I'm baaaaack!!

Time to get this party started! I'm coming out of blog-retirement to breathe new life into this dead site.

This time around, I'll be talking (again) about gluten-free cooking and life in Tucson, but I'll also be throwing in crafting/sewing/decorating and mom-ing. There's a new baby in our casa and I can't wait to show you how mija is growing cuter by the minute.

Hooray for blogging!

watching weight and eating gluten-free

Here's a delicious and easy recipe for lettuce wraps that's both Weight Watcher friendly and gluten-free (just use wheat-free tamari instead of soy). We used napa cabbage instead of bean sprouts tonight, but we like it with sprouts as well.

I'm trying to get back into the swing of blogging, but I've been so extremely busy with work and all that other good stuff.

Tonight I did my first Meet Me at Maynards. The mission, stolen from the website,is to bring active adults and families to the downtown Tucson area to enjoy healthy exercise, experience the history, beauty and architecture of our unique neighborhoods, and to appreciate and patronize local businesses. It's a 3.4 mile run/walk that brings in people from all over the city to enjoy downtown Tucson. There's always entertainment before and after, as well as free water at stops around downtown and a little snack at the end. What a wonderful way to get out and enjoy downtown from a different perspective, and get my heart pumping as well!

If you live in Tucson, I'd highly recommend giving it a try.

Canned heat

This weekend we went out to Apple Annie's in Willcox. After picking almost 20 lbs of granny smith apples at the apple orchard, we headed down the road to the veggie farm and picked green beans, jalapenos, green chiles, eggplant, bell pepper, squash, and pumpkins.

I wish I could show you pictures from Willcox but I seem to have lost my wonderful Canon point and shoot in Willcox. RIP camera.

Last year after we visited the veggie farm we canned jalapenos using this recipe from pepperfool.com. We loved it so much that we did it again this year. Anything pickled is good in my book, and canning is a fun and not too challenging activity that you can enjoy all year around. Before you start, though, it's important to read up on the food safety aspects of canning.

Here's how it went:

We chose to use wide mouth quart Bell jars. They are a good size and the open top makes them easier to fill. You need the following equipment: jars with lids and rings, a really big pot, a smaller pot, jar grabbers (that's the technical term), and a pyrex or plastic quart-ish sized measuring cup with a pour spout.

Clean everything by hand. Really well. Lots of soap and water.



Sterilize the jars in boiling water



Clean the veggies well

Bring the vinegar to a boil, stuff the peppers into the jars with the garlic and bay leaf, and pour vinegar into the jars.

Let the jars sit for a few minutes to let the air escape

Preserve the jars by immersing them in boiling water, remember to adjust for your altitude. (Here in Tucson we needed 20 minutes to get them sealed up right)

Let the jars cool overnight. Check to ensure the jar is sealed by pushing on the top of the lid. It shouldn't pop in and out. If it does, throw it in the fridge and eat it soon.

This year we got 16 quart jars of jalapenos. They are wonderful - more flavorful than the stuff you get at the store. We use them in everything - quesadillas, nachos, on breakfast cereal... kidding. Sort of.

If you look closely above, you'll see we also tried our luck at canning green beans using this recipe from allrecipes.com. My best friend in Seattle attended a 'canning party' (awesome idea) and I got to try her green beans, which were really fantastic.

We got 8 quart jars of green beans out of 5 lbs of hand-picked beans. I don't know if I'll be able to wait a few weeks to try them. They look SO GOOD.

gluten-free mac and cheese

There are things I miss about the days of gluten. Cupcakes, cookies, and mac and cheese top the list. I am so excited that Betty Crocker came out with a line of gluten-free baking mixes and I can't wait to try the boxes waiting in my pantry.

Last Sunday I was craving comfort food, so I thought I'd try to make gluten-free mac and cheese.



It was fabulous.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt 1 tablespoon butter. Whisk in 1 tablespoon Bob's Red Mill gluten-free all purpose baking mix. Whisk for 1-2 minutes until the flour and butter turn a golden brown. Sprinkle in a pinch of salt, grind in pepper to taste, and add whatever spices sound good to you - I like dried mustard, cayenne, and garlic powder. Add about 3/4 cup milk or half and half (depending on how healthy you're feeling). Whisk together and let the mixture come to a simmer, whisking occasionally. Add shredded cheddar cheese, a handful at a time, until you've added about a cup and a half. Toss in 6 oz cooked Tinkyada elbow macaroni, drained well and rinsed. Serves 2.

I have found me a home

I love Tucson. I love the weather and the attitude and the people and the grit. It's old west meets modern democratic party politics, with a heavy dose of Mexican and Native American culture and a laid back charm. I love our sprawling ranch house that's older than we are, and I love our views from the patio every night.

Summer's storms are passing now. The nights are getting cooler and my very favorite time of year is here. Fall in the desert. There's nothing like it anywhere else in the world, and that's why you'll find me here - the old pueblo.

working on Labor Day!?

I made my poor sweet husband work over Labor Day. We have this unused corner of our laundry room (corner pictured above) and it drives me crazy that the space wasn't being used for storage. After all, our laundry room is right off our kitchen, so we could be using the extra room as a pantry.

I came up with the hairbrained idea to install shelving against two of the walls and dragged David to Lowe's (or the Home Depot, I forget - aren't they the same?). We purchased three 72" long, 12" wide shelves, as well as tracks and wall-mount kits for the tracks.

Here is my nice husband cutting the shelves to fit the area.

And here was our first problem - the big wall has pocket door that hides inside. When David went to make a hole for the screws to mount the tracks to the wall, he hit the door. Below, you'll see the hole in the wall and the resulting hole in the door.) That meant the screws that came with the wall-mounting kit were going to be too long to use. What to do, what to do.

I found some drywall screws and other assorted screws in the garage. We decided on the screw on the left. (The screw that came with the kit is on the right.)

We went to work installing the tracks and placing the shelves where we wanted them.

And after a total of 2 hours of work, look at all that beautiful storage! Now my Rice Chex (gluten free!) can have a nice cozy place to hang.

I might cover the shelves in contact paper so they are easier to see (wouldn't want to put an eye out), but overall, I am thrilled.

goat cheese

If you live in the Old Pueblo, you've got to try goat cheese from Foot's Hold Dairy. They are set up every week at the Sunday morning farmer's market at St Phillips Plaza.

We like the creamy, light fromage blanc crumbled over brown rice and grilled veggies

and the deliciously tangy chevre with honey-soaked dates on crackers (gluten-free for me - these, from Costco). I'd show you a picture of the chevre but it didn't last long around here.

And my favorite part of this wonderful, local goat cheese (besides the fantastic flavor)? It's affordable ($6 for 4 oz) and you get 50 cents off your next jar if you return your cleaned glass jar after you use it.

YUM.

gluten free banana bread

WOW. This bread is fabulous. It's even better than the banana bread I used to make - and that stuff was made from wheat flour. I'm telling you - this is better.

The bread is made from a mix made by Mindy of Miracle Munchies.

If you live in Tucson, stop by the farmer's market at St. Phillips Plaza on Sunday mornings and pick up a bag of the mix. If you don't live in Tucson (too bad for you), you can buy the mixes on her website.

Thank you, Mindy, for making such a wonderful mix for me to enjoy. (Even my skeptical husband has been eating the bread and raving about it all weekend.)

PS I subsituted half a cup of lite applesauce for the oil and added about 1/4 cup walnuts. This stuff is heaven.

Big News!

I got the job!

watermelon gazpacho

In the spirit of our clean out the fridge and pantry week, we recently made watermelon gazpacho. Well I shouldn't say we - I should say David.

He diced up half a watermelon, added in maybe half a peeled cucumber, a few tablespoons of red onion, a couple of roasted red peppers (we didn't have any fresh ones in the house), one hot chile pepper, about 1/4 fresh basil, a big drizzle of vinegar (we used both balsalmic and apple cider), drizzle of olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Pop it in the blender in two installments, then add additional seasoning to taste. (Ours needed an extra drop of vinegar.)

Since our chile pepper came from my boss' garden, we didn't know how hot it would be. Turns out, it was very hot. Luckily, the cool temperature and flavors worked well with the heat. Next time I'd use less pepper - maybe half of one.

This gazpacho is interesting because it doesn't taste too much like watermelon. It's similar to tomato gazpacho but it's got a cooler and slightly sweeter taste. I will definitely be making this again.

If you need a point of reference (I know my measurements leave something to be desired), this recipe is very similar to what we did.

Chicken stir-fry with black bean sauce

Image from foodservicedirect.com

Um... yeah. This black bean sauce is REALLY SPICY. I'm no spice wimp and I could barely eat my dinner. Let me explain how it all happened...

I'm trying to find more Chinese, Thai, and Indian recipes to make for dinner since they are typically gluten-free (think curries over rice, pad thai with rice or bean noodles, etc).

And in our continued effort to eat only what's in the pantry, fridge, and freezer, I concocted an idea to make chicken with black bean sauce stir-fried with bean thread noodles (sometimes called cellophane noodles or glass noodles) for dinner. I have some bean thread noodles I picked up at the 17th Street market. Asian ingredients are easy to find there and cheaper than the grocery store. An 8 oz bag of bean thread noodles was $1.69, but I saw many varieties for even less.

Most of the recipes I found for black bean sauce stir-fry called for a couple of tablespoons of black bean sauce, thinned with some chicken stock and whisked with cornstarch. So we used about half of the jar pictured above, a can of chicken stock, and about half a tablespoon of cornstarch. We stir-fried some veggies, then added diced chicken breast, then the sauce and the bean thread noodles after soaking them in hot water for about 90 seconds.

WHOA. It was REALLY spicy. Next time I'd use about a tablespoon of the black bean sauce. I guess we should have tasted it, especially considering it is called "Black Bean Sauce with Chilli."

Maybe next time I'll learn and try a recipe like this one or this one.

I love a challenge

Recently I've been picking up new grocery items we don't normally use. From the 17th Street Market, I picked got a bag of bean thread noodles and a bag of very thin rice noodles. And yesterday we went to Costco and I bought a huge jar of marinated artichoke hearts. I'm pretty sure in the lazy susan cabinet there's even a can of beets from a recent grocery trip.

We buy most of our meat and seafood in bulk, too, and keep it in the freezer. Chicken breasts and salmon from Costco, a whole beef tenderloin trimmed and cut into 1 lb servings, and shrimp purchased in 2 lb bags when it goes on supersale at the grocery (ask for the 2 lb bags from the butcher - they've got them in the back).

So we're pretty stocked up on food around here. David suggested that this week we skip the grocery and try to make a week's worth of meals from the items we already have in the house.

Today for lunch we had spinach salads with diced Costco rotisserie chicken breast, roasted red peppers, tomatoes from the garden, and artichoke hearts.

Tonight's menu:

Tilapia filets, cooked in a little olive oil and and white wine, seasoned with salt, pepper, tarragon, and lemon juice (I wanted to do cornmeal-crusted, but David is cooking tonight)

Steamed veggies (carrots, broccoli, and bell peppers left over from our pool party)

Quinoa

A quick note about Costco: They have some seriously good deals. If you don't have a membership, you don't know what you're missing. Yesterday I picked up a 3.5 lb bag of Bob's Red Mill quinoa for $8.69, 3 lbs of tilapia fillets at less than $6/lb, and 3 lb bag of spinach for $4.

gluten-free products

Friday night we tried both the Arrowhead Mills Pizza Crust mix and Trader Joe's gluten-free brownie mix. We invited 4 friends over (one has Celiac) and sat down to dinner.

courtesy of www.arrowheadmills.com

Everyone liked the Arrowhead Mills gluten-free Pizza Crust mix. We didn't have any extra rice flour, so we dusted the counter with cornmeal before rolling out the dough. It worked perfectly. We baked each crust for about 10 minutes before adding toppings. The crust has a nice, firm, and slightly crunchy texture. It's almost reminiscent of biscuits. We topped the pizza with Trader Joe's fat-free pizza sauce, lots of freshly shredded mozzarella, and black olives, mushrooms, and red onion. The mix makes two pizzas, and the two pizzas just barely served 6 hungry adults. We had a nice big salad to round out the meal. If you can't find the mix at your local supermarket (this came from Safeway), you can find it on amazon.com.

courtesy of www.gluten-free-blog.blogspot.com

I added maybe three tablespoons of crushed walnuts and about a quarter cup of chocolate chips to the Trader Joe's gluten-free brownie mix, then lined an 8x8 baking pan with foil and Pam'd generously. I cooked the brownies about 5-8 minutes longer than the 30 minutes listed on the package, but I think they were actually done at 30. Next time I'll trust the bag instead of judging by the toothpick test. The brownies have a great flavor and decent texture, but mine were dense and a bit dry and I think my over-cooking was to blame. Although this mix is yummy (my husband had a second brownie after everyone left), next time I want to try gluten-free brownies from scratch. But it's nice to know of a good product to use in a time-crunch.

I wish I had pictures of the end products, but I got distracted by entertaining and the food was gone before I knew it. I guess that's a good thing!

tomatoes

Victory! My elaborate tomato protection system seems to work. In a few days, these will be joining up with peaches, red onion, cilantro, and red pepper flake for a delicious salad. #2 off The Minimalist's list of summer salads.

review: Glutino crackers

Holy crap, these things are good. They are way better than the nut-based gluten-free crackers from Blue Diamond, although I like the nut flour crackers with cheese. These are by far the closest thing to Ritz or Club or any of those traditional crackers.

They even look like Ritz crackers. Why can't I get rid of this dumb weblink text?

They're a little dry all on their own, but with Philadelphia Light Chive and Onion cream cheese, they are a fantastic snack.

Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

Ok SO. I'm back. Here I am. See me?

I don't have to go out of town until the middle of August, and after that - no plans! Hooray!

I am looking forward to:

farmers markets

new recipes

sticking with Weight Watchers (signed up online on Monday)

sewing

working on the house and yard

gardening

swimming

This week, David's going fishing with his Dad in Canada and I've got big plans.

1) I'm installing some shelves in the laundry room so I can store more food in there.

2) I'm trying out the ol' sewing machine (finally!!)

3) I might put in some tomatoes and squash. I have to ask the nice people at Harlow Gardens if it's too early for fall tomatoes. I really want to pot some cilantro, parsley, tarragon, and dill, and maybe pick up one of those Trader Joe's cheap and ginorm basil plants. I've got plans to make a huge batch of pesto and freeze it in an ice cube tray. It's funny that I have these huge sage and thyme plants, plus tons of rosemary, and I wind up buying cilantro at the store but barely use the herbs I have outside. I do use my basil and chives more often but about half of my basil has gone to seed. Gah. My tomatoes are getting attacked by birds, so I rigged a protective contraption out of an upsidedown tomato cage and some garden netting.

4) I'm going to the farmer's market. I've never been to the one at St. Phillips on Saturday, so I'm going to check it out. And of course I'll be there Sunday, bright and early to get the good stuff. Sybil found this awesome list of 101 summer salads and I'm dying to try about 45 of them.

I can hardly wait!

Oh, and here I am in Rocky Point, Mexico, enjoying a gorgeous sunset.

one more week

One week until things settle down, until we're back in town, until our calendar is free of out-of-town trips for at least a little while.

I want to make a plan to lose these 20 pounds, but I can't quite think until next week. Not when I'm staring down a wedding and another 4 flights and sitting in the airport.

Breathe...

summer vacation

This has been the busiest, most over-packed summer I can remember. Since the beginning of June, we've celebrated our anniversary, gone to Ohio, had my mom and sister visit, driven to San Diego with the dogs for the 4th, and now we're headed to Rocky Point, Mexico for the weekend with David's company. OH, and next weekend we're going to Idaho for a wedding.

I need a vacation from vacations. More importantly, I need a few weekends at home to finally learn how to use my sewing machine, tackle some gluten-free baking projects, and shop for an entertainment center for the living room.

I can't complain; this has been a really fun summer. But I really can't wait until we have a weekend free of plans. I miss the farmers market.

Here's David and the dogs at the beach in Cardiff by the Sea, California. It was a great 4th.

playing catch-up

We're back from Ohio and getting ready for my mom and sister to visit on Thursday. Things have been a little crazy around here trying to get the house in shape for visitors - it seems we've been ignoring our chores in favor of enjoying the summer.

Yesterday I visited my new PCP, Dr Lieberman. He seemed to think that because I've already been diagnosed with microscopic colitis, I don't have celiac, but he had my blood drawn anyway to check. I should hear back in a few days. He was very knowledgeable about both colitis and celiac but didn't have an answer to explain why a gluten-free diet has helped me so much. If my tests come back negative for celiac, I'm still staying gluten-free, and luckily there is a pharmacutical that apparently helps to clear colitis is some patients, so I'm happy to give that a whirl. I guess we'll see in a few days!

And -- my tomato plant has 16 baby tomatoes growing on it right now. The little bush isn't more than a foot and a half tall. I can't believe it.

Mount Lemmon

If you are lucky enough to live in Tucson and you like camping, you must go up to Mount Lemmon. Less than an hour away, 8000 feet elevation, and 30 degrees cooler than town, it's heaven. Head up to fish at Rose Canyon lake or take a day hike, or pack up the car and the dogs and spend the weekend. Our favorite camping spots are off Mount Bigelow Road, around mile 20. The road is off to the right about a quarter mile past the ranger station.

Go - early and often.

Sunny approves.

(sorry the picture is weird. I couldn't get it to work.)