Vegan Baking Cheat Sheet

Baking gluten-free and vegan translates to one simple truth that is hard to teach. Because it can only be learned by experience. This one simple truth?

Unlearn everything you think you know- or thought you understood- about baking.

All those mandatory Home Economics classes about kneading bread dough for ten minutes to improve elasticity or leavening a cake with beaten egg whites won't help your inner Betty Crocker to bloom if you're gluten-free and vegan. In fact, clinging to old notions about what works- and what doesn't- might lead you down a rather prickly circuitous path to ruin. Not to mention, your personal Culinary Museum of Failure. But don't let this bare bones truth inhibit you.

In fact, let it free you.

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Gluten-Free Pizza Flatbread with Roasted Vegetables

An easy gluten-free pizza flatbread topped with roasted veggies.

I've been offering up picnic food recipes this week because we're eating easy picnic style here in the final countdown phase of leaving for our summer adventure in Los Angeles. Only four remaining stacks of books to box, a tilting fence of wet paintings to frame, and the all important decision of which t-shirts, pots and kitchen power tools to pack stand in the way of our coffee fueled departure early next week.

I am reminded of the opening scene of A Walk on the Moon where Pearl and Lilian Kantrowitz are cramming the family car with colanders and tablecloths and onions and potato peelers. Kitchen stuff for their summer cabin in the Catskills. Such a production this is. Planning ahead for gluten-free snacks on the road (chocolate cupcakes are a must, and popcorn) and an easy microwavable supper for the hotel in Arizona (I'm thinking I'll freeze some of my favorite Mac and Cheese). We still don't have a rental lined up. And the storms knocked out our Internet this week. I'm lucky to be on at all tonight.

So yours truly has been running out of steam by cocktail hour, whipped not only by the attention-to-detail process of organizing two lives and shedding old stuff, but by the monsoon season thunderstorms growling across the Chama River in the afternoons, sending wind and rain and howling coyotes up the mesa. And knocking out our web access.

So forgive me if I have not responded to a comment or a question. I haven't been on-line much. Or participated on Twitter. I've been a total social network slacker stranded out here in the wilds. Cooking up flatbreads and Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies between rinsing out empty shampoo bottles. Thinking of you.

Hoping you're having a wonderful week!

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Easy Champagne Vinegar Red Potato Salad

No mayo in this classic potato salad. Nope. Nada. Zip.

For those of you looking for a mayo-free potato salad recipe, here's an easy, tasty picnic style salad seasoned with Champagne vinegar and tarragon. I plan on making potato salad several times this week. Picnic food- that's perfect for packing. Sorry for the alliteration. I blame excitement. Life is getting interesting again. We're living sans furniture now- except for a bed, desk and rug. The casita feels empty in a good way. Clean and spacious. Inviting possibility.

Let's hope potential buyers feel the same way.

As for me, I'll be at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market a week from Wednesday (expect pictures). We don't know where we're staying yet. But if Craig's List is any indication, choices will be numerous. Until then?

Dinner will be picnic style.

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Vegan Pasta Pie with Mushrooms, Garlic and Tomatoes

My vegan version of a savory pasta pie- 
no eggs, dairy or tofu. Seriously.

This savory pie recipe reminds me of a roasted vegetable frittata. Or my Roasted Vegetable Noodle Kugel, even. I invented it because I was craving a simple one-dish pie for supper- something easy and light and bordering on picnic food- with guaranteed leftovers. Because- and I tell you this with all the happy feet gyrations of a gypsy heart locked inside a hot flashing nest-eschewing body- we're boxing books again- we're storing art and family pictures and files and (most of) our movie collection. We're selling our furniture, consigning everything from roomy chairs and Mexican tables to Kilim pillows and punched tin mirrors. A truck arrives today to haul the lot to Santa Fe.

Even though the house has not sold.

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Gluten-Free Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

Gluten-free strawberry rhubarb crisp with a tangy twist.

When I was a little girl my favorite way to eat rhubarb was to snap off a stick in the back yard, run into the kitchen and dip the end into the sugar bowl, repeating the dipping process as needed to coat each tart and chewy bite with granular sweetness. In a post-Seinfeld world I risk being labeled a dreaded double dipper. And I admit up front, it's true.

I double dipped and triple dipped and lived to tell the tale.

Beyond childhood I never bothered much with rhubarb, except for tasting the occasional strawberry rhubarb crisp at someone else's family picnic. I was never much a fan of it cooked. Stewing and baking seemed to rob it of its charms, mocking my memory of those sugar coated crisp and sour stalks. The mush in the bottom of all those Pyrex baking pans was a sorry excuse for rhubarb, I thought. So recreating a rhubarb crisp recipe for living gluten-free was never glowing brightly on my cooking radar screen. It was never even the faintest of blips. I've been blogging for four rhubarb seasons now and haven't felt inspired to develop a recipe. Until now.

Why now, I've no idea. Perhaps it's because we're stuck out here in the desert, with nary a garden or bursting rhubarb patch in sight. Just rolling hills of crusty earth studded with brittle pinon and juniper trees, the oddball cholla, or tuft of tenacious sage. The words green and leafy don't exactly come to mind when you walk the dirt road to the arroyo.

So when I spotted a few lonely stalks of rhubarb in a basket at Whole Foods in Santa Fe- ruby red and sexy in their glistening rhubarb goodness- I thought, Why not attempt a strawberry rhubarb crisp recipe?

And because I'd asked myself out loud my husband said, You do realize you just asked three stalks of rhubarb if you should make them into a crisp?

Well, yeah, I shrugged back. I talk to my fruit.

Don't you?

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Snappy Crunchy Coleslaw (No Mayo!)

A tasty slaw recipe without a drop of mayo.

Here's a crisp and crunchy slaw recipe without a drop of mayo. That's what I'm craving. How about you? Stop by and share your favorite spring side dish recipe in comments.

From the archives: By April I'm itchy with anticipation. By May I'm storing sweaters and mittens. Winter is behind us. Spring is officially here. Days are longer, inch by inch. If not for juniper allergies I might even be out walking, testing out my new cocoa suede sneakers- albeit gently, Dear Reader, treading softly down our bumpy dirt road, shiny new walking cane in hand.

The craving for comfort food is fading. Slow cooked stews, Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie, and bowls piled high with embarrassingly hefty mounds of gluten-free pasta are feeling a tad, well, bottom heavy. Thick. You know, like the more-than-an-inch pie roll I've acquired around my waist. My great grandmother Josefa would be kvelling, She no longer eats like a bird! (Yeah, well, that's obvious.)

And while I believe the Sweet Husband when he tells me he likes me with more meat on my bones- and who am I to complain about (finally!) absorbing food and calories after years of celiac malabsorption- your intrepid expanding goddess is simply hankering for lighter fare.

Something to perk up the taste buds.

Something with snap and crunch. Something fresh and green that makes you feel virtuous and light and happy to be alive with summer on its way.

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Vegetarian Garden Loaf with Maple Apricot Glaze

Delicious vegan garden loaf with quinoa.

Go ahead and snicker. I'll wait. I'm fully aware that veggie loaves are the punch line for many a joke in Burger King sponsored sit-coms and pseudo-reality shows pitting sweaty cranky chefs against each other for the promise of fame and fortune. So do your thing. Snort. Sigh. Bare your teeth. I can handle it. 

Vegetarians and vegans endure more than their fair share of indiscreet eye-rolling.

I know this first hand. Because I've been a vegetarian and sometimes vegan for most of my life. Four decades. And after my medically recommended foray back into Omnivore Land (to jump start the healing of my broken hip) now that I am vertical and ambulatory without a cane I am once again whistling past the graveyard into familiar territory, leaving behind the protein I flirted with, listening to my body's need to get back to the garden, back to my first love, my culinary Eden. My natural preference, before The Fall.

I tell you this without judgment. 

I mention this without pressure of any kind. Seriously. I'm not proselytizing. Goddess knows, I understand better than most how hard it is to eat in this gluten infused world of ours without whittling down our choices even further. If you love your bacon and eggs, Babycakes, go rustle up some grub.

Gnaw on some haggis.

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Gluten-Free Blueberry Brownie Bites

Tasty little vegan chocolate brownie bites.

The idea for blueberry brownies came to me in the middle of shampooing my hair. I was thinking about a chocolate bar I'd seen the day before (what, you don't think about chocolate in the shower?). It was a slim dark chocolate confection with dried blueberries. I'm a fruit and chocolate combo fan, you see. I love berries and chocolate. Orange and chocolate. Pineapple and chocolate. Actually, is there anything that doesn't taste better with some chocolate on it?

Such are my ponderous meanderings.

I'm still waiting for my Babycakes cookbook to arrive (I pre-ordered it from Amazon) along with pastry bags and icing tips. Ever since my unexpected success developing my first gluten-free and vegan Orange Creme Cupcakes I've been dreaming up cupcake flavors and imagining sweet little gems galore. Although I was less than thrilled to learn that Babycakes bakery uses bean flours (yuck), soy milk powder (um, why?) and spelt (spelt is not gluten-free) in their recipes, I'm still stoked to get the book, hoping it will at least inspire my own gluten-free vegan beauties.

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The G-Free Diet: An Opinion from Elaine Monarch, CDF

Tonight- like the many readers of the Celiac List-Serve- I received this letter from Elaine Monarch of the Celiac Disease Foundation. Because this letter accurately reflects my own view regarding the new book, The G-Free Diet, I am sharing this public letter with my readers.

Celiac Colleagues:

I am writing to call your attention to the current publicity surrounding the new book, The G-free Diet, A Gluten-Free Survival Guide by Elisabeth Hasselbeck, co-host of The View. While it is important to call attention to celiac disease, the information must be accurate - the inaccuracies in this book are potentially dangerous and detrimental to celiacs and to those yet to be diagnosed if people self diagnose and start eating GF. Our mission is to assist in getting people accurately diagnosed and the message in this book could defeat this mission. It appears that this book is being marketed as a fitness diet - eat g-free and feel so much better. Celiac is incorrectly referred to as an allergy not an autoimmune disease. The GF diet is the medically mediated prescription that controls the condition for a diagnosed celiac. Several items in the book are misleading and inaccurate and place further limitations on the GF diet. The gluten-free lifestyle is a lifelong commitment for the diagnosed celiac, not an option, not a fad diet - adhering to the GF lifestyle requires patience and persistence. This lifestyle can not be trivialized.

Thank you.

Elaine Monarch

Celiac Disease Foundation
Founder and Executive Director
13251 Ventura Blvd. Suite 1
Studio City, CA 91604

Roasted Yellow Tomato Salsa Recipe with Cilantro

Roasted yellow tomato salsa is vegan and gluten-free.

How am I occupying my fevered little brain as we wait (not so patiently) for more house showings? How do I keep my spirits up as we start this selling process all over again? I dream up recipes. I lay in bed at 3 AM with visions of salsa in my head. I conjure excuses for roasting yellow tomatoes.

I imagine frittatas with leftover pasta.

Vanilla cupcakes with mocha icing.

Pecan crackers.

This is my life. And it's ending one recipe at a time.

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