Sun Dried Tomato Dip

This recipe is from Cooking Light. So says the yellowing newspaper clipping from whence I make it. But the recipe is so old they don’t have the recipe online. Which is really a shame.  They do have a Roasted Garlic, Sun Dried Tomato  and White Bean Dip, but it requires you to roast a head of garlic and who has time for that? This one is much easier and probably just as tasty.

Cooking Light’s Sun -Dried Tomato Dip

1 -3 oz package sun dried tomatoes (not in oil)

1/3 cup fresh basil leaves

2 Tbsp basalmic vinegar

2 Tbsp tomato paste

1 Tbsp olive oil

1/8 tsp each salt and pepper

1 – 15 oz can white beans, drained

1 garlic glove, minced

In a small bowl, combine tomatoes with 1 cup boiling water and let sit for 15 minutes. Drain tomatoes, reserving 1/2 cup liquid. Place tomatoes, reserved liquid, and all remaining ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. This dip gets even better after it sits in the fridge for a while. I put it on Glutino Brand Veggie Crackers. Mmmmmm.

Apple Cinnamon Muffins – dairy, gluten, egg free

My three year old son and I are doing a five week parent/child class at the local Waldorf school. One of the kids in his class just turned four, so there was cake. Luckily, the instructor was very thoughtful to let me know ahead of time that the cake would be an apple cinnamon cake.

When I have to make a substitution, I like it to be as much like the original as possible. Here is what I came up with. It is based on the Apple Spice Cake in Carol Fenster’s book, Gluten Free 101. I made it dairy and egg free, and dialed the spices down to appeal to a three year old (the original had ginger, nutmeg, cloves and molasses in it.)

Apple Cinnamon Muffins (from Feeding My Kid)

3 cups gluten free flour mix

2 tsp xanthan gum (omit if your flour blend already contains xanthan or guar gum)

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 Tbsp cinnamon

3 tsp Ener G Egg Replacer

1 1/2 cups dairy free milk (almond, rice, soy)

2 cups packed brown sugar

3/4 cup Earth Balance spread

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup peeled grated Granny Smith apples

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Coat a muffin tin with cooking spray.

2. In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour mix, xanthan gum, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and Egg Replacer.

3. Combine milk and brown sugar in a saucepan, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Remove from heat and add the Earth Balance and vanilla. Stir to melt butter.

4. Add butter mixture to flour mixture and mix until well blended.

5. Pour batter into muffin tins. Bake 25 minutes or until they pass the toothpick test.  Makes 18 muffins. Let cool, then drizzle with glaze.

Powdered Sugar Glaze (from Feeding My Kid)

1 cup powdered sugar

1 1/2 Tbsp dairy free milk (coconut, soy, almond)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Mix ingredients together and stir to get rid of any lumps.

Dairy Free Dark Chocolate Truffles with Raspberry Coulis

Normally I never post anything that my kids don’t eat, because really this blog is about feeding them. But my kids don’t like chocolate (strange, I know). And this recipe is heavenly. And it is almost Valentine’s Day. So for all those reasons, here is a recipe for Dairy Free Dark Chocolate Truffles.

 

Dairy Free Dark Chocolate Truffles (from Feeding My Kid)

 8 oz. Enjoy Life semisweet mini chocolate chips

4 oz. dairy free unsweetened chocolate, broken into ¼ inch pieces (I use Ghirardelli)

2/3 full fat (not lite) coconut milk

2 Tbsp confectioners’ sugar

 Place both the semisweet and unsweetened chocolate in a medium bowl. Heat the coconut milk in a saucepan over medium heat until it is boiling. Pour the boiling coconut milk over the chocolate, and let stand five minutes. After five minutes, stir well to make sure that all the chocolate is melted and incorporated. Refrigerate for one hour – you want the chocolate to be firm, but not hard.

 Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Using a one tablespoon cookie scoop, scoop the chocolate mixture into balls. Refrigerate for 15 minutes. When the mixture is firm enough to handle, remove from the fridge and GENTLY roll in your hands to form smooth even balls. Coat each truffle in confectioners’ sugar. Serve these immediately. If you aren’t going to serve them immediately, store in the fridge in an airtight container, and bring to room temp and recoat with confectioners’ sugar before serving.

 I think these are heavenly when you pair them with a raspberry coulis. Raspberries and dark chocolate – mmmmm. Technically, a coulis is a thick sauce of pureed and strained fruit or veggies. This is a couli for folks in a hurry. Or impatient folks, who don’t want to strain out raspberry seeds.

Quick Raspberry Coulis (from Feeding My Kid)

 ½ cup frozen raspberries

¼ – ½ cup water

¼ cup sugar (or more if you berries are tart)

 Place all ingredients in a small saucepan and heat over medium high heat until boiling.  Mash raspberries with a fork – they should just disintegrate. Simmer until the sauce reduces to a thick syrup. Cool and serve with truffles.

Gluten Free Easter Cookies

These are fantastic! I found a sugar cookie recipe that you can’t tell is gluten free dairy free.

The recipe is here – Gluten Free Cutout Sugar Cookies with Icing Recipe.

When I made these, I did not add lemon (zest or extract). I used Earth Balance instead of butter. Because my kid tolerates goat milk, I used it instead of the coconut milk indicated in the recipe. I don’t like the taste of goat milk, but have found that it baked goods, with minimal amounts, I can’t taste it.

I found that the icing needed way more liquid that called for. I just kept adding until is was the spreadable consistency I wanted. I used a combination of coconut milk and water as the liquid for the icing – I didn’t want a super coconutty flavor.

The sprinkles are the Easter series by Wilton, which are (yay!) gluten and casein free. I hope they continue to make more of their products GFCF. These are super fun with little eggs and bunnies.

The idea was to have my kid help me decorate these, but he was sick with his first cold in a year in a half, so I was on my own. The other part of the plan was to deliver some to our next door neighbors. But then I got sick, and who wants to eat cookies delivered by a coughing, sniffing person? The best laid plans… guess we will be eating them ourselves. Won’t be  a problem.