Gluten-Free Brownies

Here is a lovely gluten-free brownie recipe that I just made for my mom and a group of her friends last week( While I am not Gluten Free my Mom has been gluten free since I was little so I do find recipes and bake fairly often with this in mind.) I used chocolate chips in my recipe and as a heads up these brownies are a little more on the crispy side then the gooey side just in case you were really wanting ooey gooey these are probably not your best bet! ;)

RECIPE-

1/3 cup gluten free baking mix of your choice–be sure it contains xanthan gum! I used the Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free bread mix! (one of my favorite Gluten-Free Mixes! Pamela's Kitchen Gluten Free Pancake Mix is great too!)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup  unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/3 cups  granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-sized pieces
2 extra-large eggs, cold
1 cup  chopped pecans, toasted or chocolate chips(optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line with parchment paper or grease the bottom of a 8″x8″ baking pan 

In a small bowl, mix together flour and baking powder.

In a medium bowl, mix together unsweetened cocoa powder, sugar, vanilla, and salt.

Melt your butter then pour the hot butter into the bowl with the cocoa mixture and, using a whisk, mix together until mixture is combined and smooth.

When the butter mixture has cooled to room temperature- add eggs, one at a time, whisking between each addition. Whisk until mixture is smooth.

Add flour mix and stir with a heavy spoon/whisk until combined. Add pecan pieces if using and stir until incorporated.

Spoon mixture into pan and smooth top evenly.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 40-45 minutes or until a tester comes out fairly clean (there will be a few crumbs).

Yummy! didn't even taste gluten free!

Easy Banana Bread

So this weekend me and my boyfriend went down to my aunt's farm. It's more of a horse farm then anything else but she's got a few dogs, a TON of chickens and a bunch of goats to go with the horses...oh and a few cats too! It's always been one of my favorite places in the whole world because even though it's totally inhabitable and there's a lovely big house now it's still pretty rugged and aesthetically lovely and natural. My grandma recently moved down there as well so that she could be nearer to my aunt and have people around to take care of her should she need it. My grandma is a very no waste kind of woman and thus she puts every old banana in the freezer to bake with later but then never bakes with them....So I decided it was about time to do something with the 20+ old frozen bananas sitting in the freezer!  So banana bread it is! :) I didn't end up using all the banana's but I did get through a good 16 so thats better I think! :)

I love this recipe a lot because it's so freaking simple! One big bowl and one spoon is all you need! how lovely and simple, coupled with the fact that it's delicious! I quadrupled the recipe this weekend and that was super simple and easy.

INGREDIENTS

•  4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1 cup sugar 
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
• add chopped nuts or chocolate chips(or both!) as desired

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

I made two loaves with chopped walnuts and one loaf with chocolate chips and one that was just plane yummy banana bread! And here they all are on the counter!

Rice Bowl

    Tonight for dinner I made honey lime chicken rice bowls with white rice and grilled zucchini. I got the zucchini from the farmers market where I work, this past weekend and as you can see from the post before this one I made zucchini bread and tonight I decided to cook up the yellow ones for dinner in a simple rice bowl.

    I made white rice tonight because I had some left overs from two nights ago, but normally for rice bowls I would make brown rice because you can hardly tell the taste is a bit different when it's mixed up with meat and veggies, plus its healthier! so yay! Side note- yes I am one of those people who prefers white rice because it tastes so much better then brown rice when you have it with just butter!

    For the zucchini I just sliced it up in fat slivers and stirred it up with olive oil, salt, and pepper then through them on the grill.

    For the chicken I slice up anywhere from 1-3 chicken breasts in about a 1/4-1/2 inch slices. You'll probably want to cut up the chicken further after it's been cooked for better ease of eating, but keeping the pieces larger like this will make grilling the chicken easier.

I marinaded it in:

5 tbls soy sauce

3 tbls honey

2 tbls canola oil

1-2 juiced limes

2 diced garlic cloves

~1-2 tsp dried pepper flakes

Let the chicken sit in the marinade for 20+ minutes before grilling- make sure to oil the grill before you put the chicken on it!

After I'm done marinading the chicken and it's on the grill with the zucchini, I throw the marinade in a small pot and boil it for a few minutes to kill any raw chicken bacteria and then i use it as a sauce over top of the rice bowl.

To serve- couple scoops of rice, some zucchini, and chicken topped with sauce! YUM!

Zucchini Bread

     Now lets just start with the simple stuff! Zucchini bread is delicious, actually all breads are delicious; banana bread, pumpkin bread, cinnamon swirl bread... and so on. YUM!
    

    So here is a simple and practical recipe for zucchini bread for you to enjoy with your family- this recipe makes 2 loaves so feel free to split it if you only want one loaf. Since it's rather hard to split 3 eggs in half I would suggest 2 eggs and only a quarter cup of vegetable oil OR a quarter cup of apple sauce(not a quarter cup each!) for a one loaf version of this recipe.

    As I also have an excellent gluten free zucchini bread recipe I will be posting that later on, in the gluten free category. 

RECIPE-

3 C- flour
3 tsp- cinnamon
2 tsp- nutmeg
1 tsp- baking soda
1 tsp- baking powder
1 tsp- salt

Mix together in a bowl and set aside for a bit.

3- eggs
1/2 C- applesauce
1/2 C- vegetable oil
1 1/4 C- brown sugar
1 C- white cane sugar
3 tsp- vanilla extract

beat all these together in a large bowl and then stir in the dry ingredients with a spatula.

2 C- grated zucchini

make sure to squish out the extra moisture from the grated zucchini with a paper towel. The amount of moisture that comes out of the zucchini will differ depending on the type of of zucchini and the level of ripeness so don't be surprised if sometimes you get a bunch of liquid and sometimes you will hardly get any at all.

Stir the zucchini into the batter mixture and then pour the batter into two greased standard sized loaf pans.

Bake at 325 degrees for 50-60 minutes- check doneness with the standard tooth pick method.


PS- Theoretically I was going to take pictures while the loaf was whole and THEN cut a slice to take more pretty pictures with...but accidentally I kinda ate some first and then remembered to take pictures! So sorry it's not all pretty and perfect ;)