Book of Yum

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Gluten-Free Menu Swap, hosted by Gluten Free Sox Fan. This week the theme ingredient is CORNMEAL, so check out my cornmeal cookies that I will be posting later if they turn out well. I also always enjoy posting menus with Org Junkie, so head on over there for some great menu ideas.

Picture on the left is of a lentil potato loaf (vegetarian) served with turmeric rice pilaf made in my trusty Rice Cooker, an appliance no gluten-free international gourmet should be without! Famed Gluten-Free Blogger Shauna recently waxed poetic on her new rice cooker and I’ve been a fan of this particular appliance since we lived in Japan and used it daily. I sometimes use a recipe from the Rice Cooker Cookbook when I want to do something a little fancier with my machine, but just as often I just make plain rice. Either way, it always turns out beautiful rice. You can find this easy turmeric rice cooker recipe posted below.

Sunday: American Picnic
potato salad
baked tom tom tofu
Beet salad (see below)
Roasted cauliflower

Monday: Italian
Chebe Vegetarian Broccoli Pizza Pockets

Wednesday: Chinese
Szechuan pepper chinese peas
Spicy peanut green beans
white rice

Friday: Japanese
Gluten Free Vegetarian Yakisoba (fried noodles) recipe with cabbage and other veggies

Sunday: West African
West African Vegetable Stew (with peanuts!) (Peanut Butter Planet)
with Injera, ethiopian flatbread made from teff

Baked Good of the Week: Cornmeal Cookies

You may have noticed that I’m posting a little less frequently of late. Basically, this whole being a graduate student thing has been taking up a lot of time. The nerve of it, right? Haha. Anyway, the new term has started and I’m taking quite a few classes in one last hurrah and attempt to acquire the last little bits of knowledge from some great profs before I start working independently on my dissertation. I’m still here, I’m still posting, and I’ll be continuing ye ‘old book of yum as my one non-academic hobby… so never fear. And please keep visiting me to give me that extra spurt of inspiration I need to keep writing!

Due to the craze of my current schedule, you’ll notice the deadline of “Adopt a Gluten-free Blogger” was extended a bit and I made it just under the wire, posting before MIDNIGHT of the deadline. Hey, getting things done at the last minute is what we graduate students do best, right? Anyway, I will be doing a roundup this week, and then I will be passing the torch NEXT MONTH to another Gluten-free blogger so that they can host the event. Let’s keep the adoption love going, people!

Check out my recent post about:
Naomi’s Accidental Vegetarian Blog and some Beautiful Gluten-Free French Bread

And Posts on the Drawing Board include:
The best Gluten-Free Pizza Joint in the Bay Area
and
that darned post on Hispanic Markets and Gluten-Free Corn Products!
Also Exciting Reviews of the Best Gluten-Free, Vegan (Dairy-free egg-free) Ice Cream Ever!

Our dressing of the week is almost a vegetable marinade, and is lovely on beets, but could be used on almost anything. I’m personally a big fan of beet salads, especially for road trips or hot summer days, so this is a little something I’ve been making lately. I made one version for our road trip to my friend’s baby shower, and this version was inspired by some beautiful organic golden beets I found at the Farmer’s Market. This kind of salad would also be perfect for a sack lunch as well as a road trip.

*Just for fun, I added a simple rice cooker recipe that I made recently.

Sunshine Yellow Beet Salad Recipe Side Dish  Vegetables  American

Ingredients 1 large bunch of golden yellow beets 1 tbsp olive oil 2 tbsp cider vinegar 2 tsp mustard (I like Annie’s) 1 tsp agave nectar or honey or maple syrup (you can leave this out) Rosemary, fresh and minced or dried, to taste Italian seasonings (McCormicks’ freshly ground with the grinder bottle is wonderful) salt, freshly ground pepper if you want Minced shallots (optional) Directions Remove and reserve any beet greens. Boil your beets. If you want you can add the greens to the top for the last ten minutes or longer, but separate them afterwards. Combine olive oil, vinegar, mustard and agave nectar with a whisk (electronic is good). Add seasonings. Taste and adjust as you like. Skin and slice your yellow beets and marinate in the dressing, preferably overnight. Enjoy! Notes A wonderful dish for on the road!

Rating:  8 Original Source:  The contents of my brain. Please do not replicate anywhere without my permission. Recipe ID:  1220 Added:  April 11, 2008 Last Modified:  April 13, 2008

Rice Cooker Turmeric Rice Pilaf Recipe Side Dish  Rice  Indian

Ingredients 2 cups basmati rice (or whatever you have) 1 tbsp oil of choice (butter or ghee would be super yummy) 2 large shallots, chopped (or other onion) 2 1/2 cup water 1/4 tsp. turmeric Dash of Salt 1/2 cup frozen or fresh peas (DH Is a pea addict) Directions Rinse your water until it goes clear and drain. Start your rice cooker and add your oil in the dry pan. Close lid and let it heat. Add the shallots and close the lid, restarting rice cooker. When shallots are translucent, add the rice, stir it in and let the rice get heated with the oil. Some varieties of rice will turn a little translucent. Add your turmeric, water and salt and peas and stir. Restart your rice cooker and let it cook until it turns itself off. If you want fluffier peas you can add frozen peas after the machine clicks over to warm. Stir them in, shut the lid again and let them be on warm until the peas are warm throughout. Notes This recipe isn’t fancy but it was tasty and more fun than plain rice with a hearty side dish o’ lentil loaf!

Rating:  7 Original Source:  The contents of my brain. Please do not replicate anywhere without my permission. Recipe ID:  1221 Added:  April 13, 2008 Last Modified:  April 13, 2008

NEW extended post deadline: post by April 10 to be included in the roundup!

It’s that time again! No, not daylight savings time- it’s time to adopt your very own Gluten-free blogger for the month of March.

Please sign up in the comments with your name (or pen name), the name of your blog, and the name and blog name of your adopted blogger! Then just write a post about your adopted blogger between March 25-April 7(10), having tried one of their recipes and blogged about it. Please follow your chosen blogger’s recipe as printed, making only minor changes for reasons of allergy or veg/non-veg diet. . I think it’s probably best to just link to your adopted blogger’s recipe rather than posting it in your blog. Don’t forget to link back to this blog event in your post, and after you post, EMAIL Me at seamaiden399[at]gmail[dot]com with the URL for your post and an attached PHOTO that you took of the food (very important if you want to be included in the round up!) Here’s my proposed adoption for this month, to start the ball rolling.

I’m Seamaiden, at the Book of Yum, and I’d like to “adopt” Naomi, of the Accidental Vegetarian this month because… I have a big bag of her Better Batter flour in my pantry and I can’t wait to make one of her famous gluten-free recipes for croissants or other goodies that once seemed out of reach for a gluten-free chef.

Now I’ve “adopted” Naomi for this month, and so other bloggers *sniff* can’t “adopt” her THIS MONTH. (But next month her blog is fair game!) I will write a post sometime in the next two weeks (Deadline: April 7) about Naomi, her blog, and a recipe that I tried recently.

I’ll keep a running list of bloggers that have been adopted at the bottom of this list. If we get repeats, the blogger who posted their claim earliest “gets” the blogger, and I’ll contact any bloggers who need to pick a new blog. (This is so we can discover the maximum number of GF bloggers and recipes!)

Once you adopt a blogger, you have until the event end date (2 weeks from opening of event- this month until APRIL 10th (formerly 7th) to try a recipe and blog about blogger and their recipe.

*To be eligible, your blogger must either be a gluten-free blogger OR consistently blog gluten-free recipes with a gluten-free tag for recipes that makes them easy to find. New GF bloggers would be terrific candidates for “adoption.” Recipe must be GF as written by the original poster.*

I’d like this to be a monthly event, and it would be great if we could get volunteers to host future months. The next event period would be from April 28-May 11. If you’d like to host next month, please email me or post in comments.

*You don’t have to host recipes at your site to ADOPT someone and blog about their recipes. Also, for those who are adopted- don’t worry! You don’t have to reciprocate and adopt anyone (not even the person who adopted you) unless you want to.. It would almost be more fun if people Didn’t automatically adopt the person who adopted them- to maximize the new blogs you get exposed to!

Our Adopted GF Bloggers, for the February 25- March 9th “Adopt a GF Blogger” Event
1) Naomi of the Accidental Vegetarian (adopted by Sea of the Book of Yum)
2) Natalie from Gluten Free Mommy (adopted by Heather at puff.muffins)
3) Jeena’s Kitchen (adopted by Rachel)
4) Childlife (adopted by Thomas)
5) Carol at Simply Gluten Free (adopted by Karen of Red Sox Fan)
6) Lea at Lea Is Gluten Free (adopted by Carrie)
7) Sea (me!) at this here site, Book of Yum! (Adopted by Kate of Gluten Free Gobsmacked) aww…
8 ) Pig in the Kitchen (Adopted by Lucy)
9) Naomi at Straight into Bed Cakefree and Dried (adopted by Carol at Simply Gluten-Free)
10)Kate at Gluten Free Gobsmacked (adopted by Naomi of The Accidental Vegetarian)
11)Cindalou (adopted by Cheryl)
12) You pick!
………………………….

Note:
Still Pending from last month:
6) Naomi of Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried [Adopted by BytheBay of Gluten Free By the Bay, postponed for next month.]
12) Christian at Stephen’s Recipes [Adopted by Cindalou of Cindalous Kitchen Blues]
13) Sally at Aprovechar adopted Melissa at Gluten-free for Good
14) Orla of Great Mastications adopted Lyra of The Gluten Free Hippie