Valentine's Day dinner

So, you know that I'm not that big a fan of the whole Hallmark-holiday quality of Valentine's Day. I mean don't get me wrong, there are very few red-blooded American girls who don't like flowers and chocolate, but a) the markup on flowers is so high around this time of year that I could wait and get three bouquets of flowers at different points in the year for the exact same price (and surprises are better anyway - hint, hint), and b) let's be honest here. Target and CVS have already had Easter candy out for a month, and that's WAY better than any Valentine's Day candy sold. Still, we do like to have a nice dinner at home - no gifts - that weekend, and that's what we'll be doing this weekend.

So what are we doing? Well, we decided to do the whole Melting-Pot thing at home and try a four course dinner made up of two different fondues and then dessert. Sounds good, right? We've got a bottle or two of sparkling wine left over from New Years so we'll be cracking that open to go along with everything.

First course: Garden salad, while the cheese fondue heats up.

Second course: A cheese fondue appetizer, using a modified (no wheat flour) version of this cheese fondue recipe or else this champagne-cheese fondue recipe (again, modified so there's no wheat flour). For dipping: gluten free bread, broccoli, cauliflower and carrots

Third course: I found this awesome-looking wine fondue recipe that I'm interested in trying. For dipping: shrimp, beef, portabella and white mushrooms, snow peas, and red peppers.

Dessert: Unfortunately, since the hubby doesn't like chocolate three courses of fondue are out. :-( HOWEVER, I just happened to get the CIA's gluten free baking book this week, as well as a brand new pizzelle press. Sooo... hopefully, that will work out and I can either make gluten free pizzelles or shape them into dessert cups to serve ice cream in... or roll them into a cannoli shape. If the pizzelles don't work out, then we might be playing it by ear.

Gosh, this is a lot of food. Thankfully my boot camp class is the next day to burn off some of these calories!

Rant on Sugar as a Toxic Substance

I saw, and posted, this article earlier today on whether sugar should be regulated like alcohol and tobacco. A team of researchers from the University of California at San Francisco have decided that sugar is toxic and (slowly) killing us - therefore, it should be regulated along with other dangerous substances. Proposed age limits - no sugary drinks sold to children under the age of 17 - would supposedly curb sugar consumption in children, lessening childhood obesity and improving overall health.

This idea is, in theory, just about as sound as the "flat tax" theory. It sounds passable at first, until you start to think rationally. While I'll completely agree that sugar is addictive and too much sugar is bad for you (and I'll confess that I eat WAY too much sugar myself), are you going to tell me that all sugars are equal? There's sugar in bread - it's food for yeast. Carbs like white bread break down into - you guessed it - sugar! There's even sugar (fructose) in fruit! I'm all for downsizing the prominence of high fructose corn syrup in our daily lives, but demonizing all sugars in the process is patently ridiculous. If you show me a Type I diabetic, I'm sure they have some type of sugar stashed in their car or purse for blood sugar emergencies. If you show me an otherwise healthy, highly active kid who's on two or three sports teams, I'm willing to bet you that a Gatorade after practice isn't going to do any damage. And if you try to take my chocolate away during THAT WEEK, you'd better be wearing protective armor.

If we ban sales of sugar for kids, what's next? Am I going to get hit up by a 12 year old outside the supermarket with a fiver asking me to buy soda? Are parents going to be carted off to jail because they served birthday cake to a group of ten fourth-graders? Are schools and employers going to administer random blood glucose tests? Are we going to completely absolve ourselves of any personal or parental responsibility? Why don't we - as individuals and parents - say "Hey, that Coke should be enjoyed in moderation" and leave it at that?

There are better ways of attacking this problem than nanny-state legislation like age restrictions on sugar consumption and extra taxes on sugary drinks and snacks. How about we look at how much money is being poured into corn subsidies and the relationship of corn production to the amount of available, CHEAP high fructose corn syrup? How about we start funneling money into more local farming initiatives with the goal of making apples, carrots and other healthy foods the cheapest ingredients in our grocery stores? How about taxing corporations that do horrendous things to our food supply in the name of saving cents per pound, damn any potential negative health consequences for our public (pink slime, anyone?)

In the end, I don't think sugar will ever be regulated - I think there will be a horrendous backlash on any proposed legislation (if it ever got that far). That said, I think it's sad that we've gotten this far, to the point where we're so unwilling to take responsibilities for our own actions as individuals and parents.

Superbowl!

I can't believe it's already time for another Superbowl! We're planning on staying home to watch the game this year, though a couple of friends are popping by to watch the game, it'll be pretty laid-back. My husband is a HUGE Giants fan, so of course I'm rooting for the Patriots. (Full disclosure: I have a reputation as a Patriots fan that I just can't shake, when in reality I used to be a Tom Brady fan back in the days before he showed the world what a world-class ass he was by leaving his pregnant girlfriend for a supermodel).

Anyway. I digress.

It wouldn't be the Superbowl without snacks, and that's what the whole point of this blog post is. Snacks! It's the second-best day of the year for gluttony (it doesn't have anything on Thanksgiving), to the point where it just doesn't feel right to watch the game without some fattening food. Plus I have boot camp that morning, so I won't even feel (much) guilty! We'll have four people (I think - that could change), one gluten free, and one vegetarian.

I'll start with the drinks - I'm going to pick up a case of Sam Adam's Angry Orchard cider. If you haven't tried this yet, you should - it's just about the best hard cider we've ever tasted. Yes, it's that good. I've only tried the regular version but it's amazing. That, and we have some leftover Killian's from New Years, and sodas to put out.

Now for food - I'm going NACHOS!!!!

The main nachos I have are sooo easy. I layer tortilla chips with ground beef (browned with taco seasonings), refried beans, jalapenos, sliced black olives, and a ton of melted monterey jack cheese. (I just put it under the broiler until it starts to turn brown). Then, I top it with shredded iceberg lettuce, diced tomatoes and onions, and serve with salsa, sour cream and guacamole for dipping!

I'll also be making a vegetarian 5-layer dip with refried beans, sour cream and taco seasoning, monterey jack cheese, jalapenos, olives, guacamole, and salsa. (I'm not sure if that's 5 layers or something else, or what constitutes a layer and what doesn't - but either way, served with tortilla chips it should be yummy!

My husband also really wants to have wings (and who am I to deny anyone buffalo sauce?) so we'll also be doing a batch of wings. For a hot vegetarian munchie, I'm thinking potato skins, sans bacon - but I could change my mind! (Any suggestions!?)

If you're hosting a (gluten free or not) Superbowl party and are looking for some ideas for stuff to serve, some other ideas include:

• Chili is a good staple! I swear by this recipe for Flatlander chili. 
• Pizza - I have a pretty good base crust recipe, though I might suggest a different topping than white pizza for the Superbowl! (How about buffalo chicken pizza? Just make sure to marinate grilled cut up chicken in buffalo sauce overnight for the full effect!) 
• Standard chip and dip options always work.
• My go-to pizza puff recipe is always a hit with non-GF people too (I love it when people request them, because I also know I'll be bringing stuff my husband can eat and enjoy!) 

Most importantly - enjoy!!!

Happy Holidays - and Betty Crocker's Ginger Creams, Gluten Free

 Hope that everyone is enjoying a wonderful holiday season with friends and family! I hope everyone eats a ton of wonderful food as well!

My husband and I made Christmas cookies last weekend - one of his requests was a cookie that he had fond memories of from childhood, but we'd never made (even pre-gluten free days). Ginger cream cookies. I dug out my mom's old Betty Crocker cookbook for the original recipe (if you don't have a Betty Crocker cookbook from the 60's, the recipe can be found online here). I only very slightly modified it to be gluten free, but it was delicious, and neither of us could tell it was gluten free - no chalky texture and aftertaste that I associate with many gluten free cookies.

Gluten free Ginger Creams

Anyway, here is the recipe that I ended up using.

Ginger Cream Cookies

• 1/3 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup white rice flour
• 1 cup potato starch
• 1 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tsp xanthan gum
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Mix shortening, white sugar, egg, molasses, and water thoroughly. Sift together flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, baking soda, and spices and blend in. Chill dough until firm.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C).
3. Drop dough by teaspoonfuls about 2 inches apart on lightly greased baking sheet. Bake about 8 minutes, or until almost no imprint remains when touched lightly. While slightly warm, frost with icing. 

Frosting 
What Ginger Cream cookie would be complete without frosting? Here, I used what I had on hand and decided to use the frosting recipe from Adventures of a Gluten Free Mom. 

• 1/4 cup Butter, softened
• 2 cups Powdered Sugar
• 1 tsp. Vanilla
• 2 Tbs. Milk (I used 2%)

1. Mix ingredients together with a hand mixer. Frost cookies when cool. 

Make sure to store them in the fridge to keep the frosting hard, and take them out a couple of hours before you eat them.

First post in a while.

It's been a while! Toward the end of the semester (well, trimester really) my computer died. It figures that it would be in the middle of a deadline for school! I have been doing most of my stuff from my iPhone, but blogging on that is a little difficult, and since I didn't want to use my work computer for obvious reasons... cue radio silence.

I'm not quite sure where to begin, so I guess I'll just update on the high points of what I've been up to in the past few weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to update this more frequently going forward. :-)

• My marketing class has completed. I had to write an individual research paper on a marketing topic of my choice, so I chose to write about the impact of the rising popularity of gluten free foods on the restaurant and commercial food industry. I didn't do too badly - 97% - but I'm convinced this professor doesn't like to give perfect marks on anything. I'm just a wee bit of a perfectionist, though, so that always bugs me. ;-) 
• I've been going to Zumba classes 2x a week and I am about to start going 3x/week (one will be a 90 minute boot camp class with Zumba and Butts and Guts). Hopefully this keeps me on track over the holidays! So far I've seen a difference in the way my clothes fit, though the scale hasn't budged an ounce. 
• I found out that a new Chipotle is coming to Niskayuna, right across the street from Mohawk Commons. AKA 10 minutes from my house, very very dangerous - My husband and I love, love, love their food - and their gluten-free-friendly policy is very nice too. It was originally scheduled to open this week, but the opening has been pushed back due to some power  problems.
• My mother's birthday is this weekend. I'm making my parents dinner to celebrate - Skillet jambalaya from the America's Test Kitchen cookbook. Yummy! I use Bilinski's chicken andouille sausage, and double the cayenne, but otherwise don't change the recipe in the least. It's a favorite, and requested by my mom. I scored some nice deals for her birthday on Black Friday weekend, but just in case she reads this I won't say what I found! 
• With the holidays coming up, I've started thinking about high-calorie, festive food (thank goodness for those boot camp classes). The gluten-y thing I miss the most is spinach dip in a rye bread bowl. I would love to figure out a way to make this and bring it over to my in-laws' for the holiday. 

That's about all - will try to write more about food soon. :-) 

Sick Comfort Food

For the past few days, I've been pretty under the weather - enough to call in not one but two days. For me that's practically unheard of - in fact, I think it's the second time I've been sick enough to do that in the six-plus years I've worked for my company. (Confession time: The second day I did answer e-mails and attempt working from home...) I thought I was getting better toward the end of the week, but today I woke up with a horrible sore throat. Figures, too - I was supposed to take my sister-in-law out for her birthday lunch as well as go to an honors society event at my campus this weekend. Oh well.

All that said - I have a few comfort foods that I always tend to gravitate toward when I'm not feeling well. And no, the standard Campbell's chicken soup (even if it were gluten free) doesn't make my list. Here goes - the foods I gravitate toward when I am sick:

• Edy's Fruit Bars in Strawberry. My husband absolutely detests strawberry, but I think these are heavenly... for some reason, I only indulge in them when I'm sick! 
• Apple Juice. I don't think there's any explanation necessary here... 
• Egg Drop Soup. I love this stuff, and it's another thing that I never end up eating unless I'm sick. On Tuesday I tried making some of this at home using a recipe I found online, with less-than-stellar results. I'm not quite sure what I did wrong, though I did substitute fresh chives (which I've been out of since the first frost) with fresh scallions from my fridge. I'll confess, I usually go the easy route when I'm sick and get delivery from a local place (I have no idea if it's gluten free), but I can attest that PF Changs does have an excellent - and verified gluten free - egg drop soup.
• Green tea. I'm a fan of Tazo Zen green tea, and Lotus decaf green tea (which I'm still upset has been removed from Starbucks line of Tazo teas). This is the only item on the list that I have on a regular basis, even when I'm not sick, but I only sweeten it with honey when I'm not feeling well. 
• Jello, in either strawberry, cherry/black cherry, or lime. I occasionally make the sugar-free versions for myself, but the only time I break out the full-sugar packages, you know I'm not feeling well. 
• Pasta with butter and salt. We don't keep regular pasta in the house anymore, but high-quality gluten free pasta like Pasta Mia or Bionaturae will work just as well. 

What are your go-to comfort foods when you're not feeling well? 

Guilty Pleasure foods

Tonight was supposed to be book club night with some of my girlfriends. Unfortunately due to scheduling conflicts, most people had to bow out before today, and the three of us remaining ended up canceling - mostly because traffic was horrible due to the first snowfall of the season. (Seriously, we live in Upstate NY. The roads weren't that bad, and people should really know how to drive in a little slush up here.) So anyway, my husband already had plans so that left me on my own for dinner.

You know what that means - guilty pleasure food time. We all have a handful of foods that we eat all the time when we don't want to cook/are on our own. Sometimes it's because we just really love the food that much - but usually it's because no one else in the house likes our concoctions, so when we get a chance to indulge, we do so shamelessly. I know my husband's guilty pleasure food is macaroni and cheese made from gluten free elbows and Kraft cheese powder. It's not that I don't like the taste of it - who doesn't? - but if I'm going to be completely honest here cheese just isn't supposed to be delivered in powder form. Maybe if you're an astronaut - but that's a big maybe. So whenever he's on his own for dinner, he happily makes his bright-orange mac and cheese. 

Me, on the other hand? I have a handful of guilty pleasure foods that I can think of. Leftover pizza heated up and dipped in Frank's Red Hot. French fries (those thin "fast food fries" that Ore-Ida sells work best) absolutely drenched in salt and dipped in honey. Loaded nachos - ground beef, refried beans, olives, jalapenos, lettuce, tomato, and TONS of monterey jack cheese layered over tortilla chips (though my husband would be very upset if I ever indulged in that one without him!)

The biggest one though? A concoction that I found out about in college (probably while seriously inebriated) that sounds - and smells - absolutely vile, but tastes like heaven.

Fried Rice. Optionally mixed with Chinese boneless spare ribs. Mixed in with a LOT of Frank's Red Hot. And finally, mixed with some Ranch dressing. Sounds gross, right? ... Do Not. And I repeat, NOT, knock it before you try it. It's Chinese food combined with wings. The best of both worlds. (I just read this paragraph again - I think I can confidently strike the "probably" before "inebriated" regarding the first time I tried this). It stinks the entire house to high heaven, and causes my husband to gag if he's in the room while I'm eating it, but I LOVE it. So that's what I had tonight.

Now, the easiest way to do this is to order takeout. Unfortunately, I know of only one Chinese takeout location that offers gluten free food in our area - P.F. Chang's. (If you know of others, please share!) You can approximate this very easily with P.F. Chang's fried rice - see if they'll do a house fried rice with everything, otherwise get your favorite meat. Instead of boneless spare ribs, the GF Mongolian Beef works perfectly - just make sure not to mix in the scallions. Take everything home, mix with Frank's and ranch dressing, and enjoy!

Too much time/money/distance? Leftover, homemade fried rice also works pretty well with this as well.

Tell me, what are your guilty pleasure foods?