Coconut Macaroons

I had a bag of unsweetened coconut lurking in the back of my cupboard, and in the spirit of trying to use up ingredients but also wanting something really simple to bake because I cannot deal with recipes that use up dozens of dishes these days, I made some macaroons. I was surprised by how much I liked them; they are slightly crisp on the outside and pleasantly chewy inside.

Macaroons: very simple to make, and gluten-free/dairy-free without adaptation.

Macaroons (with unsweetened coconut)

Adapted from this recipe

As always, if you need to be gluten-free, make sure to check your ingredient labels before baking.

3 egg whites

2 cups finely shredded unsweetened coconut

½ cup plus 1 TBS granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ tsp sea salt (optional)

Yields about 12 cookies.

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Mix all the ingredients together, until all the coconut is incorporated and the dough is slightly sticky (you may need to use a little more or less coconut depending on how big your egg whites are).

Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper (or use a lot of cooking spray instead of the paper, but I like parchment paper because it makes clean up really easy). Using your hands or a spoon, form the dough into walnut-sized balls and place on the baking sheet. Flatten them slightly.

Bake at 350 F for 16-20 minutes, until the macaroons are slightly brown (I live at 7000+ feet, you may need to adjust your cooking time. 18 minutes was perfect for these cookies at my altitude).

 Mixing all the ingredients together.

It will take a few minutes of stirring, but eventually all the ingredients will come together to form a dough. 

Unbaked macaroons. 

Baked macaroons! You can see that I had a small ring of caramelized sugar/egg white around the macaroons. I think this could be prevented by adding a little more coconut and/or by putting the cookies on the middle over rack; I forgot to rearrange my oven racks and used the bottom one.

Red Curry

Delicious curry. Also, that table is from South Africa, which does not pertain to the Thai food. I just like the table.

Even before my GF-DF days, I really loved Thai food. I love that distinct flavor-profile of ginger, basil, lemon-grass and coconut; the mixture of savory and sweet. I have enjoyed Pad Thai and curries for a long time, perhaps influenced by the fact that my family lived in Bangkok for a while, (before I was born) and my parents used to take us out to Thai food. Now, though, I like this cuisine even better, because Thai-food places are generally already gluten and dairy-free. At the restaurant I go to, they even make my iced tea without the condensed milk in it.

I don't always feel like going out to eat in order to get my fix, though, so sometimes I make curries at home. They never seem to be as good as what you get at a restaurant, though, and I decided that maybe this was partially because I never actually follow a recipe with this kind of thing. So here is what I made for dinner recently (I can't only post recipes for baked goods, can I?) adapted from this recipe by Thai Kitchen. I tend to use a lot of their products anyway, because they are clearly labeled gluten-free. Disclaimer: Thai Kitchen doesn't know who I am, I just like their stuff.

Red Curry

1 Tbs vegetable oil

1 Tbs of GF red curry paste

1 can of coconut milk

1/2 cup chicken or beef broth

1 tsp brown sugar

1 ½ tsp GF soy sauce or fish sauce

½ tsp sirracha sauce (optional, adds some heat)

½ pound of chicken or beef, cut into ~1/2 inch pieces

½ large or 1 small red pepper, chopped into ~1/2 inch pieces

2 carrots, cut into diagonal slices

1 cup snow peas, cut in half

1 small bunch of bok choy or napa cabbage, cut into ~1 inch squares

other options: onion, Thai or regular eggplant, bamboo shoots, baby corn, whatever vegetables you like!

 Cut the meat and vegetables into the sizes indicated above, and set aside.

A whole pile of vegetables. You can make substitutions using vegetables that you like and have on hand. 

This was probably more like 1/3 pound of chicken.

Heat the oil over medium in a medium-sized stock pot. Stir the curry paste into the pan and heat for about a minute. Add the broth and coconut milk, then bring to a simmer, increasing heat to medium-high. Add the sugar and soy sauce, and stir well.

Stirring the curry paste into the hot oil. It splatters a little bit.

Coconut milk is amazing. If you want this to be lower calorie, you can use the lite milk, or even the coconut milk that comes in a carton. It will not be as rich, though.

Add the milk and broth. It looks a bit low here because at first I had only half of the can in the pot. Later I added the other half.

Add the meat and vegetables to the sauce, and stir periodically. The curry is done when the meat is cooked through, about 7-8 minutes of simmering.  

The pot was a little crowded.

The vegetables cook down after a few minutes.

Finished curry! Put it over rice and you have a good dinner.

Serve over rice or rice noodles. Serves 3-4.

Next time I will probably add in some basil leaves, but otherwise I really liked this!