Chocolate Chip Buckwheat Scones (GF)

Buckwheat, hemp seed, coffee, and chocolate. This odd combination has been my culinary obsession in the past week or so (in addition to cinnamon, of course!) while I've been scurrying to write a grant application last minute. And then trying to get caught up on everything that I had planned to do instead of writing that grant. And then starting to get the ball rolling with officially accepting my professor job! I still haven't signed the paperwork, so I'm just going to continue insinuating. Once the paperwork is signed, I'll officially confess...

Anyways, back to the buckwheat. Before the last week, I had never experienced buckwheat, except once fondly in childhood, as part of buckwheat pancakes. However, I recently found buckwheat in the bulk food section, which has been allowing me to experiment with this great grain. Buckwheat (ironically) is a gluten free grain. For every 100 calories, you get 3g complete protein and 3g fiber. Buckwheat is also rich in magnesium, manganese, B vitamins, and potassium. Give buckwheat a try in this gluten free scone recipe!

Chocolate Chip Buckwheat Scones

1/2c buckwheat grouts
2c water
1T cornstarch
2T brown sugar
1c rolled oats, food processed + 1/2c oats
2/3c chocolate chips

1. Place 2/3c buckwheat in a pan with 2c water. Bring to a boil until all water is absorbed. (Let cool if you don't want to chocolate chips to melt into the batter)
2. Preheat oven to 425F.
3. Place 1c oats, cornstarch, brown sugar, and baking powder into a food processor. Food process until smooth.
4. In a bowl, combine all other ingredients, saving the chocolate chips for last.
5. Shape dough into 3 balls, flatten onto a greased baking sheet. Cut into quarters for the scone shape.
6. Bake for 20- 25 minutes, until the edges just start to brown. Let cook & enjoy!

Apple & Sausage Farro

Today's post shares one of the few recipes that I make over and over. This recipe was inspired by an apple basil gouda chicken sausage that my fiancé and I found while grocery shopping, back in the days before we were vegetarian and he was my fiancé. We've taken it to potlucks and it's always a hit. Recently, we tried this recipe veganized. To get it right, we used a cheese substitute and commercial vegetarian sausage, but it was still good! While our original dish used bow tie pasta, we upgraded to farro when making the other switches and it really enhanced the flavors. I also thought that since it's been a while (ok, a long time), I'd take the opportunity to show off farro as a great grain.  Farro is unfortunately not gluten free, as it is quite literally, whole wheat grains. For a 100 calorie serving, you get 4g protein, 4g fiber, and 1g fat. Like most grains, it's deficient in lysine, but this dish combines it with complete protein sources.

Apple & Sausage Farro

1 package Trader Joe's quick cook farro
1 package sweet Italian vegetarian sausage, cut into 1/2in coins
2 apples, cubed
1/2 block Daiya jack or regular Gouda cheese, cut into 1cm cubes
sage, basil, and garlic to taste

Boil a large pot of water and add farro. Cook as directed, it should be about 15 minutes until the farro reaches the desired texture. Meanwhile, add sausage to a skillet greased with olive oil. Add spices. Cook 5 to 10 minutes. Just before the sausage starts to brown, add you apple cubes. Cook an additional 5 minutes, until apples are soft. Turn off the heat and add cheese cubes. Cover to let the cheese melt a bit. Drain farro in a strainer. Serve apples, sausage, and cheese over farro. Enjoy!

Polenta Pizza

Happy Friday! Today I decided that I'd share my go to gluten free pizza recipe with you, rather than a baked good. Growing up in my house (and in most of my hometown) Friday night was always pizza night! We've found an amazing gluten free pizza option at Stone Hearth, but ordering out every Friday gets expensive pretty quickly. Thus, I've developed an easy gluten free option. We've made standard pizza crusts using gluten free flour, but unless you buy the perfect flour, these can get really frustrating to roll out. So instead, I developed a recipe that omitted the rolling step because after a stressful, busy week, the last thing I want on a Friday night is to be frustrated by a pizza crust.

As an added bonus, I'll be profiling polenta as a Great Grain! Polenta is a corn-based gluten free grain. Polenta, cornmeal, grits... these are all the same grain, just ground slightly differently and marketed under a different name! I've found that "polenta" is the most expensive, followed by "grits," with "cornmeal" being the cheapest option. So this is what I've started using almost exclusively. Cornmeal can be found at most grocery stores, whereas polenta can be a bit trickier to find. For every 100 calories, this grain contains 2g of protein and 2g of fiber, providing the lowest amounts of these nutrients of any grain that's been profiled thus far. It offers modest amounts of iron, thiamin, and niacin. Cornmeal is lacking in the essential amino acid lysine. (Which is curious, because corn is supposedly rich in lysine. I'll have to look into this further.) To combat this inadequacy, I add nutritional yeast, which is a complete protein, to my polenta. Additionally, if you make your polenta pizza with real cheese, most cheese is rich in lysine so you'll be getting your essential amino acids anyways!

Polenta Pizza

For the Polenta 

3/4c cornmeal, polenta or grits
2 or 3T nutritional yeast
1t garlic
1T dried basil
2c water 

Toppings  
(These are suggestions, you can put whatever you'd like on your pizza!)

3 large tomatoes, sliced
2 sprigs of basil, leaves only
1 ball of fresh mozarella (or if you do not eat dairy, Daiya is the tastiest vegan cheese & is found at Whole Foods)

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2.  Combine all polenta ingredients in a saucepan on the stove. Heat over high, stirring constantly. Once the mixture starts to stick together, turn off the heat. 
3. Spread the polenta mixture evenly in the bottom of a greased 9" pie pan.
4. Add your toppings, the above is a suggestion for a margherita pizza, but you can go crazy!
5. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
6. Let cool for 30 minutes to let the polenta crust set. (I am usually impatient so I cut it right away and it comes out more like a lasagne... if you want a slice that you can lift, you have to wait!)

Curried Spinach and Barley

The next grain to be featured in my great grains series is Barley. Barley is not a gluten free grain (This is a correction to the original post! Barley is not gluten free, so beware. I'm very sorry for the misinformation. I'd try the recipe with buckwheat if you are avoiding gluten). Most people have heard of barley, but have no idea how to cook with, beyond grandma's barley stew which was good... but not too exciting. But barley is worth your time! For every 100 calories of barley, you get 3g of protein and 4g of fiber (compare that to quinoa and whole wheat). Barley protein is low in lysine, but that is addressed in the recipe below, which couples it with giant lima beans and spinach (both complete proteins). Additionally, barley is a good source of selenium, which plays an important role in regulating inflammation and immune response.

Today's recipe combines some interesting ingredients to give a new flavor to barley that you might not have expected would work. It also freezes super well (you can see in my picture... that's the recipe revived from 3 weeks in the freezer for a quick lunch at work). The barley is paired with spinach, tomatoes, and giant lima beans, which round out the amino acid profile of the protein and add potent anti-oxidants. The whole medley is flavored with a mild curry sauce centered around turmeric, which is known to be potently anti-inflammatory.

Curried Spinach and Barley

1 cup dried barley
1 cup dried giant lima beans (or 1 can white beans)
1 can light coconut milk
vegetable broth (or bullion and water) as desired
1 can diced tomatoes (no salt added)
1/2 package frozen spinach
1T turmeric
1T cumin
1/2T garlic
1/2t ginger
dash red pepper flakes

1. Wash dried lima beans and place in crock pot with ample water. Let cook on high heat for ~6 hours. Once soft, drain and wash.
2. Rinse dried barley and place in a pot with ample water. Bring to a boil for 40 minutes, until barley is soft. (Alternatively, both the barley and beans can be made in the crock pot, but both take several hours, so you would have to think ahead and perhaps make one overnight the night before, and then the other while you are at work for the day.)
3. Once barley and beans are ready, making the curry sauce is pretty quick. In a large saucepan, combine coconut milk, spinach, tomatoes, and spices. Bring to a simmer. (If you feel like you need more liquid, add some vegetable broth to thin it out.) Once spinach has cooked through, add beans and simmer for an additional few minutes so that the beans can take on the flavor.
4. Serve over barley and enjoy immediately! Alternatively once it cools, you can package into ziplock bags and freeze to enjoy later.

Cranberry Walnut Quinoa

Today's post will feature a truly Great Grain: Quinoa. Quinoa is gluten free and a great, complete source of protein. For every 100 calories of quinoa, you get 2g fiber and 4g of protein. It's also a good source of manganese and folate. However, it's the amino acid composition of that protein that makes this grain shine. Quinoa is a complete protein, meaning that it contains all of the essential amino acids. Of the 21 naturally occurring amino acids, 9 are essential, meaning that our body isn't able to make them and if we don't get them through dietary sources, our body isn't able to make the proteins that incorporate them. For example: lysine is an essential amino acid and without it, we wouldn't be able to synthesize collagen with crosslinks. Without those crosslinks, we wouldn't have muscle and connective tissue! So making sure that you eat enough of all 9 essential amino acids is a crucial part of health and performance.

This recipe is a surprising favorite which combines sweet and savory for a dish that's just as good as the main even or on the side. With quinoa's complete protein, no additional protein is really necessary, but I threw in the walnuts for an additional boost and for the omega-3 fatty acids. Cranberries and cinnamon round out the festive fall flavor.

Cranberry Walnut Quinoa

1c red quinoa

2c water

1/3c walnuts

1/3c dried cranberries

cinnamon and garlic to taste

Rinse the quinoa (some people, myself included, have a reaction to one of the proteins on the shell of the quinoa so it should be rinsed off). Add the water and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Once the water is absorbed, remove from heat. Add cranberries, walnuts, garlic, and cinnamon to taste. Enjoy!

Cous-cous with Artichokes & Cannellini Beans

This is the first installment of my Great Grains series. As the name suggests, I'll be highlighting common and unusual grains and sharing what I believe to be their strengths and weaknesses. Grains to be covered include quinoa, rice, barley, buckwheat, millet, amaranth, faro, and more. (I'd also love suggestions!) While many of my posts avoid wheat for my gluten free friends, today we'll be starting the series with perhaps the most common and these days somewhat controversial grain: whole wheat. 

For every 100 calories, whole wheat has 4 grams of fiber and 4 grams of protein. It also is a good source of potassium, B vitamins, and iron. However, while nutritionally superior to white flour, it's not really a nutritional super-star. I finally found a good, thorough academic source on the amino acid profiles of various sources in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. This source reports that the quality of whole wheat protein isn't that great: it's lacking in the essential amino acids lysine and threonine. A non-academic source that gives very detailed nutritional information can be found here. 

That said, many of us who aren't allergic still eat a fair amount of whole wheat and I think that's just fine! As long as you're remembering to eat grains besides whole wheat, you will be able to balance the amino acid void throughout the day and the other minerals more than make up for this deficiency. With wheat, I think it's important though to remember what my Dad always told me growing up, "Everything in moderation." (Please of course do not eat it if you have an allergy or Celiacs... it is very bad for you then.)

Today's recipe something I often enjoy for a weekday lunch, meaning that you can make it in a tupperware container in less than 5 minutes. Whole wheat cous-cous is my favorite type of pasta because you can make it in no time at all: just boil the water, add it to the pasta, and go! I like to combine it with artichokes, white beans, and a touch of corn (which is a good source of lysine). I then top it off with some olive oil, garlic, and nutritional yeast. 

Cous-cous with Artichokes and Cannellini Beans

1/3c whole wheat cous-cous*

1/3c boiling water

1/2c white beans

2c artichoke hears

1/4c sweet corn

splash of olive oil

dashes of garlic, basil, and nutritional yeast 

(salt optional)

Before I'm done getting ready in the morning, I set our water boiler up to boil a cup of water. Once boiling, add cows-cous and water to a tupperware container. If time allows, you can go back to getting ready for 5 minutes. If not, just add in the other ingredients and go. As a time saver in the morning, the corn and artichokes can be added to your tupperware frozen, as they will thaw by lunch time when you will probably microwave it anyways. :)

*Note for my gluten free friends: This recipe is also good with quinoa, which takes a bit longer to prepare, but is well worth it! I'll profile quinoa next week, I already have my recipe ready :)