Gluten-free Gourmand

It's amazing news.  On the other hand, it's ridiculous that having gluten-free food on the airplane feels like a newsworthy event to me.  But, being a seasoned traveler and also a gluten-free person for 6 years, I was excited at the prospect of having a gluten-free snack on an airplane for the first time - one that I didn't have to order at least 72 hours in advance.  Thank you, Jet Blue! I read the ingredients of each item, and the only thing that concerned me was the almonds.  They didn't have any gluten ingredients, but the package was labeled for possible wheat cross-contamination.  Even so, the almonds in question were individually packaged, so if a person didn't want to risk the contamination issue they could pass over the almonds. It wasn't a hearty meal by any stretch of the imagination, but it tided me over on the two-hour flight during which no regular meal was served. This gluten-free snack, called the "Shape Up," was $5.99.  It wa...

I went out to my garden this weekend and I was blown away by how big everything got after being away for a week.  I harvested five artichokes!  I gave one away to another gardener at my community garden.  Then I saw my strawberries.  It took a while to even locate and pick them all.  Then I had an unusual problem: what do I do with all these strawberries? I could just eat some of them, sure.  And I did.  Immediately.  But for once in my life I had too many strawberries. I decided to whip something up.  My idea was to make something incredibly quick, but still with a beautiful flaky crust.  I had this idea that pie crust doesn't need to take as long as it does with gluten dough because it doesn't need to rest to "relax" the gluten.  Whether or not that's strictly true is unimportant.  Sure, it helps to rest the dough to get the water to absorb evenly, but for the sake of a Lightning Tartlet I decided to omit the resting. ...

Hello readers!  I'm really lucky to be going to a photo conference this week, but it means that I won't have time to update this blog until I get back.  To tide you over until I return, I'd like to just share a few things that I'm working on. A few weeks ago I put out a query on my Facebook page asking readers what they miss the most or would like to see re-created in the gluten-free form.  I got a good list of things that I've been trying to plow through: bread croissants danishes flour tortillas bagels A few people mentioned recipes that I already had posted, like scones and pizza crust .  The big deal is the bread.  Now, I have a few bread recipe already, but I'm working on developing a blend of flours that's perfect for bread baking in all its various forms.  Pictured above is my first successful loaf of vegan bread made without any xanthan gum.  It's made with a version of my upcoming bread flour blend.  I'll be sure to keep y...

There's something about Portland weather.  The rain, you might say.  It's that every June, I start getting the urge to cook bread, soups, and stews again, even though I thought I'd given that up for the summer. Portland always gives you a few really warm, summery, breezy days in May, then takes them all back for a few rainy, cold, sleazy days in the beginning of June.  It's those rainy June days when I want something like chicken pot pie.  The nice thing about this dish is, you can put your spring vegetables in it if you want. Recipe for Chicken Pot Pie The first thing to consider when making chicken pot pie is how much volume your pot - or in this case your casserole dish - holds.  To determine this, you can fill your casserole with water and then dump that water in the pot that you will use to stew your ingredients, take a note of the level that it fills to, and proceed.  Or, if you would like to be authentic, I suppose you could just use you...