Learning to love Olives

As a child Olives were the black things next to the pickles on the dinner table during the holidays, their only use was to wear them on my finger tips and chase my cousins around. My mother always yelled at me if I were caught because she knew I would not eat them, and was wasting food. As a result every time she caught me my only punishment was to try to eat one and if I didn't like it I wasn't to do it again. I believe my mother was hoping I would acquire the taste and no longer waste them, but instead I just stopped playing with them. Olives, I decided, were gross. I did not like the sour briny taste, texture I didn't have a problem with however. ( I also didn't like garlic till I was 13 and pickles until I was 15 or so, I was a little weird)

This summer while at a farmers market a friend bought a pasta from one of the vendors. We stood talking while he ate and while standing I tried to smell what was in his dish, secretly at first, it smelled so good that I asked if I could have a closer look (knowing I couldn't eat it our friend didn't mind my brief inspection) It was full of herbs, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, and olives. It's smell was heavenly and I really wished I could of tried some. I made a promise to myself  that I would try and replicate the recipe one day soon and went about our lazy Saturday.

Fall is settling in now and while I was shopping at Whole Foods a few weeks ago I saw the row of olives and I reminded myself of the promise I made. I looked at all the choices and settled on a mixture of Mediterranean Olives, and when I got home I put it in the pantry next to my capers that I still hadn't tried. And there they sat, side by side, until last week after our upstairs neighbor and growing friend gave us a jar of his mothers Italian canned mushrooms. That was the final push, I had to make something with them.

I started out with my Capers, Olives, and Mushrooms and tasted and smelled each of them, Salty, Brine-y, and Herb-y. I took stock of what I had in my fridge and began.

I sauteed some garlic and yellow zucchini in oil before I added the chopped canned mushroom and olives. I cooked them long enough to heat them but not over cook them, this also lest the brine become a sauce. I added Gluten Free Spaghetti noodles and topped with more oil, the capers and Parmesan cheese before I tossed it all together.

 If I had Parmesan I would make some after writing this but alas I need to go grocery shopping. This was really good. I was surprised at how much I like it. Mr. Beam loved it and made sure I didn't have any leftovers, the bum.

Gluten Free Pop Tarts

Now I'm not a big PopTart fan, I don't think I ever have been, but I do remember enjoying them when I was up early for horse shows. It was easy to bring that packet along and the sugar rush certainly helped me more that coffee would have. I found one flavor early on and fell in love with it. Chocolate chip cookie dough. Oh my it was oh so good. It was only sold at FredMeyer  and most people had never heard of the flavor. After giving up gluten I very rarely have cravings for things I cannot have or even make gluten free. A good baguette, Tacobell  and these PopTarts come to my mind sometimes, I really wish I could find there gluten free substitute sometime soon. I'm getting close with the Tacobell, but it will take some time to figure out a gluten free crunch wrap that works.

Anyway, yet again while surfing Pinterest I found a recipe for poptarts, I found several actually, but this one I had the ingredients for, also Mr.Beam had been buying himself treats lately and I was feeling jealous so I made them (I'm also trying to get him to eat better, his junk food and juice/pop habit is monstrous).

I had to mix my own flour like normal. I still haven't found the 'right' GF all-purpose mix for me, so I keep trying. The dough was well put together and slightly crumbly like they wanted (hence the cracked edges in the picture)  

While rolling them out the dough was very temperamental and didn't like to stay together if you fussed with it too much. I was loosing patience and only made 4 tarts, 3 filled with strawberry jam and 1 with nutella. I saved the remaining dough so see if it was worth using later.

I'll start off by saying they smelled and tasted delicious. Once they cooled Mr. Beam and I split one, needless to say they crumbled under any pressure. It was like eating good tasting sand, it was just gritty. I thought it was my flours, something I did wrong. I think my flour mix did help it get extremely crumbly but I also think the recipe itself makes for a crumbly Poptart.  I did end up eating all of them (I did say they tasted good) and I loved the nutella one (duh, it's hard not to like nutella) but I was discouraged with the turn out and tossed the rest of the dough, I did not know how to improve the texture of sand. I really hope I can find another recipe, one that works for me, or I'll try again once I have a better All-purpose mix. The recipe it saved as a work in progress.

Coconut Doughnut Holes

 I have yet to find a recipe for yest doughnuts that I like, but when I find it I'm having a doughnut party and borrowing my parents deep fryer to make them properly. Until that time I still play, not as often as I'd like, but occasionally I find a recipe that I like and want to keep. A few months ago I found a recipe on Pinterest for baked doughnut holes with coconut flour. Recipe.  I loved how minimal the ingredients were, I mean only 5 TBS coconut flour? Most recipes have such high amounts of ingredient that I waist  half the recipe because it makes to much.

The dough is beautiful and easy to work with. If you don't like coconut I wouldn't recommend the recipe, it has a distinct and delicious coconut flavor. (Not the sweet coconut flavor most people think of either)

They cook up beautifully, not too crumbly or too firm.

I wanted to eat them all while they were on the baking rack. 

Next time I make them I will try a few different ways to top them, this time I just did Powdered Sugar.

I'll tell you now that I did share them,  Mr. Beam and I only took about 5 minutes before the plate was empty, save for the bits of powdered sugar. With a glass of milk it was quite fulfilling and it immediately went into my recipe book for next time.