mmmmmmuffins!

Pancakes. Those buckwheat pancakes. As good as they are, making them for breakfast every morning for the past - I am not exaggerating - nine months got to be a little...old. This week I declared that I could not stand it for another week. And so, gluten-free muffins.

I adapted a recipe from Michael McCamley's Gluten Free Baking, and I'm really happy with how they turned out. Adding liquid glycerin to the mixture? Yeah, no thanks. And we were out of rolled oats, and I'm very allergic to almonds, so the recipe became more inspiration that outright direction.

For the all-purpose gluten-free flour:

1 1/2 cups sorghum flour

1 3/4 cups arrowroot starch or tapioca flour

1/2 cup quinoa flour

1 tsp xanthan gum

Makes enough for two full batches of muffins with a little left over.

For the muffins

1/2 cup butter, soft

1/2 cup scant sugar

1/4 cup orange juice

1 egg

1 2/3 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour

1/2 tsp xanthan gum

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp allspice

1 cup scant blueberries

raw sugar to sprinkle

1. In a food processor, combine first four ingredients until well mixed.

2. Add dry ingredients and process until just combined.

3. Transfer mixture to a bowl and add blueberries, stirring with a spoon.

4. Spoon into 12 muffin cups and top with a sprinkling of sugar.

5. Bake at 350F for 20-30 minutes or until tops are browned and crunchy and a knife inserted comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack for several minutes before serving.

I have no idea how these would store: we keep eating them all up at one meal!

allergen-free soft drinks

There aren't any. Psych! But seriously: take a look at this list and then try to imagine eating, well, anything. Even produce can have corn-based waxes on them to preserve them and make them look nice. Unfortunately, they have the opposite effect on my baby.

But! I will not concede defeat that easily. No, sir! I will find something fun to drink other than water (obviously), tea and coffee. Enter the home-made soft drink.

Home-made corn-free soft drink recipe


1tbsp of cane sugar (I used a dark cane sugar) or more to taste.
2tbsp very hot/boiling water
1/2tsp lime juice
1/2tsp lemon juice
1/4tsp orange juice
soda water

Spoon sugar into bottom of a large, sturdy glass (a wide mouth mason jar works beautifully). Pour boiling water in and stir or slosh vigorously to dissolve sugar in the water, then add juices, adjusting to taste. Add soda water to fill glass.

It's not particularly sweet. In truth, it's pretty tart, so if you really want a sweet drink double the sugar, which may require a slight increase in the amount of water to dissolve the sugar. Also, it's not pretty: it looks like swamp water, which is why I opted not to include a picture (which is a lie: I drank it before I thought to snap a pic).

Happy corn-free soft drinking!

faux-chos

Remember this? At the time I was wheat, dairy, soy and egg-free. Now we've added corn to see if we can't get Bubby's rash to finally clear up. Here's a head's up: in North America corn is. in. everything. It's madness.

Anyway, there are some obvious, common sources of corn that this totally eliminates. Until now, I had been sort of desperately clinging to the fact that while I couldn't eat bread (sigh) or cheese (whimper) or cake (sob) I could, at least, have corn chips and Coke. Yeah, yeah, I know, cola is death blah blah blah. I ran out of vices so I cut myself some slack. Today, though, I really wanted nachos and a Coke. You know, dairy-free, wheat-free, corn-free nachos and Coke. Made of what, exactly? Made of this:







And you know what? It's awesome. My inspiration was this recipe from my friend Alyson. Here is approximately what I did:

1/2 can black beans, rinsed
1 clove garlic
2 tsp onion powder
1/ 2tsp cumin (I freaking love cumin)
2 tsp chili powder
1/4 cup vegetable stock
2 tbsp rice flour

Throw everything in a food processor and blitz until smooth. Spread on an oiled, foil-covered cookie sheet to about the diameter of a dinner plate, or 1/4-1/2 inch thick. Top with Daiya Shreds ( I used cheddar flavour because it was all we had, but pepperjack or mozzarella would make more sense) and bake at about 340*F until the edges look dry and the shreds are all melted, maybe 20-30 minutes. Serve by topping with salsa, shredded lettuce, more salsa and cashew cream. Drink a Blue Sky Cola alongside to complete the feeling of guilty indulgence.

edited 10/15/11: I have just discovered that while Blue Sky is HFCS free, the caramel colour and citric acid in it are manufactured using...corn! And the Daiya Shreds? More citric acid from...corn! ARGH! Well, we'll keep trying. It was still delicious, though.

asparagus season

It's the beginning of farmer's market season in Ottawa, so we took a little family walk to the Byward Market last Friday to get some locally grown veggies. We got rhubarb and made these muffins - delicious! - and three big bundles of asparagus. Some of the spears went into savoury onion and asparagus muffins, and the rest were eaten alongside some mahi mahi.

Summer Asparagus Salad

2 bundles fresh asparagus, washed and trimmed
1tsp dijon mustard
2tsp orange juice
1 clove garlic, pressed (or 1/2tsp garlic powder if you are incredibly lazy, as I was)
2tsp brown sugar or honey
EVOO
dash of salt
large bowl of ice water

1. Place mustard, orange juice, garlic and sugar or honey in a small bowl and whisk together. Slowly drizzle in EVOO, whisking constantly until the dressing has entirely emulsified and become thicker and slightly creamy. Taste. Add salt if necessary.
2. In a medium pot of boiling water, blanche asparagus for approximately 2 minutes. Immediately plunge asparagus into bowl of ice water.
3. With asparagus still cooling, plate rest of meal. Place cooled asparagus on plate and spoon dressing over top.

I didn't think to take a picture, so here's a picture of Bubby from yesterday afternoon:



Aparagus?? ASPARAGUS??!!

Adventures in baked goods

So I've been wanting cookies for the past few days. But we ran out of flour, and while our neighbourhood is supplied with Italian and Vietnamese and Chinese food finds, it is sadly lacking in the way of an affordable grocery store for simples like plain wheat flour or eggs.

No flour. No eggs. No cookies? Hardly. Introducing Egg-less Chickpea Peanut Butter Cookies!

Here's my attempt at a recipe (since I don't measure and don't write things down, it is understandably approximate):

1/4 cup butter, softened
3 really, really heaping tbsp peanut butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
dash vanilla
2 cups scant cooked chickpeas, well drained
2 heaping tbsp ground flax

Have your chickpeas cooked and drained. If you're using canned chickpeas, rinse them to remove excess saltiness. In a food processor, whiz up the butter, peanut butter and brown sugar. Add the chickpeas and whiz on high until it's fairly smooth looking. Add the vanilla and flax and give it another spin. If it looks like a very soft dough/batter at this point, leave it as it is. If it seems too runny, add a few more chickpeas to even things out.

Drop by tablespoons-full onto a cookie sheet (I used a silicon baking sheet to keep them from sticking) and bake at 375*. Now, I'm not really sure how long I baked them. After 10 minutes or so, I smooshed them with a fork, then baked them for another 5-10 minutes. The first batch baked for a shorter time than the second batch, and I think they taste better baked more than less. Remove to a cooling rack when they are golden brown and look fairly dry and 'done'.