Easter Carrots

This Easter holiday was the first family gathering since I've had to go gluten-free with my diet. geekMan has been such a good sport through the saga of elimination diet diagnosis, but it was a new concept for the rest. We are an incredibly supportive bunch, and so many questions were asked about what I could eat. Pretty much everything at table, and I could avoid the dinner rolls and various breads (I miss my Aunt's date nut bread with dried apricots - yum!).

But then there's dessert. Apple pie. Sounds lovely, but not for me. And not wanting to make everyone else give up a favorite, I offered to bring another dessert. Something I could eat. Something they might want to.

Gluten-Free Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
I adapted the following recipe from Ellie Krieger's, and tweaked the technique à la Ina Garten. Most of the adaptation was converting wheat flours by volume to GF flour by weight (the only way to bake - just ask Shauna at Gluten-free Girl and the Chef). The final result was unbelievably good. Moist, rich. A good semi-sticky crumb, perfect for a carrot cake. I also like that the cupcake to frosting proportions match: exactly 12, and exactly enough. 
 
Ingredients - Cupcakes
2 large eggs
165g (~5.8oz) dark brown sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
154g (~5.4oz) Gluten-free flour mix*
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 cups (or so) finely shredded peeled carrots (I used 4, but I really need to list this in weight)

Ingredients - Frosting
4oz cream cheese, softened (half a standard package)
85g (3oz) confectioner's sugar
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

Preheat oven to 350 °F (325 °F convection). Place 12 paper liners in muffin cups (I used "Texas-sized" liners so they were tall enough to contain the frosting).

Combine eggs and sugar in bowl of stand mixer fitted with a paddle. Mix well. Add oil, applesauce and vanilla. Mix until smooth. In a separate bowl, measure flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in medium bowl; whisk to combine. Add half dry ingredients to wet ingredients in mixer bowl. Combine carrots with remaining dry ingredients; stir to distribute the carrots. Add to mixer bowl, and stir to combine.

Distribute batter evenly among paper liners. Bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

To frost, combine cream cheese, sugar, and lemon zest, stirring well to combine. Divide evenly onto the 12 cupcakes.

Cupcakes sprinkled for the occasion.

*Gluten-free flour mixes can be purchased pre-blended, but they are just as easy (and far cheaper) to do on your own. I've been using the proportions of 7 parts flour to 3 parts starch suggested on Gluten-free Girl and the Chef with some success depending on the exact blend I make (she also explains vegetable gums, which I'm trying to avoid although it's not clear I'm sensitive to them; the thought of eating mold in my cupcakes is not appetizing). The blend I used for this recipe was comprised of brown rice flour, GF oat flour, sorghum flour, and tapioca and corn starches.

I am part of the first great cause.

Last post: Thanksgiving. And now: Spring.

Although you might think it's November and not April. Snow is falling heavily outside; looks lake effect. Big, fluffy, walnut-sized globs of snow. At least it's not sticking. Much.

Some weeks ago, geekMan and I picked up a scrapbook at an antique mall. It's an old, paper-covered ledger book filled with newspaper clippings dating to the 1920s, '30s, and early '40s. Mostly OpEd pieces, words of wisdom, points of advice; some interesting essays about the lack of US involvement in European conflict prior to WWII. And a lot of poems, a good portion of which are in German. I've decided that the collector of these scraps is a woman. Clippings of "Meditations of a Married Woman" by Helen Rowland give that much away. It surprises me how modern the ideas are, and I'm not sure if that's reflective of the collector or the times she lived in; or maybe where she lived, here in Wisconsin.

I find kindred interest in many pieces. Most don't have author's bylines. One I liked does: Ella Wheeler Wilcox. She was prolific, and best known for the lines: "Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Weep, and you weep alone" (Solitude). Turns out she's a Wisconsin poet. Maybe kindred after all.

I Am  by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I know not whence I came,
   I know not whither I go,
But the fact stands clear
That I am here
   In this world of pleasure and woe,
And out of the mist and murk
   Another truth shines plain-
It is in my power
Each day and hour
  To add to its joy or its pain.

I know that the earth exists,
   It is none of my business why.
I cannot find out
What it's all about-
   I would but waste time to try.
My life is a brief, brief thing,
   I am here for a little space,
And while I stay
I would like, if I may,
   To brighten and better the place.

The trouble, I think, with us all
   Is the lack of a high conceit:
If each man thought
He was sent to the spot
   To make it a bit more sweet,
How soon we could gladden the world,
   How easily right all wrong,
If nobody shirked
And each one worked
   To help his fellows along.

Cease wondering why you came;
   Stop looking for faults and flaws;
Rise up today
In your pride and say
   "I am part of the first great cause.
However full the world
   There is room for an earnest man;
It had need of me
Or I would not be-
   I am here to strengthen the plan."

poem a.k.a. Why and Wherefore
copyright 1896

Happy Thanksgiving!

A good time to remember to be grateful. I try to be mindful of that as often as possible; I feel very lucky for everyone's good health and happiness, to have found our house and moved in last year. For little things like geekMan's handiness around the house (he finally rewired & replaced the bathroom fan; it was wired together with the light, so it was always a noisy twofer). Bittersweet about the kids getting older, but..... mostly grateful on that account.

Otherwise short post. I've gotten quite out of the habit of writing. I think it fell apart in September after the death of a friend of mine. It was such a shock, and I was more bothered by it than I expected. I never felt like being alone inside my head enough to write.

Anyhoo, time moves on, as it must. And I miss being here. I'm gearing up to do a lot of canning; we have strawberries, blueberries, cranberries, tomatoes stuffed into the freezers and they need to made into something for on the shelf. I've also been playing more with yarn. No real time or desire to work with wool when the yard needs weeding. Hobbies falling prey to seasonal dictums (or would that be dicta?).

We are doomed.

Recent news from the city of South Milwaukee indicates that a new Walmart is coming. The goal is to plant it on Chicago Avenue just south of College Avenue. This section of Chicago Avenue is not wide enough to handle significantly increased traffic, meaning down the line - sometime soon probably - the homes and residential neighborhoods along this stretch will be traded out for high traffic runways.

What a disappointment. Between this and the recent election outcomes, moving to Iceland looks pretty good.

More Food Irony

Image from the FDA website.

Does anyone else see the irony of the US hosting an informational conference on food safety given our recent track record?

Are eggs on the menu? What about cheese? Sure to find some hydrolyzed vegetable protein stuck somewhere.... and I hope there's no frozen fruit for dessert.

Actually, it's going to be held in Cairo, Egypt. They're probably safe.

Oh, the Irony

Extra Aged Pleasant Ridge Reserve by Uplands Cheese in Dodgeville, Wisconsin.

Does anyone else find irony in the fact that the cheese judged Best in Show at the recent American Cheese Society competition was made from RAW milk, and yet trying to buy raw milk by my own consumer choice is illegal? I'm dumbfounded by the prohibition on raw milk sales. You would think that allowing the sale is tantamount to forcing raw milk on everyone. It's called consumer choice. I would like to exercise mine; you know, take it out for a walk now and then. To buy some raw milk.

Photo from Wisconsin Cheese Talk, sponsored by the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board.

Campaign Follies

Now that the primaries are over, the real races begin. To lighten your mood about the upcoming mud season, here's a video from CNN's Jeanne Moos showing some of the best, weirdest campaign ads out there. So far.