Cast Iron Pot Roast

Chuck roast in my vintage Wagner Ware pan, ready for the oven. 

We finally un-glutened and re-seasoned my favorite vintage cast iron pan. Some cookware can hold on to traces of gluten, which can transfer to the food you cook in it. If you're celiac like R, even that trace of gluten could make her sick. My stainless steel All-Clad Dutch oven and smaller saucepans are fine. But nonstick pans can have tiny scratches where gluten can linger even after repeated washings, and cast iron is porous.

So we replaced our Teflon skillet, and put the cast iron through the oven's self-clean cycle. This takes the pan down to bare metal, and burns off all the gluten. It also burned off the careful seasoning we've built up. This is an old pan, that we got second hand and already beautifully seasoned. But it was easier to heat seal and re-season it than I thought it would be. I'll do a post about that process soon.

This is by far my favorite pan, and it's great to have it back again and safe for R. It makes the best pot roast. Get the skillet piping hot and sear the salted and peppered beef (this one was a chuck roast) in a little oil (I used avocado oil). Take the beef out, add more oil if necessary, and layer thinly sliced potatoes on the bottom of the hot skillet. After the potatoes start to brown, add sliced onions, carrots, and a bay leaf or two. Put the roast back in the skillet, and almost cover it with a mixture of tomato paste (or ketchup), gluten free beef bouillon, and hot water. Add a bay leaf or two, and other herbs if you like. Cover the pan with aluminum foil, or a pot lid if you have one big enough.

This is what it looks like after 3-4 hours of slow roasting, at 250 or 300.

I brightened the flavors with some grape tomatoes and parsley, and served it on top of a green salad. We also had kiwi, strawberries and tangerine segments.

Smoothie and Sunbutter Cookies

We start most mornings with a smoothie. Thank goodness for the giant bags of frozen berries at Costco. Usually it's berries, Greek yogurt, spinach or other greens, flax meal, and an egg from our free range chickens. R asks for some sweetener in hers, honey or sugar. The cookies are grain free with sunflower butter and coconut flour. They're sweetened with honey, and the eggs and the sunbutter are good for protein in the morning. I think I can do better so I won't post the recipe yet.

We're also loving this green juice from Trader Joe's. It tastes mild and citrusy. R won't drink a green glass, but I can mix it in a smoothie and she can't tell. D calls that "Jessica Seinfelding it." I try not to be sneaky like that, but I'm not above it. Lots of greens and vitamin C for chilly January days and cold and flu season.

New Year's Beans for Good Luck and Prosperity

Traditionally it's black eyed peas or lentils that bring good luck when you eat them early in the new year. I hope Mario Batali's Braised White Beans count too. After soaking the beans for two days, I sauteed the vegetables in olive oil but cooked everything long and slow in the slow cooker. I added a smoked turkey leg and a small square of salt pork I had left over in the freezer after homemade baked beans. I added a defrosted a jar of turkey broth from Thanksgiving, scented with citrus and poultry herbs. These beans are so luxurious and melty.

I also roasted a spaghetti squash with some Irish butter and sea salt. We're learning that gluten free cooking is only tricky when it comes to baking. So far it's been a great way to refocus on produce, lean proteins, nuts and legumes, without reaching for easy carbs. D and R love their baked goods though, so I'm learning to work with "flours" that behave nothing like wheat.

Serving greens is traditional to encourage prosperity in the new year. So we also had a chopped kale and mixed greens salad with dried cranberries and pumpkin seeds. Wishing everyone a happy and healthy new year!

Birthday Sunrise

As a child, I didn't like having my birthday and Christmas so close together. Once January 5 was over, it was such a long time to wait until all the excitement  rolled around again. But this year I'm glad to start two new years in one week.

2014 was not an easy year. Three hospitalizations and long recoveries, the final one causing us to miss our trip to New Mexico. For the first time in my life, I wasn't sitting around my parents' cozy stone fireplace with my brothers and their families for Christmas. That was hard for all of us. And yet it was a good year in many ways. I found out how much kindness and love there is among my family and friends. The deep well of prayer and generosity that surrounds our little family of three. I learned to be grateful for small things, to wake up and slow down and notice fleeting moments. I woke up to this birthday sunrise this morning.

The first pic I took with my camera, pulling on snowboots and D's heavy parka and scrambling to keep Charlie inside because it was early and he would bark and wake the neighbors. The grainy iPad shot above is what I saw from our bedroom window as soon as I opened my eyes. I spent a lot of time watching this tree from my bed this year. From green summer, to fall leaves turning and dropping their giant beanpods all over the grass. Then my favorite season, when snow falls softly on the black branches and blurs the edges of the pergola.

It made me laugh when the maudlin O. Henry story The Last Leaf popped into my head, where the girl watches the tree from her sickbed and predicts she will be dead when the last leaf falls. This is not a Last Leaf situation. It was a crisis that's over now. There shouldn't be any long term effects once I recover and get my stamina back. (It was gynecological, that led to pulmonary embolism---multiple blood clots on both lungs---that in turn led to profound anemia and more complications. All fixable with surgery, which is over now. No cancer or permanent damage to my heart and lungs, nothing chronic.) I was fortunate, and I won't forget that. I had been taking my good health for granted for many years.

We met another curve ball in October, when R was diagnosed with celiac disease. Again, we have been so spoiled with her good health. She's almost never at the doctor. But she had been kind of languishing since early summer. Strange symptoms, just not her rosy-cheeked, energetic and thriving self. I took her in a few times and all her bloodwork came back normal. Then they thought to test for celiac. We were surprised when she was diagnosed, but grateful to have an explanation.

I'd like to start the blog back up with a focus on gluten free recipes, and what we're learning about living with celiac. Overall it's been a good thing, an answer to our questions and a concrete way to get R back on the road back to feeling good. The improvement was dramatic once we cut out gluten. It's been interesting to learn a new way to cook. We're still homeschooling, and loving it. It's a different season of our lives, with an 11 year old instead of a little girl. I think there is a blog for that.

For today, it's a birthday I'm grateful to be celebrating, with my patient family who has put way too many things on the back burner for too long. This morning the sky exploded in color behind the tree that kept me company through those long, restless months. You don't have to look much farther for a sign that 2015 will be a different year. God is good, and we are happy.