“Hey Lardo, shouldn’t you be running in place right now?”

No, I wasn’t an overweight child (though I don’t know why I swear I lived on pepsi and skittles for years!) actually I was quite thin… but you know how brothers are. Thinking of any mean thing to make you fuss. what a doll! I love him anyway.

so yeah, maybe it has something to do with the fact that I don’t eat pork… but you would think as much time as I spend cooking, thinking of cooking, talking about cooking, buying food to cook, and watching cooking shows I’d have known that by now one way or another.

so…. here’s to Lardo! ( which I didn’t previously know existed and I wont be eating anyhow.)

I sure wish I had stumbled upon this last year when I made the big switched from sugar to honey. It could have saved me a lot of burned and bland dishes   oh well… at least maybe some of you can learn with all the mistakes I made!

Sean has told me I now have earned myself a REAL KitchenAid mixer. I have hit my quota of baked goods I suppose. Does that make me a REAL housewife?  I’m so excited about the idea I’m almost giddy. no more trying to cream things with my 1969 wannabe stand mixer. No more trying to whip things by hand. I’m a real cook now, baby!

…. now only to find $229.00 plus shipping costs lying around somewhere…. I can wait. I don’t want to, but I can wait. It will just make it that much sweeter!

I’ve been working towards making bread again. The whole family misses them. I found a couple of good recipes! SO good, in fact that we over indulged with 4 loaves in 5 days. (guilty!) By the 5th day I’ve gained weight, started bloating again, and have terrible headaches and stomach cramps. also… a foul mood to boot.

I put off soaking the grains b/c I was busy, but now I realize this isn’t optional and I should have known better. Because I use so few grains the last several months I never soaked them and I did just fine that way. But, I also was having issues with not enough easy foods to fill my family up. We all have blood sugar problems, celiac, 1 is allergic to milk and 3 of us have lactose intolerance. Add to that Eli and myself have serious trouble digesting fructose (fruits, raw veggies and a raw honey) this leaves out diet VERY slim… and TERRIBLY expensive! the bulk of our meals are meat and a handful of the same veggies cooked in a variety of different ways to disguise the fact that they are the same old veggies year round. Frankly, it’s boring at best.

I was attempting to broaden our horizons and lower our grocery bull by introducing bread again. I’m heart broken it wasn’t as easy as I though it was going to be. Even use the best of ingredients I could find and staying away from things like corn flour an soy products…. our health still took a plunge (mostly mine, actually). and seeing my scale suddenly rise in weight instead of continuing to lower certainly did NOT make me feel very good about myself. Feeling my skirts suddenly become tighter in all the wrong places didn’t help either! I have continually, albeit slowly, been losing weight and getting to a very normal healthy place. It’s the best I have felt in AGES… if ever. and now suddenly it’s like I’m headed right back there. no thanks! I am not anxious to head back into that. I’ve worked WAY too hard for that. Seriously, I really have put copious amounts of work, study, and cooking hours into eating in a way that helps me and the family feel healthy. I’m not willing to destroy that for a few bites of bread here and there.

We are moving in a couple of days… then it will take me a few more days/weeks after that to get settled us to the new place. After that I’m aiming to investigate how to properly soak, sprout and store gluten-free grains and nuts for breads and treats. I’m hoping i can still be able to make some form of edible yummy bread in this manner. the kids (and Sean!) were totally thrilled to have sandwiches again Until then bread will be on the backburner (if at all) in our home. I can only imagine how much weight I would gain and how bad I would feel on 4 more weeks of improperly soaked grains!

until then it’s likely be pretty quiet here.

3 [left over] medium sweet potatoes
1 whole egg
1 egg white
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp almond extract
2TBSP palm shortening
1/2 cup white rice flour
1/2 C honey (or to taste)
enough almond milk to make smooth (1/4 cup?)

Whip all until smooth with a whisk, adding only enough milk to thin out enough to pour into a pie plate. Top with crumb topping if desired (it’s good either way, but a topping is easy and so good). and bake for 30 minutes in a 325  degree oven.or until hot. If you use a topping be sure to cover lightly with foil or parchment paper.

This is crustless because… well… because I was being lazy and the baby was crying at my feet the entire time and I just wanted to be done. I’m sure it would have been fabulous with an actual crust. But everyone was happy here so I think it was a success. It was just one of those things that accidentally turned out pretty good.

see, if I go about trying to create something it nearly always ends up awful…. but if the baby is crying at my feet and I’m trying to use up some left overs and I’m distracted beyond belief and I leave out the baking soda which I was planning to include, and I’m sure it’s going to be a total disaster…. it ends up tasting pretty darn good. figures.

….so, should I bother mentioning that the first time I put the topping on I forgot about the pie while I was vacuuming the stairs, and the whole top burned so I scraped it all over and put on a new topping and baked it for another 10 minutes?…. or that the reason my chicken curry would NOT finish cooking this evening was that I in fact had been measuring the temp in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit the entire time? and that it had probably been done for 30 minutes before I realized. or that I severely undercooked the rice noodles so they tasted like cellophane?

well… the pie was good. and nobody got sick. so all in all… I guess it was a success hmm?

every week I roast at minimum one organic chicken. we of course eat the meat for dinner, and then overnight I simmer the carcass (sometimes with onion) for stock for the week. with this stock we make rice, pasta dishes, indian dishes… just about everything. and occasionally the obvious – soup. if there is any left (rarely) we freeze it.

tonight I glanced in the fridge to see what I had on hand for a quick easy to digest healing dish.

• stock (with some sauteed veggies)
• rice
• egg

and so egg drop soup it was. ok so it wan’ts traditional of one country heh… but egg drop is a traditional soup in various parts of the world and of course the main ingredients – broth and eggs. the rest is purely local flair. for us it included jasmine rice. and it was best meal I’ve made in less than 10 mins in a long time.

Eli ate 4 bowls. I stopped him after that so he wouldn’t induce sickness. the rest of us liked it a lot too. why don’t I normally make this? who knows. but it’s a keeper. it’s going to be a regular staple in out home from now on.

and because this year I vowed to include more traditional Italian recipes into our diet (and let me tell you that’s not simple thing when you’re gluten and dairy free my friends) I looked up to find an Italian version…. so in honor of my husband’s heritage:

Stracciatella alla Romana

yeah… I think I just found my new favorite Italian cooking blog.

1. these biscuits are very yummy and biscuity when eaten directly after baking them – but they aren’t very biscuity if they sit over night.

2. they are perfect for sandwiches if they are eaten the next day – and more resemble a biscuity type roll. It is much tastier and easier than yeast/soy/gluten/corn/dairy bread for on the go.

I do still have a place in my heart for that yummy warm bread from my oven.… but I’ve had to face facts – it pretty much stinks as a replacement for sandwhich bread. you just can’t do sandwich bread without yeast. period.  So lately I’ve been focusing on other types of sandwich alternative. I do so love a good sandwich – especially with left over chicken or steak! so I’ve been working on ideas for a roll recipe. I’m ordering some roll pans from amazon soo and hopefully something fabulous will come out of this.

I still can’t say I’m glad we’re dealing with all these allergies … I mean really? ugh. BUT… looking on the bright side, I’ve not only conquered my fears of GF cooking… I’ve actually swam to the otherside and I’m making up my own recipes. desperation can make you face your fears, that’s for sure! My baby will likely out grow at least some of these allergies/intollerances, but I will always profit from all that I have learned during this time.

in other news – semi related (as breastmilk is food and this is a food blog…) Ven has been nursing for 9.5 months now! he’s actually still exclusively breastfeed, as he’s yet to hold down other foods. i’m so thankful i’ve been able to sustain him!

I made these for the first time tonight and I am very pleased with them. I was dying for a biscuit so I tweaked by “corn-less cornbread topping” recipe. This is what I came up with.

Biscuits

dry:

• 2 C  blanched almond meal/flour
• 3/4 arrowroot flour
• 1/2 T baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt

Wet:

• 2 eggs
• 1/4 coconut oil or palm shortening
• almond milk (roughly 1/4 C)
• 3  T sugar **

Blend eggs well and sugar well, and add slowly add coconut oil or shortening. In separate bowl sift dry ingredients and slowly combine to wet while mixing. add almond milk as needed to thin. You’re going for a droppable biscuits, not a soupy mess. If by change you add too much milk let sit for a moment. almond flour expands and soaks up liquid. if it’s still too wet add more almond flour as needed.

drop by the spoonful onto a baking sheet and bake in a preheated over at 350 degress for 15-20 mins.

these biscuits get done before they look done. they don’t have a large rise to them and by the time they are browning they’re past their peek of fluffy yumminess and on their ways to hockey puck statis – so stay nearby til you know how long it takes your oven to bake them to perfection.

**next time i will try honey in lieu of sugar – I was concerned it’d be too wet so I didn’t do it for my first try. I thought shortening would give it more of a biscuit buttery taste but I think I liked the coconut oil variety better. Let me know what you all think!

It’s funny thinking on that. The cookies honestly weren’t even good! I was just so excited about having *something* dessert like that the fact that it tasted like sugary grit didn’ even register! But surely, after the romance died down I was left feeling bored again. my tastebuds were so very sad.

It’s taken me about 3.5 yrs of being  gluten-free to come up with something worthwhile. I was previously living off of boxed GF cookies *shudder* and trying to ignore their lack of taste and abundance of cardboard like texture. But, then I had Vencenzo. time has shown us he is quite intollerant of many things i was eating. So now I am COMPLETELY free of (amongst many other little things):

• gluten *
• soy
• dairy
• corn
• fructose (meaning ALL fruits and many veggies)
• raw veggies  (see above)
• citrus
• leaf family
• berry family (which doesn’t include cran or blueberries as they are another family)
• pork *

(*would be off of anyhow)

I’ve finally come up with a few recipes for desserts that aren’t just “okay” by gluten standards, but dare I say… my gluten/dairy-loving relatives don’t know the difference.

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Coffee Cake:

dry:

• 3 C      blanched almond meal
• 3/4 C  white rice floud
• 3/4 C  arrowroot flour (starch)
• 1/2   T baking soda
• 1/2   tsp salt

wet:

• 1/4 C  palm shortening
• 1 .5 C honey
• 8 eggs
• 3 cap fulls of vinegar
• 1 tsp almond extract

*crumb topping-

Start with these measurements. as always this isn’t an exact science. You will need to feel it here to make sure it’s right. If it’s too sticky add more flour. If it’s too crumbly increase shortening. If it’s too oily add more rice flour…. etc. each time in slightly different. You have to learn to eyeball some things in cooking – the inner baker will come out in you once your fear of cooking with GF flours dies down!

• 1/4 C palm shortening
• 1/2 C rice flour
• 1/2 C almond flour
• 1/4C honey
• 1/2 -1 T cinnamon
• optional: sliced almonds sprinkled on top

If you want it REALLY crumbly double the topping recipe- but don’t fill the muffins quite as full or they will overflow!

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Pre-heat oven to 305 degrees. Fill a muffin tin (or 3) with parchment paper baking cups. With mixer cream shortening and honey adding slowly 1 egg at a time until each egg is thoroughly mixed. mix in vinegar and almond extract.

In separate bowl sift (of combine with hands, like I do!) all dry ingredients. Add in 3 steps with the wet ingredients until fully combined. use ice cream scoop to fill muffin cups 1/2-3/4 full and top with crumb topping. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until done. (you want it to not be too brown on top and still a bit moist – as always this will vary from oven to oven so try one batch first and see how it goes.)

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tips:

The picture above shows crumb topping – but I also tried them out as muffins – no fancy crumbly topping and everyone thought they were still good. I’m sure I’ll skip the crumb topping when I’m in a hurry.

You can make the topping in bigger batches and save for a couple of days in a sealed container in the fridge.

But, as I re-read her comment to soak in it’s glory, I realized  something in her comment seemed odd. She thanked me for making such an “important post” and that it really ”meant something to her”. Odd, I thought…w hat could “cranberry flax bread” really mean to her? Maybe it was some emotional food thing I couldn’t quite understand. Some people realy LOVE their food…. so, I started to write her back asking what she meant…

….and that’s when I realized it was spam.

I really should have known better!