Tuesday is Baking Day... for me.

     So, today I made gluten free egg-free scones (which are delicious though a little over cooked... it was my first time after all.) The recipe for the scones will come after at least one more batch so that I can get a more exact baking time and measurements. I also made a gluten free egg free bread that is now baking. I plan to watch this a lot closer than I watched the scones for the last ten minutes or so there. I will post a recipe for that bread if it turns out as well as I am hoping it will.
     First though let me post my healthy whole wheat recipe and a fun variation on it.~

Whole Wheat Bread

2 cups stone ground whole wheat flour
2 cups unbleached white flour *
1/2 cup ground flax meal
2 eggs (room temp)
2 tablespoons active dry yeast
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons molasses
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups warm water (close to but not over 105 degrees)
Additional whole wheat flour for kneeding

*you can replace the white flour with all whole wheat flour but the resulting bread will have a courser texture as well as requiring quite a bit more kneeding.

In a small mixing bowl combine the water honey and yeast, set aside.

In a large mixing bowl combine white flour, flax meal, baking powder ans salt. When yeast has proofed (created a nice foamy layer over the surface) pour the yeast mixture over the dry ingredients. Roughly mix these ingredients with a wooden spoon. Add the eggs (it is very important the eggs are not cold so that they don't kill your yeast) and molasas, now stir this loose batter until it is well combined and smooth.

Start adding the 2 cups whole wheat flour 1/2 cup at a time. You will eventually have to give up on the spoon and start incorporating the remaining flour with your hands. It is a good idea to remove any rings, watches, and bracelet before you dig into the dough. When all of this flour has been added and the dough forms a nice ball turn it out onto a flour counter.  

Kneed for 20 minutes, place the ball of dough into a bowl sprayed with PAM, turn ball to coat. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and set in a warm (but not hot) place for one hour. The dough should more than double in size. (I like to take this time to wash the dishes I just dirtied and clean my counter so it is clean and dry when I am ready to work with my dough again.)

Take the fluffy dough and turn it onto your clean dry counter. Kneed for at least 20 minutes. Respray your bowl and place dough in it, turning to coat. Cover again with your damp cloth. (Depending on the humidity where you live you may need to redampen the cloth.) Set aside until the dough has doubled again.

Turn dough out and punch it down. Devide the dough in half. Roll half of the dough into an oblong loaf shape. Place this in a non stick baking pan. You can do this with half of your dough, or make two loaves, or even freeze half of the dough for later use.

I took the second half of my dough and rolled it out to 1" thick. Then I cut this into 1" cube. When I had all of the bread dough cut up I tossed the dough cubes with 1/2 cup olive oil, 3 tablespoons each garlic, italian seasoning and rosemary. You can turn all of these into another non-stick loaf and press down or put 3 to 4 cubes in each tin in muffin tins, if you don't need a whole loaf at a time. The resulting load (if baked in a loaf pan) is great for intertaining, my roommate even told me that he didn't want to cut into the loaf because it was too pretty.   :)

Once you have your dough in pans, set them in a warm place and cover with the damp cloth. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees at this time. When your bread doubles again place it in the oven and bake for about one hour. This will leave a heavy crust on your bread.

Turn loaves out onto a clean counter. Butter the tops of your loaves and then wrap completely in plasic wrap. Sweating your bread like this will improve the overall texture and give you and nice soft and chewy crust. After as little as 15 or 20 minutes you can cut into your fresh baked bread and enjoy that home baked goodness.

Light Fluffy Gluten Free Bread

I didn't even know if it was possible. I have had crumbly, dry, too dense gluten free breads when I bought them at the store. I was almost certain that a good hearty sandwich bread was something my love was going to have to give up when we found out wheat was causing so many of his troubles. I decided to try my baking skill in a field.
The bread turned out light and fluffy and not the tiniest bit crumbly! I was so excited I decided to post the recipe right away instead of waiting for tomorrow.

Gluten Free Oat Bread

Preheat the oven to 350 F (176.6 C) Get out a 2 pound non-stick loaf pan.

3 cups warm water (105 degrees or slightly lower)
2 tablespoons raw sugar
2 tablespoons yeast

In a small mixing bowl mix the water, sugar and yeast. Set aside for 10 to 15 minutes (until it is nice and foamy.)

In the meantime mix the following (dry) ingredients in a large mixing bowl. You can sift it all if you have a sifter but I just wisked the mixture until it there were no lumps left.

2.5 cups Bob's Redmill Gluten Free flour
2 cups oat flour
1/2 cup flaxseed meal
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 packet of Knox geletain
2 teaspoons Xanthan Gum

Pour the yeast mixture into the dry mix and turn gently until combined. Don't over mix at this point, it will be lumpy and dry. Now add the following indredients on top of this dough.

4 eggs (make sure they are room temp so they don't kill your yeast)
1/4 olive oil
1 tablespoon molasas
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons rice vinager
Turn the thick batter into your loaf pan (no need to greese your non-stick pan) and smooth the top for a prettier finished project. Bake for about 1 hour 25 minutes, it should sound hollow when tapped. When the loaf is browned and sounds hollow pull out loaf and cool for 20 minutes. The loaf will fall into itself a bit, it's normal.
Next turn the partially cooled loaf out of the pan and rub the top of the crust (with will be very crusty) with butter and wrapped the loaf in plasitic wrap or foil to hold in the remaining steam. Leave wrapped for 10 minutes. I know it sounds like a lot of work at the last minute but this will give your bread a wonderful chewy crust that is ideal for sandwich bread. Let the bread cool completely before slicing. Store the bread in a zipper bag and with all of the air pushed out. Do not refridgerate... it makes the bread get a bit gummy.

Enjoy! Please post in baking tips you have as this is my first attempt at gluten free bread.

This bread is also high in fiber and protein so it's extra healthy!

Feasting: A Study in Decadence

Hello, again! I'm sorry that it has taken so long for me to get this post up, the weekend really wore me out. It was however, the most fun I've had in a very long time. The feast was amazing. For several hours there was one amazing dish after another. In all of the excitement and kitchen-side hustle and bustle I did forget to photograph some of the dishes. On others the picture quality is less than phenomenal because of the lower lighting. I am still however rather excited to share the menu and the pictures that I have with you. 

We started the evening with bowls of bread and aioli (which the love of my life made and it was AMAZING.) We also served cheese trays which had colby jack cubes, and goat cheese rolls, a beautiful pear bleu cheese, and marinated mozzarella balls. There were pickle trays as well that included pickled peppers, baby dills, pickles asparagus, an assortment of olives and marinated artichoke hearts.

As the final dish served during the first remove was this heavenly seafood stew. It had clams, mussels, and pollock as well as lots of garlic and lemon to fill out the flavor.

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Here is the onion pie. I took the picture after it was cut so you would be able to see into the cross section of it as well. This dish starts with a pie shell filled with caramelized onions (see the brown just above the crust.) Then a quice type filling spice with lots of thyme is poured over the onions and the whole thing is baked.

Next came the platters of roasted chicken with artichoke caper butter sauce. The chickens were halved and roasted then plattered and topped with this decadent sauce that was made by simmering down chicken stock, artichoke hearts, capers and what else but butter.

The next dish was my favorite of the evening because of its fanciful nature. They were little delightful rose tarts. Though much like cheese cake baked into a tart shell, these treats were distinguished by being flavored with rose water. It doesn't take much to get that just right floral hint though. Next they were topped with sugared rose petals and spritzed with a final bit of rose water to add that superb aromatic element.

We also had amazing baked apples. They were cored then honey was drizzled into the cavaties before they were filled with an amazing spiced barley stuffing. The barley stuffing was prepared with lots of spices such as cinnamon, rosemary, and lots of ground fennel seeds as well as dried currants and dates. I am sorry to say the picture was taken at the servers table, and not from a beautiful platter because I nearly forgot to photograph them.

Next we had platters of roast carrots and onions. This simple dish of root vegetables roasted in olive oil was so wonderful and light served beside such amazing rich dishes.

We also had mushrooms that were drizzled in olive oil and roasted separately. These were served in bowls, swimming in the rich brown broth that they produced with cooking. I have to say I ate my fair share of these wonderful little morsels between serving courses.

Next came platters of roast beef in a mustard sauce. The sauce was made with a lovely grainy brown mustard and drippings from the roast beef. This was simmered for hours and poured over the roast just before they were presented to the tables.

If this all has not been enough of a study in decadence for you look at this last wonderful dish we served. It is cooked cream (yes we used the real deal to make it) with a strawberry compote. The cream is sweetend and cooked with gelatin and then set in serving bowls. It is somewhere between the consistancy of jello and pudding with all the smoothness of butter melting on your tongue. Topped with the sweet-tart berry compote is really is just a little scoop of heaven.

So today we weren't looking at gluten free or light fair by any means, but rather at a celebration of food and the wonderful things we can do with it.

Tomorrow I hope to be posting about making (crossing my fingers taht this is successful) gluten-free bread from scratch the first time. This morning I was doing my research... to see how to make it lighter and chewier and generally more of a good sandwich bread. So, wish me luck and check back to see how it goes!

Feast of the Middle Ages!

Yes, that's right, it's time for a feast! This is the first "period" event that I am attending and I am going to help serve a feast. I'm very excited, and my dress is all ready to go. We have been preparing food around here for days now. We will have roasted chickens in an artichoke and caper butter sauce. There are beef roasts in a mustard sauce. Baked fruit is one of my favorites and we have apples baked with a spiced barely and fruit filling. The onion pies smelled fabulous baking up, similar to a quice with caramelized onions and lots of tyme. It's a feast so these are just a few of the tasty things that we will have to serve.

We aren't looking for the healthy things today, we are looking for decadence! We even have fabulous rose tarts! There will be pictures to come soon!

Mexicali makes wheat free easy!

The last few days I have not felt the least bit like cooking. I've had other things on my mind. So, where did this leave me? Looking for something relatively balanced, yummy, wheat free and still indulgent enough to fill that desire for comfort food. I needed something easy that would fill that empty space in my soul without filling out my hips too much. 

Saturday I was staring into the fridge there was left over steak, a bag of corn tortilla, left over pico de gallo, a block of Montery jack cheese, and the end of the fat free sour cream. So a quesadilla was on the menu. By adjusting the proportions right you can keep it on the lighter side.

You will need :
2 corn tortillas
small amount of shredded or THINLY sliced cheese (I used Montery Jack)
Pico de Gallo (mine was homemade but you can use the stuff you find refridgerated at the store)

Left over roasted or grilled meat (I used steak but chicken or pork are great too)

Put one tortilla on a microwave safe plate, then layer a small amount of cheese, moderate amount of meat and then a generous amount of pico de gallo. It should look like this.  -->

Add a little more cheese (it's your glue) and then the other tortilla. Microwave for anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes. It takes about a minute and a half in my microwave. (You can also toast it in the oven or in a pan on the stove top for a crispier finish but I was going for minimum work and clean up.)

I added a dallop of fat free sour cream and some tapatio for extra flavor. And that was lunch and it was delicious!

Last night I faced the same problem. I wanted comfort food. It was late and I was hungry and tired. I wanted a bacon cheeseburger and heap of fries. There are several problems like that. First problem is the thousands of calories involved. Then there is the fact that I couldn't have shared this meal with the love of my life because that bacon cheeseburger has a big wheat bun. I also need to stick mostly to the food that we have on hand to be cost effective. So, we had nachos.

I can see how you would question the idea that nachos would be an better for you than a burger and fries. However, if you go light on the cheese and use vegetarian refried beans (no lard there) and add lots of salsa and pico de gallo and one more time make the switch to fat free (or at least low fat) sour cream you can make it as fabulous as this wonderful thing.

For the beans I warmed them seperately and mixed them 50/50 with a jarred salsa to make them more of a bean sauce to drizzle over the top of our crispy nachos. They were light, fresh and easy. It made for a perfect late dinner.

All for the love of food...

Here's the deal. I love to cook. I love to bake. Most of all I love to eat food that makes me feel good. I also love to be able to zip my pants (which are feeling a bit snug lately.) So, I'm going to explore all things food. My boyfriend is eating wheat free, so I will try gluten free recipes. I am trying to slim down and for that I'll try lighter variations on my favorites. I will also try tweaking recipes I love to make but can rarely afford so that the can be everyday fare in my household. I also (gulp) plan to try things I would NEVER dream of trying on my own, that my friends and family members insist are wonderful even if completely unexpected and odd. I don't promise to like the peanut butter and pickle burger that used to be served in town, but I do promise to try it (a few bites at least.)

My household is full of food lovers and cooks. We have a comercial stove with six gas burners, a grill, and double ovens. We even have one knife who is so dearly loved that "she" has been named the wife. Yes, we have a knife who is the "wife" of one of our resident chefs. We take our food very seriously. I think it should be fun and informative too. So, grab your fork and come along for the ride!