Carrot cake is a favorite in our house and finding a gluten-free recipe has been challenging.  The moistness of the carrots seems to do bad things to the gluten-free flour mixes so when I found this recipe on the Betty Crocker website I just had to share.  For the gluten free carrot cake recipe (and lots of others) go to their website here.

Of all the gluten free baking mixes on the market that we’ve tried, the Betty Crocker mixes are hands down the best.  Not only do they create a taste-of-home kind of baked good, but their ingredients lists are amazing – no weird things we can’t pronounce!

If you want to take their mixes to another level, check out the video on the Betty Crocker website here showing how to make brownie bars and marble cake.  The brownie bars are a mix of their brownie mix and the chocolate chip cookie mix and they definitely look worth making (freeze the extras.)  The marble cake, well, it looks like the chocolate sinks a lot – there is a lot more of it in the bowl in the video than the yellow cake – not sure why.

One thing mentioned in the video is that all Betty Crocker Frostings are now labeled gluten-free.  Good deal.

If you visit the Kemps website, www.kemps.com (home of both Kemps and Greens) you will find a very detailed answer delivered by a most attractive cow.  You see on the Kemps website you can “ask a cow” a question.

I was going to ask the cow if their products were gluten free but someone beat me to it.  You can read the cow’s answer here.  Spumoni lovers I am saddened to report that the color used in Kemps Spumoni is not gluten free.

Two years ago we tried our hands at growing garlic here in Central PA and we were astounded with the results.  Growing was easy, harvesting was fun and eating was awesome!  Scott has shared garlic with many online friends and we’ve gifted some to our family and friends as well.  In fact we had enough that we didn’t need to replant until this year.

We get our garlic from Karen and Mike at www.wegrowgarlic.com. They are the nicest people (actually respond to emails themselves) and boy do they grow great garlic!  We’ve found their prices to be reasonable and their selection outstanding.  The first time around we missed out on many varieties because we didn’t order until September.  This year we ordered a week after their shop opened (in July) and we still missed out on some – this stuff goes that fast!

If you have ever wanted to try garlic, make this year the year and go to Karen and Mike’s website here. We grew enough for two years of eating and sharing in a small plot so you don’t need lots of room. Want to know how to do it?  Check out Scott’s post here on harvesting our garlic and you’ll see our tiny plot.  Interplant with marigolds and you barely have to weed at all.  The only thing you really need is decent sun and the plot should not have standing water – the bulbs will rot.

Come on… give garlic a try!

Normally our roma tomatoes do very well, but this year we had a whistlepig eat them during the flowering stage so they have produced very few tomatoes and now are mostly dead.  So sad, but I guess groundhogs need to eat too.

We are lucky though that Spiral Path Farm CSA will be offering 25lbs of organic roma tomatoes for $6 to their CSA members at their next open farm day on August 21st.  We are definitely going to take advantage of that and dry some for later use.

Our dehydrator does a great job with the tomatoes, but if we didn’t have one we’d still be able to dry them in the oven.  For a well done video on how to oven-dry roma tomatoes check out this video by Keith Snow.  He adds thyme to his tomatoes and I don’t like to do that – it can sometimes take on a burnt flavor in the oven.  Better to just store fresh thyme in the jar with the tomatoes I think.  Garlic cloves can work well here too since the tomatoes are to be kept in the fridge or freezer.  Garlic in oil should NOT be left out on the counter or in the pantry.  It can go bad even if submerged in oil.

On this very hot day in May I picked up our second box from Spiralpath Farm CSA.  This one was lighter than last week so I knew it was full of greens – like I suspected last week’s would be.  No picture this week since all you’d see is a bunch of green!

What we got this week was:  3 pints strawberries, 1 bag baby arugula, 1 bag baby spinach, radishes, bunched spinach (it is huge!), red oakleaf lettuce bunch and green boston lettuce bunch.

Lots of salads this week.

We did make the Colcannon recipe last Saturday when we had family visiting and it was a hit.  I used smoked sausage and mild cheddar cheese. 

Basically you make mashed potatoes.  While they are cooking  you cook off some sausage with garlic and onion.  Then you add a bunch of spinach to wilt down.  You spread the sausage/spinach mix in the bottom of a greased 9×13 pan, cover with mashed potatoes and then top with shredded cheese.  Bake at 375 or so until cheese is melted, about 30 min.  It was awesome!

Even though we grow a garden, we also subscribe to a CSA with Spiral Path Farm.  If you aren’t familiar with what a CSA is, the acronym stands for “Community Supported Agriculture.”  With most CSA’s you sign up early in the growing season for a membership with them and you pay them a fee up front.  The farm uses that money to plant and grow crops that year and you, as a member, get a share of what is produced.

In Spiral Path’s case they offer half and full shares (you can see their pricing here - it is not too late to sign up, they pro-rate the cost) and in return for our membership fee we will receive a box of organic produce once a week from now until the week of Thanksgiving -that is 28 weeks.  We subscribe for a full share since there are five of us and we love it.  Our cost works out to be about $20 a week.

In addition to the weekly boxes of produce you have an invitation to visit the farm once a month for open farm days when additional produce is available to members of the CSA only.  Herbs, strawberries and peppers are some of the things you can pick yourself to take home with you.

There is some excitement each week as we wait to see what the box will hold – often there are surprises. So this week our box looked like this – filled to the rim with greens and heavier than I expected.  Spiral Path packages their produce in a biodegradable plastic bag.  Most of the time we just grab the bag and leave the box, but since this was the first week I wanted to show a picture of the box.

Inside the box was our weekly newsletter from the farm.  It is always interesting to hear what is going on and usually a recipe is included that features some of the items you received in your box.  This week the recipe is a Spinach Colcannon and we are planning on trying it tomorrow night.

The produce we received this time included: 2 pints of strawberries (a surprise, ours are just coming in), 5 1/2 lbs of small red potatoes (Spiral Path purchased these from another farmer as a bonus and this is why the box was heavier than I was expecting), 1 head green lettuce, 1/2 lb of baby lettuce mix (mostly red oakleaf), 1 1/4 lbs broccoli (also purchased from another farmer), 3/4 lb spinach, and 8 spring onions.

The first few boxes of the spring are always greens heavy as we wait for other things to mature.  Tonight for dinner we used up half of the baby lettuce mix in a family salad and half of the spring onions – our youngest daughter loves them.  I cut up the strawberries and everyone had a few of those as well.

Tomorrow we will use the potatoes and the spinach for dinner in the new recipe plus the onions.  That’ll leave us with the makings for salad and broccoli for a side dish for next week until the next box comes on Thursday.

Today I attended a Gluten Free cooking class at the Kitchen Shoppe in Carlisle, PA.  The class was taught by Chef Amber Clay. Jennifer McCahan, RD LDN was also on hand to answer questions.

If you have never taken a cooking class at the Kitchen Shoppe you will definitely be surprised at how it resembles a cooking show on TV.  Chef Amber is up front with a mirror above her and two TV screens to show you everything she does.  Two sous chefs were on hand to help with the cooking and to hand out the goodies that were on the menu.  Chef Amber has a great personality and her sense of humor comes through often making the class an enjoyable experience for the audience despite the product endorsements she makes during the whole class – which are to be expected.

This was not a hands-on class which meant we were observers in Chef Amber’s kitchen but we did get to sample each of the five dishes (plus variations.)  Each participant – we had 16 – had a table setting with water, white wine and coffee or tea as offered beverages.  Each time Chef Amber created a dish we got to taste the results.  Each of us got to take home the recipes of the day plus some handouts from Ms. McCahan. (One of which is about grain milling and includes wheat – I hope that did not confuse anyone.  It had no title and did not site the source though she did say in class where it came from.)

The recipes covered today ranged from quesedilas made with corn tortillas to a marble snack cake made with a rice/tapioca flour blend.  Chef Amber explained where her ingredients came from and how she had label checked to make sure we were getting gluten free items such as salsa, sauces and vanilla.  No one mentioned if the wine was gluten-free, but hopefully it was.

The folks in class included varied backgrounds from those with celiac disease to some with gluten intolerance to those with only an interest in gluten-free cooking.  Many of us were cooking for others with conditions. There also seemed to be varying levels of knowledge of methods of basic food preparation.  Chef Amber tried to cover the the variances by discussing each technique as if we had never done it before. Those of us familiar with yeast baking got an overly long re-education on it, but others were definitely learning it for the first time.

So what was my impression of the class? I have to say that in all I was disappointed in the class.

As someone who has been researching gluten-free diets for only a few months I was surprised that there was very little new information in this class for me.  I was expecting a well-researched class that talked about the variations of gluten-free cooking that I had only heard about but never seen.  Unfortunately all of the baked items in the class used the same rice/tapioca flour mix so there was little variation in flour blends.  The recipes presented were run of the mill as far as food fare goes and the results we got to sample ranged from not bad (the crepes) to pretty awful (the pasta – it was cold which made it worse.)  The snack cake was expectedly sandy as nearly all gluten-free baked goods are though it was a bit moister than most which made me wonder what it would be like tomorrow.

It was pretty clear to several of us in class that Chef Amber hasn’t had much experience with gluten-free cooking beyond reading and trying a few recipes to put this class on.  She also did not seem to understand one of the main reasons many of us were there – to make a better product.  She made one remark that I felt summed up her role in the experience.  She was discussing the toppings for the pizza she was making – carmelized onions, prosciutto, sauteed mushrooms – and said something to the effect of if you can’t have a great crust, at least the toppings will be good.  Something similar was said about the cake and frosting – implying that a not-so good cake can be made better by a good frosting.

This was a huge let down. What I wanted most from the class was a way to make a great tasting product with a normal texture.  Any of us can open a mix to get so-so results, what we want is great food with or without the toppings!

It was also disappointing that Ms. McCahan was not better prepared.  One question that several of us wanted an answer to was ”is there a difference between potato flour and potato starch.”  Both Ms. McCahan and Chef Amber said they thought nutritionally they weren’t different, but neither seemed particularly sure if they were interchangeable.  So we all left with that unanswered question.  I did look it up when I got home and they are not nutritionally the same nor are they interchangeable.  Seems that potato starch only contains the starch of the potato and potato flour contains the whole potato so nutritionally they are different and they would also act differently in recipes.  Potato starch and potato starch flour ARE the same thing.  These are the types of questions we had hoped to have answered.  My hope is that both Chef Amber and Ms. McCahan look this one up before their NEXT gluten-free class so they have the correct answer next time.

OK, that all sounds pretty negative I guess, but do I think I wasted my $49?  Absolutely not.

Though the class was not what I had hoped for, the experience of the class was very positive.  The tastes of various foods, the beverages, the learning environment – all of this was enjoyable.

But by far the most valuable aspect of this class, and something I wish could be carried forward in a food club of some kind, was meeting other local people who were also out there reading labels, trying restaurants and cooking some really good food.  I learned about what some local vendors were selling and that the local GF store in Dillsburg unfortunately closed two weeks ago.  We discussed failed recipes and our tips for storing all that flour in our freezers. There was lots of “Did you know…”  “Have you tried…” “And I saw the other day…” sharing.

The knowledge in this class definitely was with the students, not the teachers, and it felt good to be among a group all fighting the same battles.  That part of the experience was definitely worth the price of admission and then some.

If the Kitchen Shoppe wanted to improve this class, what could they do?  The best thing would be for Chef Amber to work with some real people who cook gluten-free on a daily basis who make good tasting, good textured food – better than what most of us do on a daily basis or can get from a box.  She could show different flour blends and which are best for what situation since they are not all created equal.  She and her attending nutritionist could do some additional research and be ready for the common gluten-free questions. And they could offer some really good food instead of the same old “not bad but not great” fare most people are familiar with.

Again, this class is worth taking to meet people with similar food issues and to enjoy an afternoon out, but unless you are very new to the gluten-free club you will not learn anything from the actual course.

The mailbox held the Totally Tomatoes catalog and the Vermont Bean catalog – both are owned by the same company so I’m not surprised they arrived together.

I have to be honest that I do not even look at these catalogs.  They are kind of like “spam” to me and the things in them can all be found in other places for less money.  Just my opinion.

Well, finally had a few minutes to peruse the Stokes catalog.  I have to admit that this was not nearly as fun as Pinetree or Seed Savers – lots of things I’ve seen before.

I did like a few things from their “Flowers of Merit” section on page 2, but I wish they’d have put the ordering info here instead of later in the book:

• Mammoth Glamorama White Pansy $2.75 (page 75)
• Cora Cascade Cherry Vinca $2.95 (page 85)
• Starlight Rose Zinnia $3.25 (page 87)

Then there were the wide selection of impatiens.  My father loves impatiens and with so many colors to choose from on pages 68-69 he’s bound to find a few he likes.  Prices are all over the place for these.

I want everything on the viola page (76) and the marigold pages (71-73.)

I find Stokes prices to be on the high side so I doubt they will get much of my business.

If you’d like to request a catalog, visit www.stokesseeds.com