Gluten Free Apple Pecan Salad

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a safe Memorial Day! This Memorial Day, my friends and I joined together for a potluck dinner. I decided to bring this simple, easy-to-make raw salad that's super colorful and delicious. It combines the sweetness of apples and dried cranberries with the nuttiness of pecans and tangy flavor of Gorgonzola. This salad stores great as a lunch you can take to work or school. You can even precut the apples and sprinkle them with a little lemon juice to prevent browning.

Prep Time: 5-10 minutes

Serves: 5 people

Ingredients

4 oz clean mixed salad greens

1 fuji apple

1/3 cup dried cranberries

1/3 cup pecans

1/4 cup Gorgonzola cheese

1 small red onion (optional)

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tsp minced garlic

1/2 tsp onion powder

salt and pepper

Steps

Place the greens in a large bowl. Core and cube the apple, and add to the greens with the cranberries, pecans, and cheese. If you like red onion in your salad, finely slice some red onion as garnish.

In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, oil, garlic, powder, salt, and pepper. Lightly dress the salad, and enjoy!

Gluten Free Meat Sauce

Wow, this has been quite the crazy month. My master's class is coming to a close this week, and I just finished the first paper I've written in years yesterday. The past few nights have lasted rather long, so I'll keep this post short and get to the recipe so I can get to my bed for some much needed sleep.

This is a great gluten free meat sauce that can be prepared within 30 minutes. Its a wonderful sauce to make at the beginning of the week so you can reheat it as the week marches on.

Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Ingredients


30 oz tomato sauce
15 oz diced tomato
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 1/2 tbsp minced garlic
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1/4 lb mushrooms, diced
1 tbsp thyme
1/2 tbsp oregano
1/2 tbsp basil
1 pound ground beef
salt and pepper

Steps
In a large saucepan, add the sauce, tomato, and paste. Stir together and heat over medium heat.

In a small pan over medium heat, sautee the garlic and onion with 2 tsp olive oil for about 5 minutes, or until the onions are slightly translucent. Add the mushrooms and cook for another 3 minutes. Add the onion mix the the sauce, along with the thyme, oregano, and basil.

In the small pan, brown the ground beef until there is no more pink meat. Drain the grease once completely cooked, and add to the sauce. Reduce the heat to low and let simmer until ready to serve with gluten free pasta.

How to Select and Cook Steak and Corn

Hey everyone, with Memorial Day weekend around the corner, I wanted to share a short video on how to choose and easily cook a steak to the doneness that you desire. This video is also my first experiment at learning how to use Google+ recording, so I hope you enjoy!

Gluten Free Orange Almond Cake

Thank you to Corelyn for the photo!

Hey everyone! So a little while ago, two of my good friends became engaged, and we had an engagement party this past weekend! They became engaged in Europe while eating dinner near a windmill, so I was inspired to make cakes in the shape of windmills for the party. All I needed to make was 3 main components:

• the cake to create windmill towers
• a fruit filling to put in between each layer
• thin strips of brittle to form the windmill blades

I wanted to create a honey almond brittle, and flavors such as oranges and cherries go well with honey and almonds. 

The cake is a basic gluten free sponge cake infused with orange juice and zest. The fruit filling is macerated cherries that soaked in wine for half a day. Finally, the brittle is a simple brittle made with honey and almonds.

Toasted almonds! Yum!

I hope you enjoy this recipe, and congrats to Mary and Zak!

Almond Honey Brittle

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Inactive Prep Time: 4 hours

Ingredients:

1/2 c blanched almonds

1/2 c granulated sugar

1/4 c honey

1/4 tbsp butter

1/4 c water

Steps:

Spread the almonds out onto a sheet, and toast for about 5 minutes. Chop the almonds. 

In a small saucepan, boil the sugar, honey, and water until mix hits 300F, stirring constantly. Once the mix hits 300F, remove from heat and stir in the butter and almonds. 

Spread the brittle onto a silicone mat, as thin as possible. After about 3 minutes, cut the brittle into thin strips for the rotor blades. Let them cool to room temperature, then store in the refrigerator until firm.

Gluten Free Orange Sponge Cake

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Bake Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

4 eggs + 1 yolk

8 oz sugar

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp orange juice

zest of two oranges

2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp baking powder

3 oz sweet white rice flour

3 oz potato starch

2 oz tapioca flour

2 sticks melted butter

Steps

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a rectangle baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk egg, sugar, salt, juice, zest, and vanilla for about 4 minutes.

Fold in the powder, starch, and flours. Once combined fold in the butter. 

Pour into the prepared pan, and bake for 30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Cherry Filling

Inactive Prep Time: 2 hours

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup Rainer Cherries

1/4 cup white wine

2 tbsp honey

Steps

Pit the cherries and cut into quarters. Place all the ingredients into a small saucepan, and combine. Let sit for 2 hours. 

Over medium heat, cook the cherries for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Blend the cherries into a jam with an immersion blender.

Assembly

cake

filling

brittle

2 cup whipped cream

Cut the cake into 2 inch squares. Group the cakes into groups of 3. Place the first layer onto a place, and then spoon filling onto first layer. Add a second layer and add another spoon of filling. Top with a third cake. Ice the cake with whipped cream, and cross two brittle strips in the shape of a windmill.

Celiac Awareness Month

This month is Celiac Awareness Month, so I had the idea to create a video and share my personal battle with gluten in hopes that more people learn about the disease. I encourage anyone else with Celiac or a sensitivity to gluten to do the same, since the symptoms of Celiac are far and wide. Special Thanks to @TheSpicyRD to inspire me to come up with ideas for Celiac Awareness, and check out #CeliacAwareness or #KissGlutenBye for more details on Twitter all this May.

Gluten Free Spinach Pasta Salad

Hey everyone! It's somehow already May, and this month I'm participating in a blog hop showing a love for pasta, called:

#Pastalove

Before I was diagnosed with Celiac's I used to eat tons of pasta. While in college I think I treated it as a separate food group...little did I know how much it affected my day-to-day health. So once I was diagnosed, I'll totally admit it was difficult to remove breads and pasta from my diet. That's why I'm thankful for gluten free rice pasta when I have a craving for pasta. Even then I think I'm now down to only 1-4 (gluten-free) pasta based meals out of the month. That's why I love to make delicious pasta dishes to satisfy cravings.

The recipe I'm sharing today is a Gluten Free Spinach Parmesan Pasta Salad with Carrot and Bell Peppers. It combines a brown rice pasta with fresh, raw spinach, carrots, and bell peppers. The dressing is a healthy, simple blend of olive oil, Parmesan, garlic, and lemon juice. Add freshly ground pepper and thyme to the salad and you'll get a light and fresh salad that's perfect for a warm summer day. Best part is that it takes the amount of time to cook the pasta!

Prep Time: 25 minutes
Servings: 2
Ingredients:


1 cup uncooked gluten free brown rice swirl pasta
1 carrot
1/2 red bell pepper
1/2 cup spinach
3 tbsp olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
2 tsp minced garlic
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp thyme
salt and pepper

Steps
Prepare the pasta per package's instructions, only cook for 2 minutes less than suggested, to al dente.


While the pasta is cooking, julienne the carrot and bell pepper. Chop the spinach.

In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, juice, garlic, cheese, thyme, and salt and pepper.

Once the pasta is cooked, rinse it under cool water until pasta is cooled. Drain extra water from the pasta. Combine the pasta, veggies, and dressing in a bowl, and serve!

This month I'm co-hosting #pastalove with a group of awesome food bloggers, so please check out their websites below. Also, feel free to add your favorite pasta recipes to the blog hop listing below in the month of May, and share with #pastalove hashtag! I hope you enjoy #pastalove!

Your hosts for this month’s #PastaLove:

Astig Vegan | Richgail | @AstiVegan

Badger Girl Learns To Cook | Kimberly | @BdgerGrl
BigFatBaker | Erin | @bigfatbaker
Bon À Croquer | Valerie | @Valouth
Cake Duchess | Lora | @cakeduchess
Elephant Eats  | Amy | @ElephantEats
Hobby And More | Richa | @betit19
Mis Pensamientos | Junia | @juniakk
No One Likes Crumbley Cookies | TR | @TRCrumbley
Oh Cake | Jessica | @jesshose
Rico sin Azucar | Helena | @ricosinazucar
Simply Reem | Reem | @simplyreem
Soni’s Food for Thought | Soni | @sonisfood
Teaspoon of Spice | Deanna | @tspbasil
That Skinny Chick Can Bake | Liz | @thatskinnychick
The Spicy RD | EA | @thespicyrd
The Wimpy Vegetarian | Susan | @wimpyvegetarian
Vegetarian Mamma | Cindy |@Vegetarianmamma
You Made That? | Suzanne | @Youmadethatblog
Vegan Yack Attack | Jackie | @VeganYackAttack

Gluten Free Bagels

Hi everyone! It's time for the Gluten Free Ratio Rally, and this month's theme is the bagel. This is up there with some of the hardest rallies we've done (I find gluten free yeast breads the hardest to make gluten free), so thank you to Morri for hosting this month! Be sure to check her page for all of the posts this month!

2.25:1 - Sponge:Flour

I used Bruce Ezzel's bagel ratio, where the sponge consists of a small amount of yeast and equal portions flour and water. Here's my two lessons learned while experimenting:

1. Xanthan or guar gum is a must. The first attempt I made I used a flour blend of plain white rice flour, brown rice flour, and potato starch without any xanthan gum. Let's just say that dissolved into a floury mess while boiling the bagel....so for my second iteration I chose to use sweet white rice flour, tapioca starch and xanthan gum in an attempt to produce a dough that wouldn't fall apart in boiling water. 
2. Don't let the sponge rest for longer than 8 hours. I let my sponge (the first set of ingredients in the recipe that rests for 5 hours.) set overnight in another iteration overnight and it produced a more sour taste because it over-fermented. A couple other ralliers experienced this as well, so I recommend a 5-6 hour fermentation time for the sponge.

I hope you enjoy!

Inactive Prep Time 5 hours
Active Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 15 minutes
Yields 4 bagels

Ingredients
4 oz sweet white rice flour
2 oz tapioca starch
2 tbsp xanthan gum
1/4 tsp yeast
6 oz water

1 tsp salt
2 tsp honey
4 oz sweet white rice flour
1 oz tapioca starch
poppy seeds
1/2 tablespoon baking soda

Steps
In a medium bowl, combine the first 5 ingredients. Cover and set aside for 5 hours, 8 hours maximum.

With a dough mixer, combine the salt, honey, flour, and starch to the sponge. It will take about 10 minutes to get a thoroughly mixed dough. Set aside for about 20 minutes.

Divide the dough evenly into 4 balls. Cover and let set for another 10 minutes. Flatten each ball into disks, and poke a hole through the middle of each. Cover and let set for 10 minutes, then flip over and let set for a final 10.

While the dough rests, preheat the oven to 450F, and cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Add 2 liters of water to a pot with the baking soda, and bring to a boil.

After the dough has risen, reduce the heat on the water down to medium, and add the bagels to the pot. Boil for about 4 minutes each side. Remove the bagels from the water and place onto the baking sheets. Sprinkle poppy seeds on top of each bagel. Place in the oven for 14 minutes, until slightly golden on top. Once cool, slice and serve with your favorite filling. Enjoy!