Jalapeno Hot Sauce

Green Jalapeno Hot Sauce

1. A bag of jalapenos: washed and dried.

2. Some people wear gloves for the seeding/slicing of the jalapenos. I don't wear gloves, but I like sticking my fingers in my mouth & it burns! However, I once stuck my finger in my eye and I felt true pain. Don't be like me, wear gloves and seed the jalapenos.

3. To seed the jalapenos: gently take a knife and slice open the the jalapeno. Then take a spoon and scoop the seeds out and throw them away. Some seeds will be left behind, because it is hard to get rid of them all, and this is fine, since you wanna a bit of spiciness.

4. I don't seed mine. My entire kitchen steams up something terrible, it actually hurts your eyes when I cook my jalapeno sauce. I cover the sauce and simmer for hours, with the kitchen window open.

5. I add the diced the jalapenos, seeds and throw them into a frying pan with olive oil, 1/2 cut up onion and 1/8 cup of slice garlic.

8. I cut up 2 green peppers and throw them into the mix and then let them simmer for two hours. Finite!



As a last step, you can add the sauce to the food processor to liquefy it for a side sauce. You can then pour it into nicely boiled jar and have a hot sauce that should last for 2 weeks in your refrigerator.

I like to keep my sauce chunky. I add 1 dollop to a taco and it burns my mouth for five minutes. My nose runs, and I breath deep. I like eating food that takes me to the edge. Ian hates this, so I use the jalapeno sauce as a seasoning for the enchilada sauce he loves, and I use it to season my refried beans.

A bottle of watered down green chili or green jalapeno sauce will you cost about $2.50. A bag of jalapenos cost me 1 dollar, plus the onions, green peppers, garlic and olive oil. But I have two jars, one frozen, and the 2nd will last me a month. Homemade, HOT and hell-fun.

Enjoy!

Purple Cabbage & Carrot gluten-free muffins

What fun! I had a leftover cabbage & carrot salad that I didn't know what do with...so I decided to make muffins! The salad only had some yogurt in it, it was slightly sweet, not savory, so it worked quite well! It's like a carrot or zucchini muffin with red & white cabbage.

Interesting, the purple cabbage will turn blue from the baking soda when it bakes in the oven. So the muffins have tiny blue specks in them, it's so...weird that I love it.

Purple Cabbage & Carrot gluten-free muffins

1 1/2 cups shredded red cabbage, white cabbage & carrots
1 cup buckwheat
1/2 cup white rice flour
1/8 cup sorghum
1/8 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
2 Tablespoon flax
1/4 cup water
1 cup to 1 1/2 cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon honey/syrup/agave
dash of baking soda
dash of baking powder
dash of cream of tartar
dash of salt
dash of nutmeg
dash of cinnamon
dash of allspice
1 tsp xantham gum
1 egg

1. Mix flax and water in 1st bowl, and let congeal for two minutes.
2. Add egg, sugar, honey and mix.
3. Mix flours, leaveners, spices, xantham gum and mix in a 2nd bowl.
4. Add 2nd bowl to 1st bowl.
5. Shred cabbage/carrot mix in food processor, not quite pureed--but small!
6. Add cabbage/carrot mix to muffins. Mix. Batter is thick.
7. Taste batter. Would you like it sweeter? Add more sugar.
8. Bake 12 full muffins, very full, it rises high!
9. Bake at 350, until done.

Gluten-free Pizza

I finally tried Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free Pizza Crust Mix. It worked out pretty well, following the recipe on the bag. I used spaghetti sauce, feta cheese, light salami and sliced tomato for the toppings.



This is the first time I've made a pizza crust that I can actually eat. The dough expanded, not too much, but enough. The crust was actually chewy and it browned! I would definitely buy this again, it is worth it. It makes enough dough for 2 16 inch pizzas.

I have big plans now--I will purchase this again, but I will also try to make it from scratch with my own flours: Sorghum, millet, tapioca and potato starch to save some money.

Next time, I am going to use a gluten-free sourdough starter (left out overnight in a warm place) to see if creates a more interesting flavor to the dough.


Notes and/or Tips

I used a tart pan for the pizza crust.

I used 1 egg instead of 2 eggs.

I added 1 tsp of sugar to the yeast/water mixture when proofing.

I added 2 Tablespoons of Flax to 3 Tablespoons water and let it gel, and then added that to the yeast/water mixture.

I added a 1/4 cup of mashed potato to the dry ingredients. (This is a secret ingredient for an all-purpose white flour dough recipe.)

I put a bowl of water in the bottom of my oven to help create moisture so that the crust would bake nicely. The water actually boiled in the bowl, creating steam.

Voila!

Lazy Breakfast

A Lazy Breakfast

Strawberries.
Clean'em.
Slice'em.
Pour cream over them.
Enjoy.

It almost reads like a poem. A bad free verse poem. But a poem.

Frozen Plum Yogurt

This is a frozen plum yogurt recipe made from real yogurt and plum puree. Simple, if you have plums on hand. I had a bag of plums that were quietly decaying in my refrigerator, so I saved them before it was too late.

PLUM PUREE

16 plums, boiled until the skins split.
Refrigerate the boiled plums until chilled.
Remove the pits and stems.
Puree plums in the food processor.



This will leave you with about 4 cups of plum puree. If you boil it, the skins will soften a bit, and melt when processed. You get the most nutrients with the skins left on; some recipes through the skins away. Not sure if you lose nutrients by boiling the plums, I will check up on that.


FROZEN PLUM YOGURT

2 cups plum mash
2 cups full fat yogurt
1/2 cup sugar or honey or agave nectar
* berries

Mix in a bowl, and then add to the ice-cream maker. Follow ice-cream maker instruction, and voila!

*We added fresh blueberries and frozen raspberries to the mix, at the last 2 minutes.

The recipe is a basic one, I would tinker with it a bit, it needs a dash of rum or a plum brandy to make it taste SUPER AWESOME. It tastes good, but it's not stunning...because I added a 1/2 cup sugar instead of 1 cup of sugar.

It tastes slightly tangy, but my husband prefers it tangy. I like it sweet, but not too sweet. Most frozen yogurt places are too sweet for my taste buds, so next time I make it, I will try 3/4 cups of sugar. It really depends on the sweetness of the plums.

Nana's Lemon Cookies, everything free

Nana's Lemon Cookies are free of EVERYTHING. Gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, and most importantly beet-free. In case, you were worrying and/or wondering if you were eating too many beets.

Not sure what the anti-beet reference is too, perhaps it is a Raw Foodist thing that I have yet to discover. IF someone knows, please tweet me! I can't live without beet knowledge...and who knows how many evil beets I have consumed in cookies or cakes or sweet breads?



They're not bad, $3.79 for 5 individually wrapped cookies. They look alright, square...it's a good start.



Let's take a bite!



Not bad. But not great. Boring. They are boring. Slightly sweetened by apple and grape juice...nice, I like that, but I can hardly taste the lemon. Secondly, they used rice flour and the problem with rice flour is that it can taste GRITTY, without butter or honey to hold the cookie together.

Would I buy this again? No, not for myself. Would I feed it to a child or an elderly person? YES! It's dull, but it's a healthy cookie. Healthy...and it's a COOKIE!

My husband told me that his parents fed him yogurt and told him that it was ice-cream. They had him fooled. But at some point, he went to a birthday party and was served REAL ice-cream; he couldn't believe it...the taste of the sweet, frozen delicacy compared to tangy yogurt.

After the party, he went after his parents with a Clint Eastwood vengeance...yogurt is NOT ICE-CREAM! You guys are LIARS!!!!

Gluten-free Bagels!

Glutino makes awesome gluten-free bagels. I paid 6 dollars for 5 bagels. Expensive, but I only eat half a bagel at a time (200 calories/half) so I figure that it's 6 dollars for 10 sandwiches, which is pretty good!

My only problem with the Glutino bagels is that they do not come pre-sliced. Not cool, Glutino, not cool.



And what is the with the "sans gluten" advertising on the bag? Isn't that FRENCH? Is Glutino, French? No, I think they are located in America. So why can't they write...WITHOUT instead of SANS ? Who do they think are? Gwyneth Paltrow?

Pretentious, Glutino, very, very pretentious. That's two strikes, guys. TWO STRIKES!