Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread

Why don't I ever remember to take the picture before I eat some?

I'm always looking for uses for the almond pulp that occurs after straining my almond milk. Almond milk is super easy to make. Soak 1/2 cup of truly raw almonds overnight. Drain and rinse. Put them in a blender with about 3 1/2 cups of water. Blend on the highest speed for close to 1 minute. Strain (I use a metal mesh strainer that I got at IKEA. You can also use cheese cloth). You'll have about 1 cup of wet almond pulp afterwards.

I discovered after soaking some almonds that my dehydrator is not working! So I needed to use this pulp pronto. I had a pumpkin sitting around, so I decided to roast it and make pumpkin bread.

This bread is a combination of this recipe & this recipe. I meant to half both, but didn't do it correctly! So this is what I came up with.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread
1 1/4 cup roasted pumpkin (or canned)
5 eggs
1 cup wet almond pulp
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup coconut sugar or honey
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 tablespoon pumpkin spice*
1/4 cup coconut oil

Blend the roasted pumpkin with the eggs and the almond pulp. If you are using canned pumpkin, beating it would likely suffice. Dump the blended mixture into a bowl and stir in the rest of the ingredients. Melt the honey and/or oil if it's solid.

Dump into an oiled round cake pan. Bake at 350°F for about 35-40 minutes until you stick a knife into the middle and it comes out clean. Yum!

*If you have pumpkin pie spice or pumpkin spice from the store, check to see if it has sulfites in it. They use sulfites to keep the ground ginger a pretty color. I mix my own pumpkin pie spice using several recipes from the internet.

Turkey Meatloaf, Gluten free

Last week, I did an experiment and made a turkey meatloaf. I really enjoyed it.

Turkey Meatloaf
1 lb ground turkey breast
1/4 cup ground quinoa
1/4 cup gluten-free oats
3 tablespoons ketchup (optional)
3 tablespoons mustard
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon salt
Dash ground pepper
Chopped parsley and celery leaves (optional)
1 carrot
1 medium onion
3 cloves garlic
2 stalks celery

I sent the veggies through the food processor for ease. I added the parsley and celery leaves simply because I had them from this summer's farmshare. The quinoa had been ground in my blender in an attempt to make flour.

Mix everything together in a bowl, and put it in a greased loaf pan. Bake this at 350°F for about 45 minutes. If you have a meat thermometer, it should reach about 170°F in the middle.

I might cover it with foil next time, as I cooked it a bit too long! This is 8 servings and 3 PointsPlus per serving if you're a Weight Watchers person :)

Top 5 Posts of All Time: Gluten free, Dairy free!

Because everyone else is doing it :)

What are my top 5 posts of all time?

1. Gluten-free Dairy-free Chocolate Zucchini Bread

2. Gluten-free Dairy-free Biscuits: WOW!

3. Lemon Mint Salad Dressing

4. Gluten-free Baking Mix

5. Gluten-Free Dairy-Free Cornbread Casserole

5 posts of gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free goodness!

Race Recap: All Women & One Lucky Guy Half Marathon

Today, I ran the All Women & One Lucky Guy Half Marathon. This was my first half marathon, so my goal was to run the whole thing and (hopefully) finish in under 2:15. Also, yesterday during a short 2 mile run in the dark, I tripped over an uneven sidewalk and was all out of whack. My neck & back hurt, as did my legs. My neck is hurt bad enough that I can't turn my head. So my goal was to finish, not kill myself, learn about racing, and have fun :)

Stretching, because that's what people say you should do before you race.


Now I'm ready to run!

The course for the All Women & One Lucky Guy Half is really beautiful. It takes you around the towns of Newburyport and West Newbury, MA. At around mile 3.5, I ran by these:


Llamas or alpacas? You decide.

I was not running particularly fast. At the end of mile 2, I was running a 9:50 pace. I was happy with that and hoped to maintain it. Then at mile 3.5, I stopped to take pictures of the llama/alpacas. At mile 4, my toes started hurting. At mile 5, I realized I should have had some water in the past 2 hours (and past 2 water stations!). Mile 6 came, and my stomach was cramping. Around mile 8, I thought maybe I should have trained in the direct sunlight. 53 degrees is much warmer at 11:15 AM with the sun high in the sky than it is at 8:15 AM (the latest I usually run). I moved my number off my jacket and on to my tank top around mile 10. That involved walking as well. I took my jacket off at mile 12, and picked up my pace for the last mile. I passed a bunch of people and was quite proud of myself for that :) I would have been a couple seconds faster but I practically tripped over a little girl who came onto the course to "finish" with her mom. Good thing she was cute :)

Me with my medal:

Sorry, ladies! Didn't mean to include you in my moment :) OK, less random people in this one.


My official time was 2:12:33.50. Here are the results. Honestly, I was hoping I could do 10 minute miles, but a 10:08 pace is pretty good. I learned a lot.

Things I need to work on/think about/learn from:
1. Food. I have no idea what to eat before a race/long run. Generally, I do not eat at all prior to my long runs because I wake up and go. On my last long run (17.3 miles 2 weeks ago), I had 2 bites of banana beforehand because I woke up hungry. Then I had 1 bite of a Larabar halfway through. For my pre-race meal, I had a small egg and egg white omelette with spinach and non-dairy cheese, along with celery and almond butter at 6:45 (race was at 10). I had a rice cake at 7:30. My stomach was OK for the race, but not great.

2. Water. I generally don't drink much on my long runs because I drink a large cup of water before I leave. I also run in the dark for at least an hour. I only take water on runs over 100 minutes long, and I have to force myself to drink 16 ounces. At mile 5, I started getting the weird feeling that I get in my head when I'm dehydrated. I do not have a fuel belt, so I had to wait until mile 6.8 to get a drink. I had 2 cups. Then I had a cup at the last 2 stations, along with some of the free gel they were handing out. Post-race today, I am very dehydrated.

3. Clothing. I wore too much of it :) I wore the same tank top I always run in, with running tights and shorts, and a windbreaker. The first issue is my tights are too big, so I have to hike them up. The high waist of the tights contributed to my stomach pain. Then the direct sunlight made me very warm. So I'll have to research better clothing solutions.

But I finished!

And one of my favorite part of races?

Coupons!

Legacy 5K: Race Re-cap

Hello, friends!

I know I've not been super-active, but I have some exciting stuff in the works. A few hints: an update on my Weight Watchers journey, a series on meal-planning, where I share my monthly GFDFSF meal plan with you, low maintenance guide to fermenting, and some running updates as well.

On a whim, I signed up 2 Thursdays for the Legacy 5K, which was on 2 Sundays ago. Believe it or not, this was only my 4th race of my adult life. When I ran my first 5K in 2003, I ran it in 29:46 (9:36 pace). I ran for about 6 more months, and then I stopped running for 4.5 years due to many factors, including major hip and back issues. I ran a 5K in 2008 in 32:05 (10:20 pace, but it was a huge race and I lost a lot of time trying to gain speed). Soon after I got pregnant and stopped running again.

I ran a little last summer (2010), stopped for the winter, and started again in May when I re-joined Weight Watchers. Then I ran a 10K in July in 58:10 (9:22 pace). I had a goal in mind for the Legacy 5K of 28 minutes or under, but I didn't tell anyone. At the very least, I was hoping for a new 5K personal record.

Here's a race recap for you :)

Starting out, my legs felt a little heavy, so I wasn't running super fast. I figured I'd assess my pace at the first mile marker. I looked at my pedometer at 5 mins, and then again at 10, and thought, "I'm either running at a super-leisurely pace, or there are no mile markers." Soon after that, I saw that people had started running by me, going the other direction, and could see the last turn in site.

I got to the halfway point at just around 13:33 or so and thought, "I could do this in 27 or under!" I also figured my legs felt heavy because I was running at a sub-9 minute pace and didn't know it! Of course, having no mile markers, I didn't exactly have anything to gauge my pace on, so I just ran a little faster. The homecoming stretch was short, so I sprinted and inadvertently passed a guy The crowd was yelling, "You can take him! You can catch him!" I wasn't trying to catch him, just trying to finish fast :)

My official time was 26:08, over 3.5 minutes faster than my previous PR and almost 2 minutes faster than I hoped to run it! I came in 66th place out of 258 people.

A couple cool things:
When I walked into the registration area and was looking at the sponsors, thinking, "It'd be great if I could get some free running gear!" Not 10 minutes later, a woman was going around, asking people to test out running socks! So I got free running socks :)

The race took place at a plaza, sort of an open air mall. Whole Foods was one of the sponsors; that's how I heard about the race because I get emails from them. They had a deal that if you register in the store between 5-7 PM on Thursday, you get entered into a $25 gift card drawing for the plaza. Well, when I registered at 6:30, the race organizer said, "As of right now, you have a 100% chance of winning the gift card. No one else has registered so far." I found him at the race, and I did win the card! So I paid $20 to run, and I'll get a $25 GC!

My next race will be the Chilly Half Marathon.

Hamilton Beach Donut Maker and Gluten Free Donuts!

Sunday night, I found quite the gem at a local thrift store:


A donut maker!!! I had JUST been thinking THAT day how awesome it would be if I could find an easy way to make donuts for my kids. I printed out 3 recipes for gluten free donuts and tried 2 of them on Sunday morning after running 14 miles.

First I made Lemon Donuts (I didn't have any poppyseeds) from the Spunky Coconut blog (a go-to GF blog). I stuck to the recipe, except I added lemon extract and some lemon pulp. I should have doubled the recipe because this made 4 donuts. They were very good, but (in my opinion) the batter was too thick and difficult to use in the donut maker. I did not frost them.

So we decided to try this recipe, a random gluten-free donut recipe I found by working the Google on the internet machine.

OK, first of all, the image for the recipe is clearly cut & paste from Krispy Kreme's website or something. Your donut will not look that that. Anyway, I mostly followed the recipe, but I added cinnamon & about 10 drops of Vanilla Creme Liquid Stevia.

Here are some of the cinnamon donuts cooking:


And here are some lemon and cinnamon donuts all done:


I love this little machine! The only drawback of the Hamilton Beach Donut Maker is, ok, 2 drawbacks: 1) it only makes 2 donuts at a time and 2) the bottom of the donut is more well-done than the top. Once we realized this, we simply flipped the donuts about 3 minutes in (they need to cook about 5-6 minutes).

If you ever see one of these beauties at a yard sale or thrift store, definitely pick one up!

Banana Oat Scones, Gluten & Dairy-free

Bananas.

It always seems to be feast or famine around here with bananas. Mostly feast. Especially since bananas have been on sale a lot this month.

Thus, I'm always looking for ways to use up overripe bananas. I de-glutenized this recipe recently, and yum! It's a winner.



Banana Oat Scones

Ingredients:
1 cup non-dairy milk (I use rice or coconut milk)
1 tsp vinegar

2 very ripe bananas, mashed
2 tbsp coconut oil
1/4 cup honey (use maple syrup or coconut sugar to make vegan)

1 cup baking mix
1 cup buckwheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp flax meal (optional)
2 cups rolled oats (make sure they are GF!)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Measure out the milk & add the vinegar to it. Let that sit.

Mashed the bananas in a large bowl. Melt the coconut oil & honey, if solid, and add to the bananas.

Mix together baking mix, flour, baking powder, baking soda & salt (flax seed meal optional). Add the mixed dry ingredients and the milk to banana mixture. Stir, then roll in most of the oats. Save about 1/4 cup to sprinkle on scones.

Rather than make round, individual scones, I split the batter in 2 and made 2 pie plate mountains of scones. Make sure the pie plates are greased. Sprinkle the remaining oats on top of the 2 mountains.

Bake for about 30-40 minutes until a knife stuck in the scones comes out clean.

Have a bunch of friends over so you don't eat them all at once.

Don't forget to check out Gluten-free Wednesdays over at my friends' blog!

Gluten-free Lemon Cake with Creamy Coconut Frosting

We had a birthday in our home this week! I was given several cake and muffin mixes and decided to spruce one up for the party. Very simple, but very good! Of course I don't have a picture because we ate it up too fast!

If you don't have a cake mix handy, an easy one to find is the GF Betty Crocker mix found at regular grocery stores. This is actually one of our favorite cake mixes.

Gluten-free Lemon Cake
1 box yellow cake mix
Zest from 2 lemons
2 teaspoons lemon extract (or extra zest)*
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Juice of one lemon

Whatever the box calls for, which in my case was:
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil (I used coconut)
1 cup non-dairy milk (minus the lemon juice)

Preheat the oven according to the box of cake mix.

Zest the lemon. You do this by washing them well and then grating them on the smallest setting of your grater.

Juice one of the lemons into a measuring cup. Add milk (I used rice) to bring it to the 1 cup mark (or how ever much liquid your recipe calls for).

Beat the oil, milk, extracts, eggs and zest together. Slowly add cake mix and beat until well-mixed.

Pour into a 8 or 9-inch round cake pan, or a square one. Bake according to the directions on the box.

Creamy Coconut Frosting
I cannot for the life of me find the recipe I used. It was on the internet.

It went something like this :)

1/2 cup coconut oil, cold
3 cups powdered sugar
1/4-1/2 cup canned coconut milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used an alcohol-free one)
3/4 cup shredded coconut

Since it's hot right now, I measured out the coconut oil and put it in the fridge for a while.

Put it in a bowl and beat it until creamy. Add powdered sugar and milk.

If it's cold, you will need to heat the coconut milk just a tiny bit to get it liquid.

Add the vanilla to 1/4 cup cooled coconut milk. Slowly add to mixing bowl. Add more milk if the consistency is too thick.

Fold in shredded coconut.

Frost the cooled cake. Store in the refrigerator until it's time to eat.

*If you have trouble finding lemon extract, it's super-easy to make your own. All you need is 7-8 ounces of vodka or rum, 1 lemon (preferably organic because the alcohol will be extracting all that is one the peel) and an 8 ounce glass jar.

Peel the lemon using a veggie peeler, focusing on getting just the yellow part (the white makes it bitter). Put the peel in the jar, and cover with alcohol. Put it a dark places and let it sit for at least a week (I think I did 2 weeks). Remove the peel and store the extract.

Garlic Scape Pesto, Dairy-free

Today, I modified this recipe to make a new & improved garlic scape pesto.

Garlic Scape Pesto
3/4 cup water
15-20 garlic scapes
1/4 cup raw pine nuts
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
3 large kale leaves
Juice of one lemon

Soak the pine nuts in water for about an hour or more. Drain the water and rinse. Trim the garlic scapes of the stringy end (but leave the flower/bud thing) and the hard end on the other side.

Throw all ingredients into the blender. Blend it really well. This makes 2 cups of pesto, and is only 12 points plus for the whole recipe in the Weight Watchers system. That means you can add just over 2 tablespoons to your pasta and it's only 1 point.

I boiled brown rice fusilli and steamed some chicken breast, green beans & summer squash with a side of corn. All veggies were from our farmshare!

Poor Man's Pancakes

I made this up because I had nothing planned for dinner and I have a ton of overripe bananas in the fridge. I am desperate to find uses for them.

So I made up a pancake.

I'm not sure why I chose the name for the pancakes. Forgive me.

Poor Man's Pancakes
1 overripe banana
1 egg
1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Blend the banana & egg in your blender. Pour into a bowl. Mix in flour, baking powder & baking soda.

I quadrupled the recipe, used peanut flour, buckwheat flour, almond flour & brown rice protein powder for "flour" to give them a protein boost.

Spoon about 1/4 cup of batter at a time onto a hot griddle or pan. Flip when bubble. Eat with or without syrup (I put almond butter on mine).

This made 16 pancakes. We ate them all.