Even while sick, I have been craving brownies all week. I can’t believe my recipe for brownies isn’t up on the site! So today you get no pictures, except for that brilliant one above, but these brownies are seriously delicious. Very fudgy and definitely remind me of the boxed kind. Perfectly simple and indulgent. Hope I feel up to making some this weekend!

Gluten Free Cocoa Brownies
adapted from: Smitten Kitchen

10 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups (9 7/8 ounces, 280 grams) sugar
2 1/4 ounces unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or Dutch-process)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs, cold
1 ounce brown rice flour
1 ounce corn starch
1 ounce potato starch

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. lightly grease the bottoms and sides of an 8×8 square glass pan. Line pan with parchment paper leaving overhang out on all edges to help remove the baked brownies later.

Combine the butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt in a medium heatproof bowl and microwave on 30 second intervals until all is melted. Stir well to combine. It looksfairly gritty at this point, but will smooth out once the eggs and flour are added.

Stir in the vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously after each one. When the batter looks thick, shiny, and well blended, add the flour and stir until you cannot see it any longer, then beat vigorously for 40 strokes with the wooden spoon or a rubber spatula.

Spread evenly in the prepared pan.

Bake until a toothpick plunged into the center emerges slightly moist with batter, 30-35 minutes. Let cool completely on a rack.

Go ahead and chill in the freezer to allow them to be cut more cleanly, if you’re into that sort of a thing.

Makes 25 small or 16 medium square brownies.

Enjoy!

This recipe was inspired from Jamie Oliver’s Crunchy Garlic Chicken. His recipe is the first place I’d seen his method which uses butter in with the cracker crumbs to help it all stick together better and to brown and crisp up better. He also planted the idea to tenderize the chicken first which makes perfect sense, but not something I’d thought of. It really gives it a chicken mcnuggety texture (again, that’s a good thing in my book).

So, no deep frying required and perfect, finger-licking saucy, crunchy, boneless “wings” to show for it.

Other Super Bowl recipes:
Cheesy baked artichoke dip
Fried jalapeno poppers
Cute little Football Cookie Truffles

Gluten Free Boneless Buffalo “Wings”
Makes 9 … an appetizer order amount

1 large chicken breast (about 1 lb)
1-1/2 ups gluten free cracker crumbs (I use Glutino and highly recommend)
4 tablespoons butter, divided
2 eggs
1/2 cup buffalo sauce (I used Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Sauce)
4 tablespoons Corn Starch
4 tablespoons Sweet Rice Flour

Pound and tenderize your chicken breast until uniformly 1 inch thick. I use the tool shown here, from Pampered Chef. Chop tenderized chicken into 1-1/2″ x 1″ chunks.

Make your cracker crumbs by whirling to smithereens in a food processor. Once finely ground add in 2 tablespoons of the butter and pulse a few times until butter is fully incorporated.

Break the egg into a bowl and lightly beat.

Add cornstarch and rice flour to another bowl to finish out your battering station setup.

Heat oil over medium high heat in a heavy bottomed pan. (I used my cast iron skillet). One by one dredge the chicken pieces through the flour then coat with the egg and roll in crumb mixture to thoroughly coat. Place all pieces in heated pan and cook 3-4 minutes on each side turning often to brown evenly. Then remove from pan onto a plate.

Add the buffalo sauce to a large microwaveable bowl. Check the sauce for spicyness and add in the other couple tablespoons of butter if seems too hot. Microwave suace, or butter and sauce, for 30 seconds to warm. Add cooked chicken into the sauce and toss gently with tongs being careful not to leave any pieces in too long or they’ll get soggy.

Plate and serve with celery, bleu cheese dressing, and plenty of napkins!

Enjoy!

But all the hype around the Super Bowl is looking and feeling a bit…immature given the protests and now violence in Egypt. The current World events have definitely made me take a look at my life. I love to cook and bake and many many many times a week I daydream about what it would be like to do it full time, but I’ve recently come to a realization: cooking relaxes me. It’s what I do to have fun. If it was my full time gig it wouldn’t be my relaxation time anymore, it would be my job, and may take on the same sort of feelings of obligation and focus that my current job does. Therefore there will be less hoping for something else, and more appreciating the great gig I have. I have a great job, that I like. I get to go home and cook to relax and have fun. It’s the perfect combination and am so blessed to be in this situation.

Well now that I’ve wondered all over several topics let’s get back to Super Bowl junk food. These are not a new revolution, but they are a gluten free twist on an old standby that are super rich and delicious. Notoriously the method I used is for Oreo Truffles. Well….gluten free oreos are just not that great so I substitued in my favorite store purchased gluten free cookie which is Pamela’s Dark Chocolate, Chocolate Chunk cookies and I’m addicted! These are rich and decadent. If you didn’t know, you’d never think they came from 3 humble ingredients and require no stove or baking. Super simple. Decorate them cute for the occasion or just simple add some sprinkels or even cookie crumbs over the top and you have a simple little dessert to end many an event.

Football Gluten Free Cookie Truffles
adapted from Kraft.com

Feel free to use this method to form any shape you can dream up…maybe even on a stick…and decorate away!

1 6oz. box of your favorite cookies ( I used Pamela’s Dark Chocolate, Chocolate Chunk which yielded delicious results!)
3 oz. room temperature cream cheese
4 oz. semisweet chocolate
white frosting for decorating (use the royal icing linked to here, or your favorite store bought kind)

Start by dumping all the cookies into a medium sized food processor.

Process until you’ve reached fine crumbs.

Weigh out cream cheese.

Add to cookie mix.

Mash together with a back of a spoon until a homogenous mix is reached.

One large tablespoon at a time scoop the mixture into your hands and roll into an oblong ball. Gently pinch the ends to form the football shape. Place on wax paper lined baking sheet and stick in the refrigerator for 15-20 minutes.

In the mean time heat your chocolate in the microwave one minute, then stir. Continue microwaving in 15 second intervals until melted. This could also be done in a double boiler.

Plop the footballs into the melted chocolate and roll them over to cover the entire surface. Remove with a fork and shake to allow the excess chocolate to drip off. Place back on waxed paper.

When chocolate has set, ice on the end stripes and seam lines.

Store in the refrigerator and serve cold or at room temperature.

Enjoy!

This recipe is definitely fitting for the event and I have a few more to share in the coming days for you to use at your big party! It’s a bit more time consuming than the usual cream cheese stuffed, bacon wrapped and grilled jalapeno popper variety that we go for in the summers. This one is more like…Arby’s, but homemade, gluten free, and way better. The added seasoning to the filling along with roasting the peppers before filling and frying takes this one way over the top. Try it out, I’m sure you’ll love it!

Gluten Free Fried Jalapeno Poppers
Adapted from: Saveur

Roasting and peeling the peppers first takes the flavor of this tasty appetizer up a notch, and cuts down on the heat. My gluten free version didn’t turn out quite as evenly coated in breadcrumbs as the original recipe shows, I’ve changed the order of toasting and food processor-ing the bread in the recipe below to hopefully get your crumbs a bit finer than mine turned out. Either way, they are delicious!

6 medium jalapenos
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/3 cup cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 cup chopped parsley
2 egg whites
1/2 cup milk
3 pieces gluten free sandwich bread ( I used Rudi’s)
1/4 cup corn starch
1/4 cup sweet rice flour

Place the top oven rack into the top position of the oven and turn on the broiler. Place jalapenos on a foil lined rimmed baking sheet. Place under the broiler and leave the oven door cracked to prevent the heating element from cycling on and off. Rotate the peppers every 5-7 minutes until blackened and blistered.

Remove from the oven, drizzle olive oil over them and place in a bowl with an inverted plate over top or covered tightly with foil. Allow to cool for about 15 minutes.

Toast the bread, on both sides, under the broiler, keeping a close eye on it to ensure it doesn’t burn. Remove, and process in a food processor into fine crumbs. Set aside in a bowl.

In a large heavy bottomed pan, heat 2 inches of oil over high heat. Use a oil or candy thermometer to gauge the temperature. Oil is ready when it reaches 350 degrees.

Form the battering assembly line:
In a small bowl, whisk the egg whites and milk together. In a separate bowl combine the corn starch and sweet rice flour. In another bowl (this recipe takes a lot of bowls) combine the cream cheese, onion powder, garlic powder, and parsley. Mix well to combine.

When peppers have cooled, peel their blistered skins off and remove the stem. Slice down one side and lay open to cut and scrape out the seeds, being careful not to tear through the other side of the pepper.

Once all are skinned and seeded fill each with about a tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture. Press the pepper around the filling to help reshape the peppers.

One by one, dredge the filled peppers in the flour mixture, dunk into the milk and egg whites, and roll in the toasted bread crumbs.

Gently lower into the oil and fry, turning often, until starting to brown. This takes about 30 to 45 seconds. Remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and set on a paper towel lined plate to drain.

Serve with a spicy marinara sauce by adding 1 tablespoon hot prepared horseradish to 1/4 cup maranera sauce. Serve the peppers warm or at room temperature. Can be made ahead of time, refrigerated or frozen and reheated for about 10-20 minutes in a 350 degree oven before serving.
Enjoy!

Mark Bittman is a well respected food writer and author of Food Matters In it, he discusses some ideas about the effect our food has on the world we live in and also how it affects our waistline. Take it or leave it, one of his underlying suggestions is to eat less meat. Not something I’d find myself drawn to, but I’m always interested in another opinion. I found this recipe of his in the Essential New York Times Cookbook and thought I’d try it. Meat is not the highlight of this dish, it’s merely a flavoring.

(I have access to great beef from my family’s farm. If you don’t, I can totally understand your aversion to grocery store beef. When I have to, I buy Laura’s Lean and really like it. This dish would be great with any ground meat. I think chicken sausage or Italian pork sausage would be great in this dish too.)

I was concerned that so little ground beef would not be filling enough to consitute a meal. Honestly, I didn’t even miss the meat and this dish has quickly entered into the weekly rotation. If you’re hesitant about beans, or feel that you can’t live without a large serving of meat, or heck, just looking to try something a little different, this recipe won’t disapoint.

I found spreading this over some cilantro adobo rice and squeezing fesh lime over top really completed this quick delicious meal.

Crispy Chickpeas with Ground Beef
Adapted from: Mark Bittman and The Essential New York Times Cookbook
Serves 4

1/2 pound ground beef
2 15oz cans cooked chickpeas, drained and well rinsed
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 to 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 cup chicken stock
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
chopped fresh cilantro and lime wedges for garnish

Turn heat to medium high under a large, deep skillet (I used my cast iron frying pan), and add meat a little at a time, breaking it into small pieces as you do. Stir and break up meat a bit more, then add chickpeas. Keep heat high, and continue to cook, stirring occasionally until chickpeas begin to brown and pop, 5 to 10 minutes. Don’t worry if mixture sticks a bit, but if it begins to scorch, lower heat slightly.

Add cumin, red pepper flakes and garlic. Cook, stirring, for about a minute. Add chicken stock, and stir, scraping bottom of pan to loosen any browned bits. Season with salt and pepper, then turn heat to medium-low. Continue to cook until mixture is no longer soupy but not dry. Remove from heat and drizzle in the olive oil.

Sprinkle cilantro over top before serving. Serve with rice and garnish with fresh lime wedges.

Enjoy!