Family Affair

What I neglected to mention in my Celiac Stories post is that my Dad, at the age of 54 discovered he has Celiac Disease too.  As much as I don't like someone else having to deal with Celiac Disease, at least we know where mine came from.  But now all those burger buns, and fish breading that he ate for me when I was a kid, aren't looking like it was the best idea.

I started this blog to help people work their way through the gluten free world, and I should mention my parents worked so hard to take care of me when I was little, that it is my inspiration and education to take care of myself and my daughter.  Today I'm happy to feature something Dad made, Beef Goulash from Ginger Lemon Girl.  I wish I could have come over for dinner because this looks AMAZING!  And I can guarantee that Ceci would have had a double portion!

Love you Dad!  Keep up the great work!

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Gluten Free Croutons

Very thick Butternut Squash Soup with Gluten Free Croutons

Now that fall is here it's time for all the wonderful comfort foods, and soups.  One classic fall soup is Butternut Squash, rich, thick, hearty and delicious.  I also love, that it works with so many spices and herbs and can take on so many permutations of flavor.  For this go around I kept it simple, just some salt, pepper, and a little nutmeg.  I was able to get a ton of flavor out of roasting the squash before mashing it into soup, I also used chicken stock and milk to add flavor and liquid to the soup.  The croutons were a yummy crunchy addition to the velvety warm soup.  I used such a big squash that we had to put some soup away in the freezer for another dreary rainy day.

I should let you know that I find these "cooking" posts the hardest to write, as we say in our house "cooking is art, baking is science."  I'm really good at the math and science stuff, it makes sense to me, but the whole pinch of this and dash of that, just confounds me.  So it is even harder for me to sit down and not only remember what I did but try to quantify what I did so you can be inspired in your own kitchen.  I guess my best information for you is just to keep tasting things and see if you like it, if not, throw in some more seasoning.  Sadly I'm horrible at seasoning things and usually have to rely on my husband to do so, he is excellent at seasoning and cooking, but doesn't even attempt baking.  Somehow I managed to season this soup all by myself, I was pretty proud of myself.

Please take this recipe as more of an inspiration than a list of instructions and season the soup to your own personal tastes.  Now get out there, buy a nice big Butternut Squash and get to work!

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

1 Large Butternut Squash
Olive Oil

Roasting Directions:

Halve Squash, remove seeds, coat with a thin layer of olive oil and place flesh side down on baking sheet.  Place in 400 degree (F) oven until squash is fork tender, probably 40 minutes for a medium size Butternut Squash.  Let the squash cool a little bit, so that you can handle it without burning yourself and then scoop out the roasted flesh into a pot.


Soup Directions:
1 medium apple, peeled, and cut
1 small to medium onion
Olive Oil
Kosher Salt
White Pepper
Nutmeg
Cinnamon

Before you put the squash in the pot saute some diced onions and apples, once the onion and apple are done add the squash. Use a potato masher to break down the squash in the pot, add a liquid of choice to the squash in the waiting pan (I use chicken stock, water, milk, or apple juice depending on my mood that day, or combinations of the liquids), add 4-5 cups of liquid.  Cook on medium to low heat and season to taste with salt and pepper, and anything else you think smells nice with it, nutmeg, curry, cinnamon, anything, see what you have in the pantry, and taste as you go to see if it needs more of anything.  Add more liquid if you think it needs it, soup is a very subjective thing, and can be as thin or thick as you like.  Serve in a nice big bowl with a garnish of choice, I used toasted gf bread cut into croutons, next time I might try some toasted pecans.

Annie's Gluten Free Bunny Cookies

Ceci has a new love in the food world!  I found these at Stop and Shop one day and she was very excited "Mommy, Bunny Crackers!!"  I of course bought them and gave her a few in the car, she seemed to enjoy them.  I've given them to her occasionally, and she likes them.  Then the other day out of nowhere she pulled them out of the pantry herself and told me she needed Bunny Crackers, I should mention it was 10am.  Not my ideal time to give, an already busy toddler, cookies.  She eventually got her cookies, she just had to wait till after lunch.  Now if Annie's would just make a box of only chocolate bunny cookies, Ceci would be in hog-heaven.  She eats around the vanilla ones like they are poison, I think they are delicious, they have the texture of a graham cracker.  I like the combination of the two cookies together, but life isn't really about what I like sometimes.  I checked their website, and no such luck, they only make the combo pack of cookies.  I'll keep an eye out, until then I suppose I'll have to eat all the leftover vanilla cookies, poor me.

Why Xanthan Gum is Important: Zucchini Bread Failure and Recovery

Zucchini "Bread" drizzled with Cream Cheese frosting.

This week we made a huge pot of spaghetti sauce for dinners, Ceci LOVES pasta and sauce, it's one of the few things she will eat without convincing.  Lately we have taken to adding zucchini and carrots to the sauce to increase her veggie intake.  I know any Italian Americans reading this are horrified, but it's one of the only ways she won't reject vegetables, and I'll take anything I can get.  In the process of making the sauce I realized there was a lot of zucchini, so I set some aside and planned to make Zucchini Bread, one of my favorite quick breads.

I was in such a hurry the day I made the Zucchini Bread that I neglected to add Xanthan Gum to the batter.  It could have been that I was trying to entertain, feed, potty train, and educate a busy 2 year old while making bread.  Ceci was in fact helping me mix flours, but I was struggling to make sure she didn't spill the containers of flour.  I should also mention that her creativity continues to this moment, she is literally sitting on top of me over one arm while I try to type on the laptop, but the intermittent snuggles are worth it.

"Ta-da!"  "I helping Mommy!"

We got the batter all mixed and into the pans, put it into the oven and set the timer, without a problem.  After about 15 minutes I checked the oven and noticed that the bread was not rising at all, and didn't look like it was dry and fluffy.  I looked like a pan of brown bubbly goo, and there was nothing I could do at that point.  This has happened one other time and I caught it before I put the item in the pan and was able to add Xanthan Gum before I baked it.  Sadly that did not happen here so I let it bake through and sadly pulled it out of the oven when it was done.  I did taste it when it was cool enough and it was very moist and delicious!  I decided to save it and figure out what to do with it later, besides eat it.

We were invited to dinner and I decided to recover the second loaf of Zucchini bread, for dessert.  I flipped it out of the pan and prepped some cream cheese frosting, which I thinned out with some orange juice so that it could be drizzled over the "cake".  Tim and I have discussed at length what we should call the resulting concoction with no good result, options include a cake, bar, mess, but mostly delicious.  Above all it is really yummy, lots of spice from the cinnamon and moist from the zucchini and oil, with a crispy crust from the sugar.  Everyone enjoyed the dessert and said it was no problem I had forgotten an ingredient.  I was really relieved that it was accepted, and I got a chance to use up the bread and didn't have to throw it out (I don't like to throw out food.)

As you can see, Xanthan gum is a binder, and often used as a replacement for Gluten.  It has no taste, but it's coagulation/solidifying properties are far more important than taste.  To better understand you can visit the Wikipedia article on Xanthan Gum, where it is explained far more scientifically, and clearly than I could ever try to.  I have also learned that some people cannot tolerate xanthan gum due to it's source of origin, and xanthan gum can be derived from wheat.  Please check your sources, if you can digest xanthan gum, be sure to buy it from a reliable Gluten Free distributor. Such as Bob's Red Mill Xanthan Gum.

Here I've given you the proper recipe for the proper Zucchini bread, but if you are feeling a little crazy, by all means go ahead and leave out the Xanthan gum and see how you like it.

Zucchini Bread

3   Eggs, beaten
1   Cup Vegetable or Canola Oil
2   Cups Sugar
2   Cups Grated Zucchini

1/4  Cup Soy Flour
1/4  Cup Brown Rice Flour
3/4  Cup Sweet Rice Flour
3/4  Cup Tapioca Starch
1     tsp Xanthan Gum
1     tsp Salt
1     Tbs Cinnamon
1     tsp Baking Soda
1     tsp Baking Powder
2     Cups chopped Walnuts

Combine eggs, oil and sugar in bowl, and mix well.  Add Zucchini and blend well.  Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl, and combine together.  Add dry ingredients to wet mix and blend slowly, just until combined.  Gently fold in walnuts.  Pour into 2 greased loaf pans and Bake at 325 degrees F for 60 minutes.  Remove from pans and cool completely.

Cream Cheese Frosting, is delicious on top of this to elevate it to a true dessert.  I added a couple Tablespoons of Orange Juice to 1 cup of the frosting to thin it down some.  It added a little hint of citrus kick and allowed the frosting to drizzle instead of having to spread it.

"Apple Picting"

Oct 2010

Seven Ponds Orchard Sept 2009, Me, MomE, and Ceci

This weekend we finally made it out East for Apple Picking, something I really enjoy and we started as a family tradition last year.  A few years ago I went on my first apple picking trip upstate with some friends and loved it!  It took me three years in between to get back out in the orchards.  Last year Ceci was 13 months old and my mom was visiting us and we decided it would be a great experience to share, going apple picking.  Tim and I did a lot of research to find an orchard that wasn't to far from our home and didn't require us to pay another $100 in gas in tolls to get to.  We found Seven Ponds Orchard, in Water Mill NY.  They offered a long list of different apple varieties, and seemed very family friendly.

It's more fun to pull the wagons, when you are little.

We drove out last year and were hooked, it was an easy drive, and simple to find, with the help of GPS (we would get lost in our driveway without it).  They offer radio fliers to haul kids and apples through the orchard, which didn't seem important at first, but I truly appreciated the wagon by the end of the trip.  The trees are all dwarf trees, making it easy for the kids to participate in the apple picking, I mean how many places can say that a 13 month old was able to reach and pick apples off the tree by herself?  We had such a great time and the wagon made the picking so easy that I ended up with nearly 60 pounds of apples last year!  That's right 60 pounds!  And I used all of it!  We picked Mutsu (one of my favorites), Honey crisp (my new favorite), and a few Red Delicious (not for me, don't prefer them at all.)

Enjoying an apple she picked herself (Sept 2009)

This year, my mom came to visit around the same time of year and we made a plan to go out to Seven Ponds again, sadly it poured down rain the day we planned to go.  It took us almost three more weeks to get out to the orchard for a lot of different reasons, but it was worth the wait because we were able to go with our family friends and had a fantastic day!  I came down with Laryngitis, but refused to give up our trip, I was also terribly afraid that there wouldn't be any apples left in 2 weeks.

At it again!  (Oct 2010)

We arrived at the orchard mid morning and after a pit stop for the two potty training kiddos got right to work.  The kids were super cute trying to haul the wagons through the orchard themselves.  It was a great time, even though I couldn't talk above a whisper.  I was happy to find all my favorite apples again and of course we have to taste test in the orchard, which is not allowed, oops!  Maybe next year we will have them weigh Ceci on the way in and on the way out and pay for the mass amount of apples she seems inspired to eat while we are there.  I also found a new delicious apple, Cameo, crispy, sweet, with a hint of tart, very nice for eating.  Tim tells me that at one point he turned around and the kids were holding hands walking down the aisle of the orchard together, does life get any sweeter?

I think we came out with about 25 pounds of apples this year, I managed some self control some how.  Now you ask what do I do with 25, or 60 pounds of apples?  Last year Tim bought me a peeler, corer slicer thing that suctions down to my stone counter and I ripped through the whole batch.  I put about 6-8  apples each in a gallon zip top freezer bag, labeled them and toss them in the freezer.  This year went really well, and I even got help from my favorite sous chef.  I do like to put one slice through the stack of apple so that the rings will separate from one another when I try to cook them.

My sweet little helper!

Sadly when you defrost them they release a lot of their juice making them inappropriate for some cooking applications.  I have used them with all the juice for pies, you just need to add in some cornstarch to thicken the juice into a nice syrup while baking, same goes for my Apple Brown Betty.  We made a lot of apple sauce last year as well, one of Ceci's favorite first foods, as well as a key ingredient in my favorite, Gluten Free Applesauce cake.

Be sure to keep an eye out as these recipes will be working their way into this blog over the next few months, as I make them and can snap some pictures of my offerings.  And if anyone has a Gluten Free recipe for Apple Strudel, please send it to me.  I'm inspired, but nervous to try it.

Sad day... lost recipe

Last spring we were invited to Sheri's house for dinner and she told me the dinner theme would be "bar food" so I offered to make Beer Ice Cream.  I had been inspired and waiting for an opportunity to make this, I had researched so many different recipes and finally found one that used whole eggs, which is my preference, partly to cut fat, and partly to limit waste of ingredients.  It was on a blog somewhere on the internet, from who knows where.  It originally used regular beer reduced down to a thick syrup, so it was a no brainer to swap out the beer for a gluten free one.

It came out better than I could have figured, deliciously creamy, but with a hint of the bitterness from the beer in the background.  I had puzzled about possible toppings for a while, wondering what goes with beer, then it dawned on me!  What doesn't go with beer!!  We put everything on it, I'm not kidding, I was inspired by "bar snacks" and went from there.  Crushed pretzels, stale popcorn, honey roasted peanuts, chocolate sauce, and carmel sauce, and finally a side of chocolate chip cookies.  You can see this was a healthy low fat dessert.

I went back to the computer the other day to dig out the bookmarked website where I had originally pulled the Beer Ice Cream recipe, only to find it missing.  The blog/website was shut down and the recipe completely missing.  My wonderful husband tried and tried and even went through the entire computer's internet history trying to find the recipe for me.  So sad!  But I do have the delicious memories, and some yummy pictures.  If anyone finds a recipe using whole eggs please let me know.

Gluten Free Halloween Candy List

Celiac.com has composed, and published a very extensive Gluten Free Candy List .  It is noted that many of the items listed are not certified gluten free, but they do not have gluten included in the ingredients.  I'm pretty excited and am considering using this list as my dining menu for the next few months.  Have I mentioned I love sugar!  In all it's fabulous forms?  I do, I would live on all things sweet if my body would let me.  Sadly I do have to eat vegetables and things from time to time to keep from weighing a billion pounds.  Hopefully this list is helpful to all you fellow sugar lovers, I hope your favorite candy made the list, and have a Happy Halloween!