30 Day Challenge - Day 8

I'm doing a 30 day challenge where I do a blog post each day for 30 days based on this 30 Day Challenge List. Feel free to do the same and send me a link to your challenge.


8. What you ate today

This is everything I ate today. I'm on a gluten free diet becasue I have celiac disease. All of this food is gluten free. gluten free bread, gluten free cereal. It's a challenge to eat gluten free but I've been doing it for about two years. This is why I bake gluten free goodies and write about it on my blog. I'm getting better at gluten free cooking but it was tough at first and I've made a lot of mistakes that have resulted in me getting really sick. It's pretty surprising how many different foods have wheat, barley and or rye in them. A few surprising items I have found to contain gluten are: soy sauce, fish sauce, soup base, bullion, rice crispies, cold cuts, malt balls, and malt liquor (what's the word? Thunderbird). 

Best Gluten Free Peach Cobbler Recipe

I was recently inspired to make Peach Cobbler (gluten free of course) for the second time. My first try was okay but was more like a crisp rather then a cobbler, you can see that recipe here. A guy I was dating told me that it was his favorite dessert so I looked up a recipe, went to the store and got the many types of flower required to make this yummy dish. Then, he dumped me over text message. Yeah, burn. So anyway, I'm stuck with all of this stuff to make Peach Cobbler and I have a dinner party to go to tomorrow so problem solved.

This Cobbler smells amazing when you cook it and tastes even better. I'm serving mine with Vanilla Ice Cream. Can't wait for the dinner party!

Topping:

1/2 cup sorghum

1/4 cup almond meal

3/4 cup cornstarch

1 1/4 cup rice flour

1 1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon orange zest (get one orange for juice and zest)

1 teaspoon vanilla

6 Tablespoons butter, melted

1/4 cup fresh orange juice

1 1/4 cup (maybe as much as 1 1/2 cups) milk

Filling:

4-6 large peaches, sliced thin (I left skin on) about 4 cups

1 Cup Blueberries

1/2 cup agave syrup

I Tablespoon sweet rice flour

1/4 cup fresh orange juice

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together the liquid ingredients except for the milk. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients. Slowly stir in the milk until the batter reaches the right consistency- about 1 1/2 cups. In another small bowl, mix together the agave syrup, orange juice, and sweet rice flour. Combine this mixture with the peaches in a 9 x 13 baking pan. Spoon the batter over the peach mixture. You may have extra batter. Bake for about 45 minutes on 350 degrees.

Happy Fourth of July!

Red, white and blue, BBQ's and freedom. The fourth of July. I went to a BBQ early in the day and saw some amazing fireworks at night. I wanted to share a gluten free party recipe with you today. This is the second time I have made these Goat Cheese and Basil Stuffed Tomatoes and they were a big hit the first time. I wanted to make something red white and blue for the holiday, and I got 2 out of 3, so I'm happy.

Ingredients

24 Cherry Tomatoes
8 oz of garlic herb goat cheese
3/4 Cup Minced fresh basil
dash salt
dash pepper

Tools

mellon baller
sharp knife

Prep a platter with a few paper towels to place your tomatoes on.

1. Cut a small portion of the top (where the stem comes out) of the tomato. This will be the bottom and really helps the finished product stay together. Then cut a larger portion of the other side so you have a place to scoop out the insides through.

2. Use your mellon baller to scoop the guts out. Make sure not to go through to the other side or your filling will fall out. Discard guts.

3. Place all of your tomatoes upside down on your paper toweled platter. Cover with plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator. Let chill for at least an hour before filling.

4. Make your filling. Chop up your basil and mix with room temperature goat cheese with a fork. Add salt and pepper to taste.

5. Fill each tomato with cheese mixture

6. Remove from refrigerator at least 15 min before serving. Enjoy.

Gluten Free Blueberry Banana Muffins

So today was very interesting. I worked from home because I have the worst head cold ever. I did my 9 am meeting with my boss via skype and I learned 3 things. 1) The look and feel of the Recurly brand that I should be shooting for. 2) What Geocatching is. I totally want to try this. 3) What Zicam is. It's a nasal spray that is supposed to work awesome for head colds. So I dragged my self to Safeway in search of this magical cure and used it. About an hour later one of my coworkers sent me this link that talks about how people loose their sense of taste and smell because of this product. I was thinking how awful that would be. Eating would be so boring. I grew up in a house where 80% of family time was spent around the dinner table (my parents both worked a lot). As a result food was very important to me growing up and I continue to cook and bake all the time. Being blind would be much worse, as a visual designer I would be pretty useless. Anyway (end of rant).

I also started using forrst today and so far it's awesome. It's a web site where programers and designers can post their work and get feedback. This is really important to me right now because I am the only designer working at Recurly, and it's nice to have people to bounce ideas off. I also learned how to make sexy web site buttons. Yeah you heard me. 

While I was at home I decided to make some muffins because I had all of the stuff and muffins are delicious. As you may have seen in the past I have the best EVER Vegan Banana Muffin Recipe. But I can't eat these muffins anymore because they are not gluten free. I found a GF banana muffin recipe online and tricked it out to be more like my favorite recipe and here is what I came up with.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup white rice flower

• ¾ cup brown rice flower

• 1 ¼ cup all purpose gluten free flower

• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum

• 1 teaspoon gluten free baking powder

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 tbs cinnamon

• 1/2 cup maple syrup

• 4 bananas

• 1 egg

• 1/3 cup melted butter

• 11 oz Blueberries

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit.

2. In one bowl sift together all dry ingredients.

3. In a second bowl combine mashed bananas, egg and melted butter.

4. Add dry ingredients to wet, mix well.

5. Fold in blueberries

6. Spoon mixture into lined muffin pan.

7. Bake for 20 minutes.

Shop 'till You Drop Sunday - Peanut Butter Buckets

In my recent visit to Crested Butte, CO I found this little candy store called Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory I bought these chocolate peanut butter buckets, one milk chocolate and one dark. They are called buckets for a good reason. I cut them into quarters and shared them with my family. They were very good, especially if you have a sweetooth.