Gluten Free Pumpkin Spice Donuts

My Aunt, Uncle & cousins on my Mom’s side got me a Babycake donut maker for my birthday this year and sadly this weekend was the first opportunity I had to try it out. (My birthday is in July… it is now October. I really need more donut making time in my life).

Sunday, still enjoying our lazy weekend I decided to finally break-out the donut maker and what better thing to make at the beginning of Fall then pumpkin spiced anything. I didn’t even have to go to the store because luckily we still had to cans of organic pumpkin for last year.


I was surprised at how great the consistency of these donuts were. They were similar to muffins, which I'm okay with because I feel like I'm eating something healthier.

Have you made any Fall foods yet?

Gluten Free Quiche

Anyone who has tried to feed my quiche in the past 15 years is looking at the post stunned. I don’t like quiche, I don’t eat quiche, I am not a fan. And, while it’s still not my favorite dish, I did enjoy this quiche this weekend, so I will probably not turn my noise up at the idea of quiche if someone else tried to feed it to me.

When we woke-up on Saturday morning Hubs felt like he was coming down with a cold. I suggested we lay low all day, watch movies and I’d make soup and grilled cheese. Well grilled cheese turned into paninis and paninis turned into quiche. He was sick and has been working so hard lately I couldn’t say no, when we asked for a quiche.

I was just going to make the quiche for him, using a pre-made crust still kickin’ it in my freezer, but once we’d purchased all the yummy veggies (zucchini, cremini mushrooms, and onion) it started to sound more appealing. Then once I’d researched how to make the crust from scratch and thought, “I can totally do that!” it was on.

Here’s how I made it…

(Click recipe to enlarge)

What food do you usually refuse to eat? Would you try it again?

Copy Cat – Spaghetti Squash Casserole

It’s been a while since I posted a copy cat recipe, but I last week I went back to True Food Kitchen in Newport Beach and discovered a dish I really enjoyed that I knew it would be easy peasy to make at home. {Did you click on any of those hyperlinks? Go ahead, I’ll wait ;-)}

First off, if you live in Orange County and haven’t been to True Food Kitchen at Fashion Island yet, make a plan to go soon. You will not be disappointed! My sister and went (again) recently and I decided to try something new, the Spaghetti Squash Casserole.

I forgot to take a picture (bad blogger), but luckily Kay C. on Yelp took this…


Kay C’s actually looks a bit more tomatoey (What? That’s a word) than mine did, but you get the idea.

How do you make it? Easy, it looks like this…


You want an actually recipe? Sheesh, you’re picky ;-) Kidding of course, I would too.

(click recipe to enlarge)

Mmmmm, melty cheese…


Have you copied a recipe you’ve loved at a restaurant?

Easy Peasy: GF Mini Pizzas

One of my favorite carbs to eat before you know, was English Muffins. Mmmm I have always loved me some English Muffins. Anyway, one of my favorite, quick meal, things to do with them was make mini pizzas. It called for 3 things I usually always have in the fridge: English muffins, spaghetti sauce and cheese.

This weekend Hubs and I went to Henry's for some groceries and so I could check out their gluten free offerings. I found a lot of things I want to try, but only one thing I needed right away – Gluten Free English Muffins.

The week I learned I was gluten intolerant I went to Trader Joe’s a lunch one day to get a few things. There I found Gluten Free, Vegan, and Organic Spaghetti Sauce. I’ve used it on gluten free pasta a few times in the past 2 weeks and it is delicious. I decided this week for lunch I’d try to make mini GF pizzas for lunch.

Here’s what I brought…

AND


Daiya is the Gluten Free Vegan cheese I found at Whole Foods, last week. Although not entirely the same a real cheese (for obvious reasons) it is similar enough and tastes pretty good, too.

How I make them…

I put the spinach on before the sauce because I’ve found it helps the cheese lay better and it’s easier to eat after the cheese melts. I add the spinach to help make up for the calcium I’m missing out on by not eating cheese.

To melt the cheese, I just microwave the pizzas for about a minute. I guess I could stick them back in the toaster, but I like to avoid getting cheese allover the work toaster and the microwave is quicker.

Voila! Mini Gluten Free English Muffin Pizza :)

For the past two weeks I’ve been discovering more Gluten Free blogs and the GF Community. Several of my friends have been tweeting and emailing me links to GF recipes and websites (Thank you!). In the process I found JennCuisine, a gluten free food blogger. She is doing a round-up of Gluten Free Substitution recipes this week and I’ve decided to share my mini pizzas. They’re nothing fancy, I’ve definitely substituted something (if not two somethings) to make them better for me.


If you’re curious about more ways to substitute gluten free options in recipes you should check out her blog in the upcoming week so see what the others submit :)

Adventures in Dining Out: Seabirds Truck

I have a problem, I’m addicted to the Wednesday’s food truck meet-up. I can’t not go. This week I was going to meet-up with fellow Weddingbee blogger Mrs Paisley, but she couldn’t make it. So, I tried to talk my co-worker into going again and she didn’t want to go… Didn’t want to go? It doesn’t compute. The trucks are there, you’re missing out! Anywhoodle, I went alone.

I knew the Seabirds truck was going to be there again and I wanted to try their Gluten Free (and soy free) Jerk Jackfruit Taco.

What is a Jackfruit? Don’t worry, I wondered the same thing. According to Seabirds' website:

"...jackfruit is a very large asian fruit. Its a funny looking thing, huge, prickly and green and grows from a tree’s trunk instead of its branches because it’s so heavy. Quite honestly, I have never tried a ripe jackfruit, so I couldn’t tell you what that tastes like. But we use green jackfruit (not fully ripened) and it is almost tasteless, which makes it a blank canvas to create our own flavor."

Source

Your probably wondering, so is it tasty? Yes, yes it is.


It almost had the consistency on chicken, but more plant like. Seabirds says, "flesh of the jackfruit closely resembles a pineapple in structure" and that really is the best way to describe it. However, it doesn’t taste anything like pineapple.

I really enjoyed these tacos and would totally recommend trying the Seabirds truck and the Jerk Jackfruit taco.

Another big reason I wanted to try the Seabirds truck is there philosophy. Seabirds’ is a completely organic and vegetarian truck. The produce they use is as local as they can find it. I love giving my business to a company with business practices I believe in. I wish more companies would make and effort to buy locally and organic.

Adventures in Dining Out: Whole Foods

Have a told you guys I’m back in school again? I think I did. But, did I tell you I have class 3 nights a week this session? I don’t think I did. I have class Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night. Meaning I have to lunch and dinner away from home those three nights, which was difficult enough when I could eat whatever I want. However, now that I’m not eating Gluten and other magical ingredients, it’s even more difficult… and costly.

Today I decided to try Whole Foods, there is one relatively close to my office and I figured they have prepared gluten free food, along with other goodies. I may be the last person to have never shopped at a Whole Foods. I’m not going to say I’ve never been to one, I have, but it was always for one thing. I’ve never gone and explored, you know? Plus, the closest Whole Foods is by my office, 30 minutes from my apt… get the idea.

I’m not going to go into everything I purchased. When I get a good list of Gluten Free products I’ve tried and like, I’ll do a post on those. This is about the delicious and reasonably priced pizza I bought for lunch AND dinner. YAY!

 
The pizza station in the food court type place made personal pizza’s with rice crust – SCORE! They also had a vegan soy-free cheese option, so I didn’t have to waste my one dairy or soy item for the week. I added also spinach and caramelized red onions.

Verdict: Really tasty! The crust was crisp and a little sweet. The “cheese” is surprisingly good, I bought a bag to take home. I ate half of this for lunch and I’m going to eat the other half in a few minutes before I head off to class. I could not be more excited about finding a cheese that is dairy free and soy free :)

Lunch: Quinoa, Feta, Spinach & Berry Salad

My sister introduced me to this salad in the Spring. It’s super easy to make the night before, and keeps great all day while you dream about eating at lunch.

What you’ll need…


When I package it, I tried to keep the spinach, berries and cheese separated from the quinoa (this got a like roughed up on my way to work this morning), because I’m always worried the quinoa will wilt my lettuce. I don’t know it is actually will, but I hate wilted lettuce and don’t like to take chances.

Do you bring your lunch? What is your favorite lunch for work?

My Morning Star Burger

A couple weeks ago, the week of my birthday to be exact, I took Thursday off to work on homework. I lead an exciting life people. I took a break and went to Trader Joe’s to get lunch and a couple other things. I decided to try a few new things in the freezer section. One of those things was Morningstar Farms® Tomato & Basil Pizza Burgers.


I’d never had a Morningstar burger, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but OMG you guys this is my new favorite dinner. It may have something to do with the toppings I added, but if the burger was gross, the toppings wouldn’t save it, right?


Wanna know what I put on it?
   
I took our left-over heirloom tomatoes and made a relish…

  

Hubs melted the mozzarella on top, while the burgers were still on the grill. Once it was ready we just piled it all on and enjoyed.

 
I felt weird not to put ketchup or mustard on my burger, but with the tomato and the cheese it doesn’t need it.

What are your favorite burger toppings?

Tempeh Veggie Tacos

Some of you maybe thinking, “Ali, what the hack is tempeh?” Well, according to tempeh.info, Tempeh is a fermented food made by the controlled fermentation of cooked soybeans with a Rhizopus mold (tempeh starter). The tempeh fermentation by the Rhizopus mold binds the soybeans into a compact white cake. Sounds appetizing, no? I know it doesn’t, but trust me it is. The first time I ate tempeh (that I know of) was when I went to the Veggie Grill a few weeks ago and since then I’ve been itching to use it in a recipe. I’ve also been itching to make veggie tacos for like forever because I love the ones at Islands. However, their tacos have bell peppers in them and Hubs can’t eat bell peppers so I couldn’t just copy their ingredients.

Where is this going? Early this week, Jen over at My Kitchen Addiction posted a recipe for Grilled Vegetable Tacos. Thank you Jen! Turns out this was the perfect recipe to kick my butt into combining tempeh and veggies into a taco.

It was also the perfect opportunity to highlight the awesome veggies I can get from our location CSA Farm, South Coast Farms. All the vegetables in this recipe are local and organic, purchased from South Coast Farms. Except for the corn *hangs head in shame*, that I got pre-roasted in the freezer section of Trader Joes because I didn’t have time to grill ears of corn last night. Trader Joes is also where I purchased the tortillas and tempeh.

Now for the recipe…

(Click Recipe to Enlarge)

P.S. Do NOT lick the chiles! Yes, it smell sweet, but it they spice ;-)
P.P.S. Yes, I did lick a chile :-/

Cinco de Mayo: Easy Peasy Queso Dip

I know I haven’t done an ‘Easy Peasy’ recipe in a while but I’ve actually attempted to blog about this dip a couple times but the pictures are always so ugly I give up.

See? Ug-ly... and my camera is sucky.

Lets just say this – this dip is not pretty, but it is tasty! My MIL made a variation of this dip for us at Christmas time and Hubs couldn’t get enough of it. It’s seriously the easiest dip in the world to make… besides adding onion soup mix to a container of sour cream.

How do you make it?

(Click recipe to enlarge)

Anywhoodle, if you need a quick dip or appetizer this Cinco de Mayo, this is ready in a snap :)

Do you have any Cinco de Mayo plans?

Adventures in Dining Out: Veggie Grill

I think it was a few months ago I read about this restaurant called the Veggie Grill opening at the Irvine Spectrum. It sounded a lot like Native Foods, a Organic Vegan chain my sister and I really like in Aliso Viejo and I knew immediately I could talk her into eating there with me. Not that the Hubs wouldn't, I just knew Jen would be all over it.

Well, all over it she was, and today we went to the one near UCI for lunch.

According to their Facebook page:

"...we are very proud of the fact that our menu is 100% plant-based with absolutely no cholesterol, animal fat, trans fat or high-fructose corn syrup. Numerous studies have shown that eating 100% plant-based foods is the best way to reduce your risk of heart disease, cancer and diabetes, and to maintain a healthy weight."

The menu is entirely vegetarian, but to be honestly I couldn't say with absolute certainty that itis complete vegan as well. However, I know that several of the menu options are vegan. They even have a gluten free menu.

I teetered back and forth between Papa's Portobello and the Chop Chop Chef salad...

I decided on the Chop Chop Chef because it included both the 'chicken' and the 'steak'...

Jen went back and forth on a couple different salads and chose the All Hail Kale (without walnuts because she is allergic) with tempeh, because we wanted to what the tempeh was all about.

The verdict? Tempeh = Tasty! In fact both salads were outstanding! We already planning on going there again next week :)

Cooking Light: Butternut Squash Lasagna

Every Wednesday Hubs and I go over to our friends house for dinner and to watch Lost. Jane and I trade off making the main dish and the other is usually in charge of salad. When I was in school, the last couple months, Jane did most the main dish cooking and I made up for it with some tasty salads.

Yesterday was the first Wednesday, in awhile, I made the main dish. Since, as you know, I haven't been able to cook much lately, I really wanted to make something I'd never made before... Oh, and it needed to be low cal too! Jane and I always cook low cal options on Wednesday due to the amount of wine we all consume. Mmmmm wine.

So I looked high and low on Cooking Light's website for s dish that looks tasty, involved mostly ingredients I already owned and could be cooked easily at someone else's house or easily transported. This recipe won and it involves my butternut squash friend from above.

*Side note: We have an awesome farm about 2 miles from our apartment that sells organic and local produce... remind me to tell you about it soon.

This recipe calls for a specific kind of marinara sauce, "Smokey Marinara", so I'm going to give you the recipe for that first.

Smoky Marinara
Recipe adapted slightly from here on Cooking Light

INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons parsley flakes
2 tablespoons chopped fresh or 2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 (28-ounce) can crushed fire-roasted tomatoes, undrained
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes, undrained

DIRECTIONS
1 - Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.

2 - Add garlic, basil, parsley, and oregano; sauté 1 minute, stirring frequently.

3 - Stir in vinegar and remaining ingredients.

4 - Reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes.

Now that you've made the sauce you won't curse me when you get to that part of the lasagna process. "Damn it Allison, now you tell me about the sauce!" <-- See it's done, so you're good :) Butternut Squash Lasagna
Adapted slightly from this recipe on Cooking Light

INGREDIENTS
3 cups chopped onion
10 cup fresh spinach
3/4 cup (3 ounces) shredded sharp provolone cheese
1/2 cup parsley flakes
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 large eggs
2 (15-ounce) carton part-skim ricotta cheese
3 cups diced peeled butternut squash
6 cups Smoky Marinara (recipe above)
12 oven-ready lasagna noodles
1 cup (4 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS
1 - Preheat oven to 375°.

2 - Heat a large Dutch oven coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat. Add onion; sauté 4 minutes or until tender. Add spinach; sauté 1 1/2 minutes or until spinach wilts.

3 - Combine provolone, parsley, salt, pepper, eggs, and ricotta cheeses in a large bowl.

4 - Place squash in a microwave-safe bowl. Cover and cook on high 5 minutes or until tender.

5 - Coat the bottom and sides of 2 (8-inch-square) baking dishes with cooking spray.

6 - Spread 1/2 cup Smoky Marinara in the bottom of one prepared dish. Arrange 2 noodles over sauce; spread 1 cup cheese mixture over noodles. Arrange 1 1/2 cups squash over cheese mixture; spread 3/4 cup sauce over squash.

7 - Arrange 2 noodles over sauce; spread 1 cup cheese mixture over the noodles. Arrange 1 1/2 cups onion mixture over cheese mixture; spread 3/4 cup sauce over spinach mixture.

8 - Arrange 2 noodles over sauce; spread 1 cup Smoky Marinara evenly over noodles. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup Parmesan.

9 - Repeat procedure with remaining ingredients in remaining pan.

10 - Cover each pan with foil. Bake at 375° for 30 minutes.

11 - Uncover and bake an additional 30 minutes.

Nutritious & Delicious - Vegetarian Spaghetti

A couple weeks ago the Hubs and I had were hanging out at home. We'd have a late lunch so around 8ish I wasn't starving, but I was hungry again and wanted a light dinner. I whipped up this little dinner because we had all the necessary ingredients on hand. Since then the Hubs has asked me to make it about 5 different times, so last night I picked up some Spaghetti Squash and mushrooms on my way home and surprised him.

Ingredients

1/4 c chopped Onion

1/4 c sliced Mushrooms

1 clove Garlic, minced

EVOO

Red Wine

2 8oz cans Tomato Sauce

12 Trader Joe's Meatless Meatballs

1/2 Spaghetti Squash

Squash Directions
1 - Cut the squash in half, longways. I have to have the Hubs do this, I'm just not strong enough.

2 - Put 1/2 of squash cut-side down in a glass baking dish with about 1/4 cup of water. Cover with plastic wrap.

3 - Microwave for 10-12 mins. You may need to microwave longer depending on the size of your squash.

4 -Use a fork to scrap and remove the squash.

Source

Sauce Directions

1 - Thinly coat the pan with EVOO and sauté onion, mushrooms and garlic in a little red wine. The longer you can sauté, the better this will taste. You may need to occasionally add water to the pan.

2 - Add Meatless Meatballs, continue cooking.

3 - Mix in tomato sauce and continue cooking until hot.

It looks like a ginormous amount of food because it's on a little plate... I promise.

Summer Corn Chowder

Before the wedding I started subscribing to MANY cooking blogs on my Google Reader. So much, in fact, that the amount of recipes I'd starred greatly over shadowed those with wedding ideas. The Hubs and I could not wait to start cooking in our very own kitchen!

This past Sunday, after spending an hour in our newly discovered Smart & Final, we cooked a delicious meal. My contribution was from a Grilled Summer Corn Chowder recipe I found on A Year in the Kitchen. I LOVE corn and this just looked to tasty not to attempt. (As you can see I made a few tweaks to her already great recipe).

Grilled Summer Corn Chowder

1 tbsp. EVOO
1 yellow onion, minced
2 garlic cloves, grated
1 yellow bell pepper, finely diced
2 large yukon gold potatoes, finely diced
2 carrots, thinly sliced
Salt and pepper
1 tsp. chili powder
4 c. vegetable stock
4 ears of grilled corn, sliced off the cobb
Splash of cream (the Hubs is lactose intolerant so we used Almond Milk)
Scallions, thinly sliced

Heat in a soup pot over medium - EVOO, garlic, chili powder, onion, garlic, bell pepper, potatoes and carrots.
Season with salt and pepper, stir and cook for 10 minutes.
Add 2 c. vegetable stock, bring to a boil and cover.
Cook until vegetables are tender, about 5-10 more minutes.
Take half of vegetables (in the pot), half of corn and 1 c. reserved vegetable stock to a blender.
Puree until smooth and thick, add vegetable stock if necessary.
Add puree back to the pot with reserved vegetables.
Add cream, almost all the remaining corn, and more stock to reach desired consistency.
Bring to a simmer, ladle into a bowl, top with remaining corn and scallions.

For the corn I boiled/steamed the 4 ears of corn for 30 mins, then cut the corn of the cob and browned it in a pan with a little olive oil and garlic (because we love garlic). It was my way of getting grilled corn without having to heat up the Weber.

** I need to learn to take better pics of my food, and WHIPE the bowl! Jeeze Allison!