The Ice Dream Cookbook: A review and an adoption fundraiser
The Ice Dream Cookbook, originally uploaded by Kate Chan.
Rachel Albert-Matesz: Wherever you are, please take a bow. I love your gluten-free and casein-free cookbook, and I apologize for my tardy book review. And many, many, many thanks for the donation to the Adoption Fundraiser. Your book is on sale now and will make an incredible holiday gift for someone soon, I’m sure!
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Have you all seen this great book? It’s titled “The Ice Dream Cookbook: Dairy Free alternatives with gluten free cookies, compotes, and sauces“. And oh baby, those sauces! YUM!
A long while back, Rachel sent me a couple copies to review (one for me to keep, and one for me to put up for auction to raise money for our adoption expenses). And it is with GREAT pleasure that I am reviewing her book tonight.
Rachel’s cookbook is great for a number of reasons. First, she presents some very user-friendly, non-gourmet chef friendly recipes that are easy to make and delicious to boot. I’m quite the fan of her Chai Tea Ice Dream, to be honest…. and I have some serious plans to make the Basil Ice Dream or the Ginger Ice Dream too. The recipes peaked my interest with the unique flavor profiles and easy to get ingredients. And Basil Ice “Cream”? Huh. I gotta know what that tastes like!
Her recipes for Ice “Dreams” (aka GF/CF ice cream) include basic flavors (vanilla, chocolate chip, maple pecan, cinnamon, etc), some not-so-basic (Basil, Ginger, Lemon Cookie Crumble, Rum Raisin, etc), and many, many others (like the Chai Tea I mentioned, as well as Coffee, Peanut Butter and Jelly, Cherry Vanilla, Mango-Orange, etc). Really - the list goes ON and ON. To make it even more fun, Rachel includes several different variations on the recipes. There are several suggestions and ideas shared with each.
The introduction to her book includes a great overview of the essential ingredients as well as shopping tips for following the Dairy-Free and Gluten-Free diet. I found her tips to be straight forward and refreshingly presented. (And yes, I read the tips in the cookbooks. ESPECIALLY the gluten-free ones just to be sure the author and I are on the same page as far as practice.) She also does a great job of highlighting the necessary equipment and essential techniques for perfecting her recipes. In all, Rachel spends the first 50 pages of the book (it is 278 pages packed with goodness!) reviewing tips and generalities that you experienced GF/CF people will appreciate reviewing and newbies will LOVE the way it is simply presented.
Beyond Ice “Dreams”, Rachel has several sauce recipes. She includes recipes for GF/CF Caramel Sauce, Hot Fudge Sauce, Caffeine-Free Hot Cocoa Mocha Sauce… and my favorite: The Raspberry Sauce that has topped my weekend waffles for a while now. She also includes 16 or so GF/CF other dessert ideas (like pralines, brownies, ice dream sandwich cookies, No-bake cookie pie crust (I’m dying to try that one!), and a Coconut Macaroon Ice Dream Cake).
If you get the chance to check this out, please do.
Even better, if the book interests you, please take a moment to bid on it for our adoption fundraiser. (The book is on sale on eBay now through November 26 at 1:00 PST.) ALL proceeds from the book sale go toward our adoption fund.
Shortly, I will have a few more items up on eBay for our fundraiser as well. Included will be a signed copy of the Gluten-Free Girl’s book as well. (Thank you, Shauna!) Please keep your eyes peeled! You might just find the best GF/CF Christmas/Holiday present yet listed on eBay by me!)
Thank you, Rachel!
And Thank you, Readers, for checking out our eBay listing for this book/fundraiser!
-Kate
Gluten Free Thankfulness and a Cranberry-Mango Chutney
Every year about this time of year, I work with my students on different things that allow me to incorporate the idea of Thankfulness. Considering the quickly approaching holiday, there is often a thought of turkey with a side of mashed potatoes (or mashed potatoes with a side of turkey, as in my dreams) floating through the minds of my students when I ask them what they are thankful for.
I usually begin by eliciting the everyday things for which they are thankful. I tell them that I have always held warm, toasty socks in high regard - especially in the winter months. Nothing makes me more thankful on a cold, wet day than slipping on some fresh, clean and warm socks when I get home from work. Socks are high on my daily thankfulness list. And after sharing this idea with them, it’s great to hear the things they are thankful for as well. Most kids tell me that they hadn’t thought about thankfulness in such a way before. Every year. And most years, I have students come back at this time of year to tell me what is NEW to their thankfulness lists. Things like college scholarships, parent’s/family health/well-being, safe journeys, etc are added to the list and usually a nice pair of warm socks is somewhere on that list too.
This year My love and I will soon be celebrating our 8th anniversary. We were married over a Thanksgiving weekend. With our lives in the midst of big changes (the nursery is ready to go!); I am feeling more reflective and thankful than ever. So much so, I went public. (No, not just on this blog.) I wanted to take a moment to share my one public item on my thankfulness this year (beyond the socks…which will always be there) in hopes of inspiring a few moments of thankfulness or thoughtfulness as well.
This year I am thankful to two individuals whom I’m never met.
Their names are Richard and Mildred Loving. In 1958, Mildred and Richard were married. One night the police broke down the door of their home and broke in to their bedroom. Mildred and Richard pointed to the marriage license on the wall of their bedroom when the police question the legitimacy of their cohabitation. You see, Mildred was an African-American woman and her love, Richard, was a white man. Interracial Marriage was banned when they were married and with the “proof” of their “illegal action” hanging on the wall, both Mildred and Richard were hauled off to jail.
Richard and Mildred both spent time in jail and eventually had to plead guilty. The judge sentenced them to time in jail - suspended only if they vowed to never return to their home state again. Richard and Mildred moved out of state - away from their family, family homes, jobs, friends and all that they had known - in order to stay together.
A few years later, Richard and Mildred attempted to have their case overturned. As citizens of the United States, they both were entitled to equal treatment under our constitution which included Amendment 14 (granting citizen rights and prohibiting states from enacting laws that limit said rights). They both also asserted their right to the pursuit of happiness. And what makes you happier than your life partner, they attested.
It wasn’t until 1967 that their case was final heard and unanimously supported by the US Supreme Court. Through the ruling provided in their case: Loving vs. Virginia, Mildred and Richard provided the opportunity for others by banning laws against interracial marriage. (Click here to read or listen to the NPR story about Richard and Mildred Loving.)
This happened two years before I was born. I never knew that the power of love between two people could alter the future for all.
So, why am I thankful for Richard and Mildred Loving? Without them or their courage, I would not have had the right to marry my love. Our baby would be no closer to being in my arms and my life would nothing like what it is today. I cannot imagine my life without my Love. He is, and will always be, the most wonderful, gentle soul that I am privileged to know and love. I am thankful to Richard and Mildred for allowing me the opportunity to love who I chose.
Ah, the power of people. If it were not for those who had gone before us, where would we all be?
In light of recent events, I believe a few more Lovings could do our nation some good. Don’t you?
So… what are you thankful for this year?
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And… Are you planning your Thanksgiving meal?
We have a few ideas on the burner for ours. It will just be the two of us this year, so we are having fun playing around with what our “last Thanksgiving as a family of two (or three, really as we have a very beloved pup in our lives too).
Since there are only two of us, there is no need for hours of cooking. BUT, I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to my Turkey Day. I really LOVE having a bit of cranberry relish or chutney or salsa to freshen up and liven up the meal. And this year will be no different.
This recipe will take hardly any time at all to put together. Once you have the ingredients prepped, you are practically done. Trust me. I had it poured into small canning jars (to share with some friends at work) within about 15 minutes of starting.
And this cranberry dressing? OH, it certainly beats the ubiquitous can of jellied “cranberry dressing” that I remember my mom opening every November. She claimed that since no one ate it, it wasn’t worth making. Quite honestly, I’m sure no one ate it because it still held the shape of the can while it sat on the plate. NOT appetizing at all!
My Love’s Cranberry-Mango Chutney
Ingredients:
1-16 ounces/1 pound bag of fresh cranberries
2 ripe mangos
2 inches peeled fresh ginger
1/2 cup candied ginger
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons red pepper flakes, optional
Directions:
- Peel the mangos and cut them in to chunks.
- Roughly chop the fresh ginger root in to smaller chunks.
- Rinse and clean (pick over) fresh cranberries.
- Place the fresh ginger and candied ginger into the bowl of your food processor. Process until finely chopped.
- Dump in the cranberries, mangos and sugar. Process again until uniform (or chunky, if you choose).
- Taste. Add red pepper flakes to add a bit more kick, if desired. (We also add Tabasco sauce sometimes too.)
- Pour into storage container(s) with lids and set in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours before using to allow the flavors to come out.
This can be made a week ahead of the day you wish to use it.
Happy Thankfulness and Warm Socks to all -
Kate
Salmon Chowder - Gluten free, of course
Salmon Chowder - Gluten free, of course, originally uploaded by Kate Chan.
Okay, so photos of chowder are not the easiest. I’m sad to report that this photo does not do justice to the chowder. Because OH MAN. It hit the spot tonight!
I started making salmon and fish chowders a few years ago… and that was after several years of turning my nose up at the thought of fish chowder or fish soups. Quite honestly, the only type of fishy-soup/chowder I liked was Clam Chowder (New England style). And then, a few years ago, I had the best fish soup I had ever eaten in my life in a Chinese restaurant with my in-laws. Sometimes the beauty of not speaking the language is the willingness to eat what you are given. (Don’t worry, my father-in-law always orders gluten-free goodies for me at the Chinese restaurants. It’s helpful to have a native speaker making the requests, that’s for sure!)
Since that meal, I’ve tried to find gluten free fish chowders when we are out and about, but alas… most of them are prepared with a roux (butter and flour) or have flour added at the end to thicken the soup. It was at this point that I caved and decided to make my own. My Love had been telling me how easy chowders are to make, so now was the time.
Tonight I made another version of my Salmon Chowder. My original recipe (from July 2005) used clams and a few slices of ham or bacon and I didn’t have either of those on hand. But tonight, I found a little can of green chiles and some great parsnips in the fridge just waiting to be gobbled up. Couple those goodies with a pound and a half of some incredible fresh salmon and I have been dreaming of Salmon Chowder all day.
There is a brisk snap of cold in the air tonight. It’s actually the kind of weather I enjoy - although truth be told, I like my cold weather WITH sunshine, but that doesn’t happen around here all the time. And tomorrow, the weather reports are predicting a ton of rain and wind (read = 3 inches in 12 hours!). I think soup was the perfect thing to make to get my body ready for the wet chill that is about to set in.
Since this recipe makes MUCH more chowder than the two of us could possibly eat in one meal (or two!), it’s resting nicely in its pot in the fridge for lunch and dinner tomorrow too. I’ll probably make some corn bread or corn sticks or skillet corn bread to accompany it at the last meal. For lunch, I’m thinking some fabulous Caesar Salads with Salmon Chowder. (Yes, there is no school tomorrow in honor of Veteran’s Day in the US… thus my leisurely lunch plans rather than the soup and an apple to go which is what it would have been.)
I’m going to lay out the basic Chowder recipe here. Keep in mind, it’s very, very versatile. If you don’t have salmon on hand, use another firm fish (like cod). Don’t have the same veggies? Mix it up! You get the idea.
Above all, just eat it to feel good. Your body will thank you.
Salmon Chowder
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon butter or rice bran oil or olive oil
1 sweet onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
1 shallot finely chopped (about 2/3 cup)
4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
2 large carrots, diced
2 large parsnips, diced
2 stalks of celery, diced
1 small can of green chiles
1 15ounces can of corn (kernels, not creamed)
4 cups of chicken or vegetable broth (GF, of course)
3 cups of diced potatoes
1 1/2 pounds salmon (skinned, de-boned, and cut in to chunks)
salt & pepper, to taste
red pepper flakes (to taste)
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon tarragon
1 can low fat or no fat evaporated milk (optional)
1/4 cup sorghum flour (optional)
Directions:
- Heat large dutch oven/soup pot over medium high. Add butter. Saute onion, garlic, shallot, carrots, parsnips and celery until tender. (About 5-6 minutes).
- Add 3 cups of the broth (reserve one cup), green chiles, corn and the potatoes. Simmer until the potatoes are fork tender. (About 10-15 minutes, depending on the size of your potato dices.)
- Add the seasonings (salt/pepper, paprika, tarragon, red pepper flakes, etc) and taste. Adjust seasoning to taste.
- Add the salmon and stir in to the broth. Simmer another 10 minutes or until the salmon is mostly cooked. Taste again. Adjust seasoning.
- Mix the sorghum flour in to the remaining one cup of broth. Add to the chowder (this will thicken it a bit.) Simmer for 5 minutes. Add the can of evaporated milk to make the chowder creamy.
Happy soup days, all!
-Kate
Convenience that makes you smile…
Okay…so if you haven’t figured it out, I LOVE being at home and cooking with my love. However, there come days in every life when cooking is just not going to happen. At least not before 8:00PM, and I don’t know about you guys, but eating dinner at 9:00PM is not on the agenda around here. Now in Spain? Rome?……. that’s a different story. But here? 9:00PM means getting some school work done or taking an hour to decompress my brain with a book or an intriguing show.
Lately (read: during the last week of our life), our lives have been a bit off as we’ve been scrambling to convert an office in to a much needed baby’s room (wahoo!) and to figure out where in Snoopy’s name we are going to put all that CRAP we stored in the office. In addition to kick starting the serious “Spring” cleaning (or nesting, as I’m beginning to think about it), we just finished the MONSTROUS packet of paperwork for the USCIS (U. S. Citizen and Immigrant Services, formerly known as INS).
Those flipping papers were tedious, to say the least. We spent a week (a ton of time in baby-wait time which is similar to dog’s years, I think) waiting for corrections to be made from the adoption agency (apparently our little baldie-baby girl was cute enough to be considered a boy too as all of her paperwork was marked “Male”… umm… that’s was a problem…. LOL). The last three nights I have been spending organizing and collecting all of the data and records necessary. Really, it wasn’t a mess to find anything - that was the easy part. The hard part was in interpreting the stinkin’ paperwork. And tonight? We *FINALLY* finished the paperwork and mailed off a 3 inch stack of pages, photos, records, etc to our agency for them to file.
The fun part was actually being able to tuck a couple little things into the package for our baby girl too. Our agency will arrange to have the items (a little cuddle blankie and a soft bunny) sent to our little one in South Korea. It’s funny as we dropped the box into the post office drop box, my love is worrying about the paperwork arriving but me? No. I was worrying about the bunny being crushed by the massive paperwork and being rendered to ridiculous and useless before our baby gets a chance to snuggle with it.
Oh boy. I’m getting sentimental about her toys already and she really doesn’t have any! (Time to get another “office” that we can stuff with more crap, I think…. LOL)
On our way home from the Post Office, I was thankful for our last Costco find. You see, last night we had to run to Costco to pick up pictures for our adoption paperwork too. (For you adoption people, we needed to send 12 photos total of: inside/outside of our house, the baby’s room/bed, us as a couple, individuals, etc).
We took a quick spin to the freakin’ FREEZIN’ “cooler” to pick up some romaine lettuce and fruit. As I walked to the back, I passed by the aisles of coolers filled with items I cannot eat. Normally, it doesn’t even faze me. Actually, most days it rather elates me. Saves me MONEY to NOT “need” to buy the items in those cases! LOL But last night we went at 7:40 PM…. after work, after working out, after paperwork, but NOT after eating anything!
Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a bag of chicken meatballs. Oh, how I loved my mom’s meatballs that she would make for quick appetizers for parties. She would simply dump the prepared meatballs in to a crock pot with her BBQ sauce (or a bottle of BBQ sauce if she was prepping other things). It was the perfect toothpick-pricked appetizer/snack.
I picked up the package out of curiosity to see what seasonings they had used when LO and BEHOLD the words “GLUTEN FREE” grabbed my eyes and my mind started spinning!
“WHAT? Prepared meatballs that are GLUTEN FREE? Oh, baby! I gotta get some of these!”, I thought.
And oh, how glad I am that I did that! They are delicious! We ate them tonight (8:30 PM dinner this time) with some salad and fruit for dinner. And there are more in the fridge for my lunch tomorrow…. and the next day? Oh, I sense a little meatball sandwich. And after that? Well, then, just then, I might get around to dumping some in a pan with a little BBQ sauce just because I can.
Ah. It’s good to find convenience in the midst of a hectic week.
If you find these meatballs, you should check them out too. I have absolutely NO connection with this company, but am delighted with the product. They are made by COLEMAN NATURAL FOODS and are the Italian Parmesan Chicken Meatballs. (Although allow me to say, I don’t think there’s much Italian or parmesan here… but they sure are good with a little Thai sweet chili sauce (my choice) and my Love votes for these dipped in ketchup. LOL)
Check out their website - you can even search their products by selecting “GLUTEN FREE” or “DAIRY FREE” or “SOY FREE”. Come on! You gotta love that!
I’ll be back this weekend with a recipe.
Do you have any requests? I’m itching to try something new!
Happy Gluten Free Days All!
-Kate
