A food post!

In the dead of winter, I have to find SOMETHING to write about. My dear friend Alex wrote a cookbook, no easy feat, and regularly updates her blog with all sorts of tasty things. Unfortunately for me, Alex uses all the ingredients I'm allergic to, sending me hunting for different thing.

A question I get asked when revealing that I am allergic to the things people eat most frequently and without thought, is "that's awful!! What do you EAT?!"

Well, I eat a lot of rice. A LOT of rice, and rice in it's many forms: cooked and ground (flour). I also drink rice milk. In fact, I think that discovering that I was allergic to so many things forced me to take a good look at what I was putting in my body. It took me several months to get used to the idea, but now I have a decent arsenal. The great thing with GF or vegan cooking/baking is that you don't need to limit yourself on the combination of ingredients! Especially with the wide varieties of flours available (brown and white rice, sorghum, millet, oat, quinoa, teff, potato, arrowroot, tapioca, etc etc etc). It's rather exciting! I am also no longer afraid of Xanthan Gum, that scary ingredient on many processed foods (it's used as a binding agent, any GF cook will tell you it's a necessity in their kitchen!).

So, I decided that I will post my accumulation of amazing Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Egg-Free recipes, along with substitutions.

One of my favourite blogs is http://iamglutenfree.blogspot.com, I Am Gluten Free. It's a woman (a Jewish children's performer no less) and she is constantly experimenting! I am not an experimenter, I am far too annoyed by failure! Anyways, her blog is fantastic, I've made waffles, cinnamon buns, all kinds of things off her blog.

I just found a recipe for GF Hot Cross Buns, on Gluten A Go Go (http://glutenagogo.blogspot.com/2007/04/hot-cross-buns-gluten-free-before-going.html). They look delish! An upcoming recipe? I think so.

An amazing bread recipe I found is an Oatmeal-Millet bread, http://glutenfreemommy.com/baking-gluten-free-bread-millet-oatmeal-bread/ , although I had to use quinoa instead of millet flour because I didn't have any on hand, turned out GREAT! Especially when I changed the settings on my bread machine!! :)

That's enough for now!

Winter is upon us!

It has been over 2 months since my last post! Not too much has happened in the ways of the garden. We had a freeze over in the middle of December that made me panic, as I hadn't put the bulbs in the ground yet (bulbs acquired from my mom, as she, as usual, over-ordered from Vesey's and we reap the benefits!). My only casualty from the batch was an amarylis bulb stupidly left outside. Stupid stupid stupid. It was going to be lovely, too. Stupid! Anyways.

I planted some daffodils, some more lilies, rearranged some plants, added more dirt, covered everything in leaves.

We forgot to pick the remaining lettuce and it died... oops. The leeks are still growing though, although they are in a state of dormancy until spring. Maybe they will actually be a half decent size for next summer instead of the pathetic wisps they currently are. Which reminds me, I need to get the garlic in the ground. I FINALLY got my book back, Carrots Love Tomatoes (great book!) so now I can know where to plant them.

The garage is supposed to come down soon, but our landlords seem to be dragging their feet about it. I'll probably offer to take it down, then round up a party with some sledge hammers and just bash it until it falls in. Good times! :D

We are really really broke, so no big plans for this years garden... Last year was a significant financial investment, and we won't have to have quite such a showy repeat this year. The Van Dusen plant sale will come up, and we will probably buy a couple native plants, and then we'll buy some grass, but other than that, it will be a pretty low key season!

Cheers for now!