I didn’t have a lot of time to take or post photos or recipes during the holidays, so I’m doing a photo dump here. Recipes forthcoming! Working backwards…
Three lasagnas for family dinner with all gluten free pasta. The big one is with meat and cheese, the medium is with meat and dairy free cheese, and the little one is no meat, no dairy, and no gluten.
Gluten free, dairy free, sugar free vegan peanut butter fudge. (I made a second batch with mini marshmallows and crushed candy canes. Not so vegan or sugar free that way.)Tons of tahini for a giant bowl of three bean hummus that I didn’t get a photo of. Bad blogger!Oh, yes. New Years lobster tails! These were 5 dollars a piece at Albertson’s. Quick steam with some peppercorns, dipped in lemon butter. Heaven.I don’t fucking remember what these are. For the life of me, I can’t find the recipe. I do remember them being good, though.Ah, the coconut sugar discovery. Did you know that coconut sugar is awesome? I candied about 10 lbs of nuts this year. Half of them with coconut sugar and half with regular sugar. Coconut sugar won every time.I don’t know what to call these. Chocolate salty balls is already taken. I was trying to make some vegan frosting with dates and raw cashews, but I accidentally made these instead. Add a little coconut sugar, cocoa powder and salt and you have truffles. Or whatever.Tea! My friend Michael made this beautiful box for me for Christmas, and I almost instantly knew what to put in it. As you can see, not all of my loose tea tins fit. Yeah, it’s a bit of a problem.Made about 10 of these loaves of gluten free bread. I might be getting the hang of it.We had snow long enough for me to take this photo, but since I have this picture, I will always remember Christmas 2013 as a white one. Even though it wasn’t. Because that’s how memories work.Gluten free banana bread.My youngest, being adorbs.THE HOLY GRAIL of our family recipes…Gluten free Christmas cut outs that are SO good, my sister and mother threatened me with bodily harm if I shared the recipe. And my sister lives in Jersey, so…I’m taking it seriously.I don’t remember making this. It looks like an apple, fennel, tarragon and pomegranate salad. Not only do I not remember making this, I don’t even remember tasting it. It must have been good, because it was gone by the time I got to the table.Yes, that is chicken thighs wrapped in bacon. What?And so begins the bacon series. I made every meal with bacon for about 2 weeks before Thanksgiving.I mean *everything*.Fennel and green beans wrapped in bacon. If you have to eat green beans, this is the way to do it.My dad brought over this giant batch of rose hips. I processed them, boiled them down and made rose hip syrup. No one in this house is getting a cold this winter!We had a giant turkey for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I made many, many turkey soups. This is but one of them, half of which is still in the freezer.I’m not kidding about the bacon thing.I thinly sliced some apples, boiled them in sugar water, and let them sit in the fridge for a few days. I completely forgot about them until Thanksgiving morning. I woke up too early to take the turkey out of the brine, so I slow roasted these apples until they were crispy. Then I wrapped them in bacon. (Just kidding. But doesn’t that sound great?)Peach blueberry pie with a sugar cookie crust.Four layer almond, orange, and blueberry cake with vegan whipped cream frosting. This whole thing is paleo, gluten free, dairy free and vegetarian. It’s so good for you, you could eat it for breakfast. At least that is what I told myself for the week that I ate this for breakfast.Vegan, gluten free, sugar free, paleo pecan pie.The pumpkin I roasted for pumpkin pie. Cut off the top, clean it out, put it in the oven at 400 for about an hour with the top back on.
Lamb stew. Should be dropped in for the last 20 minutes of simmering time to infuse the stew…Attach to the lid so it doesn’t float away.Pretty much sums up my November. Lard and lard.Persian rice with potato tah dig.Caramelized carrots for some dish that I didn’t take photos of or write down a recipe for. Sigh.Roasted baby eggplant with thyme. So good.We were on a tomato soup kick here for a little while. This is attempt number 1, which was pretty good.We even roasted our own tomatoes for the soup. Fancy.We had a major disaster one chilly evening in November. My trusty wine bottle opener finally gave up the ghost. RIP, my friend. RIP.The offending bottle with the evidence still embedded in it’s woody flesh. Bugger.Almond Cranberry Cake.Second attempt at tomato soup, which I found much yummier than the first one.A slow day in the kitchen…The youngest and me, taking a break on Christmas day.Gluten free pizza crusts, prepared and cooled in anticipation of family pizza night.We made 7 pizzas on family pizza night. This one was gluten free and vegan, (almond cheese). The pizzas were essentially gone by the time I got around to pictures. I’m going to have to start making people wait while I get the photos.These look like a cookie fail, but they were awesome. The outside was meringue-ish, and the inside was tender like a…I don’t really know, I’ve never tasted anything like it. Of course, I didn’t not write down the recipe.Cranberry apple pie.And last but not least…the way I made it through the holidays: mimosas. Happy belated holidays, everyone!
Another Damn Cooking Blog 
Leave a comment