There's a first time for everything, including pot roast

I tried my first baklava at 22, and my first pie at 23. I started making meringues at 28.

With flour, sugar and butter I have no fear. But this weekend was my very first time making a large chunk of meat. In fact, it was really my first time buying a huge chunk of meat -- or really anything with the word "shoulder" or "loin" in the title. For some reason, meat is intimidating.

But this weekend I was thumbing through Living Gluten-Free for Dummies searching for the correct amount of xanthum gum per cup of gluten-free flour for cookies and found a recipe for pulled pork. We just happen to have some gluten-free rolls from Gluten-Free Creations, and on a whim I thought I'd give it a try.

Yum -- and simple. The only problem was that my crock pot is too cheap to have a timer and my kitchen timer refuses to recognize lengths of time greater than 60 minutes, which required a great amount of concentration for five hours to remember how long the meat had been in.

Pulled pork:

2 lbs pork roast

1 cup chicken broth

1 large onion (the recipe calls for two, but one is enough even for serious onion lovers)

4 jalapeno peppers, sliced

6 cloves garlic

2 tsp each coriander, cumin, oregano

salt and pepper to taste

Place the meat in the slow cooker. Add everything else (you know how much I love that!). Cook for four to five hours and then pull apart with two forks. I added a little of Annie's Naturals Organic Raspberry Mustard, and JFG added some GF BBQ sauce.

We also made apple turnovers from the Culinary Institute of America's gluten-free cookbook. The Culinary Institute of America would have denied ownership of the recipe if they saw how the turnovers turned out (see before and after pictures below) but they tasted great. JFG ate them all. In one night.

The CIA cookbook provides a recipe for pie crust, for which I cannot vouch. I am a committed fan of Pamela's Gluten-Free pie crust mix, and happen to have some frozen. It worked great although, as always, it had to be rolled out between sheets of parchment paper and handled very carefully. For five turnovers about the size of your palm, I used the equivalent of a pie-crust-and-a-half worth of dough. I also cut the recipe in half, since we didn't really need five pounds of apple turnovers.

Apple turnovers:

1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup gluten-free flour mixture (I used a mixture of sorghum flour, white rice flour and tapioca starch)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2-1/2 cups tart apples (I used Braeburn), diced into teenty-tiny pieces
1/2 cup pastry cream (recipe below)
1 egg for egg wash

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Roll out pie dough. Using a bowl with a diameter of about four inches, cut out five circles of dough and place on baking sheet covered with parchment paper (actually use parchment paper -- brown sugar and apple juice turns into cement)

3. Combine apples, brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Add pastry cream.

4. Divide the filling among the dough circles. Each will take about 1/3 cup. If you have filling left over, spoon it into a ramekin and bake it with the turnovers -- it's great to eat with a fork.

5. Brush egg wash on the outer edge of each dough circle. Fold the circles in half and seal the edges. Brush egg wash on the top side of the turnovers.

6. Vent each turnover with a knife or fork.

7. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes. Cool and eat!

Pastry cream:

1-1/2 eggs (use the other half an egg for the egg wash above)
1 cup milk, divided
1/4 cup sugar, divided
2-1/5 tbs cornstarch
1-1/2 tbs butter
1/4 tsp vanilla

1. Whisk together egg, 1/4 cup milk, 1/8 cup sugar, and cornstarch in a bowl. Set aside.

2. Combine remaining milk and remaining sugar in a saucepan and bring to boil over moderate heat.

3. Add about 1/4 of the milk mixture to the egg mixture and whisk to combine.

4. Add the egg-milk mixture to the remaining simmering milk mixture in the saucepan on the stove all at once; continue whisking until it comes to a boil and begins to thicken; remove from heat.

5. Stir in the butter and vanilla.

6. Spoon pastry cream into a wide shallow dish and allow to cool completely.