Category Archives: baking

A Weekend Full of Treats

Posted on December 27, 2010 | 2 Comments

It’s hard to believe that another holiday weekend has come and gone. While we don’t celebrate Christmas, this weekend was full of celebrations, family, food, laughter, and of course, treats for all.

It was cold and rainy all day on Friday so we spent the majority of our day around the house. Closets were cleaned out, movies were watched by the fire, and we relaxed.

My dad and I had blueberry hot cereal with grilled pear and peanut butter on top which was delicious.

I made treats to have on hand for the weekend: Puppy Chow and 2 kinds of chocolate bark – butter toffee and caramel pecan.

A light lunch featuring leftover veggies and a Tex-Mex treat of a vegan tamale filled with black beans.

Friday night dinner was at a local Mexican restaurant where we treated my grandmother for her birthday. My aunt, uncle, and cousins from Houston drove in for the occasion and it was a treat to have everyone together.

On Christmas morning, my mom whipped up some waffles for breakfast. I love when she makes them for me; they were a great treat to start the day.(she also made a regular batch for her and my brother)

We watched a movie by the fire and Cody begged for a treat of his own from my dad.

Yesterday afternoon we headed to my grandparents’ house to continue the celebrations. We were celebrating Chanukah together as well as my grandmother’s 78th birthday! She was born on the 25th so we’ve always had something fun to do on Christmas day.

My grandmother is quite the cook and I’m lucky in that she’s always cooked special foods for me that I could eat with my allergies. In addition to making a gluten free version of her latkes, she also picked up a gluten free rosemary foccacia bread for my dad and I to try and made us a gluten free peach cobbler for dessert!

Our late lunch / early dinner consisted of brisket, turkey, sweet potatoes, latkes, homemade cinnamon applesauce, broccoli, and purple cabbage.

We opened gifts as a family and one thing everyone received this year was a Snuggie! Here’s the obligatory grandchildren shot.

We treated my grandmother to another rendition of Happy Birthday, enjoyed dessert, and called it a night 6 hours later.

With 2 of my cousins off at college, me in DC, and some family in Houston, it was such a wonderful treat that we were able to come together to celebrate my grandmother and Chanukah for a weekend!

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Posted in baking, breakfast, Chanukah, dessert, dinner, milestones, weekend, winter

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DC Cookie Swap

Posted on December 12, 2010 | 4 Comments

A few weeks ago, the lovely Lisa invited DC area bloggers to a holiday cookie swap. The idea sounded fun yet I was a little hesitant because gatherings of this nature aren’t usually friendly to those who eat gluten free. Today was far from the case though – there were so many gluten free and vegan treats  lovingly prepared by new friends! I was really touched that so many people were willing to accommodate food allergies and choices. Thank you!

The past few weeks were filled with lots of chatter in anticipation of the gathering. I bonded with new friends and couldn’t wait to see some and meet others!

There were so many kinds of treats spread out all over Lisa’s house.

She also had a wonderful spread of snacks including (gluten free!!) crackers, lentil crisps, etc. with olive tapenade, spinach artichoke dip, fruit, cider, and more.

I had a bit of everything plus a few more crackers, spinach artichoke dip, and tapenade. I needed the salt to balance all the sweets ;)

I sampled bites of gluten free treats at the party as well and brought home even more. Everything tasted wonderful!

This afternoon was fun, filled with great conversation and idea sharing, new friends, and sweet treats. I’m already looking forward to next year!

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Posted in baking, bloggers, friends, Uncategorized

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I Can’t Wait!

Posted on December 10, 2010 | 2 Comments

Thanks for your patience y’all. This week has been busy and throw some dental work and a weird virus on top of it and I’m feeling all over the place. Lucky for you, I haven’t been cooking anything too fantastic. Instead, I’m ever thankful for the batch of roasted chickpeas and veggie rice I whipped up on Monday. They’ve been morphed into various meals saving me time and money on take out! Sadly, Chanukah came to an end as well but I loved my celebrations of it this year.

Last night I did some shopping and then threw together a bowl of leftovers when I got home. I had a bowl of veggie rice, the last half serving of chickpeas tossed in BBQ sauce, and a serving of split peas I cooked up on Wednesday sprinkled with paprika.

This morning I woke up to another cold morning and a craving for hot cereal. My go to bowl this week has been blueberry maple:

  • 1/4c Bob’s Red Mill GF hot cereal and roasted buckwheat
  • 3/8c almond milk
  • 1/2c water
  • 1/2T chia seeds
  • ~1/2T maple syrup
  • cinnamon
  • 1/4c frozen blueberries
  • drizzle of fig jam
  • 1/2T almond butter
  • pinch of crushed almond slices

The morning flew by and around 11:15 I snacked on an egg white on a slice of Udi’s whole grain bread.

I had planned to attend a “Fitness Yoga” class that was supposed to be like power yoga. The class was fine. There were a lot of flows which I was able to do but with modified footing so I wouldn’t strain the ball of my foot.Overall think my body appreciated the stretch but I’m out of practice with yoga for certain! I was able to do bird in paradise (with a bent lifted leg) though :)

Lunch at my desk was a small salad with mixed greens, beets, and roasted veggies plus Au Bon Pain vegetarian chili which is gluten free!

I was pretty full for the rest of the day but nibbled on some black grapes before leaving work for the evening. On the way home I stopped by Trader Joe’s for what is my most random grocery haul yet.

  • stalk of brussel sprouts
  • Red Pepper Eggplant spread
  • vanilla extract
  • baked beans
  • Riesling wine

I changed into my new yoga pants, turned on some Billy Joel on Grooveshark, and spent the next 2 hours baking for the DC Cookie Swap on Sunday.  I chose to make gluten free versions of snickerdoodle dough balls and peanut butter chocolate chip dough balls, which I tested last week!

I followed both recipes exactly, subbing in a gluten free baking mix for the flours and used only semi-sweet chocolate chips. My snickerdoodles fell flat which I think is due to the heat in my kitchen and next time I’ll try refrigerating the dough for a bit before baking.

At 8pm I finally took a dinner break while my PB chocolate chip dough chilled. I wilted fresh spinach that was on its last leg with a few spoonfuls of minestrone soup and had a serving of baked beans with some rice. Believe it or not at this point I had not tasted any of the goodies I had prepared!

After dinner I finished baking dough balls and finally had to taste the fruits of my labor. I had a PB chocolate chip ball that had crumbled plus about 3/4 of this snickerdoodle for quality control :-D They are amazing and I’m excited to get them out of my apartmen share them with new friends on Sunday.

So, I have to admit how excited I am for this weekend. Tomorrow and Sunday I’ve picked out some fun gym classes to attend, tomorrow night is a big going away party for friends that’s sure to be an amazing time, and of course, the DC Cookie Swap on Sunday. I can hardly wait for all of the festivities!!

What are you looking forward to this weekend? Are you attending the Cookie Swap? If so, please say hi! I can be a little shy at first but am really looking  forward to seeing you :)

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Posted in baking, bloggers, breakfast, dinner, groceries, lunch, yoga

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The Best Kind of Sick Day

Posted on December 3, 2010 | 4 Comments

I woke up this morning not feeling well and decided to give myself the day to acclimate to winter and kick whatever little cold I had. It was a smart decision.

I went back to bed and when I woke up again I was already feeling better than I had earlier in the morning. I made myself hot cereal again for breakfast. This time I added in frozen blueberries, a slice of pear, pomegranate arils, maple, and cinnamon. The bowl was topped with almond butter and a crushed honey pecan. Mmmm. I might be sad when I’ve eaten the last of those!

I had a lazy morning / early afternoon and when I was finally hungry again decided to get in a good healthy dose of veggies. I wilted a couple of handfuls of spinach in the microwave then added in leftover roasted broccoli, acorn squash, and okra. I heated that all up with some boy sauce balsamic vinegar, 21 Seasoning Salute, and hot sauce. On the side was the last of the baked beans and pear.

I had to run out to pick up a few things including my first bag of chocolate chips since last December O:-) A few folks commented on Twitter that they were surprised but I just don’t bake too often or eat that much chocolate. Whoops!

Tonight was my annual Asian food, cookies, and Love Actually Chanukah celebration with Bethany. It’s our Jewish version of decorating the tree :) Last year we had quite the adventure as well and it’s a nice way for us to do all the things we enjoy – eat, bake, and watch a DVD that we wore thin while living in the sorority house and procrastinating finals.

We met for dinner at Thaiphoon where I ordered the Pad See Eew with beef. It was delicious as always and exactly what I was craving.

We had an interesting table of men next to us that were quite inappropriate. When Bethany coughed one guy patted her on the back, they offered us some of their meal, and then proceeded to be interesting interjecting themselves into our conversation and even accused us of not savoring our dinner! Good times.

We came back to my apartment and got started on our baking project: a gluten free version of Mama Pea’s Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Balls. I halved the recipe, used Pamela’s Baking Mix as my gluten free flour, and omitted the peanut butter chips.

While the heavenly dough chilled we light Chanukah candles.

Here they are before baking.

And after.

Oh.my.gosh. This are fantastic! I ate mine and couldn’t even form sentences while eating it. It was that good.

Bethany declared that these didn’t taste gluten free and I would agree. There’s nothing “gluten free special” about these. They are just outstanding.

I had to be reminded that 1 was probably enough and that 4 or 5 would be overboard for one night and I’d probably feel sick. I was willing to risk it but Bethany played the role of good adviser and friend.

I’m finally feeling back to normal and I’m pretty sure our Chanukah celebration and dough balls had a large hand in that!

What are you up to this weekend?

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Posted in baking, breakfast, dessert, dinner, friends, holidays, lunch, new recipes, Uncategorized, weekend

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