Book of Yum

This month the Adopt a Gluten-free Blogger Event was hosted by Kalinda of Wheat-free Meat-free. I adopted Hero Beth from the deliciously entitled blog, Tasty Yummies, after her entry in my gluten-free vegetarian thanksgiving event brought her blog to my attention. She had so many recipes that I had a hard time picking and ended up making a Pinterest board of my favorite Tasty Yummies. Things have been a tad stressful at the House of Yum, with me trying to start Toddler Yum at daycare and get some serious work done on my dissertation. I needed to spend a little time in the kitchen to expend some nervous energy, and I started by making her Gluten-free Butternut Squash Enchiladas. I was intrigued by Hero Beth’s frequent usage of butternut squash in her recipes, and I loved the idea of the simple but homemade accompanying tomatillo sauce.
I served the enchiladas as one of the first sit-down-at-the-table meals we’d had in ages. We all enjoyed it, and the DH gave it a thumbs up. I made a dairy-free version for my mom, and a plain cheese quesadilla for toddler yum, who found the tomatillo “spicy.” I’d make this recipe again. The only thing I would change would be my poor choice of tortilla. I accidentally bought extra-thin mission corn tortillas, and found extra-thin was code for extra-likely-to-fall-apart. It looks like Hero Beth picked a far better tortilla for her version, and my usual Sonoma organic corn tortillas would be a good choice as well.
My favorite recipe that i found at Hero Beth’s site has to be this one for Spicy Roasted Cauliflower and Chickpeas with Pine Nuts Recipe. Of the recipes that I selected, I found this to be one of the her most original, taking two ordinary favorites and combining them with a very special addition. I also loved the Indian flavor of the spices added. I could eat this dish every day for a month and not get tired of it!

I must have been in the mood for beans, because that same night I also made her White Bean and Chive Veggie Patty Recipe. I loved the chives and crunchy cornmeal. But I wished I knew what kind of white bean Hero Beth used. I had both white kidney and small white beans in my pantry and didn’t know which would go better. The patties were tasty but needed a little something, so I added a dab of mayonnaise and it complimented them perfectly.

I also made a pumpkin pasta casserole with gobs of cheese and fresh pumpkin puree. I liked it, but I was out of parmesan regianno and could only use the gruyere, which made it a little more plain than the original. I added srirachi hot sauce to mine to kick it up a notch, and added generous servings of pepper and it was pretty tasty. The DH said it was his favorite of all the recipes from the Tasty Yummies blog that I tried. The pasta pictured here is brown rice penne, but I also made some batches with the new gluten-free corn pasta at (west coast) Trader Joe’s. I really like this new jumbo-sized corn penne, but brown rice pasta does look prettier for this recipe.

This was a very fun adoption month and I really enjoyed trying the recipes at Tasty Yummies. The next time I have some brussels sprouts I might have to try Hero Beth’s Shredded Brussels Sprouts with toasted walnuts and dried currants or serve a Gluten-free Vegan Apple Cobbler. Why don’t you check out the amazing recipes and great photos at her site?

This month Adopt a Gluten-free Blogger will be hosted back here at the Book of Yum. It has been a very relaxing two month vacation, and I really appreciate my friends who stepped in to help host for me.* This month, I’ll hope to see you all back here to adopt your own gluten-free blogger.

*If you have a gluten-free blog and would like to host Adopt a Gluten-free Blogger, just let me know in the comments and we can schedule you in!

When we decided to buy a house in California, we knew that fruit trees often came with the deal. Honestly, it seems like around here you would have to go to some effort to find a house without at least an apple or lemon tree on the property. True to form, our house came with apple, apricot, plum, avocado trees, and then a hearty volunteer branch of a persimmon tree that drapes from our neighbor’s yard into our back yard garden. The persimmon and avocado tree delighted but confused me by bearing their fruit in winter. Last year persimmons found their way into smoothies,streusel topped persimmon muffins, and even a flaming persimmon pudding (cake). This month I have been a little under the weather with family colds, and I’ve been working on my dissertation research too. But last night I got into the holiday spirit and made this scrumptious persimmon cookie spiked with all my favorite spices, pecans and raisins too. Ohhh it was good. And they were good for breakfast, too. Oh, c’mon, they have fruit and nuts- really, they are like a (sweet) granola in a cookie, so it isn’t that shameful to have them with a morning americano, right? Right?

Here are some more gluten-free cookie recipes:
Gluten-free Vegan Carrot Raisin Un-Oatmeal Cookies
Vegan Gluten-free Quinoa Peanut Butter Monster Cookies
Gluten-free Nutmeg Shortbread Flat Cookies
Grain-free Low-processed sugar Chocolate Pecan tollhouse PIE recipe (ok, inspired by a cookie!)
Healthy Gluten-free Gingerbread Cut Out Cookie Men

So much for dieting!

Gluten-free Dairy-free Spiced Persimmon Cookie Recipe Dessert  Alternative Grains  American

Ingredients 1 cup peeled persimmon, pureed 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 cup +2 tablespoons brown rice flour(or sorghum) 1/2 cup almond flour 1/2 cup +2 tablespoons tapioca starch 1/2 cup brown sugar (or coconut sugar) 1/2 cup white sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice 1/2 tsp salt 1 beaten egg 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts 1 cup raisins 1/2 cup melted palm oil shortening, vegan margarine or butter (I used shortening) Directions Preheat oven to 375F. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and reserve. Whisk your baking soda into the persimmon puree and reserve. Combine your dry ingredients from brown rice flour through spices and salt. Stir in persimmmon puree. Fold in your beaten egg and then your nuts and raisins. Pour the melted shortening over the dough and stir to combine. Scoop out small spoonfuls of dough (a full regular spoon or a scant tablespoon works well) onto your prepared baking sheet. Bake for 12 minutes or until cookies are baked but still slightly soft. They are very tender when first baked but firm up as they cool. Notes I used about 2 ripe hachiya persimmons for this recipe but I think any nicely ripened persimmon would work. The pictured cookies were frozen first, and then baked. The first time around, I used the room temperature dough and they spread out more, which looks a bit prettier. Either way they taste great! You can freeze the dough and bake later in a preheated oven at 375F. Just add a few minutes on to the baking time. I usually throw my dough into a quart ziploc freezer bag and label with baking instructions and recipe title. However, when you cut off the cookies you get funny block-shaped cookies then. I recommend you freeze them in a tube shape or freeze them on wax paper in spoonfuls just how you’d like to bake them for the prettiest cookies. Freezing cookie dough gets rid of some of the graininess of gluten-free flour and also results in a fatter cookie. This recipe is also good baked straight out of the bowl, but we like the flexibility of freezing the leftovers so we can have fresh cookies any time we want.

Rating:  9 Original Source:  Inspired by online gluten recipes but my original creation. Please do not replicate without my permission. Recipe ID:  1581 Added:  December 3, 2011 Last Modified:  December 4, 2011