Showing posts with label cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cooking. Show all posts

Friday, February 3, 2012

double date night!




tonight before our double date with friends, i made fancy date night dinner of four new things for us:

-reisling: a very light, fruity but a bit tart white wine. we liked very much! i can't have red wine (too many emotions) so we've been trying out different white wines, and this one is light enough that it doesn't make me want to shrivel up and die on the inside like fuller wines do.

-sauteed zucchini: cooked for about five minutes in olive oil with garlic salt, oregano, and olive oil. delicious and healthy!

-chocolate dipped strawberries: omnomnom.

-pumpkin ricotta gnocchi: i'm experimenting with gluten free pasta making. for this, unfortunately i didn't measure anything out, just did it by the force... but to approximate...
1/4 cup ricotta
1/4 cup pumpkin (canned)
1 egg yolk
2(ish) cups mixed flour: almond, pinon, and tapioca starch

mix the flour until it is dry enough to roll into little balls without smashing into your hands, or dry enough to not stick to a plate
roll into tiny balls, or roll out and cut into small squares. little circles will be doughier and take longer to cook, squares will be faster but more complicated to form.
drop in boiling water (with a pinch of salt and oil) for approximately 5 minutes



my dough was rolled out too thick, so the pasta turned out too chewy... but if it had cooked longer it would have been delicious. i think i'm going to try turning it into ravioli with the leftover dough and ricotta.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

against.the.grain

i do a good deal of adjusting and creating recipes to be gluten free, because sweet boyfriend cannot have gluten. i used to work at a bakery, so it was very distressing to me when i found out i couldn't win him over using my baking skills - until i found alternative flours i loved. i'm still learning, but i may as well record my learning process because it could help someone else! 

what do i classify as gluten? 
           -anything that is derived from or contains trace amounts of wheats, corn, or rice. this includes most processed foods, and anything with preservatives. a shocking amount of the food we eat has all kinds of processed syrups and gluteny materials!

the foods i lean towards are organic, responsibly farmed, preservative free natural foods. this does NOT mean that i don't love cheese and fancy food. it just means that i think fancy food = delicious food = natural food. i love a good salad and a delicious pizza with equal enthusiasm.