          
Archive for the ‘Gluten Free’ Category
Monday, March 19th, 2012
So…. it took a while, but I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of this whole “living without gluten” nonsense.
This weekend, we held our annual “St Pi-trick’s Day” party. We combined my husband’s favorite day (Pi Day), with mine – St Patrick’s Day. The entire menu consists of foods that are either round/spherical, include the word “pi” (Pizza, Pineapple punch), and are also Irish themed. Normally, it’s a very gluten-y spread, and I’ll have something on the side for myself – a store bought gluten free pie, some caulcannon left over from the pizza, etc.
This year, I decided to take on an additional challenge with the menu: Aside from the pizza, everything I served was additionally gluten free!
| I was a bit worried about how it would all go over, as I’m the only one in the group with the allergy. I know that I would definitely pick gluten over gluten free, if I could do so without… um.. unpleasant repercussions! So, I was a little concerned that I was sentencing our guests to a less than stellar menu.
WELL. Guess I didn’t need to worry – the gluten free stuff flew off the plates even faster than the full-gluten pizza! These doughnuts, in particular, were a huge hit. My husband had missed the part about them being gluten free, tried one, and immediately felt bad that I created something THAT tasty, and would “be missing out”. He couldn’t tell they were GF, and that seemed to be a common theme. |
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These were super easy to make, whipping up in just a few minutes. They incorporate my favorite chai spices, and they taste amazing. The texture was great, too! With these, I think I CAN handle living without wheat, without losing my mind!
Enjoy! (more…)
Posted in Cakes & Cupcakes, Desserts, Gluten Free, Recipes | 2 Comments »
Monday, February 20th, 2012
I feel a little bad for always talking about the tornado, but… man, it’s really taken over our lives. In 2 days, it’ll be 9 months, and the repairs are still pretty far from over.
This, however, has been a great weekend! As my husband churned out new shelves for the cabinetry, I was able to start unpacking the kitchen stuff. Everything just sort of got thrown into the boxes after we surveyed the damage, so we could demolish the kitchen. 9 months of plastic cutlery and paper plates later… progress is wonderful. I swear I heard the hallelujah chorus when I unearthed the cutlery set at the bottom of one of the boxes!
| As is usually the case when I’m in a great mood, we had some fun in the kitchen yesterday. Homemade, fresh cheese for breakfast. Yes!
A couple weeks after the tornado, we attended a cheese workshop at a local brewing supply store, which is where we learned this basic technique. It was a weird thing to spend our time on, at the time.. But we needed to just get away from it all. We socked the knowledge away til now, and yes – it was worth the wait!
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This method takes less than an hour to do, start to finish. (About 30 minutes of “active” time), and doesn’t take much in the way of ingredients. You will need rennet and citric acid, which are available at specialty cooking stores, or home brewing / cheese making supply shops – and only cost a couple of dollars each. Buy a fair amount of the citric acid – not only will you find this recipe becoming an easy “go-to”, I’ll be posting more recipes using citric acid. (For instance, Homemade Wine Slush Mix!)
I’ll be honest – I’d barely had my finished, still warm braid of cheese on the plate, before we ravenously tore into it. It was like a scene straight out of Jurassic Park or something – and I’m pretty sure at least one of us made raptor -like noises at each other while tearing away at our cheese with our bare hands.
Oh, and yes – the cheese was squeeky. SO good! You should definitely give this a try sometime!
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Posted in Cheese, Gluten Free, Recipes, Snacks and Appetizers | 9 Comments »
Monday, February 13th, 2012
Another weekend, another few steps towards a normal house/life!
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I’ll get more into what post tornado progress we made, after the recipe… but one thing we did this weekend was clear everything out from the fridge, completely wash it out, and then re-organize everything back into it. In doing so, I came across some veggies that were getting to the end of their life span… so I decided to cobble together a dish to use them up.
Of particular concern was a very old bag of radishes, a bag of baby carrots that had obviously seen better days, and some kale. I’d heard about roasting radishes fairly recently, but hadn’t gotten around to trying it. I decided to sort of base the dish around a salad I’d had at a food blogger event a couple months ago… but rough composition and kale are really the only common threads. Completely different veggies, nuts, and dressing.
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This turned out amazing. It all worked so well together, and it was really pretty as well!
Roasting radishes gets rid of all of the bite, leaving a tender, almost sweet vegetable. It worked really well with the sweetness of the carrots, earthiness of the squash, and heft of the kale. The toasted walnuts brought some crunch to the party, and the dressing ended up perfect. I’ve never come across a vinaigrette that I REALLY liked- so I wrote my own.
I swear, my husband was grinning and *glowing* as he ate this. It was sort of a funny scene, we were both in our grubbies, exhausted after a whole weekend of repair/rebuild/cleanup, feeling totally beat up. This meal felt really “fancypants”, so we had to laugh at the contrast. (more…)
Posted in Condiments, Farmer's Market, Gluten Free, Healthy, Main Dishes, Recipes, Side Dishes | 1 Comment »
Thursday, February 9th, 2012
| Remember last week, when I got my kitchen back and went a little nuts over it – making a Gluten Free Tourtiere, amoung other things? Well, the time has come to blog another of those “other things”.
One of the things I’d been looking forward to making was a theoretical gluten free butter tart. In fact, I facebooked a plea to ” the god/godess in charge of kitchen renovations” that I would make a tasty gluten free butter tart HAPPEN, if the remaining kitchen repairs-to-useable went quickly and easily.
I keep my promises 
The crust on these is not bad at all for being gluten free… and – given how snobby I am about gluten free stuff – that’s actually high praise! |
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As is, this recipe is quick and easy to make. Of course, Murphy’s Law kicked in while I was getting prepared, and things got a little … depraved. See the very end of this blog post for details!
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Posted in Canadian, Desserts, Ethnic, Gluten Free, Kid Favorites, Recipes | No Comments »
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