Pumpkin Pie - Oh yum!

The pumpkin pie turned out particularly yummy this year so I'm recording what recipes I used to make sure I have it for next year.

For the crust, I used Pamela's Artisan flour blend and this recipe from Pamela's website:

Ingredients:

• 2-1/2 cups Pamela's Artisan Flour Blend
• 8 TBSP shortening- well chilled
• 8 TBSP unsalted butter- well chilled
• 1/3 cup ice water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• Cream for brushing pie dough before baking (optional)

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 425°.

Cut cold butter and shortening into 1/2" cubes. In separate bowl, combine flour, sugar and salt. Using a stand mixer with paddle attachment, pastry blender, or using fingers, cut butter and shortening into dry mixture until pea sized crumbs are formed. Add ice water and mix until dough comes together. Use up to 1 TBSP additional water if needed.

Roll out dough between 2 pieces parchment or plastic wrap and fix in greased pie pan. For pre-baked shell: bake for 15 minutes at 425°, then turn down oven to 375° and continue baking for 10 to 15 minutes or until brown. If filling, bake according to individual recipe (top with another sheet of rolled pie dough or decorative lattice). Brush the crust with cream and sprinkle with coarse sugar before baking, if desired.

The crust was easy to make and easy to work with. It makes 2 crusts, which in this case made 2 pies.

For the filling, I used a recipe off the can, which was different than what I've tried before, but it worked very well so I'll make it this way again.

For 2 pies (this is my version of what was on the can):
1 29 oz can pumpkin
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
unsweetened vanilla almond milk (fill up the sweetened condensed milk can and pour it in)
1 cup egg beaters (equivalent of 4 eggs)
2 t cinnamon
1 t pumpkin pie spice
1/2 t salt

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Pour the filling into pie crust. Bake at 425 for 15 minutes. Then reduce oven to 350 and bake 45 minutes until knife inserted in center comes out clean.

Oh my yumminess! And notice that I cut the sugar in half by using only one can of sweetened condensed milk and unsweetened almond milk instead of 2 cans of sweetened condensed milk. It works better for my milk-sensitive stomach as well.

I hope this works for you too!

The Best whole grain sandwich bread....

This is a recipe I found online. I LOVE it! I've made it many times and have had good results each time. It's so yummy!

This is the link to the recipe so I'm giving the creator proper credit.
http://aprovechar.danandsally.com/bread-for-the-first-time-in-a-long-time/


Delicious Gluten-Free, Vegan Bread
Recipe for 2 loaves—it is okay to halve the recipe if you want to make just one
Note: If you are using a mixer that doesn’t have a great engine, you may want to mix it by hand at the end to ensure it’s all mixed.  Since there’s no gluten to get tough from overmixing, you can mix until you’re confident.
In a large mixing bowl combine:
1 1/2 cups millet flour
1/2 cup teff flour
1 cup sorghum flour
1 cup cornstarch (or double the potato starch if you can’t eat corn)
1 cup potato starch
1 cup tapioca flour
4 tsp xanthan gum
1 Tbsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp active dry yeast (not rapid rise)
Add:
4 tsp olive oil
3 1/4 cup warm water (not hot)

Mix with electric mixer–using paddle attachment, NOT regular beaters or bread hook–for two minutes.  The bread dough will be more like cake batter than traditional bread dough.
Two options for the rising:
For the best rising: While mixing the bread, create a proofing box from your microwave. Microwave a small mug or ramekin with water until the water boils.  Leave the water in the microwave.  Pour the bread dough into two nonstick or well-greased pans.  Tuck the loaves into the microwave with the water—the container of water should not be touching the pans. (I have to remove the turntable in my microwave to do this.) Allow to rise until batter extends a bit over the top of the pans–generally 30-50 minutes.
Standard method: Pour into two nonstick or well-greased loaf pans, place on a warm surface (such as on top of the pre-heated oven), and cover with a towel. Allow to rise until batter extends a bit over the top of the pan–generally 50-70 minutes. (Batter should take up about half the loaf pan before rising.)
Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Remove loaf pans from oven and cover with aluminum foil. Return to oven and bake for an additional 35-45 minutes, depending on your oven. (Insert a toothpick or knife into the center to see if it comes out clean or doughy, if you aren’t sure when you pull out the bread.)
As with most breads, it is easiest to slice if you allow it to fully cool. But who can wait that long? I usually let it cool for a little bit, and then remove the loaves from the pans and place them on a rack to cool more while I slice it up. The bread tastes delicious warm, dipped in olive oil and herbs or spread with honey and ghee. It also works well for sandwiches after it has cooled. If you won’t be eating it within 2 days, after it’s cooled, slice it, wrap it in a couple of layers of plastic wrap, and freeze it.  Never refrigerate this or other bread—it will get dry and hard if you do. If you leave the bread on the counter (wrapped), it will be good for all purposes for a couple of days.  After that, it will be best used for bread pudding, French toast, croutons, etc.

Thank you to Sally for the recipe.

New apple muffin recipe

My sweet husband pruned our trees last year, which resulted in a large crop of apples this year (well, for us and our two trees worth). We don't spray so usually the worms get most of the apples and the neighbor kids get the rest. But this year, we've made applesauce, dried apples, and now apple muffins.
Yum!
So here's my new recipe. These were just right and dare I say light and well, the kids and I easily finished the 12 smallish muffins for breakfast....

The BEST Apple Cinnamon Muffins

1/2 cup rice flour
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup potato starch
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1/4 t salt
2 egg whites
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup canola oil
1/3 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 apple, peeled and grated

Combine ingredients. Put in muffin pan and bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes. These are 12 smallish muffins - they're probably 2/3 muffins.

As posted, this recipe is dairy free, gluten free and egg yolk free. If you want it to be vegan, you can use 1/2 cup (instead of 1/4 cup) unsweetened applesauce and omit the egg whites. Make sure you cook them long enough so they're not mushy!

Grain Free Gluten Free Waflles

My mom was visiting last week and she is allergic (not sensitive or intolerant but seriously allergic to all grains, including the gluten free ones).  She can't have corn, wheat, or rice.  She's also allergic to all tree nuts so no almond flour either, but I was determined to make her some fun things to eat.  This is one of the recipes I came up with.

Notice I use quinoa flour - quinoa is considered a grain, but technically it's a seed so we did a little experiment and she can have quinoa.  Yeah.

I was surprised at how great the texture is on these - there's no heaviness, no grittiness..  They're perfectly smooth and crispy at the same time.

Here it is: 

1 cup quinoa flour
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup potato starch
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/2 t guar gum

Mix these dry ingredients together.

Then add:
1 cup milk (I use almond but my mom uses regular milk - either works great)
1 cup water
2 eggs, beaten or 1/2 cup of egg substitute
4 T coconut oil
1 T honey
1 t vanilla

Mix all together and put in sprayed waffle iron.  You'll probably need to re-spray your iron about halfway through.

Yummy!

Blueberry Muffins

This is lightly adapted from a book called Special Diet Solutions by Carol Fenster.  I have had good results with these.

Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup brown rice flour
2/3 cup potato starch
2/3 cup tapioca starch

OR

2 1/3 cup of a premixed flour blend

1 t xanthan or guar gum
2 1/2 t baking powder
1 t salt

1 cup milk (cow, rice, almond all work)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs or 1/2 cup egg subsitute
2/3 cup sugar or 1/3 cup honey (either works great)
1 t vanilla extract
2 t grated lemon peel (optional but yummy)

1 cup blueberries


Glaze: (optional)
2 T powdered sugar or 1 T honey
2 T lemon juice


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Grease or line a 12-cup muffin pan.

Put milk, oil, eggs, sugar or honey, vanilla, lemon peel in a mixer and mix together.  Then add the flour(s), xanthan gum, salt, baking powder and mix.  Stir the blueberries in gently.  Spoon into muffin tins. 

Bake approximately 25 minutes or until tops of muffins are lightly browned.  Remove from oven.  Combine powdered sugar or honey and lemon juice to form glaze.  Brush or drizzle over warm muffins.

Makes 12 muffins.