G2F

Definition time! G2F is my way of saying gluten & grain free. I've decided to experiment with this lifestyle and see how it goes. It has certainly been a fun and interesting challenge culinarily. Definitely makes you think outside of the box and question everything that goes into your body. Though I am not going to be as strict as the Wheat Belly or Paleo diets, would have you go. I am eliminating/severely limiting wheat/gluten, rice and corn products from my diet. Bean and starch consumption will be limited as well. Honestly, it all boils down to a low carb diet, so it's not super complicated. My focus is mostly have tons of veggies and plenty of proteins. Since it's a bit difficult to find premade foods that meet my requirements, I cannot rely on traditional GF foods. They also tend to be full of junk. I must make everything from scratch. Most baked goods end up tasting like cornbread, which isn't completely bad, but certainly a change from what I am used to. I did end up making some pretty good Chocolate Chip cookies, though. Usually, when someone mentions going on a very restrictive diet, the first question is, "Well what DO you eat?". I will be sharing a few recipes and pics of the meals I've had. Here goes nothing...

The plumcot...why not?

Another fun find during the grocery shopping trip mentioned in my previous post were plumcots. If I'm not mistaken, they were on sale. Never having had a plumcot before, I decided it was high time to ride myself of that particular ignorance. I selected three succulent looking victims, (ended up being less a dollar for all three!), and added them to the already growing number of fresh fruits and veggies in my basket at the time.

Granted, like many Americans, I tend to be slow to actually snacking on fresh fruit when I'm standing in my kitchen looking for something to munch, so it's taken me a few days to actually get around to trying these pear-green beauties. I love plums, and I've recently become a fan of fresh apricots (I grew up eating the dried ones). True to my beliefs about trying new foods, I took a massive bite of the fruit, and let the juices run down my mouth. Upon first taste, it was like biting into a ball of honey. The flesh was extremely sweet and fairly mushy. The skin had a delightful tartness that cut into the almost unbearable sweetness.

I'm not really a fan of very sweet fruit, I actually prefer tartness. When shopping for grapes, most people sample them for sweetness; I go for the ones that look hard and will likely be more sour. Tart berries are the best. I even prefer watermelon that's not very sweet (I also like it warm rather than cold). So while it would be an overstatement to say I hate the plumcot, I'll just say I'm not really a fan. To each; her own. I've still got two more, and I promise you, they won't go to waste.

For the love of...

I recently made a promise to food. I promised I would be kind to it...give it a chance, and try not to judge it too much by it's appearance. When trying new foods, I've found diving in and taking a huge bite proves to be much more satisfying than taking a tentative nibble. It also helps avoid a premature proclamation of disdain. You really can't get the full, honest impression of something if your tongue approaches it with fear and trembling. I've trained my tongue to approach completely ready to fall in love. No hesitations or hiccups at the gateway of my taste buds. Thus far, this theory has provided me with countless treks to Yum-town. On a few occasions my tongue has found itself a bit incompatible with a few items, but that's to be expected. You can't really be a foodie if you have no discretion in your tastes. I've also found it's best not to ask what something is until after you've swallowed a good mouthful of it...possibly two. This tends to keep you honest. Think about it...how often have you tried something and liked it...until you found out what was in it? So what if that new dish you tasted is actually cow eyeballs boiled in rat dung puree? If you liked it when you tried it, then own up to it! Don't suddenly leave it hanging because you found out it doesn't run w/the cool crowd of ingredients. Alright, folks, enough of muh preachin', get out there and try something new!

Camping 2

Camping was tons of fun! The rain kind of followed us around for a bit, but didn't totally dampen our trip (pun intended). It was great being outdoors, and really taking/having the time to enjoy the beauty God has endowed all nature with. One of the things I enjoyed most was cooking over the open fire, and yes...I did bring my apron.

Here's what we had:

Friday
Lunch: PBJ sandwiches
Supper: Chili w/crackers

Saturday
Breakfast: Banana Pancakes
Lunch: Bean Burritos w/salsa
Supper: Grilled Cheese sandwiches, Tomato-Basil Soup, Sweet potato fries

Sunday:
Breakfast: Sweet potato pancakes
Lunch: Leftovers- PB&Banana Sandwiches, tomato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, mashed sweet potatoes

We had TONS of fruit to snack on/for desert as well. Needless to say, we didn't starve. On the way back to home, we stopped in a neighboring town for supper. A cute, little Mexican restaurant. I had chicken enchiladas. Not bad. We got back in Sunday at close to midnight, so tired we could barely keep our eyes open.

Camping 1

So I'm pretty excited. This weekend, I'm going camping with some dear friends. What really excites me is the culinary challenge, as I have never cooked on a camping trip. I'm not exactly sure how it will turn out, but I know I'll enjoy the experience. Another frontier to be conquered! (not that I've conquered any frontiers) I'll let you know how it goes, of course. If you happen to have any menu suggestions, please post them in the comment section!!

Happy eating!

Harvest time

So we all know I love bacon...obviously. But, shhhhh, don't tell Mr. Tocino, I'm seeing someone one the side. Pumpkin rocks my world. I had some old bread in the fridge and decided the time had come for me to experience pumpkin bread pudding. After perusing multiple recipes online, I came up with one that is a mixture of the best.

Harvest Bread Pudding

What you need:
6-7 cups cubed whole wheat bread
2 eggs
1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 cup brown sugar
7-8 oz pumpkin puree
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 tsp vanilla extract

What you do:

Pre heat: 350. In a large bowl toss the bread, cranberries, and walnuts together. In a medium bowl, whisk together the rest of the ingredients. Pour the egg mixture over the bread, and allow it all to hang out for about 10 mins, though the longer it hangs out, the tastier it will be! Grease a casserole dish or 8x8 inch baking dish. Pour the pudding in and bake 30ish minutes, or until knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Serve with Cinnamon Caramel Sauce

Cinnamon Caramel Sauce:

This is my own invention...I'm kind of infatuated with it.

The players:

1 stick butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tbs cinnamon
1/4 cup powdered milk (you could use regular milk or cream, but you need to warm it first)

The game plan:

Melt butter in small saucepan, add sugar and cinnamon. Allow the mixture to boil, then WHISK in the milk (again, if you're using regular milk or cream, warm it before adding it to the sugar mixture or it will curdle and leave lumps in your sauce). If you're using dry milk, it won't take long for the sauce get to the right consistency (4-5 mins). If you're using the regular stuff, it may take longer. You'll know what consistency you're looking for.

That's it folks! Serve the pudding warm with the sauce. Happy eating!

Heads down, thumbs up, lets eat 7 up

Yesterday was a friend's birthday, and of course, I felt the occasion should be marked with cake. He hinted around that his favorite cake was a 7up cake made by his grandmother. I grew up hearing about 7 up cakes, but I've never made one. I googled it, and the results were fairly consistent in that most of them had you make a basic lemon cake and add the 7up to the batter rather than milk or water. I was in a pretty big time crunch, so I thought I'd use a mix instead (I know, how horrible!). In hindsight, I think actually making the cake from scratch would have been just as time efficient as using mix.

Anywho, I had the problem of trying to figure out what sort of cake mix I wanted to use. I thought white cake wouldn't really help with the lemon-lime flavor I was going for. Yellow cake would have too much of a buttery taste. The recipes I read seemed like they'd make a yellow cake (since many called for 5 eggs), but they also called for a good amount of lemon extract. So I went with a lemon cake mix and decided to keep the balance between lemon and lime fairly close.

The players:

1 box Lemon cake mix
3 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/3 cup lemon-lime soda
2-3 tbs fresh lime juice
zest of two limes
zest of one lemon

Game plan:
Preheat oven to 350 (or 325 for dark/coated pans). Mix all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl for 1 1/2 mins on high. Pour into prepared pan. Bake 35 mins or until toothpick comes out clean. Allow to sit in pan about 7 mins, then flip out onto cooling rack and allow to cool until it no longer feels hot.

Icing:
lime juice, confectioners sugar

Start with about a cup and a half of sugar and add about two tablespoons of juice. Keep mixing in sugar and juice until it has a good icing consistency...meaning until it can run down the sides of the cake slowly, but get firm once it cools.

I decorated the cake with zest from a lemon and a couple of limes.

Enjoy!

Rainbow Meatloaf

So I've been experimenting again. This time, meatloaf was my victim. Everyone knows you normally put finely minced onion and green bell pepper in meatloaf, but why not add more veggies? Meatloaf can actually be quite healthy with a little extra effort.

The team:

1/2-3/4 cup pureed (or finely minced) carrots.
1/3 cup pureed zucchini
1/4 cup pureed roasted red peppers
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup chopped green bell pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. ground turkey
salt & pepper
Italian bread crumbs 1/2 cup...maybe more, enough to make everything stick together
Milk, 1/3ish of a cup
Worshire Sauce, 2 tbs at most
1/2 cup plain, all natural, yogurt
1/4 cup wheat bran
tomato sauce (small can)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Mix everything but the tomato sauce. Dump into slightly oiled pan (I use EVOO). Bake about 25-35 mins or until done. top with sauce and bake another 5 mins. Enjoy.

Depression Dinning

So I've been bitten by the need to organize my eating/cooking habits. I'm guilty of occasionally (once or twice a month by myself) eating out for convenience. I'm also bad about sometimes letting things sit too long and go bad. Anywho, I've decided to start portioning and freezing food. Portioning cuts down on defrost time and, of course, helps with portion control/over eating. Not to mention it looks neater in the freezer. My goal is to have enough food stored up, so that I won't have to do any major grocery shopping for at least two months. It may sound far fetched, but from the looks of my freezer, and my ever increasing knowledge and research on freezing foods, I think it's doable. This idea come from the fact that my income tends to fluctuate (sometimes wildly), so my ability to buy groceries also tends to fluctuate. I purposefully over spent my grocery budget to stock up on things like meat and produce to take advantage some super deals. With the way the economy is, it's a good idea to plan ahead. Things will get worse before they get better.

Over the course of last night and this morning, I've made, bagged, and frozen several batches of waffles. I came across a delish new waffle recipe, and was able to use a very brown banana I had left over from making banana bread. Woohoo! It was almost like a two for one deal! The recipe I found makes extremely light and fluffy waffles...delicate and delightful. Anywho, here's the recipe:

Whole wheat waffles
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
2 tbs. sugar (I used sucanat)
1 tbs. baking powder
2 eggs (or 1 egg and 1/4 cup applesauce)
1 3/4 cup milk (you can do half milk, half water as well)
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup fruit or veggie puree (I used banana)
1 tsp vanilla (optional)

Mix wet ingredients together in a small bowl. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Add wet to dry.

NOTES: I added a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg for an extra boost to the banana flavor. YUMMY!

Here's a hint on what will be making the trek to my freezer next: Idaho.

Eat well, be well.

Venturing into the land of the frozen

In an attempt to make cooking easier and less time consuming for myself, I've decided to start freezing more things, that way they are ready to go in the future. I predict this will also save money in that I'll be able to stock up on certain seasonal items and on-sale foods, then use them over the next several months. Today, I cooked a big batch of brown rice, and froze it in 1 cup sized portions. I did quite a bit of research to make sure you can freeze rice, because I was a bit sceptical. We'll see how this goes. Tomorrow will be dedicated to Titus 2 and making veggie purees for freezing.

Sweet child of mine

I'm experimenting with different ways to sweeten things. I've grown weary of the unhealthy, mundane habit of adding white, processed sugar to everything. Thanks to a trip to Homestead Heritage back in December, I've been introduced to sucanat. This unrefined cane sugar. Its brown, grainy and has a completely different taste than it's processed white cousin. It's not quite as sweet, and has a noticeable molasses flavor. It brings a nice depth to whatever dish you're trying to sweeten without being overpowering. BE WARNED: sucanat will add color as well as flavor, so if you're trying to make a white cake or anything of the sort...use a white sweetener.

That brings me to the other sweetener that has been gracing my spice cabinet as of late...fructose. This is the sugar found in honey and fruits..."fruit sugar" as it is sometimes called. Medicinally, it is also used as an intravenous nutrient. It is far sweeter than cane sugar, so if you're going to use this in a recipe it's 2/3 cup of fructose for every 1 cup of white, granulated sugar. It has worked beautifully in all of the baked goods I've made.

Dry sweetening has it's advantages, but I've discovered the joys of using simple syrup. You make simple syrup by boiling 1 cup water with 1 1/2 cup sugar (less for fructose, obviously) until it gets slightly thick. You use this mainly to add to drinks or dry things that need moisture as well as sweetening. Certain cake recipes call for adding simple syrup to each layer for extra flavoring. Adding spices or zests can make a nice flavored syrup for sweet tea. I made vanilla flavored simple syrup using sucanat and fructose for some hot chocolate and it was to die for!

Anyway, I hope I've inspired you to go beyond the norm, and look into healthier, more natural ways to satisfy your sweet tooth.

Happy eating