't need to make two separate pizzas - he likes the GF crust, but we usually want to use different toppings, so it's easier to keep a couple of Pillsbury doughs in the fridge for him - he likes the taste and you just have to roll them out and they're ready.  Plus then we have pizza leftovers, which are ALWAYS good.

GF Chicken Huli Huli Pizza with

carrots, spinach, and pineapple

His pizza usually consists of Trader Joe's Pizza Sauce, pepperoni (actually secret pepperoni because I have to hide it from him and then try to find it when we want to make pizza), sometimes crumbled sausage, and mozzarella, with some Trader Joe's Shaved Parmesan, Romano & Asiago Cheese Blend - oh, and a heavy dose of red pepper flakes.  My pizza varies greatly - the last three have been: Butternut squash sauce (I get at Costco), kale, balsamic onions, sundried tomatoes, goat cheese, and mozzarella; Lemon and Artichoke Sauce, sundried tomatoes, goat cheese, and mozzarella; and the last one was Homemade Huli Huli Sauce (leftover), shredded chicken, roasted garlic, shredded carrots, spinach, mozzarella, and the Trader Joe's parm blend.  I threw a few sausage crumbles on top because he had extra.  I built the toppings around adding pineapple to the pizza, but completely forgot, so I ate it with pineapple on top.  

GF Butternut Squash Sauce with Kale, Balsamic Onions,

Sun-dried Tomatoes, Goat Cheese, and Mozzarella

As far as grilling the pizza - it's simple.  Just prepare the dough per instructions and roll it out as usual. You want to make sure to roll out the pizzas small enough so they fit on the grill (we don't worry about the shape).  It's easiest to use a pizza peel (here's one for $15) or a rimless cookie sheet) to roll out the dough, and use cornmeal to keep it from sticking (flour works, but I can't use it).  If you don't have a rimless cookie sheet, flip a rimmed cookie sheet upside down and use the bottom.  It's a little easier to work with smaller sized pizzas, so you may want to only make them 6-7 inches to start until you get used to it.  Oil the grill grates and heat to medium (we have a gas grill). When the grill is hot, carefully slide the pizza from the peel or cookie sheet onto the grill.  It should only take 3-5 minutes to bake the first side of the crust - just check it every now and then by lifting the edge with a metal spatula, until it's golden brown (be aware of hot spots on your grill so the dough isn't blackened).  Using a big spatula, flip the pizza onto the peel or cookie sheet with the grilled side UP.  Turn the heat to low and take the pizza inside and add your toppings to the already grilled side.  Slide the pizza back onto the grill to cook the bottom side and close the lid.  By turning the heat to low, you'll be able to leave it on long enough so that the cheese melts and the toppings are heated.  Once again just lift the edges to check for doneness (a lot of grills are hotter in the middle, so you may want to pull it off before the edges are completely browned).  When done, slide back on the peel or cookie sheet and allow to cool slightly before cutting!  Unless you have a big grill or are making 2 small pizzas, you will probably have to make one at a time.   

GF NYE Pizza with Lemon and Artichoke Sauce,

Goat Cheese, and Sun-dried Tomatoes

You'll never go back.  Full disclosure - Lo always makes the pizzas, I just add my topping.  I think we made the first couple together while we were figuring out how to grill pizza, but since then, he's the pizza master.