Gluten-free Gourmand

It's that time of year again. It's tomato season. This is the eight pounds of tomatoes I picked yesterday. I'd love to give you some new tips on storing your tomatoes, but honestly I'm using the methods I told you about last year.  They are very good, and very easy.  Read about them in my post What to do with all those Tomatoes. And those jars in the background?  That's sourdough starter.  I'm excited - I haven't used it yet.  I'll let you know how that comes out. I'm thinking about making a marinara sauce today.  What are you doing with all your tomatoes?

Green's Endeavor Dubbel Dark Ale is one of my favorite gluten-free beers.  I rated it #2 among all gluten-free beers on my Beer Guide .   Despite its deep, rich dark color, this beer is not like a stout or a porter.  It takes its flavor profile from its Belgian roots, offering a fruity contrast to the roasted gluten-free malt flavor that is surprisingly light and refreshing.   The Green's US website  describes the beer as: In the classic dubbel fashion, a hint of dark-sugar and toffee flavor; and a traditional Belgian yeast bouquet. I have to agree with this description.  The beer is actually very dry - it has zero sugars - but it has a toffee flavor.  That fruity, floral, sweet nose makes it a very unusual and sophisticated beer, but this is a drink that does not always pair well with food, which is possibly why it doesn't make my #1 ranking.  Here are some suggestions for pairings with this beer: - A nice charcuterie plate - Salmon ...

Daura is one of my favorite gluten-free beers.  It's in my top three in my Beer Guide .  Why?  Because it tastes like beer. I didn't miss much when I went gluten-free.  I felt so good, I couldn't wait to rid gluten from my life forever.  There was one little thing, though, that I couldn't get from the gluten-free lifestyle, and that was beer.  Way back in 2005 when I swore off gluten for good, the GF beer selection at the grocery store didn't have much to offer.  Eventually there was Redbridge, which filled a function.  But something was missing. Before I went gluten-free, I loved a good stout.  Why stouts?  I think it was the roasted barley flavor that got me.  So rich and creamy, that barley malt just spoke to me in a way the hoppy ales never did.  I was just starting to get over this loss of barley malt flavor, just starting to forget what it even tasted like after five years, when Daura came onto the scene. I tr...

One of the only things that I missed after going gluten-free was beer.  Just a few years ago when I quit gluten for good, there wasn't much to choose from as far as gluten-free beer was concerned.  Well, we've come a long way, baby.  Here's a list of all the gluten-free beers, from best to worst according to my personal preference. I'll list only beers that are commercially available in the Portland area, and most of them will be available beyond.  (Note that Deschutes gluten-free beer is only available at their brewery locations and isn't included on this list.  I've done a number of posts on it, so search "Deschutes" on this site for more information about it.)  I'll link to posts that I've written for more in-depth reviews.  I'll also make this page a tab at the top of my blog for easy access. #1 Green's Quest Trippel Blonde Ale - A complex Belgian ale #2 Green's Endeavor Dubbel Dark Ale - A fruity dark Belgian ale #3 ...

I'll let fellow blogger Rebecca Clark do the heavy lifting today with her insightful review of my flour mixes and Pastry Flour.  Plus get a delicious dairy-free recipe for carrot cake with vegan cream cheese frosting!  Head over to Eating Friendly for the recipe and review. Read a review of my Pancake Mix at Eating Friendly

I had a craving for peanut butter and flax.  I can't explain it.   I'd been tasting some flax seeds because the package claimed that Romans used to snack on them like nuts.  I guess I wanted to pass my summer like a Roman, lounging around snacking on flax seed and having someone fan me.  Well, I haven't found anyone to fan me yet, but I can do the flax seed in style. Here's the concept: packed with protein and fiber, these tiny snacks will make you feel full for longer than a sugary bar.  (I happened to have some Chia Seed on hand, which has even more fiber than flax seed, so I used both.  However, you can use just flax in this recipe if you'd like.)  Plus you can make them in minutes and they are good finger-food.  I didn't make mine too sugary because I don't like things that spike my blood sugar.  That's so hard to find in a snack!  Also, this snack is vegan, vegetarian, raw, dairy free.... Well, you get the point. Here's h...

Need to beat the heat?  Here are five easy steps to quenching your thirst: 1. Go to the farmers market.  Get some berries. 2.  Put some ice, sugar, and the berries in a glass.   3. Muddle. 4. Fill the glass with San Pellegrino. 5. Enjoy!

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...

It's summer, and everyone is trying to think of ways to keep their kitchen cool but still make decent meals.  The best thing about fresh pasta is you only need to cook it for 2-4 minutes.  Easy!  Top it with cilantro pesto if you don't want to cook a sauce.  I've made fresh pasta with my amazingly versatile  Deluxe Pastry Flour  several times and thought I'd share the recipe.  This pasta is strong enough to make ravioli with, or any flat pasta shape, rolling out or in a machine.  I prefer to roll it out - I think it's easier and faster. I've heard it's a saying that "If you want to taste butter, eat a croissant .  If you want to taste grain, eat pasta." Well, this recipe puts my  Deluxe Pastry Flour  to the test.  You can really taste the blend of flours.  And it tastes beautiful. I decided to make a tagliatelle style hand-cut pasta with extra-wide noodles.  I love wide noodles!  Next time, I won't go qui...

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...

Have a burrito - a real burrito.  Just like I did every day this week since I came up with this recipe for gluten-free flour tortillas.  They aren't even hard to make! There are several secret ingredients.  The first one is not so secret - it's more of a traditional, but underground ingredient.  The ingredient that makes these tortillas taste so good is lard.  Yep, delicious lard!  It's how flour tortillas are made.  (Sub out with vegetable shortening if you are vegetarian, of course.) The second secret ingredient is my  Deluxe Pastry Flour .  It has just the right balance of gluten-free flours for texture, pliability, and flavor.  You need flavor in your flour to balance out that fat you're using.  You know, the lard.  It's delicious, but you want to taste flour with a beautiful enhanced flavor.  As much as I like lard, you don't want the lard flavor to take over your tortilla. That's exactly what will happen i...

This week head over to the Gluten-free Homemaker to read a review of my No. 1 All-Purpose Flour and enter a giveaway to win a free bag of flour!  You get to choose between the No. 1 All-purpose Flour and the No. 2 Deluxe Pastry Flour .  You have until June 2nd to enter, so hurry over!

Do you want to experience the feeling of endless layers of buttery dough shattering against your teeth as you bite into a lovely pastry?  Then you need to make yourself some of these gluten-free croissants, because odds are that no one is going to make them for you.  It's hard to get good glutinous croissants let alone GF ones, so you will have to fend for yourself.  This recipe does take several hours to a day to prep, but it's worth the time and effort for fabulous, flaky, buttery gluten-free croissants. Note: This recipe takes about 24 hours.  If that's too long to wait for your croissants, check out my newer recipe, Quicker and Easier Croissants. I learned many things about croissant making and gluten-free dough while developing this recipe.  I've done a separate post on tips for making gluten-free croissants that you can read for more details.  I also have a post with more photos for laminating the dough that you should read before delving int...