Gluten And Dairy Free Frosty Strawberry Squares

I'm poking my head in to say "Hi!" and "I miss you!" and "Here's a recipe I modified and am now obsessed with!".

I've blogged about Frosty Strawberry Squares before.  They are a family tradition.  A delicious family tradition.  Have I mentioned before that we also have a family tradition of struggling with our weight?  Yes, well...

I'm still on the gf, df train, though Luke has allowed me to add potatoes back into my diet (yay! I had french fries for the first time since my pregnancy a couple nights ago!).  I couldn't imagine a summer with out Frosty Strawberry Squares, Oh My! (meant to be said like "Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!").  And I will share with you the recipe that has replaced all my meals with smooth, berrylicious goodness.  Ok, not all my meals.  Just breakfast...

Gluten and Dairy Free Frosty Strawberry Squares

Ingredients:

1 cup Jule's gluten free flour (or almond, rice, whatever you prefer)

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts or granola (we have to modify our recipe to granola due to a nut allergy)

1/2 cup coconut oil, melted

2 egg whites

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 cup white sugar

2 cups pureed strawberries

2 cans coconut milk

1/2 cup powdered sugar


Directions:

Place cans of coconut milk in fridge overnight. (or on ice in freezer for half hour if in a hurry!) Place mixing bowl and whisk attachment in freezer for a couple hours before beating coconut milk.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

someday I'll paint the chalkboard labels I

pinned on Pinterest on these...

Mix flour, brown sugar, nuts or granola and melted coconut oil together in a bowl. Spoon out, evenly, onto tin foil covered cookie sheet. Heat in oven until mixture begins to smell toasted, about 10 minutes. Remove and set aside to cool.

In mixing bowl combine egg whites and lemon juice and whip until soft peaks form. Slowly add in sugar while whipping. Whip until stiff peaks form.

Puree strawberries in a blender or food processor. Fold in strawberries.

Open the cans at the bottom with a bottle opener to drain off the coconut water.  Open the top of the can all the way and scoop out the thick cream.

Beat coconut milk in chilled bowl. As it starts to whip and increase in volume, gradually add in the powdered sugar.

Fold whipped coconut cream into egg white and strawberry mixture.

Sprinkle 2/3 nut/granola mixture over bottom of greased 9x13 pan. Pour strawberry cream mixture over this and smooth evenly. Sprinkle reserved nut/granola mixture over top.

Cover in saran wrap and freeze for six hours or overnight.  No need to let thaw before slicing, this version is super fluffy and creamy!  None of my family could taste any hint of coconut in these.

Yum!

And if you are intimidated by all the whipping and frothing business that goes on in this recipe, let me reassure you.  It's not hard.  See, this is how I made this:

One-handed, nursing a baby.  You can do it!

Gluten and Dairy Free Cornbread! Yummers!

I'm not eating carbs so much right now due to Operation De-babyfy My Body. (the working title was ODMB, but that sounded too much like a deceased rapper for me) We had guests to dinner last night.  One of them, the annoying one who makes waitresses check the ingredients in everything before she orders (this is why we can go out to eat together with little fear of being a nuisance to each other, well, at least when it comes to food), is gluten and dairy free as well.

She's also attempting, along with me, to be glutton free.  We both complimented each other on our weight loss and then hoed into the gf and df cornbread I'd made specially for the occasion.  And then I tried to foist more of it on her because she'd lost more weight than me.  rude.

Now, I know that our carb starved pallets may be a little easier to please but this was seriously amazing cornbread, even on a gluten eating level.  I took another recipe and tweaked it and played with it until it was not only gfdf but also dericious. I spelled it like that on porpoise (and that too), cuz it's funny that way.

So here it is. Enjoy:

GLUTEN AND DAIRY FREE CORNBREAD

1 cup almond flour or Jules gf flour

3/4 cup stone-ground cornmeal

3 Tablespoons of raw sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg beaten

1/4 c. applesauce

1 cup milk (almond milk, or whatever milk you prefer)

1/4 cup coconut oil

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Mix the dry ingredients (flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt) together in a medium bowl and set aside.

Grease 8" pan or loaf pan with coconut oil.  You can also use a cast iron skillet if you are awesome like that.  For cast iron, melt 1 T. coconut oil in skillet on stove top.  Swirl oil around to coat all inside surfaces.

In a small bowl, combine the eggs, milk, and 1/4 cup coconut oil.  Add this mixture all at once to the flour mixture and stir until just moistened.  Do not over mix!  Pour batter into the baking pan or hot skillet. Bake for 25-30 minutes, 15-20 for cast iron skillet, or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean. Serve warm.

this is not butter, sorry. it's earth balance.

You're welcome.

Recipes! Recipes! Oo La La! (chunky monkey cookies and gluten, dairy and sugar free cookie dough dip)

Well, hello there all you smiling, happy people holding hands!  Please excuse any typographical errors herein, I am typing with one hand and feeding a baby with the other!  Huzzah!

But that is not the end of the many wonders I have turned my hand to today. 

First I made the highest sacrifice a mother can make for her children: I baked our favorite cookies.  Cookies I can not eat.  If you are all at sea, go here for the explanations.  That's right, these cookies are chock-a-block gluten and dairy.  And they are soo good.  They are not "foodie" cookies.  There's no cardamom, basil or raw honey in them.  In fact, you make them with a box of (gasp!) instant pudding.  Years ago, long before children, I used a box of banana cream instant pudding and thus Betsi's Chunky Monkey cookies were born.

You can use any flavor pudding you wish!  Vanilla pudding will just produce regular chocolate chip cookies, only better.  The pudding makes these incredibly moist, rich chocolate chip cookies.

photo taken one-handed with baby on my hip.  Sorry there's no pretty frou-frou display.

So here's the recipe:

2 1/4 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 c. butter, softened
1/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 3.9 oz (small) instant pudding mix (dry)
2 large eggs
12 oz. chocolate chips (go for the Ghiradelli, baby)

Stir together flour and baking soda with whisk.
Beat butter and sugars with mixer. Beat in vanilla and pudding until smooth.
Mix in eggs, one at a time.
Slowly beat in dry ingredients.
Stir in chocolate chips.
Chill for 30 minutes.
Heat oven to 350*
Drop dough in teaspoon size balls on greased cookie sheets, one inch apart.
Bake for 10 minutes or until beginning to firm on edges.
Remove from cookie sheets three minutes out of the oven.
Delicious...

So, there I was, lumping out delicious cookie dough and not even able to make myself g&d free cookies because I'm off sweets right now in an attempt to shed the baby weight; when I remember the recipe I pinned recently on Pinterest (you can check out my boards by clicking on the Pinterest button up on the right).  It looked potentially good.  So I thought I'd give it a go.

I made Cookie Dough Dip.  Gluten, dairy and sugar free cookie dough dip.  It's pretty darn good!

I found the original recipe here.

I modified it a bit.  The original recipe calls for soaking dates overnight in water.  I didn't have dates.  Or patience.  Definitely not the patience.   So I used raw stevia.  I think it turned out pretty good.  You have to be ok with the taste of stevia though.

Cookie Dough Dip

1 1/2 cups chickpeas (1 can drained and rinsed)
heaping 1/8 tsp salt
a little bit over 1/8 tsp baking soda
1 T plus 1 tsp. nut butter (this makes it taste like peanut butter cookie dough.  I was all for it but the writer of the original recipe suggests using only 3 T to avoid this.  I used sun nut butter.)
1 1/4 cups raw stevia
2 T nondairy milk.  I used coconut milk.  I used closer to 3 T but felt this made the dip too thin.
1 cup sugar free chocolate chips or chunks. Recipe for these below. (I don't recommend most sugar free chocolates on the market.  They are generally not dairy free and tend to use unhealthy and diarrhea inducing fake sugars) This site is a good source for all natural dairy, gluten and sugar free chocolates.

Put all ingredients but chocolate chips in food processor and blend till very smooth.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Voila!  Eat with a spoon or dip gluten free pretzels, apples, whatever in!  Well not "whatever".  I mean, don't try to dip little sausages on sticks or anything like that.

Sugar Free chocolate bars

1/2 cup plus 1 T cocoa powder (I prefer Ghiradelli)
4 T unrefined coconut oil (melted)
40 drops NuNaturals vanilla stevia drops (or 1/4 cup agave)

Combine coconut oil and stevia drops.  Stir in cocoa powder and 3 T nondairy milk.  Then stir like a maniac.  Stir like it's your job.  Stir like a boss.  Stir until it gets thick. Smoosh between waxed paper in Ziploc bags and refrigerate or freeze until hard.  Once hard, chop them up for sugar free chocolate chips!

Ok, I've got to go now, the baby is going all Hannibal Lecter on my face.  Seriously, kid's going right for the eyes lately, with those scritchy-scratchy fingernails and a gleeful smile.

a table worth writing about...or on

Happy Monday, Internets!

What did you do this weekend? 

My husband and I spent a lot of ours cursing and covered in Still Tidewater.  We painted the heck out of our kitchen table and chairs.

A little back story on our meal partaking furniture:

We had a kitchen table and chairs that I bought at a yard sale for 20 bucks many moons ago.  It's just a simple affair, with one leaf and four matching chairs.  We sanded it and painted it and then beat the crap out of it over the years with our growing brood.  Over the years I collected four more chairs and painted them to match.

My friend, Renee, also had a black table that she had painted.  She also had baby twins at the time and so the original finish didn't get sanded or stripped before it was painted.  Consequently, the paint was a bit chipped and peeling.  When they moved to Texas last spring (SNIFF), she sweetly gifted me with this big, sturdy table and chairs.  And an elliptical machine, which I totally use all the time....honest...sorta.

Like the only photo I could find of this table and chairs..also featured: Renee's kiddos, Ben, Neill and some burritos.

So, the big table with, like a million leaves, moved into our kitchen and the older table moved into the disused dining room to be covered with a vintage table cloth and piled with brik-a-brak and be...disused.

I've been wanting to refinish the table since May but other things, cute things mainly, kept getting in the way.  Well, I finally did it!  Or, WE finally did it.  My husband can't stand the sight of his wife sitting in a puddle of turquoise paint, holding an electric paint sprayer and crying, apparently.

It turned out AWESOME.

Look how the pretty details on the base show up now!

And here's the best part:

Yep, that's a chalkboard painted tabletop, baby!  My mind swims with all the uses this has.  And the fun!  And it's totally washable.

This morning, the husband looked at the table and said, "You know, I think we need to distress the chairs and the base.  It would be much more cohesive with the black showing through."

I'm surprised he didn't start that sentence with "Hey, girl..".

Yes, I'm blessed, ladies.  My man knows what "distressed" means and not only that, he's totally right.  As soon as I get the chance I'm taking some fine grain sandpaper to this bad boy.

Neill copied a place setting for the other side. So cute.

I'm loving my bright and breezy new table.  Thanks, love!  And thanks, Renee!