Gluten-Free Irish Soda Bread Recipe

Tender, delicious gluten-free soda bread.

As with anything in life, you get a little, you lose a little.

I just wish Mother Nature would reverse the getting and losing when it comes to life post-menopause, Darling. I'm losing on top where I've never been particularly gifted, if you know what I mean. I buy bras in the teen section because the only adult bras that fit me are those pull-over-your-head uniboob running bras and Ladies, come on. These tight little torturers (once you squeeze into them, which could take a good seven minutes; I timed it once) are, shall we say, less than inspiring. If you're over a certain age and so is your husband, you know what I'm talking about.

So I'm losing oomph there and I'm gaining in the new mid-section of me I like to call Doris because it somehow seems appropriate. These love handles deserve a name, after all. A retro name like Kitty or Patty or Madge. Because they're evidently not intent upon leaving. They insist they're here to stay.

So since Doris won't go away, I try to coax her to skedaddle by eating lots of lettuce. And a rice cake or two. I tell myself, Bunny food rocks! But I lose even more of my boobs when I eat this way.

And Doris still sticks around.

Which brings me to bread. (What midriff conversation doesn't?) In this case, Irish soda bread. Yep. The classic, yeast-free quick bread. I'm not gonna give up a bread this delicious. Even for Doris. I'll just have to run up and down the block. A lot. In between taking iPhotos with my iPhone. That's my plan anyway.

That should work, right?

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Warm Salad Month: Wild Rice, Butter Bean, and Garlic Roasted Carrot Salad

Well, I suppose this is the last post in the warm winter salad month. February flew by, filled up with seasonal fare at its best. It can sometimes be a challenge to find my creative side when the ground has been frozen for 5 months, but I am always amazed at what I can pull off with a few vegetables from the cold storage and some dried goods from the pantry.

This next warm salad is probably my most beloved because it features 3 of my all-time favorite foods: wild rice, butter beans, and garlic roasted carrots. On their own, these elements are utterly delicious, but this dish is more than the sum of its perfect parts. The combination of smooth, creamy butter beans, with nutty wild rice and garlicky-salty-sweet carrots adding just a hint of crispness, come together with a tangy mustard maple dressing that will knock your winter socks off. A little on the labour-intensive side, it is well worth the effort to arrive at this truly unique and delectable salad that eats like a meal.

Into the Wild Rice
I think that wild rice is one of the most delicious whole foods available. It has a rich, nutty, almost smoky flavour, and fantastic chewy texture. Its dark colour and elegant shape add an unexpected visual contrast to any warm or cold dish.

Contrary to popular belief wild rice is in fact, not rice at all, but the seed of a wild grass that grows in the Great Lakes region of North America. The majority of what we find in the grocery store is no longer foraged, but a cultivated variety. You can still find heirloom varieties of wild rice (which of course taste the best), just make sure that the package indicates that its contents are “Hand harvested, organic, and from the Great Lakes region”. The rice is priced according to its length: the longer the grain, the more expensive it is.

As a bonus, wild rice is wildly nutritious. It is extremely high in folic acid, an essential B-complex vitamin lacking in many people’s diets. Just half a cup of cooked wild rice yields 21.3 mcg of folic acid, where brown rice offers only 3.9 mcg. The niacin content of wild rice is also notably high with l.06 mg for 1/2 cup cooked. Potassium packs an 83 mg punch, and zinc, which is usually available in trace amounts, registers 1.1 mg.
While 1/2 cup cooked wild rice offers 1.5 grams of fiber, it contains 26 mg of magnesium, a healthy balance of B vitamins and only .3 grams of unsaturated fat.


This recipe was an “accident” at work – I was using up seemingly disparate ingredients that were available that day, and this delightful salad was the end result. You can absolutely eat this cold, but again, it is a very good idea at this time of year to nourish your body with warm foods. This salad is a heating triple-hitter and combines three foods that require long cooking times. The rice itself requires between 45 and 50 minutes, the beans about the same, and the carrots around 20 minutes or so. The amount of heat you infuse into your food through the cooking process is invariably given back to you energetically, and the longer the cook time, the deeper the heat will go into your body. Amazing.

Wild Rice, Butter Bean, and Garlic Roasted Carrot Salad
Ingredients:
1/2 cup wild rice
1 cup dried butter beans
4-5 medium carrots
1 small red onion
4 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 bunch fresh dill
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Dressing:
1 Tbsp. mustard
1 Tbsp. maple syrup
2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
pinch of sea salt

Directions:
1. Soak beans for 8 hours or overnight. Drain, rinse well and cover with fresh water. Add a teaspoon of sea salt. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook until beans are soft – about 45 minutes.
2. While the beans are cooking, rinse the wild rice well, drain, and put in a pot. Cover rice with 1.5 cups fresh water, add a couple pinches of sea salt, bring to a boil, and reduce to simmer. Cook until rice is chewy-tender – about 45 minutes. You will know the rice is done when the grains open up to reveal their purple-gray inner portion.
3. Preheat the oven to 400F. While the rice is cooking, wash the carrots and slice them on the diagonal into ‘coins’, place on a baking sheet. Mince the garlic and combine it with the oil. Pour over carrots and toss to coat. Sprinkle with salt. Place in the oven and roast, turning them a few times over the course of 15-20 minutes. The carrots should be cooked but not mushy – al dente!
4. Make the dressing by combining all ingredients together, shake well.
5. Now all the elements come together: Drain and rinse beans in cool water to stop the cooking process. Pour dressing over warm beans and toss. Let sit for 5 minutes or so. Drain the rice if any water remains, cool slightly. Mix with beans. Toss in the carrots, scraping the pan to add garlic oil to the remainder of the ingredients. Throw in some paper-thin onions slices, a heap of fresh, chopped dill, and grind some black pepper to finish.
6. Serve immediately.

This salad is also delicious with red or black quinoa instead of wild rice; roasted sweet potatoes instead of carrots; or try any other mild white bean in place of the butter bean: cannellini, great northern, navy bean etc.

Hold tight, friends. Spring is on its way...

Gluten-Free Multi-Grain Crackers

Company worthy gluten-free olive oil multi-grain crackers.

This is a light, pleasantly crisp cracker that is flaky and tender- and you won't believe it's gluten-free and vegan. The texture is so elegant. Yet. The flavor retains an earthy touch of rustic, with a hint of... Dude. Cue soft focus. Suddenly I feel as if I'm in a varietal wine commercial, tossing my hair back (if I had tossable tresses, that is and not a sensible cheek length bob that refuses to toss) and laughing just so- with a tableaux of my closest, dearest multicultural friends, of course- revealing a gleaming set of perfectly capped teeth as I raise a globe of pinot noir into the rosy glow of a Napa Valley sunset to convey The Good Life.

The life without chin hairs and medical bills and neighbors who don't recycle.

All kidding aside (I don't sport a tableaux of polo shirt wearing best friends and I've never been to Napa Valley or for that matter, capped my teeth or Botoxed my frown lines leaving the perfect hint of crow's feet to crinkle when I smile so that you don't notice my eyebrows are frozen back to 1985) I  just might bake up a batch of these tasty crackers for Oscar night, whip up some Roasted Eggplant Tapenade and pop open a bottle of lovely Veuve Clicquot Brut.

Uh oh.

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Tor 0.2.1.23 Multilingual

Anonimity online without installation.

Download Portable Tor on RapidShare (8.3 MB)

(md5: 074d83dd0e9b00fb83a6c3e106ba6a2e)

Content: Vidalia 0.2.7, Tor 0.2.1.23, Polipo 1.0.4.1 & Torbutton 1.2.4.

Extract and run TorPortable.

Installer check Pidgin, Firefox, Thunderbird, Opera, Flock, Netscape, SeaMonkey Portable if found in expected folders to extract Tor launchers and settings.

When Tor enabled, run *TorPortable launchers (for Mozilla click on TorButton to enable or disable) and don't forget to exit Vidalia when closed.

Settings of installed Tor should be preserved.

Warm Salad Month: Forest Walk Cabbage

I don’t know whether it’s the warm salads or the fact that it’s light outside until 5 p.m. now (holy cow!!!), but I feel that February is going by very quickly. Thank goodness for that, I want spring!

The next delicious dish on the menu is a warm cabbage salad, adapted from 101 Cookbooks, and packed with all kinds of flavour layers. Sweet, sour, woody, salty, rich and clean – we’ve got them all on one spectacular plate of whole food goodness. In fact, something about all of these rich colours and contrasting textures reminds me of a walk through the forest...with just a dash of snow.

The star of the show here is red cabbage, a veritable powerhouse vegetable, often underappreciated and misunderstood. I think this boils down to the fact that cabbage is often either over-cooked and mushy, or when eaten raw, sliced into too-big chunks and not fun to munch – we’re not rabbits after all (although I would bet that I was one in a past life).
In this recipe, the cabbage is sliced into thin ribbons and heated just through, so that it retains some of its distinctive crispness. When tossed with a dark balsamic vinegar, it becomes sealed with a juicy sweet-tartness that deepens as the flavours sink into the slivers of its purple splendor. Too much?


Use your Head: Eat More Cabbage
Like I mentioned earlier, cabbage is a vegetable with crazy health-promoting powers. In fact, it was written up in the New York Times health column: “The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating”.
Cabbage stimulates the immune system and kills bacteria and viruses. It can inhibit the growth of cancerous cells; protect against tumors; controls hormone levels; affects sex drive, fertility, and menopause symptoms. Cabbage can speed up the metabolism of estrogen, which reduces the risk of breast cancer and inhibits the growth of polyps, an early sign of colon cancer.(1)
Cabbage is an excellent source of fiber, another protective measure against colon cancer. The high levels of vitamin A aid in tissue repair, and the sulfur content helps fight infection and protects skin from eczema and other rashes.(1)
Convinced yet? I hope so.

Forest Walk Cabbage Salad
Ingredients:
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 red onion, diced
3 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 pound head of red cabbage quartered and cut into thin ribbons
1-2 crisp green apples, chopped into chunks
2 teaspoons fresh rosemary, minced
a couple handfuls golden raisins (or other plump, chopped dried fruit)
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup walnuts (or toasted hazelnuts, or pumpkin seeds, or sunflower seeds...)
fine grain sea salt
2 ounces goat cheese, crumbled (totally optional)

Directions:
1. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet and sauté the onion for a minute or two with a couple pinches of salt. Stir in the garlic, and the cabbage, and a few more pinches of salt. Stir and cook for just a minute or so, or until the cabbage softens up just a touch.
2. Then stir in the rosemary, most of the raisins, and the vinegar. (The cabbage will continue to get more and more tender even after you remove it from the heat, so keep that in mind, and do your best to avoid overcooking it - where it collapses entirely). Fold in half of the goat cheese, the apples, raisins and walnuts, then taste. Season with more salt if needed.
3. Serve garnished with the remaining raisins, goat cheese, and walnuts, and perhaps a sprinkling of rosemary sprigs.

To make a complete meal, serve this salad on a bed of wild rice, adding to the overall "woodsy-ness" of it all. For vegans, omit the goat cheese and throw in more nuts.

info source: Balch, Phyllis A. Prescription for Dietary Wellness.
New York, NY: Penguin, 2003

Roasted Vegetable Chowder

Craving a bowl of comfort? Have I got a soup recipe for you.

Frost was not on the pumpkin this morning. Not my pumpkin, anyway. Mine's long gone. Turned into a pie. Well, that and it was 80 degrees yesterday. Skateboarders careening by my apartment (at impressive speeds for a Fat Tuesday) wore nothing but Aloha shorts. Welcome to Santa Monica in February.

But what was on my pumpkin- if I still had one?

Pollen, dude. The trees are blooming, doing their sexy spring thang. Bursting. Co-mingling. Giving the bees something to buzz about. And I'm all about having a good time. I believe in love. And bees. But tree pollen, I have to ask you. Why so hostile?

Can't we all just get along?

I am thick and stupid from your assault. Not to mention, dripping from frontal orifices (not the most attractive trait sported by a woman of a certain age, I assure you- though how would you even know? You're a microgametophyte, for goddess sake).

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Ad-Aware 8.2.0 Multilingual

Anti-spyware without installation.

Download Portable Ad-Aware on RapidShare (8.3 MB)

(md5: 898a05c6a4f0b4f33a19db07338e7f7a)

Ad-Watch non available.

Extract and run Ad-AwarePortable.

No definition file: core.aawdef downloaded on first run.

Don't forget to close in systray

Language set by launcher according UserDefaultLang (if you don't want: write UserDefaultLang=false in AdAwarePortable.ini).

Warm Salad Month: Roasted Fennel with Orange and Mint

My, my, my. It really seems like winter just won’t give up. I haven’t even caught a faint suggestion warmth or fresh breeze yet – you know, the kind that of day that just hints that spring is on its way? My latest fantasies for brilliant sunlight and getting dressed without long underwear, have also included munching fresh, crisp greens, and crunchy vegetables, seldom of which have crossed my lips over the past few months. I really do believe that eating seasonally is one of the most important steps to take towards personal health (read more here), which means choosing more locally-grown fruits and vegetables and preparing them in a way to support the body’s needs. This practice is something we’ve long forgotten about since asparagus entered the grocery store in January. However it is possible to eat well according to the season, and still have lots of flavour and variety.
So I declare the month of February…Warm Salad Month! I know it’s hard to forgo the beauty of raw salads this time of year, but it puts stress on the system when we are cold and when we consume cold foods. Makes sense, right? I think so.

The first salad I am featuring is a classic combo of fennel and orange, with a twist. Instead of eating the fennel raw, I chose to roast it, caramelizing the natural sugars, and bringing out an entirely new flavour. It is SO delicious!!



About Fennel
Fennel is like the perfect combination of crisp, crunchy celery and sweet licorice. It is not the most common vegetable in North American cuisine, but surprisingly available at most grocery stores and markets. You can certainly eat the bulb raw (when the weather warms up, of course) as well as the feathery fronds that resemble dill weed – they make a nice garnish and add great flavour.
Fennel is high in vitamin C and A. It is a great source of dietary fiber, and as such may help to reduce elevated cholesterol levels. And since fiber also removes potentially carcinogenic toxins from the colon, fennel bulb may also be useful in preventing colon cancer (1). Fennel is also high in potassium, manganese, and folate.

Roasted Fennel with Orange and Mint Salad
Ingredients:
1 fennel blub per person
a couple oranges (or grapefruit)
2-3 Tbsp. white balsamic vinegar (regular is okay, but it may change the colour of the fennel)
2-3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
pinch of sea salt
1 small red onion
1 bunch fresh mint

Directions:
1. Preheat over to 375F.
2. Wash the fennel bulbs well and remove the green tops. Slice into sections about ½ inch thick. Place fennel in a roasting pan, sprinkle with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt.
3. While fennel is roasting, prepare the other ingredients: Remove rind from orange and slice horizontally to make orange ‘coins’ (save rind). Cut red onion horizontally into paper-thin slices. Roll up several leaves of mint and slice thinly into ribbons.
4. Fennel is cooked when tender (about 15-20 minutes). Discard any burnt pieces.
5. Arrange everything on a plate. Squeeze juice from the leftover fruit inside the orange rind if any remains (no waste!) over the dish, and serve immediately.



As a side note, I came across this great website recently which shows you which foods are in season at what time of year. It’s a very easy to use reference that can keep you informed every month!
Here is the link for fennel, but browse around to find exactly what you’re looking for.
Eat the Seasons

sources: (1) http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=23

Foto Fun : iPhone Photography

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Warm Winter Salad with Roasted Banana Squash and New Potatoes

Roasted fingerling and tiny new potatoes 
and winter squash on baby salad greens.

After a long and restless night I am pondering potato salad and glitter. Sleep deprivation may be unpleasant but it often breaks loose the inertia of stalled imagination (who among us has the power of will to maintain the status quo of the literal, linear world after a scant teaspoon of sleep?). In my experience it is not prudent to ignore gifts of imagination and whimsy. If one begins associating fingerling potatoes and burlesque I say, go for it. You never know when such a spinning sparkling muse will visit again. 

Which is why I am sipping coffee and entertaining lurid flashbacks of the Vegas show that was the 2010 Grammy Awards.

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