Signs of Spring

My 3' x 5' strawberry bed. It was overflowing with
plants last year, but I have high hopes for their recovery.

    Our local weather has definitely been the topic of many conversations this last month. After the many inches of snow in January, we had an unseasonable warm spell last week. For about five days, we had gorgeous sun and mid - high 50s here. I saw many people working in their yards and it definitely put a bounce in everyone's step. I decided to go out and work on clearing out my strawberry patch. Last summer, the deer came and ate every green leaf out of the patch and I was sure I would have to start over from scratch this year. I started clearing, in one small patch and soon realized that buried under the weeds was a strawberry plant. I then changed tactics and used a little more care with what I was pulling out. Happily as I cleared more and more, I saw that my strawberries did survive that seemingly decimating blow last year. They are definitely a bit worse for the wear and not nearly as plentiful as they were at the beginning of spring last year, but giving them a nice year of tender - loving - care this year and keeping the deer away will hopefully be enough for them to fully recover.
 
    As the sun brought out lighter spirits, it also ignited my desire to get back into the kitchen. I recently have joined Pinterest and am delighted by the wide variety of items that appear on my page throughout the day. On Pinterest, I saw this recipe for Peanut Butter Bars and I made them one evening for dessert. I didn't really like how they weren't very 'solid' at room temperature and the amount of sugar also made me cringe a bit, so I decided to revamp them to be a bit more of a healthy dessert. I also made them more bite-sized by molding them in my mini-muffin tin, which also made the application of the chocolate a lot simpler. Without telling my kids they were a healthier version, I sent them to school in their lunchboxes for dessert. Rave reviews at the end of the day, they never would have guessed I had even changed the recipe. Here is the revised recipe, which (depending on your ingredients) is gluten-free and refined sugar free and packed with protein and vitamins. Below the recipe are suggestions for dairy-free or ingredient substitutes.


Hidden Health Peanut Butter Bites
[Printable Recipe]


1 c (179 g) creamy peanut butter
3 Tbsp (55 g) agave nectar
1/2 c (42 g) dry milk powder
2 Tbsp (12 g) ground flax seed
1/4 c (23 g) quinoa flakes
1 c (31 g) rice crispies


4 - 8 oz semisweet chocolate chips, separated


In a medium sized bowl, mix the first five ingredients, until well combined. Add rice crispies and mix with your hands until the rice crispies are fully incorporated and you have a crumbly mix that will just hold together when squeezed in your hand. Form 24 small balls of dough, approximately 1/2 Tbsp each. Flatten each to the size of a silver dollar.

       

Muffin tin with chocolate in bottom of
each cup and 24 balls of mixture

Flattened Peanut Butter Balls,
approximately silver dollar sized.

    In a microwave safe bowl, melt 4 oz of chocolate chips in the microwave on 30 second bursts, stirring in between, until fully melted; about 1 1/2 minutes. In a silicone mini-muffin tin or using waxed cupcake liners (or waxed paper cut to fit), spread approximately 1/2 tsp of chocolate in the bottom of each cup. Press each flattened peanut butter ball into the chocolate. You can refrigerate at this point or you can melt the remaining 4 oz of chocolate chips and put a thin layer of chocolate on top each cup, creating a sandwich of chocolate, peanut butter and chocolate. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or until firm. Remove from muffin tin and wrap in waxed paper. Store in the refrigerator.


    These work really well in lunch boxes, but I would not put them in with a warm lunch or in a bag where the chocolate would melt. They are solid at room temperature, but I recommend storing in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve them or pack them in your bag for a quick snack during the day.


Yield: 24 mini muffin bites


NOTE: To make dairy-free, try replacing the milk powder with equal amounts of dry milk powder, rice flour or garbanzo flour. If you can't find the quinoa flakes you can substitute gluten-free quick oats, though you may have to decrease the amount or add a bit of melted coconut oil to help bind the ingredients.

Finally a Birthday

    With our uncharacteristic weather last week, Little Bigfoot had to postpone celebrating her birthday with her friend. Every year, she is given the choice of how she would like to celebrate with her friends. She has come to the realization, that she really prefers to interact with her friends on a one-on-one basis. Less confusion and easier to keep up with. We had been planning since Christmas for her friend to sleep over the weekend of 14 January, but with the snow being forecast for that afternoon, we decided it was best to postpone the plans a week. Then we were under 18" of snow the next weekend, so it definitely wasn't happening then. Now after a week of typical Seattle winter weather, most of the snow is gone and we were able to go forward with the 'party'.

  I picked the girls up from school and they proceeded with the fun. This involved a lot of giggling, playing with Littlest Petshop toys (of which LBF has 3 large Rubbermaid totes full of) and general fun. I had picked up Papa Murphy's pizzas earlier in the day for dinner and crumb-coated the cake (which was a lemon pound cake with lemon pudding filling, neither gluten-free, dairy or egg free, as those aren't an issue for the kids). It had earlier been decided that DragonNight would do the artwork for the cake, as only she could properly depict LBF's vision of a wolf silhouetted by the moon. It was later decided that she would also do the actual decorating. This would be her second cake decorating adventure. I think she did an outstanding job. I really love how their idea of ringing the moon with the candles, really highlighted the whole cake and brought the image to life.

    We will later go to my mother-in-law's house for another postponed birthday celebration (both LBF and my MIL's). I guess we could say that this year is the year of the never-ending birthdays. Hopefully the rest of the birthdays this year will happen more smoothly, since they are all summer season ones. It is the year with three Friday the 13ths in it, so the luck should fall into place at some point.

Snow, Snow, and More Snow

Shows 6" outside my door, most of this is from today,
since it's been cleared fairly regularly, from
people going in and out.

    We are supposedly on the tail end of an unusual weather system here. Most winters, in and around the Seattle area, we get cold, rain and sometimes ice. On January 14th, it started to snow. It has changed many times during the days, sometimes being small ice pellets, other times large flakes of snow, a fine powder still other times. Over the last six days, we have gotten probably close to 18" of snow at my house. Totals have been extremely varied, depending on where you live, how close to the water you are and whether you are to the north or the south, but everyone in the Puget Sound has received some snow over the last six days. I've been voluntarily snowed in, since it started, as my car is over 10 years old and insurance would not cover a comparable replacement. My husband, The Redneck, is a very experienced snow driver and is one of the few people I would trust to get me somewhere in this snow, if I wasn't comfortable driving myself at that particular time, but even he has parked his truck and is walking to visit neighbors this week.


    The kids have had an extra four days off of school and it would appear that they will probably not go to school tomorrow as well. This means they will have extra days of school tacked on at the end of the year, making their summer shorter, but with all of the hills around here, it doesn't take a lot of bad, freezing weather to make it impractical for the buses to attempt their routes. Thankfully we have been one of the few to mostly maintain power throughout it all, most of my friends have lost their power for several hours and/or days. So far *knock on wood* we have only had a few power flickers and then 45 minutes without, last night. We've probably added about 4" - 6" of new snow, just today, as it has been snowing steadily since 5:30 am. Here is a comparison photo of our driveway & street, a few days ago and then this morning.

The left is from a few days ago (maybe Tuesday?), the right is from today.

Panache Shawl;
pattern by Lankalomero on Ravelry

    It hasn't all been a lost cause however. I have gotten some knitting done as well. I started this shawl on Friday (I think), I finished it on Tuesday. It actually took me a day longer than I had thought it would. I didn't feel quite as bad about that as I could have, once I realized that each row (over 300 stitches) was taking me 30 minutes to complete. I realized I only had five rows left, plus the crocheted edging, and then realized that it was still three hours from being finished, if I worked without interruptions. The shawl still needs to be blocked, but I'll wait for slightly warmer weather (next week) and no kids around trying to help or get in the way.

New pattern in the works
by Tandy Imhoff Designs

    My mom has been repeatedly asking for the pattern that I used to make a hat that I gave her for Christmas, as a dear friend of her's would love the pattern. I've tried explaining that it is something that I just winged, based on a picture I saw, but her friend REALLY wants the pattern. So yesterday, I pulled out a comparable yarn from my stash and set about duplicating the hat, writing down my procedure and stitch counts this time. Since I love designing multiple sizes, I also made a child's version, which I plan to expand into three child/teen sizes and two women's sizes. I'll be putting it all together soon, but here is a teaser photo of the hats I've made so far. (Sorry for the poor quality of the picture, didn't set up for a proper shot with proper lighting on this.)

Yes, I even sew a bit too

  Well, I wouldn't say that I'm a great sewer, but I do own a machine and can sew when the need arises. My mother-in-law mentioned that she would love to have a few more reusable heat packs for her birthday this week, so I thought why not. I usually use a nice cotton quilting fabric, double thick, with a few seams and it's done. I prefer to use flax seed and since discovering that my local dollar store sells one-pound bags of it for a dollar, it seems very inexpensive to do.


  Around Halloween time, I was in the Goodwill shop, across the street from the Everett Imagine Children's Museum, where DragonNight has been volunteering, and found some wonderful socks with skull & crossbones on them. I thought "I wonder if I could use these to make heat packs with?". They went on the back burner of projects, since I was working on various knitting projects. I figured eventually I'd get around to sewing them (which is how I think of all of my sewing projects). 

  So I ran out yesterday (since we were supposed to be celebrating both my MIL & Little Bigfoot's birthday today) to find some fun socks to make into heat packs for my MIL. I found these one. I love the Betty Boop ones. Since they were ankle socks, I made pocket warmers and then each pair of knee socks equaled two 12"(ish) long neck packs and two smaller 3-4" pocket packs. On the Betty Boop ones I made them just with the socks and tested them. They didn't really retain their heat very long, so I used cotton tube socks and then sewed the decorative (polyester/spandex) socks over them. They work fairly well, not quite as good as my fabric ones, but they are fun and super easy and quick to make and will warm you up if you are chilly or need just a little heat on your neck or head. I highly recommend storing the large ones in the freezer and then just microwaving them a bit longer when you need heat instead of cold. The cold that these packs give off is a very nice soothing chill rather than the cold freeze you get from ice packs.


  Just decided to postpone our birthday get-together until next weekend though, since the weather decided to be unpredictable and rather icky. Snow & ice doesn't generally slow down the Redneck or myself, but rather other drivers' skills behind the wheel in this weather strongly influence us to just stay home.

Colder Weather

Oh my, I can't believe it's been so long since I last did a post. So much for me trying to get something up here every week. We had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday and I perfected gluten-free cornbread and therefore enjoyed a wonderful cornbread dressing with our smoked turkey.

I haven't been knitting all that much new lately. I am working on a few Christmas presents and therefore can't share those quite yet and have finished the square of the month for December, but knitting and baking have not been high on my list of things to do lately. The weather has turned colder of course and so I'm slowly working up to Christmas celebrations and figuring out what the kids can give to classmates while they work diligently to finish up their assignments before they start winter break this Friday. 

I recently spotted a flea on our white cat, who I believe is actually allergic to flea bites, by the bald patches that are appearing on her as a result of her over grooming. I've bought a flea collar for her and even tried a hydrocortisone shampoo bath (which almost killed her, so to speak). I gave her the bath and within about 3 hours she was vomiting violently and was lethargic and uninterested in food for about 24 hours. I'm still not 100% sure what caused this reaction, but I'm not inclined to bathe her again very soon. Her favorite spot right now is, as you can see, curled up to the heater. We find it quite amusing to see how much of herself she manages to fit under the 1" clearance space underneath.

Last evening was the holiday party at my local knitting guild, Snohomish Knitters Guild. There was the gift exchange and a lot of food. With my new food guidelines, I've learned to either eat before I go or take whatever I want to eat all evening, so I don't cheat and eat things that will have consequences later. I found a wonderful recipe for Carrot Fritters that I was able to adapt to be gluten-free and egg & dairy free as well. They seemed to be the hit of the ball and everyone requested the recipe. I didn't take a picture of them, but if you go to the link above, you can get an idea of what they are supposed to look like. I quadrupled the original recipe and had about 40 2" fritters and I guess that was a good quantity, because there were only 2 left on the plate when I packed up to come home. Here is the recipe with my adjustments. I'll formalize it later with an actual picture, but it will get you started.


Carrot Fritters
Adapted from Food.com

7 large carrots (about 8 cups grated)
2 small yellow onions
8 Tbsp Brown Rice Flour
6 Tbsp Tapioca Starch
6 Tbsp Millet Flour
4 Tbsp ground Chia seed
8 Tbsp warm water
4 tsp dried dill weed
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp baking powder

Grate the carrot and onion together. Stir in brown rice flour, tapioca starch, and millet flour. Mix ground chia seed with water, mix well and pour into carrot mixture. Add remaining seasonings and mix well until all ingredients are well distributed. Shape into small 2" fritters and place on wax paper on a cookie sheet. Chill for minimum of 1 hour, maximum 12 hours. Heat a large fry pan with a shallow amount of oil on medium-high heat. Fry the fritters, in batches, in the oil about 5 - 8 minutes per side or until brown. Drain on paper towels and serve while hot.

Thanksgiving Preparations

Now that Halloween has passed us by and we are surviving on the candy of our children, it is time to start thinking ahead to the next holidays that are swiftly approaching. Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving has always been about those amazing flavors of traditional feasts past and in the past we have enjoyed many dinners at my parents' house and also at my in-laws' house. I'm finding though, that having such an eclectic variety of foods that are on my 'Don't Eat' list, that 95% of the foods that I have come to associate with this holiday are no longer safe for me to eat. Last year was an adventure of new flavors, but without gluten this year, Thanksgiving seems like it just won't be the same. Some adjusting will have to be done.

My mother-in-law is a terrific baker and loves to make the pies for Thanksgiving dessert. Last year, with pumpkin no longer acceptable for me, she took on the challenge and created a delicious butternut squash pie, that tasted just as a pumpkin pie should. This year, she has requested that I provide her with a gluten-free pie crust recipe, so that she can recreate this tasty delight for me. I'm not a pie baker and have only made 1-2 pie crusts from scratch my entire life. I know many people would say that I am missing out, but pie crust remains one of those elusive baking feats that I have yet to master. I know the techniques and mechanics, but have yet to create that flaky, dreamy crust that people beg for. However, that being said, I needed to create something and make sure the flavors worked together, before sending the recipe off to my mother-in-law, for her to perform her magic with, to result in a dreamy pie for my Thanksgiving dessert.

So when I realized this morning that I needed to use the left-over apples that I had sent to school with Little Bigfoot for her Halloween party, I decided that I would try again with pie crust and make some apple tarts. I changed my mind right at the end and instead used my jumbo muffin tins to create mini apple pies, but the crust tastes good and I know my mother-in-law will find the right magic to make it a delight. Here is the recipe I used:


Gluten-Free Pie Crust for Apple Pie
Adapted from GlutenFreeGirl.com
[Printable Recipe]

40 g Coconut Flour
40 g Amaranth Flour
60 g Millet Flour
79 g Oat Flour
79 g Tapioca Flour
65 g Teff Flour
96 g Arrowroot
51 g Sweet Rice Flour
2 tsp Xanthan Gum
¼ tsp Guar Gum
½ tsp kosher salt
5 Tbsp Frozen butter, grated
4 Tbsp Frozen shortening, grated
1 large egg
6 – 8 Tbsp cold water (or enough to bind dough)
   
Combine all dry ingredients thoroughly. Add in frozen butter & shortening and blend with fingers until you achieve a sandy consistency. Mix in egg and then gradually add water until you have a smooth dough. Divide in half and roll out  ¼” thick. Place first crust in an 8" pie pan. Repeat rolling instructions with other half. Make filling below. 

Filling:

6 c Granny Smith apples, cored, peeled & chopped

112 g brown sugar

38 g white sugar

2 Tbsp Arrowroot

1 Tbsp Coconut Oil

½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp allspice

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl, making sure the coconut oil is well distributed throughout. Pour filling into pie crust, top with remaining crust. Crimp edges and cut several vent holes in the top. Bake 20 minutes or until the filling is bubbling well. Cool, cut and serve.

Yield: 1 Double Crust 8" Pie or 6 Mini Pies

The crust recipe took quite a bit more water than the recipe calls for. I'm not sure if this is due to the different flours (that I substituted) or some other unknown factor. Be sure to use enough water to achieve a smooth dough that does not crack when it is rolled out.

Pre-Halloween with soup

I have been busy at work, the last week and a half, creating a Halloween costume for Little Bigfoot. She loves stretching my creative powers to the maximum every year and this year was no different. In the creation of her costume, I developed a new knitted hat pattern that I am working to finalize and write up for sale. I can't share her costume yet, but promise to post pictures and Halloween excitement next week.

Her school had a Bingo Night on Friday and costumes were encouraged, so I dug around the house to come up with something. In the past I haven't been one for dressing up, a lot of that has to do with the fact that I felt horrible in general and the extra effort of finding a costume and putting up with being uncomfortable in it all evening wasn't something I relished. However, over the last year, I've regained more of my health and have felt better than I've felt in 10 years, so I decided to give it a whirl on Friday and see what I could come up with. Many years ago, I created this hat for The Redneck, as he was fighting the great opossum battle at the time, between them and our garbage cans. We've had many a laugh about it over the years, so I decided to put it to good use this year. I found an old pair of holey jeans, a ratty t-shirt and flannel and wore The Redneck's winter boots. I think I made a passable female redneck for the evening. The suspenders were dyed strips of fabric that just worked to highlight the whole thing. Bingo Night was a success, we had a lot of fun and won some fun prizes as well. Little Bigfoot wasn't quite sure what to make of my costume, but decided it was alright to be seen with me and it was even better when she started winning some at bingo.

On another note, the garden harvest is coming to a close, and we have a lot of Delicata Squash to use up. Since most winter squash are okay for me to eat, I'm trying to think of different ways to eat it, so that I don't get overly tired of the same flavor all of the time. I decided to try to create a creamy soup that would be dairy-free and hearty. Here is what I ended up with:

Creamy Delicata Soup
[Printable Recipe]

2 medium Delicata Squash, cut in half, cleaned and roasted until tender
1 can (14 oz) Great Northern Beans, drained & rinsed
1 can (14 oz) black beans, drained & rinsed
1/2 lb chicken sausage
4 mini bell peppers (orange, yellow and/or red), rough chopped
1/2 medium onion, chopped
4 cups chicken broth or water

Scoop cooled squash out of the skins and process with the northern beans in food processor until smooth, adding chicken stock/water as needed to aid in achieving a smooth consistent puree. Continue in batches, until all of the squash and northern beans have been pureed.

In a medium saucepan or large deep skillet, cook the sausage and onion until done, add the peppers and saute for 5 minutes. Add the black beans and squash puree, adding more chicken broth/water until a thick soup consistency is achieved. Simmer on very low heat until soup is warmed through. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.


Yield 4 medium servings or 2 large servings


Note: Squash can be cooked and stored in the fridge several days in advance, either in the skins, scooped out, or already pureed with the beans.

Senior Pictures & Knitting

Well, this year is the year that I officially started really feeling my age. I have a senior in high school this year and therefore I must be old enough to have one. One of the things that need to be done for seniors is submitting a 'senior portrait' to the school for the yearbook. Our budget is tight and I wasn't sure how we would swing some of the prices that were being quoted, so I contacted Amanda York at amble imagery. She is the daughter of a dear friend and also a close friend of mine and I know that she does AMAZING work. She worked with us on the price and I just picked up the photos today. Here is one of the many shots she took, when she and DragonNight went out a few weekends ago. It's a great shot that so captures DragonNight's style.

Since Amanda did such an amazing job and helped us out, I wanted to do something a little extra for her and so I created this set (modeled by me this morning), for her. I used the stitch pattern from a pair of legwarmers but since that was the sole use of the other pattern, I am planning to write this one up and sell it on Ravelry. If you are a knitter and would like to test either pattern, give me a holler.



I'll also include another finished project that I finished last month, but haven't shared yet. I knit the Celebration Shawlette that my friend Jane created for a local yarn store's anniversary. I knit it in Handmaiden SeaSilk yarn, since so many natural fibers irritate me. This allows me to wear it and enjoy it. Here it is pictured with one of my Irish Rose Button Closures.

Candy and Knitting

As my blog name suggests, I do knit, usually more than a bit, but there hasn't been much proof of that on here so far. I've been working hard on my daughter's new school bag, but it is a bit monotonous. So while it is progressing very slowly, but I don't really feel like I should work on much of anything else, since I promised her I'd get it done 'quickly'. Luckily I have one other obligation that always takes precedence, to break up the monotony, since it is a time-sensitive project.

I belong to the Snohomish Knitters Guild and last year I designed a square a month for the members (pattern available on Ravelry.com here), which ended as a complete afghan. Even though I have switched roles in the guild, I got the okay to go ahead with another pattern series for the new guild year (October - September). To build on the knit & purl squares that we did last year, I choose to do textured squares using increases and decreases. Sort of building on your skills type of thing. Since the guild meeting is tonight, I had to finish the square, write the pattern and photograph it before tonight. Just finished everything this morning, though it was a possibly close call, since we were without power here until almost 8 am (wasn't sure why or when it would be back on). Here is this month's square, the pattern is available free to guild members or you can also join the knit-a-long on Ravelry for $5.00 (receiving a pattern update every month).

I also tried a new fudge recipe that my knitting friend and guild president shared with me last week. It is an extremely simple recipe with the potential to be dairy-free, egg-free & gluten-free, depending on the ingredients you use. I love to collect shaped silicon ice-cube trays and used them to mold the fudge into pumpkin shapes since it is Halloween this month (though the fudge had no chance of lasting that long). I also made a half batch which perfectly filled two ice-cube trays (another great reason to have a scale in your kitchen). Here is the recipe, such as it is.

Two Ingredient Fudge
related to me by Barb Simonds
[Printable Recipe]

1 - 12 oz package of semi-sweet (or other flavored) chocolate chips
1 - 16 oz can of prepared frosting
butter or vegetable shortening

Butter the molds or a 9" x 9" square pan. Melt chocolate chips in a medium sized bowl in the microwave, using 30 second bursts on medium power, stirring in between each heating cycle. Stir in the frosting, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom to thoroughly incorporate both ingredients. Microwave for 30 seconds on medium power once more (to make fudge pourable). Pour/spoon into molds or pan & smooth out. Place in refrigerator for 30 minutes or until firm. Unmold or cut into squares. Store in refrigerator.

The wonderful thing about this recipe is that you can choose any flavors to mix together, you could also make your frosting with your favorite recipe and use that instead of the store bought brands.

Early Morning Baking

Every weekday morning at my house starts at 5:00 am. My oldest daughter (DragonNight) needs to catch the bus for school at 6:30, my husband (the Redneck) leaves the house before 6:00 am for work and my youngest (Little Bigfoot) must catch the bus by 7:30. This means I'm up organizing and making sure that everyone has what they need, to help them be successful through the day. It is also a time where I often can get some knitting time in, as the kids are eating or between buses. I sometimes use this time to do fresh baking for their lunches. I find I often have more inclination and energy to do this first thing in the morning, than I have in the evenings, which are often full of homework or meetings.


My favorite thing to bake first thing in the morning are my Easy Peanut Butter cookies, but since only one of the girls like those, unless I'm planning on baking 2 different items in the morning, I often need other ideas. It is often difficult to bake one dessert item that both the girls will like; one is addicted to chocolate, but doesn't like anything crunchy, the other one doesn't mind crunchy but isn't that fond of chocolate and doesn't like peanut butter. Neither one is fond of oatmeal cookies and only tolerate sugar cookies in order to decorate them. *Yes, I have very particular children who know what they don't want, seldom do they know what they do want though.* This morning I decided that I was tired of cookies and so scanned my Hershey's Cocoa Cookbook ©1969 for a cake or brownie recipe and found this one (see below). It had a minimal amount of flour, so I decided to try it gluten-free so that I would be able to enjoy a bite or two before the girls eat them all. I'm going to try another batch later today using coconut oil and egg substitutes to see how they turn out to make it a true allergy friendly treat. I'll update you with those results later, for now, here is the recipe for Quick & Easy Brownie Bites.

Quick & Easy Brownie Bites

Adapted by Tandy Imhoff from Hershey’s Cocoa Cookbook

[Printable Recipe]

½ c melted butter or vegetable oil

201 g (1 c) sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

20 g Tapioca Starch/Flour

48 g Brown Rice Flour

32 g (⅓ c) cocoa

¾ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

Preheat oven 350°. Grease 24 mini-muffin tins or a 9 x 9 baking pan. Blend butter/oil, sugar and vanilla well, in a medium mixing bowl. Add eggs and beat well with a spoon. In a separate bowl, combine flours, cocoa, baking powder & salt. Gradually add flour mixture to egg mixture, mix until well blended. Gently spoon batter into muffing tin, filling ⅔ full. Bake in pre-heated oven for 15 – 20 minutes or until they start to pull away from the edges or test done (toothpick method). Cool in pan, sprinkle with confectioner's sugar or frost as desired.

Yield: 20 - 24 mini brownie bites/16 cut squares

*You can substitute ½ c of all purpose flour for the Tapioca Starch & Brown Rice Flour if you are not gluten sensitive.

My Baking Bible

Everyone I know has something that they can't do without in the kitchen. Some of us would be lost without their favorite cookbook (handed down through the generations), others couldn't do what they do without this gadget or that, but my number one tool in the kitchen now, is a piece of paper.
 
It isn't a very fancy piece of paper to look at, but I would not be able to bake anything without it. This piece of paper is my Baking Bible, aka Common Ingredient Weight Equivalencies. When I was first working on becoming gluten-free I needed to learn how to replace many of the common ingredients found in gluten-free baking with other ones, due to my extremely long list of foods that I should avoid. I somehow, during this time, found my way to Shauna James Ahern at glutenfreegirl.com. I loved the way she shared her 'secrets' to success and I found a lot of inspiration. She led me to exploring the chemistry of baking and so I borrowed as many books as I could find from the library about these topics. Many of these books had listings of ingredients, but none of them had all of the ones that I needed. So I started compiling my own lists.

I now have this list printed in a plastic sleeve, taped to the inside of my kitchen cabinet door, near where I do all of my mixing. Whenever I am trying a new recipe, I flip open the door and use the measurements to convert and replace the ingredients. The true bonus to this type of baking is that the results are 100% repeatable and if there is something just a bit off (moisture, oil, etc), it is easier to play with just those ingredients while ensuring that the rest of the recipe is consistent.
 
It comes in incredibly handy, when I am trying to convert a traditional recipe to a gluten free recipe, because I now know that I need to make 125 g of gluten-free ingredients to replace every 1 cup of traditional flour. This measurement leaves me a lot of room to play with mixing starches and alternative flours together to achieve the right mix of flavors and textures. If you click on the picture above you will be able to download a PDF of this page to help you become a master of gluten-free cooking.

Stripes are a good thing

I will now introduce my children to you all. I have a senior in high school this year, I will call her DragonNight (DN for short). She is my first born and a very talented artist. She has been drawing since before she could write. I remember her preschool teacher sending home a little picture she had drawn, entitled 'Duck', and it really looked like a duck! She has always enjoyed drawing and has taken art classes through the school since 7th grade. She is now working at making it her career and therefore has her own website DragonNight Art and is working at selling her art on finished products at Zazzle.com.


My youngest is in 5th grade this year and was just placed in the Highly Capable Program, I'll call her Little Bigfoot (LBF for short). Her online nickname came about when I was buying her shoes earlier this year and she had jumped into a women's size 7 1/2 at her young age. I have no illusions that I won't be the shortest person in my family at 5'8", when my children are fully grown. DN already is taller than me by at least an inch and LBF isn't far behind.


Last year LBF wanted a felted bag for her school bag, so we picked out yarn colors and a pattern and I made her a bag that was faithfully used all year long. This year, she is now needing to carry her binder back and forth daily and that bag is just a little bit of a tight squeeze, so she requested a new bag. We picked out some gorgeous colors of yarn from Knitpicks.com and I searched for just the right pattern. Due to the fact that I don't make a lot of felted projects, I always feel more confident that I'll get close to desired size, if I start with a pattern, so I searched everywhere, for a messenger style bag that had dimensions listed and would be generous enough for her binder, but not too large for a kid of her age. I eventually found something that would fit the bill with the Practical Messenger Bag from Let's Knit.co.uk. I didn't really care for their construction and wanted to knit a true chevron pattern (rather than a fair isle technique), so decided to work with their numbers for size and make up the rest of the pattern for myself. Here is what I have so far:

It is coming along fairly well. I'm working it single stranded on size 6 needles and am over half way up the sides. I'm planning on continuing the pattern on one side up for the flap and then on the sides for the handle, which I'll graft at the middle point. Then throw it in the washing machine to felt. We are also planning on lining it, which will give us the opportunity to add some interior pockets as well. I was hoping to finish the knitting by this weekend, but had to take a break earlier this week, due to my arm acting up, so did not make quite as much progress as I had hoped. Still I should have it finished by early next week, then we'll shop for the perfect fabric to line it.

Turkey Noodle Soup (aka Ambrosia)

What is the one food that you crave when you are feeling even the slightest bit icky? For me it is Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup. I remember fondly, my mom putting the big canning pot on the stove with 1-2 chickens and stewing it all day, then later in the afternoon, we would all gather in the kitchen as she rolled out the homemade noodles and we formed the assembly line to get them into the soup. Nothing has ever come close to those chewy, hearty noodles (except when I made them myself) and I didn't think I would ever have that feeling of comfort again, since I am now gluten-free. I've tried a bunch of the gluten-free noodles out there, but none of them have the 'right' flavor to make me crave spaghetti or any other previously loved noodle dish and while I had thought of one day figuring out the homemade noodle again, I didn't think I would do it so soon.


On Monday, my husband (The Redneck) smoked a 19 lb turkey for me. It was his payment for having lost the bet that he would be able to keep up the speak on 'Talk like a Pirate Day' last week. We enjoyed the turkey and as I was putting it away that night, I decided to just throw the bones in my stock pot in my fridge, instead of in the freezer as I normally would. So yesterday was Soup Day. I always put the chicken/turkey on the stove early in the morning, to get a nice flavorful broth, it cooks all day infusing the house with the aroma of wellness and poultry goodness. Mid-afternoon I pull out all of the meat and bones and start adding the vegetables and making the noodles. 


My oldest daughter agrees that nothing beats homemade noodles, so it was with great trepidation that I substituted the gluten-free ones. Would they pass muster, only be 'okay' if there isn't any other choice, or flop completely miserably? The moment of truth arrives, I dish up the soup for us and we take the first bite. SUCCESS! I have delicious chewy noodles that are a wonderful complement to the hours of flavor building, so I am sharing with you both the original and modified versions of my family's Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup.


Homemade Chicken/Turkey Noodle Soup
[Printable Recipe]


1 4-5 lb chicken or turkey carcass (with generous meat left on)
2 medium onions, diced
4 cloves garlic, crushed or minced

2 lb carrots, roughly chopped

1 large bunch celery, roughly chopped

(other desired vegetables; mushrooms, zucchini, etc)

Dried/Fresh Basil

Dried/Fresh Rosemary

Dried/Fresh Thyme

Dried/Fresh Marjoram

Salt & Pepper

4 eggs

4 Tbsp Milk

4 c Flour 

-Gluten-Free-

Sorghum Flour

Brown Rice Flour

Tapioca Flour

Early to mid-morning, in a large stock pot, place the chicken/turkey with enough water to completely submerge the meat. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a heavy simmer. Add the herbs (there are no quantities listed as I generally just add several Tbsp of each dried), cook for 3-5 hours. Add more water as necessary to keep the level over the meat.

Approximately 3 hours prior to desired serving time, carefully scoop all of the meat and bones out of the broth and set aside to cool slightly. (I will sometimes run the broth through a strainer to ensure that no small bones are left behind.) Add the onion and garlic, let simmer while you prepare the other vegetables. About 1 1/2 hours prior to desired serving time, add the carrots and celery, keeping at a medium - high simmer. Debone the meat, cut into bite sized pieces and add back to the stock pot, discarding bones, fat, etc. Add approximately 3-4 tsp salt and pepper to taste.

At 1 hour prior to desired serving time, bring the soup to a rolling boil. Crack eggs into medium mixing bowl and beat slightly with a fork. Add milk, 1 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper (or to taste). Gradually add the flour. [For gluten-free noodles: add 2 heaping Tbsp of each flour, continue adding at the rate of 1 Tbsp Tapioca Flour for every 2 Tbsp of Brown Rice & Sorghum combined.]  Continue adding flour until you have a kneadable dough. Generously cover your counter top (or large cutting board) with flour (brown rice flour) and using enough flour to keep the dough from sticking, roll it out in batches to 1/4" thickness. Using a pizza cutter or sharp knife, cut into 1/2" x 2" strips (approximately). Gently lift the noodles off of the counter (with a spatula) and drop individually into the boiling soup, stirring as needed to submerge the noodles. Continue with all of the dough until finished or you have the desired amount of noodles (more is always better). Reduce the soup to a heavy simmer and continue to cook, while you clean up the counter (10-15 minutes). 


ENJOY!


Notes: This recipe can be reduced drastically with success. I have made it using two boneless chicken breasts and canned broth, in a 2 qt sauce pan. Use 1 egg and reduce the flour accordingly for the noodles.


The noodles are best eaten within a few days of making the soup. If you plan to freeze the soup, remove the desired amount of soup to another pan, prior to adding the noodles.  Add noodles only to the amount you plan to eat soon. Use Chinese Egg Noodles in the freezer portion of the soup, adding the raw noodles to the warm soup, prior to putting into freezer bags/containers. Or freeze the soup without noodles and reheat and make fresh noodles for any frozen soup. Store-bought noodles may also be added, in place of the homemade noodles.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

My youngest loves Chocolate Chip cookies, and so I use this basic recipe with a few alterations. Over the last year or so, I've discovered that I love cooking by weight measurements. It is so simple to put the bowl onto the scale and just start dumping and pouring directly into it. It feels very freeing, though you can't tell by the results. It also cuts down dramatically on dishes, since you are no longer using multiple measuring cups to do the measuring for you. Cooking by weight also gives me an accurate standard to work with, when I wish to change the recipe slightly to improve this or that. With this cookie recipe, I adapted it to try to decrease the amount of spread on the cookie. So I decreased the amount of shortening and replaced the egg with the baking soda substitute. I also added a bit of graham flour to it to add another flavor dimension and a bit of healthiness to them.


I learned to cook by measurements, last year, when my family and I started working with food allergies and adapting recipes to our particular needs. Now it is second nature to pull out the scale when I'm making biscuits, cookies or anything else requiring more than a tsp or Tbsp of the necessary ingredient. I compiled a list of common baking ingredients by weight and have it taped to the inside of the cupboard near where I do my mixing. This makes it incredibly easy to adapt recipes as I go and ensures that I'll get the same results every time.


While I am the only member of my family that needs to eat gluten-free foods, I find that I still enjoy baking the 'glutened' goods for the kids. It really helps me to not cheat on my 'diet' when I know that sneaking a bit of the cookie or cake will have more drastic consequences than just to my waist line.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from The Pillsbury Cookbook
[Printable Recipe]

¾ c (165 g) packed brown sugar

½ c (100 g) sugar

½ c butter

¼ c (52 g) shortening (Spectrum)

1 ½ tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking powder

1 ½ Tbsp vegetable oil

1 ½ Tbsp water

½ c (50 g) whole wheat graham flour

1 ¼ c (168 g) all purpose white flour

1 tsp baking soda

 ½ tsp salt

1 c (6 oz) chocolate chips

Heat oven to 375°. In a large bowl, beat brown sugar, sugar, butter and shortening until light and fluffy. Add vanilla, baking powder, oil and water and beat 30 – 60 seconds longer. Mix in graham flour, white flour, baking soda and salt. Gently mix in chocolate chips.

Drop by ½ Tbsps onto parchment lined cookie sheet (dark works best). Bake in pre-heated oven for 8 – 10 minutes (9 minutes) or until light golden brown. Let cool 1-2 minutes and remove to cooling rack to finish cooling. Repeat with remaining batter.

Yield: 2 dozen + cookies