Dinner tonight is one of my favorite meals of all time -- gluten-free quinoa mac 'n cheese. This simple faux mac 'n cheese is comforting and oozy, but is deliciously gluten free.
Ingredients:
1 cup quinoa
2 cups chicken broth
1 small onion, diced
1 clove of garlic, grated
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 cups milk
2 eggs
Crushed potato chips
Start by sauteing the onion in olive oil/canola oil over medium high heat. Salt and pepper until the onions begin to sweat, and add the garlic. Saute for about a minute, then add the quinoa. The oil should coat the quinoa and toast it for a minute. Add the broth, mix, then cover and lower the heat until the quinoa is simmering. Once the spirals begin to unravel, the quinoa is ready. Take off the heat and let cool for a few minutes.
Preheat oven to 425. In a separate mixing bowl, beat the eggs and milk. Add one scoop of the quinoa at a time and mix after each scoop, essentially tempering the custard mix so you don't end up with scrambled eggs. Add most of the cheese in (the amount of cheese and type you use is really up to you and your tastes -- mix it up and try some chunks of bleu cheese in there, or some parmesan), pepper to taste, and mix it up. Pour mixture into a greased baking pan, and then top with the remainder of the cheese. Add crushed potato chips on top. I like to use BBQ or something along those lines -- tonight, we're trying it with Lays Classic BLT chips.
Pop that into the oven, and bake 25 minutes, or until mac 'n cheese sets and browns a little on the side. Cut into chunks and serve!
Tonight, it's being served alongside a thyme-rosemary pork tenderloin and wilted baby spinach. The egg custard does a great job of acting like glue and keeping the mac 'n cheese super creamy without making a flour-based roux.
I'm going to have a few big entries coming up -- heading to Disney's Food and Wine Festival in two weeks, AND we have a bunch of big restaurant reservations. Can't wait to write about it!
Showing posts with label mac 'n cheese. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mac 'n cheese. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Gluten Free Mac 'n Cheese -- First attempt
Who doesn't love a good mac 'n cheese? There's something so comforting and warm about it, and I love how you can customize it to your tastes. Last week, we had an eight lb ham that we needed to use up, so I decided to chop some up and make mac 'n cheese with some ham and spinach. I figured I could use brown rice pasta, and safe cheese, but I didn't think about the cheese sauce.
The problem is that I start all of my cheese sauces with a bechamel -- start a roux with butter and flour, then add milk and whisk until creamy. Obviously, the flour was an issue, so I went to my pantry to see what kind of gluten-free flours I had. I found potato flour, so I figured, why not? It should work, right?
Nope. Miserable failure. The potato flour clumped up and didn't dissolve when I added the milk, so it looked like baby formula mixed with mashed potatoes. Gross. I had to ditch the whole shebang.
I instead skipped the flour, and whisked butter and milk together. Then I added American cheese, goat cheese, salt/pepper, garlic powder, and waited until it got hot. I mixed some corn starch with water, then dumped it in, brought it to a boil, and then took it off the heat. It cooled to just the right texture, and I poured it over the cooked noodles with some ham that had been sauteed with spinach. I threw some shredded cheddar on top, and then popped it in the oven for half an hour. The brown rice pasta held up well, surprisingly, and it ended up being a decent -- though not stellar -- mac 'n cheese.
Lesson to be learned? Potato flour CANNOT be used to make a roux. I may try tapioca flour next time, or corn flour, and see how that works instead. According to the interwebs, arrowroot flour works well as a rue. I've also used brown rice flour to make a roux for turkey gravy, though I don't know how it would work with milk.
Other fun ideas for mac 'n cheese:
The problem is that I start all of my cheese sauces with a bechamel -- start a roux with butter and flour, then add milk and whisk until creamy. Obviously, the flour was an issue, so I went to my pantry to see what kind of gluten-free flours I had. I found potato flour, so I figured, why not? It should work, right?
Nope. Miserable failure. The potato flour clumped up and didn't dissolve when I added the milk, so it looked like baby formula mixed with mashed potatoes. Gross. I had to ditch the whole shebang.
I instead skipped the flour, and whisked butter and milk together. Then I added American cheese, goat cheese, salt/pepper, garlic powder, and waited until it got hot. I mixed some corn starch with water, then dumped it in, brought it to a boil, and then took it off the heat. It cooled to just the right texture, and I poured it over the cooked noodles with some ham that had been sauteed with spinach. I threw some shredded cheddar on top, and then popped it in the oven for half an hour. The brown rice pasta held up well, surprisingly, and it ended up being a decent -- though not stellar -- mac 'n cheese.
Lesson to be learned? Potato flour CANNOT be used to make a roux. I may try tapioca flour next time, or corn flour, and see how that works instead. According to the interwebs, arrowroot flour works well as a rue. I've also used brown rice flour to make a roux for turkey gravy, though I don't know how it would work with milk.
Other fun ideas for mac 'n cheese:
- Ditch half of the milk/cream and add pureed steamed/roasted cauliflower instead. It adds a really nice nuttiness to the dish, and helps work in vegetables.
- Use a half cup of Greek yogurt to replace some of the cream.
- Puree some butternut squash as a replacement for some of the cream.
- Bacon. Bacon bacon bacon. BACON.
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