Simple Gravy or White Sauce

1 Tablespoon butter, oil or meat drippings
⅛ tsp. pepper
¼ tsp. salt
1-2 Tbsp. flour (or more for thickness desired)
1 c. broth or milk (use homemade broth cooked a short time for excitotoxin-limited diet if using broth)

Heat first four ingredients over low heat until smooth. Add liquid, turn heat up to medium, and stir until thick and smooth. A wisk works best for stirring, and you need to stir it fairly constantly, especially if using milk.

For gluten- and dairy-free, I use sweet rice flour and rice milk. Cashew or coconut milk could also work in this (coconut milk and garam masala spices are very good with poultry or rabbit meat).

This is a great base for casseroles, gravies, soups and all sorts of things.

We like to add tuna, deboned chicken, rabbit or sausage and serve it over biscuits, rice or mashed potatoes.

Bone Broth

(Note: If you are limiting excitotoxins in your diet, this is not a safe recipe as cooking meat and bones for long periods of time tends to release/create excitotoxins.)

Bone broth is really easy to make. All you need is some bones, a big pot, and some water. I like to cut the meat off the bones and save up my bones in a bag in the freezer until I have enough to make broth. I usually use about a quart of bones, but the amount doesn't matter.

Put the bones in the pot and add enough water to cover the bones by at least an inch or two. Add a tablespoon or two of any edible acid--I usually use lemon juice, but a lot of people like to use apple cider vinegar. This can be left out if desired, but the acid helps to draw the minerals out of the bones.

Bring to a boil, turn down to a simmer and cook for a very long time. I usually cook mine for 24 hours or so. Replenish the water as needed to keep the bones covered. I usually leave a lid on for most of the cooking and then take it off at the end to condense the broth. Cook the broth until the bones start to get soft and crumbly--the idea is to get as many minerals as possible out of the bones. You can add spices, vegetables and/or salt during the last part of cooking if desired.

If desired, remove the bones and simmer, uncovered, for several more hours to condense the broth to just a few inches in the bottom of the pan (usually half the original volume or less). This will make it concentrated enough to freeze in ice cube trays to use like bullion in recipes.

You can use bone broth as the base for a soup, add it to casseroles or other dishes, drink it plain, or use it however you wish. It's chock-full of calcium and other important minerals.

Using Quinoa

Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) is a gluten-free grain with especially high vitamin and protein content, but many people don't use it because they aren't familiar with it. Quinoa grain has a bitter coating called saponin that must be washed off before it is eaten.

The secret to cooking whole quinoa is to wash the quinoa really, really well (rinse until it stops foaming, then a little more). You can also accomplish this by soaking the grain for several hours, changing the water several times during the process.

Toasting the rinsed quinoa is a good way to bring out the nutty flavor before adding the water and cooking it. Heat it over medium-low heat in a frying pan until the kernels are dry and starting to turn golden-brown.

To cook whole quinoa, use 2 parts water or broth to 1 part quinoa and prepare just like rice. Bring it to a boil and then simmer it until the liquid is absorbed.

Quinoa flour does tend to have a bit of a bitter flavor, so I always use something with a strong flavor to offset the bitterness--white sugar won't do it. You need something like brown sugar, molasses or maple syrup. Those types of flavors work well with the quinoa flavor.

If it is excessively bitter, it is probably rancid. Smell it. If the smell is really sour/bitter, like fumes rising up off it, it is rancid.

These alternate flours like quinoa and amaranth get rancid easily, so you need to store them in a tightly-closed container in the refrigerator or freezer. If it is rancid and you bought it recently, you should be able to return/exchange it where you bought it.

Tapioca Drink Base

Since we discovered that my daughter was aspirating thin fluids, we make up several cups at a time of this tapioca thickening base and add it to all kinds of things. We mix it about half and half for the child with aspiration issues, and it helps to keep whatever she drinks from ending up in her lungs.

You can expect to see more recipes featuring this base soon--it makes a nice substitute for milk and other thickening/smoothing agents in smoothies and other beverages.

Mix 1 tablespoon tapioca starch per 1 cup of cold water.

Heat, stirring frequently, until almost or just barely boiling. If cooking on the stovetop it may be a bit smoother as you can stir it more constantly, but I usually do it in the microwave. In the microwave I start off with 1 minute, then continue cooking in 30-second increments, stirring well at each pause.

The mixture will thicken and become more transparent-looking (less like white powder mixed into water, and more like a cohesive whole). Stop cooking it at that point, or it will begin to separate again.

You can store this in the refrigerator and mix it with other fluids to thicken them without needing to reheat it. If it gets lumpy, put it in the blender and it will become smoother but slightly less thick.

Roasted Vegetables or Tubers

Thanks to some commenters on the Purple Puzzle Place blog, I've discovered a new favorite way to cook many kinds of vegetables: roasting.

Roasting works well for cauliflower and for just about any kind of root vegetable. So far I've tried it with potatoes, carrots, jicama, and lotus root, as well as our favorite cauliflower. Yams, taro, turnips, squash, parsnips, cassave (yuca) roots, and many other vegetables should work just as well.

The basic recipe is pretty simple:

Preheat the oven to about 475 degrees.

Cut your vegetable(s) of choice into approximately 1 inch chunks. Put them into a plastic bag and drizzle your favorite healthy oil over them. Just shake and squish the bag to evenly distribute the oil.

I use about 1/4 cup of olive oil for a whole cauliflower or 6 potatoes--you want just enough to coat the vegetables.

Spread the oiled vegetables in an uncovered baking dish. I usually use a 9 x 13 glass dish. If you can get the vegetables in a single layer they will cook a little better, but if not just spread them as thinly as possible and stir a little more frequently while cooking.

Bake at 475 for about 15 minutes, then stir. Bake for another 15-30 minutes (depending on the vegetable) or until the vegetables are getting tender and browning on the edges. Stir every 10 minutes or so.

Some vegetables I like to cook until they're getting almost black on the tips and edges, but you can adjust this to your taste. Cauliflower is particularly good this way, as it carmelizes and develops a savory rich flavor with hints of sweetness. Even my family members who "hate" cauliflower will eat it roasted this way.

For extra flavor, you can add some leeks or onion, a clove or two of minced garlic, herbs, spices or salt and pepper. I like to mix various vegetables and flavorings for variety, and just sprinkle with sea salt to taste.

You can chop the vegetables and coat them with oil ahead of time. I've done this with olive oil, garlic and dill on potatoes and carrots. The oil coating kept the potatoes from browning and they absorbed the flavors well. I cut up a big batch and refrigerated half to bake later, and it tasted just as good baked two days later as it had originally.

Basic Stir-fry

Stir fry is one of the easiest and most flexible foods to make. It's really hard to ruin; you just put in random amounts of various vegetables, add a protein of some sort if desired (meat, cooked or canned beans, or chickpeas work well), fry a bit, and serve.

Or, you can take the same mixture of vegetables and throw them in a steamer for 5 or 10 minutes. Steaming gives a different flavor and texture, but is also good.

I don't own a wok, so I just use a frying pan for my stir-fry.

If I'm using meat in the stir-fry I like to toast my garlic and onion in a bit of oil the pan first so the meat picks up some of the flavor. Then I remove the garlic and onion to another dish and fry the meat, adding the garlic and onion back in with the other veggies. You can leave out the onion, garlic and oil if you need or want to; they're not really necessary at all.

Incidentally, if you use much garlic a decent garlic press is definitely worth the $5 or $10 investment. I use mine all the time. It's so much faster than mincing garlic with a knife. The trick is to rinse the mashed garlic out of the press before you put it in the dishwasher, or it will be hard to get clean.

While the meat is cooking I wash and cut up vegetables, stirring the meat frequently. I do the firmest vegetables first, because they take longest to cook.

When the meat is almost or barely done cooking, I start adding vegetables as I cut them up. I'll put in hard things like carrots, potatoes, turnips and parsnips first if I've cut them into chunks or slices. If they're grated, you can add them at the same time as the softer vegetables and they will cook faster.

In general, I add the hardest vegetables first and the most delicate vegetables last. Something like lettuce, corn or peas takes very little time to cook, so it will go in just before serving. You can throw in any leftover cooked vegetables at this time, too, and just heat them before serving.

If you are using tofu or cooked legumes, you'll want to add them with the soft vegetables or at the end of cooking so they don't get overcooked and broken up.

Kale, although it is a leafy vegetable, takes longer to cook so you'll want to add it earlier. I usually blanch broccoli for 1-2 minutes in boiling water before adding it to a stir-fry; it has a better color and texture that way, and cooks faster.

I often cover my stir-fry with a lid or some aluminum foil to help hold in the heat so it cooks more quickly and evenly. Stir frequently so the veggies don't burn. Cook just until the veggies are starting to get tender and brown a bit on the edges.

Most vegetables have quite a lot of flavor, so extra seasonings really aren't necessary, although you can add them if you like. I usually use just salt, maybe a dash of pepper, and sometimes some sesame oil.

Last night I made a stir-fry with a minced clove of garlic, about half a leek, a pound of ground veal, 4 or 5 smallish carrots, 3 stalks of celery, 4 leaves of kale, and a zucchini, all sliced thin and added in that order. It was delicious.

Other vegetables that are good in a stir-fry include turnip, jicama, parsely, cabbage, bok choy, mushrooms, corn, tomatoes, cooked beet, green beans, yellow squash, peppers, eggplant, cauliflower, cooked cassava/yuca, bean sprouts, lettuce or just about any vegetable you enjoy and can tolerate. Some fruits such as apples or citrus fruits add a really nice touch to a stir-fry, too.

You can serve a stir-fry over some kind of a starch or grain (noodles, spaghetti squash, rice, cubed bread, any cooked grain, or a mashed root vegetable such as potato) if you want to. Or, as we did last night, you can simply eat the stir-fry by itself.

It's a great thing for someone who doesn't cook much to try making, because it's such a simple and flexible dish.

A basic rule of thumb if you're making a stir-fry for the first time might be to choose 5 ingredients or fewer in addition to your protein and seasonings. Don't make it too complicated for yourself at first. If you add too many different things and cook it to long, you can end up muddying the flavors. It will probably still be good, but keeping things simple seems to make it even better.

Simple Soup Stock

Broth or stock is the basic ingredient in soup making, and is also used in many recipes.

You can, of course, make a soup with just water and your soup ingredients. In most recipes, you can simply substitute water (and salt, if desired) for the broth called for. Or, for a meaty-tasting vegan option, add a tablespoon or more of nutritional yeast.

That works just fine, despite what the bouillon cube and soup stock manufacturers would have you believe. Most commercial bouillon or soup stock is mostly water and salt, anyway.

But for an extra nice, rich flavor boost to your soup, you can easily make your own soup stock.

The very easiest way to make stock is to simply take the leftover liquid from cooking meat or vegetables and condense it. You can add salt and other seasonings if you like, or just use the liquid as is.

Condensing the stock is easy. Just put the liquid into a pot and simmer it slowly with the lid off until it's half or less of its original volume. The more the water evaporates, the more condensed and stronger-flavored your stock will be.

This will take several hours, so you can just leave it to simmer while you're doing other things. I usually set my burner at 1 or 2 on a scale of 10 for this. As long as the broth level isn't getting too low, I've even gone to sleep or left the house while broth is simmering on a back burner of my electric stove. A flat-topped woodburning stove is great for simmering things over a long period of time, too.

Once it's condensed enough for your tastes, take the pan off the burner and let it cool. If it's a meat-based broth, you'll probably want to chill the stock and scrape the fat off the top before doing anything else with it. The fat can be saved and used as your oil or shortening in cooking later.

I like to freeze my condensed broth into ice cube trays to use as a substitute for bouillon cubes. After the cubes freeze, I store them in a labeled container and can take out exactly the quantity I need for use in recipes.

Remember that the flavor will be stronger than the original broth, so you'll most likely want to add water if the recipe calls for broth or soup stock instead of boullion. I usually use between 1 and 3 cubes per cup of water.

I like to cook chicken by covering it with water and simmering it until done, so I usually condense and use the water and juices left in the pan this way. Sometimes I do it right away just by leaving the pan on the stove after I remove the chicken. Other times I put it the broth in the refrigerator for a day or so until I get a chance to condense it.

You can make an even more flavorful broth from scratch.

The basic idea is that you simmer meat and/or vegetables in a quantity of water until the flavor and many of the nutritional qualities of the other ingredients have seeped into the water. You can use just about any combination of one or more ingredients for this. Many people like to keep a container in their freezer and dump leftover bits of meat and/or veggies into it until it's full, and then use that to make their soup.

If you are starting a meat-based broth from scratch, it's nice to use the bones if you have them. You can roast them in the oven at 375 or so until browned for a richer flavor, if you like, but that's not necessary.

If possible, it's a good idea to crack or break the bones to allow the calcium to escape into the broth. If you're buying soup bones from the butcher, ask to have them cracked or cut up. Adding a teaspoon or two of apple cider vinegar will help draw the calcium from the bones into your broth.

Put the bones and/or meat into the pan and add enough water to cover them with at least a half-inch of water over the bones. Then add the vinegar, if desired, and whatever spices you want. Anything other than the meat or bones and water is completely optional.

For most broths you can add some salt (I use unrefined sea salt) at the beginning if desired. If you are cooking legumes (beans or dried peas) the salt will make them tough, so you'll want to add any salt toward the end of cooking.

All you do is bring the water to a gentle boil, then turn it down to a simmer so that it's just barely or almost boiling. You want to simmer it for at least an hour or two, but the longer you simmer it the stronger the flavor. Any longer than 12 to 24 hours, though, and you're going to start getting a bitter flavor and degenerating quality. I recommend 1 to 4 hours for vegetable stock and 2 to 8 hours for meat broths.

You may need to add water occasionally to keep the bones or vegetables covered during cooking.

Once you think you've simmered it long enough to get most of the flavor out of the ingredients, remove the meat or vegetables from the water. You can taste them to see if they're getting rather flavorless; if they are it's time to take them out. If you want to use them in a soup, you'll want to cook the broth for a shorter amount of time so that the meat or vegetables still have some flavor.

Now you may want to strain your broth to get out any chunks. Straining is optional, but because you're cooking this for so long, any chunks will not have much flavor by the time you eat them. If you have shards of bone in your broth, straining is not optional. You don't want bone slivers in your soup.

Next, return the liquid to the pot and condense it as described above.

This broth is healthier and much cheaper than anything you'd buy at the store.