Welcome to The Gluten Free Experience! In my blog you'll find my recipes, tips, secrets and more in order to cook and bake wonderful 100% gluten-free good eats from a 5+ year gluten-free house wife.
A while ago, when it was still winterish around here, I saw the recipe for an easy shrimp bisque by Barefoot Contessa on the food network. I think I drooled as I watched her make it and I couldn't believe how easy it was! I don't have a lot of 'loved' cooks but I do have a couple. Contessa and Jamie Oliver I think happen to be my top 2!
Today I bring you that recipe with my own twists and of course in a gluten free version! You can find the original recipe at the Food Network website. The biggest difference in my recipe vs Contessa's is that I didn't enrich the fish stock with the shells of my shrimp. The reason for that though is simply down to error because I thought I had shrimp with shells but turned out they were completely shelled already. The results were still amazing but I do want to try it with the enriched stock!
Ingredients ♥ 1 pound (1/2 kilo) large raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
♥ 4 to 6 cups seafood/fish stock
♥ 2 cups chopped leeks
♥ 3 cloves garlic, chopped
♥ 3 tbs olive oil
♥ 1/4 cup each of Cognac and Sherry
♥ 4 tbs butter
♥ 1/4 cup gluten free flour
♥ 2 cups soya cream or light cream
♥ 1/3 cup tomato paste
♥ small pinch cayenne pepper
♥ salt & pepper
Directions
This soup is a little more time intense then my normal creations but it's so worth the efforts and really, it's not *that* much more work. Firstly make sure your shrimp are thawed before using them. In a large soup pot fry the leek for about 10mins in the olive oil. You want them to get soft and translucent like you would if you were frying onions. When soft and tender, add your the garlic and saute for another couple of minutes, add shrimp as well as the pinch of cayenne pepper and cook until the shrimp have turned a wonderful rose pink color.
At this stage, I would put your fish stock into a kettle that is big enough to also add your leek/shrimp mixture to, you'll find out why in the next step. As per the original recipe though, add the 1/4 cup Cognac and cook for 1 minute and then add the 1/4 cup sherry and cook about 3 mins longer. This is not exact rocket science, another minute here or there is not going to matter much.
This is where my recipe differs from Contessa's. Since I do not have a food processor nor a blender that I really care to use for stuff like meat (it's meant for fruit and veggies in my house and only holds a liter if that), I thought, why not use my stick blender instead? So that is exactly what I did. This is now the reason for the kettle big enough to also fit the leek/shrimp mixture. Add your stock to that kettle, add the shrimp & leek mixture but try to reserve a couple of the shrimp for re-addition later.
Whiz the stick blender through the mixture until you produce a thick and still slightly chunky mixture. Set this aside for a moment and add the 4 tbs butter to the original soup pot, melt and add the flour. Cook for about 1 mins and add the light/soya cream to it and whisk (yes with a whisk on this part, not a spoon or such) until the mixture is smooth and begins to thicken. Contessa mentions about 3mins for this process.
Now remember her recipe calls for you to puree the shrimp/leek mixture without the stock. Since I didn't do this with mine, you now return the thicken puree of shrimp/leek to the roux you just made, add the tomato paste and season to taste with salt & pepper. Although I did not find it needed with the salt that is in the stock and the pepper/seasonings already added. Heat the almost complete soup slowly until hot, either toss in the reserved cooked shrimp whole or cut them into smaller pieces and let warm through.
Serve with garlic cheese bread or fresh made biscuits... it's a wonderful hearty stick to your ribs soup that is perfect for a meal of it's own. And it can, if done with care of your ingredients, be low in fat too!
This post had been started well over 2 months ago and all that I wrote is very much in the past now. So much in the past that it originally mentioned about how I had gotten an unexpected call while out trying to do some grocery shopping from my 'new employer' which I was hired at on the *VERY* last day of 2011. That was about 3days into being told 'your hours might not start until March sometime when business hours are longer and we get busier'. Well needless to say I've put in more hours in the last couple of months then I think any one expected and I've been LOVING it!
The only real things I regret is that I haven't been here nearly as much as I want or need to be and that I don't/haven't been cooking properly or as often. I hope to change that a bit. There have been signs in the air of spring coming from hearing my wonderful birds chirping around 5am in the morning on the nice days to the other afternoon having a wonderful snooze next to my husband in the middle of the afternoon, waking to being comfortably warm and then a bit later hearing the wonderfully familiar sound of the local ice cream truck coming out of hibernation. Ok weird signs to some people... most look for the first sign of blooms on the trees or the familiar 'I saw my first robin today!' type thing but for me the above tell me that it's going to be spring soon and I can't WAIT! I miss my spring/summer fruits and veggies and well I'll admit it, the prices that come with them.
Today has taken my spring feeling away though. Although it's not bad temperature wise, it has been raining pretty heavy since I'd say about 5am. It sounded wonderful though, so wonderful that I slept until almost 10:30am which is very rare for me lately!
With the weather what it is today lets get onto the soup.... now this soup is another version of my Creamy Garlic Potato Soup Version #1. I don't have end results as I'm sure from the link above you can get the idea from it, there are 2 differences to this one though and that is it has no chunks of potatoes (although you can just as well do that too if you wanted it!) and it uses elephant garlic cloves instead of cheating with garlic puree.
Ingredients ♥ 4 to 6 large starchy potatoes, skinned and cut into small chunks
♥ 4 cups water (give or take a bit, this isn't rocket science) ♥ 2 chicken broth cubes
♥ 1 cup light/low fat milk ♥ 1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded ♥ plenty of fresh cracked pepper
Directions
As said this is not rocket science, make sure your potatoes are cut into about 1/2inch pieces. Boil them in plain water until really soft. Strain and set aside.
In the pan that you just boiled the potatoes, take some paper towels to it and dry it a bit. Put it back on the burner and add about 2tbs olive oil. Add onion and garlic and saute until translucent and soft.
Add the milk and add water until you have your pot about 2/3rd full. I'm using a 3 quart/litre pot for this. Add the 2 chicken broth cubes and bring to a light boil... basically hot enough to melt the cubes. Add the reserved potatoes to the pot CAREFULLY! The potatoes will make the liquid splash. To prevent this, spoon the potatoes in and I do mean actually spoon them in. Take an over sized spoon like one you would serve with, grab a good spoonful of potatoes and dip the spoon with the potatoes into the mixture. I learned the hard way that trying to just dump the potatoes in at this stage just hurts as the mixture is very hot by now and the milk is even hotter.
Add potatoes but remember to leave a bit of room so that you can puree without over flowing your pot and enough room to add the cheddar cheese while still being able to stir. Once the potatoes have regained their heat which won't take too long, remove from heat and simply take a stick blender (or if you don't have one, use a normal blender and do the mixture half at a time) to it until there are no potato chunks left.
Return to a very low heat, add the cheddar cheese and pepper (add pepper to taste but I would suggest quite a bit since your trying to bring the pepper taste out over the garlic, potatoes and milk which all mellow out pepper taste quite a bit). Use a spoon to stir the cheese in until well melted.
Serve in mugs. This is a perfect grab a cup, sit on the couch with your favourite blanket and your book or TV and just sip away. And there you go. A nice rich, creamy, garlic potatoes soup that takes not a whole lot longer then it takes to boil the potatoes themselves while saving you from all the crap that pre-made soups have in them.
I'll get ending photos of this one when I make it again, which I don't think will be too far away if this weather keeps up! Tip - My first photo shows a dish of sour cream. You can add a couple tbs at the end after melting the cheddar in for a bit richer texture/taste.
I have to admit I started writing this entry about 2weeks ago, it really never seems to amaze me how fast time flies. The first part of the post doesn't even follow a time line any more so I just deleted about an hour worth of typing I had done! Oh well... today is another day and another recipe. I'm sorry to all that are watching my blog that I haven't been here posting but I will try to be here more often and perhaps I'll even be able to bring you new photos/posts while I'm on the go as I also just got a new little 'toy' yesterday and that is a new cell phone... the Samsung Galaxy Y s5360... ok ok specifics but basically it's a smart phone with Android which is needed to run stuff flash based. It is also run/own by Google itself so I can even blog from it with patience.
For today I have this wonderful recipe that I also made for the time my husband had off for his birthday in late October. With all the wonderful seafood that I had bought for the Posh Fish Pie at that time too, I had lots of fresh crab meat left and decided on a soup that looked rather yummy and the end result was really nice... creamy crab and corn chowder... a perfect soup for a small starter or even with a nice piece of salmon next to it as a main dish! This recipe didn't make *huge* amounts or anything but since I made this with our meal instead of as our meal, I had enough left over to send a nice helping with my parents when they came to visit the next day... they liked it too!
Ingredients
♥ 1 small onion, finally chopped ♥ 1 clove garlic, finally chopped ♥ 2 medium sized potatoes, peeled and cut into small pieces ♥ 1 red pepper, seeds removed and cut into small pieces ♥ 2 1/2 cups chicken stock ♥ 2 1/2 cups low fat or skim milk ♥ 1 cup canned corn or around 2 ears of fresh corn cut from it's stalk ♥ 2 tbs fresh parsley, finally chopped or 1 tbs dried
Directions
This soup is actually rather easy to make I think. Actually most soups I've made are pretty easy I think. Start off by making sure your potatoes and bell pepper are chopped into small pieces. Place in a 2 quart pan and add the 2 1/2 cups chicken stock. I usually end up using that amount of water and adding stock cubes instead.
Once the bell pepper is tender and the potatoes cooked through, remove half the mixture to another bowl and set aside for a moment. The other half that should still be in your pot, you need to puree either with a stick blender or if you don't have one, a standing blender will do just as well.
Pour reserved mixture back into puree'd mixture and stir. Bring back to a low simmer and add the milk, crab and corn. When warmed through, add parsley and serve.
It's a wonderful soup if you like crab. The stuff I had was a bit too fine for this dish though so it kind of got lost texture wise so if you can get chunked crab meat then do so, it'll be well worth the cost to have bigger pieces. You could of course also choose to buy fresh crab and do it that style. I do plan to show you how to boil crab and lobsters at some point in my blogging future!
You know the only thing about making all these new recipes and 'playing around' in my kitchen? *sigh* all the darn cleaning up afterwards! I can't wait until hubby and I are able to move and have a place we can trust to hook up a dishwasher too.
So yesterday started out a lot like today did... it feels cold (actually it is cold at only 47F (8C) at just past 11am) and raining. Yesterday it rained on and off until past noon but today, not sure. It wants to rain but then the sun comes out and then it rains some more so yea odd weather again. With the weather starting the way it did yesterday I set out to make soup this week. This one I take some pride in as I didn't follow a recipe at all, just a gut feeling of what would be good in it and went with it.
This is also a low cost/low budget type soup. Most soups are if you stay clear the say the seafood style ones like clam chowder or others that call for expensive cuts of meats. Soups are a wonderful way to get your daily dose of veggies too without breaking your budget or causing unwanted calories. Take into mind how you make them though. Such as this recipe, it calls for cream but if you choose to put in a tiny bit more money to get the light or low fat version of it since it doesn't need to be whipped, your waist line will thank you as well! Most 'cream' soups like this work VERY well with light creams and unless you go side by side with a full cream based one you won't notice the difference either. You'll also have the enjoyment of being able to sit back and enjoy your soup in almost any amount you want without the worry of it being 'bad' in any way, shape or form! And while I'm posting this, you can even make soup so hearty that you don't even need anything but it for your main meal. Adding beans and even lean ground meat to a soup will make a wonderful main dish all on it's own and still not being a burden on your budget.
Only tip I have for this recipe is cut your potatoes into small cubes/pieces about 1/2inch to 1inch pieces because it will reduce cooking time and it will also make the addition of reserved potatoes much nicer for eating.
Ingredients ♥ 4 to 6 large starchy potatoes, skinned and cut into small chunks
♥ 4 cups chicken broth ♥ 1 cup light/low fat cream (I again use my ever loved Alpro 5% cream)
♥ 2 TBS garlic puree or 3 to 4 garlic cloves very finally minced
Directions Make sure that you have your potatoes chopped correctly. This is most likely the only real make or break part of this dish. Cut them into 1/2inch to 1inch pieces.
Boil your potatoes by themselves, do not boil them in the broth you'll be using for the soup. You want the creamy texture the potatoes will give without all the added starch from the water they boil in.
Drain the potatoes, put about half to 2/3rd of them into the 4 cups chicken broth (making sure your pot is big enough to do some blending work and addition of the left over potatoes and cream), add the garlic puree (or cloves) and use a stick blender to puree the entire mixture together. If you don't have a stick blender, a normal blender will work just as well... just transfer the ingredients into the stand blender first instead of your cooking pot.
Once well mixed, put back on stove top and add 1 cup light/low fat cream and parsley. Heat through again to warm the cream. I suggest not putting it higher then a low heat. It takes a little more time but you won't have a chance of burning the potatoes/cream this way.
Taste and season to liking. We found it to be a wonderful filler to our meal yesterday while still being light and low in fat. The addition of the left over potato pieces left whole were very needed but if you just want a nice creamy potato soup, perhaps a bit thicker, add all of the potatoes at the blending period instead.
The weather around here has been massively weird to say the least. Here the whole summer as pretty much passed with little rain and like 1 thunderstorm, then come this last week. We've had so much rain in so little time that the sewers couldn't keep up, there was flooding all over the place... some places even had SO much rain in such a little time that there was water up the the first mail slot of some apartment buildings. I'm happy to say that I live outside the hardest hit areas but you can see some of the damage in the videos below.
As you watch the video below, notice how nice the weather was in the beginning of the day. This storm that hit went out as fast as they came in and left such destruction in it's path. It left a few dead and almost 100 injured. It hit with such force that it closed the feast down entirely for the remainder of it.
With those storms came for what is for Belgium a hot front... 80+ for a few days in a row (hence the storms) and in the last week even out where I live we even had an entire night that had lightening and storms going on all throughout the night and even saw my husband off to work after one. Then fast forward about a week, some more rain and another storm or 2 and we have a high today of according to my current weather report, 60F (15.5C). And to top it all off we're looking at only highs for the 10day forecast of between 60F (15.5C) and 70F (21C). I mean geees.... can the weather get any more weird? Last week I was making creamy potato salad, cutting seedless watermelon and having an at home BBQ with my folks because it was so warm and only yesterday I was making a big pot of soup!
SOUP! Oh god how I love soup and any excuse to make it! This time I decided to go about making a wonderfully thick and creamy broccoli cheddar soup that is still on the light side... well at least I cut the fat/calories where I could and I'm sure many of my American GF comrades can make it even less in fat because of the abundance of fat-free items such as cheeses. Anyhow, I made it, I liked it, I added home-made meatballs to it and then we ate it.... big 4-5quart soup pot filled to the top and now all that is left is a couple of bowls, enough for hubby to warm in the microwave and have dinner from.... mind you we've already been into it heavy today for lunch because we both went to bed late last night and for a change slept in... perfect 'wake up at lunch time' meal! First though.... TIP TIME and right off the top you will need a large 5 quart soup pot for this recipe before we even get started.
Tip #1 - Use a sharp cheddar for this recipe and don't skimp on this fact. You will need the sharpness of it to cut through all the butter, stock and cream that is in this dish.
Tip #2 - All the veggies in this recipe with exception of the 'reserved broccoli' will end up being pureed in the end so just cut them up enough to be able to cook the onions, garlic and leek til tender. There is no needed measurements on what size to cut things just as long as you remember to make it smallish and not stew style chunky. The garlic I even cheated on and used a pure garlic puree.
Tip #3 - Do NOT add more salt to this... wait until the complete pot is done and I mean done as in you are ready to stick you ladle in it and dish it up before adding any of the seasonings I've recommended or any more salt. Remember there is a lot of salt in the stock and in the cheese already.
Tip #4 - I cheat, I can't stand cutting broccoli or cauliflower... something about the little bits that get all over my kitchen annoys me so if I don't have to cut these, I simply don't. In this case, frozen broccoli works just as well. I tend to buy a large kilo bag or 2 (2.2 to 5.4pounds) of what ever store brand broccoli that has stems and all plus 1 smaller bag of more expensive name brand florets. Since the bigger bags are going to be cooked, boiled to death and then pureed any how, these are of no worry, they are for flavour not looks. The florets though are the finishing touch so to speak and should be of good quality since they will be added right at the last 10 minutes or so and left whole.
Tip #5 - If you are looking to make this a 'light' version then instead of the full litre of heavy cream that the original recipes I found call for then either use a reduced or fat free version of cream or if you want to also reduce the lactose in it, use a product by Alpro that is a 5% fat variation of cream but made entirely of soya. I'm also a bit lactose intolerant on top of all of this so I love these little cup size containers for my soups and sauces.
P.S. Quarts and litres when it comes to making soup are pretty much equal so no need to go converting the 2 when it comes to the stock!
Ingredients
♥ 4 to 6 tbs olive oil ♥ 2 to 3 tbs minced garlic ♥ 1 medium Spanish onion (about 1 1/2 cups), diced ♥ 1 cup leek, cut 1/2inch or so thick ♥ 6 to 8 cups broccoli pieces + 2 cups broccoli florets (see tip #4)
♥ 3 to 4 quarts chicken or veggie stock ♥ 1 to 2 cups sharp cheddar, shredded
♥ 2 to 3 cups reduced fat cream (see tip #5)
♥ 1 cup GF flour
♥ 1/2 cup butter (1 stick/125grams)
♥ suggested seasonings of worchestire sauce, tabasco and nutmeg
Directions
In a large 5 quart soup pot, heat olive oil over a medium heat. Add onions, leek and garlic. Saute until tender and starting to turn see-through. Add the 6 to 8 cups broccoli but do not add the broccoli florets as these are reserved for the end of the dish. Just cook a few more minutes until the broccoli takes on a bit of warmth.
Add 3 to 4 quarts chicken or veggie stock (I personally used chicken) and bring to a slow boil and let it boil until the broccoli is basically falling apart even as you just look at it. There is no 'over cooking' this part of the soup as right after, you're going to puree it any how.
While I was waiting for this part of my soup to run it's course, it started to rain again. Typical for this week and made it even more perfect for making soup but I noticed that one side of the window it was raining while the other was VERY sunny so while I had my camera out any how, I managed to catch the picture below too while I was cooking this. I mean the weather couldn't be more perfect for soup this weekend.
Once broccoli is cooked, remove from heat but leave the heat on and then, yep you guessed it, grab your stick blender, stand blender, food processor or what ever else you might use in order to make something into a puree, for me it's a stick blender attachment to my hand mixer. Puree and be patient... you want to make sure there are no thick pieces left and you have a smoothness going on.
Before discarding the blender, grab your cream or cream substitute, add it to the blended soup and give it a few more pulses. If your using a stand blender then simply do this step by hand in the soup pot with a wooden spoon before placing back on the stove.
Before placing soup back on the heat, make a large variation of roux (creamy thickening agent basically... see roux cooking tip in my blog, use the 5 quart liquid version).
Place soup back on the heat and let come back to a slow boil. Add the entire recipe of roux and stir it in carefully but thoroughly because this is your thickening agent. I used a whisk for this part just to ensure it was mixed well. Once mixed well, add 1 to 2 cups sharp cheddar and mix again well until cheese is melted and you no longer see the orange colour streaking throughout but that the dish has turned slightly more orange coloured then before. Return to using a wooden spoon after this step.
Once every thing is mixed well and you are happy with the results, taste it. Be careful as it'll be REALLY hot now. This is now the time to judge if you want to add any of the seasonings to it at all. If you do, I suggest about 1/2tsp ground nutmeg (if using any of the suggested seasonings, this is the one to use), a splash or 2 of the worchestire sauce and a few shakes of the tabasco sauce. This part of the soup is very much personal preference so season a bit, taste, adjust seasonings if wanted. I found the above just right for me.
Now by request of the dear husband, I also made some little meat balls and added them to it also.
I have now decided that it really is not needed and personally think the 'meat' flavour in the dish puts it a bit over board so next time that is the only thing I'll adjust, leaving it totally a veggie soup. Add some bread, garlic cheese bread or sandwich with and this becomes a very filling meal.
