This recipe is Shauna's (Gluten-Free Girl) adaptation of that popular NY Times chocolate chip cookie recipe. I used regular chocolate chips (although I think I need to find some that don't have lactose in them), and instead of amaranth flour I used coconut flour, which I've found I really love for baking sweets. I think I could have gotten away with using less flour, because the dough was pretty dry, especially after 36 hours in the fridge. They taste great though. I baked a few right away, then the rest after 36 hours in the fridge, and the only difference I could tell was that the first cookies spread out a little more. The refrigerated dough hardly spread at all.
Squash has taken over the back corner of our yard and I love it. Not only do we have the yellow summer squash and zucchini that I planted, we also have a couple butternut squash plants that just came up by themselves!
I decided to make some zucchini bread today and I had a bit of shredded zucchini left over so I made fritters for lunch.
I don't think I'd ever encountered poison ivy before. I'd heard the saying, "leaves of three let them be" but it wasn't until after pulling out a few weeds along the border of our property, with my bare hands, that I realized my mistake. I immediately ran inside to wash up but it was too late.
At first, the rash was just on my lower legs. After a couple days with no improvement (in fact, it was getting worse), I went to the doctor, who gave me Prednisone to help clear it up. After four days the medicine was gone but I wasn't feeling any better. The itching was driving me crazy and nothing was helping. All of a sudden I started to itch ALL OVER and I couldn't keep myself from scratching. I wanted to crawl out of my skin.
When I woke up the next morning, my entire body was covered in a rash - arms, chest, stomach, back. I tried to stay calm. I took a cool shower, slathered on some lotion, and tried to do as little as possible.
Inevitably, I started to get antsy, so I wandered into the kitchen and turned my attention to chili.
My Rancho Gordo order had arrived recently and I was eager to try the beans I'd heard such good things about.
The chili was good, although I'm not sure a hot/spicy meal was the best idea for my condition.
It's now been a month and I STILL have scars on my legs. I'm never going near poison ivy again.
Oh, hey there! How are you? I've been pretty quiet lately, busy with work, traveling, and simply disinterested in this blog. I haven't made much of anything lately that was amazing or different enough to be documented here. I do have a couple posts waiting to be finished, and this is one of them.
I made this linguini almost a month ago. It's a very basic dish - pasta with a clam-based white sauce and bit of spinach and lemon juice to finish it off.
I bought a watermelon on Memorial day. We hung out on the warm, sunny, patio and ate a few slices while waiting for grilling time.
And then, a cold front came through and the remaining watermelon sat in the refrigerator, forgotten, for nearly a week. I was starting to feel bad for it, so I decided to turn it into sorbet. That way I could put it in the freezer and forget about it there until the weather became watermelon appropriate again.
This watermelon was the perfect sweetness, so I didn't bother adding additional sugar. All it needed was some alcohol to keep it from freezing too hard. I went for the fruity ones that we had sitting around, but the possibilities are endless.
I haven't been especially inspired lately, or even in the mood to cook (let alone do the dishes afterwards). To make matters worse, we've pretty much depleted our stash of frozen meals.
Thank goodness for eggs. I need to make eggs for dinner more often.
Matt loved this dish. I thought it was ok. I think there was a little too much filling for the number of eggs I used, but it was tasty enough. We ate it with corn muffins.
I've certainly been lazy about posting lately. I've been even lazier about cooking healthy dinners. It's a good thing I love freezing leftovers because they've really come in handy. We've been living off of reheated Italian wedding soup, beef stew, and lasagna. I should mention that the soup holds up really well in the freezer. The beef stew, on the other hand, turns into beef-flavored potato and carrot mush, but it still tastes good. Especially with a few dumplings added to the pot while it simmers.
What I haven't been lazy about is baking. All I've been craving lately is carbs. I don't understand it. I spent an entire week eating healthy, keeping track of my calories, and feeling really good! But then it was like my stomach had an empty hole that could only be filled with cookies or cake. It was bad I tell you. I would like to say that I'm over it. Whether that's true or not is a different story, but one can hope.
These recipes have been looming over my head for the past week or so, so rather than write separate entries for each I'll just get them all out of the way in a single shot.
Irish Soda Bread - Wanting to get into the spirit of St. Patrick's day, I decided to make Irish soda bread. My first loaf was made with a combination of white flour and whole wheat, and caraway seeds. I had to add more buttermilk than the recipe called for to make a soft dough. I made a second loaf to eat with the braised chicken (below) using half the recipe, all white flour, no seeds, and about a tablespoon of honey. I baked it in my small cast-iron skillet and was the perfect completion to the meal. I can see myself making this often to eat with soups and stews.
Big Chocolate Chip Cookies - My search for the perfect, big, fat, chocolate chip cookie recipe is over. I made these with all white whole wheat flour, finely chopped pecans, and added about 1 tablespoon of flax seeds which I finely ground before adding. This recipe made 18 big cookies using my 3-tablespoon scoop.
Braised Chicken - I used a can of tomatoes instead of fresh and left out the chili pepper. The mix of spices smelled wonderful and the chicken was tender and juicy. I'll definitely use the marinade again, perhaps adding a touch of honey.
Blueberry Muffins - I made half of the recipe to make 6 muffins, but there was enough batter for 7 or 8. I ended up over-filling the muffin cups and the tops stuck to the pan a little so when I tried removing them all the muffins split apart. Very yummy though.
In other news, I switched webhosts and spent the weekend moving this site (and a couple others) to a new server. I'd been meaning to do that for a while and had been putting it off because I was sure I would screw something up or come to regret my choice in host. Fortunately, the transition went smoothly and the headaches were minimal.
When I get bored or restless I get the urge to bake something. Lately I've been trying to ignore that urge because when there's cake or cookies around my willpower decides to take a vacation.
On Thursday I wasn't just bored and restless. I was craving something sweet and cakey. This yogurt cake did the trick, but true to form, by Friday morning there was nothing left but crumbs.
This was adapted from one I made last year. I only had 2 eggs, so I had to tweak the recipe a little. I used white whole wheat flour, which gave it a weird flavor and I don't recommend it. (Not weird enough to dissuade me from devouring it though). Other than that, this cake was everything I'd hoped for. Not too sweet, moist without being greasy, and subtly flavored with honey and vanilla. I think that a mixture of all-purpose and buckwheat flour would be interesting, with some blueberries thrown in for good measure.
