Gluten-Free Recipes for St. Patrick's Day

Warm from the oven "Irish" (not really) Soda Bread Buns.

Spring Recipes for the Irish in Us All

I am ignoring the thermometer reading this morning. Looking on the bright side. Daylight Saving brings an extra hour of daylight tonight! The recent rain has melted the duvet of snow. And I am imagining Spring. Soda bread and St. Patrick's Day. Daffodils and robin's eggs. The Vernal Equinox is nigh (allegedly). And I am not looking back. 

I am ready for forward motion. 

T-shirts and blueberries.

To celebrate the wee bit of Irish in all of us- be it by blood or kindred spirit- I thought I might gather my gluten-free recipes inspired by Celtic tastes. Yes, Lass, that means potatoes. And cabbage, too. Soda breads, salmon, eggs, cottage pies and Spring soups. 

The Vernal Equinox is just around the corner. Flower beds will soon be sprouting tiny green shoots.

Add some Van Morrison to your playlist. Raise a glass.

Sláinte!

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Gluten-Free Irish Soda Bread (and baking tips)

This Spotted Dog Irish bread is yeast-free and gluten-free.

The Mother of Invention

If I call this new gluten-free bread an Irish soda bread, traditionalists will snicker. Raisins are not at all traditional in an Irish soda bread, you see. If a soda bread has raisins in it, it's called Spotted Dog over yonder, cross the pond in the Emerald Isle (or so I'm told). I never knew this, growing up on the white clapboard wilds of the Connecticut shore. I was blithely ignorant of this quaint canine moniker, despite a hefty streak of familial Irish blood (we ate more pierogi and kielbasa than Irish soda bread and tea). And out on my own- when I started baking my tender little eighteen year old heart out- my Irish soda bread had raisins.

And why not?

When it comes to traditions, I'm the first to admit- I am an upstart. I wiggle and chafe beneath constraint and "should" like an itchy school girl with pinching new shoes. I admire traditions. From afar. At least, in theory. In an abstract, symbolic way. The meaning and the message is more interesting to me than formula. When it comes to formula, I usually prefer to wing it.

Which is why I enjoy gluten-free baking.

My skill set groove runs deep on the intuitive side.

I bake like I paint. Observing. Listening. Responding to what is in front of me. If a recipe calls for x amount of flour and I sense the dough is too wet, I'll add more flour until the dough feels "right" to me. Experience helps. No doubt about it. The process of trial and error gives you a feel for gluten-free dough, an inkling about the muffin batter and how it might behave on any given day. Which varies, I hate to tell you.

So I pay attention to elements like humidity, and room temperature. Weather.

Bread dough will behave differently on a hot and humid day than it will on a windy, cold one. Your kitchen changes with the seasons, you know. So recipes may have to change a wee bit, too. The amount of milk or brown rice flour may need to be adjusted. Tweaked a tiny bit toward wet or dry.

Baking gluten-free is more of an art than a science.

I recommend you tune in to your ingredients and learn how they behave. Learn how humidity affects flour- notice it's dampness. Or dryness. Dry flours will soak up more liquid. Damp flours are heavier, and may need less moisture. A cool and drafty kitchen may require a longer rise time than a hot and sultry one. A thin metal bread pan may bake the outside of a loaf faster than the inside can keep up. Your oven may run a tad hotter than you imagined. Or lag behind and never quite pre-heat itself (do your gluten-free baked goods end up gummy in the center?).

Gluten-free baking requires your full attention. A dash of patience. An intimacy with your ingredients. A willingness to adjust. And most of all, developing an intuition you can trust.

Even if it goes against tradition.

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Gluten-Free Turkey Meatballs + Asian Style Noodles

Gluten-free turkey meatballs with fresh herbs, ginger and lime.

I've discovered Ancient Harvest Gluten-Free Quinoa Pasta and I love the texture and flavor. This is the least starchy gluten-free noodle I've found. And the best part is (perhaps due to the higher protein content of quinoa flour?) it stands up to pan tossing for brilliant stir-fries. However any gluten-free noodle or spaghetti you prefer will work (as long as you keep it a tad al dente).

Shake up your recipe routine with ginger-lime turkey meatballs.

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Love & Kisses: (Sexy!) Gluten-Free Love Foods

Roses- iPad painting by Karina

Love Foods

Valentine's Day is upon us. A dicey day for those of us who need to live gluten-free. In spite of our pragmatism and gritty resolve to stay healthy, we crave our romance, too. We celebrate love- in all its multitudinous incarnations, right?. We champion Love (sexy) over Fear (not sexy).

Now more than ever.

So don't worry, Darling. I've got your back.

Cooking is not only about nutrition, health and nourishment, it's a sensual experience- if done with gentle attention, generous attitude and love. Is there a cook among us who doesn't understand the seductive power of a meal stirred with lust- I mean- affection? It’s no accident that our Bubbes and grandmothers instructed us with the well-buttered axiom, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” Olfactory studies reveal that men prefer culinary over floral fragrances. I kid you not.

The two sexiest scents according to men submitting to a blind sniff-off?

Pumpkin pie and vanilla.

Your granny was right. So with the delicate art of seduction in mind, I thought I'd share a short list of goddess approved Love Foods to inspire us all. Because it's all about love, Babycakes.

And if- by fate or choice- you happen to be sans a honey this particular V-day season, consider treating yourself to a gorgeous meal.

True love begins at home, I always say.

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Gluten-Free Corn Muffins - A Santa Fe Twist

Our newest gluten-free corn muffin recipe- with a hint of chile.

Steve whipped up these chile studded golden morsels of corny goodness this week to have on hand for the Crock Pot stew and soup we planned to make. These would also be perfection with this chili.

Come Together

My heart is often tugged in multiple directions. Yanked this way, and pulled that way. Like one long, drunken walk of contradiction. Opposing strategies, assumptions, and intentions collide and churn and grip my emotional little pump like a fist- far more often than I care to admit. For all kinds of reasons. If I was a believer in astrology I would now confess my Gemini imprint. Which allegedly explains my dual nature and divergent tendencies. I have always pursued two paths at once, and wrangled opposites like the celestial twins I supposedly embody. But the only current subscription card I carry is not to the stars above in any connect-the-dot sense, but to the Big Kahuna. The Mother of All. That's right.

Love.

And that's why the media we are inundated with- hour after hour- is so tough, Babycakes. So much snark and cynicism. Lies disguised as information. Opinions disguised as news. So much shrill and snide. And divisiveness. So much finger pointing. And blame. So much collective denial. So much hurt and incredulity for anyone who has a heart. Or tenders a tendency to listen rather than rail. To read rather than twerk.

I am tired of our culture of death and war. I am weary of our appetite for power and violence. I am numb from the ugliness of greed that poses as success. As a woman of a certain age I recoil from the soul-killing projection of plasticized beauty, anti-aging, and the (boring!) focus on the superficial.

I tell you this because I must. I have no choice. I gotta talk about it. If you visit for the recipes only, or stop by for encouragement and celiac support, you may be raising an eyebrow right about now. You might prefer fun and perky chit chat. Not all this complicated feeling stuff. 

Recipes, inspiration- Darling, it's all here for you. My family and I knit our love of good food and gluten-free support for you. We have for eight years. And will continue to do so. 

But you should know- goddess status aside- I struggle with this stuff every day.

Just like you.

I know you do, too, because you are here right now. Reading these words.

You care.

You love.

You worry.

You are tired of the half-truths, the superficial, the weak reasoning, the shrugging dull acceptance that this is the way it has to be. Because you know- like I do- it doesn't.

Love can win.

Light can penetrate the darkest hour. Denial can be pinched and slapped and prodded awake. Common sense values, maturity, and compassion can be sexy. Golden Rule ethics are hawt. The still small voice within can be excavated. And heard. And sung.

I am turning to the new year ahead with hope for a better one. Where not one single child is riddled with bullets (is this really too much to hope for?). Where our political process is governed by doing the right thing (of the people, by the people, for the people) and not by money and its corporate culture of greed. Where guns are not sexy. And our appetites are hungry for knowledge, art, culture, beauty, and truth.

I know, I know. My Age of Aquarius hippie artist inclusive proclivities are showing.

And if I could?

I would invite you all over for cocoa and muffins. I would make you a big bowl of mulligatawny and hand you my favorite spoon, and play some Yo Yo Ma and James Taylor on the HiFi. We could watch the deer outside the kitchen window as snowflakes spin their magic just before dark. The recipe I would make would be this new corn muffin recipe spiked with spicy green chiles and golden pumpkin.

A match made in heaven.

Or hatched by a Gemini goddess wrestling with light and dark (and rainbows!).

You decide.

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Mulligatawny Soup with Jasmine Rice

Warm up with a bowl of this delicious mulligatawny soup.

Warm Up

All this Arctic Vortex talk (and accompanying blizzard aftermath) has got your intrepid Gluten-Free Goddess shivering in her skivvies and sporting a Brooklyn-style knit beanie at her desk. Outside our winter rental it is a frosty 17ºF as I type (a heat wave- up from 8ºF upon waking). Remind me again why we chose Cape Cod for our Winter of 2014 I mutter, shuffling in double socks to brew my favorite anti-depressant. A steaming cuppa Joe.

The sky is icy blue this morning. And I am craving mulligatawny. As luck or fate or Plan B foresight would have it, I have enough ingredients on hand to make my favorite soup for lunch today. A simpler, easier version of my well worn recipe for Vegetarian Mulligatawny.

I skipped the cabbage and cauliflower and canned tomatoes this time, and upped the carrots for a bright, fresh tasting- dare I say- healthy potage (that's a fancy word for soup, as you, Darling, already surely know; I just mention it in case you might think I'm getting snobby or elitist or uppity- Goddess forbid!).

I just started reading The Sound of Paper by Julia Cameron. I need a kick in the creative butt. I'm feeling stuck. Not in a blasé, cigarette dangling, shoulder shrugging What's the point? existential despair kind of stuck.

But close.

I blame the Arctic Vortex.

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Karina's Detox Soup Recipe with Coconut Milk

An easy, creamy vegan soup ~ gluten-free.

Detox Mansion

It's hard not to feel anxious these days. So much barking and blinking and chest thumping. So much posing and strutting, and grinding, voracious greed. It's mighty tough for a sensitive soul (prone to itchy bouts of worry) to cope with all the mishegas and mayhem of our overheated plugged-in self-promoting culture. Finding a little grace and respite amidst the noise can be hard.

That is why I am sharing (another) soup recipe. Just in case there is a kindred spirit out there in need of a bowl of creamy veggie comfort. A gluten-free vegan detox soup worthy of Peter Rabbit's sneaky excursions into Mr. McGregor's garden (that mischievous little rabbit- or as we like to say in my house... BUNNY!- close to my own greens adoring heart).

Bunnies aren't known for tongue-thrusting on YouTube, or spitting out criticism, or bullying, or, in general, wreaking havoc. Unless you count Peter's root vegetable stealing. Or (my sons' favorite) mischievous Max and his devouring love of chocolate chickens (have you read the Max books?).

Bunnies are (ostensibly, anyway) devoted to a milder temperament.

And qualities like kindness and cuteness and gentleness.

Traits easily trampled in our thundering, gun toting, zombie killing 3-D pyrotechnics fed culture.

So it seemed only fitting I cook up a batch of bunny loving vegan soup today as fresh and non-toxic as could be.

Creamy, green, good-for-you soul food.

Ask any bunny.

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