go ahead honey, it's gluten free! lucky foods

This month Heather at Life Gluten Free is hosting a new years lucky food edition of "Go ahead honey, it's gluten free". She wants us to prepare foods that are traditionally thought to bring luck in the year to come.

Now, when it comes to religious holidays and Western observances the Trainer and I are conscientious abstainers. We will be joining my parents and extended family on Thursday, but we will light the candles, bring in the evergreen bough and serve our lucky food today, on the shortest day of the year. The Winter Solstice.

Every native culture recognizes the winter solstice. Many Northern cultures display evergreens and burn lights to welcome back the sun and symbolize the eternal life of the sun. In the Trainer's country the Quechua, like their Inca forbears, are celebrating the inti rayme, a harvest festival celebrating the longest day of the year.

In ancient Rome both the Saturnalia and the festival of Sol Invictus fell on or near the shortest day of the year. They celebrated with a day or more of feasting and social role reversals. Decorating homes and cities with lights and evergreens. Customary gifts of good luck were dates, figs and nuts and the feast often centered around a stuffed suckling pig. The Romans were very fond of stuffing things, so this year we've prepared stuffed figs and dates.

Fructus Troianum*
Stuffed Fruits

1/2c. almonds
1/2tsp almond extract
1/2tsp cinnamon
20 dates
1/2c. walnuts
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
15 figs
water

Soak the almonds and walnuts for several hours and then rinse well. In a blender, grind the almonds, almond extract and cinnamon, adding water a tablespoon at a time until a paste forms. Slice dates on one side only, remove pit at fill with almond paste. Make a paste with the walnuts in the same way. Steam the figs over boiling water for 5-6 minutes to plump them. Cut the stems from the figs and cut a cross in the top half to open them. Fill figs with walnut paste. If you want the fruit a little dryer heat the oven to 350° then turn it off and place the fruit inside for several hours.

*This is a whole other story, but the Romans believed that they were descended from Aeneas, a prince of Troy and a group of Torjan who escaped to Italy after the war. Romans called stuffed suckling pig porcum troianum as a reference to the Trojan Horse.

Low-fat, Gluten Free Cheesecake

Despite the name of this recipe it's really very good. I'm used to modifying recipes to meet my needs and I found the base of this one in a women's magazine. I tweaked around so that one 1/12th of a cake slice is only about 200 calories. It's perfect for my end of the day, after my workout sweet craving. I'm putting down the basic recipe, but lately I've been preoccupied with jalapeno jelly, and I found a gluten free variety at the Union Square Greenmarket from Beth's Farm Kitchen. Both the Mighty Hot Pepper Jelly and the Habenero Jelly are gluten free. This cake is great with just a little bit of the jelly on top.

Note: To see the entire ordeal of making the first cake check out my LiveJournal post

Crust:
1/4 cup chopped pecans and walnuts
dash cinnamon
dash salt

Filling:
15 oz part-skim ricotta
8 oz 1% fat Whipped Cottage Cheese
1 cup sugar, more or less
½ cup fat free sour cream
4.5 tsp Ener-G egg replacer powder
3 Tbsp warm water
1 tsp vanilla extract (or more)
2 tsp Bob's Red Mill GF all-purpose flour
¼ tsp salt


Heat oven to 350. Toast nuts with a little salt and cinnamon in the bottom of an 8" spring form pan for 10 minutes. Remove from oven; reduce heat to 325. Wrap outside of pan in foil to prevent seepage. Filling; puree ricotta in a food processor until smooth, about 1 min. Add cottage cheese, sugar, sour cream, egg replacer, water, almond extract, flour and salt; puree until smooth. Pour filling into pan. Add 1-inch hot water to a shallow baking pan; place spring form pan in baking pan. Bake until cheesecake is firm around the edge and slightly soft in the center, 45-50 minutes. Run a knife around inside of pan. Remove foil; let cool on rack. Chill 6 hours or overnight before removing sides of pan.

If you want experiment with marbling the cake mix 1 cup of plain filling with your additional ingredients and drizzle it on top.

Ener-G Egg Replacer

The Ener-G brand is the only vegan egg replacement I have ever tried, and I have found no reason to try any other. I first tried it when I wanted to make vegan Christmas cookies that all my friends could share. The more I use it, the more versatile I find it to be. I prefer to use it in all my baking now, I get the binding of natural eggs and I control the amount of liquid that gets added to the recipe. The instructions recommend mixing the powder with warm water, but in most cases I simply mix the powder with my dry ingredients before mixing up cookies or breads.

Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Brownie Mix

I love chocolate. Nothing draws me to a potluc table faster than heaping plate of moist brownies. I’ve never been too successful with making brownies from scratch, and before I was diagnosed Duncan Heinz was my got to mix.

Bob’s Red Mill has such a wide selection of Gluten free mixes that it’s no surprise that they have a brownie mix as well. I’ve had such success with their other mixes, and that Bob looks like such an honest guy, I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed.

The mix stayed on my shelf as was waiting for a good chance to use it so it moved with me when I moved in with my boyfriend and his family. Living in this new space with these Ecuadorian immigrants there were some things to get used to, one of them being that they keep the gas stove unplugged to save electricity and use a lighter to start the burners. For the longest time I thought that the oven simply didn’t work, because his mother stored all her pots in it.

By the time I learned that I could in fact use the oven, once all the other hardware was removed I had become impatient and caved in to my chocolate cravings. Every now and again I poured out s portion of the brownie mix, mixed it with a little milk until it was the right consistency, and satisfied myself with batter instead. I once attempted to make a brownie pancake on the stove but that just doesn’t work, don’t try it, it’ll burn and stink up the house.

Eating the batter on the sly worked out just fine, because nobody had to know about it, and I didn’t have to share. As a connoisseur of all things brownie, this batter is fantastic. It has the right flavor and consistency to make a great brownie. The next potluc I attend, I will be weighted down with these brownies, I may even share them.