seeded bread

This is a seeded, gluten-free, allergen-free, vegan bread. Out of all of the breads that I have baked without using white flour/eggs/milk... this one is the best. It has a soft texture and a delicious flavor. It doesn't have the cake-y, dough-y dampness that some of the breads made with brown rice flours have. It is also not gritty. The seeds [flax, sunflower, poppy] are just right. I'll admit that I had my first piece warm from the oven with a dab of "real" butter and that changes things, but it's great without the butter too.
This recipe is from The Allergen-Free cookbook that I've been using. It is made using yeast and traditional bread-making techniques. I do find that the instructions in these vegan cookbooks could be more complicated as to yield better results. But they are written for people who might be afraid to bake bread in the first place and need some simplicity to be encouraged to try it. So it's kind of a "throw it in your mixer, throw it on a pan, put it in the oven" deal. I have much better results with all of these recipes when I let the yeast get bubbly and let the dough rest & rise as needed.
To this particular dough I added cardamom, coriander and a little extra salt. And honey.

steamed clams

These are Manilla Clams from Puget Sound. I am lucky to live close enough to these guys that they can be sold at Costco for $3.50/lb. Steaming clams is so easy. The only thing you really need is... steam. The rest is flavor. This is one of my favorite ways to cook clams:

• melt butter in large, heavy skillet. add same amount of olive oil. [1 tbs per pound of clams]
• add a few cloves of smashed garlic
• when the butter has melted, add your clams. make sure they are well-rinsed & clean of sand/debris. never cook a cracked or open clam. never eat a clam that does not open after it cooks or looks damamged.
• add 1/2 a bottle of sparkling white wine/champagne/proseco. Heat on medium-high until boiling.
• add sea salt, whole coriander seeds, black pepper, dried tarragon, red chili flakes
• use a big heavy spoon to gently stir the clams around, bring the ones on the bottom to the top.
• cover with a lid or foil and let them steam, stirring every few minutes to prevent the shells from burning on the bottom. don't let the pan get dry. if you need to add more liquid, add more wine or water.
• the clams are done when they are open. this might take 3 or 10 minutes, depending on how full the pan is.
• transfer the clams to a warm bowl. you can pour the cooking broth over them or let it reduce a little in the pan, seasoning with more salt or pepper as needed. I like to add a squeeze of lemon at this point, too.
• The hot broth will keep the clams warm while you eat them, so definitely don't try to serve it "on the side" or something silly. Get a fork and some crusty bread!

green smoothie

• almond milk, unsweetened
• fresh pineapple
• dinosaur kale
• frozen peaches
• banana
• agave syrup

president's juice

Mango
Kiwi
Apple
Carrot
Lemon
Ginger
Celery
Pineapple

Juice with citrus

• 1/2 fresh pineapple
• 2 mangoes
• 1 lemon
• 2 pink grapefruit
• 3 pink lady apples
• ginger
• 2 kiwi
• 1 lb baby carrots

Rosemary Bread

I have some vegan, gluten-free Rosemary Bread in the oven. It smells so so so good. And if I made a pie chart that documented my reasons for baking bread at midnight, the aroma would be a large section. mmmm. pie.

Have I mentioned that February is Great American Pie Month? I don't know why or how. Because the American Pie Council [for real!] does not recognize this celebration. They have registered January 23 as National Pie Day. I had no idea pie was such a big deal. How do I get a job with the American Pie Council?

And speaking of pie...[some more]... I think it is quite poetic that there is a gorgeous pie shop directly across the street from The Flying Apron bakery in Fremont.
Another reason that I am baking this bread is that I finally used my shiny, new grain mill [thanks Dad] tonight and made my own brown rice flour. I used 2 different types of brown rice because that's what I happened to have in the pantry: a long grain & a medium grain "golden rose" organic. They looked exactly the same after they were ground. I could have kept them separate and made two different loaves of something and blah blah blah... but I didn't feel like being so scientific tonight. I'll do some research and see what the internet has to say.

Buckwheat Coconut Muffins

These muffins are based on the recipe from Allergen-Free Baking for the Buckwheat Apple Muffins. I didn't feel like grating apples when I made these. I like to make a half-batch of the muffin recipes in this book. Not only can I cook a small pan of 6 in my countertop oven, we are more likely to eat 6 of them in a couple of days - definitely not 12.

In a small bowl combine the following wet ingredients:

• 1/4 c canola oil
• 1/2 c agave
• 3/4 c applesauce
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 c sweet potato puree

In a larger bowl, combine the following dry ingredients with a whisk:

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1.5 c buckwheat flour
• 1/4 c flaxmeal
• 1/2 tsp xanthan
• 3/4 tsp b soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 c unsweeted coconut

Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until well incorporated. It will be thick, but really moist. Line 6 muffin cups with paper liners and fill them, lightly tamping the batter down, until they are heaping mounds. These will not rise, so you want to shape them into "muffin" shapes before they bake. There will be plenty of batter to do this. Maybe even a little too much. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Let them cool in the pan for a few before removing.

Top Chef Dinner

If you are not watching Top Chef than you...probably have other things to do on Wednesday night. Maybe that's when you wash your hair. At our house it is recorded and watched and then we read blogs about it on Thursday and then we re-watch it again when Zoe is not loudly repeating "how about UmiZoomi, mom? how about UmiZoomi, mom? how about UmiZoomi, mom?" and spilling things that are just sticky enough to make me leave the room and miss important Top Chef moments.
This past Wednesday Pete was out of town so Constance and I got to have one of our favorite meals: a cheese plate! She brought home a box of fine cheeses from an event she attended the previous night. We added dried fruit, crackers, honey-walnuts & chocolate-covered almonds. Yum! It was enough food to feed many more people. On Thursday I made the most divine mac & cheese with the leftovers.

To go with our fruit plate I also made polenta. The previous week on Top Chef, Tiffany made some amazing-looking polenta that was layered with sausage & kale. Why had I not seen/thought of this before? I layered mine with pesto & myzithra cheese. Many, many years ago I received this kit to make "stacked" food and a cookbook from Doug & Tammy. I have used it many times, usually to stack brownies, ice cream & raspberries. This time I made the polenta and filled the rings with each layer and then put them in the fridge for a few hours. Then I just put them into the oven and reheated them . When it was warm and we were ready to eat they slid right out of the molds and looked beautiful! They could have used a sauce - mushroom or tomato or gorgonzola...

Wednesday Smoothie

This morning's smoothie [makes 2]:

• 1/2 of a fresh pineapple
• frozen mango puree (I think Constance got this at Trader Joe's)
• 1 c of leftover kale/carrot/apple juice
• 1 banana
• 4 frozen peach slices

Calories, why?

I've been thinking about my 9th grade science class. It was 1989 and I had really long hair that may have been spiral-permed at the time. Jan & I spent most of the class writing ridiculous notes to each other about who had a bigger brain and which of us was more likely to rule the world. When we weren't giggling like 14 year old girls we were lab partners setting things on fire. It was during one of these experiments that I burned the ends of my long hair and learned about calories [simultaneous, but separate events].
We were taking things like marshmallows and cheerios and, if I remember correctly, weighing them, setting them on fire until they were just black char, and then weighing them again. The calculations would teach us how much mass/energy/calories each food contained. Is it how much of the mass is missing equals the number of calories it has? That kind of makes sense. If you feel inclined, please learn about this and let me know.
Or Trisha - you could go down to your basement and get your notebook from 9th grade science [we probably did the same stuff] and scan your notes for me. It's in the box labeled "Ninth Grade: Science/Calculus/Latin: Notebooks & Mathlete Awards". You were so cool back then. Love you!

So I've known since 1989 that things have calories. And it takes a certain amount of energy to burn them. And then those calories are gone along with the mass that contained them. I think we timed our burning marshmallows also. Like it took 14 seconds to burn 40 calories with so much heat/energy... This, in terms of being a human and wanting to lose/maintain weight, is making sense right?
I've been reading the USDA's report on nutrition. Fascinating! Sort of. It has confirmed lots of things that I knew seemed right but had no proof for. As if the USDA's science wasn't enough, while I was getting my birthday mani-pedi last Saturday, I also read some very sage advice in Glamour Magazine {look at this!} from Dr. Sass [I'm not kidding] about healthy eating. Both sources say the same thing: to lose weight, it doesn't matter so much what you eat, it's how many calories you consume compared to how many you burn. I'm not talking about heart disease and liver failure and brain activity. Just mass. If you get your daily calories from twinkie-crusted, deep-fried sausages, and you eat fewer of these calories than you burn, you will still lose weight. And then your arties will clog up and you'll die. If you get your daily calories from baby spinach leaves and quinoa, and burn more than you eat, you will lose weight and maybe not die of a heart attack.

Now that I've completed my yearly cleanse and embarked on a healthier way of eating - I am adding in some weight loss goals. "Goals" in terms of, it would be nice to be thin again. So I counted all of the calories that I ate yesterday, just to get an idea of what I was dealing with. I decided that it wouldn't be so bad to stay in the 1800/day calorie range as the "high ideal". The USDA says that Americans should eat about 2000 calories a day as a healthy amount. So I had my 1/2 smoothie [130 cal], 2 eggs [140 cal], signature salad [670], and 1/2 of a Boboli pizza for dinner [900]. The pizza was a schocker! Boboli has a weird serving size that says 1/6 of the pizza, but then says that there are 12 servings. You could cut it into 12 servings, but then 2 of these pieces are actually a serving? what? The crust & sauce together are 1320 calories. The crust is made with some whole grains, but also white flour, cheese, sugar... the sauce has high-fructose corn syrup in it. Then I put on my favorite toppings: 1/4c mozz [80], 3 sliced button mushrooms [4 cal each], pepperoni [1 ounce = 140 cal], and olives. Let me tell you, I have NEVER looked at the nutritional content of olives. They are not good for you. I am not really a big olive eater, but Pete can eat an entire can/jar/bowl/wheelbarrow of olives while I am getting out the knife to slice them up for a pizza. According to the jar, two Kalamata olives have 25 calories. I put 6 olives on my pizza for 150 calories. If you care, you can have 6 mushrooms or 2 olives. You can have 4 olives or 1/3c of mozzerella cheese. Crazy!

So I think did pretty good. I had fresh fruits & vegetables for 2 of my meals and stayed within my calorie count without really trying too hard. Plus I went to the gym for an hour and did housework all day.

Tuesday Smoothie [and eggs]

We made a new smoothie this morning using a suggested recipe from.... somewhere on the internet... It is very high in potassium, vitamin A & vitamin C. I figure it has about 130 calories - which is fantastic for something that constitutes an entire meal at breakfast and is made with nutrient-rich, whole foods. Constance did throw in some flaxmeal, which only adds to the healthiness of this smoothie. Actually, I opened the container of flaxmeal and threw it all over the counter and the floor - it's really fluffy - and then we managed to scoop some of it into the blender.

• 1 banana [104 calories]
• almond milk, unsweetened, 8oz [40 cal]
• 2 dried apricots [I'm not doing the math here]
• kale, 1 c [41 calories]
• blueberries, 1 c [81 calories]

While I like this smoothie, I still have only eaten 1/2 of it today. It's very blueberry flavored, even though it is dark green. The banana & apricots give it some sweetness. It just doesn't have the "zing!" of some of the other smoothies with mango & pineapple. Maybe if there was some ginger and/or lemon in this one. Even a little lime would help balance out the mild sweetness and make it more interesting to taste. So I made two scrambled eggs to go with my 1/2 smoothie.

When I was counting the calories in my salad I looked at the eggs to see how bad they were for me, and hey, not such a big deal. I buy cage-free, brown, organic eggs. They are certified organic by the USDA and the Oregon Tilth. The chickens are fed a vegetarian diet, which is probably corn. I really like these eggs because they are buttery & creamy tasting. If you are buying and eating eggs that require you to add a lot of S&P and butter {and cheese and ham} to make them yummy, then put some of your butter/cheese/ham money into a carton of really good eggs. You'll find that a tbl of olive oil and a dash of sea salt is all you need. Actually, I can get 18 of my fancy eggs at Costco for $4. So it's not expensive at all for me to buy them this way. And then I can still afford to cover them with canadian bacon and hollandaise every now and then.

And eggs are awesome. Eggs have every amino acid except for calcium [unless you eat the shell]. You can read about their awesome-ness and get some *new* recipes at this crazy egg website. 

Did you have eggs for breakfast this morning? There are endless recipes for great tasting dishes with eggs, so there's no reason you can't enjoy them for breakfast every day. Eggs are all-natural and packed with a number of nutrients. One egg has 13 essential vitamins and minerals in varying amounts, high-quality protein, unsaturated fats and antioxidants, all for 70 calories.

Eggs' nutrients can help you with weight management, muscle strength, eye health, brain function and having a healthy pregnancy. Particularly important for aiding healthy brain function and pregnancy is choline (pronounced KOH-leen), which is amply present in eggs.

Signature Salad

I made my salad for lunch again today. While I chopped up the ingredients I looked up the calorie content of each one in my book The Nutrition Bible [if I didn't have the packaging for it, like an apple].  I was pleasantly surprised that my giant salad only has about 670 calories. Keep in mind that I don't put dressing on it, and the big-calorie items like cheese & chicken are added in very small amounts. I'll talk more about calories and why I care in a different post. For now, here's what I found:

• organic greens/spinach [2 c.] = 20 calories (+ 2 g. fiber, 2 g. protein, 70% Vit A, 10% iron)
• apple [1/2] = 81 calories (+3 g. fiber)... an apple's nutrients are based on size, not variety so much
• chicken [1/2 of skinnless breast] = 128 calories (+24 g protein)
• craisins [1/8 c] = 60 calories (+12% fiber, 26 g sugar)
• blue cheese [1 oz] = 100 calories (6g protein, 5g sat fat, 21mg cholesterol, 149mg calcium)
• walnuts [1 oz] = 182 calories (4g protein, 2g sat fat, 1g fiber)
• croutons - I have no idea how many calories are in my homemade, vegan croutons. I only ate a few of them. They are sugar free and whole grain so I'm not too concerned.

I used walnuts instead of pecans [1 oz pecans have 240 calories and are 70% fat - no wonder they are so delicious!]

My Juicer:
I have this Jack LaLanne juicer from Costco. It's awesome. We bought it 4 years ago and it is still going strong. The key to a good juicer is having a metal mesh strainer [not plastic] and a good motor, of course. I can put all the parts of mine in the dishwasher, but I hand-wash it most of the time. I also cut my fruit & veg into smaller pieces and try to remove hard cores & seeds. I know the infomercials for juicers show people shoving whole pineapples into their juicers [or at least whole apples], but it's obviously going to shorten the life of your machine if you treat it like this.

Monday's Juice

This morning's juice was: dinosaur kale, carrots, pink lady apples, fresh ginger, 1 lemon, & celery. It is brown and muddy looking, but tastes sweet and delicious.

croutons

Last week I made a loaf of Flying Apron House Bread [see past post], and nobody ate it. Including me. It retained it's bitter after-taste. And I don't know if it's the flax or something else. It seemed like a huge waste to just throw it to the crows so I cut it up into large cubes and made croutons tonight. Saved!
I know these will go beautifully with my signature salad [Constance pointed out that we need "signature" things: colors, drinks... animals, catch-phrases, perfumes...why not salads?]. see past post about candied pecans.

Croutons
Cut bread [Flying Apron House Bread, or other hearty non-gluten, flax-y type bread] into 1" cubes.
Toss them onto a large sheet pan. Heat oven to 325.
In a small bowl combine with whisk:

• 1/4 c of olive oil
• 3 tbl honey
• sea salt, black pepper, garlic powder, dried oregano [each to taste, a tsp?] and a dash of cayenne.

pour this mixture over the bread cubes and toss them around with your hands until they absorb the oil and are equally coated. Give the bread cubes some room to breathe so they toast evenly and put them in the oven for at least 20 minutes. My croutons took 30 minutes to get toasty, it's going to depend on what bread you use and how dry it already is. I tossed them around a bit halfway through.
When they were cool they were crispier than when they were hot from the oven.
The magic of the honey and the salt, and the toasty goodness, give this hearty bread some soul.

Garbanzo Bean Flour

I was looking for nutritional information about garbanzo bean flour and it took me down the dangerous this-to-that-to-this-to-that web path that invariably leads me to browsing at williams-sonoma or shopping for ceramic owls. I did find this great website about nutrition & gluten-free foods that I had to force myself to stop reading so that I could come back and tell you about it: Tamara Duker

Garbanzo Bean Flour is used by itself or combined with other flours/grains. It has fewer caolories and more protein & iron than brown rice flour. Plus the texture is smoother. In my opinion, the one drawback to using GBF as a replacement for white/wheat flour is that you are essentially eating beans... which, we know, are the musical fruit. So if you make a loaf of garbanzo "cornbread" to go with your bean soup - stock up on air freshner.

Here is the published nutritional info for GBF:

NutritionFacts 1/4 cup

Amount per serving

Calories 111

Calories from fat 15

% Daily Value *

Total Fat 1.7g 3%

Saturated Fat 0g 0%

Cholesterol 0mg 0%

Sodium 5mg 0%

Total Carbohydrate 18g 6%

Dietary Fiber 5g 20%

Protein 6g

Percent values are based on a 2,000 calorie per day diet. Your daily values may differ.

Additional Information 13.5% of calories from Fat 64.9% from Carbohydrates 21.6% from Protein

Cookie Love!

Zoe & I made these heart-shaped cookies using the Linzer Cookie recipe from the Allergen-Free baking book. I baked 6 little hearts, just to do a taste test before we committed to rolling, cutting, filling the rest of the dough.

They are not sugar-free [both white sugar & brown sugar are used], but they are gluten-free [brown rice flour] and vegan [no eggs/dairy]. Zoe loved both the raw cookie dough and the baked results. They really are pretty good. The dough is soft and needs to be kept chilled. We put it in the fridge for a couple of hours before rolling it out. If it takes you a long time to roll out the dough & cut it into shapes, it is best to put the cookie sheets with the hearts on it back in the fridge before baking to prevent them from just turning into puddles in the oven. There is no butter or gluten in this dough to keep it "solid" like regular sugar cookie dough.

Brown Rice Flour

Brown rice flour is made using the entire rice kernel so it is higher in fiber, minerals, and vitamins than white rice and it is gluten-free. It has no cholesterol, no saturated fat, no sodium, no sugars and provides thiamin, iron, potassium, and niacin.

Very soon I am going to experiment with grinding my own brown rice flours. Hopefully I can achieve a nice, powdery flour that will eliminate the gritty texture from my baked goods.

I recommend buying organic brown rice flours from Arrowhead Mills or Bob's Red Mill. Brown rice flour is easy to buy at almost any grocery store where bulk flours & grains are sold. It's usually about half the price [$1.50+ /lb] to buy it in bulk. Brown rice is even cheaper, so grinding it at home is definitely the way to go.

Flying Apron Bread

This bread just came out of the oven. I haven't tasted it yet. It looks and smells quite yummy.

This is the Flying Aprong Bakery House Bread. It is gluten-fee, sugar-free & vegan. It is made from brown rice flour and garbanzo bean flour with some flax meal. The recipe includes 1/4 c of maple syrup for sweetness and also a 1/4 c. of yam or pumpkin puree. This is a yeast bread, although there is no rising time outside of the oven. It took 2 hours to bake and is a small foot-long loaf.

If you like hearty, whole-grain, wheat breads than you will also like the flavor of this one. I'm still using a rather gritty brown rice flour, so the bread has that texture. I know that by tomorrow some of that grittiness will disappear. The bread also has a slight bitter aftertaste. But that might mellow as it cools. I just had a chunk of it while it was warm from the oven. The recipe does say to let it cool for 30 minutes before eating it.

It think it's going to be very good toasted. Maybe I'll make a grilled cheese sandwich.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread, whoah!

It's really hard to photograph chocolate. Especially when the lighting is weird and you realize that the bread is nearly gone so there's not exactly an attractive subject to photograph anymore....

anyway.

I've been excited to tell you about this Chocolate Zucchini Bread that Constance & I baked last week. Yum! It is gluten-free, and was vegan until we put white chocolate chips in it. It had to be done. It is made primarily with brown rice flour and starches. We also threw in the walnuts. I think that not adding nuts to zucchini bread violates several state and federal laws.

This bread was not only pretty to look at, it was good to eat too.

It did take about 90 minutes to bake. You really have to plan your day around baking gluten-free breads. They are super-duper fast to mix up, it's all like making muffins - combine a bowl of dry with a bowl of wet, but the baking times are killer. Most of the savory breads take at least 2 hours in the oven.

Banana-Raisin Flax Muffins

Another glorious recipe from the Allergen-Free Baking cookbook! These muffins are vegan, gluten-free, allergen-free and chock full of flax-y goodness.

"Flaxseed is very high in omega-3 essential fatty acids, Lee explains. It's the omega 3s -- "good" fats -- that researchers are looking at in terms of their possible effects on lowering cholesterol, stabilizing blood sugar, lowering the risk of breast, prostate, and colon cancers, and reducing the inflammation of arthritis, as well as the inflammation that accompanies certain illnesses such as Parkinson's disease and asthma."

These muffins are made with flaxmeal and I added some extra whole, flax seed for texture & nutrition. I was hesitant to include the raisins, but I'm glad that I did. They definitely add a sweetness and a chewy spot of texture. The best thing about these gluten-free muffins [of any variety] is that you can eat one [or two or three] and not feel like you've ingested a loaf of bread. There is not a starchy heaviness, no sticky egg-sugar-milk feeling that bloats your tummy. They also stay fresh longer. I made these Sunday morning and warmed two of them today [Tuesday] for breakfast and they were still moist and delicious. I think they are supposed to freeze well, but I would rather just bake them as needed.