Gluten Free Expo 2011

I'll start off with bread.  Yes bread.  Real tasting gluten and dairy free bread!!!!!  To someone like me who has missed real bread for so long, this practically brought tears to my eyes.  It is a recipe from Mary Capone one of the demonstrators that I had the pleasure of meeting and working for at the gluten free expo in Lisle two weekends ago.  Look how beautiful this looks!

Those of you that can tolerate gluten may not appreciate, that even by the look of it, one can tell it is not like the other gluten free breads we've been resorting to.  This was so lovely to make, came together quickly and even though I got carried away on the phone talking to a friend of mine in California and let it rise a little too long, it is resilient enough to have "held" it's own.  I was planning on serving it for a dinner party and took one of Mary's suggestions and added some savory herbs.  The name of this bread is Our Daily Bread and I can see why!  This will become a staple in my home on a very frequent (if not daily) basis!

It sliced beautifully and had a moist tender crumb making it the first gluten free bread I have ever had, suitable for a proper sandwich!  This bread does not, I repeat, does not, fall apart!  Leave it to an Italian to figure out how to make decent bread!!


Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the expo were three days of heaven!  I worked in the Wyndham Hotel kitchen the entire time!  Loved it, loved it, loved it!  This was my second year and I cannot wait to return next year!  I worked with some of the most amazing people and met so many wonderful new demonstrators from around the country.  Anyone new to the gluten free lifestyles should consider attending next year.


One of the demonstrators I had the pleasure of meeting is the author of one of my very first books on gluten free cooking and baking, The Spunky Coconut Cookbook, Kelly V. Brozyna.  Since meeting her, I have referred to her as Miss Mary Sunshine, which she truly is.  She is delightful!  Mary Sunshine (a.k.a. Kelly), was at the expo promoting her newest book, The Spunky Coconut, Grain-Free Baked Goods and Desserts!

She most generously gave me (gave me!!) a copy!!  I will be doing a formal review of her cookbook in later posts, but for right now I want to share with you two recipes I have already tried and have loved!  This cake was a BIG hit with dinner guests and my family!

I was a little skeptical at first, because the base for this cake is cooked beans.  Yes, cooked beans.  It looked great coming out of the oven, rivaling Mary Capone's bread for the most delicious looking thing out of the oven today.  I did not have time to ice the cake with the frosting from the book, but I quickly improvised combining some leftover icing from two other cakes I had made.  Then, I just had to dig in to make sure it was suitable for guests.

Yes!  It most definitely was!  So I rearranged the pieces to look like a "whole" cake of sorts, used up the rest of the icing and confidently served it to my guests!

This was not only a big hit at the dinner party but with my family as well!  We now have regular requests for the "bean" cake!  Thank you Miss Mary Sunshine!!

Since this cake was such a hit, I made another one similar to it from the same cookbook for breakfast the next day!

That is my daughter Kelsey, trying to be patient while I photograph the cake!  Oh, this sort of thing never happened before I blogged, we just dug right in!   As you can see, there are no photos of slices, we gobbled them up too quickly.  It was that good!


Another incredible chef, author and fellow blogger that I was delighted to meet and work with in the kitchen was Amy Green, the creator of Simply Sugar and Gluten Free.

I am excited and honored to do a review on this beautiful cookbook that she gave me!  Yes gave me!!  How much better does it get!!  She is as cute and as sweet as can be and incredibly talented!  The recipes she demonstrated were fantastic.  I will be making and photographing them soon (next blog) because my husband is scheduled to bring treats for the next vestry meeting and guess what, they will be from Amy Green and Kelly Brozyna (Mary Sunshine).   I like to think of them as my two new friends!


As a side note, I feel I must share a confession I have to make.  This is what I have been consuming the past four days.

This was supposed to be my fourth 7 day juice fast.  This was the end of day four and as I started writing this, the food looked so good on this blog, I could not take it anymore.  Between the food and the unseasonable cold weather we are having, at the conclusion of my fourth day, I felt compelled to abandon my partner and throw in the towel.  I am satisfied now that I ate an avocado, some zucchini and some raw cookies pictured in the last post.


Oh, a second side note.  I may not post in a while as I am leaving early Wednesday AM to travel deep into a Mexican rainforest for my son's Mayan wedding ceremony!  How about that!  Prayers please for my safe journey there and back in light of the recent news regarding travel in and out of Mexico.  You would like to see more posts wouldn't you? 

So Much to Share! All Raw!

I don't even know where to start!  I have been so busy!  Crazy, good busy!  My new larger dehydrator has arrived for one thing!  Yahoo!  The first thing I filled it up with right away were tortilla shells for tacos!

Would you ever guess that these use to be zucchini and red pepper?

While they were in the "oven", I made the rest of the components, the "meat" mixture, the quacamole, the "sour cream" and fresh tomato salsa.  I had two empty trays in the dehydrator so I made some almond butter walnut cookies so as not to waste the energy.  I could not resist dipping them partially in chocolate when they were finished.

I am a huge fan of quinoa, but I have never had it sprouted so I decided to try a sprouted quinoa salad to round out my meal with the tacos.

Lunch!  Just in time for Cinco De Mayo!

Tracy and I also met with a friend of hers who owns a yoga studio in town.  We brought her some raw (living) granola, cookies and granola bars to taste.

Suzanne really enjoyed them and would like to carry them in her yoga studio to sell!  Thank goodness we have an appointment with a graphic designer next week to discuss branding, etc.


I also had time to make some raw raspberry coconut yogurt.  Enjoyed it with the granola and some beautiful blueberries.

Had more tomato sauce than I needed, so I saw this as an opportunity to try out my new spiralizer on some zucchini for some pasta primavera!

Wow, I have to say, the tacos and the "pasta"  have been my favorite things so far.


Can't wait to get everything together to begin my next post!  It will be all about the Gluten Free Expo last weekend that I worked at!  So much work, but soooooo much fun!!