Absolutely cannot believe I haven't blogged since December!!! Life has been crazy. After 11 years in College Station, we up and moved to Houston in May. So, there have been quite a few things going on! We've moved into a house with beautiful natural light, which, to me, means beautiful food photos! So, the camera is out and I will be photographing and sharing recipes once again. In the mean time, I've been enjoying the "Oh She Glows'' cookbook. Vegan cookbooks are great options for people with dairy and egg allergies. She has quite a few recipes that also don't have wheat, so that's been awesome. |
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I'm back!!! Happy Holidays, folks! I'd like to post a few things I have made before Christmas rolls around. Seems like a few companies are manufacturing gluten-free rice crackers these days. We purchase the HEB brand but Nabisco is making some rice thins that are the exact same thing. And as I was whipping up a batch of regular, gluten-full toffee made with saltine crackers, I thought, "hey, I could so do this GF for jane!". So, I did. And it was mighty easy and tasty. I'm thinking these could be made vegan by using vegan butter, and they'd probably taste pretty darn good. I call this "crack bark" because once you start, you can't stop. :) It's also fantastic with GF pretzel twists as the base, in place of the crackers. Gluten Free Crack Bark
Preheat oven to 350. Spray a jelly roll pan with cooking spray or rub with olive oil/butter. Lay out rice crackers to cover the entire pan in one layer. In a small pan, melt butter and brown sugar together and then bring to boil, stirring constantly. Since I'm a by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of chef, I don't get the candy thermometer out, and thus my caramel always turns out a little soft (which is still delicious and my husband says he prefers it this way), but if you're not familiar with cooking caramel, you might want to get the thermometer out and research the different stages of caramel. If you're going to eyeball it, cook the caramel until it's frothy and then keep going...about to the point you think you've messed things up. Then hurry it on over to the pan and pour all over the crackers, spreading it out as you go. Pop the pan in the oven for 5 minutes. When it comes out, sprinkle on the chocolate chips and watch them start to soften up. When they are spreadable, use an off-set spatula to smooth the chocolate evenly. Let cool, or if you're very impatient like me, put it in the fridge or deep freeze for a few minutes. Break it up with a fork and scrape it from the pan with a spatula. You won't be disappointed. Weekends around here usually mean big breakfasts! This is where the gluten free bulk flour mix comes in handy. Waffles/Pancake Batter:
Combine ingredients and cook as desired - works great for pancakes or waffles. I also use this exact batter for a pot pie topping. It works beautifully. I'll post that in the new few weeks as it cools off. :) I'm a believer that no food should be completely off-limits. All things in moderation, right? And sometimes, like on a rainy Friday evening, you just have to fry up some chicken for your family. And nobody can be left out, so you might have to fry up some GF chicken. I'm not going to insult you by giving you instructions to fry chicken, because frying chicken is like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich...you just know how to do it. It's a staple. Well, ok maybe not a "staple" like it is to this Texan woman but there are a gazillion tutorials and recipes in cookbooks and on the web that I don't need to waste space here with the how-to's. But I will tell you what I use. Fried Chicken
Soak the chicken in buttermilk while you prepare the oil and other ingredients. For about two cups of flour I use a generous amount (2 Tbsp) seasoned salt. Stir the salt and flour together and add pepper. Take the chicken out of the buttermilk and dredge in the flour mixture and add to the frying oil. Some people might say the chicken in the above photo is overcooked, but I love all things crispy and this is just like I fry it every time. Tyler Florence recommends serving chicken up with freshly squeezed lemon, so I thought I'd give it a try. This is a fun treat to make on occasion and it just really hits the spot. There's nothing like homemade fried chicken made with love. Please hang in there with me while I post old content from my old blog. I took some rainbow crispy rice treats for Jane's 5th birthday celebration at school. They are super sweet but the colors are awesome and the kids absolutely loved them. You simply follow the traditional recipe but substitute rainbow rice cereal for plain rice cereal. Wheat-free and egg-free!! Crispy rice treats can also be made dairy free but substituting vegan butter, which I have not personally tried. I have however substituted coconut oil in place of the butter and they are delicious. I couldn't even taste a difference. I don't know if it's right or if it's wrong, but with all of the food allergy issues, I have an underlying and very strong desire for normalcy. Is that bad? I want my child to have a traditional birthday cake. Not some dry, nasty *special* muffin or crazy concocted loaf of something. A cake. With gobs of frosting and sugar and decorations for one day of the year. So I'm thankful for cake mixes and products that are safe for my child that I can use and tweak and churn out something magical for this little lady. Last year for Jane's birthday I used Bob's Red Mill chocolate cake mix* and substituted flaxseed meal for the eggs. I used Hershey's Cocoa Fudge Frosting and added extra powdered sugar to make it nice and thick to give the "rock-esque" look for mermaid Barbie to perch on. I then used store-bought GF frostings for the (pathetically attempted) seaweed and water and then Swedish Fish for fun. I tried my best to find green fruit roll ups for Barbie's fin but I ultimately had to settle for this rainbow looking one. Birthday cakes are a big deal around here. I think I might enjoy making them more than the kids enjoy eating them. They look very homemade and they are far from perfect but my favorite part is unveiling them on birthday mornings and seeing the reactions. *I have mentioned that the Bob's cake mix uses garbanzo/chickpea flour. Since Jane is allergic to peas, I wasn't too surprised when she told me this cake made her mouth kind of itchy. I haven't used this flour since, but I do use the Bob's Red Mill GF all purpose flour for frying chicken and she has never mentioned any discomfort. I'm not sure if it has to do with the frying process or what, but like I've said time and time again, this whole allergy thing is a learning process and sometimes doesn't make a lick of sense! The hubs and Jane loooove meatballs. Since the hubs and I speak Spanish, we love to shout "alBONdigas!" on meatball night. It really is a great word. Go ahead, give it a try. ALBONDIGAS!!! There are two problems with traditional meatballs and even meat loaf: 1) They usually contain eggs 2) They usually contain crackers or breadcrumbs (wheat) But I was determined to figure out how to make them hold together without the above ingredients. Lo and behold, I did. And they're super tasty. And now Jane thinks I'm super momma. And they are baked, not fried. Booyah. This recipe is inspired by my mother-in-law's meatball recipe, which the hubs loves. Tangy Meatballs
Oven 375F Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl (I do this with my hands). Roll into balls a little smaller than raquetball size (Two pounds of beef yielded 16 meatballs, so each meatball was roughly 1/8lb, if this helps for size). Place on greased broiler pan and cook for 20 minutes. While they cook, you're going to make your sauce. It's all about the sauce.
Stir together and after the 20 minutes are up, brush sauce on to meatballs and return to oven for another 5 minutes. The sauce will thicken and get all ooey-gooey sweet and magical. I serve this on sticky rice with a vegetable. Tonight the vegetable of choice was fresh green beans. The kids helped me pick each individual bean out at the grocery store this week so they were very excited to eat them tonight. I have found that the more I involve the children in the meal preparation, the more excited they are to eat. The flaxseed meal gives them a great consistency and they hold together beautifully. Bob's Red Mill makes some great stuff! I made these cupcakes last year, using the chocolate cake mix and substituting flax seed meal eggs in place of eggs. The flavor of the cake is one of the best I have tasted. You can also use this same mix and a donut shaped baking pan to make chocolate donuts that will blow your mind! Top them with Hershey's Cocoa Fudge Frosting (the donuts AND these cupcakes) and you're in business. I have used this Hershey Fudge Frosting for years. It comes out of an old, tattered, tiny cookbook that was my mother's. Hershey's Cocoa Fudge Frosting
Melt butter in microwave. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting. And it quite seriously tastes like holiday fudge. This cream pie recipe comes from my personal blog from almost exactly two years ago. These were a huge hit and very rich. Smaller ones would be fun to try.
Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl with a whisk. Add wet ingredients and stir until moist. Drop by spoonfuls on to greased cookie sheet and spread dough out with the back of a spoon until you've formed about a 3" circle. Bake at 350 for 18 minutes. Remove the cookies from the sheet and set on cooling rack. Once they're cool, make sandwiches out of them using this perfectly simple cream cheese frosting. Unbutton your pants Frank Barone style and sit on the couch, enjoying them one bite at a time. You won't be disappointed. This sweet little one, the inspiration for this blog, turned six this week. I created the Princess Celestia cake of her dreams. That smile is why I do it. I used The Pure Pantry chocolate cake mix and store-bought frosting in these radical colors. To substitute the eggs in the cake I opted for Ener-G egg replacer and it worked like a charm. This was my first time to use the Pure Pantry chocolate cake mix. I do feel like there's a bit of an aftertaste but the texture is unbelievably moist and topped with frosting it's great. The only other GF cake I have tasted to compare is the Bob's Red Mill chocolate cake mix, but I didn't use that one because they use garbanzo bean flour in their mix, and since Jane is allergic to peas, I wasn't surprised when she told me the cake mix made with the Bob's made her mouth itchy. That mix is delicious though and I highly recommend it. |
Just a mom and cooking enthusiast on a journey to help other food allergy sufferers along their way.
And trying to find my own way, too. The food allergies I cater to specifically are: Archives
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