I know little about gluten, beyond its troublesome reputation, but, frankly, that’s enough. I have friends and relatives who suffer when they eat it, and I cannot help but notice a correlation between how much of it we consume and my children’s eczema. The less gluten we eat, the better their skin appears. Still, we miss it. As my eldest told me yesterday, “Being gluten-free is not so good because you miss out on all sorts of stuff and you have to double check and you have less of the foods you like.”

Less of things like pizza and bagels, the former a staple and the latter a New York City treat. This is because gluten is instrumental in getting dough to rise. The gluten acts like a balloon, trapping the gasses from the yeast. This tiny bit of knowledge has stopped me from trying to make gluten-free pizza dough. The only other thing I know about gluten is a bit about its etymology. The word “gluten” dates back to the 16th century, initially referred to animal protein, and can trace its root to the Latin word for glue.

At some point, I’ll try making gluten-free pizza dough (anyone with any tips, send them my way). In the meantime, I figured I’d start with something easy, like popovers. “JK,” as my ten-year-old says, when she slips into texting language: “Just Kidding.” Popovers are incredibly temperamental creatures, but, after nearly two decades of marriage, I have an affinity for such things.

Plus, I had King Arthur’s multi-purpose gluten-free flour on my side, and the box comes with a recipe for gluten-free popovers on the back. I’m good at following directions and the recipe worked. We were salivating as the rising popovers filled the kitchen with a delightful aroma, they were airy and crispy from the first bite.

King Arthur Flour’s Gluten-Free Popovers

• 4 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 ¼ cups lukewarm milk
• 1 cup multi-purpose gluten-free flour
• ¼ teaspoon xanthan gum
• ½ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Grease a 12-cup popover pan or muffin pan (Note: my popover pan is for six large ones, and it worked fine).

Whisk together the eggs, butter, and milk in a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.

Gradually add the the dry ingredients to the bowl of milk, eggs, and butter, whisking continuously.

Whisk the mixture until the batter is smooth.

Pour the batter into the greased cups, filling each one about 2/3 full.

Bake for 25 minutes and then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 15 minutes more.

During baking be sure to NEVER open the oven.

Remove pan from oven and let popovers firm for 5 minutes.

Remove popovers from pan and eat immediately, preferably with butter and jam

Here’s how they looked when I put them on the table. Enjoy the smiles.

As an experiment to improve the heath of our children, we are trying out the gluten-free lifestyle. Like me and many of their forebears, Nina and Pinta have long had eczema, to varying degrees. This recently distressed Santa Maria so much that we agreed to try going gluten free.

Santa Maria was even willing to give it a shot herself, though lacking any health need she said she had nothing to gain. On the contrary, I told her, she would at least now be trendy. She didn’t really like that, but as the one charged with stocking the pantry every week and shoveling coal into the bottomless furnaces of our growing offspring day in and day out, I felt entitled to a bit of humor.

We started the experiment a few weeks ago, mostly by eliminating such beloved items as pizza and bagels from our diet. Aside from asking gluten-free friends for bread recommendations, we haven’t really tried replacing baked goods (though on the first day I attempted gluten-free pancakes, without doing proper research, and we all suffered). Monday afternoon, however, Santa Maria whipped up a batch of gluten-free corn muffins that made everyone forget the experiment.

She found a recipe online and substituted King Arthur’s gluten-free multi-purpose flour (which from subsequent pancake attempts we discovered is a good, if slightly sweet, replacement for regular flour, in some recipes). The muffins were light and crunchy, with a crispy edge and deep corn flavor. She added frozen blueberries and raspberries which delighted Pinta and added another level of color and complexity. Toasted and topped with melting butter, they disappeared faster than it could be revealed that they are gluten-free. I could barely find one left to draw when all was said and done. I hope we see more of these around the house soon. Here's her recipe.

Santa Maria’s One Bowl Gluten-Free Corn Muffins

• 1 cup cornmeal (I like Bob’s Red Mill coarse grind)
• 1 cup King Arthur multi-purpose gluten-free flour
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup frozen blueberries and/or raspberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 

Grease muffin tin or line with paper muffin liners.

In a large bowl, mix together corn meal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

Add egg, oil and milk; stir gently to combine.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

Optional: add 1 Tablespoon frozen organic blueberries or raspberries to the center of the batter (my favorite is a mix of both).

Bake at 400 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean and the tops are lightly golden.

Serve with butter and a frosted glass of cold milk!

Springtime has arrived, finally, and nature is up to its old tricks. The days are getting longer. Trees are starting to blossom. Asparagus is in season. The daffodils arrive, then the tulips. It’s great fun to throw off one’s jacket and run through the sunshine. Everything old seems new. 

I like to learn from nature, so when the fine folks at Kraft asked me to do a post this month, I came up with a new take on an old favorite—the brunch bagel.

I did away with the bagel, and made a omelet that’s ripe for the season, full of my favorite fixings—smoked salmon, cream cheese, red onions, tomatoes, and capers. The result is a fresh, delicious, and creamy omelet, with the smooth tartness of the cream cheese setting of the sharpness of the smoked salmon and the red onions. The tomatoes add a bit of sweetness and the capers a savory touch. All together, it’s a springtime delight. The recipe can be found here.

Father’s Day is next Sunday, and for years the go-to dish around the Stay at Stove Dad household has been what we call a “Dutch Baby.” It’s a creation of Santa Maria, who got the recipe from her mother. We have it for breakfast, though Santa Maria grew up eating it for dessert, when her mother presented it as a “Hawaiian Pancake.” No matter its name, there’s no question about its appeal. A sort of sweet and savory giant popover that rises radically in the oven and then falls before you can serve it, the dish is as delicious as it is dramatic. Its origins, however, have always been obscure to us. Where did this recipe really come from? Now the mystery has been solved. 

Or, more accurately, the mystery was solved in 2007. Amanda Hesser explained the origins of the dish in the New York Times Magazine that year. How did I miss it? 2007 was the year a black-hole of exhaustion swallowed my existence, following the birth of my second child, so I shouldn’t be surprised. That it took me until now to come across Hesser's article online shows how powerful that black hole was. Maybe now that I've found it, this is a sign that I'm escaping its pull!

For as I discovered, the correct name of the dish is “David Eyres Pancake,” as Craig Claiborne christened it in the Times when he first wrote about it, in 1966, describing it thusly, “It was discovered some weeks ago at an informal Sunday brunch in the handsome, Japanese-style home of the David Eyres in Honolulu. With Diamond Head in the distance, a brilliant, palm-ringed sea below and this delicately flavored pancake before us, we seemed to have achieved paradise.”

The Dutch Baby is paradise, but now that I’m sliding into middle age with the speed of a runner stealing home on a squeeze play, I’m eating lighter. This year Santa Maria and company might need to look further afield for a Father’s Day gift for me. 

One place she might want to check out is Uncommon Goods, which is sponsoring this post. I’m delighted to partner with them for ideas for Father’s Day. Uncommon Goods is a retailer that specializes in handmade and recycled goods. They are a B Corp, which means they meet strict standards for fair wages, environmental impact, and other issues. And they have really cool things, such as framed blueprints of famous baseball stadiums, molecular-gastronomy kits, and clever “Puzzle Pizza Stones,” that comes apart for storing and cleaning. These and many more gifts can be found in their guide for Father’s Day giving. They sell things for inside the house and out, for women and for men. More of their selections for men can be found here. And they can personalize gifts in many categories. 

Never mind my slowing metabolism, the Dutch Baby has a powerful allure. My kids go crazy for it. Pinta wanted it for her birthday a few weeks ago. I think it was then that I realized that I might need a break from it. Once a year is plenty for me. But you should see for yourself. It really is uncommonly good.

Santa Maria's Dutch Baby

 Batter:

• 3 large eggs at room temperature 30 minutes
• 2/3 cup 1 % milk at room temperature
• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg (preferably freshly grated)
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter 

Topping: 

• ¼ c powdered sugar
• ½ lemon, juiced

Put a 10-inch cast-iron skillet on middle rack of oven and preheat oven to 450°F. 

Beat eggs with a whisk until pale and frothy, then beat in milk, flour, nutmeg, and salt and continue to beat until smooth, about 1 minute more (batter will be thin).

Add butter to hot skillet and melt, swirling to coat. Add batter and immediately return skillet to oven. Bake until puffed and golden-brown, 18 to 25 minutes.

Serve immediately, topped with powdered sugar and lemon juice.

Serve with cherry jam. Mmmmmmmmm.

Image credit: The black-hole image at the top is via By User:Alain r (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

It feels like just yesterday that I was pushing my girls in a stroller on the weekends, and now I can’t catch them while playing tag in the park. Before I know it, they will be out of the house—in college, out on their own, off to seek adventure—and I will be back to cooking just for Santa Maria and myself. I know that my time in the kitchen is limited.

On the other hand…

It also feels, on some days, that I’ll never get out of the kitchen: Breakfast, lunch, dinner—they all add up. I know I’m not alone in feeling this. Santa Maria often reminds me that she’s the one putting dinner on the table the nights I’m working late. And I met a fellow over the weekend with two kids and who works from home. He makes the breakfasts and dinners and he said to me, “My wife told me she has no life. We have no life,” referring to how much time they spend tending to domestic tasks.

And in the meantime…

My children are doing more and more in the kitchen. Just tonight, Nina made up her own way of chopping tomatoes. She prefers to do that rather than set the table (the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree). For her part, Pinta, my little one, has created a new way to eat pancakes.

Pancakes are a weekend treat around our house. I make them from scratch, and once you’ve done this a few times, you’ll find it’s as easy as opening a box of mix. I used to separate and beat the egg whites, to make them supper fluffy, but as I’ve gotten older, wiser, and more tired, I’ve started cutting back. I’ve learned an easier way to make them.

The trick is to do less, not more. This is also useful when discussing problematic issues with one’s spouse. Take it easy. Don’t mix the batter too much. Let it sit, full of lumps. Just as time heals all wounds, if you let the batter rest about ten minutes or twenty, it will turn out much better. And if you take a break when talking over hard issues with your spouse, it can be much more productive to return to them later, after everyone has cooled down.

These days, I thin the batter with extra milk, and make giant, crepe-like pancakes. I do this by putting a spoonful of batter in the middle of the hot, buttered, frying pan, and then tipping the pan back and forth so the batter spreads out in a circular fashion as much as it can.

Once it is spread out, I flip it and cook it like a normal pancake:

Nina and Pinta eat their pan-crepes with cinnamon sugar, and Pinta has taken to rolling hers up and then cutting it crossways, and making wee Rugelach-like bites. This is the fun part of cooking for yourself and the family, seeing how they enoy the food. It makes all the time in the kitchen worthwhile.

Pan-Crepes

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups of milk, plus additional milk
• 2 eggs,slightly beaten
• 1 to 2 tablespoons butter, melted

Combine the dry ingredients with a fork, and mix well
Combine the eggs, the milk, and the butter.
Mix the wet ingredients into the dry, and stir with spoon until combined, but not too much. It’s fine to leave lumps. Let sit ten to twenty minutes if possible (but not absolutely necessary).

Look at the batter. If it is thick, thin it out a bit with some extra milk. I don’t have a hard and fast rule for this.

Once the batter is thin and runny, spoon a bit into a large, hot and buttered frying pan, and tip the pan back and forth (being careful not to burn yourself) until the batter covers as much as the pan as possible.

As soon as bubbles start to appear, flip and cook through on the other side.

Serve with warm maple syrup or cinnamon sugar, as you please.

To me, tomatoes have always been like people: often around, but rarely worth knowing. Still, there have a been a few in my life that struck me with such goodness that I haven’t given up on them. When I was younger, I had one during a bachelor party at the Commander’s Palace, in New Orleans, that still lives in my mind. It animated my mouth with such a fury that I thought I’d be speaking in tongues soon. I might not have been making sense at that dinner for other reasons, the euphoria of youth being the most powerful one.

When I do the shopping for the family these days, I so often feel like I’m under such time pressure—to move the car, to get back to the house, to get to work—that I move rapidly and grab the first things I see. This sounds like a very silly strategy, but I’m no fool. I shop almost excessively at a local food coop, where the prices are low (there’s only a mark up to cover overhead) and the produce flies off the shelf faster than the anxious thoughts move through my head. Everything is there is fresh.

Shuffling down the aisle of the Coop recently and looking for tomatoes, I grabbed a box of Village Farms Sinfully Sweet Camparis. It was a reckless move, for I don’t know if I can go back to any other tomatoes. These things are summer in every bite. Turns out that they are grown in hydroponic greenhouses in a small town in West Texas called Marfa. I have good friends who live in Marfa, which sits on a plateau in the Chihuahan Desert, and it is a strange and fascinating place of “Mystery Lights” and minimalist art installations. To that I have to add the best tomatoes I’ve tasted in a long time, especially in winter.

I sliced a few on Sunday morning, and added them to an omelet of goat cheese, ham, and parsley. That sounds simple, but as I was preparing it, I was in the midst of doing five loads of laundry (we live in an apartment building), making breakfast for the kids, and and cooking black beans, tagine, and Bolognese. I had a lot going on, and I couldn’t sit and eat my omelet when it was ready. By the time I got back to it, the thing was so sorry-looking that I can’t even use the photograph of it here. But the cheese was so rich, the ham so savory, and the parsley so sharp that everything was all right. And the tomatoes were so bright, that they made me feel young again.

If a poached egg is is like being engaged, then an egg poached in olive oil is like being married—a bit more effort, but infinitely richer and more rewarding. I was first introduced to the idea of an olive-oil poached egg a few years ago, when I interviewed Tamar E. Adler, the author of “An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace,” but much in the same way it took me some thirty years to get married, I only recently tried poaching an egg in olive oil.

I don’t really know how to describe how good an egg poached in olive oil tastes. It’s like asking me to tell you what’s great about my marriage. You’ll probably lose your appetite before I can get to the second sentence. Just trust me, and try it. If you don’t like it, it’s not as if you’ll have to pay for a divorce. We’re talking about a relatively small commitment here.

One thing that did hold me back a bit was the relatively large amount of oil that’s needed. I didn’t want to waste it, but as I recently learned, you can save the oil after you are done with it, and use it for cooking over the next few days. Like in a marriage, a little information can solve a lot of problems (and I won’t charge $150 an hour for that advice).

Santa Maria wasn’t interested an olive-oil poached egg, and my kids didn’t care for one either. Still, I made the egg for myself the other day—taking care of one’s self is important in a marriage, for how can you take care of another, if you haven’t cared for yourself? I wanted a break from my standard daily-cooking fare, and I also wanted a taste of simple luxury. A quarter cup of olive oil on an egg provided that with ease.

I started with a pan full of oil, and added a touch of butter for some more luxury. The more traditional recipes for olive-oil poached eggs use garlic, peppers, bay leaves, and other ingredients to flavor the oil. Seamus Mullen, the New York City chef, has posted a nifty video that shows just how to enhance your experience with poaching in olive oil. He also has a good tip about getting the oil to the right temperature—keep the heat low, and get it to a point where you can stick your thumb in it for a moment without burning it which somehow sounds a bit like marriage to me, but I’ll skip that.

Most recipes for poaching an egg in olive oil show instructions for a soft yoke yolk. One of the advantages of this way of cooking is that the edges of the egg take on the characteristics of a fried egg, but the yolk comes off more as poached. Many people like it this way. I, on the other hand, like my yoke yolk cooked all the way through. This is a good example of why one should learn to cook for him or herself—you can make the food the way you want it. I encourage you to play around—not with your marriage, but in the kitchen.

Therefore, I flipped my eggs and cooked them all the way through. This is not traditional, but it’s what I wanted.

I served my eggs on toast, dressed with slices of Parmesan, a garnish of fresh parsley, and a dash or two of Tabasco. But eggs poached in olive oil are extremely versatile, and are good for far more than breakfast. They make for a nice salad with chicory and speck (as Samin Nosrat shows on Food52.com); they go over flatbreads (as Oh Joy! does, with chicken mole), and Tamar E. Adler puts hers over pasta. Like a good marriage, an egg poached in olive oil will take you all kinds of wonderful places.

Olive Oil Poached Eggs

• 1/4 cup or so of olive oil
• 1-2 eggs

Heat the olive oil in a small pan until you can hold your thumb in the oil for just a moment, without burning it.

Slide the egg into the oil, using a spoon to ladle the hot oil over the yolk.

Cook as you like it, and serve over toast as mentioned above.

I’ve been busy with a few freelance assignments and other projects, and have been away from blogging and cooking, just a bit. I tried stepping into the kitchen this weekend, but I was a bit out of cooking shaped. Back in the day, I could knock out the trifecta of Bolognese sauce, black beans, and quinoa salad in a matter of hours. Today, I was out of the running shortly after getting the beans simmering. I cooked the quinoa, but the chopping of the vegetables and the roasting of the potato will have to wait.

And it’s not just the cooking that’s starting to break down around the Stay at Stove Dad household, it’s the shopping and stocking of necessary ingredients. This morning, we were out of butter, a catastrophe in my mind akin to taking off on a trans-Atlantic flight with half a tank of fuel.

I didn’t crash, though, when it came time to make breakfast. I knew I had some eggs and a tiny bit of chorizo, so I chopped and crisped the sausage and mixed it into scrambled eggs. I topped it with salsa and placed it on a corn tortilla. Voila, a breakfast burrito. I swear it was as good as any I might have had out at brunch, if going out to brunch was part of my life right now.

Soccer, birthday parties, swimming lessons, seeing family and friends, and working, working, working—that’s what’s taken over my life. It’s a regular horn of plenty. I like this rich life, but it makes it hard to eat well. It takes a lot of planning, work and a bit of luck to pull it all together. Thank goodness I had that chorizo lingering around. If you live a busy life, keep at it—keep shopping, stocking your larder, reading cookbooks, and if you have to, improvise your breakfast. It will all work out.

Scrambled-Life Breakfast Burrito

Serves two.

• About a quarter link of chorizo
• 4 eggs
• A couple of slices of cheddar cheese
• 4 corn tortillas
• salsa

Chop the chorizo into small pieces, and sauté in a little oil in a frying pan until crisp.

Drain the sausage on a paper towel, as if you are making bacon.

Scramble two eggs, mixing the sausage in  as you go.

Top with cheddar cheese and cover with a bowl, to let the cheese melt*

Warm two corn tortillas in a pan.

Spread the egg mixture over the tortillas.

Fold the tortillas with the eggs to eat.

*I melt the cheese over the eggs using the heat that’s left from the cooking of them. I simply drape the slices atop the hot eggs and cover right away with a bowl. I help this process along, by then putting the plate in a warm oven, while I prepare the rest of the breakfast for the rest of my family, which usually takes about another ten minutes or so. You might not have this luxury, and should adjust how you melt your cheese accordingly.

As I mentioned previously, I celebrated Father’s Day a week early, and we did it in high style. Santa Maria made many offers to cook, some of which (such as the Butterscotch Brownies) I wasn’t consulted about, and some of which (Rib eye steak) were far too generous for me to accept. I had one request, though. Actually I had two requests. I wanted a Dutch Baby, and I wanted two of them—one to share with my girls, and one for myself.

The Dutch Baby is a wild breakfast treat that's so rich it’s almost a dessert. Santa Maria grew up eating them that way, and her mother called it a Hawaiian Pancake, and that name is not much of a stretch.

It starts with a lot of butter:

Then some eggs and some other ingredients (the full recipe is below) are mixed together, and it is put in the oven.

About fifteen or so minutes later, the pan starts bursting with flavor and excitement:

They look like this, fresh out of the oven:

But then it gets better. They are topped with powdered sugar and lemon juice, and then served with cherry jam.

It’s hard to keep your fingers off them!

Dutch Baby!!

Batter:

                        3 large eggs at room temperature 30 minutes

                        2/3 cup 1 % milk at room temperature

                        2/3 cup all-purpose flour

                        1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg (preferably freshly grated)

                        1/8 teaspoon salt

                        1/2 stick unsalted butter

Topping:

                        ¼ c powdered sugar

                        ½ lemon, juiced

Put a 10-inch cast-iron skillet on middle rack of oven and preheat oven to 450°F.

Beat eggs with a whisk until pale and frothy, then beat in milk, flour, nutmeg, and salt and continue to beat until smooth, about 1 minute more (batter will be thin).

Add butter to hot skillet and melt, swirling to coat. Add batter and immediately return skillet to oven. Bake until puffed and golden-brown, 18 to 25 minutes.

Serve immediately, topped with powdered sugar and lemon juice.

Serve with cherry jam. Mmmmmmmmm.

For the most part, I keep this blog clean and free of advertising. My focus is on feeding my family and helping, I hope, you feed yours. I don’t want that message getting shouted down by flashing banners, pop-up ads, and other assorted visuals. There’s enough cacophony in life as it is.

Expenses do pile up, but don’t blame the lovingly convenient and savory things I favor—such as those D’Artagnan chicken truffle sausages—blame me! I take full responsibility for my food bill (and, no, this is not a plug for D'Artagnan). Therefore, when a company I respect approaches me with a good offer, I’m inclined to take them up on it, especially if it includes something that can benefit my readers (there’s a reward at the end of this post).

Hence, I found myself making a slightly more elaborate than usual breakfast this morning, wrapping eggs, bacon, and diced pepper in corn tortillas. I was following up on the Sargento “Thin to Win” challenge that I started two weeks ago. The key thing here, from the perspective of Sargento (and my bank-account), was the “Ultra Thin Sliced Swiss Cheese.”

My task was to pick one of their recipes, make it, and report back on it. I chose their Bacon, Egg, and Swiss Wraps because theny looked good, and I had most of the ingredients on hand. To manage something this (slightly) complicated on a weekday morning (I think it would work better on a Saturday or Sunday, and would be good for a brunch with friends), I did some of the prep ahead of time. I crisped the bacon and cooked the bell pepper and onion the night before, and left them in the pan (covered) in the fridge. That way, this morning, all I had to do was gently heat it before moving on to the next step of the recipe.

This morning, I added the eggs, heated the tortillas, and added the cheese. I knew going into this recipe that once the onions, bacon, and pepper were ready, the rest of it would be as easy as making scrambled eggs and quesadillas, two things I have ample experience with.

As for the taste, I liked it well enough. The thin slices of cheese were easy to work with and they saved me a bit of time, but, the bacon and the onion and the pepper announced themselves in the dish with bold voices, and the cheese acted shy. If I was making this again, I’d go for a sharper cheddar, and I don’t mind slicing things myself. As I’ve learned as a father in a household full of girls, it can take some effort to get heard.

And now, I want to hear from you. Tell me in a comment below about your favorite family breakfast, and the tricks you do to get things on the table in time. The one I find most informative and entertaining will win three coupons from Sargento to try their “Ultra Thin Sliced Cheese.”

Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Wraps, inspired by Sargento

• 2 slices bacon, cooked crisp, crumbled 
• 1 Tbsp. canola oil or butter
• ½ small onion, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 4 eggs, lightly beaten
• salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 2 (8-inch) whole wheat or high fiber flour tortillas
• 4 slices Sargento® Ultra Thin Sliced Swiss Cheese, or cheese of your choice

Cook and crumble the bacon.

Sauté the onion in the oil until it is translucent, and starting to brown.

Add the bell pepper, and sauté for a moment more.

Stir in the eggs and salt and pepper, and stir while cooking, until the eggs are just about set.

Add the bacon.

In a separate frying pan, warm the tortillas on one side and then flip them.

Add a layer of cheese, top with the egg mixture, and roll up and serve.

 Enjoy!

Note: the photo above is from Sargento; this morning was a touch to hectic to break out the digital camera. I don’t know what happened.