Here you will find an archived weblog of my food, travel, and creative pursuits which I kept from 2010-2016. Please note both that the travel information contained here may outdated and that these logs were created on a prior version of this website and may not yet be optimized for the current version. If you’re looking for specific content, use the search field below! <3
Following up on last week's post of gluten free bakeries - this week I'm sharing my picks for gluten free breakfasts worth traveling for. As someone with a gluten, cows milk, AND soy intolerance - I've found breakfast to be one of the most impossible meals to eat out safely. I'm also not an omelet kind of person - since plain eggs don't work well we me either.
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I was introduced to muesli during my very first trip to New Zealand back in 2005 at a small hotel on the shores of Lake Taupo. It was just before the beginning of winter, so the hotel (and the town) was seemingly deserted aside from myself and my travel partner. The breakfast buffet was so eye opening and delicious, it completely changed my morning habits. With a spread of fresh fruits, European style yogurts, jams, and this funny looking oat based cereal called muesli - that little hotel had made me my favorite breakfast that I'd never had.
There's something about museli that just feels filling and hearty to me. While I could enjoy it with yogurt, my favorite way is to soak it in my homemade Almond Milk for about 5 minutes and add a teaspoon of Rhubarb & Meyer Lemon Jam. A jar full of muesli is also one of my favorite recipes to take on the road with me. At this point it's pretty easy to find at least a carton of non-dairy milk wherever I travel, but finding gluten free muesli that doesn't have raisins or cranberries seems to be near impossible. The other advantage of making it at home is that I got to stock it full of my favorite dried fruit and nuts - most often I go with this combination of apricots and hazelnuts.
It's an exciting day! I've collaborated with Bob's Red Mill to share a recipe for my new favorite camping breakfast. These Oatmeal Cinnamon Pancakes were inspired by one of the easiest and most common camping breakfasts; instant oatmeal. Take it from me, treating yourself to pancakes on a morning after sleeping on the ground feels increadibly good - and certainly more fufilling than a bowl of instant oatmeal.
It's a rhubarb frenzy around our house while the prices are still low and so far I've made jam, pie, shrub, and tea bread. I thought, why not make some scones and curd too! I'm pretty happy with the base scone recipe I've been using for other versions like the Meyer Lemon Curd and Whole Grain Blueberry - this is just a slight adaptation to use vanilla sheep milk yogurt and added rhubarb pieces.
For the curd, I used my Meyer Lemon Curd recipe as a base but pumped up the amount of juice to up the rhubarb flavor. I also added more sugar since I was looking for a sweeter curd rather than a tarter version. For the rhubarb juice, I opted to boil down about 5 stalks of rhubarb since my research on the interwebs informed this would probably give me a sweeter and less tart version than simply running the stalks through my juicer.
Speaking of rhubarb, while I was searching for more ideas on what to make with rhubarb I came across this nerdy Star Trek recipe for Aaktay, or Klingon Steamed Bread. So I'll have to try adapting it to be gluten free sometime while rhubarb is still in season. Anyone have a suggestion on what I could substitute for "all-bran cereal"? I was thinking brown rice flakes perhaps.
Alright that's enough nerdy recipe talk, on to the scones and curd!
In general, I try to steer clear of current events on this blog - it's my refuge. In my daily life, I work and think about things that one might refer to as "heavy". My blog gives me an opportunity to escape and maintain some semblance of calm in otherwise hectic and serious times, especially right now.
That being said, a few folks that I like very much and respect a whole lot have started efforts to support the survivors of superstorm Sandy and I want to support them and the work they are doing.
Jenn of Jenn Cuisine has asked that today, us food bloggers out there share a comforting dish we would make for those in need and encourage our readers to support the relief efforts. The link in the image above will take you to a donations page for the Red Cross. But I would also encourage you to review this great comprehensive page on volunteering and donating responsibly - it contains oodles of links for different states and organizations. Erin from Gluten-Free Fun has also been spear heading a movement to help with gluten free donations, so please visit her blog for ways to help those folks. In a few weeks or so, Joy of Frock Files will be setting up an Etsy Shop to sell handmade goods created by various artisans to raise funds.
I encourage you to do what you can, when you can, in whatever way works most appropriately for you.
At the very least, please consider taking a moment to think about if you and your family are prepared for a disaster. We're all vulnerable, whether we like to admit it or not, so take action and prepare yourself as best you can. Ready.gov is a great place to get started with building your own personal disaster plan and kit - and to find ways to stay informed.
And now back to comfort and food. Recently, my go to comfort food dish has been a dutch baby that's totally loaded down with blueberries. It's warm, filling, and bursting with blueberry deliciousness; sure to bring at least a small bit of comfort to those in need.
Usually, I hate eggs - they make me feel queasy. Eating them in baked goods doesn't bother me, but just straight eggs can be trouble for me. And so I have no idea why, but I've been craving this particular omelet recently. I think it may have something to do with the recent increase in sunshine we've had here in Seattle. As well as the strong desire to go camping.
Camping always makes me think of omelets. When I was in Girl Scouts, we would make plastic bag omelets for breakfast. That's where you crack your eggs into the plastic bag, mush them around, add your cheese, bacon bits, chives, and whatever else - then seal and drop it into a pot of boiling water. Those were good memories.
My journey with gluten free crepes really started in January, after I had recovered from the holidays and set about learning to use the new crepe pan that my mom and step-dad got me for Christmas. It's the kind that you just dip into a shallow plate or bowl and the batter sticks to form a thin crepe. My mom had one of these and I've always envied it. The recipe I used in the beginning was one included in the packaging, just adapted to be gluten and dairy free. When I weighed all the individual ingredients, a clean ratio did not appear. So I threw out everything that I had been doing and started from scratch.
When I think of crepes, I think of breakfast and lingonberries, so my crepes are similar to a thin version of my pancakes. I ended up settling on the original ratio from Micheal Ruhlman's Ratio; 1 part flour : 2 parts liquid : 2 parts egg with an added 60 grams of coconut oil, 45 grams of sugar, and 32 grams of flaxseed meal. This recipe makes about 15 crepes which seems to be enough to snack on along the way, breakfast for two very hungry adults, and several folded up as snacks for later.
