Safe Rosemary Rwanda Lo Bro, or Safe Broiled Rosemary London Broil

Chanterelle, got a pretty smell. (musk + rosemary + blood)

























Love hands tenderize raw meat. (salt, pepper, walnut oil)

If a girl can't eat food, she eats STEAK. ($7 london broil, broiled, with shallots)

Safe Bread, nutty

Trying my first modification of this bread recipe today to have nourishment to bring to the Gnome Dome in Doe Bay. Folding in seeds and nuts.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups potato starch
1 cup brown rice flour
1 cup besan (chickpea flour) OR maize flour (corn flour, not corn starch!)
1/2 cup tapioca starch (arrowroot)
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons xantham gum (optional, but it really does help reduce crumbling in the final product)

2 cups water
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
2 tablespoons apple cidar vinegar
water, extra, as needed

Optional:
pepitas/pumpkin seeds
poppy seeds
sunflower seeds
sesame seeds
LSA meal

Method
1. Preheat oven to 210degC (400degF).
2. Sift together the flours, starch, salt, gum, baking soda, and baking powder. Stir with a whisk until well combined. (Most important step – make sure everything is sifted and well combined!).
3. Whisk together oil, 2 cups water, molasses, and apple cidar vinegar in a small bowl.
4. Quickly add wet ingredients to dry (so the oil stays evenly dispersed), stirring together with a big spoon. Add more water as required, until you get a very thick, evenly mixed batter. Do not overmix. (If you use maize flour instead of besan, you will require more water, and it will take a bit longer to combine).
5. Fold in some seeds/extras. I usually toss in about 2-5 tablespoons of pepitas, LSA, and sesame seeds. (Flax meal seems to impede rising, so avoid adding that. For rye-style bread, try adding caraway seeds.)
6. Pour mix into oiled bread pan. Sprinkle top of loaf with seeds (optional), and lightly spray with oil.
7. Cover bread pan with foil, and bake in a preheated oven for 60 minutes. Remove foil, and bake another 10 minutes, or until top is brown. Test loaf with a skewer or knife to make sure it’s done.
8. Cool in pan briefly, before turning out onto a wire rack to cool. For best results, store in the refrigerator and slice off pieces as you need it.

Bread-making afterthoughts

So the bread was delicious. It smelled up Samantha's house, and we took it out and it had risen! - but alas, it soon fell...

Sliced with peach jam (homemade - sauteed peaches, pectin, ground pecans), sandwiched around sliced turkey and mustard, sliced with goat butter (which gave me gas - still no goat dairy for me, sadly). Versatile, delicious, savory bread. Now I just need to get dedicated and make myself a loaf each weekend to carry through the week.

Safe Baking 101, with Samantha from Minnesota

My lovely coworker and friend bakes well, and is calm in the kitchen, and curious about chemistry, and so we're baking together tomorrow. The recipes:

Gluten-Free, Egg-Free, Soy-Free (Vegan, Even!) Thumbprint Cookies

To buy: pecans, maple sugar granules, teff flour
Results: delicious, unbearably sweet (less maple syrup next time...), kept well, and were even well loved by those unafflicted by food allergies

Recipe (from Aprovechar):

Gluten-Free, Egg-Free, Soy-Free Thumbprint Cookies

1/2 cup pecan butter
2 T. oil
2 cups of ground hazlenuts (thanks, Samantha, for owning a food processor)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. teff flour
1/3 c. maple syrup
1 Tbsp. pure maple sugar granules (may omit if you can’t find them)
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
jam and/or fruit preserves and/or marmalade (we whipped up some homemade jam out of fresh peaches and pectin)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together all the ingredients except for the last one. Taste dough to check salt level, adding more if desired.

Roll dough into balls, and put the balls on a cookie sheet ~2 in. apart from one another.

Press a dent into the center of each cookie. Fill each dent with preserves.

Bake 18-20 minutes. (Let the cookies cool at least five minutes before trying to remove them from the pan. The jelly will probably burn your mouth for the first 10 minutes or so after they come out of the oven.)

Yeast-free gluten-free bread, v.1.0.

To buy: potato starch, chickpea flour/besan, xanthan gum
Results: surprisingly delicious, light, crispy crusted, multifunctional - overall inspiring


Follow link above for the recipe. I'm beginning to think the garbanzo flour used here is causing me gas, so look forward to a trial and error baking using this recipe with a different alt flour.

Thank You, Bakeman's

Bakeman's serves the best turkey sandwich in Seattle. My regular, pre-Food Allergies, was 1/2 white on wheat with cran, mayo, lettuce and a cup of split pea soup. I've avoided the spot since starting my diet for fear of an emotional breakdown. Today, I was ready to waltz in and find some way to eat their fresh sliced turkey.

I asked if there was some sort of salad option with just turkey, and learned of what they call "the low-cal." Lettuce with shredded cabbage and carrots with sliced turkey on top. Exactly. I chose honey mustard dressing, which tasted safely of cheap mustard and cheap honey and not much else. And I decided the split pea can't possibly harm me - worst case scenario there's a flour roux involved at some point to get it to its perfect thickness, but doubtful.



And, naturally, it was perfect. I ate in the sunshine and strolled through the market on my way back to my desk for some $5 flowers to brighten my office week.

Safe Coconut Macaroons

I modified a recipe found on the Celiac website to substitute agave nectar for sugar. Trial and error baking:

First batch burned on the bottom, so I made the second batch smaller (1/2-inch instead of 1-inch balls) and moved the tray higher in the oven.

First batch wasn't quite sweet enough - they'll be split and smeared with unsweetened berry jam procured at Pike Place yesterday and creamed honey - so I pressed in the tops of the second batch and put a drop of honey in the middle of each little ball. Much better.

Safe Moroccan Chicken Tagine

I bought a marvelous tagine in Marrakesh, from Mohammed Fish n' Chips, a toothless fiery pusher-of-all-things, 3+ years ago. It's served as all kinds of things since then (holder of earrings, kitchen secrets, and most recently a 45 Sculpture), but not once per its dedicated purpose. It was a chilly wet day here in Seattle, so I decided it was time to test its abilities. Proof positive: it's not a decorative souvenir - it's an efficient and elegant cooking vessel.

I based my ingredients solely on what was around, so it became another purple meal. I imagine I'll try hundreds of variations on this theme now that I know how quick and satisfying tagines can be.

1 chicken breast
turmeric
cumin
cinammon
salt
pepper
yellow carrots
carrots
1 baked purple potato
1/2 shallot, sliced
dates
olive oil
honey

Heat oven to 375. Cut chicken into cubes and roll in spices - I just sprinkled each liberally straight into a bowl, shook it around, and coated the chicken. Brown on one side, uncovered in the oven. Turn over, cover in water, add vegetables (save for the potato), cover, and bake for about 30 minutes. Remove lid, add sliced baked potato and some honey, and cook uncovered for another 10 minutes. Stir and serve.

Thanks to the Itinerant Eater for reminding me to eat by my wanderlust.

Celebratory cheating, take 1

It was a birthday party. At a magnificent Italian restaurant (Via Tribunali, in Capitol Hill). And I made it through the meal itself without a single unsafe bite. I ate lovely olives, a green salad with sliced olives and shaved ham, lightly dressed, and prosciutto e melone (a personal favorite; and yes, there HAD to be garlic in the olives' past...and maybe balsamic vinegar, derived from illegal grapes, in the light dressing). And treated myself to a weak scotch and soda to salute the birthday boy (man - 30). All was well and joyful.

His mother made a cake.

Could you imagine a more appropriate first mistress? A layer of chocolate cake with buttercream chocolate frosting. A layer, formed using a Dora the Explorer cake tin, of fluffy yellow cake. Wall-eyes and an excellent air of death. The waitress brought out an enormous kitchen machete.

When it was my turn to slice into the skull, an evil laugh rose up from my belly (MWAh-ha-ha-ha-haaaa) and I knew I'd be choosing not only to touch that cake to my tongue, but to dig in, eat a slice, enjoy both layers, and do so knowing cheating with those particular intentions (joy, friendship, death-awareness, guttural comic desire) couldn't possibly be of harm.

Spiritual Soda

Cutting sugar means cutting soda. All soda. Even the elegant brands (Dry, Fentimans, etc.) have cane sugar, so it's time for me to invent a substitute.

Blending this need with the witchcraft that's been making so much sense of late, I came up with the following initial foray into spiritual soda bottling. I've now passed some off as a perfect 30th birthday gift and watched them achieve their intended effects. (I also had a lovely day tweaking the combinations - taste tests over the relative grace of one glass over another with perfect Seattle rain accompaniment.)

Grace
lavender
chamomile
rose congou
fresh seltzer

Power
dragon weed
mutah white
honey
fresh seltzer

Peace
scullcap
chamomile
honey
fresh seltzer

Dragon Killer
yerba mate
dragon weed
rose congou
agave nectar
fresh seltzer

I make distilled teas of each herb, adding honey/agave to the earthiest while hot, then chill the jars and mix and match the potions, using about 1 part potion to 4 parts seltzer from my amazing seltzer machine. Mason jars hold the carbonation surprisingly well.

For the birthday gift incarnation, I also threw in a little jar of my perfect chocolate pudding as a potion for pleasure.

Safe Purple pork and potatoes

A lovely square meal made for 1 to close a long hard week.

1 pork chop
1/2 shallot
splash of olive oil
1 purple potato (set to baking as soon as I got home, allowing it a good hour plus of hot oven time)
1 broccoli stalk

I always feel best when my plate has sections for the elements - meat, vegetable, starch - and this diet has really enhanced that love. Had a lovely chat at work with a couple men who cook about sauce, and shallots came up. What a perfect garlic replacement! Sautee the shallots in oil until they're translucent. Sear the pork chop in their pan. Remove pork once seared and transfer to the hot oven for 10 minutes or so to cook through. The potato will be well baked by the time you throw the pork in the oven. Take this opportunity to remove its tin foil and get its elegant purple skin crisped. Steam the broccoli. Drizzle on some expensive extra virgin olive oil (I bought Merula, from Spain, primarily for the elegant raven on its tin can), salt, pepper. Burst open the potato and give it the same treatment. Stir your oil-shallot "sauce" and pour over pork. Revel in the purple of it all.

Recommended context: cook with Grizzly Bear's Friend EP spinning on the turntable, a fat joint at the ready, a Peace spiritual soda on the counter (see soda recipe), and plans for a fire on the beach to honor a full and glorious moon.

PERFECT Safe Chocolate Pudding

1 can coconut milk
1/3 cup tapioca (I bought organic gluten-free)
1/2 cup agave nectar
1/8 cup cocoa powder (E. Guittard unsweetened rare red dutch processed cocoa powder for baking nad hot chocolate - thanks, Guittardo)

Stir coconut milk and tapioca in a saucepan. Simmer and whisk consistently for 12 minutes. Take off heat and whisk in the agave and cocoa powder. Refrigerator to room temperature. Stir and serve. Utterly delicious. Sugar-free, gluten-free, dairy-free. Impressive.




So good I made a second batch before washing the supplies...

Early September Lost Diet blues

It's been a tough week. Grumpy from gut aches, frequent bathroom visits, and constant work stress, I've had a very hard time rising up to the positive place I need to be in to survive this diet. A few hours of yoga (Ki, my magnificent teacher, is back from her summer hiatus), a couple sunsets, a fantastic rock show (The Woods), and some power mustering later, I'm floating through the end of a long work week into a long workless weekend. And so the blogging continues, and the righteousness returns.

Today's simple realizations:

1. Calbee Snapea Crisps are my new favorite "junk" food. (Baked. Salted. Puffed pea pods. $1 on sale at my Emerald Smoothie joint.)

2. The ladies at Tenoche, my favorite Mexican spot near work, are beautiful. (Grilled fish with white rice, black beans, and sliced avocado for lunch.)

3. The diet I've been doing so far is officially the Lost Diet: all fruit and coconut. No frigging wonder I've got traveler's diahrrea. At least I don't have fellow humans out to get me...or wait, isn't that what coworkers are for? Time for savory and highly civilized additions.

4. The most civilized addition of all? Sauces! This weekend will be focused on mastering sauces I can prepare, digest, use to spice up meat and rice, and store for easy meal prep on worn-out weeknights.

Thanks to all the beautiful people who love me enough to see that my grumpiness is all about physiology.