Gluten-free baking

I now have roughly 18 different kinds of gluten-free flour in my pantry. If you don't believe me, check out the baking aisle next time you're at Whole Foods. (After reading a magazine called Living Without, purchased at WF, natch, I realize I now need coconut flour, too.

I bought a book recently called Allergy Free Desserts. I made the lemon bars, and those were decent. But the Cherry Bars were so 0ff-the-hook-amazing I feel like I got my money's worth on just that one recipe. The second batch is almost gone, and even my hubby thinks they're great.

Then there's The Cravings Place, which does great brownies and customizable quickbread/muffin mix. I may have to start ordering it in bulk...

Eggplant parmigiana FAIL

Last night I tried to make eggplant parmigiana and the problem came with drying out the eggplant. The recipe called for sprinkling the eggplant "generously" with salt. It didn't indicate how much salt to use, nor how I would get the salt off. I thought, "maybe it will come off in the hot oil?" Well, it didn't. The final result was too salty to eat.

Any suggestions on how to prevent this in the future?

Cookin up a storm

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This has been a good weekend for producing tasty treats in the kitchen. First I made pumpkin chocolate chip bread on Friday night, after I devoured a bunch that the snack mom served on Thursday morning.

Last night was chili night, with cornbread from scratch, my own chili seasoning and tomatoes from my store. For some reason it seemed better than usual. Maybe the white beans?

And right now I'm eating a dish that I just dug up on the CSA web site. I don't know why I always worry about what to do with "all these beets" from the CSA. After I cooked the ones for this recipe, roasting as directed, I could have eaten a whole serving of it without anything else. The recipe probably didn't need the raisins, and I skipped the pine nuts because I didn't have them, but the beets made it so flavorful that it didn't matter.

I love fall!

Last night I made butternut squash soup and it made the whole house smell divinely of fall. I used two very large squash and double the recipe, leaving out the chili flakes.

This was after the boys and I went to the nursery and got a bunch of lovely Halloween-colored plants. We're not into Halloween so much, at least not like some people are, making their front lawns look like graveyards (ick). I much prefer to decorate for two months of "Harvest" time leading up to Thanksgiving. It's starting to feel a little bit like fall; maybe Sunday was the last day of 80-plus weather!

Here's some of our handiwork (this pic doesn't quite do it justice; those coreopsis [the daisy-type flowers are an incredible shade of orange)!

Tomatoes!

I use tomatoes in at least 50 percent of the recipes I regularly make, so when my mother-in-law comes to town at the end of the month, she's going to teach me how to can, and tomatoes are going to be the big staple to "put up" in our house. I'll be borrowing the gear from someone in the mothers' club and my neighbor is planning to come over and learn from the expert, too.

Yesterday I asked one of my favorite vendors at the Menlo Park Farmers' Market which of his tomatoes would be good for canning. He said I should buy one of his big boxes of "soft" tomatoes for $20. Oh my word that's a lot of tomatoes! Below is a picture of maybe half of them in the sink. Last night I boiled, peeled and chopped the rest. This morning I finished the job. About five of the tomatoes were too far gone to even be used for canning and another 5-10 were some variety that just disintigrated when I tried to peel them. It boils down to what seems like not very much: three gallon freezer bags filled half way.

Look who's a cook all of a sudden!

As I write this (on the granite) three pots going on the stove, plus the center burner griddle: squid in tomato sauce, fava beans with bacon, and pasta to go with.

Later tonight I might make a cake from scratch -- just the cake part, cause I made the peanut butter filling and the dark chocolate frosting yesterday.

That, my friends, is now how I roll.

Fava beans, leeks and "green garlic"

These are three of the items from the first four CSA shares that I have never cooked with before. But leeks go well with steamed broccoli and mushrooms, apparently. I'm not so down with this mild garlic business; garlic is like a woman with strong opinions who loves to share them -- muzzling her is immoral. There's also some other stuff I've never heard of and can't remember the name of...

I also need to boil the artichokes at some point. And steam broccoli. I get sick of salad really fast, though.

Hot stuff

Now that we have a kitchen, it's too hot to cook indoors. 93 today, so we'll be grilling dinner.

Happily coinciding with the completion of the kitchen is the start of our CSA season. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture; you pay a farm at the beginning of the year for your whole spring-summer-fall's worth of produce, and the farm has cash for its expenses. This particular farm has been doing this for 14 years, and there's a waiting list every year, so it's gotta be good.

This means we're getting all kind of crazy vegetables that I have no idea what to do with. Fortunately the woman at the farm sends out an email each week with cooking instructions and recipes.

Tonight I'm making something with leeks and broccoli, to go with the grass-fed steak from the Menlo Park farmers market

Our first cabinet!

Our very first cabinet, the corner high cabinet, is hung! It's a beaut! The lazy susan below is fitting into place nicely. And next to that, DRAWERS!!!!!



In other news, I finally got sick of eggs in the microwave, and I busted out the camp stove and some of the propane Linda had to unload when she moved. Yum, scrambled eggs with cheese. The boys were pleased. Oh, the thermometer said it was 40 degrees when I was in the back yard cooking the eggs.

Good thing we like our microwave

Remember how I said we weren't going to eat out every day during the kitchen remodel? Um, yeah.

But it's been two-and-a-half-weeks now, and leftovers are getting old, literally and figuratively. I have a list, and today or tomorrow I'm going to the store to buy actual food for an actual recipe: pork and vegetable stew, in the slow-cooker. I'm making it Wednesday, partly because there were still some spots on the sign-up sheet for bringing meals to one of our preschool moms who just had a baby. I guess that was the kick in the pants I needed...

Not much visible progress on the kitchen in the last week or so, but James has been here every day spackling or priming or something. He just put a coat of paint on the ceiling, so that's done. The floor is done, too. He says he's going to move all the cabinets into the kitchen today, and get started on installation. He has to finish the cabinets by Thursday, because that's when the countertop installation starts.

Schedule change

Remember in my last post I said the floor install would start next week! Just kidding!! Nathan talked to the tile place and they said our tile wasn't in stock yet! As it turns out, this makes James happy, because he decided to switch electricians and the new guys can start Monday. Nathan also was starting to think the walls should go in before the floors, so maybe that will all work out, with the floor tile install starting one week from Monday.

Tonight was a leftover night, and I think tomorrow may involve more cooking at the neighbors'.

Cooking dinner

So, I don't care for cooking. It's a lot of work, and you have to clean up afterwards. So I've been leaning on the Sous Kitchen crutch a lot lately. But it's not cheap. So my new goal is to cook two meals each week and the other nights will be leftovers, pre-mades or eating out. The plan is to schedule meals out a month in advance and do one big shopping trip a month, and then get the fresh stuff I need as needed. For the next month I've scheduled Fajitas, jambalaya, Jamaican Jerk chicken, lasagna, chili, and Moroccan vegetable stew. We'll see how it goes.