After Two Years of Duds

It snowed another 3 inches or so last night. Now the wind is whipping around and it is penetrate-the- down- jacket cold. The paper this morning said to expect more of the same for the rest of winter, which officially starts today (it started a month ago in my mind). I would be relaxing with something warm except my girls are out there, liable to be blown away, laughing as they climb up a snow mountain and then slide down. So I write and glance out the window and write some more. It reminds me of Christmas flavors and sights and sounds. Hot chocolate and cookies, blustering snow. Like the movies. My Christmases have rarely been this snowy.

And then I remembered my discovery. I want to share a recipe with my dear friends who have food issues. I've searched and never found a chocolate chip cookie recipe worth my time that was gluten-free. They always taste sandy, and are unpleasantly thin, like a wafer--not at all what I crave when thinking of a cc cookie. But my dear friends I found one. And gluten-eating folks, who don't even know what gluten is, eat these and say, "Yum." It took me a while to make this recipe as I didn't have Teff flour. Never even heard of it. I have sorghum, tapioca, rice, corn, potato, buckwheat, and amaranth flours. But not Teff. Turns out teff is the smallest grain in the world--so small they can't remove the bran and the germ so it's a great source of fiber which can be lacking in those starchy gluten-free flours. Buy some teff friends and try these cookies, they are worth it. Oh and the recipe calls for muscovado sugar, which is an unrefined dark brown sugar that gets its color from the sugarcane rather than from adding molasses to white sugar. But I just used normal brown sugar, it was still delicious. And the recipe? It is at the bottom of this long post on Shauna James's blog. You don't need to read the story behind the recipe, it is long. But Shauna is a a writer that I admire. Her phrasings are beautiful and she inspires me, the reluctant cook, to get in the kitchen. Enjoy. Merry Christmas to my gluten-free friends! Amanda will you tell Laurie?

Garden soup

I feel like pretending to be a food blogger again. I took the picture of the soup the last time I made it. Never mind that real food bloggers create their own recipes, I am pretending. I found this recipe in Diabetic Living magazine. It's full of garden veggies and to my delight, the girls and and Tom all ate this soup without a frown. It's easy to make gluten-free, just use Trinkyada shell noodles and a gluten-free brand of chicken broth, like Imagine. Also there are many subsititutes so you can avoid the vegetables your family refuses to even try. I was pleased with how my fam didn't even notice the spinach and K didn't recognize the green onions as real onions. I plan to go to the farmer's market next week and then make a double batch to freeze for later. I hope it freezes well.

Green Garden Minestrone, makes 8 1 cup servings

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 cup sliced celery

2/3 cup finely chopped leek

6 green onions

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

4 cups reduced sodium chicken broth or stock (does anyone know what the difference is?)

2 cups water

1 1/2 cups sliced fresh green beans and or fresh or frozen green peas

1/2 cup dried tiny shell pasta

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

1 pound asparagus spears, trimmed and thinly sliced or 8 ounces baby zucchini, sliced

6 cups fresh baby spinach or 1 1/2 cups finely shredded green cabbage

1/4 cup fresh basil

2 ounces thinly shaved Parmesan cheese (optional--we used the powdery stuff in a can since a block of Parmesan is not in our budget)

1. In a 4-quart Dutch oven, heat oil over medium heat. Add celery, leek, green onions, and garlic. Cook until crisp-tender, stirring occasionally.

2. Add broth, water, green beans, pasta, and pepper. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Stir in the asparagus and spinach; simmer for 2 to 3 minutes more or until pasta and vegetables are tender. Stir in basil.

3. To serve, if desired, top individual servings with Parmesan cheese

Per serving: 85 cal, 2 g total fat, o chol, 321 mg sodium, 13 g carb, 3 g fiber.

Baking Goodness

Today, I am pretending to be a fancy food blogger. I tried to make this muffin look yummy and inspiring. K has never had a blueberry muffin and this special muffin was the result of a long search for a recipe that fit her needs. And yes it is gluten-, egg-,dairy-, and soy-free. And it was yummy. I poured the batter in the muffin tins and guess what it did while it baked? It rose! I know, big deal to most bakers, but seriously when you take the gluten and the eggs out of baking, getting things to raise is impressive, and if they don't flop, even more amazing. And did I mention these muffins were delicious? Soft and not too dense, also impressive for gluten-free baking. I was so pleased. Everyone liked the muffins, except K who picked the day I baked these to not like blueberries! My response? "That's not a choice today. Eat your muffin." She did, though she didn't it very much. Too used to the typical dense gluten-free bread I guess. Poor girl. For my friends who share a some of our food issues (or just curious bakers), here is the link for this recipe. Note:I used sorghum flour instead of buckwheat flour simply because that's what I had and sorghum almost always works in gf baking.

http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2007/08/brown-sugar-blueberry-muffins.html


And friends, this lady has great gf recipes, many of them allergen-free, even one for dairy-free peach ice cream! I will be reading Karina's recipes regularly.

To continue the blueberry theme, all five us (and Cody makes five) went to The Berry Patch today. I was hoping to pick more berries since it only took us about a week to get through the 7.25 lbs the girls and I picked the first time. I hoped that taking the men with us would yield sufficient quantities to freeze enough to get us through to next season, as we love blueberry pancakes and blueberries on our cereal. I was not disappointed. We picked 23.25lbs!Woo-hoo! We are in the process of freezing them (if you freeze them on cookie sheets first, then when you put them in a container to store they don't stick together). I never thought this was possible, but I am sick of blueberries, though they do make for a pretty picture on the top of my blog.

Summer Recipe

Kara, a friend who also likes blogging, asked her blogging friends to share a summer recipe. This recipe meets all the allergy requirements in our family ( if I take the almonds out of K's) and it is yummy. It's from Real Simple magazine, back when Katie gave me a subscription to that magazine ( I love the layouts in that mag). The girls don't love this salad (what kids love summer salads?) but they will eat it. And once I served it to a bunch of single guys who really only love pizza and burgers...they said it was a chick-meal, but this is still a recipe I love.

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp black pepper
1/4 cup lime juice
1 TB white wine vinegar or rice vinegar
2 TB light brown sugar
4 green onions (white and green part, thinly sliced)
2 medium Granny Smith apple, diced
1/3 cup roasted peanuts, roughly chopped (not a fan of peanuts, I use almonds)
2 TB thinly sliced fresh mint
1/2 cup thinly sliced basil

I honestly don't make this recipe except in the summer when I have mint and basil growing in my garden, as it is tastier with fresh herbs. Pound the chicken to an even thinness. Place the chicken in a large saucepan and add enough water to cover by 1/2 inch. Add 3 tsp of the salt and 1/2 tsp of the pepper and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook until no trace of pink remains, 8-10 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a bowl of ice water for 5 minutes (if I have recently roasted a chicken and have left over meat, I skip all this). Meanwhile, in a large bowl combine the lime juice, vinegar, and sugar, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Add the scallions and apples and toss. Drain the chicken and pat it dry. Dice the chicken and add it to the apple mixture along with the peanuts, mint basil and the remaining salt and pepper. Toss. Serve on toast or over crackers. (But I like it to sit in the fridge for at least an hour)