Let the Gluten Free Adventures Begin!

Since being told I should try out gluten free, life has seemed just a little bit more complicated. There's none of that "I'm tired and don't feel like cooking so I'll just make a sandwich" anymore since, even if I can find a delicious gluten free premade bread without eggs, most fake vegan meat is made with gluten. So I again apologize in advance for a longer period between posts.

But to recap what's been going on lately, here are a few things I've been trying:

A pumpkin spice latte:

Personally I don't drink coffee - don't like the taste, the caffeine, and it tends to make me pretty sick after, but Seth happens to be a big coffee drinker so when I saw this recipe for a vegan pumpkin spice latte I knew I had to try it! I tried a little sip after topping it with Soyatoo and some cinnamon sugar and thought it was pretty delicious and considering Seth drank about 4 cups of it, I'd say it was a hit.

Next up is my organization of all our gluten free flours:

Yes, this is what your kitchen will look like if you go gluten free and yes, you will find yourself searching down countless aisles at the grocery store for mysterious ingredients like Sorghum flour and Xantham Gum. Whether some, or any, of these will help make delicious meals still stands to be seen.

It was a pretty relaxing weekend at our house, for once, and a much needed one at that - but as much as I crave relaxing weekends, when I actually have one I find myself slightly jittery. My foot starts tapping, I start searching around frantically for something to do and yes, I recognize this is probably something that means I need to take yoga or some form of meditation, but regardless, it happens. So what better way to spend a "relaxing" day than by crafting?

My coworker's wife is having a baby and their baby shower is this weekend so a few of my female coworkers and I decided to get together and get them a gift. I took on the task of actually braving Babies R' Us and while I was at it decided to try my hand at making a diaper cake for the first time. Here's how it turned out:

The company we work for happens to have some ties to owls, hence the theme of the cake. They're made of felt and stuffed! Overall I thought it came out pretty cute - maybe I have a future in diaper cake making?

And finally, I'll leave you with our most recent attempt at gluten free vegan cooking: spinach and artichoke souffles from here

Happiest of Halloweens to You (Slightly late)!

So I've been slacking lately on my posts - you know it, I know it, but I promise there's an explanation. I recently got a food allergy test and, while there's nothing I'm violently allergic to, I have a lot of slight intolerances (sesame, peanuts, cashews, yeast, gluten, and wheat to name a few) which have resulted in my doctor telling me to adopt a gluten free diet and avoid all those other little ingredients.

Cue panic-stricken Heather here.

I don't have the slightest idea of how to even begin to go gluten free, yet alone of how to make any sort of cheesy, creamy vegan sauce without cashews or nutritional yeast, and thus I haven't posted anything because I've basically been eating salad and potatoes and cowering in the corner.

But I knew I needed at least one last Halloween post, even if I haven't posted it until November.

Here it is - jack o'lantern personal pizzas on a cornmeal crust

The crust was straight out of the Uncheese Cookbook and these lovely little guys are topped with pepper and pepperoni to make their festive faces.

We also were lucky enough to have the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival this past weekend and to get to sample all of their goodies. One thing we picked up was this adorable gluten free, vegan pumpkin spice cake because I mean, seriously, how cute is that pumpkin on top?

And then, for my first fully gluten free vegan meal attempt, mac and cheese with Tinkyada pasta, balsamic roasted potatoes, and steamed asparagus!

I pulled the balsamic roasted recipe from here and the mac and cheese recipe from here because I'm not quite talented enough in the gluten free world to try to make anything myself yet! But all in all I was pretty impressed with the pasta, though it was a bit mushy and the whole starchiness thing while cooking threw me off a bit. Still, it tasted pretty good!