The cookie monster was in our house recently.

These peanut butter cookies are gluten free. And there are only 3 ingredients. Oh, oh yes you can.

1 egg
1 C. Peanut Butter
1 C. Sugar

Mix well, plop by spoonfuls on baking sheet and bake in oven at 350 for 8 min, cool on wire rack.

Here’s the play by play on twitter, I only annoyed a few people with my rapid tweets … I think.

Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5, 6
Step 7
Step 8

I used this recipe from Gluten Free Goddess , if you haven’t already been to her site in search of answers about becoming gluten free or how to bake some cookies – you totally should. She is my mecca right now.

Also? Let’s be honest, here. This, first try, loaf didn’t look as pretty as I was envisioning.

But it tasted just fine. I think my issue was the size of pan I used. Her recipe calls for a 1.5 pound loaf pan, and really? I have no idea what that means. I just grabbed one of the 3 (two of which are Ikea pans … and probably weird 8 oz pan sizes or something) loaf pans I own and went for it.

I have a Fearless Kitchen. It’s liberating. I encourage you to forget the rules and add some cinnamon. You’re SO allowed.

Now. Baking gluten free is scary if you’re new to it. There isn’t one flour you can frivolously throw into the mix and get something to rise or not taste like stone. So get to know your GF flour mixes first.

I’ve used Pamela’s Baking Mix with wonderful results. We make our pancakes and waffles with this religiously and LOVE it. Pretty sure you can use it to make breads, scones, cupcakes, birthday cakes, muffins etc etc as well.

I just bought some Red Mill All Purpose GF flour to try out – a trusty GF friend said she felt this mix held up better to an egg replacer .

That’s as technical as I’m getting. If you have questions as to what the heck I’m talking about, leave them in the comments, I will respond to them all.

So – let’s make some bread. For this Tutorial I followed the recipe to a T, I do not have a bread machine so I used her instructions farther down on the page to tell me how to prepare the dough manually. But because those instructions were farther down on the page then the actual recipe, I compromised and came up with this so I wouldn’t get lost:

These are the “wet ingredients” you’ll need:

And the “dry”:

I started by proofing my yeast like so:

Add 2 TBSP Honey to 1 1/4 C warm water …

I missed, oops! But once it’s in the water you’ll have this.

Now stir to dissolve the honey:

Add 1 TBSP Yeast to Honey/Water mixture and stir it up, then forget about it …

Now in a clean bowl we’re going to mix the dry ingredients together – we’ll start with the Sorghum Flour:

You need 1 Cup of this bad boy.

Now we’ll add the Potato Starch, not to be confused with Potato flour.

1 Cup of him, too.

Check your yeast at some point, it’s starting to get happy.

Next, to your dry ingredients, you’ll add the Xanthan Gum. Weird.

2 tsp of it.

Then the Millet Flour:

1/2 cup of his badself

Aaaand the sea salt. Her recipe says “fine sea salt” but I had coarse – throw caution to the wind people! DARE YOURSELF TO UNFOLLOW RULES. Sorry, something came over me.

About this much is fine. The recipe calls for 1 1/4 tsp.

Stir up the Dry Guys

How’s the yeast?

Vondervil!!! Now add the proofed yeast to the dry ingredients

Add 3 to 4 TBSP EVOO

Then the 1/2 tsp white wine vinegar.

In another clean, small bowl quick whip up your egg replacer – 1 TBSP Egg replacer with 4 TBSP warm water until frothy.

Add your “eggs” to the rest of the dough batter

And mix it up, stir stir stir

Until it looks like this

Find yourself a 1.5 pound loaf pan then oil it, WELL. I must have skimmed on the oil part because that’s half the reason my loaf fell apart – I couldn’t get it out of the pan. So … Liberal use of oil.

Plop the batter into your loaf pan

Use a wet finger to smooth out the top of the dough before you set it in a warm place to rise for one hour.

Ready to rise!

I put my loaf to rise underneath a towel on the preheated stove since my kitchen is uber drafty. No chances here folks. I need a warm nest for that bread.

An hour later – here’s the difference:

Bake at 350 for 45 min to an hour. Just knock on the bread, if it’s hollow, it’s done. Cool on a wire rack.

We had BLTs for dinner that night. YUM!

Along with having to be super careful about what I eat because of the whole “you’re probably diabetic” thing – I can’t really have alcohol either. Except for red wine … once in a while.

For a while, after I read that Red Wine helped slow down the digestion of insulin in ones body that it was actually beneficial to a diabetic to drink a glass, I was having one with dinner most nights.

Then I read about diabetics and blood types – and how my blood type has low stomach acid and should avoid caffeine and alcohol … well, I haven’t had hardly any … alcohol … coffee in the morning is a harder one to let go of. But I’m a tea drinker too. I’m transitioning.

And tonight I had a glass of wine because today was crazy. Because it sounded good. Because I have a box of it in the fridge. Oh, yes, I do.

Then I proceeded to silly-email friends on facebook and giggle to myself about it, out loud. But after the past few days, which were total emotional wringers for me, a night like this. A light night. A happy night. A night with a little buzz. (Sorry, Grandma!) It just fits.

In other fun news – the results to our little poll on the next Cooking Demo topic are in!

So … it’s a tie for Healthy cooking and Cooking over the fire (which is a total surprise to me!) but I “test voted” once to make sure it was all set up and working and I voted for Cooking over the fire – so technically Healthy cooking wins this round.

There you have it! Details coming soon about Healthy Cooking – Cooking Demo.

Insert tiny print here: And Oh My Word, you should not read this and think I’m condoning alcohol use in any way, because please … I do not have that much power, but I know I’ll get emails about it … so just stop right there.

The Cooking Demo yesterday was a ton of fun!

I came home exhausted and completely full of good food but even better – full of good life. Good conversations, good friends, good experiences.

I was a little worried about doing something like this at first – once everyone was there they kind of just sat there looking at me waiting for me to start. Which is when I said – uh … please don’t stop talking. I have no idea what I’m doing!

But I think it went good. We kept the conversation going, I hope I said something that made sense during the whole time. It was so very nice that I knew most of ladies in attendance ahead of time. Made me WAY more at ease about acting like I have anything important to say.

I wasn’t sure if I should narrate everything I was doing ala Rachel Ray on TV or if I should just whip stuff out and answer questions as we went along. I didn’t know if I should focus on what I think about being in the kitchen (Keeping things simple, use substitutions, get creative!) or if I should focus on what the ladies knew and felt and go from there.

All in all, it was a fun time. I would totally do it again. In fact, I’m already planning the next one. I think instead of going through a whole meal I’ll pick something (like fish or desserts – but not together!!) and focus on that.

I felt like most of the attendee’s were really interested in the fish yesterday, what I did with it, how I did it and how I went about cooking it. Which didn’t even cross my mind when I was planning it – thinking that I should focus more on one thing than another.

I also didn’t man the camera very much and many thanks go to Rebekah for taking some photos along the way. I’ll have to be better about getting in there and taking some photos next time.

And like I said yesterday we had some pretty awesome sponsors to help it go that extra mile:

Kitchen Stories offered me a wonderful discount so I could send my attendee’s home with a little something-something . I just love her quote right off the bat – “I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond.” - Mae West I mean, how can you not want to hang out with this wonderful lady?

I didn’t have the budget to gift an apron to each of my guests … but you have to see these. The Pretty Ditty etsy shop is to die for.

Those aprons would have come in handy while I was mixing up the guts to the cake …

Which we devoured.

Like I said, though, it was fantastic. I felt comfortable (once I got over myself) and I can’t wait for the next one. I think I’ll wear a wig though … then I can pretend I’m PW or something and maybe I’ll feel more comfortable being all “And then you add some salt, just a pinch.” Weird. Weird weird weird.

Let’s meet the attendee’s:

Donielle came along with one of her Peanuts. Isn’t she adorable? I got to hold her for about 45 seconds while Donielle strapped on her trusty carrier for her Peanut to rest in while she demonstrated Kefir to the group (and let us try it!) and my uterus started screaming at me.

You can see why, no?

Rebekah came after spending the morning antiqueing with Michelle (another attendee) in Saugatuck. SO FUN!

And here’s Michelle – Hi Michelle! Love your name

I was going to have all the recipes written out for each girl and wrapped all nice but then I had a sick husband, remembered that I have 2 kids and had a broken car in one week … so … you know. They had to transfer them over to a recipe card themselves, but I think they forgive me.

I didn’t capture a great photo of Candace, but you can see her here:

Candace and I go way back. I’ll just leave it at that. She’s a texture girl, just like me, as far as food goes. She wasn’t too hip on the Salmon but that’s ok – she tried it! They all did, which was the best part for me.

Sitting down with everyone after making all the food and just getting to know each other. That’s what this is all about for me. You. All of you.

While we were all standing in the kitchen Donielle demonstrated Kefir to us …

It was so interesting and I took some home to try out on my kids … they both LOVED it. It’s like fizzy juice, or pop … which is exactly what Jessica called it once she tried it. I was starting to look at doing this so now I’m glad I know what it’s supposed to look/taste like and I think I’ll go ahead and give it a try.

What a day! But it’s not over.

Red Bird Ink etsy shop wants to give you a chance to win a letterpress print from their shop in the name of cooking. Amen.

They’re offering up one of their Cow Parts No3 Prints to one of my lucky readers!!

To Enter:

Click through to their shop and leave a comment back on this post telling me your favorite print, stationary or coaster they have listed.

That’s it! Please give them some love, I have an addiction to letterpress and I LOVE their shop.

***Contest ends Tuesday evening 10 pm EST March 2, 2010, winner to be announced Wednesday March 3, 2010***

The Cooking Demo is happening today!! I’m pretty excited to see some blog friend faces and hang out. We might do some cooking while we’re at it.

Here’s the difference between me and Martha: Ms. Stewart would be hot-gluing butterflies and stars all over her handmade gift bags and then handwriting, caligraphy style, each attendee’s initials. Inside that gift bag would be more handmade goodness. Probably a small parcel filled with sweets, all handmade of course, and wrapped in cheese cloth. I’m fantasizing that she’d have her apron on, her make up done and an outfit pressed and ready to impress. She’d probably wear a fancy flat or heel.

Me?

I’ll be wearing slippers. I didn’t fire up the glue-gun but we do have gift bags and if I get around to handwriting the attendee’s names … it’ll be just that. Their name.

All with love though.

I’ve been picking my mom’s brain as I’m planning this Cooking Demo, trying to get her advice on when to start which dish … maybe I should talk about this, or that … just bouncing ideas off of her and I doubt it will come as a surprise that if my mom were planning this and throwing the Demo it would be a very different afternoon. Not in a bad way!! It’d be lovely. But it’d be to impress, to dazzle and sparkle … to inspire.

My mom is Betty Crocker and she taught Martha everything she knows. My mom is amazing.

I’m just messy.

I don’t mean to bring my mom into so many of my posts lately, but she’s FUNNY! She’s so starkly different from me and she’s my only reference point for how I got to be me. I mean, I am her clone … I will be her in 30 years physically but that’s about where the similarity stops.

A recipe for my mom is a guaranteed A, another four-point-oh mark on her transcript. A recipe for me is a suggestion. You can see how our demonstrations would be like night and day, no?

SO! Not to scare you, my lovelies, we’ll be having a recipe-following afternoon full of conversation, desserts, fun and laughter.

And we’ve got some pretty awesome sponsors to help it go that extra mile:

Kitchen Stories offered me a wonderful discount so I could send my attendee’s home with a little something-something. I just love her quote right off the bat – “I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond.” - Mae West I mean, how can you not want to hang out with this wonderful lady?

I didn’t have the budget to gift an apron to each of my guests … but you have to see these. The Pretty Ditty etsy shop is to die for.

I have a couple more surprises up my sleeve, but I want to wait to announce those to my attendee’s.

Can’t wait!

As a side note – this entire Cooking Demo is sponsored by me. No one is paying me to say I love their product or to use certain ingredients in the recipes I’ll be making today and posting about later.

I’ve been on quite the journey to be a more healthy person, inside and out, over the past 4 years. Lots and lots of credit goes to Jill Tanis and her understanding of food and our relationship to it.

One of the biggest take-aways I had was to eat MORE MORE MORE dark, leafy greens. So I did. I love kale and beet greens – we’ve tried endive, we eat tons of spinach, broccoli rabe (or rapini) and romaine, I’ve taken a gander with dandelion greens and I even juiced rainbow chard a few weeks ago. But eating swiss chard? No, no thank you. Have not had the bug in my pants to try this one until recently.

Here it is. You’ll need: EVOO, salt, pepper, swiss chard, and garlic.

Start by pouring some EVOO into a pan on the stove.

While your oil is heating up, chop up some garlic … and this I love to do. You get to get a little rough with the garlic. Knock it around a bit. Get a little frisky. Get angry, even.

Start with your cloves and a knife that would scare your grandmother.

Take one clove and set your large knife on top of it, like so…

Then SMASH it.

Success. You should be able to peel the skin off the garlic now and set it aside to chop after you’ve smacked around the other cloves of garlic.

When you’ve smashed and skinned all your cloves, chop them up. Be fearless.

Then toss them in the oil.

Add some salt (I forgot about the pepper)

(Missing photos)
Chop your swiss chard, I only used 5 or 6 leaves for this saute. They’re big leaves and being the first time trying it, I wanted to take it easy.

One you’ve removed the vein (stem) from the swiss chard (it’s bitter) chop up the swiss chard and toss it in with the garlic, salt and oil.

It doesn’t take long for it saute down.

Add to your dinner and try it … maybe you’ll enjoy it. Who knows!

We did not. It was a little too bitter for my liking and my very adventurous children spit it out. Can’t blame them. So I tried it again – only the next time I tried it … I added it to soup (substituted the spinach in the recipe for swiss chard and kale). Much better flavoring for me. I’ll keep taking swiss chard out on dates until I find the perfect fit. Why? Because it’s beneficial and worth the leg work to make it a part of our diets.

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

I was going to write this all out on paper but then I decided photos would so much easier to explain this. I’m going away tonight! Packing my bags and heading out! Just kidding. I am, however, going out for dinner…which cripples my lovely husband into buying pizza which we niether have the funds for right now nor can my children eat such food. So, I’m making him a step by step meal plan to feed himself and the kids a healthy, fulfilling meal at home tonight.

Pull up your sleeves, lets get in there!

Aaron … read this whole thing first. I know you. You’re going to want to know where things are before you start and then get frustrated. I love you.

First things first – pop the asparagus that I have in the water bath into the steamer (it’s all ready to go), discard the water from the water bath in the sink and set the pan aside – you don’t need either any more. Plug the steamer in and turn the dial to 20 min. You’re done with the asparagus until it’s ready to plate and eat.

Now turn the front right burner on – use this pan (no photo) to melt the butter. (only use about 3 or 4 tbs)

While the butter is melting (on medium heat) cut up the onions – use as much as you’d like … don’t dice them though – you’ll end up with a stir fry when all is said and done so you’ll want some substance to the onion other than taste.

Throw them into the pan and start sauteing them. While that’s happening - Drain the meat I have set out to defrost – pat it dry if possible (use a clean towel and then throw in the wash asap) when they’re relatively dry throw them on top of the onions – brown. Stir ‘em around, have fun.

While that’s getting going you can start to fry your potatoes (if you want them…)

I’d use 3 at most – wash them and cut them up … slices probably. And thin.

Add about 3 tbs butter to this pan and turn the left front burner on medium heat.

Fry those suckers up. Might need to add butter … you make the decision. Add salt and pepper as you see fit.

Insert the spices:

Do Not Use Them All! Smell them and decide for yourself – also … it doesn’t matter how much you use, start small – you can always add when you’re tasting it.

HEY GUESS WHAT!! GOOD THING YOU’RE READING THIS FIRST BECAUSE HERE’S WHERE I TELL YOU TO PRESEASON THE BEEF BEFORE ADDING IT TO THE PAN TO BROWN. Same rules apply, don’t use them all – smell and decide. Have fun.

Continuing on with the beef: here’s where the soy sauce comes in … when the beef is browned and looking yummy throw in some soy sauce – a couple shakes. Don’t over do it, it can over take the dish.

Then quickly add the Pineapple and Green Onions (in fridge).

This last step with the Soy Sauce, Pineapple and Green Onion should only last a couple minutes – maybe 3. You don’t want the pineapple to disintegrate. Just get it in there – stirred up and warm.

Taste Test it. Hopefully it doesn’t suck. Enjoy

I’m doing a food demo for my facebook friends … well, my friends. They just happen to also be facebook friends – so click away please, friend yourself .

Here’s the run down and I’m opening it up here, I have room for 2 or 3 more people to join the fun: You’re going to want to be within driving distance to Saugatuck, Mi. It’s free, you bring nothing and there will be wine for your enjoyment while we cook and bake and laugh. HUGS!

We’ll be making:

Appetizer – Curry Dip (for veggies)
Salad – Poppy Seed Dressing
Main Course – Salmon and Grandma’s Secret Sauce (I’m unleashing the recipe)
Dessert – Mocha Torte

Fun and easy snack – Caramel Popcorn

There’s no “side dish” listed here because there won’t be a recipe for the one I’m preparing. It’ll most likely be green. But good. You veggie haters – JUST WAIT!

If you’re interested in delurking and hanging out – comment or email me .

Time and place specifics will be emailed to attendees only. You have until Wednesday to respond for an open spot.

GO!

Mmmm. Our test kitchen (Jessica, Oliver and myself) decided to embark on this fun little adventure of making up a recipe that uses kiwi as a main ingredient. There’s a hefty prize to be won so we put our thinking caps on and went for it.
Here’s what we came up with … ZUKIWI BREAD.
Ingredients:
3 whole eggs
3/4 C applesauce (our healthy substitution for oil)
3/4 C sugar
2 mashed Zespri Kiwi fruits
1 Tbs vanilla
1 tsp Baking soda
2 tsp gr. cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 C grated zucchini
1 1/2 C Whole Wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 C unbleached all purpose flour
Preheat oven to 350, grease 2 loaf pans, mix ingredients together in order shown – mixing well as you go then pour equal amounts into each loaf pan and bake for 45 min.
Your kitchen will love you. So will your kids.

Jessica weighs in on the Zukiwi Bread taste test from Jodi Schaap on Vimeo .

Oliver tests the Zukiwi Bread from Jodi Schaap on Vimeo .

As you can see, both kids loved it. And a day later – we’re still asking for the ZuKiwi bread for snacks and instead of other lunch options. Yay! I have a winner (at least with my kids!). Our lunch box just got interesting.

And it’s one for the books.
Beets and Oranges? Wait, what are beets? On a salad?! Aren’t those the purple things in a can that you buy around Thanksgiving … or is is Christmas? There’s lettuce in there right? Oh good. Now I’m listening.
So glad I got your attention … because this salad is a surprisingly wonderful lunch or snack.

Beet Orange Salad
Mixed greens or arugula
6 beets, roasted and diced
1 whole orange, cut into segments and diced
To roast beets: put in oven at 450 degrees for approx 45 – 60 minutes or until you can easily pierce the beet with a knife. Let cool and removed skins. Discard skin and dice beets. (This step can be done days in advance and stored in fridge.)
Add greens, beets and orange segments into a salad bowl.
Dressing:
Tablespoons Olive oil
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (or 1 tablespoon umeboshi plum vinegar)
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
3 tablespoons grated parmesan
Juice of ½ lemon
Juice of cut up orange (after segments are removed)
Sea salt and pepper to taste (no salt needed when using plum vinegar)
Whisk and pour over salad mixture.
From Jill Tanis
Notes: I only had 3 beets so I roasted them and used ONE per salad. So I could make a total of 3 salads – planning for a week. How do you roast or make beets? Just like squash. Fill a pan with some water – cut the greens/stems off the beets – rinse them, put them in the pan with the water (about an inch is good) and in the oven at 350 until you can pierce the skin with a fork. The cool and peal – stick the beets in the fridge for later use, or use right away. You can play with the heat of your oven to get them done faster.