Crunchy. Really? Is that what they call people who do things like bake their own bread, grow their own veggies, and use cloth diapers on their baby’s behinds? If that’s the case, the generations before us must have been one crunchy bunch, because that is just the way life was then, out of necessity. They didn’t run to the store for everything, they had to grow what you could and barter for the rest. They preserved your bounty. They sewed clothing, altering and mending as necessary. They knew their neighbors. They knew where their food came from. And most importantly, they knew what was in their food. After all, theyd just spent months growing it, harvesting it, and then preparing it. Today, knowing where your food comes from is more difficult. It is possible though. Growing your own garden is a huge step in that direction. Shopping local farmer’s markets is another. But preparing your own food at home is the easiest way to connect with your food. This is the concept behind Food Revolution Day.

Food Revolution Day was started by Jamie Oliver, who is a ‘back-to-basics’ chef from the UK. Jamie believes that good food can be simple – his recipes are basic, using fresh, in-season ingredients that are packed with flavour. Cooking food from scratch will benefit your family. Even if you don’t have the time to cook from scratch every night, doing it when you can will not only provide your family with a healthier meal, it will also teach your kids where food comes from. Eating gluten-free, we have a benefit in this area, I think. Due to high prices and low availability of processed foods, we already do a lot of cooking and baking from scratch. Because of that, our families eat healthier, home-cooked meals. Our kids know what raw ingredients look like, and hopefully where they come from.

Instead of buying pre-made granola, where the sugar & fat levels are unknown, I have decided to make my own Homemade Gluten Free Granola. Not only because it is healthier and delicious, but because I can also customize it to suit my tastes. This recipe is based on one that was given to me by my friend Jackie, who, together with her husband Jim, runs Fern Glen Inn,  a beautiful bed & breakfast in Ontario’s naturally beautiful Almaguin Highlands. Beyond having beautiful accommodations in a picture perfect setting, Jackie serves the most amazing breakfasts. Along with fresh fruit, home baked goods, and a hot entrée, Jackie often has homemade granola on hand for the guests to indulge in. Served with cold or warm milk, or sprinkled on top of some tangy yogurt, I know her guests have enjoyed the granola she has prepared for them. As a side note – if you are ever in Jackie’s neck of the woods, she also caters to those with special dietary needs, so a gluten-free breakfast is not an issue for her. Thank you for sharing your wonderful recipe with me, Jackie. I’ve altered it a bit to suit our tastes, and to make it gluten-free, of course.

Homemade Granola can be eaten as is, served with cold, or warm, milk, sprinkled on top of yogurt, or baked into muffins. What is your favorite way to eat granola?

The post Homemade Gluten Free Granola appeared first on The Baking Beauties. © 2012 - The Baking Beauties

I am giving you this background so that you understand. We went to a new campground. One that was about 2 1/2 hours from home. One we had never been to before. And we still intended to stay for the 5 nights. So, I worked on the Friday & Saturday before heading out, preparing our food for the entire week.

Well, to make a long story shorter, we were back home in about 26 hours (with driving time). We were extremely disappointed with the campground. The playground stunk (figuratively and literally, like rotting fish). It was about 35 degrees F with high humidity (no A/C in the camper, but there is at home!). Only one (poorly marked) hiking trail in the area. A bear had been caught just up the road the one night we were there (there are bear problems this year, apparently. Not enough berries in the woods for them…but I did spot a nice blueberry bush by the (out of order) washroom). Yeah. Seriously. All these things. So we figure, we’ll let the kids play at the beach for a few days, and head home. The beach was full of green algae and long, slimy, 6″ leaches. We’re Going Home NOW!!

But, I had all of my food ready to go, so we continued to eat the assigned camping food, and I didn’t have to cook all week while splashing in the kids backyard pool and sleeping in my comfortably air conditioned house.

So, here we go! Here are some great camping food ideas for you, I hope you enjoy!

Day 1

Supper – I made up some pasta salad at home, using corn penne noodles, and it is filled with veggies and cheese cubes. We really like having a ready to eat meal on our first day there, so it is ready when we are finished setting up the campsite.

Day 2

Breakfast - My favorite, easy-to-make pancakes topped with cottage cheese and syrup, with a side of locally made cheese curds and a coffee. Yum! I have the dry ingredients for the pancakes in a zipper seal bag, and the buttermilk pre-measured in a small canning jar. Then all I need to add is 2 eggs and a few Tbsp of  oil and we’re ready to cook them up!

Lunch - Well, honestly, lunch didn’t happen on Day 2. We were too busy cleaning up our campsite to get back to our nice, cool, comfortable (bear free, leach free) home. So, we ate some popcorn twists and sesame snaps (I love taking sesame snaps along camping, they are small, compact, naturally gluten-free, and cheap enough for everyone to enjoy them).

Supper – Well, we were home by supper, and unpacked too, I believe. So, for supper we had taco salad. I washed and cut up spinach and put it in a large zipper seal bag. Brought along shredded cheese, 1 Tbsp taco seasoning, cheese flavoured corn chips, and a tomato. Mix all of those items together when ready to serve, top with some Catalina salad dressing and sour cream. My daughter insisted we bring this along this camping trip, but she was happy to eat it at home too.

Breakfast - Breakfast was Enviro Kids Leapin’ Lemurs cereal. I had never had this cereal before, but it was really good, I enjoyed it with some yogurt and a cup of coffee.

Lunch – For lunch we had left over pasta salad and watermelon. I bought a small, seedless watermelon and took it along on the trip. Love it, doesn’t require refrigeration until it’s cut, so we usually cut into it once we’ve emptied up some fridge space.

Supper – We had calzones. Oh my goodness! I used Linda’s recipe at Gluten Free Homemaker for the dough, and it works amazingly well. The dough is so easy to handle, bakes up beautifully. And after they were fully cooled, I stored them in large zipper seal bags as well. Then to reheat them, I put them on a small cookie sheet (foil pan would work too), and heated them up on the BBQ. I brought along a tin of pizza sauce for dipping, and we all really enjoyed our supper that night. By the way, I made a filling out of fried onion, garlic, frozen chopped spinach (squeezed out), and then threw in some feta cheese and mozzarella cheese. YUM! Definitely give that recipe a try, whether you’re camping or staying home.

Day 4

Breakfast - For breakfast we had scrambled eggs, cheese curds and fresh pineapple. Another fruit I like to take camping, because it is nicely packaged up the way nature intended it, and we eat the whole thing in one meal, so there is nothing to refrigerate after.

Lunch – For lunch we made pizza again, the same we we did the last time we went camping. This time, I had some red and green pepper that I chopped before leaving, and we sprinkled that on top of the cheese. Everyone LOVES these personal size pizzas!

Supper -  Supper was beef stew. I cooked up some beef stew in the slow-cooker before we left, and while it was still hot & bubbly, I put it into canning jars, and let the lids seal themselves when they cooled off. Doing this, your food will stay fresh longer than if it was just in a plastic container (or zipper seal bag, for that matter). I did not get a picture of the stew, but it was just a basic stew with beef, potatoes, carrots and peas. Nothing fancy, but filling and tasty!

What is your favorite gluten free food to take camping or on a hike or day trip?

The post The Camping Celiac Returns appeared first on The Baking Beauties. © 2012 - The Baking Beauties

Anyway, while we were there, and I was starting to get lunch ready, I thought…I should document what I eat when camping, to give others on a gluten-free diet an idea of things that they can pack and take with them. We do have a small fridge in the camper, as well as a portable electric cooler. No freezer, and limited space, but we’re never left hungry. So, I hope you don’t mind, I’ll be sharing what we eat when we do a camping weekend, and maybe you guys can chip in with some ideas for me as well.

Day 1

Supper: Pasta salad, made with spiral corn pasta, eggs, tomato, cucumber, cheddar cheese, and a simple Miracle Whip, milk, salt, pepper, onion powder and dill dressing. Made and mixed ahead, and stored in a large zipper seal bag, they store easier in the fridges, as you don’t have to worry about containers fitting nicely. Plus, they can be thrown out when empty.

Night Snack: Chocolate Chip “S’mores”. I baked a batch of Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies before we left, and we used 2 of them and sandwiched 2 roasted marshmallows between them. YUM!

Day 2

Breakfast:
Pancakes with cottage cheese and syrup. Cut up banana and some cheese curds. I mix up the dry ingredients in a resealable bag, take along 1 dozen eggs and use 2 eggs for this breakfast, and have the buttermilk (or milk & lemon juice) measured out in a mason jar.

Lunch:

Pizza made on the grill. I baked up a batch of Gluten Free Sandwich Wraps before leaving, cut it into 4, and didn’t store in the fridge, just in the dry goods bin. Brought a tin of pizza sauce and some shredded cheese. Plain cheese pizza. Medium heat on the grill, placed on foil, and in a few minutes everything was warm & ready to eat. We also had Popcorn Twists.

Supper:

For supper we had leftover pastas salad and BBQ beef ring. The beef ring is made locally, by a small company, and they make it gluten-free just for those of us on a gluten-free diet. Wish they’d make their in-store hot dogs gluten-free too.

Night Snack: None

Day 3

Breakfast:

I had boiled some baby potatoes, and let them cool before packaging them in another resealable bag. This way, at the campsite, I only needed to cut & brown the potatoes, instead of cooking from raw. So, we used the last 10 eggs from our dozen, made scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, cheese curds and bananas for breakfast. That’ll get you through your morning hike!

Hiking Snack: Granola Bars

Lunch:

We roasted all-beef hot dogs (I ate mine without a bun), popcorn twists, and a small seedless watermelon. Love taking the small watermelons along, because my family can usually eat one in 2 meals, and they don’t need refrigeration before being cut, so it doesn’t take up fridge space. By the time we eat ours, there is usually some freed up space in the fridges already.

Supper: 

We had a light supper today, as no one was really hungry. Fresh pineapple (again, love it, because it doesn’t take up fridge space, but is so good!), cheese curds and gluten free muffins. I can’t give you the muffin recipe yet, as it is a recipe that I tested for a friend for her upcoming Gluten-Free Cookbook. (yeah! And yes, they were GOOD!)

Night Snack:

Banana Boats! Everyone LOVED these. I made them on the BBQ, as our fire was just getting started, and was flames and not coals. I stuffed them with cut up chocolate bars and marshmallows, and they were delicious!

Day 4

Breakfast:

Cold cereal day. This is pack-out day, so we keep things quick & simple. I had gluten-free cereal, yogurt & coffee. Enough to get started for the day.

Hiking Snack: Granola Bars, everyone had the GF bars that I made, and liked them. Woohoo!

Lunch: I didn’t get a pic, but we just had peanut butter, honey and banana sandwiches, and finished off a few other leftovers, before finishing our site clean up.

I saw this dirty van at the trail head of one of the hikes we did…I thought it was so cool, I had to get a picture. Now, if someone would draw this on my dirty back window instead of “Wash Me”, I’d be pretty pleased.

The post The Camping Celiac appeared first on The Baking Beauties. © 2012 - The Baking Beauties

My name is Jeanine. I am 34 years old, and I had never eaten a date. Until recently. They are not an attractive dried fruit. I mean, not many dried fruits are as gorgeous as they are before being dehydrated. But dates, well, they look like dried out beetles to me. Yeah, try convincing yourself to eat that.

Good thing is, because of this blog, I push myself to try  new foods I normally wouldn’t try, and dates were one of the latest things that I experimented with. It ends up, I actually don’t mind them at all.

Another confession, I have never bought the expensive date/nut bars that are available in the stores. I just can’t justify $1-2 for one little bar. So, being the frugal celiac that I am, I decided to try to make my own. I gotta say, these Chocolate Cranberry Date Bars were really, really good. I actually need to buy more dates now, I know these will be fantastic to take along camping and hiking this summer as well, and I’m looking forward to it.

There are a ton of recipes for date/nut bars on the web, for a rainbow of flavours. They are totally versatile, and can be made using your favorite dried fruit, flavourings, spices, and nuts. Feel free to play with your food.

The post Chocolate Cranberry Date Bars appeared first on The Baking Beauties. © 2012 - The Baking Beauties