What Do Grain-Free Vegetarians Eat? Birthday Edition!

I turned 36 on Saturday, which means the blog turned 3. I have started drafting three different birthday/blog goals/life aspirations posts and then I've scrapped them all. The truth is, I have no idea what lies ahead this year. None of us do, right? I could set goals, muse about changes I want to make to my daily routines or the ways that I pray God will be at work on my heart this year. I am thinking about all of that stuff, and I have PLENTY of time to think about it these days while still jobless.

But here's the stone-cold truth: I'm thinking about food today, and every philosophical post I tried to write kept turning its way back to food. So I'm going to follow where my heart leads me, and my heart leads me to CAKE.

Whenever I tell someone that I try to keep a grain-free, vegetarian diet, the next three words uttered are inevitably "What do you EAT?!".

Good question.

Here's a snapshot of a Day in the Life of my food  (What I actually ate yesterday):

Breakfast - frozen berries, flax seeds, and cherry juice blended into a smoothie, plus an apple with almond butter.

Lunch - home-made lentil salad with dill and tomatoes, a few tapioca-based crackers with guacamole.

Dinner - baked potato with sun dried tomatoes and goat cheese and a green salad

Basically, I eat what a lot of vegetarians eat, but I replace bread and rice with things like plantains, sweet potatoes, quinoa and veggies. Disclaimer: I am not perfectly consistent. I occasionally buy gluten-free things that are made with rice flour. I eat corn chips sometimes. They make me feel kind of crummy, but I choose my battles. Sometimes a minor chips-and-salsa digestive hangover is worth it.

I'm learning and cooking and baking my way through this, and I hope to have enough recipes in my repertoire soon that I can get away from any corn or rice cheats and lean more towards a mostly-vegan diet. But that's for another blog post.

What about the cake? 

Ok, so in January I decided that I would invite a few friends and my dear siblings over for a Birthday Brunch to celebrate. Party prep would give me something to do and a fix a deadline for getting the house more or less in order. I wanted to make a menu full of food that everyone would enjoy, but that I could eat with the gluttony one reserves for one's own birthday.

Yum.

One thing was for certain: There had to be macarons. 

The original French recipe for macarons is totally grain-free and made with almond flour. Learning how to make a pretty macaron absorbed many wintery hours in February. They are pretty much the hardest thing I have ever tried to bake, but they turn out sooooo pretty, even the imperfect ones. And they are filled with things like jam and chocolate and Nutella. What's not to love? Here's the best macaron recipe and tutorial I found in my trial and error. After the 4th pan, I really had the hang of it! Now I want to make them all the time.

So, one sweet option was settled with the macarons. But it seemed that there should be something savory in the spread, so I made some little omelet cups in muffin tins. They ended up being a melange of a couple of different recipes I saw online, but essentially I baked scoops of frozen hash browns in muffin tins until they got a little crispy and made a bit of a "crust", and then poured eggs that I had whisked together with milk and seasonings into the cups. Top with omelet fillings like peppers, cheese, herbs, and other veggies and bake them up. Easy! 

And now, for the Cakes. Yeah. That's right. Cakes, plural.

It just wouldn't be a birthday party without chocolate cake, as far as I'm concerned. I made this grain-free dark chocolate espresso cake and it was simple, tasty, and chocolatey. Honestly, I expected it to taste even darker, so don't be afraid of it if you are not a dark chocolate fan. 

The other cake was definitely the surprise hit of the brunch. Lemony, soft, almondy grain-free perfection. The recipe is converted from an Australian cooking blog. I've made this twice now, so if you want to make it, message me and I'll send you my notes. I found I had to tweak a couple of things to make it turn out, but in general it is a simple, quick and elegant cake to make. 

As you can see, I'm really not at a loss for what to eat on most days. If I could get away with eating cake and omelet muffins every day, I would, and I'd be fine (if spherical). Being at home for a few months with little to do besides cook and scour Pinterest for new recipes has really turned out to be a blessing. I'm optimistic that a job will come around eventually, and I'll be much better prepared to eat things that are working with, rather than against, my body every day. And when I do get a job, I'll celebrate with cake.

Breakfast Plantain & Veggie Scramble

Back in the day when I happily noshed bagels or English muffins, I loved to make breakfast sandwiches and things that resembled Benedicts. I still love a good eggy/cheesy brunch, but I've had to retool my starch a bit.

There are recipes out there for grain free muffins, breads, bagel-like things, cookies, crackers, and pizza crusts readily available, but I've come to the conclusion that trying to make grain-free versions of my favorite carbs turns out to be akin to the veggified versions of meat products - expensive, time consuming, and not very much like the item you are trying to fake. I ended up preferring lentils and beans to Chik'n Nuggets or ToFurky, and I've discovered that bread cravings can almost always be quelled without Fava bean and flax meal "sandwich flats".

Here's my #1 tip for anyone trying to cut down on conventional grain-based foods: Rethink your base.

This morning I woke up craving Eggs Benedict. What did I really want? Bread, Eggs, and something saucy. No bread, no interest in making hollandaise. But it is my day off, so I had a bit more time to tool around in the kitchen, so I rummaged around and got started with a new breakfast melange.

Let's start with the new base:

Satisfying little discs of starchy goodness: Plantains

I'm sure there must be some way to roast plantains, but honestly, if you fry things hot enough and blot them quickly enough, flash frying is not a terrible way to cook things. I did these up in some grapeseed oil, because it can handle high heat and quick cooking.

Plantains do not taste anything like the bananas they resemble. They remind me more of sweet potatoes than of fruit. And they are an excellent bready substitute.

After the plantains were cooked up, I started dumping random bits of veggies from the fridge into the same quick-cleaned saute pan:

leftovers from a can of fire roasted tomatoes

some unused black beans 

handful of baby spinach

the rest of a can of black olives from an ill-fated recipe earlier this week

And then I tried to fry up an egg quickly, but the pan was so hot it ended up overcooked. No matter. I stacked up my odds and bits onto a plate and scraped some disappointingly not-quite-ripe avocado on top.

There you have it!

And it was really, really good. Filling and carbish and proteiny. You could put cheese on top, but I'm trying to go easy on the dairy these days too and this is plenty rich. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper and you are done. All the breakfast, none of the grains.

Grain-Free birthday cookies

Several people asked me if I was going to eat Birthday Cake on Friday. I thought about it, but really, I'm more of an ice cream girl so I decided not to hurl myself off the gluten-free wagon in the name of tradition or birthday candles.

But I did want something sweet to share around the office, so I turned to my trusty G-Free board on Pinterest for an idea.

I decided to go with Coconut Lemon Meltaways from the Addicted to Veggies blog. I had all the ingredients on hand and I LOVE coconut and lemon. And who doesn't want to try something called a "meltaway"?

These cookies could be labeled and hashtagged with all kinds of non-delicious sounding things like #vegan, #grainfree, #raw, #refinedsugarfree.

But let me tell you, the more descriptive options would be #tasteslikesummer, #whoababythosearegood, and #notexactlyhealthybutslightlymorevirtuousthanaboxofthinmints.

Did I mention that they are embarrassingly easy to make?

Please check out the original post on Addicted to Veggies for the recipe and steps - I don't want to take any credit for her brilliance.

But it basically goes like this:
Mix the dry ingredients (I used Almond Meal rather than Almond Flour because it is cheaper and I had some  on hand. It does change the texture slightly, but probably not the taste).

Bust out your Stand Mixer (hooray!) or any hand mixer and blend the wet ingredients into the dry.

Roll the cookies into balls and set them out on a parchment lined sheet. These little babies are not going to be cooked, so they won't spread or rise. You can put them pretty close together.

The cookies are technically raw (not cooked). Don't worry though, they're also vegan so no angst about eating raw eggs or dairy. Bonus: you can eat as much "dough" as you want!

The original recipe says that you can leave them in a warm oven with the door cracked slightly (I had mine set at 180 for about an hour and a half) or stick em in a food dehydrator. I don't have one of those - yet - so I went with the warm oven option. All this really does is dry out the exterior slightly, which gives the cookies that divine "melt in your mouth" slight crunch on the outside, soft awesomeness on the inside.

My co-workers gobbled these up. I may have had 4 or so myself. The only people who didn't oooh and aaaahh were the handful of non-coconut eaters. I contend that the lemon has a stronger flavor than the coconut, but I guess there's no convincing you if you are anti-coconut.

Bonus #2 - These make your kitchen smell like lemon and coconut. Excellent reason to make them in February.

Delicious Grain Free Baking Failure

Let's be honest: Grain is delicious. I love grain. Fried Rice, Corn chips, Bread, Pasta, Biscuits, everything inside and around every Burrito I've ever loved. Grains are everywhere and in everything. Everything pre-made. Just about everything you can "whip up" on the cheap. Try finding a grain-free, vegetarian microwavable entree. Not just gluten-free - GRAIN free. Paleo adherents have their meat. Vegans have pasta, polenta, and rice. Grain-free vegetarians have most of the produce aisle and the dairy case. Thank heavens for pastured eggs and the total lack of convicting conscience about cheese, or I seriously think I would have chewed my arm off a long time ago.

Anyhoooo, when people ask me how the grain-free thing is going, I usually say something like "It's hard, and I cheat a lot". Which is true. I do. I have polenta one night, veggie gyoza the next, just a "handful" of chips with the guac. Just "half a spoon" of rice in my Chipotle burrito bowl. I've turned down cookies, bagels, bread, pasta, and cake almost every time I've been tempted by it. I've tried to scoot by with nibbles and cheats.

But you know what?

I FEEL CRAPPY EVERY SINGLE TIME. Tired, achy, broken-out, creaky-jointed, bloated and overall gross. Every time. I keep telling myself that this bite will be the last one, but it hasn't held yet.

Until maybe today.

It just so happens that my dear Hubs has gotten on a baking kick. And out of the blue, he decided to start baking bread and to try to perfect Challah. What? Only my favorite kind of bread in the history of bread thankyouverymuch. Not only that, but his first loaf (of bread, ever) turned out like this:

Perfect. Golden brown on top, beautiful butter yellow on the inside, and that marvelous doughy goodness that lets you tear hunks off with your hands and eat them all carnivorously.

And I ate some. And I felt crappy.

Undeterred, I ate another steaming slab of the second loaf he baked last night, complete with butter dripping warm from the crusty fringe. And then I ate another. And then I felt, SURPRISE!, really disgusting for the rest of the night and most of today.

But it doesn't have to be this way. There is hope.

Thanks to a review in my dear Whole Living magazine, I made an Amazon impulse buy a few weeks ago and brought this little beauty into my life:

La Tartine Gourmande - Recipes for an Inspired Life by Beatrice Peltre. Friends, this is a beautifully photographed, delightfully written cookbook that just might change my life. Not only are most of the dozens of recipes vegetarian, they are ALSO mostly grain-free. A vegetarian, grain-free French cookbook. Be still my heart.

I have taken this book into bed with me to read while I fall asleep. I read the recipes with a glimmer of wonder and excitement. I mapped out a plan to bake something. Something savory and biscuit-like. I choose these delightful Cumin and Parsley-Flavored Cheese Gougeres:

Oh. Yum.

They are made with Quinoa flour, which turns out to be hella spendy. So I turn to my mega-bag of plain old quinoa from CostCo (We pretty much live in the suburbs now, so we shop at Mega Marts. I choose not to feel bad about this).

A few pulses in the coffee/spice grinder....

And viola! Quinoa flour:

Ok, so technically the recipe does have a little corn starch in it. But Geez Oh Pete! Try finding anything that even slightly resembles a biscuit that does not have any grain of any kind. I dare you.

After a pretty simple set of mixing, pouring, and piping steps and a mere 20 minutes in the oven, I pulled out these little babies:

Notice their distinct lack of "Puff". Hmm. Well, they smelled pretty awesome, and tasted like a digestible dream. And do you know the best part about mynewbestfriend French cookbook? It recommends you eat your Gougeres warm out of the oven with a glass of Champagne:

In fact, I'm noshing some un-puffs and sipping some sparkling white wine from good ole' Trader Jacques' right now.

There may be hope for this food deal yet.