Archive for Adopt a Gluten-free Blogger

Adopt a Gluten-Free Blogger – Elana Amsterdam

November 4, 2011 at 1:58 pm · Filed under Adopt a Gluten-free Blogger, Edge Chat ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

For this month’s Adopt roundup I chose Elana Amsterdam of Elana’s Pantry. She creates recipes that are nutritious as well as delicious and with my recent focus on low carbohydrate menus I decided it was time to stock up on almond and coconut flour.

I chose to make Cinnamon Coffee Cake from my recently purchased copy of Elana’s The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook. The cake was so good that it sent me and some of the ladies at The Caring Place into a spin of delight. In the excitement there was not even one picture taken or a lonely crumb remaining to photograph. Several people commented that these taste like ‘sticky buns’ – a  lot of sweetness for such low carb treats.

So to celebrate my birthday in a few days I decided to make it again! Here it is wrapped and ready for the freezer for when we need it.

Cinnamon Coffee Cake - Cut for Sharing

Cinnamon Coffee Cake - Cut for Sharing

This recipe takes a little more patience than others because it has a yummy topping added just before baking. There are almonds in the topping and walnuts in the cake and I always lightly toast nuts in the microwave before adding to recipes. I prepared the baking pan with parchment for easier removal of that luscious sticky cake from the pan.

Cinnamon Coffee Cake Batter & Topping Ready for the Pan
Cinnamon Coffee Cake Batter & Topping Ready for the Pan

 
                                 
                              
The batter is carefully spread in the pan. Then the topping is dropped by spoonfuls and spread to completely cover the top resulting in a sweet, crunchy topping that did not spike my blood sugar!
                                        
                                      

                                                       
Clara and I have been discussing flavor combinations in the midst of some of my less-than-stellar low carb experiments. A cranberry-orange combination was mentioned as one of her long-time favorites. So Cranberry-Orange Biscotti from Elana’s Pantry  seemed to be a perfect choice. It wasn’t clear how thick the initial logs should be and I made them a little too thick. Instead of 12 biscotti I had 9 that were somewhat larger than Elana’s ‘baby biscotti’. Also, my oven temperature runs a little high. It is important to pay attention to this with nut flour as nuts are notorious for scorching easily – I need to turn the temperature down just a bit.

Cranberry-Orange Biscotti - Yum!

Cranberry-Orange Biscotti - Yum!

Elana’s recipes are gluten-free with no refined sugars and about as low in carbohydrates as you can ever expect with truly delightful sweet treats. These biscotti are perfect to add to your Holiday sweets, treats, and desserts to share with family and friends. I think I might dip the edges in dark melted chocolate the next time I make them.

Gretchen and Clara

Adopt a Gluten-Free Blogger - October 2011

Adopt a Gluten-Free Blogger - October 2011

    

This post is shared at:
Adopt a Gluten-Free Blogger October 2011
hosted by:
Lauren of As Good As Gluten.

Comments (3)

‘Quizza’ from Ricki at Diet, Dessert, and Dogs

September 25, 2011 at 12:37 pm · Filed under Adopt a Gluten-free Blogger, Breakfast, Vegan, Veggies ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

The list of new gluten-free recipes that I want to try seems never-ending. Many of them are from Ricki Heller at Diet, Dessert, and Dogs. So for the September Adopt a Gluten-free Blogger event I ‘adopted’ Ricki. I chose her chickpea baked treat Multi-Faceted Chickpea ‘Quizza’ , that magically combines elements of quiche and pizza and is gluten-free and vegan if you use an alternate cheese or eliminate cheese. The technique of pre-heating the pan results in a nicely browned outer ’crust’ even if you don’t have an iron skillet and have to bake it in a pyrex pie plate like I did.

This recipe is intriguing in its construction because there are no grains involved. The hearty, stay-with-you base is chickpea flour and the remainder is all vegetables and seasoning. Plus, our weather was relatively cooler that day so I baked for the first time in quite a while.

Lately savory food has appealed to me much more than sweet. When I made it the ‘pizza’ element really spoke to me and I added some basil, oregano, sage, and smoked black pepper. My veggies were spinach, tomatoes, zucchini, and a lone mushroom that needed to be somewhere else besides in my refrigerator.

Quizza for Breakfast!

Quizza for Breakfast!

First I had it for a light supper but the leftovers called to me every morning for breakfast until every bit of it was gone!

Gretchen

Adopt a Gluten-free Blogger - September

Adopt a Gluten-free Blogger - September

This post is shared at Adopt a Gluten-free Blogger September 2011 edition.

Comments (5)

Adopt a Gluten-free Blogger: Zoe at Z’s Cup of Tea

July 27, 2011 at 3:19 pm · Filed under Adopt a Gluten-free Blogger, Dessert, Vegan ·Tagged , , , , , ,

The frozen bananas plus other seasonal fruit taking up space in my freezer/fridge had me anxious about snarky comments from Don regarding the space they were taking up in addition to that of the multitude of gluten-free flours. And since the outdoor temperatures have been in the upper 90s*F or lower 100s*F turning on the oven really gives me pause as in ‘do we really need any more heat today?’

Frozen bananas as a base for frozen fruity goodness have been very appealing during this longer-than-anticipated recovery from dental surgery. It was unanticipated recovery time because the first two surgeries were a breeze; no pain, swelling, hardly a blip in my day never mind a full week of misery and a slow recovery.

I have been eyeing Zoe’s gluten-free, SCD recipes for some time now and appreciate the simple ingredients and easy instructions. Zoe develops and shares recipes with the same abjective that Rita and I have; to provide yummy tasting food for our family and friends in spite of dietary constraints. Several of her fruity frozen treats were ever-so-much what I needed during this recovery.

Alice in Wonderland - Gold Queen

Alice in Wonderland - Gold Queen

First I chose variations on Zoe’s Absolutely Alice Instant Ice Cream. The initial experiment was my own variation, peach, which would have been named Gold Queen, followed by Zoe’s own strawberry Red Queen. My peaches were going south very quickly and they had the advantage of no annoying little seeds to become caught in my sutures.

Alice in Wonderland - Red Queen

Alice in Wonderland - Red Queen

 

 

The next day I could not resist the strawberries. I did sort of skin the seeds off the larger berries. That is tedious but not such a big sacrifice when you love strawberries; although as the picture reveals, a good bit of the color disappeared along with the seeds .

Next up were Zoe’s Mango Banana Popsicles - umm, there were a lot of frozen bananas in my freezer. Those are my ‘emergency ripe bananas’ just in case son Jorge were to make an unexpected trip to Austin. He never leaves here without a batch of his all time favorite banana bread. Those of you who bake banana bread know that those bananas must be at the peak of ripe perfection or you might as well make plain muffin bread. Somehow I had more packages stashed away than I realized so some of them became frozen treats to soothe my sore gums.

Jorge - Trying to IGNORE Mom's Camera

Jorge - Trying to IGNORE Mom's Camera

I cut the Mango Banana recipe size down a bit to fit my cheap-o popsicle molds. If these treats become staple items then perhaps I’ll purchase something fancier. And that will no doubt require me to find a recipe that even Don will love – something involving chocolate! In the meantime it’s full speed ahead with summer fruits :-)

Mango Banana Popsicles!

Mango Banana Popsicles!

These popsicles were frosty and delicious and miserable to pull out of their frozen little containers – we definitely need an upgrade on the mold if we do more of these.

Adopt a Gluten-Free Blogger

Adopt a Gluten-Free Blogger - July

Gretchen

This post is linked to Adopt a Gluten-Free Blogger hosted by Sea at Book of Yum!

Comments (1)

Adopt a Gluten-free Blogger: Angela Liddon at Oh She Glows

July 1, 2011 at 12:33 pm · Filed under Adopt a Gluten-free Blogger ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

I don’t remember what initially led me to Angela’s blog, Oh She Glows, but reading about her adventures in backyard projects brought memories of when Don and I first moved out to the middle of the woods in Blanco County and all of the projects we had going on at that property (sigh – never imagined I would ever be nostalgic about clearing cedar and building a dog house). And at this point I am so very envious of her self-proclaimed ‘brown’ thumb while mine remains stubbornly ‘black’ – her homegrown kale could star in a floral arrangement.

Angela’s passion about nutrition is what has me subscribing to her RSS has feed. She writes about her previously disordered eating and resolve to put away the guilt. It is truly amazing how much we know now about such things since living in the realm of internet and that we were never really alone when we just didn’t know any better.

I viewed her how-to video ‘Do Blondies Have More Fun?’  and have to agree that blondies are very appealing. And you have to love a gal as obsessed with pancakes as Angela with her ‘Stacked Pancake Series’.

The next time I get my hands on pumpkin I need to make some of her ‘Happy Thanksgiving Homemade Pumpkin Butter’. I seem to have used up my pumpkin stash while testing ‘Pumpkin Supreme’ for Rita and myself.

Something about the applesauce, dates, banana, and maple syrup sweeteners along with chocolate in Angela’s
Gluten-Free Vegan and Oil-Free Walnut Chip Brownies were calling my name. I had an issue figuring out just how much dates to use and I think I used too much. Fruit varies so greatly in size that weight would provide a more accurate measure. However tasty they were these brownies were sticky and very, very sweet. With a pound of black plums in the fridge I decided to simmer them into a tangy sauce to use with these brownies for an awesome breakfast treat!

Brownies for Breakfast with Plum Sauce

Brownies for Breakfast with Plum Sauce

Angela’s  instructions were very detailed on how to mix the batter and to prepare the pan so the yummy morsels could easily be removed from the pan. Parchment paper is very handy and useful in tricky baking kitchen – it can’t be beat for cookies. Cleanup is fast to non-existent after all that prep and baking.

Oven-Ready Brownies

Oven-Ready Brownies

Here you can see how perfectly they came out of the pan to be cut into serving pieces.

Perfection - Baked, Cooled, & Cut Brownies

Perfection - Baked, Cooled, & Cut Brownies

Gretchen
This post is linked to Adopt a Gluten-Free Blogger hosted by Celiacs in the House
Adopt a Gluten-Free Blogger Logo

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Comments (3)