Included on the list of things to do before I depart for France in 11 days, is of course a list of foods to eat.  Only somebody suffering from a serious obsession puts “eat macaroni and cheese” amongst other important things to do, such as acquiring a power adapter, booking a hostel, buying train tickets from France to the UK, and packing.  I am not ashamed.  Enjoying carbs coated in creamy cheesy goodness and studded with the occasional crunchy edge piece is obviously just as important as packing for five months abroad.  Duh.

Oh yeah, did I mention that a friend and I are leaving the country in 11 days to experience the marvels of France, Germany, and the UK?  Yeah, that’s happening.  Against my better judgment, I started packing a few days ago and now it feels all too real, especially because most of my clothing is no longer easily accessible.  And as the contents of my closet dwindle, so do the days I have left to get all that important stuff I mentioned done.  Being able to check “eat macaroni and cheese” of the list is a huge relief.  I was starting to get really worried I wouldn’t get to it.  But in all seriousness, I’ve still got people to email, places to book, dates to establish, and loads more to pack.  And on top of all that I still have find time to eat ribs.  I simply cannot leave North America without eating ribs.  I also have to consult my people to see if I can fit fried chicken into my busy agenda.  My goodness, my life is so demanding.

Word of advice, if you’ve got loads of things to do, add “eat mac and cheese” to the list.  It may make make your life more demanding, but also far more delicious.

Gluten Free (because it’s still january and I’m sticking to my agenda) Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients

• 12 oz gluten free elbow macaroni
• 12 oz shredded cheese, of any variety you desire (I used 8 oz of cheddar and 4 oz of smoked cheddar)
• 2 1/2 cups milk (I only happened to have almond milk on hand so that’s what I used but whole milk would usually be the first I’d reach for)
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons gluten free all purpose flour
• salt and pepper
• pinch of paprika

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly oil a 9×13 inch casserole pan.
2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Add the macaroni and cook according to the directions on the package.  Drain and run under cold water to stop the cooking.
3. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  Add the flour and cook a few minutes until the roux darkens, stirring constantly with a whisk.
4. Slowly add the milk, whisking to ensure a smooth sauce.  Then add the shredded cheese a couple of handfuls at a time, mixing for a smooth consistency.
5. Add in salt, pepper, and a pinch of paprika to taste.
6. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 40-45 minutes.  I cranked up the heat to broil for the last few minutes to get a golden brown top.
7. Let cool 10 minutes or risk injuring yourself on molten cheese.
8. Check “eat mac and cheese” off your list of things to do.  Doesn’t productivity feel great?

And half a loaf later my appreciation for baked goods free of gluten was so great I could have gladly eaten the second half.  And baked a second loaf.  And eaten that one too.

Gluttony aside, this really was a spectacular loaf of gluten-free bread.  I know because it’s calling to me right now.  Loudly.  This bread is composed of coconut flour, bananas for sweetness, and chocolate chips added in because everything good in this world contains chocolate chips.  Well, except dumplings.  Dumplings should never contain chocolate chips.

But this bread does!  Which makes it one of the many good things in this world.  And hence the reason why it is really good to make and even more delicious to eat.

Coconut Flour Banana Chocolate Chip Bread adapted from here.

Ingredients:

burger

mac and cheese

donuts

ribs, ribs, ribs

burrito

steamed buns

baked brie

dumplings

chocolate chip cookies

…

I could go on but it’s probably best not to continue entertaining these fantasies.

I have, as of late, been afflicted with an irrepressible desire to consume large amounts of chocolate milk.  How this came about, I have not even an inkling of an idea.  I could possibly be overcompensating for a lack of chocolate milk in my childhood.  Maybe a lack of school-bought lunches severely deprived my subconsciousness and taste buds of chocolate syrup infused milk.  Or maybe chocolate syrup, which tastes somewhat rusty and very much unlike chocolate alone, when mixed with milk (organic almond milk in my case), is just magically, suspiciously delicious.

Honestly though.  Chocolate milk is suspiciously craveworthy.  At least it seems so to me.  I’ve been indulging myself in this insatiable craving for the past month with a generous glass of almond milk mixed with an equally generous amount of chocolate syrup.  Of course this influx in my sugar consumption is totally justified because the chocolate syrup I choose to use just so happens to be organic, gluten-free, and free of a bunch of other things.  Anyhow, now that I’ve explained this odd desire to those of you listening to me out there in that wide world web, I feel sufficiently justified and pleased with this cathartic blog post.

Time for some more chocolate milk.

But today is Sunday and I’d like to make a resolution today to write more.  To succeed in upholding my resolution I had to asses what would stop me from doing so.  I assessed that I generally think only incredibly exciting things (like food) are worth writing about.  Also, I don’t deem many thing in my life as incredibly exciting, and thus not worthy of more than a paragraph, and thus a waste of time.  I should not think like this.  This is a very very bad way to think.  Bad Katya.  Bad.

I like to write.  Therefore I should do it more.  Even if only the most mundane topics present themselves to me, I vow to turn them into a literary work of genius.  Ha, just kidding.  But from now on I will do my best to write.  I will do my best to find things to write about, even if I think they might be not particularly interesting.

And so, a resolution was born.

Come January, I feel inclined to do something about those few extra thousand calories that were consumed during the lovely holiday season.  Being a food, rather than exercise oriented person, this entails some sort of dietary restriction that I’m convinced will make me feel better about myself.  Based on past experiences, strict dietary restrictions are the only things that will keep me relatively dedicated to changing my dietary habits.  The dietary restriction I chose for this lovely month of January was to go gluten free!  Whippie!

This decision was based off various testimonies but also my own personal experience of being unable to eat any solid food (and thus such things like bread and crackers which contain gluten) for three days – I emerged from battling an immensely sore throat feeling loads lighter and not the slightest bit bloated.  Also, I just felt like trying a gluten free lifestyle just to see what it’s like.  Oh, and now that I think about it it’s also sort of like some twisted sort of preparation for the five months of croissant, pastry, and bread eating ahead of me (but more on that at another day).  Well, I sound sane.

Anyhow, I ambitiously began my foray into the land of the gluten free with gluten free cornbread and baked lentils. Well I actually began with bookmarking enough gluten free recipes to last me for years.  There is no such thing as over-preparation.  Then, I proceeded to provide myself with sustenance.

Never having baked anything free of gluten (except for a couple of unintentional flourless chocolate cakes), I had no idea what to expect.  The cornbread turned out to taste like cornbread!  I was relieved to say the least.  However the texture was equivalent to that of a crumbling sand castle.  I suppose this must be the downfall of gluten free baked goods which lack the binding power of gluten.  Without numerous and generous pats of butter or a large glass of water, I imagine this cornbread to be quite difficult to eat on its own.

The baked lentils, never containing gluten in the first place (which I think are the greatest sort of gluten free dishes), tasted of delicious baked beans except the beans had replaced by little nuggets of toothsome lentil goodness.  Even better!

So I can conclude that I have, with great success, forayed into a world devoid of gluten.  And it’s not nearly as lonely or odd as I feared it would be.  Although the incessant crumbling of that cornbread may take some getting used to.

Gluten Free Cornbread adapted from All Recipes

Ingredients

• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups fine cornmeal
• 1 cup millet flour – I used gluten free all purpose flour
• 1 cup rice flour
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Preparation

1. Preheat an oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease a 9×9 inch baking pan.
2. Whisk together the eggs, water, and vegetable oil in a bowl until evenly blended; set aside. Stir together the cornmeal, millet flour, rice flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a separate large bowl, and make a well in the center. Pour the liquid mixture into the well and stir just until combined.
3. Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan and bake in the preheated oven until golden and the top springs back when lightly pressed, about 20 minutes.

Baked Lentils adapted from Seven Spoons

Ingredients

• 4 slices bacon, finely chopped
• 1 yellow onion, finely diced
• 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 cups (500 millilitres) red lentils, rinsed and picked over – I used brown instead and this required somewhere around double the cooking time in the oven.
• 4 cups (1 litre) water
• 1/4 cup (60 millilitres) ketchup
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup, plus more as needed
• 2 tablespoons neutral oil
• 2 tablespoons Colman’s mustard powder
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar, plus more as needed
• 1 teaspoon ground pepper, plus more as needed
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
2. In oven proof pot with lid, fry bacon over medium-high heat until crisp. Add the onion and cook, stirring, for about 4 minutes, or until softened. Then add the garlic and cook for 1 minute longer.
3. Add the lentils, water, ketchup, maple syrup, oil, mustard, vinegar, pepper and bay leaf. Stir well and season with salt. Bring to a boil. Cover, place in oven, and bake for 45 minutes, or until lentils are tender (this took about 1 1/2 hours for brown lentils).
4. Taste and correct the seasoning with salt, pepper, maple syrup, and vinegar. Serve hot now or later.

Serves four.

Filed under: Dinner, Gluten Free, quick breads ]]> http://fulltimefoodie.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/2022/feed/ 1 fulltimefoodie DSC_053 http://fulltimefoodie.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/hello-all/ http://fulltimefoodie.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/hello-all/#comments Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:22:18 +0000 Katya Simkhovich http://fulltimefoodie.wordpress.com/?p=1989 ]]> Please bear with me as I rearrange the feng shui of my blog.  Just like the new year calls for haircuts and lifestyle changes for many, a new year for me calls for a blog reformatting.  Whoopie!  

• The year began with second semester of senior year.  Imagine trying to swim through hot sand.  This is what second semester felt like.  Difficult and painful.
• Oh, but then in April I got a college acceptance to my top school so that made school considerably less painful.  But still oh so difficult.  What’s an attention span?
• I concluded seven months of research and reading and general enlightenment with an hour long presentation to teachers and peers about the ills of our food industry, factory farming, agribusiness, and the like.  This was an individual senior project I chose to do.  It was to date, one of the best decisions of my life.  I learned. So. Much.

• In May I decided I didn’t want to go to college that fall so I deferred enrollment to my top school until the fall of 2012.  Second best decision of my life thus far.  I’m traveling to France with one of my best friends (also taking a gap year) in 38 days.
• And then!  Then I graduated from High School!  Yippee for me!
• I had a lovely summer full of beach going, ice cream eating, disposable picture taking, new york city visiting, berry picking, boston frequenting, working, friendshiping, and other such tom foolery.

• I watched all but one of my closest friends depart for college.  Then my closest friend left to Puerto Rico.  For three months.  I resorted to visiting my friends at their respective collages as often as possible (every weekend).  It was a fantastic arrangement.  I got to be at college but not have to do any work!  Double yippee for me!
• I worked (and still am working) as a barista at a local neighborhood coffee shop.  I learned to make lattes and espresso and cappuccinos and how to use a cash register.  All of these are important life skills that I expect to become very useful during the college years.
• I ate enough on Thanksgiving to fill both of a cow’s stomachs.  No shame.

• I discovered a terrifying and potentially harmful obsession for Anthony Bourdain’s shows No Reservations and the Layover.  And Anthony himself…It’s not like that.  I swear.
• I continued to eat obscene amounts of food straight into December.  There is no better way to experience Christmas cheer than to grow a belly to rival Santa’s.
• I’m vaguely aware of cooking and baking delicious things like heaven cake throughout last year, but I can’t be sure.  It’s not like I like food or anything.

• And then new year’s eve came and it was great fun and I was lucky enough to eat quite possibly my favorite cuisine at one of my best friends’ lovely home.   Oh home cooked asian food, how you make my upper arm so tense with pain as I frantically shovel food into my mouth with chopsticks.  And that’s what these pictures where for!  Aren’t I just so clever.

Happy New Year to all you lovely people!  I hope it’s full of loads of delicious food!

It really is quite remarkable how a little infection can turn a once functional human being into a fussy, immobile, bundle of distraught.  Not to mention one that can no longer eat solid food on account of a bright red throat so swollen that speaking is no longer an option.  In case you were wondering, yes, I was suffering from the aforementioned symptoms.  My diet for the past four days has mainly consisted of easily swallowable foods, such as applesauce, smoothies, yogurt, butter infused scrambled eggs, soup, and a not so easily swallowed slice of stollen.

Having been restricted to liquids and very soft foods and being denied my favorite sweet holiday bread, I refused to live without delicious food items.  Even if I couldn’t completely taste everything.  Damn congestion.

The most delicious candidate for swollen throat friendly foods I could think of was chocolate pudding.  And seeing as chocolate pudding is obviously the most nutritious food one can eat while ill, I surrendered.  I’m convinced it was the pudding, and not actually the antibiotics that made me feel better.  Okay so maybe a combination of the two.  My point is the pudding was really good.  Exceptionally so.

When you’re sick, you deserve chocolate pudding.

Almond Milk Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoon cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• 1/3 cup 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 cup coco powder
• pinch of salt
• 2 cup almond milk
• 1/3 cup of your favorite chopped chocolate
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation

1. Mix the cornstarch with the water until a thick paste forms.
2. Combine the sugar, coco powder and salt in a small saucepan.  Over medium heat, add the almond milk a little bit at a time.  Stirring constantly, cook until steam rises from the surface but do not let the mixture boil.
3. Take the saucepan off the heat and add the chopped chocolate, swirling to prevent the chocolate from sticking to the bottom.  Let rest for three minutes, then mix to incorporate the chocolate.
4. Return the pan to heat and mix in the cornstarch mixture, stirring constantly over medium heat until the mixture thickens, a few minutes.  At the end, mix in the vanilla extract.
5. Pour the chocolate pudding into desired containers, covering with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming.  Refrigerate at least two hours before eating.
6. Feel better!