Calzone Pie

CalzonePieThere was a time when not only was I enamored by pizza, I was enamored of calzones as well. Of course, that was when I could have a soft, gluten-filled crust making that gooey & delicious shell around all that cheese and those toppings.

Sadly there came a time that I could no longer safely consume pizza, calzones or anything else like it, unless I evolved – just like the pizza into the calzone! And evolving is just what I did with this recipe.

Pizza has been called a pie before and that is where I took my inspiration. Why not make a calzone pie? I haven’t really been able to come up with a crust recipe that has the elasticity of a gluten crust – chemistry and stuff. So why not use the Brazilian cheese crust recipe as a base and then put the toppings in the middle with more cheese and top it with more cheese crust. Bake it together and Bob’s your uncle, er, pizza’s yer pie? Calzone is your pie?

Whatever you call it – I’m calling it Calzone Pie since it’s my recipe – this once again proves that Gluten Free is Not Taste Free! One slice of this and you will wonder who needs gluten!

Calzone Pie

2 recipes Brazilian Pizza Crust
1 package Italian sausage – preferably hot
1 red onion
2 tbsp (30 g) minced garlic
1 tbsp (15 g) each of Oregano & Chili Flakes
Cheese for the filling – Jalapeno Jack or Mozzarella

  1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees, while you dice your onions and then fry them together with all the spices and the sausage. Make sure to brown and crumble all the sausage.
  2. After that part is cooked, make your two recipes of the crust.
  3. Line the bottom of a greased 9-inch cake pan with half of the crust.
  4. Put all of the drained sausage & onions in the middle – spread it evenly and then add the shredded cheese.
  5. Top with the remaining crust and cook the pie for about 10-15 minutes until it’s golden brown. Warning – you might want to put a cookie sheet under the pan in case it overflows as mine has a number of times.

For other ideas, I have done this recipe without meat and added Mexican spices. You could try a Jerk Chicken filling. Or a Cajun steak. Or how about a seasoned chicken with bacon, green onions, tomatoes and a bit of ranch? The possibilities are awesome and endless!

Turkey Con Arroz Y Salsa

With Easter just behind us and Thanksgiving just a few months away (hey a guy can hope!), I was thinking about what to do with leftover turkey. Typically, I would just make a sandwich pre-CD, But as we all know GF bread is a bit small and does not necessarily the best sandwiches make. Otherwise I would normally do something along the lines of a turkey burrito or quesadilla. And since I’ve shown you a few recipes for those already, I decided to try something new.

This recipe happens to be very, very close to a simple Alfredo. And it’s a great fusion of Mexican and that Alfredo hence the name fusion!

Turkey Con Arroz Y Salsa

1 red onion
4 jalapenos
2 tbsp (30 g) butter
1 tbsp (15 g) Cumin
1 tsp (5 g) Cilantro
1 tsp (5 g) Garlic
1 small jar Guy Fieri 7 pepper salsa
227 g Garlic & Herb cream cheese
1 lb. turkey, cooked and diced

  1. Saute the onions and jalapenos together with the butter and spices. While the base is cooking, make a recipe of Quick Mexi Rice.
  2. Once the onions are soft, add in the cream cheese and salsa making the sauce.
  3. After the sauce has started to thicken, you can add the turkey.
  4. Plate some rice and pour some of the sauce over the top – serve immediately!

 

Jerk Pretzel Pork

JerkPretzelPork-fork

Bacon, Bacon, Bacon … oh wait, that’s another post.

Pork, Pork, Pork. There we go! That’s much better. I’ve proclaimed my love for the other white meat many times on this site. And I’m about to do it again!

With my wife and children not doing GF as a standard, I have been given free reign to come up with my own dinners for the most part. I usually cook sides or the main dish that we can all eat and then I deviate from there. So this recipe came from one of those evenings of my deviating from their planned meal.JerkPretzelPork-Prep

I’ve always loved what has been lovingly termed country-fried or chicken-fried pork chops. It seems a little odd to me to call something chicken-fried, especially chicken-fried chicken, when it’s just breaded and fried. But I digress …

Since normal flour is verboten with Celiac Disease, one is left to use either GF flour or come up with alternatives. I’ve always been intrigued by different breadings as well, hence the pretzel crust!

With the added seasonings, the pretzels form a nice crunchy crust that proves without a doubt that GF is Not Taste Free!

Jerk Pretzel Pork

2 eggs
9 pork chops
2 cups Glutino pretzels
1 tbsp Caribbean Jerk seasoning
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp seasoning salt

JerkPretzelPork-Prep2

  1. As your oil heats in your frying pan, tenderize your meat and beat your eggs.
  2. To make the coating you will need to grind your pretzels. I used a food processor and got a very nice blend on the pretzels, not quite dust but processed enough that it wasn’t large chunks.
  3. Mix the seasoning with the crumbs.
  4. You should have enough crumbs and eggs to double dip your pork: egg, crumbs, egg, crumbs, frying pan.
  5. Try to flip them as little as possible to let the crumbs create a crust – and don’t have your heat too high. If you burn the crust before the meat is cooked, it will crumble off and just be a disgusting mess. Try about 3-4 minutes each side on about medium heat and then check them. A little pink won’t kill you and remember that your meat cooks up a bit as it sits anyways.

Cheesy Pork Roll

CheesyPork

While the bacon may not look cooked, that’s not the case since it was wrapped in parchment paper to keep the loaf together. This also helped keep the juices from just evaporating.

I’m not exactly sure why I need to keep wrapping stuff in bacon. Whether it’s a meatloaf or a jalapeno, everything really is better with bacon. Ok in my case, bacon and cheese!CheesyPork-Prep

Pork roasts were never really served in my house when I was younger. Sure we did pork chops – battered and fried, maybe some milk gravy. But pork roasts were just not done. Then I got diagnosed and started looking at other types of foods to fill me up, because we all know GF is Not Taste Free. And doing a pork roast fit the bill.

My first variation of a simple pork roast was my Caribbean Jerk Roast. But recently I saw another Celiac blogger talking about bacon-wrapped loaf and I had to experiment. And boy was this experiment tasty!

I made a sandwich with Pepper Jack cheese and fresh jalapenos between pork “buns” wrapped in bacon … it was awesome!

Cheesy Pork Roll

CheesyPork-Prep21 pork roast
about 150 g Pepper Jack cheese
1 regular package bacon
2-3 jalapenos or other peppers
Cajun seasoning

  1. Preheat your convection to 375 degrees while you start slicing your jalapenos into strips, cheese into thin blocks (about a quarter inch thick) and your roast into what looks like a hoagie.
  2. Place your cheese in the middle and then your peppers on the top of the cheese.
  3. Fold your pork roll together and pat the roll down with your Cajun Spices.
  4. Wrap your bacon around the pork roast and then wrap the whole roast with parchment paper before putting it into a meatloaf pan.
  5. Cook the roast for about 35-40 minutes or until your meat thermometer says mid rare to medium for pork. Remember it will cook up for a bit longer after you take it out.

Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Pork

There are times that I question the methods by which we cook. For instance, in the height of the heat, we stand outside and grill steaks over hot coals. And I understand that ice cream is a year round treat, but really in the middle of winter, you’re gonna eat some food that makes you just as cold inside as it is outside?

So it is with great trepidation that I offer up this recipe in the middle of the summer using a slow cooker. That said, I believe this sauce could easily be used on the stove-top to make it a much quicker meal. Or if you like the idea of the slow cooker, this would likely work fantastic with a nice pork roast and shredding the meat over rice. The proof is in the the pork that Gluten Free is Not Taste Free!

Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Pork Chops

1 cup (250 ml) GF Soya Sauce
1/2 cup (125 ml) ketchup
1 cup (250 ml) honey
1/4 cup (50 g) minced garlic
1 tbsp (15 g) cilantro
1 tbsp (15 g) oregano
2 tbsp (30 g) pepper flakes
Pork Chops – about 8-10 would be covered by this sauce.

  1. Mix all of the ingredients up to the pork chops. Whisk it together well.
  2. Using your fresh (not frozen) pork chops, cover the bottom of your slow cooker. And then cover with your sauce.
  3. The biggest issue with this method is that you can easily overcook your pork chops. On high for like an hour, two at max should be good. If you want to do slower, low for about four hours max and even then your chops may be over done.

Note: I will be trying this again with a roast and we’ll see how that turns out! I’ll let you know!

Red Beans & Rice

I made this for a Cultural Potluck; had to rep for the States and be GF! I have to say it was a hit!

I made this for a Cultural Potluck; had to rep for the States and be GF! I have to say it was a hit!

My wife teases me that I’m from the South (of the United States). I have a ton of relatives in the Georgia, Florida and Alabama area as well as a bunch of friends scattered throughout. I was born in Florida and lived in the Atlanta area and throughout the South for about 15 years, However, I don’t hunt, fish or eat collard greens. The last time I drank Sweet Tea on an irregular basis was more than 16 years ago.

Despite all that, there is one dialect (if you will) of Southern cuisine that I love – Cajun/Creole food. If you want to know the difference between Cajun and Creole check out this link. For the purpose of my site, I guess I like Cajun food more. And a lot of that love of the food was the short time I lived close to New Orleans and Emeril Lagasse (more the latter than the former).

Now Cajun food was not a staple in my house as I was growing up. My folks liked “beans” as they called it. Think a big pot of kidney beans cooked all day with onions and then finished with corn bread – I hated it. Might be part of the reason to this day why I will avoid beans on a normal basis; the same can be said about ham. Sorry Mom! But when I was old enough and we were close enough to someplace that had a Popeye’s Chicken, I learned of the joys of almost-Cajun. Then I had actual Cajun food in New Orleans and I was hooked.

Enter one of the OG Food Network shows featuring Emeril. Bam! and I was intrigued enough to try to figure out how to make this Cajun staple! I still have a number of cookbooks from him and thanks to him, I learned the basis for what grew into my version. And finding regular ingredients for this recipe were much easier SOB (South of the Border). But here it goes …

Red Beans & Rice

1 lb. (450 g) dried red beans (kidney beans will work if you can’t find red beans)
2 large red onions
1 lb. (450 g) andouille (I had to use GF Garlic sausage as andouille is hard to find in Canada)
1 lb. (450 g) ham hock
2-2.5 quarts (2 l) chicken stock
1/4 cup (50 g) Cajun Seasoning
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp (15 ml) Olive oil
Rice (between 2-4 cups cooked)

  1.  Rinse the beans and discard any pebbles or broken beans. Put enough cold water to cover the beans plus about two inches and let them soak overnight. Or bring them to a boil, cook for two minutes and then let them stand for an hour.
  2.  Sauté your diced onions and sausage with olive oil and the spices. Put this mixture as well as the beans in a crockpot with about 1 quart of stock and 4 cups of water.
  3.  I let the beans simmer over night and usually add another quart of stock in the morning. If you give them about 24 hours they should be good. If you can’t wait that long, simmer the beans uncovered for about two hours.
  4. Wash the rice in water. Put 2 cups of water for each cup of rice into a microwave container with the rice. Microwave on high for 10 minutes covered with cling wrap. Lift cover, stir rice and recover. Microwave on medium for 10 minutes. Let stand in the microwave for ten minutes. Take it out, uncover and set aside.
  5. When you think the beans are done, remove the ham hock, debone it and add the meat back to the pot. Take out the bay leaves and then blend the beans to give the beans a creamy texture.
  6. Pour over rice and enjoy.