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Compost Soup

Two days. Two blog posts. There is something going on in the world ..(there is, actually - I have an assignment due and am procrastinating madly).

I talk a lot about compost soup. Some people call it "Clean out the fridge soup", or scrap soup, or stone soup. It's probably all pretty similar, and what it is, is soup made from leftovers. This definitely qualifies for the $35 per week grocery challenge!

Mine is compost soup because I save all the ends and bits of veggies that might otherwise end up in my compost heap. Celery leaves, onion skins, carrot peelings, leek greens, pepper seeds, pepper stems, celery root ends, the odd orange or lemon, slightly off tomatoes, freezer burned veggies. You get the picture. As long as it's not actually rotten or moldy, then it can be thrown in soup!  

A Word of Caution: Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Brussel Sprouts -- any of those strong veggies from that family will make soup that tastes like just that veggie. I don't add them to my stock unless I am planning on broccoli soup, otherwise the stock will be too influenced and not useful for as a base for other soups.

2 Ingredient Pumpkin Muffins

Well, hello again!  I can't even pretend to be surprised anymore that it's been so long. 

This really is a two ingredient pumpkin muffin. Kind of. So I guess not really, but really. Are you confused yet?  

2 Ingredient (Incredibly Easy and not confusing) Pumpkin Muffins:

1 box Spice Cake Mix - regular size (525gr or so)*

1 can (400ml or 15oz or somewhere close to either of those numbers) can of Pumpkin Puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling, just plain pumpkin)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Makes 12 muffins.

Mix these two ingredients together until well blended. Scoop into prepared muffin tins, either greased or lined with papers. The batter is VERY thick, and this will make 12 really full muffins, but don't worry - they won't spill over. If you want prettier muffins than mine, wet the back of a spoon and smooth the tops. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes. 

That's it! See - it is easy. And it's kind of two ingredients, if you discount the fact that boxed cake mix is a zillion ingredients.

* this little asterisk is there so I can tell you that Betty Crocker has made it's boxed cake mixes smaller. Yes, smaller. It still makes the same amount of cupcakes or cakes, but the volume of mix is less than last year. I know this because I bought some Betty Crocker cake mixes on sale and then found one box buried in the back of my cupboard. The instructions are similar, but the new, smaller boxes call for a little less water, and they suggest filling the muffin tins less. Subtle.  

Gluten Free Crullers and Choux Pastry

We are snowed in here in Southwestern Ontario, so what better thing to do then make donuts! (Actually, I can think of a few things, but this was a good option :)  ).

Mark and I's favourite Tim Horton's donut (doughnut?) is their Honey Cruller. At some of the other donut joints around, they are also called French Crullers. Since Mark's celiac diagnosis in December, we have both missed having these donuts. Okay, not me, since I eat them when I am at my place, but I do feel bad for him for not being able to eat them too.

This recipe comes from a great site called "The Art of Gluten Free Baking". Love this site!  All the recipes have been good so far, and this one is excellent. I didn't totally follow the choux pastry recipe on her site, but I did like the beautiful photographs and step by step instructions. Her advice to use aluminum foil to transfer the crullers to the oil is genius.

As far as the choux pastry recipe goes, I used my regular recipe but substituted Jeanne's flour mix for the wheat flour. I've modified my regular recipe to use more of her mix, and I think the crullers need to cook until they are fairly well browned. A candy thermometer would help! If you don't have one, drop a 1 inch cube of potato into the oil, and if it starts bubbling around it and is softened but not browned in about 60 seconds then that should be about right. A thermometer really helps, though.

Mark's favourite picture of the crullers:

Gluten Free Brownies

Hello again!

Here's another gluten-free recipe for you. I was at home the other night and had a chocolate craving, and I decided to make brownies. Of course, along with the craving was the thought that I should make something that Mark could eat as well and so began the quest for gluten free brownies!

Since I was baking these at my house, the only gluten-free flour I had on hand was cornstarch. Mark's mom had sent me a great looking recipe for gf brownies, but that recipe required potato starch as the main flour.  So -- off to the local grocery store I went.  The only -- and I *do* mean only -- gluten-free flour they had there was a small packet of Club House Rice flour. I brought it home and decided to see what I could come up with.

A little note about experimenting with gluten-free baking: sometimes it just doesn't turn out. In this case, the brownies turned out AWESOME, but some of my experiments lately haven't been so successful.  Gluten free bread has kicked my you-know-what, but I will keep working on that. In this case, I couldn't find a recipe that had only the ingredients I had on hand. There is no xanthan gum or guar gum here (there is now :) ), just rice flour, cornstarch, and eggs, which is why I had to make things up as I went. I think this would be a good recipe if you are new to GF Baking, simply because the ingredients aren't too 'out there' and should be easy to find. If you are new to gluten free, it's worthwhile to follow a recipe until you're comfortable baking with new flours and ingredients - there are lots and lots of great things to eat on the gfree diet! 

The Chia and/or Flax seed that I've included in the recipe might be unusual for you, and so they are completely optional!  I like adding Chia seed because it acts, I think, as a binder for the ingredients, and it's good for you. Not that I, or anyone, should eat brownies because they are good for you (no thank you, black bean brownies! Give me sugar). However, a little bit of something that might almost be considered healthy makes it easier to justify eating a pan of sugar. You can also substitute out the cornstarch for any other starch, like tapioca or potato starch, if you are sensitive to corn.

Gluten Free Dairy Free Banana Cream Pie

Happy Holidays!

The title should read "Gluten free, dairy free, refined sugar free, banana cream pie", but that just seemed a little over the top long.

It was a good Christmas, with a nice brunch at my mom's -- where she made some delicious gluten free goodies for Mark.  We skipped dinner here, but did have a great banana cream pie. 

All right. I'll be honest - we didn't actually skip skip dinner. We ate bacon. And then banana cream pie. In a roundabout sort of way, we got at least a few food groups in.

The banana cream pie was a trial run for a lunch on Monday, as one of my friends is wheat intolerant as well.  So between the three of us we have two people who can't have wheat (one with no gluten either), and one dairy free person.  This pie has a custard made from light coconut milk, corn starch as thickener, maple syrup as sweetener, and meringue for the topping.

The crumb base is made from a crumbled cake I made using a recipe from the book "Babycakes: Vegan, mostly gluten free, mostly sugar free recipes from New York's most talked about bakery". I really, really wanted to like this cookbook, but have not had much luck with the recipes.

The recipe is after the jump, along with a mini-review of the book.

Gluten free Blueberry Oatmeal muffins

Well, that's been a long hiatus!  

I decided to post this recipe because I've noticed how hard it is to find simple Gluten-Free recipes!  My significant other is undergoing some investigation for Gluten intolerance and/or Celiac disease, so I have started experimenting with wheat free cooking.  It's a challenge, that's for sure!  Bread will be the next big thing I attempt, since both of us really used to enjoy those grainy artisan breads from the bakery.  

Mark (my significant other) wants me to make gluten-free beer, but I think I'll stick to baking. This recipe calls for ingredients that should be easy to find. 

Just a note about ingredients:  I've used oatmeal in these, and oatmeal is generally considered safe for Celiac and wheat-free diets (and here is another link from Health Canada).  However, the 'generally' is there because there is some fear of cross-contamination of the grain. If you are incredibly sensitive to gluten, or deathly allergic to wheat, please use caution with the oatmeal!  If in any doubt at all, don't make these, and if only a little worried, then make sure to use certified gluten and wheat free oats. If you are newly diagnosed, then tuck this recipe away, and make it when you are reintroducing potentially problematic foods!

Healthy Eating on a Budget: Alternatives to Pizza

This is Part One of Healthy Eating on a Budget and is about healthy, inexpensive alternatives to ordering pizza.

I completely understand the allure of ordering pizza after working all day and getting home late to a hungry family.  For my gang of four it costs about $22 to order pizza and garlic bread. I'd like to think we could get away with no garlic bread but I'd just be lying to myself.  There are the cheap pizzas in the city - Hot and Ready for $8 (mediums, and they advertise $5 but I haven't encountered one of those yet) - and once in a while I get a couple of those as well.  Any way you look at it, it costs me about $20 to get pizza. 

The problem with pizza is that for what you are getting it costs a lot.  Start adding salads and anything remotely healthy and the price goes up.  There are healthier alternatives to ordering pizza, that are almost as quick and easy after working all day.