Not Just Anutter Breakfast Bar...

Today I decided to throw random things in a bowl, mix them together, pour the batter into an eight by eight pan, bake it at 350, and see if the results were any good.  I wanted to do something original; I was not in the mood for Adaptation Afternoon.  Of course, as you probably guessed, I wasn't going to throw completely random things together.  There was a skeleton of a plan:  enough structure to give me some direction, but not so much that if things took an unexpected turn I wouldn't be able to at least attempt to adapt. In other words, I didn't get my hopes up and I didn't get stuck on having things come out a certain way.  Good thing.  Might be a good idea for more than just baking, now that I think of it.  Hmmm.

Anyway, I wanted to make some kind of energy bar or bar-like cookie with some serious substance to it.  I have wanted to experiment with that type of recipe for years now and have never done it.  Several times I have gotten as far as spreading all the potential ingredients on the counter and preheating the oven, only to re-read whatever recipe I had and deem it not quite the right recipe and not quite the right time to throw random nuts and fruits and egg white into a bowl and see what came out.  Today was the day.

I read the ingredients on the Lara Bar package even though I already knew them:  dates, almonds, cashews.  I knew many of the nut/fruit bars use honey as a binder; I have seen recipes that use egg white as a binder.  Some bars are baked, some sit at room temperature to firm up, some require refrigeration (not sure what the point of that is - I want these things to be portable!).  I did not feel like pitting Medjool dates, delicious as they are.  I also did not feel like getting out the food processor and making a puree out of six different dried fruits.  Well, mostly it was the clean up I wasn't up for.  I just wanted to mix stuff together, spread it out in a pan, bake it, and have it be delicious.  I also wanted something with a little bit of softness to it, but not quite cakey softness.

It occurred to me to use a nut butter cookie dough as a base to bind everything together since I know it works.  Then I figured I could just throw in a bunch of different nuts and fruits until there were just about equal parts soft dough and hard/chewy pieces, unlike a typical bar cookie which has much more dough than pieces of stuff.  I also figured I would add an extra egg white to my nut butter dough as additional binder, use a bit less sweetener and a bit more salt to make the flavor less like dessert and more like Serious Substantial Snacking Tidbit.

So I went to work.  The batter tasted way too salty, but I hoped that as the nuts all baked and browned, that saltiness would be balanced by nuttiness and the depth of flavor imparted by using honey instead of sugar.  And it actually worked out that way.  Next time I might toast the nuts beforehand or at least let them come to room temperature (I got them out of the freezer and dumped them right in), but all in all, I'd say the bars are pretty tasty, not too sweet, not too crunchy, not too dessert-like.  Let me know how yours come out.  Oh, and if you happen to feel like pitting Medjool dates, or if you have other dates in your fridge, feel free to substitute those for all or part of the coconut and dried berries.  They'll add extra deliciousness, and you can never have too much of that, in baking, or in life.

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Philly Breakfast Cookie Bars

Ingredients
1/2 c. Gluten Free Flour blend (I put into a 1/2 c. measuring cup 1 TBSP potato starch, 1 TBSP arrowroot, and topped it off with sorghum, but you can use what you like. I don't recommend using 100% of any one flour though - mix it up)
1 TSP guar gum (or xanthan)
1/2 TSP cinnamon
1/2 TSP salt
1 TSP baking powder
1/2 c. cashew/almond/sunflower butter or a blend of those
1/2 c. honey
1 TBSP brown sugar
1/4 c. shortening at room temperature (or you can use butter - yum)
1 egg
1 egg white
1/3 - 1/2 c. flaked sweetened coconut (you can use unsweetened if you want)
1/3 c. chopped pecans
1/3 c. chopped walnuts
1/3 - 1/2 c. slivered/sliced/chopped almonds
1/3-1/2 c. dried cranberries (or dates or cherries or chopped apricots)

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350.
Generously grease the bottom and sides of an eight by eight or nine by nine inch pan.  I used palm shortening.
In one bowl, mix the flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and guar gum.
In another bowl, using an electric mixer, blend together your nut butter, shortening, honey, sugar, and eggs until smooth.
Add the flour and beat on low speed until smooth.
Add the nuts and dried fruits one element at a time, folding each one in before adding the next.  Once you reach the 50-50 batter-nut saturation point, stop adding.
Spread your firm but sticky batter in the greased pan and pop it in the oven.
This will take about 20-28 minutes, so rotate the pan after 10 minutes, then check after another 10 and add time accordingly.  The edges should be deep golden brown and the center should spring mostly back when you press on it.  Because of the nut butter, the bar will firm up more as it cools, so if you want a chewier creation, take it out of the oven when the edges are golden brown and the center almost springs back but still seems a bit moist.

Enjoy!  Suggestions?  Tell me!

~GFG

Look Mom, No Gluten!

I am getting the hang of this gluten free thing.

I know what you're thinking.  More precisely, I know the thoughts that might follow the somewhat exasperated eyeroll that you usually reserve for incorrigible children but that you're giving me right now.  You're thinking, "Of course you're getting the hang of it, stupid!  You have nine hundred types of flour on hand at all times.  You HAVE time...obviously lots of time, all the time.  And you know what you're doing!  What about the rest of us with none of that?"

Well, I didn't always have nine hundred flours on hand at all times.  Or guar gum.  Or xanthan gum.  When I first started baking regularly, it was a luxury reserved for nights when I was still awake at 1:30am and feeling a second wind coming on...when I was totally comfortable with being sleep deprived all the time.  I had finally realized for certain that a lot of the things I was buying in stores were icky.  That's the technical term for it.  I didn't want to eat that stuff anymore.

I didn't know what I was doing any more than anyone else following a Buttermilk Quick Bread recipe for the first time does.  I dusted off memories of creaming butter from when I was a kid and used common sense from there.  I read and re-read the explanation of cutting in butter in the Joy of Cooking.  And Cooking Light.  And Better Homes and Gardens.  And at least two other publications, just to be sure I had the general idea based on the fact that my interpretations of ALL those texts were SOMEWHAT in agreement with one another.  Not kidding.

I blatantly ignored the word "cooled" when it followed "melted butter," because I thought it was dumb (based on...let's see...NOTHING).  After inadvertently and disgustingly scrambling eggs in what would have been delicious batters, I learned to look for that word "cooled" when it followed "melted blahblahblah" because it was a crucial piece of the chemistry of that particular baked good.

And this was all when I was using one kind of flour!  I made all kinds of mistakes cooking with wheat, learning the ups and downs of ingredients, learning my own likes and dislikes and strengths and weaknesses as a baker.

Then I started getting curious about the gluten free thing and whether it was even possible to do at home.  I had no idea what kind of flour to buy.  I read all the descriptions on all the Bob's Red Mill flours in Sprouts to see what they did, how they acted, and the recommended applications.  I took into consideration that while this was helpful information, I was still totally experimenting.  I read all about gluten and what it does.  I inspected all the baked stuff I ate, looking closely at the crumb of it, seeing if it tore like bread or crumbled like cake.  I sneaked pinches of wrapped scones and muffins in stores, gluten-free and regular alike, to see how much they bounced back and how dense they felt.  Crazy, right?

After all that, I realized I still had absolutely no idea how to make gluten free anything, so I might as well just start experimenting because no matter how many muffins I pinched, no matter how many times I read the back of the Quinoa flour, until I had mixed together a batter, I had no idea how anything was going to work.  Never mind the excessively dry climate I was cooking in.  And the horribly uneven oven.

My first experiment went extremely well.  I'm not sure where I'd be today if it had gone differently, to be honest.  Taking that Patriotic Pound Cake out of the oven, pressing on it, and gasping with delight and shock at its apparently successful execution was something I will always remember.  It was one of the most encouraging and affirming moments I've had.  Look Mom, no gluten!

I guess the point here is, Yes, I am getting the hang of it, but it has taken lots of time to get to the point where I'm confident enough to say that and even, gulp, write it.  Time is only one of the factors.  It takes patience, desire, and a whimsy reminiscent of what you might have felt if you ever made pretend soup when you were a kid.  You know the kind, where everything from frogs legs to rose petals to Tonka trucks went in and made a delicious, pinky-raising Pretend Feast.

When you're mixing up your flours, throw the ingredients in with that same kind of reckless abandon, I say.  Just use measuring cups and spoons.  Worst case scenario, you learn what doesn't work well together (buckwheat and quinoa - YUCK!!).  Best case scenario, you have a surprisingly yummy AND aesthetically pleasing goodie that you can't wait to share.
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Honey Glazed Pear Upside Down Cake
(adapted from In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite by Melissa Clark)

Before you start - it's best if you have a cast iron or other heavy duty stove-top to oven pan to make this.  She called for a nine inch pan; I used a much deeper eight inch pan and really liked how it came out.  The first time I made it I only had a ten inch pan, and it still came out well, just less tall and more chewy.  The most important quality for the pan to have is the ability to go from stove to oven and not blow up.

Ingredients
1/4 cup honey (I used Mesquite)
4 medium sized Bartlett pears (Bosc will work great too, but I used Bartlett because it was what I had)
Peel, core, and quarter the pears.  If they are really round, cut them into six pieces each.
1 scant cup of sugar
zest of 1 lemon
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup potato starch
1/4 cup arrowroot
1 teaspoon guar gum
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/4 cup sliced almonds (if you don't have them, don't worry about it)

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350.  Position a rack in the center.
In an eight or nine inch skillet, simmer the honey until it begins to reduce and caramelize, allowing it to bubble very slightly at the edges.
Arrange the pears in the pan in something approximating a circle, with the cut sides down.  You may have extra.  Chomp while you simmer the honey.

Simmer them until they begin to brown, about 12-15 minutes.
Turn all the pear pieces to the skin sides (when they had skin).  Put the pan in the oven and roast for about 25 minutes, or until the pears are tender and beginning to dry and brown a bit more.
Whisk together the sugar and lemon zest in a blow, then add in the eggs and vanilla.
Whisk all the flours, the baking powder, guar gum, and salt in another bowl.
Pour the flour into the wet ingredients and blend completely, then fold in the melted butter MINUS ONE TABLESPOON.
When the pears are done, take the pan out and brush the edges of the pears with that remaining tablespoon of melted butter.
Pour the batter evenly over the pears, then sprinkle the almond halves on evenly, if using.

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, turning the pan halfway through cooking.
Here is the hard part:  let the cake cool in the pan for at least 30 minutes, then gently run a paring knife or spatula around the edges to loosen it before you invert onto a plate.

Enjoy!

~GFG

It's Not About the Gluten, Silly

For lunch today, I brought some leftover pancakes to have with my meatloaf.  In our house, that is a somewhat standard meal (accompanied by some vegetables, of course).  In this particular case, I was mixing leftovers from Sunday breakfast with leftovers from Whatever-day supper that were still in the fridge and appeared to be at least mostly edible.  The fact that they were made for different meals on different days did not make this combo any less appealing or delicious.  I was, in fact, quite looking forward to lunch time.  So much so that I figured I'd better test out one of the pancakes before lunchtime to verify the deliciousness that awaited me.

So, I fetched myself a pancake, and proceeded to nosh on it as I walked back through the store to resume my Monday organizing.  Boy, did I get some odd looks.  I am accustomed to these types of looks, as I do at times bring some unusual food combinations for lunch, but I was chomping on the most common of commonplace Ummerrriccan breakfast foods.  Sure, it wasn't slathered with butter and drowning in syrup.  Nor was I eating with a fork from a neat cylindrical stack of perfectly cut up white disks.  I had my cold pancake in hand and was taking dainty bites of it, thanks very much.

"Is that gluten free?"
"Um, yeah." Chew, chew.
"Ha." Sardonic smile, slight head shake. "Oh man."

At this point I moseyed past the stares and towards a clothing rack to get on with my organizing.  From this vantage point and appearing engrossed in hangers and gloves, I overheard an exchange.

"Is that gluten free?"
"Yeah, it's a gluten free pancake.  I like my Bisquick."
"A pancake?  Gluten free?  Can YOU even eat that?"
"Well, sure I could, but why would I want to?"
"You can eat gluten free stuff?"
Sigh. "Of course."

Chew, chew, smile.  Why would you want to?  Same reason you would want to eat anything:  because it is delicious.

But, like many other people I encounter, these nice folks (who I know like to eat things they enjoy) remain mystified by and cordoned off from the possibility that gluten free food is food too.  They regard it as sub-par at best.  They view it as an inadequate substitute for something else.  They assume that I am begrudgingly depriving myself for some imaginary greater good.

I will be the first to shout from the rooftops that wheat flour has some fantastic and fantastically unique qualities that verge on magical, even though it has some negative effects on me.  I have never had Danish pastries like the ones I made in my apartment three years ago.  But I will also tell you that that magic is NEVER the reason why people are closed off to gluten free food.  I'm starting to think it's just a general fear of the unknown.  It's the same phenomenon that occurs when someone doesn't like some specific food purely because they have not tried it.  In this case, the Gluten Free Food has the misfortune of being labeled based on what it has NOT rather than what it HAS.  Perhaps we could call gluten free foods something like Wheat Alternative Yumminess or Happy Tummy Breads.

Or maybe, just maybe, we could call them Food.

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Crumbly Chocolate Chip Stealth Apple Mini Cakes
(a.k.a. Gluten Free Blondie-cupcakes - adapted from babycakes, by Erin McKenna)

Ingredients
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup potato starch
1/4 cup arrowroot
scant 1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon guar gum
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup coconut oil (in liquid form, but not hot)
1/3 cup UNSWEETENED applesauce (homemade is great, store bought is good too!)
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup hot water
1 cup chocolate chips (I use bittersweet or semi-sweet)

Instructions
Preheat your oven to 325.
Grease two muffin tins or line with muffin papers.
Whisk together all of the dry ingredients including the sugar in a large bowl.
Whisk in the oil, then the applesauce.  Be sure to blend thoroughly.
Add in the vanilla and hot water and mix again until the batter is pretty smooth.
Fold in the chocolate chips.

Fill your muffin papers almost to the tops.  You should get just about 12.
Bake for about 10 minutes, then rotate the pan.
Begin checking for doneness after about 20 minutes.
They are done when they're lightly browned and spring mostly back when pressed.
Mine took between 25 and thirty minutes.

These will set as they cool, so don't worry if they seem soft out of the oven.
They are super super crumbly, so use a plate or paper towel to catch yummy crumbs when you enjoy!

~GFG

I'm Wheat Free and I Know It...I Work Out!

I did a pretty hard workout at the gym today.  What does that even mean?  Well, for me, it means I was breathing hard by the end, the muscles in my shoulders got about half as pumped as they used to when I went climbing, I could see some extra veins, I had trouble closing my fingers afterwards, and I could only marginally feel my legs as I shakily made my way back to the locker room.  I have been "going to the gym" and doing some manner of strength workout for, oh let's see...twenty-one years now.  I started all the way back in junior high (when they still had schools called "junior highs") and have not stopped for longer than four months at a stretch since then.  That is a lot of strength training.  I started out pretty basic, goofed around with some plyometrics in college, goofed around some more with functional stuff and mobility exercises before that was cool, and have been experimenting ever since.

I have apparently gotten to an age where I am really not interested in spending five hours each week at the gym and another fifteen hours each week on my bike.  I never used to understand those people who said they didn't have time to exercise or that they didn't like it or that it was hard to get back into it once you stopped.  If I don't exercise, I lose my mind.  No exaggeration.  I become a different person who is anxious and angry and quite unpleasant to be around.  However...I am now beginning to understand about having other things going on that take up time and that sometimes override the go-to-the-gym compulsion.  It feels very strange to me to shorten a ride because I want to (yes, want to) get home and harvest my vegetables and water my plants and go hunt squirrels with my dog.  And write.  It feels strange, and when I first started noticing it I tried to stop it.  I got angry.  I got frustrated.  I weighed myself three times when I went to the gym to see how fat I had gotten from thinking about something other than my next ride/run/lift.

My attempts at going back to my old habits failed time and again.  I just do not have that same drive.  It isn't exactly that I am lacking motivation.  It is more that a shift in priorities has occurred, and more life has been added to the Life Mix.  I don't think this shift is necessarily a bad one.  It's just one that I am still adjusting to. So, in the interest of still getting my needed endorphins but also getting, god forbid, OTHER things accomplished as well, I have played with my strength workouts quite a bit to shorten them but make them more intense at the same time.  And more fun.  And...entirely coincidentally but perhaps not surprisingly, a TON more effective.  So, let's see.  I spend less than half the time I used to at the gym, I enjoy it more, and I'm at least twice as strong.  Maybe getting old isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Today's recipe is a celebration of efficiency.  It's quick, easy, delicious, and you can do other things while it's in the oven.  No compromises here.  Well, unless you were hoping for a marathon of kneading and a War and Peace length ingredient list.  Not this time!   Even I am finally learning the beauty of keeping things simple.  Sometimes.


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Today's recipe is a super easy side dish, snack, or even breakfast that you can make in about 25 minutes.  The baked sweet potatoes to the left are from a gluten-free gnocchi I made last spring.  Stay tuned for that recipe in upcoming posts!

This recipe is not a "baked good" so to speak, but you make it in the oven and it tastes good, so I think it still qualifies as something I can put on a baking blog.  Plus, it is simple AND delicious, so perhaps I will get some feedback from someone who makes it....

Roasted Sweet Potato Morsels
2-3 large sweet potatoes - orange or white will work
Preheat your oven to 400, unless you know it runs hot.  If it runs hot, use 375.
Chop your sweets into 1/2 inch squares. No need to peel!
Toss in a bowl with enough olive oil, grapeseed oil, or coconut oil to coat.  Don't be shy with the oil.
Sprinkle 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon salt (optional!).
Sprinkle 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg if desired.
Or parsley.
Or cinnamon.
Toss again to coat.
Spread evenly on a baking sheet, leaving space around each morsel.
Place on a rack in the center of the oven.
After 11 or 12 minutes, stir/flip/toss the morsels.  They should be beginning to crisp and brown.
Return to oven for another 12 minutes.  Check again.  If they are crispy on the outside and deep golden, they're done.  If not, leave them in for additional time, checking about every 2 minutes.

These are delicious right out of the oven, or can also be tossed with whatever like to make a roasted sweet potato salad.

Enjoy!
~GFG

The quest for "healthy" food is easier than you think...

Today I'm going to define some words.   Dictionaryophiles, beware.  If you are a Webster's addict, you might want to sit down with a glass of tasty red wine while you read this to take the edge off.  I won't be using a dictionary for my definitions.  I will be using my common sense.  My what?  Yep, that's right.  I'm being crazy today.  I'm using my common sense to think through my decisions.  I haven't consulted one single book, website, pamphlet, or expert (or even another human being, in fact).  I haven't done a lick of conventional research.  I haven't enlisted the use of any kind of specific gadgetry designed for just this task.  Nope.  It's just me and my noggin.  A threatening combination to be sure.

That is not to say that my words are uninformed or that there is nothing to back them up.  Quite the opposite.  Fortunately or unfortunately, my tumultuous relationship with food and the food-body-mind connection goes back a long way.  I can remember at age seven being aware of looking different from the other (spindly) girls my age and making certain food and exercise decisions as a result.  So that's almost thirty years of what we'll call "field research" that I have been racking up just as part of my every day dealings with my food and the (sometimes painful) fact that we have to eat to live.

Enough of that - if those qualifications qualify me to you, read on!  If not...read on anyway!  At the end you'll find a tasty recipe and some pretty pictures to look at along the way.

Definitions that govern my food choices, straight from my head to your screen:

Healthy food:  Items we eat that make us feel good in body and mind; items we eat that taste good.  Items with ingredients we can pronounce; items that fill our tummies but don't cause that Ick feeling.  Items we can eat just a bit of and feel satisfied; items that we could eat often and still feel good in body and mind every time.  Items that do not cause us to have to go lay down on the couch and "sleep it off."

Good food:  see "healthy food"

Tasty food:  see "healthy food"

Unhealthy food:  Items we eat that cause our stomachs or minds to feel yucky; items we only allow ourselves to eat when we are already feeling bad (perhaps).  Items that contain few or no ingredients that are naturally occurring.  Food that is not canned or frozen or jarred, but will keep indefinitely, unrefrigerated.

The above summarizes the the totality of factors that go into my eating decisions.  Over time, just what my personal "healthy" and "unhealthy" foods are has changed as I have tried different things, experimented with eliminating various foods from my diet, adding more of certain nutrients, etc.  At this point in my life, I sort of, maybe, kind of, a little bit feel like I am figuring out what works to keep my body and mind and life in harmony.  And all of it tastes good, surprisingly.  Or maybe not so surprisingly.

And therein lies the whole point of this post:  what works for one person will not necessarily work for another person, but whatever works for you should feel and taste good.  Eating healthfully does not in any way consist of depriving yourself.  Eating healthfully is actually quite the indulgence, and should allow you to enjoy the act of eating again, or to discover joy in eating for the first time.

It's worth keeping an open mind and trying new ways of eating that might seem strange to see how they affect your digestive system and your body and your mind.  The three are not so separate as you might think.  That would make things way too easy.

For example (more of my "field research"):  I never would have guessed I had a wheat intolerance or that I would do better on fewer grains and lots more protein.  But I tried it, and the results are in:  Not only is my tummy happier, but my body and muscles have responded very positively.  At first, I tried for two weeks, then went back to my previous way of eating for two weeks.  Then I tried four weeks.  Consistently, I was better off without the wheat...and that has led to all kinds of food explorations...and a little blog about gluten free eating.  You may have heard of it.

I urge you all to buckle up for the ride (sometimes up, sometimes down, sometimes rough, but always worth it) and buckle down to the project of figuring out what healthy eating is for you.  When you do, you will see why some of us giggle at the prospect of "healthy food" as a some kind of negative idea.  It's just plain silly.





(Bacon-beef burger topped with grass fed unpasteurized mozzarella over  tomato coulis w/bacon, accompanied by roasted broccoli and banana peppers - YUM!)

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Healthy Almond Butter Cookies (or Cashew Butter, if you have it!)
Adapted from Blackberry Bakery Gluten-Free, by Karen Morgan

Caveat:  Dough needs at least 1 hour in the fridge to set!  It will be good up to 1 week in the fridge, so use a little bit at a time or all at once, but be sure to get that first hour of setting time in before you attempt to bake.  Once dough has set, THEN preheat oven to 330 (yes, 330 - 350 works, but you have to watch them REAL close.  Believe me, I tried.).

1/2 cup almond butter or cashew butter
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour (Bob's Red Mill!)
1/2 cup arrowroot starch
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon guar gum
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter (1 stick) at room temperature, soft enough to mash
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Mix all dry ingredients minus the sugar in a medium bowl.
Cream the butter with the sugar in a separate and larger bowl.
Add the almond butter and combine.
Add the eggs then vanilla, blending to completely emulsify.
Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and beat until combined.
If you would like to add chocolate chips, do so last, and fold in about 1/2 a cup or a bit more if you'd like.

PUT IN FRIDGE TO SET FOR ONE HOUR!!!

Preheat oven to 330.
After dough is set, cut parchment paper to fit or grease 2 cookie pans.
Use a large spoon or ice cream scoop to scoop 1 1/2 inch balls of dough 2 inches apart on your prepared pans (or smaller or bigger if desired - adjust baking times accordingly).
Bake for 8 minutes, then rotate pan and set your timer for another 7 minutes.
Cookies are done when they are golden brown around the edges and slightly firm to the touch, bouncing back when pressed in gently.

Eat 'em up!

~GFG

Labels Shmabels!

The name of this blog is designed to make a point, sort of.  I wonder if I have ever explained that point?  Can't remember, so here I go!

The point is that gluten-free foods can be delicious enough to compel gluttony (gluttony:  the act or process of eating to excess).  Gluten free foods are just that:  foods (food:  material consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, and fat used in the body of an organism to sustain growth and provide energy...etc).  Above all else, they are designed to be consumed.  Are some of them lousy?  Yep.  Are some of them practically inedible?  Yep.  Are some of them processed beyond the scope of what a healthy imagination can imagine?  Yep.  Are some of them pretty tasty, but not great?  Yep.  Are some of them surprisingly good given that they look terrible?  Yep.  Are some of them just plain delicious?  Yep.

In other words, gluten free foods are just like any other foods.  They come in all shapes and sizes and textures and calibers.  What seems to set them apart from the general genre of "food" is that they all have the (mis)fortune of a common (lack of) ingredient, so we lump them all together rather than taking each for what it is.  That's kind of like going to an Italian restaurant and commenting on the lousy Chinese food.  Or, more exactly, it's kind of like having one bad experience with Thai food and therefore never eating it again and swearing that it's all too salty or too greasy or too yucky.  Not all Thai food is created equally.  And so it follows that not all FOOD is created equally.  And...not all gluten free food is created equally!

Just because a food is gluten free does not mean it will be dry.  It does not mean it will be "healthy tasting" (though I'm not sure what that means, but I hear people say it and the implication is definitely negative).  Gluten free does not mean taste-free or texture-free or moisture-free.

It simply means that there is none of a specific protein (called gluten) found in wheat, barley, rye, and malts in said food.  Have you ever tasted plain wheat flour on its own or flour mixed with water?  It's kind of like eating dust.  It is far from tasty.  What makes it tasty are the reactions that happen when it is combined with other things.  That's right:  the wheat itself is a vehicle or canvas, if you will, on which other ingredients rely to bring out or imprint their flavors.  By changing the canvas, you only get MORE possibilities, not fewer.

This post is dedicated to my dog Eddy (eddy:  a current of air or water running contrary to the main current).  Having him around and experiencing the reactions people have to him has helped drive home the fact that labels and generalizations only make our minds smaller and our hearts sadder and our lives less textured.  Who needs that?  Not me!  Not you!  Eddy likes gluten free foods...well, when they fall on the floor, that is.  I somehow don't think he's musing, "Hmmm, this is gluten free.  It will likely be terrible.  But I will quick scarf it up before Mom-lady sees me."  I am pretty sure he just eats and enjoys the surprise indulgence.  Is there a lesson here somewhere?

=========

Blueberry Raspberry Blackberry Pear Crisp!  
Seriously, you can use whatever fruits you have in the fridge, for the most part.  This recipe was adapted from a Bob's Red Mill recipe for Blueberry Nectarine Crisp, though I have never made it with just those two fruits.

Makes one 13x9" crisp

Ingredients
Topping
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup potato starch
1/4 cup arrowroot
1/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1 teaspoon guar gum OR xanthan gum
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 stick butter, chilled and diced

Filling
4-6 nectarines, cut into wedges
2 cups blueberries
3 cups other fruit of choice
1 tablespoon arrowroot
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon lemon zest OR 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 375.
Lightly grease your 13x9" pan with shortening or butter.
To make the topping, combine the flours and be sure to break up any clumps.  Add the spices and sugar and blend well.
Cut in the butter with your fingertips until you have small moist clumps and/or it kind of looks like you're working with damp beach sand.
Refrigerate the topping while you mix the fruits!

Or make the fruit part first!
Mix all your fruits in a large bowl and sprinkle the arrowroot over evenly.  Remix to distribute.  Add the sugar, vanilla, and lemon and mix again.  Allow to sit for 10 minutes (this lets the arrowroot work its binding magic).

Pour your fruit into the prepared pan and spread evenly.
Sprinkle the topping evenly over the top.
Bake until the topping begins to brown and feels firm to the touch and the fruit is tender, about 30-50 minutes (I know this is a wide range - start checking at 30).  Rotate your pan after 15 minutes.

Allow to cool for 30 minutes if you can stand to wait.

Serve plain or with coconut ice cream!  Or regular ice cream!

Enjoy!

~GFG

P.S. - We are in the last couple weeks of peach season...that fruit would work great here.  

Biscuits! With one kind of flour! Not kidding!

In this transitional time, I have found myself reflecting on why we do what we do when we do it.  Many of our rhythms and tendencies are seasonal whether we recognize them as such or not.  And the foods we eat and crave and make are a huge part of that cycle.  When it's cold, more people use their ovens for cooking, baking, and general warming.  When it's hot, cool salads and gazpacho rule the roost.  When you have free time, you can spend a lot of time researching, cooking, and enjoying one meal.  During hectic work weeks, it's all about simply getting food on the table.

Foods are a reflection of our immediate needs.  It's not just a philosophical thing.  It's a stomach growling right this minute kind of a thing.  During stressful, busy times, we don't have a minute to think about meal planning, yet we want something comforting, something that tastes good and satisfies us and doesn't confound us.  We want something simple and fulfilling.  Now.

These are the times when it is so easy to turn to fast food or quick food or no food...or that pint of ice cream in the fridge.  Those edibles may fill you, but they won't fulfill you.  I have a better idea that's almost as quick and easy.

Luscious, buttery, warm, melt in your mouth biscuits.  Perhaps over leftovers quick sauteed with some canned tomatoes (or fresh!).  No leftovers?  Fried eggs make a fine accompaniment then, with a side of whatever veggies you've got on hand.  Please pass the butter.

No time for mixing, cutting in butter, rolling, and shaping biscuits, right?  Wrong!!  These take about three minutes to mix, 15 to bake, and 0 to cool!  They use a whopping six (6!!) ingredients, two of which may be left out if you so choose.

Gluten free baking requires finding a balance, as does a busy life.  When you're balancing too many things already, try to simplify something.  It's hard to simplify without feeling like you're sacrificing.  I can guarantee you won't feel one bit deprived, guilty, or otherwise short-changed by making these simple beauties instead of something with twenty-seven ingredients.  And I highly doubt anyone you feed them to will disagree.

==========

Almond Flour Drop Biscuits - yields 7-9 large biscuits
(adapted from The Gluten Free Almond Flour Cookbook, by Elana Amsterdam)

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups almond flour
1/2 teaspoon salt - optional
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup olive oil (or grapeseed, or whatever you have on hand)
2 tablespoons honey or agave nectar (more if you want them sweeter) - optional
2 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 350.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease it.
Combine the almond flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl.  Be sure to break up any clumps.
Add in the eggs, olive oil, and honey.
Stir with a whisk or wooden spoon until well blended.
Dough will appear sticky and dense.
Using two large spoons or a 1/4 cup measuring cup, spoon rounds of dough onto your baking sheet about 2 inches apart.
Bake 15 - 22 minutes, rotating your pan after about 8 minutes.
Serve warm, with or without butter!

Enjoy!

~GFG

This is a Test. Repeat: This is Only a Test.

When I first started baking frequently, it was generally an unplanned late night affair, a somewhat compulsive indulgence that I justified (easily) by telling myself that I just couldn't buy the same caliber of baked goods at the grocery store, and that the stuff I was making was better for me.  Both true statements, but I'm not sure why I felt obligated and/or compelled to justify it in the first place.  There are worse things a person could be staying up late to do.  Night time is my productive time.  It was also, during those first couple years of this relationship with baking, the only time I was ever at home.  Sleep was something of a necessary irritant that would take control of my night anywhere between 1 and 3AM.  If I made it past 3, then I would get a second wind and usually not sleep more than 2 hours.  Luckily the timer on my stove was loud and shrill.  When I fell asleep on the floor while waiting those 23 minutes to rotate the pound cake, it woke me up every time.

Now, it's a little different when I don my Mad Baking Scientist hat.  There is moisture in my kitchen, for one thing.  THAT has been an interesting component to work with.  Yeasted cakes and breads actually rise!  I have access to (hallelujah and praise be!) a gas stove, so things bake evenly and consistently!  My schedule is more free, so I theoretically have more time for baking and less of a need to jam it in after an already over full day.  That's the idea, anyway.  My obligations are more diverse, meaning that with more time in the day, it's full of different things, but still very full.

Also, perhaps most profound, there is another person whom that timer might wake up.   And the timer in my kitchen now, while not as piercing as the old one, is equipped with a "repeat until you pay attention" mechanism that makes late night baking an affair riddled with cringing and tip-toed running.  So, the upshot is that I do my baking at more reasonable hours, in a more reasonable fashion, and it's a more built in part of my week.  Sounds great, right?  It is, for the most part.  But I am still getting used to it.  Those late nights where I would spontaneously get out of bed (jump, actually) to try some random recipe because the obligatory 20 minute attempt at sleep had failed had a sort of magic to them.  Magical is not a word to describe the feeling I generally had the next morning, however.

My writing had a similar crammed-into-the-day-but-kind-of-a-special-thing role in my life as well.  I'd sit at my table bleary-eyed, sometimes while some creation was in the oven, in my flour-covered clothing and write whatever came out.  If the prose wasn't working so good, I'd write a poem.  I'd make lists.  It was a very organic experience, very private, kind of messy, and certainly not one accompanied by any kind of pomp and circumstance or official-ness.   When I decided to really try to write, after I moved and generally changed every piece of my life, I figured I should try to make something official out of it:  I put on official clothes that made me feel good, packed up my books and 46 pound laptop, and went to a cafe, making an afternoon of it.

Today, after cleaning and gardening and eating hot dogs and playing with the dog, it was time to write.  I was bemoaning the fact that I "had to" get on some nice clothes and trek to the cafe carrying this dumb heavy laptop to get coffee I didn't even feel like drinking (!?!?) and maybe have an inspiration or maybe just babble to the keyboard.  I wanted to sip wine and stay filthy, thanks very much.  Then I remembered that I'm in charge.

So here I sit, testing out how this works, this doing of things how I used to do them when I didn't have all this time to over-orchestrate them.  I have a hunch it'll work just fine.  Sometimes it's good to try all the other methods though, just so you can appreciate what works, and pay it the respect it deserves, and then get on to doing instead of waiting to do.

Who knows?  Tonight I might bake late if I feel the yen, just to see if I can still swing it.  I have a hunch that'll work too.  I'll just have to get used to falling asleep on vinyl tile instead of cushy carpet while I wait those 23 minutes to rotate my pound cake.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Grain Free Pound Cake - good for your tummy!
Adapted from my Patriotic Pound Cake recipe (which contains rice flour)

Preheat your oven to 350.
Grease a loaf pan with shortening or neutral tasting oil.

1/4 C. almond meal
1/2 C. coconut flour
1/4 C. potato starch
1/4 C. arrowroot (or cornstarch)
1/4 C. sorghum (sorghum is a seed, so not technically a grain)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp guar gum, if you have it
scant 1 C. sugar
2 eggs
slightly overflowing 1/2 cup Kefir or buttermilk (or heavy cream)
1 stick unsalted butter (8 TBSP), melted and allowed to cool for a few minutes
1 TBSP vanilla extract

Mix together the dry ingredients except the sugar.
Be sure to break up any clumps of almond or coconut flours.  If you store them in the freezer, they'll be clumpy!
In a separate bowl, whisk together the sugar, eggs, Kefir, and vanilla.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix thoroughly.
Add in the butter, folding to incorporate.
Pour the batter into your loaf pan using a spatula to even out the top.
Place on a rack in the center of the oven.
Bake for 20 minutes and rotate.
Then bake for 20-25 more, until golden brown and until the center springs back when pressed and a toothpick inserted in the center has only a couple crumbs on it when you pull it out.

If you like lemon pound cake, add 1 TBSP of lemon zest to the cake and use 1 TBSP lemon juice in place of 1 TBSP of the Kefir.

Enjoy!

~S

A Recipe (or two) for Happiness

Sometimes, you just have to shut up and bake.  Well, I do, anyway.  I find solace in the methodical art of measuring flour (well, methodically chaotic when I am doing my experiments).  I like playing the part of a mad scientist as I add a bit of this, a dash of that.  I find calm in mixing it all together and dolloping it onto a sheet of crisp parchment paper.  I find satisfaction in converting a shapeless blob of dough into a shapely scone or muffin or tea cake.

Baking is something I do for myself.  It rejuvenates me.  It brings me back to myself.  It quiets my mind.  It is also unlike the other activities that might provide this kind of retreat in one very very favorable way:  you end up with treats to share with others.  So it doesn't appear to be as self-serving as just chucking it all and going for a bike ride while dinner remains uncooked, blogs remain unwritten, and the house stays dirty.

So, the same person who might roll their eyes at your yoga habit (a solitary endeavor) or wonder why you have to go out with those same friends all the time (without them) will gladly encourage your baking habit.  There's something in it for them, you see.  And that's the beauty of it.  You get to do your thing, they get to enjoy the end result.  So everyone is happy.  Like, actually happy.  Not smiling-but-secretly-gritting-your-teeth in annoyance "happy."  Not sure-I'd-love-to-come-along-and-listen-to-girl-talk-while-I-gauge-my-eye-out "happy."  Not no-of-course-I-didn't-want-you-to-spend-any-time-with-me-when-I-haven't-seen-you-all-day "happy."

Try it.  Schedule a date with yourself and your kitchen.  Even if you don't fancy yourself a baker or a cook or any of that.  In fact, especially in that case - just look at it as trying something new.  A new activity, approached one ingredient at a time.  Even if the end result tastes terrible, you have something to giggle about with your husband or girlfriend.  Something funny to talk about, something to analyze, to figure out what went wrong.  Or, you have something delicious and fulfilling to share, in more ways than one.

Here are a few recipes to try.  Let me know how it goes.  Yes, there are quite a few ingredients, and several steps.  But that's the point to today's post - take some time to yourself.  And take your time.  Pour a glass of wine and enjoy the process.


Almond Flour Drop Biscuits

Ingredients
2 1/2 c. almond flour
1 TBSP sugar
1 TSP baking powder
1/2 TSP salt
1/4 cup coconut oil (in liquid state) or nut oil (something more neutral tasting than olive oil)
2 eggs
1/4 TSP middle eastern 7 spice, or cinnamon (optional)
dash of lemon juice (optional)

Instructions
Preheat your oven to 350 and situate a rack in the center of the oven.
Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Mix together all the dry ingredients thoroughly, including the spices if you are using them.
Add the eggs and incorporate fully, then add the oil and lemon juice.
Mix the dough for about a minute with a wooden spoon until everything is fully mixed together.
If you are using coconut oil, and you had your almond flour in the freezer, you might notice the oil hardening slightly as it cools.  If this happens, just knead the dough a bit with your hands to emulsify everything.  The dough will be very sticky, so kneading is messy, but it's the best way to make sure all the ingredients are distributed.
Using two spoons or one spoon and your finger, scoop balls of dough about 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide onto your prepared baking sheet.
You should end up with 7 or 8.
Flatten them slightly, if you wish.
Bake for 7 minutes, then rotate the pan and bake for another 7-10 minutes, or until the spring back when pressed lightly in the center, AND the edges are getting a little bit golden brown.
Enjoy fresh out of the oven with some butter slathered on, or have them as a snack the next morning, or both!

=====================================================================

Lemon Coconut Tea Bread
(adapted from bake! by Nick Malgieri)

Ingredients
1/2 c. almond flour
1 c. sorghum flour
1/4 c. potato starch
1/4 c. arrowroot
1/2 c. sugar, heaping
2 1/2 TSP baking powder
1/2 TSP salt
1 TSP guar gum (I forgot to add this and mine came out fine.  A bit crumbly, but tasty for sure.)
1 2/3 c. sweetened coconut - If you get shredded coconut, you'll need to make it into more of a powder.  I used a 3 c. food processor and pulsed the "chop" button until the pieces were more like small squares as opposed to long strings.  If you absolutely don't feel like doing this, use about 1/3 c. LESS coconut, and the recipe will work just fine.
2 large eggs
1/2 c. heavy cream
3 TBSP unsalted butter, melted + 3 TBSP coconut oil OR 6 TBSP unsalted butter melted
2 TBSP lemon juice

Instructions
Preheat your oven to 350 and set a rack in the middle.
Grease a 9x5x3 or other size loaf pan.  My grease of choice is shortening.
Stir together all the dry ingredients, including the coconut.
In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, then add the cream, butter/oil mixture, and lemon juice.
Pour the wet mixture into the dry, incorporating fully using a spatula and a folding motion.
Scrape your batter into your loaf pan and shimmy the pan on the counter to level out the batter.
Bake for about 50-60 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking.
The bread will puff up then deflate slightly as it cooks through.
Your  masterpiece is done when the center springs back when touched AND it appears to be golden brown around the edges AND a paring knife or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Enjoy!

~S

Freeze! Keep those pizza crusts where I can see them!

I make slightly illegal pizza crusts.  I get paid for them in food.  More like a barter.  So, I don't technically sell them.  If I did, then they would be more than slightly illegal.  The crusts themselves are not the culprit.  They don't contain any controlled substances or anything not found in your local natural foods grocery store.  The problem, you see, is that I have no official approval for making and distributing baked goods to the public.  In this day and age, you need a piece of paper that says you are allowed to do this kind of thing.  Or you need to do it in a place that has been pre-approved for such carryings on. A place with blanket approval, if you will.  Which is quite hilarious when you think about it:  you take a test online showing knowledge of safe food practices, then you can bring your ingredients to Appointed Pre-Approved Place X (henceforth to be known as APAPX), make your stuff, and distribute at will, labeling it according to standards based on where and to whom you are distributing.  What if your car has nuclear sludge smeared on the backseat?  What if your dog pooped in your favorite mixing bowl right before you left so you had to transport the dirty bowl next to all your other ingredients, only cleaning it when you got to APAPX?  What if you have a nose picking habit?  Don't laugh.  These are serious considerations.  All of these things are possible.  Well, perhaps not the nuclear sludge thing...unless you're an aspiring baker whose day job is as a researcher at Los Alamos!

What I'm getting at here is that there are all these regulations with baking and selling and anything to do with food movement.  A lot of it is purely for show in my opinion.  I understand the need for standards.  I appreciate that contamination is a very real concern. I bake, for Pete's sake.  If there is (a little too much) leftover arrowroot in my 1/2 c. measuring cup and it affects the amount of almond flour that goes into the recipe, well, that could be disastrous.  I know all about contamination and the serious repercussions.  Most people who bake or prepare food on a large scale do, whether or not they have any desire to sell their goods.  It's not the type of thing you wake up one day and start doing randomly after never having done it before.  It's not for the faint of heart or completely compulsive - it takes way too much time and attention.  Many if not most people who have any desire to do these things for a living or part of a living are not casual about it.  They are driven to create food and they do it with gusto and want to share it.  They certainly don't want to poison anyone or even give them indigestion.  They want to share deliciousness far and wide.  If even the flavor of something is a little off it just won't do.  I am speaking for myself here, but I'm not unusual in this regard, I'm sure of it.  We are a self-policing bunch.  We have to be.  But we also tend to be people who are wired that way.

And, seriously, if someone is going to go to the trouble of baking for other people, don't you think they want it to be not only good, but safe to eat, if only to keep and expand the potential eaters of the creations?  If you kill off your potential customers, you'll never make a living at this business.  I guarantee us individual baking aspirants have more of a stake in that than any governing body.

======

Illegal Pizza Crusts
Makes about 8 6" thin crusts or 2 10 inch thin crusts...or whatever combination works for you
Adapted from Joy of Cooking


No need to preheat the oven when you first start putting ingredients together.  The crusts will need to rise for 20 minutes, so that's the perfect time to preheat the oven.

Ingredients
1/2 c. brown rice flour
1/2 c. sorghum
1 c. white rice flour
1 c. tapioca flour
1/2 c. arrowroot starch
1/2 c. potato starch
1 tbsp. xanthan gum
1 tbsp sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 tbsp active dry yeast (Note:  Those yeast packets only contain 2 1/4 TEASPOONS of yeast.  It's more cost efficient and less annoying to buy a jar of yeast because you can measure it out.)
1 c. buttermilk
3 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons rice or apple cider vinegar
2 large eggs
1 large egg white
1/4 c. very warm (115 - 125 degrees) water

Instructions
Mix together all the dry ingredients.  Be sure to break apart any clumps.
Add all the wet ingredients and mix on low to medium speed for a few minutes if using an electric mixer, or stir with a wooden spoon (old school!) for about 5 minutes, being sure to turn the dough over itself to get everything mixed in.  The dough will be a bit sticky but will want to stick more to itself than to other things.
Wet your hands lightly, and form the dough into as many equal-sized balls as you'd like to have crusts.  Grease 1-3 cookie sheets (again, depends how many crusts you're making) using shortening.  Place up to three balls on each cookie sheet, leaving as much room between them as possible, as you'll be flattening them down.
Wet your hands again and whenever dough starts sticking or becoming hard to maneuver, and using a flat hand, press down on each ball twice, making sort of a cross on it to flatten it.  Then go back through and flatten them all down again using your palm or the heel of your hand until you have crusts that are about 1/4 - 1/2" thick.  Another option for this step is to place plastic wrap over them and flatten that way.  Sometimes the wrap will stick horribly, sometimes it won't, even if you grease it.  I've tried both ways and have come to prefer just using my hands.
Cover the crusts with a clean towel or kitchen cloth and let rise for 20 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 400.  Position your oven racks so they are both approximately in the middle of the oven, or as close as possible.
Prick the crusts multiple times with a fork.
When the oven is fully preheated, it's time to bake the crusts!
If you can fit all your baking sheets on the top of the 2 racks, great.  If not, put 2 there, and 1 on the bottom.  Set your timer for 4 minutes, and swap the sheets, so you'll now have 2 on the bottom and one on the top.  Bake for another 4 minutes.
The bottom of the crusts should be golden brown, the tops will spring mostly back when pressed in.
At this point, the crusts are cooked enough for storage, but will need to go in for another 8-10 minutes to be cooked through.
Top as desired, or store as desired and finish baking later.
(I sometimes sneak one as a snack at this point.  I call it sample testing.  Even though they're not completely done...they are lusciously chewy at this point, and butter melts nicely on them when they're fresh out of the oven.)

Enjoy!
<S

Summer Scones for a Hot Kitchen

The weather has finally changed here.  I'm fairly certain that winter is over and I can therefore retire my fleece cycling tights to the basement... for a while, anyway.  I can also confidently set out of the house without 14 layers at the ready, though I do always arm myself with a rain jacket no matter the season.

I've been waiting for this change since I got here.  I arrived here in the east in the winter.  I in fact arrived during the coldest part of winter, a time of grey skies and short days.  This timing was partially by design: I figured if I got here during the "bad" weather, it would be quite wonderful to experience the seasons and the warming up that comes with spring.  Spring on the east coast brings joy and beauty and sunshine.  Things bloom, people are out and about.  Everything wakes from its winter slumber.

I came from a place of constant sunshine.  You never have to worry about rain in Phoenix.  Never.  If it rains, you just move your plans back an hour because the rain will be gone by then.  I got out of my weather-checking habit years ago.  Rogue storms or clouds or cold and wet weather days are just that:  rogue.  You can be confident in their fleeting nature.

I came from a place where it's truly cold for about two weeks in January.  The rest of the year it is warm.  Sometimes too warm.  Even on "cold" (cold is, after all, a relative term) days, the sun provides a warmth not found in many places, a warmth that makes cycling or running in 35 degrees much more bearable than in places without constant, reliable sunshine.  At least with the sun out, you won't ever be too cold.

In August in Phoenix, the sun oppresses.  It burns your eyeballs.  If feels like it might melt a hole in anything stupid enough to be outside, including the pavement.  At least when it's cloudy, you don't have to deal with that oppressive sun.  Rare cloudy days provide welcome respite from the orb of hydrogen in the desert.  I found them pretty, refreshing, a pleasant change from the norm.

At least in places with normal summers, you don't feel like you're walking into an oven every time you go outside.  You don't have to complete all outdoor activities by eight o'clock in the morning or risk heat stroke.

Such were my thoughts every August and September in Phoenix, when it feels like the heat should be dissipating but it is only getting worse, when the days are shorter but hotter, when the air is thick and brown.  Such were my thoughts in the land of constant sunshine and no rain.

So, yes the weather has changed here, finally, as I've been waiting for it to do.  And it is sticky and hot and unpleasant for sleeping.  Cooking is practically out of the question.  Baking is okay because you then have a nice, free sauna in your kitchen.  You can sweat out all your toxins and any other moisture that might be left in your body.  You see, it's not hot enough often enough here for every indoor area to be air conditioned within an inch of its life.  So you have to actually deal with the heat.  Oh, and then there is the humidity, capable of reducing even the most hearty Phoenix-hot-weather-veteran to tears. Or internal tantrums complete with the (internal) utterance, "How is it sooo hot?"

At least when it was cold it wasn't hot.

======

In the spirit of embracing the moment and doing what I would be doing if things were just a tiny bit different from how they are (and therefore perfect, the state always and permanently just out of reach - or is it?), I baked in my hot kitchen last night.  I waited until evening because it was a bit cooler, and because I had by then reached a certain level of bemused acceptance of the heat and my own resistance to my present environs, whatever they may be.  I bake, therefore, I am in the moment, wherever that moment may be, and whatever the temperature or sky or anything else may be doing right then.  I am engaged, I am happy, and making food is always nurturing to the mind and body. That is a constant you can count on.  No matter that sometimes you have to rush to cut in the butter before it melts.

Chocolate Cherry Almond Scones
1 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup arrowroot (or cornstarch)
1/2 cup potato starch
1/4 cup sugar
1 scant tablespoon xanthan gum
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and diced (keep it in the fridge until right before you use it)
2 large eggs
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon or more to taste almond extract (OPTIONAL)
1/4 to 1/2 cup dried cherries
1/4 to 1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (I like Ghirardelli)

Preheat your oven to 425 and position a rack in the center.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Blend together the flours, sugar, xanthan gum, baking powder and salt.
Make sure all clumps are gone.
Cut in the butter as you would for biscuits, using 2 forks, a pastry blender or your fingers.  If you use your hands, you can use a quick rolling motion to break up the butter and integrate it into the flour mixture.  In any case, you do NOT want to form a paste.  I have included a little video just in case you have never done this before.  In the video, they are using a pastry blender, but the same result is possible with fingers, forks, or knives.

Cutting in butter - demonstration

Once your mixture looks like bread crumbs, add in the eggs, milk, and almost extract and mix it all together using a wooden spoon or spatula.  Mix just until everything is blended - if you still have some small clumps of butter, that's okay.  You do not want to overmix.  Fold in the cherries and chocolate chips.
Using an ice cream scoop or large spoon, scoop rounds of dough onto your prepared baking sheet and flatten them slightly.  They should be about 2 inches in diameter.  If you want smaller or larger scones, adjust the baking times accordingly.
Bake for about 15 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through.  When they're done, the scones will be dark golden on the edges and will feel springy to the touch.
Allow to cool and then freeze or enjoy!

~S

What Makes you Mono-Task?

I never want to answer the question "How are you?" with the word "Busy."  I'm not in the I'm-Busier-Than-You contest.  I never have been - must have missed the sign up deadline.  That's okay with me, because this is one competition I have no interest in.  The race looks pretty full already.

Everyone is busy.  Just sounding out the word creates stress - go ahead, say it slowly.  You have to grit your teeth and clench your gut, like it's a strain just to get through the utterance.

Everyone has lots to do.  We always have.  In fact, I would argue that many of the things we put on ourselves now and that we attend to on a regular basis are far less urgent than what our ancestors were "busy" with 1000 years ago or even 100 years ago. Their everyday tasks were often a matter of life or death:  if you didn't kill something for dinner, everyone would go hungry.  If you didn't walk down to the river for water, everyone would go thirsty.  If you didn't make love to your wife regularly, your tribe would die out.  If you didn't plant your garden at the right time, well, there goes your food store.  It seems to me that perhaps what has changed is the focus on being busy rather than focusing on what we're doing.  But perhaps every generation makes this observation on one level or another.  Perhaps it's akin to generational observations on the disintegration of language - with every generation come a few traditionalists who scoff at modern language trends, slang, manners of speaking, and declare that language is dying.  And those folks, though different with every generation, have been making these same observations for hundreds of years.  And language, far as I can tell, is alive and well.

But, as usual, I digress.

Yes, everyone has a lot going on.  But it's important to take some time to take it all in, to be kind to yourself, to have a sit down meal with your partner where you sit down for more than 10 minutes.  And where no one is watching the clock.  THAT is something that belongs in your planner.  A half hour, an hour - spare what you can and make it a habit.

These snippets of time are like little mini vacations.  And just like after any good vacation, afterwards you feel rejuvenated and together.  UNlike most vacations, these are free and you can plan them as often as you want.

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When I'm feeling frazzled and spread out and generally anxious-loony-behind-the-invisible-schedule, at first I try to get everything done at the same time.  Unsurprisingly, this never works.  Usually after about an hour of that, I give up.  Sometimes I lay down on the floor scowling. Other times I'll drive or walk around continuously changing my mind on where to go and thereby getting absolutely nowhere in more senses than one.

I had already started down the Crazy Frazzled Causeway by 9:00 this morning, so I dropped everything I was trying unsuccessfully to do and removed myself to this coffee shop to write.  Writing is one thing that requires all of my attention when I do it.  I absolutely cannot multi-task if writing is one of the tasks.  I can't even multi-task mentally.  Writing is a mono-task type of thing for me.

Baking is another mono-task thing for me.  I can do other things while crusts are rising or while cookies are baking, but while I'm measuring and mixing and forming dough or dolloping dough, you had better hope that I'm all present and accounted for.

Figure out what makes you mono-task.  And do it regularly. 

If you haven't already figured it out, this is a way of tricking yourself into taking some time for yourself AND being productive.  At the same time.  Ssssshhhhhh, don't tell.

In the meantime, make yourself some delicious pancakes while you ponder your mono-tasking tendencies or lack thereof.  After all, you have to eat.

Simple Pancakes 
(adapted from Blackbird Bakery Gluten-Free, by Karen Morgan)


1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons almond flour
1/2 cup millet flour
2 tablespoons sorghum flour (rice flour will also work)
2 tablespoons  sugar
1 tablespoon guar gum
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 large eggs
1 cup Kefir (Buttermilk will also work.  I use Kefir because it is 99% lactose free)
2 tablespoons melted unsalted butter, allowed to cool for 5 minutes
Olive oil or other high heat tolerant oil

In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients.
Add the eggs, buttermilk, and melted butter, whisking until smooth.
Heat a non-stick medium sized skillet over medium heat (or medium low if your stove runs hot or if you have an electric stove).
Flick some drops of water on your skillet when you think it's warm - if they dance and sizzle, it's ready.
Pour about a 2 inch puddle of oil into your pan and carefully spread it with a paper towel.  I find this works MUCH better than tilting the pan because you have an evenly coated pan without puddles of extra grease.
Using a 1/4 or 1/3 cup measuring cup, scoop batter up and plop it onto your pan.
For the first round, just do one pancake. That'll give you a chance to see how much they spread so you know if you can fit two, and you'll get a feel for how fast they brown and whether or not you need to adjust the heat.  And you can see if you need to adjust the size of your scoop.
When bubbles appear, go ahead and flip.  It will likely be about 3 minutes-ish.

Flip your pancake, let it cook for about a minute on that side (should be golden brown), and then remove to a warm oven while you proceed with the rest.
After each batch, pour a bit more oil in your pan and wipe with a paper towel.  I have found this method to work better than anything else I've tried.
If you're tempted to use butter to cook them, that's fine, but just keep a close eye on the heat and on any blackening butter in the pan.  It burns a lot more quickly than oil, and the wiping between batches is a LOT more annoying.
Meal planning note:  you can mix together the dry ingredients as far ahead of time as you like.  Just keep them in an airtight container.

Here's to a balanced day and working towards a balanced life, one Mono-Task at a time.
   ~Stacey

What You Bring to the Table

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery.

I say... not necessarily.
I say it all depends on the context.
I say it's best to first examine the reason behind the urge to imitate before you go ahead and Just Do It.

Is it (are you) driven by the desire for acceptance?  After all, like attracts like...
Is it (are you) driven by the desire to succeed?  After all, tried and true methods are...tried and true.
Is it (are you) driven by a sometime latent, sometime claustrophobically strong sense of being a Black Sheep Ugly Duckling?
Or, worst, of all, is it just out of habit, this urge to imitate, to fit into a mold, to recreate what's already been done?  A habit encouraged by ... (you fill in the blank).

The first few months in this new place, I was a shell of myself.  Well, not even a shell, because a shell still has some semblance of the original being, an indication of what might be inside.  I stowed away most of me and went into a weird protective mode where my thoughts and actions were designed to blend in, to be as imperceptible as possible.  I guess I wanted to get a feel for my surroundings first, see what was what, see how I'd fit into this new and challenging mix of things I had gotten myself into.

See how I'd fit in, eh?  That's a stupid idea.  Always has been.  I had finally learned that the only way I fit in anywhere is to just be...and I finally got comfortable with that when I was living in Arizona.  It's a weird feeling to be comfortable just being.  And it was new enough that its fragility dictated that it did not weather the storm of this move very well.

Or so I thought.  Turns out, I just misplaced my feather for awhile.  And, it turns out, my feather looks a lot like a pair of cowboy boots and some turquoise jewelry. You don't see too much of that 'round these parts.  And that is the point.

======

This blog exists because I firmly believe and want others to believe that gluten free foods are good not in spite of being gluten free, but precisely because of it.  They are tasty in and of their own right.  They are interesting because they are a little bit different from what you might be used to.  They don't taste like gluten-full foods, though they can be made very, very similar.  They have different flavors, different textures, different affects on the palate and tummy.

Here I strive not to make gluten-free goods that are as close to their wheat-y counterparts as possible.  That would, in a sense, lessen the value of these ingredients on their own.  They are not wheat, they don't taste like wheat, they don't feel like wheat.  They never will.  And that's okay.  Actually, that is the point.

============

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies - based on a recipe from Blackbird Bakery Gluten-Free by Karen Morgan

Ingredients
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup rice flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder UNSWEETENED
1 1/4 cups sorghum flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon guar gum
1 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 stick plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter AT ROOM TEMPERATURE
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips (or semi-sweet)
1/4 - 1/2 cup shredded sweetened coconut

Instructions
Combine all dry ingredients including the sugar and blend using a whisk, a mixer on low, or your fingers until well blended.
Add the butter and, using a hand mixer, mix on low until evenly distributed.  Add the eggs and the vanilla and mix on medium until creamy, light, and fluffy.  Fold in the chocolate chips until evenly mixed in, then follow with the coconut.
COVER AND REFRIGERATE FOR AT LEAST TWO HOURS OR UP TO TWO DAYS BEFORE USING.
This batter also freezes well.

Once your batter is chilled and set:
Preheat the oven to 325.
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Use an ice cream scoop or two spoons to put dollops of dough on your prepared sheets.  Flatten them slightly if you like traditional-looking cookies.  Leave them in mounds if you like the dropped-dough look/feel better.
Cookies will take 13-18 minutes.
Rotate the pans after about 7 minutes, then begin checking after 13 minutes.  If you like softer cookies, take them out sooner.  If you like them a little more solid, leave 'em in.  The bottoms should at least have a slight golden-brown tinge to them.

Once they're done to your liking, enjoy!

Caveat:  these cookies will never get completely crispy no matter how long you leave them in.  They just get too hard to eat.  If you like a really crispy cookie....well, I'm workin' on it!

-S

Dirty Hippy, Meet Plain Amish

These two gals might have more in common than you think.

This thought progression was brought on by an exchange on The Facebook.  I'm slightly embarrassed but also slightly thrilled by how it happened.  I was tickled pink when a certain someone came in the door and presented me with flowers he had picked on his bike ride home AND goat's milk he had bought and carried with him (I can't eat or drink cow dairy, so the goat products are a special treat).  So, in a somewhat uncharacteristic move for me, I posted something about it on The Facebook.  I don't usually post anything that is actually personal - I prefer to speak in vagaries and allusions that don't really reveal anything at all.  More interesting.  Plus I'm pretty private.

So, in response to my post about flowers and raw goat milk, one dear friend, from my life on the east coast, wrote, "hippy! ;-)."  Another dear friend, this one from my life in the southwest, wrote "Amish?"

And that got me thinking:  yes, and ... yes.

How is that even possible? Or rather, IS that even possible?

Well, if you think about it, there is some common ground between those two worlds:  self sufficiency, community autonomy, functionality over aesthetics with regard to one's apparel...and probably more.  Of course, there are differences as well.  But the commonalities are interesting to say the least.  And somewhat poignant given my move from the land of one to the land of the other.  I've had a tough time adjusting, at times feeling like I'm in a completely foreign place even though I grew up not two hours from where I'm living now.  The southwest spoke to my soul and allowed me to grow into myself in a way I absolutely could not have anywhere else.  That's why I'm so attached to it.

But perhaps it's really not so different here.  Perhaps it's really not so different anywhere.  Perhaps the geographic distances and apparent cultural divisions aren't really quite as vast as they may seem when you've got a firm grasp of your own ideas and identity, and a firm foothold in the present.  Firm enough to allow you to accept the things and people around you on their own terms without losing yourself.  Firm enough to exist in the best of both worlds, the intersection of all worlds.

Is there really that much difference between the makeup-less, car-less plainly dressed Amish girl riding her old bicycle to market and the makeup-less, car-less thirty something commuting to work on her fixie in plainclothes?

Perhaps there is a little bit of dirty hippy, a little bit of plain Amish, and and little bit of who knows what in all of us.

I like to think so.

---------

In the spirit of colliding worlds, I felt like creating some scones last night.  Scones are the food of high teas, the simplest member of the biscuit family, and totally in vogue.  Three seemingly disparate qualities all belonging to one baked good.  I wanted them to be simple, and I wanted them to be grain free.  I wanted them to be original.  Somehow the resulting recipe seems to fit with the thought progression that preceded it.  Funny how that happens with our food...it is so much more than physical nourishment.

Without further ado, here is the recipe.

Plain Hippy Scones

Ingredients
1 cup almond flour
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup potato starch
1/4 cup arrowroot starch
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/3 cup coconut oil in liquid form - if you have to melt it, allow some time for it to cool before mixing it with the other ingredients
1/4 to 1/3 cup maple syrup
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
cream or milk for brushing

Preheat the oven to 350.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease with shortening.
Whisk together all the dry ingredients.  Be sure to break up any clumps!
Whisk together the eggs, vanilla, and maple syrup until well blended, then add the oil.
Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and stir with a wooden spoon or spatula until you have a thick but not overly sticky, heavy-feeling batter.
Using an ice cream scoop or two spoons, scoop dollops of batter onto your prepared pan and flatten them slightly.  These would be considered drop scones.  You should have about 8.
Or, you can make one big ball of dough and flatten it to a circle about 3/4 - 1 inch thick.  The slice (not quite all the way through) in a star pattern on the circle using a sharp knife, creating 6-8 triangle-shaped scones.  This is a more traditional scone shape.
Bake your scones on a rack set in the center of the oven for about 15 minutes total, rotating the pan halfway through.  They won't get very brown on top, but the bottoms will be golden.
As far as texture goes, these are very dense, but with a small, soft crumb - not quite like traditional scones.  They are quite tasty about 15 minutes out of the oven.

Enjoy!

~S

Doughnuts - again, easier this time!

Yes, you read that right:  DOUGHNUTS - again!!!  No attempt at a witty title this week, folks.  Just sticking to the facts and letting them speak for themselves.  If you don't like doughnuts, well, that's fine, I guess.  But you might want to get that checked out.  I mean, who doesn't like doughnuts?  I have pretended I didn't like doughnuts at times when I was "watching what I was eating."  I probably said things like,  "Ew, fried dough, who wants that kind of luscious chewy goodness in their system?  Cake doughnuts aren't good either - I mean, crumblysweetsoft deliciousness is really not my thing."

In the last few years, I have embraced the fact that I love doughnuts.  I even made a meatloaf sandwich using a fastnacht earlier this year...after I had already eaten two covered with powdered sugar.  An excellent example of complete and total lack of moderation.  An excellent example of what not to do...but they were delicious.

After seeing about a hundred Dunkin Donuts stores on a trip to New England recently, I decided it was time to make doughnuts again, but to try a baked version.  I wanted them to be soft and more cakey than the fried ones had been, and less granular than previous baked attempts.   And I wanted them to be not only free of gluten, but sans grains as well.  And I wanted to NOT use white sugar.  All at one time!  Just to see if I could do it.

NOTE:  IF YOU ARE NOT IN POSSESSION OF DOUGHNUT PANS, DON'T DESPAIR!  MANY PERFECTLY NORMAL FOLKS ARE NOT.  YOU COULD PROBABLY USE MUFFIN TINS OR JUST FORM GLOBS OF DOUGH ON A PLAIN COOKIE SHEET.  I WOULD PROBABLY TRY THE SECOND ONE, JUST BECAUSE THEY WON'T BE MISTAKEN FOR MUFFINS THEN.  IN EITHER CASE, BE SURE TO GREASE THE PANS VERY GENEROUSLY.

My recipe is adapted from one by Silvana Nardone, author of Cooking for Isaiah.  All of her recipes are gluten-free and dairy free, and they are delicious (the ones I've actually followed, that is).  She uses the same flour blend for all of her baked goods.   I did away with that entirely and adjusted everything else accordingly.  So, it's really not like her recipe at all, but that was what I started from, so, as always, I like to give credit where credit is due.

Ingredients
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup potato starch
1/4 cup arrowroot starch
2/3 cup maple syrup
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 large eggs
1/4 cup coconut oil (in liquid form - melt it and allow it to cool if yours has solidified)
1/2 cup heavy cream

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350.
Generously grease (I use palm shortening - no taste, and okay for high heat) two doughnut pans.
Whisk together all the dry ingredients.  Be sure to break up any clumps of almond flour and coconut flour.
In another bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients, adding the oil last.  Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and mix with a whisk or wooden spoon until well blended...no clumps!!
Use a spoon or carefully pour the batter into the doughnut pan, taking care to spread the dough evenly in each round.  Fill each one about 2/3 to 3/4 full - you'll end up with 10 - 12 doughnuts.
Bake until they are slightly golden and they spring back when pressed lightly - about 15 - 20 minutes.  Set your timer for about 8 minutes and rotate the pans, then check after another 8 minutes, adding time if necessary.

You can dredge them in powdered sugar if you want:
Pour about 1 cup of powdered sugar on a plate and dredge each doughnut once, tap off the excess, then dredge them all again while still warm.

OR

You can brush them with melted butter and dredge them in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon.

OR

You can devour them plain.

Cheers (you can clink with doughnuts too!)!
 
~S