Sunday, September 23, 2012

30 #SundaySupper: Weekend Apple Party!


On the eastern coast of the United States, it finally started feeling like fall this past week. Fall is my favorite season of the year, that time of the year where the highs hover around the mid-70s and the outdoors feel perfect and refreshing. 

Fall time also brings apples, and here's a great recipe for some caramel apple cookies. I know the photos above don't have the caramel frosting, I forgot to take a photo of them before I frosted them! This is a super easy recipe, and my contribution to this week's #SundaySupper. Check out everyone's recipes, and join us this evening on twitter for a twitter discussion focused on apples! Just look for the #SundaySupper hashtag. Here's everyone else's posts, with my recipe at the bottom!
Soups, Salads, Starters and Breads
Main Meals
Sides
Gluten Free Caramel Frosted Apple Cookies


Prep Time: 30 minutes
Bake Time:15 minutes
Makes: 2 dozen cookies

Cookie Ingredients
Dry Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup gluten free flour blend
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1 tsp cinnamon
Wet Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 Pink Lady apples
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Topping Ingredients
2 tsp butter, room temperature
1/8 cup pecans, chopped
1 tbsp brown sugar

Caramel Ingredients
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1/3 cup water
  • 1 1/2 cups whipping cream
  • 1 teaspoon gluten free vanilla
Steps

Preheat oven to 350F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, mix the dry ingredients together. In another medium bowl, whisk the butter until light and fluffy. Beat in the 1/2 c brown sugar and 1/4 c white sugar.

Once the sugar and butter are combined, beat in the vanilla and the egg. Whisk in the flour.

Dice the apples, and place into a small bowl. Mix with the 1 1/2 tsp sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, and salt.

Mix together the topping ingredients in a small bowl until the nuts are coated with sugar.

Drop the cookies onto the cookie sheets in 2 tablespoon balls, 1-2 inches apart. Push in the middle of each ball lightly, and fill with 3-4 apple pieces. Top with the nuts. Place in the oven and bake for 13-15 minutes until golden brown around the edges.

While the cookies bake, make the caramel by cooking the sugar and water over low heat on the stove until the sugar has dissolved. Once dissolved, cook the sugar over medium heat, and once it starts boiling cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly until a golden brown color has formed. Remove it from heat and slowly stir in the cream and vanilla until well combined.

Once the cookies are out of the oven and cooled, drizzle the caramel over top.

Friday, September 21, 2012

0 Support Stuffed Pepper!



Hey everyone! I hope that you've had a great Friday and are looking forward to the weekend. I wanted to start the weekend by sharing a fundable for a growing gluten free community, Stuffed Pepper (check out the link above). 

Stuffed Pepper is a community website for gluten-free living. It is a resource created by gluten-free people, for gluten-free people. It includes recipes, restaurant reviews, product reviews, articles, and a forum to share comments and experiences. (Quoted from http://www.fundable.com/stuffed-pepper#) It is a growing community that is meant as a resource and community for gluten free people, and I've enjoyed what has been featured so far. 

For those who don't know, fundable is a website that hosts funding for startup organizations, and I recommend anyone who wants a stronger gluten free community online to contribute to this fundable. You can find the link here: http://www.fundable.com/stuffed-pepper#. I plan on contributing, and I'm excited to see what Heather and Stuffed Pepper have coming in the future!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

0 Healthy Blogger Thursday: Top Foods I Never Thought Had Gluten

Hey everyone! Be sure to check out Badger Girl Learns to Cook for my guest post! I wrote about five foods I never thought would have gluten in them, and I hope its helpful to those beginning a gluten free diet!

http://learntocookbadgergirl.com/healthy-blogger-thursday-no-one-likes-crumbley-cookies/

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

0 Gluten Free Review: chebe Pizza Crust Mix


Last week I tried chebe gluten free Pizza Crust Mix, available on glutenfreely.com. I'm always curious to try new gluten free mixes, but wary of the eventual taste and texture of the product. For anyone who's made gluten free baked goods, you know how hard it is to achieve a tasty flavor with a light texture.

Pizza is one of those recipes that I've had historical difficulty with. More often than not, I end up with a dense, heavy crust that doesn't have the lightness you hope for in a pizza crust. I found chebe to be a simple and easy crust to make, and was super happy with the texture. I found that the texture ended up having that puffiness you hope for around the edges, and really reminded me of conventional pizza. I definitely recommend trying it, it's super easy to make and is really tasty!

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

0 Samuel Gee's Birthday on 9/13

September 13th is National Celiac Disease Awareness Day thanks to Dr. Samuel Gee

Celiac Disease awareness and diagnosis has exploded over the last decade.  This is due to many factors including the passionate group of gluten-free individuals who help spread the word through many media outlets, the volunteers at local support groups and those that work for organizations such as the Celiac Sprue Association, Celiac Disease Foundation, The Gluten Intolerance Group, and so on.  However, it has been the dedicated medical professionals who have made the biggest impact on the diagnosis, awareness and hopefully eventually the cure for CD.

Being in the medical field I have always found it fascinating to look back on how diseases were discovered.  For Celiac Disease it was Dr. Samuel Gee, a British physician who in 1887 was the first to identify the link between Celiac Disease and diet. Thanks Dr. Gee!

Look how far we have come in 125 years! The history of the disease has an interesting one dating all the back to 250AD when a Greek gentleman named Aretaeus of Cappadocia described a condition that caused abdominal pain and diarrhea in patients. He called this condition koiliakos (greek for abdomen).  In 1856, Frances Adams translated these Greek writings to English and gave the sufferers the term coeliacs.  Next , comes Dr. Samuel Gee who linked diet to Celiac Disease in 1887.  Interestingly, it was not until 1952 (65 years later) that the gluten-free diet became the standard of treatment.  The next milestone which is monumental was in 1956.  GI doctor Margot Shiner developed the gold standard for diagnosis of CD, which holds true even today--the tissue biopsy of the small intestine.  In 1997 GI doctor Detlef Schuppan introduced a simple blood screening test for the intial diagnosis of CD.  This blood-screening test opened up the flood gates for those with symptoms similar to CD.  More and more individuals are able to be tested more rapidly and efficiently thus reducing the time from onset of symptoms to actual diagnosis.  Now comes my most favorite part, the possibility of a non-dietary treatment of the disease.  Dr. Alessio Fassano at the University of Maryland discovered zonulin.  Zonulin is a molecule that he believes increases intestinal permeability. In 2010 clinical trials testing a new nondietary therapy began.

When we look back on this time-line of CD we see rapid gains in knowledge of the disease in the last decade.  Hopefully, this next decade gives us a non-dietary treatment that would make our lives more convenient and more spontaneous!

Enjoy National Celiac Disease Awareness day! Make a special gluten-free dish for someone special and give thanks to our dedicated medical professionals!

This is a guest post by Julie! Please visit her twitter @glutenfreejosh and her website http://www.jajosh.com/

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

4 Ratio Rally: Gluten Free Quesadilla


Hey everyone, this month the Ratio Rally took on the challenge of gluten free tortillas. I found this to be a difficult recipe to make gluten free, as this recipe I've posted is only good for flat recipes such as quesadillas. Don't try to use this recipe for wraps, it'll fall apart.
My ratio is 
3 : 1
flour : water (with a small amount of butter) 


Please check out all the other recipes and posts to learn all the tips to making gluten free tortillas!


Blogger | Blog Name Description
Jenn | Jenn Cuisine Corn Tortillas
Jonathan | The Canary Files Vegan Curried Flour Tortillas 
Meg | Gluten-Free Boulangerie Lefse (Norwegian Potato Flatbread)
Pete and Kelli | No Gluten, No Problem Flour Tortillas
TR | No One Likes Crumbley Cookies Gluten Free Flour Tortillas - Quesadilla
Heather | Discovering the Extraordinary Sundried Tomato & Basil Tortillas
Brooke | B & the boy! Buckwheat Tortillas
Charissa | Zest Bakery Paleo Grain-Free and Gluten-Free Tortillas
Karen | Cooking Gluten Free! Gluten Free Healthy Flours Tortillas


Gluten Free Quesadillas

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients
144 g  white rice flour
144 g tapioca flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp butter
94 g water
shredded cheddar cheese

Steps
In a medium bowl, mix the flours and powder. Work in the butter until little dots of butter are distributed in the flour. Add the water, and stir until a dough ball is formed. Divide this into four balls and let sit for 10 minutes.

While the balls rest, preheat a skillet over medium heat. Roll out the balls into thin sheets, and cook on the skillet four about 3 minutes per side.

Once all the tortillas are cooked, place one back on the hot skillet and cover with cheese. Cover the tortilla with another, and cook on each side for 2 minutes until the cheese melts.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

38 #SundaySupper: Gluten Free Lemon Blondies

gluten free, brownie, blondie, recipe

gluten free, recipe, blondie, brownieHey everyone, its Labor Day Weekend in America, so I hope everyone's had an enjoyable and relaxing day so far! I'm hosting a cookout tomorrow for Labor Day with friends that are in town, so I figured I would share this Gluten Free Lemon Blondie recipe. 

For those who aren't familiar, blondies have a comparable texture to chocolate brownies, but normally include brown sugar and vanilla in the place of chocolate and plain white sugar for a different taste, and slightly different texture. I love adding lemon to recipes, so I decided to add a large volume of lemon zest to brighten the recipe and add a strong citrus flavor.

Tip: If you want a quicker cooking time, and easy to serve blondies, bake each blondie individually in greased muffin tins. Unless you have corner pieces. Then I recommend just baking them in a traditional 9 inch square pan. It'll take an additional 5 minutes cooking time.

Please check out the other Labor Day recipes people have shared today with the links below, and join us in a twitter discussion at 7pm. To participate, look for the SundaySupper tag starting at 7pm. 


Labor Day Cookout Recipes:

Starters & Snacks

Main Dishes

Salads & Sides

Drinks

Desserts

Wine Pairings

  • Labor Day Cookout Food And Wine Pairings byENOFYLZ


Gluten Free Lemon Blondies

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Bake Time: 18 minutes
Serves:  10 blondies

Ingredients
1/2 cup room temperature butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
zest of four lemons
1/2 cup sweet white rice flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda

Steps
Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease the inside of 10 muffin tins.

In a medium bowl, whip the butter and sugar together until combined. Whip in the egg, vanilla, and zest until combined and smooth.

Fold in the powder, soda, and flours until a thick and creamy batter has formed. Distribute evenly into the 10 muffin tins, and bake in the oven for 18 minutes at 350F, or until a toothpick comes out clean when removed.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

4 Onionlove: Gluten Free Onion Macaroni


Hey everyone, hope that you're having a great Labor Day weekend, its the first weekend of the month, and time for onionlove! This month I'm co-hosting with Besty of JavaCupcake (her Twitter and Pinterest are here).

For this event, I made a gluten free macaroni and cheese dish, filled with onions, bacon, and Monterrey cheese. It's fairly easy to make, and ready in 20 minutes.

If you want to participate in this month's #onionlove, just add your recipe to the bloghop below, and share it on your favorite social media with #onionlove!

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients
2 cups gluten free pasta, uncooked
half of 1 yellow onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
4 slices of bacon, chopped
salt and pepper
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1/4 Parmesan Cheese
1/2 cup Mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup Monterrey cheese

Steps
Fill a small saucepan with water and 1 tbsp olive oil. Cover with a lid until boiling. Add your gluten free pasta to the pan, and cook per packaging directions, about 2 minutes shorter than the recommended cooking time for al dente pasta. Drain the pasta once cooked.

In a large pan, add 1 tbsp olive oil and preheat over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, and bacon, and stir constantly until the fat has been cooked out of the bacon, about 10 minutes. Add the basil, oregano, thyme to the meat, followed by the drained pasta. Remove the pan from heat, and add all of the cheeses and stir until it begins to melt.

Serve with your favorite main dish and enjoy!