Green Chile Egg Bake

This puffy golden egg bake is easy (and pretty enough for brunch guests).

Roasted Green Chiles + Eggs = Fabulous

This simple egg bake recipe flirts with being a souffle. She imagines herself in an Anais Nin novel, puffy and voluptuous, trembling on a sunlit, blossom strewn table, about to be devoured by a Henry Miller style character, an unknown writer, all bluster and Brooklyn guff, with a surprising, childlike glint to his laughter.

In a Kerouac novel she imagines herself liquid, a stream of golden beats syncopated in hot opposition to the heart's rhythm, strangely, vertigo defyingly more in tune with how the stars blink- on and off- cradling her humble, unassuming beginnings in feather injected hay, spinning cool and restless past the farmhouse windows lit yellow by a single lamp on the center of a wooden kitchen table strewn with cereal coupons and finger smudged newspaper and coffee cups stained not with lipstick but with infinite tiny cracks, scenting the air with morning that rushes into this author's highway memory like a distant train whistle crooning its tug toward reckless freedom, toward shed dreams and mockingbird awakenings that mimic the familiar just to confuse you, just to keep you anchored, just to clip you from flying in your own, crazy trajectory, your one chance at what might be possible.

Then again.

Maybe she's just an egg recipe.

With attitude.


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Kale Soup with Spicy Chicken Sausage and Sweet Potato

Kicked up kale soup with spicy chicken sausages and sweet potatoes.

March is not exactly behaving like a lamb. It has snowed twice recently, book-ending our road trip to Cape Cod last week with blustery, leonine winds and sloppy sideways snow. Lucky for us our veteran Suburu Outback gripped the roads like a champ and brought us there and back safe and sound.

We were visiting our favorite peninsula to celebrate the long-pined for Spring Equinox and a certain husband's return to the visual arts (after a six year hiatus "fueled by caffeine, over-exposure to earth metals, and extensive dream analysis"). He was asked to give an oil painting demo at the Creative Arts Center in Chatham. How could we refuse?

We stayed with good friends (blessed with the Yankee sense to have a warm and cozy wood stove going) and cooked up some gluten-free comfort food together- two big casseroles of Creamy Penne Pasta Bake and a big pot of caldo verde- lovely Cape Cod kale soup.

I made a Cape Cod inspired kale soup today, to share with you. With a minor tweak or two.

It's the perfect, spicy soup to brave the end of March.

A month with a promise to end like a lamb.

I'll believe when I see it.


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Gluten-Free Soda Bread Rolls- not exactly Irish

Gluten-Free Goddess Irish-inspired soda bread bun rolls.

Irish Soda Bread Inspired 

Spring is poised to sprout I just know it. Despite the frigid fingers of wind that unwrap my scarf and creep sneak down my spine. Despite the tawny, snow beaten grass that stretches to the edge of the woods. Despite the prediction of snow on Tuesday. I feel it.

Green is coming.

The turning point is Wednesday, the day of equal light and dark when the seasons turn kinder. The Equinox. The first day of Spring.

A day to celebrate.

And listen for song birds.

And bake something earthy, simple and subtly sweet.

I've made Irish soda bread every Spring for thirty years. This year I felt inspired to make mini-soda breads. A kind of soda bread bun. Or gypsy roll. Some might call it a soda bread muffin. It's not that, exactly, either. And it's not a scone.

I couldn't decide what to call these little champs.

Except... delicious!

Happy Spring!


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Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies with Quinoa Flakes

Dunk worthy gluten-free peanut butter cookies with quinoa flakes.

Quinoa Flakes + Cookies = Perfect Match

You know how I feel about cookies (I've confessed my love before in my Ode to Cookies love fest, Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies).

Because a good cookie is no small thing.

Especially if you must live gluten-free. Double that if you must live dairy-free. And triple that if you live egg-free.

Holy Mother of Muffins, it ain't easy. 

The gluten-free vegan lifestyle is a hefty, sometimes tortuous challenge. But the ugly truth is more and more of us are discovering we are not only blessed with celiac disease (yes, I use the word blessed ironically; you do remember irony, don't you, it got you through grade school) but we have the incredible fortune (more irony) to develop additional food sensitivities due to the insidious damage celiac disease wreaks on our innocent little villi, those dutiful nutrient grabbers who not only keep us well fed through proper absorption, they appear to be the first line of defense against the dreaded leaky gut syndrome that allows food proteins to invade intimate territory and cause serious mayhem with our immune system.

To read more about celiac disease and its new found dangers, I urge you to read this article by Dr. Mark Hyman on Huffington Post: Gluten: What You Don't Know Might Kill You. Yes, I know, serious bummer of a title, but Babycakes, do read it, because celiac disease is dead serious stuff. And it is vastly under diagnosed.

Millions are suffering various nagging (and often awkward) symptoms, needlessly.

That, Dearheart, is scary.

Good thing we have cookies.

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Gluten-Free Recipes for St. Patrick's Day

Warm from the oven "Irish" (not really) Soda Bread Buns.

I am ignoring the duvet of fresh fallen snow blanketing the world outside my window. I am instead imagining spring. Soda bread and St. Patrick's Day. Daffodils and robin's eggs. The Vernal Equinox is nigh (allegedly). And I am not looking back. I am ready for forward motion. Tee shirts and blueberries.

To celebrate the wee bit of Irish in all of us- be it by blood or kindred spirit- I thought I might gather my gluten-free recipes inspired by Celtic tastes. Yes, Lass, that means potatoes. And cabbage, too. Soda breads, salmon, eggs, cottage pies and spring soups. The Vernal Equinox is just around the corner. Promise. Flower beds will soon be sprouting tiny green shoots.

Add some Van Morrison to your playlist. Raise a glass.

Sláinte!

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Gluten-Free Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. 
For your gluten-free munching pleasure.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Love

I suppose you could argue that one oatmeal cookie recipe is enough. I mean, how many oatmeal cookie recipes does a person need? To this I answer, at least two. Why? Well, first you have one with raisins. Raisins give oatmeal cookies that old school chewy sneaky nutrition boost. They're old fashioned and comfy cozy. Kinda like spending one of those Saturday afternoons at your Aunt Martha's house, chillin'. Watching The Point and laying on the floor with a pile of coloring books. Coloring outside the lines with a beat up box of Crayolas.

Wishing the silver crayon was more than a lonely nub.

And right at that nub lamenting moment she'd bring you a plate of cookies.

I never had an Aunt Martha. But I did have a chain smoking platinum blond Aunt Patty who liked martinis a little too much. Or maybe it was gin and tonics. There was ice in the glass. If I was lucky enough to scrounge up a coloring book and some crayons, I would hide behind the sofa. I didn't want to hear her opinion on pantyhose or how you could tell a woman's age by looking at her knees. I'd wait out the tedious afternoon without cookies. If I was lucky, I might get some tap water Kool-Aid. Or a plastic bowl of Cheetos.

Perhaps that's why I'm not a fan of raisins in oatmeal cookies. I don't nurture comforting memories of their shrunken grape taste, though I appreciate their fine qualities- in an abstract, theoretical sense.

No, I'm more of a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie kind of girl. Especially when the cookies are warm and the chips are melty. Chocolate makes everything right with the world. So here's oatmeal cookie recipe number two. Bake some up this week.

I say, be your own Aunt Martha.

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Millet with Carrots, Mushrooms and Mint

Gluten-free millet makes a tasty grain side dish.

To be honest, the only thing I knew about millet was what I read in fairy tales. You know the drill. Some evil, jealous stepmother or warty witch in the spooky woods would capture our plucky heroine- some flaxen haired, peaches and cream Princess down on her luck, misunderstood and pining for true love. The innocent and modest maiden would then be forced to find golden needles in haystacks or pluck pinches of wool off surly sheep or sort buckets and buckets of miniscule millet seeds. 

Tasks any one of us can relate to, right?

I mean, who doesn't relate to the tedium of domestic chores? Just when you finish matching the last pair of spring mountain fresh tube socks, the hamper begins to fill again in all its stinky glory. Mysteriously. It is never empty. Never. And the floor you finally got around to wiping clean and polishing until it gleams- if not twinkles- in the afternoon sunlight gets mauled by muddy rubber soles before you can count two shakes of a lamb's tail. And we won't even hint at the horrors that perpetuate in the so-called powder room.

Mrs. Meyers isn't rich by accident.

Fairy tales about feminine obedience and compliance in practicing our household chores (a skill set highly valued prior to Helen Gurley Brown) instructed us (pre-kindergarten) that the dutiful are not only more comely than their whining, uppity, stubborn counterparts, in the end (when push comes to shove) the gallant and toothsome Prince will actually prefer duty, modesty and obedience. We are persuaded that if we are patient and kind and willingly clean out the ashes in the fireplace, he will pick us. The good girl. 

The exiled Princess missing a slipper. 

His tender kiss will awaken us. His gaze becomes our  prize.  Our ultimate reward. So we can follow him back to the castle. 

And wash his dirty underwear.

The sparkly fairy tales we are fed today play out differently. There's no millet or spindles or poisoned apples involved. Carrie Bradshaw (not to mention, every female reality show contestant for the last ten years) hungers not only for the timeless promise of love (and absurdly expensive shoes) but for the jackpot prize of fame. It isn't enough to snag a Prince.

The whole world has to watch.

The Twittering, Facebooking, YouTubing contemporary Princess doesn't feel alive if she's not being observed, basking in media attention. She craves external validation and mirroring like an addict. Which- in a strange, if not classic Jungian way- circles 'round and reflects the old school fairy tales of my childhood. The neglected and unseen Princess locked away in a tower and the maiden drugged by a poisoned apple and sealed in a cold glass casket share the same root desire with her neo-narcissist sisters vocal-frying in reality show hot tubs, hissing in a tantrum as if on cue, or dripping big fat tears of shame on their EatSmart Scales.

They need to be seen. And heard.

Not simply for their pouty lip implants, or how unnaturally white their teeth are, or what their opinion is on the latest celebrity gossip. They long to be valued. And yes, I suppose you could argue that it boils down to wanting love and seeking a loving gaze, but I think it's something deeper, more intimate. I think it's about self-hood. And wrestling with authenticity. 

Trying to figure out nothing less than Who am I?

The hunger for that answer fuels their drive to be famous. As if we, the collective observer, the all seeing eye, possess the answer. 

But we don't. 

Individuation is a solitary task. You can try on attributes for size and see if they chafe. Or buoy. You can bounce bits and pieces off those around you and see if they stick or fall off. You can read and listen and observe and sleep on it. You can go for a run or change the sheets or write in a journal. You can make a pot of soup or order sushi take-out. 

You can find love and you can lose love and still not have a clue to who you really are. 

The answer isn't out there. It's inside. And the bit by bit excavation, as excruciating and millet-sorting as it may be- is worth it, in the end. One might even say, the process is its own reward. Because how you value and honor your real self is how the world will see you. 

And that missing slipper? 

It's right where you left it.

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