Blood Oranges
Blood Oranges, originally uploaded by Kate Chan.
Happy New Year Everyone! I hope this New Year is welcoming you all with warm hearts, good health and joy! We’ve been off enjoying some vacation days - nope, we didn’t go anywhere but about town and to see family and a few friends. However, I haven’t really been cooking or baking - just the usual fare.
Today, for example, I made the best pizza crust ever! I’ll have to recreate it a couple times before I’m ready to post about it. But since I have a few pizza recipes up here (even though a good slice of cheese pizza on a crisp, thin crust can make my knees melt), I didn’t feel pressured into making pizza. AND, to be honest, I’m really not eating a lot of pizza and baked goods these days.
I do have some GREAT news about our daughter to share. We received word that our paperwork for her visa went through the National Visa Center in the US and is on the way to Seoul, South Korea (to the US Embassy there). There are only a few more steps to go before she comes home to us! (And honestly, I’m not sure I can handle this waiting much longer!!) This is what else has to happen before she travels:
- The US Embassy sends another packet of papers that must be completed by the Korean adoption agency to confirm this adoption.
- The Korean agency must get her a passport (Korean) and an emigration permit (these are limited and required before she can leave the country).
- Finally, with the paperwork, passport and emigration permit in hand, the Korean agency must bring her to the US Embassy and her travel permission will be granted within 24-72 hours of this meeting.
And then? Well, then she travels home! (The travel dates vary too - usually within 5 days to 3 weeks of the travel papers being completed.)
OH! I think I’m going to BURST some days just waiting.
I’ve tried to keep myself busy. In fact, I finished her quilt top too. I have never really sewn in my life. Well, wait. That’s not true. I had to take a sewing class in middle school. Let’s just say this: straight lines are not really my thing. And this proved to be true with the block quilt I made for our daughter, too. LOL Needless to say, I have some friends who quilt and he saved me from my own bad self by squaring off the quilt for me when I had finished the top.
I have since brought the top to a gal in town who will finishing the “stipling” (I’m learning an entire new vocabulary here too! These are my new vocab terms: selvage, bias (as in “cut it on the bias”) and stipling. My mom is quite proud. LOL). Once the stipling is done, I shall finish the edging (maybe with a few dozen prayers and poked fingers!). When it’s done, I’ll post a picture (as requested) but don’t hold your breath for beauty. Just know that it is made with love. That’s for sure.
I have a few other sewing projects up my sleeves. Maybe if I get enough practice at cutting and sewing, I can make our kidlet some clothes and costumes. (That’s the big plan as it will be a decent money saver, I think.)
And today? Today I tackled Blood Oranges. MMMM. They ARE good.
Today I made blood orange marmalade and some blood orange caramels.
Strange, but true. I made caramels with blood oranges. Completely by accident too. That’s what happens when you simmer your simple syrup a bit too long… .you go for the gold and make caramels out of it. And ya know what? I have to say that it’s not bad, either! I’m enjoying the orange taste with the caramel texture and sweetness.
Do you like blood oranges?
What do you do with them?
We enjoy salads, salsas/chutneys and marmalades. We even use the marmalade to make a great grilling glaze. Just mix the marmalade plus some dijon mustard (GF, of course) and you have the BEST glaze ever.
What about you? What do you make?
I need some ideas, people! I think I’m hitting a wall and I’m looking for a bit of inspiration. Have any to share?
-Kate
Gluten Free Granola - Vanilla-Maple Granola
So we are snowbound. Something rather unusual for where I live in the Pacific Northwest. A few years ago when we moved here from Chicago, we lived with my sister and her family until we found our own place to be. One morning (on a school day) I woke to find a light sprinkling of snow in her yard - maybe 1/2 inch. The grass was still poking out from under the light snowfall. Let’s just say, that I clearly remember the yard being more green than white when she told me that school had been canceled for the day. I was dumbfounded. What? School was canceled? How could this even be possible with such little snowfall?
Now I know a little better. It’s canceled because (1) the city has no plows because snow usually just sticks around one day and is gone within the next two and (2) it rarely snows here - maybe 1 or 2 days. More often than not, school is delayed a few hours because of icy roads or flooding, not snowfall. We don’t even have “snow days” built in to our school calendar which just means that we have to make up the three days of school that were canceled last week due to snow. We got a bit more than the 1/2″. Right now, I think our yard has about a foot and a half of snow. Here we are, buried but happy:
I think I’m going to hate that come June, to be honest, but right now? I love being snowbound. It’s giving me time to do a few things I normally wouldn’t do - like start sewing project for the baby. I’m going to attempt my first, super-simple quilt. Give me strength, people, I can’t cut nor sew a straight line to save my soul. But hey, it’s totally the love/thought that counts, right? One day, our daughter will look at this quilt I will have labored over and either think that I was crazy to attempt such a thing or love me for even trying, right?
Anyway, while preparing to be snowbound, we did a little grocery shopping on Saturday afternoon. We wandered about the store picking up things that we knew we could cook if the electricity went out (we have a gas range… but electric everything else). I decided I wanted to get some cereal for easy breakfasts or snacks. We ventured down the cereal aisle in search of the gluten-free goodies, but my heart sank when I realized that I would have to buy a cereal targeting kids.
I don’t know about you all, but sometimes I don’t want a cartoon face staring back at me on the breakfast table. I really wanted the box of granola that sat nearby. I knew I couldn’t buy it - first, the oats weren’t GF and the little warning label about “possibly containing wheat”, was all I needed to see. I just had to read the ingredients list though, just in case. (I was hopeful, anyway.)
And then it hit me, granola is NOT hard to make. I was done whining or feeling down about the “lack of convenience or adult gluten-free cereal” that was available at this market. (My poor husband had to listening to me whining….) I knew I could just make my own granola and that FRESH granola always tastes better too!
Even my kid-cereal lovin’ spouse thinks this granola beats out any others. I can tell by the way he has been sneaking handfuls every time he passes through the kitchen.
Before I give you the recipe, please note that you need Certified Gluten Free Rolls Oats for this. While some people use quinoa flakes as they don’t tolerate oats, I have only tried this with GF oats.
It’s worth the whole 8 minutes it will take you to assemble the ingredients and the 25 minutes of baking. Really. It’s easy. And it really is great tasting, if I don’t say so myself.
GF Vanilla-Maple Granola with Pepitas and Almonds
Ingredients:
3 cups GF rolled oats
1 cup pepitas (raw, hulled pumpkin seeds)
2/3 cup slivered almonds
1/3 cup flax seed meal
2 teaspoons +/- cinnamon
2 Tablespoons butter, melted (or a CF option to make this recipe CF too)
2/3 cup pure maple syrup
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon GF vanilla extract
Directions:
- Preheat your oven to 325F
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Melt the butter in a large bowl or glass measuring cup in the microwave.
- Add the maple syrup and brown sugar to the melted butter. Return to the microwave for 20 seconds or so to help the brown sugar melt. Add the vanilla extract. Stir together well and set aside.
- Combine the dry ingredients (oats, pepitas, almonds, flax seed meal and cinnamon) in a large bowl.
- Pour the maple syrup mixture over the dry ingredients. Mix together to coat everything evenly.
- Pour the mixture on to the parchment lined cooking sheet.
- Bake for a total of 25-30 minutes, stirring every 8 - 10 minutes to avoid burning. Bake until toasted brown.
- Allow to cool before storing in an airtight container.
NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION: Serving Size 2/3 cup
Calories 290
Total Fat 17g, Saturated fat 2g, Trans fat 9g
Cholesterol 2mg
Sodium 9mg
Total Carbohydrates 31g, Dietary Fiber 6g, Sugars 14g
Protein 10g
Enjoy your granola for breakfast as cereal or on yogurt - or by the handful!
Even use it as an apple crisp topping.
Oh! It’s good!
Happy Snowy Days!
-Kate
Gluten Free: Mexican Wedding Cake Cookies
Gluten Free: Mexican Wedding Cake Cookies, originally uploaded by Kate Chan.
I don’t think my mom could ever make these cookies fast enough - nor often enough for me. There is something magical about a cookie that melts in your mouth, don’t you think?
I made a few dozen of these cookies to share with my colleagues at an after school meeting (do 4 hours still count as a meeting? Or at what point can I call it “involuntary confinement”?). Our meeting was “postponed” at about 8:00AM (we were to meet from 3 - 7:00PM) and there I sat with 4 dozen cookies in a cookie tin on my desk.
“Oh, he** no,” I thought. “These things are NOT coming home with me! It’s just too much temptation for one woman to handle!”
So I promptly dug about in the cupboards of my classroom and found a roll of paper towels. I wrapped up several cookies in little cookies paper towel-”gift baggies” and sent a few students on errands to deliver the goodies. I promptly sat down to send a note apologizing for interrupting their morning classes but that there was no way I was heading home with 4 dozen cookies! One of my colleagues wrote back and said this: “Notes and phone calls are interruptions. Cookies are divine messages from heaven that I should savor my morning coffee.”
Yeap. I love her.
And she’s right. These are dang good with a great cup of coffee.
I made these with pecans, but you can use any kind of nut (walnut, hazelnut, almond, etc) that you like. I have never tried them with peanuts….so maybe not. I’d skip the peanut option, but hey - I’m not you. Pick your nut and go wild, I say.
When I converted this recipe to be gluten free, I added a bit more fat to give the cookie the right kind of crumble. The first few times I made them without adding the additional fat, the cookies crumbled alright, but in all the wrong ways. They would even break apart when I tried to toss them with the powdered sugar or would be too hard to bite in to. Not fun, I tell you.
This recipe rectifies those early attempts and is now my stand by. Mind you, I don’t make it often. I *AM* trying to get healthier, not more round. LOL
I hope you enjoy these cookies like my colleagues did! I saved a few for my morning coffee this week. Who would have thought that I could savor my morning coffee at home while watching the snow fall? Wahoo! Winter Break came three days early this year. Too bad I have to make up the days in June… I won’t be singing the joy then! LOL OH! But wait! June is wedding month! Maybe I’ll have another excuse to make some cookies then too! 
Don’t wait that long to try these. They really are tasty!
Gluten Free Mexican Wedding Cake Cookies
(Otherwise called Russian Tea Cookies)
Recipe makes 4 dozen 1-inch cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup pecan halves
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted + 1 cup more for tossing
1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons butter, room temperature
1/3 cup whipped cream cheese
2 teaspoons GF vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups + 2 Tablespoons sorghum flour, sifted (with the tapioca)
1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons tapioca flour, sifted (with the sorghum)
3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
Directions:
- Toast the pecan halves over low heat until fragrant.
- Sift one cup of the powdered sugar.
- Process the toasted pecans and the 1 cup of powdered sugar in the bowl of your food processor until even and fine.
- Cream together the butter and cream cheese with the powdered sugar/pecan mixture.
- Add vanilla.
- Sift together the sorghum and tapioca flours.
- Add the xanthan gum to the sifted flours.
- Mix the dry ingredients in to the creamed/wet ingredients until it comes together as cookie dough (2-3 minutes on medium).
- Roll into 1″ balls and place the balls on a large plate.
- Refrigerate the 1″ balls for 30 minutes to 1 hour. (*NOTE: If you need to refrigerate them longer, please cover them with plastic wrap. You can freeze the balls at this point too, if desired.)
- Preheat the oven to 350F.
- Lay out the balls on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat about 1 1/2″ apart.
- Bake for 12 - 15 minutes (Mine bake for 13 minutes) and remove from the oven. Allow the cookies to cool 2-3 minutes before attempting to move them.
- Dredge the warm cookies carefully in powdered sugar. (I usually put a cup of powdered sugar into a baggie and then toss 4 or so cookies about in the sugar until well coated.)
- Allow the cookies to cool completely on a cookie rack. (See photo above.)
- Toss in powdered sugar again, if desired, before serving or packing in an airtight container.
Happy Cookie Baking All!
-Kate
PS. Not in to cookies? Have you tried the pink oranges (Cara Cara Oranges) that are in the markets now? OH MY! They are so good! You won’t miss cookies this season if you taste them. Promise!
