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Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie

Sweet potato topped shepherds pie is gluten free and delicious
Sweet potato topped shepherd's pie. Gluten-free.


A certain individual living by the mesa has some news. Can you guess? We sold the house. We're moving lock, stock and barrel (in reality, more like Macs, books and UGGS) to Los Angeles, packing up the Honda Fit again to head West and start our new life as Los Angelenos.

I am almost too wired to write.

The quasi-plan is to rent a furnished place for a month. In mid October. Once we're out there, we'll begin our search in earnest for a longer lease- a space we can call our own, not too far from the ocean, I hope. A place with a workable kitchen. Windows. Light. Simple criteria.

As I sort through art books to sell (all the impressionist/landscape books I once mooned over- like a school girl- no longer tug at my attention) I am imagining the new again. I am fueled by the scent of possibility and change and consumed with the urge for going. Three and a half years in the desert have inked their big sky imprint upon me.

I feel as if I sport an invisible tattoo.

Time and distance will reveal the wisdom gained here (if any is to be found). Time and distance will temper the losses. No doubt memory itself will soften the sharp hungers of the everyday isolation and doubt.

Some readers have asked me, What lesson did you need to learn? implying that there is a silver lining to every prickly, dark experience and that if we only embrace The Lesson, we'll be free.

Well, I can answer that.

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Karina's Gluten-Free Quinoa Breakfast Bars

Gluten free quinoa breakfast brownie bars
Gluten-free quinoa breakfast bars, Baby.

We were treatless this week. Specifically, breakfast treatless. No Pear Polenta Muffins were hiding in the freezer. No Apple Cake with Cranberries. In fact, the only food items in the freezer were a solo bottle of organic vodka and a bag of frozen cranberries (does vodka count as food?). Which turned out to be a good thing. Because we had to bake. [Had to!] So we experimented (send smooches to Steve for initiating said experiment; if it were not for him, Dear Reader, you'd be looking at an archived recipe today).

As the breakfast treats were baking I started thinking (always dangerous). I started pondering (even more dangerous) why certain people believe they have things AFO. All Figured Out. And they'll tell you so, of course, spooning out advice in words that taste metallic. Like teeth fillings. They have all the neat little answers for you, judged and predigested, wrapped snug in tidy psychic ribbons.

If only life were that simple.

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Gluten-Free Chicken Recipe with Balsamic Peppers

Karina's gluten-free recipe for Italian pepper chicken
Balsamic chicken smothered in roasted peppers.


When it comes to big change I'm brave. I jump in feet first. In my small and particular universe it's easier to pinch your nose and hurl yourself off the edge than it is to stand there and think about it. That kind of anticipation is excruciating. Give me five minutes to think about all the things that can go wrong and I'll start making lists. And never budge an inch.

So I've learned to develop a social reflex- a Hell yeah, let's do it reflex. And in almost every circumstance this reflex has served me well (and if by some slim chance you need a list of when it has worked for me and when it has not, I've got it, filed away in my pictorial little brain).

It's the small day to day changes that can set me spinning.

The blips in routine. The interruptions of flow. The tiny changes that evolve over time into articulate curves on a chart. See this dot? This is where we used to be. See this dot? This is where we are now.

I struggle so intently on orchestrating my string of moments into some semblance of coherent awareness that within each moment I live so completely I fail to see the bigger sprawling truth. The truth that often blindsides me. I wake up to it like a child from a nap, rubbing my eyes and trying to center my bearings. I look at my aging hands and think, Whose hands are these?

I open the door to the blinding bright desert and realize I am not Georgia O'Keeffe, the weathered austere heroine in the books I devoured. I am not madly in love with the emptiness and isolation here. It does not inspire me. It steals from me. Tiny pieces day after day. The desert gnaws at me. It will leave nothing but bleached white bones. And a hip with three titanium screws.

I am trying not to feel as if I've failed somehow. Failed the desert. Or rather, some Georgia O'Keeffe fueled romantic idea of the desert. But the brittle, honest truth is- the desert does not feed me.

Karina's three year course in desert living: F

It's a good thing I can cook.


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Apple-Pear Multigrain Muffins

Whole grain gluten-free muffins with fall fruit.

Today I have new muffin recipe for your gluten-free repertoire- with apples and pears, and protein rich quinoa flakes. The texture is akin to an old fashioned oat muffin. It is also vegan (I made these without eggs) and dairy-free. I used a combo of several gluten-free whole grain flours because I like my flour mix to have a nutty, protein rich blend.



Tender, grainy gluten-free apple-pear muffins.

Apple-Pear Multigrain Muffins Recipe

I had a craving for an apple oats muffin- so I used quinoa flakes in this recipe. Quinoa flakes give muffins a bit of oatmeal-like texture and heft (as in my Quinoa Pecan Muffins).

Ingredients:

1/4 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup GF millet flour or certified gluten-free oat flour
1/4 cup GF buckwheat flour
1/4 cup certified gluten-free cornmeal
1/4 cup quinoa flakes
1/2 cup tapioca starch or potato starch
1 tablespoon sweet rice flour or arrowroot starch
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon or gluten-free Apple Pie Spice blend
1/4 teaspoon allspice or cardamom
1/2 cup organic light brown sugar
1/2 cup organic cane sugar
2 organic free range eggs, beaten, or egg replacer for two eggs (I used Ener-G Egg Replacer)
1/4 cup light olive oil or melted coconut oil
1 medium banana, mashed well (about 1/2 cup)
1/4 teaspoon light rice vinegar
2 teaspoons bourbon vanilla
1/3 cup apple juice
1 cup peeled diced apple
1 cup peeled diced pear

Instructions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a twelve cup muffin tin. In a clean separate bowl, whisk together the flours, cornmeal, quinoa flakes, starches and dry ingredients. Make a well in the center and add in eggs, oil, mashed banana, vinegar, vanilla and apple juice. Beat to combine and continue beating for a minute or two until the batter is smooth. Add in the apple and pear pieces and stir by hand to combine. Use an ice cream scoop or spoon to scoop and plop the batter into the muffin cups. The batter will reach the top of the cups- that's okay. Sprinkle with organic cane or turbinado sugar, if desired. Bake in the center of a preheated oven for about 20 to 25 minutes until the muffins are firm. Cool on a wire rack for five minutes, then turn out the muffins from the pan to keep them from getting soggy. Continue to cool on a wire rack. Wrap and bag for freezing- they reheat beautifully in the microwave (zap them only briefly). Makes one dozen delicious gluten-free muffins. 


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Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

All images & content are copyright protected, all rights reserved. Please do not use our images or content without prior permission. Thank you. 

Karina

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Ruby Applesauce with Cranberries

Homemade cranberry applesauce recipe
Cranberry applesauce- deliciously tart.

Apple season is upon us. Bring on the apple recipes. First up- a favorite New England pairing- apples and cranberries simmered to create a luscious slightly tart sauce, sweetened with organic raw agave. Make it as sweet or as tart as you prefer. This beautiful ruby red applesauce is a lovely side dish for so many fall recipes- from Turkey and Sweet Potato Enchiladas to classic Sweet Potato Latkes.

Ruby Applesauce with Cranberries Recipe- Vegan + Gluten-Free

Simmering the fruit in juice gives a big flavor boost. I used unsweetened cranberry juice to do this, but if you prefer a sweeter applesauce, try using cranberry-apple juice.

Ingredients:

2 rounded cups peeled chopped apples- preferably mixed varieties for best flavor
1 cup fresh or thawed frozen cranberries
1/2 cup cranberry juice or cranberry-apple juice, more as needed
1 cinnamon stick
Raw organic agave nectar or honey, to taste (I used 2 tablespoons, as I wanted it tart)

Instructions:

Combine the chopped apples and cranberries in a medium sauce pan and pour in enough cranberry or apple-cranberry juice to barely cover the fruit. Add a whole cinnamon stick. Cover and bring to a simmer.

Cook until the fruit is very soft. Remove the cinnamon stick. Using a potato masher, mash the fruit until you get a sauce texture you like. I prefer mine with a little bit of texture. If you like your applesauce  smoother process it in a food processor or Vita-Mix.

Taste and sweeten the sauce with agave or honey. Stir and allow it to cool a bit.

Spoon into a storage container, cover and chill until serving.

Makes about a pint of sauce.

Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

All images & content are copyright protected, all rights reserved. Please do not use our images or content without prior permission. Thank you. 




Ruby Applesauce recipe

Serve as a side dish with these compatible recipes:


Sweet Potato Latkes
Turkey + Sweet Potato Enchiladas
Sweet Potato and Black Bean Enchiladas
Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie with Black Angus Beef


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Karina's Roasted Hatch Chile Stew with Sweet Potato, Corn + Lime

Scrumptious slow cooker stew with roasted chiles, ground turkey, sweet potato and lime
Scrumptious slow cooker stew with roasted chiles, sweet potato and lime

Ho-la! It's that time of year again. The annual roasted Hatch chile madness is upon us here in chile blessed New Mexico. You can smell the intoxicating smoky-sweet scent of roasting green chiles everywhere you go. Even Walmart. Seriously. There's a roaster out front in the baking hot Espanola Walmart parking lot as we speak, firing it up, doing his New Mexican green chile roasting thing, turning his dented blackened barrel over a fire. Wiping his brow. Slugging down his cola. People are lined up waiting for their batch. Inside the store's entrance stacks of crated fresh chiles dominate the floor space like so many Stanley Kubrick obelisks (cue music).

If you live in Nuevo Mexico, you worship at the Sacred Temple of the Holy Chile Pepper.

The devotion to roasted chile runs deep in these parts and yes, it's with an e never with an i; if you call chile chili in these parts you may as well kiss your white bread tuchas good-bye, pendajo, because you'll be laughed out of the state. Shunned. Scorned. These folks get very serious about their autumn roasted chile. Don't mess with 'em.

It's harvest time.



Roasted Hatch Chiles and Limes

A bowl of warm fresh roasted Hatch chiles.


Gallon size freezer bags are out of stock. I kid you not. There's not a freezer bag to be had for miles. Chile lovers around here freeze enough roasted chiles to last a year (they buy an extra freezer just for chile) though I overheard one woman complaining that her chile stash never lasts more than nine months.

Yeah, nodded her comadre. We always run out in June, she said. And then it's so hard to wait.

If you're up to roasting your own chiles, you can do it on the grill or even over an open flame like Elise does at Simply Recipes; here's her How to Roast Chile Peppers Over a Gas Flame. After roasting, cool and peel; then stem, seed and chop.


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My Best Gluten-Free Cookie Recipes

Karina's Gluten-Free Goddess Cookies Recipes
Gluten-Free Cookies. Made with love.


Here are my favorite (bestest) gluten-free cookie and cookie bar recipes on Gluten-Free Goddess®.

Because a good cookie is no small thing.

Especially when you have to live gluten-free.

So bake up some cookies- with love. xox Karina




Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

My Best Gluten-Free Cookie Recipes


















Gluten-free biscotti. A cookie for grown-ups.

Karina's Tips:
Preserve the fresh baked taste and texture of gluten-free cookies by wrapping in twos, or bagging in small bags,  then bagging the bags in a larger freezer bag, and freezing; preserve cookie bars by wrapping, bagging and freezing them.
Thaw for best taste.
Briefly- just briefly- warm gluten-free chocolate chip cookies in the microwave for a melty, fresh baked taste.



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My Best Gluten-Free Cake + Cupcake Recipes

Gluten-Free Goddess Cake + Cupcake Recipes
Orange infused gluten-free cupcakes!


My Best Gluten-Free Cake + Cupcake Recipes


Here is a selection of my favorite gluten-free cake recipes on Gluten-Free Goddess- from company worthy coconut layer cake to cozy cinnamon crumbed coffee cake, from rich and fudgy flourless chocolate elegance to sassy orange vegan cupcakes.







Gluten-Free Coconut Layer Cake



















Super rich and decadent truffle cake.


Gluten-Free Goddess' Gluten-Free Cake Baking Tips:

New to baking gluten-free cakes and cupcakes? See my post Gluten-Free Cooking + Baking Tips for what to expect and how to problem solve.

Gluten-free vegan batter (without dairy and eggs) behaves differently than wheat batter. It is generally stickier, and thicker than standard batter.
Eggs are a boon to gluten-free baking. They add lift, moisture and lightness to heavy gluten-free flours.  If fat is a concern, use whisked egg whites instead of whole eggs, and an extra egg white.
Bake in the center of a pre-heated oven. If your cakes sink in the center you may be adding too much liquid to the batter, not baking it long enough, or your oven temperature may run a tad cool. Conversely, if the cake rises high and fast, then collapses, your oven may run hot.
For essential tips on baking gluten-free and dairy-free without eggs see my Vegan Baking Cheat Sheet, with trouble shooting strategies for baking success.





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Gluten-Free Pecan Crackers Recipe

Gluten-Free Pecan Crackers Recipe
How to make your own gluten-free crackers- with pecan meal.

I have a confession to make. It begins with crackers. Crunchy, nutty, salty crackers. And the doom of shortening days. The curse of narrow daylight. The long slow creep of SAD and carb cravings has begun. The Fall Equinox is right around the corner. After-dinner walks will soon be pre-dinner walks. The wind that weaves through the cottonwoods down by the Chama riverbed will have a chilly edge to it that hints of winter skies and stirs the urge for goin'. I get that every year. The urge. The longing to clear out, let go and move on.

I feel the gypsy spirit in my bones--- screws and all.

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