Re: Recipe conversion--Greco

[Guest guest]

>Greco

>

>1 pound ground beef, browned and drained

>3-4 potatoes, cubed and browned

>1 can creamed corn

>1 can tomato paste

>3-4 garden tomatoes, skinned & chopped OR 1 can tomatoes with juice

>salt & pepper to taste

>

>Combine all ingredients in casserole dish, cover and bake at 350

>till heated through, approximately 30 minutes. Garnish with grated

>cheese.

Creamed corn often has gluten in it (thickener) so I'd watch out

for that. I make something similar ... ground beef, chopped onion,

chopped celery, and canned tomatoes. I think tomato paste is one

of the " few " canned items Sally uses in some of her recipes ... it's

traditional in Italian cooking and it has always been cooked for a long

time (to make it more concentrated) and it's full of good stuff. I think

a good organic tomato sauce is better though (like Muir Glen), and easier.

The canned stuff tastes metallic to me.

As for cheese .. that's not a problem unless you are allergic to dairy.

Just get good cheese. If you have problems with dairy, mix some

GF bread crumbs with some oil or fat and sprinkle on the top to

make a crispy crust.

But you could just use corn right off the cob instead of creamed

corn, maybe with some coconut milk for " creaminess " . Or frozen corn

if that's what's available.

I make chicken

cassarole using coconut milk instead of 's soup ... most of those

old cassaroles do just fine if you use a gravy instead of soup as below:

Mix some arrowroot starch or tapioca or potato starch with some

coconut milk or cream.

Cook til thick.

To make " cream of mushroom " , add dried or fresh mushrooms.

Dry or fresh chopped onions are good too.

Voila! 's soup substitute! (I won't add here that the use

of 's soup was likely to replace " white sauce " that was

the previous standard, which is pretty much what the above is,

except I eliminated the " roux " step. You need to make a " roux " if

you use wheat flour because it clumps, or if you use milk, because

it curdles).

BTW I've really enjoyed reading the OLD cookbooks lately, before

they invented cans. Those recipes are NT by default! There are some

good ones from the 1700 and 1800's with annotations for modern

folks, like " The Martha Washington Book of Cookery " and " The Virginia

Housewife " . And the old " Joy of Cooking " from the '50s is good too!

Subscribing to " Cook's Magazine " is wonderful, it tells you how to do

all these basic things, like make sauces from scratch and fry chicken fried

steak (yummm!). They have good books too on specific subjects, like I have

one big one just for vegies, another for meats.

-- Heidi Jean

[Guest guest]

>>>Creamed corn often has gluten in it (thickener) so I'd watch out

for that. ... But you could just use corn right off the cob instead of creamed

corn, maybe with some coconut milk for " creaminess " . Or frozen corn

if that's what's available....<<<

I stopped using creamed corn some time ago when I realised that at least 1/2 of

the can is sugar, salt, water and thickener. I prefer to use whole corn (frozen

- until I get my veggie garden) and mush it up if the recipe calls for it. I

also watch that the coconut cream I get does not have water and thickener.

Cheers,

Tas'.

[Guest guest]

> Creamed corn often has gluten in it (thickener) so I'd watch out

> for that. . . I think tomato paste is one

> of the " few " canned items Sally uses in some of her recipes ...

I was curious about using ANY canned products . . . Fallon seems

quite adamant about avoiding any heat-processed foods, however, as

you point out, she DOES use the tomato paste. Are

tomatoes " special " ? Do they have a different composition that

allows them to survive the heat-treatment?

> I make chicken

> cassarole using coconut milk instead of 's soup ...

Wow, that's a new one for me to try . . . I've always used a roux

made from sweet rice flour.

>

> BTW I've really enjoyed reading the OLD cookbooks lately, before

> they invented cans. Those recipes are NT by default!

I just found some old cookbooks at an antique store! One goes into

great depth--it was a textbook for a college--and gives tons of

details . . . and even includes Examination Questions, just in case

I don't take things seriously enough--LOL! I was quite pleased to

discover that these books train you to plan meals that purposefully

and methodically incorporate animal fats in the diet. The section

on milk classified raw-milk-directly-from-the-farmer as " Certified

Milk " , while " pasturized " milk was considered an inferior second

choice, ranking only slightly higher than " sterilized " milk.

Such a journey this will be!

Danelle in Kansas

[Guest guest]

Ah, the sugar. I've spent 15 years looking at the ingredient labels

and have trained myself to " ignore " the items that ARE gf.

(((sigh))) I guess I'll have to start reading ALL the words on the

label again, huh? Thanks for the tips on corn . . . I'll work that

in.

Danelle in Kansas

> >>>Creamed corn often has gluten in it (thickener) so I'd watch

out

> for that. ... But you could just use corn right off the cob

instead of creamed

> corn, maybe with some coconut milk for " creaminess " . Or frozen corn

> if that's what's available....<<<

>

>

> I stopped using creamed corn some time ago when I realised that at

least 1/2 of the can is sugar, salt, water and thickener. I prefer

to use whole corn (frozen - until I get my veggie garden) and mush

it up if the recipe calls for it. I also watch that the coconut

cream I get does not have water and thickener.

>

> Cheers,

> Tas'.