Gluten-Free Shepherd's Pie

Recipe Title: Gluten-Free Shepherd's Pie
Recipe Link: http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2009/03/irish-cottage-pie-recipe.html
Status: Approved!
Rating: 9/10

Jen's Notes: This recipe was pretty simple to make, but a bit time consuming. That seems to be an ongoing theme lately. Fortunately, I decided to make this one ahead of time so I only had to pop it in the oven the day I wanted to serve it.

One tip I would give is to get the potatoes started right away. Peeled and diced, they took about 45 minutes to cook in boiling water. If you want to save a little time, skip the peeling but make sure you wash the skins thoroughly.

While the potatoes are cooking, I would recommend doing a full prep. You've got quite a few things to get chopped up, and you don't want anything to burn while you're chopping the next round of ingredients. You're going to be pretty busy stirring things, so just go ahead and get the leeks, garlic and carrots chopped up before you start the meat. Never chopped up a leek before? It's pretty simple - just think of it as a giant green onion - slice the white part and throw out the green part. I would recommend that you take a second to break up the leek slices before you throw them on the meat. Otherwise, you end up with giant chunks of leek. Also, make sure you wash the leeks very thoroughly. If you've ever seen Alton Brown talk about leeks, then you already know what I'm going to say. Because leeks grow up out of the ground in layers, there WILL be dirt between the layers. If you want to save a few bucks (cause leeks aren't cheap), you could probably substitute green onions or regular white onions. I didn't honestly notice much of a difference in the taste, so I'll probably try that next time. If you are going to sub white onions, I would suggest using about 1 1/2 - 2 whole chopped onions.

Other than that, this recipe is pretty straightforward. I loved the taste, but I knocked it one point because hubby felt the need to put ketchup on it. However, he still liked it and said we can add it to the "make again" list. My picky little brother also joined us for dinner that night, and he scarfed it down with no ketchup at all.

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Onion and Mushroom Pizza

Recipe Title: Onion and Mushroom Pizza

Recipe Link: http://delectablyfree.com/2010/02/caramelized-onion-and-shitake-pizza/

Status: Needs some work, but has potential

Rating: 4/10

Jen's Notes: This is one of those cases where I probably should have stuck to the recipe. Instead, I embellished and it didn't turn out to be an improvement. But, I have hope that this can be saved so keep on reading to learn from my mistakes.

First off, for the pizza dough, I substituted Bob's Red Mill Pizza Crust mix. I didn't have any pizza pans, so I decided to use one of my big cookie sheets (ala Bigfoot style). I wasn't sure how much of the dough to use, so I used all of it. I think that 3/4 or 1/2 of the dough would have worked out better, but it really depends on how you like your crust. Using the whole bag made it soft and chewy, and we usually like our pizza crust crispier. Next time, I'm going to take it out of the pan after the dough is in the oven the first time and cook the pizza directly on the oven rack. This will either make the pizza crispy, or make a huge mess in the oven, or both. Keep your eyes peeled to find out!

Another dough issue is that it ended up being very uneven when I pulled it out of the oven the first time. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to get the dough even next time (it certainly looked even when I finished shaping the dough), but I might try breaking out the old rolling pin.

TIP: Make the dough first, so that it can rise while you work on getting the toppings ready.

Next, the toppings. Because I am too cheap to buy shiitake mushrooms (you'll find this is a recurring theme for me), I bought a bag of regular baby bellas. I also decided to add some lean ground beef because the hubby gets cranky if there is not meat in his dinner. And because I love garlic, I tossed in a couple cloves of diced garlic. Then I decided to add in some pizza sauce (Chef Boyardee) - and I think this was my biggest mistake of the meal. After I tossed the toppings in a little olive oil and the dough had gone through round one in the oven, I covered the dough in sauce and toppings and popped it in the oven for the recommended time (which was plenty, for once).

The end result? Well, the toppings tasted very yummy together, so I plan to use the same combination next time. However, as I talked about up top, the dough was softer than we like. Second, I believe because of the added pizza sauce, there was way too much liquid on the pizza. In places, the dough was soggy. I suspect this was due in part to the unevenness of the dough. I think the pizza sauce pooled and then soaked through the low spots in the crust. In spite of all of this, the pizza was pretty tasty but definitely needs some work. Sure, we had to use a fork to eat the pizza but it was still good.

Moral of the story? Sometimes it's a good idea to resist the impulse to embellish.

Prep Time: 50 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Start to Finish: 1 hour, 10 minutes.

Penne Arrabiata with Brown Rice Pasta

Recipe Title: Penne Arrabiata with Brown Rice Pasta

Recipe Link: http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2006/12/christmas-penne.html
Status: Approved!
Rating: 9/10

Jen's Notes: I used chipotles instead of chiles on the first run – very tasty, but very very spicy. If you don’t like spicy (and I mean really spicy), don’t use chipotles. I also added some lean ground beef to it – I think it made it a much more satisfying meal. I used some of the sauce from the canned chipotles too - I'm sure this didn't help the spice factor but I think maybe it helped the YUM factor.

I also just used about six fresh Roma tomatoes, instead of fire roasted ones. I was a little worried about this recipe because I hate fresh tomatoes (it’s a texture thing), so I was afraid the tomatoes would be too much for me. I just let them cook for a good long time, and it was all good in the hood, baby. I've met a lot of people with the same tomato issue as me - if you are one of those people, do not shy away from this recipe. If I like it, so will you. I've been refusing to eat tomatoes since I was five, so trust me, I hate tomatoes just as much as you do ;)

Kitchen snags? Not much on this one. It was also my first time using Tinkyada pasta (try Whole Foods if you haven't been able to find it - much better than the DeBole's stuff I bought the first time around), and the penne tended to clump together worse than I am used to, so just make sure to give the noodles a quick stir here and there.

Prep Time: 20 minutes to chop up the onion, garlic and tomatoes. Also, if you are using canned chiles, you might need to chop those up too (I did).

Cook Time: 30 minutes, but this could probably be slimmed down a bit since I am not always the most effecient cook.

Start to Finish: 50 minutes, but you can reduce this if you let the onions and garlic cook while you chop up the tomatoes.