I prefer sweet potatoes over regular potatoes any day. Maybe it’s the bright cheerful color, or the subtle sweetness and richness of their flavor, I don’t know. Back in the States we would cook sweet potatoes at least once a week – here, however, they are a specialty food for us and I can only justify them every once in a while. Did we have a special occasion? Not really. I just saw a roasted potato recipe on my friend Simone’s food blog and knew I had to make it with sweet potatoes. Call it a sudden craving due to the coming baby, or just a random moment of “yum, sweet potatoes would be really great in this”. Whatever the reason, I knew it was sure to be a success 
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It’s time for more ratio rally fun!! This month’s challenge kept us all up to task, making bagels! Living in Europe bagels have not been something easy to find, let alone gluten free ones, so coming up with a bagel recipe we could be happy with would certainly prove very useful. Both of us miss being able to have a toasted bagel in the morning with cream cheese, and bagel sandwiches are one of my favorite lunchtime meals.
This month’s challenge was hosted by Morri of Meals with Morri, who gave us some great recipes to start working off of – it seems there are a number of variations in bagel recipes, so there isn’t so much a defined ratio as with other baked goods. So let’s get to it!
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Methi Murgh by Prerna of Indian Simmer (used with permission)
Welcome to the April edition of naturally gluten free links from across the blogosphere!! If you are unfamiliar with this event, each month I post a roundup of naturally gluten free recipes that I find across the blogosphere that sound flavorful and delicious. By “naturally gluten free”, I mean these recipes need no alterations, they are already GF just as they are. The bloggers may not necessarily be GF, but these particular recipes are, and this month did not disappoint! I’m loving being able to find such great diversity across flavors and cultures – today’s roundup features dishes from American, Australian, Indian, French, Moroccan, Mexican, Italian, and Argentinian cuisines. It just goes to show how approachable and accessible gluten free living really can be.
This month as we see more produce making an appearance for Springtime, there’s also a general trend moving away from the heavier comfort foods to lighter fresher fare – so much so that I decided to abandon the soups category for now and instead incorporate any soups I want to share into their appropriate veggie or meat categories. We are starting to see some of my favorite flavors appear, like peas, strawberries, asparagus, and lavender.
Also I’ve decided to keep a list of all past roundups updated on my gluten free resources page – so if you want to go back and find great looking naturally GF recipes, all you have to do is visit that page to quickly access all of the monthly posts.
So without further ado, here are this month’s great looking dishes – I’m sure you are bound to find inspiration amongst these lovely plates:
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I know, I said this was a food photography post, and yet there is a pic of me and no food to be seen! Ha, but it’s the best one I’ve got of possibly one of my favorite pieces of photography equipment, and one I find myself calling essential when I do food photography – the tripod.
I first bought myself a tripod when I figured out that my tiny old apartment in grad school back in the day didn’t let in enough light and I found myself taking perpetually blurry images. I would end up wasting 50-100 frames on one image, just praying I could stay still long enough just once in order to get a picture in focus. Let me tell you, that is NOT fun! It’s much more fun to think about the photo rather than stressing out if I can hold my camera absolutely still.
But there are other advantages too – so let’s talk about the benefits of a tripod
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I never really considered myself a “healthy” cook. In truth, because I don’t feel I am qualified to know what the word “healthy” means. My Ph.D. is not in anything related to food or nutrition, nor anything that could even be remotely construed as such. To me, what seem like obviously healthy foods may not be the case for everyone – for example a banana is a pretty natural food, but to a diabetic the carb load in most bananas usually makes them off limits. So who am I to make blanket statements about which foods or meals are healthy and which are not? Everyone has different requirements and needs based on their individual situations, and I could not presume to guess what would be suitable for all. I don’t even like associating the term “gluten free” with “healthy”, because we all know that gluten free foods and products come in several different forms – and gluten free junk food is still just that – junk food. There are healthy and unhealthy items in every diet. So the best I can do is make food that accommodates the specific dietary needs of our household and share my experience with you all. I leave it to you to make your own decisions about the suitability of the food I make.
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Eggplant is one of those vegetables. I see it in the market, know I should be eating more of it, and yet, am usually stumped as to ideas of what to actually do with it. It’s never a fast cooking vegetable, so I know I will need to put in some time and effort for whatever comes of it. My favorite way to eat it is battered and pan-fried, but I can’t be enjoying that too regularly as I have no willpower for such deliciousness Luckily, the beauty of eggplant is also its versatility. I know I can do more with it and will enjoy it, if I just think a bit and dare to try something new.
But trying something new is easier said than done, no? Stepping into the unknown, not knowing where it will lead… As a scientist, I live and find comfort in control. When everything is kept the same except for that one part I want to investigate, I know exactly where the different results arise from. In science, if you know the right questions to ask and can find a well controlled approach to solve those problems, you’re generally on track to gaining new insights. And it all stems from being able to control everything else. When too much is out of your control, you really have no idea where to begin to find those answers.
Being in control tells me I am in charge and can lead the direction. When I cook, especially gluten free, I take that same mindset from the lab and apply that approach to the kitchen. I have notebooks of ingredients and measurements that I’ve tried, and when something doesn’t work out perfectly, I systematically alter the ratios of ingredients to find the best combinations. When I cook, I find comfort in knowing how certain ingredients play together – for example basil and tomatoes will always be a fantastic marriage, no matter what dish they are combined in. There are rules to cooking because in the end, cooking is just an extension of chemistry. Ingredients behave according to their relative amounts of each other, just like molecules in a chemical reaction (it really is all about ratios). I like knowing that rules exist for the kitchen – the more I learn what those rules are, the more I can use them to achieve what I want on our dinner plate. To me, the process of discovery while cooking is really not all that different from the same process that I use in my day to day life at work.
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