Happy 4th of July! Now Have a GF Hotdog!

Macy's fireworks from the roof of my building last year.

Happy Independence Day! I hope you are enjoying the day with friends, family, fireworks, and hopefully a good old fashioned barbecue!

If you are looking to cook up some gluten free hot dogs, I have a couple of suggestions:

• Applegate Farms: organic gluten free hot dogs. Yum!
• For the New Yorkers: Nathan's Hot Dogs are also gluten free. FTW!
• Gluten free hot dog buns are generally awful. Udi's makes an adequate hot dog bun, though I find it fails quickly and if you have them dry like I do, they fall part.
• Schar makes them as well - I have bought some but haven't had them yet. Typically heated Schar products are decent though so fingers crossed!

How are you celebrating the holiday?

Happy Canada Day!

Photo taken in Charlottetown, PEI

As a ex-pat living in America, I just wanted to give a shout out to my home and native land, Canada. Happy Canada Day, I hope all my friends, family & readers up north have a fantastic celebration today!

I myself will be in Canada next weekend, and am looking forward to having poutine (gluten free of course). I usually have to make it at home, but if you know of a GF poutine in or around Montreal, please leave it in the comments!

Detox Diet Friendly Irish Curry Fries / Trio Recipe

With St Patrick's Day coming up, I thought it would be fun to have a few Irish food posts. To start it off I could think of nothing better than posting about Irish Curry Chips, one of my favorite foods of all time (especially after a few cocktails). Although I can get them in one chipper in New York it is not convenient, nor healthy. And there is a twist available, which somehow I did not experience until my last trip to Dublin - the Trio.

I wanted to make a not terrible / somewhat healthful version, and the components are easy to make. For the fries I simply cut up the potatoes into fry (chip) shapes, toss with a bit of extra virigin olive oil and salt, and bake in the oven at 425F for about 8 minutes, flip and bake for another 8 minutes or so. 

While those were baking I made the curry sauce - about 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk with about 2 tsp chopped garlic and 2 tsp-ish curry powder. Cook on medium-low to low heat until hot. It doesn't thicken much with the unsweetened coconut milk, if you use the canned variety it will. 

To enjoy just curry fries put the two together in a bowl and enjoy!

I took it is a step further and added rice to make a trio. It sounds so weird to North Americans, but it is so good. I used volcanic rice, but any variety would do. I had some pre-made that I heated up in the microwave, then added fries and finally the curry sauce. While it can't hold a candle to the trios you can get in a Chinese restaurant in Dublin, these certainly suffice for my cravings. 

Happy Valentine's Day | Paleo Cupcakes

With pearls. I think they look so lovely!

Purchased at Sur La Table

Okay, well maybe not entirely paleo, but the base and most of the frosting is! Last weekend I had a wander around Sur La Table as there is one close to where I live and I completely had cabin fever otherwise. I needed a cutting board, and a bit of scope creep later I had a bag full o' goodies, including this adorable Paris inspired cupcake liners I thought would be precious for Valentine's Day cupcakes. Plus my husband and I have an upcoming trip to Paris so I thought it was quite fitting as well. 

So obviously I just needed to make cupcakes. I was going to make one of my usual recipes, but decided instead to find a paleo recipe using coconut flour which I did here. They looked so lovely in the photographs and the recipe sounded good so I used it as the basis and made it my own:

• 1/2 rounded cup coconut flour
• 4 lg eggs
• 4 tbsp egg whites
• 1/3 cup organic raw cane sugar
• 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp lavendar extract
• 1/2 tsp baking soda

As with all my favorite recipes, dump ingredients into a bowl and mix well with hand mixer. Put the cups into your muffin pan, and then fill using an ice cream scoop (an even scoop without excess yielded me 12 cupcakes). Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or so. Let cool completely.

Icing / Frosting (Paleo!):

I found this recipe for paleo cream cheese frosting (yah I just said paleo cream cheese frosting). I made half the recipe and subbed 1/2 tsp vanilla extract and 1/2 tsp lavendar extract for the vanilla. I will not leave you in suspense it was delicious.

Fondant (not paleo):

I really wanted to make this batch my fanciest batch of cupcakes yet, so I decided to try making fondant to use on top. I found this recipe for uncooked fondant and decided to make it. I halved the recipe as I really just wanted to make a few hearts to place on top. 

Decorative:

I bought an WIlton's icing color in rose to make half my icing and my fondant bright pink. Mind yourself with this stuff, it will dye your hands and you will need to do some good scrubbing to get it out. I also used Wilton's white sugar pearl sprinkles on half my cupcakes. Note on both of these: neither contains gluten ingredients but do bare the possibility of being made on the same equipment as item that contain wheat, so use with caution if you're intolerant or celiac (I've not had a problem with either, doesn't mean you won't or I won't in future). Omit these things if you  want to keep them paleo.

The fondant I colored and cut some pieces into hearts. The remainder is in my fridge until I figure out what to do with it. The other half I dyed the icing and then carefully decorated with pearls. See below for cupcake-food-porn shots. 

Right after icing, pre-pearls

The complete set

I didn't have a cutter for the hearts so I free handed with a very
sharp knife. Not bad for my first go at fondant I'd say!

Hope you have a fantastic Valentine's Day. Are you making any treats for the occassion?