Apron Thrift Girl

Lemon Icing

Keiran's Birthday Cake

Keiran was quite vocal about his birthday cake wishes this year.

• he wished for a spice cake
• he wished for a giant number on his cake
• he wished for fancy candles (colored flames)

Since the rest of his celebration was rather frugal I decided to go with it. We shopped local at a party store called Nancy's Fancy's where we found the candles. Since we've used beeswax candles for the last 7 years I agreed to let him choose this year.

For the cake we went with Namaste which has the most incredible Gluten Free Spice Cake ever. It's rich, moist and so delicious. You wouldn't ever guess that it didn't contain wheat.

I modified a recipe from Joy of Cooking for the frosting:

Lemon Frosting -

• 2 cups of powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup earth balance 
• 3 teaspoons half & half
• Rind & Juice of 1 Meyer lemon

Combine the powdered sugar and softened earth balance (or butter) in a mixer. Beat until well blended. Add half & half slowly while continuing to blend. Finally add the zest and lemon juice and beat until smooth.

This frosting is fluffy and so full of flavor. The slight zing of the lemon dances perfectly with the spices in the cake. The cake was such a hit that Dave has asked for the exact same one for his birthday in July. (sans the number candle(s) of course)

What's your favorite cake & frosting combination?

Babycakes Banana Bread

My sweet friend Joanne was telling me about this fabulous cookbook called Babycakes. Three hours after she mentioned it I spotted it in Anthropologie. When I took my first look through the photos and the gluten free recipes I nearly fainted.

You can have gluten free but it often taste like sawdust. You can get organic but it's not gluten free. You can have natural but it's loaded with gluten. It's rare to get a cookbook or food item that is gluten free, sugar free, organic and natural. That combination is such a rare thing. This book is nearly perfect in the fact that it's almost all gluten free (ignoring the handful of spelt recipes) and practically all the recipes call for Agave (Costco now sells Agave for a very affordable price).

A friend and I recently started a building development group. We met last week and I was the host. I had an hour to throw together a last second dessert that was sugar free since I was feeling a cold coming on. I grabbed Babycakes and quickly found these ingredients.

 

Babycakes uses Bob's Red Mill which makes throwing a recipe together far easier than most recipe books. Financially I haven't properly analyzed the cost of using Bob's versus other books where I combine gf flours myself. I'll do that further down the road. For this occasion the recipe was perfect.

 

I went with straight forward banana bread since all my chocolate chips have sugar in them.

It was heavenly tasting and perfect for a stormy night. The recipe was extremely easy to follow and it felt lovely to use healthy, wholefoods ingredients. Next up is her chocolate chip cookie recipe. I've yet to taste a cookie that reminds me of my childhood favorite: Nestles Tollhouse Cookies.

a frugal birthday

As many of you with January birthdays know, it can be a tough month to have a birthday. I tend to be recovering from Christmas both on an energy level and a financial level when it's time for my daughter's birthday. She turned 10 yesterday.

 

By the time we ring in the new year on December 31st and get the children back to school on the 4th, we are really scrambling to put together her birthday. Add the fact that three of us were sick this year left us with a procrastination mess.

When it comes to birthday and Christmas presents we lean more to retail presents rather than thrifted. They often get something small nearly every weekend from a yard sale. On Saturday I picked up eight pieces of clothing (gap, H&M, Children's Place) for Cerys that cost me $8.00. She's aware of the difference of the thrifted dollar versus the retail dollar so splurging a few times a year in the retail world is a special treat. In order to stick within our budget and our frugal ethics I do try to find quality items on sale. This year I hit the Hanna Andersson sale on December 29th and picked up tights ($8), organic pajama's ($20), a hoody ($20) and some leggings ($12) all for drastically reduced prices. It's not often they receive clothing with original tags attached.

She wanted to go somewhere grand for her birthday like six flags. She was also interested in going ice-skating and even threw in the idea of going to Traintown. Yet with Cerys still on the mend from being sick and the fact that we were very conscious of our money so close to Christmas we asked her what a dream day would be. It turned out that she wished for her best friend Arah (and family) to come over for lunch, eat cake, play board games all afternoon, share a dinner together and finish off with the opening of presents. I loved the simplicity of her ideal day.

It's the kind of birthday that I could handle both financially and energy wise. She asked for a chocolate cake and I gave her this based on our favorite pancake mix; Pamela's.

This caked is just smothered in the richest icing that I have ever tasted let alone made. The entire cake was incredible and the recipe very simple. You don't even realize that the cake doesn't have a crumb of gluten in it.  I used three cups of her pancake mix for this recipe. I buy Pamela's mix at Amazon and have a 6 month subscription which lets me buy 3, 64-ounce bags for $11.33 each. This automatically arrives every six months. This is the best price that I have been able to find. For those in Sonoma County, Pamela is based up in Ukiah and I would consider it local.

For lunch I served seaweed wraps with wild smoked salmon (from Costco), avocados (organic and on sale for .99 cents each) with olive oil & sea salt. To accompany the wraps I made a large bowl of coleslaw.

While we were planning to play games all afternoon, the children decided it would be more fun to kick around the soccer ball and rollerblade for a couple hours. The adults didn't mind this one bit as we sat around the table drinking wine and enjoying conversation which led to quite a bit of laughter. (post holiday stress release maybe?)

The cake was so filling that our dinner plans changed to a simple bowl of brown rice, green onions and tamari sauce. Cerys opened her gifts and we said our "thank yous" and "goodbyes" to our friends. Cerys was all smiles when she went to bed. A truly happy girl having experienced a soulful and unbeknownst to her, a frugal birthday. I found with Cerys merely being around people who cared for her was equally as good as renting a bouncy castle or heading to an amusement park. And as a family we saved a lot of money by keeping it simple. 

***thank you for all your comments on Friday's post. I plan to spend part of my workday going through each one and taking note of your preferances and sending you each a reply with my thanks****

holiday baking

Despite my allegiance to thrifting I still couldn't help myself and did sneak into Target to have a look at their Christmas decorations This year I told myself that I could only buy two small items to decorate my home. I sold 3/4 of my Christmas items before we moved so our holiday supplies are very low at the moment. Two items felt appropriate on a thrifter's budget.

This 2-tier cake plate was rather sad looking when I found it on the shelf. It was by itself and was tilting over to one side. I was so disappointed that the last one was broken but a quick turn of the bottom screw tightened it and it was perfect. It was $14.99.

The glass tree behind the cake plate was so beautiful that I couldn't' resist it either. It was on sale for $9.99. 

Gluten Free sugar cookies with icing & sprinkles.

I always use my Joy of Cooking icing recipe. I don't know why except that it's just the staple recipe I reach for first. This year I couldn't locate Joy so I looked at this book instead for a recipe and found this. 

The addition of the cream cheese gave it a hint of a marzipan taste but the recipe was so easy. Even though I would follow Joy's recipe perfectly, it always seems to take awhile to work it into a nice glaze frosting. The Cook's Illustrated recipe was done merely with a whisk rather than a mixer and it felt like it was ready practically before I even started. There wasn't any playing around with ingredients, it was simply precise. 

We tend to avoid food coloring for many reasons, but there are times when I simply need something so pretty & blue on my cookies. Call it nostalgia. It is nearly impossible to find items that are gluten free and frosted unless you make it yourself. I think I miss icing on cupcakes more than anything else in the world. Sour Dough would be a close second followed by Lucky Charms. Sigh....at least these cookies are heavenly scrumptious. I even ate three of them before dinner despite the fact that it was dinner time when I began my first nibble. And then I just couldn't stop at one.

the gluten free lab

When we moved to California two months ago, the first gluten free resource that I discovered was the North Bay Celiacs website. It is loaded with information including a guide to gluten free options when you are dining out in the North Bay. I also found this lovely blog on the North Bay Celiacs site. Don't forget to check out The Gluten Free Lab's Facebook page. 

Tonight I went to Sebastopol for a Gluten Free Meet & Greet. They offered free food and free wine so of course I had to go. This is The Gluten Free Lab's first ever event and I must tell you that it was fabulous. The thrifter/vintage collector in me quickly spotted the free samples overflowing in the vintage suitcases. They even had a mid century modern table as part of their display. It was pure eye candy and I hadn't even seen the home baked goods yet.

I loved meeting the three amazing women who make up The Gluten Free Lab. There's Molly, Heather & Aly. They were just delightful, very professional but above all they were warm and welcoming.

 

Yummy samples for the taking.

Examples of safe gluten free grains, gluten free leaflets and a very handy quick-info-sheet to carry in your bag or give to your closest friends who will hopefully invite you to dinner very soon.

Pamela's Baking & Pancake mix which happens to be seriously the best pancake mix on the entire country planet. I've never tasted anything better and that includes my days when I was consuming gluten. In fact I may need to mix some up as soon as I finish writing this as I've got a serious case of pancake craving. with maple butter of course.

I adore this display of gluten free grains.

Although Shauna ( gluten free girl ) and I  have never met in person, I still felt an affinity to her since we were both up in the Pacific Northwest. And for a few short months we both lived on islands albeit separate ones. I thought of her a lot tonight and wished that she and the chef could have popped by with Little Bean. I was delighted to see her book on display though. She helped me forgive my body for my allergy betrayal.

The chocolate chip cookies were ever so moist and didn't have a hint of the usual sawdust & sandpaper combo that gluten free cookies often have.

Chocolate Mint Cookies. Mouthwatering sweetness.

Their next event is being held at Pizzavino707 in Sebastopol on December 3rd from 6-9 pm. It will be the debut of The Gluten Free Lab's very own pizza dough which Pizzavino707 will have in stock on a continual basis. Finally I am able to go out for pizza again, something I haven't done since I was last in Eugene Oregon 3 years ago. Hmmmm I wonder if they will be stocking any gluten free beer for the event?

simple warm bread

Simple warm bread can be a paradox in a gluten free world. Well I suppose you can have simple, warm bread but more times than not it will taste similar to cardboard mixed in with a sprinkle of salt. This is a part of the blogging world that I struggle with; food. Some of my favorite bloggers out there are constantly creating the most delectable food on the planet and taking fancy, gorgeous pictures of it. I always visit, try not to stay long and really try not to let my heart sink into a little bit of sadness of all the foods that I cannot enjoy. Posie made this today and my mouth watered in envy. Luckily I have Shauna to visit who has devoted an entire blog to gluten free food. But she married a chef and the food they create daily is incredible. So I end up with a little chef envy visiting her blog. I just don't make the foods that they make. I try and sometimes I succeed but there are lots of little gluten free failures next to my name too. I tried to make Trader Joe's Brownies last Monday. You wouldn't expect much to go wrong with a package mix for gf brownies right? They were a horrible chocolate mess gone totally wrong which just doesn't happen with chocolate. It's a forgivable ingredient that usually taste heavenly from ingredient, to mix to finished product. Not TJ's brownies though. They went straight in the trash. Some bloggers found it okay while others didn't complain but they didn't say too many warm things about it.

Bread though is another story. I haven't dared try to make my own bread since going gluten free. I keep making lots of excuses why I don't try. Maybe a part of me just would feel too hopeless to go down the road of baking bread when the memory of using whole wheat flower is still fresh in my memory. It would be like I was fully admitting that I won't ever have proper sour dough bread again.

I've tried a few gf breads but they are generally only edible to me when I toast them and smoother them in something that makes me forget the taste of this product trying to call itself bread. I've been pretty happy with Glutino's Flaxseed bread. It at least feels healthier than some of the other products on the market. It has a little bit of flavor but they only sell it frozen.

Whole Foods offered a morning of Gluten Free samples a couple weeks ago. Dave was off to Texas with work so the children and I found our closest Whole Foods and made our way there. I don't know if I'm exceptionally picky or that I like a lot of flavor in my food but I found nearly all the Whole Food gf line to be very dull. Some items were too sweet without enough salt, others too weak in flavor. I did like the cupcake but only because of the frosting. I mean frosting is good on anything or should I add delicious on everything. It's frosting.

I was so disappointed with everything until I put this in my mouth:

This is by far the best gf bread that I have ever tasted. It's made by the Grindstone Bakery in Sonoma CA. When I took that first taste though it was like I tasted something from the old world. It is doughy but not too heavy. What made it so unique was the fermented flavor. As someone who consumes a jar of Bubbies sauerkraut every week, a fermented flavor was a benefit. I gave Dave a taste when he returned home and he said it reminded him of bread that we used to eat at a restaurant called Stones in Avebury, England.

From a frugal point of view, it's somewhat pricey. You do get what you pay for. It is packed full of nutrition. My favorite is their Sprouted Seeds Bread. It includes: whole quinoa, whole millet (both stone ground at the bakery in Sonoma), purified water, sprouted pumpkin, sesame and sunflower seeds, raisin juice, Xantham Gum and Sonoma Coast Sea Salt. And nearly all of it is organic. I paid around $9.00 for a fresh loaf at the Community Market in Santa Rosa. They bring it fresh every Tuesday and Friday. How refreshing to have bread nearly straight from the oven.

 

There is going to be a Gluten Free Meet & Greet in Sebastopol on November 11th. Lots of free samples and did I mention wine? So looking forward to this event.

sinfully sweet

As it is Hallowe'en today, a day typically filled with sugar laden candy, maybe you won't think of this delectable treat as anything but normal. I'm sure I'm not the only one whose sugar intake climbs a little higher in October and then again in December. I'm really not a sugar-aholic. I have two tiny spoons of turbinado in my coffee, a few peanut butter cups here and there but that is mostly it. Even the gum in our house is some healthy xylitol kind that is supposed to help our teeth. But lately I've been crazing a certain flavor from my childhood.

Does anyone remember making the cookie dough for Tollhouse Cookies? The first step in this process was adding margarine, brown sugar and vanilla. I used to make these weekly, sit at my little typewriter desk and write my great novel (age 15) with my chocolate chip cookies and a large glass of milk. I suppose it was the chocolate chips that helped me write and finish my 88 single spaced type book titled "Once Upon a Summer" (which I later discovered was a name of another book sadly-remember this was pre-internet when you couldn't check for this kind of stuff). I loved writing even at an early age and my cookies could turn out 5 pages on a single sitting.

These cookies are a thing of my past now as is my dated novel. There is not a single chocolate chip cookie on this earth that is gluten free that tastes remotely like those incredible toll house cookies. When I lived in England and Dave would travel to the states, I would make him smuggle back chocolate chips and brown sugar just so I could make my favorite cookies. English brown sugar has a very strong molasses flavor and it did no favors to this recipe. I miss these cookies and have not tasted them in nearly 4 years. 4 long years.

Last spring I somehow accidentally came up with this recipe while making something else.

Cookie-ish Batter - gluten free

1 cup margarine (I used Earth Balance because I grew up with Blue Bonnet and this recipe is really all about nostalgia and not about health)

1 cup brown sugar (1/2 cup is pictured here because I don't normally follow a recipe. I just add stuff until it tastes good. It was too creamy with just 1/2 cup of brown sugar so I added more)

2 tsp vanilla extract (for any gluten free worries about Vanilla see this post by Shauna)

Mix everything together in a bowl until it is creamy, grainy and looks heavenly.

I leave it in the fridge until it hardens and then I eat it by the spoonful with a small glass of milk, just like the olden days. Honestly to me it is one of the most incredible flavors that I have ever tasted. My eyes sort of roll back in my head when I take my first bite and usually I have to slap my hand to stop eating more after 5 or 6 bites 10-11. It takes away all my gluten free sadness away especially with the holidays coming up which is a particularly hard time for anyone with an allergy that adores food. 

While the children are digging into their Hallowe'en candy booty this evening, I'll be snuggled on the couch under a patch work quilt eating my cookie-ish dough and drinking my milk and sighing with pure contentment.

october snack ~ pepitas

Continuing on my October themed food I had a craving for pepitas last night. We always have organic raw pumpkin seeds on hand to toss in salads or even in smoothies. Our favorite way to eat them though is like this.

I add a cup or more in a seasoned cast iron pan. When we wash our pans we coat them in a thin layer of oil and leave them in our stove where we store them. This is enough oil to cook the pepitas with. If you are using a teflon or stainless steel pan you may want to add just a drop of olive oil.

Pepitas start out rather flat in shape but after they are heated they will actually make a popping sound and become somewhat rounded. The children love to watch this. It's nearly as exciting as these guys.
I will admit that I don't like our stove at all. It's one of those glass tops that take forever to cook on with cast iron. We have lovely plans of one day owning one of these but not for a long while. So on our cook top it can take 5-8 minutes for all the seeds to pop and lightly brown. With gas it probably takes 4.5 seconds. When the popping subsides and they appear to be all popped we add this:

Once they have popped and have cooled just slightly, add tamari sauce if you are gluten/wheat free or soy sauce if you are not. Add a tablespoon at a time to get the right mixture without getting too salty. I added way too much as I was trying to take a photo at the same time. The children think I am so silly for taking pictures of food. I think I might be too. This batch was so salty it stood up and said howdoo but we still loved it being the salt addicts that we are.

I'm off this morning with Jacki to pick up her Australian Shepherd puppy. I'm just hoping that I don't come home with one. They are too cute for words.

Oh and I'm getting the hang of twitter. You can find me there as apronthriftgirl saying off the wall things about life. Thank you for your advice about it. It's kind of weird but addicting too. Not that I am obsessed about computers, emails or blogging.....