Book of Yum

I adopted Cybele Pascal of the blog of the same name and made her pumpkin sunbutter soup to raves from my dairy-allergic mother and kid, too. I also made her vegan chocolate chunk blondies.

Recipes:
Vegan Pumpkin Sunbutter Soup
Gluten-free Vegan chocolate chip blondies

Cheryl of Gluten-free Goodness adopted Kate of Eat, Recycle, Repeat and made her Sweet Potato Spread that makes me hungry just looking at the picture. Apparently Cheryl had her heart set on making sweet potato truffles and then swore off chocolate. She said “I looked through the recipes, a few others caught my eyes … And then I saw it…Sweet potato puddin spread. With chestnuts! And I adore chestnuts… I made it with Macadamia cream rather than coconut milk because that’s what I had on hand. It was delicious!” I’m sold.

Recipe:
Sweet Potato Spread

Shannon L. Brown adopted Shirley of Gluten-free Easily and made her big and rich brownies! She said, “For the adoption, I made her Big and Rich Brownies. They’ve been on my must-try list for a long time… I made the recipe with Better Batter and the result is a dense, chocolatey brownie which received husband approval.” She also mentions that when you spend time reading Shirley’s blog “you feel like you’ve found a friend.” I’ve met Shirley several times and I can attest that she gives you the same feeling in person. Shirley’s a great blogger and a great lady.

Recipe:
Big and Rich gluten-free Brownies

This month hit our family very hard with illness, and I’m sorry to say it delayed my own adoption post and my roundup. But I’m determined to keep our little event going and I hope you will hang in there with me for the next edition next month. Signups will open on the first. Hope to see you there!

Some time back, I got a book in the mail from Cybele Pascal’s publishing company, Allergy-Free and Easy Cooking: 30-Minute Meals without Gluten, Wheat, Dairy, Eggs, Soy, Peanuts, Tree Nuts, Fish, Shellfish, and Sesame. When I looked at the book I found most of it was meat-centric, so it took me a while to find recipes that would work for me. I was intrigued by the allergy-free focus, though, and when I read that Cybele developed her recipes out of the need to modify her diet to breastfeed an allergic baby, I felt a newfound empathy for her efforts. I had to go on a similarly severe allergy diet to breastfeed Baby Yum, and so I could understand how that could spark a passion for allergy-free eating! When I found that Cybele had a blog, I decided to adopt her for Adopt a Gluten-free Blogger.

Unfortunately, it ended up being quite a while before I could actually make any of her recipes. Kid Yum (now 3 1/2) got sick with a tummy flu on Christmas Day, the poor dear, and shortly after we all caught it as well. I spent New Year’s Eve in bed, and was sick for two weeks and then a bit more with sinus evil-ness. Oh dear me! But happily, this week I finally got better and was able to make some of Cybele’s recipes.

I started with a recipe for potato gnocchi that caught my eye in Cybele’s cookbook. The dough was easy to shape and the recipe came together easily enough. After I made it I wasn’t quite sure how to serve it, but I had some homemade pasta sauce so I ended up coating the gnocchi with pasta sauce and a little fresh basil leaf. It was pleasant and a good recipe for gnocchi.

Next I made a recipe from Cybele’s blog, for Pumpkin Sunbutter Soup with sweet potato. I was intrigued by the idea of this savory root vegetable and squash soup with a touch of “un-nutty” butter for depth. Sure enough, I enjoyed the recipe, although since I didn’t have canned sweet potato, I think it ended up a tad less smooth than Cybele’s original. Still, it was very good and Kid Yum dug in enthusiastically. She may have been missing Mommy’s home cooking, as she ended up perched enthusiastically at the counter gobbling up some leftover sweet potato cubes and soup. This recipe was probably my favorite that I tried for this installation of adopt a blogger.

Finally, I made the gluten-free blondie brownie recipe with chocolate chips that I’d been eying from Cybele’s blog. This was a tasty recipe, and a good opportunity to use those super yummy enjoy life chunk chips. I only wish my friend JM with the soy allergy was in town so I could share some goodies with her!

Cybele has a great blog and assortment of gluten-free, allergen-free cookbooks out, and I hope you’ll take some time and explore them. I’d like to check out the Allergen-free Baker’s Handbook myself!

*Roundup Coming Soon. My apologies to participants for the Tardiness of the Roundup, as well as my own post.*