Yes, that is “evil gluten” bread in the photo above. You may be wondering, why, on a declared gluten free blog, am I posting am image of gluteny bread???
As I’m sure many of you know (and if not feel free to check out my about page), my husband is gluten free. Through the years of sharing our lives together we have come to enjoy learning how to cook and try out several types of GF dishes, from easy naturally gluten free meals to more complicated baked goods, including my many failures in mastering GF puff pastry.
But me, personally? You may not have realized that I actually do not have any issues with gluten. My husband is the one with the intolerance/sensitivity. And we have developed a system of habits in our home that do allow us to be a mixed GF/gluten home without incident to my husband. I’m not a doctor and I’m not saying what we do should be practiced by everyone, and certainly we will re-evaluate when the baby arrives and we get a handle on her sensitivities (or hopefully lack thereof) – and certainly there are some situations where such a practice is not feasible and an entire residence must be GF for the health of those affected, but here’s a little explanation of what we do.
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This dish may be called bruschetta, but to me it is really all about the pesto. Maybe it’s because in my mind, bruschetta has always been a tomato based topping while growing up, and so it seems a bit weird to me to call this bruschetta, when there are no tomatoes. So instead, to me, this is an open-faced sandwich with pesto, mozz, and prosciutto (which only my husband could enjoy since cured meats are off limits for me for a while at least until the baby arrives). But hey, no matter what the nomenclature should be (and thanks to a friend I now know that bruschetta is be a very generic term for things served on bread in Italian, so calling this bruschetta is totally correct), it is a very tasty snack.
The slice of GF bread was fried in our grill pan with some butter, and then pesto was spread on, and topped with a few slices of buffalo mozzarella and some slices of prosciutto. This particular recipe called for arugula and basil as the base to the pesto, which was a nice combination. Personally, I think pesto can be made out of whatever greens you have around. No need to go for pricey basil when you could have spinach, or kale, or arugula, or a whole host of different greens. Parsley also works well for a nice bright and fresh flavor. As for the pine nuts, I don’t think pesto needs to be so particular about those either. I’ve easily substituted in walnuts, cashews, even sesame seeds. Can’t have cheese? No worries, just leave out the grated parm. I think pesto can be extremely flexible in that sense – the only thing I won’t compromise on is garlic, because well, garlic is the main reason I make pesto in the first place 
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Happy Valentine’s Day!
I’m not really one for mushy gushy romance, and so like most other “greeting card holidays” (i.e. holidays I feel were made popular just to perpetuate the need to spend money on treats and cards), I simply use it as a good excuse to cook some tasty food (and for my husband’s gluten issues it is often much more convenient and enjoyable for us to cook than try to go out anyways). In fact, my husband and I already “celebrated” Valentine’s Day this past weekend, cause work nights make it difficult to spend much time together relaxing.
We spent a lazy day together this weekend, with an indulgent dinner of buckwheat crêpes filled with braised duck, fennel, and chestnuts, and dessert of chocolate fondue and fresh fruit ( my favorite!). After all, this may be our last quiet alone Valentine’s together, and while I am very much looking forward to our upcoming parenthood, I also wanted to cherish some quality together, just the two of us, for one more “holiday”.
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Forgive me for yet another soup recipe, but we are going on week two of not even coming close to escaping sub-freezing temps here, and soup just has that way of warming you up – the wind is blustering outside, frost snowflakes are whipping at your face and you realize that you are doubting the efficacy of all that cold weather gear wrapped around you, wondering if you’ve accidentally misplaced yourself and suddenly ended up amidst an Antarctic expedition in a condition 1 blizzard. Ok, clearly I am being overly dramatic. But it did dip to below -20º C (-4º F) in several parts of Switzerland last weekend, and in my book, that’s cold. And that type of cold calls for soup.
As I sit here in my home, safely sheltered from the unforgiving chill outside, I remember that I love winter. I love it for getting an excuse to cuddle up with my husband and a cup of tea, under a blanket together watching a movie. I love the familiar comfort of wearing my grandmother’s woolen scarf and knowing that even though she was buried a long time ago and her body rests on the other side of the world, her spirit is always with me, and that scarf will always bring me the happiest memories of her. And I love winter for the way my breath decorates the air with a miniature cloud upon every exhale, as if the very air were spinning a tale to tell us all by a warm fire. And I love it for the snow, and the way it sparkles in the sunshine.
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These were supposed to be gluten free chocolate popovers. Popovers are like muffins but rise more and have more air inside, hence they “pop over” the tin they are baked in. As you can see, I didn’t quite get all the kinks worked out by the deadline for this month’s ratio rally
This month, Mrs. R from Honey from Flinty Rocks challenged us all to make popovers – and as Erin mentioned on twitter last week, this challenge is not for the faint of heart! Whereas muffins are downright easy to make gluten free because they are dense and cakey, popovers depend on trapping air so that they can rise a LOT and be fluffy, which can be a bit difficult without that gluten in there to help keep the air locked in.
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I want to thank everyone who entered for such an amazing turnout and quality of entries – there were 61 – yes, 61!! – total submissions for this month’s DMBLGIT. I had such a great time hosting this month’s event and getting to see all of your wonderful images – you all truly are so inspiring, thanks so much for entering and letting me host this month. And thanks so much to Sarka, Simone, Veronika and Alessandro for being such great judges and putting forth the time and effort to go through all of the entries.
Not sure what DMBLGIT is? Read my announcement post from earlier this month detailing the event.
You can also read about and meet the judges for this month’s event.
You can also check out the Picasa album to see all the 61 submissions.
So without further ado, let’s see who won!
Overall Winners:
1st Place: Monika from Sweet Sensation: Cranberry & Rosemary Shortbread Cookies
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