3 Bean Salad

I hate beans. I hate salad.

Throw the two of those things together in a bowl and I want to hurl.

So when I politely accepted the 3 bean salad sample at my friendly neighborhood farmer's market I resisted the urge to gag and ate my bean salad.

That was when I had a taste of some of the most refreshing food I've eaten in a very long time.

It was a very hot day and that salad cooled me internally quite quick and wonderfully.

So naturally I snapped a pic and got the recipe from the sales lady.

Black Beans
Red Beans
Garbanzo Beans
Red Bell Pepper Diced
Cucumber Diced
Cilantro Finely Chopped

Lemon Juice
Olive Oil
Salt

1 can each of all the beans. Mix with enough of the oil and juice to coat and salt to taste.

Pretty simple. Pretty easy. Quite delicious!

P.S. Yeah, it's been crazy long since I've posted. I know. Life. It happens. And I work in spurts, so, I'll probably update regular for a while. Then drop off the face of the planet for a while. Meh. It happens.

Egg Free, Wheat Free, Dairy Free Banana Bread

Ingredients:

• 1/3 c white sugar
• 1/3 c dark brown sugar
• 1/3 c oil (I use extra virgin olive oil, but you can use vegetable or canola oil)
• 2 c all purpose rice flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 4 mashed bananas
• 1/2 c almond milk (I use the sweetened almond milk, you can use the plain almond milk, or rice milk, or coconut milk, whichever you prefer)

Directions:

1. Mash well ripened bananas in a small bowl and set aside. Tip: If your bananas are brown freeze them to save them for this bread, then defrost them and they'll slide right out of the peel once you cut it.
2. Mix baking powder,baking soda,flour and sugar.
3. Add mashed bananas, milk, and oil. Stir well. This batter will be very thick.
4. Spoon ingredients into a greased a 9x5x3" loaf pan or muffin tins. This gets a little tricky, you can't use the baking PAM and stay gluten free and every other version of PAM leaves you with lecithin, a soy derivative. I'm intolerant to both of those things, So I of necessity grease my pan with either extra virgin olive oil or canola oil (I can't have corn either, so that nixes vegetable oil in my case).
5. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for approximately 50 minutes (you'll have to check for yourself as my oven runs a little hotter than most) for a loaf or 20 to 30 minutes for muffins.
6. Insert a tooth pick to check if done.
7. Optional: 
1. Cinnamon is a wonderful addition to this guy. 
2. You can also use any jams, jellies, or preserves that you want to use up. When pouring the batter, reserve about 1/3 of it. Warm your jam/jelly/preserve until it can be poured out of the bottle. Pour the jam/jelly/preserve over the batter in the pan, pour the remaining batter over the top. Cook as normal.
3. Additionally you can brush the top with a thin layer of oil and sprinkle powdered sugar and nuts on top.

Intolerant to ALL THE THINGS!

Long time no see. In the long interim of my not posting anything I went to a nutritionist and got a blood test done. Turns out I am intolerant to all of the fun stuff. I mean ALL of the fun stuff. Except potatoes. Those are still good.

Let's look at how this works in a typical day.

Breakfast:
I'll start with some eggs.
Wait.
I'm intolerant to eggs.
Okay, cereal.
Intolerant to wheat.
Okay, Gluten free cereal.
Wait, it's corn based. Intolerant to corn.
Yogurt?
Intolerant to casein, which is in yogurt.
Oatmeal, surely -
Intolerant to oats.
Um... Milk and fruit?
Intolerant to milk.
Soy milk!
Intolerant to soy.
A-Almond milk and fruit?
Yeah, I can do that.

Okay breakfast is down. Let's do lunch:
Lemon glazed tuna steak.
Intolerant to tuna. And lemon.
Apple with peanut butter.
Intolerant to peanuts.
Salad with ice tea?
Yeah. That works.

Now it's time for dinner.
Steak and barley stew?
Intolerant to barley.
Steak and rye st-
Intolerant to rye.
Steak, baked potato, green beans with... I dunno more Almond Milk?
Yeah, that works.

See my problem? I am basically restricted to a subset of the Atkins and Paleo diets. It wouldn't be so bad if Almond Milk weren't so bad. And coconut milk is even worse. Rice milk is next on my list of things to try. But after a while I may just drift back to goat's milk and see how that goes.

So now this blog will be a recipe base for the hard to find, obscure concoctions that are made without anything and still hopefully turn out good. Stay tuned for egg free, dairy free, and gluten free banana bread.

Sparkling Apple Brie Bites

I'm surfing along on the internet one day and I find this glorious recipe (see picture) for Sparkling Cranberry Brie Bites. It utilizes fresh cranberries. Well I had just seen a bag of those in the store a couple of weeks back and was wondering what I could use it for, tada!

So I go to my neighborhood super market and look for a bag of cranberries. Turns out they are only around for a limited season. *sighs* So now what do I do with the rest of the ingredients that I bought? Try something new of course!

Now this is certainly either an appetizer or desert, definitely not something you want to make a meal out of, for the fact that it's got a lot of sugar and a lot of cheese. But in small quantities it's enough to help alleviate that sugar craving when you are trying to not eat so much of that powdery white substance.


And now, without further ado, my recipe for Sparkling Apple Brie Bites.

Sparkling Cranberry Brie Bites 

printer friendly recipe

makes about 16 

Sugared Apples

2 cups fresh diced apples (I used honeycrisp, but red delicious and pink lady would work great as well)

1 cup good maple syrup (roughly one cup, see below)

1 cup granulated sugar (roughly one cup, see below)

After washing and dicing your apples place in a bowl. 

Heat enough syrup to coat the apples in a small sauce pan just until warm. 

Pour over apples when syrup is warm. 

Cool, cover, and let soak in the refrigerator overnight (I cheated, I did not let my apples soak over night). 

Place sugar in a large bowl or baking dish (I did not use so much sugar, rather I put my apples on a baking sheet and sprinkled sugar over them).

Add apples roll around until lightly coated in sugar. 

Place on a baking sheet until dry, about 1 hour (I totally ignored this step and slapped those wet, sugar-coated apples onto my brie and crackers). 

16 crackers

8 oz Brie cheese

cranberry (or apple) chutney or cranberry (or apple) relish (I didn't use this ingredient this time)

fresh mint for garnish (I didn't use this ingredient this time either)

Assemble crackers with one slice of brie, a light layer of cranberry (or apple) chutney, and 4 or 5 sugared apple cubes. 

Garnish with fresh mint sprigs. 

Review: Beef Tenderloin Wrap

Original Recipe to be found here at Use Real Butter. 

I modified it a bit as it is originally supposed to be an appetizer.

1/2 lb. Filet Mignon (One Piece)
Salt
2 Stalks Green Onions
6 Tbsps Hoisin Sauce

3 Tbsps Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 Tsp Minced Garlic
Skewers

1 Package Baby Bella Mushrooms

1/2 Yellow Onion Sliced or Diced depending on your preference

Salt the filet and broil (or grill or pan sear) to desired doneness (rare to medium rare is preferred). 

Let beef rest and then refrigerate for an hour. 

Wash and trim the green onions. 

Slice the green onions on a shallow angle into thin strips. 

Remove beef from refrigerator and using a sharp knife, slice at an angle to about 1/8-inch thickness, as many slices as possible. 

For each slice, spread a little hoisin sauce on the beef, place a few green onions at one end of the beef (with the onions sticking out over the edges), and roll up the onions in the beef. I found that an easier method is to pour out 3 Tbsps hoisin sauce on a plate and dip one side of the beef in the sauce and continue from there.

Secure onto skewer.

Place olive oil, remainder of hoisin sauce, onion, garlic, and mushrooms in a skillet. 

Sautee over medium heat until onions are a translucent caramel color. 

Pour onion and mushroom mix over fillet skewers.

The reason I pour the onions and mushrooms over the fillet is because I wanted a warm dish for dinner and this recipe has you cool the beef to slice it up. I think if you have a sharp enough knife one could conceivably cut the meat after it has rested for a few minutes out of the broiler. Then the meat would be warm, but barring that you can pour the piping hot veggies over the meat and onions and that warms it up to a decent temp for a hot meal.

This is a very delicious and savory meal. Enjoy! And for super awesome photos of these wraps go check out the recipe's page at Use Real Butter.

Review: Wilson Creek Almond Champagne

My mum drinks champagne quite a bit. I've had some of it. It's usually the cheapest stuff you can get at the grocer's. Don't get me wrong, more expensive does not mean better (see my previous review of Andre Cold Duck). However, I've always found that her champagne needs to be tempered with orange juice (hello Mimosa!). Not sure how to describe why I feel it needs to be that way, but it seems like it's too... tarte? bitter? dry? Hmm... I still haven't hit quite the right word, but you get my meaning.

Now, I love almond. Add it to anything and it makes it 100% better! So when I went to the store and saw this beautiful champagne bottle enticing me with the promise of almond I began anticipating the moment I had something to celebrate so I could uncork this beauty.

A few weeks after I noticed that such a thing as Almond Champagne existed, my father came home with a bottle of the stuff out of the blue!

After a night's worth of chilling I uncorked the bottle and poured myself and my father a glass. "Oh My Gosh"!!! The people at Wilson Creek pride themselves on the fact that people upon their first sip ever of this champagne say that phrase every time.

It is truly delicious. It is sweet with a hint of almond. Thank goodness it's not a slap of Almond to the face (even I know you can go overboard when adding almond). Most certainly not a mixer, meant to be drunk alone.

Wilson Creek Almond Champagne is a sweet (but not too sweet) and very refreshing champagne that I look forward to drinking again.

Review: Andre Cold Duck

Well, this isn't much of a review as I'm no wine connoisseur, but I wanted to get a different opinion about this lovely beverage out there.

Everything you need to know about the history of Cold Duck can be found on its respective Wikipedia pace.

Down to the nitty gritty. I have not yet found a red wine that I like. Thank the Lord for sparkling wine! Andre Cold Duck is delicious. It is very sweet and fruity. I think the aroma is wonderful.

I intend to learn someday how to describe the alcoholic beverages I consume using well known terminology. When I do I shall revamp this review, I promise. Because this drink is too good to only have a silly review such as this one.