Oatcakes by gaudy Night

(from Herr Ritter's father: note I have never actually made this recipe myself).

1 c. flour, sifted with
1 T sugar
1 t. baking powder
½ t. salt

Place this in a large bowl, and mix with 2 c. quick rolled oats (must be the “quick” variety). Then cut in ½ c. soft butter or margarine (I find half and half works best).

Finally, add ½ c. milk. Mix the milk in with a large spoon so that eventually you get a single round blob or ball of dough. Put flour on your hands and shape the ball into a reasonable sphere (it’s likely to be sticky). Make sure you have a large counter or board to work on. Cut the ball of dough in half and put half to one side; place the other in the middle of a pile of flour and pat it down into a rough circle about ½ inch thick. Now take a rolling pin and begin to roll it out, again keeping the circular shape. You’ll probably need to use a spatula or something to pick it up off the board and turn it over into more flour before it gets too thin or stuck to the board. Repeat the rolling process, shaping it toward a rough oval shape. When it’s thinned down to about ¼ inch [more like 1/8; remember it will rise] and about the size of a greased cookie sheet, use the sheet to slide under the dough in one smooth motion.

Bake at 375º for 12-15 minutes; take it out when it gets just brown.

Gluten-free Flour Mix by Miriam

For my flour mix, I use a mixture of around 40% rice flour (white and/or brown), 30% corn starch, and 30% tapioca flour. I'm not exact about it. I don't have access to xanthum gum here in Japan so I don't use that. In fact, it kind of grosses me out so I have just skipped it in my baking. In any recipe, I substitute between 75-80% of the flour called for with this mix, and for the remaining 20-25% I use almond flour, which does a great job of improving the crumb and texture. For any kind of quick bread, biscuit, or cake, I always use yoghurt or sour cream instead of milk, and I use half baking soda and half baking powder for the rising (whatever amount is called for in the recipe). For cakes, I always separate the eggs and beat the egg whites with a few tablespoons of sugar and fold them in at the end. It significantly improves the overall experience of gluten free cake. With these tricks, I feel like I can make just about any baked item short of yeast bread, and it tastes just as good as wheat based recipes, even according to my daughters. Now I need to figure out the secret of making tasty yeast bread that doesn't contain too much bean flour, which to me has a wacky taste.

I should also also point out that my batters are lot less liquidy than some wheat based batters, particularly since I am using less liquid overall with the yoghurt/sour cream substitution. If your batter gets too liquidy, the end result will not be great. I shoot for a batter that can sit in a spoon in a mushy lump and not flow around and off the sides, kind of what you want to see in a classic muffin batter.

Lowering the Calorie Count of Sauces by bookseller

In terms of sauces, adding a little cornstarch in a slurry (i.e., dissolved in liquid, typically in a 1:3 ratio) to ygurt, even lower-fat yogurt, will keep the yogurt from breaking and allow for a creamy sauce. If you, for example, braise some chicken with onions and greens, remove the chicken, boil down the liquid and veg to concentrate the flavors and evaporate most of the liquid, puree the veg and the remaining bit of braising juices, return this puree to the pot, stir in the yogurt slurry, simmer, return the chicken to the pot for a few minutes, and dish it up, maybe with some chopped dill or capers or lemon zest, something that will go well with the yogurt's mild acidity, you'd probably have a very nice dish that would taste much more calorically expensive than it really was.

I also find that Greek yogurt, or strained yogurt, makes a very good substitute for either sour cream or cream cheese, depending on the thickness. However, it can be a bit tricky, because the full-fat stuff doesn't save you a lot of calories, but the reduced-fat stuff can be REALLY sour once it's strained, so you'd need to experiment with brands and levels of concentration and also your own taste for sour.

I used to make a lower-fat maynnaise substitute, using roasted onions and tofu and fresh thyme, that I liked quite a lot; I think the recipe is in the Otters' recipe log. In fact, tofu can "creamify" things (like soup, especially, and desserts -- makes a very convincing mousse) very nicely. There will be lots of recipes online, and you might be interested in Deborah Madison's I Can't Believe It's Tofu. She's an extremely well respected vegetarian chef, was the chef at Chez Panisse before branching out on her own.

Worth knowing, btw, that almond milk (widely available here, not sure about where you are, though it's easy enough to make yourself) makes for a very pleasant bechamel, substituting for milk or cream, and certainly lower in carbs than the one and in calories than the other. You do need the flour to thicken it, though; on its own it has about the consistency of skim milk, so not much use as a sauce.

Finally -- and I think this is the last trick I know -- in southern Italy, pasta is often eaten with a topping of toasted coarse breadcrumbs, rather than cheese. Partly this is because that part of Italy has historically been desperately poor, and bread is cheaper than cheese but it performs some of the same functions; it helps drink up a bit of the sauce and thus thickens it and helps it cling to the pasta. Bread is also a caloric bargain over cheese; if you make pasta this might be an easy and tasty switch.