Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins

Gluten-free sour cream blueberry muffins .

As promised, here's my latest muffin recipe, using Pamela's Gluten-Free Baking and Pancake Mix. Oy vey, these are good. And so easy. I didn't even get out the mixer; I stirred the batter by hand with my favorite wooden spoon. If you're in the mood for a different berry or fruit, by all means, substitute the blueberries. Whatever makes you happy, Babycakes. Go for it. This batter would cozy up to cranberries, spiced apples, you name it.

And by the way, if you're looking for a dairy-free egg-free blueberry muffin, I've come up with a vegan Brown Sugar Blueberry Muffin recipe you might like. I also have a hazelnut flour based dairy-free blueberry muffin here.

Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Quinoa Breakfast Bars with Blueberries

Quinoa flakes make a delicious gluten-free breakfast bar.

For gluten-free folks who prefer to avoid rolled oats (even certified gluten-free oats and oatmeal), I have good news. Quinoa hot cereal flakes are enough like rolled oats that I use them in all kinds of baking recipes. From classic fruit crisps and crumbles, to chewy cookies and cinnamon laced carrot raisin cake, quinoa flakes are a tasty, nutritious alternative to gluten-free oats. 

I love the nutty, complex taste quinoa flakes bring to a Thanksgiving recipes. 

I hope you do, too.

Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Gluten-Free Zucchini Quinoa Breakfast Cake

Karina's Gluten-Free Zucchini Quinoa Breakfast Cake

Packing. Let's Eat Cake.

From the L.A. archives- a personal favorite you may have missed... Remember those maple sweetened almond zucchini mini-muffins? I do. They've become one of our favorite grab-and-go gluten-free treats. I tuck a bag of them- fresh out of the freezer- into my bulging purse knapsack beach bag tote whenever we venture far afield. Like. The Valley. Because, well. You never know. It can get crazy. In L.A. you might end up jammed on the 405. Stuck as in four lanes = a parking lot stuck. Stuck as in, Dude that's my hunger growling louder than Kurt Cobain's rasp on the rattling radio speaker pleading, What else could I be? All apologies.

I know this from experience. I learned the hard way (the way I learn most things in life). Driving in L.A. can lead to stop-n-go squatting in the baking sun. And a where is my nail file and why did I leave the apartment without food and water and ice in a cooler panic. Because the thirty-three minutes it took yesterday to get to Studio City is seventy-five minutes today.

That's when I started imagining a zucchini cake.

For breakfast.

On the 405.

Heading north (allegedly). To sign a lease. On a new apartment with an ample well planned kitchen and an open living room with a fireplace. And two balconies- one sunny for growing herbs, one shady in the afternoon, facing a quiet leafy green street lined with lavender gardens and rose bushes and honeysuckle and song birds.

We'll be moving in two weeks.

Your intrepid Gluten-Free Goddess has some packing to do.

Good thing we baked a zucchini quinoa cake.


Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Gluten-Free Whole Grain Strawberry Muffins - Berry Goodness

Gluten-free low sugar whole grain strawberry muffins.

With all the recent news about sugar, I've been thinking about muffins. And not just any ordinary, ho-hum, run-of-the-mill, starchy, gluten-free muffins. Nope. A tender, whole grain, lower sugar, vanilla scented muffin that bursts with fresh strawberry flavor. Warm from the oven, these pleasantly grainy breakfast treats are pull-apart soft with juicy bites of strawberry. Sweet- but not too sweet.

I used pure maple syrup for the primary sweetener, and a mere two tablespoons of organic brown sugar. And now for the interesting part. I also experimented with no xanthan gum. This is highly unusual for me. I've usually rely on xanthan gum to give my gluten-free batter and dough the stretchability factor- a trait removed when I booted gluten from my kitchen and wished it vaya con dios. But inspired by Lauren, the Celiac Teen, I decided to try baking without it.

But here's the thing.

Shunning gluten is a complicated issue. Gluten imparts a flexibility to batter and dough, and baking without it can lead you to crumbly, gritty ruin if you're not careful. You're giving up protein. And you're giving up elasticity. And not only that, you're saying buh-bye to the toothsome texture you are accustomed to.

Reaching for xanthan gum was a quick fix, an immediate solution to this lack of flexibility problem. But many of you now report you don't want to use it. For some it's a price issue (xanthan gum ain't cheap, Darling). For others it's a digestive issue (xanthan gum or its alternative, guar gum, can be hard on sensitive digestion). And for some, it's an allergy issue (to mold or the growth medium, most often cornstarch).

Gluten-free baking without gums is tricky. This, I know. So my first foray into this venture is not vegan. I used two free-range organic eggs. Egg whites help give gluten-free batter that precious stretchability factor. And the protein factor. They bind, and they leaven.

My choice of flours reflects two things- what I had on hand this morning, and my desire to use whole grains (I am liking starches less and less). I picked hazelnut flour for the delightful nutty flavor and protein; millet, brown rice, and sorghum flour because they are whole grain and higher protein than white rice flour or potato starch; and I used coconut flour because it attracts moisture and adds a lovely texture to gluten-free baked goods (not to mention, for its high fiber status).

The result? A tasty, blog worthy success. I absolutely love these strawberry muffins.

And I hope you do, too!

Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Gluten-Free Blueberry Scones with Whole Grains

Tender gluten-free dairy-free scones baked with whole grains.

Mother's Day Blues

Blueberries and Mother's Day. I cannot imagine one without the other. It is virtually impossible. Beyond my control. The same way a certain scent, caught unexpectedly in passing, can- in a single heartbeat- transport you to another time and place.

Scents and tastes and memories link and embed themselves deep in the mushy hardware of our brain, micro-threading bits of life experience into electrical impulses that spark and conjure images and emotions that rival the blinking hot concept of time travel. Sun warmed wild mint, for instance, jolts me into my six year old body faster than you can wish for blueberry pancakes, tugging me into a swirl of loneliness and boredom I can almost taste, the heat and dust of a summer afternoon prowling a parking lot, looking for a tiny piece of shade apart from the bees.

In a perfect world I would have been blueberry picking, roused from innocent rumpled sleep before first light by a beloved grandmother or a tender hearted aunt, and given a small metal pail to fill, tasting every other silvery blue berry I picked, listening to my steady companion hum Dylan's Chimes of Freedom.

But I have no blueberry stories of childhood.

My picking days came later. As a young mother bending and reaching under a cobalt Cape Cod sky, plucking berries into buckets. Back then summer was forever woven with the fate of blueberries. Scattered on clean white scoops of yogurt in an antique bowl, baked into tender blueberry breads drizzled with lemon glaze (the cherished, hand written recipe given to me by an old friend, Cape Cod Kitty- it was her mother's famous blueberry cake), or bursting out of muffin tops glittering with sugar, and scented with cinnamon.

But the truth is I cannot rewrite my childhood. Nor change what is beyond my control to change. And I do not believe in destiny. I am not a fatalist. I do not believe in a master plan. I wrestle with mystery and meaning every single day, with nary a satisfactory answer in sight. It seems to me that nothing happens for a reason. And everything happens for a reason.

Because life is for learning.

And each day breaks with a fresh beginning.

So darling. What will you choose today?

Make it good.


Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Gluten-Free Banana Nut Bread Recipe

Warm from the oven gluten-free banana nut bread. Just a fad?

Gluten-Free Banana Nut Bread

As Celiac Awareness Month dawns I thought I might celebrate with a banana bread recipe. This is a banana bread so tasty, tender and fragrant, you won't care it is gluten-free. And you might even tempt the naysayers. And the unbelievers.

You know who I'm talking about.

Out there in the cold cruel world, Darling, some folks apparently (still) view our gluten-free lifestyle through a jaded foodie lens, believing, first of all, that gluten-free anything is never going to taste anything but awful, and second, that this whole gluten-free trend (their word not mine) is a fad not worthy of serious consideration and compassion. Apart from the standard (and always brief) lip service that non-afflicted food writers, non-GF bloggers and journalists pay to celiac disease, adhering to the medical treatment that is a gluten-free diet is degraded- for that sexy topical hook- to a "bandwagon". An eating disorder.

A diet by choice.

They dub it a controversy. 

As my twelfth year of living gluten-free marches on, I find myself reflecting not upon the decade plus years living gluten-free, but upon the ten long years prior to shunning gluten- the decade it took me (no thanks to the medical profession) to determine that gluten was the culprit behind my early onset autoimmune cataracts, mysterious low ferritin levels, skin rashes, migraines, fat malabsorption and impressive marathon stints in the loo- I feel the slow, sad burn of anger those of us who are dismissed experience.

Two bloggers referenced the gluten-free diet on a social networking site recently, bragging about their "iron stomachs" and their ability to chow down on everything (this implies that those of us unable to ingest gluten merely have "sensitive" digestion). I was reminded of a previous post I wrote in response to a blogger's remark that gluten-free is "too precious".

Ignorance is bliss, indeed.

Here's the thing. It's not a sensitive vs iron stomach issue. It's not an I-can-eat-anything-so-bring-on-the-butter-and-bacon-and-haggis issue. It's not about macho appetite. Or virtue. Or squeamishness.

It's not philosophical.

It's not emotional.

It's not about preciousness.

Or garnering attention.

Or skinny jeans.

It's about a cruel quirk in genetics.

If you won the luck of the draw in the genetic lottery and escaped- by no effort of your own- inheriting HLA-DQ2 or HLA-DQ8, the two genetic haplotypes that predispose you to an autoimmune disease that triggers your body's defense system to attack itself, destroying the nutrient-grabbing lining of your small intestine, be humble. Be thankful. Your body works. You do not have to be vigilant about every crumb that goes into your mouth. In your world gluten does not increase your risk for Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. A bagel is not dangerous. You can eat what you crave when you are hungry. You can wing it when you travel, feeling carefree and adventurous. You can sample new cuisine on a whim- without asking about the ingredients. Food for you is fun. Romantic. Perhaps, even a passion.

Thank your small intestine.

And while you're at it, thank your pancreas, too.

Because those with Type 1 diabetes (another genetic autoimmune disease, one that destroys the insulin-producing islet cells in the pancreas) must also be vigilant about their diet. Along with injecting insulin, Type 1 diabetics must also limit (if not shun) certain foods to protect their health, making careful, low glycemic choices day after day.

But maybe that's a fad, too. Maybe their pancreases are just sensitive. Maybe a diabetic child is merely craving attention, just like her celiac cousin. Maybe a mother learning how to cook a meal with low glucose is coddling her child, too. Maybe all autoimmune diseases are just a silly trend. The Fad Du Jour.

I hear celiacs and diabetics are wicked sexy.

Well, that part may be true.


Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

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.


Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Best Gluten-Free Pancakes

Wonderful pancakes for a gluten-free diet.

Sunday Worthy Gluten-Free Pancakes

When I was small and clueless I ate the world in tiny bites. I chewed apologetically, counting each deliberate grind in time to the spiral beats of a song in my head that only I could hear. A tune not unlike a mosaic of bird calls, and the powdery flutter of wings feeding on the garden lit by young Mozart's star.

Colors were a mysterious and spiritual language infused with deep logic and meaning. A lime green Jello box invited tunneling and confusion, but the sweet brush of balsam as I sought asylum beneath its rooted symmetry petted my pining fatherless heart.

Trust is green and hard to paint, but so is betrayal.

Not only the betrayal by others. The betrayal you participate in. The hammering of your spirit self into propriety. The brittle, safe shell you construct and will curl inside for the rest of your life. You inhabit it sullenly. Sometimes willingly. Because sometimes it works. Mostly to fool them. Fool them into thinking you are someone else. Someone uncomplicated they can love. Someone like themselves.

In order to keep this armor snug you must give up on certain pieces of yourself. The ugly, muddy parts those in charge find distasteful or irritating or inscrutable. What no one tells you is, you end up missing these rejected quirks and knots. And spend the rest of your life searching for all those abandoned bits and wrinkles. The shining fragments of earlier music and jewels of petaled rain.

But if you are lucky you meet a painter.

A soul adept at conjuring a thicket within their non-judging arms. You learn about green and its secret origin. How to stir ivory black with cadmium yellow and a teaspoonful of cerulean. You dream of butterscotch pines and inhale and your spirit-body becomes too big for the worn out shell.

So you crack it.

Sideways at first. Sticking out fingers and elbows when no one is looking. Digging out fragments long forgotten. Rubbing off neglect and holding wobbly pale parts of yourself closer to the sunlight.

And you meet yourself for the first time in a long, long time.

In the rays escaping.

 ***

I use a stove top griddle across two burners on medium-high heat.

For the first time in a long, long time I made pancakes. 

Because I craved a family Sunday with pancakes.

And The Beatles.

And lots of maple syrup.

Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Gluten-Free Carrot Cake Muffins

Wake up with a warm and lovely carrot muffin.

Happy First Friday of the New Year. Like any first of any season this auspicious occasion makes yours truly want to bake. And with snow on the ground, it has to be muffins- like these tender little bundles of gluten-free joy. So cute and sunny. I love the carroty color. The subtly fragrant texture of coconut flour and quinoa flakes. A hint of cinnamon and ginger. A bite of raisin.

Seriously chai worthy.

And more fiber rich than say, a powdered donut. Or your average gluten-free bagel which is nothing but starch (not that I have anything against starch these days; I am embracing my personal Doris since the news about weight and a longer life). This a treat you can eat without a heavy helping of self-imposed guilt.

Truth is I don't count calories or worry about dieting.

At my age (or any age?) I think worrying can make you gain weight.

Focusing on all the food you can't have. Thinking about how many bites is too much. Cutting back so drastically on caloric intake or carbs that your blood sugar plunges faster than a carnival ride. You don't want to be around me if I'm on a diet- or a low-carb regimen. I am one wildly cranky be-atch. I lose brain cells. I see flashing lights. I tip over. I claw through the refrigerator overwhelmed with the sensation of deprivation.

Until I find the long lost bag of gluten-free pretzels.

Then I'm done.

And done in.

So I don't bother with the details when I need to lose make friends with my yearly winter weight gain. And I may as well confess- ! I don't go sugar-free any more. I eat a cookie. There I said it. Or a muffin. Yup.

Then I go for a walk (if it isn't zero degrees). I try to keep moving. Because the reason I gain a pie roll this time of year has less to do with carbs and fat grams than you think. It's not the morning muffin that gives me my muffin top. It's the hibernation. The paucity of exercise. The bump on the log that I become once the sun sets- at 4:42 PM.

It's hard to burn calories watching reruns of Downton Abbey.

Unless you're on a treadmill.

Which, like cousin Violet, I am most decidedly not.


Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Donuts

Tender and light, gluten-free pumpkin donuts, darling.

Pumpkin Crazy

You might think I'm on a pumpkin bender, glancing through recent recipes here on Gluten-Free Goddess®. And you'd be right. I do this. Every October. I go on one long, crazy, pumpkin love affair. I am head-over-heels nuts about it. Because pumpkin is magic. In fact, if pumpkin was in a fairy tale, it would be the Fairy Godmother- not the humble buggy. It makes gluten-free baking transform, you see, as if touched by a star-tipped sparkling wand.

That's why I knew I had to tackle pumpkin donuts. Because donuts can be tough to replicate gluten-free. But I knew pumpkin would bring me luck, and sprinkle good fortune on my baking endeavors today. So, yes. I am pumpkin crazy. Crazy in love.

And you know what?

If pumpkin be the food of love, play on.

Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Streusel Muffins

My new pumpkin muffin recipe- with streusel topping.

This isn't a Halloween post. Or a Thanksgiving post. Technically. Though Thanksgiving is just a stone's throw away- if you somehow conjure a metaphorical stone to metaphorically hurl into the time-space continuum, piercing the veil of eight and a half weeks that blows by in a singular exhale, surely faster than light. And this exhale, it was only following a previous breath- a breath I took yesterday- which turns out to be one year ago. A year since that Pumpkin Praline Pie I baked. I have a hard time wrapping my brain around this.

This is a post about time.

Some days I feel as if I am slave to the calendar, an unwitting cog in the wheel of the year with Sundays and holidays appointed by proxy, designated by some superior force that rules my random wandering nature with an unforgiving fist, demanding obedience. Charting the course of my life.

Then I remember the truth.

Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Gluten-Free Apple Cake Muffins

A tender and light apple cake muffin. Gluten and dairy free.

Apple Cake Inspired

Before we get to muffins, I have a game for you. Created spontaneously one night, after some dizzying Facebook scrolling (when did Facebook become one endless stream of bumper stickers?). Pardon my yawning.

I think I'll call this amusement... The Dating Game. Here's how it hatched over crudities and hummus.

"I wish I knew you in high school," I tell my husband. This is not news to him, by the way. It's a popular topic lately, now that I am in my second adolescence, eighteen years past mid-life.

I sketch for him a vivid narrative of study hall humiliations and spikes of burning shame, waving a carrot stick in his direction, just for emphasis. I search for words to depict how it feels when a snickering quarterback punches your clutch of school books with his fists, sending you to your knees in a crowded hallway to rescue the sprawl of English homework, algebra and biology books that emit the faint smell of ink and gum.

He sighs audibly. He hates to hear these stories.

"I would have played you my Tommy album," I say. "I would have cooked you brown rice and tamari. We would have talked about books. Siddhartha. On the Road. Women in Love."

He smiles and adds, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

We toast Hunter Thompson with our mineral water.

"You wouldn't have liked me in high school," he says.

Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

New Quinoa Bars Recipe - Blondie Style

Our new favorite quinoa bar with almond meal, lots of good vanilla and dark chocolate chips.

The turn of the year's wheel inevitably stirs up ghosts. Last night we walked after dinner. Slowly, in a warm breeze, curled paper leaves scuttling the uneven side walk. Something in the air reminded me of New Mexico. And I remembered a day we drove to Taos, just to get out of our heads and escape the particular tunneling isolation of the writing life.

The afternoon was golden and soft, almost balmy. The kind of day that lulls you into believing winter is still far off. The trickster wind spun burnished leaves and pinon smoke around us with fingers warm and cool and so dreamy we almost floated along the crooked streets of Taos center, bumping elbows with straggling tourists in beaded earrings and adobe hued scarves, and locals in scuffed cowboy boots barking Spanish into cell phones.

We wandered through empty galleries and a well-stocked kitchen store. I fingered a set of engraved silver measuring spoons, but put them back on the shelf (too expensive to justify). Steve ordered a cappuccino to go, and we drove home along the Rio Grande listening to Steve Earle and watching the late afternoon sun dart down the canyon walls, back-lighting the almost bare cottonwoods, grayish brown and silver.

It was good to get away that day, get out of my head.

That night I dreamed of Russell Crowe. He was close by that month, filming 3:10 To Yuma up in Abiquiu. I read in my journal that we spoke about our fathers. He listened with his eyes, I wrote, grasping the loss of never knowing my father with a depth and muscle that held my pain fiercely.

This morning I woke feeling less heavy, and relieved of my usual L.A. bruxism. For the first time in a long time I felt the urge to pick up a paintbrush. To smooth a raw canvas with palms, flat and expectant.

Soon.

But in the meantime, I wait.

To wait, to surrender to this thing, this process, this road home to myself- it's not an easy thing. But if you offered me a pill to swallow, some cure, some promise, some magic, I doubt I would be tempted. Because there is a part of me- some stubborn, rusty, ancient part of me- that understands I must go through it, not around it. I must go down. Not up in a flight of fancy. I must get muddy and singed and hollow and exhausted.

I must tunnel through and scrape away with the tiniest of tools- my will- toward some small, shy truth. Excavating, digging past the illusions, the denial, the desire to please, to be light, to be pretty, to be approved of.

Authenticity.

It is my Holiest Grail. And why it is so hard to find it, I don't know.

For some of us, it just is.


Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Gluten-Free Banana Crumb Cake

Lovely for snacking. Gluten-Free Banana Crumb Cake.

A certain someone in our household has a sweet tooth. And- best of all- he not only likes to eat cake, he likes to bake it, too (apparently baking can be a form of meditation for some folks, a calming, distracting respite from toiling away in one's head for hours, excavating the various thematic elements underpinning character motivation, conflict and story arcs. All those juicy, gnarly, invisible threads and knots we movie viewers take for granted when we settle in with our gluten-free popcorn to watch a screenplay come to life.

Something I've learned, living with a screenwriter (aside from the fact that baking is therapy)?

Don't judge the script by the movie.

Because chances are the script was good.

Chances are the script was tight and wry and sharp. And moving. And funny. Chances are the script made you leak a well-earned tear. Or two.

Then came the notes.

From the director. From the actor. From the producer. And the producer's girlfriend. Her dentist.

So the script gets whittled. And weakened. And tweaked. Scenes are added to make a character more likeable (How 'bout we give him a dog- or a koi pond?). Then locales get switched (apparently producers believe New Mexican Pueblo humor translates without a glitch to Australia's Gold-Coast). The language once precise gets watered down with unimaginative phrases you've heard before (not every actor can improvise like Robert De Niro I am sorry to tell you).

Sometimes the collaborative magic of filmmaking works.

And sometimes it doesn't.

And baking ensues.

Lately?

We always have cake in the freezer.


Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Gluten-Free Blueberry Muffin Recipe with Coconut Flour

Tender gluten-free dairy-free blueberry muffins, warm from the oven.

Tenderness on the block ...

Baking a batch of fresh blueberry muffins is one of my favorite simple pleasures. I do it early, before the summer day turns sultry and my body slows to a liquid ballet of movement designed to conserve every last salty drop of intention and energy my creaky, vanilla lotioned body can muster. I rise and bake to the morning sun, stirring my batter half asleep, sipping hot coffee (my last remaining addiction). A local mockingbird sings his deceit outside the open apartment window. He is remarkable in his uncanny repertoire. A gifted mimic. Silhouetted high against the North Hollywood sky, perched on the tallest utility pole.

I've been thinking about all the thoughtful comments on my last post- my message in a bottle. Your words were a balm and a message tossed back. Received and pondered. Talked about and appreciated.

I've been reading this week (as I always do). Finding books a provocative companion. Words that illuminate and poke. Shared stories that send shivers of recognition, trigger anger, or tug one's soul (kicking and whining) into that impossible place- that place where you don't want to go. The stuff that scares you.

Because it might be true.

And it might be painful. And it just might ask you to consider something. Something hard. Something true.

I've been reading about this business of being a daughter. This isn't the first time I've looked at this subject. I am no stranger to the postmodern Jungian women's psychology section. But reading a book at twenty is one thing. You bring to its wisdom your newly hatched self-hood, your fresh experience, your familial-infused expectations (and prejudices). The expectations, assumptions and dreams of a young woman. You are the heroine, the daughter starting out on your journey, looking at a long and winding road ahead. So you read. And listen. And play with ideas. You see what fits. And what doesn't.

And then you stand, stirring blueberry muffin batter on a clear July morning, decades later. And here, now, the words ring deeper. And the truth stings darker. There is a lifetime of days spiraling out beneath you and above you (because by now you know that time is not linear, or finite, like some calendar). And the same words vibrate with a different meaning, engraved with experience and regret. The same words illuminate as if from a different light source. Not from the world.

From within you.

And so here I am. A daughter, still. Learning something old as if it is new. And discovering truths as if for the first time, arriving, as T. S. Elliot wrote, where we started.


Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Gluten-Free Multigrain Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Multigrain gluten-free lemon poppy seed muffins.

I usually don't bake in the summer. I mean. Do you? Who in their right mind likes to crank up the oven when it's hot and steamy outside? At my age darling, I'm sticky enough as it is. Hot flashing and fanning myself with the latest issue of AARP as I bounce and waggle on one of those bubblegum hued balance balls, lurching at my desk like a pear-bottomed yoga reject seeking not enlightenment, I am sorry to tell you, but the promise of burning three hundred extra calories as I sit and write. Apparently using one's sacred core (or is it sacroiliac?) to perch atop a ridiculously big ball with a penchant for rolling sideways requires fuel. More fuel than say, slumping.

Or lying on the sofa reading a book. With the oscillating fan on high.

Which is what I'd rather be doing.

Preferably with a bar of organic dark chocolate.

I would rather keep the kitchen cool. By not cooking (that's why The Goddess- in her infinite wisdom- invented tomato sandwiches).

But a certain husband had a craving.

For a lemon poppy seed muffin. Our son planted this idea in his head last week, during an impromptu visit. Said son was blithely munching on a lovely looking gluten-free lemon poppy seed muffin. Freshly baked. Adapted from one of my muffin recipes.

He mentioned, in passing, it was fabulous.

His secret?

I used a little cornmeal, he told us.

And thus the muffin craving was born.

And who am I to deny my husband.

He buys me dark chocolate after all.

And turns on the fan. So that I don't have to get up from the sofa.


Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Gluten-Free Pasta Frittata with Kale (Dairy-Free)

Karina's Gluten-Free Pasta Frittata with Kale (Dairy-Free)

It's crunch time here at Casa Allrich. Moving day looms. Packing has begun. I've been sitting on the floor like a cast-off princess in a fairy tale assigned to her individuating task, combing not through haystacks or mountains of tiny grain but musty boxes of thirty-five-year-old letters, stacks of faded photographs and yellowed clippings, evidence of another life allegedly my own. I am struck most by the persistent echoes, the parallels spiked with the quirky twists of fate that led me here, to now, the line between seeking and creating blurring into a narrative that persists in your life like an ache.

We seek what we need to become. We long for the parts of ourselves we discarded out of necessity or people-pleasing acquiescence. Accommodation is a common theme in many a woman's life. Mid-life sharpens this trend into focus in subtle ways. When you begin counting seasons, and fewer summers await you, each choice you've picked up to now- and every discarded loss- becomes bittersweet and ripe with meaning.

All this contemplation and dust as we recycle the last remaining things we carry.

Our life has been whittled and sanded and simplified these last six years. An empty nest has its gifts. From the east coast to the west coast we have pared down and let go with each move (five times in six years). No original furniture remains. We own a sofa (a floor model bought in Marina Del Rey). A bed. Two desks. The truckload of books and old paintings is now a carload.

My boxes of cookbooks have shrunk from twenty to two.

Our move to Studio City is a gesture toward community (writing and film). A move closer to family (both sons- and a new daughter-in-law- live closer to Studio City than Redondo Beach). A move away from the ocean, but toward sun. From fog to heat. Our new neighborhood is a quiet, leafy one, framed in well tended white fenced gardens that rival Provincetown. We walked the block last week. Waist high lavender bushes, roses, iris and honeysuckle feed me in ways concrete and steel cannot. Small town New England is in my bones, I guess. And forever will be.

Today I offer you a recipe spun from the magic of leftover brown rice spaghetti and eggs- a creamy, light frittata. Perfect for when you're simply too tired to cook. Or you have nothing in the fridge but a carton of eggs, half a bag of kale salad and last night's leftover spaghetti in eggplant marinara.

The "cheese" I used was a vegan "mozzarella" (my current favorite is Vegan Gourmet).



Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Gluten-Free Pineapple Coconut Muffins

Tender pineapple muffins with toasted coconut.

I thought I'd reprise this important post (and fabulous muffin recipe) from a year ago- when the gluten-free community was buzzing from insults on every side. Consider this my UNapology for living gluten-free.

April Fools Day looms. But you won't find any tricks up my sleeve. Unlike the greater, broader world beyond my kitchen that apparently harbors a few individuals contemptuous of living gluten-free. This was a tough week to be a celiac. Assaults ranged from the merely mean-spirited to the stunningly ill informed. There was the alleged chef in Colorado (I say alleged, because it turns out this nudnik may have actually been a waiter) ridiculing gluten-free diners (the term he favored was "idiots") and crowing on Facebook that he passes off regular pasta as gluten-free (join the lively discussion here). There was the Dr. Oz show calling gluten-free a "fad diet", asking is it "just a myth?" (in full disclosure, I believe he meant as a weight loss tool, as a certain gluten-free celebrity has been claiming in her g-free book- ironically, featured on Dr. Oz last year). And finally, there was a famous food blogger-turned-author whose foodie envied blog-to-movie deal has apparently not cultivated much compassion for those of us stricken with gluten sensitivity. She barked on Facebook, "If I have to read one more thing about going gluten free I'm going to stomp on someone's face." And more than one person agreed with her. One of her fans (a food blogger) added, it's "too precious".

Strap on your helmets, Campers. There's not a lot of love out there.

I know this. You know this. Some of you have even shared stories about not only eye-rolling waiters and could-care-less food preparers, but family members sneaking gluten into what they feed you, just to "see what happens". Just to test you.

Let me repeat that.

Family. Feeding you gluten. On purpose.

No wonder strangers feel they can openly spout contempt. If we are not respected within the bosom of our own clan, our flesh and blood, how can we expect random strangers to care?

The truth is, they don't.

Until their child gets anemic for no apparent reason. Or their young wife breaks a hip. Or their mother shrinks to skin and bones before their very eyes. Then it becomes interesting. Then the mystery becomes worthy of their attention. And they start asking questions. What is that disease called, you know the one where you can't eat bread? 

Celiac disease is sadly under diagnosed. Millions have it and don't know it. And that translates to an epidemic of silent suffering- a lot of mysterious malnourishment, anemia, and osteoporosis. A lot of migraines, depression, infertility, and blistery skin rashes in unmentionable locations. A lot of bloating and Pepto Bismol chugging. But hey.

We know you don't want to hear about it.

So forgive us, please.

Forgive us for living with a autoimmune disease whose only cure is a gluten-free diet. Forgive us for focusing so much on food- our only medicine. Our breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Our daily bread. Forgive us for asking questions in restaurants. Forgive us for feeling awkward at social events where food is ubiquitous, and family parties, where your disbelief and denial can make us sick for three days.

Forgive us for getting excited when a new recipe works, and our daughter can eat a chocolate chip cookie that isn't going to make her ill. Forgive us for sending our son to school with gluten-free vegan cupcakes for the class. Forgive us for wanting our children to feel like they belong and contribute.

Forgive us our passion for gluten-free food that fills our bellies and lightens our souls. Just a little.

Because to those of us who must live gluten-free- every day of our life- food is no small thing.

Food is precious.



Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Gluten-Free Orange Almond Muffins

A kiss of orange infuses these sunny gluten-free muffins.

Life in short bursts.

Here comes the sun. Baby daylight is yawning herself awake, stretching like a blinking blue-eyed kitten into a brand new year. Little by little we are inching ever so nonchalant toward Groundhog Day, toward snowdrops poking through the crust of winter snow, toward pink horizons and bird calls. But I am not bothering to count the days of winter. And I am not bothering to count calories. I am lingering in my passion for comfort food. For baking. For muffins.

In between bowls of vegan detox soup.

Because I know the deal. I know my body's cycle. I understand that I slow down in winter. I hibernate. I conserve energy. Translation: I put on a few pounds. I have evidence to prove it. But I no longer panic. I have danced around this yearly cycle a time or two. Well. More like fifty-two. Plus five. But who's counting?

Not me.

I dream instead. Of romance. Of ease. Of psychic room to breathe. I imagine an early spring and the scents of almond and orange come to mind- not for any particular reason or culinary logic. It's just whimsy. Or maybe it's because the sweet breezy taste of citrus feels bright and refreshing after all the dense flavors of the season, like pumpkin streusel and cranberry and sweet potato. I ponder iPhone photography apps and process images for Instagram while I stir gluten-free flours into muffin batter (I multitask my yearnings).

Truth is, I follow my cravings. And I honor them. Most of the time. Which sometimes means ignoring them, frankly (cocktail hour can be one long nightmare of an hour, especially in the grip of Midwinter). And sometimes honoring means listening to cravings. Acknowledging them. Validating them. Then grabbing them by the scruff of the neck and plunking them onto the Time Out chair.

And going for a walk- to let them sulk in silence.

But sometimes a craving is as simple and true as a muffin. A gluten-free muffin, thankfully (Goddess knows I lost my taste for wheat years ago). And in the grand scheme of things, a muffin is one craving I can live with.

Today.

And you know me.

I take things one kitten-blinking day at a time.


Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Crumb Cake

A light, pumpkin coffee cake for your holiday brunch.

The Winter Solstice will be here soon. The holiday frenzy of gift buying and light stringing and cookie making is officially upon us. Everywhere I cast my gaze I am pummeled with messages. SHOP! BAKE! SPARKLE! And that's okay. Because I understand the hoopla. I know where this urge comes from. The itch to make a ruckus in the dark. To sing, brave and clear, cupping our tiny flames against Midwinter's long night.

The California sun hangs soft and low in the sky, as pale as ice cream. Hours feel clipped. Afternoons are shorter and shorter. Night creeps ever closer. Darkness will soon reign over light.

But only for a moment. One single, solitary, longest night of the year.

No wonder we gather to celebrate. The rebirth of light is no small thing. And a brand new year awaits. Front loaded with promise, and changes hoped for.

I had hoped to finally conquer gluten-free sugar cookies. But after tasting more than one middling batch (I also have to bake without butter, remember) I became more interested in reading a new book than wrestling with sugar cookie dough. Yes, I miss rolling out sugar cookies. And yes, I would be (more than!) thrilled to sign on here today and boast about the best gluten-free sugar cookie ever. But. It's not gonna happen. This week anyway.

I had two sad, cracked (and complaining) teeth yanked this week. (Celiac disease is not kind to teeth and bones. My childhood was riddled with amalgam and the torture inducing whine of belt-driven drills, cementing a lifelong terror of dentists.)

So that gave me the perfect excuse to nap. And read in bed.

I am reading Carolyn G. Heilbrun- The Last Gift of Time. I read a chapter on memory- and the seduction of nostalgia (a favorite subject of mine, you may remember). And I read this...

"Every time those of us in our last decades allow a memory to occur, we forget to look at what is in front of us, at the new ideas and pleasures we might, if firmly in the present, encounter and enjoy."

Carolyn (in her seventies when she wrote this book) urges us to stay present in the here and now as we age, and not drift into the mental trap of nostalgia and memories. I wholeheartedly agree. I love learning something new- every day- turning not to an assumption, a belief or a habit, but toward the thrill of a new skill, and new technologies (iphoneography is a new passion of mine- an art form in its infancy). Keeping myself open, engaged in the here and now means keeping things fresh. Letting go of the old, the stale past, the so-called good old days. Because as good as they were, they are not now. And as bad as some days may have been, today can be different.

Now is new.

And in this spirit, Steve and I baked a pumpkin crumb cake instead of recreating cookies. A new Christmas tradition, perhaps? Why not?

Cake for breakfast.

Sweet.


Read more + get the recipe >>

Read More