A Few of My Favorite Things

One of my favorite things about cooking and baking are all the neat tools out there. I could spend days in a kitchen supply store just playing with all the neat tools that are available to the the cooking nut like me. So here are some of my favorite kitchen tools and how I use them and how they make my life in the kitchen easier. I've also list and link the brands I use, but you don't have to use the brands I recommend. And lets face it, when you cook and bake allergy free you spend more time in the kitchen making things from scratch.

Pampered Chef: Serrated peeler

I use this peeler for squash and hard vegetables, they get through that hard skin very quickly and easily. Also, I like like to use these on any vegetable, because they make little grooves in the food and then flavor can adhere to it better .

Small scoop

I use this for making cookies, muffins, and cupcakes. This puts out the perfect about of dough for all sorts of bake goods, and they always come out nice and even.

Pampered Chef: Batter Bowl

I use this for everything. It is an awesome measuring cup that can hold large amounts, and it's great for pouring batter into a pan or pancakes on a griddle. I like to use this for making ice cream too, because it pours neatly into the ice cream maker better then my blender does. The lid is neat if I want to chill dough or jello or pudding or I have left over pancake batter.

Pampered Chef: Measure All

I love using this measuring cup for peanut putter, honey, brown rice syrup, or anything sticky.

Pampered Chef: Oil Sprayer

Sometimes when you are on an allergy free life style some oils are off limits. I like this sprayer because I can fill it with what ever oil I want to use for my cooking; whether for a fry pan or to grease a baking dish.

Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer

I love my Kitchen Aid. It's is the most worked tool in the kitchen. I use this to mix everything. I can whip eggs without wearing out my arm. I have several attachments and it's like having several kitchen appliances, but without taking up space.  

Kitchen Aid: Ice Cream Maker

I love the ice cream maker attachment for the Kitchen Aid. It is so easy to use too. I can make whatever kind of ice cream my family is craving, and it works great for sherbert too.

Kitchen Aid: Fruit and veggie strainer/grinder

I used this attachment alot when my daughter was a baby. It did a great job of making the perfect textured baby food.

Kitchen Aid: Food Grinder

I use this one the next most after the ice cream maker. This grinder is great for grinding up meats and veggies. When I make my zucchini pancakes or carrot cake, this is the tool I use to get finely grated veggies.

Pampered Chef: Salad Chopper

I use these funny looking double bladed scissors to cut up my daughters food. Instead of using a knife and fork to cut up her food while mine gets cold, I just run threw her food with these one or twice and her food is now in bit size pieces and they also work great for chopped salads.

Kitchen Scissors

A good pair of kitchen scissors is a must. My new favorite way of preparing chicken for roasting is by butterflying and they easiest way to do that is to cut out the back bone and flatten the chicken. The scissors make a quick work of butterflying a chicken.

Sanyo Rice Cooker

Out of all the rice cookers I've seen and use, Sanyo is the best. I have a much older version of this rice cooker that I got from my brother in law that is the real deal, from Japan in Japanese. This one pictured here is the American up graded version. I use my rice cooker all the time and it can be used for quinoa, and brown rice. It makes cooking rice a cinch and to be honest I don't get other kinds of rice cookers. The whole set up doesn't make since to me nor do they do a good job in my opinion.

Oster Bread Machine

I've already talked about my bread machine, a.k.a the Baking Fairy. This is a great tool. I don't care if you use Oster or not. This one doesn't have a gluten free setting, but I find that isn't a necessary function.

Pizza Stone

I have one without the handles, but whatever. I don't think that makes much of a difference. I love that I can still make pizza on a stone. I use put the dough on parchment paper then onto the stone and I can cook my pizza.

Black and Decker: Coffee Grinder

I have an older version of this one, but it works great. I use my grinder of chai seeds, flax seeds, and rice. It has stood the test of time and keeps going. It works great on whatever I need to grind.

Crock Pot

I love crock pot cooking. I use mine almost every other day. I have the one pictured and a Rival one that is large. I use the one shown here the most, the other one I keep for large dishes or for cooking for guests. I use my crock pot to cook beans, squash, soups, roats, whole chickens, sauces, and pretty much everything else. I've done chicken nuggets to pot pie. Crockpot365.blogspot.com is a great site for crock pot meals that are gluten free and crock pot tips.

The Gluten Free Kitty

Believe it or not, but the first member of our family to go gluten free was our cat. This is the story of Sophia, our kitty, and how we learned about her special needs.

Sophia came to be apart of our family when she was 3 months old. She was my birthday present from my lovely husband. I've always had a pet, but when we got married we didn't have any and I missed having something soft and fuzzy to love. So we went to PetSmart and picked out this cat. I was kinda shocked that there was a kitten still in the system. Most of the time kittens are the first to go, but she had been in the system awhile. Her paper work said she was abandon at birth my her mother and said she was 9 weeks old and had a history of having worms. We decided to get her. I was a little surprised that a 9 week old kitten would be up for adoption and still not under care. Anyone who knows cats knows that kittens nurse until 14 weeks. We got her some cats milk, but she would just throw it up or have bad gass. We took her to the vet and found out she was only 3 lbs. The doctor thought she was 9 weeks old too, until she checked her teeth and discovered that she was 3 months old! She was malnourished. We also learned that she was lactose intolerant, most cats are, and that is why she couldn't tolerate the cat's milk. We were told to give her yogurt every day to help her digest. So our now our spoiled cat gets yogurt everyday or she throws up, a lot.

The first few days at home.

After her vet visit she stated growing and gaining weight really well. She was perfectly healthy and full of spunk and energy. When she was a year old we started slowly switching her to adult food. She was on Purina kitten chow and we were giving her the adult version. She started throwing up everyday. Ok, cat's throw up, it's a fact of life so we just brushed it off as a cat thing. Then she started throwing up several times a day. We rushed her to the vet and found she was very dehydrated. They gave her a bag of fluids and we all chalked it up to her just not drinking enough, plus we were moving for the second time in her little life and thought she was stressed out. Not soon after that visit she started throwing up multiple times a day again. So I thought maybe some cat grass will settle her stomach since she's an indoor only cat maybe she is missing that aspect of an outdoor cat. We got her some and she stopped throwing up, for awhile. Then one day I thought she got into one of my plants and she was sick from that and was throwing up several times a day again. I rushed her in and found out the cat grass was making her sick and that she was allergic to wheat and other grasses. We were also told not to give her chicken based food because of the feed they give the chickens could also make her sick. They gave her another bag of fluids and sent us home with some special food that she wouldn't eat.

Healthy again

 We were now on the hunt for a cat food that she could eat that wouldn't make her sick. Do you know how many pet foods are made from wheat? Almost all of them! So we started giving her Nutro Natural white fish indoor formal food. It worked great. She stopped throwing up right away and stayed at a healthy weight of 10.5 lbs. We did switch her food later to Blue Buffalo Basic which is even more wheat free and is better balanced for her then the Nurto was, and PetSmart has it on sale more then the Nutro brand too. However, we are in a new battle for Sophia's health. She lost some weight. She had a period of time where she didn't want her food and just wanted ours. She is eating again and gained back almost a pound that was lost, she only lost 3, but that is a lot for a small animal. The hardest thing about having a cat with a special diet is that she really loves our food! Anything made with Pamela's Baking Mix she goes nuts over. She is constantly stealing our food and jumping up onto the dinning table. The one good aspect of that is if she does get our food I know she wont get sick. She only gets sick now if she has too much dairy from my husband's cereal bowl or we forget to give her her yogurt. We don't giver her our food, she's spoiled rotten as is. She gets her own special treats and yogurt everyday, and now that she lost a bit of weight she gets chicken broth (homemade) and meat baby food (which she really doesn't eat, I don't blame her). So hopefully she cat put back on a few pounds. I really hate to try and find a new food for her. There isn't must of a choice for her out there, outside of making our own. But Blue Buffalo just came out with a new food that is perfect of food allergy pets, so that might work better. I honestly think her weight loss is due to stress. Our daughter has been picking on her more, as most toddlers do. So we will see how things go this month with Sophia's weight gain.

Chocolate Breakfast Cookies (gf/df/nf/ef)

I am loving the new site Pinterest. Have you all found it yet? I just love it for everything. I am finding so many great craft ideas, kid activities, clothing ideas, things for a future house someday, and recipes. It is great to see so many gluten free recipes come my way on Pinterest. My recipe boards is getting kinda big with all the things I've been pinning. You can follow me on Pinterest too. However, I ran into a Pinterest set back. I pinned a cookie that was tagged as breakfast cookies. I thought I could easily substitute some ingredient to make them work for gluten and diary free, but when I clicked on the pin to follow the link it turned out that the person just uploaded a picture of something they made without saying how. So I started a search on Google for breakfast cookies. I knew what I wanted, something with chocolate, and I didn't want something that looked like a granola ball. I wanted a healthy cookie that I could give my daughter for breakfast or for myself to eat as I rushed out the door in the morning. So I came up with my own. You can enjoy these anytime of  the day though.

This recipe is very simple, but very healthy. I use oats (make sure they are GF), which are healthy as we all know. If you are uncomfortable with oats you can use quinoa flakes instead, but you might need to use more since the flakes are much smaller then the oats in volume. I use flax seeds, as well, which are very good source o-mega 3's, Lignans which are natural estrogen and antioxidants, and fiber. I also used Sunbutter because it's a good source of protein. I added cocoa for flavor and it's also good for us too and goes great with Sunbutter too. 

Chocolate Breakfast Cookies
1 cup Oats (or quinoa flakes)
1/4 cup flax seeds, pre-ground amount
1 cup Sunbutter
2 Tbs Coco powder
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
In a large bowl mix together oats, ground up flax seeds, coco, sugar, and baking soda. Add Sunbutter, vanilla, water, and mix until well combined. On a lightly greased baking sheet put tablespoon amounts on the baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. I used a cookie scoop. Bake for 15-18 minutes. Makes about 18-20 cookies.

Lets Get Real for a Minute...

This is a food blog, but it is also a religious blog. Occasionally I share my thoughts and feelings about certain things in relation to food and God. I've talked about how to respond to social issues with a Christian attitude, Christmas, things I've learned during fasting, and more.  Now I feel that it is important to get even more real. I understand that sharing my faith can be cause for controversy and I don't want to start anything, but I feel like I need to share this and talk about this. It isn't easy to share my beliefs and talk about it sometimes and I think many of us who call ourselves Christians can understand that sometimes it is a scary thing to share our faith, so bare with me.

My church is starting this series on Breaking Free. This is the second time we've made this a church wide event and this time we are including the world wide web. We are posting streaming video of this series and making it easy for everyone with internet to be apart of this series.

This series is about truly being free in Christ the way he wants us to be free. Most of think that God can't truly make us free. We've done things or have come from a past that we don't think can be forgiven or healed. When this series first came out at our church a few years ago I was a complete skeptic. I didn't think I had anything to break free from. I thought my walk with God was fine, but I learned so much and grew closer to God out of this series. I learned that there were areas of my life that I thought I had given over to God or weren't problems anymore, but the truth was I hadn't and they still bothered me, I was just in denial. After going through this series I truly believe that everyone who wants to grow closer to God or experience freedom or just wants to get right with God needs to go through this. It starts this weekend, Feb 11/12, but it's also online.

How this series works there is a workbook that can be purchased on Amazon for $10. There is a topic that will be talked about each week and you can watch those sermons right here every week. There will be on demand video that you can watch at any time or at set times on the web at 6pm Saturday nights and 11 am Sunday mornings (I think, I'm 99% sure on those times). There are podcasts too if that works better for you.There is a daily reading that is in the workbook that is only a few verses long, and there is some homework, but not difficult. You get out what you put in when it comes to this. I can help answer any questions you have or you can contact that church it self. I'm not going to twist anyone's arm to do this. If you don't do this I won't take it personally, but I feel that I at least have to offer this to anyone who needs this or is looking for something like this. Pastor Hudnall does a great job of explaining why anyone would need to go through this series and what to expect in this video here. I've also posted the promo video below and here is the link to the site that talks about it in more detail.


Break Free 2012 Promo from Radiant Church on Vimeo

There I'm off my soap box for now.

Easy Dutch Baby

 There seems to be two schools of thought on gluten free baking. The first school is to make everything from scratch, no processed or premixed anything, even if it's safe. The second school is to take advantage of the bandwagon affect that had hit the food industry and use short cuts and premade mixes for bake goods. I'm kind of in between both of these schools. I've said before that processed foods are just another element of the unknown and uncertainty as far as allergy safety goes, but at the same time I like the advantages of a good mix. As you all know I love Pamela's and use it for most things. I like most baking mixes in the gluten free market and will use them instead of making my own.

I'll be honest. When I see a recipe on another blog that has a long list of flours I kind of turns me away from that recipe. I do carry in my pantry at all times some stock flours like brown rice, millet, sorghum, and tapioca starch, which most of the time is all I need. Now I uunderstand there is reason for each flour type (just check out my Favorites tab), and I understand that sometimes from scratch works well and maybe be better then a mix. However, when I'm in a mood to make something and I look up a recipe and I see just recipe after recipe of complicated or long list of ingredients that I may not have on hand it just blows my creative mood.

Another thing that really bugs me is when recipes call of ingredients that can't be substituted. In my Baking Tips tab I explain what can be used for what, which is very hand for the new gluten free baker, but some ingredients just can't be replaced like coconut oil. I have an allergy to coconut and it's a very popular dairy replacement that is used in many gluten free and dairy free baking. There isn't anything else in the world (at least that I know of) that can replace coconut oil. I can find a substitute for just about anything or a recipe list these days, but not coconut oil.

I don't think it's far to many people in the food allergy community to be so stagnate on ingredients. I try to warn when somethings can't be made corn free or soy free. I try to list how to make something egg free or at least explain why it can't be made egg free. I am not prefect about it and I think from here on I will try to be better about listing substitutions for those who may have allergies different from mine.

So to get to my point and recipe; I was wanting to make a dutch baby for my family for breakfast that other day. I found a few recipes and I didn't have all the ingredients for some or I thought they were way to complicated for something as simple as a giant pancake. Two of my favorite shows to watch are Cook's Country and America's Test Kitchen, the same show really, but both are great to watch. I love how they take a recipe and test it to death to find the best way to bake that recipe. Sometimes the "best way" is more complicated and has more steps then the way most of us would make the same recipes, sometimes it's simpler; for example, the dutch baby. It's just a simple recipe, and I looked at it after looking at gluten free ones and thought why not make a few changes and make it gluten and dairy free and with about the same number of ingredients. I posted the like below for the original recipe, and then you can see my version.

Cooks Country's Dutch Baby

Gluten/Dairy Free Dutch Baby
2 Tbs oil (for pan)
1 cup all purpose gluten free flour mix ( I used King Arthur, but any would work)
1/4 cup tapioca starch
2 teaspoons grated orange or lemon zest (optional)*
2 Tbs orange or lemon juice (optional)*
1 tsp salt
1 tsp chia seeds ground or xanthun gum 
1 Tbs oil or melted butter or butter subsitute
3 eggs
1 cup water or 1 1/4 cup milk (this what Cook's Country uses)
1 tsp vanilla extract
confectioner's sugar


Heat oven to 450 degrees. Coat an oven safe frying pan with the 2 Tbs oil and place in the oven on the middle rack. Mix together the flour, starch, zest, salt. Then add oil or butter, eggs, vanilla, and water or milk. I used water instead of milk, and the key thing to look for when making this recipe is the thickness of the batter, no matter what you use. The batter needs to be runny smooth mixture (Cook's Country has a great picture of what this should look like). 

Using a kitchen towel or oven mitts and take out the pan. Pour the batter into the pan and return to the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until the edges or golden brown. Once done, take out and sprinkle with the juice and powdered sugar. Cut into wedges and serve. Serves 4.

*The zest and juice is optional but they add some great flavor and sweetness to the Dutch Baby. However, you can do a number of things to this to make it sweet if you don't have any lemons or oranges. We liked this with jelly or fruit spread, you can melt it down and drizzle it on top. Also frozen fruit, thawed with some orange juice to make a syrup would be good, and fresh fruit is always good.  You could even make this a dessert baby and put chocolate or Nutella on top. Have fun!