Category: In the Kitchen

Last Minute Gluten-Free Holiday Baking

The holidays come around and I start planning dessert (not that I eat processed sugar, but that’s another post). I can’t help it. I married a chocoholic and evidently that’s catching.

As the countdown to Christmas continues, we’ve been busy baking in the kitchen. Here are links to two delicious gluten-free treats that we’ve made to share with friends this holiday season.

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

Quick, easy (just four ingredients!) and super yummy, we gobbled down these peanut butter cookies and even made a second batch cause they tasted so good. Incredibly delicious (and high calorie), they are dangerous to have around the house. Thank you to David for bringing the rest into work to share with his coworkers. I don’t need the temptation. So. Very. Tasty.

Peppermint Bark

I’ve always been a sucker for the chocolate and mint flavor combination. My favorite childhood treat? York peppermint patties. (Okay, and Entenmann’s crumb donuts! I haven’t eaten one in fifteen years, but my mouth is watering just thinking about it. I love those coffee-cake crumbles.)

In my mind, pairing candy canes with chocolate, whether it be hot chocolate (a great way to infuse mint into your cup as your candy cane melts!) or white and dark chocolate for peppermint bark, makes for the ultimate holiday indulgence.

Thanks to fantastic recipes on the internet, peppermint bark doesn’t have to be pricey or contain synthetic dyes (thanks to more natural candy canes!). In fact, making bark can be simple and downright inexpensive depending on your ingredients. I couldn’t locate peppermint extract in our small town grocery store to make the Bon Appétit version that Amanda loves, so I used a more simplistic recipe instead and it turned out just fine.

Super easy, with just three ingredients, this simple peppermint bark recipe makes for a kid-friendly baking experience that’s fun (hammers are involved!) and each step along the way tastes delicious. (Not that we were sampling. Ahem.)

Plus it looks so fine wrapped up ready to gift!

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Hot Chocolate and Ginger Snaps

When I think of David’s grandma, I immediately remember her love of dessert. Strawberry desserts, chocolate desserts, pretty much any type of dessert.

When eating out, she would purposefully order a small meal in order to leave plenty of room for dessert. We love this about her.

When he was a child, my husband remembers occasionally stopping at his grandma’s house after school during the holiday season and indulging in hot chocolate and gingersnap cookies. To him, chocolate and ginger smell of Christmas.

In her memory, we brought the tradition of hot chocolate and gingersnaps alive this weekend.

Our daughter, who inherited the dessert-loving gene, savored every moment of our special snack.

Cheers to Grandma! We love and miss you.

Looking Almost as Organized

Time for a pantry update!

This fall I organized our pantry. To refresh your memory, here’s a shot from back in September before I whipped it into shape:

Here’s a view of it immediately after I cleaned and purged the pantry, got rid of the bulk foods baggies by organizing bulk items and spices in to jars, and labeled everything with chalk ink:

Here it is two months later after a big shop (so stuffed to the brim!) and not too disorganized:

There may be fewer items put in jars and neatly labeled, but overall it’s still organized and I find that finding items remains relatively easy. Success!

I had a feeling that since I promised to show you pictures of the pantry every few months the pressure would be on and I could keep it tidy. :)

As a bonus to this post, I thought it would be fun to give you a glimpse into our fridge, which truth be told is actually quite organized these days.

Top shelf: water, apple and grape juice, milk, sourdough bread (for David and Miss Leyba), goat cheese (behind) and leftover (really old) smoothie (whoops!).

Second shelf: eggs, juice boxes, leftover polenta, tofu, milk; cheese (blue, Monterrey jack, and cheddar), garlic, and ginger in the cheese drawer.

Third shelf: more eggs, yogurt, potatoes, yams beer (behind, for David), limes (behind, for squeezing into my water), veggie dogs (for David and the peanut; I haven’t been able to find gluten-free ones for me yet).

Crispers drawers: carrots, cauliflower, cucumber, celery, onions, lemons.

Can you tell I visited Costco this week?! (Hence the multitude of (mostly local) dairy products!) I think we’ll have to make a fritata to get through those eggs and I have plans for a veggie intensive cheddar mac and cheese with all that cauliflower (from an article called healthy comfort foods! Bring it!).

Nom nom.

What are your meal plans for the week? I need help. Easy, quick and vegetarian, please.

Applesauce Friday

Another post in our First on Friday series where we share a new activity from the week season.

Suddenly winter has come to wine country: cool weather and lots of rain. We’re finally packing away the summer clothes and cooking warming foods on the stove.

We’ve been making lots of applesauce, a new something for the whole family. It turns out that applesauce making is incredibly easy and delicious. So easy and delicious that I can’t believe I waited until I was thirty years old to try it. And so easy and delicious that I will never buy jarred applesauce again.

Here’s what you do:

Peel, core and dice up a couple apples. Throw them in a sauce pan with a little apple juice or water. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat and simmer for 15-25 minutes until the apples begin to fall apart. Mash the apple mixture up with a fork. Taste. Nearly die from the deliciousness. Run out to buy more apples to make more applesauce. (Just kidding. About the last part anyhow.)

You have got to give applesauce making a try!

As my friend Sarah Gilbert says, “It’s such a feeling of power and revelation, isn’t it?” She nailed it. Oh, yes, it is! That’s exactly what it’s all about. Not only does cooking from scratch taste better, but it feels so satisfying.

I have apples in the fridge. I think I’ll go make some applesauce to eat with breakfast. Excuse me.

And the Cooking Begins…

Here we go! We’re gearing up for Thanksgiving.

Each year I so enjoy the ritual of cooking for Thanksgiving: refining the menu, making the master shopping list, doing the shopping, starting the cooking, realizing we’re missing ingredients (it’s only gotten worse with age!), heading to the store, cooking some more, savoring the time spent cooking together as a family and the delicious meal we create and share.



So, we’ve planned the menu and shopped.

We’re now ready to start cooking. First up, making stock and cornbread for tomorrows stuffing.

Here’s my little helper, excited to help and dressed to cook:

Miss Leyba loves wearing fun costumes. After already getting dressed for the day, she decided she needed to wear a swimsuit on top. Why not?! I think it makes the outfit.

Excuse us, we’ve got some cooking to do.