Here's to Root Vegetables & Red Wine....A Little Chocolate Doesn't Hurt Either!

Well, I am now to the point where I do not know where to begin. So much has happened over the last little while and I have made and consumed so many good things that it is impossible to detail them all in one post. So I will write about my most recent adventure in the kitchen because I am truly proud of this accomplishment, because it made people happy and used one of my grandfather's favourite things; beets.

Beets are the funniest things. They are a vegetable and like most they can be baked, boiled and pickled to your hearts content. They are wonderful for all natural dyes; I know this because most days I go to work with beet stained hands from peeling one to juice it. Luckily for me that my students are so enthralled with my jam jar of juice that looks suspiciously like jam; that they do not notice my hands. I was never fond of beets growing up, but I would occasionally eat my mother's Harvard beets or the odd pickled one if it magically appeared on my plate, when sitting next to my grandfather at Sunday dinner. Since getting my juicer; beets are now a staple in my vegetable crisper. I tend to buy a big bag from Tap Root Farms, Elmridge Farms or Oak Haven Farms once a week when at the market. When I first got my juicer I told my friend Michelle about the benefits of it and how I could take some of pulps and bake with them. It took me awhile to get around to doing just that, but I did. I started with carrots into muffins and Joyous Health's Raw Carrot Cake Balls and then two weeks ago I decided I was going to make my friend Michelle a chocolate beet cake for her birthday. There was just one problem; I had no idea what the hell I was doing.

I had never made a beet cake before, let alone a gluten free one. So I poked around the trusty internet and came up with nothing. Hmmmm....odd for the internet. Most recipes called for the beets to be cooked and puréed, which I did not want to do. I wanted to use the pulp from my juicer. I noticed that some recipes called for strictly beets and no flour and others called for a small amount of almond meal. I have a recipe for really awesome, fudge like, gluten free brownies which uses cooked rice and a small amount of rice flour so I decided to employ that same theory to my cake; beet pulp and some almond meal.  I followed a few other aspects of my brownie recipe to get the chocolatey goodness I desired but modified it to get a cake like batter as opposed to a brownie batter. The end result looked like this.

Chocolate Cake and Red Wine....Yum!

 
It was the most moist cake I have had in awhile and I used very little sugar to make it. I used the Avocado Pudding that I make when I am having an intense chocolate craving and it worked perfectly as a frosting and takes no refined sugar. It was the best cake, if I do say so myself and I really do. My friend Michelle and her partner were raving about it for days; which is a compliment as Shawn tends to be somewhat picky. I am just glad that it worked out for really having no clue what I was doing and I made it the day that I had them over for dinner. If you want to try your hand at it, give the recipe a try and judge for yourself if this is not the most wonderful chocolate cake ever! Gourmandises Avenue's Intense Cocoa Powder was also a great addition to this recipe

Chocolate Beet Cake

4 Beets Medium/Large

½ cup or 125 g Almond Meal

1 tsp. Baking Soda

1 tsp. Xanthan Gum

1 tsp. Crystal Salt (I have a salt grinder so it is less)

4 eggs Large/Xtra Large

1 ½ cups Coconut Sugar

2 tsps. Vanilla

2 cups Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips (these are gluten free) + 2 tbsp Cocoa

1/3 cup coconut oil

1. Take beets and process through a juicer. You need to separate the juice from the pulp. 4 good sized beets should yield roughly 2 to 2 ½ cups of pulp. Place pulp into a bowl with the almond meal, baking soda, salt and xanthan gum. Set aside. Place the juice in the fridge or drink as you desire.

2. Beat the eggs and sugar together with a mixer until frothy.

3. Melt chocolate chips and coconut oil together until blended.

4. While the mixer is running, slowly pour the melted chocolate into the egg and sugar mixture and then turn the mixer up so that it is completely incorporated and voluminous.

5. Add beet mixture to chocolate mixture along with the vanilla and mixture until thoroughly combined.

6. Line a 9 inch springform pan with parchment paper and oil it as well. Pour batter into the pan and place in a 350° oven for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

7. Allow to cool before removing it from the form.

8. Once it has been removed from the form and has completely cooled, you should be able to use a serrated knife to cut it into two layers, if you so choose. I did and used some of the “frosting” in the centre. I made a double batch of the pudding

9. Frost and enjoy.



 

Frosting!

 

Oh Yeah! We had dinner first!

I will have to give the details about dinner on a later post because it was truly fabulous as well.

If gluten free was a superhero, it would be...GRAIN POWER

 

Book: Paperback | 210 x 133mm | 224 pages | ISBN 9780143186908 | 07 Jan 2014 | Penguin Canada

 In case anyone missed the point of this entire blog; I love food! I think it comes from my Mom and Dad, both of whom enjoy good food and they rarely went out to sit down restaurants without my brother and I in tow. We were not much of a fast food family and much preferred the quietude of a restaurant with service and varying menu. You could almost call us food snobs, but we did have the occasional fast food sojourn which was not as fun as our restaurant adventures and usually occurred due to convenience and time constraints.

It wasn’t until food stopped loving me and caused me absolutely nothing but grief in 2010 that I lost my passion for cooking and subsequently eating. I began existing on the things that would keep my stomach from aching, my energy levels from taking a sharp nose dive and my weight from plummeting. Even when I was off and on the gluten free lifestyle, while waiting for testing, I felt like a fish out of water not knowing where to turn, what to cook and eat for the best. It has been a series of trial and errors, up and downs and I am wishing that a book like Grain Power: Over 100 Delicious GLUTEN-FREE Ancient Grain & Superblend Recipes by Patricia Green and Carolyn Hemming existed then. It did not however, but I am so very glad that it does now. The biggest hurdle has been getting enough fibre and grains into my diet and it has not been easy. I have existed on mostly chia, flax and buckwheat and psyllium fibre with the occasional quinoa and amaranth thrown in for the last year, but now with this book I can become further educated on the other types of grains that exist for those of us whom wheat is no longer an option.

The first 30 pages of this book are a rich resource for those either just beginning their journey using these ancient grains or who wish to further enhance their knowledge. Each grain has a brief description written about them in the introduction, detailing their origins and uses, however it does not end there as it does in most other whole grain cookbooks. Each grain is then given the star treatment and Patricia & Carolyn give in depth details about how to use each grain, cook each grain, turn each grain into flour, the yields they produce and each grain has a checklist that describes their flavour, texture, gluten-free status, classification as seed or grain and whether or not they are a complete protein. A detailed nutritional chart is also included in this section as well as a how-to section on sprouting the grains. Every piece of information that you could possibly wish to know is in this section.

Beyond the introduction the reader then delves into the nitty gritty of the book, the recipes. When I first received the book from Penguin Canada I flipped the book open to a picture of a chocolaty concoction that looked too good to be true; Chewy Chocolate Granola with Cherries & Buckwheat (Pg. 52) and I knew that this would be the first recipe on my list to try. I had to pick up a couple of ingredients to make this, as my pantry was not well stocked at the time in either the proper ingredients or the suggested alternatives listed. The recipe instructions were easy to follow and all the nutritional information was at the bottom of the page. The granola really was as good as its picture made it out to be although I think the next time I make it; I will cook it a little longer and crisp it up slightly. Two different time allotments are in the recipe and chewy is the lower time allotment but there is no indication as to what type of chewy that would be. As it turns out it is no cook, chocolate macaroon chewy before they are set. A good baseline indication would have been helpful for the recipe as I prefer my granola in between chewy and crunchy. The other thing was the fact that the recipe calls for slivered almonds, but I noticed in the photograph that natural, sliced almonds are present. Anyone who does any baking will know the difference between the two and I guess it boils down to a matter of preference. I prefer natural almonds and generally have them on hand in my cupboard as a staple to any type of blanched almond.

The next two recipes that I tried after indulging my chocolate craving, were two things that went perfectly together and were a perfect winter meal and made enough for me to have it for lunch all this week at work. I made the Smoked Ham & Leek Amaranth Soup (Pg. 116) and the Cheddar Garlic Ancient Grain Biscuits (Pg. 104). The soup was really quick and easy to whip up and I even had the amaranth in the cupboard as I use it in another recipe. It was tasty the first night, but better the next day after the flavours had melded together. I made one major swap in this particular recipe and that was the cream. In order to keep my soup dairy-free I used an almond/coconut milk combination instead of the cream and it worked just as well without altering the flavours. The amaranth and the starch from the potatoes (I added a little bit of sweet potato too) gave the soup a split pea soup consistency which was pleasantly surprising and belly filling. However, soup without biscuits just seems wrong, so it did not take long to make the batter and add the cheese and parsley and bake them up. One thing did confuse me about the recipe and that was in the preamble when the authors state, “Potato starch helps keep them gluten-free and gives them a lighter flavour,” (Green & Hemming, Pg. 104) But all of my ingredients were wheat and gluten-free, so how does potato starch “keep” it gluten-free? An unseasoned gluten-free cook might also be confused by this terminology.

Overall the book is put together and organized well. Most of the recipes have corresponding swaps suggested by the authors in case you do not have something on hand and most have an accompanying photograph that tantalises the reader in to wondering what to make next. I am already trying to determine that myself and I am intrigued about trying to make my own crackers. I am glad this book has found its way into my collection and I have a feeling that it will be put to good use. Kudos to Patricia & Carolyn for putting Grain Power into the hands of those who need it and those who just want to experiment with different types of whole grains.

 

 Chewy Chocolate Granola with Cherries & Buckwheat

 

 

Soup before the ham

 

 Biscuits, before the oven

 

Biscuits, after cooking

 

Supper!

 

I curl sometimes when I am not eating...

So last week my mixed curling team went to Middleton to play in the NS Club Mixed Provincial Championship. The curling, unfortunately, was not the highlight of the weekend. It is too bad really because we are a fairly good team, although I am little biased. We have a 9-2 record within our club league and the two losses came to the same team. We discovered that we are all basically foodies. When I heard that we were going to the Annapolis Valley my heart sank a little, because I knew that eating was going to again be a huge issue. I am the only team member with issues and it would have been just so easy, albeit time consuming, to take everything with me and eat in the motel or just grab a salad and some chicken from the local grocery store. However, I knew I needed to be a little more social, so I made the best of it. I packed my wheat free oats, protein powders and bars for the morning and took snacks to get me through the afternoons.

We stayed at the former Mid-Valley Inn which has been "renovated" and renamed the Middleton Motel & Suites. It was a clean place to put our heads and shower, other than that it was overpriced and nothing spectacular, considering where we were and the time of year that it was. That evening before our game we went to the Capitol Pub where the all day breakfast menu said to inquire about their GFO (Gluten Free Options), so I asked if I could have GF toast as an option and they did not have toast, but said they might start carrying some in the freezer. I am not sure what the actual options were, so I had a greasy omelette with a side of ham and sliced tomato in place of toast and hashbrowns. It was not picture worthy at all.

The following morning the Middleton Curling Club had their monthly community breakfast and it was freewill offering. Plates were heaped with sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, and pancakes plus toast and beans on the side. The club does a community breakfast up right. I took my oatmeal with me and had that with some bacon and eggs. The lady at the counter proclaimed that they were the best scrambled eggs in the Valley and she was not lying; they were really good.

We were not very hungry after our game that day and we had made reservations to go out to the Perfect Pear restaurant at the Falcourt Inn in Nictaux that evening before our next game. I had looked at the menu online and was prepared to have my standard salad and chicken but when we got there, our server said that the chef was aware of food allergies and sensitivities and placed a variety of different items on the specials. I was able to have a three course meal with wine and coffee for $40. The best part that not only was my meal gluten free, it was absolutely amazing and I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

The following morning we played our final game and stopped at the Green Elephant in Kingston. I had the best Soy, Vanilla Latte ever and I was able to have eggs and ham with GF toast! I think the bread was from the Saraj Bakery in New Minas but I forgot to ask. So eggs were the recurring theme of my weekend. The plate was beautiful, but I was so hungry that there was no time for a picture. :)