Gluten-Free Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Cinnamon apple goodness- gluten-free.

A classic fall favorite- the pairing of apples and cinnamon. Stir them together in a muffin batter and you have a sweet and cozy breakfast treat that is not only heart warming and soul satisfying but super easy to wrap and freeze. That is, if you don't eat every single morsel first. These little gems would be a fabulous side nosh for Thanksgiving brunch- or a casual supper of Curried Butternut Soup.

It's a gray flannel sky kind of day here in the high desert. Chilly and damp. Steve is watching The Great Escape as I nibble on a warm apple muffin. It's been a historic week. I am still re-viewing on-line videos of our President-Elect with gratitude and awe, thankful that hope, grace and smarts prevailed despite the ugly drumbeat of fear, fueled by prejudice and the age old tactic of scapegoating and button-pushing, appealing, of course, to the lower instincts of our reptilian past. The old and rusty paradigm is giving birth to the new on a collective level. And I feel it in my bones and in the air that I breathe.

I am grateful. Hopeful. And eager to greet change.

It's all good.


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Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pecan Cookies Recipe

 Pumpkin cookies- gluten-free.

I'm glad I baked cookies. Your intrepid gluten-free goddess, you see, is a tad under the weather. Well. In all honesty, maybe more than a tad. I blame the shopping cart I gripped and steered in Espanola searching for a butch new spatula-spoon that might actually survive gluten-free batter instead of snapping in half. I've got a nasty bug.

My defenses may have been a little vulnerable from all the pre-election anxiety coursing through my hyper-vigilant little body. Stress equals not-so-good, so they tell me. But now I can exhale. The epic campaign is over. America chose hope and changed the paradigm of its racial roots forever. So, Sweetcakes. Smile.

Have a cookie to celebrate.

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Gluten-Free Beef and Mushroom Rice Casserole

Tasty beef and rice casserole with cranberries, mushrooms and olives.

Here's a cozy autumn casserole recipe with crumbled beef (or turkey), mushrooms, black olives and tart cranberries. Vegetarians can change out the meat with cooked black beans or white kidney beans.

The recipe is an improv, so the measurements are close approximations, but most of you readers are creative cooks who do your own thing and toss together your own improvisations, anyway, right? You're my kind of people. 

You can handle it.

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Sparky Picks 5 Winners

Sparky has chosen! But first- my heartfelt thanks. Big appreciation with warm and fuzzy gratitude to everyone who commented on the Whole Foods Budget Recipe Challenge and helped pick the winning recipe- my Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas. Muchas gracias to all my readers, too- your ongoing support, feedback and encouragement is invaluable to me. Without you? I'd be cooking in the dark. And talking to myself.

Here are the five winners- chosen at random- of a Whole Foods $25 Gift Card:

Vidalia P
milhan
Laura (eatcraftlive)
Courtney (blogger profile 02368500891285543351)
~m (Michelle)

Congratulations to the five winners! Please e-mail me for instructions on receiving your Whole Foods Gift Card (note- you will receive an automated Karina's Kitchen response first; a personal e-mail from me will follow). Thank you!

Happy November 1st- and for those of you on Daylight Savings, don't forget to turn your clocks back tonight!

Stuffed Cabbage with Quinoa + Roasted Sweet Potato

Quinoa stuffed cabbage. How's that for nontraditional?

It was a dark and stormy night... 

Wait. This is a recipe post. Let me start again. Got your cocoa? Are you settled?

Chapter 1.

The tight blue tiled kitchen glowed in the afternoon sun that slatted through the western facing junipers and spilled across the cupboards in a honeyed glaze so dazzling she had to lower her eyes to keep from squinting like a cowboy as she grabbed a frayed dish towel and cracked the oven door. The scent of sweet potatoes, apples and onion laced with garlic, nutmeg and cinnamon filled the room. She tugged her worn wooden spoon from the mustard crock and stirred the tender jewels bathed in apple juice. For the first time in days she felt connected to something tangible.

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Karina's Kicked Up Colcannon Recipe

An Irish classic- colcannon. Mashed potatoes with a twist.

Traditional colcannon is an Irish potato recipe thick with cream and sticks of butter. If served for the Celtic New Year, a bowl of colcannon might include a lucky coin hidden in its pillowy depths; the charmed recipient- if she didn't break a tooth on it- kept the buried treasure for a New Year's worth of kind fortune. 

My version of colcannon is anything but traditional. I'm a half Ashkenazi-Jewish-Scot-Irish shiksa zen Jungian humanist, after all. So you know I had to change it up a bit. It had to be vegan. And it had to be spiked with the flavors I crave. Flavors that love snuggling up to potatoes.

Because when it comes to this turning-back-the-clock dark and spooky time of year nothing beats a good potato recipe. 

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Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pie Recipe

Easy, delicious gluten-free pumpkin pie.

This will be one of our little secrets, okay? Just make this impossible pumpkin pie recipe and serve it with a smile. No apologies. No caveats. No waffling or waggling. You don't have to label it vegan. Or gluten-free. Or lactose-free. Which it is. Because no one will ever know. It tastes that good. And you'll score serious points with your vegan guests. You'll be a hero to gluten-free pie lovers. A goddess to egg-free pumpkin-cravers. A rock star to dairy-free angels.

My secret? It's in the details.

First- no tofu (yes, Babycakes, my pumpkin pie is soy-free so you won't have to put up with your cousin's tofu jokes on Thanksgiving).

Second- it's also rice-free. No gritty rice flour (which, come to think of it, I am hardly using any more). No cornstarch (for those of you avoiding corn). In a sweet little nutshell, it's very food allergy friendly.

Even your Aunt Sadie who is allergic to Wyoming might be able to eat this. Unless she's allergic to pumpkin. 

Then you're screwed.

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