Wednesday, April 25, 2012

0 Gluten Free Rosemary Potato Wedges


Here's an easy yet simple recipe to make a healthy and delicious alternative to french fries for dinner. The great part about the recipe is it is easy to scale the portion size, and you get to control the amount of sodium and oil that goes into the dinner. No deep frying, just beautifully browned potatoes.

Adding fresh herbs to any recipe add tons of flavor without adding large volumes of fat or calorie to a dish. Adding herbs at the end of cooking bring out their aromatics without burning and becoming bitter. Here's a quick guide to pair types of herbs with some dishes:

  • Rosemary - pork, chicken, lamb, potatoes salmon
  • Thyme - Pork, lemon, chicken, soups
  • Parsley - tomato sauces, beef, chicken 
  • Basil - pesto, beef, pizza, tomato sauce
I love the combination of potatoes with rosemary and thyme. Tasty!

Serving Size: Side for 3-4 people
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 10-14 minutes

Ingredients
20 baby gold potatoes, quartered
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
3 tablespoons chopped rosemary
2 tablespoons chopped thyme

Steps
Preheat a sautee pan over medium heat. Add the olive oil, and coat in the inside of the pan. Add the potatoes, salt and pepper. Stir occassionally, every 3-4 minutes, until all sides are golden brown and a fork is inserted easily. Add the herbs to the pan, and toss to coat the potatoes. Cook for an additional minute, then serve.

Monday, April 23, 2012

0 1-2-3 Gluten Free Buckwheat Pancakes Review


Last month I took advantage of a glutenfreely.com livingsocial deal ($25 for $50 of produce. Sweet!), and one of the products I bought was 1-2-3 Gluten Free Buckwheat Pancake Mix. The batter itself is:

  • gluten free
  • dairy free
  • peanut free
  • tree nut free
  • corn free
  • egg free
  • soy free
  • potato free
Pretty much any food allergy under the sun is covered by this mix. It is great for people who have a variety of food allergies, yet can still be used with egg or dairy. 

The pancake batter has a great texture once baked up, with a crispy outer crust encasing tender, slightly sweet cake. The batter is really easy to use with a small number of additional ingredients, and can easily be adapted with additional flavors. The baked up recipes also hold up to the addition of cereal without falling apart. 

I wholly recommend it to anyone with a food allergy longing for those Sunday morning pancakes!

Monday, April 16, 2012

3 Gluten Free Almond Berry Muffins

gluten free, almond, blueberry, raspberry

I love the fresh fruit that comes with springtime. Its almost overwhelming all of the fresh and healthy options that come with the spring. I love combining the sweetness of the blueberries with the tart acidity of raspberries for a great flavor profile.
Here's a great recipe that blends fresh blueberries and raspberries with the crunch of almonds, all encased in a moist gluten free muffin. Healthy and tasty! Hope you enjoy!

Time: 15 minutes prep, 16 minutes baking
Servings: 18 muffins
Ingredients
1 oz tapioca flour
3 oz potato starch
2 oz white rice flour
2 oz sweet rice flour
4 oz granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
8 oz milk, room temperature
2 eggs, room temperature
1 stick butter, melted
4oz blueberry, rinsed and drained
4oz raspberry, rinsed and drained, sliced in half
2oz blanched almonds

Steps
Preheat an oven to 350F. Line a muffin tin with paper cups.

In a small bowl, combine the flours, sugar, and powder. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk the milk and eggs until well combined. Sift in the flour mix, and stir thoroughly. Pour in the butter, and mix until combined. Fold in the berries and the almonds, and pour into individual muffin tins.

Bake for 15 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Enjoy!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

1 New Recipes Page Layout

With the development of pinterest and the new blogger views (you can read about them here) I've been looking for ways to improve my recipes page.

Sadly, pinterest doesn't have any tool to embed pinterest boards, and in the pinterest agreement you're not allowed to embed boards through the use of html iframes.

When it comes to blogger, I love the various new views they have, but they don't have the support yet for custom widgets, which I don't want to totally abandon yet. So what's a blogger to do?

When you go to the recipes page, you'll see an embedded version of my blog where all the recipes are photo thumbnails. Let me know your thoughts on this blog experiement.

Also, if you end up liking the method of embedding, here's how you can do it for your Blogger blog:

For my recipes page, I use the mosaic Blogger View. To embed your own custom Blogger view, add the following html


<iframe src="http://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com/views/mosaic" width="100%" height="300"/>

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

15 Gluten Free Berry Fudge Brownies



Brownies are one of those sweet treats that can satisfy almost anyone, yet one where people can be surprisingly opinionated:

"Can I have a corner piece? I love the corner pieces."
"I only eat the middle.  Edge pieces? Gross."
"Why don't these have frosting? Do you have any frosting that I can put on these?"
"Baked? No thanks. Let me know once the batter ready though, I claim the leftovers in the bowl."

These are all differing opinions that I've heard from friends and family alike. Here's my interpretation (and preference) on a chocolate-y dessert stable: brownies. And its all for the gluten free ratio rally this month.

The Ratio
2 : 3 : 3 : 6 : 2
chocolate : egg : butter : sugar : flour

Gisslen's baker's ratio for brownies are listed above. For this recipe, fresh strawberries are added to the batter, which adds a nice little pop of fresh fruit flavor to each bite, and the almonds provide great texture. Also, if you do the math for my recipe, I go a little lower than 6 on the sugar for this recipe. I prefer the taste of darker chocolate, and there's inherently some sweetness added from the strawberries. All of this together provides a great springtime twist on a dessert classic.

Thank you to Mary of Franny Cakes for hosting the ratio rally this month. Please visit her host page at:  http://frannycakes.com/recipes/ratio-rally-hazelnut-brownies/

Here's a link to all of the participants and all of their recipes:


Adina from Gluten Free Travelette made Chocolate Brownie Pie with Orange Zest
Angela from Angela's Kitchen made Gluten & Dairy Free Cream Egg BrowniesBrooke from B & the boy! made Triple Chocolate BrowniesCaitlin from {Gluten Free} Nom Nom Nom made Peppermint Brownie Bars
Caleigh from Gluten Free[k] made White chocolate and marshmallow browniesCaneel from Mama Me Gluten Free made Triple chocolate brownies
Charissa Luke from Zest Bakery made Slutty gluten-free brownies
Claire from My Gluten Free Home PB&J Brownie Whoopee PiesClaire from This Gluten-Free Life made St. Patty's Day Marshmallow Swirl BrowniesErin from The Sensitive Epicure made Mexican Cocoa Brownies with an Almond & Pepitas Crust
gretchen from kumquat made salted caramel brownies
Heather from Discovering the Extraordinary made Nutmeg Blondies
Irvin from Eat the Love made Blueberry Citrus Marble BrowniesJean from Gluten-Free Doctor Recipes made Blue Ribbon BrowniesJenn Cuisine made Grain free brownies with no-bake ricotta cheesecake creamJonathan from The Canary Files made Vegan Marbled Banana Walnut Brownies
Karen from Cooking Gluten Free! made GF Chewy Crackled Top Brownies with Raspberry Puree
Mary Fran from FrannyCakes made Gluten-Free Hazelnut (Nutella) BrowniesMorri from Meals with Morri made Oaxacan Brownies & Mesquite Cacao Blondies~Mrs. R from Honey From Flinty Rocks made Black Bean S'More Brownies
Pete and Kelli from No Gluten, No Problem made Caramel Mexican Chocolate Mesquite Brownies
Rachel from The Crispy Cook made Co-Co Nut-Nut Blondies
Shauna from Gluten-Free Girl made Gluten-Free BrowniesTara from A Baking Life Mint made Chocolate Flourless Brownies


And read below for mine! Enjoy!

Recipe

Servings: 1 8x8 square pan of brownies
Prep Time: 25 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients
73g unsweetened chocolate
113g (1 stick) room temperature butter
113g egg (approximately 3 egg whites, 2 egg yolks)
210g sugar
2 tsp vanilla
17g tapioca flour
24g potato starch
16g white rice flour
14g sweet rice flour
6 large strawberries, rinsed and diced
1/4 cup blanched sliced almonds

Steps


Preheat oven to 350F. Grease the inside and sides of a 8x8 pan. Set aside. In a double boiler melt the chocolate and butter together. Once completely melted, remove the mix from the heat.

While the chocolate cools, stir the egg, sugar, and vanilla together until just combined in a medium bowl. Once combined, add about 1/4 cup of the egg mix into the chocolate, and stir quickly to combine (this brings the eggs up to temperature slowly to not scramble them.). Add the chocolate to the rest of the egg mix. Stir just until combined.

Fold in the flours until just combined. Fold in the strawberries and almonds until combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and place in the preheated oven and bake for 35 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Serve with dusted powdered sugar and enjoy!

Sunday, April 1, 2012

16 #Berrylove: Gluten Free Blackberry Orange Sorbet

blackberry orange sorbet

April is #berrylove month! To bring in the excitement of fresh fruit, I wanted to make a simple and delicious fresh fruit sorbet with only a small amount of added sugar. It's a healthy and delicious way to eat your fruit, especially on the hot summer days coming up.

Thank you to all the other co-hosts,  be sure to check out everyone's favorite berry dishes. If you have any you would like to share, please add them to the bloghop!

If you have twitter, be sure to check out #berrylove!


A little bit of everything ~ Roxana GreenGirl ~ @RoxanaGreenGirl
Baker Street ~ Anuradha ~ @bakerstreet29
BigFatBaker ~ Erin Meyer ~ @bigfatbaker
Bon à croquer ~ Valerie ~ @valouth
Cake Duchess ~ Lora ~ @cakeduchess.com
Easily Good Eats ~ Three Cookies                                             
Elephant Eats ~ Amy
Georgie Cakes ~ Georgie ~ @GeorgieCakes
Hobby And More ~ Richa ~ @betit19
Java Cupcake ~ Betsy Eves ~ @JavaCupcake
Mis Pensamientos ~ Junia ~ @juniakk
No One Likes Crumbley Cookies ~ T.R. ~ @TRCrumbley
Oh Cake ~ Jessica ~ @jesshose
Queen's Notebook ~ Elizabeth  Quirino ~ @Mango_Queen
Rico sin Azúcar ~ Helena ~ @ricosinazucar
Simply Reem ~  Reem ~ @Simplyreem
Soni's Food for Thought ~ Soni ~ @sonisfood
Teaspoon of Spice ~ Deanna Segrave-Daly ~ @tspbasil
That Skinny Chick Can Bake!!! ~ Liz ~ @thatskinnychick
The Art of Cooking Real Food ~ Laura ~ @TAofCRF
The Wimpy Vegetarian ~ Susan ~ @wimpyvegetarian
Vegan Yack Attack ~ Jackie S. ~ @veganyackattack
Vegetarian Mamma ~ Cindy ~ @vegetarianmamma




dsf

Gluten Free Blackberry Orange Sorbet


Servings: 4 small bowls or cups
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Freeze Time: 20 minutes
Needed Tools: Ice Cream Maker, fine strainer

Ingredients
6 oz blackberries
1 cara cara orange, peeled
2 lemons, peeled
3 tbsp water
3 tbsp granulated sugar

Steps
In a small bowl, combine the berries, orange, and lemons. Juice with an immersion blender until a fine juice is formed, about 1-3 minutes. Pour the juice through a fine grater to remove any seeds and non-blended pulp.
Set the juice aside. In a small microwaveable bowl, combine the sugar and water. Heat in 30 second intervals, or until the sugar has dissolved. Add to the juice and refrigerate for 10 minutes.

Pour the juice into an ice cream maker, and churn until the juice has frozen into a sorbet. Enjoy!

As an alternative to a sorbet, you can add 1/3  cup plain yogurt to the juice for a fresh, healthy smoothie!