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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Read the rest of Amateur’s Food Photography: 3 Reasons I Love My 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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These Wednesdays when we do ratio rally reveals easily makes the first week of the month my favorite week ever.  Every single rally offers up a new delicious array of inspiration from all the participants – and I look forward to these events not just for the chance to learn and play with new recipes, but also to enjoy all of the fabulousness that everyone else creates.  And this month I am sure is no exception, as we got an extra tasty challenge – brownies!!

This challenge was hosted by the wonderful Mary Fran of Frannycakes.  Honestly, I did not do much recipe development this time as a little over a year ago I had the serendipitous pleasure of stumbling across an ingredient combination that my husband and I absolutely loved – a very dense, chewy, almost like a fudgey cookie – a dark chocolate brownie based off of nut meal and cocoa.  Since it has become our go-to recipe for all things brownie, all I had to do was convert the ingredients to units of weight and have fun

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Read the rest of The Ratio Rally Makes Brownies!

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It’s time for the 3rd edition of my naturally gluten free roundup series! In case you are unfamiliar with my series, it is the monthly event where I select some of the best and most exciting naturally GF recipes that I have found across the interwebs in the past month. The blogs featured here may not necessarily be GF, but these particular recipes are, and I think these recipes look outstanding!

Strawberry Gazpacho by Lisa of With Style and Grace (used with permission)

Why do I create this round up each month? I want to feature naturally GF recipes that I find to show the world the diversity of gluten free foods – that there are many foods people like and enjoy every day are actually free from gluten without any substitutions required. Hopefully GF and non-GF folk alike can appreciate this, that not all gluten free food has to be weird or mysterious. Also, I do this to illustrate that not all GF food has to be filled with exotic or hard to find ingredients, and that many great dishes can be made without having to rely on expensive prepackaged GF products. While my husband and I do use some GF products, we tend to save those for a special treat – and instead for our day to day living, we focus on cooking as naturally gluten free as possible – why? it’s easier, we like focusing on fresh food, and there’s no need to worry about some “mix” being as good or not as the “real thing”.

So what do we have this month? As we are transitioning from Winter into Spring, we are starting to see more greens (and even some new fruits) appearing, but there is still a prevalence of good hearty cool weather dishes like stews and roasts. One food blogging event this month, the IndianFoodPalooza hosted by Barbara, Prerna and Kathy, allowed me to explore several different types of Indian flavors and remind me that several cultures prepare lots of great naturally gluten free foods. And for desserts, it seems this was the month for cake! From flourless cupcakes to cakes made from almonds (even Dorie Greenspan blogged a naturally GF recipe!), showing once again that there is no shortage of ways to make even desserts (and even cakes!) that are naturally gluten free.

Enjoy!

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I have very little experience with Indian food.  A couple of times I’ve gone out to eat at an Indian restaurant, but even then I can count those experiences on just one hand.  Why? I’m not really sure.  Every time I’ve had a chance to taste Indian food I’ve enjoyed it, and much of it is naturally gluten free – another bonus.  Maybe I just never got enough exposure to feel confident enough in what I was doing to try to cook it.  But really, when has that ever stopped me? I mean, most of the things I’ve made for this blog have been a bit of an adventure in the totally new and unfamiliar – whether it be new flavors, new ingredients (jerusalem artichokes anyone?), or even new techniques to experiment with.

So when Barbara, Prerna, and Kathy decided to host #IndianFoodPalooza in order to encourage more people to try making Indian food, I knew this was the perfect opportunity to take advantage of and get me out of my comfort zone a bit.  But wow, India has such varied culture and cuisine, where and how to choose what to make?  I decided to go for more southern recipes, as I knew they would have more chance of being naturally gluten free, and I didn’t want to try to focus on figuring out substitutions as well as new cuisine.  I gravitated towards recipes with coconut flavors because, well, I love coconut – did a little searching online and came across a shrimp dish with coconut curry that I just knew I had to try!

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Ha, I know what you’re thinking – duh, of course an omelette is gluten free! Why are you calling something that never had gluten to begin with a gluten free recipe?  Well, there’s a reason and a story to go with this one, I promise.

It all started with a discussion on the merit of naturally gluten free recipes – by naturally gluten free, I mean recipes that never required any alterations in the first place for a GF person to be able to enjoy them.  Take, for an example, the recipes I link to in my naturally gluten free roundup posts.  But do GF people actually find such recipes valuable? Do you really want someone giving you “yet another freaking salad” recipe (as my husband so lovingly refers to green salads with little else in them….)? What about other dishes that are naturally gluten free?

It may seem like a simple question but it is not – after a bit of a side tangent discussion on Dianne Jacob’s recent post about recipe adaptions, I decided that this topic needed a bit more attention.  Flo made a comment about recipe originality in respect to gluten free recipe development – how she has seen people take something that never had gluten in it to begin with, such as an omelette, and claim it as a grand new GF invention.  And from there people got talking about what exactly is the place of naturally gluten free recipes? Do they belong on blogs? What about in cookbooks? If you are GF do you actually want to see and read such recipes to be shown easy and practical ways to live a GF lifestyle, or do you consider them trivial and a waste of space?

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Read the rest of A Gluten Free French Omelette

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