I have these nice, BIG apples looking so delicious! I thought I should get my lazy self into the kitchen to create something.

It was surprising to see what I actually have (and don’t have) in my cupboard. I was hoping for some almond meal since I love using it in baking. No worries, I had plenty of other great things to use.

As you can see I made two apple desserts. One for me and one for, well, me! One of my large apples was enough for two ramekins. If you know me very well, you know I don’t love to measure so I usually eyeball or use “abouts.” I squeezed honey and then sprinkled cinnamon over the apples.

In a small bowl I stirred up (about) ¼ cup GF oats, 1/8 cup millet flour, 1/8 cup quinoa flour, ¼ cup raw cashews, 1/8 cup raw brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/4 cup softened butter or coconut oil.  I used a fork to smash/stir it into pieces. Then it goes on top!

The ramekins are placed in a pan with foil to avoid drips into the oven.

I baked these at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. And look, I happen to have some lactose free ice cream in my freezer!

I love cooking healthy, quick meals. This dish is about 400 calories and adds a generous amount of broccoli to pasta with meatballs and sauce. These meatballs are delicious and use quinoa instead of bread crumbs. This dish is a hit with my hungry husband, and I get very full with just one portion. This recipe serves 4. Get the recipe here.

So many of my wonderful new neighbors have brought plates, bags and cute containers of wonderful sweets to celebrate the holidays! They call this neighborhood “Mayberry.” I love it! I’m not going to spoil the fun and tell them I’m gluten free, after all my husband can enjoy sharing the wonderful treats with his co-workers. I have been making MANY batches of my gluten free Chex mix, for me and for others. I plan to give this for gifts too. I’m using cute container from Dollar Tree to put mine in. For me, a tasty, salty snack is just right!

If you need a new a new idea, instead of your regular plate of cookies and candies, give this a try! It’s SO DELICIOUS!

See post below for recipe.

I LOVE salty snacks! My sister Susie has always made a super delicious Chex mix. I’m CRAZY about Glutino brand pretzels so I make my own delicious mix!

I use 3 cups Corn Chex, 3 cups Rice Chex,  2 cups Glutino brand pretzels, 2 cups Scoops Fritos or Tostidos (crunched into bite size pieces), 1 cup mixed nuts, 1 cube butter, 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce, 1 1/2 teaspoons seasoning salt, 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic salt and 1 1/2 teaspoons onion powder.

I melt the butter in the microwave, stir the Worcestershire sauce and seasonings into the butter, then pour over my big bowl of Chex, pretzels, chips and nuts, then toss well. I microwave the mix for 5 minutes then pour the mix on a paper towel to cool.

I store some in an air-tight container but can’t resist putting some in a bowl to enjoy right away! Mmmmm! Great for the holidays!

We have MOVED! My baby girl got married during the summer so now it’s just my husband and I. We made a move to the country and are excited to spend the holidays with kids and grandkids coming to celebrate and eat lots of good food! I would love to debut a new recipe for Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you have any ideas please leave your suggestions in the comments. Have a wonderful holiday season!

My daughter is getting married in 40 days! We’ve been experimenting with cake flavors and frostings. I decided to do this one last night, which is small (6 inches wide x 3 inches high). This would work well as a cake top for someone who eats gluten free but is serving their guests a different  kind of cake or for the top of a cupcake cake. But it is very delicious  and also thicker than a regular cake mix cake, so it would work well for lower layers  as well. Trust me, it’s so good no one would know it’s gluten free!

I’m a big fan of Betty Crocker gluten free cake mixes. I used a white cake mix. Instead of using butter or oil, I used a 6 ounce vanilla yogurt and instead of water I used 2/3 cup orange juice. I added three eggs but didn’t use vanilla. This same thing would make wonderful lemon or lime cake, using lemonade or limeade, or adding real lemon or lime to water, along with the zest. If you’re considering putting in a flavored Jell-O, don’t! The crystals don’t dissolve. If you’re a chocolate fan, the Betty Crocker GF chocolate cake is amazing! I’d still substitute yogurt for the butter/oil.

When I bake round cakes or cakes for decorating I cut the pan shape out of waxed paper,by drawing around the pan bottom with a pen on waxed paper and cutting it out. I grease the pan and put in the wax paper. For this cake I also greased the sides, and then placed waxed paper about 5 inches tall around the sides. Since a Betty Crocker mix makes one layer of a round or square cake, I wanted to use the whole thing to make my 6 inch cake taller. If you are patient (and not daring and a bit crazy like me) you can do this by baking half the batter in the pan and then repeating. I went ahead and put the whole thing in. The waxed paper held it in well, but to make sure it doesn’t overflow you should put foil or a pan on the wrack underneath where you are baking. I baked mine on 350 degrees for 30 minutes, checked it, and then added 10 more, etc. Mine took about an hour to be fully baked.  Of course the top will be crooked, but with any cake you decorate you’ll be cutting the top off to make it flat, so don’t worry.

Let your cake cool on a wire rack for several minutes in the pan, then remove upside down in your hand and gently pull the waxed paper off the bottom and sides. Set the cake back on the rack to cool completely. Before freezing, use a serrated knife to cut the crooked or round top off so that it’s flat. If you’re worried you can measure the shortest side and make marks to be sure you cut it straight. I wrap my cake in plastic wrap and freeze overnight.

My next step was to make some marshmallow fondant. I have NEVER decorated cakes in any form professionally, or have learned at all. I have done the cute, creative cakes for kids birthdays, but never knew the tricks of professional cake decorators. So this wedding cake stuff took some research. I saw a few things on Pinterest, but the most useful thing was watching videos on youtube.com. Several people told me fondant is icky and to use butter cream frosting instead, but I’ve seen good things about both. I used techniques for both on this cake. I used half of this recipe for marshmallow fondant, which I found easier to make than it looked. It was actually pretty quick and fun. I stored it in plastic and a plastic bag overnight to cure.

For a cake plate I traced a dinner plate onto cardboard and then cut it out with a razor knife. To look thicker than one layer I added some butter cream frosting to the back of the dinner plate then put the cardboard circle on top to hold in place.

When reading cake decorating directions I had NO IDEA what a crumb layer was! Wow, I was amazed when I learned that it’s actually just putting a thin layer of butter cream on your frozen cake, catching the crumbs that ALWAYS come off when spreading! If only I’d known this trick when decorating my many kids’ birthday cakes and having to put more frosting over to try to hide the crumbs! So I made my own version of butter cream frosting, which I should maybe call “Shortening Cream Frosting,” but I won’t. The other reason for this is you can buy white butter at a health food store (or so I’ve heard) so that you’re your frosting is white. Since I try to stay away from casein as much as possible, I did use shortening, as well as casein free milk. You can use milk, heavy cream, or use soy, rice or almond milk. For this small cake this is my recipe:

1 cup shortening
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon clear vanilla or other flavoring
3 – 4 cups powdered sugar (confectioner’s sugar)
2 – 3 tablespoons milk

I began with three cups powdered sugar and added more after mixing. I used 2 tablespoons milk and made the frosting thick for my crumb layer. When that was finished I put the cake back into the freezer. When it was firm I added another tablespoon of milk to the frosting and beat it again. (I  put some butter cream frosting on the cardboard to keep my cake from sliding around.)

This is where the cool Viva paper towel trick comes in. HOW TO FROST A CAKE WITH A PAPER TOWEL

It really works if you don’t want to use fondant and you have lots of time to be extra perfect! It was fun, but I didn’t do mine to perfection since I wanted to cover it with fondant. My cake looked sort of okay at this point.

Next I covered my surface with sprinkled powdered sugar (you can also use corn starch) beneath the fondant. With a rolling pin I rolled it thin and into a circle, probably ¼ inch thick and so it would at least cover the twelve inches (sides and top) of the cake. If you watch the video you see how easy it is to roll halfway onto your rolling pin to help lift and place onto your cake. The rest of it was so easy! But I’d watched these pros on the videos, so I knew how to smooth and remove the bubbles and then trim. As for covering the cardboard circle, I saw this trick in the video too. I kneaded the remaining fondant and then rolled it out into a long strip. I used a yardstick to push the one edge straight, but you can cut it with a knife. I placed this around the cardboard, surrounding the cake.

I used ribbon at the bottom of the cake layer, cutting and securing in place with butter cream frosting. Then I added another row around the bottom of the cake. I used bits of silk flowers and leaves to decorate the top and sides, also securing them with a dab of butter cream frosting.

When my daughter got home from work she just couldn’t believe I’d done it! She was relieved and said, “So, will you make my wedding cake?” Cute, huh? Well, I’ll be here to help her! At least now I know we can do it!

Here are two videos I love for help decorating wedding cakes:

HOW TO DO WEDDING CAKE DECORATIONS

BEAUTIFUL EASY TO MAKE WEDDING CAKE

My cute son-in-law to be, Peter requests this meal each week when we are menu planning.

When I first went gluten free I really missed having stroganoff. I had used cream of mushroom soup when making it. Now I add fresh mushrooms and thicken the sauce with corn starch and water and my family loves it more than the old version! My favorite pasta to use is quinoa. It has a similar flavor to regular pasta and doesn’t fall apart when it’s cooked.

See recipe here.

Tonight my daughter is fixing a favorite dish – Asian Burritos! This has a unique and delicious flavor I adore! To prepare for this I found gluten free hoisin sauce on the internet since I couldn’t find it in a grocery store. Any lettuce can be used if Bibb or butter lettuce leaves aren’t available. We also serve ours with rice. The ground turkey makes this a low-cal but very tasty meal!

 Find my recipe here.

Tonight’s dinner was delicious! I had my husband pick up some frozen salmon patties from Costco, and we used two boxes of quinoa pasta – this time spirals. We revisited this favorite seafood dish. This can be made with any GF pasta. The pasta is cooked and seasoned and is tasty enough by itself that my grandaughter eats it plain without the salmon. The roma tomatoes, green pepper, red onion and both green and black olives, along with a mixture of balsamic vinegar, spicy mustard and honey and other things create a delicious topping cooked with the salmon. I can’t wait to have this again! Maybe next week, if I get my way!  Mediterranean Salmon with Lemon Garlic Pasta