Butternut Squash Pasta

Posted by girlgroupgirl 8 Atlanta on Sun, Mar 1, 09 at 23:05

Butternut squash pasta!

OH YUM!

I cup of frozen, mushed butternut squash (from last summers garden)
1/2 a small purple onion finely minced
1/2 t. crushed garlic
1/4 of a cube gluten free bullion
1/2 c. unsweet almond milk
some parmesan or any other delicious hard cheese, grated
toasted pine nuts

Cook up some pasta. I use Trader Joe's brown rice pastas. Spirals will catch the sauce nicely.
While pasta is cooking, place a tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet and cook up your onions for 4 minutes until they are slightly brown. Throw in some garlic for just a few minutes. Add the squash and the bit of bullion cube. Too much billion will make it too salty (as your cheese is plenty salty enough). I like to add 1/2 cup almond milk now, to make a lovely - creamy, nutty flavor.
Toss in cooked pasta, top with some Parmesan and toasted pine nuts.
So fast and delicious.
I served this with a "winter salad". I grow cold tolerant lettuces under tents all winter and throw in some herbs for a lovely salad!

Great on one of those odd, southern snowy nights!

Garden Gives (Garden Produce)

Posted by girlgroupgirl 8 Atlanta on Thu, Jul 31, 08 at 22:59

Garden Gives

I've just been cutting up with the garden gives, throwing it in a pan and sauteing it and eating it! The only non-garden ingredient is salt!

A Day in the Garden Fried Green Tomatoes

Posted by girlgroupgirl 8 Atlanta on Mon, Jun 30, 08 at 21:34

A Day in the Garden Fried Green Tomatoes

The Cherokee Purple tomatoes are in good soil, and holding water. Hubby watered them a lot while I was away and they grew so fast in the heat they cracked. Then flea beetles got inside of them and started eating them...so I've learned to pick them on the under ripe side, let some of them ripen in the window and fry up the rest.
The trick is to fry 'em up fast with a quick salad from the garden on the nights you are working out there in the coolness (or relative coolness) of the late evening.

1/2 cup of good corn muffin mix. I use gluten free Bob's Redmill
2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese (Trader Joe's grated cheeses are all gluten free!) - use the stuff from the refridgerated section and stay away from Kraft in a box.
Pepper and salt to taste
garlic powder
a shake or two of oregano

I slice and dry off the tomato a bit, then pop it in some egg whites and dredge it in the above mixture before frying it up in pure olive oil. Even my cats eat these. They are delicious.

Before each bite you must use the greeting my friend Manfred says every time we come home from being up north..."welcome to the South!"

"Just Add Greens" Salad Dressing

Posted by girlgroupgirl 8 Atlanta on Sun, Mar 2, 08 at 12:59

Since I will begin growing my spring greens this month, I am going to share this yummy salad dressing I created. Oil free and so full of taste that you don't need another single thing other than mixed greens in your salad!

"Just Add Greens" Salad Dressing

1 sm. jar of roasted red peppers (or roast one of your own) in brine, not oil.
1 sm. log of chevre cheese
1/8 c. balsamic vinegar
1/2 c. of light broth. I use veggie
12 dry bagged sundried tomatoes
salt
pepper

Using kitchen scissors, cut your sundried tomatoes into small pieces. Put them in a microwavable container with the broth and cover with a paper towel. Heat until the tomatoes are puffy and soft.

In a food processor, blender or with an immersion blender add all ingredients together and whirr to make as smooth a dressing as you can. It will be fairly thick. In the summer I may add fresh oregano or basil leaves for a change.

On a fresh bed of greens, this is just the best. Sometimes I will snip chives into my salad, or use fresh edible flowers. This dressing is particularly lovely with it's creamy red color over a bed of greens, and then top the whole thing with gorgeous red, yellow and orange nasturium blossoms.

Chocolate Dump It Cake (Gluten Free)

Posted by girlgroupgirl 8 Atlanta on Tue, Feb 5, 08 at 20:12


I'm going to add my recipe that I made today. It is a great Gluten Free chocolate cake and it is from "The Best Ever Wheat And Gluten Free Baking Book".

GF=gluten free. Some products get contaminated in their refining process if the factory makes wheat/gluten grain foods too, so that is why one must be so careful.

Chocolate Dump It Cake

1/2 c. pure GF cocoa powder. If you have Trader Joe's their cocoa is GF
1/2 c. boiling water - mix the water and cocoa together
1 c. cornstarch however, to get more fiber I mixed 1/2 c. cornstarch with 1/2 c. brown rice fiber
1 1/2c potato starch (but again, you can mix flours. I used 1/2 c. brown rice flour and 1c. potato starch and the texture was wonderful!)
1T plus 1 1/2t. baking powder
pinch of salt
1 c. sugar

Mix all this together with the cocoa/water mixture

2 eggs beaten or GF egg replacer (this is excellent to have on hand the egg replacer gives great rise and texture)
1/2 c. canola oil
2 t. vanilla and it needs to be GF (again, Trader Joe's is GF)
21/2 t. xanthanan gum however, if you've mixed your flours and/or used egg replacer you can reduce this to a teaspoon.
1 cup plus more as needed. Dairy free and gluten free milk is Blue Diamond almond milk.

Mix all the wet together, and only add 1 cup of the milk. If your mix is too thick, just add a little more milk. You only have to mix by hand, this is so light and fluffy!

I used two small aluminum $$ store pans with plastic lids which worked well. Preheat to 350 and use 9x13 or two small snack cake pans. I bet two loaf pans would work well too. Grease well with canola oil. Do not use any kind of baking spray, none are gluten free - I have a little silicone brush and the oil which works well.
Pour in mix as soon as you mix it up. Don't let it sit as it rises so fast - pour it in and let it sit a minute while oven heats. Bake 22-25 mins. Smaller pans you can bake 20 mins. Toothpick test to see if done.

YUMMY and delicate in texture. Keep in the fridge. You can make a dairy free/gluten free icing by using icing sugar, the cocoa, or vanilla or a bit of strong coffee (no flavorings!) and Natural Balance margerine.

Bara Brith (Welsh)

Posted by girlgroupgirl 8 Atlanta on Tue, Feb 5, 08 at 0:07

Bara Brith

Bara brith is a bread with currants. I think it came first, and then Welsh cakes were invented because Bara brith does not keep or transport well as it is flakey and has an odd texture unlike most breads (just like Welsh Cakes are not cake, not cookie and not cake but sort of all of them at the same time, lol). Welsh Cakes could easily be transported and kept without refrigeration in a mine, or on in the mountains while herding sheep.

This link has excellent explanation of the bread. Explanation

My family is from South Wales and we always make it without yeast and it is HEAVY. We always used currants, and although all the recipes on the web say to make it spicy, we never had a spice in it! It was very white - my family were poor and there was no way we could use a spice daily like that.

This recipe comes closest:
Bara Brith

I don't have a recipe for this myself as we tried making it wheat free and it won't work, just like Welsh Cakes!