Gluten Free Banana Bread

It seems everything is Gluten Free now, and I never understood the switch as I, myself, have no food allergies or intolerances. But having a son last year that seemed to have stomach upset every time he tried oatmeal and cream of wheat cereal, I had him tested for allergies and celiac disease. Luckily we did not have a positive (negative?) out come to the celiac testing, but our allergy tests came up just on the borderline for both wheat and oats.

Wow. That was quite a shock. And now that there is a whole GF section of almost any grocery store, my options were not limited. But when it comes to baking, I was intimidated. I mean just google "gluten free......" and you get millions of results using everything from Teff Flour (what is that?) to almond flour, to brown, white, crazy rice flour...I was a little afraid. I did manage to find (through a facebook friend) a great recipe for pumpkin bread that my son couldn't eat fast enough. But we are HUGE banana eaters here, and often they go bad (read: perfect for banana bread). Maybe I do that on purpose..?

Anyway, I wanted to see if I could convert my favorite recipe for banana bread into a gluten free version without having to shop in the most upscale (read:expensive) section of my grocery store. Could I make a gluten free version with just a few substitutes? I dove in, combining the pumpkin bread recipe's dry ingredients with my wet banana bread ingredients and below is the result.

I may end up tweaking the recipe a little. The bread came out beautifully, deep brown and cracked along the top and cuts in nice smooth wedges. I chose not to add nuts at this time (mainly because I had less than a 1/8 of a cup of them) but I think they could add some moisture. The bread isn't dry - but its not as moist as it could be. Maybe some applesauce could balance that moisture. But here's my first try!

2.5 C Rice flour
1/2 C cornstarch
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp xanthan gum
1 C vegetable shortening
2 C sugar
4 eggs
2 C mashed ripe bananas (about 6 bananas)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and rice flour two 8x4x3 inch loaf pans. In large bowl, mix together all dry ingredients and set aside. In large mixer bowl with whisk attachment, cream shortening and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time, scraping down bowl until well incorporated. Pour in mashed bananas and mix well. Add dry ingredients on top of wet and gently fold in until well mixed. Divide into loaf pans and bake 60-70 mins until toothpick in center comes out clean. Cool for 10 mins in pan on cooling rack, remove from pans and cool until you can't handle the smell anymore and you must cut a slice, or two.

My favorite quick lunch

I love pasta. Pretty much any way you can make it, I seriously haven't met a pasta dish I don't like. Okay, that's a tiny fabrication. I don't like seafood in or on my pasta. Unless I am sitting right next to the water that the seafood came out of, I pretty much leave the consuming of sea creatures to other people. But I digress...

Today's lunch is inspired by the pasta fresca at Noodles & Company. I had their pasta every week when I was pregnant with my daughter. I think that's the reason she loves tomatoes so much!

 Two slices red onion cut in half, handful of grape tomatoes; halved, italian seasoning, red pepper flakes, (not pictured are some cavatapi pasta cooking per package directions and some EVOO in a small skillet over med. heat.

 shredded paremesan cheese

 When the oil is fragrant and shimmery, add the onions and tomatoes, allow them to saute and begin to get soft

 

 Sprinkle on the italian seasoning and red pepper flakes - to taste- and stir.

 Add cooked pasta and allow oil and veggies to coat the pasta - reserve a tiny bit of the pasta water

Transfer pasta to bowl and add the cheese. Here you can add a bit of the pasta water to help make a bit of a sauce to coat the pasta. Make sure to not add it to the top of the cheese (pour it around the edge) or to add the cheese to the hot skillet - you'll end up with a cheese ball that is the consistency of bubble gum...not so appetizing.

Stir and enjoy! 

And if you are like me, take a picture of it to text to your husband and taunt him with your fabulous lunch ;)

Dutch Letter Bars

In Pella, IA, they have a huge tulip festival called Tulip Time and the town's motto is A Touch of Holland. The town center is beautiful with many tulip gardens and there are many shops dedicated to Dutch goods. On our 6th anniversary my husband and I traveled there for the weekend to walk among the tulips and see what the town is famous for. One of those famous things are the Dutch pastry Dutch Letters. They are made of almond paste and puff pastry and shaped into an S. They are mouth-wateringly delicious!  We visited the town on a weekend, the week before the Tulip Time festival and we had to wait in a line snaked through the bakery for at least 15 mins (although the line moved very efficiently) the letters were worth every second of the wait.
Of course I wanted to figure out how to make these confectionery wonders, but haven't had the patience to do it yet. Then one day I was browsing through Our Iowa magazine and a woman submitted this recipe. I loved that I could get the taste of the almond goodness in an easy to make bar. I only added one ingredient, the cinnamon sugar - so that makes it my recipe, right?

Dutch Letter Bars

1 stick butter, softened

1 stick margarine, softened

2 eggs

1 8oz. can Almond Paste

2 cups sugar

2 cups flour

sliced almonds, to taste

cinnamon sugar, to taste

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

Put butter and margarine in a large mixing bowl to soften

With the butter/marg wrappers, grease a 9X13" pan

Take a cute picture of your kid with the almond paste :)

Cream the butters together,

Then add the eggs, (I know this seems totally different from most recipes as usually you cream the butter and sugars together. And honestly I haven't tried it that way, I just followed the recipe).

This mixture will look totally curdled and separated. It's okay.

Next, open the heavenly smelling can of Almond paste, take a big sniff and then add it to the butter/egg mixture and beat well. 

Then add the flour and sugar. I do one cup of each and then mix, adding the second cup of each and beating again. 

"Wow, that is going fast Mommy!"

Scrape out the bowl of almondy goodness into the baking pan.

Spread out evenly using a rubber or offset spatula,

Sprinkle with the sliced almonds and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon sugar (to taste)

Bake for 30-35 mins or until golden brown along the edges.

Cut into 36 bars and enjoy!

These bars are the perfect harmony of chewy and crisp. I LOVE the texture that the almond paste brings to the bar. They don't feel heavy at all and the crisp topping of the almonds and cinnamon sugar is just the right suggestion of crispness that the puff pastry is in the original treat. These go fast! And I'd suggest bringing them to a function, meeting or somewhere where other people can help you eat them because if not, you might eat the whole pan yourself. Not that I have or anything...

Baby Food

So since I have a 7 month old - his food intake has become a constant thought throughout my day. Of course, I always think about food.  I read food blogs, I watch Food TV, I plan out weekly menus so I can shop more efficiently, and really, I just love food.

 I've never been an extremist about any type of food, but I do like to make my own meals as much as possible. The whole convenience food movement that started 60 or so years ago in this country is just starting to wane, I think. Those TV dinners are scary looking and unfortunately so cheap that people begin to think they can't afford real food. (off soap box)

I hate canned fruits and veggies - but frozen works pretty well. I am aghast at the sodium content of the meals you can buy - I do my own version of the cheeseburger pasta meal that my family loves...but one thing I didn't stress over a lot was baby food. With my first, I made a few things on my own - like mashing up a banana or when she was self-feeding I gave her frozen peas - but I loved the convenience of Gerber small packages...that way you knew how much they were eating, AND they were so easy to just throw in a diaper bag with a bib and a spoon.  And don't get me wrong, I still buy those little Gerber packs - they are great.  That said, making your own baby food is EASY, and cheaper.

I'm making strained prunes. You can use this process for any baby food you want to make, peas, carrots, apples, green beans, etc. I just happen to need to get my kid some prunes...if you know what I mean. 

You need a food processor, a food sieve, a small sauce pan, some H2O and prunes.

Here I had about 4oz. of prunes and just enough water to cover them. Bring them to a quick boil and then turn off the heat - allow them to cool to room temp.

They will rehydrate a little and look like this:

Now just throw 'em in your work bowl of the food processor along with all the water. You might even need more water as you begin to process. 

Here they are just whirring away. I didn't pulse them, I turned that sucker on and let them whir for about 15 seconds,

Opened them up and looked like they needed more whirring...

15 seconds later (so a total of 30) I felt they reached a good consistency and I spooned some out to push through the sieve. 

It's hard to hold the sieve, push the prunes through, and get a picture, but here ya go.

It should look like this as it strains out.

You'll have a lot of fiber, skin and occasionally a pit left over.

And this is the glossy puree.

And the amazing fiber/skin left over. You could keep this for yourself, mix it into yogurt or a smoothy, on a day you might need to get things moving. *wink wink.

And then I divide it all up into those little Gerber packs...see they are convenient!

Now for about 77 cents worth of prunes I got 5 packages. At the store this amount of baby food would cost $2.73.  

 That is a huge savings, plus, you know how and when your baby's food was made. Win, win.

Decorated Sugar Cookies

It's that time of year to make the cookies for Santa. And Kirah wanted to make decorated shapes. We have several cookie cutters, but decided for decorating purposes the tree, star, candy cane, stocking, and snowflake would give us the best palate to display our creativity. 

Here our the ingredients for the cookies. I've put the recipe here before. My grandmother's sugar cookie recipe is versatile and delicious. Margarine, sugar, egg, vanilla, vinegar, flour, baking soda and a pinch of salt.
Making cookies is pretty straight forward; creaming butter and sugar together - adding rest of wet ingredients. Mixing dry together and adding to wet without over beating. Then roll out on floured surface, cut, cook and enjoy!

Whisking dry ingredients

Creaming butter and sugar

After adding dry to wet

All rolled out to begin cutting

Cookie cutters laid out

Cutting the cookies

Baking at 425 for 8 mins

Cooling on wire wracks

Ready to frost

The finished product

We decided to use Royal Icing which is made of powdered sugar and egg whites. I used meringue powder as it is easier to work with and seems safer to me to leave out of the fridge. Last time we decorated the cookies were moist and awesome. This year somehow the cookies were dry and the frosting got very hard. I assume our house was a lot dryer this year. But if you held the bit of cookie in your mouth for a moment to dissolve the frosting - they ended up tasting pretty good. But I think the final product was more about the beauty! And the time I got to spend with Kirah and her decorating skills. (some how I completely forgot to take pictures of that process...oh well - there's always next year!)

Pumpkin Bread

So ever since we carved our pumpkins and I mentioned to Kirah that we could eat almost everything a pumpkin gives us, I had to make good on my pronouncement. I successfully managed to make Honey Mustard and Buffalo pumpkin seeds and now we were set to make some pumpkin bread.

I'm not a huge fan of pumpkin pie - I usually have a little pie with my whip cream, but I LOVE pumpkin bread - I like the cake consistency of the bread and the milder taste of the spices in the bread application.

I found this recipe on a blog and completely forgot to favorite the page so I could link it here. Then I remembered when you do a google search, it shows you the pages you've been to before. Hah! Big Brother win! So here's the website; 

Kirah took a picture of the ingredients - but blogger flipped it on its side. I'm going to include it because it makes me laugh.

Teaching Kirah how to grease the pan;

I mixed my own pumpkin spice just like the blogger told me to... even grated my own nutmeg.

Kirah mixing the dry ingredients (the sore between her eyes was a run-in with the playground equipment)

The wet ingredients waiting to be mixed

Pouring dry onto wet;

Kirah mixing gently to incorporate;

Dividing into the pans;

Here is the second loaf cut and ready to enjoy;

I didn't get pictures of  the loaves in the oven or when it was cooling or when we ate it because I was preparing for Thanksgiving too - but it was delish. Try it with some orange cream cheese. Let some cream cheese soften and then zest an orange into it, whip that up and let it chill a bit. SO GOOD!