Christmas Cookies!

When my friend Morgan told me she was going to do some gluten free Christmas cookie baking, I directed her to Carrie’s gluten free cookie roundup at GingerLemonGirl. Once I browsed through the plethora of cookie recipes, I decided that I needed to do a gluten free cookie baking day, too.

I have a friend from my church who was diagnosed with Celiacs two weeks ago. So I invited her over and we baked cookies all morning and afternoon last Saturday!

We made Chocolate Chip Cookies (of course!), Cranberry Orange Cookies (since I have a love affair with cranberries), and Sugar Cookies.

I’ll definitely be saving these recipes to use again. The cookies were so scrumptious!

On a side note; yes the sugar cookies are a donkey and a pig. Unfortunately I don’t have any “Christmasy” cookie cutters, just barn yard animals. But, I figured there were probably donkeys and pigs in the stable when Jesus was born, so it works!

Blue Cheese - Gluten Free?

Gluten Free Kay asked me about the blue cheese that I had on Thanksgiving. I served Amablu blue cheese. I emailed Amablu to ask if their cheese was gluten free and received a response in 18 minutes. Here’s what Beth at Amablu said:

“That is a very common question and I’m glad you asked. Our Amablu products, including our blue cheese, gorgonzola and our award winning St. Pete’s Select blue cheese are all gluten free. We are careful to purchase our Penicillium roqueforttii from manufacturers that culture without the use of wheat or rye breads.

We here at Faribault Dairy take pride in making handmade, all natural, award winning cheese and ultimately strive for you, the consumer to have a pleasurable palate experience. Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions or concerns.

I hope you enjoy your blue cheese experience.”

I have a fond connection with Amablu. My grandfather worked in the sand caves in Faribault making blue cheese many years ago. They shut down the caves for a while, and then recently the Faribault Dairy company bought them and began production again.

My sister and I have very thin skin, so you can easily see our veins beneath it. We like to say that we have blue cheese coursing through our veins. When people ask how we can eat moldy cheese, we say, “It’s in our blood!” We follow in the footsteps of our grandpa!

Frito Bars!

Here’s that frito bar recipe I promised. I made them for our election party on Tuesday, and they were just about finished off. Luckily I saved one for a picture!

I’m sure I got this recipe from somewhere, but I couldn’t find it anywhere online, so sorry I’m not giving credit for it.

Frito Bars

10.5 to 12 oz. bag of frito corn chips
1 cup white Karo syrup
1 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter, crunchy or creamy
Chocolate chips to top, at least 1 cup

Spray a 9x13 pan with non-stick cooking spray. Crunch up the chips in the bag and spread them in the bottom of the pan.

In a medium saucepan, bring the Karo syrup to a boil. Add the sugar and simmer until the sugar is dissolved. (Don’t you love dissolving sugar in sugar!) Remove from heat and stir in the peanut butter.

Pour over the chips and mix together. Melt the chocolate chips and spread over the top of the bars. Cool, and enjoy!

Box O' Snacks

Look at all of these tasty gluten free snacks that my kind Mother sent to us!

What fun it was to open up an unexpected package of treats. Apparently there are some pretty cool stores out in Washington, since I’ve never seen these brands in Iowa.

I especially like the Mary’s Gone Crackers Sticks and Twigs, chipotle tomato flavored. Also, Pamela’s Organic Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chunk cookies were to die for! Those were gone in about three days.

We took the rest of these snacks (not the gravy mixes or soap bar, of course) on our weekend trip. Together with the caramel corn, we were eating good! At least snack-wise, haha.

Caramel Corn

Since we're going on a trip this weekend, we made a batch of caramel corn for a snack. We used this recipe here, but made just a half recipe.

Apparently we took it too literally when it said to boil for five minutes without stirring. It burned a bit on the bottom of the sauce, so next time I think we’ll stir occasionally.

Other than that, it turned out pretty good!

Bean Dip

Tim and I had this for dinner on Monday. It also works great for parties. You can make it on a disposable aluminum pizza pan and just throw it out so you don't have to bring home a messy platter.

Bean Dip

1 can of gluten free refried beans
1 packet Ortega taco seasoning (it's gluten free)
shredded cheese
1 cup sour cream
1 medium onion, diced
black olives, lettuce, green onions, tomatoes, just about whatever you want
salsa

Since I was making this for dinner, I heated the beans up first. If I'm taking it somewhere, I just leave them cold.

Mix half of the seasoning packet into the beans. Spread out the beans on a platter or pizza pan. If the beans are warm, add the cheese next.


Mix the other half of the seasoning packet into the sour cream, and layer that on the beans.


Next, throw all of the veggies and stuff on top. Finish it off with salsa.


Serve with chips or toasted tortillas!

(Aren't those roses pretty? Tim got me three for our three year anniversary. He's the best! )

Muffin Maniac!

I was a muffin making machine yesterday! I made 71 muffins.

We are going camping (tenting, literally) next week, so I'm in the gluten free snack-making mode this week. I made some blueberry muffins adapted from a recipe in The Gluten Free Gourmet Bakes Bread, some chocolate chocolate chip muffins that still need to be tweaked before I share the recipe, and some of my Mom's banana muffins.

It got quite hot in my kitchen with my A/C being out and the oven being on for about 4 hours! But it was worth it. I know I'm going to appriciate having a muffin for breakfast or for a snack at camp next week.


Banana Muffins

2 cups white rice, brown rice or quinoa flour, or any combination of the three.
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup (or a little less) sugar

1 1/2 cups ripe banana, about two large
3 eggs, beaten
2/3 cup canola oil (I substitute about half applesauce)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line or grease two muffin tins.

Mix together the dry ingredients. Mix together the wet ingredients.

Blend together the wet and dry ingredients, but don't overmix. At this point you could add 1/2 cup of walnuts or fold in about 6 ounces of chocolate chips (I always do this!).

Fill the muffin tins and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cook on a wire rack.


Thanks for this great recipe Mom!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

I got a lot done around the house yesterday. My clothes are put away, the dishes are done, my coupons are clipped, and I made chocolate chocolate chip muffins!

Like my recent mac'n'cheese experiment, these muffins were good, but they could be better. I'll wait to put up the recipe until I get them just right. But, hopefully the picture will be inspiring to you!

Strawberry Muffins

I hate to share this, but I made these muffins on Thursday, and they're all gone now! But, I did bring a few to my neighbors, so Tim and I didn't eat them all.

Strawberry Muffins
1 cup sorghum flour (or quinoa flour)
1 cup brown rice flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup turbinado sugar (or regular)

1 1/2 cup mashed strawberries (a few less than 16 oz.)
3 eggs
2/3 cup canola oil

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare the muffin tins (grease or line). I then used a food chopper to pulverize the strawberries. Mix together the dry ingredients. In a seperate bowl, mix together the three wet ingredients. Then add the dry ingredients to the the wet and blend. Do not overmix. Fill the muffin tins and bake for 25 - 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

I must give credit to my mom, since I adapted this recipe from her great banana muffin recipe. Thanks Mom!

Chipper Sandwich

This one's for my Dad. When I was young, every time we'd venture off to DQ, Dad would invariably get the "Chipper Sandwich." Now, using the chocolate chip cookie recipe at Ginger Lemon Girl, I made my own!

I did use chocolate chip ice cream instead of vanilla. It was still delicious!

Sweet Potato Fries

I had a sweet potato just sitting around, and I had some bacon grease cooling on the stove. "Now," I thought to myself, "what should I make with this sweet potato that would be blog-worthy?"

You guessed it: I cooked up the sweet potato fries in the bacon grease. When they were cooling, I seasoned them with garlic salt. They were very nummy.

Disclaimer: This is not the norm for our household; I do at times make an effort to eat healthy, but I just didn't want to waste that bacon fat, hehe.

Really Good Bars

I grew up in Minnesota. Yup, I'm from the frigid arctic wasteland of... Minneapolis. Actually, it's not as cold as some might think. My family and my in-laws are still there, so we get to visit from time to time.

"Why are you telling me this?" you might ask. I'm telling you this as a way to explain today's post title: "Really Good Bars." Depending on where you live, you would call bars cookies, or treats, or some other ridiculous name. In the North country, we tell it like it is. When it comes out of a rectangular pan, and it's retangular or square in shape, it's a bar. That's just the way it is.
I work with our AWANA kids program at church, and this week we were celebrating everyone's birthday by having everyone bring treats to share. I brought the afore mentioned "Really Good Bars." Here's what I put in 'em.

10 oz. marshmallows
1/4 cup butter
6 cups Cocoa Pebbles
mini M&M's
extra mini marshmallows

Melt the 10 oz. marshmallows and butter. Mix with the cereal in a 9 x 13 pan. Add mini M&M's and extra mini marshmallows and mix. Spread out flat in the pan using a lightly greased baggie. They should look like this:


I must say, they were a hit!

CranRazzGrape Smoothie

As a tribute to Karina, the Gluten Free Goddess, I made a CranRazzGrape Smoothie on Sunday. I should actually give credit where credit is due: Tim made the smoothie, I gave directions while making pizza crust (see previous post).

CranRazzGrape Smoothie

2 cups Grape Juice

1 cup frozen Cranberries

1 cup frozen Raspberries

1/2 cup powdered milk

1/4 cup sugar, to taste

Throw everything into the blender.

Liquefy.

Pour.

Enjoy!

This recipe makes two large servings, and believe me, you'll want a large serving!

Guacamole!

Our friends are here to visit for the weekend. We had a great taco salad for dinner. I just use an Ortega taco seasoning packet and a pound of ground turkey. I do make my own guacamole, though, and it is mouthwateringly good! It's a simple recipe; I don't put in onions and tomatoes and all the other bells and whistles. Here's what I do

Sarah's Guacamole

1 medium avacado, not too mushy, but not too hard

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

fresh ground pepper

lime juice to taste

hot sauce (optional, I like Franks)

Mash up the avacado with a potato masher. Add the olive oil and mix. Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix.

Enjoy!

Veronica Dip

Here's a nice gluten free fruit dip that is super easy to make and not all that bad for you!

Veronica:

2 parts sour cream
1 part brown sugar

Mix the sour cream and brown sugar together until creamy. Serve with fruit slices or pour over fruit to make creamy fruit salad.