Karina's Gluten-Free Blueberry Flax Muffins

Gluten-free blueberry flax muffins- totally our new fave.

 Blueberry Flax Seed Muffins - My Fave

Seven years ago we left Cape Cod for our gypsy adventure. We sold the sofa, kitchen table, and boxes of cookbooks. We recycled toys and jeans and an old PC. The open road was calling. And we listened.

The western sky hung big and blue above the high desert arroyos of New Mexico. It felt as deep and wide as an ocean. We thought this signaled home. But I missed the sea more than I ever could have guessed. So we moved to Los Angeles and tried on four different neighborhoods in as many years. I grew adept at packing and shedding and shelved my books by color. I luxuriated in each and every hour spent with my two grown sons. A gift, each shared coffee date. Movie night. Christmas dinner.

But the city of Los Angeles was never my home. Its entertainment culture felt as walled off to me as the adobe and iron gates in Santa Fe. I felt invisible. And irrelevant. And undernourished. My feminine soul was starving.

And so I turned my gaze East again. It somehow felt right. And I found us a temporary nest, an antique barn studio in a post card worthy Connecticut village where I had lived as a child. Here, I paint. I write. I bake blueberry muffins. I listen to rivers curving through woods. I inhale the fog. It smells like pine. It is quiet here. And the pace is more to my liking. 

But it is not by the sea. I cannot walk the flats at low tide. I have no place to hang sheets in the ocean breeze.

Believe it or not, the coast is calling.

Like the long and winding road that tugged me West, and pulled me East, the tidal rhythms of living by the sea are infusing my dreams with the colors of ocean glass and bay side creeks. There is sand in my boots from our trip to San Diego and I cannot bring myself to shake it out. I've been looking up rentals in Ventura County.

If you are a fortune teller, adept at reading signs, speak now or forever hold your peace.


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Easy Gluten-Free Green Chile Egg Bake

This puffy golden egg bake is easy (and pretty enough for brunch guests).

Roasted Green Chiles + Eggs = Fabulous

This simple egg bake recipe flirts with being a souffle. She imagines herself in an Anais Nin novel, puffy and voluptuous, trembling on a sunlit, blossom strewn table, about to be devoured by a Henry Miller style character, an unknown writer, all bluster and Brooklyn guff, with a surprising, childlike glint to his laughter.


In a Kerouac novel she imagines herself liquid, a stream of golden beats syncopated in hot opposition to the heart's rhythm, strangely, vertigo defyingly more in tune with how the stars blink- on and off- cradling her humble, unassuming beginnings in feather injected hay, spinning cool and restless past the farmhouse windows lit yellow by a single lamp on the center of a wooden kitchen table strewn with cereal coupons and finger smudged newspaper and coffee cups stained not with lipstick but with infinite tiny cracks, scenting the air with morning that rushes into this author's highway memory like a distant train whistle crooning its tug toward reckless freedom, toward shed dreams and mockingbird awakenings that mimic the familiar just to confuse you, just to keep you anchored, just to clip you from flying in your own, crazy trajectory, your one chance at what might be possible.

Then again.

Maybe she's just an egg recipe.

With attitude.


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Gluten-Free Pan Fried Catfish

Golden pan fried catfish fillet...

Gluten-free golden fried catfish fillet- tender and tasty.

 

Gluten-Free Pan Fried Catfish Recipe with Brown Rice and Baby Greens

Recipe posted by Karina Allrich May 2011.

One of my favorite simple dinners is pan fried catfish. So flavorful. The texture is lovely- flaky, and tender. Here I've made a crumb style coating with three gluten-free flours. The combo of almond meal, coconut flour and brown rice flour creates a light and delicate coating that fries to a crispy golden brown.

Ingredients:

4 (6 to 8-ounce) skinless catfish fillets
1 beaten organic free range egg
1/2 cup almond meal
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup brown rice flour
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon dried dill
1 teaspoon dried oregano or parsley
1 teaspoon dried minced garlic
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/3 cup light olive oil or vegetable oil, for frying
Lime wedges, for serving
Fresh herb salad greens, for serving
Hot cooked brown rice, seasoned with olive oil and sea salt, for serving

Instructions:

Line a baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper, and place it in a warm oven.

Rinse the catfish fillets briefly in cool water and pat dry.

Place the fillets in a shallow baking dish, in a single layer. Pour the beaten egg mixture over the catfish, and make sure each fillet is evenly coated on both sides. Set aside.

In separate shallow dish, whisk together the almond meal, coconut flour, brown rice flour, smoked paprika, dill, oregano, garlic, and sea salt.

Working with one fillet at a time, remove it from the egg mixture and dredge it in the gluten-free flour mixture to coat both sides. Transfer the coated fillet to a clean plate. Repeat for the remaining fillets.

Heat the light olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When the oil is hot, carefully add two fillets to the skillet, and fry until the underside is golden and crisp, roughly 4 minutes. Using a thin, flexible spatula, gently turn the fillet over and continue cooking until it is crispy golden brown on the second side, about 3 to 4 minutes more.

Carefully transfer the cooked fillets to a parchment lined baking sheet in a warm oven. Repeat the process with remaining fillets.

Serve the catfish with a crisp, fresh herb salad and hot cooked brown rice. Garnish with fresh lime wedges and snips of fresh dill.

Cook time: 8 min for the catfish

Yield: Serves 4

Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

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New Quinoa Bars Recipe - Blondie Style

Our new favorite quinoa bar with almond meal, lots of good vanilla and dark chocolate chips.

A New Quinoa Bar - Blondie Style

A short and sweet post to share a new gluten-free quinoa bar recipe with chocolate chips. It's a Blondie style chocolate chip cookie bar. The quinoa flakes and almond meal add texture, flavor, and protein. Not that I'd go so far as to call it health food. But. As sweet treats go?

This one's mighty tasty.


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Gluten-Free Coconut Layer Cake

Coconut cake heaven. Gluten-free and dairy-free deliciousness.

Let Us Eat Cake

Birthdays are complicated when you reach a certain age. Oh, don't get me wrong. You're grateful for another year. I mean. You're still alive and kicking, right? Waking up to a fresh start. Starting a spanking new year on the planet with one more number under your (slightly pinching) belt. A number that grants you a whisker more authority in the world. A tad more wisdom.

If you've been paying attention to the lessons life likes to offer up as experience, and not sleepwalking, that is. Not acquiescing to the expectations of others. Or choosing safety over the challenge of the new. Or worse- finding yourself somewhere, in some situation, or relationship, strictly for the sake of momentum, chafing inside a role you don't remember signing up for.

Birthdays can be markers like that.

Defining where we've been. And how far we've come. Or not.

It was my husband's birthday this weekend. And yes, I baked a cake. And as I stirred the batter and scooped it into cake pans, I thought about the other cakes I have baked for him. The chocolate cake in our first year of marriage. Children beneath our roof. Blue balloons and candles. The newness of each others' dreams. The shine of our ideas. The belief in what was possible.

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