Okay, LOOK! I Like Cookie Dough. Okay? I like eating cookie dough so that there aren't actual cookies left in the end. But, duh! It's tasty. Ok? okay.

My Niece Getting to Know Her New Baby Brother, 2 summers ago

So, I have two older sisters, and they each have two kids. But one of my sister's two kids are BOTH gluten intolerant. Can you believe it? For the longest time I thought that meant they were facing a life with no pasta, no bread, no pie with pie crust, no cake, no crackers, no anything with wheat in it, which, in North America, is like EVERYTHING. So, they were facing a life with no everything. And I honestly mean that "facing a life with no everything" bit, cause not only are her kids allergic to gluten, they're also allergic to eggs, nuts, soy, corn, shellfish, and beans. In other words, they're allergic to everything.

Well. Except meat. They're both allergic to everything but meat. Oh! And rice. They can eat rice. How's that for all those political vegans or vegetarians out there, eh? What do you do when someone you love is allergic to basically everything but meat and rice. People cannot survive on rice alone, and all that.

When I first found out YEARS ago that my niece couldn't eat anything, it was hard for me to wrap my head around what she COULD eat, cause when you move to Alaska to care for your 3-year old niece, and your 5-year old daughter, while the rest of the extended family travels out to the Western Coast to hunt and kill salmon (oh! these two can also eat salmon) for the summer, and you're left all alone in a town now emptied of every single person you know beyond the two kids, because everyone you know is out chasing the fish, well, suddenly it seems important to figure out what the kids CAN eat. It turns out having a list of what a person CAN'T eat doesn't help much. It just excludes what seems like the entire world of food from your range of possibilities, and that ginormous hole of missing food doesn't really help fill itself in, does it? In other words, you need a list of what people CAN eat too.

List of What My Niece and Nephew Can Actually Eat
1. Meat
2. Rice
3. Salmon

There. Better. Now we're clear. Three ingredients for the entire summer.

It was hell. Honest. I'd make us picnic lunches by which I'd try reshaping the food to make it SEEM like we were eating new and exciting foods everyday, but honestly, it was just meat, rice, and salmon. Did I mention no spices either?

Anyway, here's the point. My sister has turned into a wunder-Mädchen with a much much longer list that now looks like this:

Updated List of What My Niece and Nephew Can Actually Eat
1. Meat
2. Rice
3. Salmon
4. Baked Goods

Do you see how much better that actually is?

Wait, what?! Baked goods? Yes, she's mastered the art of gluten free baked goods. To try and re-imagine my own possible world of eating, I decided to try following in her food-steps to test out some gluten free baked good recipes myself.

Here's the thing, it turns out you need like 15 different kinds of gluten free flours, plus 5 kinds of binding agents before you can bake anything resembling anything. And, experimentation no longer works. Balancing our 342 different kinds of gluten free dry goods to create a consistency similar to that offered by 1 gluten-packed flour is tricky. So, just do what the recipe says. I should have photographed my first attempt--fruit pie with gluten free pie crust--so you'd get the picture. JUST DO WHAT THE RECIPE SAYS.

Now, having told you that. I just made these:

Gluten Free Lemon and Almond Meltaways
image from cannelle et vanille

To be clear, that picture is NOT of the cookies I just made. No. No. That picture is one taken by a professional baking blogger photographer. Duh. It's gorgeous. The original recipe, is found at the baking blog Cannelle et Vanille, and though it requires converting from grams, the result is loverly. Honest.

But here's my warning: (can we get that in bold red letter flashing?)

Strangely, her recipe actually turns out to make only something like 3 lone cookies to roll in that pile of powdered sugar at the end. Weird, isn't it? You might have to lick your fingers to more effectively scoop up some of the left over powdered sugar you hauled out to roll the baked cookies in at the end. Be careful doing this though. It might hurt your tummy after you've already eaten 12 cookies worth of dough during the mixing process. Gluten baking turns out to be tricky. Very tricky.

Vegan Cookie Carine Hell Yeah!

For Matt, who is the Carine to my Daphne. With love, from your friend, Elaine

Carine
images from fashionfascista

Below--the cookies mentioned in Number 2 of my Recovery list. Don't trick yourself into thinking this means I'm making them yet. I'm still too tired. But y'all enjoy!


The Ultimate Old-Fashioned Chocolate Chip Cookie New Fashioned Vegan Style
Recipe a variation of the original from Rosemary Serviss

1 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats, toasted and ground to a coarse meal in a food processor (blender, whatever; instructions below)
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup whole raw almonds, toasted and chopped, optional (instructions below)
1 cup chocolate chips (vegan ones, if you're strict like that)
1/2 cup canola oil (I've used olive oil to good success too)
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla syrup (because duh! yum)

1. To prepare oats: distribute oats evenly on a baking sheet, and bake them at 350 F until lightly colored. This should take 5 to 6 minutes in the middle of the oven. Let cool slightly. Then grind into a coarse meal. To prepare almonds: spread evenly on a baking sheet and bake at 350 F in the middle of the oven until fragrant and lightly colored. Takes about 8 to 10 minutes. Allow to cool enough to touch, then chop coarsely. Yum.

2. Preheat over to 375 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and set aside.

3. Mix ground oats, flour, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl. Stir well. Add nuts and chocolate chips, then stir again.

4. Combine oil, syrup and vanilla in a small bowl (don't pretend to be efficient by skipping this and just chucking it all into the first bowl. It'll mix all yucky. You don't want that. These are too yum for that.). Whisk vigorously until emulsified (air bubbles in the liquid little bit). Make a little indent in the dry ingredients, and pour the wet ingredients into the indent. Stir the wet and dry ingredients together just until the wet is absorbed by the dry. Do not over mix. If the dough seems too sticky to handle, put into the fridge for 15 minutes, and then proceed.

5. Drop round tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets and 1 1/2 inches apart. Flatten dough with fingers until they are about 1/3 inch thick. Smooth the edges so they cook evenly. (Since there is no butter, this dough will not spread when cooking. So, you must pre-shape the cookies for the to bake properly.)

6. Bake one sheet at a time until cookies are lightly browned on bottom. About 15 to 18 minutes. Transfer cookies onto a rack and allow them to cool completely (they'll be crumbly until then). Repeat with remaining dough.

Beetroot Yum with Disturbing Faux-Mouse Imagery

Feel free to make me this anytime. I haven't tried it yet. And maybe I want to ask you to substitute coconut milk (the drinkable kind) for the dairy in this, and I-don't-frickin'-know-what instead of the eggs, cause I'm vegan (unless people from out of town are visiting and they keep pushing cheese! cheese! at me). So, maybe just TELL ME you did all that substituting and we'll overlook the lies? But seriously, go ahead. Doesn't this sound good? (I love beetroots.)

Beet Ice Cream
Recipe Courtesy of Chef Patrick Fahy
Blackbird Restaurant, Chicago

Recipe found on shesimmers.com.

Rather disturbing picture of beet ice cream served with some sort of chocolate something or other, and figs. Figs are yum.
image from blackbirdrestaurant.com

5-6 medium beets, peeled and cubed
438 g heavy cream
750 g whole milk
250 g granulated sugar
4 g salt
30 g nonfat milk powder
325 g egg yolks

• Juice about one cup of beet juice; set aside the pulp. (If you don't have a juicer: blend the beets in a blender with just enough water to get the blades going; strain, keeping the juice, and save the pulp.)
  
• Let the juice simmer over medium-low heat until it reduces to about 1/4 cup. Strain the beet juice reduction and set aside.
• Meanwhile, gently heat the cream, milk, and sugar in a large heavy-bottomed pot. Add the beet pulp to the cream and continue to heat the cream mixture for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally.
• Put the egg yolks in a large mixing bowl and place it close to the cream mixture. Quickly whisk in 3-4 ladles of the hot cream mixture into the egg yolk to bring the temperature of the yolks closer to that of the cream. Pour the tempered yolk mixture back into the cream pot and continue to heat, whisking occasionally, until the temperature falls between 70 °C (156 °F) and 85 °C (185 °F).
• Take the ice cream base off the heat and strain.
• Since some of the liquid evaporates during heating, you need to add more milk to restore the original weight of 1.763 kilograms (1.438 g of cream-milk-sugar mixture + 325 g yolks). Once that is done, add the milk powder and salt to the ice cream base and mix well. Whisk in the strained beet juice reduction. Strain the mixture once more, if necessary. Then leave the mixture to cool in an ice bath.
• Churn the ice cream base in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Freeze.
• This recipe yields approximately 3 quarts of ice cream.

You see now why I ask you to make it for me? Dear lord, it sounds like a lot of work. Add this to my list of things to do when I have a whole week of free time. (Winter break?)

Also, Miss Sasha, won't you just come visit during a time when I too have a break so we can make and eat things like this? I'll make it. I'll make it.

The Soy Milk Taste Test

Milk was some compulsive act for me as a little kid. My memory includes being endlessly thirsty, thinking water tasted like dirt, and loving the sweet cream of whole milk. As an adult, I can't bear it. Liquid dairy leaves a horrible after taste, and just doesn't appeal. I live with a nine-year old, however, and she's a little closer to that compulsion I recall living with. Usually I deal with this by alternating types of milk--dairy for her occasionally, almond, hemp, soy, oat, each time a different type (Rice milk upsets my stomach, and let's face it, it's damn watery anyway). We realized though that we'd like to know which soy when we hit the fourth notch of the cycle, and so this morning we did a blind soy milk taste test with four brands. Here are the results.

Conditions:

• Four brands--all original flavor
• A small amount of each poured into a red mug
  
• Order of mugs matched to order of soy boxes poured from
• Soy boxes left in kitchen; taste test in living room
  
• Taste in random order
• Report taste notes
• Rate by order of preference

Results:

1. Pacific Natural Foods, Ultra Soy, Plain

Rachel's Results (the 9-year old opinion):

• tastes like two types of nut
• taste lasts longer in mouth than other soy milks
  
• rating: 3-4 out of 5 (5 being mega yum; 1 being absence of yum)
  

Elaine's Results (the I'm tired but care opinion):

• strong taste immediately
• sweetest of the milks
• very creamy
• a dessert beverage

2. Soy Dream Soy Milk, Original Classic

Rachel's Results:

• smells good
• vanilly
• 4 out of 5
• good for breakfast
• but could work for lunch

Elaine's Results:

• creamy
• nutty taste
• touch of sweetness
• flat, bland taste

3. West Soy, Organic Soymilk, Original

Rachel's Results:

• almondy
• would work for lunch
• good for dinner
• 4 out of 5

Elaine's Results:

• toasted oat flavor
• creamy texture (most appealing texture)
• touch of sweetness
• very slight hint of fruit
• most interesting complexity of flavor
• would definitely drink as regular soy milk buy

4. Organic, Eden Soy, Original Soymilk

Rachel's Results:

• slight almond taste
• 2-3 out of 5

Elaine's Results:

• dry toasted nut flavor
• watery flavor that manages to dry out the tongue
• bland, not interesting
• monotone taste

The definite winner was Westsoy, Rachel and I agreed. She said she liked Soy Dream just as well though, but that they had very different flavors. If you're asking me to write a personality taste based on soymilk preference: I'll admit, I have no idea.

How to Spend the U.S. Holiday Weekend

Avocado Ahdi
adapted from Molly Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook recipe

2 small avocados, cubed
1/2 cup finely chopped red pepper
1/4 cup finely chopped yellow pepper
1/4 cup cucumber--de-seeded and skinned
1/4 cup each: tomato, carrot, red onion--all chopped finely
1/8 cup Spanish olive, with pimentos removed--chopped finely
1 lime (the juice)
salt, pepper, hot sauce to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil

side dish of white truffle oil, if you can get it--this stuff is amazing

Combine all ingredients, mixed in a bowl. Add the avocados last, so as to not smoosh them too much (or they'll look all brown and gooky). You can serve the whole thing in the avocado shells, if you wanna be fancy. Or, serve on spinach leaves. Either way, eat with bread or crackers, dipped in the white truffle oil.

I make this minus the onions sometimes, if I want a slightly lighter taste. This is a super addictive dish, but is also good for you. The olives, olive oil, and avocados are all high in mono-unsaturated fats, which apparently helps lower LDL (bad) cholesterol, and possibly increasing HDL (good) cholesterol.

fyi: white truffle oil has a slightly lighter, smoother taste than the black truffle oil. both are amazing.

Dressing for Drinks

I've decided it's an appropriate goal to go to the next party dressed as a cosmopolitan. You know, that brilliant red, and well-draped dress atop an incredible stem of legs, with an accent of color--either green or yellow--in the shoes, or some other well placed accessory. I'll work on it.

In the meantime, following is the cosmopolitan recipe I've been recommended. The secret, apparently, is the Grand Marnier.

Top Shelf Cosmopolitan

1 fluid ounce Grand Marnier
1 fluid ounce Triple Sec
1 fluid ounce Citron Vodka
1 fluid ounce cranberry juice
1 lime twist

Pour all ingredients, except the lime twist, into a cocktail shaker over ice. Cover, and shake until the outside of the shaker has frosted. Strain into a chilled martini glass, and garnish with a lime twist to serve.