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Showing posts from 2011

My Holiday Recipes

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If you are looking for holiday recipes, you have come to the right blog.  Each year I have been blogging I have added several holiday-inspired recipes to my archive.  Here is the tally so far: Gingerbread Cookies  Teff Sandwich Bread Traditional Bread Stuffing   Butternut Squash Pie Pie crust    Turkey Soup See the Recipe Archive for more gluten-free recipes.

More Holiday Gift Ideas

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Do you have a gluten-free person on your Christmas list?  Here are a few ideas on what to give them for the holidays: The Essential Gluten-free Restaurant Guide by Triumph Dining.  I used this book to help flesh out my list of gluten-free dining options in Portland , and it's been a valuable resource on trips as well. Gluten-free Girl and the Chef.  If you don't already have it, get it for yourself or a loved one!  It's available here in Portland at Powell's , among other places online.  My mom got this for me for Christmas last year.  It's a useful recipe book to have. A Pullman Loaf Pan .  This style of bread pan is ideal for making Gluten-free sandwich loaves because it gives you bigger slices.  My dad gave me one for Christmas two years ago and I've gotten a lot of use out of it.  I created my Teff Sandwich Bread recipe in it. Want to get something memorable and impressive?  Try this Chantal Copper tea kettle .  It's a timeless classic.

Dick's Kitchen Gluten-free Options

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Gluten-free burgers with GF buns.  Flourless chocolate tortes.  Gluten-free beer.  Charming NW Portland .  Need I say more? Photo by Gina Kelley Well, you probably think it's too good to be true - or too expensive to be prudent.  I'm happy to say that the burger is tasty and the Jensen's GF Better Bun is fantastic.  The prices are reasonable, although they of course charge a little extra for the gluten-free bun.  The "Not-fries" are gluten-free and so is the flourless chocolate torte with salted caramel sauce.  The caramel sauce wasn't the best part of the torte - it was too chewy - but the torte itself was excellent.  The menu is very clearly labeled with the gluten-free and vegan options, and the servers are very knowledgeable and helpful.  It should be noted, however, that they don't have separate cooking facilities for gluten-free. Photo by Gina Kelley Dick's Kitchen has two locations - one on Belmont and one that just opened in NW Por

What I Would Love for the Holidays

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I've always envied people who have birthdays in the summertime.  Mine is in November.  While I covet the idea of having a birthday party in the garden,  I also relish the cozy world of birthdays in November.  Here was my best birthday gift: Yes, my boyfriend got me a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer.  It was mostly to avoid being asked to mix things like this bread by hand for ten minutes straight, but still.  It was the best present ever. Some other things I'm thankful for, or that I'd love to see under the Christmas tree, include:  

Traditional Bread Stuffing, Gluten-free

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This holiday season you may find yourself craving a good old-fashioned stuffing with moist, fluffy bread cubes and lots of sage and thyme.  Well, you can have that.  Even if you're gluten-free. I had a few failures before I got the hang of making this recipe with gluten-free bread, so let me give you a few clues as to how this recipe is different than a regular one.  The first thing you should know is that the bread cubes may need to be cut smaller than with gluten-containing bread cubes, especially if the bread you are using is the very firm, heavy type of gluten-free bread.  That stuff can expand enormously, and  you end up with huge cubes once they absorb all the liquid, or dry hard-centered cubes if they don't absorb all the liquid.  Weigh the bread rather than trying to measure the cubes.  GF bread just doesn't have a consistent volume per variety so you can't measure by volume.  If your bread is very dry, you can skip the toasting.  The other thing that makes

The Best Teff Sandwich Bread Recipe

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After countless batches of teff bread that sagged, deflated, or didn't rise, I finally came up with the perfect recipe for a gluten-free whole grain sandwich bread.  I learned quite a few things about bread making in the process of developing this recipe that I'd like to share with you.  The success of a gluten-free bread depends on these essential baking elements: the correct ratio of salt, yeast, and sugar to flour the correct ratio of xanthan gum to liquid and flours accurate measurements, including temperature and the most important thing, and the one it took me longest to discover, is: a hefty amount of acid in the mix. I learned about the ratios of salt and sugar to yeast from reading the Joy of Cooking and other reference books.  What I didn't learn until now is the role of acid in bread making.  It turns out that yeast performs better in an acidic environment.  All the commercially-available bread mixes that I've been trying out have had vinegar a

Read This New Blog

Sad. Inspiring. Hilarious.  It's difficult to sum up my friend's new blog.  It is not for the weak of heart.  It's about her struggle with colon cancer after suffering through years of undiagnosed food allergies and digestive ailments.  It's called My Butt Hurts .  Read this new blog.  Whether it makes you laugh or cry you won't regret it.

Gluten-free Flour Substitutions

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If you've looked online for a gluten-free recipe, you've probably run into this dilemma:  you want to make something now, but you don't have - or can't get - one of the flours your delicious-looking recipe calls for.  This quick guide is a reference for what kind of flour to substitute for what you're missing. Keep in mind a few things when you substitute flours in a recipe: first, do it by weight if that is possible.  A digital kitchen scale will make your life so much easier!  Different flours measure very differently in measuring cups sometimes.  Second, any substitution will change the texture and density of the dough.  Thirdly, if you don't see the flour here that you want to substitute, try thinking of something with a similar fiber content and texture, and experiment.  Starches can almost always be subbed out for other starches, and whole grain flours can replace each other, but don't sub a starch for a whole grain.  Then let me know what you come

What to Do With All Those Tomatoes

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It's been an odd year for my garden.  A cool, wet spring met a cool, cloudy summer here in Portland.  It never even got over 100 degrees!  We finally had a couple of weeks of hot weather, during which my tomatoes really ripened by the dozen.  I'm not sure how much longer this will last with my tomato plants perishing and the weather cooling off again.  Every year it happens: I get tons of tomatoes at once, then I go the rest of the year yearning for them.  Here are some things that I do to prolong my tomato window. Pick them green If it's getting to be too late in the season, the vines are starting to rot and a frost is near, just pick them and bring them inside.  The green ones will ripen eventually.  One year I had tomatoes ripening in my kitchen until December. Dry them Linda of The Gluten-Free Homemaker has a great post on how to "sun dry" your tomatoes in the oven.  I did that last year with some tomatoes using her recipe. Freeze them I

Beer-Braised Chicken with Orange Tomato Sauce

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This is a recipe inspired by my garden.  In the late summer, I often have an excess of tomatoes.  I created this recipe to make use of them, and it turned out better than I imagined.  All the flavors compete with each other to make a beautiful late summer meal with a Spanish influence. Ingredients: Olive oil 1 whole chicken, cut in 8 pieces 1/2 onion 10 oz. GF beer 1-2 lbs tomatoes 1 tsp cumin 1/2 tsp pepper salt to taste 1/2 Valencia orange, cut in wedges fresh basil to taste pitted black olives and juice Recipe: In a dutch oven or large non-aluminum pot, brown the chicken pieces on each side in olive oil.  Remove the chicken and set aside.  Brown the onions and remove them.  Add the beer to the pot and scrape up the brownings with a wooden spoon.  Reduce the beer to the desired thickness for the sauce. Heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Add the tomatoes, orange, salt, pepper, basil, olives with juice and cumin to the beer sauce.  Stir until everyth

Grilled Artichokes: How to Cook Artichokes on the BBQ or Campfire

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My cooking partner and I are really into making food over a campfire.  It's so much easier to make the whole meal on one heat source, and what is an open fire but man's first stove?  When we heard about grilling artichokes, we loved the idea, because artichokes are the perfect accompaniment to so many other things that we like to grill.  However, all the recipes we found involved boiling the artichokes first - not an option for the lazy camper.  We wanted to cook them just on the grill.  This recipe is the result of our inspiration. How to cook artichokes on the BBQ or grill : Serves two Ingredients: 1 artichoke oil salt 1-2 Tbsp butter 1-2 Tbsp water lemon juice (optional) Directions: Cut the artichokes in half, then scoop out the pale choke in the center.  Oil and salt both sides.  Put a few chunks of butter in the center of the artichokes where they are hollowed out.  In the center and around the leaves, add a bit of water until the artichoke seems like i

First Ripe Tomato

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I try to always document this day in the year, mostly for my own reference.  Then, there's also that desire to brag a little.  This year, I'm not sure it qualifies as bragging, but I finally have my first ripe tomatoes. These are Sun Gold tomatoes, and they ripen very early.  If you consider August to be early.  Well, the point is that they ripen earlier than other varieties.  Last year my first ripe one was July 23rd.   The year before , it was July 17th.  I posted a Sun Gold tomato salad recipe on July 20th that year.  It has been a cold, wet spring in the west of the country this year.  Snow packs are still high, the weather only just turned warm, and tomatoes aren't exactly getting in early.  Here's a photo I took of Mt. Adams last weekend.  Look at all that snow! Not that I'm complaining.  It's always nice to have water.  Some of my spring crops are still going strong, and I have a ton of beautiful, huge sunflowers - all volunteers. How is your garde

The Essential Gluten-free Pantry

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When I first started out with gluten-free baking, I did a lot of experimenting with different gluten-free flours to see what worked and what didn't.  Here is a quick guide to what you should buy to try out at the start, and what you should avoid.  To read more about what these flours contribute to your mix read this post. Brown Rice Flour White Rice Flour Sorghum Flour Teff flour Potato Flour or Potato Starch Tapioca Flour Xanthan Gum Here are a few things you can pass up on, and the reasons why: Bean flours - Don't do it!  They taste and smell like beans.  If you need more disincentive, they are often difficult to digest and they spoil quickly. Amaranth flour - Overrated!  It's very delicate, it goes bad quickly, and sorghum tastes better anyway.  Plus, it's expensive. Quinoa flour - It has a distinctive flavor and a dry texture like corn flour.  I only use it in a few select recipes, including this pancake recipe .  While I like it, I don't conside

Cilantro Pesto Recipe

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Right now, I have plenty of cilantro.  It grows like weeds in my garden.  I love cilantro.  In honor of this  prolific herb,  I created a fresh pesto recipe.  This recipe is dairy-free, and the lime juice keeps it fresh long after other pesto sauces would expire.  See some recommendations for gluten-free pasta here .  Cilantro Pesto 2 C fresh cilantro leaves from your garden 1/3 C Brazil nuts or walnuts 1 clove garlic 1/3 C extra-virgin olive oil 1 squirt lime juice 1/4-1/2 tsp salt ground white pepper to taste Blend all ingredients in a food processor until evenly minced, scraping down the sides as you go.  Taste for balance of flavors and adjust.  Serve tossed with hot pasta.  It's that easy!

Gluten-free Denver: Papou's Pizza and New Planet Beer

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I went to visit some family in Denver this weekend and was pleased to find many more gluten-free options than I had the last time I visited.  I even had a few surprises: some really good gluten-free pizza, and a gluten-free beer I'd never even heard of before!  Here I thought I was up on all the cutting-edge news for gluten-free beer, and I found a new one thanks to my mom's iPhone app, which led us to Papou's Pizza . From the outside, it just looks like a run-of-the-mill pizza joint in an average Denver strip mall.  However, Papou's serves some really good gluten-free pizza.  It's New England-style Pizza with a Greek influence - meaning lots of good roasted vegetable toppings.  I got the Mediterranean, which was roasted eggplant, fresh tomatoes, and feta.  The normal pizza crust looked good, too, and the place was a real crowd-pleaser.  We didn't all get gluten-free, but everyone from my 5-year-old niece to my grandmother liked the place, which is as it shoul

Gluten-free Restaurant List for Portland

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I went to Australia earlier this year and did quite a bit of research before I left.  Local blogs in Melbourne and Sydney proved to be really helpful, along with dining sites that had gluten-free search options.  I thought I'd give back to the community by making a traveler's dining guide for Portland.  I'll only list the restaurants that I have personally eaten at and which have strong adherence to gluten-free safety.  There's a more comprehensive list over at Gluten-free Portland dot org. New Cascadia Traditional Bakery - This dedicated gluten-free bakery serves bread, pastries, coffee, pizzas, and sandwiches. Tula Bakery  - An excellent dedicated gluten-free bakery in Northeast Portland. Hawthorne Fish House - Almost all the food served at this establishment is gluten-free.  See the full review here . Deschutes Brewery - They bake their own gluten-free buns and bread sticks in a separate kitchen, and they brew their own gluten-free beer! Iorio Restaur

Clyde Common Restaurant Review

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What a difference a server makes. I like Clyde Common.  The food has always been amazing, and their mixed drinks are equally amazing.  I still remember the first time I went there.  It was New Year's Eve, and for some reason the mood struck me to get a Bloody Mary.  I almost never order that drink - it's usually too sweet or salty for me.  Well, this one was made from a chili sauce.  It was spicy and perfect.  Another reason to like Clyde Common is that many of their dishes are gluten-free without having to make substitutions.  They aren't trying for it; they are just really high-end.  The food is cheffy, which typically means they don't rely on a lot of wheat products.  Wheat is boring and mundane, after all.  Gluten is passé.  So I took a gluten-free friend to Clyde Common this winter.  We got our fancy cocktails and we checked out the dinner menu.  There were several things that looked doable as a gluten-free dish.  I told our server about our dietary restraints an