It's FALL!!!!

Wow, it really has been awhile. I try to avoid getting obsessed with internet stuff, limiting my reading of my favorite blogs to once daily, in the attempt to stay connected with the real world and the real people in my life. At the same time, most of the important people in my life happen to be hours away, so I suppose cyberspace isn't always a horrible thing. Really, though, I'd prefer to talk on the phone while clunking around doing dishes (wearing my headset for my cell phone, which was purchased for exactly this purpose--multi-tasking). The person on the other end might not be so amenable to that noisy scenario, though.

The past two weekends have been immersion in quintessential autumn regalia. My favorite days include farmer's market trips and consequent cooking of meals laden with fresh veggies and fruits. After lugging our produce finds around the square, then lugging 25 lbs. of apples through the pick-your-own orchard (with plans to make applesauce), last Saturday night's menu included pork chops with apples, onion, and bacon; broccoli sauteed with red pepper, garlic, and red pepper flakes of the spicy variety; aacorn squash with just enough butter and brown sugar; and apple crisp (lovingly known in our family as "crips") with homemade cinnamon ice cream (courtesy of my new mixer attachment--a gift from my thoughtful BF). The next morning we had a cheddar cheese, spinach, and apple fritatta. The beauty of so much bountiful produce is its inherent lack of gluten.

Even aside from food, fall is most favoritest :) time of the year--the bright oranges and deep reds and brilliant yellows, spending time in the crisp outdoor weather, eating any and all pumpkin-containing desserts, listening to Badger football on the radio and seeing all of the red-clad people at the farmer's market, smelling leaves and hearing them crunch underfoot. Yum.

Pork Chops with Bacon, Apples, and Onion
(adapted from 30 Minute Meals)

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
3 slices bacon, chopped
1 medium to large yellow onion, diced
1/4 tsp pepper
1 apple, cored and diced
3 butterflied pork chops
1 cup chicken broth (or beer)

Heat oil over medium high. Add chopped bacon. When the bacon renders its fat, add onions and pepper. Saute 3 to 5 minutes, then add apples and saute mixture another 2 or 3 minutes. Remove apple mixture from pan. Add pork chops to the pan and caramelize meat on both sides, 2 or 3 minutes. Remove chops to a plate and cover. Deglaze the pan with broth, then return apple mixture to pan and simmer.

Cinnamon Ice Cream

(adapted from allrecipes.com)

3/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cups half-and-half cream
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

In a saucepan over medium-low heat, stir together the sugar and half-and-half. When the mixture begins to simmer, remove from heat, and whisk half of the mixture into the eggs. Whisk quickly so that the eggs do not scramble. Pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan, and stir in the heavy cream. Continue cooking over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. Remove from heat, and whisk in vanilla and cinnamon. Set aside to cool.
Pour cooled mixture into an ice cream maker, and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.


P.S. It really helps to have a whisk for this. Not that I was disappointed with my second time when there were a few little clumps that I refuse to strain out, but it's just smoother. Simple as that. I'm not really sure how I could have survived this long cooking and not own a whisk!

Apple "Crips"

~6 medium apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced (enough to fill 9x9 pan almost to top)
3/4 c white rice flour
3/4 c brown sugar
3 T butter

Cream together flour, sugar, and butter with fork or pastry blender to create crumbly topping. Top apples with topping and bake about 40 min at 350 deg F.

Busy as a cooking snail

Lately I've been trying to keep myself busy while 1) quitting horrible hostessing job at an Italian restaurant, 2) avoiding planning a church retreat, 3) waiting for a new motherboard for Mr. Computer, and 4) waiting to be offered a new job (which happened - yay!) and waiting to start new job. While I faithfully check on my list of favorite blogs, hoping that there will be a new GF tidbit for me to devour, I am not yet enough of a blogger myself to actually update my own blog. Woe is me! Sadly my camera is also out-of-order currently, so no pictures as of yet.

In any case, I have been keeping busy in the kitchen making things for myself and others. Among my latest successes and failings:

- forgetting to turn the oven off while letting the spiffy sorghum cast-iron bread (Gluten-Free Girl) rise, leading to a crunchy sorghum brick that I could barely cut with my new IKEA bread knife

- finding the BEST BREAD RECIPE EVER (and no, all of those shouting-like caps are NOT overkill) at Gluten-free by the Bay...when he says that this bread just might make you cry--totally not kidding:
First, I had never actually baked bread (well, until the above disaster) without the assistance of my mom's trusty ol' breadmaker that was donated to the GF cause upon my diagnosis.
Second, while Mom and I determined that this was a pretty dang good loaf of bread (better than any store-bought nastiness, that's for sure!), it still left much to be desired. I don't remember much about wheat bread when going on 9 years of eating GF, but I do know that it was malleable, squishy, didn't require heating and some sort of moisture addition (jam, butter, cream cheese, tomato slices, etc.) to be edible after being in the refrigerator, wasn't the texture of a pound cake, didn't crumble into a pile of, well, crumbs when being touched in any way it didn't want to be...which was everything from cutting to eating, and didn't cause massive coughing fits when eaten at the inopportune moment of breathing/talking/laughing. Not a long list of faults, really, considering that it did have taste, was awesome fresh out of the machine, and didn't cost $6 per loaf (crucial for college/grad student).
That being said, I just about leapt for joy at the fact that, aside from being far more healthy (brown rice, quinoa, flax seed) than many recipes, IT WAS SQUISHY!!! Yes friends, it didn't turn into a pile of crumby rubble upon touching OR biting. AND it could still do its squishing AFTER being put in the fridge!!! Kudos, kudos to this recipe and its creators. The bounce in my bread put a bounce in my step.

- discovering the coveted can of "zucchini in tomato sauce" at a local grocery store:
Why is this such a big deal, you ask? This puppy is a critical ingredient in my mom's new recipe for a minestrone-type veggie soup that's amazing! I was thrilled when I saw the little green can smiling at me on the shelf. Of course this recipe got doctored up a bit because of the red cabbage residing in my fridge and my BF's (not to be confused with GF) insistence that foods without meat do not fill him up. Still, the soup (or perhaps stew is a better term...all of my soups seem to turn into stews) was a hit and retained its homey essence.

- making my roommate her yearly birthday carrot cake:
For me, the trick to awesome cakes (even 9x13"!) is the incorporation of fruits and veggies. Lucky for me that I am not much of a chocolate fan (sacrilege, I know) and would much prefer these garden-type cakes...especially since they are often adorned with cream cheese frosting. My roommate of course knows that this cake is GF, but a guest last night didn't know what hit her. Huzzah! One of my mental indulgences is still bliss over the fact that I can make frosting from scratch. Do you have those foods that you've been scared to death of trying because you just know you'll screw them up. For me these were non-chili soups (especially pea and bean, though cream soups as well), un-breadmakered breads, homemade mashed potatoes, and homemade frosting. I suppose by this post you can see that I've pretty much conquered my cooking fears--except for cream soups. I'm not sure where the frosting thing came from, maybe because such a big deal is made about how much better the stuff is from scratch (aka Pilsbury doesn't even put up a fight when the real stuff is in the room). Still, I kind of feel as if cream cheese frosting is "cheating" in some way because of its already creamy texture. Now if you just have milk and powdered sugar...THAT is something to write home about. Even so, I am proud of my frosting skills. My hand mixer and I (yes, HAND mixer...see above comment about grad student salary) are becoming good buddies.

- concocting pumpkin-zucchini curry (sauteed zucchini in oil and spices, added leftover canned pumpkin) with cucumber raita (plain yogurt, chopped cucumber unpeeled, cumin to taste). The raita is my new favorite thing--just eating it alone with rice is tasty. As Martha says, "It's a good thing."

Mom's Vegetable Soup
1 can zucchini in tomato sauce
1 can cut carrots, drained
1 can diced potatoes, drained
1 can petite diced tomatoes
Garlic powder,salt and pepper, and Italian seasonings to taste

Extras:
1 c chopped red cabbage
1 lb browned ground turkey
1 c chicken broth

Combine all ingredients. Simmer for 30+ minutes.

Carrot Cake
4 eggs
2 c sugar
1 1/4 c oil
1 1/4 c white rice flour
1/4 c potato starch flour
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 c grated carrots
1/2 c chopped walnuts
2 c chopped apples

Combine the eggs, sugar, and oil. Combine dry ingredients and add to wet ingredients. Add veggies, nuts, and fruit.

In 9x13" pan, bake at 350 deg F for 45 min. Let cool before frosting.

Day #1. I've wanted to do this for years now, and it's finally here. My very own blog. Hip hip hooray! Why, you ask, did it take me this long? Why did I never just sign up and start posting? Nothing was ever so simple--a little thing called graduate school. Recently I made the freeing decision to leave my Ph.D. program. Now I like science every bit as much as the next crazed graduate student, but I came to realize that God just wasn't jiving with what I was doing with my life, making for an extremely miserable me. While I wallowed in my misery, one thing that sustained me was my list of food blogs. Each day at lunch I would check for updates, hoping for a fantastic curry, a new soup, or a better way to bake GF bread. Such savory tidbits kept me going (and got me funny looks from my office mates). I never had the time to try my new arsenal of recipes, but that never stopped me from talking about them, dreaming about them.

So while I finish my M.S. in Chemistry, this blog will be my therapy, my figurative story board where friends and family, ideas for the future, and pots and pans, in all their multi-colored felt glory, will be moved around until they form the combination that "feels" right. In the meantime I plan to cook up a storm (I just bought my first bags of millet flour and almond meal!), marvel at the blanket of snow outside, learn about methods of polymer synthesis, and search for jobs.