Vegan Almond Flour Pancakes

There is no rhyme or reason to my posts right now. I'm trying so many different things, it's hard to keep them straight. But this recipe was so good, I had to put it online or I would lose it. Again. I made these a few weeks ago when I was experimenting with different pancake recipes. We loved them. But instead of saving the recipe, I just printed it out. Then I lost the paper. This happens a lot now. I run upstairs then stare blindly, trying to recall why I hefted up the stairs to begin with. Entering your fifties is not for the timid.

I looked everywhere in my documents folder but couldn't find it. I was panic-stricken! The best pancake recipe on earth and I lost it. Curses. Then I caught a clue and went through my online history. No small task, considering how many websites and recipes I've been reviewing in the past month.

It resides on The Daily Dietribe. I am getting this woman's recipe book. I don't know who she is yet, but I will find out and buy it. I think I'm starting to feel the same way about this website as I do about The Gluten Free Goddess. Kitchen wizards!

These pancakes are fantastic. Her original recipe post is extremely detailed and helpful, explaining which flours work best and how to adjust liquid amounts depending upon your flour choice. Check it out.

Vegan Almond Flour Pancakes

Adapted from GF Vegan Pancakes by www.thedailydietribe.com

Dry ingredients:

1 ¼ C almond flour

½ C potato starch

2 t baking powder

½ t sea salt

2 T beet sugar

Wet ingredients:

¼ C applesauce

2 T oil

1 – 1 ½ C coconut milk

Directions:

Preheat griddle. Preheat oven to 200°.

Whisk together dry ingredients in main bowl.

Whisk together wet ingredients in a smaller bowl or measuring cup. Start with one cup of milk.

Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix well. If too thick, add more fluid. I like batter to be just ‘pourable’.

When oven preheats, turn it off. Prepare a cookie sheet with a cooling rack on top and place in oven.

Add a small amount oil to griddle. If oil sizzles, the griddle is ready.  Scoop portions of batter onto griddle using a ¼ measuring cup. These are usually so thick, I smooth them down a little with measuring cup. Batter also thickens as it sits, so keep that in mind as you work.

As pancakes are cooked, slide onto cooling rack in oven to keep warm.

I double this recipe so there are leftovers. Since I always store them in the fridge, I can't lose them. I may forget they're there, but I will find them.

Alton Brown's Baked Brown Rice

Hands down, the easiest, best way to cook brown rice. I was never a fan of brown rice until I tried this method. Comes out perfect every time. Every time! I've baked it in both a glass dish and a Teflon baking dish. Always perfect. I love Alton Brown and miss his show, Good Eats. Loved to watch it with my kids.

Adapted from Alton Brown's Baked Brown Rice.

1 1/2 C brown rice (I use Basmati)
1 C vegetable broth
1 1/2 C water
1 T canola oil
1 t celtic salt
 
Preheat oven to 375°.

Rinse brown rice and dump into an 8x8 cooking dish.

Add oil and salt to veggie broth and microwave 2 minutes on high. Stir to insure salt has dissolved then pour over rice.

Microwave the remaining fluid for 2 minutes and add to rice mixture.

Cover with tin foil and bake 1 hour.

Fluff with fork and keep loosely covered until ready to serve.

Make Ahead Dairy Free Mashed Potatoes

When I considered Thanksgiving dinner and converting everything to be allergy-safe, I made this way harder than it needed to be. I do what I always do. Hop on the internet, surf over to Google, type in dairy-free whatever-else-free I need, let the links unfold, then angst over which recipe looks the least alien to the original.

What I should have done was simply take my old recipe, replace the milk and butter with my go-to dairy subs, and get on with it. Not so hard, really.

My daughter claims she doesn't like coconut milk b/c it's too strong, but in reality, I cook so much with it, she hardly notices. I steered clear of it as my dairy replacement in mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving so it wouldn't overpower the taste. In truth, I used a combination of coconut milk, hemp milk, and chicken broth, and no one was the wiser.

I've since made mashed potatoes with all chicken broth and it was terrific. Not what I'd make for a traditional holiday meal, but it's great with a Mediterranean chicken dish I made last week. I'll have to post that someday.

This is based on a recipe from Betty Crocker's New Cookbook - remember cookbooks? I still occasionally consult one, but those days are waning. I make these in my crockpot so they stay warm while I'm dealing with last minute dinner prep - turkey carving, gravy-making, table-setting, etc.

We like mashed taters very creamy, so be forewarned. If you like yours thicker, dial back the milk sub.

Dairy-Free Mashed Potatoes

• 8-10 boiling or Yukon gold potatoes
• 1/3 to 1/2 C very warm dairy free milk (I use So Delicious coconut milk)
• 2-3 T dairy-free butter ( I use soy-free Earth Balance)
• 1 t Celtic salt (if using finer ground salt, you may want less)
• pepper to taste

Preheat crockpot to warm or low setting. Add DF butter to soften.

Scrub potatoes, peel and cut into large pieces.

Boil 30 minutes or until tender. Drain in colander.

Dump in warmed crockpot. Add DF butter and beat with hand mixer until lumps are gone.

Add salt and pepper, then slowly add milk until potatoes are to desired consistency.

Cover and keep on low until ready to eat.

Roasted Potato Wedges

This isn't Christmas dinner fare since my daughter insists mashed potatoes are the only potato allowed on the holiday dinner table - better on which to slather gravy - but these tasty potatoes are a staple side dish in the winter months.

I've had some challenges getting these to bake correctly, though. They stick like crazy to the tin foil I place over the cookie sheet. The sheet stays clean but the tin foil ends up enjoying more of the potato than we do.

I finally sat down and researched this phenomenon. Popped it into Google and voila! Instant answers. The main culprit was the tin foil. No surprise there. Many suggested dousing it with oil, but the vast majority of the posters recommended either no-stick foil or using a different type of baking dish - ceramic or glass - and placing the potatoes directly on the well-oiled, preheated surface.

The problem is the moisture in the potatoes. To prevent them from releasing fluid and thereby creating the liquid lock that causes them to stick, they must go directly on a preheated surface with plenty of oil so the skins seals up quickly before liquid releases.

I tried preheating the pan with the foil in it, but still got a gluey mess. I've had such bad luck with foil, I didn't bother with no-stick foil. I said goodbye to easy cleanup and went straight to a ceramic pan, preheating it with oil before dumping the potatoes in. Success! No sticking. Bigger cleanup, of course, but a much more satisfying culinary experience.

I wish I could tell you where I got this recipe. I found it on the internet years ago before I had the good sense to note the source when I saved it to my computer. I adapted it slightly as it had a boatload of salt in the original version (a tablespoon!), but these easy wedges are crispy and delicious and satisfy the french fry craving in my kids.

Roasted Potato Wedges

5-6 russet potatoes, scrubbed
1 t crushed rosemary
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 t onion powder
1 t salt (I use a heaping t of celtic salt)
pepper to taste
4 T extra virgin olive oil

Place a greased 9 x 11 baking dish (glass or ceramic) in oven. Preheat oven 425°.

Directions

Cut potatoes in 6-8 wedges/tater.

Place wedges in a gallon Ziplock bag.

Add spices and olive oil. Close bag and mix together until spices are combined and oil is evenly distributed.

Remove baking dish (with oven mitts!) and place on a pot holder.

Dump taters in pan and use tongs to evenly distribute. For crispy taters, place on the cut side, not the skin side.

Bake 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven, turn taters to the other cut side, and rotate dish.

Place back in oven and bake another 15 minutes or until taters are to desired crispiness.

I'm dreaming of garlic knots

Not sure why I'm stuck on the idea of having garlic knots. I never once attempted to make them pre-allergy days. The only garlic knots I've ever had were made in an amazing pizza parlor in Belle Harbor, New York, called Plum Tomatoes Pizzeria. Holy cow, are those suckers good! Everything in this place is good. We ate in a couple times, but once my sister owned a permanent home in the area, we ordered take-out and had their luscious deliciousness delivered right to our door. Those were the days.

No more wheat or butter for me. And I have no hope of creating anything remotely like them, without yeast. The more research I do, the more I'm convinced that a reasonable facsimile are possible gluten-free, just not yeast or egg free. It's easy enough to make garlic butter with Earth Balance. Not the same, but as the memory of dairy and wheat fade in the data banks of our taste buds, the new ingredients will take hold and satisfy. That's the theory, anyway.

But the yeast thing really sucks. Bread texture is beyond dense without yeast. I've been working on a pizza crust that isn't half bad, but it wouldn't work as a garlic knot. The dough is too sticky. I made Noah's Rolls last weekend for a Christmas party, but the egg replacer I used - flaxmeal goop - overpowered the flavor and ruined it for me.

The texture wasn't half-bad, but the color was anemic. They didn't brown. Not sure what to do about that yet. An egg wash is out. Can I brush it with garlic butter before it finishes baking? Conventional wisdom calls for the butter brush-down after they come out of the oven.

T'is a puzzlement. I'm making lasagna tonight. I'd really like to have garlic bread with it, but I haven't found a good savory bread recipe yet. That's why garlic knots popped into my head. If I can get the rolls right, I can wash them down with garlic butter and call it good.

I'm going to try Ener-G Egg Replacer instead of flaxmeal goop this time and see what happens. If it works out, I'll post it into my library.

Corn-free Southwest Black Bean Salad

This is not perfect, but it wasn't too bad for my first attempt at improvising an ingredient.

There are many versions of this salad available in cookbooks and online, but I adapted mine from Gina's Southwestern Black Bean Salad at SkinnyTaste.com.

1 15.5 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
8 oz roasted carrots, diced (about 3 carrots)
1 tomato, chopped
1/4 C red onion, chopped
1/4 C cilantro, chopped
1 scallion, chopped
2-3 T extra virgin olive oil
salt and fresh pepper
juice of 1 lime, divided
1 small Hass avocado, diced

Combine black beans through salt and pepper. Add half the lime juice. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Before serving, add avocado and the rest of the lime juice. Correct seasonings and serve with chips, as a topping for tacos, or as a side dish.

Roasted Carrots

This recipe is available all over the internet in various forms, but I borrowed from both Ina Garten's Roasted Carrots and The Pioneer Women's Roasted Carrots by Pastor Ryan.

I can't believe I never tried carrots this way. Really easy. Really good.

Roasted Carrots

4-5 large carrots, as uniform as possible
1 - 2 T olive oil
1/2 t kosher or celtic salt, (to taste)

Directions:

Preheat oven 400°F.

Scrub carrots clean. Peel if you like, but I didn't it.

Slice lengthwise and cut in half. Try to get each slice relatively uniform to insure even roasting.

Prepare a baking sheet with foil and spray with olive oil.

Place carrots on foil, drizzle with olive and sprinkle with salt. Toss to evenly coat.

Place in oven and roast 25-30 minutes. Skin of carrots should shrivel and gently brown in spots when done.

Carrots are the new corn!

Ever since we were handed this culinary death sentence, I've been mourning the loss of corn. I've been mourning the loss of a lot of things, frankly, but some items are easier to replace than others. Cane sugar has been relatively easy - not inexpensively easy, but alternatives have seamlessly been substituted in many a baking project with little to no difference. If you live within driving distance of a Whole Foods or have internet access and a credit card, you can find any number of granulated sugar substitutes - beet sugar, coconut palm sugar, maple sugar, etc.

Cheese is an entirely different animal, but if you take a shine to cashews or almonds or Daiya 'cheese' (an acquired taste, to be sure), vegan cheeses aren't too shabby.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Corn has been a monster to replace. Lets forget for a minute that cornstarch, HFCS, dextrose, and xanthan gum infest almost every convenience food that exists. And by convenience food, I don't just mean snacks - I mean salt, salad dressings, condiments, marinaras, crackers, yeast-free, gluten-free breads, gluten-free crusts . . . . The list is endless. I've come to terms with the fact that most convenience foods are a thing of the past, or until such time as I transform into Rachel Ray and start my own line of allergy-free products.

Considering how much whole food cooking and baking I've done in the past month, it's not out of the realm of possibility. Actually, it is. Way outside the realm. I kind of dislike baking right now. It's not how I envisioned spending my fifth decade on earth - chained to the kitchen with the oven perpetually on and a timer forever going off. Please, shoot me.

Most packaged goods are off limits. I can live with that. Learning to live with that. But corn. Corn. Not the thickener or the manufactured sweetener or the gummy binder. Just sweet, simple corn on the cob. Oh, the pain. The pain.

My sisters delighted in reminiscing how my mother craved corn when she was pregnant with me and joked I would come out an ear of corn. It explained a lot. I loved corn. I couldn't wait for summer barbecues where corn was a menu staple. It was one of the few vegetables we ate fresh, outside of garden grown tomatoes (nothing quite like a Jersey tomato) and iceberg lettuce (a nutrition-void, tasteless impostor of salad - ick), so it was worth the wait. Slathered with butter and sprinkled with salt. Goner.

Nature AND nurture. Of course I loved corn. I was genetically incapable of disliking corn.

Now I'm genetically incapable of digesting it. I'm praying it's one of those items that can be added back to the diet - in moderation and rotation - once I heal my immune system. Praying.

In the meantime, I have to get past the self-pity and make adjustments. So I can't have most Mexican meals anymore since commercial brown rice tortillas do NOT bend or fold without falling to pieces and I'm too intimidated to make a homemade one yet. No more chips and dip. Or chips and salsa. Or chips and hummus. Although - I came across a recipe for turning those dense commercial brown rice tortillas into chips that has real potential. Will let you know how that turns out as soon as I can get to it.

One Mexican-style side dish I miss the most is Southwestern Black Bean Salad. Variations of this salad exists on many recipe sites, but the one I first tried was from SkinnyTaste.com, a site filled with yummy Weight Watchers-friendly recipes. I can't make the vast majority of the recipes from there anymore, but it's a great site if you are a Weight Watchers devotee. Her recipes are delicious!

I considered making it without sweet, delicious roasted corn (which my husband would make homemade for me on our outdoor grill), but I knew it would lack a whole lot of flavor. I was glum. Then I was cruising on a website one day and someone had a recipe for roasted carrots. I'd never tried roasted carrots - and for the record, they are stupid easy to make and scrumptious - and I thought: What if I subbed roasted carrots for roasted corn? What if?

I did. And it wasn't half bad at all. Not the same, but my taste buds will adjust. I'll post both the roasted carrot recipe and Southwest Black Bean Salad separately. Pretty darn yum.

Gluten Free Vegan Coconut Pecan Pie Crust

This pie crust comes courtesy of The Gluten-Free Goddess. She is an allergyland food magician as far as I'm concerned. I find recipes on her site that I didn't think I'd ever enjoy again. I nearly wept when I tried her Cheesy Uncheese Sauce on rice pasta. Not cheese sauce really, but a tangy, creamy ocean of yum for your taste buds. But that's a gush for another post.

This crust is pressed into a parchment-lined Springform pan and placed in the oven to set before use. I've tried it two different ways: using coconut oil and using Earth Balance Soy-free margarine. The first time I baked with the oil, it leaked all over the bottom of my oven and generated enough smoke for a four alarm fire. I figured it was the oil content, so I tried the Earth Balance the next time. Oh so much worse. Did I learn from the first experience and place foil on the bottom of my oven to capture the smoke monster? Nope, nope, NOPE. A five alarm smoke fire ensued. My house still reeks.

I don't know if Springform pans are known for such leakage and I'm a complete noob for not knowing that, or if I just have a malfunctioning one. Suffice it to say, I will line the bottom of my oven with foil the next time I make a pie - or anything else - with a Springform pan. Experience is a harsh mistress.

The crust tasted just fine using either fats. I'd say the crust using coconut oil was oilier, so maybe I would use less next time, but it was no less yummy.

So proceed with cautious optimism. And line those ovens.

Coconut Pecan Pie Crust

Adapted from a pie crust recipe nestled within her recipe for Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pie with Praline and Coconut-Pecan Crust.

Line a 9-inch Springform pan with parchment paper. Line the bottom of your oven with foil to catch oil drippings.

Ingredients:

1 cup flaked unsweetened organic coconut
1 cup pecan pieces
1/2 cup all purpose gluten-free flour blend*
1/2 cup coconut palm sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
5 tablespoons vegan butter (Earth Balance or coconut oil)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Place dry ingredients in a food processor and pulse until the mixture looks like coarse sand.

Add vegan butter and pulse several times until crumbs are moist and begin to fall away from the sides of the bowl.

Dump crumbs into pan and spread them evenly. Using your fingers gently press the crumbs across the bottom and up the sides - about 2/3 of the way up.

Bake in the center of the oven for about ten minutes to set.

Remove the pan and set aside while you make your pie filling.

*I used Karina's Basic Gluten-Free Flour mix with a slight tweak (can't use xanthan gum):

1 C sorghum flour (or millet)
1 C tapioca starch (or potato starch)
1/3 to 1/2 C almond meal (or buckwheat flour)
1 t guar gum (or xanthan gum) 

It's pretty versatile. If you don't have time to whisk together a blend, I think any GF flour would do. 

Gluten Free Vegan Pumpkin Pie

I've made many gluten-free, dairy-free pumpkin pies over the years for my son, but none have come close to the actual taste and mouth feel of the Gluten-Free Goddess' Pumpkin Pie recipe. She is a wizard in the kitchen, no question.

This pumpkin pie stands up on its own and requires no crust. It's good enough to impress gluten, dairy and egg enthusiasts alike. I'm bringing it to a Christmas party this afternoon and expect people to genuflect at my feet. No joke. Paired with this sweet cashew cream, the response is inevitable.

I was feeling adventurous and poured this into the goddess' Coconut-Pecan Crust, also a yum! The recipe can be found in her Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pie with Praline which I will give a try at Christmas time. I'll post the pie crust recipe next, as I tried it two different ways and found one worked better than the other.

Don't ask me why I choose the other pumpkin pie recipe. The fact you can dump all the ingredients into a food processor, give it a whirl, and pour into the pie crust might have had something to do with it. Also, I didn't have any soaked cashews on hand to make cashew cream, so the other version earned the first test drive.

Once I find a recipe that works and is not only tolerable, but distinctly palatable, I hesitate to put work into another version only to come up short. There are a lot of disappoints on the journey through allergyland. When I find something that works, I stick with it. Still, Karina's concoctions haven't let me down yet. Its worth the leap to give her other pumpkin pie recipe a try. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

As Karina advises, I went with full-fat canned coconut for this recipe. To make the recipe corn-free, I subbed guar gum for xanthan; to make cane sugar-free, I used coconut palm sugar instead brown sugar.

After I heated my coconut pecan crust at 350ºF until it set (ten minutes of so), I left the oven on and set the crust on top to cool a bit while I processed the pie mix. I have a KitchenAid Professional 670 which I've had for years. One of the best investments I've ever made!

Gluten-Free Vegan Pumpkin Pie

Preheat oven to 350°.

To the bowl of a food processor add:

• 1 15-oz can organic pumpkin 
• 1 1/2 C full fat coconut milk (or vanilla soy/almond milk)
• 2 t corn-free vanilla extract
• 2 T light olive oil (I used EVOO)
• 1 T Ener-G Egg Replacer
• 3/4 C organic coconut palm sugar
• 1/2 C GF buckwheat or sorghum flour (I used sorghum)
• 2 T tapioca starch
• 2 t corn-free baking powder
• 1/4 t guar gum
• 1/2 t celtic salt
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1 t ground ginger
• 1/2 t nutmeg

1. Cover and process until smooth and creamy. Stop and scrape the sides to incorporate all dry ingredients that stubbornly cling to the edges of the bowl. 
2. Pour into the prepared pie plate or pie crust and smooth. Bake in the center of a preheated oven for about an hour until done. The pie should be firm but with a little give when lightly touched. The center should not be wet.(I live in the Pacific Northwest. It's a tad rainy here. I had to bake this a bit longer - four minutes or so.)
3. It will fall a bit as it cools. The price we pay for egg-free baking.
4. Cool the pie on a wire rack completely. Cover and chill in the refrigerator until serving. 

Yield: 1 pie with 8 slices (cut mine smaller to feed more.)

Vegan Cashew Cream Dessert Topping

This was really delicious! It is not the consistency of true whipped cream - what is, in allergyland - but the flavor was terrific and it tasted delicious on this Gluten Free Goddess' Pumpkin Pie recipe. I love that you can make this pie in a food processor. Talk about easy. I only made one change - we can't do brown sugar, so I used coconut palm sugar. Yum! I'd post the pie recipe, but I don't yet know the rules governing copyright infringements. I know some people are okay with reprinting with credits and links back, but many ask you to request permission. Which I have, but I haven't gotten it yet.

I found this at the Savvy Vegetarian, my new favorite site - well, next to the Gluten Free Goddess. I'm not a vegetarian, but so many veggie and vegan recipes are friendly to our new cuisine.

The original recipe can be found here. The only disclaimer I will make is the need for a high-quality blender. I recently acquired a Vitamix, which had little trouble mixing this up. A stick blender is also recommended, though I didn't try it with that. I wouldn't try doubling this recipe without a Vitamix or other work horse blender.

Vegan Cashew Cream topping

• 1 C raw cashews
• 2 C sugar-free apple juice
• 2 T coconut oil, melted
• 1/4 C beet sugar or to taste
• 1 t vanilla extract

1. Combine cashews and juice in a saucepan and bring to a boil. 
2. Reduce heat and simmer ten minutes, or until cashews have softened. 
3. Cover. Let cool several hours or overnight in the fridge.
4. Drain cashews, reserving the liquid.
5. Combine cashews, oil, vanilla, and about 1/4 C reserved juice in container of your Vitamix. Turn on to variable speed at 1 and work your way up to 10, then high speed. Add more liquid if needed, but use as little liquid as possible. The cream should be thick. I'm still learning my Vitamix. It tends to get air pockets when blending something with so low a liquid content. I have to use the plunger (or whatever that thing is called) to poke out the air pockets or stop the thing altogether to scrap the container. Or both. The engine is so powerful it scares the crap out of me sometimes.
6. Add sugar gradually until well blended.
7. Refrigerate cream until dessert time.

Again, yum. Using apple juice makes all the difference. I've made cashew cream just soaking cashews overnight in water and it came out fine, but not dessert fine. I have a sweet tooth and this fits the bill nicely. I want to make this every week. But, alas, I don't want to weigh twice as much as I do now, so I restrain myself.

The original recipe called for powdered sugar, which is hard to come by when you're sugar-free. I understand I can make powdered sugar using a Vitamix, so I will be testing that theory out soon. Especially since Christmas is right around the corner.

Five Minute Gluten-free Sugar-Free Vegan Fudge

As I said in an earlier post, I found this fudge very oily. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was freshly ground almond butter. Not sure. I had this once using peanut butter and sugar and it was really good. But I'm sure the peanut butter had regular salt, sugar, and soybean oil in it. And there may have been some condensed milk in it. And chocolate chips. That kind of explains it, huh?

So it wasn't like I remembered. I still liked it. Perhaps I should have tried peanut butter, but my husband is avoiding it, so...had to go with almond butter. My daughter, however, objected to it. Hence, I will keep searching for another recipe.

From a recipe posted on Spark People.

1 C agave syrup
1 1/2 C homemade almond butter
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 C cocoa powder

- Oil an 8x8 baking pan. (I used coconut oil)
- In a 2 quart saucepan, heat almond butter and agave syrup until well combined and gently boiling.
- Stir in cocoa powder and extract.
- Remove from heat and pour mixture into prepared pan.
- Cover and refrigerate overnight.
- Cut into small squares and serve.

Original recipe called for cutting this into 64 pieces. That seems excessively health-conscious, but okay.

Thanksgiving 2012 Part 2

I didn't have time to tackle rolls this Thanksgiving. I've been testing out different quick breads in my search for a sandwich bread replacement, but I haven't found the right recipe yet.

So...no stuffing this year. We did try a "rice" stuffing dish. My husband found the recipe online. He was in charge of making a side dish. I'm going to be honest and say I wasn't all that impressed with it. It was a wild rice blend that was supposed to be made with pork sausage. He subbed turkey sausage. I'm not a wild rice fan myself, so that could have influenced my lack of enthusiasm. Oh, well. You win some, you lose some.

Dessert was the real hit of the night. I made three separate items - a five minute fudge, a pumpkin pie, and a yummy cashew cream to go over the top. Since I have no idea how to create a page without it showing up in my menu bar, I will post each recipe as separate posts so I can link back to them. It'd be much easier to create a page, but eventually, I'd have hundreds of tabs showing up in my menu bar. I'm sure there's a way to do it; I just don't know how yet. Still new at the blogging thing. So, I will make them posts until such time as I learn to do otherwise.

My daughter wasn't thrilled with the fudge. Too nutty, she said. That didn't stop her from eating several pieces of it over the course of Thanksgiving break. But after, she admitted she didn't like it nearly as much as the pie. In her defense, I did find the fudge too oily. Still too new at the baking thing to know what to change in the recipe, but it will do in a pinch. Especially if you're newly diagnosed with a sugar allergy and craving something sweet.

Which I have been. Weird considering I don't eat many desserts anymore. I have a sweet tooth, but being weight and health conscious in my middle years, I steer clear of them except on special occasions - birthdays, holiday, parties, etc. Coupled with the fact that I would get stomach cramps after eating wheat-filled, sugar-infused, dairy-drenched goodies, I kept my distance. You think that would have been enough to clue me into the allergy thing, but I guess you see what you want to see. And I didn't want to see I had food allergies because what a gigantic pain in the ass, is it, to relearn cooking and baking? But I'm not bitter.

Maybe a little. But I'm over that phase. Almost.