Gluten-free Gourmand

I just happened to see a new gluten-free pasta at one of my favorite little grocery stores today, City Market in NW Portland. It's an imported Italian penne rigate pasta. It's made from white rice flour. Italians make the best pasta, of course. This is especially true when we're talking gluten-free pasta. There are a lot of celiacs living in Italy, and they are more aware of the condition in europe compared to the US. I'll try this pasta out for you and let you know if it lives up to my very high expectations, considering I spent $8 on an 8.8-oz package! I think this officially qualifies as the most expensive pasta I've ever bought at a store. The brand name is Rustichella D'Abruzzo. It carries an organic farming seal as well as a gluten-free seal, neither of which I'm familiar with. They also had two types of corn pasta, one from the same company, also imported from Italy. Has anyone else seen this or any other brand of imported Italian pasta in...

This is a sad review to write. So far, there have been very few gluten-free products that I've completely panned. Sometimes these things must be said. I want to promote good gluten-free options. Part of my job is to promote the fact that most gluten-free options are good. If I had eaten my first gluten-free pastry at Sweet Pea Baking Company in Portland I might have given up pastries for life. I've bought three gluten-free baked goods there, and tried a sample of a fourth thing. One of those four items was passable. Let me start with the good news. I asked the cashier about their methods for preventing cross-contamination. She told me that they make the gluten-free goods at a separate time than the regular products. They also double-sterilize their utensils and thoroughly clean all the counters before doing the GF stuff. However, they do not segregate the gluten-free products in their display case. The GF coconut cookie I had there was pretty good for being vegan. I...

Today I ate the first fruits of my garden . My Sun Gold tomatoes are ripening up quickly, and I just had to have a tomato salad with dinner. These orange tomatoes have a sweet and slightly tart flavor. The skins may be a bit tougher than other tomatoes, or that could be due to season or growing conditions. In order for my salads to pair better with wine, I often leave out the vinegar. These tomatoes are flavorful enough without it. Ingredients: Sun Gold or other tomatoes, cut into pieces or sliced Salt Pepper Pistou or other variety of basil from your garden olive oil Directions: In the order that they are listed, place the ingredients on a plate. The olive oil should be drizzled or spritzed over the top of everything, but I accidentally dumped it all in one spot. It was still delicious!

I'm sure I have more recipes and gluten-free ideas to share, but lately I've mostly been thinking about my garden. I have tons of flowers now. This is my lemon cucumber: My eggplants have been flowering nicely, but they don't seem to be getting fertilized. The flowers tend to just shrivel up and fall off. Do the bees find their downward-pointing flowers problematic? I'll start fertilizing them by hand soon using a small paintbrush. Last year this technique was responsible for granting me one whole eggplant! Perhaps this year I'll have better luck. My Sun Gold tomatoes are already starting to turn orange! This is really early for Portland. Some of the cilantro I planted early has started to flower. I planted these calendula (marigold) flowers from seeds this year. I'm planning to harvest the seeds for planting next year. I have several "volunteers" in my garden. They are either seeds blown in from a neighbor's yard, or seeds that were in m...

Thanks to Linda from the Gluten-free Homemaker for hosting the What's for Dinner? Wednesday (Gluten-free Style) carnival blog. This week's theme is dessert, my favorite part of any meal. Now, don't get me wrong; I don't really like sugary/sweet things. I like my desserts to taste like their ingredients, not like sugar. Cooking gluten-free can be hard for me because I often find that I can't cut out as much sugar from a recipe as I used to when I used wheat flour. Fortunately, there are still several recipes that I have always loved that I never had to change when I went gluten-free. I already have a pretty good collection of recipes for sweets on this blog, but I thought I'd share my Creme Caramel Recipe today. It's naturally gluten-free, and there are some variations too. Most notably, there is a pumpkin variation. It's amazing!