Sweetpea's Gluten Free Kitchen & Other Musings

Homemade Marshmallow's

2012-02-09T08:46:00.001-08:00

We are headed to Beaver Creek for a week of skiing! Well, actually I am going along as the condo chef. Until a week ago it had been over 30 years since I took to the slopes. So Tina took me to a local ski hill to see if I could get down a bunny hill. I grew up skiing, every single Saturday and Sunday from the time I was five until I headed to college. For years, all though grade school and junior high I took Otto Hollaus ski lessons, a rigorous training that focused on fundamentals. I never imagined how well that training would serve me and took to the hills like I'd been at it all these years. I am not nearly as good anymore. Back in the day I had a nice slalom and picture perfect parallel legs and ski. Today I can't keep the skis together as well but I can still get down any hill. I have my father to thank for my skiing abilities and for the record, at 80 he is still hitting the hills out west. This will be my first trip to real mountains as I also grew up in a sort of twisted sexist home and ski trips out west were "only for the boys".

Anyway, I will ski while I am there, probably just one day. Otherwise I plan to spend my time in the kitchen and at the spa. I am totally intimidated by cooking in the altitude and was completely unwilling to tackle baking so I did all the baking ahead of time. Cinnamon Scones, Blueberry Muffins and Chocolate Chip Banana Bread are just a few of the treats I am taking along. I have worked really hard to create menus and snacks that scream winter ski lodge including these homemade Marshmallows.

I am so not a marshmallow fan but was a total convert after I had my first homemade marshmallow at the Ritz! I wondered why I had never tried to make them myself. Shortly after that my favorite blogger, Katrina who writes the blog Gluten Free Gidget (http://glutenfreegidget.blogspot.com/) posted a recipe for homemade marshmallows. That was it, I wanted to give a try. Of course I had to do a dry run before committing them to the Beaver Creek menu and it was successful.

We are mostly having fresh fruit for desert but a ski trip isn't complete without homemade hot chocolate and marshmallows and of course I have to have S'mores. I had a few extra so I made some marshmallow pops with chocolate and toasted coconut as an airplane treat.

Fireside S'mores

2012-01-23T07:05:00.000-08:00

It isn't much of a secret. I love fire. Bonfires and a roaring fireplace fire, either work for me. I love nothing more than sitting out under a moon lit sky with a slight chill in the air surrounded by friends and family at a bonfire. I also love sitting next to a fireplace with a wood burning fire. Gas fireplace, forget it. I need the smoke and the crackle. Admittedly my favorite part is the smoke. I like getting up the next morning after a good long bonfire and putting on my dirty smoky clothes from the night before!

I also love s'mores! The combination of toasted marshmallow, chocolate and graham crackers is sublime in my opinion. I recently made home made marshmallows and I have to say, they are much much better than the jet puffed store bought kind, hands down worth the effort! Some of my fondest memories are of gatherings around a bonfire and making s'mores.

During a recent trip to the Ritz in Naples Florida Tina planned a special surprise for our 12th anniversary that involved my favorite desert. As always, the Ritz took the task of finding gluten-free graham crackers to heart. They were the very best I'd ever had and this post comes with a strong endorsement for The Grainless Baker! They make a number of gluten-free products including these delicious and fancy looking graham crackers that are the perfect size for a single marshmallow and three bites of a hershey chocolate bar, just the right size.

I was delighted to find them locally but you can order them as well as their other GF products off the website. Tonight I am making my very first stuffed roasted chicken with The Grainless Baker's idea of stovetop stuffing. You can imagine what my next post will be.

Utterly Sinful

2012-01-03T14:36:00.001-08:00

This is a special occasion desert. Nothing short of sinful. Completely decadent. Rich beyond measure. Need I say more. I love the combination of chocolate and orange! This Chocolate Orange Mousse is perfect. It was a great deal of work, tedious and time consuming. All said and done, a half day, nothing short of that. I did take over an hour peeling and trimming the Mandarin oranges so that they were pristine. Was it worth it, yes! the Mandarin pieces were stunning! Tina was so impressed she now wants "these in her lunches".

Chocolate Orange Mousse

6 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1/4 cup Grand Marnier liqueur

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon grated orange zest

12 tablespoons butter, room temp

8 extra large eggs, separated and at room temp

1/4 plus 2 tablespoons sugar

pinch of kosher salt

1/2 cup cold cream, plus more for whipping to garnish

Mandarin oranges, peeled and trimmed for garnish

Combine the chocolate, Grand Marnier, 1/4 cup water and vanilla in a double boiler over simmering water, stir until the chocolate melts. Whisk in the orange zest and butter until combined. Cool completely.

Place egg yolks and 1/2 cup of sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on high for 4 minutes, or until thick and pale yellow. With the mixer on low, add the chocolate mixture. Transfer to a large bowl.

Place 1 cup of egg whites, the salt and 1 tablespoon of sugar in a clean bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat on high until firm. Whisk half the egg whites into the chocolate mixture, the fold the rest in carefully with a rubber spatula.

Without cleaning the bowl or the whisk, whip the cream and remaining tablespoon of sugar until firm. Fold the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture. Pout eh mouse into individual dishes or an 8 cup serving bowl. Chill and garnish with additional whipped cream, orange zest and Mandarin Orange slices. Drizzle with blood orange syrup if you are lucky enough to have some.

Tips: I might skip the adding the orange zest directly into the mousse, it didn't add much and it interfered with the smooth texture of the mousse. I served 3/4 cup servings and it was way too much for people. While everyone ate most of their serving it was simply too much! You could get away with a scant half cup or even less. Next time I am going to try an cut the recipe in half. Eggs are easier to separate if they are cold. I have blood orange syrup from Olive Pond Vineyard in California but it would be easy to make with juice from a blood orange and sugar, a thick simple syrup.

Finally! A Gluten-Free Challah

2011-12-29T10:52:00.000-08:00

We are fortunate to run with a lively group of observant lesbian Jews. They are among my most favorite people in the world. They are the most inclusive, the most loving and the most interesting in my circle of friends. To say they are my favorite would not be understating how I feel about them. We get invited to celebrate all of the Jewish holidays, Pesach, Purim, Hanukkah, and Sukkot to name a few. I look forward to these events like a three year old in a candy story. My enthusiasm is palpable. My favorite however is the weekly festive day of Shabbat, the seventh day of the Jewish week and the Jewish day of rest during which Jews recall the Biblical Creation account in Genesis in which God creates the Heaves and the Earth in six days and rests on the seventh. I love the deliberateness of being freed from the regular labors of everyday life.

So when Friday rolls around and we are invited to Shabbat dinner I get giddy. What I like most is the ritual and the prayer that is the center of the Friday evening meal beginning with Kiddish and a blessing recited over two loaves of Challah. According to Jewish law, Shabbat starts on Friday, a few minutes before sunset. Candles are lit and a prayer welcomes the arrival of Shabbat. Two songs are sung one greeting the Shabbat angels into the house and the other thanking the woman of the house for all the work she has done during the past week. After a blessing over the wine another blessing is recited over the bread, the Challah is broken, dipped in salt and eaten. It is all very spiritual and each step is significant. I always bring my own bread, usually a piece of Udi's and I always feel, well a little left out which is really silly because I have been invited to this table. I just always want to be having some Challah, just like everyone else.

So when a favorite blogger of mine posted a recipe for Gluten-Free Challah last September I thought, next Shabbat, I am making this for myself. To be completely traditional my loaf should be braided, not round. The only time a loaf of round Challah appears is for Rosh Hashanah, representing the circle of the year. I don't think anyone will mind my Challah isn't braided tomorrow night and quite frankly I don't think I am up to braiding gluten free dough. Personally I am just happy to show up with the real deal in hand for myself. It took 6 hours which I can not imagine doing every single week but I know that is exactly what my friends do every single Friday before the sun goes down, they make two loaves of Challah!

You can google gluten-free Challah and you will get a plethora of results. I am a fan of The Gluten Free Canteen which is where I got my recipe: http://glutenfreecanteen.com/ I am simply delighted with the results and I can't wait until sundown tomorrow evening.

The Beaver Creek Chef

2011-12-08T06:43:00.000-08:00

We are going to Beaver Creek in February, a week of skiing for most of those going on the trip. For me, it will be a week of cooking for the house. Can you imagine, a ski trip with a personal chef? I am already busy thinking of great menus and gathering my tasting team to try new recipes. First up, an authentic Mexican menu. I am working on pork carnitas with homemade corn tortillas. The corn tortillas really do require some practice so we are going to be enjoying a fair amount of them in the next few months. I've got the pork carnitas and refried beans down, they are ease. So last night I served a potential appetizer to my trusted group of taste testers. Parmesan crusted crab quesadillas with roasted red pepper and chipotle chili aioli and roasted pineapple salsa. Tina always laughs when I say everything is easy. So here we go, this is not easy, it is complicated, time consuming, involves multiple steps and undivided attention! While it is still a work in progress it is worth all the time and effort.

Parmesan Crusted Crab Quesadillas

1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons olive oil

1/2 cup diced onion

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1/2 cup diced red pepper

1/2 cup chopped green onions

1/2 cup chipotle-cream cheese sauce (see below)

salt and pepper

4 12 inch flour tortillas (I used 12 6 inch corn tortillas, store bought not homemade)

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (please don't use that stuff in a the green can, grate your own)

1 cup grated monetary jack

1 cup crumble queso freso

roasted red pepper and chipotle chili aioli (see below)

Roasted pineapple salsa (see below)

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

8 ounces dungeness crab (see notes)

Chipotle-cream cheese sauce (makes about 2 1/2 cups)

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup minced onion

1 teaspoon minced jalapeno

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1/4 cup minced red bell pepper

1/2 teaspoon fresh oregano (I used dry)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon chipotle puree (see notes)

1 cup heavy cream

4 ounces cream cheese

1/2 cup grated Monterrey jack

Notes: I used La Costena Chipotle pepper in Adobe sauce which is GF! There is enough puree in the can to get what you need by a long shot. You can also puree one of the peppers if you want. I also used the remaining sauce to make another dish, otherwise I would have cut it in thirds to get what I needed. That being said, I think 1/2 a cup of sauce was a little scant for the recipe and next time I will use a little more. Also, I did not use dungeness crab. I used a very high quality canned crab that was sort of flaked. Next time I am going to go for a lump crab or many be a mix of lump and flake. These were really good but I would be nice to bite into a chunk of crab right?

In a sauce pan over medium high melt the butter. Add the onion and saute until soft. Add the Jalapeno, garlic and red pepper, continue to saute until soft. Add the oregano, salt, cumin and chipotle puree. Decrease the heat to low, add the cream and cream cheese and simmer for 5-10 minutes, stirring until the cream cheese is melted and blended. Remove the pan from the heat and add the Monterrey jack, stirring until melted and well incorporated. The sauce will get sort of stringy, especially as it cools, keep warm over the lowest of heat possible or plan on reheating to use it.

Roasted Red Pepper and Chipotle Chili aioli

3-4 cloves of garlic

olive oil

1 red bell pepper, roasted and seeded

1 cup mayo

1 teaspoon chipotle puree (again, I used the canned stuff)

juice of 1/2 lemon

1/2 teaspoon salt

Notes: This stuff is really good and can be used as a spread on just about anything. That being said, it make way too much for any one household and next time I might try and cut it half.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place garlic on a piece of tin foil, drizzle with olive oil and roast in oven for 30 minutes. Combine the roasted garlic, roasted red pepper, mayo, chipotle puree, lemon juice and salt in a blender of food processor and process until smooth and creamy. Place in an airtight container and refrigerate until ready to use for up to three days.

Grilled pineapple salsa

OK I sort of made this one up so the proportions are really a guess.

1 cup of pineapple chunks

olive oil

1/4 a red pepper, diced

1/4 cup diced red onion

tablespoon fresh lime juice

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

pinch of salt, pinch of pepper

1/2 teaspoon chipotle puree

Drizzle pineapple with olive oil and roast in a 400 degree oven for about 20-30 minutes, turning once. Once cool, toss with everything else

O.K. now you have your chipotle cream cheese sauce and roasted red pepper aioli ready. Time to make the quesadillas.

To make the filling: Heat a tablespoon of the olive oil in a saucepan over medium high head. Add the onion and saute until soft, add the garlic, red pepper and green onion and saute for another minute or so, until soft. Add the Chipotle-cream cheese sauce (make sure it is warmish or it will be very stringy and hard to get out of the pan and mix in). Stir everything together and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and fold in the crab meat. Season with salt and pepper.

To make the quesadillas: Preheat a griddle or heat a skillet over medium heat. Please do this! Preheat before you start! Lay one tortilla on a work surface and brush the top side of the tortilla with olive oil. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the Parmesan over the tortilla. Carefully flip the tortilla, oil-and-cheese side down, onto the griddle or skillet. Spread this tortilla with 1/4 cup queso fresco and 1/4 cup Monterrey jack cheese and then a quarter of the crab meat leaving a half inch boarder around the edge. Cook the quesadilla for 4-5 minutes or until the cheese melts and the other side is golden brown. Place the quesadilla on the work surface and fold in half. Repeat with remaining tortillas to make the other three quesadillas. I didn't do this as I had 6 inch tortillas on hand. Instead, I prepared a tortilla as directed placing the filling on the tortilla and then I topped that filled tortilla with another tortilla. I didn't brush the top one with olive oil or sprinkle with the Parmesan, next time I will. After 4 minutes I flipped the tortilla over and cooked it for another three minutes. I also put the finished tortillas on a cookie sheet and kept them in a 300 degree oven to keep them warm while I finished all of the.

To Serve: Cut the quesadillas into wedges. Put aioli in a a squirt bottle and decorate the plates with the aioli, alternatively spoon the aioli over the quesadillas. Spoon the salsa on the quesadillas and sprinkle with chopped cilantro.

Whew, that was a lot of work. But oh so worth it.

Ahoh! Sugared Cranberries where have you been all my life?

2011-12-06T10:49:00.000-08:00

I am having a hard time keeping Ziva Jane away from these little delights. Sugared Cranberries. Start popping them in your mouth and you won't stop! Not to mention they are so easy. I love cranberries and the combination of sweet and tart rock my mouth to no end. They are a sparkly snack that pack a real zing.

Sugared Cranberries

2 cups water

2 cups granulated sugar

1 cup superfine sugar

1 bag fresh cranberries

Boil the water and add the granulated sugar. Stir, reduce heat to medium low and continue to heat until sugar is dissolved. Pour the sugar into a large container with a lid, add the cranberries and cover. Refrigerate overnight or at least 8 hours. Strain the cranberries and if you want reserve the "cranberry syrup" for another use. You know me, no waste around here. I am going to use it for some kind of holiday beverage. Pour the cranberries into a large, shallow dish and add the superfine sugar, tossing until the cranberries are coated. Transfer to a shallow baking pan or cookie sheet lined with parchment and leave to dry for a few hours.

If you can keep yourself from eating them all there are lots of ways to use these little holiday treats. Put out instead of expensive nuts during a party, use as garnishes for drinks, cookies, pies, cupcakes or package to give as gifts.

They will last about a week or so at room temp, stored in an airtight container.

Vegan Tacos

2011-10-06T06:12:00.001-07:00

Full disclosure, this is not my photo, nor is it how we enjoyed our vegan taco "meat". In the excitement of the moment I forgot to take a photo. So this came from a blog The Ordinary Vegetarian.

After 6 weeks in Hungary, a sailing trip in the Greek Isles and a trip to London and Stockholm with her mother Tina wants nothing but her favorites which included a taco dinner. However, we invited a vegetarian friend over to join us. This was the perfect opportunity for me to make a vegan taco meat, something I have wanted to do for a long time. I just have to say, this was wonderful, over the top in fact and even Tina liked it. Although we had traditional taco meat on hand as well. I always struggle with a taco meal menu and always end up with an overly starchy meal. I served this with a Mexican style rice and refried beans. Admittedly we all enjoyed all of it but it was a starchy load of beans, rice and lentils. You can hardly count the garnishes a serving of vegetables. We served the taco meat in traditional hard taco shells but this vegan rendition would be great in tortillas or even as a taco salad!

Vegan Taco Meat

2 teaspoons olive oil

one onion diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 red bell pepper

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 carrot, peeled and diced

1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

1 teaspoon oregano

1 bay leaf

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

1 teaspoon kosher salt

2 cups vegetable broth

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 tablespoon lime juice

1 cup red lentils

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium high. Saute onions and garlic for a few minutes, add the pepper and mushrooms and continue to saute a few more minutes. Add the lentils, carrots, chili powder, cumin, paprika, oregano, bay leave, salt and cayenne. Saute for one minute, stir in broth and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium low and cover. Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. If the mixture starts to dry out add more broth.

Remove from heat. Most of the liquid should be absorbed. Remove the bay leaf and stir in the tomato paste and lime juice. At this point decide what consistency you want. I put half the mixture into a food processor and processes slightly and returned it to the pan. I wanted a more crumbly texture, not a puree. You could skip this step altogether as it didn't really do much. Taste for salt and add more if needed.

Serve as you like.

"Good Cooking Is Trouble" Paul Bertolli

2011-09-14T13:37:00.000-07:00

Good cooking is trouble and the trouble begins when you try to take it seriously, in earnest. Enter the humble tomato the most multifaceted of all summer produce. I wait, patiently all year long for the end of August, longing for the full taste of a local, summer ripe tomato. I don't know anyone who writes better of the tomato than Paul Bertolli, executive chef and co-owner of Oliveto, a restaurant in Oakland CA that I hope to visit someday. Bertolli also wrote my first serious cookbook, the cookbook that began the start from scratch deal around here "Cooking by Hand". It isn't your everyday kind of cookbook, although it does have recipes. It is a collection of essays, reflections on the appreciation of food. It reminds us to stop and think about what we are eating and to appreciate how good food happens.

It was Bertolli who inspired me to start canning, make my own pesto, toast nuts and grind them into nut butters, to make my own mayo, grind sirloin to render hamburger. The list is endless. So you can only imagine my intrigue when realized I could make my own tomato paste. Bertolli calls it Conserva, I call it Gold Paste. A way to spend hours cooking something you can buy at the store. I am so there! Conserva is essentially homemade tomato paste but much better than anything you will find in a can. Conserva's flavor is deep and complex, a tomato reduced to its purest, richest, form.

Most people would consider the endeavor of Conserva short of crazy. I spent $20 on 5 pounds of tomatoes. 8 hours later they have been reduced to about 6 ounces of a very flavorful tomato paste. Two small jars, almost nothing until you taste this stuff. I have done it before, and I will do it again. Nothing makes me happier than a teaspoon of this spread on a piece of toast, blending it with tomato sauce for pasta or simply licking a finger full right out of the jar.

I made a few adjustments to Bertolli's instructions including peeling my tomatoes first and straining the cooked tomatoes to reduce the amount of liquid up front. I may have ended up with a little more if I had not strained the tomatoes.

Making Conserva is easy, but it does takes time at attention, a perfect activity for a fall day.

Cut 5 pounds of ripe tomatoes into small dice; this promotes the most rapid cooking. Warm a little olive oil in a saucepan big enough to hold the tomatoes. Salt them lightly and bring to a rapid boil. Cook the tomatoes until soft about 10-15 minutes. Immediately pass them through the finest plate of a food mill, pushing as much of the tomato pulp through the sieve as you can. The purée should not have any seeds.
Lightly oil a half sheet pan with olive oil. Place the tomatoes in a 300 degree oven for about 3 hours. Use a spatula to turn the paste over on itself every 30 minutes or so. The water will evaporate and you will notice the surface darken and the liquid will thicken. Reduce the over to 250 after 3 hours and continue to evaporate the paste for another few hours until it is thick, shiny and brick-colored. I had some really darkened, burnt areas so I passed the paste through a sieve when it was done to remove the specks of burnt paste. Store in a glass canning jar topped with 1/4 an inch of olive oil. As you use it, make sure you maintain the level of olive oil on top. Bertolli says it can safely be stored at room temperature but I keep my in the fridge.

More From the Fall Pantry: Citron Confit

2011-09-08T12:49:00.001-07:00

Confession: I hate waste. I can't waste anything, especially food. I didn't grow up poor, to the contrary. Still, I abhor waste. I can track this characteristic back to my childhood. While there was always more than plenty we didn't waste. At the end of a meal my Father would return portions of milk we didn't drink back into the milk carton. I know, very gross. We ate what we were served. It was that simple. If fruit or vegetables, especially lettuce got slightly brown, it didn't matter, it was eaten. I remember being slightly overcome with disgust in college when I came home for holidays that the food in our fridge looked like it might have a life of its own. I am sure, even though we had money and didn't have to stretch, this was a some kind of post depression behavior that came through my Father. After all, he was the one collecting the milk at the end of dinner.

The essence of this mentality stuck. I don't actually pour milk back into the carton but I do not throw out much and I make use of parts of food most people discard without a thought. Bones of any kind go into the freezer, shells from shrimp, crab or lobster, into the freezer. Peelings of vegetables, carrots, celery, onion skins for example, all go into the freezer. Like magic the trimmings of our meat, fish and vegetables turn into homemade broth on a regular basis. There is something wickedly satisfying about this!

Citrus! God forbid the rind of anything get tossed. However in the summer this presents a particular problem as I make fresh squeezed lemonade almost every week. Before juicing lemons, limes or oranges they get zested. The zest gets frozen and then tossed into something else later, like homemade lemon curd. By the end of the summer I am completely overstocked with zest. So the idea of Citron Confit, or preserved lemons really appeals to me. Citrus rind essentially picked to be tossed into just about anything to liven up a dish, what a great idea and so easy.

I had a few lemons and limes sitting around that just were not going to get used in the next few days so I decided to put up some preserved lemons and limes. I simply cut up the lemons and tossed them into a pint size canning jar with lots of salt, smashing them down to create a plethora of juice. They will sit on the counter for a few weeks, getting shaken every now and again for a few weeks and then I will put them in the fridge and use them for any number of things, tossed into steamed vegetables, smashed into butter to dollop on fish, mixed in a gluten-free couscous, into a bowl of wild rice, the list is endless. There are so many different ways to go about preserving citrus but it really is as easy as just tossing the peel into a jar with salt. Go ahead and google preserved lemons and you will find a dozens of directions and ideas for jazzing up the brine with bay leaf, peppercorns, coriander seeds, cinnamon . . . I just stuck with salt for my first attempt. I am anxious to to try the fruits of my labor after tincture of time and plan on making a smoked paprika-chipotle sauce that calls for preserved lemons to serve at a welcome home party for my wife.

Grilled Sweet Corn, Black Bean and Cherry Tomato Salad with Chipotle Chicken

2011-09-06T13:15:00.000-07:00

This salad pulls the flavors of the end of summer together! Succulent sweet corn and juicy tomatoes are at their best the end of August and into September. I can't help but eat this almost any day. You can make any number of variations changing out the the beans, meat, no meat, salmon. What ever you are in the mood for the basic salad is wonderful

2 ears sweet corn, grilled and kernels removed from the cob

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

12 cherry tomatoes, quartered

5 slices of cooked bacon crumbled

one bunch green onions, including green tops, cut on the diagonal into 1/4 inch slices

1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro

2 southwest chipotle chile-grilled chicken breasts

Dressing for salad

1/2 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

1 teaspoon adobe sauce from canned chipotle chiles

2 teaspoons whole-grain mustard

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Whisk together the dressing ingredients. I like to use an emulsion blender to mix the dressing. Toss everything together and serve immediately or chill until ready to serve.

To make Chipotle chicken:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/8 cup honey

1 tablespoons minced chipotle chiles in adobe sauce

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

2 boneless, skin-on chicken breasts

olive oil

ground pepper

Melt butter, add honey, chiles and 1/2 teaspoon honey, mix and keep warm. Brush chicken breasts with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill chicken for 3 minutes on each side then brush both sides with chipotle butter, basting twice more until the chicken is done. Cool, dice and add to salad.

The Fall Pantry: Roasting, toasting and pasting

2011-08-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

Indian food. By far my favorite. Raghavan Iyer, my Indian cooking mentor. I meet Raghavan a few years ago when I took my first Indian cooking class. I was so undone I asked him to host my 50th birthday party, a cooking class for 10 in my own kitchen. We were spellbound as Raghavan moved through the kitchen showing us how to make a few classic Indian dishes and then spun tales from India and read from his book The Turmeric Trail, a poignant story of his grandmother's awakening. His cookbooks are pieces of art and literature as far as I am concerned. Perhaps my favorite part of each book is the chapter dedicated to the tutorial of spices and endless recipes for rubs, pastes and spice blends. I have learned so much about spices from Raghavan. Always purchase spices in small amounts, get them in their whole form when ever possible, store them in air tight containers away from light and heat. I have learned that each spice renders a plethora of flavor depending on what you do with it. You get a completely different flavor from grinding, roasting, toasting and using it whole. I love spending a day mixing small batches of Ragavan's blends together to have on hand for impromptu Indian cooking. Madras Curry Masala Punjabi Garam Masala, Sambhar Masala, Panch Phoron, Tangy Sambhar Masala, Toasted Ground Cumin Blend, the list is endless. Perhaps my favorite however are the pastes I can throw together and freeze in ice cube trays to have on hand, Garlic, Ginger, Fried onion Paste and Red Chili Vinegar Paste. When I need fresh grated ginger I always seem to get way too much. Making a paste out of what I don't use is a great way to use the left over ginger before it goes bad.

Ragavan's Ginger Paste

8 ounces coarsely chopped fresh ginger (Raghavan says you don't need to peel it but I do)

Pour 1/4 to 1/2 cup water into a blender jar, add the ginger. Puree, scraping the inside of the jar as needed until it forms a smooth, light brown paste. Store in a tightly sealed container in the fridge for one week. I like to put 1 tablespoon portions in ice cube trays and freeze. Once they are frozen pop them out and transfer to a freezer bag.

The Fall Pantry

2011-08-24T14:49:00.000-07:00

I love the end of August and September, shorter days, crisp cool mornings and evenings, the changing color of the leaves. But most of all I love the activities of setting up my fall pantry. The harvest season. I must have been a pioneer or a farmer in my previous life, working the land to make my home and feed my family.

I am wired to wake up at the crack of dawn, even before then on most days. Heading out in the dark early morning to the farmers market to gather my tomatoes, green beans, corn, and basil

I have a fall routine, a ritual if you will of getting our pantry ready for the fall so that all it takes is cracking open a can of roasted tomatoes, opening a bag of fresh corn off the cob, slathering in the pesto, tossing in a can of my own garbanzo, black or pinto beans, adding some roasted red pepper, a dollop of homemade apple sauce, rubbing a roast in my own spice blend. I can, I roast, I toast, and I freeze. I love it

If you were to visit in the cold dark months of December or January you would have a sensory experience and a meal you would never forget. I am likely to make authentic Hungarian Gulyás with my canned fire roasted red peppers, shrimp tossed with pesto, smoked pork butt rubbed with my own Latin spice rub with real black beans and caramelized onions, roasted tomato soup or a cheddar corn chowder, a sandwich on sourdough with homemade pesto, homemade mayo layered with roasted chicken and gouda. And if you liked Indian food you would experience the aroma of complex toasted spice blends that are made in small batches just so they stay fresh. You probably wouldn’t even notice that you were eating gluten-free

It is a major undertaking and consumes my every waking moment for nearly 6 weeks and I have not even mentioned the honey harvest that we hope for every year. It is the only time of year you are likely to find me awake past 10. I occasionally have a gluten-free pizza delivered if the canner is running late into the evening. I pop over to the Minnesota State Fair for safely fried French fries in between canning runs. There is plenty of coffee, fresh squeezed lemonade and tonic water to carry me through the days.

Thabo Lama would have loved these days, so much to do in the kitchen, so much to smell and test. I think he would have been particularly partial to husking 100 ears of corn and removing the kernels from the cob. I miss him dearly but it seems he rubbed off on Ziva Jane. We are only into day two but so far she seems to be keeping her ear to the rattle of the pressure canner and checking it all out. She is easily distracted however and likes to screw up my small kitchen T.V., pressing buttons in such a manner that getting the signal and CNN back is a frustrating undertaking. I am grateful for her company even if she is a little trouble.

My go-to pesto recipe is easy and freezes well. I tried many variations and suggest you do to. Personally I like toasted pine nut but you can use any kind of nut. Regardless of what you choose, toasting is worth the effort. You can back off on the garlic or hold back on the pepper. I freeze small portions in various sized airtight containers and even use ice cube trays for really small portions. I do cover the top with a thin film of olive oil and plastic wrap

4 cups fresh basil, tightly packed

½ cup toasted pine nuts, cooled completely

5 cloves of garlic, minced

2/3 cup freshly grated parm

1-teaspoon salt

1-teaspoon pepper

1/3-cup good olive oil

In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade puree the toasted nuts and garlic. Add the basil, salt and pepper and puree for about 30 seconds after the basil has become incorporated. Slowly add the olive oil and then add the cheese, mixing together.

Thabo Lama and His Special Human

2011-08-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

’In the short walk of this life
We have had our share of joy.
Let us hope to meet again
In the youth of our next life’

Tsangyang Gyatso

Sixth Dalia Lama

It started out as an endeavor to boost Tina's spirits after her Sophie died this past Christmas day. Two kittens, Ziva Jane and Thabo Lama, litter mates. They were born on October 24th and joined our family in January. It turned into a kitten, Thabo Lama becoming something to me that I never imagined possible. Tina says I was Thabo's special human, and it is true. I became his special human in no short order.

Perhaps it was the time of year, cold, dark and lots of snow that helped the two us hunker down and forge this special relationship. Perhaps I was finally ready. I don't know. All I know is that I loved him dearly and he filled my days with joy. I love Ziva Jane too but she took to Tina like white on rice. We spent hours in the kitchen and every evening after TIna came home from work the four of us played and cuddled in bed. Tina would put them in their room every night around midnight and I would get them up at 5:00 am. We had long days filled with endless fun. I am grateful to have so many wonderful memories and photos of him and while this one is perhaps not the best, it does portray his character and his enthusiasm for human food. I have written about this little personality of his many times but here he is standing guard of the turkey I roasted. He kept this position for the better part of 6 hours staring at the oven while the turkey roasted and then watching it cool for at least 3 hours, without moving!

I always knew there was something not right about Thabo Lama. I couldn't quite put my finger on it but it went beyond his crazy clamoring for people food and his relentless medical problems that took us to the vet week after week after week. He stayed kitten like for way too long, both physically and developmentally. But it didn't matter, I was completely attached to him just as he was.

Thabo Lama was liberated to his rebirth during the early hours of this morning. I received some unforeseen Karma just before his passing. I spent Sunday evening surrounded by my Tibetan American friends at an event for The Venerable Palden Gyatso, a Tibetan Monk and freedom fighter who spent over 33 years tortured in chinese prison camps. It is only because I saw my friend Nancy that I was able to give Thabo Lama a fitting send off to his new life. Nancy reminded me that I had some Mani Pills which I had received directly from His Holiness The Dalai Lama. She told me I could use them for an easy, swift and auspicious rebirth and good health in his next life. It wasn't easy, but I felt so much better after giving Thabo Lama the Mani Pill and reciting Om Mani Padme Hum. I will be forever grateful for my connection with Nancy the night before Thabo Lama was liberated.

I am grateful too for my loving wife and partner who empowered me in my new found connection to this kitten. We would have never gotten these two kittens were it not for her. Patrick and Trudy, you will never know how much your support has meant to me in the past week. I am imbued with your kindness. So many others that have buoyed me this past week, Sherri, Helen, Kristen. . . And Paula for being with me this morning to help me tend to the logistics of Thabo's death.

We have donated Thabo to Dr. Greene and the University of Minnesota in the hope that he may help them better understand the rare condition of Feline Pituitary Dwarfism. In part because Tina and I are both academics, while Tina is the only practicing academic in our home I have been on the faculty of several colleges in the Twin Cities over the years, teaching nursing. We both value education and research and hope that Thabo Lama can further that endeavor.

We had a great team of people behind us, our breeder Lauri who never left our side and has extended herself way beyond reason, the folks at Grand Ave Vet who loved this little guy as well and especially Dr. Joe Greene, from the University of Minnesota, who was able to diagnose Thabo Lama in a matter of moments and guided us through the last two weeks of his life.

All of you are the best I am grateful to have you in my life and on our team, even if only for a moment.

I just want my kitchen cat back

2011-08-17T12:53:00.000-07:00

Little Thabo Lama, I don't know exactly how he did it but this little guy got inside me, wicked deep inside and I am overcome with despair about him these days.

When he first arrived Thabo was full of spunk and had complete and utter enthusiasm for the kitchen. The two of us started logging hour after hour in the kitchen. He followed me from stove to fridge to counter, wherever I went, he followed. He was underfoot and in my business all my waking hours. I guess this is how I became his special human as Tina likes to say. Thabo sat on the counter watching my every move in the kitchen. He loved watching me cut vegetables, mix things in the vitamix, pop toast in the toaster. You name it, if it happened in the kitchen he was in. He seemed completely consumed with all things food, especially our food. It was a challenge from the start to get him to eat cat food. Thabo pulled popcorn right out of Tina's mouth, he monitored a turkey I was roasting for the better part of 9 hours, he dragged pizza off our plates, broke into a Tupperware of chocolate chip cookies, cracked open a carry out container with chocolate cake, tore through a bag of bread, the list goes on. This little guy was crazy for people food.

But Thabo hasn't been healthy from the get go, struggling with one health care issue after another and had what I would call failure to thrive. He just couldn't gain weight and in the past two months he has lost a full pound. Now that may not sound like much but when it is a quarter of your total body weight the mathematician would say it is significant. He started eating fabric, lost his interest in our food and stopped eating all together three weeks ago. He is sluggish, mentally dull and fading away. We are usually at the vet several times a week but starting three weeks ago we have been to our vet or the University of Minnesota Vet Center almost every other day. About 10 days ago he had a metabolic crisis and was hospitalized at the University. Looking back it was the best thing that could have happened, getting plugged into the University has taken us on a path of action that we just couldn't get at our own vet.

On Monday Thabo was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, a condition I also have. Finally an answer and some medication. Still, I am guarded. I know it will take some time for the medication to kick in and for his thyroid to get in gear but in the mean time he continues to loose weight every day. I am trying my level best to syringe feed him, something neither of us like. I wait for some sign that he is coming back but so far nothing. The mental dullness is overwhelming. I just want to wake up and find him clamoring for something we are eating, clamoring for his diced chicken I roasted every day for him, eating something, anything on his own.

I just want to wake up and find my kitchen cat back in the kitchen with me!

Cherry Basil Soda and a Challenging Kitten

2011-07-27T04:23:00.000-07:00

Thabo Lama (silent h folks) might like cherries just as much as I do. I can't get anything done in the kitchen with this little guy around. He is into everything and he wants to eat anything other than his own kitten food. He grabs food right out of Tina's mouth, popcorn, chips, cake . . . He clamors for anything humans eat and turns his back on his own food. One day I roasted a turkey. Thabo sat at the foot of the oven for three hours while the turkey was in the oven and then guarded the turkey cooling in a window sill like it were his job.

All of this might seem quite amusing. I will admit it is a part of his personality that makes me laugh, watching him scamper across the counter every time I open the door of the fridge getting as close to the food source as possible. However his crazy eating habits went sour about a month ago when he started eating fabric including the crotch out three pairs of unders, a few pairs of socks, one of my favorite napkins and put bilateral holes in the arms of my P.J.'s. While it solved the "clothing on the floor around here" problem it was not amusing. Additionally he lost some weight while we were in Europe. We just can't seem to keep him past the 4 pound mark.

Back to the cherries. My friend Shauna posted a recipe for Cherry-Basil Soda a few days ago. Being completely obsessed with Cherries I made it immediately. Never mind it was the crack of dawn and I just happened to have a few pounds of fresh cherries in the fridge. I could hardly wait for the syrup to steep. When I passed the syrup through a fine-mesh strainer some of it landed on the counter. The challenge was on, who was going to get more licked up me, or Thabo. Once I got the syrup into a jar, Thabo stalked the jar and made endless attempts to get it open. It was funny and sad all at the same time.

The Cherry-Basil soda, pure bliss! Nothing could top this summer mocktail. The combination of cherry and basil is simply genius. Conceptually the recipe is a base for an endless source of mocktails. You can find the recipe at Sauna's blog: http://glutenfreegirl.com/cherry-basil-soda/ .

Back to little Thabo Lama. Thank goodness he is sweet as the day is long and I simply adore him. His food issues are challenging indeed. Just when we think we have made some progress we find ourselves taking a few steps back. Many have suggested just letting him eat what he wants. At one point even our vet considered this option. Cats need an essential amino acid called Taurine which can only be consumed in appropriate amounts in cat food or a supplement. Without enough Taurine Thabo would be prone to a host of serious medical conditions. So we considered a supplement which would mean cooking for him every darn day. However when our vet went to program his nutritional needs into the program provided by the supplier of the supplement they refused him. He was too small and vulnerable to meet the criteria for getting the supplement. Many have suggested we just keep him out of the kitchen, remove the triggers so to speak. We do put him away when we eat but I can't keep him contained all day. He lives in the kitchen, with me and that is that. I am not putting him away all day so I can cook without his trouble making. I like him too much.

Cheers to a challenging cat with some Cherry-Basil Soda!

Lessons from the Fight of the Turquoise Bee Apiary

2011-07-13T04:35:00.000-07:00

Year two of beekeeping is now well underway as are the lessons. These bees have so much to offer, not just the products of the hive but in their everyday lessons.

One of the many surprises of this journey for me has been the friendship of my beekeeping partner Paula. When the idea of keeping bees got inside me I didn’t know how physically demanding the work would be. As it turns out, I could not do this without Paula, physically or emotionally. I am thankful each and every day that Paula is on this journey with me. Our partnership is perfect in every way and perhaps for me, it is the lessons of the bees that have allowed me to collaborate in this endeavor.

I am a go at it alone kind-a-gal. I like to be in complete control of my every breath, especially at work. I am not a team player. I never liked group projects at school. In the kitchen, stay clear please. I don’t want anything other than my own efforts to impact the outcome of anything. I am not particularly proud of this characteristic but it is somewhat bittersweet. I am sure it is because of this dominating quality that I am so very successful at managing my Celiac disease. What other significant medical problem can you think of that an individual can actually completely control by what they put in their mouth. I love total control, being in charge of making the plan, executing the plan and getting the results, on my own, just my terms.

Enter the honeybee, or more specifically the colony where the collective efforts of all are completely interdependent. Without the collective work of the socialized colony, nothing would get done. Their engineering miracle is achieved by the collective work of thousands of bees. Building comb, collecting pollen, nectar, tending to the queen, nursing the larva, guarding the hive, all of it completely dependent on the work of the colony. No single bee or handful of bees could make this happen. They are in a constant state of communication with each other, directing forgers to the pollen, water and nectar sources through wing motions and dancing. The hive is made up of 30,000 or more bees, living and working together. There is overwhelming evidence of organization and harmony in the hive that one can hardly look past the lesson of democracy. Collective fact-finding, vigorous debate, and consensus building, the honeybee has much to teach us when it comes to collective wisdom and effective decision-making. I think beekeeping should be a required hobby for all of our politicians! As for myself, I am watching and learning and I think I have become a slightly better colleague, paying more attention to those around me at work and pitching in when I might otherwise be serving my own purposes. It is a small step and I have a long way to go but these bees have taught me a great deal about working together. I am not saying I am ready for a group project yet but I am less about my own agenda, which is good.

Wild Mushroom Ragout

2011-05-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

Ah wild mushrooms, the quintessential spring ingredient, worth their weight in gold, literally! I wish I could afford to eat these exotic treats more often, but alas, on a regular basis they are not in my budget. For a special occasion, yes, I will indulge.

A few weeks ago we had company for dinner, company I wanted to impress so I pulled out all the stops, crab salad with steamed asparagus tips, grilled sirloin with tarragon butter, truffled mashed potatoes, wild mushroom ragout, and passion fruit tarts drizzled with blood orange sauce. It was an over the top menu and a wonderful meal. The wild mushroom ragout was the center piece! Visually stunning and a divine addition! The woody, earthy flavors of the mushrooms are intensified by being sautéed with fresh herbs and garlic. The recipe is adapted from the girl and the fig, my new favorite cookbook! Modifications included cutting way back on the oil and butter and meat fat called for in the original recipe and mixing up the assortment of mushrooms and herbs.

Wild Mushroom Ragout

1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup minced pancetta

4 cups assorted wild mushrooms (I used Morels, Oyster, Chanterelles and Shiitake)

1 tablespoon each fresh chopped thyme, sage, parsley and tarragon

2 cloves garlic, minced

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup red wine

1 tablespoon butter

Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed skillet and sauté the pancetta over low heat until crisp and golden brown. Add the mushrooms, herbs and garlic, cook until tender and golden brown. Season with salt and pepper. Deglaze the ban with the wine and reduce the liquid by half. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter.

Tina's Minnesota State Fair Pulled Turkey Sandwhich

2011-04-26T13:02:00.000-07:00

Screw you Minnesota and your pathetic weather! I am sure I could find a better way to convey how I feel about Minnesota these days. If you don't live here you won't understand what we have been through these past 6 months and as I write, spring is passing us by. We have had nothing but cold, snow and more snow followed by cloudy, gloomy, windy rainy days. Today was the last straw especially when I heard this soaker that has planted itself over the Twin Cities might dole out snow tonight. Thank goodness we had a small window of sunshine yesterday so Paula, my beekeeping partner, and I could hive our bees. It was a beautiful day and we left the bee yard feeling completely energized and excited about the beekeeping season. The weather turned sour shortly after we got home. Fortunately Tina found a way to cheer us up and make us believe it were August, State Fair season. She found a recipe for a Minnesota State Fair favorite of hers, Pulled Turkey Sandwiches.

Our adventure started late in the afternoon, roasting a 12 pound turkey and by 9 pm, well past my bedtime, I finished pulling all the turkey off the carcass tossing it into a crock pot. Tina seasoned the meat, and a quart of my homemade chicken stock went in as well. I would have made turkey stock but we didn't have time. The turkey cooked in the crock pot all night. This morning Tina re-seasoned the meat and stuck it in the fridge while I went to check on the bees in a frigid windy downpour. I spent the rest of the day putting together the fixings for a good old fashion picnic, gussied up baked beans, napa cabbage salad, dilly cucumbers, pickles and watermelon. It might only be the end of April but we are having an indoor picnic tonight even if the rain won't stop. I've never had a Pulled Turkey Sandwich at the fair, after all I wouldn't waste calories on anything other than French Fries but this pulled turkey is darn good and quite easy to make. I enjoyed mine on a toasted Kinnikinnick gluten-free "english muffin" and had seconds with a little BBQ sauce.

Tina's Minnesota State Fair Pulled Turkey

1 roasted turkey, about 12 pounds

Lawry's Seasoning Salt

coarse ground pepper

garlic salt

turkey broth

Roast a turkey and cool long enough to handle, about an hour or so. Remove skin and pull meat off carcass, shredding it. Place all the meat into a crock pot and pour enough broth to cover the meat half way. Season with about a tablespoon or two of Lawry's, two teaspoons or so of coarse ground pepper and 2 teaspoons of garlic salt. The amount of seasonings is really up to you, more or less according to your taste. Cook the meat on low for 4-6 hours. Season again with Lawry's, pepper and garlic salt and put in the fridge for about half a day or more. Put meat back into the crock pot, cook on low for another 3-4 hours. Serve on buns.

the girl & the fig, in disguise

2011-04-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

Where to start? I guess I should come clean, I have an Internet friend. That's right, a friend I met on facebook. Her name is Katrina and she is sweet as the day is long! Katrina writes a wonderful blog which I have written about here before. We connected through her blog, we have never met in person. We are more like facebook pals, now engaged in a wild exchange of fun surprised for each other. It started as a way for me to lift her spirits after her husband took to the road for the year on the Broadway tour of Rock Of Ages. I periodically send fun, uplifting surprises for her, cooking equipment, unusual ingredients and what not, to keep her busy. I never expected she would respond with Skillet Bacon Spread, packages of gluten-free treats, a box full of cranberry treats, a fun lunch box and now this, the girl & the fig cookbook.

I have lusted after this restaurant for years, trying to scheme a way to visit Sonoma country and eat at the girl & the fig. This and Alice Waters . . . some day. When I left the house for my walk this morning I realized I had a day in front of me with nothing specific to do. When I got home, this package was sitting on the dining room table. I am not sure when it arrived, Tina must have brought it in and left it there. I literally gasped with surprise when I opened the package and found the girl and the fig cookbook. My day took shape over coffee and I selected a recipe, one that would take all day.

These Meyer Lemon Tartlets with Blood Orange Sauce are beautiful! I know they are good, even though I can't eat them, the lemon shortbread dough is not gluten-free I am sure it would be easy to make this with a gluten-free crust but today I wanted to make something for Tina's colleagues. But I can eat my weight in lemon curd, and this recipe did not disappoint! The Blood Orange Sauce gives the curd a twist and punches a second pucker like nobodies business! If you like tart you will like these! Unfortunately I can't post the recipe as I don't have copy rights, but trust me they would make a beautiful end to any spring meal or liven up the weekly Math department meeting!

As for Sonoma and the girl & the fig, I am going to get there someday! In the mean time I am looking forward to cooking from her cookbook! Thanks Katrina, you are the best!

Mushroom Madness

2011-03-17T05:38:00.001-07:00

I do like mushrooms and pastry crust so the combination of this spring tart really appealed to me. The problem is, I loathe eggs. The idea of taking this succulent mix of mushrooms and tossing them into a Gluten-free pastry tart and adding some eggs and cream, was almost too much for me. Once I had the mushrooms ready I just wanted to sit down and eat them and forget the tart altogether. I can't say I loved the tart like I loved the mushrooms but it was special and stylish, exactly what I was looking for as part of my vegetarian dinner Tuesday Evening.

I made my own Gluten-free tart shell, following a recipe from Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef. You will have to get their book if you want the recipe, I can't copy it here. It is a very nice, flaky pastry that won't disappoint. You could also get an ready made Gluten-free pie shell from Whole Foods, they are quite good.

Regardless these mushrooms are delish. I wouldn't hesitate to serve them as a stand alone side with a piece of grilled or roasted meat, atop crostini or lathered on a piece of toast.

Dried Porcini and Fresh mushroom tart

1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms

1/2 cup white wine or dry sherry

9 inch tart shell

1 tablespoon olive oil plus a teaspoon

1/2 pound white or brown mushrooms, sliced 1/4 inch thick

1/2 pound portabella mushrooms, gills removed, sliced 1/4 inch thick

1 large white onion diced small

sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1 heaping tablespoon tomato paste

2 tablespoons minced parsley and thyme

1 egg

2/3 cup cream

Preheat oven to 425. Prepare tart shell or pie shell and pre-bake

Put the porcini in a saucepan with the wine and half a cup of water, bring to a boil, turn off head, cover and let sit for 30 minutes. Strain through a fine strainer into a bowl and chop the mushrooms into smaller pieces. Reserve the soaking water.

Heat oil in a wide skillet. Add the onion and cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently until the onions start to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the fresh mushrooms. Raise heat to high, season with salt and pepper, tossing until they start to color, about 10 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and a few tablespoons of the mushroom-soaking liquid. Add the porcini and continue cooking, adding more mushroom liquid in small amounts until the mushrooms are tender and glazed about 15 minutes. Add half the herbs.

Scoop the mushrooms into your prepared tart pan or pie shell. Blead the egg with the cream and pour the custard over the mushrooms. Bake until the custard is set, about 30 minutes. When done, sprinkle with remaining herbs and dab some olive oil over the mushrooms to make them shine. Serve warm or at room temp.

My New Cookbook

2011-03-15T10:27:00.000-07:00

I really try hard to not purchase new cookbooks! I have plenty already and we don't have shelf space. Besides, I am a mighty fine, creative cook with excellent resources. Considering how much is available on the Internet, it seems foolish to waste money buying cookbook after cookbook. I don't know about you but generally I find that a entire cookbook renders just a handful of recipes that I actually make. Eventually I make them so often I don't need the reference.

Recently we had Shabbat dinner at our friends Mara and Miryam's, two excellent cooks who totally get the Gluten-free issue. Their attention to detail arises out of their adherence to a strict Kosher diet and maintaining a Kosher kitchen. They are pros at calling food suppliers and asking questions about manufacturing practices, digging deeper into the ingredients listed on food labels and have an appreciation for cross contamination, safe utensils . . . I never worry about eating at their house, and I am always well cared for. That particular evening Mara made a broccoli dish with a mustard cream that literally made me swoon. You see I love mustard. Anyway, I am getting a little off track. Of course I wanted the recipe and Mara directed me to an online source providing the recipe which came from the one and only Deborah Madison. If you are vegetarian no doubt you know her, a total kitchen wizard. As I looked through some of her other recipes I decided I needed to actually see some of her cookbooks. I went off to Barnes and Nobel and came home with Vegetarian Suppers from Deborah Madison's Kitchen.

Since Tina is out of town, I thought it would be a good opportunity to take a vegetarian dinner over to Mara and Miryam's tonight. So I selected three different recipes from my new cookbook, all of them are worth a post! These stuffed peppers are colorful and flavorful. I hemmed and hawed about substituting gluten-free couscous for the quinoa, you see I am not a fan of quinoa. I stuck to the recipe as written as I am hopelessly trying to like quinoa. Couscous would be a great substitute no doubt but I found that I actually like the quinoa just fine. The tangy feta cheese is a real treat but leave it out if you want a dairy free dish! The original recipe is a great template for any number of variations, play around with it. Olives, black beans, tomato, all come to mind. This is somewhat labor intensive but they can be made ahead of time and heated at the last minute.

Peppers stuffed with quinoa, corn and feta cheese on a bed of red onions

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1 cup quinoa, rinsed well several times (I used pale quinoa but thinking about it, red would be beautiful)

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 bunch scallions, including 2 inches of the greens, sliced on the diagonal into rounds

1 fresh jalapeno chili, finely diced (remove seeds if you don't want the dish too hot)

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon ground cumin

2 cups or so of fresh corn from 2 ears of corn (you can use frozen but fresh is so much better)

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1/4 pound feta cheese, cut into small cubes

1 large red onions, sliced into rounds, about 1/4 inch thick

1/2 cup white wine

4 bell peppers

1/2 pound of spinach leaves

Bring two cups of water to a boil, add 1/2 teaspoon salt and then the quinoa. Give it a stir, cover and simmer over lowish heat until the grains are tender and water is absorbed, about 15 minutes.

Warm half the oil in a wide skillet. Add the scallions and chilies, cook over medium heat for 2 minutes, add garlic, cumin, corn and spinach along with 2 tablespoons water. When the spinach is wilted, add the cilantro, quinoa and feta, tossing everything together.

Heat remaining oil in a clean wide skillet. When hot, add the onions and saute, stirring until they start to color around the edges. Add the wine to deglaze the pan, season with salt and pepper and distribute the onions on the bottom of a baking dish large enough to hold the peppers.

Slice the peppers in half lengthwise without removing the stems, cut out the membranes and remove the seeds. Brush with oil, season with salt and pepper and grill over hot coals for 8 minutes, turning once. If you don't want to grill the peppers simmer them in salted water until tender to the touch of a knife but not overly soft, about 4 minutes.

Place the peppers cut side up in the baking dish with the onions. Fill them with the quinoa mixture.

Preheat the oven to 400, bake until heated through, about 15 minutes, then switch the oven heat to broil and brown the tops. Serve hot, warm or at room temp.

Chickpeas with Chard and a Kitchen Kitten

2011-03-10T12:43:00.000-08:00

We have a kitchen kitten. Actually we have two kittens but one of them is a kitchen rat like me. Thabo Lama and Ziva Jane joined us the end of January, not even a month after our little Sophie passed away. I have to say, I don't remember the kitten stage very well, it has been 12 years since we had a pair kittens running amuck in the house. Needless to say, we are in love and we are tired. Ziva Jane has come into her own, almost a cat, healthy, sleek and already she has carved out her spot as Alpha cat. Thabo Lama on the other hand is beyond lovable, and thank goodness for that because he has been a challenge.

The little guy loves food and stakes out his position in the kitchen when ever I am cooking. The only problem, he doesn't love his food. No, left to his own devices Thabo Lama would sit at the table, in a chair and eat what we are eating. He clamors for any thing Tina is eating, grabbing bites of popcorn, peanut butter and banana bread literally right out of her mouth. He makes a bee line for her morning oatmeal and just today he was crying over a pan of braised chard and chickpeas. He is crazy for people food.

We have struggled, daily for the past month to get him to eat. You see he lost about 8 ounces after he arrived and really gave us a scare. We spent two weeks making trips to the vet three times a week, then another two weeks going twice a week. He even spent three full days at the vet, getting hand fed and monitored to see if something more serious was going on. We seem to be on the other side of the scare, he has gained back all he lost and then some but not without some vigilance. Sometimes I wish we could just feed him a human diet and I will admit, it is somewhat amusing to watch him clamor for the things we eat. However, kittens need an essential amino acid called taurine, without it they go blind and develop serious cardiac and neurological problems. We don't need a blind kitten with an enlarged heart having seizures around here. There isn't anything other than cat food that will give Thabo Lama enough taurine. He can't afford bites of oatmeal here and there, or anything else for that matter.

So no Chickpeas and Chard for Thabo Lama but I assure you these are good.

Chickpeas and Chard

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 large onion, sliced

4 cloves of garlic, two sliced thin and two smashed

sea salt and ground pepper

1 cup cilantro leaves

1/4 cup parsley leaves

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin, more to taste

2 teaspoons tomato paste

two bunches chard leaves

1 can chickpeas, liquid reserved or 1 cup chicken or vegetable broth

Heat olive oil in wide, deep skillet. Brown the sliced garlic. Add onions and cook over medium heat for 10 minutes, till soft. Meanwhile, pound the garlic with 1/2 teaspoon salt, the cilantro, parsley, and cumin to make a rough paste. When the onions are golden and soft, ad the paste to the pan along with the tomato paste and work it into the onions and garlic.

Slice the chard leaves off their stems and put them in a pot filled with boiling water. Cook until tender, about 5 minutes, strain in a colander.

Add the chickpeas to the onions with their liquid, or a cup of chicken stock or vegetable stock, simmer about 10 minutes.

Dang These are Good!

2011-02-24T14:31:00.000-08:00

It's no secret, I love ethnic food and I love spicy! These Sichuan Green Beans are over the top. I paired them with coconut rice which is oh so simple to make and tempers the heat with a hint of sweet. I don't know about most of my GF possy but eating out at ethnic restaurants takes too much energy and research. I would rather reinvent the dishes at home. These beans, with their crinkled, chewy texture and intriguing spicy tang hit the note for me. I love the addition of the ground pork but if you want a vegetarian version substitute shitiake mushrooms.

Sichuan Green Beans

2 tablespoons gluten-free tamari sauce

1 tablespoon dry sherry

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper

1/4 -1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, more if you really like it hot

1/4 teaspoon dry mustard

2 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 pound green beans, ends trimmed, cut into 1-2 inch pieces

4 - 6 ounces ground pork

3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed through a garlic press

1 tablespoon fresh garlic, minced

3 scallions, white and light green parts sliced thin

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

Blanch green beans in boiling water for about 3 minutes, plunge in ice water and set aside.

In a small bowl, stir together tamari sauce, sherry, sugar, cornstarch, white pepper, red pepper flakes, mustard and water until sugar dissolves; set aside.

Heat oil in a 12 inch nonstick skillet over high heat. Add the beans and cook, stirring frequently, until crisp and tender and skins are shriveled and blackened in spots, 5-8 minutes. Transfer beans to a plate.

Wipe skillet clean of any remaining oil. Reduce heat to medium-high and add pork. Cook until no longer pink, about 4 minutes. Add garlic and ginger, cook until fragrant, about a minute or two. Stir in sauce and return beans to skillet with the sauce, cook until thickened, several minutes. Remove form heat and toss in scallions and sesame oil. Serve over coconut rice, or not. Enjoy!

Macular Madness

2011-02-17T11:05:00.001-08:00

I am on a mission. Improve our ocular health. You see, my mother-in-law, and her mother both have Macular Degeneration, a degenerative disease that destroys the central vision of the eye and is the leading cause of blindness in individuals over 60. It is also a hereditary condition which means Tina is at risk. I am a great believer in the power of taking one's health into your own hands, especially when there are specific things you can do to decrease risk. Interestingly, eye health is very connected to nutrition. Macular Degeneration, while it can not be prevented, can be tempered and the onset put off with the ingestion of certain nutrients. I am all for that, even if it means eating foods that I may not like.

So it turns out that lutein and zeaxanthin are the most powerful nutrients in treating or delaying the onset of Macular Degeneration and the American Optometry Association advocates taking both, daily. So of course I don't know anything about any of this. My expertise is the Gluten-Free diet, not the Macular diet. However, I am the most well resourced person on the earth so I turned to my trusty and generous friend Katrina, over at http://glutenfreegidget.blogspot.com/ for some help. Katrina sent me links to helpful articles and lists of foods to focus on. That was the good news. The bad news, there wasn't much on the list that Tina likes.

I started by adding spinach leaves into Tina's sandwiches, next week I am adding toasted walnuts to her lunch for a Macular power snack. At home I am trying to include greens, corn, including popcorn (yes rich in lutein and zeaxanthin) and more pork and lamb in our diet. I love greens but they aren't Tina's favorite. So Katrina has been working on some recipes for greens that might pass the test for those with a fussy palate. Tonight I am making Katrina's Drunken Swiss Chard and Mushrooms (http://glutenfreegidget.blogspot.com/2011/02/ive-joined-green-party.html). I have to make a few adjustments as I got confused and got mustard greens instead of swiss chard. I think Katrina would not only agree but would approve. Greens are greens as long as they are green, leafy and organic, completely interchangeable. I am not that fussy about my produce and don't always buy organic but greens, they are different, they harbor very special organisms of the fecal sort and pesticides that I don't want in my house. Green are one of those Dirty Dozen.

You can find the recipe over at Katrina's blog, http://glutenfreegidget.blogspot.com/2011/02/ive-joined-green-party.html . While you are there look through all her wonderful, healthy recipes. I am going to use a combination of mustard greens, collards and kale. Tina is going to have sloppy joe's along with her greens and I am going to have sweet potato fries which I wish I could get her to eat as they pack a Macular boost like nothing else. Maybe down the road. Here's to our eyes!

Making Hoppin' Jane with The Gluten Free Gidget

2011-02-01T05:11:00.000-08:00

I am faithful to just a handful of bloggers including Katrina who writes The Gluten Free Gidget at http://glutenfreegidget.blogspot.com/ . I love Katrina's blog. She writes about fresh ingredients, interesting ingredients that intrigue me and she has the most positive attitude ever. Her theater background plays front and center in a well scripted narrative of a young, enthusiastic hard working fun loving employee, wife, sister, friend . . . just waiting for the next crazy moment to present itself. She is generous beyond measure and her recipes are to die for, especially this Hoppin' Jane I made last evening.

I am little more skeptical of certain new ingredients, including buckwheat which is a gluten-free grain that shows up in a lot of gluten-free recipes. The first time I had buckwheat I was visiting my brother in Virgina, another Celiac in our family. He took Tina and I to this hole in the wall street vendor that sold savory buckwheat crepes out of a shack with a window on the street. They were weird and wonderful at the same time. Tina has mastered these at home and every now and then we enjoy a savory buckwheat crepe for dinner. I can't say I crave the odd tasting grain but it works and it is fun to have Tina cook a gluten free dinner.

So when I read Katrina's recipe I was a bit put off by the addition of buckwheat, trying to figure out what I might use instead. Lots of ideas came to me including quinoa which I don't really like and brown or wild rice. After careful deliberation I decided to give the buckwheat a try, why not.

I threw the very easy to prep ingredients together with just a few modifications and within an hour I was eating a wonderful bowl of pipping hot Hoppin' Jane, savoring every bite. You can check out the recipe yourself over at Katrina's blog at http://glutenfreegidget.blogspot.com/ .

Instead of green pepper I used a red pepper, just because I don't like red pepper. I also used a jar of black eyed peas I canned myself last fall, Katrina calls for frozen black eyed peas. If I made this dish again I would use the frozen peas for a couple of reasons. I over packed the jar of black eyed peas and by the time I was eating them in this dish they had been cooked three times and literally disappeared in the dish, they were the consistency of refried beans. My result also seemed a little dry, especially the collard greens. Using frozen peas might add more moisture. I might also dial back a little on the amount of buckwheat, to get a less bulky dish, or add more canned tomato. Regardless of my commentary, the dish was to die for. I loved the buckwheat and the flavor of the combination of herbs Katrina selected. This is an over the top vegan, low fat, and good for your macular health meal!

Roasted Chicken Chili

2011-01-24T13:19:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I made some soup that was the result of wanting to get rid of recently roasted chicken so I could make some home made chicken stock with the bones. I finally got the confidence to make my own chicken stock, thanks to Shauna and Danny Ahern over at Gluten-Free Girl. Shauna and Danny made a video tutorial awhile back, showing step by step exactly how to make stock and ever since I hoard bones and vegetable peelings in my freezer like it were my job.

Back to my soup. It was early morning, by best ideas come out of the early morning hours. I actually had everything I need on hand. My partner was sitting at the dinning room table with her sister, working on her sister's new resume. I was puttering around the kitchen, dicing an onion, mincing garlic, opening a can of ROT*EL, cooking garbanzo beans and pulling roasted chicken off the bones from the previous night's left overs. I heard some talking coming from the dining room, "Wow, that smells good, what's cooking". I felt a little silly telling them I was making soup, after all it was about 9:00 am. A few minutes later I started gasping as I tasted the soup. "Oh my God, this is so good." I offered two small bowls, not wanting to give much away. The two of them sat at the table with small bowls of pipping hot roasted chicken chili, in complete agreement and dismayed that I simply created this soup out of nowhere. Well it wasn't exactly out of nowhere, I had recently enjoyed a bowl of soup at Bonfire that I really enjoyed and was simply trying to copy the recipe. Total success. This unusual version of chicken chili is to die for and a great way to use left over roasted chicken. Beware, it is so good that you are going to find yourself roasting a chicken just to make this soup which is exactly what I am doing again today after some pleading from Tina. This is a really versatile recipe! Use any kind of dried bean you like, add some chopped kale or spinach instead of corn. Heck, toss in anything that sounds good.

Cari's Roasted Chicken Chili

4 cups homemade chicken stock

1 teaspoon of olive oil or so

1 small onion diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 cup of corn

2 cups of garbanzo beans, cooked

1 teaspoon dried oregano

salt and pepper to taste

3 ounces tomato paste

3-4 cups roasted chicken, shredded

Saute the onion and garlic in a scant amount of olive oil, a teaspoon or so. Add the oregano, salt and pepper and saute until translucent. Add the broth, ROT*EL, beans, corn, chicken and tomato paste. Bring to a simmer.

You could really dumb this down using a canned broth, canned beans and a store bought rotisserie chicken, turning it into a 15 minute prep. I prefer the effort of roasting my own chicken, making my own stock and cooking my own beans because I think it elevates the outcome. You will get a perfectly acceptable and delicious soup either way!

Kale Chips

2011-01-20T06:26:00.001-08:00

Dang these are good! Kale Chips seemed to be the rage of food bloggers last year. I'll admit, I was skeptical. I love greens, collard greens, mustard greens, spinach, bok choy, Brussels, chard, sweet potato greens, kohlrabi greens, broccoli rabe. The endless list stops short at fenugreek, ick. I love all kinds of leafy greens steamed or sauteed in garlic. The idea of roasting greens into chips didn't quite compute.

My cousin Dina sent me a lovely Christmas package which included smoked sea salt from the Mendocino coast of California, a lovely hand crafted salt made from the pure ocean water off the Mendocino Coast. The harvest of sea water is simmered until delicate crystals of salt appear, then grow and sink to form a salt bed. The salt is raked, drained and layered into open evaporating pans. The sea smoked salt draws its distinctive taste and rich color by smoking the salt in a variety of coastal woods and sea vegetables. After a three day smoke the result is a sea salt that tasted like a bonfire on the beach. If you know me, you know I am crazy about the smell of a bonfire. I can't get enough smoke! I was stymied by the gift, so thoughtful and yet I wasn't sure what to do with such a delicacy. I remembered the blogging rage over Kale Chips and thought they would pair well together.

These are really simple, get a whole bunch of kale, clean it and get it really really dry. Toss the kale in some really good olive oil. I lucked out here because Dina also sent me a lovely bottle of Nelson Family Vineyards extra virgin olive oil from California. Sprinkle with Smoked Sea Salt. Spread the kale in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees, tossing occasionally, for about 20 minutes, or until the the kale is crisp. Sprinkle with more Smoked Sea Salt, to taste and enjoy!

Eating Out

2011-01-18T14:52:00.000-08:00

Eating out for me is bittersweet.

I am quite particular about where I eat and who makes my food, contacting chefs ahead of time, grilling the restaurant staff and even returning a meal littered with gluten, refusing to allow the kitchen to correct the meal. Serve me gluten in a restaurant, it's over, plain and simple, no second changes. I won't eat anything and I won't go back. Over time I have come to trust only a few spots and usually stick to those places that have a gluten-free menu. More and more places are getting gluten-free savvy, and well they should. When I go out I tote anywhere from 1-8 people with me. Were it not for the gluten-free menu, we would not be there. I understand it is difficult for restaurants, it requires training, retraining and maintaining strict practices in a kitchen to provide safe gluten-free meals. Restaurant owners shouldn't underestimate the economic power of the food allergy community! For more on this subject check out this article. http://www.allergyeats.com/blog/index.php/how-much-are-food-allergic-diners-worth/comment-page-1/#comment-2354 Kudos to those of you who are willing to make the effort and go the extra mile.

Recently I read a restaurant review by Amy Legar over at thesavvyceliac.com. If you haven't already discovered her blog, it is a must read for anyone with Celiac Disease. She posts very informative material on the disease, parenting a child with Celiac Disease, and helpful information on maintaining a gluten-free diet. Recently Amy wrote a post, Mad Jacks Gluten-Free Fare, reviewing a local spot that serves up good old American Bar food, noting that Mad Jack's had a dedicated fryer. A dedicated fryer means french fries. I AM IN!

A few nights later my partner and our friends Craig and Kristen, who are always up for a restaurant adventure headed out to Mad Jacks Sports Cafe, in Vadnais Heights, MN. Mad Jack's had something to make everyone happy, including flat screen T.V. in each booth so the football fans in the group could keep their eye on the playoff games taking place. It was warm, cozy and abuzz with business, a good sign.

We started with Szechuan Green Beans and some Spinach Artichoke dip served with crisp tortilla chips. The beans were to die for. I have really missed good spicy Szechuan beans. They were coated in a tangy spicy, almost Asian BBQ like sauce. I'd go back to Mad Jacks just for the beans. Everyone at the table ordered the french fries, just in case I didn't get enough with my Fish Sandwich. The fries were fantastic and of course there were plenty to go all around. My Tilapia sandwhich was wonderful, hand breaded and fried, served on lightly toasted Ener-G, gluten-free bread. It wasn't Udi's but it was really good, Ener-G probably being my second choice for a gluten-free bread. My partner got a Chicken Caesar with gluten-free croutons. It was just so so, but seriously who orders a salad at a sports bar.

The highlight of the evening, a Bucket of Sweet Potato Tots that my friend Kristen ordered. I am not sure I can adequately describe the delight of these delicious bites of fried sweet potato served with a sweet chipolte sour cream. They were sweet and savory at the same time. The bucket was huge, we couldn't finish them. I am going back to Mad Jacks, just for these! In fact, I am going back Friday evening to celebrate my birthday!

If you are gluten-free Mad Jacks is great, bar food at its best. It is festive spot, especially when there is a big televised sporting event and most importantly they take gluten-free diners seriously!

Date Smoothie

2011-01-11T10:21:00.001-08:00

I would much rather be sipping a cup of homemade hot chocolate, you know, the kind you get in Paris, thick, rich and warm. The idea of a smoothie in the middle of January in the tundra of Minnesota just doesn't quite appeal to me. However, this Date Smoothie is to die for and since I am trying to make some changes in our diet around here it seemed a better choice for my fireside lunch.

I am sick and tired of this particular winter. Minimal sunshine and maximum snow and no trips to Florida for me in the near future. I am fine not going to Florida, happy to sit home by the fire and plan our next trip to Budapest which will include stops in London and Poland this June. A day at home, planning another trip, trying to find a place to order my packaged bees for the spring, doing laundry, roasting a chicken and looking at pictures of the two little kittens that will join us in about a week, it couldn't get much better.

But it did get better, when I made this Vanilla Date Smoothie! I found the recipe in the Bon Appetit Food Lovers Cleanse. I love medjool dates, especially stuffed with a chunk of good cheese, wrapped in bacon and roasted. I thought about doing the Food Lovers Cleanse, after all I love being in the kitchen, but quite frankly it completely overwhelmed me. Instead I picked out a few recipes to try and this was the first. I made it, exactly as written. I should have cut it in half since it serves two. But hey, don't you always want more smoothie? I should have cut it in half! It was way too rich to drink two servings and without a good way to save it, well I did drink it all and now I feel a little sickish. Seriously, it was good, really good but too rich and too sweet, even if I kept to a single portion. Next round I will back off on the amount of dates, and I will cut it half, but I will be making it again and again!

Vanilla Date Smoothie

1 cup nonfat plain yogurt

1 cup nonfat milk

1 cup (packed) pitted Medjool dates, about 9 ounces

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups ice cubes

Puree everything in a blender until thick and smooth. Divide between 2 glasses and serve.

Garbanzo Beans and Chocolate . . .

2011-01-06T12:37:00.000-08:00

How's that for a festive desert? I made this Garbanzo Bean Chocolate cake for a gathering with my nieces and nephews during the recent holidays. They are an adventuresome crowd and eager for anything chocolate. We had a wonderful Indian dinner and then this Garbanzo Bean Chocolate Cake for desert. I didn't tell anyone what was in the cake. You never know, the idea of beans and chocolate might not appeal and even be a turn off, especially to a younger audience.

Well, the cake was a huge success, and my nephew actually guessed exactly what was in the cake which really surprised me! It is a very easy cake to pull together. I thought it was best the day it was made and didn't hold up over time very well. I will make this again! I might use a smaller pan the next time to get a deeper cake. It has great potential.

Garbanzo Bean Chocolate Cake

1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (I used Scharffen Berger bittersweet chunks)

19 ounces of canned garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained

4 eggs

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

confectioners' sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9 inch round cake pan with gluten free flour. I used a 9 inch spring form pan which worked well.

Melt chocolate over a double boiler.

Combine the beans and eggs in the bowl of a food processor. Process until smooth. Add sugar and baking powder, and pulse to blend. Pour in the melted chocolate and blend until smooth, scraping down the corners of the bowl to make sure the chocolate is completely mixed. Pass the batter through a sieve to remove any bean shells and transfer the batter to the prepared cake pan.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack and removed from pan when completely cooled. Dust with confectioners' sugar just before serving, garnish with freshly whipped whipping cream and berries if desired. Enjoy!

Christmas Lemon Bars

2010-12-15T15:18:00.001-08:00

I can't even pretend to be a baker! My partner Tina is the baker in this house. Even with the help of gluten, baking just isn't in my skill set. Besides, I am a savory person and would always prefer something savory over a sweet. That being said, I continue to try, especially when lemon is involved. I love tart, lemon and lime both. Today, my famous friend Shauna, AKA The Gluten-Free Girl posted a recipe for lemon bars. That was it, I was sold. I back tracked on her blog to find the recipe for Ahern All Purpose Flour. Lucky me, I had everything I needed to mix up a large jar. I trust Shauna and Danny and this is going to be my go to flour for any gluten-free baking! You can find the recipe on their blog, http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/. I have always had a scale, something Shauna and Danny insist on for measuring. However, my scale only weighted in increments of 5, not good enough. So a few weeks ago I purchased an inexpensive scale that is precise to a decimal. Now, I don't have enough experience baking to back up my own opinion here but I totally agree, you must weight your ingredients. I find all of the gluten-free flours and starches are impossible to measure in a measuring cup. I love having a scale for baking.

These lemon bars are to die for, no kidding. I was a bit reluctant about the spices in the crust, including ground cinnamon and ginger. I love a lemon bar with a traditional shortbread like crust. But hey, it's Christmas time, jazz it up a bit. My dough did seem a little wet, but it baked up just fine. I was more reluctant about the freshly grated ginger in the topping, but Shauna has always suggested following a recipe as it is written the first time around and then make adjustments. After a little encouragement, I included the ginger, I am glad I did. It adds a zing that simply empowers the pucker of the lemon and pops in your mouth. Oh goodness me they are darn darn good, company worthy for sure. The dough still seemed a bit wet in the end and maybe even a little under cooked. If I made these again I would back off on the water in the dough. Shauna gives a range of water to add 1-2 tablespoons and I started out adding all of the water, instead of adding small amounts at at time until I got the desired consistency. Oh well, just means I need to make them again. I would also probably bake the dough a little longer.

You can find the recipe at http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/

Grown up Mac 'N Cheese

2010-12-07T15:02:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a girl just needs a little bit of comfort food. We never had Mac 'n Cheese growing up, at least I don't remember ever having it. If we did, it surely came from a box with some kind of magic packet of fluorescent yellow stuff, called cheese. This version is made with aged Cheddar and Gruyere cheeses and gluten-free Tinkyada spiral pasta. If Tina had her way, we would be eating this at least once a week. A time or two every fall/winter is enough for me. Oh don't get me wrong, I love it, but it isn't exactly healthy and packs more than a punch of calories. I guess if you wanted you could scale back and use skim milk and low fat cheese but then why bother at all. This is thick, creamy and comforting. Don't be put off by the tomatoes, they really add to the dish! It really is a special occasion dish and if your wallet can manage, add some lobster meat for an over the top meal.

kosher salt

Vegetable oil

1 pound Tinkyada pasta, elbow or spiral work nicely

1 quart whole milk (I confess, I use half cream, half milk)

8 ounces butter, divided

1/2 cup white rice flour

8 ounces aged Cave Gruyere Cheese, grated

12 ounces aged Cheddar, grated (I used four year)

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

3/4 pound fresh tomatoes, sliced

1 1/2 cups fresh white bread crumbs (I used Udi's)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Drizzle oil into a large pot of boiling salted water. Add the pasta and cook for about 13 minutes, drain well.

Meanwhile, heat the milk in a sauce pan, don't boil it. Melt 6 tablespoons of butter in a large pot and add the flour. Cook over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring with a whisk, add nutmeg, salt and pepper. While whisking, add the hot milk slowly and cook until thickened and smooth. Off the heat, add the cheeses, stirring until they are melted and incorporated into the sauce. Add the cooked pasta and stir well. pour into a baking dish.

Slice the tomatoes and arrange on top. Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, combine them with the bread crumbs and sprinkle on top of the tomatoes. Bake 30 minutes or until the sauce is bubbly and the pasta is browned.

You can easily make this ahead of time. Simply assemble the dish, cover with foil and put in the fridge. When your ready, preheat the oven to 375 degrees and put the covered dish in the oven for about an hour. Remove the foil and cook another 15 minutes until bubbly and browned.

Acorn Squash

2010-11-07T16:29:00.000-08:00

I like to think I have an adventuresome palate, and I do, especially when it comes to unusual ethnic food. I am game for just about anything. For years I have put an entire category of food on my mundane, not so interested list. This included any kind of squash and sweet potatoes. I conquered sweet potatoes years ago when I discovered my preoccupation with Indian cuisine. But squash, well it has taken longer to enter that foray.

Every fall it is the same, I head to the grocery store, my list in hand, which includes items like, vegetable for dinner. I try hard not to over do the roasted vegetables, but they are so good. I sit and ponder in the produce section trying to conjure up an idea, something different. Inevitable I start looking at the squash. They are visually very appealing to me, so festive and colorful but I just can't get myself to go there. What on earth would I do with it and Tina just wouldn't enjoy it. We never had squash growing up, in fact we rarely had fresh produce at all. After all feeding a family of 8 was costly and time consuming. My mother relied on canned and frozen vegetable. I can honestly say the only time I ever get frozen vegetables is when I am in a real pinch for something like peas. This fall I find those squash just calling my name. So last week I gave it and got my first acorn squash. I quickly invited my friend Paula over for dinner, knowing she would appreciate what ever transpired.

I decided squash stuffed with wild rice would be perfect to pair with the rest of our dinner. It was so simple and so delicious that I know I will do this again and again. I simply cut the squash in half, lengthwise and removed the seeds. I put about a teaspoon of butter in each half, a scant tablespoon of brown sugar and a drizzle of my own honey and baked them, cut side up in a dish with about a half inch of water for an hour. When they were done, I stuffed them with wild rice that I gussied up with toasted pecans, dried cranberries and sauteed celery and onions and baked for another 15 minutes or so.

I could barely speak when I started eating it was so good. I can think of a million fillings and I can also imagine no filling at all. A whole new world has opened up for me. I won't be passing by those squash ever again. Next up some fun with Butternut!

Homemade Oreo Cookies, OMG

2010-11-01T17:28:00.000-07:00

If your gluten-free an you don't know Shauna and Danny Ahern, well your missing out big time. I have been a fan of their blog, Gluten-Free Girl and The Chef for as long as I have been gluten-free. If you appreciate good story telling, excellent writing and are living gluten-free you have too many reason to check it out at http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/.

When I was first diagnosed with Celiac Disease I didn't even know what a blog was and quite frankly it took me awhile to actually understand how it a worked. Lucky me, I stumbled on Shauna's blog long before it became so hugely popular. I remember spending the better part of day going back and reading each and every post since the inception of her blog. I was riveted. I bought her first book as soon as it was published and I even flew to Chicago for a book signing. I felt a kindredness with Shauna, a connection through the gluten-free world that I guess we call the gluten-free community.

I am still enthralled with their new cookbook, Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef. I love the photographs, the tips, the approach to cooking and the recipes but honestly, I am die heart fan of the blog, mostly for the stories and every now and again for the recipes.

Recently Shauna and Danny posted about Oreo Cookies, including a recipe for making them gluten-free. Now I don't have a sweet tooth and would almost always prefer something savory but these cookies are incredible. I am already thinking of a million ways to actually use the chocolate cookies which are delicate and delicious. You can head over to their blog http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/ and get the recipe yourself. The dough is little fussy in that it stuck to my hands and every third cookie or so I had to wash my hands. I also made mine too big, when they suggest just a little more than a teaspoon, they mean just a little more than a teaspoon. All my teaspoons were in the dishwasher so I was trying to eyeball the volume and went too big. I also found my cookies did spread a bit while baking so do place them at least an inch or more apart. My stuffing also seemed a bit stiff, not exactly sure what that was about but they were tasty none the less. More importantly, I am looking forward to using the chocolate cookies to make a cheesecake crust, pie crust and crushed over ice cream.

If nothing else it was shear fun making these Oreo's!

Cooking Pizza with Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef

2010-10-27T05:01:00.000-07:00

I love pizza and I have to admit, since going gluten-free I have fared well when it comes to pizza. My wonderful wife has made it her part time job to make sure pizza is still a part of my life. She has tried a number of crusts recipes, nothing worth mentioning and we finally settled on store bought crust from either Udi's or Whole Foods. While they are not bad, not bad at all, they are a far cry from that traditional chewy crust with crisp toasted edges. When Shauna and Danny Ahern published their new cookbook, I was first in line to get mine, knowing full well there was a recipe for pizza crust. I was eager to give it a go. At first, there was some confusion when I couldn't find the recipe until I realized it was disguised as crackers. Then, disappointment, the ingredients included yeast. As accomplished as I am in the kitchen, yeast continues to intimidate me and I simply don't give recipes with yeast a second glance. However, my wife, is the far more capable baker in our house and she would do anything for me. So, I gathered the ingredients, which took some effort including stops at three different places to get all the flours I needed.

Beware people, while Bob's Red Mill has recently changed their manufacturing practices to make gluten free corn grains, some of the old product is still out on shelves. Take care to make sure the corn flour and the corn meal both have the gluten-free label.

This past Saturday I came home from work without a dinner plan. Well, secretly I guess I had a plan as I had gotten everything I needed for Tina to make Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef's pizza crust. She was game. While I ran to the store to get everything else to top the pizza Tina made the crust. Shauna and Danny suggest using parchment paper in the book, when rolling out the dough. We found the dough to be quite sticky, slightly wet, and hard to remove from the parchment. Plastic wrap worked much better, which is what they suggest in their pizza crust video on their website, http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/, We also found it helpful to dust the counter and the dough with the corn meal before trying to work the dough. We divided our dough in half, using half for a pizza and the other half for the original cracker recipe.

After rolling out the dough for the pizza and getting it on our pizza pan we put it in the oven on a stone and baked it for about 15 minutes, it bubbled up in spots but didn't turn brown at all. Then we topped the pizza and put it back in the oven and cooked it another 20 minutes or so, until the edges of the crust started turning brown. We kept the oven at 500 degrees as directed, but it still took 20 minutes before the edges turned brown. The pizza crust was out of this world, worth all the effort! Crisp crust, kinda chewy and not too corny tasting. I was worried with all the corn flour and corn meal I used for dusting that it might over power the crust. It was perfect to say the least and as long as Tina is will, this will be our go to crust from now on. Danny and Shauna have hit the perfect combination of flours to turn out a perfect crust, company worthy!

The crackers, well, they just didn't seem to crisp up very well and turned out more like a flat bread, a very good flat bread at that! I loved the salt and rosemary seasoning and couldn't stop eating it, even after three pieces of pizza. But even after cooking it much longer than suggested it just didn't crisp up enough to break into shards as described in the recipe. The pizza held up very well over time. I reheated the left overs on a pizza stone a few days later and it was just as good as the having it the same day. I also froze a piece that reheated really well. The "flat bread" didn't hold up at all and was quite stale and chewy the next day.

If you are gluten-free, Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef is a must have cookbook, it is full of well tested recipes and tips for living gluten-free. I give it five stars and am going to work my way through each and every recipe, just like Julie and Julia.

Sweet Potatoes or Yams? You tell me.

2010-10-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

This was to be a post about making Pumpkin Soup with Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef. But I got side tracked. The recipe called for a sweet potato. I always get confused because anytime a recipe calls for a sweet potato and there is a photo accompanying the recipe, it is always a Yam. So really people what is the difference? I guess in reality we don't actually have Yam's here is the U.S. so both the orange flesh and white fleshed tubers are sweet potatoes. Since I was unsure, I got one of each and used half of each in the soup. As fate would have it, I didn't like the soup. I like pumpkin alright, pie, cake, bread . . . but the soup just didn't win me over. I pulled out all the stops, an organic pie pumpkin and homemade chicken stock, hoping for an over the top sort of outcome.

If it weren't for the left over yam and sweet potato halves I would have felt sorry for myself, having spent all that time and effort for nothing. Well not exactly nothing, after all I did find some friends to enjoy the soup. I know the soup was good, very good for that matter, it just wasn't a taste that appealed to me so I was happy to deliver it to friends. I am not exactly a fan of sweet potato or yams either but I do have a thing about waste so I decided to make sweet potato fries, oven roasted.

If you have been following my gluten-free tales you know I am a sucker for french fries and will go to the end of the earth to find safely fried french fries. Most restaurants fry their fries in a fryer that also fries breaded foods, thus contaminating what would otherwise be gluten-free. So sad! It is mighty hard to find french fries that have been fried in a dedicated frier.

I cut the tubers, drizzled them in olive oil and sprinkled them with kosher salt and pepper and then oven roasted them at 450 degrees for about 20 minutes, turning once. They were gone in the blink of an eye and another yam and sweet potato have already been purchased for round two, this evening. When I get onto something, I get onto it. I will probably be having these for days to come. I don't care if I ever have french fries again. These are to die for!

Apple Tart

2010-10-07T11:05:00.000-07:00

I am a big fan of Shauna and Danny Ahern, AKA Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef. I started following Shauna's blog the day after I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. I think I was drawn in by a mutual disposition of looking to what could be eaten rather than using deprivation as a framework. I have always gone to a place of what I can have rather than what is off limits.

When my copy of Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef arrived I read it through cover to cover, twice over. I didn't want to miss anything, although I must admit the oh so controversial swear words didn't not jump out at me, during either reading. Honestly, there wasn't much here I didn't already know in terms of cooking and cooking well, but my own cooking practices were readily affirmed. I believe in cooking in season, I use good ingredients, I do weigh my flours, my approach to cooking is organized, anticipated, rehearsed. And I do screw up, all the time. I have forgotten key ingredients in a dish, forgotten to reduce or double a particular ingredient when cutting a recipe in half or doubling it. I have a plethora kitchen disaster stories. but, for the most part, I am successful and capable in the kitchen.

So in the spirit of cooking in season I set out to make an Apple Tart using the Asian Pear Tart recipe from my new cookbook. One of the request that Shauna and Danny make in the book is that the recipes be made exactly as written, at least once. I appreciate that advice and made the Asian Pear Tart. It was beautiful and it was awful, all at the same time. 100% my fault, my Asian pears were not ripe and I cut them to big. In addition, I don't actually like pears so I didn't have high hopes. What did turn out really really well was the tart crust! Fine, I did what I was told, now onto making an adaptation using the quintessential fall fruit, apples!

If you want the recipe for this crust your going to have to get the book. Let me just say this, the crust is flaky and easy to work with. It does make more than you will probably need. In fact, I was able to make a 9 inch tart shell and a mini free form crostata which was even better than the tart. It is also a very versatile recipe and could be used for a sweet or savory tart. After making the tart I simply cut my apples slightly less than a quarter inch and sprinkled them with some sugar, cinnamon and allspice. I covered the bottom of the tart with an apple compote I had on hand and put the apples on top in concentric circles and baked the tart. When it was time to serve I top each piece with a dollop of vanilla ice cream and drizzled with homemade caramel sauce. It was a perfect fall desert.

Soup Night and Chicken Stock

2010-09-29T12:46:00.000-07:00

We have a fall tradition around here that has been going on for 9 years now. Every fall, we open our kitchen for Soup Night. It started nine years ago, a weekly gathering, as a way to stay connected to our friends and family. Not much has changed over the years except last year we went from weekly gatherings to monthly gatherings. People get busy and it seemed once a month was enough for everyone.

I always make two kinds of gluten-free soup, a vegan or vegetarian friendly soup and usually a meat or fish based soup. We invite anyone who wants to join us for an open house style evening, the first Tuesday of each month. Friends, friends of friends, family and strangers, all are welcome. Generally about 20 people show up to enjoy soup, bread and chocolate chip cookies. It is simple, nothing fancy, plastic spoons, paper plates and napkins.

I have collected soup recipes over the years, even putting together a self published collection of my soups to celebrate our fifth year, souvenirs for our followers. Of course I enjoy trying new recipes but it seems everyone has their favorites and I get the same requests over and over, Spinach Curry, Black Bean, Cheddar Corn Chowder are among the most popular. I cut some corners, usually using a base for broth but recently I have been hoarding chicken carcasses and vegetable peelings and cuttings from celery, onions, carrots and parsley. Today I had enough to make homemade stock. I can't actually say I appreciate the difference in quality, I am not sure my palate is discerning enough for that but I am thrifty and I do like using every morsel of food possible. So the idea of saving bones and bits and pieces of what would otherwise be wasted vegetables really appeals to me! I am so enamored by this that ideally I would like to save 6 months worth of waste, make stock and then can it. It is time consuming however, at least three quarters of day to put up stock.

I started with bones from three chickens that I had frozen and a large bag of large chopped pieces of carrots, celery, onions and parsley. No specific measurements here. I put all of this into a large roasting pan and roasted everything at 400 degrees for two hours. I transfered the roasted bones and vegetables to a large stock pot and added enough cold water to cover and heated the stock to just below a boil, about 190 -200 degrees and let is simmer for 6 hours. I did not stir, I did not add salt or pepper and I did not let it boil! I waited and I waited, watching the stock reduce and turn a rich rich golden color. After straining the stock it went into the fridge where it will sit overnight and in the morning I will skim the solidified fat off the stock and then freeze it. This is my third time making chicken stock and I am hoping for a very thick, gelatinous stock full of cartilage-building proteins! If all goes well, and I expect it will, I will have a wonderful stock for my famous Cheddar Corn Chowder which I am making for the season opener of soup night next Tuesday. Cheddar Corn Chowder is also Tina's favorite soup! It is a great early fall classic when sweet corn is at its peak!

Celebrating Sukkot

2010-09-21T13:25:00.000-07:00

We have been invited to celebrate Sukkot! Twice over! I didn’t come by the invitations honestly, I bribed, on facebook, with gifts. I am sure the invitations had nothing to do with my bribe, but I wanted to be sure we would have a place in a Sukkah. Tina and I are lucky; wonderful friends surround us! We are blessed with a culturally diverse group of friends that bring tremendous ritual into our lives. Our friends Mara and Miryam have taken us into their circle of feisty, smart, observant lesbian Jews, sharing one Jewish holiday after another with us. Sukkot is one of the more festive holidays! If you know me, you know I love fall, I love the season of harvesting, and putting food by, canning and preserving the season, the cooler weather, and bonfires . . . the list is endless. So the idea of a holiday that celebrates the fall, that has its roots in agriculture, a thanksgiving of sorts, pleases me to no end.

I am riveted by the Jewish faith, especially the rituals that surround the holidays. We were invited to our first Passover this past year. I studied for days before hand so I could follow the prayers and understand the symbols and even offer some ideas of my own about the Seder plate. I found a kosher wine expert in Illinois and arrived with two really nice bottles of kosher for Passover wine for our hosts and a bottle of kosher grape juice for myself. I didn’t want to be left out of any part of the evening. So of course I am preparing for my first Sukkot during which I will be invited to spend an evening in a sukkah.

During the seven days of Sukkot, Jewish households leave their solid dwellings and spend time in porous, fragile huts, a physical reminder of their vulnerability and dependence on God for gifts of shelter, food, warmth and protections. The sukkah’s religious function is to commemorate the temporary structures that the Israelites dwelled in during their exodus from Egypt, but it is also about the universal ideas of transience and permanence as expressed in archatecture. The sukkah is a means of ceremonially practicing homelessness, while at the same time remaining deeply rooted. It calls on us to acknowledge the changing of the seasons, to reconnect with an agricultural past and to take a moment to dwell on and dwell in impermanence. Most Jews, who put up a Sukkah, will spend as much time as possible in the temporary dwelling, taking their meals and even sleeping in the Sukkah if they choose.

In celebration of the holiday, in keeping with the spirit of harvesting and thanksgiving I have put together gifts of my own harvest for my hosts, tomatoes that I have canned, roasted and stewed, fire roasted red peppers, homemade applesauce, fig chutney and Tina’s famous caramel sauce. I am looking forward to spending Thursday morning at a local synagogue, participating in the prayers and service of the first day of Sukkot and then spending the second evening with our friends Mara and Miryam having dinner in their sukkah. Later next week, toward the end of the seven-day holiday we will spend another evening celebrating with our friends Sam and Darla. It is pure joy for me to participate in these intimate, spiritual and family gatherings and celebrations.

Lemongrass Paste, Tempeh and Tofu

2010-09-09T13:27:00.001-07:00

There is something oh so comforting about a life long friend, they fit like a favorite pair of old shoes and you never want to give them up. That's how I feel about my friend Helen, one of my oldest and most treasured friends. She and her partner moved away about four years ago and while I don't like the physical distance one bit, our friendship has more than sustained the distance. We have know each other since grade school, struggled with some of life's most difficult challenges together, like the death of our mother's which occurred within 6 months of each other, coming out and a few other remarkable events. When Helen and her partner come into town I pull out all the stops, no matter how busy. Helen is a vegan, Sarah does not eat sugar, I am gluten free and Tina, well Tina is a meat and potato kind of gal. Needless to say, I have my hands full to meet all of our needs but I love the planning, the challenge and most of all visiting over a great meal.

My foray into tofu continues and this time I experimented with some tempeh. The menu included kabobs marinated in lemongrass paste, including tofu, tempeh and beef, grilled bok Choy with a peanut sauce, grilled polenta with sweet red pepper and onion wedges and Tina made Apple Crisp that we all could enjoy! It was festive, colorful and tasty.

Lemongrass paste is a wonderful paste for grilling, adding an asian flair to meats, tofu or tempeh. It works on just about anything lamb, shrimp, pork, beef and of course tofu or tempeh. I smeared the lemongrass paste over everything that was going on my kabob skewers, vegetables included, the night before grilling. I especially wanted the tofu to have a chance to absorb the paste.

Lemongrass Paste

2 stalks lemongrass (I use 4)

2 shallots, minced

1/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 teaspoons fish sauce

2 teaspoons red pepper flakes

Cut off and discard the dried grasslike top half of the lemongrass. Trim the base of the bulb and then remove and discard the tough outer leaves. Using only the white and light green parts, cut in half lengthwise, and then cut crosswise to mince finely.

In a small bowl, combine all the ingredients. I use an emulsion blender. Use immediately, or transfer to a jar with a tight-fitting lid and refrigerate for three days or freeze for 2 months. Smear paste on what ever you want to grill, let it sit for a few hours or overnight and then grill.

Honey Harvest

2010-08-31T07:13:00.000-07:00

We are just a little bit excited around here! Last week my beekeeping partner and I harvested three frames of honey from our bee hive. We should not have taken so much honey, it was a greedy gesture but we could not help ourselves. You see, we have a very strong colony with a prolific Queen. There is a tremendous amount of growth in the colony but not much honey. We are hoping to overwinter the bees which means we should have left the honey for the bees. Hopefully in the next month or so there will be enough foraging that the bees will store more honey for the winter. Regardless overwintering is tricky and even with enough honey the bees might not survive.

We have learned a great deal over the course of the summer, starting with two hives. We stood by and watched the complete collapse of one hive that was queen-less from the start. It was an emotional struggle with a high learning curve. I felt like an irresponsible beekeeper that could have and should have intervened sooner. I should have listened to my mentor who recognized the signs within days. Instead I consulted an array of beekeepers, all experts with great knowledge and experience. Torn between who to listen to we did not take any action and hoped for the best. Meanwhile our second hive thrived and delighted us with each visit. We had a few bumps in the journey, a period of time in which we though we had lost the Queen but this time we acted on the advice and generosity of my mentor and the colony has multiplied and multiplied.

So last Monday Paula and I removed three frames of honey and brought them home to harvest some honey. We were overwhelmed with excitement and energy. Neither of us had any idea what we were doing, having never harvested honey before. We removed the wax casings from the frame and let the honey drip into a large container. A few days later we strained the honey, three times through three different size strainers. I wanted pristine honey that would glimmer in the jar. We no sooner got started straining when we became completely preoccupied with dipping fingers and licking honey from our hands. We stopped abruptly and proceeded to toast slice after slice of bread and lathered the honey on the toast. Even Tina got in on the fun. In the end we had about two gallons of honey, enough to fill about 50 four ounce jars.

I am not a huge fan of honey. In fact, I don't really use honey much at all. I didn't come to this hobby with the longing of a harvest. Getting honey was always the second story for me. However, I am beyond delighted to hand out my little jars of honey to family and friends who have followed our journey. Most of my honey has gone to my Tibetan friends who regard the honey as medicine. My friend Pema took a jar to a local monastery of Buddhist Monks who are blessing the honey. I also recently learned that honey is a traditional part of the Jewish new year celebration so I am doling out jars to all my Jewish friends for Rosh Hashanah. Nothing gives me more pleasure than giving away the harvest. Of course I saved a jar for myself.

My original hope was that somehow I would be tamed and tempered by the bees. I long for something that will quiet me down, slow me in a way that I will become more deliberate and mindful. While I am still convinced that bee keeping can lead to this end, it was an utter failure this summer. I brought way to much stress and worry about my work life to the bee yard which is exactly what I was hoping to temper. I won't beat myself up over this, it was an unusual spring and summer with ongoing worry about contract negotiations and striking at work. My worries about work are far from over and the bee keeping season is winding down so any opportunity to be quieted will have to wait for next summer. Regardless I remain hopeful that next season will bring a new opportunity for this lofty goal. In the meantime Paula and I are committed to another year! I also wanted to give back to the planet in some small way and to that end our landowner tells us he has the best, most robust vegetable garden he has ever had and attributes that to the bees. So in the end we provided some pollinating serves to a generous land owner which is very satisfying.

Salsa Boy Helps Open the Canning Season

2010-08-19T10:53:00.001-07:00

Our nephew Chase is a connoisseur of sorts. This guy knows salsa. He tells me he can go through a jar of store bought salsa in a day or two. Chips and salsa are his go to food. Last week he and Tina made fresh pico de gallo. I watched. They chopped tomatoes, red onion, garlic, cilantro, and jalapeño. And then they ate, all of it, save a bite or two for Chase to take home.

This got me thinking, Chase might like to can salsa. While I am an avid seasoned canner, I have never canned salsa before. It wasn't so much the canning that had me stumped, it was a recipe. I had enjoyed the best salsa ever from my friend Heidi. Lucky me, she was more than willing to share her recipe.

Now Chase is a good worker and he was excited about the idea but I decided to do a fair amount of prepping prior to his arrival. I peeled and seeded 12 pounds of Roma tomatoes, diced 6 onions, four multi-colored peppers and all the jalapeño peppers prior to his arrival. He still had to help dice the tomatoes, and chop the parsley and cilantro once he arrived.

This was a kitchen adventure to be sure and Chase is leaving with 11 pints of fresh homemade salsa he made and canned himself. He would be leaving with 12 pints but we have already polished off a jar.

Heidi's Salsa with influences from Chase!

10 pounds Roma tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced (we used 12)

2 cans of tomato paste to thicken at the end

6 large onions, diced

7 jalapeños minced

16 bulbs of garlic, more if you like

2 tablespoons salt

1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper

2 cups of white vinegar

2-3 tablespoons sugar

4 multi-colored peppers, green yellow, red, orange

one bunch each of chopped parsley and cilantro

ground red pepper and cumin to taste

Combine everything in a large pot and bring to a boil, simmer for about 45 minutes then add the tomato paste to thicken, continue to simmer another 15 minutes or so. Pack into pint sized jars and process for 15 minutes in a water bath canner.

Tips: I peeled and seeded the tomatoes the day before we made the salsa and kept them in a strainer in the fridge over night with a plate and a heavy heavy container on top to promote draining as much liquid out of the tomatoes as possible. Wear gloves when working with the jalapeño peppers.

It is all about good ingredients!

2010-08-15T03:32:00.001-07:00

I don't remember who told me that good ingredients make the dish but it is true, it just is. I spend a great deal of my disposable income on food. I can attest to the fact that if you get a high quality ingredient you might pay a little more but your going to get a better result in the end. So this vegan cheese, Daiya Mozzarella style shreds, is genius. I have tried other vegan cheese, they just disappoint. But http://www.daiyafoods.com/ is different. You can get the Mozarella or cheddar product (think vegan nachos). I first read about Daiya over at Katrina's blog, http://glutenfreegidget.blogspot.com/ . If you have not checked out this gluten-free blogger you must!

I started to google Daiya cheese and read review after review about how great this stuff was, melted like ordinary dairy cheese, tasted great, and free of all the major allergens. I am a skeptic so I had to try it. We invited our friends Paula and Andrea over for pizza. Andrea recently went gluten-free, dairy free and soy free so she would be the perfect judge. The challenge was on to find a crust. Score, on my first thought, Udi's pizza crust fit the criteria. Udi's gluten-free bread is the only bread worth eating so I figured the crust would good too. This isn't post about Udi's but good grief if your gluten free and have not tried Udi's bread you simply must! Imagine, gluten-free bread you don't need to toast.

We made two pizza's a spinach and mushroom pizza and another pizza with a variety of roasted peppers. Both were very very good. I followed Daiya's instructions, using 4 ounces of cheese for a 10 inch pizza. Next time I might back off on the volume just a little. But the cheese was really spectacular, it melted, it stretched, it oozed, it tasted great! I was thrilled. As for Udi's crust, not so much, I have had better. In all fairness to Udi's I did forget to bake the crust for a few minutes before topping it which is an extra step I usually take when making gluten-free pizza. I just find the crust cooks better and gets a little crispier.

Daiya cheese is a winner and a product I would recommend without hesitation, even after just one experience. Next up vegan nacho's with the cheddar! Helen, when are you coming?

A Lesbian That Doesn't Eat Tofu, How is That Possible?

2010-08-08T17:48:00.000-07:00

I may have had a bite or two here and there but essentially I haven't ever really had tofu. I know it is the food of my people, so how is that possible. I could list a million reason but the truth is, I find tofu uninspiring, boring and of an odd texture. It sort of grosses me out. This past Wednesday I was invited to our friends Mara and Miryam's for dinner. I love these two people and spending time with them is one of my most favorite things to do. When they asked if I liked tofu I had to admit I had really never had it, other than a bite off of a plate of a friend who had ordered tofu. "A lesbian that has never had tofu, how is that possible" they both asked. So in the spirit of changing that I said I would love to try it. I will admit I was apprehensive about my tofu debut. Miryam made grilled tofu kabobs and I enjoyed them, I enjoyed them quite a bit, so much so that I agreed to take a kabob home which I divided up into salads I made for myself for my work weekend. Yes, I even like the cold tofu. So, I took the adventure one step further when Tina invited our 15 year old niece, recently gone vegetarian for dinner. Informed of this invitation at nearly 9:30 last night I did a quick internet study, I needed extra firm tofu and I needed it then. I sent Tina off to the store so I could continue my study. Following what seemed to be very good directions I drained the tofu, placed it on a plate and put our cast iron skillet on top. 30 minutes later, nearly a cup of liquid had oozed from this weird mass. I cut it into cubes and marinated it in traditional BBQ sauce, GF of course. 16 hours later the cubes were swelling and I threaded them on to skewers with onions, mushrooms, and peppers and then grilled them. They were stunning and according to Taylor, who surely knows a great deal more about tofu than I do, they were very tasty and the best tofu she had ever had. I liked them as well.

But, I have to admit the highlight of the dinner was a gluten free curried couscous. That's right gluten free couscous. I first read about this product over at Gluten Free Girl and was immediately intrigued. It is a corn and rice based product made by Bacchini. I love couscous and it is one of those things I do miss a great deal. I am not really a fan of quinoa which is considered a top choice gluten free substitute for couscous. You can imagine my delight when I learned about this product. The down side of course is that it is impossible to find and I had to order it from a spot in Seattle. This is a menu I will repeat, grilled tofu and couscous.

Gluten Free Curried Couscous

1 1/2 cups Bacchini gluten free CousCous

1 tablespoon butter

1 1/2 cups boiled water

1/3 cup plain yogurt

1/3 cup olive oil

1 1/2 teaspoons white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon curry powder

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 cup grated carrots

1/2 cup minced parsley

3/4 cup dried cranberry, or any dried fruit you like

1 cup blanched slivered almonds, toasted

1 bunch scallions, sliced, white and green parts

1/2 cup diced red onion

Place couscous in a medium container with a tight fitting lid. Melt the butter in the boiling water and pour over the couscous. Cover tightly and allow the couscous to soak for 5 minutes, fluff with a fork. Whisk together the yogurt, olive oil, vinegar, curry, turmeric, salt and pepper. Pour over the fluffed couscous and mix well. Add the carrots, parsley, dried fruit, almonds, scallions and red onion, mix well. Serve at room temp. Of course you can vary the additions to anything you like!

A Raw Lunch at Ecopolitan

2010-08-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

I have been gluten free for four years now, no big deal. I manage quite well. Could I be a vegetarian? Easily, but I really do like meat. Could I be a vegan, sure, but it would be hard, especially gluten free. Could I adhere to a raw food diet? Probably not, but I sure liked my introduction at Ecopolitan, a raw food restaurant that is 100% organic, vegan, gluten free and raw. (http://www.ecopolitan.com/) The good news is that I have a very adventuresome palate and enjoy eating new foods. So my visit to Ecopolitan was a blast and I will return.

I just don't think I have the where-with-all to master raw cooking but I am intrigued beyond measure and was sorry that Ecopolitan did not have a cookbook. I am also intrigued enough that I would consider taking a raw food class at my local co-op (Tina I promise this won't get out of hand). I don't know anything about raw cooking but the food I had today was wonderful and after a simple google search I learned there are all kinds of merits to a raw food diet. If I was Oprah and had someone cooking for me day in and day out, I might give it a whirl for a while. In the mean time I am going to visit Ecopolitan as often as I can.

I went to Ecopolitan with my good friend Kathy who is equally as adventuresome at the table as I am. We are a good pair when it comes to eating out. We both enjoyed a carrot gazpacho to start which was simply wonderful, bursting with flavor. I had the Falafel Wrap which was a collard leaf wrap with hummus, falafel, cucumber, tomato, olives, sprouts and tahini-garlic dressing. I am so going to make my next wrap with a collard leaf, sturdy, crisp and tasty. Kathy had a Flaxseed Tostada, lentil taco meat, greens, marinated mushroom, onion, olives, cilantro, cashew "sour cream," and hot sauce served atop a flaxseed-sunflower shell. Chances are I will be back tomorrow. Since Tina is out of town I am going to indulge!

The Summer that Just Got Underway!

2010-07-22T04:55:00.000-07:00

It has been a long, arduous 6 months around here. I have done very little other than gain some unwanted weight from mindless, unhealthy stress eating. I belong to the Minnesota Nurses Association, a professional union that represents over 12,000 nurses at 6 hospital systems in the Twin Cities. Every three years we negotiate our contract. In my tenure at Children's Hospital I have gone through probably 10 negotiations, most of them were unremarkable in nature. Oh there was a close call in 2001 and one hospital system did in fact go out on strike but for the most part we have worked through these negotiations fairly, professionally and ethically. This year was different, this year our employers chose a road of union busting tactics that were scary, hurtful and have forever changed the relationship with the 12,000 nurses in the Twin Cities. I was very close to the negotiations, I had a front row seat and witnessed some really difficult exchanges. I watched my employer lie. I watched the media spin a story that simply didn't reflect the facts. I was interviewed on several occasions by members of the media and failed to learn exactly how they distort words. I went out on a one day strike, I was emotionally and financially prepared for a four month strike. I was consumed and preoccupied for 6 months. I don't want to belabor this issue, it is behind me, not without some serious scars but I want to move forward. I want my summer to start, I want to spend time at the bee yard, I want to enjoy my early morning walks and I want to stop eating potato chips.

Fortunately for me our annual summer trip to Naples, Florida was schedule a week after we settled our contract so I had an opportunity for a transition, a week physically away from here and a week to clear my mind. It was just the tonic I needed, the perfect reset button. Every summer we invite our nieces to spend the week with us at the Naples, Ritz. I Can't say enough about off season travel which is the only reason we can afford this week. Only Katie was able to join us this year and we had a blast. We gave Katie scuba certification for a Christmas gift so she would be able to go scuba diving with Tina. The two of them spent a day in Key Largo diving, even saw a nurse shark, a highlight for Tina. They also went parasaling together, more shark sightings. We even spent an afternoon at the new Naples water park. I think it was the slides at the water park that finally knocked the negotiation stuff out of my head, making room for my summer to start!

So here it is almost August and it finally feels like summer has started. I am hoping to make the most of the dog days left. My bees are good, maybe without a queen but I am hoping to manage that issue later today with my gracious mentor who is helping me. We are having company for dinner on Monday so I am planning a fun, gluten free menu that includes passion fruit smoothies. The MN State Fair is less than a month away which means gluten free french fries. And of course canning season is almost here. Tina is headed to my brothers cabin for the weekend, leaving me behind to work, unless of course I decide to call in sick and join her. A year ago I would not have been capable of that but sadly, my work ethic was certainly a casualty of these negotiations, something that will take more than a week to restore and recover.

The Novice, the Mentor and The Bees

2010-05-26T06:30:00.000-07:00

Nearly a year ago I was reacquainted with a high school friend who had taken up beekeeping. I had a visceral desire to keep bees but lacked the where-with-all to empower myself to take up beekeeping. Suddenly the world had possibility and Kathy agreed to mentor me. I didn't realize that one of the most important lessons of this endeavor was underway. I come to the beekeeping with lofty hopes, hopes to be tamed, with the idea that somehow the art of beekeeping and the bees will empower me to be more mindful, more deliberate, more contemplative and allow me to slow down. My work life is intense, managing critically ill children in the hospital. I am the person families turn to in their most intimate and vulnerable moments. While I love my work it spends me in a way I can articulate. I am also exceptionally good at what I do, an expert and the mentor. It has been a very long time since I was the novice. The lesson of the novice have gotten lost in my life. This past year, I have been in the throws of that lesson, humbled by the simplicity of learning how to ask for help and navigate this journey with others. None of my usual tactics worked to avoid having to ask for help. Three comprehensive beekeeping classes, reading book after book, and still, I needed help. I say all the time, no question is without merit but still, it is hard for me to ask. You see I don't like to appear as though I have not done my homework or am unprepared. But this beekeeping business, well it is beyond academics, it is all learning in the field and not fit for a solo journey. In order to master this I have to ask questions and I have to have help. It is not easy to ask someone to take three hours out of their day to join me at my apiary , to help me with my hive inspections, to point out the difference between the workers and the drones. I am overwhelmed with the graciousness of my mentor, not just for the time and the assistance but for the process of this lesson, for helping me understand that it is also a gift to be the mentor.

The bees, they are lessons in themselves. We have two colonies, a hive of Italian honey bees and a hive of Carniolan honey bees. The Italian honey bees are thriving, building comb, full of brood, bringing in nectar and pollen, doing exactly what they should be doing. I get very jazzed up when I open the hive and see the wonder of collective work unfolding in front of me, revealing another lesson I hope to learn about, collaboration.

The Carniolan hive, well that is a different story and perhaps we will learn more about beekeeping from this hive and it's struggles than the Italian hive will teach us. It is difficult to know exactly what is going on with these bees. They have struggled from the get go. When we picked up the packages there were a fair amount of dead bees in the bottom of the Carniolan package, way way more than the Italian package. In retrospect I wish I had noticed this at the pick up and requested a different package. We had trouble getting our Queen in this hive and we are having trouble determining if she is there or not, or if maybe the hive has already requeened itself, all very complicated issues. We have had good but different input about what to do about the hive. Opinions vary. I have struggled with making decision about how to manage the hive. I want to be a responsible beekeeper and do what ever I can to help manage the hive. I want to make good, informed decisions. I think I have finally settled on an approach that is comfortable for me. Last evening during my field beekeeping class at the U of M the professor, Dr. Marla Spivak, a bee geek to be sure, made the following statement, "If you don't know what to do, don't do anything. The bees have a remarkable way of sorting themselves out and can make themselves right. Just let them be, they will figure things out." Another lesson since I like to meddle!

For my friend Colleen

2010-05-18T08:42:00.000-07:00

As promised those T.V. dinner recipes are going eventually make it here. This recipe for Halibut Fillets with a Coconut Milk-Mustard Seed Sauce is out of this world. The delicate but rich sauce is perfect for smothering firm-fleshed halibut fillets, especially served with rice to mop up all the sauce. Of course you could use any firm-fleshed fish to pair with the succulent sauce. While Indian food is somewhat labor intensive I find doing some of the work ahead of time is a great way to break up the work. You can easily make the curry for this dish ahead of time and then simply throw the dish together at the last minute! I served this recently to my life long friend Colleen and her son Wil who came to visit a few weeks ago. I have known Colleen since I was about four years old. We lived across the street from each other for years and went to school together from kindergarten until 12th grade. There simply isn't anything like someone who has know you and your family for that amount of time. In some ways Colleen knows me better than I know myself. I am grateful to have a life long friend and I am simply crazy about her son Wil, a delightful young man who just puts a big smile on my face. So Colleen, this post is for you!

Halibut Fillets with A Coconut Milk-Mustard Curry Sauce

Adapted from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer

1/2 teaspoon ground tumeric

1 1/2 pounds skinless pieces of halibut fillet (2-3 inches thick)

2 tablespoons canola oil

1/2 teaspoon black or yellow mustard seeds (I used black)

1 tablespoon skinned split black lentils (cream-colored in this form, also called urad dal)

1 cut finely chopped red onion

2 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro

1 cup unsweetened coconut milk (I tried to just use the solid milk from a large can)

2 teaspoons sambhar masala (see below)

1 teaspoon kosher salt

10 fresh curry leaves (I did not have these on hand and simply used more cilantro)

1 large tomato, cored and finely chopped

Dust halibut on both sides evenly with turmeric, pressing into the flesh. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or longer.

Heat 1 teaspoon oil in small sauce pan over medium high heat, add the mustard seeds, cover and cook until the seeds stop popping, about a minute. Add the lentils and stir-fry until they turn golden brown, 30-60 minutes or longer, don't burn! Add onion and cook 5-7 minutes. Add the coconut milk, cilantro, masala, salt and curry leaves if you have them. The coconut milk should start to boil at which point you will lower the heat to medium and simmer, uncovered until the sauce thickens, about 10 minutes. Stir in the tomato and cook just until warmed through but tomatoes remain firm, about 2 minutes.

Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in a medium size skillet over medium heat. Add halibut fillets and sear until light brown on each side, 2-3 minutes per side. Pour the curry sauce over the fillets , scrapping the bottom of the skillet to release any bits of fish and incorporate them into the sauce. Cover the pan and poach the fish, basting frequently with the sauce, until the fillets are barely starting to flake, 6-8 minutes. Serve.

Sambhar Masala

1/2 cup firmly packed medium size fresh curry leaves (You will need to find and Indian grocery store to supply these!)

1/2 cup dried red Thai or cayenne chilies, stems removed

1/4 cup yellow split peas (chana dal)

1/4 cup coriander seeds

2 tablespoons cumin seeds

1 tablespoon fenugreek seeds

1 tablespoon black or yellow mustard seeds (I use black)

1 tablespoon white poppy seeds

2 cinnamon sticks, each 3 inches long, broken into smaller pieced

1 tablespoon unrefined sesame oil or canola oil

Combine all the spices in a medium-size bowl, drizzle the oil over them and toss, coating the spices evenly.

Preheat a medium-size skilled over medium-high heat. Add the mixture and roast, stirring until the curry leaves curl up and appear dry and brittle, the chilies blackened slightly, the split peas turn dark brown, the coriander, cumin and fenugreek turn reddish brown, the mustard seeds pop, swell up and look ash-black, and bobby seeds are tan, 3-4 minutes.

Immediately transfer the pungent, nutty-smelling spices to a plate to cool! Don't let them sit in the pan, they will continue to cook and take on a bitter taste. Once cool grind the spice mixture in a spice grinder in batches until it resembles that of finely ground pepper. If the spices are completely cool they will acquire unwanted moisture from the heat of the grinding and become cakey. Transfer the blend to an air tight container.

A well ventilated kitchen is a must for making this blend. Roasting the large quantity of chilies may cause a coughing fit.

Box Lunches

2010-05-12T08:37:00.001-07:00

I have been quite busy lately and it seems like May is just slipping away! My bees are changeling me in way I did not expect. Our contract negotiations are not going well and it has been a very disheartening process. As I write this post, I am preparing for another informational picket this afternoon, wondering if I will be part of large labor strike in a few weeks. We are still celebrating Tina's appointment and busy with end of the academic year activities! My friends Mara and Miryam are still in crisis mode so I have been delivering food to sustain them every Tuesday. Today I made lunches for my upcoming work weekend. It took less than two hours total to put these together and I can assure you my colleagues are going to be salivating when I dig into these gluten-free meals. I have been cooking out of Grill Every Day by Diane Morgan, she is simply genius. Every single recipe is a winner and I am working my way though each and every one of them. I have never prepared polenta by scratch or using the precooked tubes, nor have I had polenta very often. The photo of this dish looks so good I had to try it and decided to pair it with a Middle Eastern Chickpea Salad. I love chickpeas and figured if the polenta dish failed at least I would have the salad. Both are wonderful.

Grilled Polenta with Sweet Red Peppers and Onion Wedges

serves 5

1 tube, 18 ounces precooked Polenta (I used San Gennaro)

olive oil

kosher salt

pepper

2 red bell peppers, or any peppers of your choice, quartered, seeded and deribbed

1 large walla walla or other sweet onion, cut into 1/2 inch thick slices

1/4 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese

Prepare grill.

Trim off the irregular ends of each, slice the polenta into ten half inch thick slices. Arrange on a rimmed baking sheet. Generously brush slices, both sides with olive oil and season with salt and pepper, add any other herb you might like. Brush peppers and onions with olive oil and season them.

Oil the grill grate. Arrange polenta slices directly over the hot fire and grill, turning once, until they have grill marks etched across both sides, 8 - 10 minutes total. While the polenta is grilling, arrange the peppers and onions over the fire and grill, turning once, until the edges begin to char and they are tenter but still firm, about 6 minutes.

To serve, cut the peppers into thin strips, slice the onion rounds in half, arrange 2 polenta slices, slightly overlapping them on each plate and top with some peppers and onions. Sprinkle with the cheese and serve immediately.

Chickpea Salad

6 tablespoons meyer lemon olive oil

freshly grated zest of one lemon

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoons ground pepper

1/8 teaspoons cayenne pepper

2 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 can pitted ripe olives, halved (I used Kalmata)

1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved

1 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped

4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

To make the dressing, in a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic, salt, pepper and cayenne.

In a large bowl,combine the chickpeas, olives, tomatoes, parsley and feta. Add the dressing and toss gently to combine. Set aside at room temperature for 30 minutes to allow the flavors to develop. Alternatively, cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days, remove from fridge and allow to sit for 30 minutes before serving.

Sweet Potato Curry

2010-05-03T12:41:00.000-07:00

I get very confused about the difference between a sweet potato and a yam. While this recipe calls for sweet potatoes I always use the darker orange fleshed potato when I make this which might be a yam, or at least labeled as such in the store. Quite frankly I am not sure it would matter what you used, including pumpkin. This is a tasty South Indian dish. The recipe below is adapted from Betty Crocker's Indian Home Cooking by Raghavan Iyer, my Indian cooking mentor. While quite an oxymoron, this is one of the best Indian cookbooks ever! The original recipe calls for 1/4 teaspoon asafetida, also know as hing. Asafetida is a spice which has a pungent, unpleasant smell in the raw form, powder or block. Once cooked it delivers a smooth flavor similar to leeks. Asafetida is never gluten free! In the powdered form it is laced with wheat flour to keep it from clumping. Some speculation has been made that in the brick form it might be GF. According to Raghavan, who did some research for me and translated the ingredients on a number bricks, it is not GF. I asked Raghavan to look into this for me after getting very very sick from eating something made with brick hing.

Sweet Potato Curry

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 teaspoon black or yellow mustard seeds (I always use black)

2 tablespoons yellow split peas, chana dal

1 pound sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch chunks

8 fresh karhi leaves or two tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

1 teaspoon Tangy Sambhar Powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup water

Heat oil and mustard seed in a deep 12 inch skillet over medium high heat. Once seeds begin to pop, cover pot and wait until popping stops. Add split peas, stir-fry for a minute or two, until the peas are golden brown. Add remaining ingredients except water; stir fry 1-2 minutes. Stir in water, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer 5-7 minutes or until sweet potato is tender.

Tangy Sambhar Powder

1/2 cup dried red thai chilies

1/4 cup dried yellow split peas, chana dal

2 tablespoons sesame seed

1 tablespoon tamarind pulp or grated lime or lemon peel

1 tablespoon coriander seed

1 teaspoon cumin seed

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl. Heat 6 inch skilled over medium high heat. Place mixture in skillet and roast 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly until seeds crackle, spices turn one shade darker and mixture has a nutty yet pungent aroma. Transfer to a bowl and cool completely. Place roasted spice blend into a spice grinder in batches, about 3 tablespoons at a time. Grind until mixture looks like the texture of finely ground pepper. Store in an airtight jar at room temperature for a month. After a month or so it starts to loose its full flavor.

T.V. Dinners

2010-05-03T04:30:00.000-07:00

While I may have eaten my share of Banquet style t.v. dinners growing up we didn't actually have a t.v. until I was about 12. My parents did a fair amount of socializing so weekend evenings always featured some frozen dinner in an aluminum tray that my mother heated in the oven. My favorite was the fried chicken with a dollop of instant mashed potatoes, frozen mixed vegetables and a spoonful of warm applesauce, chicken potpies, or Salisbury steak in some kind of gelatinous gravy with macaroni and cheese. We had 6 kids so this kind of convenience food defined my mother's cooking. We sat around the kitchen table, eating our dinner until the babysitter showed up, not realizing that these dinners were meant to be enjoyed in front of the t.v. My parents eventually got a small black and white t.v. but it was reserved for news and The Laurence Welk Show. My mom would tuck the T.V. cord into her purse, which plug into the t.v. as well as the wall, and off they went leaving us to other activities. It didn't take long for us to discover the blender cord was a viable substitute and we moved our t.v. dinners into the family room to watch Hogan's Hero's, The Brady Bunch and Bewitched.

I have redefined the 1950's style t.v. dinner! Gone are the aluminum trays, replaced with a microwavable tray and a delicious home cooked meal. I do a great deal of cooking for other people, delivering meals in times of celebration or crisis. I know most of my friends are very busy shuffling children here and there or taking care of elderly parents. I love to deliver a meal to ease the stress or help in celebrating a special event.

This week I delivered Indian inspired dinners to friends overwhelmed with an unexpected stressful event. Fried chicken and instant mashed potatoes are out! These dinners feature halibut fillets with a coconut milk-mustard seed sauce, greens with garlic and raisins, sweet potato curry and lime-flavored rice with roasted yellow split peas. The beauty of Indian food is that it saves well and is easily reheated, even gaining some flavor over time. Recipes coming in the weeks ahead.

Pasta Salad with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

2010-04-28T05:29:00.000-07:00

Spring always inspires me to cook a little lighter and move away from roasted root vegetable that seem to dominate the dinner plate during the long, dark, cold Minnesota winters. I love a spring that is slow in arriving, a gentle warming and the gradual appearance of green. But that hardly ever happens. It seems that I wake up one day and overnight a plethora of green emerges. It has been lovely here the past several weeks, warm and generally sunny. Life is good. My bees are in their hive. Tina was recently appointed Director of the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics program. I have saved enough money to be out of work for a month if we strike in June and my health is good. Last week I made a wonderful pasta salad loaded with fresh ingredients. I don't make pasta very often, gluten-free packaged pasta just isn't that good. Although I do have a friend who eats GF pasta just because she thinks it is better. I am still trying to find that perfect cooking point, where the pasta is done but not falling apart! This however was full of such other great ingredients that the pasta was less significant in the big picture. You can adapt it to meet your preference!

For the pasta

1/2 pound pasta (I used a combination of fusilli and penne)

kosher salt

olive oil

1 pound ripe tomatoes, seeded and medium-diced

3/4 cup good kalamata olives, pitted and diced

1 pound fresh mozzarella, medium diced

1/2 pound Genoa salami, diced

6 sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped

For the dressing

5 sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

6 tablespoons good olive oil

1 teaspoon capers, drained

2 teaspoons kosher salt

3/4 teaspoon ground pepper

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup packed basil leaves, julienned

Cook pasta in a pot of boiling salted water with a splash of oil to keep it from sticking together. Boil according to the directions on the package. I usually subtract a minute or two with GF pasta. Drain well and allow to cool. Place the pasta in a bowl and add the tomatoes, olives, mozzarella, salami, and chopped sun-dried tomatoes.

For the dressing, combine the sun-dried tomatoes, vinegar, olive oil, garlic, capers, salt and pepper in a food processor until almost smooth.

Pour the dressing over the pasta, sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese and basil, and toss well.

Korean BBQ

2010-04-22T09:18:00.000-07:00

I simply adore ethnic food, any ethnic food. Hungarian cuisine has surely captured my attention in the last two years and if all goes well, my love affair with Budapest is about to explode, but that is an entirely different story. If I really had my way I would travel to India and learn to cook from the Indian matriarchs over open air fires. My doctor does not feel I have the intestinal health to withstand some of the hygiene issues in India. So for now, I explore on my own where I have control over safe preparation practices and continue to dream.

I don't have any experience in cooking Korean food but before being diagnosed with Celiac Disease Tina and I would frequent a very authentic Korean restaurant in a little strip mall and eat kimchi, stone pot Bibimbap and Bulgogi. O.K. so I ate kimchi, Tina wouldn't touch it. The Bibimbap was the best. I loved the crispy rice sticking to the stone pot smothered with Gochujang, a savory fermented Korean condiment which I know know is laced with barley and wheat. So sad. I haven't tried to recreate the Bibimbap mostly because I don't have the stone pots and the idea of having Bibimbap without Gochujang, well not an option.

Tina loved the Bulgogi so I set out to recreate this BBQ beef dish, embellishing it with some grilled onions and asparagus (not a Korean element). I've actually made this several times. When Tina comes home from work and sees the beef marinating she always says the same thing, "Is this what I think it is?".

Korean BBQ

2 pound flank steak

1/2 cup gluten-free soy sauce

1/4 cup sweet sherry

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

5 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons fresh ginger minced

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1 shallot minced, or any onion of your choice

1/3 cup brown sugar

3 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes

salt and pepper to taste

Vegetables of your choice. I use a bunch of asparagus and an onion

Score meat with a knife about 1/8 inch deep in a diagonal pattern. This will help the meat absorb the marinade.

Mix the marinade ingredients together, I like to use an blender to make sure the ingredients are well incorporated. Place meat in a container or zip lock bag and cover with most of the marinade, reserve some to marinade any vegetable you might like to grill. Marinade at least a few hours, preferably overnight, turning occasionally.

Trim asparagus and cut to a size of your liking. I use just the tips and freeze the stems to make broth for soup at a later time. Cut onion into chunks if using and marinade both for a few hours or overnight.

When your ready to cook, drain marinade from meat and vegetable and prepare on a grill or broil. I like to grill the vegetables but you could roast or broil them as well. I cook the meat until it reaches about 140 degrees and then let it sit for 10 minutes before slicing. Slice thin and serve over rice.

"Your Celiac Disease is in complete remission"

2010-04-15T04:55:00.000-07:00

I have been diligent, never once knowingly eaten gluten. I wouldn't dare. It could kill me. I read the labels of everything I eat, I call manufactures to find out about processing practices, I grill chefs and servers at restaurants. I keep a kitchen that is not gluten free but take extreme measures to eliminate any risk of cross contamination. Recently I had a pediatric GI doc ask me about two toasters. Of course we have two toasters, are you kidding. I don't take any risks. Mine is the one with the smiley face, the gluten-free logo in our house. We have separate wooden spoons and separate strainers, food that has been contaminated is all clearly marked. I gave up an 8 week mission trip to India, a long time dream, because my physician did not feel it would be safe for me. I don't eat oat, the protein is too closely related to gluten. I believe everyone with Celiac Disease should be this vigilant. In my case, because I was diagnosed so late in life I had a gross amount of intestinal damage. It took four years for my intestine to recover. Even if I had ingested gluten over the course of the first three years of being gluten-free, I probably would not have known because I had lingering symptoms. I couldn't take a single risk if I wanted to recover. I have had an annual endoscopy, four in all, the gold standard for the diagnosis and evaluation of Celiac Disease. I remember getting the results after being gluten-free for a year, essentially unchanged, no improvement really. I was devastated.

I had my annual appointment with Dr. Murray, an internationally respected Celiac expert, this past Monday. During our conversation he asked me if I would be willing to work with the Mayo Clinic public relations folks to do a piece on Celiac Disease, to create awareness and profile an individual who has done well and copes with the demands of the disease. Dr. Murray said more than 60% of his Celiac population struggle with depression and compliance, it would be good for people to see someone who has such a positive attitude. I recalled my diagnosis, immediately after my first endoscopy, still slightly sedated. The physician who scoped me told me he was sending the biopsies but that he was diagnosing me now, based on his visual inspection. No doubt, I had Celiac Disease. I decided, right then and there, this was going to be about what I could have, not what I couldn't. I knew, going to a place of deprivation would not serve me well. Outside of not being able to take that trip to India, I have not shed a tear. I have never felt sorry for myself, I have never complained and I have never felt deprived. Of course there has been the annual disappointment of not being 100% recovered, I won't kid anyone, the slowness of recovery has been hard. And, I can't tell you what I would give to eat oat!

Trust me, a glass half full, is not my usual M.O. I tend to be more doom and gloom in nature, always considering the worst case scenario. So taking this approach was a huge change in strategy for me. I am fortunate, in so many ways. I have a brother with Celiac. I have a partner who provides unwavering support. I have friends and family who are willing to go to great length to cook safely for me. I am well educated. I have a very good job that provides an income to support my diet. I have health insurance, good health insurance. I have access to the best medical care in the country. I know how to navigate the health care system. With all of this in my favor, why would I go to a place of deprivation and depression.

I will be honest however. It isn't always easy. I don't get discouraged day to day but do worry about the long term risks associated with Celiac Disease, even treated Celiac, especially in individuals diagnosed late in life. I get frustrated every now and then, especially when I want safely fried french fries, my favorite. I like to think I have recovered from the disappointment of India but I am afraid that one will be with me for a very long time. But for the most part, I think Dr. Murray pegged me right. I am a good role model. I don't want to be the poster girl for Celiac Disease but if I can help others stay positive and healthy, I am happy to do so.

Crab Bisque

2010-03-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

We don't have fish or shellfish very often. Not because we don't like it, we do. I just don't have a great deal of confidence cooking seafood. I splurged in February, using a gift certificate to a local seafood store and some of my own hard earned money and made a special crab leg dinner. But these were not ordinary crab legs, they were Bristol Bay Red King crab legs from Alaska. Red King is the most prized crab in the word, hailed for their sweet succulent flavor and jumbo size, not to mention the snowy white meat. And when I say jumbo, I mean jumbo. I have never seen legs this size before, so long they didn't even fit in our largest pot. We feasted on baked potatoes, a salad and ate crab until we couldn't eat anymore. I froze all the shells and a few days later I used the shells to make crab stock which I also froze. This week I used the frozen stock to make Crab Bisque. Bisque's are involved, time consuming soups, so making the stock ahead of time is a real time saver! When I was called upon to help provide some meals for two friends who had surgery this week I was grateful to have the stock tucked away in the freezer, ready to be used.

Seafood Stock

You can make this stock in advance and freeze it using any seafood shells (shrimp, crab, lobster)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 1/2 cups shells from shrimp, crab or lobster, or a combination of shells.

2 cups chopped onions

2 carrots, unpeeled, chopped

3 stalks celery, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup good white wine

1/3 cup tomato paste

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

10 sprigs thyme

Warm olive oil in a stockpot over medium heat. Add the seafood shells, onions, carrots, and celery and sauté for 15 minutes, until lightly browned. Add the garlic, cook another 2 minutes. Add 1 1/2 quarts water, the wine, tomato paste, salt, pepper and thyme. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat, simmer for an hour. Strain through a sieve, pressing the solids. You should have about a quart of stock, make up the difference with wine or water. Freeze if not using immediately.

Crab Bisque

You can use any shellfish you want.

*1 pound of cooked crab meat, in bite size pieces, reserve shells.

4 cups seafood stock

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 cups chopped leeks, white and light green parts

1 tablespoon garlic, minced

pinch of cayenne pepper

1/4 cup Cognac or brandy

1/4 cup dry sherry

4 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup rice flour

1/3 cup tomato paste

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 cups cream, half and half or milk, hot but not boiling! (I used cream)

I used a combination of canned crab meat and fresh. Because I was pureeing the soup I figured the quality of the most of the crab did not matter so I used 13 ounces of good canned crab and about a pound of fresh crab removed from legs which I steamed, reserving the shells. If you want a more economic soup skip the fresh crab in pieces you put in at the end.

Place the seafood shells and seafood stock in a saucepan and simmer for 15 minutes. Strain and reserve the stock. If you don't have four cups, add water or wine.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large stock pot. Add leeks and cook for 10 minutes over medium heat, until tender. Add garlic and cook one more minute. Add cayenne and canned crab and cook over medium to low heat for 3 minutes. Add the Cognac and cook one minute, the add the sherry and cook 3 minutes longer. Transfer the crab and leeks to a blender or food processor and process until coarsely pureed. I am fortunate to have a vitmix and used this to puree my seafood.

In the same pot, melt the butter, add the rice flour and cook for at least a minute. Slowly add the cream stirring with a whisk or wooden spoon to make a roux, then add the seafood stock, slowly, thickening as you go along. Add the pureed crab, tomato paste, salt and pepper, puree again if you want a velvety smooth soup. Return to the pot and add the fresh cooked lumps of crab. Serve immediately. If you make this ahead of time, reheat slowly, stirring often over medium heat.

Budapest Reunion and GF Chicken Paprikash

2010-03-09T09:38:00.000-08:00

I never got to try Chicken Paprikash while in Budapest and found myself pining over plates of it that were served to Tina and her students. Wheat flour, the everlasting travel downer was always used as a thickener in the fiery sauce. When Tina said she wanted to host a reunion dinner for her students I knew right away that Chicken Paprikash would be on the menu and that it would be gluten-free. Finally I would get to sample this quintessential Hungarian favorite. I also knew that I would have a very palate savvy audience, well acquainted with good traditional Hungarian dishes. Wanting to impress, I held a dry run with Tina and her brother. I read and read, contemplating the recipes at hand, tweaking as I went along, making notes of my changes. I held my breath as Tina took her first bite. "You got it babe, you got it exactly!" I was thrilled and grateful for the kilo bag of sweet paprika I bought home with me. The reunion dinner will consume several cups of my authentic Hungarian paprika.

So this Friday 20 students who spent a month studying math with Tina in Budapest will come together for a reunion, showing pictures, telling stories and remembering the month they had in January. I am cooking all week, it is a big undertaking. The menu includes Chicken Paprikash, Hungarian Beef Stew, Hungarian Style Green Beans with dill, and potatoes (I don't have time to make enough spaetzle). For desert we will have Hungarian Shortbread Tart, raspberry and apricot.

Here is the recipe for the Chicken Paprikash I finally settled on.

2 tablespoons bacon grease (I used three pieces of bacon to get two tablespoons)

1 large onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, chopped

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

3 tablespoons sweet paprika

2-3 pounds of whole chicken cut unto pieces (I used a combination of boneless breast and thighs, both pounded *

14.5 ounces caned diced tomatoes (I used about 2 quart size cans of my own canned tomatoes drained, reserving half a cup of the liquid)

1 cup chicken broth

2 tablespoons rice flour

8 ounces sour cream

2 bay leaves

* Most recipes call for bone in chicken. Tina said most of the Chicken Paprikash they had in Budapest was made with pounded chicken breast. Use whatever you want.

Heat bacon grease in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, salt, red pepper flakes and paprika. Stir together cook until onion is translucent. Add chicken pieces, bay leaves and pour in the chicken broth. Cook over medium heat for 40 minutes, longer if using bone-in chicken, adding more broth if necessary. Remove and discard bay leaves. Remove chicken, add tomatoes to the pot. Puree the sauce in a blender, food processor or using an immersion blender. Return sauce to pan. In a medium bowl blend rice flour, sour cream and reserved tomato juice together. When well blended add mixture to the tomato sauce and return chicken to the pot. Stir until thick and headed through.

Hungarian Gulyás

2010-03-01T14:53:00.001-08:00

My soup night guests are in for a real treat tomorrow evening as I am throwing a Hungarian inspired evening. I've written about our soup nights before, initially weekly gatherings for 8 weeks in the fall during which we served soup for friends and family every Tuesday. The idea came out of a desire to create community and a regular gathering when I took a weekend position at work. We have hosted the gatherings for the past 9 years, this year going to a monthly evening over the course of the fall and winter. My love affair with soup began in my early 30's when my mother was dying of lung cancer. My mother had the most amazing friends, women who were strong role models for me. One of them brought homemade soup to our house once a week for nearly 18 months. I learned quickly that soup was a source of comfort and solace and I wanted nothing more than to master the art of making good homemade soup. It is perhaps one of my strongest suits in the kitchen. I love planning and preparing for soup night during the long dark days of fall and winter.

When we are in Budapest we devoure Hungarian Gulyás at almost every meal, savoring every bite. I am not a student of Hungarian cuisine but I have learned a thing or two about this classic dish. For starters, everyone in Hungary has their own idea of how to make Gulyás which is actually pronounced GOO-yash, no L. Some insist that an authentic version never contains flour or tomatoes, others insist that it is a soup, not a stew. It is probably somewhere in between and my standard is that it must have authentic Hungarian paprika. The name comes from the Hungarian word for cattle stockman or herdsmen who cooked the dish in a large cauldron called a Bogrács over an open fire in the countryside

While looking for a recipe to work with I stumbled upon a version from Sue Doeden, a food writer and chief living in Bemidiji, MN with a Hungarian background. I was drawn to her version because of the slowness of cooking she describes. Sue claims that the dish can not be rushed, good results come from patience. It took me more than half a day to make Sue's Gulyás. I must admit, the flavor is remarkably reminiscent of the Guláys in Budapest. Thanks Sue for a great addition to my repertoire, my guests are in for a real treat!

Sue Doeden's Hungarian Gulyás

4 slices bacon, chopped

2 medium yellow onions, chopped

1 1/2 pounds beef chuck, trimmed and cut into bit-sized pieces

1 large green bell pepper, chopped (I used red)

3 cloves garlic, minced

4 tablespoons sweet Hungarian paprika

2 teaspoons caraway seeds, toasted and ground

1 teaspoon dried marjoram leaves

4 cups beef broth

1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes

2 medium carrots, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (I cut mine into 1/4-inch)

1 1/2 pounds red potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes

kosher salt and pepper to taste

Heat a large, heavy Dutch oven or soup pot over medium heat. Add chopped bacon and fry until crisp. Use a slotted spoon to transfer bacon to a paper towel-lined plate and set aside. Add chopped onions to the hot bacon grease. Cook until translucent and tender. Increase heat to high, add beef and cook, stirring once or twice until meat is lightly browned, about 6 minutes. Add green or red pepper and garlic and cook for 2 minutes, until fragrant. Stir in paprika, caraway and marjoram. Add beef broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer gently for an hour, covered. Add diced tomatoes with juice and carrots, cover and simmer 30 minutes. Add cubed potatoes, cover and simmer another 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. An overnight in the refrigerator gives the flavors a chance to mingle and develop, a wait that is worth it.

Who Knew?

2010-02-24T09:11:00.001-08:00

Who knew you could get flour from chestnuts? Certainly not me and as an individual navigating a gluten free world, I am always in pursuit of new flours! My dear friend Kathy, the beekeeper knew. She gave me this package of gluten free chestnut flour for Christmas. I was undone, mostly by the generosity of someone who would go out of their way to find a unique, gluten free item for me to enjoy. Not only that, but shortly after she gave me the flour, she showed up with chocolate chunk muffins she had made with chestnut flour. I will confess, I ate all four of them during the course of that day. They were simply divine. I could tell right away the flour was sweet and mellow, perfect for baking.

The flour came from Allen Creek Farm, a chestnut farm in the Northwest. You can check out their website at www.ChestnutsOnLine.com for recipes and nutritional information. I have not seen this flour in any of my local grocery stores and I haven't read about it on other gluten-free blogs. As for myself, I am making more of those muffins Kathy gave me!

Kathy's Chestnut Flour Chocolate Chunk Muffins

2 cups chestnut flour

3/4 to 1 cup coconut flour

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum

2 eggs

1 stick butter, softened

3/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup dark chocolate chunks or morsels

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment whip the butter and brown sugar together at high speed for two minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time and mix until creamy. Add the vanilla. Mix the dry ingredients together. Add half the dry ingredients to the bowl with the butter mixture and mix slowly, add the milk, mix and then add the remaining dry ingredients until well incorporated. Add the chocolate chunks. Fill cupcake tins lined with muffin liners about 3/4 full. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely.

My labor of love, celebrating Valentine's day

2010-02-10T13:30:00.000-08:00

I started making these cookies Tina’s first year of teaching at Carleton College. What started as a whim to make something for her to bring her department for Valentine’s Day has turned into an annual, very much-expected event. The fact that they have a Hungarian history is simply a coincidence!

The Linzer cookie has its roots in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a period of time between 1867 and 1918 during which there was a monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdome of Hungary. The cookie is actually an evolution of the famous Linzer Torte, named after the city of Linz in Austria. The Linzer Torte is Austria’s most famous dessert and is the oldest cake in the word. Using the same ingredients as the torte, two cookies are sandwiched together with a layer of preserves. The top cookie is dusted with powdered sugar and has a round cutout showing the preserves, making it resemble an eye and getting the nickname, Linzer Eyes, or Linzer Auger. These famous Austro-Hungarian desserts made their way to the US in 1850 when Franz Holzhuber, a famous Austrian artist/musician traveled to the US to work as an orchestra conductor. He was waylaid and ended up becoming a baker, introducing the torte to America. He also left many fine sketches and watercolor paintings of the New World as he saw it.

Enough history! These glutinous cookies are time consuming and a labor of love, making them the perfect Valentine. The dough is a simple mix of butter, flour and sugar, which is chilled, rolled out, cut, chilled again, baked and assembled. It takes the better part of two days for me to make seven dozen. Enough for Tina’s department and several friends. Tina’s colleagues rave about the cookies and while Tina never asks, I know she is always hoping they will appear in time for a Valentine delivery. Perhaps the greatest labor of love in these cookies is that they are not gluten-free. I can’t eat them and cleaning up after the baking is a huge ordeal that involves a deep cleaning of the entire kitchen, every surface, nook and cranny is cleaned and washcloths are thrown away. Nothing else gets cooked in the kitchen the day I make these cookies. Safety first!

Hungarian Beekeeping

2010-02-08T09:38:00.000-08:00

I am just getting back into my routine after a whir-wind trip to London, Budapest and Paris. I am fortunate, having married an academic who's work takes us to Budapest. I worked countless extra shifts this summer and fall, saving my pennies so I could experience the best these places had to offer. Highlights included the ballet in London and wonderful Indian food every night and standing under a full moon at the Eiffel Tower with the love of my life. However, my over the top day was a trip to the Hungarian Bee Museum and Agricultural Center and visit to a private beekeepers apiary in Godollo, just east of Budapest.

While it is the Hungarian system of Mathematics that takes us to Budapest it really beekeeping and honey for which they are most famous. OK, they are also famous for their wine but that doesn't interest me like beekeeping.

Last year when we were in Budapest I meet Carolyn Bánfalvi, a food and wine writer and chef living in Budapest. Carolyn is the owner and founder of Taste Hungary, a tour company based in Budapest specializing in food, wine and market tours in Budapest and Hungary. I took a tour of several Hungarian markets with Carolyn and knew just were to go when I wanted to explore beekeeping in Hungary. Carolyn and her husband Gábor arranged the day excursion and Gábor was my guide and translator for the day.

We traveled by way of car to Godollo, about an hour or so east of Budapest and arrived at the museum and research station which is situated in a botanical park. The museum was opened in 1983 as a showpiece for the International Apimondia Conference which was held in Hungary that year. We were meet by a Hungarian beekeeper who was our host and guide. Our guide provided some historical background for the property and then took us inside the museum which houses ancient hives, tools and extractors. As we looked about the two story building which was stone cold, the progress of European beekeeping was evident from skep boxes to hives and smokers that required beekeepers to blow into a metal tube to get smoke. Our guide explained that it is easy to recognize a Hungarian beekeeper as they are missing their two front teeth from using the old smoker. The museum was chalk full of interesting beekeeping equipment.

Then we went into the research station. I was grateful to move into a heated building. Until recently the research station was strictly dedicated to the study of bees but economics in Hungary have lead to a significant loss of funding and they now share the space with other sciences. Each and every individual I meet here spoke to the difficulty of funding and the lack of money to conduct their research. One of the primary responsibilities of the agricultural ministry is to certify and licence queen breeders.

There are 44 queen breeders in Hungary. Every year, all 44 breeders must send five queen bees to the center for inspection. The technician explained that each of the five bees is evaluated on three things, their stingers, their wings and the color of their body. It was difficult to understand exactly what they were looking for in the queens but it seemed that by measuring the veins in the wings they could determine if the queen was a pure Carniolan Honey Bee. They kept telling me that a pure strain was essential and that they don't have any Africanized Bees in Hungary. At any rate, if all five bees did not pass all three inspections the breeder would not be certified and could not sell their bees! The center also tests for other diseases, especially American Foulbrood Disease. They also keep a database of beekeepers in Hungary, apparently the list is 17,000 long. They alert beekeepers to agricultural spraying, timing of blossoms for hive moving purposes and also inspect private apiary's before and after each season.

If American Foulbrood is discovered by an inspector all the bees, hives, any associated equipment and product must be destroyed by fire and the apiary is quarantined for 90 days. If the beekeeper identifies the disease before the inspector the same treatment occurs but the beekeeper is reimbursed for 90% of their costs. American Foulbrood is a very serious brood disease!

Hungary has over 700,000 beehives and exports 15,000 tuns of honey and honey products a year. The most famous Hungarian honey is Acacia, which is a black locust tree originally planted in 1794. The botanical park on which the bee museum and research station stood was home to hundreds of Acacia trees.

After our visit to the museum we made our way to a private apiary and meet a traditional Hungarian Beekeeper. Jósef was a gracious host and has been keeping bees for over 30 years. He has over 100 hives in his very small back yard. They actually call them families in Hungary, rarely referring to a "hive". He showed us his entire operation. There are very little ordinances in Hungary regulating where hives can be kept and according to Jósef, his neighbors were just fine with his 100 hives. He also claimed that Hungarian beekeepers are perfectionists and they don't have any problem with mites or disease. When I asked him why he thought we had such overwhelming problems with beekeeping in the US he essentially said American beekeepers are sloppy and don't take the time to prevent problems like they do in Hungary.

It was a wonderful day, but the bitter cold was very distracting, especially at the museum and I am hoping to return in better weather. The museum guide suggested a return visit in summer when I can actually accompany the beekeepers on a day of hive inspections and spend time on the grounds of the research station where they have hundred's of "families" to study and watch. If all goes well, we will be back in June and I will go back.

I don't know if Jósef's perceptions of American beekeeping are true, or if he accurately portrayed the condition of beekeeping of Hungary. What I do know is that the generosity of beekeepers in Hungary is identical to that of their American counterparts. Beekeepers are the most generous individuals I have ever meet, willing to give their time and share their expertise in a moments notice! When I returned from Hungary my friend the beekeeper and my beekeeping mentor came over to help me order my stash of bees. I am expecting 6 pounds of bees the end of April and I started my beekeeping class last Thursday evening. I am overwhelmed by how much I need to learn but reassured by the generosity and spirit of the people I am meeting that I have all the support I need at my disposal. Deep breath, the adventure is underway.

The African Palate

2010-01-07T05:11:00.001-08:00

It is darn cold here in the tundra of Minnesota and if the forecasters are right by tomorrow morning we will have another dusting of snow and it will be 20 degrees below zero with the wind chill. Quite frankly I can't wait to leave! Under normal circumstances Tina and I would be spending the month in Naples, Florida, which I understand is under their own wind chill warning. Don't get me wrong, I am sympathetic but really, when we are facing subzero conditions it isn't easy. Tina is teaching in Budapest for the month of January so next week I leave for a whirlwind trip with stop in London, Budapest and Paris. Northern Europe is also under cold advisories, in fact the frigid weather in Paris caused a major Calamity on the Eurostar Train under the Chunnel last month, shutting it down for over a week. It is in the mid 30's in London, Paris and Budapest which will be a welcomed warm up for me! In the mean time, I miss Tina desperately but there is a silver lining during her absence which is total free reign in the kitchen.

I adore ethnic food, especially Indian food but Tina's palate simply doesn't! So when she is away I have at it which is great fun for me. Recently, based on a review from Shauna at Gluten Free Girl, I got a copy of The Soul of A New Cuisine by Marcus Samuelsson. I am not going to review this book other than to say it is one of the most remarkable and beautiful books I have ever held! The photographs are captivating and the narrative takes you far away. And who ever thought Archbishop Desmond Tutu would write a forward to a cookbook. Need I say more?

I have an endless supply of eager friends who would love an invitation to an African dinner. Last night was reserved for two of my most favorite people in the world. My niece Megan, who just returned from a semester of studying in Budapest and my niece Katie who we simply adore! Both have very adventuresome palates.

I made three different dishes, Yellow Rice which is a common East and Southern African dish, Chicken-Peanut Stew which is a West African dish and Black-Eyed Peas another West African dish that hales from Ghana. I have never seen my niece Katie help her self to seconds, but last night she sure did. The meal was simply over the top, colorful and full of flavor. Labor intensive for sure but worth a days work. We enjoyed Coconut Bliss with hot fudge for desert, not too African but a nice end to the meal. We all loved the entire meal and I would make all of it again, but everyone agreed the Black-Eyed Peas were the highlight!

Black-Eyed Peas

Adapted from The Soul Of A New Cuisine by Marcus Samuelsson

About 3 cups of cooked black-eyed peas. I used two pint size jars from beans I canned this fall

1/2 cup of Spiced Butter, or 4 tablespoons unsalted butter*

1 medium red onion

2 tomatoes, chopped

1 scotch bonnet chili seeds and ribs removed and finely chopped

2 garlic cloves chopped

one 1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and chopped

2 teaspoons Berbere or chili powder*

1 cup coconut milk

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 cup chicken stock

1 teaspoon salt

several tablespoons Cilantro, chopped

1 scallion sliced

Melt butter in a deep pot over medium heat. Add the onion, tomatoes and chili, sauté until tender, about 10 minutes. Add garlic, ginger, Berbere and coconut milk. Bring to a simmer. Stir in chicken stock and turmeric, return to a simmer and reduce heat to medium low. Simmer, uncovered until the sauce thickens, about 20 minutes. Add the black-eyed peas and salt and simmer until most of the liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Stir in cilantro and scallion and serve.

*Berbere and Spiced Butter

Berbere is an Ethiopian blend, a universal seasoning with varying degrees of heat and spiciness. I am sure you could purchase it somewhere but I made my own. Spiced butter is a spiced mixture also known as nit'ri qibe which starts with clarified butter. I made the spiced butter and found it essential to the dish, I am not sure it would be the same without it, but you sure could use standard butter or ghee.

Spiced Butter

From The Soul of A New Cuisine by Marcus Sammeulson

1 pound unsalted butter

1/2 medium red onion, coarsely chopped

1 garlic clove minced

one 3 inch piece ginger, peeled and finely chopped

1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon cardamon seeds

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

8 basil leaves

Clarify your butter! Add everything else and continue to cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand until the spices settle. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve. Store in the fridge in a covered container for up to a month.

Favorite Kitchen Tool

2010-01-04T16:16:00.000-08:00

My Tamis, a classic French drum sieve can create a soup that is smooth as velvet. I couldn't make certain soups or sauces without it. I have a chinois and I love it but sometimes using the tamis is easier, especially when I want to puree something to a very smooth even consistency. Today I made a curried butternut squash soup. First I processed the soup in my vitamix and then through the Tamis. The result was a lovely smooth soup. Yes, it was a great deal of work but worth it! You just can't get soup like this using a food processor or just a blender! It takes a Tamis! I sauteed four cups of diced onions in some olive oil and two tablespoons of sweet curry. Then I added about 6 pounds of peeled, diced butternut squash, five large peeled, cored and diced apples two cups of water and some salt and pepper. I simmered this for about an hour over low to medium low heat, until everything was tender. After processing the soup in my vitamix I passed the puree through the tamis and then added about 3 cups of apple cider. The soup was a bit too sweet for my liking so I added some vegetable broth to balance it with something savory. As the temperature plummets below zero for another night in Minnesota, I am looking forward to a bowl of hot soup!

Pomegranate Chutney

2009-12-22T14:43:00.000-08:00

I love using quintessential seasonal ingredients. Right now the abundance of pomegranate simply beckons me, loudly. I try and come with all kinds of ways to use the deep red seeds called arils, mostly tossing them in salads I take to work. When it comes to pomegranate I am also overcome with laziness and rarely seed the fruit myself. My friend Ivy would say I am missing half the fun when I purchase small containers of just the arils. But I am not interested in staining my hands deep red and I just want immediate gratification with spoons full of the tart tangy seeds popping in my mouth. Sometimes I get pure pomegranate juice and mix it with my tonic water for a tasty drink. I love tonic water, tonic with cherry juice or tonic with pomegranate juice.

Tomorrow I am having good friends over for dinner. People I care dearly about, all with different dietary issues. It's been fun trying to come up with a menu that is seasonally festive as well as gluten and vegan friendly. As I envisioned the evening all I could see was bright glistening pomegranate seeds. My friend Ivy suggested pomegranate guacamole. What could be more seasonal that green guacamole dotted with little red jewels! I found a festive nonalcoholic pomegranate "mimosa" recipe that is so simple, mixing sparkling apple cider and pomegranate juice. Sounds good to me! Then I realized I was going to have a good amount of vegan cream cheese left over from a potato dish I am making . Extra cream cheese screams chutney to me. My mother used to smother bricks of Philadelphia cream cheese with red pepper jelly at Christmas time. I am very partial to chutney, cream cheese and crackers. I am actually partial to chutney in general and have made chutney with just about every imaginable ingredient. It is a stable with all the Indian food I enjoy. So why not try a pomegranate chutney. This recipe is going to knock your socks off. I can hardly wait for it to cool to test it with a cracker and some cream cheese. If you like pomegranate and cherry this chutney is for you!

Pomegranate Chutney

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

12 ounces fresh cherries, stemmed and pitted, or frozen

1/2 cup unsweetened pomegranate juice

3 tablespoons sugar

3/4 cup pomegranate seeds

1/4 teaspoon salt

In a deep pot heat oil over medium heat. Add onions, ginger and garlic, cook about 5 minutes, until tender and translucent. Stir in cinnamon and allspice, cook 15-20 seconds, until fragrant. Add cherries, pomegranate juice and sugar. Increase heat to medium-high, bringing to a boil. Reduce heat to medium, medium-low and simmer, uncovered 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally until chutney is thickened. Remove from heat, stir in pomegranate seeds and salt. Cool to room temp and refrigerate chutney, covered. Enjoy anyway you like!

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

2009-12-17T14:01:00.001-08:00

One of my favorite bloggers, Shauna James Ahern from http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/ posted a recipe for gluten-free rugelach today. I am not a baker. I would much rather eat something savory than sweet but they looked so good and I had everything I needed to make these traditional Jewish cookies.

I am a big fan of Shauna's. Her website was the very first I stumbled on when I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. I am not sure what the connection was but something resonated in me when I read her posts. I loved her attitude and her approach, focusing on what one could eat on a gluten-free diet. I traveled all the way to Chicago to meet her when she was on her first book signing tour. She feels like kindred spirit to me.

When she posted her rugelach recipe this morning I couldn't wait to get started. You will have to visit her site for the recipe. I might steal ideas to post on but I don't take recipes! Besides you will love her even if your not GF, if only for her writing! I followed her directions exactly, including her advice to weigh the flours on a scale. Gone are the days of measuring flour in measuring cups, simply not good enough. Shauna provides directions for a log style technique as well as the more traditional twists. Since I don't have much experience in baking GF I decided to go with the log, it seemed less fragile and easier. Next time I will try the twists since they are so attractive. I made a traditional filling with apricot preserves, cinnamon, brown sugar, white sugar, raisins and toasted chopped pecans.

The only time I veered off course was when I pulled the rugelach out of the oven. I couldn't wait for the logs to cool to room temperature before cutting as directed in the recipe. I started cutting small pieces off each end, four ends what harm could that do. Before I knew it I was digging right into the middle of the logs, cutting one piece after another and eating them. The pastry is a flaky, melt in your mouth pastry without any grittiness you get with the usual GF baked stuff. Now I know exactly what Shauna meant when she wrote, "This is a stand-in-front-of-the-stove post."

I am thrilled with my results! With any luck there will be some left for Tina when she gets home from work tonight. I can't wait to share these with some real connoisseurs, perhaps the next time I am invited to Shabbat

Genius Gadget

2009-12-14T06:43:00.000-08:00

We all love our kitchen aide mixer. How could we live without this must have kitchen appliance. But admit it, you do have a pet peeve about this essential and expensive device. The paddle attachment simply doesn't cut it, leaving tuns of unmixed batter along the edges of the bowl. You constantly have to stop the mixing and take a spatula to the rim, incorporating the unmixed batter. A real pet peeve, a nuisance to say the least.

Well I got an early stocking stuffer last night during our annual "Home Alone" movie night, Tina's favorite holiday tradition. We eat really fun gunk food like artichoke dip and peanut M and M's and watch this (awful) holiday movie (I hate slapstick humor). My niece Katie joins us, the only one with any sensibility. She arrived with three bags of fresh cherries. Although she ate her fair share of the dip and the M and M's. I guess the cherries were for me.

Anyway, I am getting off track, the genius gadget. Tina was giddy about a particular item in my stocking. After some convincing that I should have an early present I opened the small package from Cooks of Crocus Hill, http://www.cooksofcrocushill.com/ , my mother ship.

A new attachment for the kitchen aide mixer, a brilliant attachment in fact. It is a paddle attachment with spatula like edges that actually reaches the rim of the bowl preventing unmixed batter from mounting. It swipes the bowl clean with each whirl. No more pausing every few moments to wipe down the sides yourself. I love this gadget. I put it to the test this morning with some very tacky and hard to manage gingerbread batter. Not a speck of unmixed batter on the rim of my bowl. It was slick like a magic trick. I am headed to Cooks this morning to get several more for stocking stuffers for my baking pals.

The gingerbread, well it is one of Tina's favorite holiday treats so perhaps there was a secondary gain for her in my opening a present early. She will come home to her favorite treat covered in cool whip tonight!

Jerusalem Artichokes

2009-12-09T04:44:00.000-08:00

I found some Jerusalem Artichokes at Whole Foods yesterday, on my mission to find some concentrated cherry juice. New vegetables always catch my eye. I had never had Jerusalem Artichokes before and was actually looking for a second vegetable to serve with my roasted chicken for dinner so I bought a pack. Of course when I got home I had to do a little research to find out exactly what they are and how to prepare them. They look like knobs of ginger or fresh raw horseradish, and I love both so naturally these would appeal to me. They are loaded with potassium, iron, fiber, niacin, thiamine, phosphorus and copper.

I knew they had nothing to do with the traditional artichoke or Jerusalem but I did not know they were also part of the Daisy family. In my reading I discovered they are actually a tuber and also go by the names sunroot, sunchoke, earth apple or topinambur. They come from the sunflower.

So what to do with them? I love root vegetable of all kinds, especially roasted so I decided to peel and roast them. They peeled easily, although a few of them seemed a bit soft and sort of mushy so I tossed those, thinking they might be spoiled. The harder crunchy raw tubers tasted like a potato only sweeter and nuttier. I tossed them in olive oil and generously sprinkled with salt and pepper and tossed them in a 400 degree oven for 40 minutes.

They were excellent! More importantly they passed Tina's taste test and her brother liked them as well. I didn't have too many of them and I am sure we all would have eaten more. They were indeed sweeter than a potato but similar in texture. They had caramelized in the oven which contributed to the sweetness.

Now here's the thing, I developed an unusual amount of flatulence shortly after dinner which lasted well into the evening and early hours of the morning. My belly bloated and was uncomfortable with gastric pain all night long. So I did a bit more reading this morning and learned that the Jerusalem Artichoke tubers store the carbohydrate inulin (not to be confused with insulin) instead of starch like most tubers. For this reason they are a source of fructose. The carbohydrates give them a tendency to become soft and mushy (probably a wise decision to toss my softer mushier tubers). The inulin is not well digested by some people, obviously I am one of them, and can lead to flatulence and gastric pain.

The great English planter John Goodyer wrote on the Jerusalem Artichoke in the Oxford Companion to Food "which way soever they be dressed and eaten, they stir and cause a filthy loathsome stinking wind within the body, thereby causing the belly to be pained and tormented, and are a meat more fit for swine the men". Had I read this before indulging, I might not have. Will I eat them again, yes! They were worth the gas and pain. I would however make a disclaimer if I ever serve them to guests again. I hope Charlie and Tina didn't have too rough a night!

Jack Frost's Pumpkin Pie

2009-12-08T06:40:00.001-08:00

Everyone is posting about pumpkin pie this time of year! Of course we all think we have the best, the perfect pumpkin pie recipe, including myself. I am not a pie person. In fact I don't really have much of a sweet tooth. I would always opt for something savory before something sweet. But Tina, well she and her mother love pumpkin pie. More often than not we are in Florida for Thanksgiving and Christmas, sometimes for as long as 4-6 weeks (the benefits of an academic calendar). During these visits Tina and her mom eat pumpkin pie several times a week. Once Thanksgiving and Christmas day pass the local grocery store, Publix's puts pies on sale for $1.99 until they are gone. They have a routine. The pie arrives, it sits on the counter until after dinner and they each have a piece, claiming this is going to the the only piece they eat. Come morning time, the pie is gone and both are equally dumbfounded. Who finished the pie? Well, it sure isn't me as the pie is not GF. I can speculate with some degree of certainty that they both sneak into the kitchen through out the evening and into the night helping themselves to more pie. A few days later, another pie shows up and the same thing, the pie is gone in the morning. However, we usually don't stay at Tina's mother's so when we return the next day and the pie is gone, it is less perplexing!

While I don't love pie, I do appreciate an occasional piece every now and then. I don't really like to bake so I am limited to making single crust pies which I can purchase already made from Whole Foods. The GF pie crusts from Whole Foods are really quite good! Especially if your making a no bake pie and you cook the crust before filling. In fact, I cook the crust first even if I am making a pie that is going to be baked. It is just better.

Our version of the ever popular pumpkin pie is inspired from Famous Dave's and Tina is convinced that the secret ingredient is clover honey. She might be right!

Jack Frost's Pumpkin Pie

One pie crust

15 ounces of canned pumpkin

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup premium clover honey (preferably from your local beekeeper)

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/8 teaspoon ground mace

12 ounce can evaporated milk

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

generous 1/3 cup whipping cream

Prepare your crust. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.Combine pumpkin, brown sugar, honey, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and mace in a bowl, mix until blended. Whisk evaporated milk, eggs and vanilla until well blended. Add the milk mixture to the pumpkin mixture and beat at medium speed for two minutes. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the prepared pie plate. Bake for 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for an hour or longer, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely. Whip cream and pipe around the edge or serve a dollop of whipped cream with each piece of pie.

Christmas Caramels

2009-12-01T12:41:00.000-08:00

I just love Christmas traditions. When Tina and I got together 10 years ago she taught me how to make caramels and let me in on a secret family recipe from her Aunt. Tina loved her Aunt's caramels, so much so that she invested in nickel plated square bars to make molds for pouring her own caramel.

I am not sure how it happened but over the course of a few years I was the only one making caramels around here, thousands of them every Christmas. I established my own tradition, starting on Halloween and pouring several thousand caramels a season. Each one wrapped in red or green taffy paper, and packaged in a box or festive bag. They became my signature Christmas gift. Friends and family have come to expect the annual delivery.

Every now and again, I threaten to take a year off. After all they are very labor intensive and consume my every day between Halloween and the middle of December. Cooking, pouring, cutting, wrapping, packaging and mailing . . . it is a huge undertaking. I doubt I could actually take a year off though. I would miss the compliments too much!

In addition to the caramels we also make turtles. What could be better than toasted pecans, caramel and chocolate. These never get mailed out to anyone, the only way to get one is to get invited over during the holidays. We have tried walnuts and cashews but honestly, toasted pecan is the very best. We make milk chocolate and dark chocolate, using the very best chocolate we can find, always struggling with the process of tempering. This year Tina hit a high note with tempering the dark chocolate and they were perfect.

I can't give out the recipe, it is not mine to give but I have taught several of my nieces and nephews, and a friend or two how to make the caramels. My nieces Katie and Megan have spent several evenings over the years in our kitchen making their own stash for giving. It is a tradition I am happy to pass on to them.

Slow Fall Days in the Kitchen

2009-09-30T08:43:00.001-07:00

I was recently asked to do some recipe testing for Shauna and Danny of Gluten Free Girl at http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/. When I was first diagnosed with Celiac Disease I stumbled on Shauna's nearly new website and was swooned, not only by her writing but her attitude. Like myself Shauna embraced the disease considering what she could have, ignoring the idea of deprivation. Her mantra, a tattoo on her wrist "Yes". Yes to everything. My first gluten-free cooking adventure involved a recipe she posted for lemon olive oil cookies. I must have emailed her a dozen times with questions. Each time, an answer and encouragement which meant a great deal to me. When Shauna published her first book, Gluten Free Girl, I traveled to Chicago for a cooking class and a book signing she was giving. We had dinner together. It was a lovely visit and for what ever reason, I feel a kindred connection to this internet stranger that blogs about living life to the fullest. It seemed so fitting that she would marry a chef, Danny. Now the two of them are living life large, out the pacific Northwest writing a cookbook. When they contact me and asked me to participate in some recipe testing for their new cookbook I was flattered and thrilled. My assignment, a recipe for meatloaf, meatloaf that called for roasted chicken stock. You'll have to wait for the book to come out next year to see the recipe.

I love new recipes and I love a dinner party so I invited 6 friends to join me for a fall meatloaf dinner last evening. My work started on Sunday, going to the farmers market to get as much of my ingredients locally as I could. Local, humanly raised steers and chicken for my ground beef and chicken bones to make the stock, vegetables from the market, and herbs from my garden. I hardly needed anything at the grocery store. I spent all day Monday making roasted chicken stock. I sure do need some practice, my stock was a bit gelatinous and cloudy, probably from letting the stock come to a boil which is a big no no! I needed the stock for a rosemary infused glaze. It was worth a days work! I have cups and cups of roasted chicken stock stowed away in the freezer.

The test was on, Tuesday morning I made the glaze which involved three hours of reducing. Again, no recipe here, but let me say when you reduce anything for three hours the result is bound to be remarkable. The glaze turned ordinary meatloaf into company fare! I did spend all day making a remarkable fall feast! Mashed potatoes laced with sour cream, cream cheese and butter, meatloaf adorned in a rosemary perfumed glaze, roasted carrots and onions tossed in parsley and honey crisp apples dipped in homemade caramel sauce. Over the top! Not to mention a cool crisp sunny evening. Nothing could have improved the evening except our friend Craig who at least got left overs sent home. It was a fun busy three days, lots of work with a great result. I have another recipe to test, this one requires lining a pan with plastic wrap before baking. Anyone out there ever "cook plastic wrap"? I am stymied!

Fall Flavor Apple Crostata

2009-09-28T13:51:00.000-07:00

Now that looks good! I love the flavors of fall, especially apples. I have a penchant for good apple cider, Pepin Heights Apple Cider in particular. I have been know to bring my own cider for some of our long stints in Florida. You simply can't find real apple cider in Naples, Florida. I end every evening with a small cup of hot cider. When good apples start hitting the markets the end of September I think of ways to use them as much as possible. Today I decided to tackle one of my favorite fall deserts, gluten-free apple crostata.

Crust for one gluten-free Crostata

1 cup rice flour

1/2 cup tapioca flour

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 cup cold butter diced into small pieces

2 tablespoons sour cream

1/4 cup cold water

Filling for one gluten-free apple crostata

1 1/2 pounds of apples (McIntosh, Macoun, or Empire work well)

1/4 teaspoon grated orange zest

1/4 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour (I used Bob's)

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

4 tablespoons cold butter, diced

For the pastry in a food processor, combine flours, zanthan gum, sugar and salt. Pulse once or twice to blend. Then drop the diced butter over the flour mixture, try to cover all the butter with flour. Pulse multiple times to form course crumbs. Mix the cold water and sour cream together, with the motor running, slowly add the sour cream water and process until the dough comes together.

Turn the dough out and form into a large disk, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for an hour, no longer.

Put the dough on several sheets of parchment paper and roll the chilled dough into a large circle, 13 - 14 inches across. The parchment will move around, it is tricky to keep it in place to roll the dough!

For the filling, peel, core and quarter the apples, cut each quarter into three chunks. Toss the apples with the orange zest. Cover the rolled out dough with the apples leaving a 1 1/2 inch border.

Combine gluten-free flour, sugar, slat, cinnamon and allspice in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture is crumbly. Pour into a bowl and rub with your fingers until it starts holding together. Sprinkle evenly over the apples. Gently fold the border over the apples, pleating to make a circle.

Bake for 25-30 minutes at 450 degrees, until the crust is golden and apples are tender. Cool at least five minutes before slipping crostata onto a wire rack.

Pulled Pork

2009-09-23T10:24:00.001-07:00

Or, Chipotle at home without the burrito. Personally I am partial to pork, especially Mangalista pork a European heritage hog that is loaded with fat and marbled red meat, tasting almost like beef. It is difficult to get here in the midwest and is mostly a product of small scale farmers and breeders who have the space and wherewith all to care for the hog appropriately. I first had Mangalista pork In Budapest. I loved the pork so much in Budapest that I had it every single night for dinner!

This particular pulled pork was not from the great Mangalista but from a bone in shoulder cut I got at Whole Foods. I try to buy local, I try to be responsible about where I get my meat from but it isn't always easy. Someday I am going to order some Mangalista pork, I am sure there are suppliers on the west coast (I know big carbon footprint!). When I go back to Budapest in January you can be sure I will eat my fair share of pork. This pulled pork was the most simple meal ever. I covered the meat with a Latin Spice Rub (doubled) and let it sit overnight in the fridge. Then I put the meat in the crockpot and cooked it on low for 12 hours. It fell apart with ease and made for a succulent meal!

Latin Spice Rub

1 tablespoon dark brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

In a small bowl, combine everything well, use immediately, or transfer to a jar with a tight fitting lid. Store away from heat and light for up to 6 months. Makes enough to rub 2 tenderloins, four chops or about a pound of flank like steak. For a shoulder cut double the recipe.

Once the meat was pulled, and after I ate about a fourth of the meat I made a traditional Minnesota church basement casserole, using about half the pork. I froze the rest for another meal.

Cari's Pulled Pork Casserole

3 cups of cooked white rice

Pulled pork (about half of a shoulder)

1 pint of Cari's canned roasted plum tomatoes

1 pint of Cari's canned black beans

1 small onion

2 cloves garlic

Salt and Pepper to taste

Cheddar Cheese, grated, at least a cup, more if you like

Cook rice and put it in the bottom of a 3 quart oven safe casserole. Put pork on top of rice. Saute onion and garlic in a small amount of oil, season with salt and pepper, add the black beans and cover the pork with the beans. Top with a can of roasted plum tomatoes and sprinkle grated cheddar on top. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbling. ENJOY!

My Blue Moon

2009-09-17T09:03:00.000-07:00

Blue Moon, a full moon that is not timed to the regular monthly pattern, an extra full moon that occurs about every two or three years. Popular usage defines a Blue Moon as the second full moon in a month, but it is actually a little more complicated. It is the third full moon in a season with four full moons. Metaphorically a blue moon is used to describe the rarity of an event, as in “once in a Blue Moon”.

I first became aware of the phenomena of a Blue Moon in July of 1996 when I had a Blue Moon experience during a true seasonal Blue Moon. I was riding my bike to Chicago in the first ever Twin Cities to Chicago Aids Ride, leaving on the eve of a Blue Moon. I had fund raised over $10,000, and was Rider Number 1 in the event. I sat on the boards of several HIV/AIDS service organizations that would benefit from the event. I purchased a used three-speed bike and was off on the adventure and experience of a lifetime. It was nothing short of a Blue Moon experience. The night before we left I took a small, framed print of a young child reaching for the moon, a Kiki Suarez piece, off my wall. I took a sharpie and wrote “My Blue Moon” on the back of the print and wrote a note to Dan Pollata, a gay man who conceived of the Aids Bike Rides, bringing thousands of fundraising dollars to HIV and Aids service organizations. I wrote a note to Dan, telling him that doing this ride was the opportunity of a lifetime for me, colliding with a Blue Moon, a rare event. I tucked the print inside the note.

I love the moon, a full moon, gibbous moon or crescent moon. They all delight me. Most of all I love the Harvest Moon, best enjoyed at a bonfire in Farmington MN. I will miss this quintessential experience this October 4th! I am enthralled with the space program, watching each and every shuttle blast off and return to Earth. I was filled with envy when Christa McAuliffe was chosen to go into space, if only I had been a teacher, it could have been me. I envied what she would see, what she would experience, the perspective of the world I imagined she would return with. A Blue Moon experience to be sure. The envy vanished and I was left with nothing but sadness that cold January morning as Challenger imploded. It was January of 1986; I was working at Helene Curtis, managing their data and telecommunications systems. I was also the programming director for the Midwest Telecommunications Association, a group that met monthly for educational purposes. I got it in my head that I was going to bring John Glenn to one of our spring meetings to talk about technology. It was simple actually; I just called his office, and made the request. The next thing I knew I was introducing him to our organization at the May meeting. He brought Jim Lovell along! A Blue Moon experience.

I love the twilight moon that greets me every morning this time of year, hanging in the deep blue sky. The next real Blue Moon will take place on November 21, 2010, but if you go by the popular definition the next Blue Moon will take place this December on the 2nd and the 31st. As folklore would have it when there is a full Blue Moon, the moon has a face and talks to those in its light. I will be a lucky girl!

I was to have another Blue Moon experience, a 6-week medical mission trip to Northern India, providing basic medical care to Tibetan’s living in exile. My Blue Moon, Dharamsala. I couldn't wait. When my physician told me I could not go, I was heart broken but I put on a brave façade. I tried to wrap my mind around accepting the decision in a matter of fact manner. I spent hours looking for private tours to India that would be safer for my intestinal health. This kept me busy, looking for an alternative, but the sadness situated itself inside me and privately I couldn't shake it. I spent most of my summer morning walks thinking about India, the service work I wanted to do and seeing Little Lhasa. My Blue Moon experience, gone, vanished, never to be had! I struggled with accepting the loss and fantasized about taking the trip. I consumed my self with these thoughts mostly just past dawn, the moon gone and sun coming up. The sun coming up always feels like a defining moment for me. But recently I am out under the twilight moon, an equally defining moment! I am keenly aware of its waxing and waning, the ever-changing phases of the moon. Most mornings I have to pinch myself just so I know it is real, this breath taking sky, dark and deep blue, the moon hanging in the balance, stars bright and the twinkling lights of the Cathedral’s steeple.

I love the drama of the pre-dawn sky, changing every day! Wednesday morning the beautiful conjunction of the waning crescent Moon with Venus made for a photogenic scene in the pre-dawn sky. It makes me gasp and I have overwhelming gratitude for my paternal genes that get me up so early. This morning, a sliver of almost nothing I had to work hard to find the moon, hovering low in the east, just above the horizon, Venus high above, totally different than the morning before. I actually don’t know if it was Venus, I am just guessing. I am not a student of Astronomy and could not identify a Constellation if I tried. I long to see the Beehive Cluster, maybe I have and I don’t even know it. I have a sort of Orson Welles history with the elements of the sky.

When I was young my family spent a week every summer at a rustic resort in the Brained area of MN. The cabin we rented had a television, a real treat since we didn’t have T.V. at home. This particular summer, probably in the mid 1960’s there was some kind of solar eclipse taking place during one of our days at the cabin. I heard about it on the T.V. I was terrified as I learned that looking at the sun during the event might cause blindness. Viewers were told not to look at the sun without some kind of protective wear, or a shoebox contraption with a pinhole for viewing. I had neither so I took cover. While the rest of my family headed for the lake or the golf course I stayed in the cabin, closing the blinds of every window. I took the egg timer from the kitchen and hid in a closet for over an hour. It felt like the end of the world, as I knew it. The rest of my family would loose their vision. I would be the only one still able to see. How would I get everyone home, I didn’t know how to drive? I worried about the next eclipse, how would I be forewarned without a television? I thought the sun and the moon were evil elements of the sky, powerful enough to cause the loss of vision. It would be years before my romance began.

These early autumn mornings have given me pause and reminded me that there is a Blue Moon in every day. Every day brings an event, an experience, or an exchange that is Blue Moon in nature, over the top so to speak. As I have realized the true reality of my life, that each day holds something spectacular, I find the loss of India slightly tempered. It does not matter if it is a true Blue Moon; each moon is my Blue Moon. Each day holds rare moments. I am still grieving the loss of opportunity; especially the opportunity to provide service to Tibetan’s in exile but it feels less huge and less consuming. I don’t know when my sadness will be gone, not a morning goes by that I don’t think about India. But it seems like the idea of a having a Blue Moon every day is compelling enough to revel in what I do have in the quiet of dawn.

Why Bother?

2009-09-16T10:48:00.000-07:00

Last evening Tina and I shucked 80 ears of corn. This morning I blanched the corn, removed the kernels from the cob and froze 55 cups of fresh corn. It is a great deal of work indeed, but work I enjoy! One might wonder, why bother to go to all the effort when you can get frozen and canned corn in a grocery store. There are a number of compelling reason.

Most importantly fresh corn simply tastes better. There is no comparison to corn I pull out of my freezer all winter with what is sold in the grocery store. It is also the signature ingredient in one of Tina's favorite soups. I will go to any length to make a stellar bowl of soup.

It enables me to support a local farmer. Tina picks the corn up every year from a family farm in Northfield, MN. When she got home last evening and we dumped the corn from two burlap bags and stared shucking I noticed the kernels seems slightly small, the ears just under ripe. I mentioned this to Tina just as the phone rang. It was farmer John calling, concerned about our purchase as it had been picked that very afternoon from the wrong rows in the field. He felt awful, knowing the corn wasn't at its best. We could return it, we could keep it and get our money back, whatever it took to make good on the purchase. It was just less than I expected, however it was acceptable, we would keep the corn, he would keep his money and Tina would return the burlap bags tomorrow. Now I am certain unless your buying from a local family farm no one is going to call you to tell say your corn was picked from the wrong rows, please bring it back.

It is economical! 80 ears cost us $20.00, that is .25¢ an ear. I got 55 cups of corn, .36¢ a cup. You can't beat that in the store.

I freeze the corn in three cup vacuum sealed bags. You can can corn but according to "Putting Food By" the flavor holds up better in freezing. Besides, I needed a little break from canning today.

I love fresh corn, simply sautéed in butter with salt and pepper. Tina, she likes Cheddar Corn Chowder. In fact, I won her over with my first pot of this soup which she was skeptical about trying. It is a hearty soup and is really best at the end of summer with fresh corn. We enjoy it all winter long thanks to the freezing!

Cheddar Corn Chowder

8 ounces bacon, chopped

1/8 cup olive oil, or less

3 cups yellow onions, chopped

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup rice flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

6 cups hot chicken broth

3 cups medium diced red potatoes, (don't peel)

5 -6 cups corn kernels

1 cup cream, half and half or milk depending on how rich you want the soup, I use cream

1/2 pound sharp white cheddar cheese, grated

In a stockpot, cook bacon in olive oil until crisp. Remove the bacon, reserving the fat. Turn heat down and add the butter. Sauté onions about 10 minutes. Stir in rice flour, salt, pepper and turmeric and cook for three minutes stirring the roux constantly. Slowly add the hot chicken stock. Add potatoes, bring to a boil and simmer 15 minutes until the potatoes are tender. If your using fresh corn remove the kernels from the cob and blanch for 3 minutes before adding to the soup. Add the corn to the soup, then add the cream, half and half or milk. Add grated cheese in handfuls allowing to melt. To serve garnish with bacon.

For a vegetarian version eliminate the bacon and use vegetable broth.

Back to School Traditions

2009-09-09T13:07:00.000-07:00

I love routine and tradition, things I can count on. We have plenty of traditions around here. In fact, Tina often says, "Now this is not going to become a tradition so don't get your mind wrapped around the next time." I can create a routine or tradition after having just one of something. We should have a bonfire every time . . . We should go to such-and- such a place every . . . We should have crab cakes every . . . I declare just about everything a tradition.

But back to school traditions, they are real and they are steeped in 10 years of history with this academic I love so much. I celebrate the return to the classroom for many reason but mostly because I am so darn proud of Tina and the work she does. It isn't that I look forward to the end of our blissful summers together because I don't. I know she doesn't look forward to it with quite the same enthusiasm as I do so I like to make it special.

So on that day when Tina and her colleagues return to the class room, committed to bringing excellence to the discipline of mathematics, I send dozens of homemade scones down to the faculty and staff at St. Olaf. Just a little something to get their day started. I take a break from my rigorous canning routine and I bake for an entire day. Always on the list are cinnamon scones which are a favorite, blueberry scones which are labor intensive and a pain to make but they are Tina's favorite. I decided to make a white chocolate chunk with dried apricot and toasted walnuts this year as well. The emails start coming as soon as Tina puts the goodies in the work room and they continue all day long so I know they are appreciated.

Our second tradition around returning to school is a special meal sometime during the first week. Of course I would prefer that it always be the opening day of classes, or some other consistent day, after all it is a tradition. But week one is chaotic and unpredictable and I can't count on the consistency. So, some time during week one I make one of our favorite meals, Scandinavian Meatballs, a smorgasbord classic!

We are not Scandinavian. I don't eat pickled herring, nor do I wear colorful Norwegian sweaters. I am not sure how we even got this meal on the table to begin with but I guess it is fitting since St. Olaf was founded by Norwegian immigrants. St. Olaf celebrates its Norwegian history in style especially at Christmas time when the famed music department puts on its annual concert. We have never gone but I understand it is a sea of those Scandinavian winter sweaters with the traditional Selburose in colors most of us never knew existed. I do however beg each of Tina's colleagues for the two highly coveted tickets they each get to the concert. It is a tradition to give two tickets to my sister every year for her birthday. We usually score about 6 tickets and give all of them away. People apparently give very big amounts of cash for a ticket to the concert. This year we are going to go, and I can assure you, it won't become a tradition.

Here is the recipe for the Swedish Meatballs as we call them around here.

1 cup minced onion

4 tablespoons butter, divided

2 1/2 pounds of meat loaf mixture (ground beef, pork and veal)

1 cup fresh bread crumbs (I used boxed Orgran all purpose gluten-free crumbs)

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups half and half

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon dill weed, divided

1/4 teaspoon each ground pepper, ground nutmeg, ground allspice and ground cardamom

1/3 cup rice flour

21 ounces beef broth (gluten-free)

1 cup heavy cream

Spray a 10 X 15 inch jelly roll pan with no stick cooking spray. Heat oven to 400 degrees. In a skillet, cook onion in 1 tablespoon butter until soft. In a large bowl combine onion, meat loaf mixture, crumbs, eggs, 1/2 teaspoon dill and other spices, half and half and salt. It will be very soft. Shape into golf size balls, or any size you like, if you do golf size you will get about 26. Arrange on coated jelly roll pan. Bake until cooked through and lightly browned, 14-18 minutes.

Meanwhile melt remaining 3 tablespoons butter in a large skillet or pot. Stir in flour to make a roux, stir and cook for 2-3 minutes. Gradually add hot beef broth. I add about 1/3 cup at a time, fully incorporating before adding more and working slowly to create a smooth, thick sauce. Rice flour will behave slightly differently than wheat flour in a roux but it will work! Add dill and stir in heavy cream slowly, simmer 5 minutes.

Scrape meatballs and browned bits into the gravy; stir to combine. Spoon into a 3-quart casserole. Refrigerate, covered several hours or overnight. To serve, heat oven to 350 degrees and bake until heated through about 45 minutes. If you don't make a head of time, reduce cooking time to 30 minutes.

Serve over gluten-free noodles or rice.

Putting Food By

2009-09-03T12:02:00.001-07:00

Food in jars! Canning. Preserving. Putting food by for later. Canning simply resinates inside me. It speaks to my very core and satisfies me in a way few things do. I am called to the hard, long hours it involves in the kitchen. I love the connection to the bounty of food in the fall. Of course it appeals to my attraction to excess and, it keeps us prepared. Besides, I like to hibernate for which canning is essential.

We are prepared around here. I am not exactly sure how that happened but it started with Tina's appointment to the Bird Flu Committee at St. Olaf. A group who's purpose was to develop policy and a disaster plan for the campus in the event of a health care calamity. I actually wasn't paying attention, potential health care catastrophes don't get my attention. I barely noticed that cases of gloves and N95 masks were showing up on our door step, I barely noticed that water and food were getting stowed away in a closet with the gloves and masks. When the very large generator arrived, I took notice. It reminded me of the make shift "bomb shelter" my father assembled in our basement and hearing my parents chatter about the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis in the early '60's. Had I married my father? But when we lost power for hours I realized that having a generator and being prepared paid off. The only thing missing from the closet is some Tamiflu.

Seriously, canning prepares me for the long winter months when I don't want to go out into the dark and the cold. When I just want to stay home, build a fire and realize that I actually have everything I need to whip up a great dinner because I prepared and canned. There is nothing like cracking the lid on a quart size bell jar and getting a whiff of fresh tomato or roasted red pepper. I can enough tomatoes, roasted tomatoes and roasted red pepper to last a year with plenty to give away. We use the tomatoes and peppers in just about any winter dinner imaginable, including many of my Indian dishes I like so much.

I didn't always can. My mother didn't can, although we did have emergency food in that basement bomb shelter. My grandparents didn't can. I didn't know anyone who canned, it seems a bit old fashion and out of style. Few friends even knew what canning was.

It started three years ago when I told my friend Theresa I was interested in learning how to can. Next thing I knew I was in her kitchen in Stillwater, her parents, avid canners, had come down from Wilmar Mn to teach the two of us the art of canning. We spent the entire day in the kitchen. Theresa's parents showed us how to use a water bath canner and a pressure canner. We canned tomatoes, salsa, marinara and beans. We worked from the crack of dawn until dusk. I left, not at all sure I could do it alone. I remained terrified of botulism and spoilage. I had read Putting Food By, cover to cover several times. A few days later I got up early and headed to the Minneapolis Farmer's Market. A serious storm erupted like a volcano as I placed two cases of tomatoes in my car. When I got home, it was still dark, the storm continued through the morning. I began a methodical process of canning, reading the directions out of my book, sentence by sentence, over and over, one step at a time. 10 hours later I had 7 beautiful cans of tomatoes. I could not have been more proud. I loved the ping, the sound of the jars sealing on the counter top. I loved tapping the lids. I loved admiring the contents of the jars. I was hooked.

From then on I became very serious about putting food by for winter. A colleague of Tina's gifted me a pressure canner. Phillis and her husband had canned together for years. They had a vegetable garden and in the fall they preserved the bounty of their garden canning. But Phillis' husband had passed away and she was no longer interested in canning. Her 22 quart Mirro pressure canner, was mine if I wanted it. Phillis could not have given her pressure canner to a more grateful, appreciative canner. Not a batch gets put up in the canner without my thinking about Phillis, her husband, her garden, her losses and her grief.

I really do spend all of September getting ready to hibernate. There are daily trips to the farmers market, cases of tomatoes and peppers that become sealed in bell jars. Food in jars. I love looking at the jars. I am not a perfectionist, to the contrary, my cans would never make the State Fair showcase but I think they are beautiful. I am captivated by the State Fair canning showcase, especially the paper thin pickles stacked ever so neatly, spears of asparagus making a perfect concentric circle, peaches identical in size suspended in pristine syrup. I am sloppy, not in technique but in placement. I don't really care how the food stacks up. I just want lots and lots of food in jars lining my pantry. I have struggled with excess all my life in one way or another, drinking too much, eating to much, running to much. So this preparing for hibernation does not stop with jars of food. I shuck, blanch and remove the kernels of 70 ears of corn to freeze. I make and freeze over 20 cups of pesto from my basil plants. I can chutney and corn relish and this year I want to make my own ketchup.

It is my favorite time of year, the cool crisp mornings, my days filled with utter satisfaction as the cans start mounting and the days grow short and the bonfires start earlier. I couldn't be happier. I long for September all year. Here now, I will savor every day. I remain ever so grateful to have this time. I do not take a moment of it for granted, knowing full well that few people have the kind of time I do, to spend doing as I like. And for that I will share my bounty with as may as possible, as often as possible. You are welcome to my canned goods, you are welcomed to my kitchen to watch or participate. It goes on all month long.

Julia Child's Chocolate Moose

2009-09-01T09:40:00.000-07:00

We finally saw Julie and Julia Monday evening. Since I am much better critic of food than movies I'll stick to what I am good at, the dinner we had before the movie.

Coq au Vin. I rarely say never. Never ever! Never ever again. I should have stuck with my gut and made Beef Bourguignon. Red wine and beef, they go together and create a divine gravy. Chicken and red wine??? Admittedly, I have not had a sip of wine in 20 years but trust me I had my share back in the day and just don't care for the paring of a deep robust red wine with chicken, especially to create a sauce. I should have listened to the loud voice in my head that kept saying this just doesn't read well.

Charlie and Tina, they enjoyed the very ugly, almost purple looking dish. It did look just like all the pictures I pulled up on line but I stand by my opinion, it just doesn't look or sound good. O.K. so I didn't actually have a rooster but I did get a very good, local chicken from the St. Paul farmers market so it wasn't the chicken. And I did get really good, meaty mushrooms and spent more than I usually do on a bottle of wine. I followed the directions as best I could but there were gaps and leaps and confusion so I had to punt every so often. I am a good cook, capable of deciphering bad directions, capable of making it up as I go along but I didn't veer that far off.

We had a lovely cucumber salad, a Julia Child recipe I selected especially since Charlie likes cucumbers and it was easy to put together.

The crown jewel of course was the Julia Child Chocolate Moose which was worth every minute of the over two hours it took to make. It was a complicated enough recipe that required my complete attention, multiple, delicate steps. I was so proud when I was done that I delivered enough for our neighbors to enjoy as well.

As for the movie it was fun, not as good as I expected, but good. Julia Child's enthusiasm and excitement about finally getting a publisher was initially heartwarming. After learning that she apparently had nothing good to say about Julie Powell, well, I was dumbfounded. She of all people should have understood this woman's joy and experience of her book. It must have been very sad for Powell not to get a word of encouragement from Julia Child. I know she was elderly but come on!

Minnesota State Fair, Day 1

2009-08-28T03:25:00.001-07:00

I couldn't start my day without a visit to my old haunt, Machinery Hill. So here it is, the front end of the hill where one can find just about any kind of vehicle, including all the farming equipment my father used to admire during our childhood visits to the fair. We didn't venture too far back into the hill, after all I was with my niece Megan, a seasoned fair goer and we had a limited amount of time. Off to get some roasted corn.

Nothing better than an ear of roasted corn at 8:20 in the morning, besides, it was gluten-free. None of the buildings open until 9:00 so we wandered about, scoping out our plan for the morning. Our first stop was the Education building, Megan's favorite spot in the fair, to look at hundreds of pieces of high school and grade school art work. From there we made our way to the Ag-Hort building. I was hoping to see some bees and get some buckwheat honey. We saw bees and tasted the buckwheat honey which I actually did not like, so on to the highlight of the fair!

French Fries, gluten-free, no coating, fried in dedicated fryers and, Heinz ketchup! Hooray! 32 Ounces of my favorite food in the world.

All around a good day, and I am headed back today with my friend Paula for more time with the bees and of course more fries.

Grilled Salmon and Bean Thread Noodles

2009-08-24T12:55:00.001-07:00

I do like grilled salmon but it so hard to pull off! I struggle with the fish sticking to the grill or fish basket and falling apart, ruining any possible presentation. This summer I discovered cedar wood sheets, pliable, smooth, paper-thin sheets that are just the right size to enclose a single serving of salmon. The sheets are soaked in water to minimize charring and become pliable enough to wrap around the salmon. I simply smothered my salmon fillets with a gluten-free BBQ sauce, placed the fillets on the cedar sheets and tied them with a long green onion. They cook up in no short order, 3 minutes or so on each side, and no struggling to flip or get out of a fish grill basket. The salmon was tender, moist and fell apart! I served the salmon with an Asian noodle salad with cilantro and black sesame seeds.

Bean Thread Noodles

6 ounces bean thread noodles

1/4 cup gluten-free soy sauce (tamari)

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

3 tablespoons Asian sesame oil

2 teaspoons sugar

2 teaspoons peeled, and minced ginger (I actually grated my ginger)

1 large carrot, peeled and julienned (I used matchstick carrots)

1 large stalk celery, julienned

2 green onions including green tops, cut into matchsticks

1/2 cup packed cilantro leaves (I chopped the leaves)

2 tablespoons black sesame seeds, toasted

In a large bowl, soak the bean thread noodles in hot water to cover until softened, about 20 minutes. Drain well, pat the noodles dry with paper towels.

In a large bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, sugar and ginger. Add the noodles and toss until well coated with the dressing. Add the carrot, celery, green onion, cilantro and sesame seeds, toss to distribute ingredients evenly. Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate up to 2 days. Remove from fridge 30 minutes before serving.

The recipe indicates that it serves 4, that would be four very generous portions!

Tina's gluten-free quesadillas

2009-08-18T17:24:00.000-07:00

There are a number of things Tina does really well, one of them is cooking and baking. She is actually the baker in the house. I do bake, but I don't really like it and Tina does. She has a way with dough.

When I was first diagnosed with Celiac Disease Tina was simply devastated. I wrapped my mind around staying positive and she cried off and on for a few weeks. She thought our days of enjoying food, sharing food and going out to dinner were over. Well, we didn't go out for dinner for a long time, and we had to navigate the creation of a safe kitchen, not a gluten free kitchen but a kitchen that was safe. That meant labeling jars in the fridge that were being kept gluten-free (read no double dipping with a utensil that had been glutenized), getting a second toaster, establishing a second set of gluten-free wooden spoons, and maintaining a level of vigilance around cleaning that we were not used to. For example if a wash cloth was used to wipe a wheat flour covered counter down, or crumbs from wheat bread, it went straight into the wash. It wasn't easy and it took some time to settle into a routine and get used to new habits.

It took equally long to discover gluten-free alternatives for me. Figuring out how to cook gluten-free pasta, coming up with a gluten-free onion ring, making buckwheat savory creeps were big challenges. Tina spent a great deal of time figuring out how to make some of my most favorite foods gluten-free. For the longest time we simply couldn't find a gluten-free tortilla that was any good. The ones we tried were dry, brittle and tasteless and hardly passed for a Mexican treat. Corn tortillas worked for some things but when it came to making a good quesadilla, forget it.

Then, a few months ago I saw a post on Gluten-Free Girl. Some how Shauna and Danny had gotten a package of a gluten-free tortilla made by French Meadow Bakery. Imagine that, a local bakery, right here in the Twin Cites. I called them immediately only to find out that the delivery to Seattle was a promo. The tortilla would not be available to the general public for a few more months. I kept my eye on their website and a few weeks ago they appeared. Thank goodness I live here, a mail order of one package runs about $20, way too much for 6 small tortillas. I called them and learned that if I placed an order prior to Friday, I could pick them up myself at the Eagan plant the following Tuesday.

I picked my French Meadow Gluten-Free Tortillas up on Tuesday. They were frozen and on the smallish side. Tina gave me a grocery list and when I got home I sat in the kitchen and watched her work her magic.

The tortillas themselves are far better than any other product I have tried, and they sure beat a corn tortilla for making a quesadilla. They are chewy, which is not a great quality but they are darn good. Tina made chicken quesadillas for me with chipotle sour cream. Oh my goodness they were so good I hardly noticed the chewiness. I love it when Tina cooks for me, especially when she works so hard to recreate my favorite things gluten-free. These chicken quesadillas were simply wonderful and a great treat. I will surely be asking for them again soon.

A Cooking lesson and much more!

2009-08-18T07:27:00.000-07:00

My friend Paula invited me over to learn how to make beer butt chicken yesterday. Actually, I guess I invited myself over after learning that she grills beer butt chicken.

I have not come to a place where I feel comfortable eating in the homes of other people easily since being diagnosed with Celiac Disease. I worry incessantly about being rude or getting an accidental hit of gluten. I am a control freak about my gluten-free diet. I come by it honestly. At least I don't spin my wheels controlling things which are simply outside my dominion. I do in fact have complete control of what goes in my mouth and it is this tight grip, this rigid adherence to my gluten-free diet, that is the only treatment for Celiac Disease. I do not have gluten intolerance and I do not have a food allergy. I have a disease that left untreated will lead to catastrophic and potentially untreatable conditions including abdominal lymphoma. I can't control the course of cancer.

I have had good experiences and bad experiences as a guest eating in someone's home. There are some people I simply trust with my diet in their hands. My friend Jennifer for example is someone I trust! Jennifer introduced me to quinoa, a ancient grain from South America. She also edited a great book on food allergies, 8 Degrees of Ingredients. I know she understands the disease and the diet. I will eat food out of her kitchen any time!

I also have complete trust and confidence in Paula and Andrea and the safety of the food that comes out of their kitchen. Paula goes to a great deal of extra effort to make sure I know that she is paying attention to details like using clean utensils. She always places packages of food she is using on the table for all of us to review. She does this in a nonchalant, matter of fact manner. I appreciate this, perhaps more than anything. I don't have to ask if I can look at the label, she offers it up in advance. And when desert is served, it is the same thing for all of us. If gluten-free cookies are good enough for me, they are good enough for all of us. Paula and Andrea pick up gluten-free baked goods at my favorite bakery and they rave about my gluten-free pasta. Eating what I eat, well it just makes me feel darn good.

So, with my gluten-free beer in hand, I headed over to Paula and Andrea's house to learn how to make this beer butt chicken on the grill. It was so much fun, and so simple. After rubbing and seasoning the whole chickens we poured GF beer into to rinsed out cans of diet coke, propped the cans up into the cavity of the chicken and put them on the grill. A hour and a half later we sat down to a stellar summer dinner of succulent, moist chicken, GF pesto pasta, and ripe summer tomatoes with shaved parmesan cheese. We meet Jane, a friend of Paula and Andrea's who is the conductor and director of One Voice Mixed Choir (http://www.ovmc.org/). We loved Jane, she is so interesting and fun. Jane is part of a potluck group who's membership is made up of vegans, Celiacs and people who can eat anything. She helped herself to the GF pasta without pause, another feel good gesture as far as I was concerned. I don't like drawing attention to myself, or the difference in my diet, so when a meal can be this transparent for me it is pure joy!

I left, happy, content and connected to these two women that I simply adore. I left having mounted another good experience in eating out and trusting others with my well being. These evenings give me experience in being a confident, kind and considerate guest which is just as important. I am always grateful when friends and family are willing to go to the effort to eat gluten free, especially when it feels so genuine and so pellucid. I appreciate the opportunity to become a better dinner guest. I am still learning but I think I am getting better. I am learning that plenty of people are more than willing and more than capable, I just need to be more willing myself and allow others the opportunity to serve me. God knows how much I enjoy serving others.

Sky Blue Pink, no photo but a lasting memory

2009-08-13T09:15:00.000-07:00

I wish I had a picture of the morning sky this past Wednesday. Sky Blue Pink, that is what Tina's mom calls it when pink clouds are mounted against a blue sky. I love my morning walks, if for nothing else to see an occasional sunrise that simply takes my breath away. I have had an impending since of fall for a few weeks now, it creeps up on me earlier and earlier every year. It has been dark out when I leave in the morning for at least two weeks, even darker now as August slips away. Acorns and crab apples are falling from the trees and squirrels are busy packing it all away. I too am thinking about "putting food by" as I call my canning and freezing routine that kicks up in high gear in less than two weeks. This past Wednesday, not only did the Sky Blue Pink sunrise take my breath away, but so did an old patients mother, for the second time.

When I first started walking on Summit, 10 years ago, I occasionally caught sight of a familiar woman. She was usually running and always with a dog. I tormented myself trying to figure out who she was. About a year ago, she was out running her dog and our eyes met. She stopped and said, "Cari, right? Your a nurse at Children's. You took care of my son Sam. I will never forget you." That was it, Sam's mom, Patty. I remembered her instantly. Patty went on to tell me that I had left a lasting impression on her and she always hoped she would run into me to tell me how grateful she was for a very specific message I gave her almost 20 years ago when Sam was nearly on deaths door.

Patty told me Sam was now a senior in high school, looking at colleges. If you had asked me 20 years ago, I would have said San would never survive, and if he did, he would be mainstreamed as a special needs student. College, how could that be? The conversation returned to my work and the care I had given Sam, or more to the point, the care I had given his mom during one of his many hospitalizations. I was a new nurse really, and didn't have much experience. Sam became critically ill during a night shift. Patty seemed particularly unsure of herself. "Your only job is to advocate for him." I say it all time time to parents, I never really think about it, it seems so obvious. She stood at the end of the bed as a crisis evolved, words can't describe her fear. I took her hand, placed it on Sam's foot and said, stay connected Patty, stay connected. Patty remembered the night like it were yesterday, tears in her eyes as she conveyed how powerful my words and actions were that night. Patty said, knowing that her job was to advocate for Sam changed her world.

Twenty years of advocating and staying connected and now Sam was looking at colleges. Patty said Boston College was his first choice but she wasn't sure she could manage him being that far away. I cried as well, overwhelmed by the interaction and gave her a hug, whispering into her her ear "The job changes as they grow, now it is time to let him go." I don't have children. I don't know the first thing about raising them, caring for them, empowering them, who knew if it was the right thing to say. I sent Patty a card last May, high school graduation month. I guess it is traditional to send the graduate a card but my connection was with Sam's mom.

As I stood on Summit Ave Wednesday morning, under the Sky Blue Pink, I ran into Patty again, out running the dog. I stood, admiring the sun rise as she came up behind me, taking me by surprise. "Sam is leaving for Boston on the 31st" she told me. "Are you o.k.?" I asked.

"I am, thanks to you." and off she ran.

I spent the rest of the day, on top of the world, not only for the Sky Blue Pink, but for Patty and the messages she has given me along Summit Avenue. My work matters, I make a difference. How often do we hear that?

Braised Lamb Shanks

2009-08-11T09:47:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my friend the beekeeper and her lovely farmer friends at Rising Moon Farm in Zumbrota, MN (http://www.risingmoonfarm.com/) Tina is going to have her most favorite dinner this evening!

I don't like lamb much, actually not at all. I have very bad memories of Easter lamb dinners from growing up. My mother might have served lamb once, one Easter lamb dinner. The house smelled all day long and I didn't like the smell, nor did I like the rich meat. It only takes one experience for me to mount a life time of attitude! I am not proud of that characteristic, especially since it spills out way beyond my food preferences. I am committed to working on giving second chances so I might give these a try. That is, if Tina will share.

Tina, she loves lamb and since I love her I am willing to grill lamb chops and braise shanks even if braising does evoke the memory of that awful Easter dinner. I stumbled on a recipe for braised lamb shanks years ago in the Union Square Cafe Cookbook. Apparently they are wonderful and I can imagine the long, slow cooking ensures fork-tender, fall-from-the-bone lamb. Given the noise that takes place when Tina sits down to this dinner, I know it is a winner.

Braised Lamb Shanks with Garlic and Herbs

6 garlic cloves

4 lamb shanks (From Rising Moon Farm if you can get your hands on them!)

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 tablespoons flour (rice flour if making gluten-free)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 1/2 cups sliced onions

2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary

3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

1 tablespoon chopped parsly

1 cup white wine

3 cups veal stock (I use Chef Sid's Innovative Cuisine Veal Demi Glacé which is GF)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cut one of the cloves of garlic in half and rub the lamb shanks with the halves. Cut remaining garlic into thin slices, set aside. Season the shanks with 1 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, dredge in flour. Heat olive oil over medium heat in a Dutch oven or large ovenproof skillet. Add the lamb shanks and brown on all sides. Remove the shanks from the pan and set aside. Toss the onions and sliced garlic into the pan and saute 3-5 minutes, until softened. Add the herbs and cook 3 minutes. Add the wine, rise the heat to high and reduce by half. Stir in veal stock, season with remaining salt and pepper. Place shanks in the pan, cover and bake for two hours, until the meat is fork tender. Uncover the pan and turn the oven up to 500 degrees. Let the lamb shanks brown in the oven for 20 minutes, basting the meat thoroughly with the pan gravy every five minutes. Remove the shanks from the pan, keep them covered and warm. Strain the pan gravy into a bowl and, using a bulb baster or ladle, skim the fat. Return the gravy to the pan and reduce by half over high heat. Transfer the lamb shanks to a warm serving platter. Spoon gravy over the shanks or serve gravy in a sauceboat on the side.

What to do with a super full of honey

2009-08-10T07:36:00.000-07:00

I have done some reading. I have looked at pictures. I have done more reading. Until this past Sunday, I was still perplexed about how honey is extracted from the super frames. In fact, it was just a very big blur of confussion.

On Sunday, I had a chance to go to a honey extraction workshop at Nature's Path in Stillwater, MN. I am not exactly part of the local beekeepers community, at least not yet. I don't even have hives yet, so it felt a little dishonest to present myself as a first year beekeeper. The first year beekeeper, that was who was in invited to participate, not second year and not seasoned beekeepers, just first year folks. I signed up anyway, hungry for any source of knowledge and connection I can get. Plus I got to leave work, just in the nick of time. It was my turn for an admission and a 6 year old with behavior problems need a room, not my kind of nursing!

Jim, who owns and operates Nature's Path invited first time beekeepers over for a hands on demonstration of honey harvesting. And I mean hands on. We got to remove frames from supers full of honey, uncap and puncture the honey filled cells and place the frames into an extractor and spin off the honey, triple straining and filtering the honey into a bucket and filling our own jars of honey to take home. We also go to see three different ways to get bees out of your honey supers and ready a hive for winter. Jim's wife served honey crinkle cookies, honey popcorn and honey lemonade (we all know what I am doing today).

A honey super is part of the beehive used to collect honey. The supers contain frames and the honey bees collect and process nectar on the honeycomb of the frames and then cap it with beeswax. When the honeycomb is full a beekeeper will remove the full frames and extract the honey. We used a hot knife and a another tool to do the uncapping and then placed the frames into the hand crank extractor. It had been very difficult for me to picture this process and understand exactly how the honey was actually removed. I kept reading how fun and interesting it was and that beekeepers often invited friends, neighbors and family over to watch and participate in this hopefully late summer celebration. It was all of that and more, and yes, if I get honey I will host a harvesting party.

I left with a much better understanding of how this all works which was great. More importantly I felt the generosity of Jim and every other beekeeper there. This is an amazing group of individuals, ready, willing and able to impart their knowledge, their tools, their tips, their experience and anything else a novice might want or need. I meet Betty, a St. Paul beekeeper who lives practically around the corner who told me all about her urban beehive in her backyard. Gosh what fun, to have your bees right in your own back yard. I meet Jim's wife Wendy who encouraged me to come back next year when I really was a first time beekeeper and not a zero time fraud. She also thought I was smart to get a jump start on my education, no shame in coming a year early! I made a point of thanking Jim before I left. He must have seen the "deer in the headlights" look in my eyes as I admitted to being a little overwhelmed by how much I need to learn. Jim suggested I try and break the endeavor down into steps and stay focused on the job at hand this month and not get to ahead of myself. "For example, in March, think about what needs to be done in March, not what needs to be done in August."

I have so much to learn! Staying in the hear and now, staying present and not escalating into the future. I need so much work on this lesson alone!

Minnesota State Fair, Counting the days!

2009-08-05T11:07:00.000-07:00

I am not a Minnesota State Fair fair-goer. After all, I was probably 16 before I even knew the Midway existed. My father took us to the fair every summer when I was growing up. It was not an annual summer tradition we looked forward to. He would pile all 6 of us into to the family station wagon at 6:00 am. My mother never joined us for these adventures. It took an exhausting amount of time to find the right parking spot, something not too far and not to expensive. We headed to Machinery Hill. Until I was much older this is what I thought the fair was, Machinery Hill. My father, who did in fact have farm property he was responsible for in Iowa and North Dakota surveyed the combines, the tractors, the silos, acting like he might make a purchase. Maybe he did, I don't really know. We would grow impatient and eventually he would take us to get a foot long hot dog which we thought was simply fantastic. By 10 am we were back home, having never seen the dairy building, the home economics building, a single animal, the giant slide, the haunted house, or any other part of the Minnesota State Fair. I didn't know local t.v. stations broadcasted from the fair, I didn't know there was a Midway, cheese curds snow cones, lemonade, fried donuts or anything on a stick for that matter.

Tina takes her nephew Chase to the fair every year, going on 8 years or so now. They have a tradition that he looks forward to that involves a coin jar that sit on our dresser. All year long we toss coins into the jar. Every time Chase visits he checks the jar, noting how full it has become. When opening day at the fair arrives he and Tina take the coin jar to the bank and have the coins counted and exchanged for bills. This is their fair fund, the money they can spend that day at the fair. Chase doesn't know, but on occasion I go to the bank and get $20 worth of coins to dump in the jar, just so he can see the level of coins grow bigger in the jar. I am not sure what he likes more, turning in the coins or actually spending the day at the fair. I never go, I am not a fair-goer. They spend ample time at the giant slide, they eat their way through the day, and go on some crazy water ride at the very end of the day. They come home spent, with just enough energy to tell me exactly how much money was in the jar and describe the expression on the bank tellers face when he or she asks what they are up to with all that change. Chase describes every minute of the day in remarkable detail. They have a ball.

I am going to go to the fair this year and I am counting the days until the opening day, hoping to turn those bad memories of Machinery Hill into new memories. I have two stops to make during my highly anticipated day at the fair. The yellow and red french fry booths, well they serve gluten free french fries. I am going to eat so many french fries that I will probably get sick. I'll bring my own ketchup, just to be sure and make a day of it, eating fries in between my visits to the bee booth in the agricultural building, yes apparently there is an agricultural building at the fair. I imagine it might be near Machinery Hill. The Minnesota Hobby Beekeepers Association hosts an area in the building where bee lovers can see inside a bee hive, learn about the honey bee, watch honey extraction and even see what one can do with the wax. I can't wait. I can't wait for the fries or the bees and if all goes well, I expect to become a fair-goer. Who knows, 12 days of the great american summer event, I just might go more than once to make up for lost time.

Getting ready for Julie and Julia

2009-08-04T16:22:00.000-07:00

Does this look like the kitchen of someone who cooks 27 minutes a day? According to Michael Pollan, Out of the Kitchen, On to the Couch, this is the average amount of time a day spent in food preparation by most American's.

Whoa! I know I am an outlier but 27 minutes, really?

We are going to see Julie and Julia, for two reasons. First and foremost Tina's brother Charlie had a serious boy crush on Julia Child and watched every single episode of the French Chef. When she died, Charlie cried. So we will go, with Charlie, to remember and celebrate the life of this extraordinary women who empowered so many in the kitchen! Julia Child is an Icon! After all she actually paved the way for the Food Network.

But this could have been my movie. True story. I have an active imagination, based on kernels of reality. I have seen myself at the Oscars, twice in fact. The first time I am watching Kathy Bates accept the best actress award for portraying me in a movie "Testing the Human Spirit", a true story about my work as a nurse taking care of pediatric patients with AIDS. My second appearance is for a documentary in which I work my way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Those plans fell apart after I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease and working my way through a singe recipe became very challenging. My hopes of hitting the hollywood scene were dashed and Julie Powell stole the show. I am happy for her really, even if it was sort of my idea. I am mostly happy that cooking is going to hit the big screen and maybe bring some enthusiasm back to the kitchen.

I will admit, I am excentric, especially in the kitchen. If I want tomato paste I start with tomatoes and spend an entire day cooking them down to a tangy paste. I always start from scratch and buck the food marketing researchers idea of what cooking today is all about. According to their model and their idea on the direction of cooking, my off spring, if I had them, would consider my idea of cooking crazy. They may be right according to history. Apparently in the 1950's the rage of breaking down cooking to opening cans and boxes and using packaged food was redefined with the advent of leaving something for the cook to do, specifically, crack open an egg, so "she" could take ownership of the cake". That is crazy. I do spend hours in the kitchen, chopping, dicing, sauteing, braising, stewing. If it comes in a bottle and I can make it myself, I do, chutney, mayo, soup, sauces . . . If it comes in a box and I can make it myself I do. When I grocery shop my cart is full of fruit, vegetables, weird flours, dairy and meat. I am not going to be tricked into thinking the box cake mix is somehow mine if I crack an egg into it.

And that movie idea, well it is on the back burner!

An Aspiring Bee Keeper

2009-07-23T17:46:00.000-07:00

My friend Kathy took me on a field trip this week. We went to her apiary, a yard where she keeps bees. Kathy has been keeping bees for the past 10 years. As an aspiring bee keeper myself I was delighted to spend the day with Kathy, see her hives, her bees, the brood, the Queen and get my first close up experience with honey bees. I am in! I am completely swooned and compelled to embark on this adventure.

The day held some surprises, including my willingness to be vulnerable and expose some of my most intimate thoughts about my yearning to keep bees. Somehow I felt completely safe, which says volumes about Kathy. I have been struggling with the validity of my desire and needed to know if I was completely off base. You see, it isn't about the honey, although that would be nice. And it isn't about the benefits of pollination which I would be happy to be a part of. It is far more selfish and self-serving. While the bees were surely a high point, the affirmation I got about my visceral desire to keep bees was just as much a highlight. I come at this endeavor with a need to be tamed, with the idea that the bees can empower me to be more mindful, more deliberate, more contemplative, and to be slowed down. I had only shared these thoughts with Tina. Perhaps Kathy would think, hum, she needs some therapy, not a colony of bees. I took a risk, sharing my thoughts, I knew it was a deal breaker, either I was meant for bee keeping or I wasn't and I had to know. Did I say I am in? I am in! I was completely affirmed. I would much rather spend my money on bees than a therapist!

We went to the bee yard, taking with us Kathy's observation hive, a small hive she keeps on her back porch for observation purposes, and teaching. The bees in this hive were not doing well and Kathy planned on adding them to an established hive. Only in doing so she needed to dispatch the Queen, something no beekeeper wants to do! The Queen seemed to have stopped laying eggs which is a very unfortunate problem, so she had to go. I felt enormous sadness for Kathy but honestly I was so intrigued in her ability to locate and extract the Queen that I lost sight of the killing.

Then Kathy began her inspection of her equipment, one entire colony had simply absconded! The other hive, a hive that feral bees had taken up residence had encouraging activity outside the hive. Bees buzzing about, heading in and out of the entrance with nectar and possibly some pollen although I could not appreciate either of these elements. We both donned protective veils at this point. Kathy did not really know the temperament of this particular colony, after all they had been living in the wild and simply moved in! In no short order Kathy removed her veil confident that the bees were docile and it would be easier to see and work. I would have removed my veil as well, things were going well for me, I felt enormously calm. However, it really was my first experience and I thought keeping the veil on was prudent.

Kathy went through the boxes inspecting the frames and pointing out cells with eggs, brood, comb, nectar, honey . . . and then she spotted the feral Queen. Finding the Queen, or at least good evidence that she is well, is a critical part of the inspection. Kathy seemed very pleased, good brood, good brood patterns, a thriving hive, it was all very positive, and maybe even unexpected considering the unusual nature of the acquisition. Once the hive was put back together I did remove my veil and watched the activity outside the hive, trying to appreciate the presence of nectar in the belly of the bee or see some pollen being carried in on their back feet, I could not.

We left the bee yard and went to see Kathy's farmer friends who host her apiary on their land. Catherine and Melissa have been farming for the past 15 years or so in Zumbrota, MN. They raise lambs, cattle, chicken and have lama's, ducks, dogs, cats and a beautiful peacock. They wool and butcher the lambs. Catherine is a writer, and wrote The Compassionate Carnivore, a book on how to keep animals happy, save Old MacDonald's Farm, reduce your hoofprint, and still eat meat. My kind of book and I intend to read it soon. Melissa took me a tour, showing off their stunning and well cared for animals and then we went to lunch.

It was a completely empowering day. I felt calm, centered and content. I felt like the world was full of possibility and that I could in fact do this, keep bees. I realize that I come to bee keeping at the worst possible time for the honey bee! Honey bees are facing unprecedented threats which include the introduction of mites, the arrival of the Africanized bee, the prevalent and persistent use of agricultural chemicals and more recently the so called Colony Collapse Disorder which is decimating hundreds of managed honey bee populations. It is a upward battle for the beekeeper, especially a novice like myself!

But I am in! I am hoping to find a host for my hives in Northfield and if all goes well I will hive two colonies next spring. I am registered to take a weekend class on honey bee management at the U of M in March and I am going to join the MN hobby Beekeepers organization. I have a new friend (which is the best part of all) and a bee keeping mentor. Life has taken a turn for me and I am full of energy, enthusiasm and some healthy trepidation.