Bidding Summer Farewell

I can never quite get over summer ending. It really ought to last forever. The warmth that just soaks into your skin (Maryland humidity or not, it's warm!), that lazy feeling that merits a glass of lemonade and a good book, long, aimless walks barefoot through clover fields... and let's not forget the peaches! Good fruit has a way of making me ridiculously excited, and peaches? Ohh. I am even now having to restrain myself from eating a third within a shamefully small amount of time. They make me absolutely, blissfully content. Throw in a handful of blueberries and I am just about the happiest girl alive.

And thus the below recipe is an admittedly stubborn attempt at preserving summer for as long as possible. Believe me, there are still peaches and blueberries to be had, and what better way to enjoy them than to bake them into a perfect cobbler?



Blueberry Peach Cobbler
adapted from the kitchen of Rebecca Wilson

1 cup water
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp Cornstarch
2 Tbsp lemon juice
5 cups peaches, peeled and sliced
2 cups blueberries
(Fruit measurements are rather approximated. Use as much as you'd like.)

Combine first 5 ingredients and bring to a boil stirring until thick. Add fruit. Pour into greased 9 by 13 in. baking dish.

1 ¼ cup gluten free flour mix (I use Nearly Normal Kitchen's mix, available at most health and organic grocery stores)
¾ cup sweet rice flour
1 tsp xanthan gum (use even if the mix has xanthan gum included)
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup milk (rice, soy or otherwise lactose free)
1/2 cup butter or marg - melted

Sift together dry ingredients in mixing bowl. Stir in milk and margarine. Spread over fruit mixture. (It's pretty sticky, so I found it easiest just to use my hands.) Bake at 375 for 50 minutes or until topping is golden brown.

Serves 12-14. Enjoy warm with Purely Decadent vanilla icecream.

Note: you can make this without the blueberries, but in my opinion it is much better with them. :) Also, this flour mixture is the product of some experimenting, and while you are at liberty to use your own creativity, I would stay away from any pure nut or bean flours.

A Venturous Beginning

You know that feeling you get when you walk into the kitchen and it just emanates with the smell of homemade bread? The anticipated delight as the butter melts into the steaming, gluten-stuffed goodness? Or as you dip it into your mother's chicken noodle soup on a cold November evening?

Yes, I still remember that. But how about the feeling ten seconds after the enticing smell clouds your senses? That feeling as you remember you can't enjoy it? "I'll just sit over here and munch on my fiber-toast and earth balance, thanks." Oh what a poor substitute for the real thing!

I discovered my allergies to gluten and soy (and low tolerance of sugar and dairy) about two years ago. When I first cut out gluten I thought "there's no way I can do this," but went a full year without it (granted I cheated a little), surviving upon rice cakes and other food that tasted like cardboard.
In the past year I have ventured into the world of gluten-free cooking (and am also beginning to experiment with sugarless, dairy-less ingredients). I have borrowed recipes and created my own, and been more than pleasantly surprised with how much they taste like the "real thing." I can now happily pull a steaming loaf of bread out of the oven, a pan of gooey chocolate-chip cookies, blueberry scones, and many other eats that I know I can enjoy without suffering for it later.
This blog is an attempt to share those recipes (and other gluten-free discoveries) with you in hopes of rescuing you from the miseries of a fiber-breaded life.

Let me say now that I am by no means a professional chef or otherwise culinary artist. I am simply one of many people seeking to live and eat happily (for God's glory!) with significant food limitations. I can only hope that my amateur experiments will serve you and get you one step closer to a normal, palatable life.