Adopt a Gluten Free Blogger June Round up

So I think the turn out this month was great and am so ashamed that I am the one who didn't get my entry done. But here is my warning to those of you with thyroid problems listen to your body. I started feeling yuck about 2 months ago but didn't go the doctor because I thought it would pass. Well it didn't and I ended up in the hospital for a week to try and get my levels back down after I went off the deep end. Now on to the wonderful round up

1. Rachel at Living Without Wheat adopted Diane at The W.H.O.L.E. Gang and tried her Spinach, Mushrooms and Bacon with White Wine
2. Amy at Life Minus Gluten adopted Jill at Hey, that tastes good and recreated her Molasses Softies
3. Sarah at Good Eating adopted Carol at Simply... Gluten Free and went for some yummy Ricotta Lemon Pancakes
4. Thomas at GFCF Experience adopted Kate at Gluten Free Gobsmack decided on a favorite summer time treat of Ice Cream Sandwiches
5. Heather over at Celiac family adopted Gina at The Gluten-Free Gourmand and made some awesome Gluten-Free Tempura

If I missed anyone it is because I did not receive the email so please just resend it and I will add you. As far as my post I hope to have it up soon please bear with me because also my husband is home on leave now as well.

Royal Foodie Joust June

This months ingredients were a real challenge but also alot of fun. I choose a dish that could be a dessert or side dish. I have only recently discovered quinoa and how versatile it is. OK on to my dish.

Quinoa with Roasted Strawberries and a Basil, Lemon balm Infused Syrup

Simple Syrup

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup basil
1/4 cup lemon balm

heat sugar and water over medium heat until sugar is dissolved.

place syrup and herbs in blender and pulse a few times to chop herbs


Quinoa

cook on stove according to package's direction

roast strawberries in oven until soft and juicy.

Adopt a Gluten Free Blogger June edition

Sea has a couple of very busy months coming up and with all the excitement coming her way she has asked for volunteers to host the Adopt a Gluten Free Blogger event.Since I have no life this month i was eager to help out

Participation is simple.

1) Pick a gluten-free blogger whose recipes you admire and adopt them by commenting on this post with your name, blog name and their name and blog name.

*Blogger’s recipes must all be gluten-free or have a way to sort and read ONLY gluten-free recipes
*Please pick a different blogger every time you participate

2) Pick one (or two!) of your gluten-free blogger’s recipes to try.

3) Make the recipe, photograph it and write a post in your blog introducing the blogger and their recipe. Link back to this event announcement in your post.

*Follow the recipe as written, as closely as possible. And, please don’t print their recipe on your post- just provide your reader a link to their original recipe.

4) Email me at BBOOP2177(AT)YAHOO(DOT)COM with your photo of the recipe, the URL of your post, name of the recipe and the URL of the original blogger’s recipe post.

*Note: PLEASE MAKE NOTE OF THE EMAIL ADDRESS FOR THIS MONTH

5) Post YOUR POST’s URL in a comment to this post, and if possible please try to visit two other blogger’s posts that are posted here (and comment!).

*The goal is to make this event more interactive and fun!

Deadlines:
Sign up BEFORE June 26th (loose deadline; late sign-ups are ok)
Post your Review and Email me by July 3 (firm deadline, no foolin’)

If you don’t have a blog, you are still welcome to adopt a gluten-free blogger. Sign up to adopt a blogger, write a review of one of their recipes, including your name (or pen name), the recipe URL and recipe title. Then take a photo of the completed recipe (if you can) and EMAIL ME the review and photo. I’ll create a special page just for our non-blogging participants and post it for you.

I am going to adopt Nweames over at Creating from Scratch. It took awhile to find a blog I had not yet tried a recipe from.

Adoption Sign-Up Sheet:
1. Nweames at Creating from Scratch (adopted by Terri at Faking it GF Style)
2. Kate at Gluten Free Gobsmack (adopted by Thomas at GFCF Exeperience
3. Gina at The Gluten-Free Gourmand (adopted by Heather over at Celiac family)
4. Carol at Simply... Gluten Free (adopted by Sarah at Good Eating in NZ)
5. Heather of Celiac Family (adopted by Cheryl)
6. Jill at Hey, that tastes good (adopted by Amy at Life Minus Gluten)ps Amy is new to the gf lifestyle so look her up and show her some love and support
7. Diane at The W.H.O.L.E. Gang ( adopted by Rachel at Living Without Wheat)

Chinese Dumplings

The Daring Cooks Challenge this month was to make Chinese dumplings. Before going gluten free I use to love wontons, crab ragoons, and egg rolls. I have toyed with idea of making my own wrappers but never gotten around to doing it, so I was very excited but nervous. I used equal parts white rice flour and tapioca starch.
I pressed the dough out into small rounds similar to how I press tortillas out but smaller. My filling was a mixture mushrooms, yellow peppers, onions, garlic, ginger, and soy sauce. I steamed the dumplings and served with a dipping sauce of soy sauce and lemon juice.
They turned out pretty good but the skins needed to be thinner. I will definitley work on perfecting these before I post a recipe but I had fun and enjoyed my first challenge.

Adopt a Gluten Free Blogger - I am Gluten Free

Sea over at The Book of Yum hosts a wonderful event Adopt a Gluten Free Blogger where you find a gluten free blog and recreate one of their recipes and tell everyone about it. I have not participated in awhile but it is a fun event and you learn about many new blogs.

This month I adopted Ellen over at I am Gluten Free. She has many great vegan and raw recipes on her site that it was hard to choose. I chose her most recent recipe for sunflower seed sushi. This is the first time I have tried anything raw and I have to say I loved it. It was easy to make once I remembered to soak the seeds. I ate sushi for 3 days off this salad the first day I made it just like the recipe except for the sauerkraut which I am not a fan of. The next 2 days I made some rolls like hers and some with brown sushi rice.

Even though I do not eat raw I love sushi ad will be making this quite often in the future.

i have pics but my son lost my camera cable so as soon as i can i will upload them

oven pancake

My mom found this recipe from Be Free for Me which is an awesome resource I found a couple months ago. They offer daily emails with recipes and articles.

Gluten Free Fried Dough

4 Tbs butter or margarine
1/2 cup gluten free all purpose flour (we used Bob Red Mills)
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
(we added these for a sweeter taste)
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup sugar
powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 425 degrees
Place the butter in a glass pie plate, and put in the oven until melted. Do not burn.
While butter is melting whisk the rest of the ingredients together
Remove the pan from the oven , and make sure the melted butter is evenly distributed across the bottom. Pour the batter in pan
Bake for about20 minutes until the edges are crispy and brown.
Remove from oven and dust with powder sugar.

I had my doubts about this recipe but mom made it for my son and they both fell in love with buttery flavor of this light pancake. It reminds me of a buttery funnel cake that I use to eat at the mall. My mind is already racing with fillings and toppings for this dish. It was awesome as a breakfast but I am thinking dessert is it's true calling.

Pizza with a rice crust (super easy and yummy)

OK this recipe belongs to Raquel over at Cafe Nilson and it looked so good i could not resist trying it. It is a pizza made with a rice crust that she submitted for the Royal Food Joust.


Rice Crust

2 cups cooked rice
1 egg
1 cup shredded cheese


Mix press into pizza shape top and bake at 350 15-20 min. What could be easier?

OK so I made mine into mini pizzas for movie night and they were a big hit. My son ate as many as he could get his hands on. It was the first gluten free type pizza I have made that he begged me to make again.

quesadilla pockets

I have been working on a Mexican type pocket similar to an empanada or quesadilla but I am struggling to get it just right. Tonight I made a small batch served with fried plantains. Anyway they still need some work but tonight's batch was pretty good so I thought I would share them.

I make this according to the directions for tortillas on the package. The dough is super easy to make and work with. I roll and press the balls out as thin as I can and still be able to handle. Tonight i chose to fill them with just seasoned ground beef and shredded cheese. Fold the discs into a half moon and seal edges then fry them.

You can see my new fascination with these pockets. They work up so quick and the fillings are endless. Also if you have never tried fried plantains you don't know what you are missing. You just buy the brown ones that looked like old bananas and peel, slice, and fry.

bacon and rice croquettes

I created these for the royal food joust. The theme ingredients were bacon, tomatoes, and rice which are 3 of my favorite foods.

The bacon and rice croquettes were pan fried in canola oil until crispy. I served them with a warm tomato coulis and a parsley pesto


I personally ate them all. They were so good I didn't wait for anyone else to try them.

gluten in drywall

I have been living in my house of renovations now for several months and have not been able to figure out why my symptoms have been steadily returning to the point that I am miserable. Well while searching gf blogs I ran across one that mentioned be glutened from drywall mud and decided to research that. I found bits and piece but not much more on drywall containing gluten. It was enough to make me believe that living in this constant state of dust is the source of my problems. So my warning is if you are working with drywall or joint compound take care.

DR Lucy's Cookies

Dr Lucy's Cookies, yet another great product given out at the DC Cooking Spree. The cookies are crunchy and sweet so whats not to love. Well right now my stomach is telling another story because although that were delicious and i would buy them again in a heart beat I didn't read the ingredients. These yummy sweet cookies are made with oats and i can't tolerate even gf oats. So even though these are off my list if you can tolerate oats you must try these. As for me this will be my last new product test for 2 weeks but i still have a few I already ate so stay tuned for those.

buckwheat groats

OK so I cooked buckwheat for the first time ever tonight. I made them simple just cooked them and mixed with some crumbled ground beef shredded cheese and pico de gallo. I have to say I liked them a lot good flavor but not to strong. I am still waiting on the boys verdict to see if it will become a new staple in our diet. It seems to have alot of potential for a variety of dishes.

Well he just came back for seconds so I guess it was good. i am so excited to have a new grain to experiment with, so watch for recipes to come containing buckwheat groats.

Starbucks Valencia Orange Cake

OK my first product blog from the dc cooking spree is the Starbucks Valencia Orange cake. It will debut tomorrow May 5 2009 nationwide, but we got to sample them and I have to say the were delicious. My mom and son also thought so. They gluten free and dairy free but contain almonds. The cake was very moist and flavorful. Also they are individually wrapped so no cross contamination issues and you can buy extras to eat later.

picture courtesy of Starbucks and about.com

gf cooking spree in dc

just a couple more days till i go to the cooking spree and i am so excited. i also look foward to blogging all about it. i have never attended an event like this before so it should be intresting.

i am back

Ok i am almost a year out of the loop but i am back and ready to cook. Well sor of my kitchen is still in remodel phase and i have no oven. I do have a stove and some countertops so even though no baking for still awhile i am ready cook.