Mission: Vegan » Baking

Gluten Free, Vegan Sandwich Bread

maida — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:11:52 +0000

If you’ve ever bought a loaf of gluten free bread, you know how dry and dense they tend to be. They are so bad that I pretty much just gave up bread. GF bread just does not compare. I didn’t/don’t really miss bread at all, but it’s something I do like to have around for “emergencies”– those times when I realize that I.HAVE.TO.EAT.RIGHT.NOW! Put a little nut butter on there, maybe some jam and you’ve got a well-rounded snack. Besides that, Amanda likes it too (her fave is sunflower seed butter and jam).

A GF friend gave me her bread recipe (ingredient list, actually, as there were no instructions since she makes hers in a bread machine) and it sounded great. The only problem is that it was not vegan. At all. So, I’ve made some subs, figured out the instructions and made a really good loaf of bread on my first attempt. That never happens. I’m going to start looking around for a cheap bread machine to make this in. I think it will be even easier and just as good. If you’ve already got a bread machine, go ahead and use this recipe in it and let me know how it turns out (put the ingredients in according to the manufacturers recommendation for your bread machine).

Gluten Free Vegan Sandwich Bread
(yes, it’s really good)

Makes 1 glorious loaf

Dry Ingredients

2 1/3 cups brown rice flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/3 cup potato starch
1/3 cup cornstarch
1/3 cup teff flour
2 tsp salt
4 1/2 tsp xanthan gum (for a gum free version, you could try subbing 1 TB agar powder)

Wet Ingredients

1 1/2 cups warm water
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 packet (2 1/4 tsp) active dry yeast
2 TB ground flax mixed with 6 TB warm water
1/4 cup Earth Balance, melted (or olive oil)

Directions

Measure dry ingredients into a large bowl. Whisk to combine. Set aside.
In a small bowl or large measuring cup, combine the 1 1/2 cups water, maple syrup and yeast. Allow to sit for a few minutes for the yeast to proof.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together the ground flax and 6 TB water. Add the Earth Balance (or oil). When the yeast has proofed, add the water, syrup, yeast mixture to the flax and oil mixture. Mix a few times to combine the wet ingredients.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet and turn the mixer on for several minutes. The dough will be very sticky once mixed.

Transfer the dough to a large, greased bowl. Cover with a clean towel and set in a warm place. Allow to rise 2 hours or until the dough has doubled in size. It will sort of resemble a head of cauliflower.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
Grease up your hands and transfer the risen dough to a greased loaf pan. Allow to rise 30 minutes while the oven gets nice and toasty.

Bake for 30-45 minutes until golden brown on the top. The bread will sound hollow when you thump it. If you stick an instant read thermometer in the center, the internal temperature will be about 160 degrees. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
Let it cool some more.
Seriously, don’t try to cut it if it’s warm. Let it cool.
After the bread has cooled for about an hour, dump it out of the pan and slice. If it still feels warm to the touch, you might want to let it cool some more. If you cut into it while still warm, it will be gooey and mushy.

Store any leftover slices in an airtight container at room temperature. It will probably only last a 2-3 days (at the most). If you can’t eat it that fast, stick it in the freezer.

Gluten Free & Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies (and they’re SUPER easy to make)

maida — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 03:40:30 +0000

A stupid stomach bug got in the way of my blogging this week. We all got it within a day of each other, so at least we weren’t all sick at the same time. Still, it was no fun and we haven’t really eaten much but my appetite is slowly returning and today Emma and I made these cookies. They are vegan, gluten free, and really, really simple to make. The best part is that they only require 2 flours!

So this recipe actually comes from the back of the Let’s Do… Organic! brand of coconut flour. Since I had to change it up to make it vegan, I don’t think they’ll mind my sharing the recipe with you. First, I’ll take a minute to tell you that this is the only brand of coconut flour that I use. Not only is it organic, but it’s also the least expensive coconut flour on the shelf at Whole Foods. If you’ve ever made gluten free goodies, you know how spendy all those flours are and how quickly that tab adds up when you need to buy more than one. I like this brand a lot.

Gluten Free, Vegan, and Very Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies
(That You Won’t Even Know Are Gluten Free)

1/2 cup Earth Balance
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 TB flax mixed with 3 TB water (or Ener-G to replace 1 egg)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup + 2 TB brown rice flour
1/4 cup Let’s Do… Organic brand coconut flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt (my addition; the original recipe does not call for this, but you need it)
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In the bowl of an electric or stand mixer, cream together the Earth Balance and both sugars. Add the flax egg and vanilla. Beat well. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix for a minute to incorporate. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by the teaspoonful onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-12 minutes until the sides and top are golden brown. Remove from oven and cool on a cooling rack. Dive in!

Gluten Free Cupcakes

maida — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 19:25:08 +0000

I’ve got a couple of winners to share. If you’re looking for delicious, gluten free, VEGAN cupcake recipes, you’ve hit the jackpot today. These are easy to make and really, really good. No weird gritty texture. No weird aftertaste. None of that nonsense. (For those who don’t eat/bake/experiment with GF stuff, it’s pretty near impossible to find a GF baked good or recipe that doesn’t have egg in it. Gluten free and eggs seem to go hand in hand. The fact that these are GF AND vegan is a real treat.)

Gluten free baking is pretty tricky. I’m still not very good at it, but I learn a little more every time I try out a new recipe. Trying to make a gluten free and vegan chocolate cake was really challenging for me. I tried no fewer than 10 recipes before finding this one, which was so easy to make (and only uses 1 GF flour) that I thought for sure it would be another fail for me. Not so.

I’m telling you– this recipe is a winner. Since it’s not my recipe, I can’t post it here, but you can follow this link to get it. Go now. I did make one small change and that was the addition of 1/8 tsp of xanthan gum. It’s a texture thing– it’ll make it just a tad more chewy and a little less crumby. You can totally leave it out and still get a great result.

And through more experimentation, I found this other little gem. Add some lemon extract to this GF vanilla cupcake recipe here and you’ve got yourself one lemony, delicious little cake. Again, not my recipe, but I’ve made several little tweaks to it which you’ll see in “Note #3″ after you follow the link. I also topped it with a lemon buttercream, which is nothing more than a vanilla buttercream with lemon extract added.

Although I haven’t tried it, I’m fairly certain you could add any extract to the batter to change up the flavor. Orange might be nice, or maybe some lemon and lavender. Or lemon cake with lavender frosting. Actually that sounds REALLY good– I just might have to give that a try next after I recover from my sugar hangover.

Gluten Free Apple Cobbler

maida — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 15:57:35 +0000

Well, about the only thing ready to harvest from our garden so far are apples. Lots and lots and lots of apples. I can’t tell what variety they are– I had originally thought Jonagold, but only some have the bit of red at the top. They don’t look like Jonagold to me anymore. After some extensive Googling, I am reasonably sure that we have Lodi apples. It was important for me to figure out what they are because I need to know when to pick them. From what I read, Lodi apples are the first of the season, harvested in July and August. Soooo… we picked a few to make an apple cobbler.

The recipe for the cobbler came from a book that I don’t use often enough, The Gluten-Free Vegan by Susan O’Brien. My mother-in-law bought this book for me a few months ago and while I’ve got several recipes marked to try, this is the first one that I have ended up making. The recipe is actually for a peach and blueberry cobbler (sounds so good!), but with a tree full of apples, I thought I could make it work with those.

I followed the recipe exactly, but substituted 6 cups of apples for the 3 cups of peaches and 3 cups of blueberries. I also added lots more spice to the filling and it was perfect!

2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp mace
1/4 tsp ground ginger

It turned out tasting great, but I did have a little trouble while baking. My apples, it seems, are not great for baking. They broke down, but released absolutely no juice. Like none at all. Because there is flour (sorghum) and arrowroot in the filling mixture to soak up all that juicy goodness, I had to improvise and add about 1/2 cup of water. Otherwise, it would had the pasty texture of dry, uncooked flour. It turned out fine, but next time I will add juice to the filling mixture if I use my apples again. I think these guys are best suited for applesauce, though.

Cobbler Close Up

I served the cobbler in a bowl topped with Almond Dream Praline Crunch. It was delicious! The ice cream melted a bit into the cobbler topping and it was so good.

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Coconut Muffins

maida — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:42:34 +0000

My little Amanda is an eating machine… an eating machine who I suspect has a few food allergies. Our doctor will be doing a blood panel to test for antibodies to suspected allergens and then possibly refer us to an allergist. She’s a very sensitive little body…

In an effort to find snacky/breakfast foods that she would like and that wouldn’t make her break out in a rash, I whipped up these muffins yesterday. She ate an entire muffin… for a snack, after eating a huge lunch and right before eating a big dinner. Like I said, she’s an eating machine. Now, this is not an original recipe. I messed around with the wet ingredients from this recipe to use what I had on hand. The result was great– they have a great flavor and texture. I think these could even be served to someone who wasn’t accustomed to eating gluten free baked goods and even get two thumbs up!

(My plan for today is to make these again substituting xylitol for the sugar. The nice folks at Emerald Forest sent me a sample of their product and while I’ve enjoyed adding it to my oatmeal in the morning, I have yet to use it in a baking recipe. Stay tuned for those results.)

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Coconut Muffins

Makes 18 muffins.

Wet Ingredients:

Egg replacer for 2 eggs, mixed (I used Ener-G)
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup non-dairy milk of your choice (I used rice)
1 TB molasses (omit if using brown sugar, see dry ingredients below)

Dry Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups tapioca starch
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup quinoa flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp xanthan gum
1 cup sugar (or 1 cup brown sugar– if using brown sugar, omit molasses)
1 TB pumpkin pie spice

Add-Ins:

1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup raisins

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tin with papers or spray with oil. Set aside.

2. In a microwave safe bowl, combine all wet ingredients. If your coconut oil hardens when you add the cold milk (it will look like curdled milk), pop the mixing bowl into the microwave for a few seconds to melt again. Set aside.

3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all dry ingredients. Add wet to dry and mix thoroughly. If the batter is too thick, as it probably will be once the coconut flour starts to absorb the moisture, add more rice milk a tablespoon at a time until it is the consistency of thick cake batter. I probably used an additional 1/4 to 1/3 cup of rice milk to get the right consistency.

4. When everything is combined, throw in the add-ins. For something a little different, try chocolate chips instead of raisins, or use any dried fruit that you like. Or throw in some nuts too. Since Amanda only has 4 teeth and is having food troubles already, I didn’t add any here.

5. Spoon into prepared muffin tin. The easiest way to do this, I’ve found, is the two spoon trick: using two tablespoons (like the kind for eating with, not the kind for measuring), scoop up a spoonful in one of the spoons. Use the other spoon to scrape the batter off the first spoon into the muffin tin. When all of the tins have been filled, wet the back of one spoon to smooth the top of each muffin. Re-wet as necessary to keep the batter from sticking to the spoon until all muffins have been smoothed over.

6. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one muffin comes out clean. Cool before eating, if you can wait that long.

Wedding Cake

maida — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 19:07:16 +0000

This past week has been consumed with finishing this cake project, so I thought I’d share. It’s a 3-tier cake with a sculpted 3D dragon and phoenix (handmade from gum paste). The bottom two tiers are cake dummies, the top third tier is chocolate with chocolate buttercream (all vegan, of course). Here’s a video:

The cake was accompanied by 225(!) cupcakes, all vegan chocolate topped with handmade double happiness fondant rounds. This was a lot of work, but was also one of the most enjoyable cake projects I’ve had. I started making the dragon and phoenix a few weeks ago and they weren’t too difficult to make, but they did take a long time to get just right. For example, I spent over 5 hours just making the dragon head.

And here’s the phoenix:

Displayed next to the cake was 225 cupcakes, all chocolate.

Separating the tiers of the cupcake stand were glass vases filled with gold bamboo, dried flowers and sand.

The bamboo is actually plant stakes that I found in the garden section of the nursery. A $4 can of spray paint made them perfect for the display.

Gluten-Free Pizza Dough

maida — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 04:43:17 +0000

I made pizza dough tonight from scratch and I pronounce it to be a semi-success. It would have been a total successful had I not skipped one very important step, but I’ll get to that in a minute. Even having skipped this important step, it still turned out really good. In fact, it tasted pretty much exactly like regular pizza dough– actually, I think I might like this recipe even better than wheat dough. Since this was my first time, I relied on this recipe here. I wasn’t able to find all the ingredients and, of course, had to swap some stuff to make it vegan, so here’s my adaptation of that recipe.

Gluten-Free Vegan Pizza Dough
adapted from this recipe

Step 1

Place pizza stone in oven at 170 degrees.

Step 2

Ingredients:

2 1/2 TB olive oil
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 TB agave or maple syrup

Combine in a small bowl and set aside.

Step 3

Ingredients:

1/4 cup amaranth flour
3/4 cup white rice flour
1/4 cup sweet rice flour (you can find this at Asian markets)
3/4 cup tapioca starch
2 TB quinoa flour
2 tsp xantham gum
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 TB sugar

Combine all of the above ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.

Step 4

Ingredients:

3/4 cup warm water
1 tsp sugar
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast

Warm water to 115-120 degrees (this feels warmish-hot to the touch in case you don’t have an instant thermometer). In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup of the warm water with the sugar and yeast. Set aside for a few minutes to allow the yeast to proof.

Step 5

Ingredients:

3 tsp Ener-G egg replacer (equivalent to 2 eggs)
1/4 cup water (omit if you use eggs)

Whisk the Ener-G powder with the water and add to the bowl of dry ingredients along with the yeast and olive oil, vinegar and agave mixture. Turn on the mixer and slowly add the remaining 1/2 cup warm water (from step 4). Add more warm water as necessary until the dough looks like cake frosting (to get to this consistency, I used about 1 1/2 cups total).

It should look like this:

Step 6

Remove pizza stone from oven and turn the oven off. Place a sheet of parchment paper on top of the warm pizza stone and brush lightly with olive oil. Put the dough on top of the oiled parchment paper and spread into a 12″ or 13″ circle. I found that my hands worked best for this step (I put some olive oil on them first). Place pizza stone back into the warm oven and let the dough rise for 40 minutes.

Step 7

After the dough has risen for 40 minutes, turn the oven on to 350 degrees and pre-bake your crust for 10 minutes. This was the step I missed in the instructions and even though mine turned out okay, I wouldn’t recommend skipping this step.

Step 8

After 10 minutes, remove pizza crust from oven and add your toppings. Increase the oven temperature to 425 degrees and once you’ve got what you want on top of your pizza, put back into the oven and bake until the crust is golden and cheese is bubbly. My tips for making the perfect vegan pizza can be found here, but one tip that I will reiterate here is that you really need to bake the cheese (I used a combo of Daiya mozz and cheddar) before adding any vegetables or other watery ingredients. Once the veggies start cooking, they make the cheese too watery and it gets a little gross. This time, I topped my pizza with jarred marinara, the Daiya, mushrooms, zucchini, spinach and jalapenos.

The verdict: Yes, it was labor intensive, but so worth it. This is better than any GF pizza crust you can get in the store. I think what I might do is on days when I have free time (uh… what’s that?!) is make a batch and pre-bake, then freeze for use later. Or if I knew that I was planning pizza for dinner that week, I might make this one or two days ahead to save some time. So, there are ways to do it so that it doesn’t take so long to make. If you’re GF, or even if you aren’t and want to try something new, give this recipe a try.

Gluten-Freedom, an update

maida — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 19:03:19 +0000

This is bound to be a long post. Hang in there.

About a month ago, I decided to go gluten-free. Since the holiday’s were coming up and we were moving, I didn’t want to go cold tofurky and have been easing into it. As I reflect back on all of the dietary changes I’ve made in my lifetime (vegetarian, then vegan, now gluten-free and vegan), this really has been pretty easy for me. By far the hardest change I ever made was when I went vegetarian about 10 years ago. I was in college and living at home at the time and my whole way of eating up until then was totally S.A.D. (Standard American Diet). Meat was the center of every meal. We rarely, if ever, had vegetarian meals. I had no idea what lentils were. Aside from Mexican and Chinese foods, we never ate anything besides American foods. Once I was comfortable being vegetarian, it was really no big deal. Getting comfortable with it was the hard part. Going vegan was no sweat. Going gluten-free has also been not that big of a deal. I can see that eating out will be the hardest part; the second hardest part will be continuing to bake gluteny cakes and not being able to taste them (I have this weird phobia where I have to taste everything that leaves my kitchen). The baking business is really starting to take off. Had it not been getting any busier, I may have nixed the gluten cakes and specialized only in gluten-free, but since I’m getting busier and people are starting to hear about me, I can’t do that.

One of the first (baked) things I made was Meghan’s Oatmeal Banana Bread, with a few slight modifications:

A flax egg for the eggs (doubled the flax egg recipe to replace the 2 eggs).
A combo of brown rice syrup and agave for the honey. I’m not super strict on honey, but I never have it in my house and have not bought it in years. And since we were moving, I didn’t have enough of any one liquid sweetener on hand, otherwise I would have probably used all agave since it’s cheaper. I never think to use brown rice syrup, even though I usually have it in the fridge but it’s probably better for me than agave. I use it so seldom that I really don’t even care.

This recipe turned out fantastic and I highly recommend whether you are gluten-free or not. Emma loved it and ate an entire piece of it the first night I made it, then asked to have it for breakfast the next morning. Matt also really enjoyed it. (Meghan, if you’re reading this post, now is the time you should probably stop since you won’t like this part. )

I had some leftover vanilla frosting that I tried with it and it was sooooo good. I’ve also turned this recipe into cupcakes (below), but used canola oil in place of the coconut oil and all brown rice syrup for the sweetener. They were yummy! As a bread, I love the addition of the oats (and I was sure to use certified GF oats), but as a cupcake, it’s too much texture. I may try to swap out the oats for coconut flour next time and see what happens. I’m new to the gluten-free-baking-from-scratch-thing and am still learning what all the different flours, starches and gums do. Experimenting has been fun!

While on the subject of cupcakes, I’ve also been relying on this gluten-free vanilla cupcake recipe. My plan is to play around with it to develop a chocolate recipe. I also want to see if I can make it a lemon cake since the base for my gluten lemon cake is my vanilla cake recipe:

I’ve tried a few different variations:

Rice milk, soy milk and coconut milk for the almond milk. My favorite is coconut milk (the unsweetened So Delicious, not from a can).
I always use canola oil. This works fine for me.
Quinoa flour for the almond flour. I’ve always made it this way and it turns out great. I love that the coconut flour gives the cupcake a little coconut flavor and the quinoa flour gives it a little nuttiness.
I use certified GF vanilla extract for this one. I’ve seen vanilla both ways and thought I’d go with the certified GF one, although, I’m not sure why vanilla extract would contain gluten. Perhaps the alcohol in it could be contaminated with gluten? I just recently learned that some brands of wine may be contaminated and not considered gluten-free. It’s a good thing I don’t spend more than $3 usually since my cheap wine is unlikely to contain any gluten particles.

I actually made this batch for a rainbow themed birthday party today. Here is my little friend topped with her rainbow “hat.”

Brownies… yum…

Christmas was upon me, I was a little stressed out with getting all of our shopping done, and I knew there wouldn’t be any vegan, let alone gluten-free, treats for me on Christmas day. To keep me from really cheating, I bought the Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Brownie Mix.

To make them vegan, I used Earth Balance for the butter and substituted 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce for the egg. These were super good and I will buy again, or else figure out how to make my own from scratch.

Pancakes

I’ve tried a couple of different pancake recipes and had the most success with this one. I’ve found that I don’t care for most gluten-free stuff like pancakes unless they have a gum in them (either xantham or guar) so I added 1/8 tsp xantham gum to the recipe. I think it could have used more like 1/4 tsp or maybe even 1/2 tsp. I thought it also could have used more salt and would suggest increasing that to 1/2 tsp. I also added blueberries because I like blueberry pancakes better than plain. These were okay. Not really like gluteny pancakes. I just purchased the Bob’s Red Mill GF Pancake Mix to try and will post a review of that once I use it.

Just this morning I made pancakes using the Gluten-Free Bisquick (above) based on a friend’s recommendation of that product. They turned out good, were kinda chewy like regular pancakes, but they still need a little something. I always make blueberry pancakes and even with the addition of the blueberries I thought they were just a little bland. Matt took 2 bites and that was it. He said they tasted like rice cereal made into a pancake. We seem to agree on this one that they are super bland. Maybe next time I’ll put in a little pinch of salt or some cinnamon, or both. The pancake recipe calls for milk and an egg. For the egg, I used Ener-G because I was too lazy to look up the ratio for the flax egg (can never remember how much flax to water) and coconut milk for the milk. I suspect that the coconut milk might have been to heavy or thick, so next time I will use half coconut milk and have rice. The insides of the pancake were a little gummy.

Muffins

These muffins are amazing! In one day, we managed to eat all but 4 (one recipe made 15). I think if I were to leave out the raisins and carrots that it would be a great base for adding in blueberries or chopped apples. Even with the raisins and carrots, this recipe is definitely a keeper. I made no modifications the first time around, but I think I will increase the cinnamon the next time. I may also add some nutmeg and allspice. Matt’s cousin came over for dinner the other night and we had these with our soup. Her comment on the photo of them that I put on Facebook: “Those muffins were soooooooooooooooo delicious .” Really, they are that good. Not just good for being gluten-free, just good in general.

Tips

While I’ve not made the jump to complete and total gluten-freedom, I have been making several small changes over the last month. The small changes have added up so that I’m pretty 100% gluten-free at home. Here are some tips that have made the transition easier:

Buy one gluten-free item every grocery shopping trip: Gluten-free flours, pastas, cereals, breads, etc. are more expensive than their gluteny counterparts. Purchasing one every shopping trip breaks up the expense a bit. Also, most gluten-free baking recipes require several different flours and starches and making sure you’re stocked up on at least a few ensures that you’ll have what you need (or at least a suitable substitute) when the baking urge strikes.
Keep some convenience foods on hand at all times: It’s so handy to have foods that can be whipped up quickly for times when you don’t have the time or the energy to cook something elaborate. Since I keep a loaf of gluten-free bread in my freezer and cereal in my pantry, I know that I will be able to have a snack at all times. I’ve also made it a point to have nuts, dried fruits, frozen fruits (for smoothies), and hummus and veggie dippers on hand most of the time for quick snacks or meals to go.
Plan ahead: This is key to sticking with any diet. Make sure your kitchen is pretty well stocked most of the time. Keep things in the freezer or pantry for ease. Plan to bring your own food or a dish to share if invited to a friend’s house for dinner (and, for that matter, don’t be afraid to tell the host of your new way of eating; most people are happy to accommodate or, if they aren’t, will tell you to bring your own food). The list goes on and on, but the bottom line is be prepared.
Don’t be offended if people don’t “get it”: Remember, most people would rather take a pill than change their diet/lifestyle. Humans are lazy like that. Many won’t understand why you’re making changes and some may not even be supportive. Don’t let it get to you; in the grand scheme of things, who cares?!

Also, don’t be surprised if one of these people is your own doctor. Doctors don’t really have a clue about nutrition and many don’t embrace alternative therapies. One of my own doctors (my OB when I was pregnant with Amanda) pretty much told me that there are more important things in life to worry about since I’m doing well on my current medication and dosage when I mentioned wanting to try the gluten-free thing to see if it helped/prevented further damage to my thyroid. I still do have thyroid symptoms despite having normal labs (insane amount of hair loss, for example– I’m not balding, but I can pull out handfuls of hair whenever I wash it to the point that I bought a hair trap for my shower drain), so I wouldn’t agree with her assessment. It didn’t bother me, but I did make it a point to find a doctor who seems to be a little more open minded when I needed to find a new family doctor. While I’m on this topic, remember that your doctor works for you. If you don’t like him/her for whatever reason and are able to switch, don’t be afraid to.
Be informed: Visit the library and do some reading about making changes. Borrow cookbooks to introduce you to your new diet. If you’re on Facebook, “like” different groups or organizations that share your interests. That’s how I came across that awesome muffin recipe. Start following blogs. The information is out there, be sure to find it. Blogs have been a great resource in helping to introduce me to new recipes and new ideas. Open a Google account and start a blog reader so you can keep track and keep up. Some of my favorite gluten-free and gluten-free-friendly blogs, in no particular order, are listed below:
There are lots of great blogs/sites out there, those are just the ones that I follow. Have any that you’d like to recommend? Please do. I love finding new blogs to follow. They need only be interesting, funny, entertaining; it doesn’t have to be vegan, gluten free or even about food.

So there’s my update on how things are going. I suspect that by the end of the month that I will be completely gluten-free. I’ve been meaning to get to the doc for another blood test and that’s the only reason I haven’t cut out gluten totally already. It could mess up the results if I were not eating gluten, I guess. Anyway, my celiac test was negative, but I want to have another one done just to see if it confirms a gluten intolerance. Seeing as how I have Hashimoto’s, it’s likely that I do have a gluten intolerance, but I’m curious to see if I can get some concrete evidence. Also, it “sounds” better to tell people that I have a gluten intolerance instead of I’m trying this new diet to see if…

What about you? Do you have any tips for people wanting to change their diet or lifestyle to improve their health?

Holiday Party Cupcakes

maida — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 06:27:49 +0000

Well, vegan mofo came and went and I’m pretty disappointed with my performance. I started out strong, but wasn’t able to keep up in the end. The worst part is that I actually did some cooking and have some recipes to post, I jut don’t have the time to sit at the computer and write them. *sigh*

This weekend, I was hired to make cupcakes for the Redwood City Mother’s Club holiday party. This is my second year doing it and it’s a lot of fun. Emma and I stayed for the party after setting up and we had so much fun. She got to do some art and play with her friends and we got to spend some time together, just the two of us.

Flavors: apple spice with salted caramel buttercream, pumpkin with cream cheese frosting, vanilla with vanilla buttercream, and lemon with lemon buttercream.

This year, I also made some gluten-free vanilla cupcakes following this recipe. I wanted these to also be nut-free, so I made a few substitutions and omissions: soy milk for the almond milk (I’ve also used rice milk and they turned out fine); omit almond extract, add extra vanilla; and quinoa flour for the almond flour. I have to say that these cupcakes are so delicious! It might be my new favorite. I want to play around with this recipe and try to develop a chocolate one.

I’ve got one more holiday party to do this Saturday and after that I should have more time for blogging. I have a yummy recipe to post!

Banana Cookies… But First A Gripe

maida — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 23:00:42 +0000

A while back, I blogged about how my copy of The Joy of Vegan Baking fell apart. I was a little annoyed that it just came apart like that, so I contacted the publisher and sent them pictures of it all torn to bits. They were so generous in sending me a replacement copy… THAT HAS ALSO FALLEN APART!!!!

What the heck? When will cookbook publishers get smart and start using spiral binding? Cookbooks are not the type of book that you sit in bed and leisurely read while sipping a cup of tea. No, they get battered and bruised and things spill on them and they get put in those cookbook holders so that they stay open… I’ve never had a book fall apart the way this one has and I have half a mind to contact the publishers again to complain. I don’t want to be a nag, but I would hope a cookbook could stand up to normal use. Anyone else have problems with this book? I swear, I’m no more rough with this cookbook than I am with any of my others and yet my two copies have both fallen apart.

So anyway, I had 4 bananas that needed using. They were past the point of spotted and nearly black and had only hours of life left in them. I had already made banana muffins a couple of weeks ago and still have a stash of those in my freezer, so I wanted to do something different. I had the idea of making cookies with them and googled a few recipes, but had the good fortune of this recipe finding me. Jennifer just blogged about it on Monday… what excellent timing! In her post, she mentioned two slight changes that she made to the recipe: halving the amount of sugar and oil. I decided to give it a try with her modifications.

Of course, I made a few modifications of my own. Since I had 4 bananas, I doubled the recipe but still halved the amounts of sugar and oil. I also used brown sugar instead of white, omitted the coconut (I love coconut, but the dried stuff in baked goods is an unpleasant texture for me) and instead added a generous handful of chocolate chips. Hey, chocolate makes everything better!

These baked up fluffy and moist and almost have the texture of a muffin top. The best part is that Emma likes ‘em too.