Gluten-free Gourmand

These gardening ideas might not be strictly new - but they were new to me this year, and my garden is happier for them!  They save my soil, my back, and my time.  This year my garden is better than ever.  Here is what worked for me: 1. I got a  long-handled trowel .

I try to record the first ripe tomato in my garden every year.  This year is a record - June 30th!  It's not even July yet, according to the calendar.  The thermostat on the other hand says differently.  It has been blazing hot in Portland, and it's not looking to let up any time soon. To put this recent heat wave in perspective, I'm usually craving some sun and a hot day on June 30th.  It's usually still reliably 65°f and rainy right about now.  Fourth of July weekend is the first moment a Portlander can expect to see the sun - and she really looks forward to it.

You may have wondered where the heck I've been for the last two months.  I certainly wasn't here, posting new recipes!  Well, after 20 years of soaking up the Portland winters in all their rainy, ice-storm glory, I finally decided to take a winter off.  It just so happened that my partner and I had breaks in our jobs at the right time, so we saved up and took off!  Here's some photos of our six weeks spent in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Mt. Hood, departure day

Update: See my updated version of this recipe:  https://glutenfreegourmand.blogspot.com/2021/10/sourdough-starter-ready-to-use-in-3-7.html When I was a kid, my dad loved to make the family sourdough bread on the weekends.  I loved watching him feed the starter, knead the dough, and put a raw lump into the oven to see a golden half-globe of bread emerge later.  We could get really good fresh San Francisco sourdough bread in the store, but that had nothing on my dad's bread.  It was one of my favorite foods. I like my sourdough really sour in the San Francisco and pioneer traditions.  My dad's sourdough was from an old country recipe that was handed down from a farmer neighbors, the Lists. Old List Family Sourdough  Bread Recipe I decided to track down the recipe and re-create it, gluten-free.  When I get an idea in my head to re-create a recipe I loved as a gluten eater, I'm like a dog with a bone.  I just work on it tenaciously until the ...

Scones are what got me into this mess.  They were like a gateway drug to gluten-free baking.  Now I can't stop.  Where will it end?  I'm up to long-ferment gluten-free sourdough bread. I have a feeling I will keep looking for more challenges.  But it all started with the simple scone.   The scones were so popular that I decided to sell a  scone mix .  It can be made with the traditional recipe, the vegan recipe, or the cream scone recipe. I ran across this Pinterest board on the topic the other day and thought it was genius.  In honor of the gluten-free scone I'd like to highlight a few scone recipes, old and new. Traditional scone recipe - gluten-free Scones: Vegan Scones: Citrus Glaze Savory Cheddar Scones from Gluten-free on a Shoestring Scones: Heart-shaped Cream Scones Scones from the Gluten-free Girl Scones: Whole-grain Blueberry Scones: Paleo Pumpkin Scones from Leigh Olson

I'm not sure if any of you noticed, but I took a bit of a hiatus from blogging this summer.  I also took a hiatus from cooking.  It has been a hot one here in Portland, Oregon this summer!  Last summer I baked bread all summer long trying to develop the best bread flour mix for all of you here.  This summer I made bread only twice.  Baking wasn't at the top of my list when the kitchen was already 90 degrees! I also travelled quite a bit this summer.  I attended a cousin's wedding back home in Carson City, Nevada where I grew up.  I helped rescue a hawk with a broken wing there.  (We called W.A.I.F. and they came and picked up the bird.)  I stayed at a fire lookout tower in southern Oregon.  I went to a family reunion in Bend.  I did quite a bit of camping, and my garden is going gangbusters! Now I'm back at home and ready to dig in and cook up some new recipes.  Something to look forward to this autumn will be some really ...

What kind of recipe would you like to have in gluten-free form? Last spring I took a poll on my Facebook page asking what kind of GF recipes people wanted to see on my blog.  I had some really intense challenges set before me, things that were highly technical and required a steep learning curve.  You know, the kinds of challenges that I love to take on.  Nine batches of croissants later at 22 hours per batch, and I had my first recipe challenge completed.  That was only the beginning.  I quickly realized that a whole new flour formula would be needed.  Croissants, technically, are a bread, not a pastry, and the ultimate request came from my mom, who wanted Danishes.  Who can deny their mom cheese Danishes? My gluten-free challenges last year made for some really prolific recipe invention.  I made a bread flour blend, learned how to make laminated pastries , and made the best-looking, fluffiest, hole-i-est gluten-free baguettes you've ever...

I've been baking since I was a kid.  I created my first recipe when I was in elementary school because I hated raisins, but I loved oatmeal cookies.  If only oatmeal cookies didn't have raisins, I figured, they would be perfect.  It was just so hard to find raisinless oatmeal cookies that I decided to take matters into my own hands, and I created a band-new recipe, one that didn't appear in Betty Crocker.  I made oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips. I was really ahead of my time.  Watch out, Betty Crocker! Now, to be fair my Mom must have helped me out with this quite a bit - Betty Crocker should watch out for my mom, too! - but I was always the kind of kid who asked a lot of question.  Why?  How was that invented?  Where does this come from? My mom and me after going gluten-free.  The mother-daughter team from Joy of Cooking may now step aside! I always had the exotic notion that everything came from medieval Europe.  Mayb...

Every year, I try to record my first ripe garden tomato.  Here are my results for the last few years: 2011 - August 5th 2010 - July 23rd 2009 - July 17th 2008 - Sometime in September (I got my garden in late) In 2009 I had a bumper crop.  I had tomatoes ripening as soon as July 17th.  Well, this year is looking promising.  I have at least two ripening tomatoes - and it's not even the 4th of July! These are Sungold tomatoes - they're small, they ripen early, and they are bright orange.  They are amazing in salad .  Since I discovered them, they have been my first tomatoes to ripen every year.  They are incredibly high producers and they are indeterminate - which means they flower continuously throughout the season.  Flavor-wise they can't be beat. I had a few other things to harvest today.  My artichokes are the envy of my community garden. They were delicious with dinner tonight.  Here was the rest of my harvest: My let...

Some of the best advice I ever got was: "Always use the right tool for the job."  I got that advice about power and mechanical tools, which I have plenty of, being the handy person that I am.  However, the same advice goes double in the kitchen.  Here are a few tools I have that I use daily to improve my performance in the kitchen. I have this Lodge Reversible Cast-iron Skillet that I use almost daily.  The flat side is perfect for pancakes or tortillas.  (I don't know how people cook pancakes without it.) The grill side is excellent for steaks. I also use a number of other cast-iron skillets like this 13-inch round. This Kitchenaid Stand Mixer is something I longed after for a years.  Finally I received one as a gift from my adoring boyfriend, lover of shallots and asparagus .  I have the stainless steel bowl, which is appropriate for my level of clumsiness.  However, how cool would it be to have the glass bowl to see if your...

Lately, I haven't had enough time to keep up with my blogging.  Between work, chores, and making ridiculous amounts and varieties of food with my boyfriend I just can't find the time.  "I'll do anything I can to help you establish your gluten-free empire," my boyfriend told me sweetly.  He would cook,  clean, or whatever needed to be done. Instead, I asked him to do something that wouldn't help get the chores done at all: I encouraged him to start his own blog.  Thus was born Just Another Shallot and Asparagus Blog.   We collaborated on a lot of the recipes on here, and I must admit, I took all the photographs so far.  (Note to self: teach boyfriend studio photography.)  My favorites so far are the photos on the sushi post . Need some gluten-free product photography done?  I'm your lady.  Here's my website .  But back to this new blog: he may not lead with this information, but all the recipes on there are gluten-free, so stay ...

Here in Portland, the gardening season starts pretty early.  In fact, you could argue that it never stops.  I've been trying to budget my food expenses a bit more, so last week I decided I'd only eat vegetables that I already had, or that I picked from my garden.  Here is most of what I harvested for the week: The orange globes in the background are acorn squash I harvested last year.  The big white roots are parsnips.  The leafy greens are cilantro, kohlrabi, kale and mustard greens that I planted last year - they survived the winter, along with the onion.  I don't eat a lot of vegetables compared to some people, but I was able to get some green in my diet every day last week, and it was all from my garden. I already have some seeds planted in the outdoors and they are starting to sprout up.  I've planted carrots, basil, onion, fennel, chard, lettuce, parsnip, broccoli, kale and leeks.  I think I'll wait a few weeks before planting anything e...

It was a rough year for vegetable gardens here in the Pacific Northwest, but I'm finally feeling like I am reaping a good harvest.  I found myself in the vegetable section of the store today, realizing that I didn't have to buy a single vegetable, and I hadn't for over a month.  I stopped by my community garden patch later and harvested this: From the left, there are parsnips, a lemon cucumber, rainbow carrots, a big zucchini, a large crookneck squash, a chocolate bell pepper and some lemon drop peppers, which I've never had before but which are supposed to be spicy. We've been lucky to have temperatures stay pretty warm so far this fall so I'm keeping my tomatoes out until next weekend.  Here are some tomatoes I picked last week: The seeds strewn about are coriander. I'm not sure what to do with these.  It's not quite enough tomatoes to make sauce, but it's too many to just eat in salads.  Maybe I'll roast them to make sun-dried tomatoes...

I haven't been blogging as much this summer due to good weather, but I'm finally here at my 100th post! It's going to get pretty autumnal in Portland so I'll be doing some cool-weather cooking.  Some recipes I'll bring you this fall will include: - Gluten-free pie crust - Gluten-free butternut squash pie - Lamb stew - Home-made bread - New GF pasta reviews - Restaurant reviews - More Gluten-free beer, of course That's right - bread!  I've been baking up a storm and making headway on a new gluten-free bread recipe using my own special blend of flours.  I'm pretty excited about it, but it's not quite ready yet.  This is a teaser: Add caption This loaf collapsed a little; not enough xanthan gum, I think.  I'm trying to do this without eggs, so it's a bit of a challenge. Well, wish me luck! xoxo Gina

I haven't posted in a while, and I'd like to share with everyone my exciting reason why.  I moved!  I now have, among other things, a much nicer kitchen.  I have plenty of ideas for new posts and recipes coming up, so stay tuned!

Today I bring you news that has nothing to do with gluten-free cooking. Today I am simply using my blog here at Gluten-free Gourmand as a platform to promote my brand-new blog, Still Life With Bicycle . Here you will find all sorts of interesting fine art and travel photographs taken by yours truly. If you think the photos on this blog are amazing, or especially if you think they are terrible, you will be pleasantly surprised to see the fine art photography I do while I'm not cooking! Stay tuned for my next Gluten-free Gourmand post, which may feature one of the following things: Pancetta chocolate chip cookies , Pork roast stuffed with Porcini mushrooms, Oxtail soup , Buckwheat Pancakes , or Trout stuffed with leeks

I'm writing today to confess that gluten-free cooking is not always easy. In fact, regular cooking is not always easy. Sometimes, mistakes are made. Take, for example, the recipe variation for the quinoa pancakes that I promised you five months ago. So far, my revisions look much like my first attempts - that is, disastrous: There have been some really humorous moments, such as when I discovered that a food processor should never be filled this full of liquid: Seconds after taking this photo, tomato was sprayed over three walls. I was too embarrassed to take photos of the damage, but I assure you it was extensive. The batch of my tomato sauce turned out anyway, although I might have had more if I didn't spill so much. There were also little things, like when I tried to duplicate my Gluten-free Tempura Recipe with a slight modification, but put the tempura bowl on the hot burner, thereby cooking the batter before the vegetables were dipped in it. I had to make a ne...

To my faithful readers who have been patient with me, I'll finally explain why I took a long break from blogging. My grandfather recently died and my life has been in a bit of a frenzy with work, love, family, and a funeral. In memory of my grandfather, who loved this tomato sauce recipe so much, I am going to share with you my version of my grandmother's spaghetti sauce. My grandmother usually used a mixture of stewed tomatoes, tomato paste, and tomato puree from a can to make this. However, I have multitudes of fresh tomatoes from my garden to use for this. I have adapted the recipe to call for fresh tomatoes, which was probably the origin of the recipe anyway. You can use a food mill (pictured right) or tomatoes concasse as explained in my gazpacho recipe to make this. For ideal texture, use both. I chose to essentially juice my tomatoes this time, since most of my harvest was made up of small tomatoes which don't produce much flesh after skinning and de-...

After an entire summer of bountiful tomato harvesting, things have suddenly slowed down. We're really lucky to be having such a beautiful summer here in Portland, but the extended sunny days may end soon and the weather has cooled enough to discourage my tomatoes. Here is my harvest today - literally a handful of produce: How is your garden faring in the autumn weather?