Gluten Free Chocolate Cake With Strawberry Frosting

So it's my partners big 30th birthday tomorrow and of course I just had to bake him a cake for the special occasion, after all turning thirty and having a baby due any day now is a big deal. So when I asked him what kind of cake he would like me to make him he said chocolate strawberry cake, kind of an unusual request I thought but I can make it work. Strawberries at the grocery store in February aren't very appealing, so thankfully I had just enough left in the freezer that I got at the farm stand this summer, so I could make the frosting strawberry as requested. The rest was pretty easy whip up and I'm sure it will make the birthday boy, or man, very happy! Here's how I did it:

Ingredients for the chocolate cake: 

- 2 cup organic sugar

- 1 3/4 cup of gluten free King Arthur multi purpose flour mix

- 3/4 cup cocoa powder

- 1 teaspoon salt 

- 1 teaspoon xanthan gum

- 1 teaspoon baking powder 

- 1 teaspoon baking soda

- 2 organic free range eggs

- 1 cup milk 

- 1/2 cup organic canola oil

- 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

- 1 cup boiling water 

Instructions: 

Preheat oven to 350 and grease 2 9 inch cake pans. Add sugar, flour, cocoa, salt, xanthan gum, baking powder and soda to mixing bowl and mix together. Then add the eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla extract and mix with the dry ingredients. Then add boiling water and beat until well combined, mixture will be thin. Add batter evenly to both cake pans and bake 30-35 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting. 

Strawberry frosting ingredients:

- 1 cup of organic strawberries

- 2 sticks of butter, softened

- 3 1-2 cup of organic powdered sugar

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions: 

Purée the cup of strawberries in a blender and add it to a sauce pan. Reduce the strawberry purée by half over medium- low heat, it should take about 20 minutes or so. Allow it to cool completely. 

In a stand mixer, beat butter till fluffy and then add a cup of the powdered sugar and beat some more.  Once combined add 2 teaspoons of the purée and the vanilla extract and mix well. Then add 1/2 a cup of powdered sugar to 2 teaspoons of purée at a time until all ingredients are added and well combined. Now use frosting to frost the cake and enjoy a big hunk for all of your efforts!! :)

~Megan~

Yummy Egg Cups

Looking for a good way to use up all those extra eggs? Well look no further. This is a scrumptious way to use up all the extra eggs from your chickens and anything else that needs to be eaten before it spoils.

Our girls, even on these blustery cold winter days, have been still producing quite the amount of eggs and even with making eggs for breakfast and baking we still to have an abundance, which is a great problem to have really.  So I decided instead of giving them away, yeah sorry guys, I'd make something out of them to put in the freezer for when our little baby girl joins us next month and I won't be up for cooking much, we'll have something to pull out and heat up real quick.

In addition to the abundance of eggs, I also had some cheese and chives that needed to be eaten, so that's what I put in them in addition to some bacon. Who doesn't love bacon, well besides vegans and vegetarians, and we just happened to get some from the local farm, so why not?  But really you can add anything to them, they're super versatile and wicked easy to make. Here's how to make them:

Yummy Egg Cups
 
  Ingredients:

• A pound of bacon
• A dozen eggs
• 1/2 - 3/4 cup of milk
• A bunch of chives
• 3/4 cup or so of mozzarella or any cheese you have on hand
• Salt and Pepper

 Directions:

Preheat oven to 375.  Line a muffin tin with bacon to make little bacon nests, and bake  for 15 minutes or so.  That's what they look like when they come out. The bacon grease naturally helps to keep the egg mixture from sticking to the muffin pan but if you don't want to use the bacon for what ever reason, make sure to grease the pan or they will stick and your muffin pan will be a real B to clean.

While the bacon is cooking, crack open the dozen eggs into a bowl, I used my large Pyrex measuring cup so it was easier to pour into the muffin tin.  Then snip the chives into the eggs using kitchen scissors, add milk, salt and pepper and the cheese.  Beat until combined.

Then pour mixture into bacon nest lined muffin tins to the brim, like so:

Bake for another 10 minutes or so until they are cooked through and puffed up nicely

As you can see I just cooked them through, to retain as much moisture as possible because I plan to freeze them, but if you like your eggs cooked more by all means bake them till they are golden brown on top.  Let them cool a bit before trying to take them out of the pan and be sure to loosen the sides and bottom by running a butter knife around the edges to loosen and make it easier to remove from the pan.

That's all there is to it.  They're yummy right out of the oven and can easily be stored in the fridge or freezer, just pop them out and heat up when you're on the go.  They will last in the freezer for about 3 months or so, but I doubt they'll make it that long.  As I said these yummy egg cups can really be made with many variations of ingredients and what ever left overs you've got on hand, so mix it up and try something different.

But most of all, Enjoy!!

~Megan~

Zuppa Tuscana

What could be better on a cold winters day when the snowflakes are flurrying, than a bowl of some hearty soup?  Nothing, I'd say.  I have been craving this soup since 2006 when I found out I had to go gluten free and could no longer get my fix at the local Olive Garden.  After all this time, I finally got to making a pot of this yummy northern Italian inspired soup, and it is exactly how I remember it being, or maybe even better if I want to toot my own horn.  Not sure what extras Olive Garden is putting in theirs to make it not gluten free but this recipe couldn't be any easier and is completely free of the gluten. It's rich and creamy filled with hearty potatoes, Italian sausage, and kale, which makes me feel good about getting in my greens too.  Okay Okay enough talk, here's how to make it:

Zuppa Tuscana Ingredients:

• Italian Sausage links casings removed, make sure it's labeled gluten free (I used mild but you could also use spicy if you like it hot)
• 2 onions chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic
• a bunch of kale, stems removed and chopped
• 6 smaller sized potatoes chopped
• 1 quart chicken stock or turkey stock,  (I had a ton of turkey stock in the freezer from thanksgiving so that's what I used), what ever you have on hand
• 1 quart of milk
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• A pinch or two of crushed red pepper flakes, for a little spice

Recipe:

Brown the Italian sausage meat until brown and crispy.  Remove browned sausage from the pot leaving the majority of the fat in the pan.  Add the chopped onion, garlic, kale and liberally salt and pepper.  Cook over medium heat until the onions are translucent and the kale is wilted.  Then add potatoes, cooked sausage, crushed red pepper flakes, stock, and milk. Simmer on medium-low heat for a good hour or so.  Check for seasoning, if it's all good, serve it up!! Enjoy with a hunk of gluten free toasted bread or on it's own, it's hearty and delicious either way. Buon appetito!!

~Megan~