Tasty sans Gluten

Merry Christmas! 2011

2011-12-25T18:07:00.000-08:00

Ugh! No recipes or anything this year. Actually I'm going to talk about a pie disaster (and redemption) and wine. This year I decided I was going to tackle apple pie again. I can make them fabulously well with my Mom if she is somewhere in the vicinity, but on my own...something just goes wrong. I decided to use the gluten free girl crust, but I wasn't going to worry about making a flour blend, I bought the King Arthur Gluten Free Flour and butter crisco. Never never never never never again will I do this. I should have used coconut oil instead of butter, not crisco and I should have pre-ordered my sweet white rice so I had enough. However I did not, so well, yeah I had to make due. The gluten free girl crust does NOT work with King Arthur Flour and Butter Crisco, this is not her fault this is my fault. Ugh it was atrocious. So I threw it all out and was like, well...shit...what do I do now? Well I did just a straight up rice crust, was it awesome? No, but dammit it worked to hold the inside of a pie. The inside of the pie was perfect nommy goodness. I always just do the Betty Crocker pie inside and well, it is always good.

Now on a high note if you see it get a bottle of Ex Umbis Syrah and let it decant for about an hour before you drink it. It is $30.00 for the bottle and just absolutely lovely. They had released a pinot noir a couple years back and this year it is a Syrah. It was one of the highlights of our dinner.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Thanksgiving!

2011-11-26T16:53:00.001-08:00

I was horrible about updating my food blog. Holy Moly. However, in my defense we did plan and execute a wedding.

This year's menu for Thanksgiving was a smoked turkey, as pictured below.

101 Cookbook's Vanilla scented sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, salad, Ina Garten's Cranberry Fruit Conserve and weirdo Frenchy Stuffing.

What do I mean by weirdo Frenchy Stuffing? I don't have a picture of it, but it is:

Ground Beef
Ground Pork
Jimmy Dean Sausage, normally sage sausage but we couldn't find any so we added our own sage
Sunshine burgers original flavor
Celery
Onion
Garlic
Thyme
Salt & Pepper
Bell's Seasoning
Dry Mustard
Granulated Garlic (the point of which I don't get but apparently we MUST have it)

Which you'll note has no bread in it, yet is a STUFFING. Yes, stuffing. I don't get it, why the French said, hey you know what makes good stuffing? Meat. We used about a pound of each meat and you start with 2 sunshine burger patties and add as needed. Same thing for everything else. Soften your vegetables in butter, in my case Earth Balance non-dairy butter replacer, and then add stuff in. We used 96/4 grass fed beef which worked perfectly since the sausage added enough fat for well everything.

For the turkey I brined it the night before pretty much as I normally do, but I upped the hard cider, oranges and lemons. It is a big bird. Then Pete and I smoked it with Applewood and Hickory, I helped get the smoker going, which people forget I do. I'm not a helpless chickypoo here I know how to run it top to bottom and can even balance the temp. Anyway....smoking in this house is a collaborative effort.

The best part of a smoked turkey is the smoked turkey stock I make with the carcass. mmmmmm........

I immediately make stock, then I make soup...mmmmm.....

The very first photo is of a a Souffled Pumpkin Pancake from Paula's Best Dishes...of course it was made gluten free and dairy free. As usual for us. I wrote in my review of it all the changes I made for it to be Gluten Free, and really it came out perfect! I've been using 1 Tablespoon of ground flaxseed / cup of gluten free flour as binder instead of xanthum/guar gum. It is way cheaper and doesn't make your batter all weirdo. Also it seems less...chemical/processed. I like it!

That's it, I figure I should do more than just Christmas updates...so Thanksgiving it was! :)

P90MS Week 17 update

2011-06-25T15:28:00.001-07:00

I'm putting this review on this blog because in order to eat one must also move. I've just finished week 5 of my second round of P90MS. Next week is 1/2 way through round two. I am taking a quick break so I'll update now while updating is on my mind. The first round I did the Lean program which focuses on cardio work. I figured it was an "easier" program and a good intro to get used to everything. I based this on the schedule itself and you use all the videos throughout the whole program. The standard program is closer to the P90 style where you rotate cardio and sculpting/muscle building.

At this stage I like the standard program better than the lean one. The weight loss is more consistent, though I have to say that could also be from building muscle and simply getting in better shape. Mostly I like this round because of the increased sculpting mixed in rather than all the cardio.

Overall I'm down 41lbs as of this morning. I'll be starting P90x (or beta testing a new program for Beachbody if they let me), come early August. It is funny, a lot of noise is made about this diet or that diet, but really if you eat less than you take in you will lose weight. I am enjoying having and building muscle, it is a new and cool thing.

Quinoa Pizza Crust

2011-06-24T09:26:00.000-07:00

Boy, I didn't do a good job of sticking to my new years resolution did I? I must say blogging about food is really very secondary right now. This is fine. However I do want to share this recipe: http://tastyeatsathome.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/simple-quinoa-pizza-crust/

It is amazing and simple. Take a cup of quinoa, soak it all day, drain and rinse and then blend with some water. Heat your oven to 450deg, heat up your cast iron skillet, add some oil and a layer of blended quinoa and bake for about 10-15 minutes for the first side and 10 minutes for the second side. Add toppings and you are all set. And it is AWESOME.

Commitment to Sharing

2011-01-02T07:52:00.001-08:00

I don't have New Year's Resolutions, never do, why bother there is nothing magical about the 1st of the year that will make you better at sticking to something than say July 15th as a great day to start. If it is a good idea to make yourself better, or change something then do it whenever you want to do it. Now if you want an evening of pure unadulterated gluttony on the 31st then go for it, we did, I lost count of the number of calories I consumed somewhere around 2400.

2011 is a monumental year for our family my brother B hopefully figures things out this year, because, well, he'll have to and hopefully it turns out all right in the end. I'm getting married this year, and for about 5 months I've been exercising regularly and for about 2 months I've been religiously counting calories rather than just "eating less." All the things that will hopefully come to fruition in 2011 started in 2010, and while 2010 was not a great year it definitely laid the work for a great 2011 and time is only as good as we make it. I know the economy sucks, and it is hard to be positive when people are struggling, or hard to be positive if you are struggling yourself, but time marches on and we must march with it.

We eat lots of tasty stuff, all of it gluten free, and most of it not baked, or a dessert, or anything of the sort. I should post more, we have great Quinoa salads that will keep you full and satisfied for 3, two person meals, and it is a great complete protein. So we should share what we eat if only for other people to comment and give me new ideas.

Onto sharing. I love beef. I do. About once a month I need beef. Rare. Mmmmmm, grrrr...my beef. My brain takes over and says, wouldn't chasing down a woolly mammoth be tasty right now? I think I was definitely a man in one of my lives, if we have multiple lives.

For New Year's we had a lovely meal of a Round Eye Roast, Purple and Red potatoes roasted with the beef and a spinach salad. Talk about iron. We studded the beef with garlic, and coated it simply with salt, pepper and red pepper flake. Tossed small potatoes in the bottom, roasted the beef on top, and voila mmmm tasty.

Pictures? no, lol. It wasn't medium rare like I'd have liked it, it had gone a little far, and that is partly because my oven just doesn't make any sense.

Roll Out Cookies.

2010-12-19T18:17:00.001-08:00

I still don't like sugar cookies. In fact if you like super sweet cookies, this is not the household for you. Sugar cookie dough turned into thumbprints = gross. The Cinnamon Twists you'll notice do not have sugar in the dough so if I wanted to get all crazy like and go for a jalapeno sugar mix I could.

The roll out cookies this year I decided I needed to figure out the weight of flours. Guess what. 24oz is not it. I think next year I'll do 28-30oz. I also added a bit of guar gum, which didn't seem to make a huge difference. Though I think next time it'll be just a tablespoon of Xanthum gum.

Lemon Roll Out Cookie from Holland and A.S.
1 3/4 C. sugar
1 C. crisco
1 C. sour milk
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
3 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp lemon extract or vanilla ( I only use vanilla for the cut outs)
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp Xanthum Gum
1/2 tsp Guar gum
5 Cups Gluten free Flour, this time it was 24oz of GF flour...not enough this time
roll out to about 1/4" thick
Bake 375 on greased cookie sheet 10 min
Sour milk add 1 Tablespoon of vinegar to the cup of milk.

I've been standing for 9hrs so it is time to sign off!

Thumbprints!

2010-12-19T15:46:00.000-08:00

This household LOVES Thumbprint cookies. Yes just the ones from the Betty Crocker Cookie Cookbook.

This year I am using Gluten Free Girl's all purpose flour mix, just to see how it does. I also added a bit of guar gum and yes they held up better, well...so far. I do like the flavor Teff brings, so maybe I'll modify the all purpose flour to have Teff and Mesa instead.

Here's the original recipe:
Mix thoroughly

* 1/2 cup soft shortening
* 1/2 cup softened butter
* 1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
* 2 egg yolk
* 1 tsp Vanilla

Sift together and stir in

* 2 cups sifted Gluten Free Mix
* 1 1/2tsp Xanthum Gum
* 1/2tsp Guar Gum
* 1/2 tsp salt

Roll into 1" balls. Dip in slightly beaten egg whites. Roll in finely chopped nuts (1 1/2 Cup). Place about 1" apart on ungreased baking sheet and press thumb into center of each. Bake until set. Cool. Place in thumbprints a bit of chopped candied fruit, sparkling jelly, or tinted confectioners' sugar icing.

* Temperature: 375 degrees (quick mod. oven).
* Time: Bake 10 to 12 minutes

Christmas and cookies, again???

2010-12-19T15:02:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted nearly as much as I should. In fact in the past year well, there was our trip to Portland, donuts with no recipe, and Thanksgiving again with no recipe. But as it is Christmas again it is time for bake-a-thon, and I personally think, a harder holiday than Thanksgiving.

So let's start with this year's failure. Cinnamon Twists. They are less of a failure this year than last and I learned a few things, many more than last year's failure. First here's the recipe again, only let's write it out better:

2 1/4tsp Yeast
1/4C warm water (115deg)
1 tsp sugar

3 1/2 C Flour, I used the Ahern All Purpose Mixture which you can find here.
1 1/2 tsp Salt
3 tsp Xanthum gum
1/4 tsp guar gum

1/2C Butter
1/2C Shortening

2 Eggs
1/2C sour cream
1tsp Vanilla

Soften yeast, water and sugar together for about 10 minutes. In the mean time mix dry ingredients and cut in butter and shortening. I decided to do this in my food processor. In a separate bowl combine eggs, sour cream and vanilla. When combined add to flour mixture.

Chill at least 2 hours.

When ready combine:

1 1/2C sugar
2 tsp vanilla
Cinnamon and food coloring to taste and desired color

To Roll Out:

Roll a 16"x8" rectangle: cut dough in half
Sprinkle surface of counter with about 1/2 C sugar mixture and roll each half to the original 16x8" size (I would do this one side at a time).
For each half fold one end of the dough over center, fold the other end over to make 3 layers. Turn 1/4 of the way around and Roll out.
Fold and roll out 2 more times.

On the Final roll out sprinkle half of remaining sugar mixture onto the top of your cookies (the other half is for the other half of the dough) roll out to 16" x 8" rectangle about 1/4 thick.

Cut into 4"x 1" strips twist each strip 2 or 3 times and place on ungreased cookie sheet they can be placed fairly close together. Repeat entire process with the other half of dough

Bake at 375* for 15-20 minutes (adjust time according to your oven I would check after 5 min-10, etc.) remove immediately and cool upside down (sticky side up).

* for this year's I had to drop my oven to 300deg and double the baking sheet so that the bottoms didn't burn. My first batch were inedible.

What you are doing with the rolling/folding process is to make veins of color. Mine this year had an oopsie I didn't even realize until right this moment. I used 1 cup of water instead of 1/4cup of water. I had an incredibly soft biscuity dough and could not figure out why, after an until amount of flour and sweet white rice flour we got a workable dough. This batch did not have the lovely veins of color, but at least 1/2 of them came out edible and pretty tasty.

I used Gluten Free Girl's all purpose flour with two changes. I don't like potato flour, I think it tastes, potatoey and a bit funny, so I used Garfava bean flour which I know some people think tastes beany and not at all good. Personally I like it and think it tastes okay! I also wasn't about to buy arrowroot powder, I have a ton of tapioca, corn and potato starch so I used those instead. Typically I like a less rice dependent flour blend, but this is Christmas, full of empty calories and really I'm not going to for healthy baked goods.

Now next year I'll use the right amount of water, I promise.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-27T11:05:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

Little bundles of bliss

2010-11-06T19:12:00.001-07:00

This is not a very exciting picture, but I assure you these are exciting. I took Sweet Tartelette's flour recipe and combined it with another baker's apple fritter recipe for one of the best dessert experiences of my gluten free life. It may be because I have an unholy love of apple fritters...it may be because there are fewer and fewer good farm house bakers that you just don't get fresh apple fritters.

I'll link in the recipes tomorrow, but these were tasty little bits of my own personal bliss :)

Tasty Gluten Free Travels Part 2

2010-07-11T09:16:00.001-07:00

Wednesday. After Portland we took an afternoon off and then went to Newport, RI. Rumor has it that Rhode Island has a ton of gluten free restaurants. I think that is a gross overstatement. Every time we visit Providence we have an easy time, and fantastic food, but this time we are visiting Newport. Newport is not Providence. We went down to Newport for lunch and knew of a few places that were gluten free friendly prior to going down. Those places were closed and super expensive. Apparently everything in Newport is expensive.

Lunch ended up being at a place called Yesterdays, which again was someplace that smelled like the local q-tips enjoyed their early bird specials on a regular basis. They had about 4 dishes on their menu that were gluten free, all were salads. Pete had a scallop caesar salad, which looked heavily dressed, more than necessary, but Pete said the scallops were done perfectly. I had a sandwich which was very disappointing. It was just a chicken sandwich with herbed goat cheese. The chicken wasn't chicken, it was something that reminds me of Chicky-Nobs from Oryx and Crake, so processed full of additives and kind of rubbery. After lunch we found First Beach (or Easton's Beach for those of you not from the area). It was right near the entrance to the Cliff Walk which is what I had wanted to do. So we parked ($10.00) and walked over to the Cliff Walk. Pete forgot his water, so it was an abbreviated walk so I didn't end up with passed out Pete on my hands. We then got a Del's Lemonade (which supposedly is just sugar, water, and lemon bits), and relaxed. The beach had a lot of red algae so I had no desire to go swimming, but we did walk along the beach, almost the entirety. Dinner was at the Red Parrot, which was popular with the families. Most things on the menu could be made gluten free, Pete wasn't entirely confident, but everything was fine. He stuck with pretty safe stuff, a plate of mussels and clams and a steak. I had a 1/2dozen oysters on the half shell served very unceremoniously with some jarred cocktail sauce. No hot sauce option *pout* and they had a lot of grit left from opening the shells. Oysters are hard to eat when you're picking bits of shell out of your mouth. Then I had a salad, which was meh, steak, gorgonzola and like everything else they could think of, which sometimes makes a good salad and sometimes its just a lot of stuff. I think the million pieces of mandarin oranges from a can really put me off. But they are very accommodating for the gluten free folks but not someplace I would go to again. We did walk into a couple of places during our day that had no ability to deal with a Celiac, however, they have been asked the question before and I think Newport is on the cusp of a food revolution. We'll be happy to support those folks, and while right now there are not a lot of choices I think in a year or two it'll be a great place to visit.

Thursday. Beach day! We coolered it up so no restaurants.

Friday. Another beach day, another cooler :)

Saturday. We went to Gloucester and Rockport. We went to Hammonds Castle in Gloucester for a nice tour and then ended up at Woodmans for lunch/dinner. 95% of their menu can be gluten free including their chowder which apparently is just gluten free, so Pete was in heaven. He had an enormous order of fried clams (complete with bellies) and I guess they were fabulous (I have a taste aversion to clams). I got a haddock dinner (also gluten free) and they put my onion rings (one of the few items not gluten free) on the side. They were by far the best onion rings I've ever had, the onion was sweet and cooked all the way through. They were on the greasy side, but I think they chose a bit greasier in order to cook the onion through. But given that most things could or were gluten free it was a great little island of just good beach food.

And thus ended our vacation :)

Gluten Free Travels

2010-07-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't posted recipe's in awhile, but we've been eating a lot of quinoa, protein and vegies. While that may be worth posting I haven't really felt like my dinners merit posting just because they are tasty. If you are gluten free or not I highly recommend quinoa, make sure you soak it for at least an hour before cooking then rinse it well. Then go nuts, it has a lot of fiber and a lot of complete protein.

The purpose of this post is give props to the restaurants we've been to while on our New England vacation. I know we live in Massachusetts, but it is sort of like living in New York City, every now and again it is good to enjoy the spoils of where you live. We live in a huge tourist destination and have the ocean right there, so we wanted to enjoy it.

Our first port of call was Portland, Maine. I have been only to Kennebunkport prior to this weekend (yes of George Bush fame), so not a whole lot of Maine-iac experience. Portland is about 2hrs and 20minutes from home and we stayed at the Portland Harbor Hotel in a Jacuzzi suite. Check in most places on the website said 3pm, the concierge when they got around to telling us said that for our room type it was 4pm. Sure. Other than not being able to get into our room until 4pm the hotel was pleasant. The TV was in a weird spot, so that the ideal place to sit was where the heating/cooling conduit was in the room. If you sat on the couch one person couldn't really see it, if you sat in bed one person couldn't really see it, and the hutch that stored the TV didn't have anything for the TV to slide out. Not that we watched a whole heck of a lot of TV, but for what little we did it was an incredibly obvious problem.

The wi-fi was free as it should be at every hotel, and I am continually annoyed when it isn't. The lobby smelled of old lady perfume, and while this may not seem like a significant...complaint, after a few days it gets really old to smell it. The restaurant was considerably over priced for the area. We had breakfast on Sunday morning there and while they were very accommodating about a gluten free breakfast it was also $54.00 for 2 people. That is outrageous. It is some eggs, please.

Saturday. We arrived very early in Portland, and walked over to Sillys which when it isn't 95 degrees out is a very reasonable walk from the hotel. They have an extensive menu and will make you soy shakes, or milkshakes, or gluten free, or not gluten free, and they have home made limeade! Pete had a gluten free "pizza," which had a base of chickpeas and chickpea flour. It was like fried hummus, not a pizza shell. However, Pete thought it was fantastic. He had a spinach, lamb, and feta one and was one step from licking the plate. I had a shwarma wrap, which while the lamb was good had french fries in it. I should have read the description better because I really didn't want my wrap to have the french fries in it. I also got deep fried pickels, which were fantastic and are worth the trip there all by themselves.

We headed back to the hotel and after walking around it was about 1:30pm. Our room wasn't ready, fine, it was still early. So we hung out for a bit to weigh our options. I didn't have sunscreen on and I didn't want to walk outside anymore, so we ended up going to Cinemagic to see Toy Story 3 in 3D. Word to the wise, don't bother seeing it in 3D, there is no reason for it. As promised it is an emotional once over I didn't really want, but it was very good. Dark enough for the adults and I was happy not to have any kids. When the movie let out and we got back to the hotel it was 4pm, and hey what do you know our room was ready.

We officially checked in and we headed upstairs. Afterwards we had a ghost walk through Portland. I thought it would be fun and informational, it was called Wicked Walking Tours and meets right next to Ri Ra. I was expecting more from the tour I think. It is popular enough to run year round and isn't very expensive. As you may know I'm not much for the paranormal, and I actually wanted more of the stories. We did get one good full story at a haunted location and that by itself made it worthwhile. The guide was odd to say the least. We did get dragged around Portland at a very NYC pace, which was fine, but most people were moving a bit slower, so I thought that was not exactly rude, but absent minded of the guide.

After the walk we went to the aforementioned RiRa for dinner. They are on gluten free websites everywhere but turns out that they had a change in chef and haven't updated their information. Lazy, thoughtless? don't know. They did make a dish for Pete though they didn't seem happy about it. The food was overpriced for what it was, but not bad.

Sunday. As mentioned above we had breakfast at the hotel, then walked down to buy tickets to a Whale Watch. I had never been on before, so we we went on one through The Odyssey and for 2 people it was $90.00. It is a 4hr whale watch and we saw everything! I know you can't predict how it is going to go, but we saw seals, porpoises, white sided dolphins, some weirdo sunfish, Minke whales and Fin back whales. It was SO cool. Everyone on the tour was pleasant and we had a great time.

After the cruise we had dinner at Sebago Brewing Company, which actually has a gluten free menu. It wasn't exciting, but the food was hearty, American and Pete at least was very comfortable eating there. On my end it was like eating at a Rock Bottom Cafe and so I tried their beer flight. Their red was pretty tasty, their Ale was tasty, but man their IPA was undrinkable. After dinner we walked over to the Eastern Promenade to watch the fireworks. They were very nice, and we had a cuban cigar on the 4th of July...how fitting.

Monday. I decided I didn't want to eat at the hotel so we went to One Fifty Ate in South Portland. We had tried Portland Pie Co to see if they had breakfast pizza, but they were not open when we got there. One Fifty Ate is totally worth it. Not dedicated gluten free, but they make their omelets in cast iron skillets, so minus the bread and we were good to go. I on the other hand made use of their home baked bread. Yes real home baked bread, as this place is in a home with freshly baked bread and real sour dough every day. I ate my bread, I NEVER eat my bread. It was blissful and $22.00 for 2 people. Much better.

After breakfast we went to Old Orchard Beach to spend a few hours of time. We brought a cooler and hung out.

We got back to our room, cleaned up, and of course I was proposed to :) but that doesn't have much to do with food. After we went to Portland Pie Co for gluten free pizza. I actually got a gluten free pie. It needed 5 or so more minutes in the oven that it had, but otherwise was fine. Pete's was cooked longer and was good.

After dinner we were on a WindJammer Cruise for a sunset cruise that was also a wine and chocolate tasting. It was fantastic. I can't say anything much more, it was great, you should go. After we went to J's Oysters, which had plenty that was gluten free as steamed seafood pretty gluten free. We had a couple of orders of mussels and they were ridiculously good. Seriously some of the best seafood ever. Also our waitress upon learning Pete was a celiac told us to visit Becky's Diner for breakfast as the owner had relatives who were celiac.

Tuesday. We were only in town for breakfast and we went to Becky's, which was traditional diner breakfast. The most amazing part is that they had gluten free bread, muffins, pancakes etc and a dedicated toaster. Rock on.

Christmas and the Cookie Dilemma Part II

2009-12-20T15:44:00.000-08:00

Alright, now I didn't stop there. I also made a batch of Thin Mints from Delish and can take NO credit for them. But they are incredibly tasty :)

I made thumbprints, which I'll be changing the recipe soon so I'm not going to bother to post it now:

And finally I made Gluten Free Girl's Rugelach. MMmmmmmm make this, make this if you have a soul, I don't care if you've never had it, this is an amazing recipe. I think Pete had tears in his eyes while tasting it.

Christmas and the Cookie Dilemma Part I

2009-12-20T15:07:00.000-08:00

Well. Christmas poses a unique problem for a gluten free household. My Mom every year for Christmas would whip up a deluge of cookies, from Roll-Out cookies to Cinnamon Twists, there were always an assortment of cookies. Cookies for everyone.

Now, I don't make cookies very often as growing up cookies were made mainly at Christmas time. The past few years I've stuck to a very small repertoire of cookies that I could make gluten free, Pete's Mom's Mexican Macaroons (Chocolate and Cashews), Thumbprints which happened to adapt well and well that's it. This year I wanted to be more adventurous I wanted more variety and I wanted to bring back roll-out cookies. Pete, before today, never had cut cookies and decorated them for Christmas. I find this very sad. I mean I don't like sugar cookies, but you should have the memory of decorating your own cookies at some point growing up.

So I asked my Mom for a couple of recipes, one is "Lemon Roll-Out Cookies" from Holland/and A.S. Ok, let me clarify you can make them lemony but for Christmas you use vanilla instead as dictated by well A.S and my Mom. This is a baking powder cookie and very low on sugar, so it puffs and has a light non-sweet taste which works well as a vehicle for frosting and decorating. They also freeze well.

Here is the original recipe:

Lemon Roll Out Cookie from Holland and A.S.
1 3/4 C. sugar
1 C. crisco
1 C. sour milk
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
3 tsp. baking powder
3 C. flour heaped like mountains
2 tsp lemon extract or vanilla ( I only use vanilla for the cut outs)
1 tsp salt
roll out to about 1/4" thick
Bake 375 on greased cookie sheet 10 min
Sour milk add 1 Tablespoon of vinegar to the cup of milk.
You can also use these as drop cookies.
Let me know if you need clarification on anything.
Enjoy!

Now there are a few things going on in this recipe and a whole lot not written. First, 3 C flour heaped like mountains. Um. What? I asked my Mom to weigh out a cup of flour heaped like a mountain because truth be told if I'm going to copy this I can't heap gluten free flour like a mountain and have it work out at all. Well, Mom doesn't have a scale yet, so we had to think about it. I started with 4 cups as we assumed that minimally you'd have about an extra 1/4cup per cup of flour when you "heap it like a mountain." At the end of the recipe it was far too runny so I added another full cup and that did the trick (at least I hoped because you never know with gluten free stuff).

So here's my first rewrite:

1 3/4 C. sugar
1 C. crisco
1 C. sour milk or buttermilk

2 tsp lemon extract or vanilla
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
3 tsp baking powder

3 tsp Xanthum Gum
5 Cups Gluten free Flour
1 tsp salt

My 5 Cups of flour were:

1 1/4C Sorghum

1 1/4C Tapioca Starch

1 1/4C Potato Starch

1 1/4C Amaranth.

Wait you may say hey that looks familiar. Yup, its from Gluten Free Girl's Chocolate Chip Cookies. I used it because in the chocolate chip cookies its the right color for a cookie you decorate and the texture of the chocolate chip cookie would translate well to roll outs. Now they came out fantastic! BUT, I think the flavor of the amaranth is a bit overpowering when the cookie is not frosted. The next batch I think I'll try buckwheat and while that will ruin the color of the cookie I think the flavor will be better.

I also am going to have Mom weigh what a cup of flour heaped like a mountain really is so I can get the right proportions. Also you'll notice there are no written directions on the cookies. Yup most of the recipes I get from Mom are german or european in some way and have no instructions, its assumed you start by making these with someone and then directions are not needed. Let me share with you what to do:

Whip together the sugar and crisco (you could do half butter and half crisco or half butter and half lard without a problem), add vanilla (or lemon if you decide to make them drop cookies), eggs, and sour milk (1 cup milk + 1 tbs apple cider vinegar, or you could use one cup plus one tbs buttermilk). Separately sift together your flours, xanthum gm, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add in 3 parts the flour to the liquid ingredients.

Now this is important. Refrigerate at least 12hrs. The more you bake gluten free the more the refrigerator becomes your friend. After taking them out of the fridge roll out with sweet white rice flour, this is necessary because the cookies need extra flour. Yes that's right they need more flour and for whatever reason this is its own separate instruction when you learn to make these in the gluten form. You may want to use other flours, I don't actually know what will work best, but I think you work in about another 1/2cup of flour into the cookie. The sweet white rice lent a nice outside crunch to a soft cookie.

Bake at 375deg for about 10 minutes (mine took 7 minutes but I only have a star, heart and leaf for cookie cutters). Cool and frost however you want.

Whew.

And here they are:

These are clearly unfrosted, but look at the nice clean edges and light golden color.

The second recipe are cinnamon twists....these did not work out well. I have some ideas, but let me give you a word of warning, after you add the cinnamon and sugar you NEED to roll them right out otherwise it basically becomes mush. It may be mush anyway but it definitely was mush for me. Here's the original recipe if you want to take a lick at it:

Cinnamon Twists
1) Soften 1 pkg. active yeast in 1/4 c. warm water (115 degrees) & a tsp of sugar
2) Sift tog. 3 1/2 c. flour & 1 1/2 tsp of salt in a large mixing bowl
3) Cut in 1/2 c. butter & 1/2 C. shortening until fine crumbs
4) Blend 2 beaten eggs, 1/2 c. sour cream, 1 tsp. vanilla, and softened yeast. Mix throughly, cover and chill at least 2 hours
5) When ready to roll combine 1 1/2 C. sugar and 2 tsp. vanilla, add cinnamon as desired ~ 2 Tablespoons (red and green food color @ Christmas)
6) Roll out ~ 16"x8" rectangle: cut dough in half, sprinkle surface of counter with about 1/2 C sugar mixture - roll
7) Fold one end of the dough over center, fold the other end over to make 3 layers. Turn 1/4 of the way around and repeat rolling and folding 2 more times. Sprinkle surface as needed with additional sugar mixture.
8) Final roll out: after the last fold, at Christmas time I sprinkle my work surface with the colored sugar- roll our to 16" x 8" rectangle about 1/4 thick.
9) Cut into 4"x 1" strips twist each strip 2 or 3 times and place on ungreased cookie sheet they can be placed fairly close together. Repeat entire process with the other half of dough
10) Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes (adjust time according to your oven I would check after 5 min-10, etc.) remove immediately and cool upside down (sticky side up).

Yeah, take that and translate it...

Thanksgiving = Bake a Thon

2009-11-24T17:29:00.001-08:00

Thank god I'm not doing Thanksgiving this year. I do LOVE hosting big parties and am looking forward to convincing Pete's family to come over next year, I don't want to do it every year. Since this is my parents year I'm not making very much. I did bake bread. Once you bake your own gluten free bread you don't really want the commercially available bread, and on some level this is true for non-gluten free peeps. Nothing beats freshly baked bread, whatever its origins.

I used this recipe from Gluten Free Girl which is an easy Millet Bread. I personally really like it with millet, but its grainy (think sunflower bread-esque), consequently Pete thinks its only "okay". Since we're going to my parents house and I don't know what exactly we are eating, but am SURE that on Friday there will be turkey sandwiches, I decided to bake bread. I am totally out of millet, oh what to do, what to do. I did have buckwheat and amaranth, so I decided to create two tester loaves. One buckwheat (which has glorious B vitamins) and one Amaranth (which has minerals and iron, both will have FLAVOR (none of this rice crap).

The buckwheat one was beautifully silky in its texture, and the amaranth one had a lovely earthy/grassy scent.

And here they are:

The buckwheat one has the bluish tint and the amaranth is beautifully golden. They definitely give the impression of country loaves.

Taste, its all about taste at the end of the day. The buckwheat one is going to be obnoxiously good as toast. I had a fresh slice with jam and nearly fainted at the bliss in my mouth. I wouldn't pair it with savory, but your best PB&J ever? Def. The amaranth loaf is going to pair with meat and cheese well, and I'll let you know how it does with some toasting and cold cuts because I think that's dinner tomorrow (night before Thanksgiving). But the insides of both are light, airy and full of beautiful holes and have that lovely contrast between crust with crunch and insides that are soft and beautiful--don't believe me? Close-up:

I'd like to branch out to other breads, because unlike a traditional all purpose flour home we have a great ability in this home for variety. There should be a never ending litany of breads, I really wish I knew more about how breads are constructed, I guess I'll be learning.

Where's the Fish

2009-11-23T19:31:00.000-08:00

Apparently New England went on strike for fish and the only fish available are red snapper and yellowing $23.00/lb chilean sea bass. This does not make a fish stew. I have to now go into cambridge and hope that there's a fish monger there that can help me. *sigh* and I picked it.

In other news if you are not eating gluten free pancakes you are missing out. My favorite pancakes are an adaptation on Carol Fenster's Pancakes in Wheat Free Recipes and Menus. The ones pictured to the left are Buckwheat pancakes and were much more delicate, and I think I'll reserve buckwheat for crepes.

Here are my favorite pancakes, and I promise gluten or no the best pancakes ever:

1 1/3 cup sorghum flour
2/3 cup cornstarch
1/4 c sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp xanthum gum
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup vegie oil
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla

SIFT SIFT SIFT!! Let sit for 10 minutes prior to cooking--about 2 min / side.

Soupe Au Pistou

2009-10-19T18:45:00.000-07:00

Why is the first photo for this week a beer? It IS a gluten free beer, which by itself is bizarre in its own right, and given that I can drink gluteny beer I have no use for it except...except as a weird substitute for stale bread in a soup. Why, why would you do that? Well if a recipe calls for a piece of bread they expect butter, milk, yeast, flour and eggs...but gluten free bread doesn't have the same flavor...so what flavor do I want to add to the soup...hmm...yeast. So what's yeasty without much flavor? Most gluten free beer, so that's what I did. Otherwise the only other change was not adding gluten free pasta. It wouldn't hold up, but rice would be tasty in it.

Otherwise it was a lovely vegie soup. I could have eaten the raw sauce all by itself on some pasta though, I'll tell you that...the smell of the tomatoes, basil, cheese, and garlic..mmmm...

I'm sure Mary and Gretel had a lovely time as well and I can't wait to see it in the gluteny version.

Cupcakes--Batch #1

2009-10-14T19:03:00.001-07:00

I decided I wanted to share some love and make cupcakes for some of the offspring of my friends. Well, since we're gluten free it probably will take some time. Batch number one was fantastic while hot, though may be a bit chewy once cooled.

I used this recipe from Food Network, which has sour cream in it and something I've found to help gluten free baked goods in terms of moisture. I used a mixture of sorghum, teff and corn starch for my flour and used 1 1/2 tsp of xanthum gum. I think it needs less xanthum gum actually.

Sorghum flour Mix:

1 1/2 cup sorghum

1 1/2 cup corn starch

1 1/2 cup teff

Or I may mix in another 1 1/2 cup potato starch to help make it lighter or use tapioca and potato...but that's batch number two.

I like teff in this there is good poof and good air holes produced in the actual cake.

I did not make the frosting in the recipe, though I will, it was just a weeknight and meringue is sometimes finicky.

Enjoy! More testing to come.

potage veloute aux champignons

2009-10-13T17:29:00.001-07:00

The SOUP!! Mary and Gretel have beaten by lengths, leaps and bounds on the soup. So this weeks soup took me forever to get done. It had a bunch of modifications that I needed to do to it for either Pete or myself to eat. First being lactose intolerant there's only so much dairy I can do and the ~7 tablespoons or so of butter in the recipe would have been doable if there was no cream in it, but there's supposed to be cream! Gah, trying to kill me. Lactaid to the rescue! We purchased whole lactaid, which is not as velvety as the versions of the soup using cream, but it'll do. Also I just cut the butter out completely everything was done in olive oil, again that wouldn't lend as much creaminess to the soup, but you know what it'll be ok.

So last Saturday I stood in front of about 10 different mushrooms I could choose for this recipe. My brain ground to a halt because Pete hates mushrooms, so I was standing there trying to predict which mushroom Pete would hate the least. I went with portobello mushrooms, but I think next time I'll do crimini.

Finally I replaced the flour in this recipe with potato flour, it lent a nice undertone of potato to the whole thing and as I like potato, that works for me.

This is not your Campbell's soup, which is good because that stuff is not gluten free. Its lovely, meaty and I could have just drank it after making the chickeny-mushroom stock step. The broth has an incredible amount of depth to it and all you are using is chicken stock, mushrooms and a bit of thyme and bay leaf. Nice!

So the left-overs will actually go toward making green bean casserole because Pete has never had it, and Campbell's soup is not gluten free, so I'm going to stretch this soup as far as it can go, that and Pete still doesn't like mushrooms unless they're covered in cheese. But honestly how do you get through life without having been fed green bean casserole?!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2009-10-04T18:06:00.000-07:00

What...no cream of mushroom soup? No, not yet. I promise I'll make it, probably not until this coming weekend though, plus whatever Mary chooses. I don't feel well today. I know this because I didn't get out of bed until noon. I also got up around 4am and wandered around the house looking for my cell phone because I was convinced it was Monday, and not only Monday, but Monday September 28th. No idea why.

So the only thing I did was throw a chicken in the oven today. I did not make breakfast, I did not make lunch, and most of dinner was made by Pete, though I got to be the star because I can roast a good chicken.

What I did make this week was gluten free chocolate chip cookies, so I'm going to post about them. I made this recipe from Gluten Free Girl. I never ever would have come up with this recipe, I've never used amaranth nor would I have ever known to use that much starch or why tapioca and potato and not arrowroot and corn. Who knows! I tried converting a recipe and it came out like one very gooey chocolate brittle. Tasty, messy but not chocolate chip cookies.

So for the few gluten free peeps who have my blog, I did make her cookies and let me tell you, they're fantastic. I do know the reason for the refrigeration besides the dough coming together. If you happen to have some warm sections of dough and put those on your cookie sheet something much less cookie like and more like a puddle forms. The nice cold solid balls make lovely perfect cookies.

Next week, as promised cream of mushroom soup and whatever Mary chooses. Promise.

French Monks

2009-09-27T19:34:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, bonus post. Since we are making our way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking I figured I'd add a supporting post. To quote Quentin Tarantino "Chartreuse, a liquor so good they named a color after it." Made by crazy french monks...here is my photographic homage to it:

Mmmm Onion Soup

2009-09-27T16:01:00.000-07:00

You see, I'm bad at grabbing the cookbook and putting in the real name of the soup we did this week, as well, I say French Onion Soup and everyone goes "mmmmm." I haven't met a person who goes "meh, don't really like it."

Now my favorite french onion soup was made by Oscar's in Rochester, NY on Goodman street. They made theirs by scratch and it was 100% vegetarian so they made their own onion stock to use instead of beef stock. It was heavenly. Sadly the Academy Award's sued Oscar's over rights to the name "Oscar's" and with their closure so went my favorite French Onion Soup.

Now this week I chose the recipe and figured given its reputation as a difficult soup that Gretel and Mary would show up on my door step with teary eyes and a couple of pitch forks, thankfully that hasn't happened. This didn't happen because while it is a time consuming soup it is no worse than any good stew.

Now, as with last week I had to start off making my own bread. Last week's bread was a rice flour mixture and well, as with all rice flour baked goods it was grainy and didn't stick with you. I took Bette Hagman's recipe and decided I would make these changes. Instead of a rice flour blend I would use a Sorghum blend, instead of tapioca starch I would use potato starch, and instead of using eggs as a binder I'd simply use slightly beaten egg whites...now I may seem like a genius, Tracy look at all those changes, or I could have been remembering the very tasty recipe in Carol Fenster's 100 Wheat Free Recipes. Today was not an ideal bread baking day. If anyone out there bakes bread by hand, you know that with 100% humidity and rain your bread is going to be a little...flat. My bread was a little flat, but with a sorghum-teff flour blend it was stick with you crusty goodness, and for those of you not eating gluten free sorghum has an almost sweet earthy flavor, and teff has a very gluteny mouthfeel and adds a bit of bitterness. So when I say crispy I mean when you bite down you have a crust to go through, mmm, something Pete misses all the time and does dishes for me when I give him crusty tasty bread.

Once the bread was done I set right into the soup. Now I'm a fan of deviating from the recipe but for this week I was going to stick as close as I could to what Julia wrote. So I bought yellow onions instead of any sweet ones available, and I cut up 1 1/2lbs of them. Let me tell you if you haven't been cutting yellow onions in a while they will remind you to respect the onion. I had to walk out of the room multiple times because my eyes teared up so much they closed and I couldn't get them back open. Really after that the recipe was easy.

There was one change I had to make. The recipe calls for 3 tablespoons of flour. I changed that to 3 tablespoons of potato starch and because I changed it to a starch instead of cooking the flour and onions together I had to add liquid and get it all up to a boil. Potato starch is flavorless and an excellent thickener. I also used vermouth--and I have to say I was reading through the beginning chapters of the cookbook and I must disagree with Julia on Chardonnay. She may have found lovely ones in France, but I haven't met one I like. So I used dry vermouth and it did just fine.

After about 2.5hrs between carmelizing the onions and simmering it all together I had lovely, oniony goodness. I don't think the recipe needed brandy, or that the brandy we had just wasn't perfect, so next time I'll leave it out.

This was great, and it wasn't hard, and well it was great! Did I mention that? I will make everyone jealous tomorrow with my bowl of lovely French Onion Soup.

Aigo Bouido

2009-09-20T16:34:00.000-07:00

Garlic soup...sounds lovely. My reasoning for joining http://www.supergspotpourri.blogspot.com and http://www.shazaminthekitchen.blogspot.com on their journey through Mastering the art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck differs from Gretel and Mary. There are few parallels I can draw between Julia Child's life and my own. While she was statuesque I am a bit dwarfish, while she grew up affluent I did not, she also grew up unable to do much more with cooking than burn water. I, however, am a pretty good cook, well before my thirties. I never was a spy in China, I did not meet my significant other in the army, I've never been to France, and I highly doubt I'll have a fantastically funny SNL Skit in my honor.

What I can probably draw as a mild parallel is that, well, I've had to completely relearn how to bake. In my cupboard instead of one bag of flour, I have Sweet White Rice Flour, White Rice Flour, Sorghum Flour, Teff Flour, Amaranth Flour, Buckwheat flour, Xanthum Gum, Guar Gum, Garbanzo Bean flour, Mesa Flour, Cornmeal and Millet Flour. It is taking awhile, to say the least, to learn what each of these flours do, how they work together and well, how to get them not to fall apart.

So tackling a French cookbook may seem impossible as well, no roux and no bakeries to walk to and grab a crusty french loaf of bread. I'm here to prove that well, its just different. You'll understand that no recipe will be the same as anyone else's. For this week Gretel chose Aigo Bouido with poached eggs--now I know that Mary and Gretel probably read the recipe, picked up the ingredients including the bread and had a lovely afternoon making a nice quick soup. I read the recipe...got to "crusty french bread" and said well, self, I'll be learning how to make a Baguette this week.

So I did. My journey to finish this recipe began with Bette Hageman's "The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread: More than 200 Wheat Free Recipes." Bette's cookbook was published before she's had a chance to really play with Sorghum or Teff--so she's a fan of Bean flour mixes and rice mixes for lighter breads. The French Bread mixture was white rice flour, tapioca starch, gelatin, xanthum gum and of course yeast. Now it'll be grainy versus "normal" bread because of the white rice, and I"m not a huge fan of white rice flour in general...outside of savory dishes that is, so my next turn at this will probably be sorghum, potato starch and white rice flour instead. So this morning prior to running out to a baby shower, I mixed up a whole bunch of flours, mixed yeast, threw in eggs, water, and whatnot and ran out of the house leaving Pete to cure the bread and bake it.

Its not bad!

Onto soup!

This is a lovely and mild broth that does not overwhelm with garlic or spices. Its not overly cheesy and so its just a nice start to a meal. It was not its own meal. I've never poached an egg before, and I have to say poaching an egg in garlicky broth is fantastic!! I will absolutely do that again!

Gluten-free bread in broth...not...well..not a robust pairing. Next time I'll have the toast on the side, rather than in the broth. I should say I cheated on this recipe, as I did not state this originally. Instead of water I used chicken broth, as my water may be suspect for flavor. I also retained the garlic from the soup, chopped it up and put it on the toasts instead of getting rid of it. So yes, cheated.

Again, another lovely week! Bon Appetite!

Potato Leek Soup

2009-09-12T20:11:00.000-07:00

This was a perfect soup weekend. It's chilly, dreary and utterly fall. I love fall. I don't sweat in weird places anymore and the things that are alive that make me sneeze and my eyes itch start to recede and I can just enjoy life.

So it has been raining for two days now, so oniony, potato-ey soup sounded just right. Now I don't have Mastering the Art of French Cooking yet, it was mailed...I should have it by now, but...this weekend hasn't been granting me any favors. Though through the wonder of the internet I apparently found the recipe.

It went something like this: Leeks, Potatoes, Water or Stock, Heavy cream or not...cook. This is just fine with me as well, I wasn't about to make it with heavy cream and Pete sure as heck didn't want me too. I will suck it up for desserts and I will go out and get digestive helpers for such desserts and you shouldn't have much of them to begin with, anyway I nixed the heavy cream....and I replaced it with sour cream.

So my recipe ended up being 4 medium leeks with whites and tender greens, 3 large russet potatoes, chicken stock (gluten free), lump of sour cream, salt, white and black pepper. According to the internet recipe I should have simmered the potatoes and leeks all together...no, didn't want to do that, so I actually melted 3 tablespoons of margarine and cooked the leeks for about 20 minutes just with the lid of the pot on and in the butter. Then I chucked in the potatoes, about 5 cups of chicken stock and brought that to a boil. I reduced the heat and let it cook for about 30 minutes. At the end of that everything was cooked through, so I added salt, pepper, white pepper then blended it all up. I added the sour cream and voila, soup.

And it was perfect to go along with the rain.

It will be interesting to read the original recipe, and other than the number of dishes it makes, it was an easy quick meal.

Bon Appetite!

Comfort Food in the Fall

2009-09-11T16:20:00.000-07:00

Fall is a great season because you can start pulling out all the warm gooey things that make you feel heartened from your stomach out.

We went apple picking for our labor day activity and while there they still had some peaches available. We grabbed a few peaches in order to get some last ditch food dedicated to summer. Peach cobbler had to be made. Now unlike when I was growing up I have to make this gluten free...well...ok.

So I actually started with a celiac.com recipe and have some suggestions for the next time I make it. The result, pictured, was tasty but it lacked the rustic-ness I was looking for in a quick hearty dessert.

Here's the recipe:

Fruit Cobbler (Gluten-Free)

This recipe comes to us from Valerie Wells.

1 stick butter
1 cup GF flour, any kind
½ teaspoon xanthan gum
1 cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder
½ teaspoon gluten-free baking soda
1 cupkefiror buttermilk (or soy milk that is soured with 1 tablespoon lemon juice)
1 large can peach halves or about 2 OR 3 cups frozen, thawed berries to which about ¼ cup sugar is added
Ground cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc. (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F. Melt butter in 8 x 8 glass pan. Mix all other ingredients except fruit. Pour batter onto melted butter. Some people stir it around to mix the butter with the batter. Othersdont. Its a matter of personal taste. If you do stir the butter in, you get a tender, rich cake like texture. If youdontstir it in, you get a chewy, crusty butter flavored edge. Drop the fruit on top. Lightly sprinkle peach cobbler with spices of your choice. Bake 45 minutes.

I spiced the peaches with cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom mmmm cardamom and fall, and my gluten free flour for my first pass was sorghum, cornstarch, teff, and mesa. Next time I make this recipe I will add vanilla extract to the batter, mix in the butter, and make my flour mix sorghum, corn starch and cornmeal. Adding cornmeal will give it better mouthfeel.