Official Roast Beef Dip Sandwich recipe

 I made the beef sandwiches last night.  They turned out just as they always had, sans allergens.  Which means they turned out fantastic, with the meat falling apart easily.

 

 As per the usual, I did a LOT of estimating.  I had a 12 lb roast, so I had to increase many of the ingredients. Just to be fair, I am including a link back to the beef stock recipe I used:

http://www.food.com/recipe/beef-stock-127504

 Beef Stock

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs beef roast
• 1 (4 ounce) can tomato paste
• 6 tablespoon oil (olive, veg, canola)
• 1 large onions, quartered with skin 
• 1 leek
• 1 clove elephant garlic (I guess you could use regular garlic) 
• 1 T celery seed or several stalks celery, long with tops cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2 large carrots, in 1-inch pieces (used in original recipe, but obviously not in mine)
• 1 bouquet garni (1 bay leave,1 tsp thyme,6 peppercorns, 2 cloves, 2 tsp parsley in cheeesecloth or in a cloth tea bag)
• 3 quarts cold water (or whatever it takes to fill your roasting pan and cover the meat)
• 2 large onions, cut in strips or thin circles
• salt, to taste
• black pepper, to taste
• bread (GFCF or regular, depending on your needs)
• daiya cheese substitute (for the GFCF folks) or pepperjack cheese
Change Measurements: US | Metric

Directions:

1. 1 Preheat the oven or counter top roasting pan to 375°F.
2. 2 Add first 10 ingredients, but save the ingredients from the "additional onions" and on.
3. Bring to a boil.
4. Reduce heat and simmer gently uncovered for 2-3 hours (I let mine cook a little longer due to the large size of my roast).
5. Add a few cups of water if necessary.
6. Remove all of the vegetables from the broth.  Leave the meat.
7. Some people chill the broth overnight in the fridge and remove the top layer of solidified fat.  I personally like to leave it in this particular recipe.
8. Cut up and add the remaining onions.  Top off with additional water as needed.
9. Cook until the meat falls apart.  For me, this involved turning the roaster on low and cooking it overnight. 
10. Spoon out meat, broth, and onions into a bowl and salt/pepper according to taste.  Add Cheese to the meat/broth and microwave it long enough to melt the cheese.  
11. Scoop out meat/melted cheese and put it on a sandwich. 
12. Serve with the broth and use it for dipping the sandwich.

Roast Beef Dip Sandwiches - arriving at a Christmas near you!

Per my mom's family tradition, I make roast beef dip sandwiches for Christmas.  No fancy meal with a ham or turkey.  Think about it: it takes so long to prep yet ANOTHER complicated meal if you do the turkey or ham and trimmings.  It is MUCH easier to make sandwiches with shredded beef, cheese (or cheese sub), and hoagie rolls (or gfcf bread).  They are delicious, and the meat provides good meals for DAYS on end.  People can graze on these throughout the day. 

The way I did it in the past was to get a beef roast, and put it in with enough water to cover it.  Then I would chop up onions. Preferably cutting them into semi-circle strips.  Then I would throw in salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and Better than Bullion beef base.  After that, you just cook it until the meat falls apart.  This year, I am going to have to make garlic-free beef base.  Once the meat is cooked and falls apart, serve on bread with cheese.  Obviously for the gfcf folks, use a gfcf bread and cheese sub. 

BTW, if you shop at Kroger or King Soopers (an affiliate of Kroger), they have pineapples 10 for $10. Yes, I bought 10.  Fresh pineapple is well-liked around here.

Tips for cookies

Any item that needs baking and calls for butter seems to do well with palm oil shortening.  It worked well in 1-2-3 Gluten Free Sugar Cookie mix.  I could have sworn there was butter in there, but obviously there wasn't.  They are great tasting cookies, with a perfectly crumbly-in-the-mouth-not-in-the-hand texture.

The kids and my mom made both plain sugar cookies and cookies that tasted EXACTLY LIKE Pecan Sandies from that mix.  To make them like Pecan Sandies - just chop up pecans in the blender and add to the dough.  Gee, that was simple. 

Tomorrow or the next day I will be making gf/cf Chex Mix and gf/cf macadamia nut cookies.

Delicious Hot Cocoa Recipe

I went in search of a good hot cocoa recipe, and adapted this one:
http://www.food.com/recipe/hot-cocoa-45155

• 1 quart coconut milk or other milk substitute
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup gf/cf cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla (or 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon)
• coconut milk coffee creamer or marshmallows (or in my personal case, both :P )
Change Measurements: US | Metric

Directions:

Prep Time: 2 mins
Total Time: 5 mins

1. 1 In saucepan, combine sugar and cocoa.
2. 2 Add a few tablespoons of milk and heat over medium high heat, stirring constantly.
3. 3 The heat will make it easier to dissolve the cocoa.
4. 4 When the sugar, cocoa and milk have formed a paste, add the remainder of the milk plus the vanilla or cinnamon and heat until steaming.
5. 5 Pour into mugs, top with your preferred creamer or marshmallow, and serve immediately.

Sorry for skipping out: 2 Tips for Cooking

It has been busy here.  Family has been in town, and I have been, well, at times, in mental overload.  I always get that way with visitors, no matter how much I get along with them.




Anyway, for the cooking tip: cook pancakes in the oven. 

I know, to some this sounds like a sacrilege, but hey, if you like hardened discs that taste rubbery at times, and are rather flat, be my guest and keep cooking on the stovetop.  For me, I prefer oven-cooked pancakes.  They are lighter in texture, have less oil in them, and rarely end up burnt.  I can cook a whole batch in the matter of 15 minutes (and spend most of the time AWAY from the oven). 

I have been using 1-2-3 GLUTEN FREE buckwheat pancake mix.  It is gluten free, wheat free, dairy free, casein free, peanut free, tree nut free, corn free, egg free, soy free, and potato free.   I make the Banana Pancake version, which is egg free and can be easily made dairy free.  It is wonderful.  Light, fluffy, not too sweet, with a nice banana taste. 

I mix it up according to the directions, and use a 1/4 cup measure to pour out the batter on to a parchment paper.  I like using parchment paper because the food does not stick to the pan and comes off the paper easily.   

I don't flip them, I just let them cook on 350 for a few minutes (I admit, I am not timing them, and just check in on them to see if they are done). 

So that was a simple tip.  When cooking gluten free, that is perhaps a sanity-saver as gluten free food is notorious for not having the stickiness to hold it together.  Save your sanity, and enjoy the taste, of an oven-baked pancake.

Oh, and bake your bacon too.  It saves time, and you don't get grease splatters all over.  Just lay out the strips of bacon on a baking sheet (again, parchment paper is a lifesaver), turn on the oven, and let the bacon cook.  Cook times will vary with bacon, given that different brands have different thicknesses.  But the strips come out straighter, and you don't have to spend all that time flipping bacon.