Thank you to Bob’s Red Mill for supporting this post through providing me the flour to make this tasty recipe along with these Oatmeal Cinnamon Pancakes, this Hiking Bread, and one more upcoming recipe as part of a series of gluten free camping friendly recipes.
In the realm of camping desserts, I’m serious about two things; simplicity and tradition.
While Dutch oven or skillet cobblers are certainly tasty treats to have while camping – I personally do not enjoy the clean up involved from making one of those dishes after a long day of exploring or hiking. Brownies and cakes baked inside orange peels are all the rage on Pinterest as a simple backpacking friendly treat, but that’s not what I grew up eating at camp.
When I think of camping desserts, there is really only one treat on my mind: good old-fashioned smores. Whether the marshmallows are roasted on a stick gathered nearby or on some fancy contraption made specifically for this purpose, I’ve always loved the campfire discussion (or debate) on what makes a perfectly roasted marshmallow. Are you a perfectly golden brown person or a flaming burnt marshmallow person? I used to be the later, but as I find my patience growing – I’m turning to into the former.
These graham crackers have both a honey and light cinnamon flavor to them and hold up very well in the smore making experience. Far better than the pre-packaged ones I’d been buying at the store to make smores in my microwave (a terribly guilty pleasure of mine). The extra plus is that they’ll stay fresh and crisp, when kept in an air tight container for up to two weeks.
It's an exciting day! I've collaborated with Bob's Red Mill to share a recipe for my new favorite camping breakfast. These Oatmeal Cinnamon Pancakes were inspired by one of the easiest and most common camping breakfasts; instant oatmeal. Take it from me, treating yourself to pancakes on a morning after sleeping on the ground feels increadibly good - and certainly more fufilling than a bowl of instant oatmeal.
Thanks to Bob's Red Mill for supporting this post through providing me the flour to make this tasty recipe along with three other tasty recipes as part of a series of gluten free camping friendly recipes.
On a typical camping trip, my husband and I don’t sit around and hang out at camp all day. We may have a leisurely breakfast – but you won’t catch us sticking around our campsite. Before long we’ll head off on our chosen adventure of the day, so we’ll take our lunch with us on the trail or the road.
For lunch we’re most often eating sandwiches made of homemade gluten free bread (which doesn’t require toasting for maximum taste) and a quick spread. Rather than packing this bread full of starch – I opted to tip the scale towards whole grain flours and seeds to provide a heartier nutritional punch to fuel our long hikes. Our choice of spreads varies between a nut/seed butter and jelly combination or a quick salmon and chive spread for which I’ve included the quick and simple recipe below.
I recently rediscovered a recipe torn out of Sunset Magazine; Single Girl Melty Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake and I've found it to be a great cure to a night home alone. It's small, comes together quick, and I always have all the ingredients in my kitchen. The only problem is that I'm not a big chocolate person, in the end I always prefer a fruit based dessert instead.
This month's Gluten Free Ratio gave me the perfect opportunity to try and create a similar small and quick treat, as a cobbler instead of a chocolate cake. Again, this recipe is all made of things I always tend to have around the kitchen. You could use different berries if you prefer - I'm stuck with blueberries and cherries (yes, not actually a berry) since I can't have most others. That doesn't bother me in the least since they also happen to be my favorites. While I could easily see myself enjoying this entire cobbler myself, it's also been the perfect size to share with my husband.
For the cobbler topping, my ratio ended up being 7 parts flour, 7 parts milk, 2 parts butter, and 1 part sugar.
It's a rhubarb frenzy around our house while the prices are still low and so far I've made jam, pie, shrub, and tea bread. I thought, why not make some scones and curd too! I'm pretty happy with the base scone recipe I've been using for other versions like the Meyer Lemon Curd and Whole Grain Blueberry - this is just a slight adaptation to use vanilla sheep milk yogurt and added rhubarb pieces.
For the curd, I used my Meyer Lemon Curd recipe as a base but pumped up the amount of juice to up the rhubarb flavor. I also added more sugar since I was looking for a sweeter curd rather than a tarter version. For the rhubarb juice, I opted to boil down about 5 stalks of rhubarb since my research on the interwebs informed this would probably give me a sweeter and less tart version than simply running the stalks through my juicer.
Speaking of rhubarb, while I was searching for more ideas on what to make with rhubarb I came across this nerdy Star Trek recipe for Aaktay, or Klingon Steamed Bread. So I'll have to try adapting it to be gluten free sometime while rhubarb is still in season. Anyone have a suggestion on what I could substitute for "all-bran cereal"? I was thinking brown rice flakes perhaps.
Alright that's enough nerdy recipe talk, on to the scones and curd!
This past winter I really haven't been into soup but now that we're deep in spring, all I seem to want is comforting soups. We've had two different soups on repeat in our food rotation; a dairy free tomato bisque and split pea soup. Up until recently, my attempts at split pea always turned out rather bland - but I've finally worked away at the recipe to get what I want. My theory is that I was missing a very key ingredient: bacon. And not just added bacon to the final soup, but cooking it in the same pot that you're soup will spend two hours simmering away in.
For a vegan version of this soup, you could easily skip the bacon all together and just cook the vegetables in 2 tablespoons of your favorite cooking oil. Adding some slices of cooked shiitake mushrooms would help pump up the flavor in somewhat similar way to the bacon.
It's been a couple of months, but now I'm back on the Gluten Free Ratio Rally wagon! This month Brooke from B & The Boy is hosting and we're baking up tea bread. From the research I did, I learned that tea bread is very similar to a quick bread but with fewer eggs and only slightly sweetened. It's also best served on the same day it's baked, of course, with some tea. My favorite pairing with this particular bread? Darjeeling. For my ratio, I ended up with 6 parts flour, 5 parts milk, 1 part egg, 1 part sugar, and 1 part butter (fat).
Since I've been going on a total rhubarb frenzy recently (which you've likely noticed if you follow me on instagram), I decided I had to make a rhubarb tea bread. My final version, the one in the above photo, was actually made with rhubarb stalks from our edible garden - so that feels pretty good. I pumped up the flavor with vanilla and my other all time favorite, meyer lemon zest.
Make sure to check out everyone else's recipes too! I've included links to their tasty tea breads at the bottom of the post.
Finding good pizza seems to be the ultimate quest for most of us living our lives gluten free. Sure there are some that are happy without the bread products that are so prominent in the gluten full world - but for most of us, pizza seems to be that most wanted unattainable treat (well, that and good croissant). My perfect pizza is a fluffy one with a hearty bready crust that you can bite into and chew.
All those cracker like crusts that are so prevalent in the freezer section of the grocery and in most every restaurant I've been to just don't do it for me. I've actually made a rule that unless I'm in desperate need of carbs (like so desperate I'm going to faint) - I don't ever order gluten free pizza at a restaurant. There are only two restaurants I've ever been to where the gluten free pizza crust was passable; Pala Pizza in New York City and Razzi's in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle.
My journey making my own gluten free crust at home started with Gluten Free Girl's recipe which also happens to be vegan. For a year or so, I followed her recipe and enjoyed some of the best pizza crust I'd had - but it still wasn't that fluffy crust I wanted. I played around with a few different flour combinations, added eggs, and then all of my changes came together when I started stuffing the crust with a bit of cheese. It made all the difference in the world - it seems to keep more moisture in the crust and it's just darn tasty.
In general, I try to steer clear of current events on this blog - it's my refuge. In my daily life, I work and think about things that one might refer to as "heavy". My blog gives me an opportunity to escape and maintain some semblance of calm in otherwise hectic and serious times, especially right now.
That being said, a few folks that I like very much and respect a whole lot have started efforts to support the survivors of superstorm Sandy and I want to support them and the work they are doing.
Jenn of Jenn Cuisine has asked that today, us food bloggers out there share a comforting dish we would make for those in need and encourage our readers to support the relief efforts. The link in the image above will take you to a donations page for the Red Cross. But I would also encourage you to review this great comprehensive page on volunteering and donating responsibly - it contains oodles of links for different states and organizations. Erin from Gluten-Free Fun has also been spear heading a movement to help with gluten free donations, so please visit her blog for ways to help those folks. In a few weeks or so, Joy of Frock Files will be setting up an Etsy Shop to sell handmade goods created by various artisans to raise funds.
I encourage you to do what you can, when you can, in whatever way works most appropriately for you.
At the very least, please consider taking a moment to think about if you and your family are prepared for a disaster. We're all vulnerable, whether we like to admit it or not, so take action and prepare yourself as best you can. Ready.gov is a great place to get started with building your own personal disaster plan and kit - and to find ways to stay informed.
And now back to comfort and food. Recently, my go to comfort food dish has been a dutch baby that's totally loaded down with blueberries. It's warm, filling, and bursting with blueberry deliciousness; sure to bring at least a small bit of comfort to those in need.