I’m currently reading Medieval Tastes: Food, Cooking, and the Table, written by food historian Dr. Massimo Montanari. Dr. Montanari, within the context of discussing the history of medieval food and cooking, notes that in contemporary times we try to “authenticate the present by recalling the past, to legitimize what we are making now by saying…
Breads
Savory Gluten-Free Amaranth Flatbread with Avocado and Smoked Olive Oil
She answered, “As the LORD, your God, lives, I have nothing baked; there is only a handful of flour in my jar and a little oil in my jug. Just now I was collecting a couple of sticks,to go in and prepare something for myself and my son; when we have eaten it, we shall die.” Elijah said to…
Make These Gluten-Free Cocoa Jelly Muffins For Mom
This morning I heard a guest on a radio show tell about his mother’s ultimate sacrifice: her life. This guest, Frank Grunwald, was imprisoned in Auschwitz with his mother, father, and older brother when he was only eleven years old. Although the Indianapolis Star tells Mr. Grunwald’s story in full, it doesn’t tell why Mr….
Walnut Flour: Your New Best Gluten-Free Friend
Years ago, when we still had cable (and before she sadly fell out of culinary and social grace), I regularly watched Paula Deen’s show on Food Network. Although she doesn’t cook gluten-free, some of her recipes were inspirational and could be deglutenized. Now, I have to digress here and say something about Ms Deen. Even…
Do You Want to Jazz Up Your Gluten-Free Sourdough Bread?
Use mesquite flour! I’ve blogged about this unusual gluten-free flour several times, and I recently wrote an article about mesquite flour in Texas for Edible Austin magazine, but it is such an interesting ingredient that I find it worth another post! The flour milled from pods harvested from trees that many people view as a…
Fasting Bread: Rajgira Paratha (Gluten-Free, Grain-Free Amaranth Flatbread)
Amaranth flour has been my new best friend for months, now. Referred to as an ancient grain, amaranth flour is actually a pseudo-grain from the Chenopodiaceae family of plants: a family that includes spinach, swiss chard, and beets. True grains (such as wheat, barley, corn, and sorghum) are from the Graminae family of plants. Amaranth, though a seed…
Super Simple Solution for Your Gluten-Free Flour Tortilla Fix
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Severin states in his grand work The Physiology of Taste (a delightful book which I recently began reading, and that I recommend to everyone whose love for food leans as much toward the philosophical as to the epicurean side) that “good living is an act of intelligence, by which we choose things which…
Gluten-Free, Grain-Free Sourdough Blueberry Muffins
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. (C….
Baking Gluten-Free Sourdough Bread, Made Easy
Something about a perfectly bubbly sourdough starter is satisfying. Just two ingredients, water and flour, leads to bubbles, increase of substance, and life. Then when added to a few more ingredients, it aids in the creation of a satisfying loaf of bread. Gluten-free sourdough bread is even more satisfying in that it’s not kneaded and…
