Category Archives: canning

Identity Crisis, or “Real” Food vs. “Weird” Food

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This last year has been crazy. I couldn’t have predicted this. At all.

February 2012: “My position was eliminated” after 3.5 years of hard work. We went up to Washington State for three weeks to see if being at sea level in a cloudy climate helps my husband’s migraines. Found out that it helps his head about 40%. It’s the largest difference we’ve found so far. We also put our house up on the market.

March 2012: Moved back to Utah to live with family. I thought this would last a few months, but we’re still here.

April 2012: I got a part-time job teaching English online to students (mostly children) in Spanish-speaking countries. I LOVE IT.

November 2012: My husband’s “position was eliminated.” We also got an offer on our house! We’re in the short sale process, so it’s taking a long time. It’s still going on. We’re hoping to close by the end of February 2013. My husband is looking hard for work, but nothing has worked out yet.

As I’m sure you can imagine, having my life turned upside down means that I really have to re-evaluate who I am and what my values are. It’s been a long and arduous process, and it’s not over yet! This blog has undergone some changes, too! It initially started out as a way for my extended family to understand my Celiac and food allergies, became an attempt to have a gluten-free wedding planning business, then to product reviews, then to….jam.

As I’ve been figuring myself out and what I want to do with this blog, I’ve realized that I no longer let my life revolve around gluten. I am still 100% gluten-free. As I was trying to build a business, though, I just became overwhelmed by the hard-core gluten-free and allergy folks.

3 1/2 years after diagnosis, I really don’t spend a lot of brain power on gluten-free. Seriously. After the hours it took to go grocery shopping the first couple of times, I never thought eating gluten-free would be intuitive, and yet — here I am. It’s so intuitive that I occasionally FORGET to tell servers at restaurants that I have to eat gluten-free. Crazy, right?

Then I thought about what I could do with this blog that those hard-core folks out there can’t provide. They are recipe-creating masters! They have every bit of advice that a newly-diagnosed Celiac or gluten intolerant person could ever dream of needing. They’re activists, always fighting the good fight against gluten and allergy ignorance. They’re writers. I felt like there wasn’t anything I could contribute. I don’t have kids that need dinner 5 minutes ago. I’m not even working full-time. I don’t eat organic, well, pretty much anything.

Then I realized: I can promote real food. For me, real food is peace. It’s love. It’s life. It’s intertwined with life. It’s part of a balance. It doesn’t define me, just like I’m not defined by any single aspect of my life. It’s a big part of my identity, sure, but it’s not everything.

So — real food. Tonight, I made an almond bundt cake.

Almond bundt cake

Almond bundt cake

It consists of almond flour, brown rice flour, baking soda, salt, olive oil, water, agave nectar and (pure) maple syrup. That’s it. That’s all. Just this week, I’ve made turkey piccata, twice-baked sweet potatoes, pad thai, a “south american” pork dish involving quinoa, coconut milk, turmeric, ginger, cloves, and a tomato-apricot chutney. (I’m missing a few ingredients because I’m listing them off the top of my head, but they’re all real ingredients, too.) Tonight was turkey chili with rice. Pumpkin cookies. Chocolate chip cookies. Ginger wheels (softer than snaps). A pear spice cake made with teff (and to DIE for. I would have made that tonight instead of the almond bundt cake, but I didn’t have any fresh, ripe pears).

For me, real food is worth it. I don’t spend the extra money on organic stuff (unless that’s the only way it comes, like some of the flours). I just make real food with real ingredients. I haven’t been to cooking school, and I’m definitely not a photographer. I just like to cook, and document what I cook, and work it into my life. Even though I never could have anticipated that we’d be living with my parents at this point in life, I LOVE cooking for all of us.

I am grateful for having been diagnosed with Celiac Disease. Yes. I AM GRATEFUL. Without the diagnosis, I never would have discovered quinoa. Or almond flour. Or coconut kefir. Or teff. Or how much FUN it is to make JAM! Or the best pumpkin cookies on earth that also happen to be gluten-free and vegan. Or that pancakes and waffles are not the only uses for maple syrup! Or agave nectar. Or tamari. YUM.

Are almond, teff, brown rice, sorghum, tapioca, garbanzo, rice, amaranth, etc. etc. etc. “weird” flours compared to just boring old flour? Yes. Are they nutritious? Most of them. :)  Are they healthy? Yes! Are they real? Absolutely. Run a Google search on teff flour. Run a Google search on quinoa. Try making a stir-fry, but instead of serving it with rice, serve it with quinoa. IT’S SO GOOD. Run a Google search on tamari. It has a darker, richer flavor than soy sauce, and I LOVE IT. Even if I could, I would never go back to regular ol’ soy sauce.

Thanks for reading, thanks for sticking with me, and if you need any help, please let me know! I’m only an e-mail away. I’m happy to help with shopping or cookbook recommendations or anything at all. cinderellaspear (at) gmail.com. If you’d like to join me on Facebook or Instagram, send me an e-mail. I’m not-so-inclined to add people I don’t know when anybody can read my blog.

Also, if there’s anything you’d like me to cover on the blog, let me know!

Thanks for reading,

Cristina

Back from hiatus!

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Hi everyone,

Many thanks if you’re still reading my blog! I took an unofficial hiatus, because I’ve been trying to figure out what direction I want to go with gluten-free stuff. I’m not doing a wedding consulting business anymore, but I’ve been doing a lot of canning, and I’m going to be doing more. I’m going to learn how to use a pressure cooker!

Thanks for bearing with me, thanks for your patience, and we’ll get going again!

Candied-Pickled Apples with Star Anise

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One of my new favorite recipes in Canning For a New Generation is Candied-Pickled Apples with Star Anise. They’re sweet and sour, and they taste especially wonderful on pork.

Apples, spices, sugar, vinegar

 

The finished product

It took me too long to get around to these, because I thought I could only find star anise at Williams and Sonoma. Not true! I ended up finding some in the Mexican spice section at the grocery store. The other spices are really easy to find. Peppercorns, cinnamon sticks, and a couple of others.

Definitely fills my need for Sour Patch Kids — but real food, and no corn syrup!!

National Blog Post Month (NaBloPoMo), and Health

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(For privacy reasons, I’m letting individuals know privately if they won The Gluten Free Consumer subscriptions. If you have any questions about it, send me an e-mail at cinderellaspear at gmail dot com.)

Happy November! I honestly can’t believe it’s here. I love November, because I love Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is absolutely my favorite holiday. Thus far, I have a relatively un-crazy family, and it’s just nice to get together and enjoy each other’s company and some really good food. There’s not hype like there is with Halloween and Christmas, and there’s still a chance for some decent weather.

Now, as to the title of this post. You may or may not be aware of NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Post Month. I’ve never done it before, but I’m giving it a try this year with a slight twist: National Health Blog Post Month. Dealing with Celiac Disease, food allergies and gastroparesis, food and health are of great interest to me. (In fact, I’m not sure that those two words — food and health — are really as separate as we think they are.)

The prompt for today is about coming up with titles for a potential book I would write. Coming up with titles is not a forte of mine (though I suspect using Twitter is helping me practice that skill). If I were to write a book, the accurate (though not necessarily best-selling) title is “Finding Myself and Opening Up Through Celiac Disease.”

My Celiac diagnosis in May of 2009 changed my life, for good or bad….or both. It opened up a world of new foods, new friends, a love of cooking, a love of canning, and I have started on the road to being patient with myself. I have always struggled with being nice to and patient with myself, and the struggle continues to this day.  I’m teaching my tastebuds and my stomach to get along better. I’m trying to listen to my body and what it needs before I just assume that I already know. I’ve let go of pre-conceived notions about when and what I must eat. Learning about myself has been an amazing journey, and even if I were told tomorrow that I could go back to eating as much gluten as I wanted, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.

I’m on a new road. Even though it’s not always easy, and even though I can’t always see where I’m going, I know I’m going in the right direction. I’m making progress. For now, that’s what I need.

Pear & Clementine Conserve, and Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

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As per my friend’s request, I’m going to add more pictures to my blog! I’m not a picture-taking person, but I can learn, right? The following beauties were taken by The Franchise:

Pear & Clementine Conserve
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

I wish I could take the credit for these amazing recipes, but I can’t.

The conserve comes from Canning For a New Generation. It is supposed to have pecans in it. Toasted pecans. However, I toasted them, set them off to the side, and didn’t notice them again until the cans were processing. (Go me!) Luckily, one of the cans didn’t seal, so I got to try some today, and it is plenty tasty without them. Since clementines come as a bunch and I have several left over, all I need to try this again (and potentially give as Christmas gifts?) are more pears! I wouldn’t have thought of putting pears with citrus, but it works quite well. The clementines are sweet, and they don’t overwhelm the flavor of the pear. I bet the crunch of the pecans will round it out nicely.
From this book, I also made the applesauce recipe. It has one ingredient: apples. 
I’d like to make a strong recommendation for this book. It is worth buying. I’ve made these three recipes, and I made pickles for The Franchise from carrots and parsnips that he said were great. In addition to the canning recipes (that are divided by season!), there are meal recipes included to use the canned ingredients. It’s an awesome book. That’s why I’m not posting the recipes — I love this book.
The cookies came from The Gluten-Free Vegan. I have yet to find a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I really, really like. I like this one quite a bit, but it has garbanzo bean flour (I used garfava flour, since that’s what I have). I want to like the bean flours. They have more nutrients in them, and they make a denser, heavier product. Unfortunately, I can always taste the bean flours, no matter what else is in the cookie! The chocolate chips help, but the aftertaste is still there. I think this recipe would be very nearly perfect if I could find a denser flour that isn’t a bean flour, because I love the texture. Unlike my father, I like my cookies firm, but soft. These definitely fit the bill. 
Now if only I could get rid of that pesky gluten-free gritty aftertaste…

Plum Cardamom Jam

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Recently, the east coast was hit with an earthquake, and Hurricane Irene. Here in Utah, we’re due for a huge earthquake, any time. The earthquake and hurricane really made me think about how if I’m not prepared food-wise, I’m in serious trouble. Very few emergency preparedness pre-packaged foods are gluten-free. They’re almost definitely not allergy-free. Though my gastroparesis plays into this, it’s not my main concern (though having gp-friendly foods is a bonus). I’ve read that while freezing things is great, it creates problems when the power goes out (as my relatives in Connecticut can attest). I’ve really been wanting to turn to canning, but it felt intimidating and insurmountable. My friend Holly turned me in the direction of the book I’m about to tell you about, and I’m so glad she did. I finally gathered the stuff, and went to it!

My new favorite cookbook: Canning For A New Generation. I love it.

The first actual canning I tried was the Plum Cardamom Jam recipe in this book. It made two pints, and yes — that’s it in the picture.
The longest part was just chopping up the plums. I used a few pluots from the Bountiful Basket, and bought some plums at the store to supplement. 
This was a great recipe for my first try. It was easy, and went smoothly. The main problem I had is that my pan is 1/2 the size it needs to be, so I needed to do it in two batches. That will be remedied soon. 
That second photo? That’s basically the best smell — ever. My house smelled amazing. You know those plum spice candles? That’s the smell they’re trying to emulate. There is nothing like the original, though. The real plum spice, as it turns out, doesn’t bother my allergies at all! Who’d have thought?? (I’m being sarcastic here, for those who don’t actually know me.) It’s also cooked fruit, which makes it easier on the gastroparesis.
I never knew that I would think canning is fun, but it is. I have finally come to terms with this being my “thing.” I don’t scrapbook. I don’t do house stuff. I’m not into gardening just yet. I’m not an exercise maniac. I don’t sew. I don’t do pottery. I don’t write (other than my blog, of course). I don’t really play my flute anymore. I don’t knit or crochet. Food is my thing. I love to cook. I love to can. I love feeling the textures of foods as I chop them. When I’m chopping food, I go to my happy place. I can just withdraw and think about things. It’s great. (Maybe that’s part of why I prefer cooking to baking. There’s not much chopping in baking.)
You may be thinking, “Well, duh,” but accepting this took me a long time. It’s a relatively new concept to me, but I’m very glad to have figured it out. I would never have guessed that being diagnosed with Celiac and all my other food issues would have led me here, but I am glad it did. Blessings in disguise.