gluten-free cake at Crisan

I was in a daylight savings haze this morning and just couldn't motivated. Finally around 1 p.m., I decided to venture out, only I didn't know where to go. I couldn't decide what I wanted to do, other than avoiding worrying about work or actually doing work or taking care of any number of the essential tasks I'm putting off. So I decided to get another cup of coffee and do some reading. I went to the lovely bakery on Lark, Crisan.

Trips to Crisan are usually just for gelato. I like to browse the pastry cases out of a combination of curiosity, masochism and just plain visual appreciation of edible art. But lo and behold, while looking at all the lovely marzipan, ganache and flour-y goodies, I spotted a sign for a gluten-free treat. Yes, gluten-free chocolate and orange cake with ganache. Even though I was still a little full of zucchini bread from breakfast, I needed to try it. So $4 later, I had a beautiful little slice and a miniature fork and knife.

I'm impressed at how good it was and how much I didn't miss gluten while eating it. I can only hope they'll keep making this. Or actually, for my waistband's sake, maybe I shouldn't hope that.

applesauce bread

I really like quick breads like banana bread, pumpkin, zucchini, etc. They're easy, a good way to use up what you have and they're great for freezing. I really like to take a big wedge of one for breakfast with coffee at work. They also turn out surprisingly well with gluten-free flours, definitely much better than yeast breads.

I've been trying to clean out my cupboards lately because they are far too full. Somewhere tucked in the back, I found a jar of applesauce that an old roommate must have left behind. I'm not really an applesauce person. I love warm, homemade applesauce and will occasionally purchase some of the chunky all-natural stuff, but in general I'm not a fan of the overly sugary thin Mott's-like kind. But when I found the jar, I thought I might be able to use it to make a nice apple-y quick bread.

I tried this recipe from Bob's Red Mills.

It's pretty simple and calls for a small amount of milk and vegetable oil along with white rice flour, brown rice flour, potato starch, sugar, baking powder and of course, applesauce. I tweaked it a little. For on thing, I used a little less sugar than called for because the applesauce had quite a bit of added sugar. I also didn't have potato starch so I tried tapioca starch the first time and cornstarch the second and third times.

Yes, I liked this recipe so much that I made three loaves in one week. One is in the freezer while the other two served as my breakfasts and post-work snack for the past week. It's best warm, with a little butter or cream cheese. (Since going GF, one of the things I miss most is a bagel with cream cheese and lox - sometimes I use cream cheese rather liberally to give me a little reminder of bagels.)

It's not overly sweet, which I like. It's definitely not cake-like, more like just a sweet bread (but nothing like a sweetbread,
obviously.)

Polish breakfast?

Okay, fine, I admit it. I'm still kind of missing Krakow. So the other day I devised this dish for breakfast as sort of an homage to my fond memories of being there. I'm calling it Polish breakfast, although that's a little lofty. I probably should have added some vodka to my coffee to make it more authentic, maybe a little sausage and mustard too. Oh well, this will do for me.

I'm hooked on Hawthorne Valley Farm's lacto-fermented sauerkraut. When I spoke to its maker, Sauerkraut Seth, he mentioned he even eats it with eggs. Well that got me going. I had to try it using the jar of the caraway-spiked variety I had in the fridge.

And then I read a post from Mr. Dave about some Polish bacon from Dnipro in Cohoes and picked up some of that too.

I fried up some of the bacon, put it to the side to drain a bit and then fried two lovely eggs from a local farm and sprinkled them with salt and pepper. I served the eggs with a side of kraut and the bacon. Not bad. I'll definitely be doing this again.

apple crisp

My friend Kira came to visit last weekend from Manhattan to do fall-ish things, i.e. apple picking. So we hit the road Saturday, stopped at a couple of thrift shops and ended up at my perennial favorite place for picking, Indian Ladder.

We both picked a bushel of Empires and some other apple that I wasn't sure the name of. (I didn't see the signage apparently.) I also picked up some cider, some local honey, some apple butter, a pumpkin and a big butternut squash. Kira scored herself some cider donuts too.

One reason this place is my favorite is Rosie the Scottish highland cow. She's just too cute.

The next day I made apple crisp and roasted butternut squash. The crisp was pretty good, although not quite as good as the one my friends Bennett and Laura made recently.

Here's what I did: Peel and slice six-seven apples and toss in a baking dish with cinnamon, nutmeg and a little lemon juice. The recipe I found also had you throw in some water, but I wouldn't do that in retrospect.

Combine a little less than 1 cup flour (I used Bob's Red Mills all-purpose GF flour) with about 1/3 cup slightly softened butter (It works out to be about 2/3 of a stick) and somewhere between 3/4 and 1 cup sugar. I mixed this combo in the food processor to produce a crumbly mixture. Pour that over the apples. I then distributed the final 1/3 of the butter across the dish.

Bake at 350 degrees. I baked this batch uncovered for about 40 minutes, but next time I'd probably bake it a little less because the apples were a little mushier than I normally like. Still tasty though, even if all that butter means it's not the healthiest thing.

cake

My doppelganger/friend had a birthday this past weekend and had a potluck. I made a vegetarian version of my polenta pizza topped with spinach, garlic and caramelized onion. It was delicious even without the pancetta.

But the real star was the cake. I don't know if I've had a real honest-to-goodness chocolate birthday cake since I went gluten-free. Probably not. I've had cupcakes, flourless tortes and cheesecakes, but I can't recall an actual cake.

Well lucky for me, one of our other friends is also gluten-free, and has a lot more patience than I do. See, I used to love baking. I used to bake all the time when I was in high school or when I'd come home to my parents on college breaks. But I kind of lost the desire once I went gf. It just seemed too complicated, too frustrating. I've thrown out way too many batches of inedible baked goods.

This cake was delicious though. It tasted just like the cake I remember. It was moist and well, cake-like. No pretending with this baby. It turns out it was made using a recipe from a cookbook that I also have, but that had been just sitting on my shelf. Now I'm inspired to crack it out.

I don't want to give away the recipe for the cake here, because I think that might run into copyright problems. Well, and because I think you should just do yourself a favor and buy Elizabeth Barbone's Easy Gluten-Free Baking.

She's not kidding. It really is easy. Unlike some books, she pretty much just uses three flours in a single mix. In this case, it's sweet rice flour, white rice flour and cornstarch.

He also used the chocolate buttercream frosting she suggests and it's perfect.

Unlike so many GF recipes where I sort of have to pretend they're acceptable, these are actually tasty. GASP! I think this has largely to do with the fact that Barbone is a CIA-trained pastry chef who does not have Celiac. As a result, everything must taste as good, in her opinion, as the GF stuff. And she's formally trained! No off-tasting bean flours here!

Another cool thing for me is that she lives locally and sometimes gives demos in the area. I've now dusted her book off my shelf and plan to commence baking immediately. Hallelujah.

sweet potato and black bean enchiladas

We got a new stove in our apartment last week, which was fairly exciting. The old one was literally falling apart. Anyways, the new stove combined with the cooler weather put me in the mood for baking.

And, of course, my thoughts are all focused on fall foods right now. This got me thinking of sweet potatoes, which made me think of how much I like the combination of black beans and sweet potatoes. Also, black beans are a staple of my cupboard. Even when I'm out of nearly everything else, I can pretty much guarantee I'll find one can of black beans lurking near the back of the cupboard.

The idea of sweet potato and black bean enchiladas occurred to me, and lo and behold, it turns out the Gluten-Free Goddess, aka Karina's Kitchen, already had that exact recipe posted. Hers called for topping them with a spicy green chili sauce.

I modified the recipe slightly by using canned green chiles to make my sauce rather than roasting fresh ones. I also opted to bake my sweet potatoes the day before in order to use them for dinner the next night.

Dice the sweet potatoes, mix with lime juice, cumin, minced cilantro, diced jalapeno, salt and pepper. Mash slightly I drained a can of black beans, then tossed them in a bowl with some Adobo and minced garlic.

Meanwhile, I heated about a cup of chicken broth (or veggie broth,) added the chiles and then stirred it slowly, adding a little tapioca starch to thicken it into a good sauce. I poured a thin layer of the sauce on the bottom of a glass baking dish.

Then I turned that off and heated several corn tortillas quickly on a heated griddle with just a little bit of veggie oil. Being careful not to burn myself on the hot tortillas, I put a little of the sweet potato mixture in the middle of a tortilla, added some black beans, rolled it and then put it on the bottom of the pan with the folded parts down. Then I repeated until the pan was full, poured the rest of the sauce over it, topped with grated monterey jack, covered the pan with foil and then baked it at 350 degrees until the sauce was bubbling.

I really enjoyed this dish a lot. I love the mix of spiciness, sweetness and salt. I made mine a little on the spicier side, because as I said, we love spice around these parts. I actually liked this dish so much that I ended up making it again a few days later for a potluck using sweet potatoes from the Troy Farmers Market. Unfortunately, I apparently have a higher tolerance for spice than most people because a few people complained they were a little too hot for their tastes. I was also congested from a head cold, so it's possible my senses were a bit off.

Oh, and this photo doesn't do them justice.

Troy Farmers' Market and fall bounties

I hadn't been to the farmers' market in Troy since last year. Ever since the Central Ave. Farmers Market opened, it's just been a lot easier for me to go there or to the one in Menands.

But yesterday I felt like checking it out in hopes of picking up some great fall foods. As cheesy as this sounds, it was a soul-lifting trip. There was nice live music, wonderful smells and of course, a fabulous array of produce. I don't know exactly why, but it just felt good to be alive yesterday. I think it had something to do with the smell of autumn in the air and the beautiful shades of red, yellow and orange that filled the market.

Yes, I got lots of great produce that I'm thrilled to cook with. However, that wasn't my favorite part of the market Saturday. My favorite part, hands down, was this spicy chicken tamale.

There is nothing like a good tamale. They're delicious when done well. Unfortunately, a poorly done tamale is pretty gross, and sadly that's somewhat common. Too often they are bland and dry and crumbly, when they should be slightly moist and rich. The folks at the Magdalena's Mexican food stand know what they are doing. It's a simple filling of just juicy shredded chicken and some spices, topped with a spicy green sauce. I added a little red salsa too for color contrast. And for just $3, it kept me filled up for quite a long time. It was the perfect brunch along with the dregs of my coffee as I sat watching a fiddle duo.