Allergy Free Cooking

So I haven't tried the croissants yet but I will get there.
However I did try and entire meal from the Allergy Free Cookbook from Alice Sherwood. This book is good because it gives you recipes for all different types of allergy cooking and the variations if you have more then one allergy. I personally made a full 3 course dinner including dessert that was both gluten free and lactose free. I started with Roast Beef, then there was Moussaka which is like an eggplant lasagna. I served these with crostini and for dessert we had peach and black berry cobbler. I must say it was a lot of good food but I warn if you want to do a meal like this first have a good amount of people, we had 7 and still had left overs and lastly make sure you give yourself time. I looked up the recipes but didn't think about looking at prep and cook time. the moussaka alone takes around 2 hours to complete from start to finish especially when you are also cooking and preparing other meals.
The Roast Beef was prepared just the way my mom does it but with out the vegetables. You take a Roast put it in a pot add some water, add your spices and then put in an oven that has been preheated to 375 and wait about an hour.
The Moussaka was amazing. If you have never cooked eggplant, like myself, I would suggest this as your first recipe it was easy. You didn't have to skin it or anything you just cut it into slices and then salt and leave for about a half hour so that the juices are soaked up and then follow the recipe. Very easy but like I said time consuming, the eggplant has to sit with salt on it for a half hour, your bechamel sauce has to infuse for 20 minutes and you have to cook the meat separately, I used beef instead of lamb. As well the recipe calls for the meat to simmer for around 40 minutes and then after everything has been prepared separately you then cook it all together for another 40 or so minutes. So again I warn you if you don't have a lot of time this might not be the best recipe for you but it is definitely delicious afterward... very rewarding.
And the french bread for crostini's, oh anyone who says you can't make bread that tastes like bread has never tried this recipe. I will say one thing it is heavier and there are no air bubbles but I think I would have to say I like it better then the regular french baguettes. This I would say is the easier recipe of all. It said to blend the ingredients in a food processor but we did not have this so it was mixed by hand. The only thing I would say about making it gluten free is that you will need a lot more water then it says to use. Again though it also was a fast recipe. After it is all mixed and rolled you let it rise for about 25 minutes and then cook for another 25minutes or till brown. Yeah, very delicious.
Lastly we were going to make plum cobbler but it appears that the grocery stores around here are not carrying any, so instead we decided to make it a peach and then added black berries. This also was a very easy prep dish. You cut up your fruits and mix the dry ingredients by hand, took me and my mother together about 10 minutes and that was only because the peaches were not pitting fast. and then it cooks till the top is brown and the fruit juices are bubbling over the top. The only thing about this dish that we had a problem with was when I made it dairy free I used gluten and lactose free margarine and it was slightly warm so the top didn't crumble the way I wanted it too. As well some of the people at dinner didn't like the spices they suggested be in it.

Now this morning I made a recipe for pancakes that you can get for free from the Bulk Barn and I just used the pancake mix that you can get there. This gluten free pancake was fairly good the only thing about it was they were a little drier then regular pancakes. Overall though they were very delicious.
Hope you enjoy baking.
-Photo Alley

Recipes

Well today I thought would be a good day to try out some new gluten free recipes from my many cookbooks that I have accumulated in the last month from friends.
First I went out and bought all the different kinds of flour, I will be experimenting over the next few weeks with the different flours to come up with different breads and such. I bought such flour as both white and brown rice, soy, potato, potato starch, corn starch, etc. I have about 4 containers and still about 7 more bags to put into separate containers later.
Then I decided to go through all my cookbooks to see which recipes called my name. Today it was flour less peanut butter cookies and angel food cake.

The flour less cookies are from the cookbook called "The Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Comfort Foods" by Bette Hagman. And boy are they delicious. I must warn though if you try this recipe be ready for a tough mixing. Because it is flowerless and there are only 2 eggs in the mix it is both sticky and difficult to mix, a few times my beater sounded like it wanted to give out. But boy they were Delicious when done. If you don't have much time and you want something sweet this is the recipe for you, I think it took me all of 10 minutes to mix and that was only because I was being lazy and silly and then it takes about 10 minutes to cook.

The other recipe was Angel food cake from "125 Best Gluten-Free Recipes" by Donna Washburn and Heather Butt. This recipe will more then likely be well worth it. I'm still waiting for it to finish baking. But it took a lot of time to do. You first have to separate the eggs so you only have the whites left of 12. Then you have to beat them till the are foamy, add some ingredients, beat till stiff, add more ingredients and then beat once more till very stiff and then add some more ingredients but this time you have to fold the ingredients into the mixture. I believe the prep time for this was close to 30 minutes alone and then it has to cook for 40. So I'm waiting patiently to try this recipe but I believe it will be delicious.Tomorrow is croissants and almond macaroons. Wish me luck.
-Photo Alley

Quilting

What a wonderful day.
I have not been able to post because I have been hard at work designing and creating a new quilt. I normally would have the complete top done by now but I started on a Saturday and shortly after starting realized that I was out of one of the materials and needed to buy more, it being a weekend though had caused me to wait till later this week to buy the new material and then I ran into some problems with it squaring up. But fear not with some help from a master I was able to get it to work and am now just taking a break from putting them together. After the borders are attached I will add some images of this coffee inspired quilt along with the other 2 quilts designed by me.
On another note I have had the same fabric with me for almost a year now and I plan on this week starting to make them into the quilts the material was taken for. I'm talking about the comfort quilts I mentioned earlier. So if I am not heard from for a while please bare with me I am working away on getting some new material up for all to see.
Enjoy your summers and the fine weather.
-Photo Alley

Italian Restaurant

Well what a week I've had, it first started out pretty bad, I was sick and mourning my usual comfort food. If your Celiac I'm sure you know what I mean and have probably gone through this stage. But boy has this week turned out well.
First I would like to tell you about some amazing gingersnap cookies. Now since going gluten free I have bought some store made cookies and let's just say they look warm and gooey on the outside but they are actually rock solid, yeah you all know what I'm talking about. Packaging can lie, BUT I recently found a ginger cookie made by MI-DEL where they aren't rock hard, they are fairly soft and actually kind of spicey.. I like them and I thought I would share them with you all just in case you like ginger snaps as much as myself.

But what I really wanted to talk about is PASTA... oh the lovable carby goodness. The stuff that you pretty much say good bye to when you first start out. I thought I would never have a pasta that tasted like pasta again or a bread that tasted like bread.
Boy was I wrong. I would just like to say if you are ever visiting Ottawa go to a little place called CAPRESE, it's just on the outskirts of the Italian district and it's 100% gluten free. I haven't had calamari since my switch and guess what this was the best I had ever tasted. The sauce was perfect and tart, the calamari tender not chewy and lastly you couldn't tell the breading was gluten free.
Then there was the bread... Oh the bread, I could rave about this bread. I read on another blog that one of the things they had to get over was that gluten free bread would never really taste like gluten bread, well guess what guys I found it. Oh it was rip-able, it was soft, it was like a nice dinner roll or a baguette but smaller. They gave me an extra for later. But I understand why so many other's have a hard time making bread, the waitress told us it took the chef 186 different recipes to get the kind we had that night and he was still fiddling with temperature and humidity, and the likes of that. I must say my goal is to make a recipe like that. It was just so brilliant, the waitress even said she has to tell new costumers to not pig out on the bread because the meals are still to come. Oh a true Italian place.
And lastly the pasta... oh sweet pasta, I played it safe and had gnocci but to my surprise the chef came to talk to us because he was actually trying a new recipe out and I would be the first to try it. Let me just say it was amazing beyond words. It was perfect, I don't think you would ever know the place was gluten free except for the giant 100% free sign on the Sign.
It renewed my faith in good tasting carbs. I hope it renews yours.
With that in mind I think I'm going to go have the rest of my left overs from the restaurant, just talking about it makes my mouth water.
Enjoy.
-Photo Alley

Thunderstorms

Phew!
It was amazing I must say... there I was sleeping away, exhausted from being sick, not unusual for me especially after only recently being diagnosed with Celiac's. So there I was sleeping when I hear a little put put put, tap tap tap... and then faster thump thump thump taptaptap. I knew that sound like the back of my hand. It was raining extremely hard. I woke up excitedly and looked out my window. It is the joy of rain. I once heard that rain is just liquid sunshine and to me it truly is.
See rain is amazing it is natures real water droplets, you ever see those pictures where there is the perfect rose with water droplets perfectly nestled on the petals. Well guess what you can achieve this look right after a rain storm, a good rain and a little drying after and you have those perfect water droplets. And the smell after a storm makes it pleasant to be out there taking pictures in the wetness.
When I first started getting interested in photography I got obsessed with the droplets made right after the rain, or even if there isn't any rain you can create this look from watering your plants, and I must say it hasn't diminished yet.
I once heard someone from the industry say that they find flower photography quite boring but to me it's a whole lot of nature's beauty. The different plants, the un perfect and yet perfect water droplets, and even the colours. I love the flower photography and I also like seeing how close I can get with that one lens. One of these days I'll get a better lens that will allow me to get even closer.
But back to the rain storms, storms also bring another type of photography that interests me that I really would like to learn, and that is lightning photography. I see these pictures of lightning hits and the lighting up of the sky, and I just love it. I'm sure it's probably similar to that of taking pictures of fireworks but you don't know when the light is coming. Therefore I think this summer that is going to be my goal, learn to take lightning photos.
I'll keep you update.
-Photo Alley

New move

What's up?
The weather is getting warmer and what do I do?, I decided that it is the best thing to move into a new place... On one of the muggiest days this year and then what happens after, more mugginess. Boy do I love the humidity.. NOT.
So do to all this horrible weather, it's just taunting us that it's going to rain and cool off but it hasn't yet today, I haven't been doing much of anything, not even crafts. So I hope that in the weeks to come I can get my camera back out and take some more shots, maybe go to the park and see what I might find there. I hope whatever I find you will enjoy.
Keep cool.
-Photo Alley