News!

Things are going to be quiet around here. Alex and I bought a house! We've been working on it and moving and working on it. We're living out of boxes for a while, see above picture of our porch. So there will probably be a lack of posts over here, but check me out over at our home renovation project blog I started! Red house blog, linked here.

See you soon, with delicious treats once we get things unpacked enough for me to cook/bake!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Even though I think we should love each other all the days and not just Valentine's day, I do love the beautiful bouquet Alex got me today (and thanks Jakkie!). Sorry for the shortage of posts lately, we're working 9 days straight and then going back to Philly to visit friends and with all our free time we're looking at houses. We're buying our first! Eventually. So life is crazy, I hope you kissed your husband or girlfriend or dog on the mouth today and maybe even bought your mom flowers today, and I'll see you guys soon when I get a break for cooking!

ps: Love this guy:

First day of eating soft food (avocado pudding)

Hi. I got my wisdom teeth out today. It wasn't as terrible as I anticipated, although I still have the healing process to go through. The removal only took about 15 minutes, it was crazy fast. I miss crunchy foods already, but the soft foods I've been eating have been delicious. Like this, for example.

When we lived in Philly I used to go to the Vietnamese to go place down the street from or house and get these delicious, delicious avocado milkshakes. I think they were just made from avocado, condensed milk, and ice. I had a craving for one, but our blender isn't strong enough to do things like crush ice.I also didn't want to water this down with ice, either. Oh and I used vegan sweet cream, since that's what I had.
Have you tried this stuff? It's pretty great. It's good in coffee, as well (MimicCream website)

See how thick this is? A spoon stands up by itself. Yum.

Avocado pudding (vegan)
1 avocado
2 T MimicCream sweetened cream or sweetened condensed milk for non-vegan
1/2 c coconut milk (I used So Delicious vanilla)

Chop up the avocado, and toss everything into the blender. Pulse until smooth. Stick it in the fridge for a little while if you have a sore mouth and want everything to be cold, otherwise eat right away. Serves two.

Soft foods?

I'm getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow, and I'm NOT excited. I'm totally blanking on nice, soft, delicious foods I should be eating, and am instead obsessing about delicious, crunchy foods I won't be able to eat for a few days. What kinds of foods would you eat if you couldn't chew for a few days? 
The only things I can think of to eat are jello, smoothies, and chicken broth with an egg stirred in. Oh and applesauce. Help? If I can't think of anything else, I'll just buy a bunch of baby food, but, gross.

Oh and, heads up, once I can eat solid foods again Alex and I are going to eat super healthy for February, so I apologize in advance for the lack of cakes, cookies, and delicious desserts that won't be on here until March, when I will make up for lost time, maybe.

The best of 2010

Hi! Happy new year! I hope everyone had a safe and happy new year, welcome to 2011!


Let's start off with January. I finally got around to making Kale chips, which I love.

In February I loved this blueberry and cream cheese coffee cake.

March was when I ate a lot of franks and beans until Alex vetoed them. Then Alex had a birthday. 

In April, I discovered the delicious combination of Udi's bread + Sunshine burgers. We ate a lot of these, because we moved out of Philly and to central Connecticut. Hooray! 

In May, we went to a lot of farmers markets and ate a lot of springtime vegetables, like fiddleheads. Connecticut is great.  

In June, I remembered about how much I love peanut noodles. And tofu. And summer.

In July, we ate eggs Benedict. Oh wow. Now I can poach eggs without worry.

In August, Alex and I went on a road trip vacation, I rekindled my love affair with film photography, and I found out that I love love love tres leches cake.

In September, we came back from vacation and I finally made brussels sprouts hash. I love hash.

In October, I played around some more with tres leches. It was a big year for wet cakes for me. This one was chocolate. !!!!

In November, I went to General Mills and met a bunch of bloggers, made a Facebook page, and made chocolate pecan pie. I will never go back to regular pecan pie again.

In December I made the best cardamom bread for Christmas at my Moms. I will make this recipe every year.

This year I hope to blog more. What kinds of things would you like to see this year?

Cardamom bread

Every Christmas, no matter where I am, it's important to my sisters and I that we have cardamom bread.We grew up having it every year, and have struggled a bit to make it gluten-free. One year we used a Bob's Red Mill mix and added some cardamom, but this was better. Add as much cardamom as you are comfortable with, some people can't stand it, so in that case, you could make this a good cinnamon loaf. I wouldn't though, this is too good and special. The loaf should be braided, but I just plopped it on a pan and let it do its thing. On the top should be pearl sugar, a large-grained sugar that doesn't dissolve during baking. I used regular granulated sugar because I forgot to get the special sugar, but it's really best with the good large kind. I wish we had Christmas more often so we could have this more often, but I don't want to eat it more and ruin the specialness.

Cardamom bread
I used the recipe for the best gf bread I've found, just baked into a loaf. 

3 eggs

1/4 c oil

1/4 c sugar plus 1 t plus 1 T

1 t cider vinegar

2 t vanilla

1 1/4 c milk, warm

1 t salt

1 T xanthan gum

1/3 c potato starch

1 1/2 c rice flour

1/2 c sorghum flour

1 c tapioca starch

1/3 c teff flour

1 T yeast

2 t cardamom

large grain sugar

Combine yeast, 1 t sugar, and milk in a bowl and let sit until foamy. Beat eggs in the mixer until combined. Add in oil, vinegar, and 1/4 c sugar. Dump in all the dry ingredients and the foamy, yeasty milk, and mix until everything is moistened. Scrape down the bowl, and then turn the mixer up to medium-high and beat for 4 minutes. 

Scrape the dough onto a lightly greased cookie sheet, and nudge around to form a loafy shape. Let rise for half an hour or so until doubled in size, then sprinkle with large grain sugar. Preheat the oven to 375, and place a pan with 1/2" of water on the bottom rack. When the oven is hot, bake about 30 minutes, or until bottom is well browned and loaf sounds hollow and looks done.  Serve on Christmas morning. 

Latkes, with some things on top

Happy Hanukkah! One of the reasons I'm lucky that I married Alex is that he makes the best potato pancakes. Plus, he makes them whenever I ask him to. He's so helpful and great. 

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah! 

You should make latkes, and then top them with sour cream, then smoked salmon, then a poached egg. Possibly a sprinkle of salt and pepper. This is a good idea. I promise. 

I'm not going to repost how to make latkes, go HERE and look at the recipe, posted two years ago! Once you've made them (or gotten your wonderful husband to make them for you), eat them with apple sauce, or with sour cream, then smoked salmon, then poach an egg and plop it on top. So delicious!

Ok, so I did go to General Mills last week

And I haven't talked much about it yet. Sorry. But almost everyone else who went has, so maybe you heard about it.

So here's what happened. General Mills flew me and a few other bloggers out to talk about being gluten-free. It was interesting, we got some really good food, and I made some new friends. I'm not going to give you the rundown about what we talked about or everything we did, since my fellow bloggers have already done a good job of that.

Check out their posts on the trip here:
Amanda at a Few Shortcuts
Maureen at Hold the Gluten
Linda at Gluten-free Homemaker
Rachel at the Crispy Cook
Shirley at Gluten Free Easily
Amy at the Savvy Celiac

The other bloggers who were there were:
Cinde from Gluten Free Taste of Home
Vanessa the Celiac Princess
Lynn from Lynn's Kitchen Adventures

As well as author Danna Korn and Shelley from R.O.C.K.

caprese salad

We did eat a GREAT dinner at Biaggis.

some sort of meaty, delicious pizza

I had salmon, shrimp, and risotto with cream sauce

Wicked good chocolate lava cake

And had a delicious lunch from Big Bowl. I wish we had these restaurants around here!

lunch!

We had a good muffin and bread spread for breakfast too!

I broke down

And created a Facebook page. Check it out! Like it! I'm working on linking photos to all backposts, so check it out.

See ya on the internet!

Things I love about vacation, part 1

Bacon and onion cheese curds

Butterscotch root beer

GF burger bun and fries from Stack'd in Milwaukee

Camping dinners

Butterscotch peanut butter cups (!!!!)

BBQ from a gas station

And fuzzy giraffe mouths at the drive-thru African Safari we found in Ohio.

Cleaning

All right. So I've finally cleaned up my site, now all the links work, and it looks a little cleaner. If you aren't listed and would like to be on the links page, let me know.

Also I got a neat film camera that I am trying to learn the quirks of, so maybe I will be able to post real film photos of food. Who knows! Anyway, see you soon!