Pecan Tassies, Gluten Free & Vegan

Pecan Tassies are one of my favorite holiday treats and one I have not had in 6 years, since going gluten and casein free.  Some people cheat for foods they love, but I never do.  The results are just not worth it.  For me, no food is worth a migraine, or bloating, or IBS, or itchy skin, or drop-dead exhaustion.    I've kept my old recipe, however, in hopes that one day, someone would come

Gluten Free, Vegan Linzer Torte & Linzer Strips

Every year during the holidays I make Linzer Torte. A Linzer Torte is a big cookie filled with fruit preserves and topped with a lattice crust. It's served in slices like a cake. It's beautiful and always impresses - it is the dessert that gets the most compliments year after year.  A Linzer Torte,  while not overly complicated, is definitely worth the time and effort it takes to make.

Gingerbread with Caramel Cinnamon Sauce (Gluten Free, Vegan)

Cold weather just screams for homemade gingerbread.  I love this cake's homey simplicity.  I love gingerbread  better than any other cake except for maybe apple.  It's perfectly fine plain, but adding the Caramel Cinnamon Sauce gives it a touch of elegance I think it deserves.

Gingerbread
3/4 cup dark molasses
1 cup boiling water
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
1/2 cup applesauce

Sourdough Biscuits (Gluten Free & Vegan)

It's Thanksgiving week and we are having winter weather!  Brrr!  It's time to turn on the oven and bake!  These humble biscuits are good any time and my whole house loves them.  They're so good I'm going to make them for Thanksgiving dinner too and skip the stuffing and cornbread.  We won't skip pie, though.  Last year it was pecan pie and pumpkin pie.  This year it will be apple crumb pie. 

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies (Gluten Free & Vegan)

Are they little cakes?  Are they big cookies?  Who cares?*  These little treats aim to please and trust me, they do.  The original recipe comes from Penzey's, who recommend marshmallow creme in the filling to make it fluffy.  I can't find a gluten free, dairy free, soy free equilavent so I left that particular ingredient out.  I was just overwhelmingly pleased to be finally able to use a cream

Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Ganache

We celebrated DH's birthday the other week.  It was the big 4-0 and I felt that we should be irreverent about it (totally sticking our tongues out at this particular milestone).  One of his presents was a book titled Fart Proudly (featuring satirical writings by Benjamin Franklin).  After that, I had to make up for it by making him a yummy birthday cake. I looked at a Penzey's recipe and said "

Apple Honey "Lemonade"

Okay, this is really Vinegar Lemonade, but I'm calling it Apple Honey Lemonade to make it sound more appealing to the girls.  Anna can't stand anything vinegary, but she will drink vinegar lemonade with a fancy name.  It's surprisingly good and it's good for you.  Raw apple cider vinegar and raw local honey both have many health benefits (read more here). I found a good recipe for vinegar

Gluten Free, Vegan Apple Cinnamon Donuts

It's a Saturday morning and the weather has turned chilly!  The girls are asking for hot cocoa and I'm definitely in the mood to bake.  A friend brought a gift in the form of a Babycakes Donut Maker and surprisingly, I love it.  It's super fast to make donuts now.  The recipe below is based on the Babycakes one found here, though I've changed a couple of things.  These donuts are tasty and fun

Sourdough Sandwich Bread

 



Here it is, as promised - Sourdough Bread.  I love this stuff.  It's so easy to make, it requires no eggs (and hence, no egg substitute - the first truly GF Vegan bread I've tried), and the whole family loves it.  Before going gluten free, I did not like sourdough bread even a little bit.  I didn't know what all the fuss was about.  Regular bread was okay, but nothing to jump up and down

Sourdough Pancakes, Gluten Free & Vegan

 

(Strawberry Sourdough Pancakes - could the morning get any yummier?) 

Looking for directions on how to feed sourdough starter?  Scroll to the bottom of this page.


At last - sourdough pancakes.  I've waited all summer to post this recipe!  I keep making these pancakes and they don't get old.  You can add all sorts of things to them - different berries, chopped walnuts, sliced apple, banana

Gluten Free Sourdough Starter

For years I've considered experimenting with sourdough.  Recipes for the starter and baking with it looked a little precise and complicated, and I'm usually not that type of baker.  I didn't really set out to tackle sourdough because I was looking for a challenge.  But I ended up teaching the cooking portion of a summer camp with a pioneer/settler/gold rush theme and wanted to be authentic as

Blueberry Buckle (Gluten Free & Vegan)

While I was visiting my mom last month, she asked me to convert her favorite blueberry buckle recipe.  We had just picked fresh blueberries in perfect overcast weather and it had started to rain - perfect baking weather and a respite from the oppressive heat and humidity.  Mom and I agree that this buckle turned out even better than we remember it.  She and the girls and I sat down together

Fresh Berry Pie (Gluten Free, Vegan)

 

Today, DH got a strawberry pie for Father's Day.  He said it was really yummy around a mouthful of seconds.  The girls agreed enthusiastically.  You can use whatever berries float your boat.  If your berries are fresh and sweet, use 1/2 cup sugar.  If they are not super sweet, increase the sugar to 3/4 or 1 cup, depending on how sweet you like it. Serve with ice cream (So Delicious Vanilla

Our New Garden Resident

DH and I were out the other night, plucking ripe tomatoes off our happy tomato plants when we spied this large spider right in the middle of the plants, right in the center of our raised bed.  We got over the creep factor (DH called it "grim looking") and left it alone.  I decided to check it out more closely last night and noticed this neat zipper pattern down the center of its web.  So I ran

Garden Growth and Chard Stalk Hummus

It has been a rainy month and not too hot - our garden looks very happy.  We have several herbs, some beets, cauliflower, Swiss Chard, mustard greens, kale, amaranth, musk melons, tomatoes, peppers and zucchini.


  

Our jalapeno plants are producing lots of little peppers! The bees just love these little flowers and I love to see happy bees.



 

 I recently turned these beauties into  Fresh

Blondies (Gluten Free & Vegan)

My mind is full of dreams and thoughts that swirl and dart and fade and congregate, over and over.  I'm percolating.  And while I percolate, I bake.  There is a rhythm to baking that frees my mind to chase the thoughts where they will go.  Eventually they will coalesce and I'll write them down.  Until then, I bake.



This recipe for Blondies originally comes from Better Homes and Gardens.  I

Nut Butter Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake

There are a lot of transitions going on in our house lately.  Beyond school winding down for the year, I have recently been home on the weekends.  This is a very welcome change, but it's taking some getting used to for everyone.  We have not been home all at the same time for any length of time as a family for a long time.  DH works long hours during the week days and does not get home until the

Pan Fried "Cheese" Crisps

 

(Fried "Cheese" - crispy, melty deliciousness of a treat!)


Today for your consideration I present pan fried "cheese" crisps.  I was sadly remembering crispy parmesan to a friend and she said well, you can do that with Daiya!  She made some right then and there, I was so excited!  Here's what to do:  heat a cast iron pan over medium heat.  Drop Daiya shredded cheese (your choice, but we

Easy Waffles (Gluten Free & Vegan)

 (The waffles are vegan but the bacon is not.  For vegan bacon, check out these very interesting recipes - 

one for bean and buckwheat vegan bacon and another for raw vegan bacon!)



The other day it occured to me that I have not made waffles in a really long time. Like years.  So long that the girls  had no memory of them - "what are waffles?", they asked.  I had to remedy that and fast.  I

Gluten Free, Dairy Free - Turkey (or Chicken!) Pie with Biscuit Crust

Yesterday it was 82 degrees.  This morning it was 42 degrees.  Our garden is really confused, but I love another chance to enjoy a rainy, chilly day.  All the sun-loving natives down here hate the rain and call it depressing.  I love the rain and think it's peaceful and relaxing.  To each their own, I suppose.  Today is a perfect day to enjoy soup or a pot pie type of meal.  Here's a very

New England Style Clam Chowder (Gluten Free & Dairy Free)

My grandfather passed away two weeks ago.  It happened quickly and none of the family was quite prepared for it, even though his health had been deteriorating steadily for some time.  He was buried this past weekend.  For several reasons, I chose to remain at home and instead, go back "home" this summer, when the girls are out of school.  That way, I can turn going home into a vacation for

Leftover Turkey (or Chicken) Fricassee

It is springtime.  The weather is warming, the flowers are blooming, the trees are budding, the robbins are hopping around the yard, and all that good stuff.  And I still have a pile of recipes left to post from fall and winter.  Here is one for Turkey Fricassee.



Although I love turkey and look forward to roasting one for the holidays every year, I never did buy one for the holidays this year

Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes

Lately Anna has been doing almost nothing but eating and sleeping.  Every couple of hours she is ravenous, she's tired by 8pm every night, and my normal 5:30am early-riser been sleeping in until 7am.  Uh-oh, here comes a growth spurt!  Yesterday I made these blueberry pancakes and she took down four of them.  Both the girls practically inhaled them with exclamations of "yu-u-um!" and "these are

Chocolate Avocado Mousse

The April issue of Eating Well has a series of recipes featuring avocado.  Their recipe for Chocolate Avocado Shake caught my eye.   The girls love the Chocolate Avocado Pudding I make, and a shake sounded very appealing.  So I made it with a few small changes.  Surprisingly, it turned out less like than a shake and more like a mousse, which I love!  I'm happy enough with this to not ever

Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies

There is not enough time in a week. There is not enough time in a day.  There is not enough time in an hour.  There is just not enough time.  It's hard to live with no sense of time,  with so much ambition that invariably gets shackled by the clock.  I can get lost for hours inside my head by the memory of a smile.  Or by the chorus of a favorite song.  It really makes time management difficult.

My Favorite Millet Pilaf

I have recently made a millet pilaf that I really like - my favorite by far.  I'm throwing up the recipe now before I forget what I did!

1 cup millet
2 cups water
1/2 tsp. salt

2 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 cup diced onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. dried thyme
fresh chopped parsley, if desired
1/4 cup chicken or

My Friend's Favorite Quinoa Pilaf

Weekends are usually busy for us, but every once in awhile we get a chance to have dinner with friends.  This past weekend found us at old friends' house for dinner (the friends are not old, we've just known them for a long time).  One of the dishes on the menu was a quinoa pilaf.  It was light and refreshing and I had to have the recipe.  Usually I get "well I threw in a little of this and

Sweet Potato Chocolate Chip Cookies

Every few months a Penzey's Spices catalog appears in the mail.  I love flipping through them to see what regular folk are cooking and baking in their homes - Penzey's features family recipes with family stories to go along with them.  It's interesting to see how people all over the country cook.  I'll rip out recipes that look good and save them in a haphazard pile in a closet for later. 

Mung Bean Dosa

 



Well, I can't believe it's been two weeks since I've posted anything.  There's been a pile of recipes sitting beside the computer for weeks, waiting.  Every time I walk by them I imagine them calling "Post me!  Quick, before you forget!".  And then I quickly forget.  DH has taken to calling me "hamster brain" lately (think of several hamsters running in wheels at once), in addition to "

Squash and Tomato "Lasagna"

Squash and Tomato Lasagna.   Crisp-tender squash, fragrant tomato, Daiya mozzarella melting into a creamy sauce in the middle and gooey strands on top.  No grains to be found.  This dish is very simple, and simply delicious.

2 medium summer squash
2 medium zucchini squash
2 medium ripe tomatoes
salt and pepper
dried thyme
basil leaves, if desired
parsley, if desired
1/2 cup Daiya mozzarella