Readers tell how to make gluten-free granola, black rice dishes and dreamy Swedish cookies

Good morning, September friends. Our readerly needs this week encompass two old requests and one new: How to make a power salad and how to cook freekah. The newest request came anonymously and asks for recipes using okra that do not require frying.

NO-GLUTEN GRANOLA

Thanks to you, Marilyn Murphy, for stirring up a gluten-free granola, a recipe tested by your grandson, who is gluten intolerant. Murphy wrote, “It is important to buy a brand of oats that are dedicated gluten-free, such as Bob’s Red Mill. That is the only way to ensure that there aren’t any traces of gluten-containing grains.”

Gluten-Free Granola

4 cups oats 1 cup oat bran 1/2 cups flax meal 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon 1 1/2 teaspoons ginger 1 cup sunflower seeds (or pumpkin, which would also be good, or a combination) 1 cup walnuts (or almonds

or a combination) 1/3 cup oil (as mild-tasting and healthful an oil as possible) 1/3 cup water

Mix all ingredients together well and put on a half-sheet pan or any shallow, rimmed pan. Bake at 275 degrees. At this point, it becomes an imprecise science because each oven bakes so differently and each person has a different preference as to how done they want it to be. I would give it at least an hour, stirring every 30 minutes or so.

RICE RECIPES

Karen R. is up next, and her recipes are tried and true. She reported, “I’ve made both of these recipes and really like them. Use the ginger dressing that suits your taste. As for why it’s called forbidden rice or emperor’s rice, it once was only eaten by royalty and forbidden to the common folk. It has a chewier texture (similar to brown rice) and does fade a bit with cooking.”

Black Rice with Sweet Potatoes

¾ cups black rice 1½ cups water ¾ teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons vegetable

oil ¾ cup thinly sliced

scallions 1 tablespoon fresh ginger,

peeled and minced 1 large sweet potato,

peeled and diced

Bring rice, water and ½ teaspoon salt to boil. Reduce heat to low and cook until tender and most of water absorbed, about 35 minutes. Let rice stand, covered, off heat for 10 minutes.

While rice is cooking, heat oil in large nonstick skillet. Sauté scallions, ginger and sweet potato until well-coated with oil. Reduce heat and add remaining ¼ teaspoon salt and pepper to

taste and cook covered until potato tender, about 12 minutes. Add rice and toss gently to combine. Makes 4 servings.

Black Rice Salad with Ginger Dressing

2 teaspoons peanut oil 1 cup uncooked black rice 2 cups water ½ teaspoon salt 1/3 cup pecans, toasted

and chopped 2 tablespoons dried

cranberries 3 scallions, white and green parts cut diagonally into ¼-inch pieces Ginger Dressing (found in most produce sections of grocery stores) Heat oil in medium saucepan. Add rice, stirring until toasted, about 2-3 minutes. Add water and salt and bring to boil. Cover and reduce heat to low and cook until rice tender, about 35 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Toss with pecans, scallions and cranberries in large bowl. Add ginger dressing and additional salt/pepper to taste. Refrigerate in airtight container and let come to room temperature before serving.

SWEDISH COOKIES

Faithful Reader is fond of studying the food stories in the Wall Street Journal and has passed along more than one idea. This one calls for “a single magical, if rather pungent, ingredient that makes Swedish drommar cookies so delicate and airy, they’re almost too good to be true.” The ingredient is baker’s ammonia, available at kingarthurflour.com and many supermarkets. But there is a substitution: ½ teaspoon baking powder plus ½ teaspoon baking soda.

With that tantalizing recommendation came the recipe.

Drommar (Dream Cookies)

7 tablespoons butter,

room temperature 1/3 cup plus ½ tablespoon

sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar or

vanilla extract 1 1/3 cups unbleached cake

flour ½ teaspoon baker’s

ammonia Salt

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Use electric mixer at medium speed to beat butter, sugar and vanilla until light in color, about 5 minutes. Sift flour and baker’s ammonia into bowl. Beat again until just fully combined, about 30 seconds. Take care not to overbeat.

Shape dough into 20 balls and place them on a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet. Bake until cookies puff and crisp but do not color, about 15 minutes. The cookies should have no coloration, or very little, and should crack slightly during cooking.

Remove cookies from oven and let cool completely before eating. — From “The Nordic Cookbook” by Magnus Nilsson

JUST A DASH

Mr. and Mrs. Sunday on this Wednesday offer some opinions about vegan breakfasts and types of sweetener.

“The Black Rice Coconut Pudding recipe in the Aug. 31 paper will make a fine breakfast for a vegan, but be careful of the sweetener you use. Most vegans avoid white sugar due to concerns over how the last impurities were removed. Some refiners use animal-sourced, activated charcoal, and it’s hard to find out which is which.

“Honey is also verboten as it’s an animal product.

“Maple syrup, agave and other 100 percent vegetable sources are fine. Give precedence to the ones with the least processing (see white sugar, above).

“If you drop the coconut and sweetener and use jasmine or basmati rice instead, you’ve made congee, widely used across Asia for breakfast. There are many variations of toppings (we like scallions and ginger, either pickled or fresh), so be sure to Google. The Asian store in Hixson has a variety of Furikake sprinkles that may be used as well, some of them vegan.”

We’ve got a lot to learn from you two, for sure.

SOUTHEAST SOURCES

When cooking for company, I am prone to risk-taking, trying recipes I have never cooked or tasted before. I get a dish in my mind and hunt it down.

One of those wasn’t so successful this week (or maybe two or three) and this was the take-away: I need the recipes of “my” people. That would be you all.

It’s just too risky to trust someone’s food opinion who is, say, from the Midwest. Or the Northwest or Southwest. In other words, not from around here, where we know what tastes good. Enough said.

More to be said next week: that’s a guarantee. Please come see.