Adventures in Gluten Free Baking

Part of the joys of having a car in New York City is that you have to move it every few days for street sweeping. (Which I think is HUGE scam by the city, but that's another thing entirely) Anyhow, as we were going to Peru for a couple weeks, we needed to find someone who could help us out moving the car around every few days. This happens to be more difficult then one might think for Alex and I as my car is a stick shift, and silly Americans don't tend to know how to drive it. I posted a plea on facebook hoping that I could find someone who would be able and willing, and luckily my old co-worker Shawn said he would help us out!

I had offered the driver tasty home baked treats as a reward. However, Shawn was on a strict gluten free diet, doctors orders. I'm not normally a fan of the gluten free craze, but I figured I would make an exception just this once. :-)

After scouring the internet for recipes, I came up with two that sounded tasty, Alton Brown's Gluten Free Chewy Chocolate Chip and the Gluten Free Goddess Dark Chocolate Brownie.

Both of these recipes required that I buy a bunch of crazy flours and new ingridients, xanthan gum one of the stranger in my opinion. However, much to my enormous surprise, they worked out!



I have to say, if you fall into the category of wanting to attempt to bake gluten free, both of these recipes were really good and got rave reviews!

I will likely stick to my normal flour baking, but, if you're feeling adventurous, give them a try!




(The cookies did expand quite a bit and were a bit tricky to get off the sheet at first)

Mixed Grains and Veggies!

Earlier this week my lovely friend Andrea sent me a tasty looking recipe involving farro, lemon and dill. It looked like a great dish that would be light and easy, perfect for a warm summer night.

I went out on my lunch break and picked up my veggies at the farmers market and headed into Whole Foods to try and find some farro. Much to my dismay, the little tiny package was $10! That's a little too rich for me. I hung my head and left disappointed, figuring I'd have to come up with something else to make. However, much to my happy surprise, walking back through the green market I found out farro was actually half the price for much more at the awesome Cayuga Pure Organics stand and I snagged some after all.


My tub of farro, a tasty, slightly nutty grain.

I used Andrea's recipe as a basic guide and then went from there. It was delicious and made for a great dinner and lunch the next day! The fresh dill really makes the dish and I can imagine so many different variations of this! We will certainly be making more dishes with farro!

Mixed Grains with Veggies and Feta:

3/4 C Farro
1/2 C Quinoa
1 Zucchini
1 Onion
4 cloves minced garlic
1/2 C or so chopped sugar snap peas
1/2 C or a little more chopped carrot
1/4 C chopped fresh dill
1/8 C chopped fresh chives
Juice of one lemon
crumbled feta

(The vegetable measurements are just a guess, you could certainly add more, I really didn't measure mine)

In a medium sauce pan bring 1.5 Cups of water to boil, add farro. Reduce heat and cover. Let it simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 20-30 minutes until the water has been absorbed. Bring one cup of water to boil with the quinoa, cover, reduce heat and simmer until the water is absorbed, about 10 minutes or so.

In a deep skillet saute your onion, carrots and garlic with a bit of olive oil until the onions are well softened. Add your zucchini and snap peas and cook a bit more. Once everything is done to your liking, add in the quinoa and farro and mix everything together. Add the juice of your lemon and then stir in the dill and chives. Serve topped with crumbled feta.

Happy Birthday Alex!

Today was Alex's 30th birthday, and in honor of the occasion he requested a cheesecake when I asked what I should bake. He just wanted something simple, no crazy flavored kinds. I had found a recipe online that I was going to use, but then upon paging through my Cafe Brenda cookbook, I found one that sounded even better, and pretty healthy as far as cheesecake goes!


Cheesecake with Fresh Strawberry Glaze
Cafe Brenda Cookbook

Crust:
2 packages (not 2 boxes) graham crackers
6 TBS butter, melted
1/4 C Honey (I actually forgot this and didn't realize until too late, shoot)
1/2 C ground pecans

Crush the graham crackers into fine crumbs. A food processor works great. Add pecans, butter and honey, and mix well. Press the crust into the bottom and sides of a lightly greased springform pan. Pre-bake crust for 5 minutes at 375 degrees.

Cheesecake:
16 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 C maple syrup or honey (I did half and half)
1 C sour cream
2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
2 TBS cornstarch
1 TBS lemon zest

Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add honey or maple syrup and beat until well combined. Add sour cream, vanilla, and egg. Blend together. Spring cornstarch on mixture and beat it in with lemon zest. Pour the batter over the crust and bake at 375 for 25 - 30 minutes or until set. The center may jiggle a little at first, but will set as it cools. ... (I had issues with this. I'm not sure if my oven is wonky or what. I baked my cheesecake for 35 minutes and it jiggled a bit in the middle, but I thought it would be ok. Not so much. Our final product is a bit gooey. I would recommend baking until you're sure the middle is pretty well cooked. )

Fresh Strawberry Glaze:

1 pint Strawberries
1/2 TBS cornstarch
1/4 C cold water
1/4 C honey

Clean and hull the strawberries, set a few aside to decorate the cake. Puree the rest to get 1 C of strawberry puree. Dissolve the cornstarch in water. In a sauce pan, combine the strawberry and honey. Bring to a boil. Slowly stir in the cornstarch and water, stirring constantly. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat.

Decorate the top of the cheesecake with a few strawberries. Pour the glaze over the top while everything is still warm. Refrigerate until set, at least 2 to 3 hours.


I was curious how this was going to turn out since it has no refined sugar, it's just sweetened with honey and maple syrup. Aside from the fact that it wasn't as firm as I would have liked, which was totally my fault, it was delicious. Not too heavy and great with the strawberries on top!

Yum!

Garlic Scapes!

One of my favorite parts of the farmers market is getting to try new fun veggies. I remember garlic scapes from last year, but never got around to trying them before. This year I made sure to scoop some up right away.



These curly cues are packed with delicious flavor and make a pretty tasty meal. They are actually the tops from the garlic bulbs you probably have in your kitchen.



I decided on making garlic scape pesto pasta with shrimp and some other local veggies.



To make the pesto, I chopped up the scapes into smaller pieces and dumped them in a food processor with walnuts, Parmesan, and olive oil and then blended until smooth. It wasn't ever as smooth as normal basil pesto, but close enough.

Before I added the pesto, I sauteed the shrimp with a cut up scape, some actual garlic, some lemon and lime juice and a bit of white wine and butter. Then added my veggies, cooked pasta and mixed everything up with the pesto. This was very, very garlicy, so proceed with caution if you're not a garlic lover, but overall a tasty dish! Good with extra cheese on top for sure!

Peru Sneak Peek...

So, I have about 1300 pictures to go through, not even counting the ones Alex took. But I figured I couldn't leave you all hanging for that long. So, in the meantime, here are a few images from our recent trip, I hope you enjoy! More to come with stories soon!

Tennessee Engagement Photography: Missy and Jake!

Missy was one of my good girlfriends in college, so I was thrilled to hear about her engagement and super excited she asked me to do her photography!

Although we were supposed to do the engagements in Nashville, the massive flooding you may have heard about nixed that idea pretty quick. We ended up doing the shoot in the town of Clarksville where Missy and her lovely fiance are now living.

We had a great time, and certainly had an adventure finding some locations to shoot, but the pictures turned out great!

Congratulations Missy and Jake, I'm so excited for your wedding next year!

Reason #732

Why I love the farmer's market.







The season's first juicy tomatoes and fiddleheads!

I'd heard of fiddleheads, but hadn't ever seen them before, much less tried them. When they showed up at the market, I figured I had to give them a shot. They'd been pretty expensive until recently, when the maple syrup guys from Vermont, of all vendors, had them cheap, I got a nice little bag for a $1.25.

We had them roasted with olive oil and a bit of sea salt. Then tossed with pasta with other fresh sauteed veggies and local turkey sausage. They tasted a bit like asparagus, and were mighty tasty.

Here's to new delicious local food!